Also omg ur art is so insanely good and you're just super cool, like I genuinely aspire to be as good as you, you're just that awesome ^^
you are so insanely sweet, thanks ToT
and ofc, have crossfangs (i have a lot of crossfangs requests so using this opportunity to draw some)
ok i know it's just Scott's hand for that one but HE'S THERE
others that also requested crossfangs: @charlescoded, @silly-goober-cuzimsad, @notanartificialintelligence, @dumarasblog
i accidentally deleted the first persons ask before i noted down their name I'M SO SORRY ToT
I think what’s really fun about the secret third thing crossfangs dynamic I’ve been writing is that they’re both just dealing with this weird bug that they’ve found
like for Scott, Abolish is this fascinating exotic bug that he keeps poking to see what it's gonna do, and maybe it's got a really nasty looking stinger that is *definitely* gonna hurt if it gets him, that's kinda part of the fun though
and then for Abolish, Scott is an annoying insect that keeps buzzing around him, but he acknowledges that it's an important part of the local ecosystem so he can't do anything about it unless it becomes actively harmful (and maybe he thinks bugs are cool. and maybe he's interested in seeing more of this bug and it's weird existence. but that's irrelevant).
anyway I'm glad people are enjoying the vibe, there's gonna be more because I've already got at least one request for more of it which I am *very* happy about
A\N: I don't know what they're feeding @areafae but I can't seem to stop thinking about their stuff. A small piece to take my mind off writing my main fics, because I've been putting a lot of unnecessary expectations on myself. based on their and averagerat's 90' goth abolish!
Scott looked around, taking in the scene. Of course the one time he’d humoured Shelby in going out with them, they’d dragged him to a goth night. It’s not that he had anything against their way of dressing, really, Shelby herself adored the subculture, but it felt a little too on the nose. Borrowing so much imagery from vampirism would’ve been a nice homage if they also didn’t insist on slapping crosses and silver on every single piece of clothing they owned.
Crosses didn’t affect him, of course, unless they were that of a church or specifically blessed by a priest. But it was a matter of principle, at that point. It felt a little bit like a hate crime.
He just let Shelby have her fun while pretending to have alcohol. He thought goth spaces would’ve been friendly to vampires, but this one didn’t have any accommodations, not even a secret ‘on the house’ special that looked suspiciously like blood. The closest they had was a bloody mary. Vodka was indistinguishable from water anyway.
Someone did catch his eye, after a while of looking around. Put up in the bird’s nest of a hairstyle these people appreciated so was a head of starkly white hair. Hair that felt, and Scott would know, far too white to be dyed, even under the dim club lights. And only half a head, too, which was the most intriguing part; the other half of the person’s hair was jet black. Nothing typical for a vampire.
The man— they seemed like a man, given the lack of breasts peeking from their very transparent mesh shirt — was leaning at the other side of the bar Scott stood at, watching the dance floor much like Scott himself had been doing moments ago.
His face was oddly familiar; Scott couldn’t quite place where he’d seen that man before. Another bar, maybe. A one night stand that had ended up blending with all of the other ones.
Scott was curious, though. White hair like that wasn’t a given, not when the face attached to it was barely out of the twenties, not with a texture that allowed it to be put up in such an extreme style. He was wondering how he’d managed to dye that other half so black when nothing had stuck to Scott’s hair for almost a millennia now.
Shimmying closer to that end of the bar, Scott wouldn’t help but appreciate the looks of the man who’d so instantly piqued his curiosity. His hair wasn’t just put up, but the sides were shaved as well, accentuating the vertical shape. Over the black mesh shirt he was wearing a leather jacket, cropped at the waist and appropriately covered in silver-looking chains. Not to forget the makeup, thick liner around the eyes creating a jagged, sharp shape and black lipstick shaping a face that was hard to look away from.
Thick leather platform boots and black pants completed the look, accompanied with, as expected, an inordinate amount of silver jewelry. The most notable of which were a thick silver cross hanging around his neck and an identical one dangling from his ear, both mounted in the center with a heavy red gem. These brought a much clearer image than a vague feeling of déjà-vu: a hunter clad in a pristine black suit, a silver cross set with a red gem hanging from his ear.
The similarity ended at the jewelry, though. Scott couldn’t imagine a world in which this was Abolish Veylocke.
The whole created something surprisingly pleasant to look at, despite Scott’s reservations about this style of clothing. All the more reason to go figure out what the deal was, Scott supposed.
The place was packed; it took him a horrifically long time to get to where he wanted to be without losing any part of himself. In that time, the man had taken notice of his approach and was staring straight at Scott the next time the vampire looked up from trying not to step on someone’s feet or dress or floor-dragging coat.
In the dim lighting of the bar, the man’s eyes almost looked red, tinted a beautiful shade of burgundy by the ambiance.
“Fancy seeing you here,” the man drawled, looking Scott up and down before taking a sip out of his drink. “I’d have expected you’d dress up for the occasion, at least.”
It took Scott a second to reply, frozen solid by the familiar voice wrapped in such a condescending tone. “I didn’t choose to be here,” he answered, as if that justified anything.
This couldn’t — there was no world. Despite the face, and the voice, and the earrings, there was no way in hell Scott was to believe the person in front of him was Abolish.
And yet — “Thought you’d at least want to show Shelby up.”
It could still be understood. Abolish couldn’t be alive. He’d been turned and cured; there was no way he was standing here before Scott, the immortality of vampirism forever denied to him. Maybe he was just a look-alike who’d met Shelby previously, since they so clearly hung out in the same spaces. But denial wasn’t a good look on him, so he just went with it, hoping to get to the truth somehow.
“I find this whole thing rather offensive,” he said, instead of the much more pressing question: ‘How are you alive?’
Abolish chuckled. Scott had never seen him so expressive, the shifting expressions on his face giving this exchange an uncanny feeling. This couldn’t be Abolish. Abolish wouldn’t chuckle; he’d roll his eyes — at best — and move on promptly.
“Hardly anything silvery is actually silver these days,” he replied. “Though I thought you’d find it flattering, so many people trying to imitate you.”
Scott doubted the chains on Abolish’s jacket were anything but silver. He also had a feeling there was a stake or two hidden underneath it, just in case.
“Cheap imitations at best,” he complained. “There’s no flattery in caricature.”
Abolish hummed, turning his eyes back to the crowd. The place was so densely packed it took Scott several seconds of searching to find Shelby’s mane of curly white hair.
Abolish looked good was the problem. Scott felt his eye constantly wanting to come back to the man not out of curiosity, though that did play a part in it, but out of pure aesthetic attraction. This style, as obnoxious as Scott deemed it, suited his laid-back demeanor excessively well.
Scott had never had a problem getting what he wanted when working with people he deemed attractive. This, however, he knew to be a brick wall, a battle lost before it was even started. The thought was frustrating, though. That a hundred or so years were all it took for the one person who posed a real threat to his life to become attractive.
He had absolutely nothing to lose trying, though. Not if he was subtle about it.
“So, do you come here often?” he asked, marking out the flicker of a smile Abolish gave in response. “Is there a big bad vampire lurking in here in need of taking down?”
“Other than you, I wouldn’t know,” Abolish replied. “I’m off duty right now. Have been for a while.”
“How come?” Now that was interesting.
“Too recognizable.”
Scott dragged his eyes over Abolish, letting them snag on every other outlandish clothing choice, up to the heavy makeup on his lips and eyes. Abolish didn’t shy away from the examination. He remained exactly as he was, watching Scott appraise him without a care in the world. The makeup and dim ambiance gave a dark look to his eyes Scott knew was just a trick of the light.
“Yeah, I wonder why,” Scott quipped, once his examination was thoroughly finished.
“Undyeable hair makes it kind of hard to hide,” Abolish explained. “You’d think I’d dress like this if I didn’t want to be noticed?”
“Extravagance looks good on you,” Scott answered, getting an eye roll in return.
“I know,” Abolish said, downing the last of his drink. “Anything looks good on me.” He pushed off the bar, chains jingling as he fixed his askew jacket. “It’s been fun. I hope for your sake we don’t meet again.”
Scott watched him leave almost in a trance, dumbfounded by the reply. The platform boots gave a hypnotizing sway to his walk, more a stomp than the soft, careful steps he’d come to expect from the man. Then again, there were a lot of expectations that had just been flipped on their head tonight.
Shelby joined him mere seconds after, nearly making Scott jump out of his skin when she spoke.
“Who was that?” she asked. And then, noticing Scott’s snapping out of a daze, added “I’m sorry for sneaking up on you. I didn’t want to interrupt anything.”
“Nobody,” Scott replied, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. “Wasn’t interested.”
“Shame,” Shelby added, looking off in the same direction as Scott, watching Abolish settle his tab. “He looks really good.”
“I know,” Scott sighed. It wasn’t wistful, exactly, but something within him did wonder if Abolish was as unattainable as he first thought the man would be. That last comment had been… something.
“Do you want to go?” Shelby asked, watching Abolish — with no clue it was actually him — finally leave.
“Stay as long as you want,” Scott answered. Here or at home, he’d need a lot of time to think.
“Okay!” Shelby said, already three steps towards the dance floor again.
Abolish was alive. He’d found a loophole, somehow, to circumvent the limitations of the cure’s effect.
But he wasn’t a vampire, was he? No vampire ever had their hair split colour like that, not even when they were at intermediate stages of power. And the colour of his eyes; it may not have been a trick of the light, but they hadn’t been as red as they should’ve been, brown still staining their colour. And he hadn’t spoken enough — or smiled wide enough — for Scott to see whether he had fangs or simply pointed canines.
It truly was a mystery; Scott didn’t like mysteries. He knew as soon as Abolish had left that this was going to find itself a place in his mind and refuse to let him rest until he knew exactly how Abolish had achieved this madness, and why.
Gah, there are so many branch points in my conversation with @badalloc that I'm going to start with a separate post on all the stuff that wasn't specifically about defending or analyzing Aviscott 😅.
I for reals have no idea how conversations like this are supposed to work on tumblr, and there's only so much sharing back-and-forth I want to do with the same post. It feels like it turns into that email chain where everyone quotes everything that came before, and eventually you can't find where the new content is.
So. We started here.
"I understand what Scott’s characters might mean to you. So why focus on his interactions with v!Avid? Why not one of v!Scott’s other ships, like Majorscythe or Crossfangs or even Bloodloathing?"
My tastes in fanfic tend to cleave close to canon, but I'm for-reals not an Aviscott truther. I like good stories. I'd say that, as opposed to being devoted to Aviscott, I've in general been prejudiced against Bloodletting.
I just WRITE Aviscott. And I do find it compelling. But I didn't mean to give the impression that it's all that interests me.
Regarding various character combinations, romantic or platonic, in VSMP, particularly featuring Smajor:
Bloodloathing as a completely-unshipped archenemy relationship may be my favorite relationship in the entire story. (It might have a different name if it's not a ship. There are so many relationship names in this fandom. 😅) We talk about duos and we talk about ships. But what about a relationship where the characters are total opposites and hate each other in this incredibly deep and powerful way that encapsulates all the themes of a complex and morally gray story? And there's no toxic erotic connotation to it at all? Oh yeah, that's these guys. They are made to tear each other apart, and I love it. That's all canon. I don't know if anyone actually writes fic like that or if I'd enjoy it if they tried. I think it's really hard to beat canon. I just drink up all their interactions in the story, and the way it ended for them felt perfect.
(I love that, in canon, Scott actually comes on to Legs, and Legs just cuts him off with, "Business before pleasure." Maybe that's really when the epic archenemy status was achieved -- Legs was canonically gay and still totally disgusted by Scott.)
My fic does have an antagonist, though the focus isn't as intense as Scott is in Reversal. But it's totally Doc. Doc destroys himself even more than in canon. I did it to him, but my heart still bleeds for him.
I haven't looked at all for Bloodloathing as a ship. Like, that's just flat-out unadulterated hate-attraction, not even toxic manipulation, and that's not my bag. I'm always game for a good story, but I haven't tried looking for it there.
I am crazy about Legundo solo. In fact, I'd say that the creator I discovered in VSMP was cc!Legundo. I've poked at some v!Legundo rarepair ships, since that's pretty much everything but Bloodletting or poly stuff involving Saint Louis. But so far, my favorite Legs fic has been Bloodline, which confused me because it has nothing to do with the other Bloodlines fic about Abolish that is currently popular. I'm interested in that too but haven't looked at it.
Majorscythe is super toxic, and I don't think it can be fixed to be something healthy in canon. I'm curious if anyone has any fic recommendations for something that cleaves close to canon and fixes these guys. I can't see it.
That said, one of my favorite ongoing fics is Castle of Forgotten Things, the out-of-character Majorscythe my soul needs. It fixes this ship by giving Scott his reform moment long before the story begins, but without making him saccharine. And then the two of them have a beautiful story with an interesting plot together. My kid and I call this "Nice Scott" for shorthand, and we drop everything to read when it updates.
Thirdly, I'm very into Pyro as a character, but I think a canon-cleaving story about him is best told without a romance. This dude is an epic mess even compared to a lot of other epic messes in this story. He does not need romance. He needs a hug. I really think that Pyro-Shelby is at least as important as Pyro-Scott in VSMP. Shelby was the only character Pyro tried to reach out to with his terror, and she let it go over her head because of her own issues. Shubble said this too.
(I guess this is a spoiler if anyone's reading it, but I do actually take a stab at fixing a platonic Majorscythe in my fic. It's a slow burn, and a lot of it happens off-stage as it were because Pyro's another character who really should be the main in a story about saving him. I have a whole essay in my head about what went down between these two and some of the things I think other fans overlook. But the core of my take is that if they both survived and even wanted to repair things, it couldn't really happen at Oakhurst. Pyro had to get away, heal, and get a handle on who he wanted to be first. It's not clear that cc!Pyroscythe gave him the tools to do that, and indeed Pyroscythe has said that if v!Pyro got out of Oakhurst in the finale, he'd head home and start a massacre. Like v!Owen, I don't think the creator had much option for a healing ending in mind, so a fix-it ficcer has to bend things.)
Crossfangs: I passionately believe this ship should be called Lockesmith, and it pains me that the ship, as it were, has sailed. Why did this name not happen? Anyway, I dabble in it. I haven't done an exhaustive search to see what might be on AO3. I would love to see a good canon-compliant post-canon story where Scott and Abolish get together after Oakhurst. Another favorite out-of-character series of mine is Hollow Hearts. Hasn't updated in quite a while. I hope it hasn't been abandoned because it is truly amazing.
That said, all AbolishRegret's characters are canonically straight. And while I don't in general feel compelled to defend the straightness of straight characters, POW is so queer-biased that I do feel a little like he ought to just be allowed to be straight. Considering the state of VSMP, that almost cuts him off from romantic options entirely. But I absolutely love Scott-Abolish as a platonic duo when I can find it. I think it like them as a duo better than I like them as a ship. Scott's fabulousness and Abolish's doneness-with-his-shit is just delightful when done well.
They were so much fun in Goldsmith, Scott Goldsmith (which realized my headcanon of a not-so-domesticated NYC Goldsmith doing contract work from Abolish Inc). And The Unfortunate Passing of Centuries is really a Scott-Abolish duo story masquerading as a rescue Avid fic, and they're just brilliant. Areafae then took the AU poly and turned them into a ship, and while it's still well-written, I'm struggling with the fact that I liked them so much better as a platonic pair.
Quote from Unfortunate Passing of Centuries: "Only Abolish could tell Scott to fuck off with just his eyes while actively dying." 💖💖💖
I also can't get enough Scott-Shelby in canon, though I haven't seen a lot of fics or fan analysis that focus on them. I asked my Tumblr VSMP fan group, and they said that the universal Scott&Shelby duo name is Fruit Tea. (cute! like them together!) There doesn't seem to be one like Brick Duo specific to VSMP. Someone suggested Bloodfruit, and I am SO THERE.
And Scott-Shelby-Drift post-canon is a really big deal to me. I am really into the nitty-gritty of a reforming monster. That's core to what I find compelling about Aviscott. If the trio has a name, I think of them as just New Coven.
I also want to point out that I was not looking to ship Scott Goldsmith with anyone when I watched VSMP, and I wasn't looking for him to have a reform arc. I think Goldsmith was a brilliant villain who made sense, and I really, really like villains who make sense. The whole sequence around Apo's turning still gives me the chills. I would have been fine with him being a purely evil exploiter-manipulator, though the fact that PvP-wise he's almost impossible to kill makes his presence in the story as the big bad problematic for good resolutions 😁. (Actually, I have a whole bunch of things in my head about this and improv and the fact that we're coded for all impossibly tough villains to have a secret exploitable weakness so we can be sure they can be killed in the end. The chance of Scott getting out was always significantly above 50%. The reform arc gave lots of folks an emotional out.)
Things I'm not much into:
Torture. I'm interested in characters going through the horrors as part of character development, but I'm not in it for the torture. (I gotta say that Reversal is just filled with comments delighting in the torture just for the fun of torture, and that's just not my thing.)
Toxicity. I'm interested in toxic relationships figuring out how not to be toxic, but I'm not in it for toxic as an end state. Thus my general lack of interest in Majorscythe.
Poly. I'm totally interested in a poly story that actually tries to be poly, but I haven't found one yet. I've been monogamous for a long time, but there's poly in my past, and I have several old friends who are, and poly is HARD. It is so much harder than making monogamy work. All the poly I see is the kind where folks just want to cram all the ships they like into one story/AU, and everyone is happy and nobody has conflicting needs.
Ambiguous romantic-platonic or queerplatonic. Sorry, that's hitting you where you live, @badalloc. You've said that's the kind of story you prefer 😅. Totally not meant as a value judgement, and I'm perfectly happy with stories that go this way if they are good stories. I just personally lean toward relationships that go all-in one or the other. Platonic? Yes please! We don't have enough powerful platonic relationships in fandoms. But a platonic relationship, even deep platonic devotion, is a different beast than romantic ambiguity. If there's romantic ambiguity, my choice is for that to be explored and figured out by the characters.
