#this only scratches the fucking surface of me biting rocks about this stupid fucking character

[dailyoyo]

hi again dailyoyo (mostly directed at mod noname) i have 2 question

1) would you ever be up to making a jsr/yoyo tidbits blog or post someday? you find a lot of 'hidden' jsr stuff and i think a masterpost to links and images or something if you're up to it would be really nice

2) WHERE the fuck does yoyo come from like what do you think whats your general consensus. does he have a family. is he not an earthling. why is he here??? is he homeless??? does he avtually have a lovintg family and became a gang member for shits and giggles??? why???

if i made a second blog it would die probably. also i wouldnt really say i find "hidden" jsr stuff per se, almost everything i know about is either just from the games or other sources linked/mentioned on the wiki! i don't Find this shit i just overthink it and peel it apart with my teethhhhh. @dedtoot would probably be a better person to ask abt niche jsr oddities i think esp cuz iirc they own the wiki? IDK WHAT ELSE TO REC SORRY

oh god this is gonna get long i think. you opened the fucking can of worms YOU HAVE NO IDEA ok so there's two things about this. the first is that like. i tend to think of pretty much All the ggs (excluding roboy on account of hes a straight up robot) as like. Just Guys. just mundane homeless outcast or runaway kids who are doing whatever the fuck. iirc in Paradox we hc'd Soda (and maybe Boogie i dont remember?) as having homes and jobs but barely being able to keep up with them, and Cube and Combo and Coin HAD a shared apartment deal but Coin's dead and Cube and Combo are in japan now, and i think we said Mew has a home and family that's just REALLY hands-off, but like aside from that they all kind of just Live at the garage. the second thing is that me and pseud keep backstory headcanoning to a low level, because whatever like. You don't end up as a homeless street teenager for fun reasons. in our interps like despite the more fantastical elements of the setting, these are all traumatized youth who ran from stark, brutal, mundane problems that we don't especially prefer to puzzle out and examine too much in this particular fandom. (paradox!Beat gets more backstory than everyone else because of plot relevance (beig gouji's kid) though. rip lmao) this even extends to an in-universe extent of the ggs kind of being like. "We dont ask each other about our backstories. If someone wants to volunteer that information they can but otherwise IT IS NOT OUR BUSINESS" which brings us to our headcanons about yoyo. paradox!yoyo on top of whats been said prior is also an intentionally "mysterious" individual. he's also fucked up in the head in ways that are genuinely concerning. he treats the idea of him having a past as a joke - he will make shit up, he will feed you 20 different fake backstories. sometimes they'll be obvious jokes, sometimes he'll say something really horrible to make you feel sorry. and if you mention something ACTUALLY from his past, he will either deny that ever happened or say you're thinking of someone else entirely. there are a few things we HAVE overtly established about paradox!yoyo's life before the GGs: - he's probably been in tokyo-to his whole life. he's been around most of the city (often scamming people lmao) - he has been homeless since he was 12, though we do not know WHY - he is transgender, but he may not have called himself that until the GGs, and we do not know WHEN he started presenting as male or why. - "yoyo" is just one in a LONG line of pseudonyms and false identities he has made up for the sake of convenience. he refuses to claim any of these past names as having been him and has even figured he'll just stop being "yoyo" and be someone else if things don't work out with the ggs. - he's dissociative as shit so HE might not even remember his backstory so like. we don't know where yoyo came from in our hcs. we don't know what his life was. that said? it was probably very bad. a happy and healthy childhood does not turn you into someone who believes they're a hollow shell playing pretend at personhood in a neverending social game of chess that you can only win by cheating. At the age of 16. SORRY IF YOU WERE HOPING FOR SOMETHING GOOFY BTW . i feel this blog really does not let on that me and pseud's idea of fun is doing straight up paranoia agent shit to joke characters. We dont got that #vreepypasta tag for nothing

[dingletragedy]

3, 12, 14

hey anon!!! thank you for the questions

3. favourite line/scene you wrote this year

i was really happy with the little winter scenes i did in my emmerdale big bang, particularly this scene:

Winter is road—trips to the next town over, miles of untouched land and a bench on top of a hill. It’s red skies, pink skies, skies of purple and orange, streaks pulling together, sun sinking like molasses on the edge of the muggy horizon, a flask between them, hands in each others pockets. It’s fossil hunting and stone skimming. Secrets rippling like the water below.

“I want to take you somewhere,” Robert announces as they step into his car in sync.

“Where?” Aaron murmurs.

“It’s a secret,” Robert says. He rubs his thumb over Aaron’s hand one last time before sparking the ignition.

“Oh?” Aaron says, and Robert just rolls his eyes back at him.

“Can you keep a secret?” Robert questions, and Aaron blinks at him, confused at the seriousness that clouds over Robert’s eyes, the way he bites his bottom lip between his teeth.

Aaron holds out his pinky. “Promise.”

They share a packet of chocolate digestives as they drive, hot air running through the filters of the aircon, steaming the windows. Robert’s got chocolate smeared down his chin, and Aaron has to sit on his hands to stop himself from doing something stupid, from leaning over and kissing at the spot right there.

When they pass the Yorkshire border, Aaron eyes Robert curiously. He hasn’t been this far out of town in forever, not down this way, and they drive deeper into the wilderness, a thick mist folding over and shadowing the path before them. It’s another fifteen minutes before Robert slowly brings the car to a halt, pulling into a tiny car park with a signpost Aaron can just make out the words ‘beach’ printed upon.

There’s another old sign that’s rusted and fallen over, pointed towards a dirt track, warnings in white and red, decayed around the edges. Aaron can’t see a beach, can’t even imagine one nearby, and the furrow between his brow deepens as Robert slots their fingers together and starts to tug them straight down the path, dried out leaves crackling under their feet.

“Where are we going?” Aaron questions.

“I told you,” Robert smiles at him over his shoulder. “It’s a secret.”

Even though there’s no visible path, Robert seems to know exactly where he’s going. His steps are sure, and he leaps from rock to rock as they start to decline. Robert keeps a firm grip on his fingers, his face is a little flushed.

Finally, they break through the final treeline and stumble onto the sand.

It’s a tiny cove of beach, just a thin strip of white—gold that’s bordered by cliffs on either side, rockpools stretching out to the water and meeting the waves, foam spraying. Robert drags him along the sand, already flicking off his trainers and socks. Aaron follows suit, and he barely notices the cool of the wet sand, grains sticking on his soles.

Robert stops them by the edge of the rockpools, just before the rock itself merges with the sand, and where the foam of the waves fizzles out to a dull trickle.

“Be careful,” he says, stepping up onto the rock. “Try not to step on the sharp bits, you’ll cut your feet.”

“That’s reassuring,” Aaron murmurs, almost slipping as fizzling seawater hisses over the gleaming rock. Robert holds onto him closely, and they start to tread through the slightly warmer water of the singular pools.

“I’ve seen that book you’ve got in your bedroom,” Robert starts, voice so soft that it’s almost lost under the lapping of the water around them, and then at Aaron’s audible huff of confusion, he continues: “I know, I was just as surprised to discover you own an actual book. Anyway, that fossil one. I figured you must like fossils, find them interesting or whatever.”

And yeah, Aaron’s definitely got tears building in his eyes already.

“I thought we could look for some, maybe collect a few and take them home? You could buy a little pot for them or—or maybe display them on your shelf or, I don’t know,” Robert sighs. “It’s a stupid idea, isn’t it?”

Aaron blinks his eyes quickly; once, twice, three times. “No. God no, it’s—Rob—you’re—,” Aaron stutters. “Amazing. You’re amazing. Let’s got hunt those fossils.”

The water stretches out endlessly before them, past the expanse of rock. The waves curl into the shoreline in steady sets, huge and unbroken, the water navy and gurgling, deep despite being close to the sand. Another set of waves starts to wash through, and the water rushes over their ankles, spitting up over their legs, dotting their shorts.

60 minutes and almost as many fossils later, and Robert leads them to a cave at the foot of the beach.

Beneath them, the floor of the cave is dome-like, deep but still translucent blue, and Aaron can see all the tiny details of it, the shadows of starfish and tiny crabs huddled close on the rocks, baby blennies swimming in wide circles at the very bottom, the seaweed and barnacles and dark sponges that splay themselves out, the patterned shells of limpets turned pearly white when the sun hits them through the water.

It takes him a while to notice the etchings on the cave walls, the white scrapes that have been carved into the clay red, and he tilts his head up as he marvels at all the names that are engraved, that are part of this tucked-away place. Robert interlocks their fingers as he runs this other hand over a bunch of names. There’s a few that stand out to him, namely ‘Robert’ and ‘Victoria’, but then there a third name below, Mum, it reads, accompanied with a date. A date Aaron has memorised in his head, his heart. Sarah’s death.

“We used to come to this beach a lot as kids, when we were still one big, happy, family. Me and Vic wrote our names the summer before Mum died,” Robert explains. “Andy thought it was childish, but me and Vic, we spent all day finding a rock the right size to make the carvings.”

Aaron offers him a smile and a reassuring squeeze to his hand.

“When I came back a year later, alone,” he continues slowly, face shadowing, “everything was… different. Broken. Mum was gone, forever, and Andy was the golden boy, and my head—well, everything up there was just so fucked up. I wrote her name below our that day, it made me feel closer to her, somehow.”

Aaron suddenly feels like the cave has shrunk down, like the walls are scraping against his skin and his shoulders are hunched in painfully, knees tucked up into his chest as he listens to Robert speak, the distant, detached way he’s running his palms over the rock. He wasn’t expecting to hear all this, and now he isn’t sure he wants to, isn’t sure he deserves these explanations, these stories that feel too personal, and although he was there, although Sarah’s death hurt him too, he never once imagined Robert struggled so much. He didn’t show it. And that thought alone makes Aaron want to cry.  

“Anyway—" Robert hakes his head. “That’s a whole other story. The point is that this place, it was Mum’s favourite place, mine too, now. It’s hidden away and some of the locals don’t even know it exists. And I guess I just– I thought you should see it, because you’ve seen what’s underneath the surface of everything else with me, and you’ve helped me more than you’ll ever know, and you actually care. You care about me and I care about you, and I think you’ll care about this place just like I do.”

Aaron stares at him, dumbfounded and flushed, almost shrinking under the intensity of Robert’s gaze, under the open and vulnerable wideness of his eyes, the earnestness of his shuddering chest, the refracting light on the water shimmering and dancing on his cheeks. Then Robert bends down, and he dislodges a small rock from the pool beside them, slippery and shining and sharp, and he loops his tan, calloused fingers around Aaron’s wrist gently, places the rock in his palm and curls his fingers over the smoothness of it.

“Robert,” Aaron breathes, staring down at the rock in his hand, at Robert’s fingers folding over his own.

“Go on,” Robert lifts his hands away, and he gestures his head towards the cave wall, towards years and years of traditions and secrets and heartache and grief. “Do it.”

“I can’t,” Aaron says, and his voice is caught in his throat suddenly, overwhelmed and unsure of himself.

“I want you to,” Robert says, fiercely.

Aaron just stares at him for so long, the rock in his palm seeming to weigh his hand down. He can’t help but feel that there’s something else here, something more that Robert isn’t saying, that there’s a part of this story that he won’t ever hear or see, that even the most vulnerable and delicate things are still hidden by that wall of glass, that he’s only just starting to crack through. With Aaron. Other things, though, have already shattered the glass completely, and it scares him now, the thought that he’s managed to break down that barrier. It scares him that he doesn’t quite know what to do now that he’s smashed his way through.

Turning slowly, Aaron runs his fingers over the damp wall, and finds a place to squeeze his name in, where there’s a smooth gap of deep red. Slowly, and carefully, he carves AARON into the rock, fingers shaking as he scrapes the colour away and leaves white scratches, leaves his name imprinted here. It’s more than the lingering bruises on Robert’s neck, more than the borrowed football shirt on Aaron’s back, more than the lyrics twirling around Aaron’s head.

It’s more than the emails. More than the winter. It’s a piece of him permanently etched here. A piece of Aaron and a piece of Robert, displayed in eternity.

12. favorite character to write about this year

hmmm, ben mitchell i think! he’s such a complex character with all these layers to explore and delve into - really interesting! or, OR teen aaron - i bloody love writing a mardy, chavvy, yet massively in love teen aaron!

14. a fic you didn’t expect to write?

this i a weird one because i didn’t expect to ever write a single fic. once you’ve been in a fandom three years and decided from the off you were only ever going to read fic, never ever write it, any writing comes as a shock! i was so convinced i couldn’t write, that i never even tried until earlier this year! and now i have 25? works on ao3 and honestly no one is more surprised than me! 

the two that i really never expected to write have got to be love, aaron purely becuase 40k+ words?? me???? surely not??? and then my first ballum fic hold my flame and set alight because i’ve known ben mitchell my whole life and never did i expect to be writing fic about him lmaoooo

fanfic end of the year asks