#okay I've never actually watched past season 2 before okay

[lover-of-mine]

Okay, I've been meaning to make this post and I never make it, but I'm rewatching s1 and the thoughts are in my head so, what better time than now. Like, I made this point before but I never went into detail.

The thing with 911 and love interests and the way none of Buck and Eddie's love interests ever stood a chance, is because in order for you to make a relationship work on a tv show, you need to make sure your audience cares about both parts. Obviously, getting 2 mains together, madney or bathena, works very easily because both characters exist on their own, so you're already invested in all parties involved, it's a lot easier to make the relationship work because you don't need to spend time making people care about anyone individually, you're just making them care about the relationship. But then you have the issue of making people care about a relationship when one of the parties is only there to be a love interest.

So let's take Henren. For all intents and purposes, Karen only exists to be Hen's wife, so if they didn't put in the work Karen would be very whatever, because as viewers, our loyalty in most cases will be biased towards the character we see the most. And considering we are introduced to Henren already established, they are already married with a child, which another thing that makes people be less invested, not seeing how it happened, the odds are stacked against Karen, which is bad if the show ever decides to use the character more heavily. But the show introduces her in a perfect way to avoid that happening. For starters, we meet Eva first. And we meet Eva while Hen is making up problems that aren't really there because of the ghost of Eva. We have Athena state how bad for Hen Eva is, we have the conflict Hen herself is feeling, we have her lying by omission. And yes, the whole thing leads to something a lot of people view as unforgivable, cheating, but during that whole storyline, we are siding against Hen, because she is letting this idea of rescuing Eva is making her step out on her family, so we are taking Karen's pain, we are taking Karen's side, and that makes us care about Karen, and therefore we end up invested on them together. And something else is how this all happens while we are still getting to know Hen, so there aren't any preconceived notions of how a relationship for Hen should go.

And the show knows how to work that concept in, but when we are talking about love interests for both Buck and Eddie, is that every relationship is introduced with something that's gonna make us side with them and ignore the other person. Shannon never stood a chance because she was written to be fridged, but leaving Chris is an unforgivable act, Ali isn't around and she fundamentally can't handle who Buck is, Taylor is introduced as willing to hurt Buck's family, Ana isn't around and Eddie is literally panicking about that relationship and even before that, the Christopher of it all, him getting hurt, not wanting Eddie to date, makes it so we're not the biggest fans, Natalia was only interested in Buck's death and since we were watching the damage his death did to everyone, it makes it hard to root for them, Marisol just didn't exist for the audience at all, and Tommy's past plus the circumstances they get together aka Buck hurting Eddie makes it very 😬.

And all of these happened while Buck and Eddie's partnership is continuously shown as getting stronger, so the relationships are fighting against two main characters who have a strong relationship, so it is really hard to establish something that will replace the idea of Buck and Eddie because they're fighting against 7 seasons of partnership. The thing that makes buddie is time. It's everything that happened to them (I mean, the actual thing that makes them it is Christopher but that's a different post). So for a relationship to actually replace them, you need to separate them and then give the new relationship at least half the time buddie had to establish themselves. Audiences generally don't get invested in relationships they didn't see happening, and usually when it's this far into a show and there is another option of paring 2 main characters, it's really hard to make a character likable enough to replace that. People just generally don't end up caring for a character that only exists to be a love interest.

The show knows that, see the way Karen was introduced, so that makes the way they handle Buck, Eddie, and love interests that more pointed.

[abbysimsfun]

Sims In Bloom: Generation 2 Pt. 78 (Conrad's New Dad Mode)

Heather and Conrad brought baby Lavender home under a light snowfall. A dusting of white on the ground quickly disappeared: the calm before Brindleton's Bay's notoriously blizzard-like winter weather.

Inside the Nesbitt-Gordon home, not even the cries of a tiny newborn could dampen her blissful parents' spirits.

Baby Lavender loved attention from the start, often crying just to be held. Both mom and baby were in perfect health, and Conrad took to fatherhood immediately.

She was named to honour Conrad's mother, whose death so deeply affected him. Every night, he cradled his daughter in his strong arms when he came home from work, his heart full of love he'd never imagined possible.

"Hi, sweet girl. Daddy missed you today." The tiny infant gazed back at him, wide-eyed. "And what did you do all day? Did you sleep well? Did you let your mom sleep well, too?"

Heather woke from a nap and watched Conrad bond with their daughter. "I think she's already smiling at you," she said.

"I think I'm turning into my Dad. He loved everyone's babies and I always thought I'd drop them. But it's like I can hear him in my head telling me how to hold her. Like he's right here."

Heather shrugged. "Maybe he is. You know I'm not really into all that Watcher stuff, but we've seen ghosts, made friends with the Grim Reaper..."

"Mrs. Goth's daughter-in-law really walked in on her and Grim getting out of the shower together?"

"That's what Spencer said! If it wasn't Mrs. Goth, I might not believe it. But after everything she's shown us this past year, it just makes sense. Apparently Lydia wasn't even phased by it because living with Mrs. Goth is like walking around in a half-haunted house."

(Apparently actual woohoo actions with Grim aren't available until Tuesday because these two are fully official romantic partners now and would not get in the shower or even 'woohoo here.' HURRY UP, BELLA WANTS SOME GRIMMIE!)

"She brings up travelling on her seance table practically every time I see her," said Conrad. "And it's weird...ever since I got back from the Magic Realm I've been just as curious as I've been glad we've been too busy."

"You should go sometime. I told you, it was like going to school. I might need to stick close to Lavender to meet her demanding schedule, but Bella kept you safe in Glimmerbrook and we all trust her. Ash, too."

"I heard him talk about good tailoring the other day." He chuckled, placing Lavender back in her bassinet. "Between Bella and Nancy, I won't be surprised if he ditches the knit caps and hoodies for good, eventually."

"How was your day?" Heather stood, pulling him into an embrace.

"Long. I'm glad to be home. Hard to believe you're already going back to work next week."

(She didn't take traditional maternity leave as a small business owner. She just had a baby on Saturday and went back to work on Tuesday in-game.)

Conrad's phone beeped. "Is that work?" Heather asked.

He nodded. "Ever since I made sargent at the station, my cases have gotten a little tougher. But this can wait."

"My parents want to come this weekend to meet Lavender, and I said it was fine," she said. Conrad nodded as his phone beeped again. "Do you need to get that? Conrad, are you okay? Is this about those security cameras you ordered?"

"What? No. That's just a safety precaution."

"Well, why now?"

He froze, glancing back at their sleepy-eyed little girl. "She came along and I just...It's not like we'll be the only people in the world with a home security system."

"Conrad, if you're working a difficult case, you can talk to me. I can handle it."

He smiled. "Everything's fine, and the phone stopped beeping. What should I make for dinner?"

Although Heather and Conrad were officially engaged, they had no immediate plans to tie the knot - mostly because Heather and the Watcher wanted to wait for a warmer season to get married.

They were still a team, still committed, but for now they were both busy with work, caring for their pets, and raising two kids. Heather balanced Lavender's feeding schedule, helped Ash with his homework, and ran the clinic.

But unlike when Ash was born, Heather wasn't by herself and she could rely on Conrad to be there. Despite her exhaustion, this time felt so much easier. ->

<- Previous Chapter | Gen 2 Start | Gen 1 Summary | Gen 1 Start

NOTE: I'm trying to make my posts shorter. Trying! This post was going to have 23 photos so it's been split into two and this episode is posting a lil earlier than I'd intended it to post tomorrow. I'm still trying to get out a certain amount of storyline before Halloween so I've already broken my plan to post every other day. I'm learning as I go and I'm slowly adapting to shorter installments, I swear, but thank you so much for putting up with my wordiness, guys. 🙏

[agendabymooner]

heaven ! fernando a. x ofc (mom!professional wrestler!canadian!ofc)

"i don't know how heaven could be better than this."

summary: everyone's talking about the hearth sisters, lester and their partners. but what about the original F1 it couple of the 2000s? OR beatrice anastasia 'trish' alonso is the only woman who can balance out fernando alonso's insanity with her calmness, and she happens to be the grid's crush of the season.

content warning: fluff, mentions of mclaren fernando, dad!fernando, family-centric (ish), possible use of explicit language, badly translated spanish, tim hortons references, 2023 canadian gp, f1 drivers are down bad, petty fernando at the very end, using 'trish stratus' (the actual ring name of the wrestler) as the ring name of oc

note: was writing third part of my max verstappen thing, worked on cmyc for a minute, thought about nando and that photo with the models, made these posts, had a breakdown. bon appetit xx

masterlist

2018 ROYAL RUMBLE - TRISH STRATUS TALKS ABOUT COMING BACK TO THE RING AS A WOMEN'S ROYAL RUMBLE ENTRANT

[1st image: i've definitely missed being in the ring. for the past few years i've been working back and forth in spain and canada- where my yoga studio is. i've been watching my husband, fernando, race throughout the years and we've been taking the kids along whenever we could.]

[2nd: i've told him (fernando) at some point that i've missed being out there and wrestling. months before, hunter (triple h) called me and wondered if i'd like to be a part of... this. i had never been so happy to hear that they want me to be a part of this very important event that will impact women's history at the professional wrestling industry. now here i am, participating in the first women's royal rumble.]

[3rd: it's been an eye opener for me, to be honest. i've met many women that are new here- some of them apparently grew up watching me alongside stephanie mcmahon and lita and the other ladies. i had never been this happy nefore because we never had the same platform as men - and back then, it wasn't as diverse in the women's division. so for me to be a part of this, so far, has been an absolute privilege. i will never ever waste any time spent here.]

[4th: my husband was more excited than i was *laughs*. throughout his break, he did everything a supportive spouse would have done. he took the kids to watch me train, we often did our workouts and yoga together, he was actually the one who suggested i wore these ring gears. he's highly excited to see me in the ring tonight - he even wore an old trish stratus merchandise that he bought years ago.]

[5th: he's supposed to be in uk for his sim racing practice, but he phoned me few days ago telling me that he was already flying in with our kids - one of which is a six month old - from spain. he said that "he didn't want to miss out on his wife making history again." so... here i am! making history with the most talented women in wwe, as my fernando wanted.]

2016 AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX - POST-RACE INTERVIEW WITH FERNANDO ALONSO

[1st image: i know that my mom and my wife are watching the tv, so i got out quite quickly.]

[2nd: trisha has been calling me every hour to see if i'm okay. i keep telling her that i'm okay but she doesn't believe me for one bit- i was like "what do you want me to do???" *laughs* but i am flying back to canada as soon as i can because i miss her and our son.]

[3rd: it's not the first time that has happened to me but now i know i have to make it out of such situation because i have a family. our son, frederico, is only 2. i still want to see him and his many siblings grow up, you know? this is the first time i've been scared (enough) because i promised to take him swimming when we go back to spain. so, yes. i would like to get out of australia as quickly as possible so i can rest with my wife and our son.]

tagged fernandoalo_oficial, lance_stroll, astonmartinf1

liked by tillywolff, estebanocon, carlossainzjr

user1 OMG !!! frederico was so little back then 😭

user2 what grade even is frederico in?

thetrishalonso fifth grade! he's turning 10 soon 🥰

astonmartinf1 when freddy and rey dressed for the occasion 💚 liked by thetrishalonso

thetrishalonso of course, green = lucky 🍀

user3 word on the street is that the drivers were drooling over you 😭 can you please confirm? landonorris pierregasly lance_stroll charles_leclerc

oscarpiastri "the source is i made it the fuck up" -user3

yukitsunoda0511 not true 👎

user3 oscarpiastri yukitsunoda0511 i literally didn't ask either of you 💀💀

user4 f1 drivers are obvious and down bad 🙅‍♀️

georgerussell63 thanks for visiting the mercedes garage! it's been a pleasure 😊

user5 oh no they're piling up...

carlossainzjr frederico y reyna estan bien grandes ahora! liked by thetrishalonso

thetrishalonso estoy tan preocupada de que lleguen a ser más altos que yo y su papá.

landonorris thank you for the selfie! i really liked spending time with you and the mini alonsos 😇

lance_stroll thank you so much for the iced capp this weekend! it definitely helped! liked by thetrishalonso

thetrishalonso of course, sweetheart 😘 anything for the aston martin crew!

mickschumacher the everything bagel was very good, thank you so much! teach us how to do the stratusfaction next time!

nyckdevries thank you for introducing tim hortons to us 🙃

estebanocon thank you so much for the timbits 😊 lance failed to be a canadian to us and never got us any the last canadian gp

schecoperez ¡encantado de verte, beatrice!

user6 she got the whole grid on a leash 😭 so girlboss of her

alo_oficial estoy tan feliz de que tú y los niños estuvieran aquí. te quiero mi reina 😍😍 liked by thetrishalonso

thetrishalonso love you too, mi hombre guapo 🥰

tagged thetrishalonso

liked charles_leclerc, pierregasly, landonorris

user1 LMAO YALL NEED TO APOLOGIZE TO FERNANDO 🤣

user2 fernando's bout to enter his dts villain era once more 😭

pierregasly very pretty! 😍

user3 not you having the audacity 🤠

landonorris so fine 🤪

user4 why are y'all asking for your death wish 😭😭

user5 fernando's on his way to wipe half of the grid, thanos style 🤌🥰 as he should

thetrishalonso you're going to have to work hard first then we'll talk babies 3,4 and 5 😘😜 liked by fernandoalo_oficial

fernandoalo_oficial challenge accepted, mi amor

user6 ugh parents 😫 if you need a dog hmu

translations !!! (what i wrote down in the translating app 💀)

frederico y reyna estan bien grandes ahora! = frederico and reyna are so big now!

estoy tan preocupada de que lleguen a ser más altos que yo y su papá = i'm so worried that they'll grow taller than me and their papa

¡encantado de verte, beatrice! = nice seeing you, beatrice!

estoy tan feliz de que tú y chicos estuvieran aquí. te quiero mi reina = i'm so happy you and the kids were here. i love you my queen

mi hombre guapo = my handsome man

solo mi esposa, frederico y reyna, y sus muchos más hermanos por venir = just my wife, frederico and reyna, and their many more siblings to come

[imaginespazzi]

Ok I am reading linear GH instead of working and this anon is honestly unreal - I love that they put the parts too with the dates! I am just jotting a few things that really stuck out to me and showcase your fucking GENIUS. The way you carried the themes of timing, trust, soulmates throughout everything is amazing, and its honestly fucking bananas that you were churning out a chapter a week at the beginning of this.

September 2017 (Part 3) - Facetiming

"Because as long as it’s Azzi on the other side, Paige and her impatient self can wait however long it takes."

"The younger girl makes Paige feel like it’s okay if she takes a moment to just breathe. Because Azzi will wait. Because Azzi won’t leave Paige behind."

July 2018 - I don't have a lot to note about this one but its very cute and innocent that you made Belarus be their first kiss considering they were already… well

October 2022 (Part 10) - Paige birthday surprise

a straight male flight attendant is a wild choice Nivi

"That smile, Azzi thinks, might just be the reason her world keeps turning." -> ok you use this later on when Azzi is watching Paige carry Stephie into curry camp. I can't

April 2025 (Part 14) - ARMAGEDDON

oh wow I feel like having the failed proposal so early on is going to really impact how the rest of the story feels

May 2025 (Part 11) - First Wings Game

oh my god reading the proposal then Paige's breakdown after her first Wings game is too much honestly

"Paige finds herself longing for the cold, unfeeling exterior of a foreign hotel room." -> wow you use this again when talking about how Paige prefers the hotel room when ASW is in Dallas. Comparing that to how instantly at home she feels with Azzi and Stephie in Oakland makes me wanna combust.

August 2025 (Part 8) - ASW Slow Dance

Reading them drunk slow dancing outside behind the club so soon after the proposal is truly heartbreaking and I shed a tear (or 10)

April 2027 (Part 12) - Dallas Surprise

ok seeing the gap between August 2025 and Azzi seeing Polivia when she goes to Dallas… I am kind of wondering if anything happened in the 1.5 year gap in-between… besides Olivia sinking her acrylics into Paige

May 2027 (Part 12) - PREG

I picture Tristan looking like Tyler from this past season of love is blind - good looking light skinned guy with a breeding fetish (not a parenting desire thought lol)

It will never not amaze/impress me how you managed to make Stephie exist because of Paige in two different ways

December 2027 (Part 5) - Polivia Matrimony

reading the pre-wedding phone call HITS SO MUCH HARDER with all the context. Dear god.

Drew really doesn't hold back when he dislikes the person his sister is romantically involved with eh?

"hey there little bean. I’m your-” she stops because what is she, “I’m your Paige,” -> MOMMY

August 2028 (Part 7) - LA olympics

I love that we go from the wedding to this relationship being in absolutely shambles

I've said it before I'll say it again, Olivia is so valid for fucking hating Azzi

April 2029 (Part 8) - Paige Drunk Phonecall

Wow Clem must think Paige is an absolute barbarian based off that phone call

September 2029 (Part 2) - Paige Stephie meet

This one hit really hard too when read in context. Paige has for sure seen pics of Stephie on Instagram or on the sidelines at games and thought about Azzi being a mother, actually holding that little bean would be so emotional.

April 2030 (Part 9) - HUMPIN

Reaaaallly didn't take much for them to get back into bed

August 2031 (Part 13) - ASW Hoodie Autograph

This is another gap that sticks out to me when put in context. Like they had sex and then nothing for 1.5 years when they briefly cross paths again. Obviously Azzi was busy with a toddler but without even Olivia to distract her I can imagine Paige just being so depressed wallowing in Dallas.

August 2032 (Part 13) - LAST TIME

Again seeing this in sequence stood out to me as they had sex SIX MONTHS before the story technically 'starts'… and of course have an argument/encounter that is pretty intense. I have to admit I thought it was a bit out of place how ANGRY they were in chapter one and how much they didn't want to encounter each other let alone be on the same team, especially given the fact that they had slept together a few times and had non-angry interactions. The balcony scene here really puts things in perspective. All they want is each other, but they are so damn stupid lol

February 2033 (Part 2) - Paige signs contract/ice cream date

Ok it is actually so funny that when we first got this chapter and Paige saying "“She was the most beautiful girl in the world,” “she still is.” seemed like a really bold move of Paige… in context they fucked 6 months ago its not bold at all

March 2033 (Part 5) - "It wasn't over, it still isn't over" notebook scene in Steph's office

Alright this is getting really long but I will echo what other people have said… they got together SO QUICKLY. Wild considering I remember when getting the weekly updates being so impatient for them to get together but they are making out/'taking it slow' like … 3 days after P moves to Oakland

ANYWHOOOO You are the best and I can't wait for the rest of the story ❤️❤️ 🦫🦫

Thank you my love, that means a lot to me. To be fair, those first few chapters were relatively shorter than the ones I've put out more recently and honestly, the story was still relatively simpler back then.

LMFAO I wasn't even thinking about male attendant stereotypes while writing that ngl

I want to pretend that some of these repeated lines were intentional artistic genius, but I have to admit that it is at least partially just me running out of things to say lmao.

I lowkey forget the drunk slow dancing scene exists but yeah that was for sure an insane moment of them

Polivia sounds like polio which sounds like a disease which makes sense...

But I don't think much happen in those one and half years, especially because they barely see each other the first half of it, since Azzi's not in the W yet and then their first year with both of them in the W is just very awkward, but every time they see each other other, Azzi especially, they miss each other.

Drew did everything in his power to stop that wedding lol

Olivia is valid in every single feeling she feels to be honest like that girl suffered for absolutely no mistake of her own

All they needed to fuck was a little bit of liquor and both of them single lol

Paige was either sulking and celibate of fucking every woman with a pulse that year but it's up to interpretation for y'all what happened the year after the divorce

Ahh I'm so glad you mentioned this because really I think a lot of how they behave only really starts to make sense after you've gotten all of the events and Linear anon putting the events in order makes it all make more sense. They're angry at each other because the argument is fresh and it's also easy for them to fall back into each other, because if we're being real, they already had relapsed a couple of time.

LMFAO yeah it took them literally a second which wasn't my original plan. I was gonna have a lot more back and forth but I also felt like they were in a place, where sort of going too fast just happened naturally and added to the conflict later on.

[potatocitytechnology]

Sweet Like Pumpkin Pie - S.JN

Kinktober Day 2

Face sitting: also known as queening or kinging, is a sexual practice with one partner sitting over the other's face.

INTRO: One fall day, you decide it's time to let go of your worries. Turns out you're a natural freak in the sheets and Johnny loves it.

GENRES: Smut

PAIRING: reader (afab) x boyfriend!johnny suh

WARNINGS: profanity/swearing, face sitting (F), face riding (F), a little body worship, more dominant Johnny but mostly no power dynamic, marking, hair pulling/scalp scratching - overall explicit content - PLEASE, DO NOT ENGAGE WITH THIS POST/BLOG IF YOU'RE UNDERAGE. MINORS WILL BE BLOCKED.

WORD COUNT: 1.86k (remember, size doesn't matter)

AUTHORS NOTE: Okay. I'm already a day behind but we got this team. Also, I've noticed that my posts aren't coming up under the tags for some reason? If anyone is coming from one of the tags lmk cause it would be cool to see who is. Otherwise I'm trying my best to fix it. Anyways, enjoy October 2nd! (＞﹏＜)

*unedited*

It wasn’t something you never discussed, yet it still took you by surprise when Johnny suggested we actually try it this time. “I want you to sit on my face.” He states, no hesitation in his voice because he clearly knows no shame. It is Johnny after-all. 

You stutter over your words, trying not to choke on the words as they get stuck in your throat. “Um, are you sure?” You ask. It’s not that you don’t want to sit on Johnny’s gorgeous face, it’s just that you haven’t done it before, the activity foreign. 

A chill runs up your spine as your eyes cast past Johnny’s shoulder, watching out the window. Green leaves on your cherry tree turning orange with the call of fall. You’re almost envious of how pretty it turns with each season, but fall being the most beautiful concept on it in your opinion. 

Your eyes meet his again, determined mindset in tow as he gives you begging eyes. Johnny never wants to push you, that’s why you’re so glad he’s your boyfriend, but you need to give too. Besides, this will be fun and with Johnny you will be safe. 

You nod, “Okay.”. He smiles, giving you a peck on the lips. “It’s gonna be so much fun, baby. You have no idea how long I wanted to do this with you.” His excitement sends a thrill of excitement through your body, the feeling stopping at your lower stomach. God, he makes you wet without even touching you. 

You tread behind him as he leads you to your shared bedroom. You must admit out of the two of you, Johnny is most definitely the more adventurous lover. He always wants to try new things, but you always say ‘maybe’ or ‘next time’, though it never happens next time. To be honest, this is probably the only thing off ‘vanilla’ sex that you’ve ever done. It's more than a little sad.

His hand reaches for yours, squeezing you lightly in reassurance as he shuts the bedroom door behind you. His hand then leaves yours in favour of joining the other as they wrap themselves around your waist, the rest of his body leaning into your back. “I got you.” He mumbles through your hair. “Waited so long, gonna make it worth it.” His voice darkens as each word leaves his lips, a shiver running up your spine. 

“I trust you.” You gulp, voice sounding small. “I know, baby.” He hums, his hold on your body firm and safe, just how you like it. He gently runs his hands down your stomach until his fingertips grip at the fabric of your sweater, tugging it up. You grin, taking the hint and lifting your arms as he discards both your sweater and thermal. He kisses your neck, goosebumps following his fingertips.

Next he gets down on his knees, surprising you as you clutch his shoulders. “Johnny what’re you-” He silences you, a ‘shushh’ leaving his lips as he pulls your sweatpants down. Lifting your ankles, he throws them behind him, your bare legs catching his attention. Smiling, he begins kissing the flesh of your thighs. “You’re so beautiful, baby.” he mumbles against you. 

“Stop teasing.” you whine, annoyed that he’s not touching you where you need him. “I’m not teasing, just showing you how much I love everything about you.” His eyes lock onto yours as you look down on him. “I want you to always be comfortable coming to me if you want to try new things.” Returning to his assault on your thighs, you moan. His affirmations and sweet kisses driving you mad. 

He nips and bites at your sensitive skin, marks following the path of his mouth, but you don’t mind. All the more of him to feel tomorrow. His attention spans from your knees to above your belly button. Butterflies erupting in your stomach everytime he gets closer to your aching pussy. 

When he finally peels away your dripping panties, you’re practically panting. Your head feels lighter as all blood seemingly rushes to your core, the heat he’s kindled making you hot to the touch. He licks across your pelvic bone, the sensation making you breathe faster. His tongue swipes just a half inch from your clit and your body shakes. 

He grins, eyes mischievously peering up at you, “you’re so sensitive, baby.” he chuckles and you roll your eyes half-heartedly. “I wonder why.” is your completely sarcastic response. You want to say, how the fuck can you not be after the torcher he’s putting you through? It’s a wonder you’re still standing while he taunts you with the promise of a mind blowing orgasm. 

Your hands grip his hair as he pokes his tongue at your clit, finally giving you something. You don’t even try to hold back the moan that escapes your lips, ecstasy filling you for a short moment before he stops again. 

This time you groan in frustration, your nails accidentally scratching the surface of his scalp a little harder than you intended it to. A sharp hiss that draws into a hidden moan passes his lips, making you laugh internally. His slitted eyes glare up at you as a smile tugs at your lips. “Oops.” you add to the silence, the insincerity clearer than you meant for it to be. 

“Alright, let’s do it then.” he announces and you nod your head, wanting nothing more at this point than to sit on his face. “You sure you’re ready though?” He questions, a pointed and soft look that shows he genuinely wants to know if you’re ready. “Johnny, I’m practically leaking like a dam. Please, I want to do this.” He nods, sucking in a breath. “Okay, baby.” 

He stands up from his knees before grabbing your hand and bringing you to the side of the bed. He smiles at you, proceeding to pull his shirt over his head. You’ll never get used to the sight of Johnny’s body, he really is gorgeous inside and out.  

Going ahead, he climbs onto the bed, lying down in the centre and pointing at you. “Come’ere.” You obey, crawling to him and sitting back on parted knees, hands between your open thighs. Johnny can’t help the groan that leaves him as he strokes up your marked thighs, mouth salivating. 

“Now you just gotta put your knees beside my head, baby.” He says, leaning back to rest his neck on the mattress. You follow his instructions, moving to place your knees on either side of his head so that you’re facing down his body. He places a hand on your thigh, stopping you. “Not that way, baby. Turn around, I want to see you.” 

You gulp, a weak ‘okay’ your response. Turning around so you’re facing the headboard of the bed, you see his eyes peer up at you through his long lashes. You hover above him, your nerves now distracting you from how turned on you were, Johnny notices. 

Quick to distract you from your thoughts, he licks a path up your inner thigh, collecting the juices that drip from you. You’re too high for him to reach, still hovering above his face. He grabs your hips, swiftly pulling you down onto his already parted lips. You are then left with no room in your mind to stress as it quickly fills with pleasure. 

His tongue moves with skill around your clit, the feeling so foreign yet familiar. Of course Johnny’s eaten you out, just now like this. It’s so new it feels taboo to you, which only turns you on more as his warm tongue darts into your hole.

Johnny looks up and watches you as your lips part in moan after beautiful moan. Each time the sound sending blood pumping to his hard cock. His lips work to form an ‘o’ around your sensitive clit before he sucks on it. It sends your mind into a frenzy, your hips beginning to grind against his face. 

He groans into you when your hands reach for tufts of his dark hair, lacing through each strand and tugging as you desperately find a way to keep yourself grounded. Each frenzied moan that leaves your mouth becomes more and more careless, the fucks to give leaving your thoughts. 

His strong arms wrap securely around your hips, pulling you further into his mouth to the point you're almost worried. Johnny, however, has been waiting to do this with you for a long time, the need to have your cum covering his face overwhelms his need to breathe at this moment. 

“Wanna ride your face.” you gasp between moans and Johnny groans beneath you, your words both turning him on and making him so proud that you're telling him what you want.

You feel him nod into you, loosening his hold on your hips and flattening his tongue. Your heart quickens its beat, but you push the anxiety to the back of your mind. You hesitantly start rocking your hips back and forth, the feeling making your eyes roll back and an unholy sound releasing from your chest. 

You get no time to be embarrassed about it, and you don’t want to be. This feeling is a pure drug, he’s your ecstacy and you’re addicted. His nose bumps your clit and your fist your fingers in his hair, moving both your hips and his face against you. 

Johnny can’t believe it. His timid girlfriend becoming so animalistically wild and using his face like a toy. It’s the turn on he never knew he wanted, but god does it feel good. His fingers dig into the soft flesh of your hips, working with you to rock them against his tongue. 

Your breaths quicken, the heavenly feeling of your orgasm building up making the movement of your hips stutter and and falter. You’re lucky Johnny’s strong enough to keep you shifting over him. He watches your face carefully, looking for the expression he’s longing to see. 

He picks up when your body loosens up, mouth parting and eyes going blank as you sit on the edge of euphoria. He quickly stops your movement, arms cementing you in place as he attaches his lips around your clit again and sucks. Fucking hard. 

It pushes you into your orgasm as your eyebrows furrow and your mouth forms a perfect ‘o’. Your entire body shakes as spluttered and broken moans leave your lips along with short, gasped breaths. 

Johnny watches you in amazement, pure admiration on his face as he watches you unfold on top of him. He couldn’t be prouder of you. 

You go limp, gently lifting yourself from him but not after he cleans you up. You tumble down beside him as he wraps you in his arms. Safe with him. Always safe. 

“You did so well, baby.” He mumbles into your ear, a smile gracing your lips as you hum a ‘yeah?’. 

He hums back. “And you taste like heaven.” 

You groan, really not wanting to hear about how your taste as a blush rises to your cheeks. 

“Sweet like pumpkin pie.” 

You scowl, slapping his bare shoulder as he laughs at you. Secretly you look pleased. 

[bemusedlybespectacled]

so, I'm thinking a teensy bit more about character death and, specifically, the death of a main character in a comedy show that I'm actually okay with. I'm talking about Death in Paradise.

Just as a primer for people who weren't raised by teaboos, it's a murder mystery comedy show, the premise of which is that there is one white British detective inspector guy who solves murders with his group of local cops: basically Midsomer Murders but on a fictional Caribbean island.

The comedy is always that he's some kind of socially awkward nerd who clashes in some way with his otherwise-entirely-Caribbean office, especially his black female second-in-command, even though they've at this point had four different DIs and I don't know how many changes of supporting characters.

The first two seasons, with DI Richard Poole, are your typical cozy murder-of-the-week-type mysteries. And then the third season starts, and the first mystery of the season is who killed DI Poole.

Like, it literally opens exactly like a normal episode, with a cold open establishing the suspects and showing us the murder victim before cutting to the jaunty theme tune and opening credits. It's just that this particular murder victim is the main character.

And then the plot progresses in exactly the same way, with a different white British nerd guy leading the investigation, because THE PROTAGONIST FOR THE PAST SIXTEEN EPISODES IS DEAD.

Now, some key differences between this show and OFMD:

It's a murder mystery show, so the rules are inherently different. No Muppet physics here: people die all the time and they die in totally normal ways, like getting stabbed with an ice pick or drowned in a fish tank or turned into a science class skeleton.

While this was the first time a main character was killed off, it was not the first time the DI had been killed. The pilot had Richard solving the murder of the previous DI, only for it to be revealed that his black female second-in-command of that episode was the murderer (Camille Bordey, his actual #2, isn't assigned to him until the very end of that episode). Like, shocking twists about characters you thought were "safe" was established in the very first episode.

The death actually affected the fucking characters and the fucking plot.

It's been like ten years since this episode aired and I still really like this episode, even though it gutted me the first time I watched it (and I don't like the later seasons nearly as much). Like, it's not my favorite (that's 2x06), but it's definitely in my top three. Because even though this is the episode they killed off DI Blorbo From My Britbox, it's also an episode about him.

The comedy is toned way down because the entire office is gutted by his loss. They have to do mundane things like call his parents to tell them he died and review CCTV footage and wait for lab data like it's just a normal case when it's not. At every step, there's a "what would Richard have done?" moment. And even though this is the episode that introduces the new DI, Humphrey Goodman, the summation at the end is entirely about Richard, with this pretty sweet line:

You know, bizarrely, I'm the only one who never met Richard Poole. But during this case, I… I feel as though I've got to know him a little. Mostly by the effect he had on those around him. But it seems we all forgot one very crucial thing: he was a detective. A good one. I think he made a discovery, had a theory about what he discovered, and then sent home for evidence to corroborate that theory. And in doing so, he has, in essence, solved his own murder.

His presence is felt throughout the entire episode, even though he's only alive for the first three minutes or so. His death is disappointing (especially for those of us who shipped him with Camille), but it actually has an impact.

So when they brought back Camille in S10, years after she was written out, they also brought back Richard: Camille imagines having a conversation with him when she’s worried that her mother is going to die, and he gives her advice and comforts her. And that scene makes me cry every time I watch it, because it's clear that she misses him as much as the audience does.

We didn't get that in OFMD. We didn't get an acknowledgement of how Izzy impacted the other characters (except Ed, in the weakest way possible), or even them looking sad for longer than two minutes. We sweep past it immediately and go directly to a wedding and then Stede and Ed settling down together.

There’s no gravity to it. There’s no time to process the loss. Hell, for the characters, there ISN’T a real loss. And if the characters don’t care, why should we?

[zepskies]

Okay, now that I was able to go through the list, time for some questions! From your ask game, how about #7, #12, #15, and #25? And I didn't see it on there but is there a character/genre you never expected to like writing for but ended up enjoying it? 🤔

I love it I love it! Thanks, Michelle! I sent you a few too.~ 💓💓 So people know, this is still from the End of Year Asks.

#7. Comfort character to create for

It's changed over the years depending on my fixations, but right now (and for the past 2 years), it's definitely Dean freakin' Winchester.

#12. A concept you’d like to develop next year

Oof, how much time you got? 🤣

I have a few WIPs that are already drafted and in the editing phases for next year -- including all of my remaining fics for @jacklesversebingo. (Jacklesverse Bingo24 Masterlist here!)

More specifically, I have plans to write sequel fics for the following series:

Break Me Down (Soldier Boy x Reader): Their son's first birthday, with a flashback to their wedding day.

Unravel Me (Soldier Boy x POC!Reader): The prequel series to Lost in Translation, in which Ben meets the reader (afro Latina).

Every Second Counts (Russell Shaw x Reader): Can Russell make good on his promise to "get out" and start his brewery? (AKA: his past comes knocking, and might just put the reader in danger. Diving deeper into the Shaw family history too.)

Take Me Home (Beau Arlen x Reader): Because YOU, Michelle, put the idea of Beau and the reader from this series getting married into my head, and I feel like it would be a fun and somewhat angsty road to get there lol. 😂

#15. An area of your art you feel you improved on

Oooh now this one really made me think.

I feel like other people who've been reading my work for a while might be able to give me better insight into this, but I do feel like I've gotten better at balancing the angst and tension of a story with romantic fluff and humor, witty banter, etc.

You can't have the lighthearted romance without the heavier notes of the keyboard, know what I mean? lol

But too much angst isn't all that fun for me either. So something I've learned in studying screenwriting is how to try and build up to those high-tension, dramatic moments, but also have the payoff and catharsis of hurt/comfort and sweet fluff. Ebbs and flows.

#25. A scene or image that lives rent-free in your head

Veeery interesting. Of my own writing or someone else's? Recently I've had scenes from Outlander (Dean Winchester x OFC | Western AU) replaying in my head, probably because I've been editing each part over and over. 😂

But also in reading Polaris by @waynes-multiverse, there's a scene where the reader has just found out that Randy (her husband) is actually alive...but she's already been in a loving relationship with Beau for a while now. This bit of description from Chapter 9 has filtered in and out of my head ever since I read it because it was so damn brilliant:

The cool, breezy autumn air whipped you across your face, a sharp, frigid sting in your lungs that burned right through to your heart. Each breath you desperately clutched was a fight for life. Your mind, moonstruck and lunatic, spun complicated cobwebs. Your feeble body and fragile bones threatened to crumble and crack underneath the devastating weight of the truth. You crouched down on the parking lot asphalt, head heavy in your shaking hands. “Hey, hey, just breathe…” Beau’s deep voice and warm hand on your back were a short-lived comfort before the first sob broke through you.

Bonus Question: Is there a character/genre you never expected to like writing for but ended up enjoying it? 🤔

That's an awesome question. I think I could have a few different answers for this, but Soldier Boy very much took me by surprise. We've talked about this before, but when I watched season 3, the first thing I thought of with his character was, How could he be redeemed?

And Break Me Down was born. 🤣 It was also my first ever enemies to lovers fic, though I didn't consciously realize that when I started developing the series. Of course, you know what happened after that. It's become a whole damn universe of fics. 😅💚

Another example would be Boaz Priestly from 10 Inch Hero. I NEVER thought I would write for that character, but after rewatching the movie last year, he was just too adorable -- and different from any role Jensen has played. I ended up writing a couple of fics for him, not knowing if I was getting his character write (like Soldier Boy lmao). But I so enjoyed writing to his quirks and writing a reader character that I thought could match him. 💜

Thank you SO much for these questions, Michelle!! And Happy New Year! I hope you like the questions I picked out for you. 😘

[shigarakisslutbag]

PLS DO SHIGGY THIGH FUCKING HCS thank u ily

I honestly didn't think I'd write on here again but I can't sleep and it's like 5:30 in the morning lol. So I'll write some thigh fuckin' headcanons to ease the stress 😎 (also TW: for thigh fucking, somnophilia, long post in general LMFAO. If I missed anything I apologize. Also it's now 6:19 after finishing it so there's probably typos I've missed after briefly skimming this so Im also sorry for that LMFAO)

(EDIT after writing. I'm so sorry this ended up not being headcanons and was just a full on drabble I found of pulled out of my ass but I hope you still enjoy it lol)

Now truthfully I havent even watched/finished the seasons after season 4 lol. I'm in the middle of season 5 still because I'm severely depressed and can't enjoy anything. But that doesn't mean I don't still love shigaraki and tbh I still read fanfiction from time to time about him or dabi.

I feel like a lot of people paint shigaraki as either absolutely vile and grimey or just aloof and soft with a grumpy attitude. And I feel like it's a bit of both. Which really plays into his sex life (if he'll ever have one). But even without a sex life, his personality most certainly plays into his fantasies and kinks.

I want to also emphasize that fantasies are just that, fantasies. Shigaraki most likely has plenty of fantasies that he'd never dream of acting out with his partner should he ever have one. I feel like even if he had some sick fantasies or kinks, and you happened to be okay with it, he would still be iffy because if this man, for whatever reason, picked you out of everyone else?? He's not going to treat you like absolute garbage. Shigaraki is definitely not the nicest person by any means, but by God if he cares about someone he fucking cares. Esp because you're probably the only person who actually loves him in his entirety. So if he's into noncon, somnophilia, predator/prey play, or whatever, it's going to be a while before he gets comfortable bringing up any of those fantasies with you.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, you're wondering "goddamnit ash shut the fuck up and tell me the thigh f-" wELL THATS TOO DAMN BAD YOU LISTEN TO SEGGSY MONOLOGUE OR YOU GET NOTHING. ty luv u.

Okay so his fantasies right ? What are shigarakis kinks ? Does he have any? Oh absolutely. And they range from either something as light and soft as hickeys and tying you up in silk while eating you out for 2 hours to nipple clamps and making you wail with hot tears and shoving a dildo down your throat telling you take it like you've taken every other mans cock down your throat because he knows stupid sluts like you are always capable of doing those things if you know it'll make your pussy soak the sheets.

Now it's not his top fantasy, but thigh fucking. And God do you have the prettiest thighs. It doesn't matter is there's stretch marks, if they're chubby, skinny, or if you have immense scarring on them he LOVES them. He loves how soft they are. He loves how they look in shorts or a skirt (esp when you keep trying to pull them down a bit because they're a size smaller than what you wanted so they don't pudge out). He loves how your delicate hands lay on top of your thighs while you fiddle with your fingers out of nervousness. He loves the way they move when he walks behind you, you have a walk that puts any model to shame. He just loves them . And by God does he throb at thought of getting to push his cock past your sweaty or oily thighs. The head of his dick barely kissing your clit each time he thrusts. But that's not the biggest and best part at all. He wants to wake you up to it. You've told him countless times he can wake you up to any sexual acts but he's still nervous. But he's really horny right now. And you're sweaty from the lack of AC and you're naked on your side sleeping away. But he genuinely can't think of anything else other than how wet your pussy must be right now and how slick your thighs must be from the heat of the room. His cock is absolutely aching to slide between your thighs and folds. He has never felt so hungry until he met someone with a body as inviting as your own. He's been stroking for the past couple minutes but it's just not enough .

He peels off the throw blanket you have over you because despite the heat you always love your blanket to sleep. But even after the blanket is removed you still don't wake . He slowly examines your body and grazes his hand down your body. Going over your shoulders and arms to ribs to hip bone. Finally meets that beautiful soft ass of yours. He gentle lifts your thigh to angle and can see your pussy . Its so wet and glistening from the lights on the street coming in through your window, beaming in and lighting up your skin to a beautiful warm glow.

He lifts up one of your slick folds, seeing your pretty clit and rubbing his thumb in tiny circles on it. He can't take it anymore and slides his cock between your thighs, his shaft rubbing your leaking pussy and making your clit throb even more. You may be asleep but your cunt is always awake and ready to be touched by him.

He starts thrusting slowly to building up that pressure in his groin to make his orgasm feel even better in the end. He can feel you coating his shaft with your juices more and more with each desperate thrust he makes to your thighs. Your thighs are so sweaty and warm and grip his dick so nicely taking any and every drop of cum he wants to and could ever give you. He can hear slight wet sounds coming from your cunt with each thrust that keeps getting more rapid and animalistic with each thrust because you dont know how to stop being such a needy whore all the time even in your sleep. Before he knows it you're gushing and your cum is on the sheets making him go over the edge. Now he's spitting thick, white shots of cum all over your thighs while drops of it roll down your skin onto the bed as well. You're still mostly asleep, but youve adorned a dazed smile on your face with a satisfied tomura passed out next you .

[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!

[botanicallyinclinednerd]

The Umbrella Academy season 2 episode 1

Im very glad Klaus has Ben with him still

Oh boy

I don't like that guy taking pictures of them at the time of them showing up

Okay so they're all dropping a year apart

Klaus is the second oldest now. Between his Vietnam stay and now dropping the earliest, he's the next oldest. Watch out five!

*GASP* KLAUS IS SO FUCKING COOL

I forgive Luther only marginally for some of his behavior in s1 due to protecting Klaus here

And that doesn't matter cause time bullshit

Aww, bye Agnes, glad she had 20 good years with Hazel

I love Hazel being like "10 days is plenty of time for you to save the world" buddy, he ended it WORSE last time

Okay these white haired getting off this bus are bad guys

I love being proven right so quickly

Aw :( Rip Hazel

Did that guy just see himself? Looks like it

This guy is having the time of his life, he feels so validated

Oh Diego :(

She saw that grab

"I'm a lone wolf. I don't run with a pack" Oh Diego, you make me LAUGH

DIEGO

He has the spirit but he is screwing with history. That being said! I don't think it's just his actions that cause the apocalypse, I think it's a combination of all of them simply being in the past. And probably something to do with conspiracy guy. He was never supposed to be a conspiracy theorist, they changed his whole future, as well as the lives and futures of everyone else they meet

Oh does Lila become a time bureau agent? I've seen her in a screenshot stood next to The Handler before I think

I know Hazel killed her but I don't trust death on this show

FIVE THATS SO FUCKING SHITTY YOU ASSHOLE

Okay, he better be back for him

Oop? Does she actually have no memories? Or is she lying?

I keep forgetting Hargreeves first name and it almost made me have a batshit theory

Vanya looks so happy and I want that for her

Klaus! Ben!

Ben! >:(

B E N I'm laughing so hard at him lying to Klaus so he loses his necklace

BEN IS SUCH A LITTLE BITCH IM LAUGHING SO HARD HES SO DONE

"I bet you're loving this" "I'm not hating it" HES SUCH A LITTLE SHIT <3

Allison! Remarried?

Oh what a sweet man

Does Luther owe the fancy gentleman a debt? That a bookie or his manager...

Fuck yeah Allison kick his ass, fucking racist fuck

Oh I dig this dynamic lots 👀👀👀

Oh Diego :(

Ruuuunnnnnnn

Luther doesn't make it easy to like him

[kafkaoftherubble]

Hi! I've really enjoyed your tags on the reblog of the screencaps of The Believers on my sideblog @nonkunchanon. I was wondering what are your thoughts on Monk Dol's next move now that he's been rejected by Dear, whether he would disrobe or not. And I think Pup will be back for The Believers Season 2 though, since at least according to this interview, it seems like Pup is ready to shave his head again to be Monk Dol. Also do you think Win has any feelings for Dear?

HOLY SHIT. With this ask you've basically allowed me to ramble about The Believers. THANK YOU THANK YOU SADHU X100 Also, Pup has an interview?! And he's ready to be Monk Dol again?!

SADHU X1000. Thank you for linking it, fella appreciator!

Okay. I'll tell you what I think, but you're gonna have to reblog this and tell me what you think too, because I'm also interested in your thoughts!!!

---

Monk Dol's next move

Okay! There are two perspectives I can go for: the showrunners' + actor's, and the character's. Judging from both Thai and international fans' reviews and reception, Monk Dol is a really, really popular character, isn't he (who can blame him)? Popularity usually incentivizes bringing a character back for Season 2, and Pup does seem pretty happy playing the character. All that means there are really good grounds to think he'll return, ahahhaha! I'm with you on this one!

However! From the character's perspective, it's a bit more nuanced, methinks!

I, uh, study Buddhist Philosophy for fun, so I can tell you that the biggest reason why I like Monk Dol is that every single dhamma talk/sermon he gave, as well as his character traits and personality, are aligned with Buddhism. In a show criticizing the commercialization of Thai Buddhism (and its relation with politics), Dol provides an example of what Buddhism "is supposed to be about."

I've been rewatching the series every now and then when I'm free, so I got to re-watch his scenes and Dhamma talks. The teachings are actually legitimately correct. Not even "Pop culture-diluted correct" or "I guess it's a correct interpretation," but befitting the dhamma as espoused in Theravadin Buddhism, which Thai Buddhism falls under.

That means Monk Dol's themes and character arc are deliberately woven with Buddhist philosophy, including concepts like anicca ("impermanence") and nekkhamma ("renunciation; letting go"). This makes it harder to write him back into Season 2 without hurting a little of the themes he's supposed to represent, you see?

In his letter to Dear, he talked about how, thanks to his love and attachment for Dear, he realized that "there are many more things about myself that I need to train on." It's a very Buddhist sentiment (the Buddha's last word before death/parinibbana was, reportedly, "strive diligently." You might also remember one of Dol's Dhamma Talks on the importance of self-effort over superstitious reliance on holy objects and the Buddha; it was his first talk since joining Wat Phummaram).

The way he exited the story was him practicing nekkhamma and the sort of "love" he talked about earlier. He also alluded to their interaction as remnants of their past kamma (this is how it's spelled in Pali; it's "karma" in Sanskrit) influencing their current lives.

Just a brief explanation in case you don't understand the "kamma" thing! In a supernatural reading of kamma, the effects of your actions in your past lives with other people can bring over to your current life. Therefore, Dol was saying that him falling in love with Dear/Dear unintentionally "charmed" him was no fault of himself nor Dear, but simply the effects of their collective kamma. He merely saw his experience—of falling in love and being rejected; of being conned and used because of said love; the general dukkha (suffering) of it all—as a lesson illuminating aspects of himself that he should overcome.

Dol recognized that he needed to let go of his attachment to Dear as she never belonged to him; previously, he explained that as part of the Buddhist doctrine of Anattā ("non-self") when he answered Dear's question about love. He also told her not to remember him, which to me, all adds up to him hoping this is it. He's hoping that the effects of their past kamma had burned out.

Now, if they want to continue the Buddhist philosophical theme undergirding Monk Dol's character, then the "good end" will be him not showing up in Season 2 at all. From a storytelling perspective, it makes sense too: his arc has a definite end already.

----

However, I can also imagine ways to pull Monk Dol back into the fold without costing his underlying Buddhist themes. For one, "kamma," to the Buddha, mostly means "action" when it's not "cause-and-effect." While Dol would like to think his kamma with Dear is over, it's also possible that his actions and interactions with Dear—and to an extent, Win and Game—have planted seeds of their own, with their own effects to be reaped. These effects can be explored in Season 2.

Where should he go? He has already exchanged his forest monk lineage for a city monk's, but his idea of Buddhism is embodied in the Thai Forest tradition, not the city ones. Can he return to his original forest temple, though? We saw that he was "punished" by one of the eminent temple monks when Win and Dear were trying to collect sacred ingredients for their amulet.

His changing of lineage was not without consequences, and it's a bit hard to imagine him being accepted back to his original temple easily. Thai Forest Tradition is a lot stricter than other schools in Thailand, and a monk who pivots from one school to another can be seen as wishy-washy, unreliable, lacking in discipline, and rather disgraceful by forest monks.

Hence, I would imagine that he either joins a very remote forest temple far away from Wat Phummaram and the show's central background region... or becomes a solitary monk.

No matter which way he chooses, though, I can imagine him being even more ardent in his practice, and perhaps rather avoidant of female laypeople. Even if he has no intention to discriminate, he might try to overcorrect his previous lapse with Dear by putting a wide berth between himself and other women no matter their intentions. I can also imagine him struggling with the actual process of renunciation, which is never as easy as it might sound. His experience with Dear is going to affect him a lot. Even dreams of her are possible.

And from there, I suppose there are two ways for him to join with the trio's Main Plot. Either he coincidentally gets roped back into their activities, or he deliberately looks out for any news about Dear and her gang because he still cares about her wellbeing.

If Monk Dol takes a more active role, he might gradually come into the line of fire by standing up against this sort of commercialized Buddhism. He might also try to help Dear (plus Win and Game; it's more understated, but Dol also cares about those two. We see it in the interrogation scene) to get out of their quandary.

I think Dol will be quite punished for his actions, though. As in, he'll suffer quite a bit. Not sure if he might die, per se, but I'll suspect something worse than what he got in Season 1. I hope he doesn't die, but that's only because I'm personally no fan of martyr tropes, ahahha!

There are also significant odds that Dol will manage to change Dear and Game's hearts through his actions and counsel once he rejoins the trio in the Main Plot. It will be harder to reach Win, I assume, because Win is the least receptive and warmed up to religions, and his attitude toward Buddhism has been very irreverent. Throughout Season 1, Win's attitude toward Monk Dol has been that of a tech bro looking at his most valuable asset.

Nonetheless, Dear and Game, being Win's friends, can bridge that gap along with Dol and Win's mother. Philosophically, it will exemplify paṭiccasamuppāda, "dependent co-arising"—causes are interdependent with one another as people are also interdependent with one another. Whether that's enough to change their fate in Season 2 is a whole 'nother thing!

That's as far as I can hypothesize about Monk Dol! I'll expect even more Buddhist-flavored character study, a psychological/philosophical arc, and if Monk Dol inclines, a more active counter-power to the corruptive political forces that have claimed Dear, Game, and Win.

Does Win Like Dear?

It's hard to say. I have to put out a disclaimer that I'm terrible at understanding human emotions and especially love because I... personally cannot feel it nor understand it! I honestly didn't even realize that Dol likes Dear until the Repentance Ritual!

I lean toward thinking Win doesn't love Dear or like her the way she—or us normal folks—hopes for a healthy romantic relationship. Win is a pragmatist who's pretty obsessed with "winning." He has a very strong ego; he wouldn't even talk to Game after the amulet business was booming, almost as if he's hoping to see Game climb back to him and apologize for being wrong and doubting him. He also saw no problem using Dear as an unwitting honeypot trap to control Monk Dol, despite Dear being someone who likes him.

I especially love the flashback scene to Dear's mother's passing. You can see Win's character in detail there; he engaged with Dear on a surface level, thinking it's enough to comfort her by telling her facts about death and failing to realize what she actually needed until Dear requested it upfront (it also served as a great contrast to Win's foil: Monk Dol interacts with other people differently. Dol always tries to address the underlying questions, takes time to listen, and only gives answers he believes are beneficial and helpful. He's like this to Monk Ekechai and even the cop who looks like fucking Robert Downy Jr.).

Win exhibited very little empathy for other people. Remember how he didn't help a granny with her bag until he realized he could talk to her while they walked together, so he could fish out any potential bait to lure Monk Dol into their scheme? If I were to describe this particular aspect of Win's character from a Buddhist perspective, I'd say he displays the near enemy of the concept of mettā, "friendliness." He is capable of caring about people only from an explicitly egocentric view, instead of caring for others for their own sake.

This hinders whatever he could have had with Dear, I think. Even if these two get together romantically, I honestly don't think it will be a rewarding relationship to Dear at all. Win is callous to everyone and is more obsessed with feeding his ego through perceived victories against the odds than anything else.

However, I don't actually think Win is incapable of caring about Dear, Game, or anyone else. I can't point fingers and tut-tut Win when I myself am also really low on empathy. In fact, from my own experience, I know that low empathy doesn't preclude apathy or an immutable lack of care. You can even catch a glimpse of Win's capacity for care in how he treated his cat.

Win also clearly suffers from trauma related to his father's disappearance. In true Buddhist fashion, there is an emphasis on cause-and-effect (i.e. kamma) in the show, telling us that he's the way he is precisely because of his experiences growing up.

We can also use his most obvious show of care as a comparison. Win is fiercely devoted to his mom and loves her deeply, and yet he's also dismissive of her thoughts, feelings, and sentimental offers to deepen their relationship. His care for her only showed when his mom was directly threatened, or when he believed his image in his mother's heart was close to being destroyed.

I think this allows the audience a bit of insight into how Win treats his loved one; he's also dismissive of Dear's feelings, thoughts, and needs... and yet that doesn't mean he doesn't care about her. There were times when he clearly cared and relied on her as a friend; he tried to call her near the end of Season 1 when he was feeling emotionally vulnerable as he was undergoing an onset of PTSD, for example.

Can that platonic care become a base for romance? I don't know. But to me, it really shows us that none of the trio are "evil," unlike what Cop RDJ insisted while interrogating Monk Dol—not even Win. In true Buddhist fashion, Win was just deluded ("moha," one of the Three Poisons) and merely needed more guidance.

Since his past is coming into the spotlight at the end of Season 1, going into Season 2, I think Win's character arc has only just begun. Dear and Game will play big roles in that as his friends and confidants, for sure, but this is also where Monk Dol's role in Season 2 can fit (as stated above).

I can't say if Win will end up falling in love with Dear for real at the end of S2 since it's not gonna be my personal subject of interest. But I'll love to see Win's striving in Season 2. As a certain monk says in his letter, I sure hope Win can also be free from his suffering, ahhahah!

Thank you for reading my ramble!

[tm-trx]

currents.02 [2025]

selections from my week in media [5-11 january 2025]

[ listening ]

[ reading ]

The Holiday Trap by Roan Parrish {4.5 stars} - I loved this book. The house swap trope was fun, although the New Orleans side did feel a bit more fleshed out. That could be a pacing issue though. The two relationships are very differently paced, which was a little bit frustrating because I liked Truman a lot and sometimes it felt like he was in a secondary pairing because of how his story unfolded. In his own book, without a faster-developing relationship being portrayed at the same time, it wouldn't feel slow at all. But even with that, it was one of the best romances I've read in awhile.

[ watching ]

The Dragon Prince, s7 {finished: 5 stars} - This has been an amazing series to watch over the past few years. The world building is so creative and a lot of fun. This last season felt complete, even with a couple of dangling threads left for a possible new series.

Gyeongseong Creature, part two {finished: 4 stars} - I loved it. (Even that epilogue.) I wish it'd been a little longer, with some of my world-building questions answered, but I'm okay with being in the dark about some things.

The Heart Killers, ep 4-5 - I legitimately cannot tell if anyone other than Fadel has developed real feelings for their love interest at this point. Well, no, Bison has, definitely. So it's just Kant and Style that have me scratching my head. I thought Kant was pretty gone on Bison, but now I'm questioning everything he's doing/saying. I thought Style had developed some genuine feelings for Fadel, but that's clearly not the case. He does have some great lines though:

"Sometimes you make me feel so scared and sometimes you make me feel so safe."

If he's actually being genuine here, and not trying to keep Fadel sweet, then that is a hell of a thing to say to someone you're only sleeping with.

When the Phone Rings {finished: 4.5 stars} - It lost half a star for jumping a baby shark in the last episode. Aside from that, I loved watching this show week to week. The finale episodes were a great start to the year.

When the Stars Gossip, ep 1-2 - A romcom kdrama set on a space station? Yes please. In all the months that I've been waiting for this one to come out, never once did I read the info closely enough to realize it had a comedy tag. So I had to swiftly pivot my expectations at the last minute before starting. But by the time I'd finished episode two I was firmly on board. The next seven weeks are going to be so much fun.

previous Currents posts

.

[dwtsfun]

Dancing with the Stars Season 33: Weeks 3 and 4

Sorry this is so late. I was out of town for a few days last week including Monday. So I couldn't watch DWTS until Wednesday. And I was trying to get caught up with all of my shows, so this kinda got pushed to the back burner. I'm gonna make this brief as the show starts for the east coast and central time zones in less than an hour. I think it's been beaten to death, so I won't go into much detail about Gene Simmons sucking as a guest judge. Just know that he was the worst we've had on this show and that DWTS might wanna chill with the stunts. Unfortunately for Rosie, her guest judge appearance was overshadowed by Gene. But she was honestly great, kind or constructive with her critiques while still giving the kind guest judge points. While I'm sad that they left, it was time for Eric and Reggie to go. I feel like both had reached their physical limits and were only going to get worse/injure themselves as time went on.

Chandler was my favorite on both nights. Brandon choreographed one of my favorite dances that I've seen on this show with that cha-cha. I wanted more of it. While Chandler's jive wasn't as strong of a dance, it was still the best of night 2 (week 4) in my opinion. I said this on twitter, but Brandon is proving to be the male heir to Derek and Mark's throne. The man is very good at what he does, he just is never able to get through to the end to really get his props. And that's not really his or his partner's faults.

Joey is starting to be given a lot of leniency in his dances. While he is the best male there, it's not a huge gap between him and Stephen. His jive was good, but his feet were messy. His tango was okay, but stompy and definitely not the best male tango ever on the show. So let's chill out shall we. The man is good and he's a natural. He's no Gilles Marini or James Hinchcliffe.

Danny's foxtrot was super impressive and my second favorite dance of both nights. He turned the charm on and I was shocked. His paso was kinda blah, but he's improving. I hope he stays around for a long time because I see great things from him. Stephen is such an awkward mover. I didn't care for any of his dances. He has to work on his musicality and his posture. They're fun, but their dances are not impressing like they should (outside of that jive).

I hate that Ilona's nerves got the better of her in her jive. But her foxtrot was gorgeous. I need Alan to continue to tap into that energy for her moving forward. I think it will help her nerves for sure. Jenn is actually dancing better than I was expecting her to. Sasha is also doing a better job of choreographing her than he has in the past. One thing, she needs to work on really extending her lines. She's short, so her lines feel extra short when she doesn't extend.

Dwight completely forgot that cha-cha, but it was so much fun that I didn't care. It was a good time. That paso was extremely respectable though. So I'm excited for the continued growth and what things Daniella has in store for this partnership. Brooks has not danced a single dance that I have cared for. This falls on Gleb. He sucks and I'm sick of him. Either fire him or someone needs to discipline him. The entitled attitude is so stank and I want it gone. I wish Brooks had a better partner. She has so much potential and a pro that doesn't wanna get off his ass and work. And Phaedra? Well, she's a great performer. But her technique is not good. I don't think Val has given her dances that look good on her. On twitter I said that Phaedra isn't a "dancer" but she's someone that you can easily make look like a dancer. And that comes with giving her dances that look good on her. A lot of what she's done might look good for his other partners. Not Phaedra.

So that's it. Let me know your thoughts and I will talk to you all soon. Glad I got this out *checks time* 8 minutes before the show starts lol.

[kamryn1963]

2x19 PD rewatch

This is my thoughts on this episode 2x19 (The Three Gs), as it was the most recent one I watched in my re-watch. And one of my favorite episodes of all times, so naturally it's the only episode I've shared my thoughts on yet... But Michelle Sovana is being introduced soon so I might share my thoughts/notes on those episodes too. Anyhow.

• Al centered episodes are my absolute favorite and we had so little of them

• I watch this episode a lot, but I haven't seen it in chronological order in a long time and it definitely gave me a new perspective on the episode and small details in it. I'll do a separate post on how Al wasn't doing very well mentally most of this season (actually most of the show tbh) and how that just made this case so much worse

• I do love when cases from the characters pasts are revisited. It tells more not just about the character, but also adds a different stake to the cases

• The scene at the beginning!! I love Al and Erin's friendship and that scene with Lexi was so good

• I wish we could have seen more of Lexi and Erin interacting as (from my rough calculations of the timeline) Lexi would've been young when Erin started living with Hank so I assume Lexi knew Erin most of her life and they should've got more scenes. Same with Al and Justin (who didn't even get one scene which is insane)

• Kim instantly asking Al if he was okay when her and Roman arrived on the scene 😭 not focusing on the victim or shooter, just checking in with him (the writers did them dirty in season 4. Season 2 Al never would've treated Kim like that)

• You know, I usually hate Roman but he's pretty tolerable in this episode. Surprisingly he wasn't the one being the dick

• This episode was definitely about 90% about Al and definitely focused on three main friendships imo. Al's friendships with Erin, Hank and Antonio.

• Al and Erin had the scene at the beginning, their banter and than the scene in the warehouse where they found the dead girls :/

• Al and Antonio friendship was subtle in this episode and they didn't talk to each other much but it was definitely there. The scene at the beginning in the elevator stuck out to me, the way Antonio was looking at Al clearly knowing something was up. In the warehouse too when they were interrogating the suspect and Al wouldn't let go of him. It showed in the end scene as well.

• Al and Hank was the final friendship that they showed a lot of. I love their friendship so much (one of my favorites. Would've been my all time favorite but I also ship them romantically so...) but the scene in the warehouse and the one when Meredith called Hank to talk to Al were amazing. They also had the end scene in the hotel.

• Meredith pisses me off everytime she's on the screen but especially here. She called Hank at 2 in the morning because she was worried about Al and then did what she did in season 5/6. Like come on, she obviously knew how close they were, god.

• The scene with Al and the girls parents 😭

• The conversation between Adam and Antonio about Al having full pension 5 years ago was very welcomed. They should've done that more. We knew so little of Al before he joined Intelligence/his childhood

• The end scene at the hotel when they arrested Dennis Lee was fabulous. Al almost snapping, Adam getting Hank and Antonio over there since he doesn't know what to do, Antonio trying to rush towards Al before Hank stops him

• "Detective Olinsky, organized crime, I never forget a face".

• "You shouldn't of come back here, you should've never came back here. This ends for you right now".

• Hey I wouldn't of blamed Al if he did shoot the guy, but I guess it's better he didn't in broad daylight

• The scene with Antonio and Hank coming around the corner and see Al with his gun to Lee's head, and Antonio rushing forward is so good and honestly says a lot. But it was definitely better Hank was the one who talked to Al

• I love gentle Hank

• The way he put his hand around Al's shoulders and rubbed his arm until Al looked at him :(

• The scene with Al and Erin at the end also

• The "don't go crawling under a rock after this" Erin's just looking out for her (honorary) uncle 🥲

• This episode definitely should've led to more. We could've had more episodes focused on Al's trauma and it sucks that nothing more really came out of it

• Like I get why since the next episode was 2x20 where we got to (unfortunately) meet Gregory Yates and with that storyline, Nadia dying, Erin's grief and the team grieving there wasn't much opportunity

•But I'm still bitter about it

• I should focus on the other storylines in this ep tho, cause while I didn't really care about the Roman scenes, I do really like patrol Kim. I'm not that mad she didn't go into Intelligence until later, since I personally liked her much better in patrol

• Nadia!!! I'm going to pretend she got a happy ending and what happened next episode didn't actually happen, because she could've been a great cop. Holy shit the writers fumbled that so bad.

• Her and Trudy's friendship is so precious to me. Like I love Nadia and Erin of course, but they didn't really interact much Nadia's last couple episodes, that was mostly Nadia and Trudy

• So it's very very stupid and annoying that we only really saw Erin grieve and not Trudy when she was very obviously close to Nadia and hurt

• Overall Nadia deserved better and Al needed therapy or a hug... probably both

This ended up long so kudos to you if you made it to the end lol. I just really love this episode and took the opportunity to rant and share my thoughts.

I'm going to make a seperate post tho on how this case was the boiling point for Al's already declining mental state at some point.

Because it's also very important to me :)

[pinkkop]

It's been 2 weeks since Love Class 2 ended and I can't stop thinking about it. So I am here to tell you why I liked it soooo much in the hopes that maybe more people will give it a chance.

First off: You don't need to watch the first season before you watch Love Class 2.

The full main cast consists of new characters that weren't in the first season and the main connecting point between the two seasons is the Love Class which is a university course called "Marriage and Family". The class is used in both seasons as a tool to push two characters together and make them spend time together. The way the class works is by pairing the students up and then have them pretend to "date" while writing assignments related to their "dating" (whether this is a real class I am unsure but the same concept is used in the Korean GL "Girlfriend Project Day 1" so it might be a Korean thing *shrugs*). I already really liked how this concept was used in the first season and the second season utilizes it just as well and actually takes a different approach to this so it doesn't feel like the show is just repeating itself.

The basics:

Love Class 2 is a Korean BL with 10 episodes of 30 min-ish each. It has three couples and even if it's short compared to Thai BLs it made good use of the time it was given.

The three couples are all connected but have very different plot lines and dynamics. The couples are as follow:

1. Reunion/mystery past (goes a little dark but no-one gets hurt). Kim An was Lee Hyun's tutor while Lee Hyun was in high school but one day Kim An dissappeared. Two years later they are reunited at university but they've both changed a lot in those two years, Kim An more so. Finally meeting Kim An again, Lee Hyun re-inserts himself in Kim An's life through the Love Class. This turns out to be easier said than done since Kim An's past keeps a tight hold off him.

2. Friends to Lovers /Unrequited Love but not really

Minwoo has liked Maru for so long and has finally resigned himself to his feelings never being returned which makes it so much more frustrating when Maru is always there in his life.

3. Meet-cute / Strangers to Lovers

TA Kim Sungmin and senior student Yoo Joohyuk meet in the most awkward situation (for Sungmin that is 😅). In the aftermath Joohyuk makes it his mission to get Sungmin's attention.

Things I really like about the show:

Great chemistry with all three couples

Interesting plot and good storytelling

Some amazing kisses and believable physical intimacy

Interesting and funny dynamics between the characters, both inside and outside their pairings

Satisfying confessions and resolution for the couples (let's be real, I've watched one of the confession scenes an embarrassing number of times)

The story isn't told 100% chronologically and you aren't told all the facts from the beginning. I'm personally a big fan of this kinda storytelling and I think they do a really good job of unveiling the mystery and developing the relationships.

Final thoughts:

This show manages to both be wholesome, funny, dark, soft and sensual, and with a great ensemble of characters and couples. I really liked all three couples and even if the couples had very different plot lines this still felt like one show.

I've already watched it twice and I think it's definitely a show I'll come back to again which is a testament to how much I like this show.

If you aren't convinces yet here are some GIFS to set the mood!

(also @save-the-data is a God sent gift with all the amazing GIFs of the show. Hope it's okay that I basically plastered my post with your GIFs)

[letmeinnnnn]

Some thoughts on SPTO

Some thoughts on "Scott Pilgrim Takes Off", inevitably I must share them

-I was expecting an animated adaptation true to the OG comics (I have never read them, only seen panels online) but I was not entirely surprised by what they ended up doing. Figures they would want to make something new out with a new media form rather than adapt an already-existing story (the comic)

Was not super upset by it. Just kind of, "Oh. Okay." Still was going to watch and enjoy that we got something at all.

-I DO feel like there was something missing. I can't put my finger on it exactly but something was off. On god I cannot figure it out in my own head-- I don't know if it was too quiet sometimes and needed bg music or needed louder and more frequent sound effects, but SOMETHING in the sound department was off.

-The style and animation was beautiful which is why the above^ is such a bummer because it ended up making a lot of the impact moments, not impactful?

-Gideon and Julie ended up being the highlight for me that I didn't even know I needed (Evil love is such a rare treat) I wish we had seen more of them!

-Yes, I wish we could get a Season 2 but know that's not gonna happen, which SUCKS. I don't even care how they do it- if they want to cook up a whole new plot or even just do it self-contained episodic story style. I wanted more, more episodes! I hate Netflix's 8 episode standard.

-There were a handful of lines that actually made me chortle out loud so I've got to hand it to them: "Is he mad?", "I couldn't even get a reservation at McDonald's. They laughed at me when I called." To name a few. I love that dry, Scott Pilgrim-standard level of dumb humor.

-Seeing the bits of Ramona with some of the exes (like Lucas and Roxie) in the past was sweet and I wish we had seen more of that.

-I actually didn't like Todd's arc. Felt hollow, wanted to see more vegan powers in the action, or backstory w/ Ramona

-The music was FANTASTIC. Such a bop. Anamanaguchi does not disappoint

-Assorted random comments: the random Lucas Lee and Gideon friendship was fun, lyrical song choices were great. We got to see much more of the side characters than ever before and I loved that a lot.

-Do I feel like I was baited? A little, but I'm not upset. I think the criticism is blow out of proportion.

Overall good, but yes I think it could have been better. I think something was holding it back from being GREAT. Would like a season 2.