#nebula's fics

[neon-sunsets]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 2/? Fandom: Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021), League of Legends Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Jayce/Viktor (League of Legends) Characters: Viktor (League of Legends), Jayce (League of Legends), Mel Medarda, Sky (Arcane: League of Legends), Maddie Nolen, Caitlyn (League of Legends), Vi (League of Legends) Additional Tags: Epistolary, Newspapers, Cancer, Author is disabled, the inherent inspiration-pornification of piltovan newspapers, viktor's deeply internalized ableism Summary:

Stepping on Tacks How the Pioneers of Hextech Battled Cancer and an Impending Energy Crisis by Maddie Nolen

The article — this issue's feature story — starts with a full-page portrait of Jayce and Viktor, a black-and-white thing shot in some Piltover studio six months into Viktor's remission. He’s sitting on a clean, white armchair, the kind that makes his back hurt, and Jayce is leaning on the side of it. It makes him look older than he is. Jayce, as usual, looks like he’s still twenty-five.

Viktor had agreed to it mostly because the publicity would bring them more funding. Looking at it now, though, the whole thing leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

for a few months now I’ve been working on this fic which is deeply important and personal to me. if you like arcane/viktor/jayvik, check it out :)

[neon-sunsets]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: 逆転裁判 | Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Kidzuki Kokone | Athena Cykes/Morizumi Shinobu | Juniper Woods, Kidzuki Kokone | Athena Cykes & Yuugami Jin | Simon Blackquill Characters: Kidzuki Kokone | Athena Cykes, Morizumi Shinobu | Juniper Woods, Yuugami Jin | Simon Blackquill Additional Tags: Zine: Lawfully Wedded - An Ace Attorney Wedding Zine, Weddings, childhood friends to lovers: wedding edition, play-acting weddings and then actually getting married, juniper is jewish because I said so Summary:

She waits in the kitchen while Juniper goes to find her grandma, swinging her arms back and forth.

If she had to get married, Athena thinks, it would be to Juniper.

(Juniper always wanted to get married in a garden. Athena is just happy to be there.)

hi all! this was my fic for @aaweddingzine which turned out wonderfully and has so many amazing people! go check out everyone’s pieces!

[neon-sunsets]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: 逆転裁判 | Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Kidzuki Kokone | Athena Cykes & Yuugami Jin | Simon Blackquill, Yuugami Jin | Simon Blackquill & Yuugami Kaguya | Aura Blackquill Characters: Kidzuki Kokone | Athena Cykes, Yuugami Jin | Simon Blackquill, Monita | Widget, Mentions of - Character, Morizumi Shinobu | Juniper Woods, Yuugami Kaguya | Aura Blackquill Additional Tags: House Hunting, or rather apartment hunting, Where I Can Follow: An Ace Attorney Siblings Zine, thinly disguised condemnation of the japanifornia housing market, silly competitions, simon blackquill's thinly veiled sentimentality, oh and of course finally having important conversations Summary:

After a few weeks of staying at Athena’s, Simon decides he needs to look for an apartment, and Athena's determined to find him the perfect place. But each apartment they visit reminds them of conversations they haven’t had and things they haven’t been able to forget.

hey y’all!! wrote something neat for @aasiblingszine and it was a lot of fun!! go check it out :)

[neon-sunsets]

i am Thinking about prosecutors in ace attorney.

like. you uphold the law and you are the law and maybe you wanted to change that and maybe you just wanted to change you but now you are a figurehead on the courthouse fresco. there is a knife at your throat and a gun in your mouth and nobody can see them and sometimes you don’t even know that they’re there, and maybe you want the truth but other people don’t and they will use you to their own ends and you just wanted to help, just wanted to do the right thing, but you cannot leave this cycle once you’ve entered it and you are an ouroboros and they are an icarus and both of you are destined to die and nothing will change not the blades nor the blood nor the bullets

and maybe this pain is universal maybe power will always corrupt maybe you were just a pawn or a bullet in a gun maybe you gave it all up and got nothing in return maybe you were part of the problem and realized and killed/broke/died for it maybe you ran from it. maybe your father laid this path for you maybe you took it because you loved your sister or wanted to make your brother proud maybe you were desperate and haunted maybe we are all desperate and haunted maybe everything is just ghosts and we are all that remains

and maybe you were good. and now the courthouse is rubble and you are just there

[neon-sunsets]

happy aurametis week everyone!! here is my entry for day 2, robots!!! this will also be uploaded to my ao3 shortly. 

[ID: five images of text on a white background. The first four images are standard 8.5 by 11 paper size, and the fifth is cut like a notecard. The body of the text is done in a typewriter style font, and features notes from Aura Blackquill in purple print and Metis Cykes in dark yellow script. Various parts of the text are highlighted. The text reads as follows:

Robots with a Heart

Gyaxa Robotics Program Level 2 Classified Dr. Metis Cykes and Dr. Aura Blackquill

DRAFT W/NOTES — NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION

The Psychological Observation and Navigation Companion series of robots, or PONCO series, is designed to provide assistance, companionship, and other programmable setting-specific tasks to the humans it works with. This guide details the two PONCO units at the GYAXA Space Center, Subject #1 and Subject #2, (Aura: They need names. Metis: Athena calls them Ponco and Clonco.) and provides an easy to use reference for potential future PONCO units.

Specs: PONCO units have an oval-shaped head with an LCD touchscreen. The original PONCO unit has two antennae. Subject #2 does not have these antennae, as they became obsolete (Metis: No, YOU got tired of them poking you during maintenance) with further improvements to the design. PONCO’s torso is an isosceles trapezoid (Aura: Simon called it a vacuum cleaner yesterday) containing its (Metis: their) primary motor drivers and CPU core, as well as its Internet connection module and signal module for communicating with other PONCO units. PONCO units have two partially articulated grasping hands. Each finger can extend to a fully straight position, and the hand rotates on a 360 degree ball joint. PONCO units move via two fully jointed legs which are heavy enough to maintain its upright stature. Each PONCO unit measures 115 cm in height, which has proved favorable to focus groups of all ages. Children (Aura: Source? We can’t use Athena) view PONCO units as non-threatening, while adults perceive them as helpful without being authoritarian. PONCO units are equipped with facial recognition software, ID scanning capabilities, and vitals detectors. If emergency vitals are detected, (Metis: There has to be a better way to word this.) PONCO can call emergency services and project its location using its built-in GPS system. PONCO can also respond to user searches using its Internet access capabilities and display the results on its facial screen. We expect to be able to develop more functions (Aura: Like getting us more grant funding? Metis: I don’t think we can get them to do that) for PONCO’s operating system with further field testing.

Operating System: The PONCO operating system is programmed for several basic functions as well as a myriad of more complex ones.

Basic functions: PONCO can search the internet, ask and answer basic questions, provide directions, connect to and coordinate with other PONCO units, display maps, pick up and distribute items, (Aura: Should this go in the specs section?) call for help, call emergency services, display the weather, and monitor a person’s vitals, among other functions.

Communication: PONCO units can communicate with humans using the largest compiled dictionary of spoken and written languages, as well as facilitate translation (Aura: Google translate can suck it) between two human speakers. PONCO can also display all known sign languages on its screen, as well as provide subtitles on its screen when speaking. PONCO’s advanced AI allows it to predict conversational paths and learn favored topics for registered users. PONCO can provide suggestions or answers to questions, lead pre-programmed and fully autonomous tours, and teach lessons for both children and adults.

Companionship: Through communication and the facilitation of activities, PONCO units provide positive companionship to the people they interact with. A survey of GYAXA staff (Aura: As per usual Yuri Cosmos was the outlier) reported that 89% of staff felt happy to see PONCO units around the Space Center, and 63% stopped to speak with PONCO units whenever possible. A survey of Space Center visitors reported that 78% of visitors (Aura: Did we count Simon in this? Metis: Not unless he dressed up as someone else) saw or interacted with a PONCO unit during their time at the Space Center, and 84% of visitors who interacted with a PONCO unit enjoyed the interaction.

Assistance: The GYAXA PONCO units regularly assist GYAXA staff and visitors, with notable tasks including leading tours, aiding lost visitors, moving lab equipment, conversing with scientists, and playing with Dr. Cykes’ daughter, (Metis: Is this really necessary to add? Aura: Well we ARE trying to prove they can feel stuff) as well as other children who visit the GYAXA Space Center.

Emotions: Through their highly advanced AI, PONCO units can feel emotions. While there is no way to quantifiably compare them to human emotions, the GYAXA PONCO units have been observed to respond with happiness, sadness, fear, anger, frustration, anticipation, and confusion. A particularly notable example is how, when a PONCO unit observes a recognized person to be physically injured, it will express behavior consistent with sadness and display its “sad” face. PONCO units are programmed to display 10 different emotion faces.

Operating Instructions: Upon initial activation, PONCO units are programmed to lead their guardians through set-up, which includes wi-fi connection, customization, and a calibration check. If PONCO units are distributed beyond our care, a larger operation manual will be created. (Metis: We should specify more here about set-up time and steps.)

Metis: To-do: Write summary of functions Expand Operating Instructions guide Aura: Add section on future prototypes and goals for the PONCO project? Metis: Do you have more prototypes? Aura: Yeah lol

PERSONAL NOTES OF DR. AURA BLACKQUILL

How ironic that robots designed to feel cannot bring their creator — co-creator, I shouldn’t give myself all of the credit — to confess her own?

Everything Metis does, everything she creates — it is all borne of her love. And what has mine brought me? A brother I don’t know how to talk to, a child who feels like my own though I have no claim to the term, and a lab partner whose emotions are as opaque to me as my own are overpowering.

All I can give her is what I can make — so I’ll keep making.

I think I’ll call the next prototype Athena.

/End ID]

(tagging @aurametisweek for visibility)

[neon-sunsets]

some thoughts about rayfa - major spoilers for spirit of justice

you are born and you are brought up for one purpose. you knew love, unconditional, but you cannot remember it at all and so you go on with it because you are young and you don’t know anything else; your father loves you something close to partially conditional and your mother loves you as long as you play your part but it’s fine because you’re good, you’re a perfect child, and from a young age you can do as you’re told. you watch the innocent die on repeat because it is how you serve your country; everyone has a role, your mother says, and this is yours; and you watch kids your age playing in the streets of the bazaar and know that you are missing something that you have never had and will never know, but some people are just meant for different things than playing and so you go to bed with ghosts in the wings of your chambers and you pretend that you do not see them. khura’in is a haunted place, your father said once, and so the ghosts fade to the background with the prayer flags and the rites and the flames

when you are eight or so your mother brings you to a trial where the prosecutor is unfamiliar to you and somehow very known. you think perhaps that he is one of your ghosts reincarnated and brush off the fact that he seems too old for that. his eyes, emerald and piercing, reflect your own, but he is — afraid, no, that can’t be right, he reminds you of the murals on the palace walls and they are never afraid, always serene — and then his face is marble, and the trial continues. 

you see him more often, after that. once you think you hear your mother speaking with him in a hallway, think you see her clamp her hand around his arm — but you have always seen ghosts and you think perhaps you always will, so you keep walking

you grow and you grow and you find that as you do there are fewer and fewer challenges to your word. your mother tells you that you speak the truth, that your are a voice for the Holy Mother and for the state, that you must stand as tall as you can for the leader you will someday be, for the line of queens whose blood you bear. you become gold and the people love you. you are barely a girl, not at all a woman, and yet you have power like a child with dolls. nayna, ever-faithful, tries to impart wisdom that you will not remember until you have already made the mistake. sometimes you steal away to feel the chill of mountain wind on your face and know not why you do it, sometimes you visit graves just to see the people who lurk in the corners. the ghosts are everywhere, always, and you feel comfort in the chill of their goodnight wishes instead of the fear you once did

and then you are fourteen, still seeing ghosts, and a foreign man shows up in your courtroom. it is the first time someone challenges an insight that came from your vocal cords instead of your mother’s, and you flush and sputter because you cannot remember the last time someone other than your mother told you that were wrong

for the first time since before you were born, the state loses a trial

and you were wrong. you did not speak the truth. the ghosts don’t trust you anymore — they follow you more closely, keep a more watchful eye, add to the gazes resting on you as you shake under your mother’s judgement

and he does it again, and you are wrong again, and you watch him take down prosecutor sahdmadhi, someone you know to be godlike and untouchable, with a truth your mother privately condemns as the inner workings of an unclean mind

except. except you, you thought it made sense —

and then your father, dead, the master of a coup,

and your mother — no, aunt — who loved the fire more than you,

and the devil, your real father who died for you and your state-traitor brother, from whose arms your mother-aunt drew blood, took a gun to his back for you 

and nayna — no, amara, your mother — 

and perhaps it is not that the ghosts don’t trust you anymore but in fact that they knew from the beginning, that they only felt closeness was possible at the first spark of deviance from your mother’s spider-silk grip. perhaps the truth is only a knife in the wrong hands, perhaps your duty is not found in absolution but instead in conversation

but at the end of it all you are still a fourteen year old girl with the blood of the people on your hands

even for you, your mother’s emblem of all that was holy and good — even for you, that is a heavy burden to bear

[neon-sunsets]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Major Character Death Relationships: Jayce/Viktor (League of Legends), Jayce (League of Legends) & Mel Medarda Characters: Jayce (League of Legends), Viktor (League of Legends), Mel Medarda, Heimerdinger (League of Legends), Sky (Arcane: League of Legends), Caitlyn (League of Legends), mentioned - Character, Singed (League of Legends) Additional Tags: Letters, Not Actually Unrequited Love, past Jayce (League of Legends)/Mel Medarda - Freeform, Post-Canon, not me projecting onto viktor ..., Angst, with a happy ending if i expand it Summary:

Jayce goes through a dead man's things.

hello folks i interrupt your regularly scheduled special interest lawyerposting to bring you mine and half of the internet’s newest hyperfixation. why is it always the weird pining men

[neon-sunsets]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: 逆転裁判 | Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Kidzuki Kokone | Athena Cykes/Morizumi Shinobu | Juniper Woods Characters: Kidzuki Kokone | Athena Cykes, Morizumi Shinobu | Juniper Woods, Mentioned - - Character, Kidzuki Mari | Metis Cykes, Yuugami Kaguya | Aura Blackquill, Yuugami Jin | Simon Blackquill, Original Female Character(s), aka athena's unnamed "family in europe" Additional Tags: Epistolary, unsent emails: the sixth love language, Canon Compliant, For the most part, UR-1 (Gyakuten Saiban), Childhood Friends to Lovers, Pen Pals, oranges as a metaphor for love, Autistic Athena Cykes, she just is, i'm autistic and i said so Series: Part 1 of everything's growing in our garden Summary:

Sometimes the things you don't say are more telling than the things you do.

Or: Selected correspondence between one Athena Cykes and Juniper Woods.

Hello Folks It Is I Back Again

today, i bring you a junithena epistolary fic that took a shit ton of html. tomorrow? nothing. next friday? probably the next update