#shall Shippy video

[cartoondrawer]

Audio by @lovelynurseandhenchman 🙏🙏😭

[t0ast-ghost]

S3 EP16 (The Mark Of Gideon) hmmm this sounds like something from supernatural…

I’m sorry I’ll never mention supernatural again:

- Sending Kirk down by himself? His boyfriends will be worried :((

- “I shall be interested in your description, Captain” “You won’t have long to wait.” This was said with so much lust

- Kirk calling to anyone and everyone. “Bones. Bones answer me.” D:

- Spock has immediate concern for his boyfriend

- Spock sees McCoy is on the bridge and immediately wants to escape to the planet. He’s not dealing with McCoy’s worry on top of his own

- “We must acknowledge once and for all that the purpose of diplomacy is to prolong a crisis.” Spock is so so angry he can’t go looking for his boyfriend

- “You mean you’re going to scan space for him.” My god he wants that man so bad. Scanning the entirety of space when he goes missing is not normal behaviour.

- Spock is very bitter towards bureaucrats and diplomats this episode and I agree

- Hey Kirk. Just this once buddy, don’t kiss her. Can you do that?

- On the video call McCoy looks seconds from snapping and Spock is right there with him

- I love when everyone was on Spock’s side like ‘yeah they fucking suck, I’m sorry bbygirl’

- Quilt ass vest

- Scotty is not going to take them besmirching his transporters

- Spock needs to go listen to Break Stuff

- Kirk’s ass It’s sad how sad Kirk is.

- pretty privilege

- “I envy you and your sense of loyalty. I want to ease your feeling of dread, your fear that all your crew no longer exists.”

- twenty four minutes and fifty seconds in. He’s kissing her.

- THE GREEN PEOPLE ARE JUST WATCHIJGBTHEM KISSWGAT

- ID BE SO FREAKED THE FUCK OUT NAH. No. Legitimate fear is to look out a window and see someone watching. this is a no.

- Time for me to ask what is happening

- Aaand they’re using Kirk in their little fucked up little experiments

- Spock is angy

- I like how there is legitimate character development. Spock and McCoy aren’t fighting, McCoy knows Spock is doing everything he can, short of just running in there. And Spock is getting visibly pissed off which McCoy I think would be proud of if their boyfriend wasn’t missing

- Kirk not afraid to fight some bitches

- “That’s the best possible decision you could make, Spock. I’m with you.” Kiss each other Character development yay!

- Spock is using ‘logic’ to break the rules and save Jim.

- Spock is protective of McCoy, McCoy is protective of Spock

- After Spock leaves Scotty walks up to McCoy with this look like he’s about to ask him if he’s dating Spock

- “I will not be long.” Is the equivalent of ‘I’ll be right back’ number one rule is never say it

- Trippy ass shippy

- If you’ve lived so long why are you dressed like that? Can’t contract a sickness AND can’t contract a sense of fashion

- This is awful

- Spock should’ve brought McCoy with him

- Spock THREW that man

- Spock is like, ‘don’t get in the way, I will bitch slap you.’ (Edit: three Spock comments in a row)

- PRETTY BOY PRIVILEGE (what’s got you smiling like that) if he smiled at me like that I wouldn’t survive

- “As crowded as my planet is, I wish for it to hold one more person.” *smiles* “Kirk to transporter control one to beam down to the planet Gideon.” ‘nah, bitch’

Development: I’ve found out how to cross things out I’ll use it for evil

Masterpost

Episode written by George F. Slavin & Stanley Adams

[rickie-the-storyteller]

New video!

Tbh, this is just me reusing old material... it's the same results from this poll I did a while back:

I just wanted to post something lol. I have only really been able to post YouTube videos once per month due to how freaking busy I've been with university and work. Hopefully, I'll be able to post more in future, since it's coming close to the end of my academic year.

Anyways, let me know if you agree with the poll results lol. I may actually do a more detailed video discussion on YouTube about my favourite romance tropes... I think that'll be a ton of fun!

[musings-from-mars]

From the shippy asks: rgr 1

One buys for the other(s)… 1. Flowers

((High School AU))

Weiss let out a shaky breath as Blake drove her to May’s house. “I don’t know, I feel like she might be expected something more high class?” She said. “I know she’s the rebellious type and everything but, I mean, look at this neighborhood! Am I going about this all wrong?”

Blake chuckled. “I can’t believe I’m listening to Weiss Schnee, of all people, worry about whether someone is too high class or not.”

“I’ve been away from home for a long time, Blake. And you and Yang and Ruby have corrupted me.”

“You’re welcome,” Blake said, smirking at her. “And don’t worry so much. You know May. She’s going to love what you’ve got planned.”

Weiss sighed. “I hope so.” She fidgeted with the bouquet of roses in her lap. “Are flowers too cliche?”

“They’re just the right amount of cliche,” Blake told her, then slowed to a stop in front of one of the many high-end houses in this enclave. “Go get her, lover girl.”

“Ugh,” Weiss groaned. “You’re not helping.”

Blake rolled her eyes. “Sure I am. I’m your chauffeur.”

Weiss gritted her. “Will she think I’m lame for not having my own car? Or license?”

“Did you just use the word ‘lame’? This isn’t a Nickelodeon sitcom.”

“Right, right, I’ll shut up.” Weiss opened the door and stepped out.

“Good luck!” Blake called as Weiss walked up to the porch.

The Marigolds’ front door had one of those video doorbells next to it. Weiss took a breath, then reached a hand toward the doorbell, only for a voice to cut her off just before pressing the button. “Identify yourself!” The voice commanded.

Weiss pulled her hand back with a start, then sighed. It was May’s voice. “It’s Weiss, obviously.” She rolled her eyes.

“Are those flowers for me?” May asked via doorbell.

Weiss held up the bouquet, blushing. “If you’d like?”

“You’re cute. Be right there,” May said, then the audio cut off. A moment later, May was at the front door, dressed in a black sweater and light blue skirt. “Hi.”

Weiss extended the flowers toward her. “For you.”

May made an overly exaggerated surprised face, taking the flowers gingerly. “For me? So romantic.”

Weiss sighed. “Were the flowers too much?”

May snickered, then stepped forward and took Weiss’ hand. “Not at all. You’re sweet.” She lifted Weiss’ hand and kissed it. “Shall we?”

Weiss smiled, blushing. “Sure. I, uh, I got us a ride.” She said, gesturing back at Blake’s sedan.

May chuckled. “Is that your Uber?”

“Of sorts,” Weiss said, looking away bashfully when May smirked at her, only to look back when May took her hand.

May smiled at her. “Well, then let’s go,” she said, then led Weiss along the path back to the car.

Weiss followed, staring as May led her, then smiled, feeling her worries fall away.

[kob131]

https://rwdestuffs.tumblr.com/post/625278536172879872/done-dirty-shipping

Maybe it’s because I’m still not over how the writers just up and offed Clover and are trying to use the ship he had with Qrow for marketing purposes, but still.- If they hadn’t done that, maybe there wouldn’t be as much backlash for what they did?

*looks behind Dudeblade to see all the Arkos shippers still trying to burn RT to the ground for sinking their ship.*

I highly doubt that.

They promoted Qrover (And that’s the name I’ll be using to avoid getting into the proper ship tags) for the sake of merchandise. They do the same with Blang (The name I’ll be using for the Blake x Yang ship to avoid getting into their tags as well), it simply seems as if these ships are just there to keep an audience invested in the show for the hope that their ship will become canon before the final episode of the series.

Ah huh-

Let’s check RT’s merch store shall we?

https://store.roosterteeth.com/collections/rwby

This is the store showcasing RWBY merch by the ‘Featured’ selection. Notice something...unusual?

Yeah, the front page of their ‘featured’ section (which would tell you how they market the show) has three pieces of possible shipping merch...and it’s Renora and White Rose. NOT Bumbleby OR Fair Game. And I do mean ‘possible’ because one could debate that since Ren and Nora are always paired together and considering White Rose is so ignored by the fandom equally ‘shippy’ moments are widely ignored- it’s not inherently romantic.

In fact, none of the three given pages have Bumbleby merch. The closest is the Yang Vs. Adam hoodie...which excludes BLAKE. SO it’s closer to Yang X Adam merch.

But maybe that’s not enough for you. Let’s switch to the ‘Best Selling’ selection. Of that we have...one shippy piece of merch. The same Renora piece from before. Odd, considering if they’re using shipping to sell the show: Why isn’t the merch, the open support of the show, flooded with shipping merch? Why is both the stuff they are pushing people to buy AND the stuff people are buying NOT showing up?

Seems rather counter intuitive ...unless they AREN’T doing that.

This post was made about a month after the finale. If miles pulls the same thing that LoK did with the LGBT+ characters in his show, not only is that hypocritical (As he would be doing the exact same thing that LoK did), but it would also be significantly worse.

Actually he fundamentally can’t. Because Miles wrote in at least three LGBT characters already into the show. So he’s being better by your standards.

Not only was LoK screwed by the network numerous times in regards to their budget, but they were also forced to not make the relationship between Korra and Asami as overt as they would have liked.

And so was RWBY screwed with budget AND resources by Gray. Andd yet no word from you on that...

And again- Already showed at least three characters being lesbians, if not five since Scarlet and Nolan are gay in Before The Dawn, a book written under Miles and Kerry’s supervision.

What network is keeping the writers from doing the same thing with stuff like Blang, Qrover, or whatever the ship name is for Terra and Saphron? Why do they only get hand holding, soft looks™, and confirmation outside of the canon show?

Bumbleby- Canonical status unconfirmed.

Fair Game- Never intended to be a ship. It was just a reference to the waitress back in Volume 4 along with the usual shipping exaggeration.

Terra X Saphron- They literally have a fucking child together.

Other shows like She-Ra, Steven Universe, and Black Lightning managed to have LGBT+ Representation in their shows despite the networks trying to reign them in. So a show that has no such restrictions can’t do it because…?

They have. You’re choosing to ignore it.

To say nothing of the quality of these since Steven Universe is the only respected one and is rather unique in comparison.

Nora and Pyrrha can forcibly kiss Ren and Jaune respectively, but Same-Sex couples have to settle for elementary-school crush stuff?

Terra and Saphron have a fucking kid. And two of your examples are bullshit.

Meanwhile, how are those ships fairing again? ... One is permenantly sunk and wasn’t even confirmed considering Jaune’s feelings for Pyrrha are not confirmed to be romantic and the other is having massive issues that could sink any romantic connections?

And how do people like you react to any kind of strife regarding same sex stuff? ... Called Illa a psycho lesbian despite being significantly more stable, regretful and safer than her straight counterpart Adam?

Yeah, why don’t YOU tell me why a fanbase known for being abusive towards the creators and hounded them for YEARS about this shit isn’t being fed?

Also, this is a dick move. $16.00 for a sunk ship? Not only that, it’s a sunk mlm ship. A kind of representation that hasn’t gotten any real representation outside of Scarlet? And even then, that was confirmed in a different book.

More like a set of pins that can be used for cosplay.

TBH, mlm shippers have every right to be upset about this.

Straight shippers have had the biggest ship sunk and permanently in limbo (Arkos) and the second one is going through a massive rough patch (Renora) while the third and fourth are regularly decried as pedophilia (Lancaster and Rose Garden) if not outright abuse (Tauradonna).

The others get confirmed ships but not the ones they wanted. Boo fucking hoo.

Whether the writers intended to or not, Qrover was coded, and they queerbaited.

Queerbaiting is a marketing technique for fiction and entertainment[6] in which creators hint at, but then do not actually depict, same-sex romance or other LGBTQ representation.[7] They do so to attract ("bait") a queer or straight ally audience with the suggestion of relationships or characters that appeal to them,[8] while at the same time attempting to avoid alienating other consumers.[6][9]

They literally CANNOT do that by definition. There are same sex relationships AND characters to connect to. If you try promoting this vague and broad definition of queerbaiting-

Well, what’s to stop the Snowbird shippers from claiming they were straight baited with Winter and Qrow or Blake and Sun?

Do you REALLY want to cross that threshold?

P.S. ‘Coding’ effectively means ‘I see stereotypes’ so you’re kind of being a douchebag here.

Let’s also remember that Pyrrha’s entire existence literally revolved around Jaune and she was meant to die to further his development. Jaune x Pyrrha was literally made to develop Jaune and pretty much only Jaune, with the other characters’ reaction to her death being an afterthought.

*cough* Ruby has gotten more development from Pyrrha’s death than Jaune *cough* 

Then there was also that one Blang bag that cost like… $60.00. The writers are using these popular ships for merchandising usage and to try and reel in fans who are wlw or mlm with these ships.

Which is why they...don’t...show...up on...the...merch store...

Fun Fact: Dudeblade never shows the so called 60 dollar bag despite CLEARLY being able to screen shot images. So we’re expected to take his word for it despite not being honest in this very video.

They didn’t even have enough self-awareness to feel bad about it.

So how exactly are we supposed to trust them when they don’t realize what they did to the community?

He says as he ignores aspects of LGBT rep in RWBY, outright called a lesbian a psycho for daring to be an antagonist despite a much more unstable person to compare to and ignores the LGBT rep in other RT shows, including Camp Camp which has two heroic gay married men in the show.

Whether you ship Qrover or not, this was a massively dick move to pull. And these idiots have a lot of things to make up for it. If they choose to do it at all.

You know, that dick move you forced onto them.

And yet you doing worse (’Hey when is Miles gonna die so he can be replaced?’) deserves no making up?

Where were the guys who said that revealing that Pilot Boi was gay before offing him was a bad idea? Why did the writers not realize that this sort of stuff was going to come off as queerbaiting?

Probably because Eddy did it himself and didn’t know about this.

But really… Way to go RT. Your dumbass decision has now turned off members of the LGBT Community and caused some of them to cancel their subscriptions.

Hope that shock value was worth it.

Just like with Pyrrha, something you yourself even said before.

I fail to see how this is RT’s fault outside ‘you dared to exercise free will!’ considering that your logic would dictate changing the show the minute an LGBT ship becomes popular.

Even as you’ve spoken out against this kind of thing with Death Battle (accusations of sexism).

Way to go with the hypocrisy Dudeblade.

[morethanaprincess-a]

@kiboumukou​ said:  Winter Shippy Starters 30 for Hajime

Winter Shippy Starters

30. Our muses spend New Years eve together

At exactly 4 p.m. Novoselic time, Sonia had waved away the aesthetician tending to her face and the stylist armed with both a straightener and curling tongs in favor of her mobile phone. Sitting at her vanity wrapped in a dressing gown, she’d been adamant about adhering to this part of her schedule that December 31: The only part of it that had been her contribution, really. If her family had the only say, the Princess of Novoselic would have been prepping for two days worth of festivities as soon as she’d gotten up that morning, with the lightest of meals to keep her going before spending hours being primped and primed for the New Years Eve gala that evening.

Sonia, naturally, had other plans. Ones that involved a very important phone call, since she would not be permitted to be present that evening.

“Hinata-san? Hinata-san!” Sonia inquired into the device, having set it up for face-to-face conversation instead of purely verbal call. Hajime, she hoped, would prefer it that way, even if she was still in the process of looking, and ultimately feeling, her best. It would be the fourth year she’d attend the gala, the eighth she’d attended the New Years Day luncheon, but the first she’d been invited to speak with her father during the New Years Day Address. She’d given speeches of course, but this would be the first televised one, and she’d never been more pleased to be in the possession of the knowledge that there was no imminent danger of champagne running out throughout the evening, with a high probability of having more than enough to sustain both King and Princess’ combined nerves, as long as they adhered to their limits.

But all of that meant she couldn’t celebrate his birthday as she wished: with him indulging in the traditions of both visiting temples at the stroke of midnight and surprising him with a birthday cake (that, of course, she didn’t cook). So she’d done the next best thing: planned a video call for when the clock struck midnight, ushering in both his birthday and a new year in Japan.

“Can you see me? Hear me? Happy Birthday! And Happy New Year!” She beamed, waving before making a victory ‘V’ with her fingers. In the background, some of the maids smiled politely or even giggled, while her secretary, Cecily, sighed in annoyance. Sonia ignored her: Hajime was a friend, he didn’t need her to be entirely respectable and well-mannered all the time. “How has your holiday been? Are you on your way to pray for good tidings in the New Year? I’ve seen that in anime before, where characters pray at temple and are given fortunes that shall dictate the course of their lives for the next year! I shall wish for your good fortune from Novoselic instead, though I wish I could have joined you in person!”

With a tinge of regret in her voice, Sonia continued to smile all the same, getting to her feet and nearly knocking the poor hairstylist off hers. “Ah, Your Royal Highness, we really must adhere to the schedule if you’re to be ready in time for press interviews-”

“Not now, Alice,” Sonia reminded the stylist kindly, though with a firmness in her voice that was clear the princess had no intention of heeding her words, “This is a phone call with someone very important!”

And with that, the blonde shoved her feet into slippers and swept from the room, satin dressing gown and all, into the hallway. With little to no consideration of her state of dishabille. She’d promised Hajime, after all, that she’d show him as much of her home as she could, even when it was thrown into chaos with a television appearance and two grand parties all within the span of two days.

“Oops!” She ducked, the phone losing focus on her face for a moment and pointing to the ground as Sonia barely missed colliding with a camera three men were carefully taking up a large, rug-covered staircase. “If it’s not platters and tableware, one is likely to be run over by filming equipment every New Years Eve. When I was younger, I needed to retreat to the underground passages to find any sort of suitable atmosphere to read or watch films, before my attendance at these events was mandatory. Sometimes I wish for a quiet New Years Eve.”

[ageless-aislynn]

For tonight’s celebration of all things Eobard Thawne/Reverse Flash (and various Harrison Wells doppelganger related ;) ), let’s enjoy some shippy goodness, shall we? In no particular order because all of them are precious to me. Yesssss, preciousssss. [/Gollum] ;) 

Also, this is in no way meant to be representative of ALL of the variations of Caitlin|Frost and Eobard and Harrison that is possible. These are just some of my favs. ;) 

ReverseFrost

They would’ve been an evil power couple extraordinaire and nobody can convince me otherwise!

SnowHarry

The fact that SHE’S the one with powers but he’s telling her to hide... Oh, Harry, I do so love you! ♥♥♥

FrostNash

I think they’re VERY well suited to each other. They’re both rather broken and struggling to find their place in the world. I could see them possibly being the first variation of Snowells that TPTB might actually consider making canon. *fingers crossed* (Probably not but hey, a Snowells girl can dream, right? ;) )

Also, yay, I made a GIF thanks to gifs.com! You can create a GIF straight out of a Youtube video, so that’s handy! (Have to have a free account to download it, though. But a small price to pay to be able to GIF again, IMO. ;) )

Snowloque

This ship did kinda literally punch me hard, lol! I wasn’t necessarily feeling it then all of the sudden, you read a couple of fics and it’s like “Wait, I do have the feels!” Though, in all fairness, I also ship Sherloque/Renee because, well, I just do. Plus I’ve shipped Sherlock/Irene through, like, every version of Sherlock Holmes imaginable, so... ;) 

HR/Caitlin

True confession time: I actually shipped HR more with Tracy. 😯 But I’m not leaving him out and you know that if suddenly HR/Caitlin would’ve been on the table (that sounds way more naughty than it did in my head, lol), I would’ve been HERE FOR IT. :D

Eobard/me

Our love is epic. :P Also, I couldn’t find anything GIF-wise that worked for him and I wasn’t leaving him out. No fear, my bae, I shall rescue you from being shipless! :P

Annnnnnnnd in case you thought I was leaving out the one ship that I’ve both vidded and written the most... ;)

ReverseSnow

Oh yeahhhhh, baby, this is where it all began. Maybe not this exact moment but this was a BIG moment, nonetheless. The shipper goggles flew RIGHT OUT OF THE SPEED FORCE and firmly affixed to my face and I’ve never looked back!

♥♥♥

[rainelot]

GCF in Saipan- A Rant as of August 2018 (Posted December)

(Out in December since I wanted to get a more objective view on things and to edit it slightly. This is just as a memory record anyways so)

When I made this blog, it was meant to be a blog to rant about anything Bangtan that interested me. However, I recently encountered one of the most frustrating, interesting, and baffling two days of my life and I needed to address the cause of this with a rant (that I doubt people will read). The cause: Jungkook’s GCF in Saipan.

WARNING: THIS IS ALL IN GOOD FUN. I claim no rights to what is true or not. Don’t take this too seriously please. Will have Koomin/Jikook references.

To start it off, I don’t like real people shipping. I don’t really care if others do it (as long as they remain sane and logical) but I personally didn’t enjoy doing it for one reason: I don’t know them personally, so it isn’t any of my business. I enjoyed their interactions with each other platonically, using what they gave us upfront as fuel, and whatever else that might be happening to purely up to them. For BTS, I never before cared much for shipping, and just enjoyed every interaction as it is.

Then I watched GCF in Saipan, the catalyst to my descent into a brief insanity. What I can say about Saipan is that it is a theorist haven, perhaps why I’ve become so interested now. By “theorist”, I mean NOT REAL, and my opinions should not be taken as fact. These are all just observations that I personally took from the GCFs.

Perhaps what I should say before going into Saipan specifics is that I watched Tokyo in my early days as a fan. I did not know the context of the song, I did not know Jungkook or Jimin well, so I didn’t think much of it. Of course, I acknowledged it was fairly romantic in setting, but I took it to be interpreted either platonically or romantically, and even now I don’t think too much of it. The video itself has a personal meaning to me: reciprocal love, any shape of it available, with little accents and layers that can be tilted and shifted for the viewer’s own interpretation (as all art). I don’t have too much to say about Tokyo itself, because of how straight forward it is. Saipan is the one that makes no sense if I tried to take it in upfront. I’m not very good at reading behaviors, hence my inability to see what others see as “moments”, but I have done some (very unprofessional) editing before and I absolutely love art analyzing, which the GCFs very clearly are to me.

For this, I will be isolating Saipan in a fairly tight bubble, with little unrelated topics. I won’t be including much outside Jungkook’s art (except in the skeptic area). Some previous GCF mentions/comparisons, some outside views strictly on the films as well will be referenced in the rant itself. Not going to include any deep reading into their overall relationship, mostly an analysis of the GCF.

I watched Saipan (at this point after being a fan for long enough to care) first thinking that something was off. Something wasn’t harmonious with each other. The second time I watched it, I realized the dissonance was between the film and the music. Together, it wasn’t coherent, which is different than all of his work so far. Tokyo, Osaka, even USA though being equally promo-related, they all had more to build upon meaning-wise, the perspectives matched within the film. Saipan’s song both in mood and in subject clashed with the film from beginning to end. Of course, all in my opinion.

Here is the song:

Now, before I go any further, I had an intensive discussion with a mutual on twitter, who is a multi-kpop non-BTS stan. She doesn’t keep up with Bangtan, but she likes some of their songs and is a casual listener. She is also somewhat experienced and knowledgeable in video editing and had very interesting input for the factor of “film sound”, the information from a document which she paraphrased. This was her input through the DMs:

“The Pacific Cinematheque has stated that there two types of sound in film, Diegetic and Non-Diegetic. Diegetic is the sound that we would also experience in real life. Non-Diegetic is any sound we don’t experience in real life like dramatic orchestrated songs or musical score or sound effects like the screeches in the shower scene Psycho.”

“So why do directors use sound? Well (and here it comes) it is to do any of the following 1. add mood 2. add atmosphere to a film. How? By adding these soundscapes that Accent or add another Layer of meaning to the film. The filmmaker wants the audience to perceive the scenes in a specific way, and sound/music leg scenes be seen in the specific way that the director intended. Silence in a film can represent something very important or a turning point. Music, specifically in film, has various uses, but most commonly it is used to “guide the emotional response of the audience”. Music is the clue in scenes, it’s like a huge signpost directing (pun cause the filmmaker is a director anyways off track sorry) the audience on how to react to a scene.”

“So basically what I am saying is that of course Jungkook is aware of the music he’s using in his gcfs, and he’s also aware of the reaction he wants from the films. He used that song because he wanted a specific reaction from the audience, he wanted us viewers to see what his intentions are and at this point I’m insane too cause all I’m thinking is that he wants us to react to Jimin and to focus on that.”

(I may or may not have told her multiple times through out my discussion with her that I feel like I’m going insane. I calmed down before writing this though, for the sake of making any sense and neutrality.)

These are just the basics. If you still aren’t convinced how important a song is in context to a film, then remember: before Jungkook even began making the GCFs, he was doing mainly covers of songs. And he said, specifically to the fans, that the lyrics of his chosen songs are important. He usually chooses them for a reason (what that reason could be, up to the viewer, since he doesn’t outright explain the choices).

So we established that first, Jungkook most likely chose this song with actual thought and intention put into it (again, take that intention with what you may).

Of course, what interested me was Jimin’s parts. Mainly because he is my son (even though I am fairly younger than him), and also because of the teaser Jungkook released shortly before dropping Saipan. Truth be told, I wasn’t really expecting the silly dance nor the punches to be included, as I thought that Jungkook only posted that to show Namjoon and the fans what was going on in the “behind the scenes” video Namjoon posted the day before. Perhaps a little blooper insight. So yes, I was surprised that the scene was included at all, much less becoming a gap-clip repeating between alternating clips of the group and other members. I was also surprised at the amount of time Jimin was shown, as after USA being a very equalized group video, I was expecting the same from Saipan. Similarly to USA, it was very work-oriented and promotional, and also both (definitely USA as from Namjoon’s Vlive) were most likely commissioned by Bighit.

Jimin’s dominates the bridge. By dominate, I mean he is the only one with a completely exclusive part in this particular GCF. Verse 1 was Taehyung, verse 2 was Hoseok, and the choruses are a mix. Jimin appears the most not only through adding up all the small clips, but because he takes up two solid blocks of the song, both with the same context and lyrics. The reason why the it’s hard for me to link the others with their individual parts is because of the way they were shot, the clips that were chosen, all very aesthetically pleasing but difficult to find depth or flow in. Jimin’s parts almost had a story line. This is important to me because of the lyrics, which we shall visit now.

First the meaning of the song. John K. in an interview: He describes the bouncy track’s meaning as “[about] evolving through young love, admitting to past mistakes and committing to giving someone the best possible version of yourself.”

To be honest, this song is not as ambiguous to me as There For You, Troye Sivan, Tokyo GCF. Sure, Troye Sivan is a gay artist, and the song lyrics are directed at a boy. But the lyrics themselves I do think can be taken in any shape of love. For Best of Me, this is not the case. I think Verse 2 is the clearest reason for this:

Waking up next to you

Got you back in my arms

Don't it feel like it use to

Like we were never apart

Never thought I would see you

Now we're loving in the dark

We can't fight this feeling

While I’m a staunch believer in lyrics being universally interpreted and available to all versions of personal view (take Osaka as an example, which is another fairly straightforward GCF), to make it simpler for myself right now and with the tinfoil hat on, I’ll stick with what the song can be most basically understood: lovers who are loving in secret, but wants to be let free.

Here comes a bit tinfoil (not really shippy, but more reading into what it could mean artistically. Purely subjective interpretation):

Now, without going into the ship or anything at all first, here is my artistic interpretation of Jungkook’s editing: the lyrics may be directed at Jimin, but I personally can also intemperate that Jimin in the video embodies the lyrics, or the lyrics embody Jimin in the video. Either way works for me. This is interpretation in the same way people interpret the smile of Mona Lisa (purely individualistic), and it doesn’t rely too much on Jungkook’s true intentions here. Again, I don’t claim any of this as the true meaning, as to me there is no true meaning needed for me.

In the video, Jimin shows the rawest actions. He barely pays attention to the camera half of the time, and when he does, it’s for the sake of the cameraman (Jungkook). This can be seen when in the second bridge part, he shows Jungkook his own camera just off screen, and during the second chorus, he high-fives Jungkook, just off screen once more. I believe Jungkook also chose these parts intentionally, especially the sneeze during the second bridge that he zoomed in on. No matter if the purpose was just to clown Jimin (also possible), it still leads an interesting narrative for me (I know I repeated this multiple times, but no, this may not be the intentions of Jungkook, and it is my own view on it as an art form). The lyrics “I don’t wanna hide no more” building up to “Imma let you get the best of me” was in sync with the way how Jimin bursts from a serious expression into a silly dance, with the silliness continuing later after the chorus and verse 2 into the second bridge. He is true to his actions, letting go of inhibition, essentially not hiding, lying, nor acting anymore. All genuine, silly, honest moments, such as the sneezing, the off camera action, etc.

The editing for the dance part is interesting too. As I said before, I wasn’t expecting it, so it was interesting when it seemed Jungkook added a separate track and layered other clips on top of the silly dancing. This one might be a bit of a stretch, but I can see it like the clips of the groups randomly were “hiding” the silly dancing. No particular meaning needed really, just a technique used in editing that, to me, matches the lyrics in an unintended way. Those were just my thoughts when considering the possibilities of the lyrics, and the visual is pretty cool in the narration. I know from experience that it’s much easier to layer clips (BTS eating) over a longer clip (Jimin dancing) rather than cut them individually to fit around each other. So that’s just a neat observation lol. 

Artistically speaking, Jimin is the only solid narrative and character within the video because there seems to be an actual correlation between the actions he does chronologically with the lyrics given for him. I find it interesting how he and the lyrics embody each other as the video went on. Again, my personal take on a work of art.

Now here’s the ultimate tinfoil-kinda-shippy part of my post. ALL PURE SPECULATION.

This video can be conceptually all about the “hidden”. Looking at this as a GCF, in comparison to his two earliest works, it is a lot more promotional, like USA (I actually have some thoughts on USA and Bangtan as well, and may think about writing a post for it. It’s not gonna be as bad as this one though).

Perspective of GCFs before Saipan:

Onto the subject of music perspectives, Jungkook so far as established a trend of using the perspective within the songs to be directed at the people starring in it, most noticeably in Osaka, with the way the lyrics were directed/about either Jimin or Taehyung’s roles/characters in the film from a first person perspective speaking. Tokyo as well with the last few lines of “running running just to keep my hands upon you”, showing the camera in the perspective of being behind Jimin as he got farther away with the first person pronoun. USA with the “we” point of view, which is then including the film’s perspective as part of the “we”, especially noticed when Jungkook goes to shake Zedd’s hand. I assume then that Jungkook uses the music choices as a way to direct to the people or to include himself in it at some points, rather than being a passive outside third person view. Now that GCF in Newark is out, that is even more obvious, though I also find Newark to be a diverging path in his medium exploration, so the perspective is more centered around himself rather than those around him. GCF in Saipan was made with the same format as those before it so my thoughts on its techniques are the same (I will be ignoring Newark for now since it’s format is so radically different, as well as the fact that its creation doesn’t affect his previous works).

This is important in the case of Saipan being very dissonant with the the perspectives of the film and of the song. Beyond my personal artistic perspective above (which, in my interpretation, I believe is another layer to the narrative, as multiple meanings within art is always the best). Say that the lyrics are from the point of view of the camera as a character in the film (Jungkook), which so far it has been for most of the GCFs. USA’s perspective made sense in that it was a group song, and it’s about a "we”, including Jungkook, reminiscing the old days. Generally equalized screen-time for each member, first person plural perspective, you get it. Sure, the tone and mood of it was off, but at least the perspective made sense. Saipan’s perspective and mood both don’t make sense. As a whole, Best of Me as a song choice doesn’t make much sense, given the perspective of it. Very different to USA, which I previously thought Saipan was going to emulate for reasons already stated.

Saipan is biased to Jimin based on the film and lyric placement, as previously stated, and so narrative-wise, it is also Jimin-biased. The song choice itself is also strange in that Saipan’s song is very clearly not a group song. It is a song with a “me” and a “you”. During the bridges, it’s even more clear how the “me” and “you” works. With the camera being the perspective, the “me” is the singer speaking, and the “you” (if we base this off of how Jungkook’s use of perspective works thus far) is directed at whoever is on screen. The same way Tokyo was directed at Jimin, and in Osaka, Jimin and Taehyung appeared whenever the lyrics were directed at them (Taehyung appearing at “he’s taking your side of the bed” so he is the subject of the “you” in that set of lyrics, similar to how “running running just to keep my hands upon you” in Tokyo, the “you” was Jimin. Again, Jungkook uses the camera as part of the narrative, hence the use of communication between camera and “actor”).

Well, you may ask, why isn’t anyone else’s part in the going to be the same? Especially Hoseok’s part, which to be honest, I’m surprised no one mentioned much? They mentioned how the song had questionably romantic lyrics, and everyone freaked out about how beautiful Hobi was in the video (same though) but his part coincided with those questionable lyrics I mentioned earlier. Why doesn’t that indicate Jungkook proclaiming his undying love for Hobi? Well, the main reason is most likely “selective context”. That part by itself could allude to that, but as a whole, the film focused on someone else. So this is an example of taking parts of something to make a different whole. That’s why the structure of Saipan felt different than those before it. Tokyo was linear, Osaka was alternating between two, USA was group, and Saipan is... weird.

So, during the bridges, the “me” is the “I don’t wanna hide no more, I don’t wanna lie no more” and the “you” is “’cause what I found in you is so real”. Depending on who the camera’s perspective is, this can be taken in many different ways. However, USA makes me believe that the camera itself is really Jungkook (as I always assumed so) and not the fans, a third person, etc. If the “me” is Jungkook, and the “you” is Jimin -  well, I did sort of lose my sanity for two whole days.

In short, for an entire two days I was convinced Jungkook was in love with Jimin or at least had some sort of romantic connection with him in some way. Not that they were in a relationship, I was feeling something much too sudden for me to give it labels, and much too isolated to consider any “big picture”. And I felt like I was going insane because of how out of the blue my own reaction was. As I said before, I’m no shipper. So it was shocking and a little terrifying when I was so convinced. (I am calmer now, and have a relatively more neutral stance on the pairing once more, thankfully).

The main reason why I was so convinced previously was because of one reason: with input from my perspective analysis, I believe the GCFs are from Jungkook’s point of view (as we all believe). With the song choice and the clips chosen, it was a surprise to me when I thought about the film more carefully. I don’t ship BTS because to me, those are outside opinions on what’s happening, behavioral analysis videos, coincidence theories, etc. Sure, they can be interesting, sometimes cute, but I don’t see any need to support or pay too much mind to it. With GCFs, it was different because this was not outside perspective. This was Jungkook. This was his video, that he filmed and edited and spent time on. Like with his covers, as he had told us before, they (could) have meaning. They (could) tell a story, that may change the way you view his work. So what exactly could he be trying to tell us has been interesting for me to interpret. Of course, I still don’t think it matters much to have an absolute “True Meaning” unless he gives out one, and even then, art is appreciated in many ways, with so many facets and personal subjective connections. I don’t think I’m right, just that it’s what I perceived. And for me, it took me off guard how disconnected from the rest of the film the bridges were. They were so different in mood, in style, the bias, the commutative narrative going on. I couldn’t understand what Jungkook was saying, unlike all GCFs previous where it felt more coherent and I could at least somewhat figure out his message. And while perhaps Saipan simply doesn’t have a message, that’s hard to believe with this ongoing narrative.

This basically comes down to the opposing ideals in my mind. On one hand, I would hate to assume anything about someone I don’t actually know, especially when it’s something so personal and not-my-business. On the other hand, I would hate to dismiss anything that could be meaningful from an artist who put a lot of thought and handwork into a project of their’s. Something my art teacher of four years told me before “don’t be scared of being wrong about reading into an artwork, because they want you to see the things you are seeing”. Perhaps it’s all on purpose without any personal meaning? Maybe. I’ll stick with the “meaningful narrative but not necessarily romantic” for my own safety.

Who knows? Here’s some counterclaims to cheer you up and help me regain sanity.

Speculative counterarguments with responses and more doubt and speculation (my irl friend helped to come up with some of them, just in case):

Counterclaim:The song is meant to be taken platonically, with more focus on literal meaning on the chorus parts “Imma let you get the best of me”, aimed at either the members or at the fans. The song may also be promotional due to it having the same name as one of their own song. This means the entire video was focused more on promo (like the end “Summer Package” text).

Response: Jungkook does care about lyrics, and even with promo possibly being the main focus (which I do think it is a big part of it), I don’t think he will choose a song with the same name at random. However, it is possible he wanted to choose a song with the same name (promo, personal reason, who knows) and also thought the lyrics applied minimally (and liked it musically). As I said before, I am a big “lyrics can mean anything” person, so taking romantic lyrics and using them for platonic or other situations is something I can see happening. So yeah. This is definitely possible.

Counterclaim: Jimin is focused on for the bridge part because of the lyrics “I don’t wanna lie no more” tying to his “Lie” solo from Wings (my friend is the one who came up with this one)

Response: This one I find there is a low possibility of. Mostly because even if that was the case, why would Jimin dominate the entire bridge, including the other lyrics? Jungkook could have easily edited in other members, like the mixture he does for the verses and especially the choruses. Just put in a little shot of Jimin at the lie part and move on. So, this is unlikely (along with the fact that I really doubt Jungkook chooses songs and clips based on that) Which leads to the next counter:

Counterclaim: Jungkook very simply enjoys filming Jimin most, due to familiarity and Jimin being more comfortable with it. He’s at the bridges for content symmetry and also because there were simply more footage of him because of ease and accumulation. He sees Jimin as a very fun and goofy person, so he used the funny clips. There is no deeper meaning behind Jimin’s shots.

Response: Sure, I guess. This comes down to “how personal are the GCFs for Jungkook?”, which I would personally say very much so but I digress. They’ve already proven that Jungkook enjoys pointing the camera Jimin a lot in recent interviews (5th army mainly). I still think the most questionable parts of the video was how Jimin was singled out at the bridge parts and what the lyrics could possibly mean along with that, but I won’t rule this one out for the sake of accumulating other possibilities, no matter how much I believe in Jungkook’s artistic vision and my innate enjoyment in getting random meanings out of everything for fun. Again, platonic intention is possible to me. You may disagree, and that’s completely fine. I’m still neutral about this, because hey, anything is possible. So don’t get too carried away.

Counterclaim: So what about Osaka, if you consider the lyrics literally? Does that mean Taehyung, Jimin, and Junkook are in a love triangle?

Response: Honestly, I would like to do a personal analysis of Osaka in a separate post in the future (if I have time). Here’s a taste of what I think of it in a shorter answer to Osaka in general: it is actually possibly my favorite GCF, reasons being that I adore the the little no-music cuts Jungkook did, and also because Vmin is one of my favorite relationships in Bangtan. Due to sentimental reasons, Vmin has a very special place to my heart. Osaka feeds that part of my soul I suppose. Now, about the lyrics and the supposed love training happening, the thing is that Osaka is very different from Saipan in terms of use of perspective, use of cuts, screen time, etc. Personally, I see Osaka as a film about the maknae-line as a whole, with a smidgen of Jimin-bias. I don’t see the film about a love triangle, especially not a romantic one. Hope I can make a separate post detailing this.

Now that I’m done, I want people to not overthink it too much (unlike me). Of course, Saipan for me personally was just incredibly interesting because of how off and strange it felt to me in comparison to the other GCFs, but in regards to shipping, don’t invest too much emotionally. Enjoy what you get from all members, get attached to a pair maybe. But don’t let it completely take over your life. I like the speculative agnostic approach best (similar to my favorite blogger in regards to KM). Sure, Saipan had me go insane for two days straight out of the blue, but coming down from the insanity was a learning experience, especially returning to my neutral stance, which I enjoy greatly.

Making this more clear once again: this is not a post exposing Jungkook or anything. I do not claim any of this as his real thoughts. In fact, I don’t even believe any of what I’ve interpreted entirely. Those to me are “possibilities” to be thought, but not to be declared as truth. I think I’m probably wrong about a lot of this. Since again, why else do people still question what exactly Mona Lisa was smiling so mysteriously about? (she knows something we don’t, as the critics say).

If you want a more impartial opinion on GCF in Saipan, I recommend this director's outlook. I recommend using a non-biased mind to read this non-biased outlook. It is very interesting by itself as a professional's opinion. Please do not take the post as fodder for ships nor the definitive meaning of Saipan (if there even was one, who knows). We will never know for sure unless Jungkook ever decided to explain it if he wishes to. And if he never does, that’s fine too. Distinguishing what is reality, what is our reality, and what is someone else’s reality is extremely important.

Thanks for reading if you did! Hope it wasn’t the most awful thing ever. Tell me what you think about my interpretation, my opinions, counterarguments and counter-counterarguments. I do like KM as a ship now in some way, but again, all in good fun, and I don’t really want to give the relationship any labels. I don’t really want to take any of this too far other than a long rant to let out some parallel universe thoughts.

This was made also before I really got into any KM speculation, and it’s all very interesting. But I currently don’t really want to form a solid opinion on anything, or read too deeply. Maybe I will, one day. Or not. Since like I said, I’m not good at reading people.

It’s very likely no one will even see this, but as a personal record of my thoughts, it feels good to put them down.

💦 ☔💦

[vrepitsorrynotsorry]

A Shotory Baking Show AU

Title: Ready, Set, Bake! Theme: AU Rating: G Pairing: This one runs toward the Shotor shippy, but it’s certainly not porn. Warnings/Spoilers: Not really any spoilers... Kind of a Great British Baking Show in space AU. A/N: I binged what was on Netflix and it spawned this idea. I regret nothing. Also, the first inklings of this were spawned during @blackpaladinweek, so credit to the AU prompt as well. Also also, I just realized while editing that Allura is never mentioned. Oops! Maybe she’s one of the judges?

“Welcome back to the Great Intergalactic Baking Show grand finale on the picturesque planet Arus. It’s lovely weather for the picnic gala, isn’t it, Lance?”

“You’ve got that right, Coran! Soon all the original contestants, family, and friends will gather here for what’s going to be some fantastic food, but before that, let’s head inside the tent for the first of our final three bakes!”

***

Shiro hadn’t even really wanted to enter the competition. Keith had entered on his behalf. He wasn’t too humble to admit that his baking was pretty good, but he just wasn’t all that competitive anymore.

He’d taken it up as a hobby after an injury in service to Galaxy Garrison had lost him an arm and earned him an early retirement. Fortunately, the intergalactic community offered excellent options for cybernetic prosthetics.

He’d even toyed with the idea of opening a small bakery, but he just wasn’t sure his offerings were good enough to bring in sufficient funds for the venture to be worthwhile. Keith had said this was the perfect opportunity to prove to himself that his baking was up to snuff and that judging from previous seasons of the show, the competition wasn’t as cutthroat as most other shows tended to be.

He was still shocked he’d made it to the finals, but apparently his grasp of the basics was impressive. What he lacked in showy designs and fanciful flavor combinations was made up for in technique and consistency.

***

“Our first finalist, Shiro, has been a contender throughout the whole competition, eh, Coran?”

“Indeed! In fact, I think his steadiness and calm has been of great help to some of the other bakers along the way.”

“Next up is Hunk, a fan favorite and super awesome dude. His bakes have never failed to please”

“A natural talent for sure!”

“And Lotor. He’s, uh... He’s Lotor.”

“Unique indeed!”

***

Shiro was pretty sure Hunk was going to win. That kid had everything. His presentations were beautiful, his flavors--even when he went for something off the wall--were always amazing, and he had an uncanny ability to make fantastic things in the technical challenges even when there were hardly any instructions.

Besides being an amazing cook, Hunk was also a genuinely nice guy. He could be a little overly cautious and occasionally cynical, but he was kind to all the other competitors, even on the very rare occasion that he had an off day. The judges seemed to love him as much as everyone else.

***

Matt, an old roommate and current good friend of Shiro’s, and his little sister Katie “call me Pidge” worked on the technical crew for the show. All the finalists got to watch the family interview segments the night before the final as a sort of private celebration and a chance to see the clips without having to wait for the show to air, but Matt stopped by Shiro’s apartment a few days before.

“Hey, uh, remember how we all thought that maybe Lotor asked the show not to go talk to his parents because they were really busy?”

“Yeah?”

“It turns out he had this huge falling out with them. Pidge and I edited the footage as best we could, but it’s...not great.”

Shiro frowned. “Well, that’s depressing, but why are you telling me this?”

“Partly because it’s really bothering me and Pidge said she’d stab me if she had to listen to me talk about it anymore, and partly because Lotor seemed to get along with you okay. He’s gonna be blindsided by the video because I think he honestly thought the show just wouldn’t do a clip for him, even though he’s in the finale.”

Shiro sighed. “We’re not exactly close, Matt. I only see him when we’re filming, just like everybody else. I don’t have any way to contact him.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

***

It wasn’t like Lotor was overtly rude to any of the other competitors or anything, he was just coolly aloof. He was terse to the camera when he was asked questions about his baking, and he didn’t like to make small talk with the other contestants.

The nicest of the others brushed it off as shyness or awkwardness, though some thought it was arrogance. Lotor’s family was fairly well-known, after all. Galra Inc. was probably the universe’s largest private security firm and arms supplier.

Given the general stereotype in the media of fiercely competitive and frequently violent Galra, many people were surprised Lotor was allowed to participate at all. There had been gambling odds on how long it would take for the pressure to make Lotor crack and have an explosive outburst.

At first, Shiro wasn’t sure what to make of the man other than the fact that his creativity level was insane. Sometimes his designs were overly ambitious and his flavor combinations were questionable, but he was fearless about attempting all of it.

Then the “tripping incident” happened. To be fair, and the camera footage totally corroborated it, Nyma didn’t actually trip Shay, she just didn’t warn her about the step stool Shay couldn’t see over the tray of cupcakes she was carrying. Everyone in the vicinity, including Nyma, to her credit, rushed to see if she was all right, except Lotor, who somehow managed to catch the tray and the majority of the cupcakes. If he hadn’t, she wouldn’t have had all the components she needed for her showstopper. Maybe he hadn’t verbally expressed concern, but he clearly had at least some sense of fairness and competitive respect, which was better than nothing.

The week after “Trip Gate”, both Shiro and Lotor found themselves incorporating potatoes into a savory component, and their peeling techniques were almost identical.

“Got assigned a lot of kitchen duty?” Shiro inquired.

Lotor grunted an assent. “I had an unfortunate tendency to challenge authority. You?”

“I actually volunteered mostly,” Shiro admitted. “I found it relaxing.”

The cameramen were currently at the other end of the tent watching Lance and Coran quiz Hunk about his signature dish, and Lotor seemed to be in an uncharacteristically playful mood. “Shall we make it a challenge to see who can finish peeling first?”

“What’s the prize?” he asked Lotor with a small grin.

“Respect?” Lotor offered with a shrug.

Shiro pretended to take offense. “You mean I don’t have that already?” Lotor snorted but managed to maintain a straight face. “How about, if I win, you have to smile--on camera.”

Lotor looked mildly alarmed at the suggestion before he managed to compose himself once again. “Fair enough, I suppose. If I win, you have to say something nice about yourself on camera.”

“Touché.” Shiro had a tendency to be a bit self-disparaging. He thought he’d been doing a fairly good job of reining that in during the competition, but apparently he was wrong.

Shiro won their peeling competition by a narrow margin, so Lotor obligingly greeted Lance, Coran, and the camera crew with a dazzling smile. They were momentarily speechless, but they recovered quickly.

Shiro was a bit taken aback himself. He wasn’t afraid to admit that Lotor was an attractive man, but smiling seemed to take it up another notch. Alas, as soon as the camera turned to Shiro, Lotor slipped back into the impassive mask he usually presented to everyone, and Shiro realized it was the only time he had ever seen Lotor express more than a smirk.

However, he seemed to have found a bit of the infamous competitiveness of his people. It wasn’t overly aggressive but rather surprisingly almost friendly. It became a habit for them to set themselves side challenges, and Shiro was certain he wouldn’t have enjoyed his time on the show half as much without the lighthearted rivalry. Lotor never said as much, but Shiro hoped their interactions were meaningful to him as well.

***

The night of the viewing party arrived, and Lotor was late. Shiro was beginning to wonder whether the other man even planned to attend when Lotor stormed in the door speaking angrily into a communicator.

“For the last time,” Lotor snarled to whoever was on the other end of the exchange, “I’m not dropping out of the competition. You’re being ridiculous. My competing obviously hasn’t affected your business at all because you didn’t even know I was actually doing it until they came to interview you.” He paused, and Shiro could just barely make out a low voice telling Lotor something. After a few moments he let out an entirely humorless bark of laughter.

“You can’t fire me; I resigned the day I first told you about the competition. You never listen to me, do you? Didn’t you notice my office has been empty for weeks? Also, those muffin baskets everybody misses aren’t bought from some place only I know about--I used to bake them myself. Good luck replacing both my engineering and design skills and the snacks all your clients enjoyed so much.”

Lotor cut off the connection and stomped across the room to the employees preparing the clips for viewing. He was still bristling with anger, and one of the hapless show workers hid behind a data pad, as though that would do them any good. Lotor took a deep breath, and his cornered audience winced in anticipation of shouting.

“I imagine my father’s interview has been heavily edited?” Lotor’s voice was quiet and calm when he did speak, and dangerously so when coupled with his stormy expression. The man with the data pad shield nodded. “Do you still have the uncut footage?” Another furtive nod. “I think my father would really prefer that you air his complete interview. We wouldn’t want anybody to get the wrong idea about him being proud of me, now would we?” A rapid shake of the head. “Excellent.” With that, Lotor swept back outside.

Shiro stood shocked, staring after him.

“Wow.” Shiro started at the voice directly behind him and turned to find Hunk standing there. “Here I was afraid to watch my own clip because I’m sure my family told embarrassing stories about me. Think he’s okay?”

“I wouldn’t be.” Shiro debated what to do for a few moments. “Hey, Hunk, think you could stall the viewing for a bit? I’m going to go after him.”

“Good luck!”

***

Lotor hadn’t gone very far, fortunately. Shiro found him leaning against a large rock and staring up at the stars.

“I shouldn’t have lost my temper like that.” Lotor broke the silence without even looking at Shiro.

“While that was the most emotional I’ve ever seen you, you seemed pretty contained to me.”

“I should apologize to that crew member,” Lotor remarked casually. “It wasn’t even his fault and I think I almost gave him a heart attack.”

“Let’s head back in there, then,” Shiro suggested. “We can watch Hunk be embarrassed by a family that loves him to extremes, my brother be forced to speak full sentences to a stranger with a camera, make heckling comments over whatever your father had to say, and you can apologize. Maybe you can bake that guy one of your famous muffin baskets.” Shiro couldn’t help a tiny bit of teasing.

“Fine,” Lotor agreed with an exaggerated disgruntled huff. “Ancients, I hope nobody pities me. I hate that.”

“I’m sure they wouldn’t dare.”

The clip viewing was actually fairly amusing. Hunk turned beet red several times, and his mother called him no less than twelve different pet names in Samoan. (“Ooh, what’s that one mean?” “C’mon, guys... Can’t you just let it go?” “Hang on a tick, I’m looking it up right now.”) Even though they managed to get Keith to talk for a while, Shiro’s clip still contained unfortunate stretches of silence. (“Believe it or not, these are edited down from the original awkward silences.” “They’re only awkward for the interviewer. It looks like a comfortable silence for you and Keith.”) Zarkon’s interview was actually shorter than Shiro expected. He ranted for a few moments about Lotor’s participation in the competition being “a black spot in the history of the company” and a shamefully passive pastime. (“He’s obviously never kneaded bread dough.” “I know, right?”) Then he kicked the camera man out of his office. The remainder of the time was just the poor guy attempting to get absolutely anyone else in the building to talk about Lotor, including his mother, Honerva, who was so caught up in her work she actually had to be reminded that they were trying to get her to talk about her own son.

Afterward, there were refreshments, which rather shockingly did not include any baked goods. When Lotor made a joke about that being “a black mark” on the show, Shiro was pretty sure he was going to be fine.

He introduced Lotor to Matt.

“Having now seen that,” Lotor wondered, “what exactly was the edited version?”

“Honestly?” Matt scratched the back of his head and shrugged. “We had some footage of the outside of the building and just kind of made up a voiceover about the basics of the company and how your dad is the boss. It was practically a commercial.”

“Did you ever say that I worked there?” Matt shook his head. “You should air that version then. They’ll have no reason to take offense. I get to walk away from this show after tomorrow, but I imagine you all would like to keep your jobs.”

***

Right before the start of the first of their final three bakes, Shiro approached Lotor, who was setting up for what looked like his usual all-out performance. He had something he’d been wanting to ask Lotor, but he thought he’d better work up to it.

“So, who do you think will--”

“Hunk. Obviously.”

“You seem to be putting in a lot of effort if you’re so sure of that,” Shiro remarked.

“Yes, well, I’m not sure I know how to do anything but my best.”

“I can relate.” Shiro had agonized over his own signature dish planning even though his chances of winning were quite slim in his opinion.

“Did you...need something?” Lotor’s question reminded Shiro that he’d just been standing there, thinking and staring.

“You said last night that you quit your job with Galra Inc?”

Lotor frowned. “Yes. I have money saved up to last me a while, and I also told you I hate pity.”

“That’s not what this is,” Shiro insisted. This was not going very well. “How would you like to be my partner in opening up a new bakery?”

Lotor blinked. “What?”

“I’ve been thinking about doing it for years, but I never thought I could turn a profit. I mean, my baking is good, but it’s also pretty basic. I don’t really have anything to draw in customers. Well, now I have some notoriety from the show, but how long will that last? You’re really creative, and I thought we might be able to work well together. You know, if you want to try it.”

Lotor blinked some more in the wake of that verbal barrage. He started to open his mouth to reply, but Shiro was ordered to his own station to begin the show. After that, Shiro was too busy baking to beat himself up about it much.

Hunk won, and Shiro was genuinely happy for him. He’d earned it.

Lotor cautiously approached Shiro as Hunk was being mobbed by his very happy and proud family.

“I think you’d be a good partner,” he blurted. “Business partner, I mean. The bakery? We could do that.”

“Yeah?”

Lotor extended a hand and they shook on it. Shiro may not have been the big winner of the day, but he still counted the experience as a win.

[otagamerkorin]

Turnabout to Hijink

My incredibly belated (so, so extremely belated) @aasecretsanta2017 gift for @defcnestrate! (Why it won’t let me @ you, I do not know.) I’m so sorry this took so long to get to you. (It actually was gonna to be up Monday, but my laptop decided to fuck up the formatting.) Thank you for being so patient with me. In return for the wait though, here’s a utter monstrosity of a fic! You asked for Ugly Christmas sweaters, Christmas fluff, Christmas dinner gone wrong, and this thing includes all of them. I hope you like it!

You can also read it over on AO3 here!: http://archiveofourown.org/works/13475997

(This actually takes place within an Deaths Averted AU I’ve been working on and is canonically connected to my SS fic from last year. There will be a brief  explanation of the AU under the cut, but beware, cause it contains spoilers for certain character things in Duel Destinies and Spirit of Justice. For those who don’t with to be spoiled, the fic itself is safe for the most part, nothing major spoiled, but I will bold the AU description itself so it can easily be scrolled past in case. Happy reading!)

Warning: Will contain mentions of someone’s cause of death (during a trial), guns get pointed at people and there’s a fight scene at one point.

Deaths Averted AU Explanation: 

Ok, so there’s really only two big changes between the canon AA stuff and the AU. Those two things being (WARNING HUGE SPOILERS INBOUND! IF YOU DIDN’T READ THE EARLIER WARNING AND DON’T WANNA BE SPOILED TURN BACK NOW!...OK?...OK, ONWARDS WITH AU) that Fulbright and Dhurke aren’t dead. In Fulbright’s case, the Phantom actually kept him alive in case he needed fresh DNA from him for like check ups and such. Simon realizes this after they capture Phany and they go rescue him. Once he’s out of the hospital, his job as a detective gets reinstated and he returns to being Blackquills partner. (Both professionally and in a shippy way.)(I also headcanon that during the first few months of their relationship, Blackquill did have the actual Fulbright with him, so there’s already an actual bond going there.) As for Dhurke, things get a bit weirder. Basically, when Maya started channeling him, his body was still somewhat alive, just without his soul bound to it, since he was getting close to death. So, when he put his body in the crypt, since it was specifically designed to preserve people, it ended up slowing down his vitals a ton and keeping his body alive those few days till they found him. At which point he kinda defrosted, and was rushed to the hospital when they realized the dead body was not so dead. (Mind you, Dhurke had no idea this was happening, so he was more than a little surprised to wake up again and not be in someone else’s body.)

In terms of how this connects to my previous story (which can be read right here: http://otagamerkorin.tumblr.com/post/154933722995/the-christmas-turnabout), it basically just takes place a year later. Any Athena/Blackquill implications (which were purposefully vague to begin with) from the previous fic are basically getting retconned, I view them as more of a sibling relationship anyway, but everything else is staying the same.

(There will be a few scattered mentions of someone names Terrwyn throughout this. She’s one of my AA OC’s, who is a girl Blackquill takes on as his protege, but she really has no effect on the plot.)

See authors note at the bottom for more interesting lil tidbits!

“So you see, my client couldn’t have committed the murder. Because at the time he was still drunk inside the bar, singing karaoke! And that security footage is the proof!”

Phoenix slammed a hand down on the table with a bang and for a moment the courtroom went quiet.

Then the silver haired man across the way shook his head with a confident smile.

“Wright, I believe your age is beginning to show.”

Reaching for his controller, the prosecutor began to rewind the footage displayed on the monitor nearby. The count down in the corner flew backwards, stopping just before 8 o’clock.

“Since Mr. Wright seems to be showing a spot of memory loss, let’s review shall we? Our defendant, Mr. Teatrale, arrived at the Spearmint Pub at 7:55. Once there he joined a group of revelers in the corner and began ordering drinks. Unfortunately, the angle of the camera does not allow us to see a portion of that area, so we are unable to see all that goes on there, but thanks to his chosen seat we can still see the suspect.”

Another click and the footage jumped once more, popping back to normal speed at 8:30. They watched as the casually dressed man glanced around before standing and moving off towards then corner once more, out of sight of the camera.

“We aren’t able to see exactly where Mr. Teatrale goes from here, but from the floor plan of the bar we can presume that he went into the bathroom. All other exits are visible in the tape, so if he returned we would be able to see it. Here is where things get interesting however.”

The footage ran forward, everything appearing normal, till someone suddenly ran in through the front doors at 11 sharp, inaudibly shouting and waving to gain the bars attention.

“Here is the moment where the body was discovered. The victim, Ms. Lyra Minora, was found strangled behind the restaurant, her time of death determined to be approximately 9:15. And we can all see, during this time Mr. Teatrale never returns from the bathroom. This footage, along with the open window found in the bathroom, just large enough for a slight man like our suspect to slip through, shows that there is no evidence he was inside the bar at the time of the murder!”

There was a clamor of muttering and discussion from the gallery as Edgeworth lay the controller back down with a smile, looking up at his rival. For a moment Wright merely stared at him, before suddenly crossing his arms and giving a smirk.

“You sure about that Edgeworth?” He replied and the prosecutor blinked a few times in surprise.

“W-What?”

With that the spiky haired attorney retrieved his own remote, rolling back the footage to the suspects exit to the bathroom.

“Yes, it’s true that we see the suspect leave the room. However, we also see him return!”

He paused the footage and leaned forward, pointing to a figure entering from the corner of the screen.

“There he is, plain as day!”

“...Wright, that’s a woman.”

“Nooo, that is a person in a dress. There is a big different, as you all know.” The blue dressed lawyer pointed out, holding a finger up in a matter-a-fact manner, and the prosecutor gave a huff of frustration.

“But the figure you pointed out looks nothing like our suspect!” He replied, and he was right. The new arrival’s long braid of dark red hair was a far cry from the suspects light brown, and their face looked a bit more angular and long, accented by a dose of tasteful makeup.

“Ah, Edgeworth, you forget. Mr. Teatrale is a musical theater professor. Knowing how to disguise and change one’s appearance is a part of his profession. You’d be surprised what one can do with a nice wig and some makeup skills.”

The prosecutor stood there simmering for a moment before taking a deep breathe, calming himself before he continued.

“All right, Wright. Let us suppose that the figure we see in the video is indeed the defendant. Tell me, where would he have gotten these supposed supplies? I doubt you’d just find a wig and makeup laying around in a bar’s bathroom, let alone a dress.”

“Of course not. That’s why he brought his own.”

“He did?” The judge interjected, looking simultaneously fascinated and befuddled by the whole situation.

“That he did your honor. Doesn’t it strike anyone else odd that Mr. Teatrale would bring such a large bag with him? One wouldn’t normally need a carpet bag for a night on the town. Unless they needed to bring another outfit. A dress for example.” The lawyer replied with a grin, pointing out the man’s choice of accessory in the video.

“And I’ll bet dollars to donuts, if you there to go and check the defendant’s home, you’d find that same dress hanging in his closet at this exact moment!”

He could tell that his opponent was beginning to feel the pressure by the way his knuckles went white as he clutched the table edge. He gave a little cough to clear his throat when he noticed the blue clad man watching and straightened.

“Well then, do you have any other evidence, or are you done with your foolish ramblings?” He asked, glare seemingly challenging the defense attorney to answer and Wright smirked, rising to meet the challenge.

“Oh, don’t you worry, there’s plenty more where that came from.”

He quickly riffled through the court record, giving a little sound of victory as he found the piece he needed.

“Let’s take a look at this, shall we?” He asked cheekily, bringing the new video up on the monitor.

“As luck would have it, one of the bar’s patrons that night was celebrating her birthday. One of her friends happened to take some video of the festivities. After the crime, it was submitted as evidence, but the police didn’t seem to find anything useful on it. However, they might have been looking in the wrong place. Let’s take a look see, shall we?”

The footage was blurry at first, finally clearing as the phone’s camera managed to focus.

“Happy birthday Aubrey!”

The wild haired girl grinned at the cry that went up from around the table, closing her eyes for a moment before ducking down to blow out the candles on the cake before her. Another cheer sounded from the party goers and she laughed. As another one of the celebrators began to cut the cake, a nise came from offscreen.

“Hmmm, hmmm, oh, yeah, that’s a good pitch.”

The videographer turned towards the quiet vocalizing, catching sight of a familiar green dressed figure standing atop the small karaoke stage across the room. The filmer gave a gasp and reached over to grab the birthday girls arm.

“Aub! Aub, look! Aria’s here tonight!”

The girl turned and spotted the so-named woman and her face lit up, snatching up a plate of cake and making a beeline towards the stage, the rest of the group quickly following.

“Aria, I didn’t know you were coming tonight! I would have invited you!” She exclaimed, drawing up beside the stage edge, and the figure looked down at her with a bright smile.

“Aubrey darling! So good to see you!”

She spotted the cake the girl held and her grin grew wider.

“Oh, is somebody celebrating something? I wish I’d have known, I’d have brought you something. Well then, has the birthday girl got any requests?” She asked with a coy look and the girl giggled. She leaned up to whisper something in the woman’s ear and Aria’s eyes lit up.

“Ooo, good choice.” She replied, straightening from her bend and punching a few commands into the rather hi-tech looking karaoke machine. Music began to pour from the speakers and she grinned, lifting the mic to sing.

“Where all the boys at with emotional stability?”

“Nice car, a CEO, and almost just as smart as me”

“Where all the boys at with financial security?”

“A doctor, a model, a man of possibilities.”

Her voice was clear and rich, expertly hitting the higher notes while easily dropping down to hit the lower ones as well.

“(They say!) Expectations are too high.”

“And you’ll never find a guy like that.”

“It’s driving you mad, honey.”

She swung her hips as she sang, shoulders giving a little shake along to the beat as the crowd interjected with their own lyrics.

“(They say!) That its just a waste of time.”

“Get your head out of the sky.”

“But why? (Here we go!)”

She smirked and held out a hand to the birthday girl, who gladly took it and allowed herself to be pulled up on stage. The two began to dance together to the cheers of the crowd as they sang.

“Oh I, wish I could synthesize, a picture perfect guy.”

“Oh I, oh I.”

“Six feet tall and super strong.”

“We’d always get along.”

“Alright, alright.”

“Oh, he'd pick me up at eight.”

“And not a minute late.”

“Cause I don’t like to wait, no.”

“Kind and ain’t afraid to cry, or treat his momma right

“That's right, that's what I like.”

This went on for several minutes, more people joining them on stage as they made their way through a number of songs, Aria the center of attention the whole time. She also managed to make her way through a few more drinks in the process and by the time Phoenix paused the video halfway through the 4th song, she had begun to develop a slight flush along her cheeks.

“This goes on for a while, but I think you get a good picture. As you can see from the timestamp in the corner, “Aria” and the other residents of the bar were celebrating at the estimated time of the murder.”

“Alright, so we’ve determined that this woman has an alibi at the time of the murder. How does this prove she and our defendant are one in the same? All your evidence up to this point has been mere speculation.”

“Well, if she isn’t Mr. Teatrale, then she sure is stealing his drinks.”

The prosecutor made a quiet sputtering noise, blinking quickly in befuddlement.

“W-What? What evidence is there of that? The records we recovered don’t even mention what the defendant ordered that night.”

“True, but let’s think about this. I might not be an alcohol connoisseur, but something tells me that a singer like Mr. Teatrale, especially one currently using specialty throat lozenges, would stick to smoother alcohols, like wines and ports. And if we take a look at both our videos...”

He brought up a side by side of the clips, zooming in on the two figures each reaching to pluck a glass off the tray on the table.

“We can see that both of them are the only ones at the table not drinking some form of hard liquor.”

There were loud murmurs and discussion from the gallery and he crossed his arms with a confident smirk, glancing over at Edgeworth. The one of the man’s hands that was resting on the table was clenched so hard Wright would be surprised if he wasn’t leaving nail marks in his palm, eyes narrowed in equal measures frustration and determination. He wasn’t giving up this fight just yet. Good thing Phoenix wasn’t either. He smirked, cockily leaning over his table towards the other man.

“And if that wasn’t enough to convince you, let me ask you one little thing: Where did Aria come from?”

This seemed to throw the prosecutor off guard, a flash of panic streaking across his face as the realization hit him.

“I-I don’t think I follow.”

“Take a look at the footage. We see Aria exit the bathroom. We even see her drunkenly head out with the partiers before the body discovery. But we never see her go in.”

“Yes, but the section of footage we have only starts a bit before Mr. Teatrale’s arrival. She could have gone in before the footage starts.”

“And have her hiding out in the bathroom for 2 hours with nobody noticing? I doubt it. It’s far more likely that she arrived far later, simply with a different appearance.” Wright grinned.

Edgeworth looked about ready to blow a gasket, bend low over the table, teeth grinding and sweat pouring down his face.

“Conclusive. Evidence.” He gritted out, eyes narrowed, and Wright froze.

“If you’re so confident that the defendant and this woman are one and the same, then give us some hard proof!”

“You do being up some good points Mr. Wright.” The judge chimed in, nodding his head wisely.

“But, I believe what Mr. Edgeworth says remains true. All you’ve shown us so far are coincidences. Unless you manage to show us some hard evidence of your claim, I’m afraid I’ll have to call my verdict.”

Just as it always did, the defense attorney’s mind flew into a panic. Crap, he hadn’t though this far ahead. Of course his defendant was Aria, it was obvious to all of them. But damn it, he didn’t have anything that actually proved it. Unless they put the defendant in a dress and had him sing right now there was no way to-

The man eyes lit, up, a smile snapping into place. No! He had exactly what they needed!

“Mr. Teatrale?” He called out with a smirk, and the man who’d been watching from the witness stand jumped, not expecting to be called on.

Mr. Festos Teatrale was a thin wisp of a man, tall and gangly with flyaway brown hair and wire rimmed glasses. From the moment Wright had met him, the man’s nervous disposition was fully on view, flinching away from sounds and staying quiet when he could. Defiantly not what one would expect of a professor of musical theater. In truth, the only reason the investigation had landed on him to begin with was due to his past associations with victim. One of his former students, the two had been on either end of a long running feud for several years, one that the police believed ended in her death. It hadn’t helped that a note reading “Please come to the bar at 9:00. I’d like to right our wrongs.” had been found hidden away in her jacket during the investigation.

“Y-Yes Mr. Wright?” He squeaked, rubbing his arms to calm himself.

“From what I’ve heard, you have quite the singing voice. Would you mind giving us a demonstration?” Wright asked and the smaller man looked around nervously at the gallery and guards.

“R-Right now? Just out of the blue? I’m not really warmed up or anything...”

He glanced over at Wright’s pleading look and gave a little sigh, shoulders slumping.

“But...I-I can try...”

With that he took a deep breath to calm himself and closed his eyes. He fidgeted in place for a moment before opening his mouth and beginning to sing.

“One foot in, one foot out. One moment away from shutting down. “I’m too complete to need something, for someone who’s not on my frequency.”

The courtroom stilled as they listened, and Phoenix grinned. Just as he’d though. While their client had normal, if slightly high, speaking voice, his singing voice was that of a counter-tenor, easily reaching up into the woman’s range. A perfect fit for the one on the tape. As he sang out, a little smile came to his face and he relaxed.

“So if you’ve got what it takes, then baby don’t hesitate. “Hey, just blow me away cause I’m waitin.”

He gave a few shoulder pops along to the words and across the room Edgeworth paled, instantly recognizing the motion from the video.

“Don’t need no fake promises, someone who knows who he is.”

“Someone who’s ready for this cause it’s waitin.”

“All these other boys, they’re just not enough. So talk to me, come to me, hurry up.”

“Hey baby, I’ve never been in love.”

“But I wanna be, I wanna be, so hurry up.”

He paused, opening his eyes and looking around nervously. As though a spell had been broken, the gallery began to applaud, and he blushed, grinning bashfully.

“Quite impressive Mr. Teatrale.” The judge interjected, clapping a few more times before lowering his hands.

“And I do believe you just proved Mr. Wright’s point.”

“Anything you’d like to say defendent?” Wright asked, giving the man a questioning look. The singer bit his lip, staring down at the stand for a moment before taking a deep breath.

“...Alright, yes. The woman you see in the video is me.” He admitted, looking up at the gathered eyes shyly.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how did this whole thing come about?” The Judge asked and the younger man chuckled sheepishly.

“Well, I love singing, but god I just get so nervous in front of people out in public. I thought maybe that if they didn’t know it was me, it wouldn’t be so bad. So Aria was born. Well, technically I never actually planned the name bit, the people at Wintergreen just started calling me that after a while, but I think it’s a good enough choice...plus it’s just nice to be called pretty once in a while.”

“Understandable.” The old man nodded in agreement,

“Well then, any objections from the prosecution?”

“...Fine, we’ve proved that the suspect could potentially be the person seen in this video.” Edgeworth begrudgingly admitted.

“But that still doesn’t explain the murder weapon.”

He riffled through the files on his desk and gathered a group of papers.

“According to the autopsy report, the victim was strangled with some form of cloth, leaving abrasions on her neck deep enough to draw blood, and traces of mint were found in the wound. The same type of mint found in the defendant’s specialty cough drops. In addition, Mr. Teatrale’s tie, one which he was seen wearing when he entered, was found outside the building, also containing traces of mint.”

Phoenix felt himself still, a bead of sweat running down his forehead.

“Any idea why your tie would be out there?” He asked the defendant and the man nervously shook his head.

“I-I set it on the bathroom windowsill when I was changing. I-I must have forgotten it in there when I packed up.”

Well, back to panic town it seemed. He spread his own evidence out over the table, eyes flickering over it desperately. There had to be something here. Something that would tie all of this together. He had an idea of where he needed to take this trial, but he needed something to get them there. Damn it, damn it, there had to be something!

His gaze flickered over the crime scene photo’s showing the bars exterior and paused. The photo showed the establishment back lot, where the murder had taken place, but the edge of the glowing neon sigh denoting its name was still slightly visible around the corner. Wintergreen...

Something clicked and the man grinned, snatching up the picture and looking up at his opponent.

“You’re correct about that Edgeworth, and it’s pretty solid evidence in your favor.” Wright replied with a nod and the prosecutor stared at him before giving a long, almost defeated sigh.

“But?”

“BUT, do you know where else in the vicinity mint could be found? Mint juleps. Which just so happen to be the bar signature drink.”

“...Wright, are you implying...?”

The attorney didn’t even reply, just grinned and turned to the Judge.

“Your honor, I’d like to bring Mr. Collins to the stand.”

“...Yes, yes, I believe that would be a wise idea.” The old man replied, seeming to catch onto the thread the young man was dangling.

“Bailiff, if you would please.”

Jack Collins was just as intimidating on the stand the second time around as the first, all wide shoulders and sharp lines, the silk vest and flowing shirt of his uniform impeccable. According to the records, he and his twin brother Gibson had bought and rebuilt the old bar several years back, running the small establishment nearly solo ever since. It was a job that took both class and a no-nonsense attitude, the latter of which was on fine display.

“Is there a problem gentlemen? I’ve already told you everything I know.” He asked, crossing his arms and looking out over the assembled figures in annoyance.

“Oh, just a few questions. Shouldn’t take long.” Phoenix replied and the man gave a frustrated sigh.

“Fine, but please make this quick. The longer I’m here, the longer the bar stays closed.”

“Of course. Mr. Collins, you said before that you and your brother are the only ones on staff at the restaurant currently?”

“That is correct, yes. It’s hard work, but we manage.”

“That’s very impressive. According to the court record, you are the establishment’s bartender while your brother is the cook, correct?”

“Yes. We are both able to mix drinks, but I’m sad to admit that I’ve never had much of a hand for the food side of things.”

“That’s a shame. Though I must say, you’re a very well dressed man Mr. Collins.” He continued with a smile. The witness gave him a pleasantly surprised look, while in his peripherals he could see the prosecution shoot him a slightly jealous expression that read ‘What the hell Wright?”

“Well, I certainly like to think so.” The bartender replied with a bit of a smile.

“From what you told me during the investigation, both you and you brother’s uniforms are custom tailored. That’s some nice attention to detail. Even those signature sashes you wear are commissioned.” He continued and they could practically see the man puff up with pride, a wry smile creeping cross his face.

“Right you are Mr. Wright. No two like them in the world.”

The defense attorney’s eyes seemed to flash, a smirk of his own streaking across his face. Hook line and sinker.

“No two like them hmm? Interesting.” He replied and the man’s brow furrowed.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, Mr. Collins, you’ve just brought up quite the interesting inconsistency.”

“Inconsistency?” The Judge questioned him.

“Oh, just a little something I noticed in the security footage.”

Snatching up his remote, he skipped through the footage on screen, stopping at a certain spot and zooming in on the establishments bar.

“Mr. Collins, that’s you in the video here, right?” He asked, pointing to the figure polishing a glass.

“...Yes...” The man replied, cocking his eyebrow in suspicion.

“Alright then, let’s see what happens.”

As they watched, a customer strode up to the bar and ordered a drink, Jack nodding and quickly setting to work. With practiced flair he began to mix ingredients and liquids, quickly producing a well-mixed cocktail. Grabbing a pair of scissors, he turned and snipped a sprig off the plant on the shelf behind him, settling it gently on the drinks surface. As he turned to set down the scissors however, his sleeve caught the glass and it tipped back over towards him. He made a grab for it, but wasn’t quite fast enough, and it clattered over, splashing the drink across the front of his uniform. He scowled and apologized to the customer, quickly making them another.

“Now, Mr. Collins, would you say the drink you made there was a mint julep?” Phoenix asked, pausing the video. The man on the stand scowled, brow furrowing deeper as he seemed to catch on.

“Well, I don’t really remember, Mr. Attorney. I made a lot of drinks that night.”

“Hmm, I can understand that. But if I’m not mistaken, that plant behind you is a wintergreen mint, correct? According to your menu, the only drink you make garnished specifically with a fresh wintergreen sprig is your signature julep.”

“...I suppose it must have been.” He growled between his teeth, staring daggers at the attorney.

“Interesting. Now then, afterwards we see you leaving the bar for a time.”

They turned once more to the screen and watched as the bartender looked down at himself and grimaced, swiping some of the liquid off before turning and walking through the door into the kitchen.

“If you don’t mind my asking, why did you leave?”

“I was covered in alcohol you idiot. I went to go clean up. Watch the tape, you can see me come back a few minutes later.” Jack replied, his voice lifting for a moment from the controlled tone he’d been keeping.

It was Edgeworth this time who took control of the footage. He sped it forward, and as they watched Jack did indeed reemerged a few minutes later.

“I don’t see how the witness changing clothes has anything to do with the case Wright.” The prosecutor declared, but the glint in his eye told the defense attorney he was secretly hiding a smile.

“Oh, it has everything to do with the case.” Wright shot back, turning back to the witness.

“Mr. Collins, you changed into fresh clothes while you were backstage?”

“Are you deaf? I just said so!” He snapped, but Wright simply smiled amicably and tilted his head.

“Then what about your sash?”

This caught the man off guard and his eyes widened, a streak of fear bolting across his expression.

“M-My sash?”

“You just told us that there only two sashes like that in the world, so you obviously wouldn’t have an extra laying around. And yet, here we see you in a fresh one. Where did you get it?”

“I-I borrowed my brothers. The rest of the outfit was clean extras we keep on hand.” If you doubt me, just watch. He came out into the main room when the body was discovered.”

Edgeworth quickly fast forwarded the footage and they saw an identical man indeed emerge from the kitchen shortly after the commotion started, dressed in a matching uniform, sans the sash. Yet the smile stayed firmly stretched cross the defense attorneys face.

“Hmm, that’s interesting, because the footage seems to say differently.”

The man froze, staring at Wright in disbelief.

“What?”

“If we look here, we can see a stain on the shirtsleeve of the bartender in the footage. The type you might get while cooking. Mr. Collins says he changed into clean clothes, and yet here’s evidence that he didn’t. Unless the shirt we see here is also his brothers. But now why would he do that, rather than just grab a new one? Unless the man in the footage isn’t our witness at all.”

“W-What are you trying to say!?” the man snarled and Phoenix slammed a hand down on the table.

“I’m saying that the man we see in the video is not our witness, but in fact his twin brother! Because at the time, the witness was outside killing the victim!”

The gallery erupted into loud discussion as the bartender smashed his fists on the stand with a roar.

“This is slander!”

“Order! Order in the court!” The Judge yelled, slamming his gavel down a number of times before the place quieted. Before the last of the voices could even fade, Edgeworth was already on the move.

“Wright, there are no rear exits from the kitchen and all the others pass by cameras! It’s the reason only one brother was brought in as a witness, it was impossible for him to have seen anything! So how do you propose that he managed to get outside?!”

“The same way we thought Mr. Teatrale did, through a window.”

“Have you gone daft Wright?! The only window in the kitchen is a sky-!”

He froze, eyes going wide, and Wright grinned.

“The skylight. On his own it of course would have been impossible to reach. But with the help of another...”

“Mr. Wright are you implying...!?” The Judge asked.

“Yes, your honor! I believe this murder was a two man affair! After helping him up through the skylight, the witness’s twin took his place at the bar to fool the cameras, while his brother met up with the victim outside!”

The witness couldn’t even reply to the accusation, too busy boiling with rage to form a single word. The judge leapt to action in his stead, eyes wide and disbelieving.

“B-But why would these twins want to kill the victim?”

“I wasn’t too sure of that myself, till something Mr. Collins said peaked my interest. When we first mentioned the victim during our investigation, he called her by her first name. That made me curious, so I asked Detective Skye to look into a few things for me.”

He gave a smile over to the girl lurking in the corner of the courtroom and she gave him a thumbs up.

“What she found was very interesting.”

He flipped open a file that had been laying off to the side, grinning as he read through it.

“A little over a year ago, Ms. Minora worked as a waitress at Wintergreen. A few months into her employment, there was a break in and a large amount of money was stolen. The alarm was never flipped and thus the brothers reportedly became convinced that Ms. Minora was the culprit, firing her and ordering a police investigation. However, the cops were unable to turn up anything to turn up anything connecting her to the crime and she was released, much to the twins’ displeasure.”

“She was a dirty little thief! Those fools may not have been able to find anything, but that doesn’t change the fact she stole from us! She deserved what she got! And I don’t care what you think, you have no proof to back you up!” The witness roared, nails biting into the wood of the stand as he raged.

“That’s where you’re wrong! The very crime scene that you set up so carefully is the last nail in your coffin!” Wright replied, shouting back with equal intensity.

“Because that skylight you’re so convinced was full proof plan?”

He threw down the crime scene photo for them all to see.

“It was left open, as we can see in this picture.”

The witness’s face went sheet white as the realization hit him, Wright’s face more confident than ever.

“If we look close, you can even see where the gutter was bent from you climbing back up. And I’ll bet if we send some forensics officers back out there, they’d find a nice fresh set of prints all over that roof.

“Y-You can’t do this! Everything was perfect! You have no-!”

Wright cut him off before he could continue, slamming down a hand with a resounding bang.

“The victim was killed with a length of fabric, that much is true, but not with a tie as we had thought. Instead she was killed with a mint soaked sash that in the struggle ended up stained with her blood. Blood that was missing from Mr. Teatrale’s tie. Blood that the culprit was unable to remove, and thus was forced to hide away somewhere inside the restaurant. And a sash that is missing from our culprit ensemble at this very moment!

He flung out a hand, pointing at the man on the stand before them.

“Jack Collins, you murdered Lyra Minora in cold blood with the help of your brother!”

The man lost it. Everyone near him quickly backed up as he began raging and throwing things about (where the hell did he even get that many tumblers and martini shakers?!), before finally collapsing to the floor in an exhausted heap, hair awry and outfit in disarray.

“Well then, if that over; Guards, arrest that man! Then send a squad to find his brother. They both will be answering for this.” The judge announced and the guards gingerly stepped over to seize him, dragging the limp culprit away between them as the old man cleared his throat.

“Well then, I believe we have a verdict to announce. Mr. Teatrale?”

The flighty man cautiously stepped back up to the stand, looking up at the man hopefully.

“I’m pleased to announce your verdict as...Not Guilty!”

Confetti exploded from the ceiling and the younger man slumped against the stand in relief. He turned to Wright with a smile, mouthing a “thank you” and the lawyer gave him a thumbs up.

“Now then, court is adjourned!”

With the bang of the man’s gavel as his que to exit stage right, the defense attorney turned and finally made his way out the door near him.

As he stepped out into the lobby and allowed the door to swing closed behind him, the lawyer gave a long relieved sigh and slumped backwards against the wood.

“Ok, that one was way too close.”

“Hey! Mr. Wright!”

He glanced up to find Athena and Trucy hurrying towards him down the hall and straightened with a smile, walking forward to meet them.

“You did great Mr. Wright!” The ginger cheered and his daughter jumped up to give him a hug.

“Yeah! I knew you’d be able to figure it all out!”

“Well, it wasn’t thaaat impressive.” He replied, rubbing the back of his neck as the teen hung off of him.

“You just need to keep calm, look at all the evidence and then just put it all together.”

“Ahh, so your normal grade of bullshit then?” Athena asked with a smirk and he shoved her playfully.’

“Watch it. I’m the one who pays you, remember?”

“Wright.”

Someone appeared at his elbow with the soft call and he looked over with a grin to find a certain prosecutor beside him.

“Miles!”

“Oh boy, here we go. Time for us to exit stage left Trucy.” Athena chimed with an amused eyeroll, giving a wave over her shoulder as she turned and started down the hall, Trucy hot on her heels.

“See you back at the office Daddy!”

Giving a wave after them, the defense lawyer felt an arm gently wrap around his waist and turned into the half-embrace, tangling his arms loosely around the taller man’s torso.

“That was impressive work in there Wright.” The prosecutor muttered and the spiky haired attorney’s smile grew even wider.

“Well, you certainly gave me a good fight.” He replied, leaning up to plant a peck at the corner of the man’s mouth. Athena gave a wolf whistle from down the hall and Phoenix grinned into the kiss as he threw a crude gesture over her shoulder at her, the man in his arms flushing a tad. He shifted over to properly press their lips together, chuckling when the man relaxed against him and clenched at the back of his jacket, then pulling back after a few moments with a smirk.

“Now then, I believe we had an agreement about if I won the trial?”

The older man gave a sigh with a hint of fondness, shaking his head.

“Very well. Where do you want to have dinner?”

Phoenix gave a cheer and released the other man, giving a little twirl of victory and earning a chuckle from the other man. The defense attorney paused as he felt something tap against his ankle and glanced down to find a letter settling on the ground beside his foot.

“Ahh, that’s right. I’d nearly forgot.” Miles murmured, reaching down to retrieve the dropped article. He dusted it off then offered it to the attorney. Still puzzled, Phoenix pealed the envelope open and drew out the nice parchment from within, eyes scanning over the printed words it bore.

Dear Mr. Phoenix Wright, You and your law office are invited to attend our annual Christmas dinner. Please feel free to bring as many guests as you wish, the more the merrier. The party will be held in the ballroom of the Gatewater Imperial Hotel on Christmas Eve. It will be a potluck, so please bring a dish to share. We hope to see you there. Sincerely, The Los Angeles Prosecution Office

“A dinner?”

“Yes, I believe after last year they decided this would be a safer bet.”

Phoenix gave a snort of laughter and tucked the letter away in his jacket, pressing another peck to the prosecutor’s cheek.

“We’d be more than happy to come.”

With that he sidled up beside the man, wrapping an arm around his waist and tugging him towards the door.

“Sooooo, about that dinner...”

His partner gave a scoff and rolled his eyes with a smile.

“Alright, what would you like?”

“That nice seafood place down by the bay. I earned that win, so I’m milkin this for all it’s worth.”

“Pfft, of course you are.”

“...Did you ever even think the defendant was guilty?”

“Oh, not for an instant.”

“Heh, you sap.”

*

As the taxi turned the corner and a familiar law office came into sight, Apollo felt his heart warm. It had been the better part of a year since he’d been here after all. He rarely had the chance to keep in touch with the others much, kept too busy helping Dhurke rebuild the justice system most days to as much as sit down and write a simple email. Hell, he hadn’t even had the chance to properly plan this holiday visit, having simply begun throwing clothes into a suitcase the instant he got the ok from the former revolution leader. He had managed to shoot Trucy a text while he had been waiting for his plane, so he hadn’t really dropping this whole thing on their heads completely out if the blue, but regardless it wasn’t the most polite of situations.

Still, etaquite was the furthest thing from his mind as the cab stopped before the office and, paying the driver, he stepped out onto the sidewalk with his luggage. As the car drove away he felt his nerves buzz with anxiety. How would they react to him after so long? A million insecurities whirled through his head and he found himself taking a deep breathe to calm himself. Well, no time like the present.

He gave a soft call as he pushed the door open and strode into the entryway.

“Hello? Is anybody-?”

He saw the flash of blue before he heard the footsteps and the door clicked shut behind him just in time for the sprinting figure to leap onto him and send him slamming back into it. The breath escaped him a huff as his bags hit the ground with a thud and his head spun for several long moments, barely registering the arms wrapped tight around him. Finally his brain seemed to reboot and the buzzing in his ears cleared enough for him to make out the muffled words coming from around his chest.

“Polly! You’re back!”

Despite his disorienting entrance, he found himself smiling and wrapping his arms tight around the magician.

“Trucy, is somebody he- Oh!”

At the voice, he glanced over to see Athena standing at the end of the hall, her face lighting up when he spotted her and rushing down the passage to join the hug.

“Apollo!”

He let out a laugh, contorting himself enough in the two’s vice grips to wrap an arm around the other girl.

“I walk through the door and already I’m in trouble. Yep, definitely in the right place.” He snickered and the two gave matching sounds of indignation.

“Ahh, and the young lawyer makes his triumphant return.”

He looked up when a shadow fell over them, grinning at the blue clothed man smiling down at him.

“I’m gone for a year and this is the welcome I get? Wow, I can certainly see you all sure missed me.” He sarcastically joked and the attorney gave a snort of laughter, reaching sown to ruffle the younger man’s hair.

“Welcome back Apollo.”

When the girls finally peeled themselves off of him, Trucy seized his hand and began to drag him down the hall.

“We’re still putting up decorations! Come on Polly, come help!”

The others followed as she pulled him through the next door into the main bit of the office, the room decked out with wreaths, garlands and lights, even sporting a small sparkling tree in the corner beside a light draped Charlie. Releasing his hand, she plucked a box of white lights off the table and dropped it into his arms.

“These need to go up on the ceiling! We’re making it look like snow!” She declared, plopping down on the couch and he affectionately rolled his eyes. With a little help from Athena he set to work draping them from the little hooks the others had screwed into the ceiling earlier, starting at one corner and slowly working his way outwards.

Ka-click

He paused to turn in the direction of the sound, instead finding Trucy still lounging away, phone now out and hands flying over the screen, tongue stuck out slightly in concentration. Shaking his head, he turned back to his task, easily slipping back into his space in the office. As the time passed, he regaled them all with the tales of his many new misadventures in law, gesturing with whichever hand was free as he lost himself in the storytelling.

“So, instead of giving me a day off to catch up on all the sleep I was missing like a normal person, instead Datz just goes “Hey, if we just pour a bunch of energy drinks in his coffee, he should be fine.” And in my exhaustion, I actually drink this monstrosity, so halfway through a trial-“

Reaching out for the next hook, he instead found empty air and glanced over to find an empty space.

“One sec, need to grab some more hooks.” He declared, handing the bundle of light to Athena and clambering odd the step-stool.

“Now, they must be around here som-“

There was a loud crash as the office door behind him was flung open and ricocheted off the wall with a bang. Giving a startled yelp, the red clothes attorney whipped around to look and froze in his tracks.

In the doorway stood an all-to-familiar figure, shaking with over-exertion and clinging to the doorframe, his normally stylish hair and clothes windblown and in complete disarray. He stood there with an incredulous expression, wheezing like he’d just run a marathon and staring at the shorter man like he couldn’t believe his eyes. He paused for just a moment, then his face screwed up in heart-wrenching relief, tears filling his eyes. With a choked sound, he threw himself into the room. Apollo had a mere second to brace himself before he was wrapped tightly in the man’s arms, a face burying into his neck amongst a muttered stream of relieved German.

“Du bist hier ... Du bist wirklich hier...”

At the sound of his voice, the situation finally hit the apprentice attorney and, his own expression twisting into tears, he clung on tight to his companion.

“I’m back Klav.”

They stayed that way for a long time, Apollo gently rocking the two of them from side to side as the taller man held him. Finally the former musician pulled back a bit, one hand sliding up to cup the attorney’s cheek. As the smaller man lean into his touch, he gave a dazzling smile and leaned down to press their lips together. Apollo gave a little sigh and practically melted against him, feeling the last piece of what he was missing slid into place.

“Oh would you two get a room?” Athena chirped, grin in her voice, and the red-clothed lawyer pulled back to fix her in a poisonous glare. His gaze softened however as the blond in his arms broke into quiet laughter, drawing his face back around to plant a soft peck on his forehead.

“Perhaps we should take the Fräulein up on her suggestion, hmm? I have plenty of free room at my place after all.”

The younger man turned red at the suggestion, sputtering as he tried to lace some words together, certainly not helped in his embarrassment by the new bout of laughter the other man broke into.

Flustered, he tried to pull back, only to have the prosecutor’s grip on him tighten. He found himself being dragged towards the couch, Trucy having just enough time to pull her lounging legs out of the way before Klavier plopped down beside her. He pulled Apollo along with him, tugging him into his lap and holding him close like an oversized stuffed animal. The attorney cocked an eyebrow at him, giving an experimental tug and finding himself firmly stuck.

“...You realize you have to let me go at some point right?”

“...No.”

He finally gave up and slumped back against the prosecutor’s chest, earning a giggle from Trucy and an exasperated sigh from Athena.

“Oh, just abandon me to the decorating. Real nice Apollo.”

“Does it look like I can help you right now?” He asked, gesturing to the man playfully nuzzling his neck.

“That sounds like a quitter talking.”

“If there was anything within reach right now I’d throw it at you.”

“Alright children, calm down.” Phoenix cheekily replied, chuckling at the dirty look the two threw him.

“Heh, chaotic as always in here, eh Nick?”

They all paused at the giggle from the doorway and turned, every face in the room lighting up at the sight of the woman in the doorway.

“Maya!” Phoenix cried with a grin, rushing over to wrap her in a hug.

“Don’t forget me!” Chirped a little voice, another shorter figure ducking out from behind the taller girl, and Phoenix’s smile grew even wider, scooping the younger medium up to join the hug.

“Pearls! What are you two doing here!?”

“Well, a little bird told us that there was gonna be a party.”

“Ah, so Ema then.”

“Yeeeep.” The tall medium replied, popping the last syllable with a smile.

“Besides, after the disaster of a holiday last time, there was no chance we were gonna miss another chance to celebrate with you.”

“Ugh, I still feel sorry about that.” The attorney replied, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.

“You came back from your training to visit and everything.”

After a moment he brightened once more, planting his hands on his hips confidently.

“Well, guess we’ll just need to make sure we don’t screw it up this time. Your timing is actually perfect by the way. We were just about to head out shopping.”

“Ah, so you got an invitation as well? I look forward to it.” Klavier chimed in from where his head lay on Apollo’s shoulder, the attorney’s hair slightly brushing his cheek as he tilted his head in a confusion.

“Ok, what the hell is this party you all keep talking about?”

“Prosecution office’s holding a dinner tomorrow. Probably thought that if they planned it this year, they wouldn’t accidently get half their best workers trapped in a snowstorm.” Athena called over from where she was stuffing decorations back in the closet.

“So, how’s a lil shopping trip sound? Shouldn’t take very long.” The blue clothed attorney asked, receiving a chorus of agreements. He nodded in satisfaction, crossing his arms with a grin.

“Alrighty then! Everybody grab your coats! A quick run to the store, then we’ll be back here celebrating in no time!”

*

“Shouldn’t take long, my ass.”

No one seemed to even notice Athena’s grumble, all too busy staring in slight horror at the building before them. What was normally a quiet shopping center had been swamped by a veritable horde of people, transforming it into a sort of holiday battle arena. A seemingly endless stream of shoppers was flowing through both sides of the entrance,

“...To be honest, we should probably have expected this.” Phoenix admitted with a defeated slump of his shoulders.

“Well, it is two days to Christmas, Heir Wright.” Klavier offered and the attorney slumped even farther with a groan.

“Yes, thank you for reminding me.”

Maya bit back a snicker at the dramatics, striding to the front of the group and taking point.

“All right everybody, enough belly-aching. Let’s get the move on. The sooner we start the sooner we can leave.” She declared, turning on her heel and starting for the entrance, the others quickly jogging to keep pace with her.

“Heh, when did you become the voice of reason?” Phoenix chuckled, an amused smile pulling at his lips and she shot him back a smirk.

“Oh trust me Nick, you haven’t seeeen crowded till you’ve been through a Kurainese festival. “

Somehow managing to slip smoothly into the stream of people, the group found themselves quickly sucked into the building. Luckily the place was larger than it appeared and so as the space widened out the crowd thinned, allowing them some room to breathe.

“Does anyone even know where we’re going?” Athena called over the din, wincing at the noise and rubbing her temples to try and ward off the coming headache. As she spoke, Phoenix fished the list out of his pocket, glancing over it.

“Well, we somehow got shouldered with the main dishes, hence lots of ingredients, so this is gonna be a bit of a trek.” He replied, handing the list over to Trucy when she leaned up to look at it.

“I’m not sure if some of these would even count as ‘main dishes’.” She replied and he gave a little snort.

“Well, I did get it from Edgeworth. Sometimes I wonder if he knows things like ‘peach incrusted flambé’ aren’t part of your average dinner lineup.”

As he spoke he glanced out over the crowd, gaze scanning over the surroundings, and suddenly paused, eyes locking on something. For a few moments his expression grew thoughtful, brow furrowing the tiniest bit, before a smile stretched over his face.

“Hmm...Hey, Maya? Mind, uh, checking out something over here with me?” He asked, nodding in the direction he’d been looking and the woman stretched up onto tiptoe to see what he was indicating. She stared for a few seconds, giving several long blinks as the gears seemingly turned in her head, before her face lit up. Without even giving a proper reply, she grabbed him by the arm and began to drag him off into the crowd, the lawyer shouting back over his shoulder to the rest of the startled group.

“Just start makin your way down the list! We’ll find you later!”

“Wait, Boss! Don’t just leave us he- Hey, watch were you’re going!” Athena exclaimed, jumping back from her pursuit to avoid being run over by someone’s cart. The middle aged, soccer mom looking woman driving it snapped around to look at them and the whole group flinched backwards. Her gaze was pure venom and boy, if looks could kill. Still cowering together as she turned her nose up at them and stalked away, the band of wayward shoppers glanced at each other in fear.

“...Everybody stay together?” Apollo proposed, met with some very vigorous nods of reply.

Trying to squeeze their ways down isles and around other shoppers proved to be a bit of a challenge, what with the 5 of them huddled together like they were trying to assimilate into one being, but they managed, slowly picking their way through the crowd. They even managed to pick up most of their ingredients along the way, marking off each item as it was gathered.

It was when they they’d begun to near the bottom that problem arose.

“Ok, says here that we need flour for some Yorksire pudding, whatever the hell that is.” Athena announced from somewhere behind Apollo’s shoulder, having been designated as the official list master at some point along the way.

“It’s a baked dish made using the juices from cooked meats Fräulein. It’s actually quite good.”

“It’s made. Using flour and meat. That’s not a pudding, that’s an atrocity.”

“Alright, enough bickering. We need to focus.” Apollo replied, giving them both a swat.

“Now let’s see, flour must be around her somewhere...”

The young attorney’s powerful eyes swept over their surroundings, scanning each shelf and nook down the long corridor, finally letting out a little “a-ha!” when at last he spotted it. There at the end of the isle, sitting on a high shelf was a bag of plain flour. And as luck would have it, it seemed to be the last one.

“Seems like our lucky day.” He chimed in, pointing it out to the rest of the group. Just as the words left his mouth he was jostled sideways as someone stepped up beside him, his head quickly turning to find the disturbance. It was another woman, this one a bit on the older side. She was staring down at a list of her own, her eyes scanning over it before looking up to glance around. After a moment her eyes also caught sight of the flour, a smile breaking over her face, and Apollo felt his hear sink. This lady seemed nice enough, but they had technically been the ones to see it first. But it was still going to feel like a bit of a jerk move on his part if he just took it. Maybe they could come to a compromise?

“Um...”

The attorney wasn’t even aware he’d spoke till it was too late, and the woman looked over at him. She glanced at his still pointed arm, the flour, the items already stowed way in the groups basket, back to the flour, then directly at Apollo himself. She stared at him for a moment, eyes slowly narrowing. Thank god for all those years of training a quick mind, because the lawyer had just enough time to process what was about to happen and push off before they were both sprinting full tilt down the aisle. Right, this was a store during the holidays, the normal rules of human decency no longer exist here. Apollo tried to keep that fact in mind as he tucked his head and ran, distantly noting the flash of blue trailing close behind him.

The woman was astonishingly swift for someone her age and she easily kept pace with Apollo as they both wove through the minefield of other shoppers. Occasionally one or the other would get caught behind a group of stragglers and fall behind, only to regain their ground as the other met a similar misfortune. It was as they were nearing the shelf that the attorney suddenly noticed a small problem with this whole scenario. The flour was on a high shelf. A shelf neither he nor the woman would be able to reach without the help of a ladder. However...

Apollo spun around and screeched to a halt just short of the shelf, lacing his hands together and bracing himself with a shout.

“Trucy!”

The blur of a girl who’d been following him planted her foot in his hands and, with a vaguely concerning creak of muscles, he flung her up high. They watched as she sailed through the air, arm outstretched. For a moment her fingers wrapped around the edge, and Apollo felt a cry of victory gathering in his throat, only for her momentum to carry her too far and have it slip from her grasp, the corner catching and tearing slightly as it tumbled from the shelf. She made a ten point landing just as the bag fell into the woman’s waiting hands. She gave a hoot, and held it high above her head in victory.

“Ha, too bad for you!” She crowed, voice one of spiteful pride, and the cries of indignation from the rest of the group masked the flash of shadow darting along the top of the shelf. Before they could do a thing however, she swiftly stuffed the object she grasped firmly into her own basket and swiftly made her retreat, disappearing around the corner before they could even think to pursue her.

“Grrr, what is wrong with that woman!?” Athena finally roared, stamping a foot on the ground as she visibly bristled.

“D-Don’t worry! I’m sure we can fix this somehow!” Pearl chimed in and Athena sighed in defeat.

“But how? This recipe specifically calls for white flour, and she just made off with the last bag!”

“Oh, you’re looking for flour? Well, isn’t this a stroke of luck.”

The group paused and looked up as the voice floated down from above them, faces lighting up as they caught sight of the source.

“Kay!”

The girl was lounged across the top of the shelf beside them like the damn Cheshire Cat, with a grin to match. One arm was supporting her head, chin settled in an open palm, while the other casually coiled around a familiar white bag, the torn corner making its identity clear.

“You wouldn’t happen to mean this lil thing?” She asked cheekily, examining it briefly before tossing it to them, leaping down after it.

“Kay, how did you get this?!”

“I’m a master thief, how do you think? Hope that old coot doesn’t mind whole wheat.” She replied, stretching and popping her back.

“You guys grabbin stuff for the party I assume?”

“Bullseye. I take it Edgeworth invited you too?” Apollo replied, carefully tucking their hard-earned prize away, and she shrugged nonchalantly.

“Well, more like I saw the invitation on his desk and invited myself, but yeah. Just gotta grab some cake mix then I’m outta this looney bin.”

“You’re facing this horde solo Fräulein? Quite the gutsy move.” Klavier complemented her and she chuckled, rubbing the back of her neck sheepishly.

“Appreciate the complement, but even I’m not that reckless. Just lost the second half of my dynamic duo in the crowd a ways back. She should show back up eventually.”

“Kay...I swear to god...I’m gonna kill you...”

The wheezing, tired voice behind them caused the group to turn, catching sight of a familiar figure bend almost in half as she tried to catch her breath.

“Ay, there you are Ema! Thought I might have lost ya for good for a bit there.” Kay cheekily chirped and the older girl’s eyes flashed with annoyance. Darting past the rest of the group, she seized the younger girl by the ear and tugged, the thief giving a little yep of pain.

“Well, you wouldn’t have lost me if you hadn’t decided that walking through the crowd was too much work and climbed off over the shelving. I’m surprised security didn’t catch you and throw you out. Oh, hi to all of you guys by the way.” She growled, pausing her tirade for a moment to greet the others.

“You better have grabbed that cake mix while you were off on your little misadventure.”

“Well I was, till I ran into these guys. So just calm down and gimme a sec.”

Pulling loose of the detectives grasp, the thief stomped off to a nearby shelf, muttering under her breath, and began examining the different types of mixes as Ema gave a sigh and rubbed her temples.

“So, Edgeworth send you along to keep her from tearing the store apart?” Apollo asked with a teasing grin and the girl made an ‘eehhhh?” hand motion.

“Sorta. I got roped into handling the prep for like half this whole party, so I’ve been having to keep track of what all people are bringing. Speaking of, how’s about you guys? Got everything you need?”

“Let’s see...”Athena muttered, smoothing out the list and scanning over it.

“Only thing left is... a goose? Well, if A Christmas Carol could pull it off, so can we. Should be over...”

She looked up at the signs hanging from the stores ceiling and gave a groan.

“...On the other side of the store.”

A wave of despair seemed to wash over the group, all slumping in exhaustion with matching groans.

“Well, no time like the present.” Klavier sighed and the 6 of them set off, Kay giving chase with a large box of black forest cake mix, shoving through the crowd and trying their best not to get flattened by the shoppers. 20 minutes and they finally had to stop and rest, having barely gotten halfway through the store. They were sweaty, sore from the numerous wayward elbows around them and beginning to feel like every step forward was two steps back.

“Ugh, this is useless!” Trucy cried, looking about ready to start pulling her hair ours.

“We’re making no progress! If we even get the goose it’s gonna be near impossible to get it back through here and Daddy is still-!”

Her frustration was cut off by a series of cries and insults beside them as someone came shoving their way through the crowd. As though the mere mention of his name were enough to summon him, Wright came popping out of the horde in front of them, expression one of vague horror. When he spotted them his expression brightened, only to turn to terror once more as the sound of someone moving through the crowd continued behind him.

“Guys, I’m so sorry. I tried to stop her.” He stammered, darting forward and partially hiding behind them.

“What? Mr. Wright what are you-?”

As though on que, Maya emerged before them, wielding a shopping bag stuffed almost to the bursting with...something.

“Uh, Mystic Maya? What is that?” Pearl asked, voice quiet and just a bit terrified as they all stared at the bags.

“A surprise!” She replied and a shiver ran down all their spines at her impish grin.

“So, what else have you guys got to do?”

“U-Uh, just gotta get the main dish.” Apollo replied, mind reeling from jumping from topic to topic. Phoenix perked up at that, smiling and crossing his arms.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. We stopped by the deli section on our way over here. One cooked goose officially ordered and ready to be delivered to the party!...Uh, guys? Are you ok?” He asked, his upbeat spirit delating in confusion as the group gave a massive sigh of relief, looking as though they’d just seen the face of God himself.

“Boss, I could kiss you right now.” Athena groaned.

“Umm, please don’t.”

“Wait, wha- Oh, never mind. Let’s just get the hell out of here.”

“Seconded!” Phoenix squeaked as the crowd began to close in around them, squeezing in from all sides. Doing their best to try and force their way through, they slowly made their way through the surging current of people, gradually advancing towards the checkout area.

“Alright everybody, almost there!” The lawyer at their head called back to them, trying his best to use his height to try and clear a path.

“Oh, wait guys my shoe is- Ah! Help!”

The groups heads whipped around just in time to see Trucy trip and stumble backwards, instantly getting caught in the flood of bodies and begin to be swept away. In an flash Phoenix jolted into action.

“Don’t worry Trucy! Daddy’s coming!” He cried before literally diving into the crown, shoving people out of the way as he disappeared after her.

“Nick!” Maya yelled, trying her best to scramble after him. The force of the crowd proved too powerful however and she quickly lost sight of his spiky hair as the sea of bodies pulled the two groups apart.

“Damn it, get out of the way!”

She tried once more, only to be more-or-less hip checked by what could only be described as yet another stereotypical PTA mom and sent flying back in to the others, almost knocking over Pearl as the woman shot them a nasty look and vanished into the swarm. Klavier shot some particularly nasty German after her as he helped the medium up, muttering angrily under his breath.

“Well now what the hell do we do!?” Athena complained, the lift in her pitch giving away her panic.

“Don’t worry, I got this.” Ema suddenly announced, rolling up her sleeves and turning to face the onslaught.

“This isn’t my first battle with holiday shoppers. It’s all in the way you present yourself. Now, shoulders back, head up, think ‘murder’ and walk.”

With that she began to quickly stride forward, face fierce and eyes blazing. Like some miracle, the crowd began to part before her like the Red Sea, people literally diving out of her path when they met her gaze. The rest of the group simply glanced at each other in surprise before quickly trailing along close behind her.

It didn’t take long to find their wayward companions. The two had taken refuge beside a display, Phoenix keeping an arm wrapped protectively around his daughter as he scanned the crowd. His eyes widened when he saw Ema marching towards him, blinking a few times in disbelief as she moved with ease through the crowd. She reached them and, without missing a beat, seized him by the jacket and began to lead everyone towards the exit.

“Ok, this little field trip has dragged on a bit too long. Time to go.”

A chorus of agreements answered her and the group practically sprinted to the checkout, shoving their items through as fast as the poor overworked cashier could deal with them in a panicked rush to get the hell out of there. The instant they hit the cool air of the parking, a sigh of relief swept through the group, most of them slumping over against the cars in joy.

“None of you guys EVER let me talk us into that again.” Phoenix groaned and Maya let out an exhausted chuckle.

“Aww it wasn’t thaaat bad Nick. Just one more thing to add to our little winter adventure, right Pearly?”

She turned to the space to her left and everyone went silent when they realized it was empty. Slowly they looked back at the store, then at each other in horror, before making a mad dash for the doors.

“Hold on Pearly! The rescue squad is on the way!”

*

“Hahahaha, less than a day into your visit and you’re already embroiled in trouble! That’s my boy!”

“Dhurke...” Apollo sighed, trying to rub away the headache forming between his eyes as he listened to the uproarious laughter on the other end of the phone.

“Aww, don’t be so glum AJ! Nothin to get the holiday season going like a wild manhunt!” Datz chimed in from the background and Apollo flopped back onto the couch in exasperation. If he’d known when he called that not only was Dhurke listening in, but Datz and Amara as well, he never would have brought the little disaster up.

“Oh, stop teasing him you two.” Said queen jokingly chided them.

“The poor boy has been through enough today as is.”

“Good, at least I have somebody on my side.” He muttered to himself.

“Besides, I’m sure that young detective will tell us aaaall about it the next time she comes to visit Nahyuta.” She continued with mischievous glee and Apollo let out a loud groan.

“Well, they certainly sound like a fun bunch. I can see why you turned out the way you did Herr Forehead.” Klavier called over from where he was making tea in the apartment’s kitchen and Dhurke made a noise of interest.

“Hmm? Is that the young man you were telling us about?”

“Uh, y-yeah, that was Kalvier.” The attorney quietly replied, cupping his had around the speaker to try and muffle the man’s booming voice. Damn these two and their impressive hearing. Too little, too late it seemed though, as the musician quirked an eyebrow, looking over at him with a grin.

“Oh, you’ve been talking about me, hmm?” He asked, moving out around the kitchen counter and striding over to lean over the back of the couch. As he did, his loose hair fell like a curtain around the two of them, faces just a breath apart. Apollo felt his own breath stop, feeling suddenly swept up in the intimacy, eyes slowly beginning to slid shut as the older man leaned in, slowly inching their lips closer and closer together...only for the blond to snatch the phone from his hands with an impish smile, quickly pulling back as the red-clothed man gave a choked noise of surprise and made snatch for it. The prosecutor danced back out of his reach, flicking the device onto speaker phone mode and leaning in.

“Well, I hope he hasn’t been telling you too many of my secrets.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. We’ve heard quite a bit. Once he gets going, well, we don’t really have the heart to stop him.” Dhurke replied, smile evident in his voice.

“And if that picture in his wallet is anything to go by, he’s managed to net himself quite the looker! Way to go AJ!” Datz called once more, and Apollo’s eyes went wide.

“Why were you looking in my wallet?!”

Despite the embarrassment of the situation, he paused when Klavier turned to him with a touched expression, eyes soft.

“You keep a photo of me?” He asked quietly, and Apollo felt his heart warm at the happiness in his voice.

“Um, yeah, maybe...oh would you just give me the phone!” He muttered in return, face warming as he turned sheepish and made a grab for it as the blonde came close. Klavier swept down and pressed a kiss to his forehead as he pressed the phone into the attorney’s hands, pulling back with a soft whisper.

“Gott, ich liebe dich.”

Apollo froze as he let the words roll around in his head, a lovestruck grin slowly spreading across his lips. He was finally pulled from his thoughts by the voice on the phone calling his name.

“Apollo? You there son?”

“Ah, yeah! Yeah, I’m here!” He quickly replied, hearing the man give an amused noise on the other end, voice jovial as he continued.

“Well, he certainly seems like the respectable sort. You’ll have to invite him for a visit sometime soon. What kind of father would I be if I never met the man who my son will be sharing his life with?”

“D-Dhurke!” Apollo squeaked, face flushing brightly as both the old defense attorney and the blonde hovering over his shoulder broke into laughter.

“Aww, is there something you want to tell me Herr Forehead?”

“You are not helping!”

“Well, I’ve used up enough of your time. It’s about time I let you get back to business.” The king finally replied and the boy gave an audible sigh of relief. Finally an end to this embarrassment.

“Yeah, I’m sure those two have plenty of catching up to do.” Datz called and Apollo could practically hear the suggestive eyebrow wiggle in his voice, the young attorney’s face flaring red as his waistcoat.

“DATZ OH MY GOD!”

He had to wait what seemed an eternity for the laughter to settle once more, still hearing Amara and Datz trying to calm themselves in the background as Dhurke finished his chuckling and spoke once more, voice proud.

“Goodnight son.”

Apollo sighed in exasperation or what seemed the millionth time, but couldn’t help the soft smile that crept onto his face.

“Goodnight Dhurke.”

The line clicked off and the young man let out a breath, shaking his head.

“My dad is ridiculous. No, scratch that, my entire family is. That whole damn country in fact.”

“Yes, but you wouldn’t trade them in for the world, would you?” Klavier replied, nudging his head to urge him upright and settling on the couch once he was out of the way. Apollo gave an amused little huff as he was handed a warm mug, soft smile still cemented firmly on his face.

“Heh, you got me there.”

They lapsed into silence as they enjoyed their drinks, simply basking each the presence of each other. As the night went on Apollo felt himself slipping back into the routine he hadn’t even realize he missed. Finish the tea, do the dishes together, shower, keep Klavier from making out with him while he showers so they don’t both slip and die, brush his teeth, riffle through the drawers for some clothes while the blonde does his skin care regiment, find the comfiest space under the covers while he waits.

By the time the singer pulled back the other side of the comforter, Apollo had already begun to doze off, the jet-lag finally catching up with him. Flicking off the light, the two of them settled, the attorney giving a little hum and shifting closer to the chest behind him as an arm wrapped around him. The prosecutor pressed a tired kiss to his neck, nuzzling his hair with a soft whisper.

“Liebling?”

“Mmm? Yeah Klav?” He sleepily mumbled back, teetering on the very edge of sleep.

“Please tell me that photo you have isn’t a Gavineers headshot.”

“What? No! It’s something Trucy took during the party last year.”

“Oh, thank god.”

*

“So then I got into an argument for like two hours with Mr. Are’bal over which show was better, it’s Steel Samurai of course, and then he...Nick are you even listening?”

The woman sitting at the kitchen table pouted as she turned to the man standing in the kitchen, the lawyer giving a quiet laugh.

“Yes Maya, I’m listening.” He replied, keeping an eye on the small pot bubbling on the stove, stirring it occasionally as he assembled various other ingredients. He was making hot chocolate the proper way damn it, no matter how much Maya tried to convince him doing it in the microwave was easier. His reply seemed to pacify the medium and she set back off with her storytelling once more. He listened as she recounted story after story of her time abroad, everything from little happenings to grand misadventures. (“Maya. Maya please tell you didn’t actually let Datz and the Princess talk you into stealing all of Dhurke’s eyepatches and gluing googly eyes onto them.” “Hey, it managed to get Nahyuta and Apollo to laugh themselves to tears, so I don’t see the problem here.”)

Eventually the drink was finished and he carefully poured it into the oversized mugs Trucy had bought him for just such an occasion, topping them both with a frankly unhealthy amount of whipped cream and marshmallows before joining his old friend at the table.

“How have things been over here Nick? Any adventures of your own?” She asked, taking a large sip and grinning at the taste.

“Oh, with these guys around, every day’s an adventure.” He replied, rolling his eyes playfully.

“And how’s about a certain silver fox we all know? How’re things going between you two?” She asked, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.

“Oh hush you. He’s not even that old.” He rolled his eyes, the girl snickering as he playfully shoved her face away.

“If you really must know, it’s been...good. Better than ever.”

He smiled down into his own drink, swirling it gently around in the cup.

“That court room in Khura'in wasn’t the first time I’ve almost been shot, and it probably won’t be the last, but something about it just...made us realize how much we’ve got to lose.”

He gave a little huff of a laugh, taking a sip.

“So, we’re just living one day at a time. Might as well enjoy the time we got.”

Looking over the rim of his mug, he found Maya smiling warmly at him.

“You’re such a sap Nick.”

“Oh geeze thanks.” He scoffed and she laughed.

“But I think that’s what makes all of us love you so much. You can’t help but give 120 percent all the time. Cause you just care too much not to. It’s the reason you saved me and the reason you saved him... and if there’s one thing I know for a fact, it’s that Miles loves that about you more than anything.”

Phoenix gave a chuckle, giving her a wry smile.

“Who’s the sap now?”

“Oh shut up and drink your hot chocolate.”

With a snicker, he glanced over at the living room. Trucy and Pearl had passed out on the couch together a few hours prior while binging some show (One Upon a something?), and were now collapsed in a tangle of limbs on the cushions, completely dead to the world. They were still speckled with flour and various other ingredients from the cooking spree earlier (Phoenix wasn’t looking forwards to trying  to get those out of the couch fabric), the partially completed efforts of their work waiting on the counter in preparation for being finished in the morning. It wasn’t a perfect system, but it worked.

“Heh, Netflix and Conk Out.” Phoenix muttered in response to one of his daughters especially violent snores, if only to make the woman before him make an equally ridiculous noise as she slapped both hands over her mouth and tried to muffle her laughter. He smirked at her for a moment before his smile softened, eyes going soft.

“I missed you.” He quietly breathed, the words out before he could even realize he was speaking. She didn’t even seem surprised, just smiling softly and reaching out across the table to take his hand.

“I missed you too.”

Phoenix felt his chest warm, a wide smile easing onto his face.

For once, all was right with the world and it felt as though nothing could go wrong.

Tomorrow as going to be perfect.

*

Everything was going wrong.

“Crap, crap, crap...” Phoenix muttered as he ran around the house, the words quickly becoming his personal mantra as he rushed from place to place. Not only had they all slept accidentally slept till 1 in the afternoon after chatting all night, but he’d woken up with dozen less than happy messages from Edgeworth asking where they were. Hell, they hadn’t even gotten up till Detective Gumshoe had come uh knockin in an attempt to find them. And as a reward for his kindness, the poor man was currently getting his arms stuffed with half-finished dishes and various bags of ingredients.

“Ok, just, take those out to the truck. We’ll finish them at the hotel when we get there.”

“Are you sure they’re gonna let us use their kitchen Mr. Nick?” Pearl asked from where she was hurriedly shoving part of the mess on the table into her bag, paying no mind to whether what was falling in was actually hers or not.

“Uh, yeah! I’m sure it’ll be fine Pearls!” He replied with the strained smile that immediately told them all he was bullshitting. Turning his attention back to the task at hand, he rather haphazardly dumped the last of their cold items into the cooler and slammed it shut, eyes scanning over the room.

“Got that, got that, got that, Gummy’s holdin that, goose is getting delivered, ok we’re good to go! Everybody grab your coats and get to the truck!” He shouted, dashing to grab his own from the closet, cooler in hand.

“Daddy!” Trucy chimed in and he paused in his frantic searching to glance at her.

“Huh? Uh, yes Trucy?” He asked, mind going a million miles a minute.

“You’re not wearing a shirt.”

The lawyer froze and glanced down. Huh, would you look at that. Cursing quietly, he handed the cooler to Maya and rushed to the bedroom, reappearing in record time.

“Ok, now let’s go!”

Maya bit back a snort at his appearance (shirt buttoned crookedly so one side of the collar licked his ear while the other nearly dropped off his shoulder, tie lying open over his chest, locket chain somehow tangled in his hair) and made a break for the vehicle as he looked over at the noise. Ignoring her, he snatched up his jacket and rushed to the door, suddenly freezing with a little gasp just as he cleared the threshold, eyes going wide. Spinning on his heel and shooting back inside, they could hear the sound of frantic riffling, then he was back, stuffing something into his pocket as he cleared the step and swung the door shut behind him.

“Ok, everybody ready? We’ve got a lotta dishes to prepare and it’s already...”

He let out another curse as he glanced at his phone. The party started at 6 and his display read 2:30.

“...Detective, I need a favor.”

With a police car leading the way, they got there in record time.

*

“We’re here! We’re here!” The spiky haired attorney cried as they burst through the door, immediately leaning over afterwards and wheezing as he tried in vain to get his lungs to work properly. Sprinting across a parking lot and up a grand staircase was a bit much for him at the moment. The silver haired man standing nearby jumped a bit at their entrance and turned, starting towards them.

“Wright! Where have you been?” Edgeworth exclaimed, tone both one of annoyance and worry as he drew up before the other man.

“Sorry, time...got away from us...Just gotta finish some stuff...then we’ll be...right as rain...” He replied, perking up to plant a peck on the prosecutor’s lips between his wheezes. The older man’s brows narrowed slightly in concern and he wrapped an arm around the other, leading him to a nearby table.

“Alright, alright, just sit down before you pass out.”

He settled the younger man in a chair and sat beside him, watching with a sigh as he chugged a glass of water.

“...I truly was worried about you.”

“I know. I’m sorry for scaring you.” Phoenix replied, lowering the glass and patting the prosecutor’s hand as the man turned to him with an unamused expression.

“I never said scared. But, when I send you multiple text and receive replies to none of them, you can understand my concern.”

As he spoke he went about fixing the buttons on the younger man’s shirt, flushing a bit when the younger attorney turned his head to plant a peck on his knuckles.

“I promise to make it up to you.” Phoenix replied, leaning over to kiss away the furrow in the man’s brow. The prosecutor relaxed against him, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding as Phoenix nuzzled his hair.

“Hmm, we really should get to work on that food though.”

“Ah, that’s right. Very well, I’ll go ask speak with the staff about using the banquet kitch-oh.” Edgeworth moved to stand, only to pause as he glanced past Phoenix. The attorney turned in curiosity to see Pearl smiling sweetly as she spoke with a rather bashful looking bellhop, the man grinning dopily and turning to lead the others to said kitchen.

“Well, that one problem dealt with. Now, were we?” Phoenix smirked, leaning in to steal another kiss. He was stopped short by the hand Edgeworth threw up, the prosecutor giving him a stern look over it.

“No, finish your water then got get started. You can enjoy yourself once everything’s ready.”

“Hmph, killjoy.” The blue clothed man pouted, moodily sipping at his drink.

Eventually he did manage to propel himself up out of the chair, brightening as he made his way through the crowd. Apollo and Klavier having already joined in on decorating, and slipped into the small kitchen. The girls had already taken over the place, the counters littered with ingredients and a number of dishes already cooking away.

“So, you guys need any help back here?” He asked, the girls turning towards him in surprise.

“Ah, there ya are Boss! Though you might have gotten lost.” Athena chimed in. She, Blackquill and Fulbright had arrived a short time ago (Terrwyn unfortunately was stuck home with a cold, but sent her warm greetings), and the girl had immediately stolen away to the kitchen, probably trying to get a head start on tasting the dishes. Evidently she’d been roped into helping instead, if the apron around her waist and the bubbling pot she was stirring was anything to go by.

“Nah, I think we’ve got it handled over here. Maya’s over in there though, so you might wanna ask her.” She jerked her thumb towards a door off to the side and he nodded, carefully avoiding their workspace as he made his way through.

Whatever he was expecting to find when he entered the loading bay, this wasn’t it.

“So, what you up to Miss Mystic?” He asked, eyebrow cocked as he got a better look at the scene. The girl was crouched beside a large wooden crate, examining it in curiosity.

“Tryin to figure out what this thing is. They said it was delivered here earlier for us.”

“Delivered?”

“Do...Do you think it’s that goose we ordered?” She asked, cocking her head and he shrugged.

“Possibly. But why would it be in a crate?”

“Maybe to keep it fresh and warm? It comes cooked after all.”

The woman stood and began rummaging around in the drawer of a nearby cabinet, finally giving a little sound of victory and holding up a crowbar.

“Well, only one way to find out!”

As she sunk the claw into the groove of the crate, Phoenix noticed something. A series of holes were drilled in the lid, scattered evenly across the wood. As though to let air in...

His eyes went wide in realization and he leapt forward just as Maya put her weight down on the bar.

“Maya, wait!”

The lit popped loose with a crack, clattering to the floor, and they froze when they glimpsed the inside. Ever so slowly Maya laid down the crowbar and reached in, carefully picking up the contents and holding it out in front of her.

“Bwak?”

“...That’s a chicken.” Phoenix muttered, and Maya turned to him with a scowl.

“Yeah, no shit Sherlock.” She replied, before turning back to the creature in her hands with a worried look. It was a chicken all right, a big one too, it’s feathers a snowy white. It seemed remarkable calm despite having been sealed in a crate, cocking its head at them and leaning down to gently peck at Maya’s sleeve in curiosity.

“What the heck is it doing here?” She asked, voice squeaking a bit with concealed panic.

“There must have been a mix up when we ordered it.” Phoenix sighed, rubbing a hand over his face in sudden exhaustion. Just when they thought their bad luck was over.

“That seems like a pretty big mix up.” She replied with a sigh. Switching the bird over to one arm, she nudged the lid back into place and set him down. He immediately nestled down, calmly looking around at his surroundings, and Maya gave a little ‘aww’, crouching down to pet his head.

“Well, at least you’re a cute one.”

After a moment her expression darkened once more, biting her lip.

“Ok, but now what do we do? We needed a cooked goose, not a live chicken.”

“Well, we could always just...cook this one.” He offered and she looked over at him in confusion.

“What? Nick, you don’t just cook a chicken feathers and all.” She chided him and he rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, I know that. I spent a few summers on my grandpa’s farm when I was a kid. I know how to clean and de-bone a bird.”

“Yeah, but that implies you’re going to...”

They both paused and slowly turned to stare at the chicken, the creature tilting its head cutely at them and staring back with innocent eyes.

“...Nope.”

“Wait, what?” He asked, turning to the girl in confusion.

“Nope, not doin it. I’ve bonded with this creature. He’s mine now.” Maya shook her head, scooping up the chicken and hugging it to her chest.

“Wha-Maya, you can’t just take it!”

“I paid for it, so I can and will.”

“Where would you even keep it?!”

“I don’t know! The village or something!...You aren’t going to eat my pet Nick!” She replied with a stubborn glare and he gave a groan.

“Alright, fine, fine. Keep the chicken.”

She grinned and nodded in satisfaction, turning the bird and holding it out to look at her.

“Hello chicken. Your name will be...Nugget.”

Phoenix gave a sputtering sound and burst out into laughter, the absurdity of the situation finally getting to him. Maya merely stuck her tongue out at him playfully as he clung to the wall for support, hugging the chicken closer to her.

“Don’t worry Nugget, he’s just jealous.”

“Well, you two certainly seem to be having fun.”

The pair turned to the doorway to find Ema watching them, arms crossed and eyebrow cocked.

“Ah, yeeeeah, things ended up going a bit off the rails.” The attorney replied, rubbing the neck sheepishly as his giggles died down.

“We also seem to be suffering from a severe lack of cooked goose.”

“Say no more. I heard it all through the door anyway. Lucky for you, I know a place a few blocks from here that should be able to hook us up.” She replied, gesturing as though to wave away his worries and Phoenix grinned.

“Ah, that’s the Ema Skye we know and love. Always got a solution up your sleeve.”

“Well, it helps that Sis is useless when it comes to cooking meat, so we have to order in for the holidays a lot. I’ll be back in like 10. Call if you need me.”

With a flip of her hand she exited, music from the next room spilling through for a moment before the door closed.

“Well, that’s one problem on its way to being fixed. Whatcha thing, should we help go and decorate? We need to introduce everyone to Nugget after all.” Phoenix chimed in teasingly.

“Yeah yeah, laugh it up Nick.” Maya snorted, rolling her eyes. Her gaze suddenly lit up with realization and a grin broke across her face.

“Ooo, wait, I just remember something!” She chirped happily, setting Nugget down once more and turning to riffle through a bulky bag nearby. Something about it tickled Phoenixes memory and he tipped his head quizzically. Had he seen that somewhere before? A moment later she turned, arms holding a bundle of cloth and his eyes went wide with horrifying realization.

“Oh no. No, no, no. I know for a fact I hid those last night! How did you-?! ”

“C’mon Nick, time for everybody to get festive.” She sang, stalking closer to him with a positively predatory grin.

“Maya. Maya no.” He whispered fearfully and her grin grew frighteningly wide.

“Maya yes.”

She began to close in on him as Nugget watched, backing the terrified lawyer against the wall as she clutched the bundle.

Oh good god, what menace had he released upon the world?

*

The kitchen door slammed shut behind Apollo as he fled into the kitchen, leaning back against it as he tried to calm his racing heart rate. How had things gone downhill so fast? He looked down at the garment he was now wearing with a groan. It was black, woolen and tacky, with the embroidered image of a dog and the words ‘Bah Humpug!” emblazoned across his chest. It was everything he feared about Christmas themed clothing.

“Ah, so I see she got to you as well Polly?”

He looked up to find Maya and Trucy looking at him with tired amusement, both dressed in only marginally less ugly sweaters. The ginger’s read ‘Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal” and bore the image of some bizarrely buff deer, while the others was decorated with “Meowry Christmas” and a cat wearing a Santa hat.

“Yeah, she’s still out there wreaking havoc. I think some people are holed up in the bathroom, but knowing Maya, that’s not gonna stop her for long.” He replied with a shudder, still hearing the chaos going on outside. The woman had come tearing through the main room a few minutes prior, giggling manically and wielding an overstuffed Santa bag. Apollo had been the closest to the kitchen at the time and thus the first to meet her sweater-y war path, the woman stuffing it on over his head with gusto before moving on to the next victim. Once they’d realized what was happening, most of the others had scattered and run for their lives, many making the mistake of underestimating just how fast the girl could move in geta. Whoever remained was mostly likely getting stalked through the hotel by the woman and her terrible sack of garments like some Christmas-themed horror game.

“Well, not like we can do much about it now. Might as well just bid our time in here till things calm down.” Athena replied with a sigh and shrug, turning back to the pot gently simmering on the stove and giving it a stir as she reached over to tap at something on her phone. The portable speaker on the counter edge began to blare music once more, just as Apollo dimly remembered it had been during his entrance.

“I’ll take your advice! I’ll try to be more nice!”

“Really? You listening to this?” Apollo asked, giving a little laugh and cocking an eyebrow, and Athena spun around to look at him, Trucy seizing the spoon in her stead to keep it from falling.

“What, are you telling me you’ve never heard ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ before Apollo?” She replied and he rolled his eyes.

“Of course I have, who hasn’t? But seriously? This is what you cook to?”

“Oh, you’re just being a Grinch. Besides, fun is the secret ingredient in like half this stuff.” She shot back, hips swinging sassily to the beat as though to egg him on. He let out a chuckle, shaking his head and her eyes glinted playfully, her movements becoming more focused and choreographed as she began to sing along.

“Cause all that it takes is a little re-in-ven-tion!”

She bopped in place a few times before dramatically kicking out a leg, startling Apollo and making Trucy give a laugh.

“It’s easy to change if you give it your att-en-tion!”

“All you gotta do is just believe you can be who you want to be!”

She flung out an arm to point at Apollo, giving a wink and this finally drew a laugh from him, the girl giving a little fist pump of victory.

“Sincerely, Me!”

She smiled cheesily, striking a pose and jerking a thumb towards herself. Apollo gave her some rather sarcastic applause, grinning a bit in spite of himself.

“Very impressive.” He replied and she rolled her eyes. Striding over, she grabbing his hand and pulled him up from where he was leaning against the wall, dragging him towards the open space here she’d been preforming.

“Come on, your turn to dance Mr. Scrooge.” She smirked and Apollo scoffed.

“Pfft, not on your life.”

“Aw come on, have some fun Polly!”

“A-poll-o! A-poll-o!” Trucy chanted, clapping her hands, and the attorney gave a sigh of defeat, voice deadpan as he joined in with the recording.

“Dear Connor Murphy,​”

“Yes, I also miss our talks. Stop doing drugs, just try to take deep breaths and go on walks.”

Despite himself, he found his body bouncing along to the beat, smile growing even as Trucy gave a joking “Heh, no” from her perch on the counter.

“I’m sending pictures of the most amazing trees.” (“No!”)

“I’ll be obsessed with all my forest expertise!” (“Absolutely not.”)

Slipping into character, he threw out an arm to point at Athena, her eyes lighting up.

“Dude, I'm proud of you. Just keep pushing through! You're turning around, I can see!”

“Just wait and see!” She sang in reply, quickly stepping up and unexpectedly pullin him into a spin before the two launched into a series of improvised steps.

“'Cause all that it takes is a little re-in-ven-tion!”

“It’s easy to change if you give it your att-en-tion!”

“All you gotta do is just believe you can be who you want to be.”

“Sincerely, Me!”

“My brother’s hot!” Athena chimed in and Apollo gave her a horrified look as Trucy burst into laughter.

“Well, I think Detective Fulbright would agree with you on that!” She called over and now it was Athena’s to look disgusted. Apollo quickly intervening with more lyrics before the full reality of her brother and his detective getting down and dirty could sink in.

“Dear Evan Hansen,​”

“Thanks for every note you send.”

“Dear Connor Murphy,​”

“I'm just glad to be your friend.” She sang back, shaking off the thoughts. He grabbed her hand and she grinned, the two anchored together as they danced about in a series of hip swings and quick footwork.

“Our friendship goes beyond our average kind of bond!”

Now completely dedicated to the performance, they hugged each other close, before suddenly seeming to realize their position and awkwardly scooting apart.

“But not because we’re gay!”

“No, not because we’re gay!”

“Ha, that’s a lie if I’ve ever heard one!” Trucy snorted and they rolled her eyes.

“We’re close but not that way.”

“That only man that I love is my dad.”

“Pfft, which one?!” Athena chimed in, seeming unable to contain the joke, and he gave her a scowl, shoving her away playfully.

“You're getting better every day.” He sang and she grinned, shoving him back.

“I’m getting better everyday!”

They turned with mischievous twin smirks to Trucy and swooped in, dragging her off the counter and into the dance as she laughed.

“Keep getting better! Every! Daaaaaaay!” They sang, the magician joining in with them at the end. With a whoop the trio jumped along to the music, legs kicking and arms swinging wide as they went along.

“Hey hey hey hey!”

“'Cause all that it takes is a little re-in-ven-tion!

“It’s easy to change if you give it your att-en-tion!

“All you gotta do is just believe you can be who you want to be!

“Sincerely,”

They clung close together, squishing Trucy between them as they cooed jokingly before releasing her with a laugh as they crescendoed.

“Miss you dearly~.”

“Sincerely, Me.”

“Sincerely, Me!”

“Sincerely, Meeeeeeeee!”

“Sincerely, Me!”

They struck a final pose, all breathing heavily and grinning like a bunch of idiots. The music rolled to a stop just in time for them to hear an odd hissing noise and the trio turned to see the nearby pot boiling over, all three giving a squeak and making a dash for it.

“Crap, crap, Ow! Fuck!” Apollo hissed, jerking a seared finger away to suck on as he wrapped a towel around the handle and dragged it off the heat.

“Language.”

They froze at the voice and turned to see Phoenix leaning against the door of the loading area, eyebrow cocked. He too was clad in a sweater, no doubt the first of Maya’s victims, and his was the most ridiculous they’d seen so far, an entire plushy deer head mounted on the front within a wreath.

“...Boss, how much of that did you see?” Athena

“Most of it...do I even want to know?” The attorney asked, giving the tiniest of laughs as they all glanced at each other hesitantly.

“...I’m gonna take that as a no. Well, carry on with your weird musical numbers. I was just passing through.”

“Says the man who I caught listening to Rent on repeat.” Trucy laughed quietly and her father threw a hand dramatically to his chest.

“We swore never to speak of that!”

She stuck her tongue out at him playfully and he grinned, continuing on his way.

“Just try not to burn the place down.”

Slipping out into the banquet room, he found the place in slight disarray, tables pushed at weird angles and the occasional wayward item lying about on the floor. A scattering of people were attempting to right the chaos, all bearing signs of Maya’s rampage. The woman herself was nowhere to be seen however so he emerged from his hiding spot and made a beeline for the silver haired figure redoing the linen on a nearby table.

“Seem you’ve run afoul ol Mrs. Christmas spirit too huh?” He asked, snickering as he leaned around to get a look at the garment she’d chosen for the prosecutor. It read “I like to smile! Smiling’s my favorite!” and was lined hem to collar with images of trees, elfs and candy canes. It was the definition of ironic and one look at the man’s unpleased expression had the spiky haired man in tears of laughter once again. The prosecutor sighed as his partner bend over the table in conniptions, waiting till his giggles calmed down before he spoke.

“Yes, yes, laugh it up. Is the food done at least? Any stragglers should be arriving soon.”

“Yeah, for the most part. Bit of a mix up with the goose though.”

“Ah, yes. Mrs. Fey has been taking quite a bit of pride of showing off her new pet.”

“Yeah, not much I can do about that. Ema is dealing with the rest of it though...she has been gone quite a while though...”

Feeling a tickle of worry up his spine, the spiky haired attorney fished out his phone and dialed her number, frown deepening when the call went straight to her voice mail.

“She’s not answering.” He muttered, brow furrowing and his frame tightened with nervous tension. What could be keeping her? Was there an accident? Was she alright?

Noticing the other man working himself into knots, the prosecutor reached out and rubbed a hand along his shoulder to calm him, voice soft and soothing when he spoke.

“Wright, just think about this logically. I’m sure her battery just died, or something of the like. Ms. Skye is a resourceful young woman. She’ll be fine.”

Phoenix took a deep breath and let it out, feeling the tension drain from him.

“Yeah...Yeah, I’m sure you’re right.”

“Oh, finally emerged from you hidey-hole eh Nick?

They actually flinched a tad at her voice, as though expecting even more sweatery-chaos to be rained down upon them, and turned to see the triumphant prankster striding toward them. The woman of the hour was decked out in her own form of holiday torture and the most gaudy of them all, covered in a visual cacophony of lights, garland and bells, jingling quietly as she walked.

“So, I take it your mission was a success?” Phoenix questioned and she grinned.

“Yep, and I couldn’t have done it without the help of my partner!” She replied and Kay popped out from behind her, grinning equally big and carrying the now empty sack.

“...Kay, how could you?” Edgeworth whispered in betrayal and she puffed out her chest in proud defiance, putting her own sweater on display. It showed the Caped Crusader himself checking over the naughty list, Maya having crossed out one of the names and written “Yatagarasu” in its place.

“The Legendary Thief never turns down a cry for help, no matter how minor!” She declared, grinning widely.

“Also, I promised her cake.” Maya whispered to Phoenix and the man snickered.

“Very honorable of you.” He joked, ruffling the young girls hair. After a moment his expression softened and he stooped down a tad to speak to her face to face.

“Kay, can I actually talk to you alone for a minute?”

This caught the girl off guard and she tilted her head, regarding him questioningly.

“Uh, ok. Fine with me.”

Giving a nod, he quickly herded her off into a corner, leaving Maya and Edgeworth to themselves.

“Do you have any idea what’s going on there?” the prosecutor asked her as the two began to quietly converse, the medium going a shrug and an “I dunno” sort of noise. After a few moments the little thief’s face lit up, looking ecstatically over at Edgeworth for a moment before turning back to the smiling man in front of her and continuing her excited whispers. The prosecutor cocked an eye brow curiously at the exchange. What the hell did that mean? Turning slightly, he caught sight of Maya in his peripheral. She two was grinning widely with pride, and his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“...You know something.” He muttered and her grin grew even wider as she rocked back and forth on her heels.

“Maaaaaybe.”

“I’m never going to get a straight answer out of any of you people, am I?”

“I’d bet my money on it.”

He gave a sigh as the two strolled back over, trying their best to even their expressions.

“Are you two done?” The prosecutor asked, cocking an eyebrow with a deadpan look and the two glanced at each other, almost breaking out into grins once more before stopping themselves.

“For the time being, yeah. Soooo...”

With that, the attorney flopped down into a nearby chair, Kay quickly following his lead.

“Now we just gotta wait for Ema to return and hope whoever you terrorized during your little sweater quest will eventually wander back.”

“Hey, I didn’t scare them that bad...probably.” The medium replied, dropping beside him. All Edgeworth added to the conversation was another sigh as he rubbed at the quickly growing headache in his temples.

Maya wasn’t exactly wrong as it turns out. Over the next half an hour or so, most of the party did indeed come trickling back into the room. Most were sporting tacky new apparel, while a select few had been lucky enough to avoid the woman’s war path long enough for her to run out. (And then there was Fulbright, who seemed to proudly be wearing two sweaters at once, the second Blackquill’s no doubt, by the way the samurai seemed to be keeping an eye on Maya and a hand on his sword hilt at all times.)

They were almost on their third bottle of sparkling juice when Wright phone buzzed on the table, the lawyer jumping a bit before snatching it up. He sighed in relief when he saw “Skye” flicker across the caller ID and quickly answered.

“Hey Ema! I was calling you earlier. Did you have to go to another shop or something? It’s been way longer than 10 minutes.” He jokingly chided her.

The deep laugh on the other end though, far too deep to ever come from Ema, made him freeze.

“Oh, now this is perfect.”

At the darkly amused lilt of their voice, Phoenix felt himself tense.

“W-Who is this? Why do you have Ema’s phone?”

“Ah, so her name is Ema. Pretty name for such a pesky girl.”

Phoenix bristled. He’d heard words far too similar to that during his cases and they made a cold ball of dread fall into his gut. As though on instinct he rose to his feet, the others looking over at him in confusion, his brow furrowed deep in concern and tone one of barely concealed anger when he spoke.

“Where is she? What did you do to her?

“Oh don’t worry. The little detective is fine...for now.”

A shudder went through him as his fears rang true. This was a ransom call.

“...What do you want?” He gritted out, trying his best to keep his voice even and calm.

“Ah, right to the point! I like that. What we want...is you Mr. Wright.”

“...What?” He whispered, and his look of cold shock brought Miles to his feet.

“Phoenix? What’s happening?” He asked, tone steady and concerned, but the attorney was too distracted with the voice on the other end to even register him.

“I will send you an address. Come there in the next hour, or the else.”

“What? But-”

“Bring that silver-haired fop with you as well.”

Phoenix’s blood ran cold, eyes going wide as he glanced over at Edgeworth.

“No, no, leave him out of this. Whatever this is about, he’s had no part in it.” He replied, voice shaking and fearful gaze spurning the other man closer in concern. The kidnapper’s dark chuckle sent a fresh shudder through him.

“Heh, you’d be surprised. The prosecutor comes.”

At that his fear turned to anger and he grit his teeth, phone creaking in his grip as he trembled and squeezed it.

“You bastard...”

“Oh, and if we get a single whiff of you bringing cops, the girl pays the price. You have an hour.”

“Wait-!”

The line went dead and a new wave of dread washed through him as the screen flashed with a text.

“Nick, what’s happening?” Maya beckoned him, tone panicked, and he looked up to see everyone having gathered around.

“Ema...Ema’s being held hostage.” He announced, voice shaking and a number of gasps rang out across the gathered crowd.

“What?! But why?!” Athena cried.

“I don’t know, but they want Miles and I. They said that if we come to them, they’ll release her.” He admitted and the groups faces pales.

“What?!” Gumshoe shouted, shoving to the front of the crowd and causing Phoenix to jump. He hadn’t even realized the detective had returned already, yet here he was, sweating and pale with the information.

“Pal, you can’t! I might not know a ton about ransoms, but I know a trap when I see one! And this is defiantly a trap!”

“I know that! But we can’t just leave Ema with them! If we don’t go to the address they gave me within the hour, they’re gonna...well they didn’t say what they’re gonna do, but it can’t be good!”

“Well then let’s go rescue her! Detective Gumshoe and I will call for back up and we’ll head over there right away!” Fulbright announced with a nod, reaching for his phone. Before he could dial though Phoenix grabbed him by the arm.

“No, wait! They said that if they see any cops, they’ll kill her!”

Miles gave a deep sigh beside him, settling a hand on Phoenix’s shoulder.

“Then, as much as we may hate it, we’ll have to play by their rules.”

Phoenix nodded and slipped his hand into the prosecutors, turning towards the door.

“Then, let’s go.”

Before he could even make it a step, Maya seized him by the sleeve and yanked him back.

“No! No way am I letting you go in there alone Nick! If you go, I go too.”

A chorus of voices agreed, Wright looking from face to face in concern.

“No, you guys, you can’t-”

“And why not?”

He turned to where Blackquill had drawn up beside his detective, gaze sharp and focused.

“According to you, there fiends only ever mentioned the exclusion of police, not other companions.”

“He’s not mistaken.” Edgeworth gently prodded him.

“I know you’re worried about Ema, but we must think about this strategically. We’ll have a much better chance against whatever these ruffians may be planning if we have the advantage of numbers.”

Phoenix stared at him for a moment, conflicted, before giving a long exhale.

“I hate it when you’re right.”

Shaking his head as though to clear it, he looked up with new determination in his gaze.

“Alright. Maya, Blackquill, Apollo and Klavier, you come with us. You too Athena, your hearing might be helpful. The rest of you, stay here with the detectives. If we’re not back soon, send in back up.”

“Daddy, wait! I can-!” Trucy began, stilling when Phoenix shot her a stern look.

“No, I don’t want you in danger if things go sour. Stay here and hold down the fort.”

“You as well Kay.” Edgeworth chimed in, mirroring his partners expression, and the girls glanced at each other in concern as the rescue team began to ready themselves.

Bringing up the trade-off coordinates on his phone, Phoenix jumped as a hand settled on his shoulder, turning to find Miles gazing at him with a gentle expression.

“Phoenix, calm down.”

The defense attorney blinked at him a few times, suddenly growing aware of the shudders still wracking his body. His head fell and he took a few deep breaths, staring down at the carpet as his face screwed up in worry.

“Miles...what if we can’t...?”

He trailed off as the prosecutor stroked a thumb back and forth against his neck, stepping closer to comfort the younger man.

“We’ll going to bring her home. I promise you that.”

“...God I hope you’re right.”

*

“So this is the place huh? Certainly seems sinister enough.” Apollo sneered, looking up at the building before them.

The directions had lead them out to the industrial area of town, the salty air of the nearby bay blowing in as they stood before their chose destination. It was a warehouse (because whenever was it not a warehouse in these situations?); a small one, admittedly, but still obscure and hidden away amongst all the larger buildings around. The prefect place to hide a person.

“I’ve got bad feeling about this.” Maya grimaced as she climbed out of the truck.

“Have you got any sort of plan Nick? You know, other than “Get Ema and try not to die”?”

“Umm...” The lawyer replied, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly and the woman sighed.

“Of course not.”

“In a situation like this, it would be best to stay together.” Blackquill offered and Wright nodded.

“It’s better than nothing. Now we need to-“

“Ah!”

The small cry and the thud of something hitting the road caused the group to turn, finding a familiar little magician now laying on the pavement, another small figure half leaned out of the now open trunk, frozen halfway through her attempt to stop her companions tumble. Both stowaways slowly looked up at the groups shocked faces, Trucy giving a nervous little giggle.

“Heh, hi Daddy.”

“T-Trucy! Kay! What are you doing here!?” Phoenix cried, snapping out of his stupor and rushing over to them. Kay helped her friend up and the two glanced sheepishly down at the road, biting their lips and looking at each before shrugging and facing back towards at their respective father figures.

“We...We couldn’t let you do this alone.” Trucy finally admitted, holding up a finger when Phoenix moved to speak.

“We know you two just want to try and keep us out of the crossfire, because you care. But if something does happen, we want to be here for it.”

The man stared at the two for a long moment before smiling softly.

“You two are such troublemakers. Edgeworth?”

He turned to the other man and the prosecutor gave deep sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“It’s not like we could stop them if we wanted anyway.”

The two girls gave little sounds of victory and Phoenix stood, gathering everyone up and turning once more toward the building. From what he could see, the only visible entrance seemed to be the front door. Straight into the lion’s den it was then.

“Alright, everybody stay together and keep aware of your surroundings. Let’s go.”

With that, he reached out and grabbed the doorknob.

It was unlocked and the room beyond was dim. It wasn’t a particularly large room, probably about 40 feet square, with rows of cabinets and benches cluttering the shadowed walls, a few flickering florescent bulbs casting a meager glow over its center. Across from them in the gloom, they could see a single door, both unassuming and yet also sinister. They’re footsteps seemed almost dulled by the darkness as they cleared the doorway and gingerly made their way inside.

“Athena, do you hear anything?” Phoenix breathed and the girl closed her eyes for a moment.

“Yeah, I...I think there’s something...”

Her head suddenly leaned to one side for a moment and her eyes snapped open, jerking around to look into the shadows.

“Oh, no.”

The door slammed shut behind them, cutting off what little moonlight from the street had been trickling in, and the group spun around, finding a large burly man glaring at them beside it. As they watched close to a dozen people emerged from their hiding spots in the shadows, each one easily described as a goon. As they closed in, the group huddled together, back to back as they looked frantically from man to man.

“Who are you?! Where’s Em-!?” Phoenix began, cut off by the loud creak of hinges opening.

“Alright, calm down boys. It’s not time for fun just yet.”

Turning to face the newcomer, Wright froze.

“Wha-?...Jack?”

The tall well-dressed man before them gave a chuckle as the door closed behind him, one of the baddies taking up guard in front of it as he strode toward them.

“No, I’m afraid not Mr. Wright. My brother and I do share quite the striking resemblance though don’t we?”

“Wait, you’re his...But the police...”

“They couldn’t find him.”

The growl came from between gritted teeth and they turned to find the silver haired prosecutors face stormy, eyes narrowed in fury.

“Following the trial, the police were deployed to retrieve one Gibson Collins, and yet were unable to locate him upon arrival at the brothers’ place of living. Detective Gumshoe informed me of such this morning.”

“That’s the fun thing about having no one think you’re a witness; No one thinks to keep tabs on you either.” The twin replied with a smile, his expression one of calm amusement.

“But...why would you do this?” Phoenix questioned him and the man’s smile grew a bit wider.

“Ah, that’s the question of the hour now isn’t it?”

With that he began to pace back and forth before them, the rest of his goons backing up a bit to give them some space.

“Well, you see, the bar has always been a good source of financing for we and our boys more, let’s say, ‘underground’ pastimes.” He replied, waving a hand about dramatically, and Phoenix felt a shudder of dread go through him. If what he was imply was true, they’d just leapt into a far deeper pool than they’d intended.

“So, you can see why the fact that you not only shut down the place but also locked away my brother-!”

The last bit came out a snarl, the man’s whole frame tightening in anger before he caught himself and relaxed, the mask of calm amusement sliding back into place.

“...Might make us a bit upset.”

“Alright, I get it, you’ve got a grudge. What does that have to do with Ema?” Phoenix replied, and the man gave a shrug.

“To be honest, little. Some of the boys recognized her from the trial while they were out and brought her to me. When I first saw her, oh, I was mad alright, furious even. After all, she is the one who dug up that piece of evidence for you.”

He chuckled, unfolding his hands from behind his back to gesture grandly.

“But then we realized she could serve a much more useful purpose.”

“You could use her to lure Edgeworth and the boss here.” Athena pipped up and the man grinned.

“Ooo, quite the sharp mind, that one. A perfect bullseye.”

“But what do you get out of all of this? What do you intend to accomplish by bringing us here?” Miles replied, moving Athena behind him slightly as he stepped up beside his partner. The smirk the man sent them was enough to send shivers down all their spines as he spoke.

“Oh, it’s quite simple really. I only want to keep things fair. Because of you pair, two precious things were taken from me...”

For a moment, he was a blur of movement, then suddenly the dim light was glinting off the steel of his pistol, the barrel pointed directly at the two men.

“...so I’m going to take two from you. Your lives should do.”

“...You can’t be serious.” Apollo blurted out in shock, and the man’s charming façade spilled away, his face now deathly serious.

“Oh, I’m quite serious, I assure you.”

The grin made a return performance as he cocked back the hammer, but this time it looked like it belonged to the devil himself.

“Now, I advise you gentlemen say your prayers. Hope you haven’t got any unfinished bui-”

Before he could finish the sentence, there was a resounding crack from the door behind him. It bowed outwards for a moment, the metal of the hinges screeching before finally giving way. The whole thing went flying, taking out the man standing guard next to it before hitting the ground and skidding off into a corner. As the dust cleared they all turned to see a familiar figure standing in the empty doorway, leg still raised in position.

“Ok, who’s next!?...Oh, hey, you guys actually came!...What the hell are you wearing?”

“Now is really not the time Ema!” Phoenix shot back, flushing as he suddenly remembered their outrageous state of attire.

“Wha-?! How did you get out?! We had 4 guys guarding you!” One of the lackeys squawked and the detective grinned wolfishly.

“Yeah, well now there’s 4 guys in need of some basic first aid back there. So, which of you idiots wants to join the- Ah!”

The girl gave a little cry as she was grabbed from behind, an arm wrapping around her collarbone and pinning her back against Gibson’s chest. She struggled, reeling back a leg to try and kick at him, but froze when the cold barrel of his gun pressed against her temple.

“Anyone take a single step and little miss detective here gets it!” He growled and the whole room stilled, all eyes on him. He smirked and slowly scrolled his gaze of them, eyes hopping from on frightened face to the other.

“Now then, here’s how things are going to go. Wright and the fop are going to take a little ride with me and the boys, we give the rest of you the girl, and then you never see our faces again. Doesn’t that sound nice? Now then, if you’ll just come along quietly we can get this over-“

The thug paused, eyes narrowing in confusion as he scanned once again over the group, silently mouthing numbers as he counted them.

“Wait, where’s the little witch ki-?”

He let out a startled cry as Trucy dropped onto his back from her hiding place in the rafters, grabbing at his arm and twisting the gun out of his hand.

“Ema, run! And I’m a magician damn it!” She shouted, and the other girl slipped from his grip, the captor’s face screwing up in rage as she escaped.

“Get off of me you little brat!” He growled, reaching back with his free arm and grabbing Trucy by the scruff of her neck. He hefted and she flew forward over him, slamming to the ground on her back with a choked noise of pain, all the air knocked out of her. The man ignored her, looking from side of side in a bid to spot his former prisoner.

“Damn it, where did she-?!”

A crack resounded through the air as he turned just in time to see the flash of blue before him and meet the fist coming towards his face. He toppled with a cry, clutching his likely broken nose.

“Gah! Who-!”

He looked up to see Phoenix towering over him, the man’s face wild and eyes filled with a near demonic light, his voice a rage-filled growl when he spoke.

“Don’t you dare touch my daughter.”

With that, the place descended into chaos.

Gibson dove for his gun, but like a bolt of lightning Kay was across the room, kicking it out of his reach. In a glimmer of sparks it skittered away across the floor and disappeared beneath a set of heavy cabinets. He snarled and she leapt clear of his grasp before he could get a hold on her, getting in a solid blow at his fingers with the steel toe of her boot for good measure. Edgeworth used the distraction to hoist Trucy off the floor and out of harm’s way, slipping behind Phoenix as the attorney squared off against one of the other baddies. As though on cue, more of the kidnapper’s underlings burst through the now doorless doorway, bruises and scrapes gained during Ema’s escape already beginning to show.

“Gib, we tried to grab her but- whoa, what’s happenin?!”

“Ugh, don’t just stand there you idiots! Get them!” The twin yelled and they leapt into action, joining their companions and closing in on the group.

“Wright-dono, there isn’t enough room to defend ourselves in here. We will be overrun if we don’t move now.” Blackquill muttered to him as they were herded together and he gave a nod of agreement. Fumbling behind him, he finally found the handle of the door and quietly clicked it open. He glanced around at his companions, the others quickly seeming to catch on and nodding their agreement. In a flash of speed he threw the door open and took a swing at the nearest enemy, the others following suit, before spinning on his heel, distraction in place.

‘Everybody outside!!”

They flooded through the open doorway and out into the crisp coldness of the street, the enemy faltering for just a moment under their attacks before giving chase. Maya brought up the rear, giving a choked gasp of surprise as she was seized by the back of the shirt and pulled backwards, an obnoxiously tall lackey lifting her off the ground. Her eyes narrowed and with a quiet growl she spun around, the fabric of her sweater twisting in his grip, and drove her geta into his stomach. His eyes bulged and his knees buckled, dropping to the ground and doubling over as he tried desperately not to be ill. His grip didn’t fully release however, so she simply let herself go limp, slithering out of the garment and darting away to safety.

“See, aren’t you glad I bought these damn things now!?” She shouted over to Phoenix and he rolled his eyes, reaching behind his neck and yanking his own off over his head.

“Yeah, real glad! Now just keep fighting!”

With that he balled up the garment and reeled back his arm, launching the weighty bundle at a goon who’s gotten the upper hand on Klavier, dragging the singer back towards him by the hair. The flying plushy deer head took the baddie by surprise and he reeled as he was struck in the face with the projectile, releasing the prosecutor as he stumbled back and fell. The young man shouted a bit of thankful German to Wright before delivering a firm kick to the fallen man’s head, knocking him out cold.

Looking around, Phoenix took stock of the situation. Despite the circumstances, the rag-tag team of rescuers were actually holding their own pretty damn well. Trucy had produced one of her stage swords from somewhere and teamed up with Blackquill, the two easily holding off several men at once with a series of sharp jabs and flourishes. On the other end of things, Kay and Apollo were taking a more physical approach, the girl using her speed to trip their enemies up, leaving them for Apollo to take out with all those skills he’d learned from his years in the mountains. As for Athena , she was...well, being Athena, and as he watched she grabbed a man twice her size and tossed him a good 10 feet down the street, the other baddies backing away from her as she turned in search of new targets. Even Taka was doing his part, circling and dive-bombing anyone who got too close to Ema while the girl took cover behind the truck. As he himself took down another person, Wright felt himself grin. They might just win this.

His internal celebration was cut off however by a sharp crack and he flinched as something ricochet off the light pole beside him. Turning to its origin, he found a battered Gibson nearby. He’d been partially successful in swiping away the blood dripping down his face, though it did little to hide the fact that his nose was most defiantly broken, and it only seemed to intensify the rage on his face as he pointed the pistol once more at Phoenix.

“I don’t care what else happens, you’re still going to die tonight!”

His roar sent a wave of dread through the spiky haired man, eyes flickering from place to place in search of escape as the madman took aim.

“Gibson, please. You don’t have to do thi-” The attorney began, only for his blood to run cold as the hammer clicked back once more.

“Say goodbye Mr. Lawye-”

He gagged on the last word as an elbow abruptly wrapped around his neck from behind, choking him out. Quick as the first, another arm came around and seized the hand wielding the gun, twisting it to a painful angle and forcing him to drop the weapon. He gave a hoarse cough as his throat was released, hacking and heaving as he tried to get his windpipe working once more.

“Wha-?”

The word hadn’t even left his lips before the seized arm was being twisted tight behind his back, the attackers elbow planting itself between his shoulder blades. A sharp kick to his knees and he went down like a sack of bricks, head striking the street with a crack and body stilling.

“I think not.” Edgeworth replied, rising to his feet and brushing the dirt from his sweater. He turned in Phoenix’s direction with a concerned expression, starting towards the man.

“Wright, did he-?”

He paused when he properly saw the defense attorney. If the spiky haired lawyer had looked lovestruck around him before, that his expression now was on a whole new level. His cheeks were flushed and mouth hanging slightly agape, eyes wide with awe. He even had a hand pressed over his heart and despite the dire situation Edgeworth couldn’t help but let out a little laugh.

As though the spell had been broken, the remaining minion cried out to their leader, some rushing over to check on him while others continued their own battles. Shaking his head at the chaos, the prosecutor nodded towards the brawl and looked over at his partner.

“Shall we?”

Phoenix’s face broke into a wide smirk and he pushed up his sleeves as they started once more into the fray.

“Gladly.”

They’d just reached the action and were reeling back to join in on the fun when...

“EVERYBODY FREEZE!”

The whole battle did just that, everyone turning like deer in the headlights to look at the actual headlights now illuminating the area. As they watched the cop stepped out from behind the squad car door amongst the flashing lights they’d somehow failed to notice earlier, lowering his firearm slightly as several more squad cars pulled up as well.

For lack of a better idea, Phoenix smiled and did what he did best.

“Ah, hello officer. It’s a long story...”

*

“This is not how I imagined I’d be spending Christmas Eve.”

Phoenix sent Maya a deadpan look, everything about his expression and body language just seeming to scream “really?”.

“Yes Maya, I’m sure none of us expected to be spending Christmas Eve in a jail cell.”

The girl gave a shrug the best she could considering she was currently laying upside-down on one of the benches, her legs propped up flat against the wall to form a sort of ‘L’. Across the cell from her, Blackquill gave a snort.

“Speak for yourself Wright-dono.” He rumbled with a wry grin and the attorney winced slightly at the dark humor.

When the police had arrived earlier, they’d though it a blessing, backup sent by the others. That assumption quickly died however when it was announced that they were all charged with disorderly conduct and the conflicting groups were arrested. As it turns out, a spectator had overheard the conflict from their apartment and called the cops, who arrived to the fight having spilled out into the street. He and the others had tried their best to explain the situation, Edgeworth even going as far as pulling his rank as Chief Prosecutor, but twas not to be. The officers remained just as confused about the whole thing as before and they were all promptly wheeled off to the local precinct.

They had been stuck in one of the holding areas a few hours prior, to “simmer down” they’d been told, and then more or less left to their own devices. His own group was split between two different cells, the two sharing a center wall and for the most part had submitted to their fate. (Gibson and his boys had been shoved into a different area entirely, presumably to prevent the two factions from squabbling, and Phoenix thanked the lord for small mercies.) Miles, Trucy, Kay and himself shared one, while the others were scattered around the other, some sitting or lying across the few wide wooden benches available, while others simply sat slumped against whichever available surface. The open iron bars surrounding them at least allowed for easy communication and sight of their surroundings, even if the fact that most of the lights had been switched off for the night limited the latter. The only one of them who hadn’t been locked up was Ema, who’d been taken in for questioning when she mentioned being kidnapped. That had been hours ago however, so who knew what was happening here.

“Ugh, Dhurke is gonna have a field day if he ever finds out about this.” Apollo muttered to himself, Athena chuckling and nudging him with her foot.

“Is that a challenge I hear?”

“Athena, I swear to god I will kill you myself.”

Kalvier gave a little laugh and continued stroking a hand over the younger man’s hair, the defense attorney giving a grumpy grumble and leaning over more heavily against the others thigh.

“What about you Maya? Was this enough of a winter adventure for ya?” Kay called over and the woman tapped a finger against her lips thoughtfully.

“Hmm...could have used more Steel Samurai.”

The chorus of laughter that rang through the room was soon interrupted by the creak of the nearby door opening and they turned to find two familiar faces entering, looking surprisingly chipper despite the circumstances.

“Hello! How’s everybody holding up in here?” Fulbright asked, as white and gleaming as usual in the dim light of the holding area.

“About as well as someone in holding can be.” Phoenix replied from his position leaned back against the shared bars, arms folded behind his head.

“Good to hear! Just let us know if there’s anything we can get you folks! I’d hate for you to be any more uncomfortable than necessary while you’re stuck here.” The detective cheerfully declared, eyes sweeping over the accidental prisoners. His gaze softened as he looked over at Blackquill, the samurai leaned back in one of the corners with Taka in his lap, and moved over to crouch beside him.

“Simon, are you doing alright?” He gently asked, reaching through the bars to touch his cheek, and the prosecutor sighed in mild exasperation.

“I spent 10 years behind bars, Foolbright. I believe I can handle one night.” He replied, his voice one of mock annoyance even as he leaned his head into the touch.

“I know, I know.” The detective admitted with a sigh, stroking a thumb over the man’s cheekbone.

“I just hate seeing you in here. I’m sure Wyn does too. Heh, she said she was gonna stay up all night and wait till we get home when I called to let her know earlier.”

This brought a tiny smirk to the prosecutor lips, the man giving a little huff of laughter.

“As though she doesn’t do that regularly anyway.”

“How’s about you Mr. Edgeworth?” Gumshoe asked, brow furrowing in concern.

“You doin ok?”

“I shall be fine Detective. Do you have any updates on our release?”

“Sorry pal, nada. This whole this is just a big mess, and the rest of the guys are still tryin to put together all the pieces.”

The silver haired man sighed and nodded in understanding. This section of the city was technically under the jurisdiction of the precinct they were currently trapped in, a separate one from that of their friends, creating a new legal hurtle to leap in order to sort this whole mess out. They’d been lucky the two detectives had even been allowed to help in the attempt, considering how convoluted the rules of this sort of thing tended to get.

“Well, please just inform us promptly if there’s any changes.”

“Course Mr. Edgeworth sir. Sooner we can get you guys out of here, the sooner ya can get home and celebrate the holidays.”

The door clicked open once more, an unfamiliar young man leaning out and calling for the trench-coated man.

“Ok, be there in a sec! Well, duty calls!” Gumshoe chimed, giving them all a little salute before marching off after the stranger.

It was quiet for a few minutes, the only sounds punctuating the darkness being the occasional noise from Taka and Fulbright soft whistling as he kept an eye on them. At first it was peaceful, but soon the awkward air about the scene began to get to them, Athena finally giving a loud sigh and breaking the silence.

“Well, hey, if there’s one good thing that’s come out of this whole thing, at least we can claim the title of “Most Adventurous Lawyers”, right Boss?...Boss?” she joked, cocking an eybrow when he failed to reply, seemingly lost in thought.

“...Hey, Fulbright? What time is it?” the blue clothed man suddenly asked and the detective gave a hum, fishing out his phone.

“Let’s see...says here that it’s 11:55. Almost Christmas everybody!”

The defense attorney stared up at the ceiling thoughtfully for a moment before sighing, unfolding the arms tucked behind his head and sitting up.

“Well, now’s as good a time as any, I suppose.”

Shifting up into a knelling position, he reached over and took Miles’ hand. The prosecutor made a little noise of surprise and the others turned towards them, watching as Phoenix gently held it between his own.

“Edgeworth, I’ve been meaning to say this for a long time but...thank you.”

The other man’s head tilted curiously, one side of his mouth quirking up in confused amusement.

“Thank you? For what?”

“For everything.” He replied, expression going soft.

“Without you, I‘d never have become a lawyer. I wouldn’t never have met Mia, or any of the others. I’d never have been able to save anyone. Without you, I’d never be where I am today. Who I am today. I’ve never been more thankful for anything than I am for the fact that you’re here with me...You’re everything to me.”

For a moment his face fell a bit and he released the man’s hand with a sigh, looking down at the ground with sad eyes.

“And to be honest...I’m really not sure I deserve you. That I’ll ever deserve you.”

With a half-huffed laugh, the prosecutor reached down and stroked the other lawyers hair, running his fingers through the silky strands and moving down to cup his cheek. He tilted the man’s face up to look at him, smiling softly.

“Don’t be daft Wright. You know that’s not true.”

The defense attorney gave a chuckle, gaze warm and loving as he looked up, leaning into the touch and nuzzling the man’s wrist.

“I had the feeling you’d say that.” He muttered, hand drifting down to his hip.

With that, he tugged out the item he’d been lugging around in his pocket all night, staring at it thoughtfully as he turned it over and over in his hands. The bench clattered back against the wall as Miles suddenly stood, wide eyes fixed on the small object. Something in his gaze told Phoenix the puzzle pieces were coming together and the spiky haired man took a deep breath to quiet the minuscule shaking that jittering over his frame. In, out, in out. Come on Phoenix, it’s just like being in court. No backing down now.

“So, I guess what I’m trying to ask is...”

He held his breath and flipped the little velvet box open, Miles sucking in a breath of his own as the dim light illuminated the object within.

Two hoops of gold encircled a tangle of silver filigree, polished and gleaming even in the dimness. Imbedded in the very top was a deep magenta stone, flanked on either side by smaller silvery-purple ones, each almost seeming to glow.

He waited for just a moment, hearing the various gasps echo through the holding area, before looking up at the shocked face above him, smiling gently as he gazed at the man.

“Miles Edgeworth, will you marry me?”

For a one terrible, suspenseful moment, the man simply stood and stared at him, gaze wide with shock and disbelief. Then the tiniest of smiles snuck onto his face, a quiet, relieved laugh bubbling up in his throat as bright grey eyes gleamed wetly. The next moment his knees hit the ground, Phoenix having just enough time to draw a breath before a hand again slid into his hair and their lips were slammed together.

He could barely hear the cheers around him through the pure relief buzzing through his head, grinning wide as he wrapped his arms around the prosecutor and pulled him tight against his chest. They knelt there for a long few seconds, each soaking up the presence of the other, every care in the world getting thrown out the window. Then the silver haired man gently pulled away, head dropping down to rest against the youngers chest with a teary chuckle, smile wide and brilliant.

“Of course I will, you fool.”

Planting a kiss on his crown, Phoenix reached down and took the prosecutor’s hand, stroking a thumb along the top as he wrestled the ring out of the box with the other hand, nearly dropping it a few times before he finally manage to slid it into its rightful place.

“For once, I must commend your sense of style. You picked well.” Miles chuckled, twisting his hand this way and that so the sparse light glittered off of it.

“Ha, you’d think.” Maya laughed.

“Poor Nick could barely figure out the difference between an amethyst and an emerald. Took us forever to get everything picked out. Why do you guys think we were missing for so long during that shopping trip?”

“...So much suddenly makes sense.” Athena whispered, staring up at the ceiling, eyes wide with dawning realization.

Rolling his eyes, Phoenix took his partner’s, his fiancée’s, face in his hands and swiped away the tears still rolling down his cheeks, pressing their foreheads together with a soft smile. Before he could get any further though, a shadow washed over them. Looking up, they found Kay hanging over them, having climbed the cell bars, arm outstretched and holding a sprig with white berries.

“W-Where did you even get that?” Phoenix asked, cocking his head in confusion, and Blackquill quietly chuckled, stroking a very smug looking Taka. Mile merely shook his head, lifting an eyebrow with a mildly amused look.

“So, you’ve been plotting against me as well, hmm?” He asked and the girl grinned impishly.

“Maaaaaybe~”

With a giggle, she leaned down beside him, loose hair draping around them as she whispered in his ear.

“By the way, he already asked for my blessing. Go be happy Miles.”

She planted a peck on his cheek before quickly leaning back and he stared after her, gaze softening.

“Kay...”

Whatever he was about to say was interrupted by the distant toiling of the bell tower in the distance. There was a flicker of light in the dimness as a phone was clicked on.

“Midnight, right on the dot. You know what that means.” Fulbright announced, wide grin illuminated by his screen.

“C’mon lovebirds, don’t keep us waiting.” The little thief chimed in, shaking the mistletoe cheekily. The two couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled up in their throats as the younger reeled the other back in. Their noses brushed together as he leaned in, letting out a murmur against the man’s lips.

“Merry Christmas Miles.”

“Heh...Merry Christmas Phoenix, you lovable fool.”

Sweater references-

Maya: https://mom.me/lifestyle/15860-best-ugly-christmas-sweaters-ever/item/man-ugly-christmas-sweater/

Phoenix: https://www.halloweencostumes.com/reindeer-head-ugly-christmas-sweater.html

Apollo: https://www.target.com/p/women-s-bah-humpug-long-sleeve-ugly-christmas-sweater-well-worn-juniors-black/-/A-52481902

Athena: https://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Sweater-Alone-Filthy-Animal/dp/B00AEVVQZS

Trucy: https://images.prod.meredith.com/product/ea7622bf8e9baeaeeee04071730dc38a/1510243387130/l/new-directions-cloverfield-6051-green-red-meowy-christmas-sweater

Miles: https://www.amazon.com/Festified-Smilings-Favorite-Christmas-Sweater/dp/B01EIG2OSC

Kay: https://www.80stees.com/products/naughty-list-batman-faux-ugly-christmas-sweater

Klavier: https://www.myuglychristmassweater.com/products/reindeer-vintage-80s-light-up-christmas-sweater-g513

Blackquill: https://www.belk.com/p/new-directions-penguin-with-glasses-sweater/0438593253761.html?CAWELAID=500001660011494316&c3ch=CSE&c3nid=Meredith&cm_mmc=CSE-_-Meredith-_-Women%20%3E%20Petite%20Clothing%20%3E%20Sweaters-_-0438593253761&irgwc=1

Fulbright: https://www.halloweencostumes.com/christmas-present-ugly-christmas-sweater.html

Pearl: https://www.popsugar.com/moms/photo-gallery/42696794/image/42696828/Light-Up-Reindeer-Sweater

Name puns!-

Festos Teatrale: References the descriptive title ‘festas teatrale’ (theatrical festivity) which is used for dramatic and musical works, often those of a celebratory nature.

Jack Collins: A combined reference to the Jack Rose and Brandy Coillins cocktails.

Gibson Collins: Refers to the Gibson cocktail and same as above.

Terrwyn/Wyn (Terrwyn Encontrar): A pun on the term ‘harrowing encounter’ cause of backstory stuff.

Aria's song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2Kh_XMIDPU

Festos's song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsiWOp-ImoE&t=135s

And the song that the kitchen trio sung was ‘Sincerely, Me” from ‘Dear Evan Hanson’, which is an amazing musical and you should all listen to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOYAA13Bm9M

[souridealist]

Slightly belated Yuletide roundup!

WHAT I WROTE:

I had five works in the collection this year, which is a personal best by far: Imperial Radch, the video game Black Closet, "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)", and two for Ursula Vernon's Digger.

Imperial Radch: A Good Friend to Have: Uran and Athoek Station, G, 800 words, no archive warnings apply. A post-canon flashfic about evolving terms of address.

“Why do you still call us Radchaii?” Uran asked, leaning back against the wall. He ran his gloves against the welded seam of the wall next to him, like he was stroking a companion animal or a very close friend. Station couldn’t feel the gesture, either through the wall or through Uran’s hands, but it could see. “It’s been months.”

Brandy: All the Great Wide Sea: Brandy-centric, featuring Brandy/her unnamed lover. G, 600 words, no archive warnings. A short fic about Brandy considering new options.

It wasn’t only men who piled into the bar with a purse full of silver and a head full of tales, either. You got the occasional woman coming along, as tattoo-mottled and shaggy-haired as the men, in ragged trousers and oft-patched shirts. One quiet night Brandy wound up pouring sweet red wine for a woman with three brass rings punched through one ear and the five-thousand-mile swallow tattooed on the back of her hand.

Black Closet: Raise Bid to 31 Pieces of Silver: Rowan/Elsa, T, 1.5K, no archive warnings. A traitorous Rowan turns in an intentionally failed assignment and begins to suspect that Elsa knows her secret.

“You know,” Elsa said. “Mallory’s a good girl, and she can blend in with a crowd all right, but I’ve never had trouble noticing when she comes into a room. She draws the eye.” Mallory was pretty enough, Rowan thought. Bright hair. “But you…” Elsa said, pushing back her chair. “You’re so quiet, when you want to be. It’s a gift.”

Digger: Comparative Theology: Murai, Jhalm, Digger, and Shadowchild. G, 3k, no archive warnings. Four scenes exploring each character's relationship with the divine.

. Later in life, Jhalm revisited the temple and learned of the great wars of attrition that Teshia’s priests fought over the herb beds: the Invasive Plant Debates, the Three Or Possibly Four Basil Varietals, and the Mint Idiot, who planted mint in the ground to run riot over the temple. But as a child he’d always found the gardens peaceful, and he’d loved taking home the sacred packages each worshiper was given, leaves from Teshia’s garden dried over the sacred Hearthflame. He used to press the twists of burlap to his nose and inhale something both delicious and sacred. Once one of the priests caught him at it: Cassandra of the straight gray braids and straight-pressed robes. Jhalm jumped, squeaking, and shoved the herbs into his bag.

Digger: Anything That Talks: Murai and Jhalm, G, 2k, no archive warnings.Jhalm's patrol of the Veiled meets another, more ordinary demon, and Murai and Jhalm have a conversation about authority, the past, and how to be good.

“I eat what I will,” it said, slithering forward. Murai could just see the roots of the trees in its coils. She doubted the little stand of elms would last for very long after this. “I eat the shadows of great and small, of weak and of mighty. Yours, impertinent creature – ah, yours is fascinating, strange and dark and deep. So hard-edged, in such a bright light. You will be…” It moved forward, again – between the flanking arms of the Veiled. “Delicious.”

“I see,” Murai said, stepping easily back. “Captain Jhalm, I believe we should kill this creature, if you will give the order.”

WHAT I RECEIVED:

The Touching of Lips by Prinzenhasserin. Queen's Thief, "Five times Costis wanted to kiss Kamet and one time he did." This is a delightful story about five people making Costis think about how much he wants to kiss Kamet; each scene is a beautifully drawn, distinct sketch, and the payoff is delightful. I wanted Costis/Kamet so badly after Thick as Thieves, and this was lovely to receive.

Antelope Dreams by ambyr. Summer in Orcus, "When she was eleven, Summer thought she was very nearly an adult. At seventeen, she's starting to understand how much she has to learn." This is a glorious postcanon fic about growing up, and living with the legacy of Orcus, and being a well-behaved Good Kid (tm) with a crush on a Bad Kid (tm), and Summer remembering the antelope woman and realizing she's a queer furry. It's perfectly in-tone and beautiful.

AUTHORIAL CHATTERING ON WHAT I WROTE:

Yes, I shall continue to do this. Yes, with all five of them. But under a cut!

A Good Friend to Have: This one was a really interesting experience, because I originally wrote it using she/her pronouns for Uran, since canon does. It wasn't unti coming back to it later that I remembered that Uran is briefly identified as male in Delsig, and that if I was leaving the 'Citizen' honorific as Radchaai, I was 'translating' out of Delsig. And thus shoud use he/him pronouns. I really love the series's use of 'she' as a neutral pronoun, and everything that choice creates, and I was pretty hesitant to step away from it -- but it's also a very central conceit of the story that Uran isn't hearing Radchaai the way a native speaker would hear it. Which means Uran needs to use he/him. Going through and changing that was the most annoyingly fiddly editing task I have ever fucking undertaken, but also... really damn interesting to do! The pronouns were all I changed, and it still shifted my mental image of Uran's body language and physical presence a lot.

This was also published with what was originally its working title, which I don't think I've ever done before; occasionally the right title has come to me by the time I have to save the word document (almost always when the fic is written in one sitting), but this wasn't meant to be final and then I realized I liked it better than anything I could come up with. It's a direct quote from canon: Breq's comment when Uran mentions talking to Station in the second book.

All the Great Wide Sea: The prose is so purple here. I had so much fun writing it. It's a short, open-ended fic written all in a hurry because I thought the collection closed a day sooner than it did, and I basically just threw women sailors, running off to sea to join your man, and Age of Sail tavern imagery together with gleeful abandon. The 'being metamours with the ocean' theme isn't explored as thoroughly as I'd like, but... I couldn't resist adding the tag because I amuse myself too much. I'd never written fic for a song fandom before, even though the existence of it is one of my favorite things about Yuletide before; I'm glad I finally did.

Raise Bid to 31 Pieces of Silver: This title is... a thing. I refused to let mysef name it 'Silver and Hemp,' because this is not a religious fic and for fuck's sake come up with a better reference for a fic about treachery, but, well. I could not, in fact, come up with a better reference. But I did manage to at least include the idea of being tempted out of treachery, and I like the implicit cynicism of the bid thing. Because, you know: Machiavellian secret-police teenagers.

This was a great prompt, and I made a beeline straight for a traitor!Rowan/Elsa worldstate, because that is my favorite route hands down. This is also the first time in I don't know how long that I've used jealousy as a shippy plot device! I don't usually like it, and I don't find it cute in any way; but this isn't meant to be a cute fic, and part of what I love about this fandom is that it's an all-female cast where everyone gets to have a lot of rough edges.

Oh, and I also got to play around with incorporating game mechanics into the story! I fucking love trying to de-abstract game mechanics in a way that doesn't contradict what you actually see. As if you couldn't tell from me regularly sneaking that shit into Dragon Age fic.

Comparative Theology: This was actually my second attempt at my main assignment! I wanted to do a post-canon adventure that involved everyone meeting up while Digger tried to get home, and then everyone having to share anecdotes from their past (since my recipient mentioned liking fic about 'how people get to where they are'), but I just. Could not make it work. I'd had the idea of writing a set of thematically-linked vignettes in the back of my head as a backup, and the idea of linking them specifically by theology clicked just as the deadline started to really intensely loom. And thus! It's a pretty baggage-heavy theme to use, and I did worry about that -- especially in a gift fic -- but, well. The tagline is "A wombat. A dead god. A very peculiar epic." I figured I was probably safe. And one of my favorite things about the comic is what it does with the relationship between the human (or... worshiper of various species) and the divine.

I drew on a bunch of Ursula Vernon's print work as well as the actual comic (though I still got a lot of my own particular High Drama all over the prose, trying to capture the tone of things like the Saltlace sequence in words. The line about the Mint Idiot is in there entirely because I was like 'this voice is drifting way too far back towards just me. QUICK, ADD SOME PLANTS.' The Baba Yaga line is a direct reference to Summer in Orcus too.

I may eventually try and salvage what I had of my original attempt. I hewed closer to canon tones, I think, and I had some good fucking Jabberworck dialogue.

Anything That Talks: This one is secretly my baby. I was surprised to find myself really interested in Jhalm on later read-throughs, because I wasn't the first time; but it turned out I wanted to poke at him. And I really wanted to poke at Murai's decision to be his leash, and at what that might look like, and how she would choose to do it. Twisty power dymanics! The power actually lying with the person with less outward authority! Using one's own weakness as a source of strength! Very rigid people needing to bend or die, and what that costs! MY SHIT. (And I didn't actually realize that last was, in fact, something I keep revisiting until this moment, but hm. This sure is the third fic on that theme I've posted since November.)

Something I absolutely did not do intentionally during this fic and then noticed in the editing: I don't reference color anywhere in this fic other than 'cold white-glowing eyes.' Perils of writing for a black-and-white comic! (I didn't do that in either 'Comparative Theology' or my false start; fic isn't canon, text isn't a comic, and you've got to use the medium you're working with. But I left it alone for this one; I liked it.)

[crossedbeams]

Gilligan hahahahahhh you are a fucking genius, excuse my French. ❤

Hahah I am a sucker for a portmanteau!

Though for the record - this isn’t gonna become a shippy blog again. I adored my time on the great ship Gillovny, it was weird and wonderful and I do miss it (though I maintain that their friendship is #goals so maybe we can rebrand?). And I’m very glad Gillian seems to have found herself a noble schooner for the next phase of her life.

But this time I’m watching from the dock, appreciating it as it passes me but focussing on what I can actually control, influence and experience here on land. So lots of show and project screeching, lots of over analysis, silly videos and reblogs and lots and lots of fic.

Gilligan and Duchovacado shall bob on the landscape of my life, but as background players :D

[jewish-gay-elves]

getting what you need in a roundabout way

“They get down to the clinic and inside they see Anders helping a lil kid out with tristan like talking to other patients and stuff but stops at the sight of these three imposing folks and a dwarf ” - my notes on this au

Words: 1833, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Series: Part 7 of the a tale of too many wardens because i want everyone to be happy and heres how

Fandoms: Dragon Age: II, Dragon Age (Video Games)

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: None

Characters: Male Amell (Dragon Age), Tristan Amell, Male Warden (Dragon Age), Anders (Dragon Age), Male Hawke (Dragon Age), Ant Hawke, Carver Hawke, Bethany Hawke, Varric Tethras

Relationships: Male Amell/Anders (Dragon Age), Anders/Male Warden (Dragon Age), Anders/Tristan Amell

Additional Tags: ok i kno i tagged with Male Amell/Anders but im sorry this is not really a shippy fic, its really just them like interacting with the hawkes

Carver honestly wasn’t expecting much when Lirene told them the clinic was in Darktown, he figured it had to be shoddy of course, but when they got there, he understood why so many people tried to stop them. The place was full of sick and elderly folks, all coughing and stewing in filth around them, what was more surprising was that not all of them were Ferelden refugees either. Some of them were definitely Kirkwallers, which amazed Carver considering he knew exactly how most Kirkwallers felt about the refugees who came after the Blight.

    Ant almost stopped halfway through, looking at those around them, looking like he might just roll up his sleeves and start casting and entirely blow their cover. Carver knew that as soon as Antony stopped, so would Bethany, and they’d never get their work done. Doing his job as a little brother best, he shoved Ant with his shoulder, jarring the oldest Hawke sibling out of whatever funk he was about to fall in. Varric chuckled at the two brothers, before following behind as they approached the back of the makeshift clinic.

    Carver could see the tell tale glow of magic, though this seemed more experienced than any of the minor healing spells their father had taught his siblings. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a man with a staff on his back, stand up to his full height. Multiple mages? Carver thought Lirene only spoke of one healer, but it didn’t matter, they were now close enough to see who was casting the blue light. He was taller than Carver expected, and blonde, and completely engaged in the magic he was casting over the young boy laid out on the table. After a moment, the boy gasped and sat up, coughing a bit as his body registered whatever happened to him. The healer himself, staggered back, leaning against a pillar to catch his breath. Ant started to step closer as the family gathered up the boy and headed for the exit. Ant hadn’t even reached the cot before the healer whipped around, staff in hand.

    “I approximate you have about two minutes to explain why you’re bringing weapons into a medical clinic before I decide I don’t really care why you’re here. There are injured and innocent here, only looking for help,” he said, trying to hide his fatigue with a sarcastic tone. Carver only heard the sound of a sword scraping against its scabbard before he realized he should have paid more attention to the other mage he saw. The other man he had seen had finally turned around, and was making his way towards the healer with a shortsword drawn and aimed in their direction.

    “If you’re Carta, I’ve already made our payments for the next two months. You’d best bully somewhere else if you’re short on coin,” the man said, making a gesture with his sword to point to the door, making sure they knew exactly where he wanted them to go. Bethy had already raised her hands placatingly, and Ant stopped in his tracks, copying Bethany’s motion unknowingly.

    “I’m just here to talk!” Ant said, looking at his companions to make sure none of them had drawn their weapons.

    “We’re interested in getting into the Deep Roads. Rumor has it you were a Warden. Do you know a way?” Varric asked, getting to the point immediately. The two men looked between themselves wearily.

    “Did the Wardens send you to bring us back? We’re not going, those bastards wanted us to get rid of our cat,” the healer said, starting to lower his staff. The other man still held his sword aloft, not lowering his guard for a second.

    “Not quite what I’d lead with darling,” the other man, who must have also been a warden, said. Carver couldn’t quite figure it out, but something was familiar about this man.

    “Poor Ser-Pounce-A-Lot, he hated the Deep Roads, though I’m not sure if he likes Darktown that much more,” the healer rambled. Carver couldn’t for the life of him figure out where this conversation was going.

    “You had a cat named Ser-Pounce-A-Lot? In the Deep Roads?” Ant asked, Carver almost smacked his face with his palm, of course that was what Ant was interested by.

    “Still have, actually. He was a gift, a noble beast indeed. Almost got ripped in half by a genlock once. He swatted the bugger on the nose. Drew blood, too.” he said, his gaze going distant as he recalled the memory. The other man rolled his eyes before returning his attention to the Hawkes and Varric.

    “So you came to Kirkwall just to escape the Wardens?” Ant asked, seemingly trying to keep things casual, but if Carver knew his brother, Ant was genuinely curious.

    “You say that like it’s a small thing, and not quite. Yes, we’re here because there’s no Warden outpost, no darkspawn, and a whole host of refugees to blend in with. And, some personal reasons of our own,” the healer explained. The other man shot him an annoyed look, probably because he was giving them far too much information, but clearly this healer was quite a trusting person. The look the other man gave, so fiercely reminded Carver of the very same looks his own mother gave him when he annoyed her, he couldn’t figure out how he and the healer knew each other. Or why Carver himself felt like he knew the man as well.

    “I’ve always heard that joining the Wardens is for life?” Ant went on, clearly confused as to why and how they left.

    “It is,” The other man said “But being a Warden is more than the bulky armor and stupid speeches about victory and death,” he had finally started to lower his sword as he spoke, but did not put it away.

    “Well, it’s partly true,” the healer contradicted, “The “hopelessly tainted by darkspawn” and “plauged by nightmares about the Archdemon” parts don’t go away. But it turns out if you hide well, you don’t have to wear the uniform or go to the parties,” he said, a smirk tugging at his lips.

    “Anders!” the other man admonished.

    “What? You hated the nobles too, oh you mean the Warden secrets right, sorry,” Anders said, wincing at his slip up. Varric was clearly trying not to laugh at the two men, and instead coughed to get Ant’s attention back on their goal.

    “Oh right! I’m part of an expedition into the Deep Roads. Any information you have could save people’s lives,” Ant said, putting emphasis on the latter half of the sentence.

    “Save yourselves the trouble of going down there in the first place,” The other man said, scoffing, he ended up cocking his hips to the side, in just the same way Carver had seen Bethy do thousands of times. Anders the healer had a little chuckle at the other man’s words before finally turning to Ant, with what seemed like a serious answer on his lips.

    “I will die a happy man if I never think of the blighted Deep Roads ever again. You can’t imagine what we went through to get here. I’m not interested in- Although,” he starts, looking to his partner before continuing, “A favor for a favor, does that sound like a fair deal? You help us, we help you?” he finished, looking to the other man with hope on his face. Ant started to smile, and Carver knew that they’d be knee deep in spider guts before the end of this, or somethings guts at least.

    “Help my expedition reach the Deep Roads, and I’ll do whatever you need,” Ant said, signing them all to their fates of taking care of whatever these two wanted, without even asking what they needed help with, of course. The two men seemed to realize this as well, Anders’ eyebrows shooting up as the other man finally put his sword away.

    “You don’t ask for my terms? What if I were asking for the knight-commander’s head on a pike?” Anders said, tossing around a hypothetical Carver prayed would never come to pass, for both Bethany and Ant’s sakes.

    “Is that what you ask?” Ant asked back, sounding genuinely surprised. It took all of Carver’s strength to not strangle him right there. Anders just smirked before responding, as if imagining the sight.

    “You decide,” he finally settled on, then continued “We have a Warden map of the depths in this area. But there’s a price. We came to Kirkwall to aid a friend, a mage, a prisoner in the wretched Gallows. The templars learned of my plans to free him. Help us bring him safely past them, and you shall have your maps.” Ant started nodding as if it was all done. Carver couldn’t help but speak up.

    “What exactly do the templars know of your plans?” he asked, stepping forward. Anders and the other man looked at him in surprise, then answered.

    “We aren’t sure, Anders had been passing letters to Karl through a maidservant in the Gallows. Then, we stopped hearing anything at all,” The other man said, looking at him approvingly.

    “Tell us about your friend,” Bethany asked, speaking up at last, clearly curious about how someone seemingly from the Ferelden Grey Wardens knew someone from Kirkwall’s circle. Anders started smiling before he answered.

    “His name is Karl Thekla. He was sent here from Ferelden when Kirkwall’s circle required new talent. His last letter said that the knight-commander was turning the circle into a prison” Anders said, voice dropping at the end.

    “Aren’t they already prisons though?’ Bethany said in an aside to Ant. The other man caught her words however and laughed.

    “You can actually see between the lines, can’t you, girl?” He asked, grinning broadly.

    “My name is Bethany,” she said, and Carver could tell she wasn’t that happy with the man just calling her “girl”. Thankfully, he caught this as well, and slightly bowed his head in apology.

    “We received reports of mages being locked in cells, refused appearances at court, and made Tranquil at the slightest of crimes. We can’t leave Karl in there,” he said, looking at Anders’ pained face.

    “How do you plan to break him out of the Gallows?” Carver asked, already thinking about the obscene amounts of templars he saw patrolling just the other day.

    “I’m hoping it won’t come to that,” Anders began. “I sent a message to Karl asking him to meet us in the Chantry tonight. Maker willing, he’ll be there, alone. But if there are templars with him, I swear, I’ll free him from them. Whatever the cost,” Antony was nodding, clearly understanding Anders’ feelings.

    “I would help any fellow mage, map or no map,” Ant declared, clearly in a righteous mood. Varric starts a little at this, before clarifying for Ant.

    “We still would really appreciate getting the maps though,” the dwarf said. Anders and the man just laughed in response.

[convenientalias]

A Summary of My Fics in 2018

I found this post lying around and apparently I forgot to post it two weeks ago at the New Year’s when I first made it, so. Here’s a list of the fics I wrote in 2018, with some musings etc.

** = Personal favorite.

# = I wish it had more comments.

Animorphs

on a night like this one (1952 words)--A Cassie/Rachel fic written for the Smut Exchange in April, so not a whole lot of plot! I was inspired by a prompt asking for Cassie as the gentle dom, which seemed like such an interesting concept.

falcon falcon, burning bright (2264 words)--Written for Bad Things Happen Bingo in June, a fic about Visser Three capturing Jake. The square I wrote it for was “The Collector”.

Whales and Dolphins and Humans and Yeerks (1416 words)--A Cassie/Aftran fic. Written on one of those probably-too-frequent occasions I opened for femslash prompts. I’d kind of always wanted to write some Caftran? But never got around to it bc I have too many damn fandoms. (...fandamns.)

Avatar: The Last Airbender

...wow, I wrote six fics for this fandom this year. Guess it was more of an ATLA year than I thought.

Largely bc of keircatenation, btw, who sent me a couple very nice prompts.

Kyoshi Wood (This Bird Has Flown) (1726 words)--Dysfunctional Tyzula fic, the first ATLA fic I have ever posted on AO3 (...though I have in the past posted a number on ff.net). Written because I listened to the song “Norwegian Wood” and instantly thought, “Welp, that’s a Tyzula vibe.” The first ATLA fic I wrote this year and it was already July...guess my ATLA content has been all in the past five months.

** every feudal lord needs a loyal handmaiden (13883 words)--Moooore Tyzula! This fic was for the Femslash After Dark Exchange in July which should make it more smutty than it is! But I figure the mature rating is justified by the various dark goings-on. Anyways, this is basically me writing the political intrigue Tyzula fic of my dreams, which is how it got so damn long. I’m quite happy with it.

a snow fight (1660 words)--...and I’m not happy with this one! I was prompted “No holds barred beatdown” for Zuko in Bad Things Happen Bingo and I tried my best but I think I just wasn’t in the right headspace. Came out kind of eh.

changing, losing, staying (3906 words)--Written when I opened for femslash prompts and received the prompt  "'I can't afford to lose you too' + Suki/Ty Lee". Postcanon, pretty chill, longer than I expected it to be by the time I was done.

** because it would be a waste (1891 words)--Brief Azutara fic for the prompt of  "Azula/Katara, set in a Bad Future AU where Azula is Fire Lord and Katara is her Favorite Prisoner." Written in November.

A Diplomatic Mission and Its Results (2483 words)--I was prompted diplomacy and Suki/Sokka/Toph for some poly event and I did my best! Never really thought about this ship before.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)

** Mhaacta Made Them Do It (3631 words)--Amy/Rosa treat for the Femslash After Dark Exchange, featuring ritual sex and an ELDRITCH ABOMINATION. ...technically a case fic.

Caper Court - Caro Fraser

the pupil of dover court (1543 words)-- I found this book series thru the Yuletide Exchange but only had time (...well, access, really) to read the first book. But I quite liked it and wrote a treat for the person requesting it for the exchange.

Catherine (Web Series)

there's something about catherine (1299 words)-- Another fandom I found through the Yuletide Exchange! This requester wanted some Lynchian Normcore femslash so I did my best to provide. Very easy fandom to get into, btw, webseries is less than an hour long. 

Disney

** Amor Vincit Omnia (3231 words)--Maleficent/Philip Stockholm Syndrome fic, written as a treat for the Chocolate Box Exchange. 

No one will hurt you (1166 words)--Inspired by a short comic by @disneyfemslashcomics​, a Mulan/Jasmine fic featuring hurt/comfort and a nonbinary Mulan.

** #  Old and stolen texts (2635 words)--A Belleficent fic I wrote bc idk I like Maleficent and I like Belle and the two seemed like a good ship for Stockholm Syndrome and, obviously, beauty and the beast scenarios. Quite proud of this one :)

Dollhouse

I wrote five fics for this fandom this year but I still think I kind of cooled on it. For one thing, two of those fics were assigned for exchanges--for another, last year, with little to no incentive of that kind, I wrote seven. Still had a good time this year tho.

Also, all of them were pretty dark! We’re not surprised.

** i'll take your mind (to kick around as a toy) (3095 words)--Adelle/Echo fic written for the Trope Bingo Challenge, for a square of “in another man’s shoes”. Longer than I had remembered!

Orientation (3881 words)--Possibly my darkest fic of the year, but I’m sure it’s debatable. Blatant rape/non-con between Bennett Halverson and Caroline Farrell, written for the Nonconathon Exchange.

taking turns (2008 words)--Lighter in the sense that it’s melancholy rather than dark as hell. A Claire and Topher fic written for the Remix Revival event, remixing a fic I greatly enjoyed.

# january to december, do you want to be a member? (1338 words)--Adelle/Echo fic where Adelle uses Echo as a doll. Kind of a filler fic, I’d always wanted to play with the idea but couldn’t get super into it. Ehh.

# someone to watch over me (1217 words)--Claire-centered fic with not a whole ton of plot. Again, kind of a filler fic. This is one reason I have to say I was not so into this fandom this year--2/5 fics being filler isn’t a great ratio.

Egil Saga - Faun (Music Video)

No man shall scratch runes. (1273 words)--Written as a treat for the Yuletide Exchange. H/C and some very basic worldbuilding for a weird, surreal music video. Not much else to say. Debatably femslash. 

Flesh and Bone (TV)

Danseuse and Partner (1172 words)-- I got paired with someone for the Chocolate Box Exchange who requested soft and fluffy fic for Cassie/Jake, but at that time I had no fluffy Animorph feelings so I binge-watched this miniseries so I could fill their other request, which was domestic, relatively functional incest fic. Idk if I succeeded, it was an interesting prompt but I didn’t ship it. I was more vibing with the series’ femslash potential. But I never got around to writing for that.

Gattaca (1997)

Gattaca fandom, I swear I still love you! I’m just less depressed this year! Which, to be honest, IS A GOOD THING! but not very conducive to the kind of Gattaca fic I used to write lols.

** Peppermint and Vanilla (1492 words)--H/C Eugne & Vincent fic written when @trifoyle prompted me the title. I’m quite happy with it.

Of Physicists and Janitors (35780 words)-- I only wrote like a chapter of this in 2018. God. I really need to finish this. Also AO3 thinks I wrote the whole thing this year which just is not true.

Allergies (2374 words)-- Fic I started like two years ago and only finished now. Mostly Vincent-centric. Again, inspired by conversation with @trifoyle 

Gravity Falls

The Pink Streak (1644 words)-- Wendy/Pacifica fic written as a treat for the Chocolate Box Exchange.

Grease (1978)

beauty queen, my best girl (1018 words)-- Frenchy/Sandy fic, written as a treat for the Chocolate Box Exchange.

Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

** A Mistress's Mistress (2178 words)-- Jordan/Myrtle fic written as a treat for the Chocolate Box Exchange. Because Myrtle deserves better, okay?

** Santa Barbara (2691 words)-- Pre-canon Jordan/Daisy fic written for a prompt of  "Jordan manipulating Daisy (and Daisy kind of going along with it)." Probably my favorite Jordaisy fic I’ve written to date.

Careless Wanderers (2380 words)-- Post-canon Jordan/Daisy fic written for Trope Bingo for the “Road Trip” square.

White Lies of a Colored Past (1820 words)-- About two years ago I wrote down the idea of Gatsby incorporating Nick into his shady, multiple-choice backstory. And then this year I finally wrote it. ...probably would have been better two years ago but I don’t not like it.

** for children's consumption (3143 words)-- Someone prompted me Nick Carraway and abuse/neglect for Bad Things Happen Bingo, and I wrote this odd little gen fic drawing parallels between his past and Pammy’s present. I’m quite pleased with it.

the dawn of another summer (443 words)-- Fic found in a deleted text file. Jordaisy.

the kind of choices you make at midnight (436 words)-- Fic found in a deleted text file. Jordaisy.

Greek and Roman Mythology

Messenger of the Atreides (2035 words)-- I wrote this as a pinch hit for the Chocolate Box Exchange. Shipping Odysseus/Achilles from the Iliad. The vaguest smut I ever did write.

Hannibal (TV)

** # A similar confusion (4036 words)--Weird Gideon & Will fic bc having watched Hannibal, I really just wanted someone to be nice to Will who wasn’t Hannibal bc oh geez.

Harlots (TV)

girl in black and white (451 words)-- Short little ficlet I wrote for fuckthegods for the TV Exchange. Fuckthegods left tumblr... I’m really sad.

There is no one higher (2300 words)-- Caroline/Charlotte fic, would be PWP if I went harder on the actual smut.

Heathers

Right Answers (1667 words)-- Chansaw fic for the Femslash Exchange. Probably should have been longer but I overbooked myself this season and for once didn’t have the time.

doing an old friend a favor (2080 words)-- Someone requested Veronica/McNamara with a JESSICA JONES NOIR AU for Yuletide so of course I had to treat that shit.

How to Get Away with Murder

I wrote six whole fics for this fandom and still never wrote shippy stuff for my OTP. I NEED TO GET AROUND TO THAT. Also all my fics were relatively short and I should get on that. But this fandom doesn’t comment a whole lot and none of my friends are in it so it’s hard to motivate...

** your sweetheart psychopathic crush (2148 words)-- My first fic in this fandom, darkish Lilabecca bc of course I had to start with dark femslash.

five ways of looking at a homicide (1950 words)-- Asher POV finding out about all the shit that went down with the original Keating murder.

exam grade (1174 words)-- Annalise being concerned about Wes.

stuck in the corner (1089 words)-- Annalise/Michaela and Annalise/Bonnie in one brief smutty moment. Written for the Annual Femslash Kinkmeme.

# warm water (1353 words)-- Angsty Bonnalise bath sex. Written for the Annual Femslash Kinkmeme.

this is nice but also that is a murder bed (1062 words)-- And a random Connor/Wes fic appears. 

Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers - Alyssa Wong

# the street's a liar (2411 words)--Honestly this fic (written for Dark Femslash Week) is pretty good and I would write more fic for this fandom if it wasn’t two ppl and a shoelace. 

I reincarnated into an otome game as a villainess with only destruction flags

Villainesses Must Stick Together (2950 words)-- Written as a treat for the Yuletide Exchange. The rare diary format fic! Multiple realities interacting and some very mild selfcest!

Inception (2010)

** Fortifier (3512 words)-- Saito/Cobb fic written as a treat for the Chocolate Box exchange, with Saito as Cobb’s employer but also veering close to sugar daddy. I’m actually pretty happy with this.

Jessica Jones (TV)

Nothing Neat or Nice (2484 words)-- Hogarth/Jessica, plotless infidelity. 

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV)

gentleman's homecoming (1543 words)-- Lazy Grant/Jonathan fic mostly written to get my feet wet in the fandom.

** the husband in the tower (3787 words)--Arabella rescues Jonathan! Basically the fic I wanted to be the canon ending! But also written for my assignment for Yuletide! So we know other ppl wanted it too.

** Empty Houses Need to Be Filled (3804 words)-- Written as a Yuletide treat, an Emma/Arabella post-canon recovery fic.

A Strange Pact (1374 words)-- Going to be multichapter AU gen fic about Jonathan and the Gentleman. I’m working on it!

Lady of the Shard (Webcomic)

nix the new age morality (1537 words)--Noncon of the “Old God made them do it with mind control” sort, treat for the Nonconathon Exchange. 

Les Misérables

you should probably arrest me (751 words)-- Enjolras/Javert ficlet, prompted.

shivering under the stars (2277 words)-- Enjolras/Javert, prompted for the  “shaking and shivering” square for Bad Things Happen Bingo.

Marco Polo (TV)

Eleven fics for this fandom this year! Why, that’s quite a few! This is entirely bc of fuckthegods who a) sent me a lot of prompts for femslash and one for gen and b) just in general is my Marco Polo muse, inspires me to write fics I wouldn’t otherwise write. And now she’s gone off to Dreamwidth and I am honestly so sad but anyways.

Also, I’m not gonna tag any of these as “could use more comments” bc Marco Polo is such a damn small fandom but. That is true for basically all of these.

And I would walk five hundred miles (2514 words)-- Jing Fei/Mei Lin fic where Jing Fei survives and the two are reunited.

** Make me feel missed (2157 words)--Sequel to above, this time THERE’S SMUT.

truth in the cups (489 words)-- Written for fuckthegods in an exchange, Chabit/Mei Lin fic.

i will wait for you (1060 words)-- Jing Fei/Mei Lin episode related.

** do princes bleed blue (1643 words)-- Jingim whump for Bad Things Happen Bingo, “bleeding through bandages”.

stages of reflection (2229 words)-- Mei Lin + mirrors. For Bad Things Happen Bingo “rage against the reflection”.

an empress' softness (1558 words)-- Mei Lin/Chabi, smutty and angsty episode tag to “Measure Against the Linchpin.”

running from a savior (1459 words)-- Mei Lin & Marco, related to “Hug.”

Harmless (1158 words)-- Mei Lin/Chabi smut set in Season One, playing with power dynamics.

dance of mourning (695 words)-- Mei Lin mourning Jing Fei.

a whore's return to cambulac (2075 words)--  My last gift to fuckthegods before she left tumblr, a Mei Lin/Chabi reunion fic postcanon.

Miraculous Ladybug

Bound to Be There For You (2908 words)-- Chlonette fic written for the “tied together” square of Trope Bingo.

Original Work

** In the Private Seating (3384 words)-- Theatre smut. Femslash. Written as a treat for the Smut Exchange.

Perilous Gard - Elizabeth Marie Pope

** # The Training of a Human (5019 words)-- Dark Lady/Kate fic for Yuletide treat.

** Bangles (2485 words)-- Aaaand another dark Lady/Kate fic for Yuletide treat. 

Phantom of the Opera

Me: I feel like I’ve been less active in the POTO fandom this year.

Also me: Wrote 28 POTO fics this year.

Got a lot of prompts, especially from generalsleepy, ponderinfrustration, a couple others I can’t think of off the top of my head. Thanks to all you guys for the inspiration.

Perfectionist (1617 words)-- Soft early relationship Carlottastine ficlet. Prompted.

Mind Beating Wild (1544 words)-- Carlottastine remix of the cemetery scene. Also prompted.

** Buttercup Boys and Goldenrod Girls (2990 words)-- Queerplatonic Raoul & Christine fic with aro Christine and demisexual Raoul. Kind of a wandering, collage-y fic.

** Cinnamon and Tobacco (5441 words)-- My first ever Daraoulga fic! A lot of H/C.

Nowhere, Nobody Else (1450 words)-- Cherik/Philippe fic. Prompted.

** in my heart i belong in a house by the sea (1797 words)-- Angsty as heck R/C fic. In Sweden! Prompted.

** free city for the enterprising (1746 words)-- Vaaaampires with R/C and E/R, I think it was prompted?

the more persistent spirit (3279 words)-- More generic Daraoulga fic, me still trying to figure out how Daraoulga would work.

** half-sick of shadows (3320 words)-- I just felt like “The Lady of Shalott” had strong Christine vibes, so I mixed it into a Carlottastine fic.

two divas one bed (1332 words)-- I mean what does it sound like. Modern AU Carlottastine.

** kiss me hard before you go (2489 words)-- Carlottastine but Carlotta is leaving Paris to live in the country so they’re BREAKING UP OH NO. Prompted.

hello, i want to kiss you (1009 words)-- Cherik/Philippe fic. Prompted.

Confusion of a Night (1987 words)-- Carlotta & Raoul fic, written for the “sensory overload” square of Bad Things Happen Bingo.

** two-thirty phone calls are never a good sign (1671 words)-- Daraoulga modern AU fic written for the humiliation square of Bad Things Happen Bingo.

** could you maybe act like you don't hate me (3433 words)-- Carlottastine smut mostly.

eliminate the competition (437 words)-- Carlotta ficlet. Prompted.

gala (654 words)-- A softer follow-up on “two-thirty phone calls are never a good sign.” ...I think it was prompted?

spiteful (796 words)-- Erik/Carlotta spiteful kiss ficlet, prompted.

take notes, sweetheart (466 words)-- Carlottastine antagonistic UST ficlet, prompted.

good morning erik (443 words)-- Fluffy Cherik/Philippe ficlet, prompted.

** she loves a pretty face (3966 words)-- Prompted “Raoul, scar to remember” for Bad Things Happen Bingo. Some R/C and E/R. I like this one.

lonely with you (1583 words)-- Prompted Raoul and touch-starved for Bad Things Happen Bingo. R/C, Sweden fic.

** Dolls and Goblins (5175 words)-- Prompted E/R and forced crossdressing, not somewhere I would usually go! But I think it came out well.

don't you trust me? (921 words)-- Angsty Daraoulga ficlet. Prompted.

nothing more than a minnow (1019 words)-- Quiet ghost!E/R fic written for the Darkest Night Exchange. This prompt definitely deserved better than I gave it! Idk why I wasn’t vibing with it just then.

cause you might not get tomorrow (1619 words)-- Carlotta carpe diem fic! Including Carlottastine.

long-term issues (2679 words)--Not another E/R kidnapping fic, I can’t believe it. I think this was prompted but I fucked with the prompt.

i wanna run away with you (2464 words)--Daroga joins with the R & C gang for the Sweden elopement.

Tell me the truth. (1941 words)-- Angsty Daraoulga, prompted.

...why does it feel like I didn’t write that much POTO fic? Maybe bc proportionally it’s less than in other years. But this year I wrote more fic in general, so of course the proportions have shifted.

Riverdale (TV 2017)

** the long elasticity of forgiveness (4321 words)-- FP is in jail, Jughead is being very patient.

** # My Secret Brother (7614 words)-- Technically Chic would have been Jughead’s brother too, so.

# spill some blossom blood (2049 words)-- Written for Bad Things Happen Bingo prompt, “Cheryl, take me instead”.

Sense8 (TV)

Six fics this year :) That’s about as many as I thought. Fandom deserves more tbh.

You, Painted Pink and Blue (2652 words)-- Sun/Riley kind of smut without plot, written for the Trope Bingo square of “Romance novel AU.”

Secret Garden (999 words)-- Sun/Soo-jin ficlet.

** Such Things Are Possible (12867 words)-- Rajan’s POV of that CRAZY FINALE, possibly my most popular fic this year. I had a lot of feelings.

smart talker (1385 words)-- Capheus and Whispers and creepiness. Prompted.

** Lovely in Starlight (5080 words)-- Fucked up Lila/Kala fic bc sometimes you gotta do all the work for yourself. I like this one.

** first meetings (2294 words)-- Some Jonas what-ifs. 

Shades of Magic - V. E. Schwab

Missive From Halfway Through "Seeing It" (1176 words)-- My first fic of the year, a NYR treat, epistolary fic with Kell and Rhy.

Qivuak (2635 words)-- Kell/Holland sex pollen fic for Chocolate Box treat.

** Interlude at the Hot Springs (3457 words)-- Also for Chocolate Box treat, a KELL/HOLLAND HOT SPRINGS FIC. Quite possibly my favorite dumbass premise of the year.

Lily London (2083 words)-- Quiet Kell and Holland fic.

Cat on the Bed (1980 words)-- Kell/Holland smut but they’re cat boys, assigned fic for the Smut Exchange. 

Stranger Things (TV 2016)

Think I Know Where You Belong (2004 words)-- Elmax fic, prompted.

** # An Errand in the City (3833 words)-- Kali meets Nancy and visits Hawkins to see El. Kali/Mick fic.

** Long Trek to a New Home (6476 words)-- Kalancy APOCALYPSE FIC, written for the apocalypse square of Trope Bingo.

we live in cities you'll never see onscreen (1321 words)-- Kali/Mick origin story, precanon.

** # hands that stitch (3187 words)-- Kali murders a dude at Nancy’s college, Kalancy.

The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner

tell me about the mede (655 words)-- I didn’t even write this this year, I just found it in a deleted text document. My QT writing is way down. 

The Sting (1973)

a smaller con (1373 words)-- Look I know y’all talk about Hooker/Gondorff but the real ship here is Hooker/Lonnegan k? 

イキガミ | Ikigami - All Media Types

it's galling how much i want to be good (3655 words)-- I started this fic like three years ago but only finished and posted this year. Whump. 

亜人 - 三浦追儺 & 桜井画門 | Ajin - Miura Tsuina & Sakurai Gamon those who drown together stay together (1352 words)-- Kou and Kei wash up on the shore. 

[morethanaprincess-a]

@onlyhorn​ said: Sharing a blanket in a cold house, with argus!

Winter Shippy Starters

She didn't have much time left. Of that, Sonia was sure. At her own condo, her suitcases were already packed for her morning flight home to Novoselic in order to work, and celebrate, during the holidays at home. But for her final night in Japan until after the first of the year, she'd decided to finally answer a question Argus had posed to her some time ago: What was it like to celebrate Christmas in Novoselic?

At least, the times that were cheerful traditions and memories, and preferably devoid of work. That had proved a challenge: with a fresh snowfall in Tokyo, her original plans had to be canceled in favor of staying indoors and praying the plane would still be able to take off in the morning. Though a part of Sonia, as she prepared two hot drinks in Argus' kitchen, hoped it wouldn't. She both knew the importance of, and loved, the seasonal events the Royal Family held to benefit the country, and yet something about carrying a tray through Argus' sitting room felt just about as fulfilling.

"I know you may protest, but I assure you this is part of the experience," She smiled, setting the tray down on the low table. Its contents included two mugs of hot cocoa, with chocolate imported from home, and a plate of melted cheese covering roasted root vegetables, crusty white bread, and slices of what appeared to be a chocolate roll cake. No, she didn't cook it herself, but she had asked her Tokyo condo's chef to create some holiday favorites from home that she could easily heat up and arrange on tableware to share with a friend. "At home, I live in quite a large castle, and will continue to do so until I graduate from University. Because of its size and age, it's difficult to heat, and so most of the time we utilize methods employed by generations before us. First, a roaring fire!"

Not that he had a fireplace in his flat, but Sonia had come prepared. Now well-aware of the streaming services he had, she reached for the remote and switched one on, one that had an eight hour video loop of a burning, crackling fireplace. "Pretend that you can smell the wood burning," She beamed before sitting beside him on the sofa.

"The second involves eating hot food rather consistently, plenty of things that are comforting and cozy," She grinned, nodding to the tray. "You won't find a salad on the dinner menu this time of year, I'm afraid. Especially when my ancestors celebrated the holiday: it simply doesn't keep one warm. But the third and final component to enjoying the season at home is right here."

She'd wondered if he had multiple blankets stashed somewhere, but to Sonia's surprise, he'd only produced the one at her request. No matter, she thought as she took her seat on the sofa beside him, We shall make this work regardless! Spreading the blanket fully open, she settled one half of it over him and the other over her, having to sit as close as possible beside him, barring sitting right on his lap, in order to fit. "There are blankets in every room to wrap yourself in, which is essential on the coldest of snowy nights. With the fires going, hot food, and blankets, all you really need is a good book or film or game to enjoy and you're in no danger of freezing or boredom at Novoselic Castle."

She smiled, reaching for one of the mugs of cocoa to both warm her hands with and to sip slowly: made with milk and rich chocolate, it was made for savoring. "What do you think?" She asked cheerfully, "Is it much different from how you celebrate the season?"