#this is the first thing i've finished in literally months oops

[peachhcs]

https://www.tumblr.com/peachhcs/768160196490117120/need-to-know-if-sammy-ever-finds-out-about-what

lowkey want sammy to go off and kevin and break up with him and make sure he deletes the video

part 4! keep in mind that in the other wonder years fics + the fics before will and samy get together that samy genuinely doesn’t know how she feel and doesn’t really figure it out until her and will go to her senior prom together — just to clear up if there’s any confusion about that!

i also totally made this way too long at 2.3k words OOPS but enjoy!! lowkey also gave kevin a small redemption arc bc it just kind of came out as i was writing lmao

au masterlist | previous part

the things will told samy replayed in her mind on a loop like a broken record. she tossed and turned all night thinking about how kevin literally punched one of her best friends all because will tried standing up for her when kevin's friends started saying shitty things. she had an idea of what was being said because she's heard it a few times before in passing and rumors circulating around the school. usually, those things would just roll off her back, mainly because her brothers taught her to not let that type of thing mess with you too much. 

and that's what samy did. she always thought tyler was a gross person anyway because of how he was always trying to hook up with a new girl each weekend. the thing that was bugging samy the most was kevin and will getting into a fight over her. their relationship had been a bit tense the past month. kevin kept saying things and samy kept trying to ignore him and denying all of it, but now she wasn't so sure anymore after finding out him and will fought about the one thing that's been making her and kevin's relationship so strained. 

"bye guys!" samy exclaimed as she walked the guys out. all of them plus marcie and kevin just finished their semi-bi-weekly friday moving night. it was kevin's first time being invited after him and samy had been talking for awhile. she was excited for him to start bonding with the people she was so close with. 

once everyone was out of sight, samy trailed back into the living room where kevin was. the boy smiled a bit, opening his arm up as samy sat back down next to him. the warmth of the blankets returned after standing in the doorway for so long. 

"so, what did you think?" she asked nervous but excitedly. 

"they were cool," kevin nodded. 

"i think they liked you, too. hopefully we can all hang out again soon, or you can come with me to some of their games," the youngest hughes grinned as she squeezed kevin's arm a bit tighter. 

"yeah, for sure. you know, i had no idea you and will grew up together," the boy hummed, his tone a bit too light to pick up on any envy yet. 

"oh, yeah. we go way back. i've known will since we were babies. he's one of my best friends now," samy grinned and she missed the way kevin's jaw clenched listening to her say that. 

"yeah, you two are really close," this time the envy did slip out through his tone. samy caught wind of it and snapped her gaze in his direction. 

"what? are you jealous or something?" she laughed a bit, tugging on his arm and still trying to find amusement in it. 

"should i be?" his green eyes pierced into her skin and samy slowly understood he was being serious. she dropped his arm. 

"no? we've been best friends our whole lives. i've never even seen him that way," the soccer player couldn't even begin to think of will as something other than a friend and she was confused on where this idea was coming from. 

"you better tell him and everyone else that," kevin muttered. 

"oh, come on, kev. our friends have been teasing us about this since they met us. it's just a joke. we've never even done anything. he's like a brother to me," samy continued laughing in hopes to ease up some of the tension building. although, she did fail to mention how her and will kissed in her bathroom back in april and how something in her hadn't been the same since. 

"i'm just saying, hughes. guys can tell and guys can feel when there's other feelings going on," with that, kevin looked at his phone and stood up. "i gotta get going anyway. mom wants me back home." 

samy didn't have anything else to say. the thoughts in her mind were confusing her along with her and will's kiss from april and then again at the beginning of the school year. those were all just for fun though, right? she made it clear she was joking and will did too. it wasn't even serious. 

"see you later," kevin mumbled before leaving out of the same door everyone else left from ten minutes ago. 

since then, samy and kevin kept getting in little tiffs about what was going on between her and will. something would happen that would set the brunette off and he'd bring it up after the fact. samy would just deny it all and tell him he was overthinking it—because it was true. right? there was nothing going on between her and will. 

there never would be. 

but then there was homecoming. the night samy and kevin went public with their new relationship and the night samy started wondering if things really were changing. 

she kept noticing the way will took every chance he got to look at her. his eyes were quite literally glued to her and it sent a funny, but good feeling through samy's chest. she kind of liked the way he was looking at her. and then when the guys jumped in for a few photos, she felt the tight grip will had on her waist and how close he was to her and she also saw the way kevin looked like he wanted to snap will's head off from where he stood off to the side. 

and that's when samy started wondering if there was something more there and maybe kevin was right. 

but he couldn't be. she didn't like will. he didn't like her. they were friends. nothing more, nothing less. 

ryan mentioned something to her that night after she got back. they didn't really talk about it, but he hinted something and she understood what he was trying to say. still though, samy chose to firmly believe that there was nothing going on between her and will. 

the youngest hughes was at kevin's house the next day. she knocked a good three times on his front door and then crossed her arms waiting for him to come out. there were heavy footsteps before the door swung open. kevin paused in the entryway, surprised to see samy on his porch.

"oh, hey. i didn't know you were coming over," he smiled a bit, but his smile disappeared when she didn't reciprocate it. 

"we need to talk."

kevin glanced around like there were other people around, but when he only saw samy, he slowly shut his door and stepped onto the porch with her. 

"okay," the two sat down on the bench his mom had outside. samy knew kevin probably had an idea about what she was gonna say, so she decided to just rip the bandaid off and stop beating around the bush.

"i know you punched will the other night at the game," she began. 

the boy's eyes narrowed and then he jumped up like he was gonna take another swing, "did he tell you that? i'm gonna fucking—"

samy grabbed his arm to bring him back to reality, "i was gonna find out sooner or later, kevin. you really thought hiding that from me was gonna work?" she sneered. 

"who the fuck told you?" he snapped back. 

"why does it even matter who told me? why the fuck did you punch him? if you didn't want him standing up for me, you should've done it first," the girl snapped right back at him. kevin's face twisted.

"well in case you wanted to know, he did confirm he liked you because he'd fuck you too if he had the chance," the brunette grumbled and hearing that made samy's insides twist but not in a bad way. 

"so what? that gave you the excuse to punch him?" 

"it confirmed what i've known all along and what you've kept denying since we got together," the boy pulled his arm away. 

"you could've seriously hurt him, kevin. i don't care how you feel, you don't fucking punch someone because they aren't making you happy. would you punch me?" the soccer player stood up so they were face to face. 

"he punched me back just so you know. he actually tackled me to the ground if that makes any difference."

"why are you so obsessed with this? why not just break up with me if you think i like him?" they were going in circles at this point. 

"because i wanna keep thinking that i'm wrong and there's nothing between you two. i wanna believe you like me. you keep fucking denying it so i'm choosing to believe you, but every time i'm around you guys i'm told otherwise. why can't you just fucking admit it to yourself, samy? why can't you admit to me that you like him?" now kevin was just pleading for some honesty and as much as samy was supposed to hate him right now, his words stung. 

"because i don't like him! i've never liked him!" she yelled at him. 

"there it is again. you're lying. i know you're lying. i can see it in your eyes. your tell is that you get defensive when you're lying," kevin pointed his finger right in her face which she pushed away. 

"well maybe it's because he's my best friend and has been my best friend since we were kids and i'm just so terrified to lose that! and maybe i just kept making myself belief he didn't like me because then it would save all of us so much hurt in the long run because dating your best friend always goes bad. have you ever liked someone that's so close to you that it just scares you more than anything because you don't wanna do anything that will put you into a position to lose them? i like you, kevin. that was never fake. i think it just..i just tried pushing away other feelings too in the process and it didn't end well," everything all just spilled out and samy dropped back down to the bench while hiding her face in her hands. 

a beat of silence passed between the two before kevin sunk back onto the bench next to her. he hesitated for a second, wondering if it would be the right movie, but ultimately placing his hand on her back. 

"shit, i'm sorry. i-i didn't mean to.." 

"no, i'm sorry. i shouldn't have snapped. i shouldn't have punched will. i shouldn't have done a lot of things," kevin shook his head. "if the feelings were really real, then hurting one another wouldn't be a question. i know it's scary, but i don't think you guys would put one another into a position to lose the other." 

"i don't even really know how i feel, but all i know is that i don't wanna lose will just because of some stupid feelings. i also don't wanna lose you either, but i just don't think we work in a relationship. i think i just need to be by myself before i even think about a serious relationship," she met the boy's gaze. it was sad, but he slowly nodded. 

"i get it, really. friend then?" the boy wondered and samy nodded. she hugged his side. 

"just a few things. don't punch my friends ever again, okay? and can you please delete that video?" 

"yes and yes. i promise i won't. i'm sorry i did," kevin sighed as he pulled his phone out so samy could watch him delete the video.

"i'm not the one who needs to hear that apology," she watched as he found it in his camera roll and pressed delete and then went to recently deleted to permanently delete. 

"yeah, i know. i doubt will would wanna hear me out though," kevin and samy exchanged a glance. 

"if i talk to him, do you promise to apologize to him?" the girl asked and kevin nodded. 

—

kevin caught will a few days later at a community soccer game samy was playing in with her club team. the blonde caught kevin coming towards them, his face twisting a bit but the brunette raised his arms as a surrender.

"i'm not here to punch you again if that's what you're wondering," the brunette mumbled.

"if you're here to start anything you better turn back around right now," ryan cut in because he did not want to deal with another fight. 

"i'm not, i swear. i was hoping will and i could talk?" kevin looked over at the blonde who stared at him for a good five seconds before slowly nodding.

"yeah, sure," will said and the two walked a bit out of earshot. 

"first, i wanna say i'm sorry for punching you. it was uncalled for and i shouldn't have done that, so i'm sorry. second, the video is completely gone, so you don't have to worry about that anymore," kevin explained and apologized. 

"i guess i shouldn't have punched back either," will nodded.

"can we just call it even? samy and i aren't together anymore so you don't have to worry about that anymore," the brunette stared at their shoes. 

"i'm sorry you guys broke up," the hockey player rocked on his heels and kevin just shrugged. 

"it's whatever. we're still friends and it's not weird or anything. we're good though?" kevin held his hand out as a truce. will stared at it before shaking it and the boys patted one another's backs.

"sorry again, will. thanks for talking," the blonde nodded and the two finally parted ways. will went back over to ryan and gabe who were curiously listening in. 

"what was that about? gabe wondered. 

"just..apologizing for real. i guess him and samy really did breakup," will explained and he watched his friends' gazes widen in surprise.

"oh shit. i didn't think she was actually serious," ryan mumbled.

"yeah, i guess. at least we don't have to deal with him anymore," the blonde shrugged a bit.

they were right though. kevin wasn't an issue for the rest of the year which meant samy and will were left to figure out what really was going on between them and how long samy could keep denying the feelings she had anytime her best friend was around.

[wsdalt]

hi I have just woken up but I will talk to you about Felps: as you know I've been hopping around early QSMP VODs and I haven't even gotten to the kidnapping yet but I already am just struck with how much he loves Richas... like of course there's how excited he always is to see him but I also love in VOD 4 how concerned Felps gets over him saying he had a nightmare. and the sobbing to chat at the fact that Richas Exists. and the first stolen emerald thing and way he warns him about the Feds always watching and to never be sure that the person he's talkimg to is actually who they say they are like. it's been three days and he cares for him So So Much and it's very dear to me... people should talk ahout this more...

literally not very many people talk about it (and I’m bad at writing kids so I don’t either oops) but it is all for Richas truly. vod 4 is great for this stuff (everything you mentioned), but he also spends the next vod or so trying to get Richas more hearts through the spirit orbs stuff. in vod 4 he even specifically gives Richas his spirit orbs

it’s like the whole first chapter in the Felps essay I’m never finishing because it all directly preludes the kidnapping and why he did all that in the first place. it’s literally all for Richas!! he planned to sacrifice his life to get Richas another one!!!

He was literally scared of cucurucho. do you get it? Vod 8 he was terrified of cucurucho because of his own experiences (suspiciously timed crashes) + what cellbit told him about the chainsaw stuff. He was scared of cucurucho, but the second bad implied he could get stuff from Cucurucho—potentially even a second life for Richarlyson—he was willing to do anything. you don’t understand how many times he failed and kept pushing. The only thing that stopped him was freezing him for a month. everything he did in that vod was out of a desperate hope to get richas a second life even at the expense of his own life

cucurucho didn’t trick him. Felps willingly walked into that cage hoping that if he just did everything right he could make his son safer and he wasn’t taking no for an answer. the only thing that stopped him was being kidnapped and frozen and nothing being done to make Richas safer apart from the efforts of the other islanders

(also the warnings is kind of funny to me pfft. Felps’ paranoia striking. you can really see in this vod that he is a paranoid person—maybe even to the same extent that cellbit is he just keeps quieter about it generally)

[bomberqueen17]

sewing

So, being back in my own house for a bit, I've been trying to get my sewing area back together. (During the kitchen renovations I had to move things around in great haste and it's a horrible mess down there and I can't find so many of my things now argh.)

The thing I'm really excited about is that Cashmerette put out a pattern for a wireless bra. I can't wear underwires, and to those who insist I've just never had one that fit, well i've been fitted professionally in three different countries, the problem is that I have fucking enormous tits and underwires literally don't work for me, thanks! (Several times after bra fittings I have gone home empty-handed because the specialty bra boutique for special boobs had nothing in stock for my special boobs oops. Yes that always feels amazing, never fails, thanks, everyone loves finding out they're a total freak. Does wonders for the self-esteem. [My boobs are not that huge but my ribcage is freakishly small, as it happens, not that anyone was wondering, but that is what the problem is, and there just isn't room on my sternum for underwires, casings, and a central gore like underwired bras need to have. So the underwires have nowhere to go but my armpits, and that neither feels nor looks good, and in short, I've sworn off them forever because absolutely fuck those things.])

So anyway I have a bunch of supplies for that on order but am making myself do other sewing first, at least until the supplies arrive.

I managed to cut out two different dresses, and finished one, but the one I finished.... alas. So I've been subscribed to the Cashmerette Club for a while now (since it started) getting a pattern a month, and one of the dress patterns was for a kind of shirred-waist dress with a faux-button placket and all-in-one sleeves and bodice, and I made it and it is just as comfy as it sounds but I didn't like the look of it on me. But I thought it had potential. And then I saw an ad on Instagram for a dress that sort of vaguely resembled it, and I thought, oh, I could make that dress, which has a few style features that I thought would mitigate the accidental-schlubbiness of the Cashmerette club dress. So I adapted my pattern and last-minute changed to use some fabric I liked but wasn't sentimental about, and did my whole thing, and.

Well, of the changes I made, a couple worked, but the main one did not-- I wanted to make the waist an inverted V instead of straight, to give the bodice some more oomph. And it did not work in such a way that it's pretty well unsalvageable-- the inverted V just looks like my belly is so fat it's pushing it up, and then I altered the skirt panel to fit better but I got the angle wrong so it billows out in an awkwardly-dimensional shape, and in short I look like I'm about to go into labor. So the dress is really a total loss, I can't fix it without entirely recutting the bodice panel and I don't have enough fabric for that and also I would have to deconstruct the entire dress in order to replace the bodice and waistband.

So i have yet another unflattering-schlubby dress to kick around the house in I guess. Like I don't care that much about things being """"flattering"""" but this one is so oddly-shaped that it is distracting.

However I did come up with a cool way to have huge bell sleeves that i can roll up. Hear me out: Drawstring casing on top of the arm. In this bodice pattern with no shoulder seam, that means I encase the end of the drawstring in the neckline binding, right? And then the ribbon goes down the casing the whole length of the arm, and hangs out the end. And then when you want to push the sleeves up, you just pull on the ribbon, and tie it to the small length of ribbon you also enclosed in the neckline binding. Voila! Tiny bows on the shoulder, huge sleeves beautifully pushed up out of the way, and then when you're done doing work and want to protect your arms from the sun you just untie the bow! That did turn out pretty cool if I do say so myself.

But the other dress I"m working on is probably going to be just fine, it's one I already made and have not altered the pattern for appreciably so I have reasonable expectations of success. I'm using several yards of silk I tie-dyed around Christmastime (to exhaust the dye vat I'd used for some scarfs I made as gifts) and it's very lightweight so I added more width to the body panels to pleat down, and if it's too lightweight and floaty I'll put trim on the hem to weigh it down a little. It looks cool AF and one way or another I'll get something usable out of it.

And I also have a button-up collared shirt to do next, which I think will work well and has already been hacked by a few people to make dresses that I think would finally fulfill my dream of several years to have a sharp-looking shirt dress. And then i figure I'll sew bras until I get sick of trying.

You've come all this way so I'll find a photo. 1) here is the Failed Dress, a detail showing just how awfully I misjudged the shape of the front skirt panel:

[image description: a mirror shot of my lower torso showing a shirred waistband that looks like it's hiked up over a full belly, and the skirt attached to it is standing straight out for about an inch before falling in weird billowy pleats] Yeah that's fucked up, I don't even know what shape to make it be for it not to defy gravity like that. I promise I'm standing straight, I'm actually even sucking my belly in a little bit to try to make it lie better and no dice baby, that shit is So Shaped and nothing I do can apparently affect it.

But here's the dyed silk I'm working with and surely this will look okay?

[image description: a length of fabric dyed in a blocky kind of streaky deep blue lies on a cutting table with a couple of pattern pieces and a yardstick]

yah there's a color theme but it's fine since i won't be wearing them adjacent to one another lol

[coffeelovesdramasalatte]

LITA Ep. 5 Rewatch Thoughts Part 1

(edit bc I started writing this post like 6 months ago - hi! I'm gonna finish going through the rest of the phayurain episodes of LITA finally! I've lost all sense of shame so these posts are just gonna be love letters to Eul, hope that's ok) Hi hi hi! I find it absolutely hilarious that the notes on the final part of my episode 4 rewatch post (which contains my best screenshots of That Scene) has like triple the notes of the rest of the parts. I love the thirsty LITA fam <3 I think I kept it mostly clean for the first 3 episodes but LITA brainrot is real and from here on out I'm putting down all my deranged thoughts into words so enjoy

Onwards to episode 5!! Ok so y'all should know by this point that BossNoeul sang the opening right? I added it on spotify and have listened to it on repeat so much over the last week that I could probs (badly, bc my singing voice leaves much to be desired but I can and will belt it at the top of my lungs) karaoke it now. If y'all haven't heard the full version check it out bc they rap a few bars and Noeul has this line "shake your bo- shake your bo- shake your body" that makes me lose it every time

The recap sees us revisiting some rather adorable moments from the previous episode including PhayuRain in the rain and tub. Imagine if they stuck the leg kiss in the recap >.<

We open to sunlight pouring in through the curtained windows on the morning after. I kind of wish the last episode had ended with this scene bc it would have been a soft transition after the intimacy PhayuRain shared rather than the abrupt cut to credits. But I digress.

Phayu's hair looks glorious out and I wish we'd gotten to see it like this more. In fact I think we should've seen Rain push his hands through it and grip it during episode 6's NC scene. Also the definition of that bicep? Sir pls.

I ADORE how sweet Phayu is towards Rain all the time, and this is yet another example. I love it when characters look fondly at their lover (I finally get to use that word for them!!), cover them with a blanket, and then give them a forehead kiss before sliding out of bed. SO FOND

I just think it's really attractive when people do this. Rain was really missing out by snoozing.

The state of Rain's neck and chest sends me into hysterical giggles every time. Phayu you did not have to go that hard with the marking bestie (let's be honest though, looking at the state of Phayu's neck post episode 6 they both have marking kinks) - everyone's gonna know Rain's officially yours soon enough. Also throwback to how like two months ago (or something like that idk the exact timeline) Rain was like hmph I never want anything to do with P' Phayu ever again. I didn't hear any complaining from you last night hmm??? Also I love how confident Rain was in his abilities to seduce Phayu, so true of him

I'm DECEASED

OK WAIT I think I finally get the whole yellow-blue thing. It literally is just that yellow is Rain's representative color and Phayu's is navy blue. So by making Rain put on Phayu's navy blue shirt for the "morning after" they're just reiterating that Rain belongs to Phayu now. Mystery solved :)

Obligatory shot bc he's worked hard for these gains and I think he deserves some appreciation ft. Rain who's making the same face as all of us. I think they spent like 30 whole seconds on Phayu's shoulders and that's so valid of them

Sir, do you have a good reason for striding in here shirtless and sweaty to wake your new bf up? Methinks someone was hoping for round 2

Ok, and we're back to Rain in a yellow t-shirt looking very feverish. He's holding his teal green phone (case) up though which is a combo of yellow and blue, isn't it? I'm sorry my color theory is lacking. His eyebrows look really nice here and I don't know why I noticed. I hope he has a good nap! But oops he misses calls from Phayu...

This episode's title is "the Calm Before the Storm" which implies it's gonna be a mostly tooth-rotting fluff episode and that drama is on the way next week. I'm already smiling so wide my cheeks hurt so the title is apt.

Phayu (dressed in navy blue!) is here to make sure his precious Rain is ok and Mama is already planning the wedding in her head.

The first three or four times I watched this, I was paying too much attention to their faces and probably missed a lot so let's break it down a bit. Phayu comes in, Rain's surprised and sits up, and Phayu sits down next to Rain on the bed but facing away. Phayu is slightly upset that Rain went away without saying anything and he was worried that since Rain was sick that him driving home alone was dangerous. The second Phayu sits down this way, Rain reaches out to grab his arm but Phayu pulls away. Compared to couples in other dramas, PhayuRain depend on touch a lot to communicate so obv the situation is quite serious plus Phayu is not immediately making eye contact with Rain.

The next couple of shots are just back and forth where Phayu asks why Rain left and Rain tells him what happened and apologies for worrying him. He looks v v soft and fluffy here

Gonna take a second to appreciate the background music bc it sounds so serious and doom-y right now but they're literally about to clear it all up so it was unnecessary to go that hard. Sound artist I love you

Throughout this conversation, Phayu starts far away (which for PhayuRain means there's like 1.5 meters of distance between their faces instead of 0.15 meters) but he moves closer and tilts his body more in Rain's direction as Rain gives each justification. He also lets Rain grab his arm. It's very subtle but I like the acting choices here.

Phayu, Rain is sick. Can you pls stop staring at his lips bff give him some rest (spoiler alert I counted like 5 lip-looks in the next 10 seconds, Phayu didn't hear me)

OK this hug. Exquisite. The gap has been bridged, all parties are happy again, and they both absolutely sink into each other.

Boss' little shoulder rub here is so soft and gives us more PhayuRain believability. We can see how worried he was and how relieved he is now that Rain is safely in his arms again.

Rain's cheek-smushed nod agreeing to never disappear from Phayu's side ever again is everything to me.

I don't actually think this was what I was supposed to get out of this but there's something about the symmetry of this hug and them being in the shape of a triangle and how technically their first encounter as a couple involved Phayu's triangle tool etc. etc. etc. Also headpat alert!

More subtle and soft gestures from Phayu. Rain is down bad.

HANDS!!!

We really heard the MWAH here and I want to forehead kiss whoever placed the mics

Everyone needs to observe Rain's expression right after Phayu asks this question bc it's very sus

(I couldn't get it in motion but Rain straightens up a bit and raises his eyebrows. Someone thinks they're about to get spanked like before)

Except this is not that kind of punishment and I can't believe Phayu really brought along a rectal suppository. To his credit though, I believe they're supposed to be more immediately effective than oral medicines because they absorb more directly into the body so he just wants Rain to be healthy faster. Although I wish Phayu would've not proceeded to yank Rain's pants off without permission, it's fiction and I hope if Rain had shown signs of major discomfort he would've listened. I do have to wonder if Mama put on headphones though bc Rain was really loud with his protests. I also think this must've been funny to film bc if you look closely before it cuts to Rain's mom, Rain looks like he's holding back laughter.

Uh-oh, Mama it's better if you walk away now

This sequence was actually so adorable and funny. I love purrito!Rain and Phayu is looking way too smug. Mama Rain walked out of there trying to name all the yellow and blue flowers she could for the wedding centerpieces.

omfg Phayu calling Rain's mom "Mama" is so friggin cute and I love how smoothly he just slid into son-in-law position

Rain's like excuse me I'm sick I should NOT be slandered right now

To part 2 with all the cute shots!!

[pitter-patt-art]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Onto the remaining AUs!

18 - Space Travel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

19 - Spies

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

20 - Crossover/Fusion

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

21 - Absurd Tragedy

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

22 - Orphan

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

23 - Musician

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

24 - Pretend Hate

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

25 - Scientists

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

26 - Victorian Era

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

27. Younger / De-Aged

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

28 - Caretaker

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

29 - Forced into Hiding

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

30 - The Beginning of the World

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

31 - Two(+) of the Above:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bye for now!

[where-the-wind-travels]

wip wednesday ✦

thank you @cadybear420 for the tag! ♡

i haven't updated any of my choices writing in... literal months, and while i am currently getting back into it, it's not for this fandom. nevertheless i found this wip which was supposed to be my june challenge entry, but then things happened™️ (june was a very sick month for me) and i ended up leaving it with only the very beginning scene written... still, i might finish and post it sometime lmao

this is pretty much my self indulgent mcflint first date/love confession fic, featuring euphemia's nosy ass third wheeling for them from the power dimension. takes place one year post-ilw, shadow ending + gate opened.

(i don't know who to tag since pretty much everyone prior to me was already tagged OOPS 😭 still, "tagging" everyone who wants to join in!)

below the cut because of length + not my best use of mood whiplash, but for those interested dw all the rest of this is going to be pure fluff

“I'm home!” A cheerful voice rang across the living room, followed by a sigh as Mercedes leaned against the doorframe, letting go of the shopping bags she had been carrying. “Oof, these things are heavy. Think any of you could help me?” Abel, who'd previously been sitting on the couch waiting for his sister to come home from her shopping trip, all but sprinted to the door and picked up a bag. “Manita, why? Just how many things did you buy? And what did I tell you about overspending?” Mercedes rolled her eyes fondly. “It's for you, Abel, not for me. And besides, it's not overspending if I actually planned what I'm spending on,” she added. “Since you couldn't decide on what to make for today's plans, I just bought the ingredients for everything you listed.” “Today's plans? Why are you saying that as if you're a part of it?” He put down the bag, placing it on the living room table near the vase full of white jasmine flowers he'd bought a few months ago. They're fake — after all, Abel has never been the best at taking care of plants, what with all his responsibilities and tendency to get distracted — but he doesn't think about that, nor does he like to. It doesn't matter if they're fake, they're still beautiful. And he got them because of him, the one person that's been occupying most of his mind, but whom he's never been brave enough to confess his real feelings for. He likes keeping things that remind him of Lincoln. He always did, and even now — especially now — he still does. “Because I am! I agreed to help you prepare the food and calm your nerves and do all that…” She paused to take a deep breath. “Sorry. You know all this time I've been really excited that things are back to normal with Lincoln, and—” “Wait, what? Nerves? I thought they were just hanging out, what's so important about this occasion?” Lola interrupted from inside the kitchen, not looking up from the bowl of cereal she poured herself. “You tell her or I tell her? If you don't, then I will,” Mercedes spoke, grinning and failing to hide the giggle coming out of her. Abel sighed. “Fine, I'll tell her. Because right now, you're starting to sound a lot like…” “Like…” A pang of grief and sadness, like a storm crashing into a beach that had been bright and sunny just a few moments ago, struck him as he thought of her. His best friend's younger half sister, the girl that had the same love for pirates, history and language as he had, the girl that never once left his side – anyone's side – even as he was going through his worst moments yet. Despite only being part of their lives for about a month – and despite sharing blood with the same man who ruined them, manipulated them, used them for his own selfish wants while claiming there's good behind his intentions – she knew her friends as if she'd spent a lifetime with them. And she might as well have. When comparing this girl's brightness and warmth to that of the Sun, the Sun itself fell short. She was a fighter, yes, but also a devoted and compassionate soul whose utmost priority was protecting and caring for others – not just her friends, but others in general, no matter if she didn't know them personally. And oh, how she loved peering into Abel's relationship with Lincoln. Even before Abel himself knew that what he wanted was something different from being friends again, she knew. She'd always wanted for them to reconcile and be happy together, she saw the spark inside both of them that no one else did. She'd gush to Amalia about how cute she thought they'd look together and smiled so bright when she saw them getting along, no matter how much they insisted they weren't. And now her wish came true, but she's gone. Why did it have to be her?

[ebi-hime]

I felt like writing something a little more ✨introspective✨ than usual, so here we go haha >_<;; So! This year I was able to release two projects in relatively close succession: Fragile Feelings (1st image; a cute yuri VN about a teacher and a nurse) and With Eyes of Ice (2nd image; a dark otome-inspired VN set in Iceland which has a bunch of pretty boys who Suffer). Though I released both of these stories in 2023, I actually wrote them all the way back in mid 2020. I wrote them back to back, actually: Fragile Feelings first, and With Eyes of Ice right after. I liked both scripts a lot, so i decided to turn them both into VNs... But working on VNs can be pretty difficult, even with very small teams like mine, as the people involved can be busy with other things, priorities change, etc, etc... And, in the case of With Eyes of Ice, I might've pulled the character artist off the project for 1.5 years to work on a self-indulgent BL VN about my two best boys, Yuel and Tavi, when Eyes of Ice was almost at the end of production hahaha oops....... I was working on these two VNs on and off for such a long time, I was wondering if I would be able to actually finish them... So, I'm very relieved that I did get them both done after all, and they both shaped up to be projects I'm proud of! I think everybody involved worked really hard; I love how they both look and sound. The character artists, background artists, UI artists, and composers all worked very hard, and I think these two projects are among the prettiest and most polished I've worked on! Now, I tend not to talk about the financial side of VN dev too much (because it's not much fun haha), but for all of the money and time invested into these projects, they weren't wholly 'worthwhile' endeavours. It's too soon to tell with Fragile Feelings, since it literally only just came out, but With Eyes of Ice hasn't really been doing so great sales-wise. It might have something to do with the fact that it's a weird quasi-otome thing which doesn't 100% fit the genre, but it's also prooooobably related to the fact I didn't talk about the story at all until like, 4 months before I'd finished it, despite having been working on it for 3 years already... Just maybe haha 💦💦 It's always a bit unfortunate when something you sink so much money, time, and love into doesn't get much attention, but that's the reality of VN dev. Making commercial VNs is pretty difficult already, because commissioning all the art + music can be quite pricey, and the sales tend to be rather low. Profit margins are slim already (and it's not uncommon for devs to fail to turn a profit at all), so I'm not wholly surprised. It's unfortunate, but I don't regret making With Eyes of Ice. I still love this story and these characters a lot, and I'm glad I stuck with it and finished it, even if it took me a few years! 💪

I'll probably continue to write weird stories which don't necessarily have a lot of appeal in the future, because that's what makes me happy, so I apologise in advance if I put out more stories which aren't too interesting to large swathes of people... But I'm very grateful for everybody who has offered me their support over the years! Some of my proejcts are successful enough (Blackberry Honey, Sweetest Monster, The Language of Love) that I can afford to invest my time and money into more niche things without having to worry toooo much about turning over a profit. I wouldn't be able to tell the stories I want to tell without all of you, even if it can take me a while to finish things up, and I'm very appreciative! I guess that's about it haha 💦💦💦 Thank you! 💙

[hismercytomyjustice]

Definitely DID NOT just finish editing this week's chapter.

That would be crazy. You're crazy.

...but I am very happy with it, and very curious what folks will think...

And also extremely sorry. ╭( ๐_๐)╮

As I believe I said before, I have good news and bad news.

Good news, I fixed the problem I was having with Cazador.

Bad news, I fixed the problem I was having with Cazador.

He came across as too...nice (?) in the first draft. No, maybe permissive is a better word?

...I certainly don't think he does anymore!

Blah blah more OCD shit under the cut.

This chapter literally sent me into a 2 month long spiral that ultimately made me realize how much my OCD fucks with my writing, fanfic and otherwise. Which is why I bring up my OCD so much in relation to this fic.

Only took me ten fucking years to realize it! (ᇂ_ᇂ |||) But hey, we got there eventually!

I felt so fucking stupid/embarrassed venting to my therapist about my struggles with voluntarily writing fanfic. It's the same way I felt venting to her about the agonies I initially experienced when I decided to start taking piano lessons. It's not life or death! I didn't have to do either of those things! And yet I was so fucking upset about both. And wouldn't ya know it, turns out both were like catnip for my OCD!

I won't even begin to pretend I don't still have issues with my OCD and my writing. One of my super fun writing related obsessions lately is the deep seated fear I've gone into a fugue state and accidentally plagiarized other fics I've read. This was particularly bad with my latest Night Vale fic and my Hazbin Part 3 fic.

So, what's a person with OCD to do? Reassurance seeking and checking, of course! As I explained to my BFF the other day:

So obviously I spent hours googling Night Vale fanons and skimming/searching through Night Vale and Hazbin fics and other fics I'd previously read to make sure I hadn't accidentally copied someone else!

FUN FACT! I've read over 100 Hazbin fanfics alone! FUN FACT, IT IS PROBABLY (thanks for the qualifier, OCD) LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO CHECK ALL OF THEM.

AND I AM ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THAT! That is MAJOR NO NO OCD behavior. It is a lapse. It is choosing to engage in a compulsion. Because, as they so succinctly put it at the OCD Conference I attended, a compulsion is a choice. The whole point of treatment for OCD is to quiet your obsessions and to learn how NOT to engage in your compulsions. OCD doesn't go away (unfortunately), but it can go into remission. Digging into a lapse/engaging in a compulsion ultimately pushes you closer to a relapse and further from remission.

But try telling that to yourself in the moment! Because my OCD thinks it is imperative to engage in the compulsion. Because otherwise I have to sit with the doubt/uncertainty/fear and try not to let it fester. It is so much easier in the short term to spend hours on checking and reassurance seeking. And, even worse, it makes you feel a little better in the moment!

But, as my friend so aptly said in the screenshot above, "something tells me you would just replace the thing you silenced with something new….."

Abso-fucking-lutely I would! And I did! I checked the fanons and fanfics I was most worried about, but I didn't check all of them! Even if I had, what if I thought I had and I missed one, the one that I actually may have accidentally copied? Or what if AO3's reading history isn't perfect and I checked everything and it left one off, the one that I actually may have accidentally copied?

To engage in a compulsion is to become the OCD equivalent of Sisyphus. Did you get the boulder to the top of the hill? Congratulations! Oops, looks like it rolled back down again... But this time it'll stay at the top of the hill for sure!

Right??? Right???

I did ultimately realize I was in an OCD spiral and made myself stop checking. Do I still want to? Absolutely I do! I want nothing more than to go through everything I've ever read with a fine tooth comb because otherwise I have to live with the doubt/fear/uncertainty. I have to accept I may have unintentionally been influenced by someone's work I read and loved, which would absolutely fucking devastate me because I would never do that kind of thing on purpose. It's against everything I believe in. It's cruel and it's wrong and oh god what if I did it accidentally and I'm cruel and wrong and a horrible fucking person?! This is it! This is when me and everyone else finally finds out I'm a horrible fucking person who can't write and whose only good ideas actually came from someone else!

My therapist would say something at this point like "But what if you didn't do that? What if you actually did come up with your ideas all on your own?" Or "It's possible. Anything is possible. That doesn't mean it's likely." Or "Even if you did, it's obviously not something you'd do on purpose."

Meanwhile my OCD brain is just like "We have to come up with contingencies for if you accidentally did do it and how you'll respond and fix it." And "It's just a matter of time before someone else finds what you missed when checking. What are you going to do then?" And "If it did happen, you'll have to give up writing forever and destroy your tumblr and forever hide from the justified mob consisting of the entire internet who will rightfully hunt you to the ends of the earth."

So, yeah. Needless to say, I STILL DESPERATELY WANT TO GO BACK TO CHECKING AND REASSURANCE SEEKING. But I'm going to try not to. And thank goodness I have therapy tomorrow because this shit has been living rent free in my head (in the bad way) for literal weeks now.

I keep trying to remind myself I can either continue compulsing or I can just keep fucking writing and hope for the best.

And yeah, my therapist did mention last session that I should probably ask my doctor about upping my antidepressants. Why do you ask?

Fuck it is mortifying to write all this shit out. And, ngl, my OCD is just like "Well, at least you have timestamped proof you didn't plagiarize anyone on purpose! But, y'know, no one will believe you anyway when they ultimately find the evidence you couldn't and confront you and run you out of internet town!"

...so yeah, I scheduled an appointment with my doctor for later this week to talk about upping my antidepressants... Because goodness gracious. It's not just about this. I'm still struggling with burnout (and maybe a resurgence of depression) and OCD in other areas of my life. It just so happens this latest spiral has been taking up a lot of real estate in my head lately.

[justasmallbloginabigklainefandom]

@sohereswhatyoumissedlastweek replied to your post “Bro i'll have my own kitchen soon. I don't have to...”:

I need the full story!! I don't think I saw it on my dash

​I only mentioned it in passing while yapping about Kierkegaard's philosophy of hope.

Basically I've been living in this student flat since 2017 and it's fine. I am fine. I got very lucky from the start, since I have my own bathroom, living room and bedroom. All together it's around 23m2, so yeet. Then I share a kitchen, a shared space, a washing machine and a dryer with 5 others. And I never thought I'd move, partially because I was supposed to stop studying in 2023 and you need to be a student to live here. But then after finishing my master's degree I added another 2-year master's degree WHICH I then extended into a 3-year master's degree cause stress (lol) and initially I planned on living the full extra years here as well, since again, this place is fine. The location is great. And it's affordable for this city.

But then last December I met up with my ""sister"" who lives in another student flat of the same organisation and her place is around 10m2 bigger with her own kitchen and only, like, €20 a month more expensive. And my mind started thinking. The reasons I never looked into moving before were a) the aformentioned graduation b) the expenses and c) this current one has a separate bedroom from a living room which gives me so much peace for some reason and I was under the impression this was the only building that offered that (as in, the others offer studios or single rooms).

But a) the aformentioned second master's degree + you can live here for around 9 more months after graduation, b) de kale huur scares people but with huursubsidie it's doable (aka the new apartment is even around €100 a month cheaper!!!) and c) my sister showed that there were more buildings that do this lay-out, but with a kitchen.

So since January I have been reacting on places. It's a lottery system, so completely random. A computer puts all applicants in a queue at random and the one who's placed first gets the offer bla, bla, bla. I have been looking at the building my sister lives in. That is the one I really wanted, but not the one I got. Then there was one on campus, aka my second choice. This one I got was my third choice and there was also a fourth choice that I actually genuinely didn't like so oop. So I've just been reacting weekly and hoping for the best (aka Kierkegaard would fucking hate me).

The fact that I got this one is so fucking wild to me, because literally yesterday I had to be talked out of withdrawing my application. And not only that, but I did this application last-minute. I applied every Wednesday, when the new applications opened. The thing is, a week ago I applied for an apartment at my first choice building, only to find out on Sunday that it's an apartment for disabled students. The whole thing was that there were currently no students needing those accommodations, so non-disabled students could apply, but there would be a clause in the contract that says that the moment a disabled student needs the room, you'd move out with the organisation seeking a new place for you. I didn't like that, so I withdrew and then was wondering if I should either sit this week out or apply for my 3rd choice building.

The reason I was doubting is because, as I mentioned, the applicant who places first gets the offer, but if they decline, the offer goes to the second place, and then third, and then fourth, and then fifth.... and I was no. 4 on an apartment of my first choice AND that ad hasn't finished processing yet after 3 weeks, which means no. 1 and possibly no. 2 rejected the offer. If no. 3 were to reject as well, the apartment would be mine. And I really REALLY wanted that apartment. So I did apply, but as I mentioned, I was this close to withdrawing EVEN THIS MORNING (you can before 11:00), because I was wondering if I should maybe take the chance on it. After all, there was a 3% chance I'd get the current one. And this was my 3rd choice. Monday and Tuesday I basically spent all day writing down the pros of this 3rd choice to convince myself to keep the application going. It's a great neighbourhood. It saves money. It's not 10m2 bigger, but around 7m2 and that's still a lot. I HAVE A BALCONY.

And people told me I needed to keep the application running just in case, because that 3% would still be more likely than 3 people rejecting an apartment, especially since a rejection means you are barred from applying for 10 weeks. AND THOSE PEOPLE WERE RIGHT, CAUSE I GOT THIS ONE.

So yes, it's wild to me that I spent months dutifully applying for my first or second choice (or not applying, if they weren't available) and then the week I apply for my third choice and I go on a rollercoaster of emotions because of it, I get it. I was a bit in a shock, and even though it's my third choice, I am still very, VERY elated. I have accepted the offer. They need to send me the contract and then it's official.

FUCK YOU KIERKEGAARD.

[dayisfading]

just a few things (oops longer than i planned)

parents are very supportive of my mattress purchase. i stripped my bed to wash my sheets etc including the mattress pad i've been using for about a year now. i went in to talk to my mom and she was like, "that mattress is HORRIBLE. i had no idea." this is so funny bc truly it's like -- how do you know that your mattress sucks? it starts sucking gradually and unless you spend sufficient time on a different kind of mattress (which i have probably only done once or twice in the last two years), you have no frame of reference. i didn't realize the mattress itself was causing pain until i slipped my hand under my back, initially just to provide some support, and realized the springs digging into my back felt like a bunch of rocks wrapped in some thin padding. i am now wondering how much of the back pain i am frequently experiencing could be relieved just by getting a new mattress.

i am reading the circle by dave eggers. this is the first book i have picked up since the outlier (a few months ago, failed to finish; will return to it eventually). i got a kindle on black friday. thing is, i saw the movie adaptation of the circle before i realized it was based on a book. the movie is Not Great. and i am by no means a movie snob. it was confusing b/c by the end i realized the bones of the plot were really interesting but something about the execution threw it off (and the acting. we don't talk about emma watson. she is my beloved, but.) tom hanks couldn't even save it. THAT SAID, the book is great and i'm not at all put off by knowing the main bullet points of the plot, though i can't stop picturing one of the characters as karen gillan bc she was a great choice for the role, i fully hear the dialogue in her voice. i am 40% through it in less than two days!

on friday night, i came home from the holiday party socially exhausted and trying desperately to come down from this wave of overwhelm that i've been riding since, like, october. i wanted to turn my brain off. i planned to play euro truck simulator. but i could not find the actual usb connector for my controller. i looked everywhere. could not find it! i literally cried in frustration. then i remembered i have coloring pixels installed, which is a great color-by-number for pixel paintings. i haven't touched it in probably over a year, at least, but holy shit was it a great decision because i needed an actual break and it worked. turned brain off. actually felt relaxed. i have been looking for a way to unwind/decompress that does not necessarily involve tv or video games (though this technically is one). if you have not heard of it, it is free btw, with 99 cent themed packs for extra pages. also nice relaxing background music-in game. i highly recommend it!

[yahargulian]

TAG 9 PEOPLE YOU'D LOVE TO GET TO KNOW BETTER

I was tagged by @10millionotters, thank you so much Maru!! I haven't done one of these in so so long holy moly.

Three ships:

The Big Three that're living rent free in my head right now are Cynonari (Genshin Impact), Steddie (Stranger Things), and Fair Game (RWBY)

The first two have been rattling around in there since August and the last I fell into unintentionally just this month. Though I should have seen it coming from a mile off honestly, my first ship in a fandom literally always includes my favourite character adhjkgahdksj

First ship:

It would've been GiroKuru from Sgt. Frog and honestly? If I'd got into that series now instead of when I was like 13? It would have made no difference asjkdhgjk it really set the stage for the kind of dynamics I'd grow to love. Very very Kimcore ship

Last song:

One day I'll see this song performed live and I will cry real, wet tears

Last film:

Everything Everywhere All At Once!! (Maru I'm giving you a high-five through the screen, what're the odds aghkajsdhg)

Watched it with my brother and very nearly cried. Like I was so, so close. Such a good movie oh my god

Currently reading:

I haven't read a proper book since finishing my English lit studies like two years ago, it's literally just been fanfic oops ashdgjkhagkd

I've been reading through a wip fic I'm trying to finish up if that also counts maybe? 👉👈

Currently watching:

Well after blasting through the whole of RWBY in a week, then starting Ice Queendom and giving up halfway through, the next thing on my list of shows to watch with my brother was Teen Wolf... but we may actually be watching the whole of The Clone Wars next! Which I'm very very excited about

I've seen a lot of it but not like. Season-by-season, episode-by-episode. Sequentially. So that's what we're doing

Currently craving:

Sweet treats always. Halfway through doing this I remembered we had leftover apple strudel and have just eaten that, so the cravings have been settled for now ahdgkjadhgk

I'm tagging anyone who's read through this and wants to do this!

But I'm also tagging @50centlighter, @fluxxies, @marshonthemellow-primary, @kagakutsukai, @artistic-shell, @cakebytheocean-syndrome, and @spookyfroggi specifically hehe

[nocompromise-noregrets]

3, 9, 14, and 25 for the fic asks! (I hope none of those are repeats — I actually wrote down the ones I saw you answer already to try to be sure 😅)

aaaaa, thank you! :D :D :D (haven't answered these ones yet! *cracks knuckles*)

3. What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written? Oh man. This is a tough one. I think I'm probably proudest of Empty Vessel, because it's the first properly long story I've ever finished, but I am useless at picking favourites. Although out of the Barduil Month stories, I think Yesterday, A Hundred Years Ago and paint the sky and burn the stars are my favourites, and I'm very fond of a kiss in the cold and dark 'verse because it's letting me unearth all sorts of ridiculous teenage memories (and indulge my 'modern!Bard is a biker' agenda) :D And outside the Tolkien-'verse, Six Bottles of Wine was huge fun (2011 Three Musketeers) and I am very fond of we could be happy can't you see (That Thing You Do!) and oh god like literally everything else I've written, I love my stories, I really do. :D

9. Do you write every day? If you wrote today, share a sentence of what you’ve written! Sometimes. If I'm doing NaNo, or Writers' Month, or something like that then yes, otherwise, much as I'd love to, I just don't quite have the spoons at the moment. But I have done some writing today (instead of working, oops), and here's a bit:

He talked about them as he drew, telling Thranduil - or at least, his presence - about their personalities, their hobbies, what they liked and didn’t like to do, and he tried his best not to include the shadow of grief that covered all of them now, darkening their eyes, pulling back at their mouths every time they tried to smile. Thranduil said nothing, and as he put the finishing touches to his drawing of Tilda, Bard began to feel self-conscious, as though he’d been talking to himself all this time. “Are you still there?” he asked, almost despite himself, and after another long moment of silence, Thranduil’s voice sounded in the centre of his mind. “I am here,” he said after a moment, sounding impossibly sad. “Forgive me. It is only - I loved them as my own, so long ago, and I had almost forgotten their faces. I cannot remember their voices, the sound of their laughter -”

14. If you could see one of your fics adapted into a visual medium, such as comic or film, which fan fic would you pick? Oooooh. I would LOVE to see Empty Vessel-'verse done with the movies' cast. :D :D :D

25. Have you ever upset yourself with your own writing? Not as a general rule, but Never Forgotten made me rather wobbly. (on the other hand, The Last Watch, which directly precedes that one, didn't - probably because I'd been thinking it over for a long time by the time I actually got down to writing it)

Thank you so much for asking! <333333 Anyone else fancies asking me questions about fic, do feel free!

[bleakcreek]

sleep tight

(nothing prompted this except for my own brain. this is 1.5k words of mostly-platonic bed-sharing. it is tooth-rottingly fluffy. this has not been beta’d and it’s almost 1 am so i can’t promise there are no errors.)

--

“Do you remember when we used to do this as kids?”

Rhett’s patting his freshly washed face dry with a hand-towel when Link says it, and he glances sidelong at the hotel mirror to get a good look at him where he’s fluffing up the pillows on his side of the bed. When his eyes meet Rhett’s, his glasses are already off. 

Rhett raises an eyebrow at him. “What, you mean when you came on vacation with my family?”

He tosses the damp towel back onto the bathroom counter before turning off the bathroom light, leaving the lamp on the bedside table as the only light in the room. With the room’s only light source streaming directly onto Link, his hair looks even more silver than usual. 

“Not that,” Link continues. He’s in joggers and t-shirt as he climbs into the room’s single bed.

It occurs to Rhett that when the concierge informed them that they’d been booked in a single, neither of them had even thought to ask about getting a second room.

“I mean when we used to have sleepovers.” 

He turns over on his pillow to face Rhett as he slides in beside him, and it occurs to him how much younger Link looks without his glasses, how vulnerable. “D’you remember — I think it was maybe the fourth time you’d come over? Or maybe it was the fifth. It was definitely at least the third though—”

“Light,” Rhett interrupts, as he rolls onto his side. He glances up at the lamp. 

Link seems to take the hint, because he moves immediately to turn it off, even as he keeps talking. “—Anyway, I think it was maybe a little after Halloween, ‘cause we had that big bag of candy that I hid under my bed, so my mama came in to make sure we’d brushed out teeth an’ weren’t eatin’ candy in bed.”

“And then Mama Sue told me she didn’t like me sleeping on the floor, so she put my pillow at the end of your bed—”

“—And then you thought it was funny to kick me all night!” Link’s voice ticks up at the end like he’s still irritated about it, but even in the dark, Rhett can see the corners of his mouth twitching like he’s trying to fight a smile.

Rhett gives him a gentle little kick, barely more than a bump of his foot against Link’s, and says, “Yeah, I remember that.”

He expects Link to retaliate, to kick him back, to continue the story, to… something.

Instead, Link is quiet. He shifts closer to Rhett, so that only a few inches are separating them, and rolls around to face the ceiling. 

He’s so uncharacteristically silent for so long Rhett would think he was asleep, if he didn’t see the occasional fluttering of his open eyes against the darkness.

At last, barely audible, he says, “Why’d we stop?”

“The sleepovers? ‘Cause we were roommates, man.”

“Not that. I mean the,” he gestures vaguely at the air above his head, “the sleeping in the same bed thing. It felt like one minute it was okay and then the next it was like — it was only okay if we had to, and only if we pretended to hate it.”

Rhett remembers being eleven years old, remembers Cole tugging him aside in the hallway after Link’s mama came to take him home, remembers him telling him you oughta stop letting letting another boy sleep in his bed before people start sayin’ you two ain’t right. 

He didn’t know what his brother meant by that back then, but it was still enough to scare him back into bringing a sleeping bag over to Link’s house.

“Just outgrew it, I guess,” Rhett says instead.

“Mm,” is Link’s noncommittal reply. “Guess so.”

After thirty-five years of friendship with him, Rhett likes to think he’s gotten pretty good at reading Link. More importantly, he knows that on the rare occasion he’s gotten something wrong, they’ve always bounced back from it.

So when Rhett scoots in, closing the last few inches between them, and lifts an arm to give Link a chance to cuddle in closer, he figures — at the absolute worst — Link might get indignant and tell him to get back on his side of the bed, might maybe assume Rhett is just messing with him. Might even kill the conversation for the rest of the night, but nothing worse than that.

It turns out, thought, Rhett’s Link-related instincts are perfect this time, because he immediately feels the warm, solid press of another body next to his. One of Link’s hands lands lightly on Rhett’s chest, right over his heart.

Link makes an indignant noise at the back of his throat. “Man, why ain’t ‘chu wearin’ a shirt?” He doesn’t move to pull away, though, and even hooks one ankle over Rhett’s. 

“‘Cause I get overheated, man.” Rhett curls his arm to brush the pads of his fingers through the soft hair at the nape of his neck. “It’s hot in here.”

“You are basically a furnace,” Link grumbles. It sounds like he’s complaining, but from the way he turns his face into Rhett’s chest and presses his cold nose into Rhett’s collarbone, he has a feeling Link doesn’t mind it too much. 

“You like it,” Rhett counters mildly. “Otherwise you wouldn’t’ve kept tryin’ to spoon me while you were sleepin’.” He can feel the last of the tension eke out of Link’s shoulders as he keeps combing his fingers through Link’s hair. 

“...Wasn’t always asleep,” Link says. “That time I latched onto you and you said you couldn’t get me to let go so I just stayed stuck to you all night? I was awake for that one.”

“You coulda just told me you wanted to snuggle,” Rhett teases, he knows it’s a mistake the second the words leave his lips.

Right on cue, Link’s whole body locks up. “Yeah, I’m sure that woulda gone great back in our Campus Crusade days,” he snaps. “Or maybe you mean back when we were teenagers, when the only time we could touch without your dad or Cole shooting us dirty look was when we wrestled?”

“Hey, I’m sorry—”

“Screw you, you’re sorry.”

Rhett feels Link start to roll away and immediately locks his arms around him, pinning him in place against his side. Link’s legs go to move next, and Rhett immediately wraps one of his long legs around Link’s, his ankle tucked around the other man’s shin to keep him from pulling away. 

“Let go a’ me!” He keeps wriggling, but can’t get enough leverage to get away. Eventually, he settles for pressing his face into the side of Rhett’s neck and huffing. “I don’t wanna cuddle anymore, I’m upset with you.”

It’s a ridiculous sentence, like something Link might say to Jade for peeing on the carpet, and it’s a testament to Rhett’s self-control that he keeps himself from laughing at it. 

“You can cuddle and be mad at me,” Rhett says, voice somewhere between genuine and patronizing, as he reaches the hand not holding onto Link back toward the nightstand.

“Ugh,” Link groans. Still, he seems to have resigned himself to his fate, and starts to relax back into him. “Wait — what are you grabbing?”

“My phone,” Rhett says. He holds it in front of Link, like it will somehow ease any suspicions Link might have about what he’s up to rather than exacerbating them.

“And why—” Link grabs for it, but Rhett just holds it higher, fully out of Link’s reach, as he unlocks it one-handed. “—Do you need your phone?”

Rhett doesn’t answer, just clicks the shutter button once and lets the flash burst into the room, illuminating the blue of Link’s eyes for one brief moment before it disappears again.

In the picture, Link’s face is set into a deep frown, half-buried in the blankets and tucked neatly against Rhett’s chest. He’s never seen any one person look so adorable and pissed off at the same time. 

“What’re you doin’ with that picture?” Link reaches for the phone again, and Rhett holds it out above his head. “If you post that to instagram—” 

“I’m not putting it anywhere public, don’t worry.” Rhett has the New Message box open, gets about two seconds into typing C-H-R when Link starts struggling for the phone again.

“Oh, no, don’t you dare send that to my wife, she’ll never let me life it down—”

“—I was also gonna send it to Jessie—”

“—Oh, so she can post it to twitter to gain clout with our fans? That’s even worse than sending it to my wife!”

“Sent,” Rhett announces, his thumb making contact with the Send Message button just as Link finally manages to grab the phone out of Rhett’s hands. 

Jessie McLaughlin is typing… pops up onto the screen almost as soon as the message enters the cloud.

“Man, therapy has made you into an insufferable ass,” Link grumbles, shoving the phone back into Rhett’s hands before he can see Jessie’s no-doubt delighted response to his predicament. 

“I was already an insufferable ass,” Rhett says evenly. “Therapy just made me into an insufferable ass that’s okay with cuddling with my best friend. Now go to sleep, Link.”

[keets-writing-corner]

*CHOKING

*SOBBING*

*CRYING*

YOU MADE MY DAYYYYYYY

I will apologize to the people who followed me solely for this fic, and that I haven't gotten chapter 4 out when I said I wanted. I've been meaning to make an announcement post explaining the unintended hiatus and this seems like a good moment

I decided to finally try some anti-depressants and oops apparently one of the side effects of SSRIs is just gutting creativity??? so yeah for the past 3 months I've been entirely unable to write, draw or even practice music on any of my instruments. Once I get back from my trip I'm going to switch to a different one and hopefully kick back into full gear

and also, I knew chapter 4 was going to be hard for me to write XD BUT the good news is, some inspiration has been kicking around lately so it actually has grown since the last check in! huzzah! <3 so hopefully I'll be able to get it out and finally finish this behemoth :D

thank you so so much OP for the lovely words and shout out, you have made me want to write more

as a special thank you for this lovely message, please take the first 600-ish words of chapter 4 beneath the cut

Lilith stretched in the bed, the events of the day before flashing through her mind. Lucifer thrashing the demons around, trouncing them, ripping them apart, truly demonstrating just how outclassed they were against him. She thought back on how it took all of heaven to kick him out and it still took them an entire week to do it. And then, when hell was being formed, Lucifer had fought against the elders, and maybe eventually he would have lost but… they wouldn’t have gotten him down to hell in that short of a time frame. They had to literally throw her down first to lure him into going after her. 

Lilith had always considered Lucifer powerful, but that had never meant violent to her. Not him. He was kind, and gentle, and generous and silly, so so silly. Soft hearted even. But he wasn’t afraid to stand up for what he believed in. 

She knew that what happened yesterday had been necessary. Hell, she had even egged him on to do it. But… 

The sight of it, the absolute carnage of it all, his fury… it haunted Lilith. Eve hadn’t been able to bear to keep watching even a part of the way through, begging Paimon, Asmodeus, Beelzebub, LILITH even, begging them to make him stop. And when neither of them dared to step out in the middle of his rampage, Eve just retreated deeper into the house and requested them to tell her when it was over. There had been something deeply unhinged about the whole thing. 

Lilith hadn’t been expecting Lucifer to kill anyone. Part of her wondered if it had been a heat of the moment decision and another part of her wondered if it had been deliberate and calculated. After all, these demons might never take him seriously if they thought he could only beat them but not kill them. To be honest, Lilith wasn’t entirely sure whether the decision being impulsive was worse or if it being calculated was worse. 

When it was over, Lucifer came back in, and stood there staring at the floor, as if he himself was haunted by what he had done. His hands shook, his lip trembled, but he said nothing and did nothing. He might have stood there all night had Lilith not taken him by the hands, helped wash the blood off, and then brought him to bed. She had planned to check on Eve but he clung to Lilith. Lilith wasn’t sure how long they lay there, wrapped in each other’s embrace as she stroked his back gently until she finally drifted off into sleep. 

Lilith rolled over to face Lucifer’s side of the bed. He wasn’t there. This wasn’t a surprise. She noticed he never fell asleep at any point, always seeing his glowing eyes piercing the darkness whenever she woke to adjust her position. At some point, Lilith noticed him leave in the middle of the night. She thought he was just going out to clear his thoughts and then come back as he often did. Sometimes just talking about the nightmares wasn’t enough for him anymore. But it looked like he didn’t come back at all this time. 

She sat up, and noticed he left her a note. 

“Lilith, my love, I’ll be in the garden.”

Lilith got up from bed, and got dressed. Something had been irrevocably changed, and she wasn’t so sure it was a good thing. Making sure the demons stopped harassing them, sure, that was good she supposed, but at what cost had it come?

___

Thank you again OP!

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️😭😭😭😭😭❤️❤️❤️

My dear Lucilith fandom.

This. Is. A. Must-READ:

Prequel by Keet126 on ao3.

@keets-writing-corner wrote such an epic on how everything went down with Lucifer, heaven and eden... how hell came to be and was shaped, the sins, the Ars Goetia... how Lucifer and Lilith got together and supported each other through all that happened to them... why Lucifer lost all faith in sinners and so much more......

I just finished it and WOW. I can't describe my feelings. I have no words. THE LORE! The ABSOLUTE ADORABLE sweetness that is Lucilith in this fic.... I can't... I just can't. This might as well be canon.

Please check it out, I beg you. It's SO worth it! ;♡;

[chayscribbles]

chayscribbles’ monthly writing update ☆ october 2022

☆ STATISTICS.

words written: more than last month. that must count for something

projects worked on: Andromeda Rogue, Andromeda Rising

proudest accomplishment: hit 100k words written since the beginning of 2022 across all my wips!!!

books read: Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir; The Oleander Sword by Tasha Suri; Memoria by Kristyn Merbeth (in progress)

☆ GENERAL COMMENTS.

(i know i said i was gonna make a separate post for reading updates but then i didn't oops. if more than like, 5 people say they're interested i'll make an effort. maybe.)

(both Nona and Oleander Sword were 5 stars btw.)

writing continues to be hard (both for writing reasons and also Life reasons) but on god imma do it. i'll emerge shaking and covered in blood perhaps but imma kill this draft before it kills me.

more specific wip-related comments + featured excerpt below.

☆ COMMENTS: ANDROMEDA ROGUE (rereading)

i'm about halfway through this reread! i sort of stopped near the middle of the month as i switched back to AR3 but rereading this draft right away was actually such a good decision. it's been nearly a year and a half since i finished it so i'm constantly finding little things i'd written and forgotten about. like finding 5$ in the pocket of an old jacket.

i've been pleasantly surprised at how... not bad it is lol. obviously it's a first draft, there are plenty of things that need patching up, but while i thought i was gonna have to carve out its guts in the second draft, turns out it only needs a bit of a facelift. maybe even just a new haircut. if anything, it's motivating me to keep going.

one of the most jarring but amusing things is being reminded of how all the characters have developed since the beginning of their story. ESPECIALLY the dynamics between Finn and Petra hehe. let's say they've come a long way from being begrudging, mistrustful teammates.

☆ COMMENTS: ANDROMEDA RISING (drafting)

this is probably the worst decision of my life but i'm gonna try to finish AR3 for nano and just. clenches teeth. get it over with. lord help

at least i've figured out .... something for the rest of my outline (climax + epilogues). deciding what the gang is up to after everything was really hard and i'm still not sure i'm satisfied with it. oh well it can always be changed later! (<- repeated to myself under my breath as i rock back and forth on the floor hugging my knees to my chest)

hopefully i can take advantage of the collective writer energy of nano to blitz through it before i start doubting myself and paralyze myself with fear! head down eyes closed full speed no regrets !!!! (please give me all the encouragement, i'm gonna need it😭)

☆ FEATURED EXCERPT.

it is literally impossible to post AR3 excerpts at this point bc even if i find something that's not spoilery, it would require 3 books of context to understand, so here's some AR1 i rediscovered in my reread.

this scene is SO funny to me for some reason. for context this is Petra and Finneas within about fifteen minutes of knowing each other.

Petra placed her hands on her hips, hoping it would make her look more authoritative. “All I’m asking is for you to not insult anyone at team meetings.” “Do I have to attend team meetings?” Finneas groaned. “I’d like for you to,” Petra replied, although she was pretty sure her scowl said otherwise. “You’re part of the team.” “I don’t do teams.” “You could at least try.” “Mm, hard pass. You may have your job, but I have mine,” he said finally. “And I’m just the pilot.” With that, he whirled around and started for the exit. Petra wasn’t sure what it was, but something prompted her to call after him. “Pilot.” He paused in the doorway without looking back. “I’m not expecting you to like me,” she began. “I’m not planning on it,” he replied curtly. Petra bristled, but chose not to engage. Now was not the time for a fight. “But as long as we’re on this ship together,” she went on, “I need you to try to respect me, and I’ll do my best to respect you. Alright?” Finneas remained silent for a moment, his back still turned to her, and Petra wondered what was going on in that hard head of his, behind those cold green eyes. Finally, he said, “Whatever you say, Commander.” From his tone, Petra had little reason to believe he meant it at all.

...and we all know how THAT'S gonna turn out 😏

🦇thank you for reading and happy halloweeeen!! 🦇

☆ TAGLISTS. let me know if you want to be added/removed to either.

general taglist:

@nicola-writes @dgwriteblr @the-orangeauthorr @stormharbors @quilloftheclouds @ashen-crest @writeblrfantasy @celestepens @stardustspiral @pepperdee @extra-magichours @avi-why @lefttigerobservation @chazzawrites @bardolatrycore

andromeda trilogy taglist:

@bebewrites @nicola-writes @dgwriteblr @the-orangeauthor @stormharbors @akindofmagictoo @quilloftheclouds @nora-theteawriter @ashen-crest @corpsepng @writeblrfantasyy @toboldlywrite @celestepens @stardustspirall @pepperdee @cheerfulmelancholies @extra-magichours @writeouswriterr @cilly-the-writer @lefttigerobservation @rose-bookblood @drowsy-quill @chazzawritess @cynic-and-chief

[lichfucker]

10, 12, 25 & 30? ✨

ty rabbit!! :3

10. what’s something you’re excited for?

I WANT to say the first session of oops all dwarves: the squeakuel but I honestly think I'm more nervous than excited. I'm not even really nervous that y'all won't have fun bc I know you will, I'm more nervous that I won't be able to handle it. I dunno. I guess the news abt my movie being released is pretty exciting

oh, you know what I'm excited about? I'm excited abt the chat jd and I had about teague last night. in a beautiful moment of samebrain e pitched something I'd been thinking about for months but hadn't mentioned yet bc this campaign is like three human years away from starting lmao. but that's something I'm excited about. everything else in my life is so nebulous and abstract and theoretical. I don't have a ton that's concrete to hold onto

my dad and his partner are going to argentina for a week in april so I'm looking forward to having the house to myself. I'm looking forward to making a lot of music

12. how are you?

restless and insecure lmao. I pushed really hard to finish cotton and then I fully crashed and I feel like all I've done in the last few days is look at all my other unfinished projects and wonder why they're not done and what if they're cringey what if they're mediocre (why does meh feel so much worse than bad) what if I never get out of this rut

25. what’s the best personal gift someone could give you (playlist, homemade card, etc.)

I mean. when I get a card or a letter wherein people have said nice things about me I literally put it up on my bulletin board so I can look at it forever. so yeah probably that. I dunno. anything. anything unexpected. something someone made for me for no reason or something they stumbled across that made them think of me so they just. wanted to share it. any little reminder that I am known and I am seen

I don't listen to it often because my brain is very particular w/r/t how it consumes music but I have that playlist you made for me bookmarked. I mean I also have the cirrus/twins playlists bookmarked but the day you messaged me out of nowhere to say "hey I made a playlist of songs that remind me of you" I fucking sobbed

30. what reminds you of home (doesn’t have to mean house… just things that remind you of the feeling of home)?

the ocean. sage green and mustard yellow. crabs. red doors. anything that reminds me of my mom. the soundtrack to grosse point blank (1997). blondies. this must be the place (naive melody) by talking heads