#posting this one after having it in the drafts for a month teehee

[jennyanypenny]

Can’t believe she is the only cat ever

reference :o)

[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!

[golden-bk]

Fun fact I've been trying to post this for the past few months but the progress on my draft keeps fucking resetting🔥🧍‍♀️🔥

Anyway refs for my bbgirl's many outfits. The first two are his old look during most of KIU while the third is his current look since he's in a ✨coma✨

You are going to hear more about him this is a threat (I'm gonna lore dump teehee🧙‍♂️⚡💥⚡💥⚡💥⚡💥⚡💥)

Yuè was the previous moon god and ruler of Yutu prior to his younger sister, Bélalune. He was literally born and raised to take up this position after his dad retired, even moreso bc he was basically a child prodigy with his magical abilities. Bc of that, there was a lot of pressure put on him to dedicate a lot of time into training. He rarely had time to have a normal childhood(fork in sink moment bc he's literally space royalty), and if he had the choice he'd be doing literally anything else like studying plants or making weapons.

People were banking hard on Yuè being That Bitch who would one day dictate the future of Yutu for centuries to come, while the second in line and younger child, Bélalune, was free to do whatever. Because of that, he'd have some misguided resentment towards her for a while, and would go out of his way to avoid her as much as possible.

The one reason they were able to find common ground was when Bélalune started picking up weapon forging and asked Yuè to mentor her. This helped break the ice between them and get them to actually get along as siblings for the first time in years. The resentment would slowly subside after that(especially since it was outside forces that really put a rift between them, something something doomed by birth yap yap)

So yea shits cool now-

Sike, aliens now. Also their next door neighbor The Lunar Sanctum recently got destroyed, and it's (one) prisoner flees to Yutu and holes into the palace's walls while most of Yutu's army is occupied with the Aurum. The Chaos Kin pretty much tries to do a test run of what it's going to later do to Palutena and possesses Yuè. Mid-possession, he tries to kill his sister, but she wakes up and retaliates.

With the Chaos Kin already doing a lot of damage to him and Bélalune not knowing how to break its control and attacking him for the most part, Yuè doesn't know if he'll even get out of this alive. So while he has a bit of control over his body, he gives his powers to her so she can finally break its control over him and keep his godly powers in safer hands. Which she successfully does, but all the injuries cause him to go into a coma.

With Yuè out of commission, Bélalune, the least experienced of the two, becomes the next moon god and ruler of Yutu. By the time KI:R rolls around, she's getting desperate to wake him up, and this desperation causes some of the plot points in the story🤸

So yeah that's my eepy king Yuè. I hope this is all legible bc I typed a good chunk of this down at 4am

[zhiroaesthetics]

Mid-Summer Writing Updates

Was told that giving updates about non-major works is also valid to prove that this page is alive so...teehee!

Mental Check

To say that I've been slacking this year is a grave understatement. It frustrates me because posting in December 2023 (Kaveh) then January 2024 (Haruaki) truly made me believe that I had found my groove, then I saw my stats and gave up, yay! It's just hard writing when I already don't have the healthiest approach towards writing (it's really bad, like I cried so much writing both of those drafts), and that level of effort goes unnoticed by both the audience and myself. But I've slowly been accepting the fact that I can't gain the audience I want if I don't prove that I exist. After all, posting since 2021(?) but not even having ten entries is silly. With that being said, I have been writing consistently over the summer, but have been slowed down because I've been active, like this is the first week that I've been in my room this entire month.

Goals for Pre-Fall 2024

I'm definitely going to have at least three posts before the end of the year. I always try to have more than the year prior, and considering how little I have to my name, it's been pretty doable.

I've been going back and forth between Bowman (Granblue Fantasy) and Kyo (King of Fighters) for the past two months, and I know for the latter that his second draft is going to be posted before fall, though I'm not sure about the former. My writer's block on his draft isn't the worst despite the fact that I have to rewrite the first half of what I currently have, but I struggle trying to prioritize that draft over Kyo's given that I don't know how well a NSFW Bowman entry would be perceived. Regardless, if I post twice before Late August, expect for it to be these two bums.

Goals for Fall 2024

This is tricky, as it HIGHLY DEPENDS on what I end up fixating on, but definitely expect Tai Gong Wang (Fate/Grand Order). I've been wanting to write him since the beginning of time, but lack of knowledge on his character thanks to me exclusively playing FGO on the global server and things implied under mental check made it hard for me to prioritize writing the idea that was practically given to me. But what was initially supposed to be a collector's item ended up being NP3 and LVL 100, so I'm taking it as a sign to - at some point - lock in, and I think doing so right after clearing out my current drafts would be perfect timing.

Do, however, look out for these people:

Blade (Honkai: Star Rail)

Diluc (Genshin Impact)

Charlemagne (Fate)

Goals for Winter 2024/5

Yae Miko. Despite her being a December 2024 goal, she's one of my more ambitious projects due to research and it not being a one chapter entry. Even as I'm currently working on Kyo and Bowman, I'm immersing myself within The Pillow Book, as Sei's story is what most of Yae Miko's story will be in reference to. Also Haruaki, again, hopefully January 1st.

Do, however, look out for these people:

Kaveh (Genshin Impact)

Saichi Sugimoto (Golden Kamuy)

Miscellaneous

Girl if you saw how far I made it into my Senji draft, when I started, and when I stopped, you'd be wondering why my #1 isn't in any of my defined goals. And I'd say shit happens! Senji's draft had a very extensive outline, and I lost that very extensive outline, so I lost my motivation yay! Nevertheless, I still want to get it out there because I think it's a really funny one chapter entry.

Also Toji. Very much an outlier, but I've been putting him on the backburner because his draft is also one of my more ambitious projects, but one that challenges my writing skills in a duller way because of the amount of mundane scenes present. Also not a one chapter entry.

Anyways uh, thanks for peeping the yap session, meow!

[nayfem]

who was the first character out of the runaways you created ? ^^

and who’s your favourite story wise? :) (no spoilers though‼️🙏)

sorry for taking months to answer this, i really wanted to wait until i could do a DEEEEP dive for some files (this is a long post)

to answer your second question: my favorite character story wise is probably Cliff and Grace ?! its a cheat answer cuz i just answers 2 characters but idk i love writing them, their dynamic is so fun and cute, im so excited to post abt their new designs and story teehee

to answer your first question:

these three from around may of 2022!!! theres a fourth, but i cant find the drawing for the life of me. from left to right:

Eurus

Notus

Zephyrus

(Boreas was the forth.)

you might be asking "Hey who the fuck are these people" and that is a valid question because i dont draw them ever!!

the idea for Runaways started with these guys- first as a story about these gods and their family dynamic, but it quickly evolved into a whole world (MCU style) about superheroes.

i wanted to make one comic and then expand- starting with these gods. but as soon as i made the next character in the story... i knew what i had done (brain rot)

although that answers your question, i have more to say (unfortunately)

the comic was going to end with Eurus turning into a villain- a misunderstood villain but a villain nonetheless. she was going to form a found family group and thats when i created a familiar face...

Grace Xu.

actually, Grace came about when i thought of the name Grave Force. i thought Grace suited the name, and she was going to have basically the same powers as Anna today (her skin would put you into a coma.)

but, then i started crafting another character...

Casper Wright! an invisible thief that would steal supplies for the group.

after that, it snowballed into a whole cast of characters, and eventually the wind gods fading into the background and i havent really touched them since.

heres the first ever drawing i did of Anna, when i started figuring out that she was gonna be Grave Force, and not Grace. i quickly figured out i wanted Grace to act as a main character, and started working on the other crew!

Cliff Phoenix when he was still called "Clint"

he was the muscle of the group, with his signature flame thrower. he was kind of a himbo back then, i still see him as a himbo but at least now hes not dumb.

back then, the gadgets the group had were made by Casper, or at least thats what i planned on. i much prefer Cliff being the gadget maker of the group!

this was my first ever draft of everyone together; a quick sketch of their heads and pride flags!

from left to right:

Grace Xu

Casper Wright

Cliff Phoenix (i need to bring back his gray streak </3)

Val Romero

Anna Xu (yes she was a ginger.. and white (Grace was her half sister at this time))

Val was a really interesting character and what i thought would start the comic!! the idea was have the group go to a really fancy party looking for a "kid" in danger.

her name would have either been Psyche! (like haha gotcha) or Mirage. their power was to create a hallucination of sorts- she could make herself appear to be the persons type (either romantically or someone they took pity on) and then rob them lol. thats why the group thought it was a kid- someone saw a child enter a shady car and speed off to a upper class party.

i still wish i couldve found a way to put her in the story. honestly, ive been redoing the Runaways story and designs, and when i work on the villains i'll definitely find a spot for them!!!

thank you for the ask my dear friend, you have increased my brain rot <;3 /pos

[elainesinlane]

🔑 archive #4 - e.dalyn's love letter (from last post)

To my dearest Ni.fa,

As I am writing this letter, I watch the first Robins of spring perch on the branch by my bedside window. I have put down writing this letter to you for months now, but after dire circumstances I have mustered the courage to finally do it.

It seems my brain won't stop thinking about you. Every waking hour, every mundane task, hell, even in my dreams it's you that it always circles back to. You're in everything I do now. It seems funny, but it is the truth, as much as I hate to admit it. I often wonder where you might be or what you're doing. Are bland potatoes and soft raisins still your favorite breakfast? You weirdo.

There's a tremendous chance that this letter will never get to you, and quite frankly, a part of me hopes that it does not for you will eventually forget me (if you have still not) and live the rest of your life in peace. But for the faintest chance that it does, I want you to know that I'm sorry. I never could've imagined choosing them instead of you... I wish I could turn back time. Also, I want to clarify that this letter is not asking for forgiveness, but rather an explanation.

Every night, as I lay in the cold confines of whatever bunk I can sleep on, I can't help but think of you. Your laughter, your courage, and the way your eyes sparkled with determination amidst the chaos of it all. But fate cruelly bound us to opposing sides, and our paths diverged, tearing us apart like the shrapnel that scatters after an explosion.

In our final moments that fateful day four years ago, I'd catch glimpses of you across the battlefield, unaware of the deception I wove around you. It was torture to witness the pain etched on your face, the disappointment in your eyes as you tried to make sense of my betrayal. If only I could find the words to explain my actions, to tell you how my heart ached with each step I took away from you.

Ni.fa, you must understand that the choices I made were not born of malice but of the cruel twists of war and duty. I sought solace in the belief that, by playing my part, I could somehow protect you from the darkness that enveloped us. But, in doing so, I lost the one person who meant more to me than the whole world combined.

My heart is heavy with the memories of our stolen moments, and my soul torn between love and regret. I cannot undo the past, nor can I predict what awaits us on the horizon of this brutal conflict. All I can do is offer this letter as a testament to the emotions that have haunted me since we parted ways.

If by some miracle, peace finds its way to this war-torn world, and our paths cross again, know that my heart will always carry the love I had for you. Even if it remains unspoken, it will forever dwell in the shadows of my soul, an everlasting reminder of the bittersweet romance we once shared.

As I am writing this, the men are getting ready for battle. In a few days, we will attack the trenches and I will die soon. But I'm going to die with no regrets.

Or, that's what I would like to say. Truth is, I do have one.

It's that I never got to marry you.

Yours–now and forevermore,

Lyn

--

authors note 😋

ITS CRUEL AND ITS HEARTBREAKING AND ITS GAY ANGST AND AND TBH ITLL PROBABLY HURT NIFA MORE AND ITLL PROBABLY DO MORE BAD THAN GOOD BUT WHATEVER!!!!!!! SHES GONNA CONFRONT EDA ABOUT IT AT THE FIREPLACE SCENE THINGY TEEHEE TEEHEE YES GAYS YES MY CHILDREN SUFFER!!!!!! SUFFER AND DIE!!!!! MUAHAHAHA!!!!!! also i might edit this this is just a rough draft im too braindead to think about anything good so bear with me 😢

[butterbabyflapjack]

god i've been sleeping on this for so long. I found the beginning of this fic in my drafts tho and thought I'd post it - WARNING for violence, sexually explicit content, and non-con. (also this is a rough draft so don't judge me too hard teehee ♡)

The Entity only dragged you here a month ago, and already you’ll never be the same. No matter how many times you taste death, you still fear it, and no matter how many times these killers chase you, you still fear them.

Wherein Joey becomes obsessed with you, but Frank can't leave Joey alone with his toys–especially when that unfortunate toy is as fun to play with as you.

It’s so cold.

Even with your jeans, your light coat, you’re not dressed for this. Frigid air still biting at what little skin you have revealed, just as fear nips icy fangs across at your heart.

Everyone is gone. 

Everyone but you. 

And some nasty, crawling feeling inside your gut screamed that things were wrapping up just like Joey wanted them to.

Because you’d seen him. Earlier, when everyone else was still around. You’d seen him, watching you try and fail to fix a generator. Nearly jumped out of your skin in stumbling back from how his darkened silhouette suddenly appeared, just outside the broken window of the dilapidated shack in which you worked. Falling backward on the cold wood floor as your pulse jolted in fear that he would chase you, and instead the fucker just… 

He just watched you.

Standing there. Silent amidst the flurries. His mask an icy phantom beneath the low cowl of his hood, while the wind howled coldly round him, so at odds with the heat of his shrouded gaze, with how it felt to trail across your skin, your shape...

He merely stood there watching you. Perusing you, it felt. Before, as moments passed, slipping off without a word into the chill of the trees; a skull-faced apparition. His visage stolen by the gloom of the surrounding cold. Each bootfall as silent and soft and steady as the hush of snow that blanketed this horrid realm you’d been dragged to only a month ago.

He hadn’t seemed in a hurry.

Even when he saw you repairing that gen.

Why didn’t he stop you? Hurt you? Chase you? In any way slow you down?

You’d refused to give it much thought then, having more than enough to worry about. But now that you’re alone…

Now it feels more threatening. More uncertain. More strange. Like it was purposeful. Like he was planning something.

You need to get the fuck out of here.

Your eyes strain through the cold, snowdrift crackling beneath your feet.

Your only hope of escaping this frigid hellscape is to somehow find the hatch. Where is it? It has to be around here–please be around here–you’ve checked everywhere else.

All at once, your footfalls pause as you think you hear the hatch's telltale hum. Ears craning for that wanted, familiar sound.

...There!

There–!

Like a smoking chasm, a wound to the world itself, you spot it spewing smog far in distance before you; lungs seizing as you start to run.

You hear too late those muted steps behind you.

Steel slices wind as it slashes through you, so swift you barely feel it; pain creeping its way across your senses only after you’ve cried out in shock, only after red heat spills down between your fleeing shoulder blades, soaking through your coat. 

You stumble, your next step slipping on ice. Barely catching yourself on bruising knees and palms as you attempt to crawl away, to crawl forward, to pick yourself up again and run–not looking back because you know what’s there to find you.

Joey kicks you in the ribs before you can even get one foot solidly on the frozen ground, and with a grunt you topple over yourself, rolling onto your side.

He's on you in what feels like an instant, though his measured steps are slow. One large hand wrapped around the custom grip of his karambit, painted red with you, while his other dark-gloved hand toys with the chain-led padlock dangled at his hip, metal clinking against the worn fabric of his jeans. 

His eyes are barely seen within the sockets of his skeletal balaclava, and yet you know he watches you like a famished wolf might a fat and wounded doe.

“You’re new,” he says. His voice is rough, scraping up his throat, and it’s the first time you’ve heard him speak, the first time you’ve heard him make any sound at all beyond his grunts and winded groans while chasing you. But you’d always gotten away, those few times you’d ever seen him. Ever faced him. Fled him. Had always slipped from out his stretching fingers.

Always until now.

You twist your desperate gaze back toward the hatch spewing smoke far in the distance in front of you, only for Joey to kick you hard in the ribs again, tutting above how you whimper in pain, a moan dying in your throat.

“Eyes on me, sweetheart,” he says, as your terrified gaze draws up to him once more.

Something in him shudders; his gaze a dark sheen, bright as black flame.

“That’s right…”

Boots twisting on snow, he roots himself atop you, one leg on either side of your hips. And as you struggle on instinct to get away, to scramble out breathlessly from under him, he roughly pins your stomach to the ground beneath one heavy, snow-worn combat boot; grinding his heel harshly into the small of your wounded back.

“Where are you going?” he lightly wonders, something fevered beneath his breath. Thrumming to himself, a contented jackal, as you struggle beneath his boot whilst failing to crawl out from beneath the deadlock of his weight. 

Outside your vision, you sense the lean muscle of him shift. Sense his eyes perhaps trailing after yours, out toward that opened hatch spewing smoke in the distance.

“Oh,” he hums, as though to hum were a form of laughter. His interest returning slowly to you, your hopelessness. “I see… You still think there’s a chance you’re getting out of this, don’t you…?”

With the sound of his exhaled smirk, he lowers himself down to one knee atop you. The ground seeming to bend beneath his weight as his knee replaces his boot, pressing into you, between your wounded shoulder blades, and you cry out as you’re reminded how deep he’s cut you.

He snares you by the nape, long fingers nearly wrapping fully round the back of your throat.

“That’s so cute it hurts.”

Without warning, he rips your head skyward, then slams it down into the snow-encrusted ground.

Your whole world rattles, pain bitten through gritting teeth. And, gripping to your scruff, he yanks your reeling head back up again.

His words warm your scratched and aching cheek as he lowers his masked face beside yours. “Are you going to behave for me now?”

You don’t want to respond. Don’t want to somehow satisfy him. But in truth, it's more fear instead of pride that keeps you silent. You don’t want to cry, either, but hot tears still seep through your trembling, cinched-shut lashes as you try to turn your face through the frozen dirt away from him.

The leash of his fingers in your hair tightens. “Is silence a ‘no’? It certainly sounds like one.”

His hand shifts toward your mouth, muting you, gripping your face as he twists your gaze back to his. And like a snake in search of something warm to sink its fangs in, his knife curls round the delicate front of your throat, tearing an anxious sob from you.

“Are you going to play nice?” he asks.

Tears shake your vision, reducing you swiftly to wordless, tightened trembles as the back of his gloved fingers stroke your face, up and down your temple, your cheek. “Answer the question.”

You swallow back the bile that threatens to overwhelm you. Your gaze flickering out toward the outline of the darkened hatch upon the snow far before you once more, trembling with want, before you eventually force your eyes back to the watchful hunting of his.  

His eyes alone make you struggle to swallow. They rob you of something.

“I… Y-Yes,” you eventually stammer out in fear, half hearted–not knowing what else to say that might possibly help you.

A smirk lights his deep, scratchy voice; his gaze alight with it. As, politely, he asks, “Yes what?”

You bite your lips closed so hard you fear they’ll bleed. Half welcoming the knife, if only to end this torment, before fearfully forcing out, “I…I-I’ll…”

Every word’s a weakened leaf, and Joey chuckles when you can’t continue; a cruel and languid rumble from the storm of his throat. 

He shoves the side of your face down into the grass and dirt; stems and stones intending your skin, branding to it.

“You’re going to take my cock,” he growls, to your abject horror. Gruffly reaching round your waist to seize the front of your pants. Jerking the button free, guiding the zipper down sharp. “And you’re gonna take it like a good little girl, aren’t you?”

Tears shake your vision, and his knife pets your face when you don’t respond.

“Say it,” he purrs; knife tracing. “All of it…”

Even thinking the words makes you nauseous. And you exhale an averted, frightened huff in your reluctance from responding. 

His karambit’s blade curving up around your cheek, scraping softly, reminds you that he’s in charge. Not to try anything stupid.

“I’ll… I’ll t-take your…” Gods, maybe you’d rather die, but you’re afraid of how painful he might make it. 

The tip of his knife presses harder against your frightened cheek, drawing lazy circles, indenting skin; not quite harsh enough to cut you, though its flirtation creeps ever closer. And, fuck, you want to live, even if there’s just a small chance of it. At the very least, if you do what he wants, he might make your ending quick instead of drawing it excruciatingly out.

“I’ll… take your c-cock like a-a… like a goo-d little girl…”

He seems mildy amused by your anxious platitude, like he could take it just as easily as he could go without.

“There you go…” he simpers; a subtle smile hidden in his low, graveled tone. His blade still stroking across your cheek with its silky, iron touch. “See how easy it is to play along? Now, just relax… You’re going to like this part…”

WIP w e d n e s d a y

Thanks for the tag @gaeadene! 💖💕 I've got something filthy cooking~

ʜᴜɴᴛᴇᴅ (ᴊᴏᴇʏ x ꜰ!ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ x ꜰʀᴀɴᴋ)

Frank and Joey play with their food.

tagging: @athanasius-symposium-of-writings @shintin @l0sercat @vaya-mernda @guilty-pleasure-writings @languidcryptid @chromeedwardian @flaggermuser @possumteeths @brimbrimbrimbrim @apraxvalith @whimsyvixen

[longtimenospooning-luci]

Cat's Cradle

Summary: After five years of back-breaking work under your hardass boss Min Yoongi, you can finally step back and live your life well with your son and his rowdy uncles. Opening a Cafe with your eldest brother Seokjin after so many setbacks was euphoric, but what happens when your ex-boss finds his way into your cafe? Will everything fall apart again or will your life finally piece back together?

Pairings: Panther Hybrid Yoongi x Single mom Reader, Sibling Kim line Feat. Best friends Hoseok and Jikook.

Warnings: Cussing (I mean who am I if I don't include cussing), mention of pervy old men, a deadbeat ex, angst between yoongles and Joon. Open but fluffy ending teehee 😈

Word Count: 4.4k

Surprise! I've had this in my drafts since April, so I decided to finish it up and post it. I hope you enjoy and pls look forward to the next chapter of ACR in the coming week or so.

"You've done great tonight Y/n, I think we have the deal made with the Choi's."

You're sitting in the backseat of a luxurious sedan with your boss, Min Yoongi, heading back to the company after a dazzling dinner party for the most posh and elite members of Seoul's society. Having worked for him for five years now, you were well attuned to the Panther hybrids personality and high expectations. You knew anything and everything about him, and yet, you're pretty sure he doesn't even know your birthday.

Tonight is the night you're going to announce your resignation after years of dedicated work. Planning this moment for months at the encouragement of your family, having put it off until the breaking point.

"Thank you, sir." You reply, looking out the window and taking a deep breath to steel your nerves.

"You should tell me what you would like as a reward, that was good work, you deserve something nice."

"Sir, that won't be necessary."

"Don't tell me no Y/n, you've worked with me long enough to know I don't reward people often."

His retort had cut you off from revealing your intentions of resigning, and it only sets your nerves on fire.

It was way past midnight and he had forced you to stay for the after-dinner drinks, leaving you alone to fend off the grubby hands of inappropriate old men. You were tired in more ways than one and you had been skirting around tipsy grab-ass attempts all night while the love of your life was waiting for you to return home.

"Actually, sir, the reason why I said that is because I'll be resigning now." A hint of annoyance in your voice.

His ears perk in shock and then flatten, boring his eyes into you. ". . . What? What are you talking about?"

"I'll be handing in my letter of resignation on Monday, sir. I'm very thankful for the years we've spent together and everything You've taught me but, I'm leaving the company."

"I don't understand" He almost whines. "Did you get another offer? Is it the pay? Or the hours? Why are you resigning?" Firing off the questions in bewilderment.

"No, sir. I've just determined it's the best decision for me."

"In what way is it the best decision!?"

"I understand this may seem rash and unwise to you, but this is something I considered and chosen after a lot of thought. I truly believe this is what's best for me and I hope you can respect that."

"I... Okay, I-I wish you the best then..."

Your heart unclenches and a breath of relief releases from your chest. Giving him a soft smile, you thank him and turn your gaze back out the window. Unable to see the heartbroken look on his face when you turn away from him.

It's been two weeks since you dropped the bomb on Yoongi's heart and announced your resignation, and now he watches you smile brightly through the glass panes of his office as you celebrate your last day with the rest of the executive team workers.

He had never imagined that you would leave him one day, and now it's burning a hole through his soul.

At first you had just been a young girl so poor and in a mess, she had to settle for an assistant position despite having an elite degree. You had once told a coworker the reason was because you couldn't afford to go through an intern position in your career field. You had to sacrifice the life you wanted in order to do what you needed to survive. Overhearing the conversation between the two of you from outside the breakroom.

He had always held a deep-rooted annoyance and dislike towards you for skipping out on the hard work for your career in exchange for money. Clawing his way to the top of his own company as a poor orphan from Daegu. But listening to that conversation struck something in him and softened his heart, he understood what it was like to make sacrifices to your own happiness in order to live.

After that instead of being a hardass just to be one, he was a hardass in order to teach you and allow you to grow in the business world. Instead of being the meek woman behind the powerful CEO, you became the fortress around him.

No one worked in their society and didn't know your name.

Other assistants revered you and directors knew they could never get around you, handling the inner workings of Yoongi's company like a well-oiled machine. Nothing got past you or swept under the rug without you knowing, and no-one got the drop on him because you had already seen it coming.

Two years into your job with him and he treasured you as his most valuable employee and friend, never daring to think more of the relationship than that. But when you had single-handedly prevented the total collapse and takeover of the company from a rival, you stole the panther's heart irrevocably.

Now here he is three years later and you're leaving him when you weren't even truly his. He had no right to stop you and he knew he had no right to use his feelings to get you to stay. The same scent of another had always clung to you from the time he could identify it from your own. It had told him all he needed to know, you were taken and there was nothing he could do about it.

Stepping into the café that night after bidding your former coworkers and boss a final goodbye, you had never felt freer.

"Eomma!" Your son yells, hopping down from his stool behind the counter next to your eldest brother. Bounding towards you like always.

"Hi my little kitten! Were you good for Uncle Jinnie today?" Wrapping your arms around him and looking at his cute face, his black cat tail flicking behind him in happiness.

"Mhm! He's teaching me how to make Brownies!" He chirps back at you, slipping from you and back over to his uncle.

As a working mom the best part of your day is coming into the café your family owned after work to hear the happy shout of 'eomma!' from your little boy. Now after five years of hard work you can step back and run the shop with your brother without any worries of supporting your son.

Years long before Yeonjun was born you had dreamed of opening a Café with your eldest brother, working hard to get a scholarship to Seoul National University and graduating with honors. But life had its ways of throwing wrenches into your plans, you had gotten into a relationship with someone you thought loved you and you loved them. But when you found out you were pregnant, he disappeared like a coward, and like a domino effect your life came crashing down after you gave birth to your little kitten when your parents passed in an accident.

They had left debts unknown to you and your siblings and being the older siblings; You, Seokjin, and Namjoon shouldered the burden of that debt to protect Taehyung while he was still in High School. The money Seokjin and you had saved for the cafe opening had gone to the repayment and had still only managed to cover half of it. Namjoon sacrificed his full focus on college in order to work part-time jobs to help. Jin got a job as a pastry chef and after Yeonjun was old enough to leave with a daycare you snagged the assistant position under Yoongi.

It had taken the three of you two years to pay off the debt, barely scraping by on the strictest of budgets, and two more years for you to save up to open the café. Thankfully the two of you had already bought the building before everything came to a halt, and you only needed the money to make it operational.

Your little kitten tells you all about his day at school with his teacher Mr. Park and helping your older brother in the café as you stand and walk around the counter to greet Seokjin, before heading through the kitchen to the stairs that lead to the apartment above. Despite what most people would think, the home is much larger that it appears on the outside, spanning two stories like a townhouse and equipped with 5 bedrooms and 3 1/2 baths. You send Yeonjun back downstairs so you can change out of your work clothes and get started on dinner, living with your three brothers and a five year old can be hard sometimes but you all work together to make sure things get done around the house.

Walking back into the kitchen in your comfy clothes you hear the door open to reveal your twin brother Namjoon and younger brother Taehyung.

"Hey, how was work?" you ask the two as you begin to pull ingredients out of the fridge.

Namjoon starts first as he plops down on one of the stools at the island, "It was good, I'll be able to release my mixtape soon." You beam at him, proud of his hard work as a musician while working as a producer for other artists.

"What about you Tae?" The youngest of the Kim siblings worked as an art teaching assistant at a local college, giving music lessons on the side.

"It was pretty good, Jungkook made a complete fool of himself again today by volunteering as the nude model for the freshman course, he got chased out of the class by our old professor with a ruler."

Both you and Namjoon laugh at this, picturing the scene in your heads of Taehyung's mischievous best friend, who was a vocal teaching assistant at the same school.

The rest of your day went smoothly preparing dinner and getting Yeonjun settled and ready for bed, grateful that you could finally spend time with him and see him consistently every day. You should have known your luck would run out again though when your former boss walks into the café the next morning.

"Welcome to Cats Cradle Café how can I help- Mr. Min!?"

The both of you freeze as you stare with slack jaws, expressions mirroring each other.

"You decided to quit so you could... work here, Miss Kim?" He speaks the question slowly, as if trying to figure out if he stepped into an alternate reality.

"Um, well... I guess you could say that. I own this shop actually." You reply hesitantly.

You can see the gears in his brain turning as he stares at you in silence after you divulge the reality of the situation. He doesn't have the chance to respond to the revelation however, when your son knocks him out of his stupor, catching both of your attention when he opens the door to the café.

Taehyung and Jungkook hot on his heels as he runs to where you are behind the counter, "Eomma! Look what Uncle Kookie bought me!"

The boy holds up for you to see a pink microphone with a cartoon rabbit on it, wrapped up in a box.

"Oh, baby that's so cool! Did you thank Uncle Kookie like you're supposed to?"

Your son wouldn't notice the change of intonation in your voice, but you stab Jungkook a thousand times with your glare for getting a noisy toy like this for Yeonjun. 

Jungkook shuffles at your glare to hide behind Taehyung as Yeonjun thanks him for the toy.

"You're welcome, buddy! Uncle Kookie has to go now but I promise I'll teach you how to use it another day okay? Bye Noona!" Inching his way backwards Jungkook nearly sprints out the door when he finishes his sentence, hoping to escape your motherly wrath. 

Upon his departure you turn your attention back onto your nearly forgotten former boss, "Would you like your usual Mr. Min?"

You watch the way his black tail flicks nervously behind him as he nods, the black ears on his head flattened to blend in with his dark hair.

"Hey Ahjussi you have a cat tail like me." Yeonjun has reached up to grab Yoongi's hand to get his attention, and the both of you stare at your son in shock.

Thankfully Taehyung steps in for you, "Yeonjun, you know better than to touch people without their permission."

The boys' ears flatten as his tail curls around his leg, not yet long enough to curl around his body.

"Sorry Uncle TaeTae, sorry Ahjussi." He bows to Yoongi and takes Taehyung's hand to go sit at their usual table for his weekend music lessons with his uncle.

"Mr. Min are you alright?" He had been captivated with watching your son walk away, ears following the movement.

"Uh, yea sorry this is just a lot to take in." Jin walks in behind you from the café office where he was ordering supplies and takes over for you at the counter.

"Thank you, y/n." You take off the apron and grab the Iced americano you had made for Yoongi, walking around the counter to your ex-boss.

"You're welcome, Jin." Calling back to him over your shoulder, you stop in front of the panther hybrid and silently hand him his coffee, speaking up after a few seconds of awkward silence.

"If you have some time, would you like to sit and talk?" his ears perk up at your question and you almost giggle at the behavior, never seeing his hybrid features betray his calm façade often. 

After agreeing, the two of you settle at a table near Yeonjun and your brother so you could monitor their shenanigans.

"I never knew you had a son; I didn't even know you were married much less." Yoongi begins the conversation as he looks at the little boy, missing the frown that comes across your face at his words.

"That's because I'm not married." His head whips to focus on you, eyes wide in surprise, and he can see now the sour look that mars your features.

To you his reaction is just that of surprise, but in reality, it's a look of hope, being completely oblivious to the fact that your big bad boss has been harboring a crush behind his cold behavior all these years.

He decided to do his best to act like his feelings never existed all those years ago and he had been doing well for three whole years until the single phase 'eomma' nearly tore his heart out. 

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to assume, is the man at the counter your boyfriend then?"

You bark out a laugh at this, his cheeks heating up in embarrassment at his own question.

"That's my eldest brother actually, the man sitting with Yeonjun is my younger brother and my twin brother is at work right now."

If his cheeks had been pink before they're on fire now, his keen sense of smell had always identified three male scents lingering occasionally along with a constant feline presence. Now that you've explained it to him though, all these years of repressed jealousy are downright mortifying to him. Not to mention the fact that the male behind the counter isn't even a hybrid.

"Yeonjun's father actually isn't in the picture, it's why I never told you or anyone else in the office. You'd be surprised at how many job offers got rescinded when they found out I was a single mom." You speak quietly, looking out of the window to avoid Yoongi seeing the hurt expression on your face.

He doesn't have to see your face to know you're hurt though; he can tell by the change in your scent and the tone of your voice.

Not saying anything further on the topic to prevent upsetting you more, he notices the way your son locks his attention on you when he gets a waft of your sad scent in the air. 

The boy hops down from his chair, ignoring his uncles' protests and makes his way over to you, his hybrid instincts telling him to protect and comfort you.

He climbs into your lap and snuggles his face into your neck when you wrap your arms around him, letting out little purrs meant to comfort you.

Yoongi smiles at the scene before him and he selfishly wishes to himself that the boy was his own and watching the two of you was a normal part of his day. 

Since your run in with Yoongi at the café he started to spend his weekends hanging out around you and your family in the shop. Even meeting Jimin, Yeonjun's teacher and the third troublemaker to your younger brother's friend group, and your best friend Hoseok. The only person he has yet to meet Namjoon, which is where this VERY awkward situation is stemming from as Yoongi unknowingly discusses with you a PR plan that he's been having trouble with to collaborate with your brother.

Joon had recently released his mixtape and it had blown up on the charts, leading to the marketing team suggesting adding him to the list of possible collaboration candidates. Unbeknownst to you, Yoongi had completely been sold on his music the second he listened to it, and now you find yourself in the pickle of whether or not to tell your ex-boss that the rapper he's gushing about is your twin brother. 

"Hell no." Joon blanches when you ask him that night.

You had gotten Jin to help you by requesting Namjoon take over the café with you for a little while so he could run some errands. Hopefully giving you enough time to convince the man, and if that failed you had hoped Yoongi could convince him when he stopped by for his regular visits.

Despite the rocky feelings you had towards the CEO while working for him, he had proved himself a completely different person outside of a working relationship. Even spending some of his nights after work learning to make various coffee drinks and sweets with you and Yeonjun; one of which ended with flour all over his designer suit, a very giggly little boy and a gummy smile from the panther.

"Please Joonie? Can you at least just consider it, for me?" he stops sweeping the floor to give you a look when the bell on the door rings as its opened.

"Uncle Yoongi!" Yeonjun jumps up at the sight of Yoongi, having grown closer to him over the weeks with the added help of both being feline type hybrids.

"Uncle?" Namjoon's deep baritone voice stops the panther in his tracks, slowly looking up to take in the tall beefy frame of your twin.

"Ahaha, Joonie this is Min Yoongi, the one I've mentioned that's been coming to hang out at the shop with us on the weekends. Yoongi this is my twin brother, Namjoon." 

Your ex-boss's posture is ramrod straight as he bows and introduces himself to the taller man, almost looking ready to bolt. Joon gives a noncommittal hum in response and narrows his gaze at him.

"What makes you think you have the right to come here and have a close relationship to him when you put his mother and my sister through hell?" The color in your face drains as you look at your brother in horror, Yoongi's face mirroring a similar reaction to your own.

"Namjoon!" You gasp out.

"What!?" He whips his attention to you. "Don't tell me his sweet behavior these past few months have let you forget the nights you came home crying from the stress. Or your own child's Birthdays and milestones you missed seeing while you were forced to work overtime or denied time off. Or even having to sit at work for hours on end while your son was in the hospital because this asshole didn't think a family emergency was enough of a reason to leave early!"

He then turns the focus of his ire on Yoongi, tears of frustration streaming down his face. "Do you even have the slightest clue of the misery you have caused this family? Do you even understand how heartbreaking it is to tell a child his own mother can't come home on his birthday? Or how gut-wrenching it is to see the guilt on my sisters face when she was finally able to come home hours after he had gone to bed? She spent five years watching her son grow up through the screen of a phone while she catered to your every whim, and you expect me to be okay with you kindly sliding into our lives like none of that happened?"

The tears are streaming down your face now, never knowing the hurt Namjoon had felt seeing you struggle. You had been so happy to be free and content with a relationship with Yoongi that didn't contain a superior-assistant balance that you had let go of the frustrations you felt while working for him. Seeing now that he had not let go of those negative feelings out of protection of the other half of his soul and his beloved nephew.

"Uncle Joonie don't cry." Your sweet little boys voice comes out muffled as he clings to his uncle in the biggest hug his tiny body can muster.

Namjoon crouches down to wrap his arms around the boy, tucking his face into Yeonjun's shoulder and bringing a large hand to the back of his head. "I'm okay bub, Uncle Joonie is sorry for yelling in front of you. Why don't you go upstairs with Eomma and help her make dinner, hm?"

He looks up at you then, an apology in his eyes that only the bond between twins can decipher, and you nod your head in understanding. Taking the boys hand when he comes to your side you give a look to Yoongi and bow your head in goodbye. Namjoon watches the two of you walk into the back of the shop and heaves a sigh when you disappear from his sight.

Yoongi watches as your brother gets up from his crouched position and levels his gaze back on him. "Let's go for a walk, Min."

Yoongi has never felt more intimidated by a person than your twin brother. Sure, the other two were both tall and by no means scrawny, but the sheer size of Namjoon's biceps makes him feel like the dude could pick him up and toss him like a sack of potatoes.

The hybrid shakes himself out of his thoughts and softly clears his throat before he responds, "Yea, okay."

Your brother takes off his apron and motions for Yoongi to follow him out of the café, turning the 'Open' sign around and locking the doors. He sets off down the sidewalk without looking back to see if the older man was following him. Namjoon stops walking after a while and lets out another sigh as he leans his head facing the sky, then lolling his head back to focus on Yoongi after a second.

"My brothers have been telling me about your new habit of visiting and quite honestly I don't know what to think about it. For years I've watched my sister come home exhausted and force herself to get up and go to work even when she was sick because of you. She's missed out on so many of Yeonjun's firsts and birthdays as a result of how hard you had her working and now all of the sudden, you're a different person?"

Yoongi doesn't know what to do, guilt is washing through him at the man's words, and he struggles to think of what would convince him that he truly cares about you. That he never intended to cause you misery and he never would have done what he did if he had known he was pushing you too hard. You had never let him see you were struggling, he thought you were thriving, he felt pride in the results of your hard work, and it made him think you were capable of that much more.

"I know you have your doubts in me. But I never intended to cause her such pain." He looked into Namjoon's eyes with determination. "I've admired your sister since I hired her, she was always capable and hardworking and after a while I saw a potential in her that others couldn't. I admit at first, I worked her like a hardass because I didn't understand why someone like her was skipping out on the steps of her career in exchange for money. But then I saw something in her that reminded me of myself, and I admired her for her sacrifices, and I worked her harder because I knew she was capable and that she could accomplish something incredible under the pressure."

"And what? You thought you could push her like that without checking in? You thought you could put all of that responsibility on her without the corresponding title? Or pay? Or benefits?" Namjoon fires back, skeptical of the hybrid before him.

The CEO takes a deep breath, knowing that the man was right. "You're right, and I know I'm selfish for it, but I wanted her by my side for as long as I could. I wanted her to continue to be the fortress around me. She kept me levelheaded and calm, and she protected the company silently and I took that for granted. And fuck- You're so right in that I just expected her to take my shit and still stay by my side forever, but I was blind and stupid and Naïve, and yet I can't live without her in my life even after knowing I don't deserve her."

He's looking into your brothers' eyes with the most sincerity he's ever felt in his life, and he prays that if there's a god out there that it will help him just this once. That your brother will believe him, that he will at least let him stay in your life if only as a friend, that he will get a second chance to do this the right way.

"How long have you been in love with her?" The response throws him for a loop, but he won't back away from his feelings anymore. He won't risk losing you again.

"Three years, but I think I loved her long before I realized it." Confessing the truth with confidence lifts a heavy weight off his chest for the first time in a long time.

"Do you still love her knowing what you know now about her? Knowing that she's a mother?" Namjoon levels him with the question like it's the final challenge, and he doesn't hesitate a second in his answer.

"More than ever."

[halcyondigger]

:: Fuck This Shit, I’m Out ::

So, there’s a certain incident that’s been going on the past couple of days. To be honest, I wanted to drop this post about it a whole lot sooner, but out of respect for the victim of this in question, I chose to hold off until it hit a pretty evident conclusion. 

Because god only knows if I said anything, it’d be used against her in some ridiculous fashion given my proximity to the circumstances.

Yeah, I was keeping up with the play-by-play on all of this, and frankly, it’s abhorrent.  And no, I’m not putting this under a read more; we’re going PSA on this.

Seeing as how this all went down without any kind of human decency from any of the guilty parties, I have no intention on being gentle with any of you.

So! Let’s start with the weasel responsible who’s been making the rounds on anon.

I saw those asks she was sent. Our little firestarter, hiding behind that mask? You’re a gutless snake.

“Oh but- but defending yourself just makes you look MORE SUSPICIOUS you really should just admit it tho” fuck that and fuck you, I can read between the lines. “If I try and look amicable, maybe I’ll get you to bow down”, that’s what your ass is looking for, and don’t you dare pretend anything otherwise. 

Don’t think you’re clever or unique; I’ve seen this exact shit too many times before. It’s always the same with your type. You stir up the most ridiculous, inflammatory slander, you mask yourself on anon and act all mousy and friendly to get them to budge just a little pretending you’re some totally-different-stranger, and then you go all in with the most hurtful and abrasive shit you can muster now that you’ve gotten your foot in the door. You’re a manipulator, and you disgust me. 

But above all? You’re pathetic.  Lemmie guess, no job? No meaningful relationships or hobbies that keep you occupied? That’s the usual impetus. You have nothing going for you and no better use of your time; the only way you can get any kind of excitement in your life is to try and ruin someone on social media, sling as much dirt you can their way, try and turn their friends and other contacts against them, make up some salacious bullshit or start spreading some asinine rumors to spice that up however you can, and you drag it out. You drag it out to milk as much empty schadenfreude as you can get before you have to return to your miserable doldrums without a target to harass.

Funny thing is, for all the hurt you’ve done? She actually has stable income and a life. That’s likely far more than anybody’ll be able to say about you for a good, long time.

Oh, but we’re not done yet. Mods, mods, mods -- let’s talk about you for a hot minute.

That person spent so much time being worried over this, presented clear and concise reasoning for her position, wanted to make sure she handled this as properly and well-organized as possible on your account -- and none of it was considered at all. Mods, I know full damn well you didn’t even try to give it a look. All you kept replying with was, “yeah, but we’re triggered by the idea so you’re out though, lul”. Even those she knew didn’t try to actually vouch for her, they just kept informing her of the childishly stubborn refusal to budge. You couldn’t be more transparent in this behavior if you were made of fucking glass.

There wasn’t an ounce of good faith in any of this. She kept trying to play by your standards but you kept shifting the goalpost every time because you had no intention of fair assessment to begin with. Words of wisdom from one of my Psych teachers, “You can’t have a discussion with someone who’s already decided for themselves that anything you say is wrong.”

Your heads are getting too big. I mean, it started way back with banning entire series from application, not even R-rated or pornographic, just exclusively because they bothered your little feefees, but the slow burn’s been encroaching. Now you’re making irresponsible judgement calls and acting on sensationalism rather than anything remotely resembling good sense. 

The fact that at least one of you has bias in this instance towards getting rid of her because she has muses you want doesn’t help matters.

This exact shit is why citta-alverea sunk, and you’re not gonna be too far behind at this rate. A bullshit incident like this is just where it starts. 

I mean, keeping someone around who nuked the masterlist because of relationship issues certainly wasn’t a good start in the first place.

So, out just like that, without anything of an honest say?  Well, nifty. So am I.

It should go without saying. I mean, you’ve tarred and feathered my friend on a whim with one of the worst labels you can put on a person, and you think “just try again in six months teehee” helps the situation? As if any of the people she’s RPing with are still going to be here, to speak nothing of being able to come back after what you’ve just done; fuck off, nobody’s dumb enough to buy that.

Besides. To begin with, the job that just got started with her Roll Caskett? Obviously can’t proceed now. I tried to get Kunio involved with other Atlus muses, but I keep getting passed over, so there’s no point in him sticking around if Ume’s gone. And for crying out loud, I apped Arthur for her to begin with.

So, that’s about the long and short of it. Though I do have some specific words in parting to give--

@gungnirclad​, @beyond-use​, thank you for your interest in the guild. Sorry about this turn of events; I’d been drafting up some introductory job things, but seems that won’t be taking off. I wish you luck in finding other jobs for your muses!

@edgeworthwrightanythingagency, assuming this place is being checked anymore, Kunio’s out in the investigators as well. Hey, upside, there’s another open investigator slot for muses so inclined.

For all the Fate muses who gave Arthur a great opening, thanks, seriously. I got a pretty universally warm reception, and it didn’t go unappreciated. Never forget Roman is guilty of brownie crimes.

Mods? ...I can’t really say anything. Pretty sure you’re beyond help.  Our little upstart who’s probably so proud of themselves? [ by request of the actual victim in this situation, I’ve been asked to specify the obvious that this is not speaking in regards to real csa victims of which the instigator is obviously not, not for you jokers’ sake ] you are bad and you should feel bad

Oh, and the responsible party who started this shit; if you want to go stirring the pot in my inbox for speaking out against this?  Go ahead. Anon’s off. Put up or shut up.

I’m out.

[kylo-im-ren]

The Rise of the Fallen One & Reylo (excerpt)

Rey is not alone in the Dark!Rey scene.

This was first pointed out to me through this tweet from brehaorganas. Then @sillyrabbit36 did a lovely job of recoloring the footage to show it in greater detail in this post.

I went ahead and made some GIFs for visual aid.

In this shot (BOW DOWN TO YOUR QUEEN) it looks like there could be movement, or a figure before the screen pans over to Dark!Rey. That could also very well just be the way that the light and shadows move in the view of the camera.  The real evidence is in the following shot. The money shot.

(My ability to breathe? I don’t know her.)

I zoomed in for a better look, and I tried my best to brighten it without ruining the quality too much (fuzzy image below= proof I’m not a professional lol).

I’ve labled what I think it is that we are seeing. To me, in the bottom right it looks like dark/black clothing, maybe a cloak, or cape. Or maybe just dark pants. In the top right it looks like either a hand in dark, long sleeves, or a chin in a high turtleneck.  I’m leaning more towards it being a hand.

Now, let’s look at the movement of this mystery figure. It appears that whomever (or whatever) is there is backing away from Rey. And if we go with the hand theory, it looks like they are backing away with their hands up defensively. Below I’ve created an extremeley detailed and intricate artist rendition of what I believe happens here. I warn you, the artistic talent I posess has brought some to tears.

(As I was writing the final draft of this bit i came across this post by the amazing, ever talented @gwendy85 . The position of Ben and Rey in her art is so close to what I’m picturing! And a million times better than my stick people lol. Just wanted to give some quick promo to her. If you haven’t already, you guys should really check out her art and meta posts, you won’t be disappointed😊💜.)

So, who is this? Well, there are a few options. Let’s play one of my favorite games: The Process of Elimination.

Option 1: Palpatine Just the simple fact that the figure seems to be backing away from her tells me that it isn’t the Sheev man. If Rey does go dark, and this is real, and not a vision, I’m 99.9% sure that Palps will have something to do with it. So why would he be backing away from her? If anything, he’d be the one encouraging her. 

Option 2: Finn (my sweet boy) This is a more logical option, however, John is reported saying that he wasn’t there when Daisy wore her Dark!Rey fit. He said he was supposed to be there, but that was just for a visit, meaning his character was not invoved in the shooting of those scenes (I looked for the link for like 20 minutes and decided I’d rather get this out and edit the post later when I eventually find it.) Plus, the hand (or chin) doesn’t look like it’s been blessed with that melanin (teehee), so I’m thinking it’s pretty safe to assume not Finn. And without Finn being there, I don’t think any other resistance squad memeber would make sense. So I’m striking out Poe, Rose, or Jannah as options.

Option 3: Rey  Let me explain.This would fall in line with the theory that Dark!Rey is a vision that Rey has. (I go into further details about how this could go, and the pontential parallel between it and Lukes vision quest on Dagobah in the full meta.) This could be the moment where she is forced to literally face her inner demons. If this were the case though, the costume choice that makes the most sense, canonically and visually, would be for normal Rey to be in her normal clothes. Her pure white, flowing robes are a stark contrast to the dark figure we see backing away. 

“Maybe that’s just the shadows, it’s a dark room.”

That’s true. But if we go with the turtleneck or long sleeve idea, those are complete opposites to Rey’s v-neck and short sleeves. This makes me think that the mystery person is not Rey.

Option 4: An innocent It could be an innocent that she kills in her dark rage/possesion. Making this a scene to show how far gone she is. I highly HIGHLY doubt this option though.

Taking all of those out leaves me to believe that it can only be one person. One particular dark froce weilding, sad-boi, love-struck prince.

Option 5: Ben The clothes, if i’m picturing them correctly, match up perfectly with Ben’s attire at all times. Dark cloak/cape, maybe a black turtleneck (like we’ve seen in TFA), long dark sleeves. And, if this is Benny boy, what really intrigues me is that he is gloveless. The implications of that alone...

Sorry, I spaced out. I was fangirling.

ANnNywAy, let’s assume it is him. Now the question is:

Vision or Reality?

(I dive deeper into all of these theories in the full meta. I still can’t choose a side!)

While I still haven’t chosen a side (lol) at this point in time, I think I’ve narrowed my choices down to the Dark!Rey is real train or the Ben Vision Train.

If Dark!Rey is real, I feel that this could definitely be the moment where Ben goes to save her from Palpatine, and from herself. There have been several posts describing how this event could unfold.  If Dark!Rey is real, this could serve as a major catalyst for Bendemption. This tweet points out an amazing comparrison to this moment of Vader having a vision of Dark!Padme.

The most terrifying thing is seeing someone you love fall down the same dark path that you did, and having to watch them be consumed by it.

I think this feeling and reaction would be representitive of both real and vision Ben. If it’s real though, it could lead to a fight. The fight, however, would be completely onesided. He would refuse to strike her, talking to her the whole time, reasuring her of the people in her life that care for her, and that he cares for her. Telling her that she’s not alone anymore. She doesn’t have to do this, He knows this isn’t her. Pleading with her to come back to the light. To herself. To him.  He’d say he knows that there is still good in her, and that he believes in her. He tells her to use their bond to escape Palpatine’s control, or the firm hold of the Dark.

All of this sounding familiar? 

(I was so happy to see my fellow TFA Reylos were thinking the exact same thing I was with this.I love y’all. We all deserve a stiff drink and a foot rub 😭😂)

Now, if it’s a vision, I feel that the scene will be much shorter. I also believe that, again, if it is just a vision, It will be a reflection of what is already happening inside of Rey. She could actually go dark for awhile after this, just maybe not to the extent that we see in this scene. I don’t think that it is the same vision he saw in TLJ (although I definitely think that he saw something like this), I think this would be a new vision.

Something that caught my eye about the initial cut to Rey was the motion of the camera. 

The way that it swoops over to focus on her resembles someone whipping their head around in surprise.

You know what that reminds me of?

Rey even stumbles back after this. 

If vision is the way, I have a feeling it will be like the one Rey had in Maz’s castle in TFA when she touched the legacy saber. I actually think that this would be such a cool call back, and would be another amazing example of how these two characters mirror eachother. This vision could be brought on when he touches an object as well, or it could be in the form of a dream. Or it could be a vision brought on by Palpatine to tempt Ben. Or to scare him. Or-

Summary, there are so many ways that this can go. We have truly entered my favorite time over these past 4 years, The Hour of Speculation. And it’s the final hour! Everything wraps up after this...

 As much as that breaks my heart, I am so excited for the next few months. I can’t wait to ride this out with all of you, and to hear what amazing theories you freakin oracles come up with during the wait. Old and new Reylos, I LOVE YOU!

And may the force be with you always.💙❤️💜

And please share your own thoughts, I’d love to hear what you guys think!

@sushigirlali @jedisassafras @southsidestory @sanctuarytrin It’s not my full thoughts (not even close🤦🏽‍♀️😂), or a ficlet, but I promise all of those are coming soon! Hope you like my quick ramble, much love💙☺️