#idk who i'd rather be in this situation tbh

[taroddori]

shotaro better move over and let me do that instead

[stolenslumber]

devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes (preview)

Jay needs someone to pretend to be his girlfriend, and you're just the person for the job— seriously, you're almost a professional at this point, regularly charming the families of your idiot twin's friends who need your help getting their parents off their back. You have strict rules, though: (1) you'll only pretend to be someone's girlfriend on three occasions, maximum, (2) nobody is allowed to catch feelings, and (3) you get three favors in return. Too bad Jay is hellbent on breaking every last one of them.

PAIRING: park jongseong x female reader GENRE: fake dating, college au, vaguely greek life au, vaguely rich kid au, acquaintances to partners in crime to fake relationship to lovers i guess? lol, jake is your twin bc i thought it would be funny WARNINGS: swearing, (eventual) kissing and suggestive content WORD COUNT: ~2.3k (preview), final word count TBD but likely long knowing myself PUBLISH DATE: probably in the next two weeks!

“WHY DO YOU LOOK SO NICE?” 

“Why do you sound so surprised?” You scoff, tossing the apple you were just about to eat at Jake’s head. Annoyingly, he catches it in mid-air, then makes a show out of polishing it with his shirt and taking a big bite out of it. “Hey, I was going to eat that, asshole.”

“Shouldn’t have thrown it at me, then.”

You roll your eyes at your twin, then go to retrieve another apple from the fruit bowl. It’s surprisingly well-stocked, given that you’re in a frat’s kitchen. Honestly, it’s surprising that there even is a fruit bowl in a frat’s kitchen, but the president of this frat runs a tight ship.

Said president appears in the doorway just then, snatching the apple from your hands as well as the one from Jake’s hands. “Guys, seriously, you have to wash these before you eat them.”

You and Jake both whine simultaneously. “Chan!”

“I already took a bite out of that, bro,” Jake complains.

“I’m starving, please have mercy,” you beg.

Chan whips his head around from where he’d begun washing the apples in the sink to fuss at you. “What? Why haven’t you eaten yet? It’s almost 9pm!”

“Which reminds me— why do you look so nice?” Jake repeats.

“I had a thing with Mark,” you sigh.

“You can just say you were pretending to be his girlfriend; we all know what you mean,” Jake snorts.

“I had a thing with Mark,” you repeat, resisting the urge to throw another apple at Jake’s head. “It was at this ballroom downtown, and of course he had nothing to wear, so I had to take him shopping first, which made us late, and then his parents wouldn’t stop talking my ear off about how I need to convince him to give up the music major, so I couldn’t touch any of the food there. Not even the foie gras torchon,” you recall mournfully. “We just got back, like, five minutes ago.”

Chan hums sympathetically— he knows how much you love foie gras torchon. “You can probably ask for an endless supply in return for your appearance at today’s thing,” he suggests, only half-joking. It absolutely sounds like the kind of thing Mark Lee would agree to, what with his ridiculously large inheritance and hapless generosity (last month, Mark lost thousands of dollars in some animal shelter-related pyramid scheme, marketed to him by none other than Haechan Lee).

You wave a hand dismissively. “Nah, I’m keeping Mark’s favor for something else.”

Jake raises an eyebrow. “What else?”

“Whatever it turns out I need in the future, dumbass. What’s it to you, anyways?”

“Just wanna make sure the poor guy doesn’t end up trapped in your snares forever, little sis. Yo, can I have that apple back?” Jake turns to Chan with characteristic puppy eyes.

“You’re only older than me by eight minutes,” you grumble, the age-old retort slipping out of you before you can help it.

“No, Jaeyun, you cannot. And don’t talk to your sister like that— oh my god, why do I sound like Taeyong,” Chan mutters, thinking about his predecessor frat-president-slash-mother-hen.

“Jeez, government name and everything.” Jake holds his hands up, relinquishing his claim to the apple.

“In fact, your sister gets to have both of these apples, after I clean and cut them up, because she is a saint for continuing to save our asses from our parents like this,” Chan lectures, unceremoniously carving out the chunk of the apple with Jake’s bite marks and tossing it into the trash bin.

“Real ones get it!” You reach out and high-five Chan.

“That is so unfair, c’mon, man!” Jake splutters. “She gets just as much out of these fake relationships— seriously, didn’t you drive her around everywhere for, like, a month after she went to that wedding with you?”

Both you and Chan shudder at the memory. “Ugh, my worst cousin and the worst guy he was ever with. They’re still married, by the way.” Chan shakes his head. “God knows why.”

“Love conquers all…?” Jake offers.

“What the hell are you talking about love for,” a new voice grumbles. Jay strolls in through the doorway, hands full with plastic bags promising wonderful things based on how your stomach reacts to the smell.

“Oh, hell yeah, chicken!” Jake cheers. “Took you long enough, bro.”

“Traffic was hell, something about a ball downtown, and— oh. Hey.” Jay stops abruptly at the sight of you, now munching on the apple slices Chan hands you, one by one.

You wave vaguely in his direction, too busy eating to respond. Jay is one of your brother’s friends who you don’t know that well, since you’ve never pretended to be his girlfriend. It’s strange that you two don’t know each other better, actually— as the social chairs of your sorority and his fraternity, respectively, you would usually have a lot to work on together. But this year has been particularly busy for you, what with your senior thesis and your various things with Jake’s frat brothers, and you had delegated most of your social chair responsibilities to your co-chair, Yunjin, who was far better suited to the social part of the job, anyways. You suspected Jay had done the same thing, since the two of you only ever texted to confirm budgets for any joint events.

“You need to have more than one-and-three-quarters of an apple for dinner,” Chan scolds you, parental instincts back in full force.

You shrug, about to turn around and rifle through the cabinets to see if you can find some peanut butter to add to your apple slices when a takeout container appears in front of you. Tired and still starving, you react rather slowly, your eyes tracing up the hand on the container to the veins of an arm belonging to none other than Jay.

“You look hungry,” is all he says, before popping the container open for you and rearranging the rest of the plastic bags on the counter. “Jake, tell the others to come down for food.”

The others means that soon, there will be an influx of hungry frat brothers in the kitchen, and you have no desire to be anywhere near that, so you mumble a quick thank you to Jay, plop the rest of the apple slices into the takeout container (against Chan’s complaints about the contamination), and move to leave the kitchen, eager to be on your way to your sorority house.

The last thing you overhear before you leave is Jay asking, “Why did your sister look so nice?”, and Jake and Chan responding in unison, “She had a thing.”

A few days later, when they’re doing work in the library, Jay asks Jake, “So how long have Mark and your sister been seeing each other?”

Jake’s pencil jerks across his graph paper, a jagged line appearing on the page at the same time that he swears. “Dude, what the fuck?”

“Dude, what the fuck,” Jay echoes flatly. “Didn’t you say she had a thing with Mark?”

Jake blinks. “Well, sure, in the same way that she’s had a thing with Chan, and Yeonjun, and Vernon, and all the others.”

Jay gapes at him. “Your sister dated all of them? And all the others?”

“What, no, she didn’t date them, she fake-dated them! Just a couple of times, mainly showing up to things with their families so their parents would leave them alone about finding a partner and all that. You know how the parents are.” Jake gestures vaguely, referring to the oddities of the world of wealth they were born into.

Jay nods slowly, understanding dawning upon him. Does he know how the parents are? Oh, does he ever. He has always had a good relationship with his own, but they had been more pushy on the whole love thing as of late, with the not-at-all subtle questions his mother asks about any special someones in his life and the unfunny jokes his dad cracks about how he’s still spry enough to help raise grandchildren. Especially unfunny, given the health scare his dad had given them all in the last year.

Jake’s voice brings him out of his veering-towards-morbid thoughts. “But seriously, bro, how is this news to you? My sister’s been doing this… Cinderella-genie thing for over two years now.”

Jay’s eyebrows furrow. “Cinderella-genie thing?”

“Yeah, I mean, she transforms our frat brothers into respectable young men with a respectable relationship, but only for three occasions, and she gets the same number of favors back.” Jake wrinkles his nose. “It sounds weird when I say it like that, and don’t get me wrong, I love to give her shit for it, but it’s all above-board stuff. Sunghoon bought her bubble tea for like, three months.”

“She fake-dated Sunghoon?”

At the mention of his name, Sunghoon pops one side of his headphones off. “What’s up?”

“You fake-dated Jake’s sister!?”

Sunghoon shushes him before responding. “Yeah, don’t you remember? It was a couple of months ago.”

Jay’s ears flush, both at how loud he had unconsciously gotten, and at the reminder that he really has been out of it for a while now. It’s not like he’s been living under a rock, but he has definitely been spending a lot more time with his parents and away from his friends ever since his dad’s health scare.

“She was great, though,” Sunghoon continues. “My mom still thinks I made the biggest mistake of my life ‘letting her go.’ But she’s also been leaving me alone about ‘finding love’ because she thinks I’m heartbroken, so yeah, Jake’s sister works wonders.”

Jake smirks. “Sim genes, man. Elite stuff.”

Sunghoon scoffs. “You wish. Didn’t I hear your mom yelling at you on the phone the other day for not having settled down yet?”

“Ugh, don’t remind me. Does she not realize what decade this is, I mean, we’re still in college—”

Jay interrupts what looks to be the beginning of a long rant from Jake, cutting him off with, “So where can I sign up?”

Jake stares blankly at him. “Sign up for what?”

“The Cinderella-genie thing.”

Sunghoon scrunches his face awkwardly. “Uh, she kind of has a waitlist, buddy.”

Jay waits for him to laugh and say he’s just kidding, but he doesn’t. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, she doesn’t do the fake-dating thing for multiple people at the same time, and she’s pretty busy with all her shit, so I’m not sure how long of a queue you have ahead of you…”

“Okay, but Jake could get me ahead, right? Cut the line, or something? C’mon dude, I’m your best friend.” Jay is suddenly desperate, remembering the conversation he’d had with his mom on the phone last night, where she had dreamily recalled meeting his dad in college and delicately reminded Jay that he could have a plus-one to the Parks’ upcoming 50th wedding anniversary celebration.

Jake eyes his friend warily. “I dunno, she really doesn’t like stuff like that. Unfair advantages, I mean.”

“My parents aren’t getting any younger, Jake, and you know, with my dad last year and everything…” Jay does his best approximation of batting his eyelashes at Jake.

“Are you guilt-tripping me?”

“A little?” Jay’s smile turns a little maniacal. “For real, my parents have their 50th wedding anniversary coming up, and it would be the perfect event to bring her to so I can reassure them that things are going well in my love life.”

“Are things going anywhere in your love life?” Sunghoon’s tone is skeptical, and reasonably so.

Jay has been distant lately because of his family, but even before that he had always been known as somewhat aloof and unattainable. Devastatingly handsome, yes, with killer grades and fierce ambition, and a business empire to inherit to boot, but he is also his parents’ one and only miracle child, born after years of trying and almost giving up. Jay’s parents are older than all of his friends’ parents, and their family business has always been that— a family business. Jay has two years after graduation to learn the ropes in the business, and then he’ll be due for an MBA, and then a return to helm the business, but this timeline has recently felt more urgent than ever with his parents’ flagging health. They would never say it, but he knows the only reason they haven’t retired yet is because they don’t want to hand over control of the business to anyone but him. Jay has worked his ass off in college, trying to get there as fast as he can, as well as he can. But his parents also want him to enjoy college and find true love, and while he’s been doing pretty well with the former, the latter has been on the backburner for, well, forever. Who has time for true love, in between classes, fraternity duties, the various shenanigans his friends get up to, internships, networking, TA-ing, volunteering, being on the executive board of two clubs, and eating, sleeping, dreaming, and thinking?

So. No. Things are not going anywhere in his love life, and he confirms just as much to Sunghoon with a grunt, to which Sunghoon wheezes out his amusement.

Jake eyes Jay with pity, now. “Alright, that guilt trip was successful, but more so because you just admitted to being bitchless for so long. I’ll put in a good word to my sister for you.”

Jay perks up instantly. There is light and beauty in this world after all! “Awesome, thank you bro, you won’t regret this, I promise!”

“I wasn’t planning on it, but those are famous last words, Park.” Jake raises an eyebrow at him. “Are you sure you can handle my sister?”

“Why not? She seems… nice.” Jay is slightly evasive in his answer, and truthfully, it’s because he isn’t really sure what you’re like. All your interactions to date have been cordial, almost business-like, and you and Jake are fraternal twins, so it’s not even like he’s really familiar with what you look like. He is, however, sure that you look beautiful in a ballgown, even if he only saw you in one in his frat’s kitchen.

Jake chortles outright. “No, my sister is not nice. Yeah, I’m definitely going to convince her to help you, just because I think it’ll be hysterical watching her turn you inside out. Good luck, my brother in Christ, because you’ll need it!”

[rubberbandballqueen]

since i just rb'd a poll abt high school grades now's probably a good time to drop one of my many million-dollar ideas for how to run a high school classroom, which is that i think that at the start of a quarter/semester kids should be asked if they want hw to count towards their grades or not bc i was So Fucking Bad at submitting hw in high school, but my test scores were really good, so i'd rather have not had hw count towards my grades. but obviously there are a good number of kids who are either bad at taking tests or anxious abt their grades dropping and are diligent abt turning in hw, so letting hw count towards their grades would give them some padding in that situation.

[adventuringblind]

request idea: fake dating troop for max v xreader, they can’t stand each other maybe she supports Ferrari or smt but secretly admires his talent but he doesn’t know and is kinda of and ass to her and a lot of drama for them to get together idk, maybe there was an wedding and max needed a partner — I’m sorry of this is a lot but I would absolutely love to read something like this 💕

Media Relations

Max Verstappen x Leclerc reader

Genre: a mix of everything?

Summary: the Redbull and Ferrari PR teams think it would be great publicity if you and Max have a relationship. With the promise of your brother getting a better race engineer (and the hint of a crush already) you accept. Max does too, but he hates you for some reason.

Warnings: Max is a jerk, hints at lestappen if you really squint, jos verstappen, not edited

Notes: I felt maniacal writing this tbh.

Masterlist

“No. Absolutely not.”

You stand there watching Charles pace. You can’t tell if your older brother is mad at you or the situation. Maybe both?

“I already signed the contract and so had Max.”

“Why would you do this to yourself? I trust Max, but not like this.”

It had originally been intended for Charles to sign the contract. The teams thought this type of media would be good for them. Neither Max or Charles agreed to it. They don’t want to portray something there not where there are thousands who want to be themselves but can’t. It felt unethical and just generally wrong.

That’s where you come in. If they couldn’t do it with Charles, you’re the next best option.

The contract didn’t offer you anything, other then a possibly happier brother and he knew that. When you did your time, they’d have found him a new race engineer and some better strategists.

He knew you’d give up everything to help him get his dream. That’s why he’s frustrated, not with you, but himself.

“Do you know what Max is getting out of it?”

“He mumbled something about his father but that’s all I got.”

“Just don’t get attached, please, I’m begging you.”

“Don’t worry Charlie, I’ll be fine.”

~

It was a lie. You knew it was going to be difficult. Mostly because you’d already had a crush in him, it he despises you with a passion,

Regardless, you two walk hand in hand together through the paddock. The fake smiles you give each other gone as soon as your tucked away from the cameras.

“You can go out the back.”

Then he disappears, leaving you stranded in the Redbull hospitality.

Most of the weekend was like this. You had to carefully divide your time between your brother and fake lover. On the bright side, everyone was raving about it. You’d already grown used to toxic fans since you’d been around racing with your brothers your entire life.

You and Max got together a few times a month to stage Instagram photos and go on fake dates.

You were somehow falling for him while he seemed to have a growing dislike for you.

Tonight, you are having dinner in Monaco. Your attempts at starting a conversation are nothing short of pointless.

"Can I ask you a question?" He grunts and doesn't look at you. So you ask anyway. "What was on your contract?"

"Why do you need to know?" Stone cold eyes pierce right through you body.

"I was just wondering. We don't have to talk about it if you don't want."

"I'd rather not talk with you about anything?"

Letting the embarrassment take over, you shift your gaze downwards. You knew what was on the contract. It was all about Jos.

Max was willing to do anything neccecary to please his father. Including getting his father into a higher position of power within the team.

Jos had been messaging you throughout the week with reminders that you're just another step for his son's success. This led to multiple arguments with the older Verstappen because you're not one to back down when defending those you care about. The slander had turned more aggressive recently, and you wanted to talk to Max about it. Too bad he hates you.

~

"Charlie, I don't think I can do this." You sob to your brother over the phone. "Jos is refusing to leave me alone, and Max hardly spares a glance in my direction if he doesn't have to."

"You can always break things off. I’ll be okay, I promise.”

“No, this will help make your dream come true. It just doesn’t help that I was crushing on Max before we started this.”

Charles sighs heavily. “Chéri, If it comes down to it and Jos doesn’t stop then I will have words with Max.”

“Thank you, Charlie.”

It was nice having a brother that you could rely on. Lorenzo is the oldest and cares, but he has his own family, and Arthur is the youngest, so he had a tendency to steal attention.

With you and Charles both being middle kids, you two stuck together. He was your protective big brother then, and he still is now.

The next morning, you wake up to a shock. The sound of your ring tone echoing through the room.

You lazy grab it off the nightstand and look at the caller ID.

"Max?"

"I'm going to a wedding and need a plus one." He says matter of factly.

"Okay?"

"Come with me? Please? I'd rather go with you than show up alone." The sincerity in his voice sends your head into a mess of thoughts. This stupid Dutch makes no sense!

"Yeah, sure, okay."

"Great, I'll come puck you up tomorrow before noon."

"Wait, Max!" You definitely didn't mean to shout but maybe this is your opportunity to figure this whole thing out.

"Yes?"

"Why do you hate me so much?" Your voice gets quiet again as the anxiety takes over. "I just thank that if I know why then maybe I can change it."

You can hear Max's breath hitch. "It's nit that I hate you. I actually really like you." He sighs out finally. His words don't register in your brain. "I just hate the reason why we're doing this. I didn't want to get my feelings involved"

"I like you too." You say without thinking.

"Really? I thought you were just doing this for whatever is on your contract?"

"I was... but I've liked a certain Dutch with pretty blue eyes and a winners smile for a few years now."

"So what was the contract for then?"

You wonder if you should tell him. Wonder about Jos and how he might have your head later for distracting his son. But you don't care. "A better team for my brother."

"Well, that's selfless of you."

"And you? What is your contract for?" You ask, turning the subject away from yourself.

"My father wants more say in the team."

"Do you want him to have more say?"

There's a pause, and you can hear Max's mind working from the other end of the phone. "Not necessarily."

"Then why do this? Even if you liked me before why take this on?"

"Because my father wants it and I want to please him." You can hear his voice start to break. It hurts to hear him like this. "It's not a big deal though, I'll survive." He downplays. Something she's grown used to with Charles.

"We should probably get some sleep." He follows up with after your lack of response. Your thoughts still moving miles a minute.

"Yes, sorry, your right. I'll see you tomorrow Max."

"See you tommorow."

~

Just as he says, Max shows up right before noon hits. Knocking of your door in a nice suit.

"Wow." Is what you greet with and your face flush with embarrassment.

"Ditto."

The car ride is too short for your liking. The two of you catch up on life and simply enjoy eachothers company.

The wedding is more of the same. You are tailing Max while he talks to those he knows. It's weird seeing him genuinely smile at you. Finally, he feels like he can let himself give into his heart.

It's sunset now, and you and Max are on a balcony enjoying the view. Secluded from the rest of the guests.

"Thanks for coming with me."

"Thanks for inviting me." You turn your gaze upwards at him. The sun illuminates his skin with a warm glow.

His eyes flick nervously between your eyes and your mouth. He wants to do it but can't get the courage. The intimacy of this is far to much for him.

So you do it instead, and he lets himself relax in the hold of your lips.

"You have no idea how much I've wanted to do that."

~

Max and you weren't pretending anymore, and both teams could see it. Which is why you sit in a cramped conference room with your pr teams and team principles.

You feel out of place since you're not a driver. You don't belong here.

"Your contracts are null now."

"I'm sorry, what?" Your taken aback. How had you violated your contract?

"You two are actually dating now, so the contrat no longer works. We wanted to stage a breakup at the end of it, but we can't do that now."

Max is avoiding the gaze of Jos and plays with your fingers for comfort. His mind boggled with how that has turned from great to shit and five minutes.

After sitting through what the contract being void now entails, you and Max find a quiet spot to talk things out.

"I wanted to help Charlie so bad. Worse is that I don't remember that being in the original contract."

"I think something is definitely wrong here. I may not have liked my end of the deal, but yours was for good reason."

You tear up over thoughts of having to endure another season of Charles getting frustrated with his team after every race.

Max holds you close and wipes your tears away. "Whatever happens we'll figure this out, we're in this together now remeber?"

His words bring a warm feeling to your body. You and Max are a team now even without the contracts. Somehow, that Max you feel even more connected to him.

~

Part Two? 👀

[prontaentrega]

@fluctuating-fixations It's mostly about some specific word choices that don't really change the plot or the whole direction of the story so it's not like, an entirely different book, but they alter the whole tone of it and makes it worse to me. The first thing i noticed I didn't like about it was when Valentín first mentions Marta and he says "my girl" i immediately went he would not fucking say that!!!!!

In the original Spanish the word he uses for Marta is "compañera" which translates to partner or comrade (F). It's not the most common word to talk about your girlfriend in spanish so it's a deliberate choice on his part. What was the need to change it? to make it sound more natural? to make him sound less political?

In that same page he goes on to talk about his guerrilla comrades and he actually uses the word compañeros for them. The masculine/neutral form of the word he uses for Marta

But the one that really annoyed me is this one

Because in this part the word he uses in Spanish is, again, compañera. And idk about you but i think it has a completely different meaning if you say "if she's my woman, it's because she's in the struggle too" or if you say "if she's my comrade/partner, it's because she's in the struggle too." And besides he would never call anyone "his woman" it's just completely contrary to his whole character... this and a bunch of other small stuff like it mischaracterizes Valentín as more of a macho figure than he really is. And this is an issue i have with literally every adaptation and translation of this book tbh everyone's always so fixed on making this college educated communist latino more violent and sexist and angry. I wonder why

This one's minor but it also bothers me, when talking about the panther woman movie there's a character that in Spanish is "the architect colleague" but in English she's "the assistant" ????? what reason was for that other than misogyny

Maybe this is a non-issue and I'm nitpicking but with the book's narrative being exclusively a dialogue between two people, word choice is fundamental because this is the only way we have of knowing these characters. And especially on a book where gender expression and gender roles are such a main theme this is not like, getting mad because they switched coffe for tea on a sentence. Which I'm also mad about btw. They completely ditch any mention of the characters drinking mate and switch it for tea. Once again I'm asking what was the point? to make it all less exotic? to make it easier to understand to English speakers? having to look up what a mate is or just guess it from context isn't gonna kill anybody, but the translation is so afraid of alienating its gringo audience that it discards cultural context and reduces its only two characters to shallower versions of themselves. And I'd say the cultural context is pretty relevant because this is a book about two political prisoners under a dictatorship that was written and published when Puig's own country was under a neoliberal dictatorship. It's not Vonnegut's cat's cradle with a made up dictator in a made up country, this was actually the situation in Argentina in 1976.

And obviously someone who only speaks english won't notice any of this. What makes me sad about this is that none of the problems i have with it have to do with impossible cultural clashes, it would be extremely simple to fix all of that. It's a tragedy that the only english translation of a latin american book about gender and propaganda was made in 1976. But still I'd rather someone read the book even with the bad translation than not read it at all

[yellowhollyhock]

what are some of the strengths and weaknesses of 1987 Michelangelo’s character? I have the hardest time writing for him outside of the super obvious “surfer bro” persona honestly

tbh,, I rarely write for 87... they're too witty,,, I have some wips but as far as writing the 87 boys are definitely not my strength

That said! 1987 Michelangelo! Love that guy. hmmm strengths and weaknesses

Weaknesses

-he can be clueless at times. needs things explained multiple times or doesn't pick up on things other characters were counting on him picking up on. this can be a very useful for plot reasons, he can simply forget what he was told or not understand it and therefore fail to act on it

-very obsessed with pizza. more so than the other turtles

-along that vein, generally not difficult to distract

-hard to motivate. he mostly wants to make himself and those around him comfortable, and he's very good at finding simple easy ways to do that. So whatever task needs to be done for whatever other reason, better find a way to make it comfortable and fun, he has a high threshold. For example during training sometimes he would simply rather enjoy the nice weather and there is nothing Master Splinter or anyone else can say

-this goes with hard to motivate, but in the ep where Leonardo leaves and the others have to try to lead, when it's his turn he's just very passive. he is pretty good about knowing what needs done, but he is definitely not one to take charge, and more than likely he'll wait to be told what to do unless the situation is very urgent

-he does not enjoy watching pro-wrestling, to his brothers' dismay

Strengths!!

-sweetest heart of all time. brings home injured animals, takes them to the zoo so he can learn about how to take care of them or give them to someone who can

-btw he can talk to animals

-often is the one tending to his brothers if they're sore after a battle. not first aid, but like fluffing a pillow or just patting their back. He probably holds their hand while antiseptic is applied. Definitely hugs them when they cry

-very loyal. throws a birthday party for Irma. never believes something bad he hears about someone he knows (he'll say "no way, amigo" if someone who isn't present to defend themselves is accused of literally anything)

-strong moral compass, AND

-the ability to communicate persuasively about what he thinks is right. More often than not he uses the same sentence (what you're doing is majorly wrongiouso) (or something like that siahdhsj), but it's the way he says it amd the timing that's important. He understands people, and as much as he always sees the best in them, he also knows how to bring out the best in them. Idk I don't think I'm explaining it too well, but... he's not just blindly trusting. Trust is a choice he makes out of kindness, but then he will hold people to a standard. Does that make sense?

-great with kids

-he's a good mediator, hears out both sides

-faces his fears (he has the most stage fright of them all but by the end of the ep where they appeared on camera he was also handling it the best)

-he can put his foot down when he needs to. very cool trait for the Nice Guy character to have, y'know?

-not afraid to emote! sobs openly because the stove is broken! hugs! speaks up when he is upset! expresses joy for the little things! 🧡

-psychic (i think? probably? might not know it? i remember feeling like it was implied but I'd have to go find the episode(s) alskjdjvf) (pretty sure it wasn't explicit but like. he's psychic okay)

-so much patience

-everyone loves the way he talks. they're always mimicking him. i remember one time when Leonardo asked a question, Michelangelo was standing right there, and Donatello literally said, "Well as Michelangelo would say" and then said what Michelangelo would say and was in fact about to say, then Michelangelo went to say it and got all confused alfjshsjj. Also Shredder will do this too! And you know you're good when Shredder copies you. He had aspirations of being a writer before he turned to villainy, you know (or maybe you didn't but now you do)

[variousqueerthings]

fascinated that in toeing the line of "the doctor both is and is not asexual, and because the show is ostensibly sexier now there should be imagery of especially david tennant and various women (shockingly no men with ten) smooshing lips," it means that the doctor only ever instigates a kiss when it's got some scifi-type reason behind it, even starting with nine removing the time vortex from rose.

so only counting lip-to-lip contact for a second here*:

jack kisses the doctor (the parting of the ways)

nine removes the time vortex from rose (the parting of the ways)

cassandra kisses the doctor (new earth)

madame de pompadour kisses the doctor (the girl in the fireplace)

jackie kisses the doctor (army of ghosts)

the doctor leaves a DNA print on martha (smith and jones)

martha gives the doctor cpr (smith and jones)

john smith kisses joan (human nature)

astrid kisses the doctor (voyage of the damned)

the doctor kisses astrid goodbye as she dies (voyage of the damned -- only instigation on the doctor's part of any kiss)**

donna shocks the doctor out of being poisoned (unicorn and the wasp)

christina de souza kisses the doctor in planet of the dead and is overall very flirtatious at him in a way that almost feels like idk. an anti-romance plot. it's like everything that came before (and tbh... also amy and river song) in terms of "sexy" doctor-and-companion tension is lampshaded and made a bit silly. I don't know if this is just because the actress and dtennant have minus chemistry, but it's very funny that this is the final flirting + kiss and it's so very... "shrug, you're not going to be my companion, okay, goodbye"

*I think the only time the doctor even jokingly talks about kissing is in dalek's of manhatten, when martha and bby andrew garfield/frank have been captured and the doctor arrives. martha expresses her relief, and the doctor says something along the lines of: "well, you can kiss me later. you too frank, if you want." this is to diffuse a very scary/tense situation

**I tend to read the astrid final kiss as a kindness/comfort rather than romantic interest or sexual interest. because she is dying. and she kissed the doctor earlier, and is very scared

but wait! tentoo and rose were really going at it, you say! tentoo is part human/specifically human in a donna sense. tentoo is also super up for settling down and having a monogamous relationship, which isn't exactly the doctor's style in any regeneration. so yeah.. tentoo is another part of the tightrope, just like john smith. change the doctor into someone who is almost-but-not-quite the same, enough plausible deniability and voila, it's almost like the doctor is kissing someone, but crucially, the doctor still Is Not. in tentoo's case, the doctor is in fact watching it happen with a somewhat despondent look, before turning and leaving without waiting for rose to say goodbye. because, youknow. canonically the doctor cannot give rose what she wants (because he's not alloromantic/allosexual because he's an immortal alien) so it's better just to leave

lastly flirting: the doctor does flirt, but not often. the most flirtatious the doctor gets outside of above kissing line is when jack briefly joins nine and rose, and I'd call that the jack-contagion (affectionately, it's a good thing). ten, actually, flirts... less. comparably. (and hilariously is annoyed that jack flirts so much around him) a bit with rose in christmas invasion and new earth, but apart from the "sexy" wink, not very overtly. I mean, maybe I'm very ace, but I think they do banter rather than flirting. the one time the doctor interprets something as flirting that funnily enough isn't is when rose is talking to a cat. the doctor similarly gets flirted at (madame de pompadour, shakespeare code, martha several times, health and safety, silence of the library) but doesn't tend to enjoy it or often even notice it

[kohubohu]

About Minthara's break up dialogue

(TLDR at the end)

My biggest fantasy would be Larian bringing it back reworked in patch 7 because it actively gave her the best reaction to rejecting Bhaal out of the entire party and it's such a good moment to give her more character development.

Tbh, I was never really mad at the dialogue existing in itself. It's just that it felt poorly executed and very incomplete, and it's annoying to think that they just removed it (it was bugged anyway, but you know), when there are multiple ways in which it could have been fixed, depending on if you consider the break up out of character or not.

Take 1: Her reason for breaking up is not OOC.

It's less that I'm mad about the dialogue itself, and more that I'm mad that you, as the player, are forced to stay kinda silent and powerless about it.

You know, I personally see rejecting Bhaal as a matter of regaining agency over your own person and your destiny rather than choosing the "good" path. My durge personally isn't good, and she'd still reject Bhaal to get her freedom back. When you think about it, it should resonate with Minthara due to her backstory with Lolth and the Absolute, but you know, we're all at risk of being hypocritical sometimes, especially in high pressure situation like these, so I don't necessarily see her reaction as being automatically OOC.

But if Larian were/are 100% set on going down that path for her, please at least give the player choices other than downplaying her anger or begging her to stay with you.

Downplaying her anger just feels shitty to me. She's absolutely right about being angry over the situation (for multiple reasons I'll explain in the alternative take). I've seen a few people commenting on my video about the break up on how she should be relieved instead of angry, and like... it's not a Karlach situation, you got resuscitated in front of her eyes by Withers. She would at least be fucking mad at you for doing that whole stunt lol.

Alternatively, begging her to stay with you just doesn't sit right with me. Like, idk, if my SO got mad and broke up with me for wanting to be free from a parent's toxic influence and control over the vague promise of maybe earning something from them but probably not, I'd 100% not want to be with them anymore lol.

Let's not even take her hypocrisy into account, it's not as if something bad would have happened to her if you rejected Bhaal (whereas accepting Bhaal just makes her a convenient breeding machine in his plan, and just sets her up into another abusive relationship where she's always at risk of being discarded anyway) (and you really don't want my opinion on that)

Her anger, when laid out and explained that way, just gives me the impression Durge is getting used to gain status and power, which is even worse considering you get her alurlssrin dialogue 10-15 minutes before the break up, which in turn kinda goes against the fact that her devotion/tenderness/love is a good chunk of her character development and cheapens literally everything surrounding her romance. It basically goes back to "minthara is a drow and therefore evil" and just goes back to unidimensional evil woman concept.

But you know, if they really wanted to punish you for rejecting Bhaal, the least they could do is to let the player call her out on that, or give them the opportunity to say the break up is mutual because what she just said is pretty fucking shitty, especially coming from her. Like, I personally wouldn't want to be with someone who want me to stay stuck in a toxic relationship, and being forced to make that choice is infuriating.

Take 2: Her reason for breaking up is OOC.

Or more accurately, there is more to the dialogue/situation than meets the eyes but Larian just kinda started something without finishing it.

Lots of people consider the dialogue as being OOC because she keeps touting Durge as being the heir of such a powerful god and is mad over the fact that they gave up the power Bhaal promised them, when she is vocally critical about gods and cults many times over the course of the game.

She clearly hates Lolth and the Absolute, calls Lolth's and Bhaal's followers victims. She disapproves of you praying to any god in act 3 (especially Lolth, which gives you -5 approval instead of -1) and will criticize you/your worship if you're a cleric. She encourages Gale to free himself of Mystra (or go against her orders) and assures him he doesn't need her, that gods need you to think you need them, just like the absolute. She says that Shadowheart freeing herself of Shar's influence is at least a bit of comfort after killing her parents, and encourages Shadowheart to get vengeance from Shar when she learns the truth from Aylin. She's outright ectastic when defeating Gortash, because they're "defying divinity" by killing the gods' chosen, and seems kinda, idk, smug? over the fact that so many gods seek the one thing they are in possession of.

However, there are a few moments (other than rejecting Bhaal) where she'll be pissed at you for going against the gods. She chastises Lae'zel if she rejects Vlaakith and calls it a "childish rebellion", and approves of her if she kills Voss instead, because she should know better than to anger a god. She criticize the player/the party (if you play as Shadowheart) for holding Shadowheart back from her destiny directly after sparing Aylin, and will tell Shadowheart that Shar was right for punishing her for it. That's basically the closest equivalent we have to Durge rejecting Bhaal. So like.... It could be because of power after all...?

But when you look into it: Minthara doesn't even hold it that hard against you when Shadowheart gives up power, hell, in every case she never even holds it against Shadowheart at all, going as far as blaming herself for holding Shadowheart back, when playing as her origin. And she just let go of the matter after Shadowheart learns the truth from Aylin, and switches to advising her to seek vengeance.

With the exception of Durge's and Shart's situation, it really boils down to really not wanting to be on some god's bad side. Why would Lae'zel want to screw up their plan when she could just.... shut up and follow the rules? Better tip-toeing around all powerful beings than pissing them off because you heard a *maybe* very real rumor about them.

And that's the thing about Minthara: we're talking about a character who just started their religious deconversion, after spending their whole life, not only as a member, but as a high ranking figure of the cult. And considering Lolth is very real in the setting and is very proactive when it comes to testing and punishing her followers, it's only natural for Minthara to still default to trying not piss off a god. She literally spent 200+ years with no choice BUT to hold herself to Lolth's standard, dedicating her whole being to her, while having to witness other people being punished for crossing Lolth more than a few times. Deconverting is already a hard thing to do, taking years, if not decades, but when you live in a world were divine retribution is a very real thing, I assume it's an even harder thing to do.

You can even add more layers to the situation, or like, go for different interpretations, cause you didn't just piss off a god and gave up the power and status that he promised (even if the bargain is shit and won't end well and will doom everyone, like Minthara isn't planning that far ahead, and she's still convinced it's just something you can just... take control of if you make the effort lol). Add to that the stress of facing Orin and dealing against a big ass cult. The fact that you're romancing her, like, girly already had to kill her first girlfriend against her will, this time she's not even the cause of it but she still can't even do anything against it, and that death looks real fucking painful and she can't even try to make Durge feel better by whispering words of comfort or anything, and she's surrounded by other people, and idk, due to how things are in Menzoberranzan, I don't think she'd let herself be sad in the moment anyway, no matter how deep it cuts. Also, you know, she seems to be pretty preoccupied about her death and mortality in general (due to the fact that her soul will either go back to Lolth, or end up wandering in the fugue plane, I assume), so seeing you not only escape death that easily, but being resuscitated by a fucking god, when she's pretty sure no gods would extend the same grace to her, would probably be pretty upsetting. I know I'd be seething lol

So, to me, having her blowing a fuse because of any of those things would make the whole scolding feel a lot less hard to swallow without dumbing her character down? Hell, even in that case she would still yell at you about how you turned down power. Girly wouldn't let herself be that vulnerable in front of the whole party, so of course she'd blow up over the shallowest reason. You could literally have a follow up dialogue, explaining her reaction and resolving the whole situation. Larian gets to keep the first dialogue, Minthara gets to have character development, and you get more Minthara content and balm for the scolding you got as the player.

TLDR

It's less that it's OOC, and more that the dialogue feels like the start of an unfinished idea.

Minthara is the representation of an emotionally constipated boomer dad who just randomly drops traumatizing lore about themselves while trying to make a joke without even realizing what they went through was trauma. Of course it's gonna sound like angry hot garbage when she's trying to explain herself the first time. Let her think about it for a while and she'll get back to you.

Literally, due to her personal backstory and ongoing deconversion, it wouldn't be that far fetched to say that you telling Bhaal (a god) to go fuck himself (which makes him real angry) because you (his child) don't want to become his chosen (with the powers that comes with it), even if he's the only reason you've been born and becoming his chosen was basically the plan from the start (so it's basically your life's duty), which results in you (Minthara's only person of trust and SO) dying a pretty painful death (it's not the first time she's had to see a lover dying in front of her) just after having killed orin (the whole ordeal being very stressful to Minthara), before being resuscitated (look at you, you're putting her on the worst emotional rollercoaster of her life right now) by Withers (a god, basically) like it was nothing (when no gods would come to her help), would get her at least a little bit angry.

But since there's no follow up on it, it just... sours an event that could lead to great character development if it had been completed and fully implemented.

[actual-changeling]

Hey there Alex! So, I've loved your content for a bit of a while now and your explanations/insight really gives a lot of clarity to people who either might not understand certain points about Good Omens, need a reality check, or may have missed something. You've also really helped me stop being so shy about my love and defense for Crowley in response to Azi apologists weaponizing his trauma as excuses for the way he treats him.

Anyways! I don't know if you've talked about it before, I think you mentioned it briefly in passing but could you possibly go more in depth about the scene in s2 between them about the Bentley situation. The first time I watched the scene, I remember thinking it was so adorable how Crowley trusted Aziraphale enough with his car and how Azi changed the color of it. However, there was always.... something! Idk that struck me the wrong way and you realize upon watching it again that it wasn't as straight forward at at. I'd like your opinion, since I feel it really plays into that constant dynamic of Crowley being uncomfortable for Aziraphale's sake once again.

Do you think he was actually okay with it in the end?

Why did Azi choose this rather than by train?

Does the Bentley truly like the Angel?

If Crowley is connected to the Bentley, how come he doesn't seem to realize when Shax was in it with Aziraphale?

Thank you, that's really nice to hear! I'm glad that my posts have been helpful in a number of ways 💚

Now, I have THOUGHTS on the Bentley scene, excellent questions!

It is another one of those moments that seems sweet on the surface but is actually deeply uncomfortable to watch once you look past that. Let's start with the easy ones and then work our way through the scene in chronological order.

Why did Azi choose this rather than by train?

Aziraphale is basically roleplaying at this point. His weird obsession with his "Clue" has turned into a performance similar to his horrible magic acts; his facial expressions and body language change and become more theatrical when he talks to Crowley about it. At this point, he has probably already decided that he will pretend to be a journalist for no other reason than fun. Driving a car instead of going by train is presumably a part of that, it's an elaborate fantasy he's trying to live out—similar to the ball later on.

We have to keep in mind that while Crowley is aware of the gravity of the situation, Aziraphale is actively choosing to ignore it. Going to Edinburgh for fun is a horrible idea considering the danger they're in, but Aziraphale does not care.

Does the Bentley truly like the Angel?

I think the Bentley likes him exactly as much as Crowley likes him, simple answer but tbh that's really it.

Do you think he was actually okay with it in the end?

Now, the one million pound question: Did Crowley willingly give him the Bentley or did Aziraphale coerce him into doing so? Before we answer this one, there are some more things to consider.

Firstly, the circumstances.

With Shax in his flat and Jimbriel in the bookshop, Crowley has exactly one safe place left: the Bentley. It is HIS, it is mobile, it does not belong to anyone else, and he has a connection to it, meaning that he protects the Bentley but the Bentley also protects him.

We saw Crowley's intense reaction to Gabriel's presence, and it's not 'funny' or 'dramatic', it is Crowley being deeply traumatized by heaven, his fall, and the trial, and there's a very high chance Gabriel was involved in his fall, too. What Aziraphale is essentially demanding of him the entire season is that he locks himself in close quarters with his abuser, who can literally kill him on the spot.

Crowley is fucking terrified, he cannot sleep, he is hypervigilant and even more paranoid than usual, his mood swings get worse, he is a mess—and Aziraphale does not take any of his concerns, emotions, or needs seriously.

Secondly, past experiences and boundaries.

Whenever Aziraphale needs a lift, Crowley is happy to provide one, he enjoys driving him around. Emphasis on him being the driver. Aziraphale has not once driven the Bentley, and it is safe to assume that Crowley has never once OFFERED that he could drive it. That alone should be enough for Aziraphale to not ask that question in the first place, but it isn't.

It also means that Crowley does not expect the question and—when probably at some point asking himself the question whether he'd be okay with Aziraphale driving it—decided he does not want anyone but himself in the driver's seat.

So how does Crowley react when Aziraphale demands the keys to the Bentley?

Oh right, yeah, let's actually talk about that first. He does not ask.

Aziraphale does not ask. I cannot overstate how important it is that he does not ask Crowley if he can drive the Bentley. This is how their conversation goes:

There is no question. "I will take the car" is Aziraphale informing Crowley of a decision he has already made without consulting him—wow, I wonder when that will become relevant again?

final fifteen *cough*

Before he asked, Crowley was rather relaxed (or as relaxed as he can possibly be in his situation), but that changes immediately.

First picture is when he asks Aziraphale about what time his train is, the other two are when he says 'what car'.

His back straightens, his shoulders tighten and freeze, he snaps his jaw shut and grinds his teeth, chin up, mouth lips pressed together—I interpret this as initial panic plus a spark of anger over "our car".

Crowley denies Aziraphale ownership of the Bentley, saying that no, there is no "our" car, this is MY car. It is clear, simple boundary, but Aziraphale went into this conversation having already decided that he will take the car, no matter what Crowley thinks about it.

While he might sound all cheery and excited, look at his body and the expression on his face. That smile is fake, it's bordering on angry, and it is sending a very clear message to Crowley: I want this car and you will give it to me. Once again, my way or the highway.

Bringing up the bookshop is him trying to "out-logic" Crowley, but it does not work because

a) Crowley very much does not consider the bookshop to be "theirs"

b) even if he had, the bookshop is no longer a safe place because of Jimbriel

c) Aziraphale KICKED HIM OUT of the bookshop in the first episode, establishing that Crowley is a guest and nothing more.

He then intentionally misinterprets Crowley saying that he "can't drive [his] Bentley" and mentions his license. Again, entirely irrelevant because that is not even remotely the problem.

Throughout their conversation, Crowley becomes more and more uncomfortable and panicked. This is not a squabble or banter, this is Crowley trying to protect the one thing he has left and Aziraphale not giving a fuck.

Now, the REAL banger here is that after pushing Crowley this far, he then suddenly dumps the rest of his "decision" on him: stay with a person that has severely harmed you, alone, without a way of escaping. This is where Crowley grows from panicked and angry to genuinely frightened.

He stops Aziraphale from touching it—rightfully so—and then reaches out himself to calm himself; it is right there, my car is right next to me, it's okay. Aziraphale ignored all of his attempts to set and enforce boundaries, ignored his panic and emotional state, ignored what Crowley was telling him, ignored everything Crowley told him BEFORE, and keeps pushing pushing pushing until the very end.

So to circle back to your question, no, Crowley is absolutely not fine with Aziraphale taking the car by the end; he fights him right up until the moment he begrudgingly gives him the keys.

It is a very good example of their current relationship dynamic, and personally it actually hurts to watch it happen. Anyone who has gone through trauma around privacy, safety, and personal effects knows how terrifying and traumatizing it is to have your boundaries repeatedly violated like that.

Aziraphale is being manipulative and coercing Crowley into doing what he wants; it's fucked up, and this doesn't even begin to deal with happens later.

If Crowley is connected to the Bentley, how come he doesn't seem to realize when Shax was in it with Aziraphale?

Maybe he did but did not really care because Shax has been in the Bentley before (just like Beez), maybe he is too distracted by Jimbriel and potentially being murdered in his sleep to pay much attention to Aziraphale on his way back.

Maybe he DID notice since he does ask Aziraphale if something happened, and then once again makes the mistake of trusting him when he denies it.

Without more information I can only speculate, but, personally, I think Shax being in the Bentley was not too big of a deal for Crowley even if he noticed it.

As always, if anyone has follow-up question, feel free to ask!

[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!

[torchickentacos]

21 and 22 for drew? or may if you’ve already been asked those ones about him!

From this ask game! LONG, under cut. Various off-topic musings included.

21. If you're a fic writer and have written for this character, what's your favorite thing to do when you're writing for this character? What's something you don't like?

Ok so disclaimer for the few people who read what I write- this may or may not translate into my end product. I try to keep it in mind but ultimately my fics kind of write themselves and I have minimal input tbh. I'm not steering this car, I just put my foot on the pedal. I make it go but the characters are the ones driving with reckless abandon.

Also these are all just my opinions and if anyone hates them, please don't let me know.

Something that I like doing when writing Drew is leaning into how much he thinks. I enjoy leaning into his internal dialogue, his hang-ups on every little thing, his propensity to dwell (in my characterization of him, anyways, which is, ehhh, give or take maybe 85% taken from canon and 25% bullshitted. My math is wrong but I'm not changing it, there's just an extra 15% of my own bullshit and we'll pretend it was intentional).

When writing him, there tends to be a lot more going on internally than when I write, idk, May or Ash or whoever. Drew's always attuned to the situation, picking things up and filing them away. He's always formulating opinions and thoughts and emotions that rarely make it out of his head. He feels a lot of things but generally they stay inward, whereas when writing someone like May, if she's feeling it, she's probably also expressing it regardless of if she should or not. No filter vs too much of a filter for his own good.

I think that, in a related vein, he's always holding himself back. Both vocally and just... kind of in general? Maybe not career-wise, but emotionally, he'd rather get close and then dart away over and over again instead of making any leaps. He's careful. He'd rather balance on a tightrope than take the fall USUALLY *(this is how I write him, and other portrayals are ones that I love! this is just what I do, not what I'm saying is the right thing). We see it in canon- he gives May roses but hides behind excuses. He starts conversations but leaves just as quickly. He's mercurial and never builds up the bravery that he needs. He's careful to the point of cowardice- and not just ship-wise. This can be used for any number of things, which I find fun. He likes being in control, and if he doesn't feel like he has a steady grasp on a situation, he leaves. And you can't control people's emotions, so that's scary, so he dips out from emotional moments unless something stronger keeps him there. It's a constant push-and-pull between his own mind and emotions. One's always trying to rein the other in and break free of the other at the same time.

He likes certainty. This contrasts well with a certain someone whose entire battle style features assist and metronome, which is built in uncertainty. She challenges him. But that's for another post.

Something I dislike writing is leaning into how much of a jerk he actually is in canon sometimes tbh. Canon can keep that- I do enjoy it situationally but overall I leave that to writers who are better at showing that side of him without making him grating. I prefer watering it down some and making him be annoying in different ways lol, which admittedly does actually close off a few interesting avenues and facets of him. But I think given the tumultuous nature of rival ships and fandom's current... propensity for tossing out words like 'romanticizing' and 'idolizing' and whatever else, I'd rather just leave well enough alone with the worse aspects of him and avoid being called a verbal abuse apologist or whatever 😭 I don't want any avenues for some jackass to be like 'oh ew you write m/f relationships where the man is mean and dominant over the poor woman' or whateverthefuck. TLDR, I'm a people pleaser with worn-thin patience for rival ship discourse.

I also lean towards AU/slice-of-life stuff where his rival jerkassery is less applicable to begin with, anyways. I am FULLY guilty of watering him down and making him nicer, but I'm self-aware, so... there's that, I guess, lol. I also think he'd chill out as he gets older, anyways, leaning more towards 'vaguely prickly and sardonic' than anything else.

Anyways, it's kinda weird to answer these when I never actually share my writing on this blog, but oh well. That privilege got revoked after someone was mean about my writing around me without knowing that it was mine, lol. It wasn't even good criticism (which baffles me because god knows they had material to work with), it was just general bitching about ship fics that aren't as complex as War and Peace. God forbid some people enjoy fluff. Send me to the corner of shame along with the few dozen people who liked my writing and the people who left kind comments. Anyways, it's funny now, but I still won't share writing here. The best way to support me is to support writers in general.

So! General call to action. Go find a fic for your favorite ship (or just any fic in general but I'm being petty and saying 'ship' since the rude person seemed to take issue with shipping) and leave a (NICE. 🔪) comment. Just a heart emoji if you feel like it. Tell writers when you reread their work, just a 'Hey! rereading and remembering how much I liked this one :)' or something. It'll keep them going for a week, I'm telling you. I still think about and reread every single comment that I have ever received. I keep them all copy-pasted in a google doc. It's 24 pages long and 11.2k and it makes me cry (in a good way).

22. If you're a fic reader, what's something you like in fics when it comes to this character? Something you don't like?

This is going to sound so fucking backhanded but I LOOOOOVE reading fics where he has friends. I love reading him talking to Solidad or Gary or Ash or May as a friend or whoever else!!! Make him socialize!!!! it's fun! Lord knows that he doesn't do it enough and it shows. I like reading fics where he gets to interact with people that he doesn't talk to often in canon. So anyone but May pretty much. I love his horrendously down-bad tunnel vision where he only acknowledges May and literally nobody else, funny as hell, but also it'd have been so fun if he actually spoke to other people. I read a fic several years ago where he and Paul were sorta-work-friends, it was some 2014 assassin AU PS/CS/IS fic. but I remember that Drew would intentionally play coldplay songs around Paul to annoy him or something like that. They had a frenemies-bromance-coworkers thing going on and it was just DELIGHTFUL, if a little odd! That shit's hilarious! Let me see Drew bothering other people on purpose and joking with friends!

So. Things I don't like. I personally disagree with the early 2010s FFN portrayals of him as a casanova womanizer, BUT I also kind of love those portrayals for their sheer absurdity and the camp factor lmao. It's not even an ironic enjoyment, it's a genuine affection for that whole era of fics. It's the opposite of how I write him, but it's nostalgic to look back on old fanon. I also don't care for fics that break him and May up but that's obviously a personal bias that I've literally gone against myself on, lmao. It can be done well but sometimes it skirts into ship-bashing territory, usually at Drew's expense. Just because it's not a preference of mine doesn't mean that it's a bad thing to write! I'm just not the audience and that's okay, it's not a failing of the writer. I mentioned the person who disliked my fics and said so publicly, and that doesn't reflect on me. It reflects on their tastes. Same goes here. It's just not to my taste. It's subjective and not at all a statement on the quality or validity of a fic that includes those things.

[krownest]

get to know me 🌻

tagged by @sunriseverse :)

do you make your bed?

yes...if i'm not in a rush....

what’s your favourite number?

16 because that was my assigned number in primary school which was based on the first letter of your surname

what is your job?

currently working as an environmental tech! erm daily i am acid washing glassware and other lab things. i will be on a boat doing sampling soon though so i am looking forward to it

If you could go back to school would you?

planning to do an msc this fall but i haven't actually set anything in motion yet.....

can you parallel park?

yes bc you have to if you drive in hong kong. drive through parking spots are a fantasy there

a job you had that would surprise people?

went up to arctic and lived on military base for 4 months doing environment stuff and it was very cool esp the polar night

do you think aliens are real?

statistically they probably are maybe? idk i'd have to see the science but right now i'd say no.

can you drive a manual car?

no.....that sounds scary.......

what’s your guilty pleasure?

same as spinecorset i do not generally do guilty pleasures but probably like. eating a big bowl of creamy pasta then watching a film or tv show while pleasantly sleepy in a food coma

tattoos?

no because parents would skin me and also because i love going to onsens too much. i would get a little peregrine falcon somewhere if i could. and also something silly and food-related like a sweet potato or a vitasoy carton

favourite colour?

depends on the situation as i love many colours!! blue or purple but i'm picky about shades (e.g. i have a strong dislike for intl klein blue...reminds me too much of blue screen of death)

favourite type of music?

my spotify likes are a huge mix but i'd say hozier/the crane wives/folk songs/songs w narratives in general/cantopop (70s to 2010s)/melancholy opening/closing themes of cdramas/dramatic fight background music

do you like puzzles?

am a hater because 1. i have no patience, 2. i am bad at it and it requires sitting still and 3. have too many hobbies i would rather be doing

any phobias?

spiders, worms, centipedes (<- pretty standard boring normie ones sorry) but it's to the point where if there's a photograph or realistic drawing in a book i can't open said book

favourite childhood sport?

badminton but not competitive and tbh i really only enjoy it more now as an adult. tbh snowboarding is my eternal favourite even though it's been a few years + snow presence is getting worse

do you talk to yourself?

yes in my head when i am Struggling (uni, during a difficult run)

what movie(s) do you adore?

infernal affairs (2003), princess mononoke (1997), belle and sebastian (2013), hunt for the wilderpeople (2016), kung fu hustle (2004), painted skin (2008)

coffee or tea?

both but not at the same time (don't understand appeal of yinyeung), i LOVE milk tea (hk, thai, malay esp 3-layer tea) and tbh i put a lot of sugar/condensed milk...i also do like coffee (caramel latte w whipped cream and syrup). anyway i love hot sweet drinks in general

first thing you wanted to be growing up?

vet bc i like animals but thankfully i moved past it (i genuinely think becoming a vet is more difficult than becoming a dr. also the mental toll is extreme)

tagging: @eusuchia, @zoronoas @daydreamey @bluebeetletedkord @planet4546b @pepsi-maxwell @yu-tap and anyone else who wants to play!

[the-cat-and-the-birdie]

I have a spidersona but i feel i won't get accepted because I ship her with Miles...🤦🏾‍♀️

Honestly GO FOR IT - like RUN AT IT

The best part and root of fanfiction is exploring and expanding on parts of the character we don't get to see on screen. And OCs are THE BEST at doing that.

SO DO IT. GO FOR IT no matter who you are!!

TBH I've always been rather meh about canon couples because like.. I know they're gonna end up together so I don't really crave things like fanart for them.

To me Canon Couples are like a jumpscare. If I know it's coming it's gonna get less of a reaction.

That's why a lot of my Spidey-writing pre-ATSV is about dancing around MJ and keeping her platonic. I much prefer Felicia Hardy (The Black Cat) because she challenges Peter's character in a way we don't often see.

The same goes for SpideyPool too. It's so cute because Spidey is nice to everyone, but REALLY sassy with Wade.

Relationships and OCs can bring out so much color and variety in a character, that like...they're so useful writing wise. Not just in a fanfic sense, but expanding your writing.

AND I AM NOT ABOVE KILLING OFF CANON CHARACTERS - DO IT FOR THE ANGSTTTT and for the indulgence I'm genuinely surprised I haven't seen anyone kill off Gayatri and ship an OC with Pavitr cause like...nothing stopping you. That's a great fic opportunity.

And if Hobie gets a Mary-Jane: hell yeah I'd kill her in a heartbeat NO MERCY idgaf how happy she makes him and im deadass!!!! fjgdgjdgh

I will ALWAYS say OCs are the best writing practice, far beyond canon stuff. Because not only are you writing canon characters, but you're shaping and filling in gaps in your story, and reflecting how characters react when a whole new influence (your OC) is brought into the situation.

OCs ARE MY LIFEBLOOD OKAY -

I know you didn't ask for this but

OFF-TOPIC SIDEBAR: Adults can ship their OCs with Minors - That's literally how all writing works

[below is a short rant where I beef about people who say 'Adults shouldn't ship their OCs with teenagers' - spoiler alert: EVERY minor ship in media is written by an adult.]

One final sidebar before I go cause I feel like this is such a weird thing people have beef with -

I find it SO WEIRD when people are like 'Oh adults shouldn't ship or write their OCs with minors that's weird and nasty'

Like ?????????? ?? ???? ?? Think about that sentence.

So. Who you think wrote the movie then? You telling me a minor wrote ATSV?? They had a 16 year write the movie??

Or did an adult do it? Like how adults wrote literally every minor relationship you've watched..since the begininning of time?? Cause like - Wasn't....Gwen & Miles romance written by an adult?? Am I missing something?????

Stranger Things. Wednesday. Riverdal?? The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Leonardo and April?? MCU Spiderman 1, 2, AND 3???

TWILIGHT??? ALL teens dating, written by an adult. JOHN GREEN FAULT IN OUR STARS?? HELOO??

Like.........99.5% of the relationships about minors you read is written by adults. Almost EVERY ship of fictional minors are written by an adult shipping their characters together sfhkjghkjdfgshkjdg

Are we arresting people for that now cause if so put the writers of Euphoria IN CUFFS and put a curse on their land!!!!!

idk it's just funny logic to me cause like ?????? my sibling in christ you are enjoying the adult written minor relationship as we speak djkgfdgjkf

"Don't write your OC in love with Miles, the only adult that can do that is the dozens of adults in the writers room getting paid to do just that, most of which didn't create Miles or Gwen themselves"

umm.. ok.

Make OCs, ship them, explore character relationships, WRITE. Ship them with canon characters, talk about your OCs like they're canon, let them build relationships and grow within the story nobody can stop you.

And last point honestly saying adults can't write stuff like that - HORRIBLE writing advice. HORRIBLE.

Because if you're a writer who can only write adults and you leave younger people out of your story - or you write teenagers as adults because you have no experience writing them... not a good look. How do you expect to write a character arc with a character that doesn't age or go through stages of their lives? You need range to write all ages. Half of romance movies out there start with them falling in love as kids and reuniting, you need to know how to write people at different stages of life. Telling adults they can't write anyone below 18 is just...not good advice. Like you can't just...refuse to write a large part of the population??

N E Wayyyyyy Once again this became a rant lol but this isn't like an angry one, it's like a '???why is the statement??? why it exist when it make no sense'

here hobie look at him wooo

hes so sassy looking :3 i love him his shape up is so nice

Bye.

[rabbitindisguise]

I think I'm going to socialize less irl (long vent post under the cut)

I feel like I've tried so hard at the Be Normal And Nourished from Normal Hobbies and Normal Interactions but tbh it just has not worked. I have not become neurotypical in the slightest (well, duh, should have expected that) and I feel like I'm struggling extremely badly with literally everything all of the time. Something has to give and I think "something" is "having more time to relax and reflect because I'm not talking to people 5 out of 7 days a week."

The thing is that like, I want to do what works and feels best for me. But I feel like the outside world can't accept "hermit that mainly does stuff by themselves." The alternative however is becoming what seems to be a huge jerk. No one else seems concerned with this, like they think the jerk-ness is an active choice and not one that arrived organically because circumstances despite my attempts at learning coping mechanisms and things to stop it. People will complain about X behavior (reasonable) and then act totally unconcerned when I'm like "look this is happening because I'm literally at the end of my rope. There's no rope left. I need to get more rope. That is the solution. Eating broccoli, no matter how helpful that is, is not going to give me more rope."

We're supposed to be perfect even when we're miserable is the thing isn't it?? Maybe that makes me a bad person (to fail to do "basic decency" in a bad place) but I'd rather be a bad person and antisocial or whatever than an active jerk while attempting doing "normal." This is a very easy decision to make actually.

I just need like a break. Some time to get it together. Idk.

. . . and like, there's so much to unpack form "be normal."

When I was living with other people, I was obsessed with doing chores properly so no one would have reason to be upset with me (because ADHD fears™), and house organizing was always something I deprioritized as something not worth asking for flexibility on, etc. I couldn't set rules and I couldn't stop doing what I felt was useless but crucially I didn't want to get mad at other people about that. So I tried (failed) to manage myself to make that sort of situation possible.

I'm general "doing normal" is "follow conventional health advice like to talk to your friends when you feel bad." Except I feel bad and it doesn't help. Lose/lose.

Who knows what other stuff I've internalized trying to just Do The Magic Thing to become tolerable. I feel like it's an impossible task and people keep congratulating me for trying but I feel like it's not the thing I want to be hearing tbh. Isn't that what everyone wants, to be accepted even when they don't fit societal norms?? "Thank you for trying to not be your weird self" feels icky. They're just trying to be supportive of what I thought was necessary, I know, I just also didn't pull "do normal" out of my ass- it's everywhere. Everyone seems to have an idea of the basic steps someone who isn't good at socializing should do (shower more, sleep more, eat correct things, do hands on hobbies, join clubs, take leadership roles in organizations, practice self help tips, exist in one community for a long time, talk about what other people are interested in, ask questions, practice active listening, assertive communication, setting boundaries, anger management, venting to friends, doing therapy, doing physical activity, etc etc etc). But no one seems to have any idea that sometimes you're just like this. And by "like this" I don't mean socializing- maybe I'll find a balance of something that will work. No, I mean the thing they think is the key to socializing that everyone should do. I cannot physically do all of them- especially when plenty are contradictory.

It's like weight loss right?? You might feel more alone than ever, feel physically ill, and struggle with constant fatigue- but at least from the outside you look normal! :) you did everything possible to carve away the stuff people blamed your problems on only to find that- surprise!- the problems were unrelated and that was one of the few things that made you content to begin with. Where are people then? What advice do they have when it "works" to satisfy them but the cost is too damn high for you? What explanation do they have when the thing they thought all your problems were the source of does not improve your life in any way? If you're only allowed to have problems if you try to look normal, what happens when looking normal becomes one of your problems? Do they take your word on it, that you tried the normal thing and it was uncomfortable. Do they finally stop pressuring you to do the normal stuff. Do they reconsider their priorities. Or were their "suggestions" from a place of not considering your welfare to begin with?

I guess we'll find out.

[cerealmonster15]

🧩🐚🥐

🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

def ones that dont start a new line when a new character is talking and it's a bunch of dialogue in one block jfkldsjfldsjf. but also sometimes when a fic has too much of like, i forget what it's called? but when they're describing the character to avoid overusing the name of the character's names but are like, overcompensating for it a bit lol. like when theyre like "bob and joe were best friends. bob knew he was in love with the blue haired man when blah blah blah" like sometimes it's fine [this was too basic of an example tbh lol], but sometimes it's done WAY too much in like every other sentence and im like 😬 you can use their names, it's okay, you're kinda taking me out of the scene and disrupting the flow right now and stretching a little too hard where it's not really necessary!

but im a lil more forgiving of the second one lol it's not always bad and can def be refined over time.

🐚 ⇢ do you like or dislike surprises?

def depends on the situation lol. i like some surprises! i think it can be fun. but if i am going somewhere and gonna be out of my element and in a situation im not entirely comfortable with, then no, i'd rather know exactly whats going on and where im going and who's gonna be there and how stuff works for my Anxiety lol

🥐 ⇢ name one internet reference that will always make you laugh

oh god i feel like i never can remember when im asked on the spot kfldskfjld theres def tons of things that i KNOW make me laugh every time i see them and ive called my favorite memes/vids but i literally cant remember any rn besides like. idk i like this reaction image

it's very applicable in many situations lol

[QUESTIONS]

[haleigh-sloth]

On Hawks and Twice:

Alright, gonna dive into this pool of needles that is this topic.

I'll start by saying I've been through every stage of feeling for this particular arc. At one point I wanted Hawks to die a tragic heroic death, at another I just wanted to see him get called out about Twice's death by the kids, then I wanted Hawks to face his past demons through Twice via the clones, but I'm past all of that now, though it took some time and a LOT of thinking and talking it out with friends.

Currently where I'm at is just trying to make sense of the decisions made in the manga. I think a lot of people are confused by the Twice clones disappearing and Hawks still standing, and my initial reaction to that was also confusion.

BUT

Let's be real, there were issues with the "Hawks faces Twice through the clones" trajectory from the get go.

It seemed VERY likely and plausible at first, in fact almost guaranteed from the moment we saw Hawks say "kill him, now" with the most deranged look on his face. But then the battle progressed and he kept running away from the situation with Twice, despite AFO reminding him to go make an attempt at mending his mistakes (even though there was no way he could). Hawks meddled with AFO instead and got a whirlwind of punishment as a result, and here we are.

But meanwhile in all of that we found that the Twice clones were not what they were originally thought to be--which was clones of Twice, as if Twice himself had cloned them. No, instead we find out that the clones are simply just Toga. They're just Togas, transformed into Twice. Once that was apparent, that was the main issue I had with the Hawks vs Twice round 2 idea. The impact of Hawks facing "Twice" was immediately blunted by the sheer fact that it wasn't Twice, it was Toga. So it becomes a whole other situation.

The other potential situation was Hawks vs Toga (something I always hated the idea of tbh). But that would have been complicated, as it would have been introducing, initiating, developing, and concluding a relationship all in one arc, or rather even less in a matter of chapters. It felt very possible (and I can't discount that it could still happen in a different way later on, idk) but then Ochacko got the job done first before Hawks could get involved. So now we're left with Hawks who has nobody to face to deal with the consequences of killing Twice, a guy he says he genuinely liked and cared about, and wants to be like.

After talking it out....I'm landing on the point of--the only person Hawks has to face about killing Twice is himself.

Reasons:

The narrative as a whole....doesn't give much reaction to Twice's death. If we're being completely and brutally honest, which I am right now, the only reaction we got were from two characters: Dabi and Toga. Dabi continued on his merry way not really...giving much of a fuck beyond caring enough to give the blood he collected to Toga who he knew would cherish it. We literally got nothing from Tomura and when/if we do it won't be for a very long time after a point when it won't really matter, Spinner and Compress both barely reacted.

All that to say: nobody in the story itself gives a shit about Hawks killing Twice. Not the civilians, not the heroes, the LOV BARELY but not even enough for it to spread beyond Toga. Just....it's not something that weighs heavily outside of Toga's and Hawks's arcs. It just doesn't. That isn't to say it doesn't matter, because it does, clearly. But that is to say that the way Twice's killer gets "consequences" is going to look a lot different than what a lot of people--myself included--originally expected.

Because Twice has now vanished for good, it seems a lot like Hawks is responsible for his own closure now. Meaning he might not be forced into it via a confrontation from Toga (in fact I'd argue the chances of that happening are close to 0 at this point).

Hawks himself had a visceral reaction to his last encounter with Twice. (Read that, you won't regret it). Toga's grief is probably not resolved or gone, but her misery is finally starting to be lifted. Symbolically, all of the Twice's disappearing and Toga's smiling and crying face is her letting her feelings of anger and vengeance go so she can move forward.

All that's left is Hawks. All Hawks has to face is himself.

Hawks has his own feelings to face. Because Hawks is about to witness the results of Shouto and Ochacko succeeding where he failed because they both refused to give up no matter how difficult it got. I'd argue that Shouto's actions and the results from them speak very loudly on this, more than even Ochacko's. Because Touya was about to literally nuke the entire vicinity, and yet here he is, alive. Toga was literally doing exactly what Hawks feared Twice would do. And yet here she is, alive. Granted Toga was in a more reachable head space, but at the beginning she wasn't so easy to get through to. Ochacko didn't stop or give up and she opened up herself to Toga and validated Toga's feelings and doubt about being saved, unlike Hawks.

Hawks seeing these kids succeed where he didn't is the catalyst he needs to have a strong reaction to remembering what he did and how he's done nothing but run away from it (because he was so conflicted and fucked up over it in the first place). Nothing he does can change what happened, but he can at least start to have some introspection and ask himself why he is the way he is, emotionally stuck in one place, latching onto a man who has a family to take care of that Hawks isn't a part of, maybe start to work through that shit too.

Basically, removing all of the outside forces from Hawks's arc to me feels very intentional. Hawks has ALWAYS been a character who internalizes everything to his core. It feels appropriate that everything that moves him forward continues to be what he internalizes--which if I'm right later, will be his reaction to seeing the kids save the villains in the way that he genuinely wanted to do for Twice, but failed.

This isn't as coherent as I'd usually try to make it because I'm not trying to meta anything right now. Right now I'm just trying to reason out my own thinking for leaving Hawks with literally nothing to do or say or anyone to do or say it to. He's all alone now and if he's going to get out of this emotionally STUCK place he's in he has to look in the mirror and think really hard about himself.