#idk how this has never occurred to me before because that’s SO funny.

[sammygender]

prev is really funny actualy considering sam and dean are literally canonically soulmates. you just can’t do soulmate aus in supernatural the same can you….

[kinardsevan]

it occurred to me to say this a few weeks ago, but then I never got around to it for whatever reason, but I couldn't help thinking about how funny it is to me (sarcastically) that my favorite scene in the entire seventh season is panned by such a large group of people. Because like... we have two major moments:

"you okay?"

and

"god I hope so"

and like, I've kinda spelled out why I love those two lines. "You okay" really drives home just how in-step Tommy is with Evan, and that his feelings matter to him. I headcanon that when he leans forward, he's putting a hand on Evan's knee (I think he's actually just putting his napkin in his lap, but comforting touch is the first thing that comes to mind for me).

and then like... the "god I hope so" line...it isn't even really the line. like, when the episode first aired, I literally yelled and laughed in my living room. but for me, it has always always been the smile after. Not the cheeky smirk, but the way in that final like second and a half, you get this fade into a real smile, which I've called out previously because (in the context of hindsight and more time to stare at it over the past three months), all the things people complained about really get dismissed by that smile. all the "he's being sexualized" comments die right in that smile, because you get the clarity that he is just being playful and it's noncommittal, just meant to be flirting. and that's before we dive into all the discourse on who was sexualizing who, what does and doesn't make it a joke, etc.

i just... people want to say really awful things about a scene that does so much to build assurance and safety for a character that has historically been told that he's needy/too much/exhausting/etc, and here's this guy not only not telling him that, but openly accepting the heavy parts of him.

idk. I'm not looking to get into it. that's just what I was thinking about.

[tojiscrack]

on my weekly re-read of liar liar, and i was GOING TO pull an all nighter and finish it all, but i feel asleep before i could 😞😞

ANYWAYS!! i find it so funny that throughout the first chapter (and even later chapters, but not as much) its mentioned (and made very obvious) that y/n is a little devil child, that can be too much to handle, but never w megumi. like, idk how to explain it, but hes never thought shes “too much”, and lets her do what she wants, just puts his input in (like when she switched classes, he didnt feel overly annoyed by it, just told her that she was gonna get in trouble) (i might be wrong about this LMAO) youve written them in a way that they balance each other PERFECTLY, like they are genuinely soulmates.

the end scene of the first chapter is oddly one of my favourite parts of the fic, because we get other characters (albeit, minor characters, but wtv) opinions on them, and youve written them exactly like how they describe it. they keep each other in line, and thats why they work so well together.

anyways!!! i love this fanfic so sosososooos much!!! i dont understand how this isnt more popular because???? ITS SO GOOD???? literally how arent people falling in love with your writing within the first 1k words??

(also i meant to include this in a previous ask, but i forgot lol, BUT ONE OF MY FAV DUOS IN THE FIC (and in canon lfmao) is megumi and nobara?? everytime they’re together i genuinely laugh, you nailed their characters and character dynamic)

liar, liar masterlist here:

INCOMING YAP SESSION CUZ THIS ASK GOT ME SUPER DUPER EXCITED KSJSJDIWJ

WEEKLY reread? girl, stop, you’re gonna notice all the typos i cba to get rid of 🫣

HAHAHA, NO STOP, I HAVEN’T HAD ANYONE MENTION THE WHOLE ‘DEVIL CHILD’ THING SINCE THE FIRST TWO CHAPTERS WERE RELEASED 😭 and that, my friend, was months ago 🌝

so i’m so excited to just talk about this omggg!!! 😫💘

yes indeed 😤 megumi would most likely say she’s sm to handle, but really, he lowkey enjoys it. it’s the only time he can be an accomplice witness to such foolish behaviour, and not be reprimanded for it as much ‘cause he just has her to fall back on and blame. he won’t ever stop her, per se, but he’ll tell her once or twice ‘whatever you’re doing, it’s not gonna work’ or ‘don’t be dumb’, and think he’s done his part before being influenced by her 💀

‘i might be wro-’ stfu you’re right and you know it 🙄❤️

and you’re also right in it not being mentioned as much when they’re older. no, i did not forget to add it, that was done intentionally for two reasons:

they’re older now, so as much as she does what she wants with him, she’s a lot more tame than she was as a child. that doesn’t mean she ever regrets the stupid things she’s done (except for the whole mermaid thing, that is a lifelong regret she’ll always have 😭)

the idea that she’s such a menace has been established enough over the years to the point where no one feels the need to voice it. new characters probably would — someone like miss b who was introduced in the middle school chapter — but even then, she was exposed to the more tame versions of the chaotic duo. so everyone kinda silently acknowledges it, and only during crazy moments (like the tragic helicopter incident of 2016, rip satoru/suguru’s will to live 😔) will it actually be voiced (like ogi mistakenly believing that y/n didn’t start any of the nonsense that occurred during the incident, and that was mentioned cuz of the fact that she’s famously known to be so incredibly out of control).

the bonus scene for the first chapter was my fav to write as wellll (tho arguably, i say that about so many scenes, so the value of this statement is probably worth nothing 💀). bonus scenes were initially meant to be ONLY from other people’s pov, but i noticed how so many things from y/n and megumi’s childhood tgth are littered around the story, and that the only way you could ever get any insight of them is through the bonus scene since the chapters are too long to add flashbacks AND bonus scenes. i could always do a separate set of oneshots for them, but i don’t have the time for that (yk this through my horrid updating schedule) 😟

but i am so glad you’re telling me what you enjoyed — and more importantly, being specific about it. it lets me put into perspective how the later chapters (tho already planned) should be set out. your feedback means the world to me, and you deserve a million set of kisses every night for them <3333

‘i love this fanfic sosososo much!!! i don’t understand how this isn’t more popular because??? IT’S SO GOOD???’

okay brb, gonna go and find my right to exist and have the perfect life when cutie pies like you grace this earth 😖💞💓💗💞

maybe one day it’ll get bigger 😊 if that day ever comes, i’ll remember my og readers. i’ll remember the support i was given from them. i’ll remember people like you, who continuously flood my inbox with enough love to pull yank me out of writer’s block and squeeze out another chapter, how because of your long and juicy asks/messages/dms, the cycle of writing i have going on here continues, and i feel more and more proud that i even developed such a fic to begin with ❤️

‘literally how aren’t people falling in love with your writing after the first 1k words’ — errr probably ‘cause the first 1k words were just y/n trying (and failing) to explain what happens in her horror stories without stuttering 💀 LMFAO, SORRY 😭 i’d fall asleep on that carpet if i were the kids surrounding her, and they went to listen willingly.

but ugh, that’s so nice of you, i’m gonna siwjosnwidjwjd

AND OMG YOU’RE SO RIGHT

like everyone talks about yuji/nobara, or yuji/megumi, bUT WHAT ABOUT MY BEANS NOBARA/MEGUMI? they have a level of deep understanding with each other in canon (and in my fic, which will be addressed CHAPTERSSSS later) that i’d love to yap about, but i’ve already yapped enough, like you’re probably cringing rn i’m sorry 😭 another time, maybe 😔

[bellacatt-art]

Okay so, a little Red Dwarf rant up ahead because I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and I need you guys to be sad about it with me:

We all know that despite Red Dwarf being a comedy show the premise is super depressing, especially with all the characters experiencing loneliness in a different way. Lister is the last human alive, Rimmer is a hologram who is dead and cannot fully interact with his surroundings, Cat has been separated from the rest of his species and Kryten has spent ages on the Nova 5 assisting crewmates he didn't know were dead.

But what about Holly? Because I have a LOT to say! :")

I can say with confidence that Holly is one of my favourite RD characters, and that is because I adore the concept so much - the idea of a sarcastic computer who's tasked with keeping the entire ship together is just so funny to me, especially since one thing I've noticed is that over the course of S1-5, Holly has slowly felt like more of a member of the crew rather than just the ship's computer, yk? It might have something to do with Hattie Hayridge's portrayal of her because she subtly gives her a bit more expression which I really love, but she feels like she has more emotions later on, and throughout the course of the series, she's always cared for the others despite being, yk - a robot.

And the events of S5 Ep6 "Back To Reality" really prove that. Idk guys, I just love that *she* was the one who saved everybody from the despair squid, like yesss!!! She is a valuable member of the team, and I love her for that! ^-^

But what I've been thinking about lately is what happened between S5 and S6. We're told that the others lose contact with the Red Dwarf ship - and Holly as a result. Now, imagine how that must be for her - maybe the others went on some kind of adventure before this huge disaster occurred, and she was waiting for them to return, and they never did.

Imagine the original Red Dwarf, floating around in the depths of space, completely empty except for the old computer who slowly realises that she will never see the others again. :(

Idk maybe I've messed up the continuity somewhere bc I need to rewatch S6 again, but I've just been picturing a lonely computer waiting for her crewmates that are never coming back, and it's just so sad, like it really proves that the Red Dwarf characters are all so deeply tragic! 😭💜

I need everybody's thoughts on this because I may or may not have made an illustration based on that concept and I need more people to be sad about Holly with me! ♡♡

(Also S7-8 don't count, they find the Red Dwarf again but it isn't the original. That version of the ship has been revived as essentially a duplicate of the ship before the radiation leak in S1. The Holly aboard is also a duplicate, which must mean the original is still stuck in the vastness of space, I thought it was important to add that for continuity purposes hehe! 😅)

Also I'm sorry this was longer than it had to be, but oh my god, I'm so sad now!!

[random-ideas-artblog]

Just finished watching the first detective Conan movie!

So I just finished it, and I was taking notes as I went through. I’m just going to post them below. It’s pretty rough because I typed while watching so these are real time thoughts. Overall I enjoyed it though.

Conan’s adorable when he gets the letter (blushing is cute)

Can’t believe the dork forgot his own birthday but remembered some Holmes trivia instead lol 

Ran is a such a sweetheart omg 

Mori really read through the dudes whole Wikipedia page lmao

Never mind I mean biography I forgot this was like 1997

Does this dude have OCD is that supposed to be the implication 

Garden party is cool but where are the bombs and skyscrapers what I sup 

Damn he can cook wow

I feel like the do everything myself is going to be Important

Ok he’s kind of sinister know idk why  

Yo why is he so interested in this teenage girls love life??? 

Conan you are so screwed 

Oh ok I see where the bomb and skyscraper are coming into play now 

Grudge against the architect maybe 

Wow that was a big explosion

Ok this whole situation is very weird why is he helping Conan 

What is the cat the fucking bomb???

There better not be any cat death in this movie I will cry 

How did the old woman not notice the bomb???

That old woman and driver are having very tame reactions to this insane kid 

Oops and he’s passed out. In the hospital too uh oh

Aw that cute Kogoro is by his bedside 

Wow Conan without the glasses really looks like a  shinichi copy  how has no one noticed 

You can’t use phones in hospitals what is this common knowledge I never learned 

Ok this looks really bad for Shinichi I pity him a bit lol now Kogoro things he’s scum 

Ok I have a theory: For whatever reason  architect is bombing stuff for an unknown reason. The guy shown has a beard but that’s probably just a disguise, architect said he likes to do things himself so that’s why I think it’s him. He doesn’t what there to be casualties or just wants someone to stop him.That’s why Shinichi was contacted he’s a well known detective. The password thing was a test for Mori to see if he can replace shinichi, but Conan figured it out and got a tour of the gallery. Which, COINCIDENTALLY, has buildings that have been bombed before (the mansion) and will be bombed (presumably the skyscraper based on info so far). It’s a deliberate clue. That’s also why the bomber is accepting Conan as a legitimate detective because he passed the test, but also giving hints because this js a kid he doesn’t want to kill him. It’s also just occurred to me that the architect was implied to have severe OCD or perfectionism. He could be bombing past builds because he thinks there’s some thing wrong with them and can’t stand to have their design be under his name. Something like that idk. I’m only 36 minutes in so we’ll see

Wait a minute maybe the reason architect was interested in the birthday date was because he wanted to know when and where Shinichi would be so he could plan the bombing around his schedule! Ran provided practically all the details too 

That’s cute the kids drew a picture (I know it’s a suspect but still)

He’s happy with it??? Damn Conan can’t draw at all 

That was a lot of damage to the car wow 

Rare Kudo shinichi appearance I missed you!!! Conan’s cute but shinichi as himself looks pretty cool haha 

Damn that’s a strong father son bond 

Laughing then hating that’s kinda of funny

Genta is going to shout out the word bombs isn’t he

…I knew it 

Wait no ones noticed these kids screaming bomb on the train?

I am so confused by the motivation pretty sure this means my theories are wrong damn 

Sick burn Ran lol 

Wow this whole diverting sequence is seriously dramatic and I love it 

Poor Ran she’s getting stood up 

The bridge! The architect doesn’t want to blow up that bridge because he’s actually happy with that work! That would fit with my previous theory 

Ok shiratori is being kind of suspicious. Kinda confirms my theory tho 

Conan dude that suggestion was not subtle at all  

Ok now what Mori has said it’s someone else I’m more convinced than ever it’s the architect 

Ok there’s a lot of emphasis being placed on him lighting the pipe same as the beginning 

Ok did the dad steal his kids designs or did he steal his dad’s?? Probably the latter 

Was I actually on to something with the pipe????

Uh new theory he’d bombing all the architecture that doesn’t fit the New Tama symmetrical city to try and get the building approved after the Mayors arrest 

Just saw the architect has a painting of a horse above the fireplace I don’t know why that’s amusing to me 

Mori you are so wrong it’s funny as hell 

That reaction was funny as hell 

It’s kind of creepy how the architect is just standing and staring down 

Go after him Shiratori hell yeah 

So the skyscraper in the tile only shows up in the last 20 minutes 

I was actually right with my theory?? Kind of. I got the reason he wanted Kudo to take the case wrong(it was revenge) but the motivation behind the bombing and who was bombing them was correct. 

Ok but now that it’s been proven it had nothing to do with the case, why was he so interested in the date it’s a little bit creepy ngl 

Oh damn the bombs actually went off that’s a lot of power 

Ok wow this dude is an asshole 

Wait he wanted to know about the date so he could plant a huge bomb that would kill Ran and Shinichi wtf 

Ok Ran is taking this very well wow she’s cool 

I wonder what everyone else in the lobby is thinking right now 

Wait did they do it wrong. Wait nvm that’s someplace else 

Seeing Kogoro so worried about Ran is kind of heartwarming, although the circumstances aren’t great 

Oh god it’s the classic red wire blue wire 

My bet is on red wire. It’s Ran’s favorite color and the couples lucky color for the month 

Bruh wtf is with this edgy commentary from the architect about love you’re such a loser Christ.I’m getting a bit heated haha 😅

Not the happy Birthday this is really sad 

We’ll be together when we die??? What the hell this is depressing but kinda sweet 

I just realized I started off a bunch of my comments with ok so. It’s not important or anything I just noticed that while reading through. I’d give this movie a 7/10. There were some interesting parts and it was fun theorizing but there are still some things I’m confused about. Why did he accept Conan as a detective? Why did he provide clues to the bombs??? If the motive was revenge wouldn’t it be better to have Shinichi fail? Maybe I missed something idk.

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia! I actually started your original works through UTGold and then UTB before deciding to start all the way back from SAL (yea idk how i figured out that order either lmao) and now I've finally reached the end of it with TND! And now rereading UTB again, I realised just how much whiplash there is with Temsen in both stories. Don't get me wrong, the vibe is the same. But he's so much more threatening as a peak alpha compared to his vench self, and it's also funny bc in TND you had to almost permanently hold hands with him to stop him from collapsing. I wanted to ask how much of his TND self is similar in UTB? Are there parallels in how he grew up or his family structure? After reading TND I've kinda liked to imagine he comes from a really remote but close knitted community, and that has influenced how he views the secondary genders differently (and less discriminatory) compared to others.

Ps. I will always rmb Gywn's official debut appearance being him marching up to Santa's workshop xD

But he's so much more threatening as a peak alpha compared to his vench self, and it's also funny bc in TND you had to almost permanently hold hands with him to stop him from collapsing.

This is so interesting to me! I almost feel like you're talking about a different character - I know you're not, but these are all the ways I feel like Temsen is actually the same amount of threatening in both stories in different ways. Like, Temsen is the one who:

Threatens to go to war with the Unseelie Court and King and implies very heavily that he would win.

Which is then confirmed when the Raven Prince candidly tells Gwyn that Temsen is much stronger than he is, and that he has a lot to learn from the vench but,

Understands he never will because they don't want him to.

Temsen is the one who physically supports Gwyn while walking.

Temsen is the only one in the world strong enough to heal Gwyn.

Stronger than even the Raven Prince or his healers or any of the other vench.

It's strongly implied that if there were hierarchy among the vench he'd be a prince, but it's clear when he interacts with the Raven Prince, he behaves more like a very strong king.

He literally lectures the Raven Prince more than once free of consequence because of how powerful he is.

Like, yes, Temsen was vench, and needed a lot of intimacy to stay healthy (although - not constantly! And he's also the one who asks for it and decides how it happens), but imho Temsen to me is actually a lot more threatening in The Nascent Diplomat because he literally takes on the Raven Prince and the Raven Prince is the one who yields and basically goes 'oh no no you're totally right we don't want war haha you're so much stronger than me oh my god.'

Idk for me if you get much more threatening than 'squares up against the Raven Prince and wins so easily there's not even an exchange of magic because everyone just knows how strong Temsen is.'

His needing intimacy to live imho is just not a sign of weakness or doesn't detract from his being powerful or threatening in The Nascent Diplomat. It would be like forcing the Raven Prince into the sea - he still needs to breathe air, it's not a sign of weakness, it doesn't make him less threatening (at least to me! It's just occurred to me that people having basic needs and needing them met might seem like it detracts from someone's personal power which is like, something I've never thought of before, because everyone has basic needs and needs them met, even the world's worst dictators - i.e. being threatening exists completely independently to that in my mind).

I wanted to ask how much of his TND self is similar in UTB? Are there parallels in how he grew up or his family structure?

I definitely think he has strong family support in both stories, but otherwise to me both Temsens are extremely similar. Both:

Weaponise cheerfulness to gain control.

Are the most powerful person in the room while pretending they aren't.

Are strong enough to make executive decisions and override other people if they need to (esp around someone's health)

Are healers

Enjoy sex but aren't bound to any one person and like it that way

Do not need to be bombastic about showing off just how powerful they are

Use kindness and compassion as a form of manipulation, especially in matters of health

Infodump at times

Feel very passionately about ethics, health and politics

Are relatively open minded and quick to apologise, but sometimes still do harm simply as a result of holding so much power

Have gone through seeing a particular large instance of trauma that shaped them towards wanting to make sure things like that stop happening (the fungal infection in TND, omega experimentation facilities in UtB)

Appear to get along well with everyone

Have a strong drive to meet personal needs (i.e. Temsen needing more intimacy than the others admit to in TND, Temsen complaining about Gary's job constantly + often talking about food etc. in UtB - He has this strong sense of refusing to compromise his needs or quality of life for anyone)

Can influence the energy of another person (meridians in TND, pheromones in UtB)

Prefer to come across as less powerful in the first meeting in order to strategically assess what's in front of him

Extremely strategy-minded.

Manipulative, but in a very 'I'm using my super powers for good' kind of way.

Tbh, for me personally, Temsen is one of the characters who needs to change the least to become a peak alpha, and I actually invented the 'peak alpha' designation specifically for him, because I knew he'd be stronger than pretty much all the other alphas. I later added Gary / Augus / Crielle etc. to that list, and then Gwyn because I thought it would be funny. But peak alphas exist because Temsen does!

Obviously how I see the characters isn't how everyone else will! But yeah in my mind, they're both so similar I don't have to change nearly anything about Temsen's personality, even down to him having a more visceral reaction to other alpha pheromones because he's so strong in UtB, is a direct parallel to Temsen having higher intimacy needs because he's so strong in TND. One just naturally flowed into the other!

[pitter-patt-art]

Ace Attorney AU August oops-august-has-been-over-for-a-week Update!!

Hiiiii well okay first and most importantly of all! Happy investigations collection day everyone!!!! My copy is supposed to arrive by 10pm although I'm not sure I'll be playing it right away, but, hey, once it arrives I'll have in my possession at least one physical copy of every game in the series (2 for aai1, woohoo)!!! *Coughs* uh except all of the OG Trilogy which instead I own like 2 times over digitally (3 in T&T's case, thanks Wii) lmao. Ah well.

NOW the actual post. Yeah it's not August anymore but I've been recuperating or w/e so shhh, better late than never!

Overall I wrote over 50k words (actually in August itself) and posted 5 fics (with many more in progress), which is honestly just, wild???? That is so cool. Apparently the way to overcome writer's block is just overcommit to a month-long prompt list, who knew!

Here is my post about the first 17 days/AUs! And over here's my Ao3 series for these! Below the cut I'll wrap up the last 14 days of AUs, some thoughts, etc!

I am setting the goal for myself to actually finish writing these before the end of the year even if they're not technically "AU-gust" qualified anymore by the time I get to them sooo ...wish me luck!! In the meantime I am proud of myself for (tbh completely unnecessarily and to my detriment lmao) coming up with actually a full 31 solid AUs based on the prompts that I feel inspired by.

This post is gonna be a bit more rambly than the last one because I definitely did more of my writing last month the first 2 weeks rather than the last 2, but nevertheless--

Onto the remaining AUs!

18 - Space Travel

So, I actually started a draft at the airport before my vacation where I got wayyyy too sidetracked getting detailed about this one and thus ended up not being able to finish the post before takeoff lmao. I'm not sure whether it's annoying or interesting to include all of that here, but it's my post so fuck it, here's August 21st patt to tell you aaall about it so I don't have to: The Martian AU (I've only seen the movie and not read the book but i *did* literally just re-watch it because this thought crossed my mind lol. (Hello! It's future me popping in to say: fun fact, rewatching this movie literally ended up being the reason I knew a bar trivia answer last week lmao. Huzzah for the powers of Ace Attorney refreshing my movie quote knowledge.) Be glad this one occurred to me because my first inclination was to lean into the dark past of my vld phase (I'm super joking I had a lot of fun with it before the last few seasons haha sorry idk what to tell you friends) and see how much I'd retained if i tried to make that work but the martian sounded more fun in the end). Apparently my Thing™ is a) poisoning Phoenix and b) putting Apollo in an insane situation in which he's completely on his own--which all things considered is probably far meaner lol. I think Phoenix is to blame for creating his own problem here for choosing to eat the stupid necklace but I fully blame Capcom for all the BS Apollo has gone through after AA4 (bc...the stuff IN that game is. coincidentally also Phoenix's blame to claim. lol). That said I'm part of the problem teehee. Apollo can be Some Guy from the real world who gets isekai'ed and he can also be Mark Watney :P (sorry bud I love you but you have just the Worst case of unavoidable main character syndrome). ((Which is QUITE funny actually because I'll never get over Capcom calling 4,5,6 the """"Apollo Justice Trilogy"""" (it's really not and it's frankly insulting they're trying to say it is.) Like he's. Y’know. The main character in exactly one of those games...... so.)) What was I talking about? Lmao oh yeah so Apollo is left on Mars (not sure he actually has much in the way of Botanist™ vibes but the indomitable, never-say-die, highly sarcastic vibes.... ye haha that's my boy right there). Omg wait sorry I'm writing this and realizing this whole thing actually fits the 18th AND yesterday's (the 20th) prompt as well. Whoops.

Clay as the captain (let him do something, says I)

Trucy as I think the pilot ONLY because I am literally constantly on the lookout to make a Wright Flying Brothers joke, sorry

Klavier aaaas. Uh. So the German astronaut in the film is the chemist and navigator and I know Klav's not necessarily supposed to be actually German canonically but there IS something funny about it

Athena as the flight surgeon and EVA specialist (for a couple reasons but mostly so she can be a doctor lol. I imagine she also can be there for psych stuff too, like, it's a long ass space voyage, that does shit to your brain)

Kay as the SysOp and reactor tech, tbh mostly because for some reason i really have a thing for hacker/programmer Kay, i guess?

Ema I want to be there also lol so that would be exceeding the actual number of OG astronauts but eh it's my AU. The rest of these I'm just directly comparing to a crew member from the martian but I think some of the titles and tasks could be redistributed a little to allow an extra person as a treat for me.

Originally i kind of wanted Sebastian (....SIGH. or...Eustace. (I fear even though it's AAIC release day today, I truly may die on this hill forever, falling on my sword of devotion and gratitude to the fan translation team... That said, while I think Eustace is, like, a Deeply Fine name, I have to say that Excelsius is a fucking knockout name lmfao, that one took me out. Anyway, ahem: "I wanted Seb/Eustace...")) to be there too but I think that's getting into too many cooks territory just specifically bc I'd have too many voices to play with lmfao. So instead I think he's the operator who works the satellite and realizes Apollo is alive, I think he'd fit that well. NOT THAT that needs to be. Included. In the AU. I have...so much self control.

Anyway I have too many thoughts about it, it's a problem, ironically I think I would prefer to focus on the crew and not Apollo himself, so that would at least make it more than just a rehashing of the movie/book. (Or, the movie at least. Does the book spend more time with them? I should read the book.) ...I did, Of Course, also came up with a funny, pseudo-future-science-y way to do a Sibling Reveal in this one, so there's that, too, haha. OKAY AND, SCENE. Snatching my mic back from myself. I'm actually so devoted to the Martian AU now hahaha, I really didn't think I'd let that happen to myself but here we are... You'll see in a bit, but I for-better-or-worse do truly have an extended universe going on for it now, eheh... (Help.)

19 - Spies

Franmaya?? Franziska POV??? Here's the deal: I cannot BELIEVE I got this many days into the month and STILL hadn't come up with a franmaya-centric AU, it's terrible. Also I need a Maya POV if I want to hit my self-set, self-indulgent goal of having POV of every "main" character I can (did I exactly accomplish this no but that's perfectly fine obviously haha it was just a side achievement I had my eye on). So to that end, I ended up with something here that I'm not COMPLETELY sure I won't end up changing when I sit down to actually work on it, but in short: semi The Princess Bride vibes but with spies instead of pirates! Or uh! So um okay full disclosure lol I got all excited about an AU of this kind and then like an hour into daydreaming it into existence I realized I was heavily relying on / leaning into ASSASSIN territory rather than SPY. Which are notably different things. (Wait lol should I blame Spy x Family?? Totally Endo-sensei's fault and not at all mine, boom, take that.) ...And not to go even harder into sxf territory, whoops, but my idea was something along the lines of like, since Kurain School Channeling changes spirit mediums' appearance entirely, I was going to have Maya be something of an expert in disguise, and Franziska I was almost more or less going to let retain her actual position of international prosecutor with Interpol, although perhaps I'd lean more into a James Bond-esque intelligence agency sort of thing than what we see them do in-game, I'm not sure. Maya gets "killed" for real in 2-4 except she actually just becomes an international assassin(?) apprentice. Does this make sense? Probably not lol. But is it a little funny and a little sad? Yes, yes it is, and that's always my sweet spot as a writer. The only problem with this premise is I can't stop myself from considering what Phoenix would do / be doing in the background, because the problem with Maya "dying"-only-being-secretly-alive leaves at least twofold problems in justifying why Nick hasn't gone full conspiracy theory board stop-at-nothing-to-find-her, in that a) If she's not dead, Pearl can't channel her, and knowing Pearl I have to imagine that would be her first move to try tbh, and b) even if that weren't an issue, if the police were never able to track down Maya's body at all, I fully believe Nick would still throw himself at the problem until he's able to find answers irregardless, so. This ain't about him though!! So we'll just all have to deal with knowing he's taking reaaally really bad care of himself while he single-mindedly tries to figure out what's going on ahaha...ha. He's most absolutely the drowning child in the facebook post meme. Don't worry about him.

20 - Crossover/Fusion

Soooo. Okay. First may I say, I'm not the most crossover-fic-y person in the world neither as a reader nor writer. HOWEVER. Unfortunately. My one undying weakness has proven to be Ace Attorney x Legally Blonde (and more specifically Legally Blonde the Musical, the best version, though I do love Reese Witherspoon's performance ofc it's iconic but the musical is just MWAH ugh. One of my all-time favorite musicals and definitely the one I've listened to the most esp the past couple years hahaha.) The problem is, I've joked about so many slight variations / one very Long Intensive specific AA/LBtM crossover AU ideas, that trying to limit myself to a one-shot I could conceivably finish within a day proved too much for my decision paralysis and I didn't end up writing any of them lmao. Alas. Mostly, I just think it would be funny to see the characters interact in something of a vacuum just for fun, the problem is just that I happen to be uniquely terrible at not thinking through a Crack AU until I can, ahem, "crack" it, so to speak, to make it actually justifiably function. So in theory all I want to write for this day is some combination of like, Elle and Phoenix interacting and Miles and Emmett interacting, or the four of them having a conversation that goes something like "omg wait me too!! i also went from a creative undergrad degree directly into law to chase after some guy!! what are the odds teehee" while Emmett and Miles watch in horror, and also alternatively Emmett and Phoenix mostly bemusedly watching Elle and Miles geek out over like, fancy ass high class (pink) clothing like "uh yeah i have no idea what any of those words mean. she bought me this suit and i honestly wouldn't even be able to find the store again. oh no way he bought you yours too?? man, wild." Etc. (If anyone's interested in really watching me suffer and spiral: my longer and more intensive idea for an AU with them is to have them be tackling parallel cases where either of them (Elle and Phoenix) has specific knowledge that is helpful to defending the others' client, and they get like place-swapped through dimensional shenanigans somehow also related to the cases. And Phoenix has to abide by, like, nominally-accurate US trial law (I know he wouldn't really be licensed shhhh) -- by which I mean Emmett is sitting as his co-council and exercising the most restraint possible to keep from bashing his head into the table every two seconds. And Elle has to abide by guilty-until-proven-innocent Japanifornia trial law ("wait WHAT omg what do you MEAN the prosecution can just, like, not submit their evidence before the trial???? wait what do you MEAN we should just TAKE THAT that is EVIDENCE AT A CRIME SCENE--"). On the bright side, Elle gets to experience being one of the most normally-dressed people in a courtroom and not at all being looked down upon for her general vibes and wardrobe (like tell me she wouldn't fit right in in the ace attorney universe and seem completely ordinary), and Phoenix gets to experience a real jury (take that jurist system trial that Capcom would like to never ever talk about again) and also the judge going "so, Prospective Juror No. 103, do you understand that the defense in this criminal trial does not need to say a single word in order to be doing their job? the burden of proof lies entirely on the prosecution the entire time and the defense and defendant could choose to remain silent every day of trial and that would be completely within their rights, do you understand that? are you okay with that?" etc etc, shout out to my jury service a couple month ago and the kinds of questions a real life California judge asks jurors that would seriously blow the minds of every single character in Ace Attorney lmfao can you imagine? Anyway.) So yeah idk. Also something something, spirit mediums and the whole Greek Chorus bit from the musical... "School Spirit"... much to think about in crack AU land hahaha.)

21 - Absurd Tragedy

To be honest with you, this is the entire series lmao, so much so that I had trouble even thinking of an AU to be "alternate" in any way here, hahaha. What I sort-of landed on and have vague outline notes about in my doc is (not to make another excellent-musical-adaptation-of-an-already-top-tier-movie-which-is-itself-a-highly-unfaithful-adaptation-of-a-fairly-obscure-book reference) a Shrek the Musical "I Think I Got You Beat"-style debate about whose canonical absurd tragic circumstances are the worst, lmfao. Granted, this then turned into a "wait what if I use said argument as an absurd way in which to make Apollo and Trucy have a siblings realization completely on their own, which both compounds the fact they've both already lived such tragedy to begin with but also could touch on Phoenix knowing about it and not telling them about it", and uhhhhh lmfao a debate specifically between them is OBVIOUSLY not the romantic flirting banter of the song between Shrek and Fiona lmfao but like still, the general premise, just in a sibling bickering coat of paint instead. Also was toying with it being an Athena POV just to sell home / for the additional absurdity of the experience of "you've gone over to your friend's house to hang out and suddenly they're obnoxiously arguing with their sibling and their parents are nowhere to be seen and you're not exactly sure what you're supposed to do with yourself except awkwardly wait for them to be done" lmfao. Which I've most absolutely experienced from both ends multiple times hahaha. The alternative option for this prompt is just for me to write an excessively long essay debating and attempting to personally rank the main cast's level of absurd tragedy compared to each other, lol.

22 - Orphan

I wrote 324 words (slash one physical lined page in my actual notebook) of this while I was on vacation, lol. AU where Miles invites Phoenix to go watch one of Gregory's trials (or Phoenix invites himself, or Gregory invites him while Miles tries to hold the landline phone away from him, lol) and I mean of course the trial he goes to is The Trial (like, Jeffre... AW CRAP wait I don't actually know what Jeff Master's or Kate Hall's official names are lmfao uhhh. Well you know what don't worry about that. Happy AAIC day once again..? Lol. Anyway, the concluding day of Gregory's last trial, obviously, ignore the defendant's name.) Like, basically, here's my thought. AU where Phoenix is also there, and not only does that mean he knows what happened to Miles and Gregory but also, like, it's Phoenix. Tell me even at 9 he wouldn't be insisting on taking care of the poor kid who just lost everything and has nowhere in the world to go. Tell me he's not like, begging his parents they need to help him, lol. I think really this is just sort of an AU to explore one of my several personal headcanons for what Phoenix's parents are like, because I've spent a lot of time on a different version of them (coughs for the last AU on this list...coughs) but I also have a version of them which I find fun / funny where they're like, kinda hippy-dippy and like very hands-off (tbh almost all of my hc's about the Greater Wrights is they're very hands off, just in different ways) but in more of a "we want our child to experience the beauty and wonder of the world on his own time and not influence him or set rigid standards to conform to" kind of philosophy. Anyway my point is they like adopt/foster Miles somehow before Manfred can actually get his hands on him (he's still too busy dealing with the fresh bullet wound I guess?) This is just a gen au of course, not only because they're 9 lol but also the logistics of being adoptive/foster siblings gets weird quick lmao, but mostly I just find it interesting to think about what might have happened if Miles was in an environment where people paid more attention and cared more (and weren't explicitly influencing and manipulating him to exasperate the problem on purpose), because I have to imagine examining his nightmares a little more closely a little more quickly might have led someone (say, Phoenix who was also there in this AU) to find something slightly off about it or like start putting pieces together quicker, idk. I, uh, I'm not gonna lie to you, I don't actually remember how I intended to end this one hahaha ;; I started it but I was on vacation and neglected to outline / summarize the rest of my ideas the day of, so I guess I'll just have to see where my mind takes me when I get back to it.

23 - Musician

So my FIRST thought for this day was to use it as an excuse to finish my First Ever Ace Attorney Fic, which has been in WIP stasis for...uh.... 6. Years. i--SIX????? Shit. lmfao. yeah uh. I guess I created the first version of the doc (on my OneNote, god) back in 2018. So. Yeah. Hm. Omfg. This fic has partially existed since before Phoenix Disbarment Day. That is so. Wow. Damn. Y'all we're so close to aa4 time (2026) what the hell??? Ahem. Pianist Phoenix. That's. My point lmao. I know the original thing that sparked me loving this concept was actually some tumblr post I saw apparently a LONG long time ago, hahaha, and I know there's no way I'll find it with tumblr's abysmal search function, but just know it was not a completely original idea of mine when I say i fucking LOVE the headcanon that, you know what actually Phoenix CAN play the piano, he just chooses to do it as shittily as possible because that's kind of what he's like post-disbarment and he'd absolutely get a kick out of fucking with people like that even if they have no way to know they're being fucked with. It's like, he's no virtuoso or anything, but he can passably play the piano! He's just being an ass on purpose! It kills me every time lol. I won't say I think that's necessarily true in canon so ofc it's not like an end-all-be-all hc for me or anything but it's just sooooo funny to me that I like to break it out any time I possibly can. Look me in the eyes and tell me he wouldn't. Honestly, look me in the eyes and tell me if he actually put his mind to it in any meaningful way he wouldn't be able to get decent quickly regardless, considering the fact he became an accomplished lawyer on more-or-less a total whim. This to say: that was my intention, to finish this fic I've had brewing that was about Phoenix actually being able to play the piano and hiding it for a really long time but eventually being found out by Miles by chance. Except then I sat down on the plane and started writing a Pearl POV instead? In which she finds out about more or less the same exact concept but from Iris--also by chance, but less actually catching him playing and more being asked, "Oh, does he still play? He was always good at that." And then bc it's Pearl (Pearl I love you), of COURSE she goes and confronts him about it. Pearl might be the single most confrontational character in these games tbh which is SO FUNNY to me. Like I'm kind of exaggerating obviously but also am I? I know she has psyche-locks you have to break through multiple times throughout the series but stiiiill. Everyone else is so repressed and weird about anything remotely vulnerable, I stg. Props to Maya for making sure Pearl turned out pretty okay I guess, lmao. Anyhow yeah that's sort of the AU I ended up with. Pearl POV where she and Iris know they're sisters (don't get me started on this I have so many thoughts about the amount of information I'm positive Maya and Pearl are NEVER given skjflj) and Pearl visits Iris in prison regularly and on one such visit maybe she mentions Nick's job at Borscht and Iris makes a totally innocuous comment to the effect that Pearl learns he actually knows how to play the piano and she goes to get mad at him about it because he's definitely been pretending he can't and Pearl's pretty sure he's told neither Maya nor Trucy the truth and that cannot be left to stand.

24 - Pretend Hate

Okay, this exists in a similar realm to the Orphan prompt, except instead of Phoenix being there for the trial or the Wrights taking Miles in before Manfred can, it's more just AU where Miles doesn't actually cut all contact and he and Phoenix successfully end up exchanging correspondence (in semi-secret) during the time they're separated (i.e. they remain friends and close during the 15 years they're separated in canon). "Semi-secret" because they--esp Miles--somehow hide who exactly it is they're talking / writing to all the time but don't necessarily hide the fact they are doing that. Like, a fake cultural / language exchange program or something? I feel like there could be a world where Manfred really doesn't give a shit what Miles is up to as long as he's being molded into "someone Gregory Edgeworth would hate" (I don't think he would lol but that's another AU) and becoming a model von Karma protege prosecutor and such. He obviously goes to lengths to cut Miles off from everything he's familiar with in that he takes him to Germany, but I've always thought it's way more on Miles feeling guilty and blaming himself and thinking he's unworthy / pushing people away being the reason why they never talked before aa1 despite Phoenix's "attempts to contact him," whatever those may be specifically. And, yeah, I've watched that one episode of the anime but tbh I don't really use anime canon for almost anything besides maybe some of the fun visuals, haha, so I'm kind of disregarding that anyway. ANYWAY. My point is. The "pretend hate" part is that--sometime over the course of exchanging correspondence, Phoenix starts thinking something's weird and gets it in his head to "investigate" himself, since he's still in LA / has access to the scene of the crime and stuff, and then as a combo of him just plugging away at it until he has enough (circumstantial) evidence to be like "Miles I think you're wrong about this" and also a younger, slightly less repressed, slightly less in Manfred's pocket Miles actually being somehow willing to consider alternatives a little--they're able to put their heads together and eventually come to the (correct) conclusion ahead of time, before the 15-year statute of limitations, that it was almost certainly Manfred who did it. And then they work together to figure out how they can possibly PROVE that but they haven't thought of anything foolproof by the time aa1 events start rolling around (or at the very least, the 5-years-ago sections of aa3? It might make more sense if it's as soon as Miles returns to Japanifornia, and also I think Phoenix has way less reason to fall for Dahlia/Iris so hard if Miles is around and *coughs* available lmfao. Anyhow). So, in the hopes it'll keep Manfred from getting suspicious of Miles, they publicly pretend to hate each other, putting on a show of more of the canon attitude Miles esp. has before 1-4, but behind the scenes they're actually working together trying to think of a way they can definitely get a conviction to stick that Manfred won't be able to worm out of. And that's the AU! Idk, in terms of additional thoughts, I couldn't decide what to do / what would happen to Mia in this AU either, which doesn't super matter but did give me pause. So she might live, idk, depends the exact timeline. I do also think a scene where--Dahlia still hits on Phoenix in the reading room/courthouse library but he's like, actively there waiting for one of Miles' trials to conclude for a covert meeting, so when Miles gets there and is like "What are you messing with over there?" Phoenix is like "Oh, hey, check out this weird bottle some girl just gave me because apparently she fell in love at first sight, haha, isn't that so funny--" and then Miles recognizes it from the Fawles trial and they catch Dahlia earlier or something, idk. Or alternatively Phoenix was AT that trial so HE recognizes it. Or maybe it's funniest if he was there but doesn't recognize it until Miles does lmao, this is not the point of this AU but I can't stop myself from considering this part of it.

25 - Scientists

So THIS is the day I sort of alluded to earlier, many many words of post ago, where I got so invested in my The Martian AU that I started accidentally worldbuilding about it. What I've started and have about 400 words of (slash one notebook page, again from the plane after my vacation), is like, AU where it's NASA instead of law and I can make Phoenix go "What, like it's hard?" only it's about literally rocket science this time hahaha. Basically for this fic I just thought, well what if Phoenix just shows up as a flight tech or engineer or something (idk I don't really know that much about real life astronautics) as Miles is preparing for some space mission or something and he's just like WHAT are YOU doing HERE. I know I know I made Apollo literally be the titular martian and yes he ALSO has a (or tbh probably has a WORSE) canonical debilitating fear of heights, so, shhh, but I do like the idea that Phoenix is like, oh, who, me? In the flying metal death trap? No fucking thank you, I will be down here watching and talking directly to you through a headset or something. You cannot escape me however i can at least escape the building I'm in. No interest in seeing the Earth from above, thanks. Actually iirc Miles also doesn't love heights but meh whatever I'm fairly certain Phoenix talks about it the earliest in the series so there you go. Anyway, this would all be a mission prior to whatever mission it is that Apollo & Co. go on to Mars for the first part of the AU, so I guess you could consider it a prequel? And probably a fairly shippy one. I have other reasons for which it's fun for me if wrightworth is at least together if not outright married before the events of the "The Martian" part of the AU, so this one would be, like, about how exactly that went down.

26 - Victorian Era

Okay, once again, this just. IS. Literally. Dai Gyakuten Saiban / The Great Ace Attorney. Lol. That said, I've always loved the fanart I've seen of like Ryuunosuke and Phoenix (and respective Co.'s) interacting, or like, one or the other ending up in the other time period somehow, so I thought it'd probably be fun to try my hat at that. I feel like I've neglected the tgaa characters anyway, considering I actually somehow managed to reference PLvPW already, which is obviously significantly more of a spinoff and also just largely non-canonical, lmao. Also tgaa is just SO GOOD, augh. I'd love to have the multi-witness cross examinations from both of those games back sometime again, and I had so much fun with the jury in tgaa too, excellent mechanic. What was I talking about? So, I never completely decided on a concrete direction to take this, but even before AU-gust had started I'd already been toying with the idea of an AU where maybe Maya or Pearl channels a character from tgaa specifically because some documentary or special or something comes out talking about the real-life Herlock Sholmes (as opposed to the Totally Fictional "Sherlock Holmes" who Phoenix references in that one trilogy line, because I really think that's the funniest possible explanation for the discrepancy) and they're arguing over how that cannot possibly be a real person and no one was named that and etc etc and then to prove once and for all one way or the other Hurley is channeled and also for bonus joke content "recognizes" Phoenix at first (idk pretend his eyesight got worse in his older age, I know Phoenix and Ryuunosuke look, tbh, less alike than Ryuu and Apollo do, lmao, but again that's another AU) and then I get to play with Phoenix's mom's maiden name is Naruhodou and his middle name is Ryuuichi or such to that effect, because that is also a favorite headcanon of mine (not in small part because I can project my own life onto him by making him half-Japanese from SoCal, lol). So that's an idea I'd had that was already decently fleshed out and the ONLY problem is that if I'm having characters actually be channeled then there's a very real limiting factor of how many spirit mediums exist, and also that means Maya and/or Pearl don't get to interact with them, which for the sake of not overwriting would be good but for the sake of my love of a chaotic group conversation would be bad. But, uh, hopefully I do manage to hold myself to a less broad cast of characters, ideally, instead of bringing a bunch of them over to the other time period to see how they'd deal with that and interact en masse. Ha. Haha.

27. Younger / De-Aged

So here's another AU I'd already had idle thoughts about before AU-gust had even started! I...will get into this later, TRUST I will, lmfao, but I do have an extremely involved AU already in which Time Travel of the "regression" type is involved, i.e., they have their memories of the "future" but are thrown back into the past including their own younger bodies however-many-years-ago. So I've got that type of thing covered, I promise I do, haha. And additionally, I've actually already written them "younger" for my colorless AU way back on day 2, so I did think perhaps I'd just continue that one and say it was for this prompt (a smart person thing to do. this is the objectively correct option). On the other hand. I find pre-DL6 Phoenix and Miles reacting to how their lives actually turned out in the end HILARIOUS. Tell me it's not funny. And tell me it's not, like, some sort of depressing-yet-ultimately-hopeful for the older/current them to look at their child selves and be like Kid, Oh, You're Going To Go Through Some Shit, but also reflect on how they did make it and things turned out okay and life goes on etc etc. My problem with this kind of thing is that it's hard to come up with a justification for and that's not a problem in itself but it is a problem in me not knowing how i'm going to end a fic, which often gets me decision-paralysis-ed into not being able to start it in the first place, which did in fact happen to me here, haha. I think ideally I'd just do a quick "wait, was that a dream?" kind of thing where they (Miles and Nick) have a short conversation with themselves, but... Uh-oh, what, did you think that was all I had? You clearly don't know me at all. OTHER au option where young Phoenix is in the future/present and rather than himself and Miles it's the Wright Anything Agency who like, idk, find him roaming the streets of LA (fun fact! I actually came up with this AU one day while I was quite literally roaming the streets of LA myself at like 3am-ish. Do with that what you will). He is of course wearing a hat or beanie or something at first because come on, that's way more fun, and no matter how much Trucy, Apollo, and Athena are like "hm idk something about this kid seems familiar" I just don't think my first thought upon seeing some vaguely familiar kid alone on the street would be, like, "Oh, that's obviously a child version of my father/coworker/boss!" So. I'm not really sure that one has an end point either, though, so the same problem still stands, haha. The bad, someone get a spray bottle to spritz me, option of this is, obviously, to combine the two, so it's like the WAA find him first and then are like UHHHHH we need an adult (never mind actual adult-age-ness between them) and somehow end up getting Miles there too, but idk. I... should not. Overcomplicate. I shouldn't. Even, even if...august is over...so theoretically there's no longer any sort of On-Time component since it's late either way........ definitely not.

28 - Caretaker

Here are my exact notes / entire doc for this day. Ahem. And I quote: i brought up the lighthouse keeper thing but i dont know where that would be going exactly maybe this is a thing i could do franmaya for??? since i still havent gotten there? actually lol that as a lighthouse thing is funny. ghost romance? my three tropes rattle End quote. Anyway, shout-out to my friend hailstorm for being the one there to brainstorm "lighthouse keeper" with at the self-same bar trivia that I mentioned previously, lmao. I actually think that was even the same exact day as the The Martian quote was a relevant answer to a question. So yeah, even though I already kind of have franmaya planned for the spies day, that's both kind of sort of a darker AU overall and--WELP well, okay, so, i do, you know, recognize maybe a ghost romance isn't, uh, necessarily the fluffiest kind of AU lmao. Don't mind that. My point is, I love the vibes of a lighthouse keeper AU, and I generally like ghost romance as a trope, so that does feel like a viable option. Honestly, I kind of separately wanted an excuse to practice writing miego also, so maybe the Feys are just all chillin' in this lighthouse for...Some Reason, and that's side-plot relevant somehow, idk. I know Franziska and Godot exist in the same place for a minute in 3-5, but I honestly can't really remember them interacting? I think she'd fucking HATE him though lmfao. He'd think she's funny but I actually think she'd be too reactive for his most preferred teasing/fucking-with-people dynamics, haha. Regardless, if he is there at all, it's a very minor B plot, I think, 'cause this ain't about him, lol.

29 - Forced into Hiding

Achtung, baby, 2566 words of this are written! Lol. So uh, yeah. In short, AU where Klavier gets hounded by fans on the street while he's also having just a bad personal day, and the closest and best place he can think to hide from them is at the WAA. I, um, actually hadn't realized I'd written quite this much of this, haha, it was supposed to be short and fairly silly but then it turned into Klavier having a little bit of a panic attack maybe and getting consoled by Apollo, sure, of course, but then also having to deal with and experience some amount of closure / reach some kind of understanding with the Wrights, also. It's kind of part Klav character study, kind of part complaint against freaking Capcom for neglecting him (boo, I love him, stop ignoring him, or, yknow, worse, whatever the heck turnabout academy was supposed to do for him, which honestly almost felt like a step back to be quite honest). Okay, also, taking a slightly closer look at what I've already written, the REASON I'd thought I'd written way less than this is definitely because he hasn't even GOTTEN to the Agency yet, never mind spoken with any of its members, lmao. That would do it. In any case, I like the idea of Klavier having a bit of a vulnerable moment, and I also like the idea of him and Phoenix actually, like, talking for real, instead of, once again, whatever Turnabout Academy and DD was meant to tell me, which seems to be less than nothing. I kind of like the fact that it gave him a law mentor? I mean, she was very dead, but I have a very meaningful Use for her in later-to-be-announced-AUs-I-keep-teasing, haha. I of course considered other people and times when people in AA might be forced into hiding, but this felt like a silly but also meaningful way to do that without it just being an exploration of Miles and his not-suicide note (which wasn't exactly "forced" anyhow, he did that all on his own) or like, Zak Gramarye (who also completely did that to himself but w/e). Making it about Klavier completely escapes the bounds of canon, because canon is a weenie about talking about any of his actual feelings EVER, so screw you Capcom, I'm doing it for you. Don't worry about it. Trucy commiserating with him about still Loving someone, perhaps the very closest person biologically related to you you've ever known and depended on in your life, who not only did you very big harm personally but explicitly used you in a very real and participatory way to perpetuate the harm elsewhere and all the complexities about Feelings For And About Them Therein, and Phoenix somehow having enough self-awareness to recognize that shutting down completely and isolating yourself away doesn't actually do you any good even when you're at your lowest, and recognizing that Klavier doesn't exactly have a "Trucy" to be a focal point to draw him out of that, and that therefore he needs to be a bit more open to his peers. (Insert joke about "Well, I'm really definitely not suggesting you go adopt an entire child, that's really probably, uh, not the way to go, actually, but, you know. Everyone needs people, that just makes us human." Etc.)

30 - The Beginning of the World

So, hm, as it turns out, I got extremely sidetracked this day thinking about the next day on the docket. Whoops! Unfortunately this ultimately means my ideas for this day as of now are relatively uninspired: I had the thought that I could explore the beginning of Troupe Gramarye, which is its own sort of world, or else, maybe something about the beginning of the series itself but from the somewhat unconventional POV of a one Mr. Larry Butz. Yes, that's a bit self-serving in that it lends toward trying to complete a list of "main, recurring characters' POVs" that I've had as a sidequest all month, but, still. That said, just exploring actual canon through Larry's POV isn't exactly what I'd classify as an "AU" necessarily, so I feel like something would need to be different here. Okay, wait--not to draw inspiration a dang week late to the party, BUT. Now that I'm typing this up, I'm thinking, okay, maybe, what if. The "Beginning" of the series, technically speaking, is basically the fact that Phoenix gets put on (class) trial for stealing Miles' lunch money--which notably only happened because Larry himself picked it up when it fell on the floor. So, perhaps, what about an AU where he doesn't do that? I mean, I guess it would just turn the entire world of AA into something of a terrible series of tragedies with no real closure about them, lol, rip, but it could possibly be interesting? I dunno! (And, yes, I know DL-6 itself is more or less the basis of the series, if we're being ticky-tacky, but Phoenix wouldn't have been involved without meeting Miles, and that somewhat necessitates the class trial, and without him none of canon would get resolved, so. I will say, I do love going back to the earliest points to see how and how much you can make canon deviate or stay the same--reasonably speaking--via minor tweaks and butterfly effect and all that, so this could be interesting, although I once again must say I think it really just means a bunch of innocent people, Miles included, are going to be put away and possibly executed over murders that weren't their faults, lol. Hm. Much to consider.)

31 - Two(+) of the Above:

Beginning of the World + Younger/De-Aged + Canon Divergence (+ Feat. Jokers: Guardian, Everybody Lives)

With all of this, the ONLY prompts I've actually missed on this list become Animagus which I swapped for the Wings joker, and the last joker of the four, Thriller, which was never exactly a priority of mine because I'm not sure I'd write that sort of thing particularly well, so! Wild! Completionists everywhere almost rejoice, haha. SOOOOO. For the eagle-eyed readers out there, I'll bet you're just dying to know what this one AU I've been teasing all post could Possibly be to warrant such a build-up, right? (...Right?) The answer is the at-ow! (Phonetically, lol. I've been calling it that instead of out loud saying all the letters in AATTAU out loud every time.) My friend Ben can attest to the fact that this behemoth AU (her word which I'm stealing) has been in the works for, uhhhh... months?

MONTHS. AHAHA. Ha. That. Sure says March! It sure does! And it is not lying. Lmfao. (Ignore the time, I was working overnight then--my beloved work schedule whomst I miss dearly--so that's a perfectly reasonable discord-ing hour for March-me.) Also, once again, I'm choosing to blame Ben for my extensive AU problems, she sent me a very cute time loop AA fic that utterly destroyed my entire mind because it got the mere idea of "Time-based AU" caught in my endless void-idea-hole. So. Here's the real rub. The literal reason I started doing this AU-gust challenge in the freaking first place was that I was absolutely Desperate to find a way to overcome my writer's block. And one of the (admittedly many) reasons I wanted to do this was because I have been ITCHING to write this stupid behemoth AU for real. I have a massive outline doc already, I have a whole slew of scenes planned, I have lots of character archage, I have sooo many things I want to say and explore about them all you have No Idea. It's extremely self-indulgent and absolutely my personal magnum opus for all my very specific favorite AA headcanons and ideas and thoughts. And obviously, it worked! I did indeed overcome my writer's block! And I had so much fun doing it!! And I'll admit, from the very beginning, I had been eyeing that "Everybody Lives" joker prompt, because...that's it! That's basically the point of the AATTAU (Ace Attorney Time Travel Alternate Universe, if that wasn't clear, haha). I don't want to let myself get TOO into it, because Oh Boy, I sure will! If you let me! Haha. But basically the premise is EXACTLY what I stated in that very first discord message I could find about it. Maybe not so much "time travel" technically speaking than it is "gaining memories of everything that happened in canon right as the DL-6 earthquake happens", so it's more regression than actual time travel since they're in their own younger bodies and everything, but still. It's basically my excuse to treat canon like it did happen and YET allow for everybody to survive and for the very fun cocktail of traumas and joys that come from remembering what happened but having the chance for something different (and all the effort that goes into making something different happen in the first place).

Now, as far as AU-gust goes. I was obviously not about to even pretend I could remotely start this during August itself or justify connecting any of it to the series and the prompts I'd already written for it, lol, but I also couldn't get the idea out of my head, so I got it in my head I really wanted to end the month with SOMETHING that somehow tied into my AATTAU, if only to motivate myself to actually get on it and start writing out instead of solely outlining everything that's been in the works all these months. So to that end, I saw the "Everybody Lives" and the "Beginning of the World" prompts, and an idea came to me. I'd been dancing around the justification aspect of this AU for most of the time I've had it because let's be honest, it's just a very self-indulgent idea and it does not NEED "justification" to serve the purpose I want it to serve and be what I want it to be. But the AU-gust prompts gave me some actual inspiration and an Idea as to a way to solidify my unnecessary "justification" but in a way that it doesn't need to be directly part of the final product of the AATTAU (like, I could make it a separate one-shot and either just link it to and from the AATTAU fic itself, or if it all ends up being a series, then I could just include it in the series but it wouldn't be necessary to read to understand what's going on. And so, I present! The Ami Fey one-shot special I came up with just to fit these prompts :3 ...And by "i present" i mean, uh, I wrote 4k words of it on the 31st and didn't even come close to what I wanted to cover, because I suck at being concise. Lmfao. (Shocker.) Basically, I used Ami Fey as a semi-self-insert kind of godlike figure to reason out a semi-plausible way to make the concept I want to explore happen, happen. And I had a lot of fun, but I do still have a bunch to finish, but either way, I'm very pleased to have a (somewhat silly but ultimately fun for me) reasoning as to the gears ticking behind the scenes of my idea! To be somewhat less vague, the whole AU is predicated on the idea that, Phoenix and/or Miles (who remember from the beginning / from December 28th, 2001) meeting the other characters at-or-after the time they originally met in canon are able to recall their memories of the "original" (i.e. canon) timeline. I've used some magatama shenanigans to have some fun with this, and I'm now using Ami Fey and magatama shenanigans to explain how and why this is A Thing, even if it isn't necessarily the objectively most logically sound argument I've ever made. It's still a good one, in my book, and more importantly I like it, so that's all that really matters.

To briefly explain the "two" (by which I mean 5?) of the "above" I'm using here:

Beginning of the World: This fic specifically would show the beginning of the "world" of this AU specifically! Woohoo! Go Ami Fey, creating a whole new set of problems for our beloved little Guys to go through, hahaha. I think I may have based her character a little too much on Maya mischievousness, but, oh well. Let's just say that's where she gets it from.

Younger/De-Aged: As I've already kind of expressed, the premise of this AU is mostly just them being their own younger selves except they also have the memories of all of canon (and maybe a year or two after the fact, I need to confirm a couple dates).

Canon Divergence: I feel like this is decently self-explanatory, but then again maybe it's a bit cheesy to include this here, since it basically diverges from nearly the first major event of canon (DL-6), but that's not the only time things go almost-canonically but diverge a bit in some way, so I think it really does fit here.

Guardian: This one is a bit multi-fold. It somewhat refers to the way I'm making Gregory Edgeworth the de facto guardian (as in, legal guardian) of mostly everyone I possibly can because I love him and he would be great at it. But also, guardian in that, Mr. Savior Complex Phoenix Wright himself has literally all of the information at his disposal to try to "save" the potential Happy Lives of literally every person he loves, and, well. He does a pretty good job about it; not without cost, haha, but I feel like I can definitely call him a "guardian" of others in this AU. And, as for specifically the one-shot Ami fic, she is essentially the guardian of the entire Fey lineage, in this AU at least, so that also totally fits and is most immediately relevant.

Everybody Lives: I think this one is pretty self-explanatory at this point, lol. But for the one-shot: Ami is essentially trying to secure an "everybody lives" scenario, even if it hasn't been achieved yet, so it's more an aspiration at that point, but ultimately it is indeed successful. Now, "living" does not mean, like, "totally healthy" (mentally or physically), so there's lots more to it, but in short, yes, they live.

And......that's basically a wrap on that!

I mean, it isn't actually at all, since I still have to finish 26/31 fics, lmfao, but as far as the idea generation stage goes, and the use of the AU-gust prompts, that's what's up in my world! Somewhere out there maybe there's an AU of my actual real life where i finished more of these on time, but i'm still pretty pumped by all the work that's already been made on making so many AA fics a reality for me. I've come a long way since starting that first AA fic in 2018...!!

I still have all the aforementioned 26 fics to finish obviously, and I also have AU continuations planned for at the very least, day 2's colorless prompt and day 3's dark academia prompt (let alone day 31's, lol, but that's its own monster entirely), but I'm optimistic!

Thankfully I actually finished using nano to word track for me before they, you know, doubled down on AI and called everyone "abelist" (???) for not supporting it, which, uh. Well. But for my own posterity and if anyone's curious, here's what my word counts looked like throughout the month of AU-gust--admittedly including some planning and outlining:

It ended up being 51,377 words total in August on these AU prompts alone!

I feel like I wanted to say something poignant and meaningful at the end here, but it's almost 9:30 and I work at 4am tomorrow, so I'm going to go ahead and wrap this post up here, haha. If you read all of this, thank you very much for joining me on my little journey!

Once again, here is the Ao3 series where I'll post anything more that gets done, so if you'd like to see how any of these AUs turn out, feel free to keep an eye on that!

And here is the previous post with the 1st half+ of the AUs if you missed it and are interested now!

My copy arrived literally as I was writing this up so I've spent the last several prompts of this post listening to the AAIC soundtrack in the music collection, and, oh man, it's seriously so surreal this exists??? I might be an old fogey who has and will for an indeterminate amount of time continue to have trouble letting go of the fan translation names I've lived with for the past decade or whatever, but it's seriously so awesome the entire series is finally available internationally!! Let's hope for my sake AA7 doesn't come out before I finish any of my AATTAU, because that would really throw a bit of a wrench in my decision-making process, lol.

Bye for now!

[commsroom]

Some silly eiffel questions that idk if you’ve talked about before but:

- would he play dnd? (I think yeah lol but I’m curious what you think) and if so what class would he play as?

- his favorite flavor of slushy

- how does he cook marshmallows? (Burn them, carefully toast them, eat them out of the bag, etc?)

- if he could choose to be a fantasy creature, which one would he choose?

Anyways I hope you feel better and that these distract you from the icky feelings!

have you seen the doug eiffel dnd script? i love to show people the doug eiffel dnd script. it was written a couple of years ago as part of the fundraising for unseen, and is obviously non-canon, however. it's non-canon in the sense that this group of people in these circumstances would never play dnd. i think the anecdotes + attitudes expressed by eiffel are perfectly on brand and they are canon to me. so... how he feels about dnd, and at least one answer to 'what class would he play' is in there. it's very funny to me that he's a minmaxer, and that his character is trained in "bazooka karate" like... sigh... yeah. of course. i don't think his tastes have changed that much since he was a teenager. (he would be a bard though, obviously, if that was the question.) i also think eiffel would be just insufferable to play dnd with because, like. if he's a player, he's going to be mad that he can't tell the story he wants to. if he's the DM, he's going to do zero planning and go on wild tangents having conversations between NPCs and forget he's not just supposed to be telling a story to himself. lost in his own world.

blue raspberry. he loves sugary artificial garbage that doesn't resemble any real world flavor, and blue raspberry is like, the 90's flavor. so many of his preferences are just nostalgia. he would also be really obnoxious about showing people how it dyed his tongue. (i don't think he's too picky about his sugary garbage, though.)

well. you already know he's not doing it carefully. even if he tried to do it carefully, he would still burn them, but i think he prefers them kinda burnt anyway. he would make fun of someone (minkowski) for how meticulously she toasts marshmallows. and he does also get impatient and shovel handfuls of them into his mouth directly out of the bag in-between the ones he immolates. eiffel is the kind of guy who would show off by proving how many marshmallows he can put in his mouth. i guarantee that guy has nearly choked trying to defend his honor as the reigning chubby bunny champion.

actually given the choice, i think he's perfectly happy to be human (and wouldn't trust an offer like that anyway) ... as an icebreaker question, though? he immediately gives a basic, 'cool' answer like werewolf, and then his brain catches up to his mouth and he goes wait, hold on, can i take that back? because all of the potential downsides just occurred to him, and he starts jumping around with his answer and getting more and more specific until it derails the whole conversation and he's just asking, like, if there would be a catch and what powers he's allowed to have, etc. and whoever asked is like, um... whatever you want, i guess? (<- regretting it.) the person after him says they'd be a dragon and he's like, ugh. no fair. i should've been a dragon.

[sect-leader-jiujiu]

so i was reading this post by @lizzieonka and something occurred to me. idk if somebody else has said it before, but i was thinking about the part in op where it says that jc is harsh on the outside and loving on the inside because that’s how he was raised to show love. and. it made sense.

like, look: to jc, jfm didn’t love him, yeah? jfm, according to jc, didn’t even like him. and how did jfm act? polite. never raised his voice. no physical contact. barely addressing him if not necessary (ie never asking why jc was sad or how his day went, etc).

now. how did yzy act? loud, angry, constant criticism, maybe she swatted at jc (or maybe not, but i’m trying to get to physical touch, which: that final hug between them where she wanted to get him back inside her womb), threatening whoever diminished her son (rather than consoling him, she went directly for the threat to the danger). and jc KNOWS yzy loved him. jc knows, by the end of her life, that her proud to a fault mother would give her life gladly to spare his, and that she sees him worthy of her own spiritual weapon (zidian).

alright. so. to me, it makes sense that, even if i don’t think jc is an exact copy of his mother because he has significantly more nicety in him and less unrestrained rage, he would express love the same way that the ONLY parent who loved him did. he threatens to break jl’s legs, swats at him, gets angry, threatens others on his behalf (“who made you cry?! tell me so i can break their legs!”) but he would do ANYTHING for jl. he is just doing things the way he has learned to do them. be harsh, show no softness, but he is allowed to feel softness. and jl can definitely sense that jc loves him very much. to me, jl does not act as if he doubts jc will back him up (snitching to jc about mxy!wwx right at the beginning, lying to jc and letting wwx escape later on, etc). he is completely confident that jc will not hurt him, because jc loves him.

so TO ME i can explain away jc’s tough exterior with yzy because…. well. isn’t yzy the person who most loved jc? at least, that jc knows? because let’s be honest, jc doesn’t find out about the core transfer until the very end, and jyl gave her life for wwx, not him, so of course jc would think that yzy was the person who loved him the most. she died for him. she believed in him to wield zidian and carry on her legacy.

so OF COURSE that jc is not going to treat jl like jgy in being polite and nice (like jfm acted) or funny and teasing like wwx because, to him, that’s not how you show love. let’s not forget that, from jc’s limited perspective, wwx abandoned him. wouldn’t that make jc interpret his teasing and light-hearted behavior as “ooh so he didn’t love me after all”? wouldn’t that make jc see yzy’s attitude as the most authentic, valid way of showing that he cares?

anyway. i just love jin ling and his jiujiu 💛💜

[thenationaltreasuregazette]

On watching National Treasure with a friend

My dear readers, it’s been too long!

Apologies for my tardiness, but the past few months have been incredibly hectic. My grandmother’s been sick, work has been extra chaotic, and my best friend was visiting from Türkiye.

We met in grad school, and two of our classmates were getting married (to each other) in April so she came from Istanbul for the wedding and stayed with me for a few weeks afterwards. It has been a whirlwind of lunches, day trips, and movies. I bring this to your attention now because on one of her first nights here, she requested to watch National Treasure.

I promise I didn’t foist it on her! She’s heard me talk about the blog so much that she wanted to see what the fuss was all about. She’d seen National Treasure once at some point in the past, but didn’t remember much about it. And I need very little provocation for a rewatch, so off we went.

My friend is incredibly expressive. She’s one of those people who wears her heart on her sleeve even when doing something as simple as watching a movie. One of my favorite things about hanging out with her is her reactions to things. She’ll always let you know if she’s happy or surprised or what have you. Me, my reactions tend to be a little more all or nothing. But I digress.

I loved watching National Treasure with her because she really engaged with it. You could tell by the amount she was laughing, reacting, and asking questions that she was really pulled into the story. Honestly, I had forgotten how funny the movie is. Like I know that it’s funny (both because of the excellent comic relief provided by Riley, and occasionally through moments of sheer camp) but I know the movie so well it’s been a long time since I’ve laughed out loud at the jokes. But my friend was laughing in all the right places. It was a delightful reminder of what it felt like to watch National Treasure for the first time, and to be charmed by its ridiculous adventure.

She also elicited a few disbelieving “no!”s, surprised “whaaat”s and other reactions that reminded me of how exciting the movie is. To me it feels like a familiar blanket at this point, but it was nice to be reminded of how much the movie turns. It never stays still for too long. The plot is always thickening in a really satisfying way.

I was also surprised by which pieces of American history she was familiar with. Like, she recognized the Watergate hotel on sight? No judgement here. I could probably not have pointed Türkiye out on a map before we became friends. It was just interesting to me which pieces of American pop-history had stuck with her.

I tried not to be too annoying during the watch. While I am at this point overflowing with fun tidbits of National Treasure knowledge, I tried to hold back from pausing to commentate unless I thought the fact in question would make the watch more fun.

This was also the first time I’d watched the movie all the way through with the subtitles on. I tend to thrown them on if I’m looking for a particular scene to take a screenshot of, but don’t want my audio on for whatever reason, but I had never watched the movie through like that. At this point, I know most of the dialogue by heart.

However, there are a few lines that took me a long time to make out, and the subtitles really drew my focus to these places. (Why didn’t I just turn the subtitles on a as a kid? Idk, it never occurred to me.) I was already wanted to do an article on misheard lines, and this watch pushed that closer to the top of my list.

After the movie, my friend wanted to watch Book of Secrets. We found some time for that a week or two later. Today will not be a day to yuck on anyone’s yums, so suffice it to say she enjoyed it, but not as much as the first one.

There isn’t really a conclusion here, except perhaps find a willing, uninitiated friend and watch your favorite movie with them. See what comes up for both of you.

Now that my friend is back home and my nana is moved into a new place, things will hopefully settle down for me a bit and I will get back to a somewhat regular positing schedule. No promises, but there’s still a lot I want to cover!

I hope things are well for you! Happy hunting.

Your Editor

[prismatoxic]

heyyy question. do we know for sure how old Chilchuck's daughters are, because I keep seeing that they're 16 & 14, but that would mean he was 12 (or maybe 13 if we're generous) when the oldest were born. I've also seen that the age of maturity for half-foots is 14 or 15, and yet there's never any mention of him having his children particularly young? idk I'm just a little confused on the math there. (and yeah, I know a year or two under the age of maturity isn't a lot, but half-foot lives are so short, surely it is to them!!) any thoughts on this?

-curiosity anon

p.s. I was looking through the fandom wiki for help on this, and this line from the relationships section of Chilchuck's page made me laugh so fucking hard: "Chilchuck views Laios as not normal.[citation needed]" like the citation needed killed meeee we don't need a citation. it's just clear to see <3

chilchuck was teen pregnant

those are my thoughts

but, to be more serious--half-foot culture is, from what we can see, heavily gendered, with a large focus on housewives and working husbands. in such a society it does not even remotely surprise me that someone would get pregnant before they were a full adult. i don't remember where the girls' ages come from, but as garbage as the wiki is, it does pull from the canon sources, so it's most likely correct. we know all 3 girls are adults, so at minimum puckpatti HAS to be 14, either way. and i'm reasonably positive we know for sure meijack and flertom are 2 years older than her.

if you want my specific headcanon, childhood friends chilchuck & his wife (i feel weird calling her jaylark when i'm trying to talk meta...) were teenagers having sex and when a pregnancy occurred, it was 100% socially acceptable (maybe even expected) to go "welp, guess we're having a kid now" and see it through. having another one that same year was either more carelessness or deciding eh, fuck it, why not two? (i wonder if flertom was Too Much considering it took two years for them to have puckpatti.)

were they ready for kids? probably not, no. but if nothing else chilchuck seems to have taught his daughters some lessons from it all, because flertom and puckpatti remain unwed and without kids as adults. (meijack too, but she doesn't seem to care, whereas her sisters want to fix it ASAP.)

anyway--that very "citation needed" note has been there so long it's just funny at this point. is no one updating that wiki? like, that has to be the case, a vast amount of it is unfinished or has outdated info from before the manga finished. but, yeah, we don't really need a citation for that, we been knew LMAO

[jujutsukgojo]

Heat of the Island Chapter 3

chapter one+ chapter two

Summary: Izuku calls out for him repeatedly. All of them, really. No one looks back other than the subtle glances from Kirishima. Even though they are willing to let you die, you call for them too. For their common sense and patience, and life.  

an: I may come back to this idk yet. It's almost over tho!

Shouto and you are out of the plane only to see everyone standing in front of you. They’re soaking wet and are in the sheer blue light. It covers the area so much that you could swear the vibrant blue sky touched it.  Except for you. Even Shouto has a faint tint of the menacing and frequently occurring blue shade on him. When he makes eye contact with you, you quickly look away. You don't know why since he has never made you nervous or anything. Even when he was in his icy emo phase. 

Excitedly, you call out to the group. “You guys, the monitors are working! The radio work-”  

“We know, L/n. We always knew. It was too convenient that nothing was working despite the plane looking fine.” Kirishima crosses his large arms. “Convenient?”  

“Don’t act dumber than you are, Quirkless.” Bakugou huffs. Never has he made fun of you for that. In his first year, he grew to get over his prejudice. “Stop it Kaachan.” Midoriya moves in front of you along with Shouto. They take a protective stance, one that you didn't expect since you've been here. Mina rolls her eyes.  

“If you two don’t move as God as my witness, you’ll get the beat down of a lifetime.”  

Much to your surprise, Koda moves in front of you too. With a surprisingly loud voice, he yells, “I’ve been trying to tell you that Denki witnessed everything not working! You won’t listen!”  

  Are they serious right now? Do these people who you’ve known for years really think that you were in control of this? How dare they. How could they believe that you would trap people here! How in the hell did they come up with the audacity to think that you want to be trapped with them?

Bakugou throws his hands in the air then tugs on his hair roughly. “How are you not mad?! All of this is suspicious! We crashed because of her. Her stories don’t add up. How are you not see her villainy?”  

“(Y/n) is not a liar or a villain. You know this. If anyone is, it’s you.” Shouto stands firm in defending you. Kirishima scoffs. “Ha! Midoriya told us about the whole ‘blue light’ thing. And how she won’t accept that it’s the heat. That it is clearly in her head.”  

“Because Midoriya and I are the only ones that see it!” You peek over Shouto’s shoulder. You notice the way Bakugou looks at Shouto. He's like a deer in headlights as Shouto slices through his ego, his pride. Bakugou went through so much with the League. He never thought of the villain's brother to say anything since Shouto carried so much guilt. They've been friends for so long that even you weren't expecting it. A part of you sympathizes with Bakugou. But it goes out the window the longer you look at him. 

“He can barely see it! It’s the heat, (L/n). The fact that you keep telling him these lies is making him anxious-all of us anxious! You’re doing this on purpose.” Ashido stomps her foot.  

“How?!” You are so tired of this. As you begin to get to your wits end, you notice Shouto’s heavy breathing. He tenses up, eyes as cold as before.  

   Bakugou slowly walks towards you. “Funny how you knew where the water was, that the monitor magically started working at the time you killed Ochako-”  

“Bakugou, enough! You fucking know she didn’t do that!” Shouto takes steps towards the blond. Bakugou scoffs. “Hell, she probably jinxed the storm! And for all we know you helped.”  

“Wouldn’t surprise me.” Pipes Asui. Where is all of this coming from? These accusations are extremely delusional. He just said it: you’re quirkless. How is it that you can do all of these things that would honestly need a quirk. They’re changing and not for the better. It is a matter of time before they turn on each other once you die. There would no longer be a common enemy. Except for maybe Shouto? The comment of how he must've 'helped' is showing the terrible colors they wear.

  Shouto begins to get angry. You can tell without even being the reason for his anger. “If you people do not shut the fuck up .”  

He’s always had a foul mouth. Anyone who knows him knows that he’s rude and gets away with it by acting clueless. But he isn’t one to just push it out like this. That is more of Bakugou’s speed.   

“Hm, you aren’t one to talk, Todoroki. You’re too close to her. Too infatuated. Too bitter. A spitting image of Dabi. ”  

“Tsu...” She quickly corrects you about using her last name. Midoriya reaches his hand out to you from behind. It clasps around yours. His thick fingers rub your palm. “Enough, everyone. The heat, the island, is obviously messing with everyone. The plane is almost done so it won’t be for much longer. Just be patient.”  

  “Ha, we’re not waiting for her.” The blond walks to the left and points to a simple boat that will not hold every single person. In fact, it looks like you’d be left behind. It would not be surprising if the those who stand for you right now would turn their back for a chance to get on. “That is going to get us somewhere. Waiting for her will take even more time.”  

   Leaning in, he snarls, “We ain’t waiting for that lying, vicious, killing,��thing like you .”   He looks up at Shouto. "And you." 

And to think the two of you used to be close. You were the first one to give Bakugou a smore that you made of the stove top. He was weary of it saying that ‘it looks too sweet’ but once he had one, he always came to you for it. He was the one to encourage you in the roughest ways and the one who always came to you for weather reports. At the most random times he’d call for an ‘accurate report because he doesn’t trust these fleabags.’ Meaning news reporters and Hawks. Still, he'd never bad mouth Shouto's tragic story. Why start now? 

You want to cry again. Do you even have any more tears?  

Even if it was for Momo? One of the sweetest people. She loved visiting the support course and only trusted you with her costume. It took a couple of alterations, but by her third year you managed to make a costume she could use that was a little more modest. Momo mainly uses it in the winter since she no longer worries about how she looks. Momo...so uplifting, so kind and gentle. How many cups of tea has she given you? Will you ever have them anymore? No, you don't want to.

Ashido, your laugh buddy and giddiest friend. Asui, the one who taught you how to do the basic swim moves. The first one to help you in case you needed saving at a pool. Hell, she would stay by your side the entire time. And Ochako, your cherub face friend who has left too soon.   You stop before you can continue going through the list of friends you have lost in just a span of a few days. There is no need to dwell on it; not when there is a chance of survival that they will take from you. The love you had, and you got from them is gone. You've decided. There are no more tears to shed. You've done enough for a lifetime. 

The rain stops in the middle of the argument. The clouds are still grey and the air atrociously thick with conflict. What could have been a peaceful island has turned into nothing but a nightmare. Cool, crystal clear, water. White sand that is warm and toasty. The luscious trees and greens that inhabit the island in the most beautiful way stand so tall and broad. Every pretty detail is deceptive. Your past friends fit right in with the island’s lies.  

  This whole thing was a mistake. You should have taken a different plane. You never should have answered their phone call for the favor.  

“Give us the brat.”   

  You gasp at the demand. What could they want with you? 

“No, Kaachan.” You’re about to die right now. Bakugou glares at you and ignores his childhood friend. 

  Kirishima throws his hands in the air. “It’s all her fault! Why are you defending her?” You push your way through the two huge bodies in front of you. “I made mistakes, we all know that. Just how is it all my fault?”  

   He stares at you as if you’ve grown two heads. He moves his soaked red bangs out of his face. “You crashed the plane, won’t fix it or the radio-”  

“The radio worked. We heard Shouta on it. So, that point is ruled out! And, how come Momo won’t make one? Why pin this whole thing on me?” What’s happening to you? Snap out of it!  

“She can’t, L/n!”  

You scoff and kick the sand that circles around your feet. “Says who? You? Her? I don’t know guys, I'm suspicious.” You throw their words and tone back in their face. Kirishima's face becomes as red as his hair. He looks like a bull. With venom, he says, "More useless than I am, and yet you act all high and mighty."

   He starts to growl and come towards you. Sick of being the weak one, you pick up some of the sand and throw it at him. “I’m so done with you people! Nagging, blaming, whining, with absolutely no input on how to actually get off the island. No! What you care about is-is-breaking us up! What the hell is wrong with you?!”  

 Bakugou wipes his face of sweat. “ You are. You crashed us down and killed Jay. We’re stuck on an island with a villain,” He huffs and smirks at you with the most wicked gleam. “Just wait, Y/n L/n. Wait until we get off of here and fry your ass.”  

You gasp, wondering what he’s talking about and yet knowing full well what it means. “I am not a villain nor did I kill my friend, Jay. I don’t know how, or why, he died. I don’t know. I pray for his soul more than you will ever know,”  

You take bold steps towards the man. “You can never tell me that you care what happened to him. Bakugou, you would always call him a nuisance and wouldn’t like when he came with me to events. I remember that. I'm not blaming you, any of you, for his death. No, never. But I’ll tell you this once and once only,”  

 Finally up to him, looking up at the man who has fought wars and demons, taken on every challenge and holding his fist in victory, the man with a scar on his face from his fight with Tomura, when he had died at the age of sixteen for the people without hesitation. He had achieved your respect. Now, he has lost it, a precious, fragile, and rare thing.  

  “Leave Jay’s name out of your fucking mouth, Katsuki Bakugou.” You place your hand on his chest, feeling his beating heart. You back away from him slowly, not turning your back to them. When you reach to the people that believe you, that have obtained some form of their natural selves, the ones that lay in front glare.   

  “Not taking escape seriously, huh? Well, damn, (L/n)! Looks like you haven’t been paying attention!” Yells echo to the all-knowing sky. Random things, unimportant nothings that no one will even remember. All useless and truly not worth noting. The swings and holds that each of them do is out of character. You stay out of the fights and observe how they could fall so greatly and so hard. 

"Stop." Just a simple word from you gains their attention. The blue layer covers them all now, and you feel exhausted. Not because you did anything, hell no you stayed out of the way, but the emotional toll it's taking is too much. The island...it has to be. There is no other way.

 “Whatever, (L/n). Come on you guys.”  

  Momo leaves the face off and heads towards what you feared this whole time other than death at the hands of man, a boat. A boat that won’t carry everyone here. A boat that was meant to leave you stranded at this God forsaken island of mystery and running out of food, safety, and water.   

  These heroes mean for you to die alone, to die by the wrath of nature.    What could be scarier than the unknown of the island? The heroes that hate you get on the boat except for other: Denki. Kirishima looks at him expectingly, continuously gesturing to the boat. “Denki!”  

“I don’t know guys. I just have this feeling, y’know? In my gut and it’s saying to not get on it. That we need to stick together and with the plane.”  

“Fucking Dunce-face!”  

“Denki!”  

  He puts his hands up. “I know, I know! Just listen, please! I don’t understand it either but it’s there. So get off of it!”  

“Fuck you.”  Bakugou says with finality.

“Deku, Shouto, you coming?” Ashido reluctantly asks. Her leg bounces as she waits for their answer.

“What about Koda?” You yell. Are they considering leaving him behind? Thunder rings above you once again. It startles you back to the safety of Izuku and Shouto.  

   Kirishima’s eyes are blank. There is nothing there. They don't think much of Koda, do they? Momo boards the boat once again. When Bakugou sees that his childhood friend isn’t coming, he sucks his teeth and pushes the boat to the water. That is the last time he looks back.  

Izuku calls out for him repeatedly. All of them, really. No one looks back other than the subtle glances from Kirishima. Even though they are willing to let you die, you call for them too. For their common sense and patience, and life.  

“Guys! It’s a storm you have to come back! Please!” Just like you thought, the storm came back. Those few minutes without it were just a short break. You walk to the shore, being slightly pushed back by the wind. The rain hits your face harder and harder, no longer being sprinkles. Lighting crashes down in the distance.   

“Come back!” Each of you scream. Nothing is going right. They aren’t coming back, nor do they want to. Ever since you came to this island, since the plane was mysteriously pulled down, there has been nothing right. It is like everything is the opposite or confusing. It doesn’t affect you much, but it is starting to.  You guys can’t leave yet. Not with this storm looming over your heads. Giving up on the boat that is getting farther and farther away, you head to the plane for shelter. The more you thought about them leaving, the more you question. Should they have left? The island can be home. To just lay down now and survive-

“What are you doing? They-”  

You snap out of it. Shaking your head you say, “I know Izuku. They're not coming back. We have to find shelter!” Not wanting to argue anymore or think about your previous thoughts, you enter Betsy.  

The leaves on the trees sway back and forth. The wind becomes even more fierce. The water splashes from the storm. Looking outside the window, you see how strong the waves are getting. They get closer and closer, becoming more vicious by the minute. Every storm that the island faced was miniscule compared to this one. It is as if God is angry at the island, at the people that have turned on each other for stupid reasons.  

    Once you see it, the air is taken from your lungs. Huge waves beat against every rock they meet. The shore is getting smaller as the water gets closer. The island, as strange as it is, seems to be breaking by the weight. You run out to tell everybody to get inside. Thankfully, it isn’t needed. The first one in is Denki, then Koda. Shouto is next with a reluctant Izuku.  

“We have to find them!” Izuku shouts over the noise. You roll your eyes. “Betsy isn’t ready yet and the storm is strong.”  

“You’ve flown through worse, (Y/n).” He’s right. When Gichi Shigaraki, All For One, had wreaked havoc outside Tomura’s body, he somehow got ahold of NIne’s quirk. How he did that, you don’t know but you fought against everything he and Tomura had to offer to evacuate the people.   

   You remind yourself of the wrath and hatred you faced with the most villainous people in the world. Compared to them, this storm is nothing. But you’re strangely confused about it and scared. Like it’s your first time flying all over again. These jitters, this anxiety flowing through your body with every rock of the wind. This is nothing compared to your strength. You must remember that.  

“I crashed the plane.” You did. Betsy, of all planes, is down. You're a failure of a pilot and dangerous. Why are you in the chair? You, out of everyone, deserves to stay on the island. 

  “I believe you. What you said about it being pulled. All of it. You might be a lot of things, but a liar isn’t one of them. I think there is something wrong too.” Shouto says.  

  For the second time since you’ve landed, someone said those words: I believe you. Everyone has shaded you, has treated you like a villain this entire time and for someone, Shouto, a hero , to say that he believes you means everything. Ochako was the last person to have shared some of that belief. To the very end she was a hero and kind.  

  “Please help us. The waves will sweep everything away.” Izuku’s right. The waves are bigger and are crashing against the land. Betsy is rocking and will be pulled away soon. She may not be able to float right now. “I can do this...”  

“It’s now or never. We won’t make it till the morning.” Izuku has hopeful eyes. He speaks the truth. It just feels like it. It looks like it. This is the end of the road. Betsy will get swept up in the storm if she stays, if she sits in the sand and is left out on the sea.  

With how the storm is looking, it isn’t natural in your eyes. Something is wrong, off, odd.   

“We have friends to save, (Y/n). Please save us.” Shouto comes closer to you and places his hands on your shoulders.   

“Betsy is going to get swept up. This island is not safe. We need to go.”   

“I know.” It’s high time anyway.   

Suddenly, the storm somehow misses Betsy and curves to the left. It strikes the trees and rocks further inward. You blink several times to make sure that it's not just you seeing things. The blue haze glazes over it. Embedded in its structure. The way the storm is behaving is not of God. Against God you tremble, against the world you stand tall. You fought the demon kings in order to evacuate and save people. You can do this. Just aim high.

“Let’s roll. Everyone buckle up! Denki you’re with me.”  

  He screams. “ In front?!”   

You nod at the electric bastard. Comical tears stream down his face. Denki slowly makes his way to the front. You roll your eyes at the man and push him. No one has time right now. This surge of confidence and energy you have may fade away.  

  “Come on Betsy.” Sitting in your beloved chair, you flip the switches. “Denki, juice her up with everything you got.”  

“Right here?!”  

“Yep. Touch the dash and give her life, right now.” It is not practical. In reality, he needs to be at the engine and guts. But now is not the time for technicalities. He turns his head to you. “That’s the Pilot I remember. Nice to see you again.”  

  “I t’s good to be back.”  

  Denki shocks her and lo and behold, she starts. You push her wheels out and further into the island. Like you’ve before in desperate situation, you turn her quickly. You give her as much speed as you can, dodging the water that reaches closer and the blue tint that wants her, all of you.   

When she’s ready, you pull her up.  

And off you go.   

“I’m pretty sure planes aren’t normally like this!”  

“Of course they aren’t! A teenager built this. Nothing on it is normal!” It isn’t. Not a single feature that resembles a normal plane. Who cares? She’s the best there is, and so are you.  

 Gone is the lost and confused (Y/n).    

Before God you will cry, plead, beg, and be fearful. But this island and storm remind you too much of man. Something everyone can beat. Including a quirkless child like yourself.  

[sasubaeuchithot]

Hey :) Hope u doing well! I would love ur insight on writing Naruto or rather Naruto's acceptance of his bisexuality. Don't get me wrong (love that for him) but I always imagined him idk I wouldn't say that he has internalized homophobia in canon but that he's either too oblivious to even get that he's attracted to boys (always imagining him thinking that a certain boy is sooo cool or "even prettier than a girl" - especially Sasuke ofc) or him being scared to come out because of his craving for acceptance and affection from ppl (villagers, friends etc). Obviously this doesn't mean that ur wrong or something like that :D KH Naruto is canon to me! I never read a fic where Naruto feels so natural like KH Naruto. But yeah, I'm really interested in what you think :)

You are such a talented writer! <3

you know, i had been fully prepared for that to have been something I would have to address at some point in the narrative, but it just never naturally occurred ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. i think it was a mixture of how slowly things between them progressed combined with naruto not really being the kind of person who reflects back on his actions like that. i always joke that i dont think Naruto has an internal dialog, and what I mean by that is that he exists so solely in the present, doing what his heart wants in the moment, that he rarely questions why he does what he does or how each specific action he does could affect the future (this is paralleled with how Sasuke rarely ever lives in the present, always flopping between analyzing the past and shaping his future).

so when these moments between them happen, Naruto doesn't really have the kind of brain that asks why or what does this mean. he goes off of his first instinct. the first moment between them was another accidental kiss, which we see him react very similarly to how he did in Sasuke's introductory chapter- he acts grossed out. you can view it as internalized homophobia, which i do see a bit of, but for me I always viewed it as the fact that it was Sasuke, whom he had such a conflated opinion on pinning him as his rival. he hated sasuke- or so he told himself. likewise with the sai moment we get in canon, which always felt like a mixture of internalized homophobia and the fact that it was sai.

but the moments with Sasuke keep coming, and Naruto just never put any thought into them at all. he acts on his instinct, which tells him that he actually really likes kissing sasuke so like you should keep kissing sasuke bc it's really nice kissing sasuke. he admits to thinking other guys are hot, because he does, but he never had the thought to question what that meant about his own sexuality. he just never reflected on it, so it never came up as a plot point that affected the narrative at all. hell, in Sakura's pov in kizuna shiten he was shocked to hear her call sasuke his boyfriend, and that was months after the events of his birthday. I'm sure if at some point during the early chapters some external source put it to actual words for him and forced him to confront the fact that he's sexually attracted to guys, he would have had a bit of a crisis. but because no one did and things between him and sasuke moved so slowly that by the time we get to the end of the original fic, he rates the intimacy with sasuke too highly to have any negative reaction to the fact that it makes him queer. honestly I'm not convinced that even by the end of shiten does naruto realize that he's not heterosexual lmaooooooo

i wonder how long he'll go before he realizes. i kinda wanna wait until the epilogue of the sequel to give him that revelation solely for the meme of it all. i definitely know I won't but the thought of how funny it would be is very tempting

[giggly-squiggily]

okay this is not for the event, it's just me having nagiri brain rot bear with me pls 😭

during the third selection nagi walked in on isagi wrecking chigiri and did nothing, he just kinda stood there and examined. and chigiri was a little busy so he didn't think anything of it but after that nagi just will not stop bothering him and he's so random about it!

like chigiri will lie on his bed when nagi suddenly squeezes his sides and when chigiri curls into himself, already bringing up the defenses, nagi just nods carefully and says something like "interesting." before returning to his phone as if nothing happened.

they're at dinner and suddenly chigiri shrieks at the top of his lungs and his leg hits the underside of the table and when they take a look, nagi sits under the table in the l lawliet position (how did he get there without them noticing? no one knows), one hand still on chigiri's knee and then says "i see." and scrambles off to god knows where.

and this goes on for days and chigiri gets so paranoid, especially because nagi never ends up full on tickling him but isagi and barou sure do whenever they're around to witness the shenanigans and it drives him crazy. and then one night he decides to go to sleep early and lets himself fall back on his bed, only to shoot back up immediately when nagi attacks his sides (has he been there the entire time? who knows, chigiri sure as hell doesn't) and he's like "WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY BED" and nagi just shrugs and goes "i'm ambushing you." as if that's not a weird thing to say.

and then chigiri just can't take it any longer; "if you wanna ambush me do it right, i can't live like this!" cue nagi blinking at him and simply answering "if you insist." before pinning him down and finally tickling him for real, then he goes, way too matter of factly, "i just thought you were cute when i did those things to you" and barou and isagi walk in on chigiri absolutely dying under nagi for more than one reason.

that's it that's the scenario idk i needed to get it out my system i'm sorry 😭

THIS IS SO CUTE AHHH! 🥰

Nagi sitting like L from Death Note took me TF out! 🤣🤣🤣 I can imagine Nagi lying in Chigiri’s bed in wait- completely still and blended in with the sheets. And the way he just scrambles away to who knows where is too funny to imagine ahznnsnsnkwks 🤣

“I’m just ambushing you.” Is such a Nagi thing to say AJJZJWNNSMWMS 🤣🤣🤣 I adore him HELP 🥰🤣

I love the idea of Barou and Isagi just taking advantage of it whenever it occurs. “Oh, miss Prick-cess is ticklish? Let’s investigate!” “What was that noise just now, Chi? It’s like you’re asking to be tickled!”

And the ENDING! 🤣🤣🤣 God I need more Nagiri in my life- this was absolutely majestic, thank you for sharing! 🥰🥰🥰

[titconao3]

New tag game! Name nine fictional crushes (option to include photos) 

Summarize it and/or let your followers drag you for your type :) 

Thank you @acydpop for the tag! IDK that i have crushes of the twu wuv kind, but! i've definitely imprinted on some fictional characters harder than others. Here's a selection! Also, i cheat ;-) If you, yes YOU, would like to be tagged, then yes! You're tagged, come and play along !

1/ SPOCK!1!1!1!!! (Star Trek: TOS and the subsequent films only; the constant retconning of the new versions is... not for me, but kink tomato and everything). First saw the original show dubbed on TV as a pre-teen; Spock was me, Spock was aspirational, Spock was who my best self could be. Small me trained in front of a mirror to be able to raise one, and only one, eyebrow. It worked (but i only trained one eyebrow). This was before i knew of fandom and of course slash, and the internet was barely starting; i wouldn't even have heard about it. It may very well still have been the Cold War, or at least the death throes of the USSR. (Kirk/Spock forever!)

2/ Saint Seiya!! Not Seiya himself (lol nope), but otherwise... Max Whump (Hyoga and Scorpio? i MEAN! A quick look-see on Youtube showed me only dubbed versions, too-short versions, or WHAT THE FUCK is this video-game reboot or something??? ANYWAY) Central! Our Heroes keep being Mega-Whumped, but the Power Of Friendship etc etc. And when i say mega-whumped... From Shiryu who keeps blinding himself, to Shun and his many, many issues with self-worth, to that fight i mentioned with Hyoga still crawling forward even as Milo (Scorpio) keeps wounding him... And Ikki and his Tragic Backstory TM and sacrifice for his baby brother. DON'T start me on the gold saints and the ladies, k? (Yeah, i know, misogyny etc)

3/ Methos from Highlander Ooooh boy. He's sarcastic, self-serving, detached - or is he? Is he? (Yes, Methos/Duncan forever. What can i say? i'm basic) First fave in the morally grey area for this list... but not the last ;-)

4/ Daredevil/Matt Murdock *points at all the fic on my AO3* Yeah, so. Yeah. Nuff said. Picking this gif because crucifix + blood. Taking off a bloody shirt, the crisp white kind he'd wear in a court room as a lawyer, in a church: quintessential Matt Murdock. i just *clenches fist* Have Feelings

5/ Root (and the whole Person of Interest team) She's unhinged <3 Picking her because out of the whole team she's probably the one with the most compelling arc, IMO.

6/ Rodney McKay and John Sheppard and Ronon Dex (SGA) Über-nerd McKay was my first fave (yes, he's a jerk. Your point?), but also-über-nerd Colonel Sheppard and dead-pan Ronon Dex were faves as well <3 (AND RADEK!!!!) (Yes, Ronon Dex is Baby Jason Momoa before he grew huge muscles, and he is quite charming!)

7/ Sherlock Holmes (ACD or Granada versions mostly) He, too, in unhinged :D i probably don't need to introduce him, right? In the larger fandom, i also have a soft spot for JOAN Watson, in Elementary.

8/ Loki (and Cap and Iron Man, yes it's cheating) (so you're getting a two-fer in the gif) We shan't mention the various character assassinations that occurred in the MCU, k? There's an arc that shows change and growth, and then there's inexplicably ignoring huge bits of previous motivations, backstory, or characterization. But i digress

9/ Severus Snape So it's a bit hard here, because Rickman!Snape has never been my Snape, and i've only watched... idk, maybe the first... three? films? So i can't really provide a pic that fits. Anyway, loved the character from the start (he's funny, what can i say?), and when his childhood was revealed i was extra-sold. The social commentary behind his very poor origins, how he didn't fit and was bullied and grew bitter, and everything else... i discovered fandom at the time i started reading the books, around the time Goblet of Fire was published, so i first gravitated towards two fandoms: Star Trek and Harry Potter. Hence those two characters bookending this post ;-)

[fountainpenguin]

Who were you rooting for to win in each finale of Total Drama (including Ridonculous Race)?

?? It has literally never occurred to me to root for someone while I watch. TIL.

[Disclaimer - I do like Total Drama but this post involves me talking about ships and characters I don't like; I don't like putting that kind of stuff in the tags. I'm not disabling reblogs but please only reblog if you like this post and not because you want to fight; I'm just answering an Ask]

R-Race was the only one that left me truly "Aw man" about it. The characters who are my favorites to watch vs. those who I would expect and/or desire the narrative to reward with my author eyes are absolutely different, ha ha.

So for those who don't know, in the first 3 seasons (maybe more?), the two finalists each have an ending, and different endings air in different countries (I believe they were determined by voting on the Total Drama website during the final week).

All my TD 'fics take place in the same universe and the canon winners in my storyline were Owen, Duncan (who felt guilt-ridden about it, which was the plot of my one-shot "Chris Missed"), Heather, Cameron, Zoey, Shawn... I didn't post any R-Race 'fics beyond the opening bits of Lions Under Palm Trees, but I remember being disappointed by the winners. But that's more because I dislike Geoff with a fiery passion than anything else.

The characters I would argue are the narrative's main characters of their season... I would say Gwen for Island, Duncan for Action, Cody for World Tour, Mike for Revenge, Zoey for All-Stars, Jasmine for Pahkitew, and the cops for Race. Those aren't necessarily the people I personally want to be winners; just saying I think that's who the writers liked a lot and it showed.

World Tour was my first season; I was exposed to it by a sibling listening to it in the same room as me (which also means Aleheather came out of NOWHERE for me because it was purely audio exposure and missed all the small visual cues and I thought they just hated each other... I mean, I've rewatched the series several times since then and I still dislike this ship because I feel like it came out of nowhere and I don't feel any love between them, but idk how much of that was influenced by my first non-visual exposure to their relationship. And just because it's a NOTP for me, that doesn't mean I consider it non-canon... but that's how I write all my 'fics when my NOTPs are canon, so).

I was definitely exposed to the World Tour versions of Courtney's, Heather's, Cody's, Ezekiel's, and Noah's personalities before their Island selves, which I think influences my interest in them as characters in the prequels. Hands down TDWT favorite season, absolutely no contest for me. Pahkitew is close second, though.

I think Cody's the only character I would consider myself to be "rooting for" during a season. The concept of a character who got mauled by a bear in his first season, had to sit out the second season, then finally comes back and gets a fangirl who is obsessed with him to the point that he can barely participate in half the challenges because she is In The Way is SO funny. I also feel like Cody suffered more than most characters on the show due to the combo of bear mauling and having his boundaries consistently violated... He deserved a win. I know he's already a rich kid but I don't care.

In no particular order, my favorite characters in the series are Ezekiel, Eva, Noah, Leonard, Topher, Max, Dwayne Junior, and the Adversity Twins, but I wouldn't describe myself as rooting for them... they got as much screen time as they needed to. Leonard and Topher are some of the best characters I've ever seen in media though, I love them so much <3 To this day, I've never loved writing a character as much as I've loved writing Leonard. He's SO funny and he's a goofy little angel. I have so many unfinished Leonard drafts... I'd love to finish those 'fics someday, but I just don't have time to do everything.

I don't know what current fandom opinions on Topher are, but back when Pahkitew was airing, my quip to my siblings was that "Topher is so manipulative, he even fooled the fandom into thinking he's not as bad as he is." That kid played up the manipulative angle to look shallow on purpose... to hide the fact that he legitimately was super manipulative. He's fantastic. I haven't seen Pahkitew in about 7 years so a fresh watch might affect me differently, but... man. Topher, my absolute beloved.

(In my 'verse Topher is the son of Don (the R-Race host) which means he was just chilling around the elimination area in my R-Race elimination 'fic Lions Under Palm Trees, and man... my love for "character who lives in a hotel, doesn't have either of his parents around, who has mostly been left to care for himself, and he looks up to his dad with stars in his eyes despite also being the most manipulative slimeball in the world..." He's horrific, wants you to think he's a cinnamon roll but can and will absolutely destroy you just because he's bored... I love that 'fic draft so much.)

One of my favorite R-Race teams was also the couple who was super mushy at the start and then started fighting all the time (I think their names were Ryan and Stephanie, but it's been years so I might be wrong). I didn't feel attached to them as characters but I loved how they were portrayed, if that makes sense. My family were big fans of Amazing Race for years (used to watch it weekly) and we watched the second half of R-Race together as a family. We were crying laughing about how accurate their fighting was to the couples who actually participate in Amazing Race. Absolutely 10/10 characterization. No notes.

I don't know if any of that answers your original question, but that's kind of all I have to say. I liked characters who did neat things, but if they weren't competitive enough to fight for victory then they did not deserve to and I would have been mad if they ended up in the finals despite not being a good player. If you're weak then you deserve to go home like the weak links you are <3

I root for "being fun to watch" I guess. And Cody in World Tour.

(Zeke deserved better but also I wouldn't change his World Tour arc for a second. Becoming blinded with obsession to the point that you literally become a twisted, feral version of yourself and start hunting the other characters down and that's it, that's your character arc is the best thing I've ever seen. That moment of quietly cold, calculated, absolutely suppressed fury on Zeke's face after he kidnaps Chris in "All Stars" and Chris is monologuing about every horrible thing he's ever done to Zeke is my everything. That moment when you see what a broken human he's become. That moment he realizes Chris doesn't care he's hurting and doesn't want to help him because feral Zeke is "good content." I need everyone to understand.)