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liesonthefloordramatically · 4 years

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18, 20, and 22 :eyes:

(the ask meme in question)

18. Do any of your stories have alternative versions? (plotlines that you abandoned, AUs of your own work, different characterisations?) Tell us about them.

I don’t think I’ve ever abandoned a whole plotline, but there are a couple of fics where I’ve written multiple drafts of a particular scene or moment. A couple examples:

There’s a whole section of the last scene with Holly in “linear time is fake” which I whacked right before posting; I liked bits of it (and might return to it at a later date), but it didn’t fit super well with the vibe and momentum of the rest of the chapter.

The ending of “maybe I can talk to you” went through like...five discrete drafts. Only the one that made it into the published fic was any good.

Every! single! scene! with Giorno! in “disjoint”! wound up going through a million drafts! One of the big things that shifted between drafts was when Bruno had the “wait, hold on, Giorno is a traumatized kid” realization--in the very first draft, he knew more or less from their first meeting, which didn’t work super well.

Generally, the big difference between drafts is just...I write more. More scenes! More moments! More character arcs for non-POV characters!

20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

A couple of little ones!

From “the seventh day of the seventh month”:

“Obon’s like that too,” Jotaro says, his memory moving faster than his brain-to-mouth filter. “Fifteenth day of the seventh month but we celebrate it in August.”

“Wow,” Josuke says. “I didn’t know you studied this stuff too?”

“I don’t. Someone just told me that once.”

“Who?” Okuyasu asks, curiously.

“It doesn’t matter.”

It was Kakyoin! Who is a non-entity in this fic! Because what’s more emblematic of Jotaro’s excellent handling of his own grief than absolutely refusing to acknowledge people he’s lost! Which adds an extra level of irony to Jotaro commenting on how little Josuke seems to acknowledge his grandfather’s death--you do this too, Jotaro! There’s so much similarity between you but you refuse to see it because you’re desperately hoping convinced that Josuke will have made it out unscarred!

From “disjoint”:

“Saint Bruno,” Abbacchio says, with a mocking lilt in his voice. It’s meant to be a joke, but Bruno can taste a kernel of truth hidden under layers of sarcasm and hyperbole. He isn’t sure he likes the sound of his first name in Abbacchio’s mouth. It makes him uneasy in some undefinable way. It doesn’t bear thinking about.

Abbacchio only calls Bruno by his first name three times, each with the “Saint Bruno” epithet. Here’s the one at the end of the fic:

“You’ll make it,” Abbacchio says bitterly. “Of course you will." He sneers. “Who could expect anything else from kind, self-sacrificing Saint Bruno?”

A big chunk of this fic is about power dynamics, obviously, and what name you use for someone can be an expression of both your relationship and your closeness. As usual, Abbacchio’s only willing to step over that line when he has plausible deniability--he was making fun of Bruno, of course, nothing more. But Bruno can sense at least some of the subtext. (Abbacchio’s also the only member of Bruno’s gang who refers to him by first name at any point.)

22. Do you reread your old works? How do you feel about them?

I do, actually! (And sometimes find typos years after the fact. >.>) Generally the amount I reread is linked to how much I like them, so my older stuff gets reread a lot less these days... I am reasonably fond of most of the stuff I’ve written from “linear time is fake” onward.

#ask Queenie #parallelism palooza: the journey #Queenie actually says something on this blog #I still hold that the last Bruno and Abbacchio scene is the best scene in 'disjoint' :U #although I'm still fascinated by people rec'ing it as a ship fic

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makeste · 5 years

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BnHA Chapter 224: More Like Slidin’ Go Fuck Yourself

Previously on BnHA: We caught up back to real time and learned that the Shigaraki Squad has been battling Gigantomachia basically nonstop for the past month and a half. Tomura in particular has barely eaten or slept (the others at least got breaks), yet is in an oddly good mood despite having not made much progress. Anyway, Twice got a phone call from Giran’s number, except that it turned out not to be Giran, because we of course know that the Quirk Liberation Army has captured him. Guess what else they’ve done! If you guessed “tortured him for a week and severed five of his fingers and placed them in symbolic locations to send a message to the League,” you guessed right and that’s pretty fucked up that you actually guessed that! So anyway, DetCEO, who apparently goes by “Re-Destro”, bragged to Tomura about how they have 116,516 “liberation warriors” spread throughout the country and have been preparing for this moment for generations. They want to tear down the world and rebuild it as a place where everyone can freely use their quirks. Almost doesn’t sound too bad, until you remember the whole “kidnap, torture, and dismember” thing (and the fact that Re-Destro killed poor Mickey Mouse just a handful of chapters ago). Also they knew Tomura’s exact location somehow, and Re-Destro threatened to sic all of the top heroes on them if they don’t cooperate. He told Tomura to meet them at Deika City in Aichi Prefecture so they can have an epic battle.

Today on BnHA: Re-Destro invites the Shigaraki Squad to a big ol’ murderfest free for all in Aichi prefecture. The squad takes a few minutes to debate the merits of accepting this invitation, with the most pressing arguments in favor being “they kidnapped and tortured our bro Giran” and “they know our location and will sic all of the top heroes on us if we don’t”, while the biggest argument against is the whole “it’s obviously a trap” thing. Ujiko, who’s listening in on the whole thing, warns that he won’t be able to lend them any High Ends for the time being. But Tomura doesn’t seem too concerned, and asks Ujiko to warp them over. His plan is to have Gigantomachia follow them and fuck up the Meta Liberation Army’s day, thus killing two birds with one stone for him. So they head to Deika City, picking up Dabi on the way, and are greeted by none other than fucking Slidin’ Go, who’s apparently evil. Huh. He leads them through the city, which seems mostly abandoned. “Seems” being the operative word, as it turns out the city is occupied by Liberation army cronies, who proceed to greet Tomura and the gang with some friendly violence. Tomura and co. respond in kind, and the focus shifts to Toga, who’s facing off with Kizuki from the Army who has All Might’s eyes and Katsuki’s quirk (a winning combo if I do say so myself). Anyway so now they’re gonna fight.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my mostly-unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’m caught up with the manga now at chapter 226, so any ETAs will reflect that.)

so apparently Re-Destro told Tomura to be at the location within the hour, because Horikoshi has apparently learned his lesson about long, drawn-out arcs. thank you god, thank you jesus

apparently they know the League can warp, so they won’t accept any excuses for them taking their sweet time

and this is super creepy tbh

satellites. why didn’t you think of that, Tomura? here you guys are relying on secret traitors for your intel instead like amateurs

but seriously, it’s so creepy to have people with this capability and have them be the bad guys. imagine what kind of dystopian shit they’d get up to if they actually won?? it wouldn’t be pretty, I can tell you that much

obviously go meet up with them and kick their asses. or, even better, take the gorilla with you

oh my god Twice I love you so much though

Twice you are the Kirishima of villains. Tomura! listen to him! you can be villains who both win and rescue!!

oh my god Toga

TOGA I BELIEVED IN YOU WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS

Twice is passionately saying that if there’s even the slightest chance he’s still alive, they have to go

now Compress is chiming in and pointing out that charging in with no plan is a very bad idea and that Twice always gets “attached” too easily. omg. stfu Compress. so sorry for actually giving a shit, dude

so what does Tomura have to say about all this? villain he may be, but his origin story involves being “rescued” by AFO after being seemingly abandoned by everyone else (or so he believes anyway). are you going to just leave Giran to a fate like that? and then there’s the matter of that satellite tracking you too

oh shit

wow what a fucked up move dude. but effective though

ooh now he’s getting in touch with Ujiko and asking if he was listening in

Ujiko is all “you kids are always on your fancy little ‘radios’“ lol what. Ujiko it’s 2214, cell phones have been around for 250 years. get with the fucking times dude

meanwhile poor Twice is clutching his head and moaning that he’s splitting apart, but only Toga seems to care. ;_; ahh Twice

Compress is getting all hopeful and thinking that they can use the High Ends to battle the Liberation Army

but Ujiko is all “sorry but no”

please stop calling them children you fucking creep omg. do you not even care

so Hijack Noumu’s name was “Hood”, huh? farewell, High Puns Noumu. it’s been fun times but I was seriously running out of things that start with “high”, so I’m gonna latch on to this Hood thing if you don’t mind lol

well we all know AFO being gone is more of a temporary inconvenience (:

lastly, it’s very curious how he says “difficult” as opposed to impossible. please give us the deets of how Noumus are made already Horikoshi. I know I’m gonna regret being so curious but I want to know all the same. open that big ol’ Pandora’s box

Compress is all “well fuck”, but Tomura says that wasn’t his plan anyway. oh?

I bet you he wants to use the recording of AFO’s voice to get Giganto under control

ahhh, yeah, it’s looking that way my dudes

oh my god you guys

fuck me. but just. it’s the first time I’ve ever been struck by a resemblance between the two of them, is all. something about the confidence in his smile. for once he’s not unhinged; he’s perfectly in control of himself and he is a man with a plan, and just. damn. boy you look like your grandma and I’m feeling those Shimura feels though

anyway, so it’s interesting that he’s also getting Dabi to meet up with them. meaning his plan is (for the moment, at least) beyond my comprehension, because I certainly can’t figure out wth he’s thinking right now

and now Spinner’s all “we’re seriously rushing straight in?!” and pointing out that they have no idea what they’re getting into and they’re going up against an army that’s supposedly 110,000 strong

ah, okay, maybe I did figure out his plan after all

okay but then why do you need Dabi

now Ujiko is yelling in his ear “BUT WHAT WILL YOU DO IF IT WAS ALL A BLUFF?!”

and Tomura is all “well then Giganto will fucking die, s’no skin off my back”

Spinner keeps expressing doubts and it’s really starting to look like he may actually switch sides you guys

Tomura is all “don’t make me say it again”

oh good he is fixing Twice up now

... [headpats]

oh Tomura

the good folks of Deika City might want to think about getting the fuck out of Dodge you guys

(ETA: they are all bad folks. you fuckers have only yourselves to blame. have fun being dusted, roasted, compressed, and floated twice over. and Goron pounded. and whatever Spinner fucking does. is it really just the samurai sword. whatever.)

oh look Dabi did join them after all

you guys seeing them act like heroes is so fucking weird though. I know they’re our protags for this arc but still. weird

why did you agree to come?? because you love them you jerk. and you owe Giran as much as anyone

petition to rename this the Villain Feels arc you guys

oh shit

good instincts you guys! good eye, Toga!

OH MY FUCKING --

MOTHERFUCKER!?!?!

so there really was a reason chapter 219 was named after this guy, huh?? he had such a minor role but Horikoshi wanted to make sure we didn’t just immediately forget about him! holy shit. motherfucker did you even return all of those wallets??

holy shitballs this frictionless fuck hugged Katsuki and Shouto and no one suspected a damn thing

AND!!!

as we know, Katsuki was right to call attention to this. but now we know Slidin’ was being intentionally dismissive of the villain’s tech in order to hide Detnerat’s involvement! son of a bitch. that might even have been why he was there in the first place

look at this piece of shit

fuck this guy so hard

oh my fuck

petition to rename this arc the Villain Feels/Stephen King Novel arc

holy shit

well at least we know they’re all expendable. that’s good, considering the League isn’t likely to go out of their way to keep any innocent passerby from dying horribly. run that mission statement by me again one more time, Tomura? “destroy everything?” yeah that’s what I thought you said, thanks

wow and the big bads are here too already!!

if the one on the left (Kizuki, just went back and checked) fights anyone other than Toga I’m gonna lowkey be rooting for her ngl

YOOOO

WHERE DID ALL THESE PEOPLE COME FROM ALL OF A SUDDEN AND HOW QUICKLY WILL DABI BURN THEM ALL TO DEATH, DO YOU THINK

like, okay, so you wanna come at us like that then?? fun! fucking bring it!

holy shit this guy is a politician??

is that what he means by “party”? damn these guys are in the fucking government and everything

government, big business, satellites... look, no pressure here Tomura, but if you don’t win, I’m starting to think we are seriously screwed

anyway so Twice is all “who cares about these guys, where’s Giran?” and I have to admire his focus in the face of... all this

Hanabata is gesturing to the observation tower in the distance and says Giran is “waiting” over there with Re-Destro

and Twice is all outraged because they said they’d return Giran to them when they got there. “you filthy liar.” wow imagine that. bad guys lying about shit

someone or other appears to be watching everything from the nearby security cameras. probably RD. motherfucker

now these two guys are introducing themselves to Tomura because I guess they’d like to be disintegrated today

nice knowing you guys. but not really

hahahahahhaaa

I know it’s fucked up, but they had it coming, and that was some of the stupidest shit anyone in this manga has pulled in a hot minute though

hard not to see an explosion and immediately think of my boy Kacchan! but obviously he’s not there, so what gives??

oh shit

sladkfjalskdfowiehfoksSDLFKJSLDGKHL

okay. okay hold up. gather my thoughts. can’t just keysmash, gotta get my brain back into working order here...!

motherfucker how did I know the girl was gonna fight the other girl. well whatever

THIS BITCH HAS KATSUKI’S QUIRK BUT FROM LONG-DISTANCE?! LIKE PYROKINESIS BUT WITH EXPLOSIONS?! WHAT DO YOU CALL THIS, COMBUSTIKINESIS?? ALSO I KNEW I WAS RIGHT TO LOVE HER FROM THE OUTSET OMG

and on top of that, that gesture with her fingers is giving me strong flashbacks to [S] Cascade from Homestuck

TOGA FAKED HER OWN DEATH TELL ME MORE!?!?

ARE WE GOING TO GET SOME MOTHERFUCKING TOGA FLASHBACKS YOU GUYS I CAN’T. I KNOW I’VE SAID IN THE PAST THAT I DON’T CARE AND WOULDN’T MIND IF SHE JUST STAYS CRAZY WITH NO EXPLANATION BUT THIS IS ALSO GOOD YOU GUYS. I CAN’T LIE, I’M SO FUCKING HYPED RIGHT NOW??

TOGA YOU HAD BETTER FIT THAT FLASHBACK INTO A SINGLE CHAPTER THOUGH BECAUSE THE GOLDEN WEEK BREAK IS ALMOST HERE AND I S2G HORIKOSHI IF YOU PULL ANY BULLSHIT AND LEAVE ME HANGING FOR TWO WHOLE FUCKING WEEKS, I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN MOTHERFUCKER

(ETA: THIS BITCH DOESN’T EVER LISTEN TO ME AND MY EMPTY THREATS. GODDAMMIT.)

oh my god. hype for days. you guys. this is amazing

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tfwlawyers · 7 years

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so a while ago someone asked me what my hcs on phoenix’s (lack of canon) parents/guardians was and I gave some boring answer but recently I’ve changed it !! a lot !! here’s 2.5k of hc under the cut !!

spoilers being that I don’t think he actually had parents

more spoilers, I specifically hc he was a child in foster care who was never adopted and had to leave for independent living once he became a legal adult (and if my wording on any of this is off, plEase do message me about it!! I’ve been doing some research/have a bit of personal experience with this on my own but yeh; also localization-based so)

my hc for phoenix’s parents used to be that they were just pretty okay people who supported him well enough but they were never /that close of a family, they moved somewhere else after high school and he stayed behind for college and then the rest of his life basically - they were fairly average people who just. didn’t quite care enough to keep in touch with their son and vice-versa for phoenix

and I love when people give him loving parent(s) hcs (like him having two moms being so popular on the kink meme a few years back) and it’s sweet and hell yeah for aus, but it just? doesn’t make sense to me in canon; there’s no mention of his parents anywhere aside from a passing comment about his mother (and if I remember right it’s because someone brought up I want to ssaaayy morgan? maybe? as a sort of ‘[someone’s] mother’ comment and phoenix being phoenix just went ‘my mom?’ like Babe), no one was there to help him during his disbarment/trucy’s adoption except for a handful of friends, no one showed up for him during college when he was on trial for murder, so ??

there’s just that single brief passing mention of a biological mother and he has no issues with calling yanni ‘dad’ for that bit in 1-4 / ema ‘what are you, my mom’ in 1-5 and obviously great-grandad ryuunosuke, but that’s all I can think of regarding canon mentions of any sort of family? which, wow what a lot to work with

so. yeah. maybe his biological parents died or couldn’t support him but regardless, he wound up in a home and was never adopted and just booted out once he turned 18 (or whatever the respective age for that state/district is, I do base most of my hcs off weird localization so heyo LA)

like. here’s all we know about phoenix’s childhood (and if I’m forgetting anything, hmu):

-what happened at the class trial (and a lot of homes do have their children attend public schools)

-he’s an only child

-it was raining during his elementary school graduation

-dahlia/his murder trial in college

-he fuckgh tipped cows once goddamit phoenix

like that’s…. it, that’s all we know about him/his past prior to college, so this hc does make the most amount of sense to me considering canon + just his character overall?

it explains his fear of abandonment/hatred of being alone and maybe why all the kids turned on him so easily in the class trial (if he was the ‘weird’ one without parents then imho it’d be even easier for those kids to believe someone ‘out of the norm’ could steal money, like if they were already so willing to turn on him based on the simple fact that he wasn’t in gym that day mmMMM add that in and you’ve got even more to it), why he clings so fiercely to people and will do anything to protect them (eating glass for dahlia, changing his entire career for edgeworth, running across burning bridges and kicking down doors for maya, etc), why he adopted trucy so damn quickly when he honestly had no real reason to other than being /phoenix and not wanting her to wind up lost in the same system he did

it explains his immaturity in college before mia rolled in, if he never had a lot of individual attention/guidance growing up it honestly does make sense he’d be a bit more immature than other 20-somethings (mia is 100% his mom but like. adding in this hc, mia is his mom, one of the first people who wanted to genuinely help and guide him when he never really had that before)

it explains his quiet jealousy/self deprecation of wealth/appreciation for finer things but why he still spends his money on things like taking maya and later pearl out to lunch so often (off-track but phoenix wright wants to be domestic ok he wants to be So domestic, he wants a big open home with comfortable furniture and nice dishes and a loving family and uGH HE’S GONNA HAVE IT ALL… SOMEDAY……), why he acts like such a big brother/paternal figure to maya and pearl right off the bat even at just 24-25 years old

it explains why he wants to help people so much and is willing to sometimes do it for free if they really have nothing, he’ll gripe about it later for sure but he does occasionally view his job as an attorney and helping those with no one on their side a bit more highly than a paycheck (also tangent but I never really understood the hc about phoenix hating ~charity?? it’s such a popular one and if there’s anything in canon that supports that plS message me because I genuinely just don’t get that one, in 1-4 he thinks something along the lines of ‘wonder if I can get edgeworth to pay this month’s rent, too’ after edgeworth posts bail for maya, like Yeah it’s played more of a joke than anything else but idk I? never really got that he’s too prideful to ask for help, financial or otherwise - he’s never been the greatest with money between sometimes letting clients off the hook/only taking a handful of cases per year and that’s a flaw on its own, but disliking any sort of financial assistance so vehemently I never understood for him? ANYWAY TANGENT SORRY)

it explains why he kind of just did whatever the hell he wanted with his life (I’m a third year in college right now which was the same year phoenix was when he switched his major from art to law and if I changed my major rn my parents would be sO pissed with me lmao ((another hc that the reason phoenix is so poor is that he’s still paying off fuckin 7+ years of student loans ,bye))

so. yeah. phoenix who hit the respective age limit for foster care and wound up entirely on his own, lost and clutching vague ideals like a family through theater (getting to that, hang on), then to dahlia’s love and then the desire to save/see edgeworth again (phoenix has pretty big issues with motivation too, especially when he’s alone (why he gets all mope-y whenever maya’s gone djfld) so if something more tangible shows up he’s more likely to see it through; he’s extremely single-minded and he clings a lot to people who are important to him, like he was willing to swallow poisoned glass for dahlia and change his entire goddamn life for edgeworth So these leaps make sense to me here too considering the shift from something less concrete to /more)

and I’ve fully embraced takumi’s idea about him wanting to pursue shakespearean acting in college rather than any sort of visual arts (‘I’m in the art department!!!’ college phoenix says, 'WHAT KIND OF ART’ I yell at my DS), and when I factor this new hc into his college life it makes a lot of sense there too?

his wanting to be an actor was never his Dream or anything, he dropped it in a heartbeat for law and he explicitly says he never once regretted the change in 3-5, but? I have a fair amount of theater friends and they all agree that being in a theater company is like having a family and that’s something he would have really wanted; he always liked language and the drama and tragedy and comedy and romance of shakespeare’s works too (hc the only other thing he bothered taking with him besides clothes and a bit of money when he left was a dog-eared volume of shakespeare’s best), but those being the only reasons he kinda just decided 'why not, I’ll go into acting’ - there wasn’t anything deeper beyond that, he just. didn’t have anything else /planned for his future, no matter what he chose it didn’t really matter so why not pick something he had an interest in and where he’d be guaranteed to be around other people??

my mom never went to college and she says a large part of that was because her family didn’t support her so she never felt she could amount to anything in school (she wanted to go into theater herself, interestingly enough), so kinda just? phoenix never having that attention and support from a parent/guardian/anyone (again, leading back to his lack of maturity in 3-1), he just picked something he thought he might enjoy in acting and the second he saw that newspaper article about ~demon prosecutor edgeworth he started hunting down some law books on the side too

because acting never meant /that much to him, not over saving someone (especially /this someone hahHA)

I always had the impression that miles and larry were some of phoenix’s first real friends, so if you think about miles being his first friend/first person to stand up for him in the class trial when !! kid with no parents that no one liked !! it makes it all the more aaAAAAAAAGHH and his determination to save edgeworth /back even !!! more !!!!!

plus phoenix later learning that miles only has a single father himself and finding a bit of comfort in that is really sweet to me too? miles doesn’t have the most conventional family either but he loves gregory and gregory loves him and they’re doing just fine on their own; gregory meeting phoenix a few times and being so happy that miles has friends/phoenix always being genuinely interested whenever miles brings gregory up is. pure

((another random bit soRRY LMAO I DON’T POST MY OWN META A LOT, BEAR WITH ME - my hc for miles’s biological mother is that they kind of just dropped him off with gregory as a baby and bowed out, they were never a part of his life and never really wanted to be but miles never felt he missed out on anything growing up either; gregory is like the Ultimate Single Father, he loves talking/thinking about miles in his flashback case but if I remember right he never brings up a partner or anything, so just ?? single dad gregory… ye boy….))

oK so that’s over, I’m almost done with this post I swear

takumi put a lot of himself in phoenix and I always found it interesting that we never really got any information about his childhood/guardians beyond the class trial and random bits and pieces of memories, especially considering the fact that phoenix is one of our main leads (and would have stayed our only main lead in trilogy if capcom hadn’t wanted him back for AJ); for ema and lana we got a passing comment about how their parents died in a car crash and it was never gone into further detail than that but it was still /something, for phoenix we don’t even have that

aa deals a lot with broken families (fey and edgeworth and skye and von karma and gramarye and sahdmadhi and khura'in), intentionally or not, so? having one of its main protagonists be a man who never once actually /had a blood family of his own but works to mend/help others (like… ignoring… how trucy and apollo still don’t know… and that’s something I honestly can’t fault phoenix for entirely as he waited to ask thalassa what she wanted to do as their biological mother and she asked to keep her relation to them private for a little while longer, like it still drives me up the wall that it’s gone on this long and as trucy is his /daughter he should at least be able to tell them they’re //siblings if not necessarily reveal who their mother is until thalassa is ready lmmao, but I blame the writers for that more than anything else at this point) is something I really really love, and along the way he crafts his own family and clings to them so tightly and mMM YEAH

I DON’T KNOW HOW TO END META POSTS BUT THERE U GO, THAT’S MINE

#text #hcs #still bleh about posting my own meta but w/e im doIN IT

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rebeccahpedersen · 7 years

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What Conclusions Can We Draw From April?

TorontoRealtyBlog

April is in the books, although it looks like the April showers aren’t quite finished. When was the last Mother’s Day with nice weather, anyways?

The TREB monthly statistics are also out, and while I try to shy away from regurgitating the TREB Market Watch like every other agent in Toronto who CTRL-C’s their way to content creation, I do want to look at the numbers themselves, and see if we can draw any conclusions about where the market was, and where it’s heading.

Oh and in case you’re wondering, next Sunday – Mother’s Day, calls for rain…

Those four paragraphs from the TREB Market Watch must be the most over-shared content in all of real estate.

For some odd reason, I’m on the mailing list for a number of Toronto real estate agents, and it’s amazing how every month, I get an email with their name and face, and a copy-and-paste of whatever Jason Mercer and Larry Cerque drew up at TREB.

For what it’s worth, I do a monthly e-newsletter in case any of you are interested. It’s a recap of the monthly stats, my top blog posts, the top real estate articles, and my thoughts on the month that was, and the month ahead. You can sign up somewhere on the site. Let me look for it………ah, right, it’s at the top. Or HERE.

The TREB Market Watch statistics mean a lot to some people, and next to nothing to others.

I tend to think it’s like fundamental versus technical analysis in the stock market.

Now right off the bat, I know I hit a nerve with at least a couple of you reading this.

Those of you that work your tails off, analyzing financial statements, and trying to make sense of earnings reports, absolutely cringe at the thought of technical analysis. You think it’s a farce, it’s lazy, it’s corner-cutting, and it’s not “real” analysis.

But those of you who do subscribe to technical analysis, probably feel bad for the saps who think that the intrinsic value of a company is reflected in their share price. You don’t care why a stock is doing what it’s doing; you merely care what it’s doing, and going to do.

Either way, fundamentalists and technicians have always been like the Capulets and Montagues, although I’m not sure who is who.

And every month, when TREB numbers come out, there are real estate agents that say, “I really don’t care what the numbers say, I’m going with my gut.”

For experienced agents, who do high-volume, I really, truly think their “feel” for the market tells a more authentic story than what the TREB numbers say.

A busy agent interacts with a hundred market participants per week. That agent will deal with buyer agents asking questions or providing feedback on their listings, they’ll deal with buyers and their sentiments, and then mortgage brokers, home inspectors, other agents in the brokerage and in the industry, all the while, seeing what other people think about the market.

As we moved out of April and into May, there was this “feeling” that something was different about the market.

I gave my thoughts on the April market in a Toronto Star piece last week, which you can read HERE.

Kudos to the author to making it abundantly clear, that as per my suggestion, “There’s been a shift in the market, but it’s a change, not a downturn.”

It’s funny because with the average price of a home increasing a whopping 24.5% this past April, over the same month in 2016, there were people who actually suggested the market was “down.”

Come again?

How do you figure?

Somebody told me, “The average home price was up 33.2% in March, and only 24.5% in April. The market is down!”

Right.

Well, that’s one way of looking at it, I suppose, although I don’t think it’s correct.

And since the average home price in Toronto was $920,791 in April, compared to $916,567 in March, I think we can put that theory to bed.

In any event, there were two numbers that jumped out at me this past April that I wanted to share with you.

One, was the number of sales.

Two, was the number of active listings.

Here are the percentage increases, from the month in 2017 over the month in 2016, for both sales and active listings:

SALES: January: +11.8% February: +5.7% March: +17.7% April: -3.2%

ACTIVE LISTINGS: January: -49.5% February: -50.5% March: -35.2% April: +3.0%

Shocking, eh?

We came into 2017 with a noticeable pattern: sales are up, listings are down.

Listings, in fact, were down catastrophically.

Imagine seeing 50% fewer active listings from the same period last year?

That’s not a dip. That’s not a decline. Fifty-percent is a sixteen-wheeler going off a cliff!

And with sales actually going up, it means that there are more buyers, fighting for fewer listings.

The combination was an absolute disaster, and I believe that from January 1st to April 1st, the average price in Toronto was up 20%.

That’s 20% in three months, for those of you skimming this.

We see numbers like “25%” used to describe the year-over-year increase in average home price in a given month, and we think that is a significant number.

But inside of three months? 20%?

Yup.

Just look at the average home price:

January: $770,745 February: $875,983 March: $916,567 April: $920,791

Wow, that’s a 19.6% increase.

And swear on my soul, it wasn’t until this very moment, writing this blog post on Sunday night, that I actually sat down and calculated that January-to-April increase.

See what I mean about the “feeling” some agents get?

The sentiment out there in January was, “There’s some crazy sale prices!”

By February, it was, “This sh!t is real. This isn’t one or two sales, this is legit, and the market is one fire.”

By March, it was, “The market is seriously going up 5% per month.”

And by the time we hit April, myself, and a lot of agents out there, were saying, “The market just went up 20% inside three months.”

Crazy, yes. But we don’t make the market – we just work in it.

So here we are, with April in the rear-view mirror, and suddenly we’re looking at numbers that show April, at least compared to Jan/Feb/March, was somewhat “normal” by real estate standards.

Sales were down from April of 2016, which is in part because the Easter long weekend fell in March in 2016, and April this year.

But the massive increase in listings was just shocking.

Even if sales weren’t down, and they were in fact up, I still think the amount of active listings would have kept the market somewhat normalized.

Now, if you want a contrarian view, or some sort of argument that the market was just as hot in April, I suppose we could look at the MLS Home Price Index Composite Benchmark:

January: +22.6 February: +23.8% March: +28.6% April: +31.7%

Using the HPI Benchmark, which some believe is a “smoother, truer” average, we could argue that prices were up more in April than even in March.

But I think it’s fair to say, you can make numbers say anything you want.

And then we go back to that good old place, that just simply can’t be wrong: your gut.

My sense is that prices will continue to rise.

But how much is the question.

We need one more month of data, and “feel,” in order to really get a sense of this market.

The sheer number of listings last month was unexpected to say the least, and if that trend continues through May and June, we may actually see a more balanced market. Not a buyers market, and not a market with a lower average home price than the month before (let alone last year), but home prices will appreciate at a decreasing rate.

Perhaps it bears mentioning here, after my blog post last month comparing Toronto and Vancouver, that the Vancouver HPI Detached Benchmark was up again, which means that the seven months of lower month-to-month prices has now been followed by two successive months of higher month-to-month prices.

Those seven months, of course, followed the introduction of Vancouver’s foreign buyer’s tax.

So the reaction was felt, but after a half-year, prices are up again.

I think there are a lot of people in Toronto who feel that the Liberals’ “Fair Housing Plan” might have an effect on the market here in Toronto, and they’re not wrong.

I think the combination of Easter/Passover in April, plus the Fair Housing Plan, plus the Home Trust story, plus the miserable and rainy weather, made for a really strange month in the real estate market.

That Liberal announcement did get the attention of a lot buyers and sellers, and while most people agree that the actual FHP itself won’t affect the market, the announcement itself might have put a few buyers on the sidelines, and lit a fire under a few sellers.

We’ll see if the market goes back to its old ways in May.

I’ll make a point of looking at the same numbers in an early-May blog post, and comparing to what we’ve discussed here today.

The post What Conclusions Can We Draw From April? appeared first on Toronto Real Estate Property Sales & Investments | Toronto Realty Blog by David Fleming.

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