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honeybeezx · 3 years

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Armor - Oberyn Martell x Reader x Ellaria Sand - Part 5

Author’s Note: This took me literally forever to write😂 A lot will be happening in this chapter and the chapters to follow, but because of that, they may take longer for me to write. Thanks for baring with me guys and I’m so glad you all have been enjoying this as much as I love writing it!

Summary: The Silver Hawk competes in an archery competition at The Red Keep.

Word Count: 4.6k

Warnings: violence, blood

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Don’t fuck this up, don’t fuck this up.

The mantra played over and over in your head as you laced your boots. Your hair was braided down your back, but no matter how hard you tried, a few whips of hair fell over your face. You knew it would not hinder your ability, but it annoyed you all the same.

“You ready for this, Little Hawk?” Bronn clasped his ginormous hand against your back and you nearly had the breath knocked from you. You bit back a cough and tried not to seem shaken by his surprise endearment that really felt more like an attack.

“Of course I’m ready.” You replied simply. You were confident in your abilities, but something didn’t seem right. There was a feeling rooted in your gut that told you to run, to get out of this as fast as you could. But your mind told you you were too far to turn back now.

Bronn smiled before looking at the flap of your tent, the only thing between you, the arena, the challengers, and the high society of Westeros. “Shoot straight, girl. Stun the livin’ daylights out of ‘em. Make anyone who ever underestimated you regret it.”

You smiled softly at Bronn. He was alright...sometimes.

You both turned your head at the trumpets sounding just outside your tent.

“Think that’s my cue.”

“Give ‘em hell.”

You adjusted your brace, made sure your quiver was tightly strapped to your back, and your bow tight in hand.

Time for battle.

You walked out of the tent and forced your eyes not to water at the blinding sun. It was such a large shift from the shaded tent, were you not accustomed to training your eyesight in various types of weather, you might have shed a tear or two at the brightness. You wondered if the other competitors could do the same.

There were people on all sides of you. It was overwhelming. Normally you could scout your area, eliminate threats before taking your place to shoot. Here the threats were like your own personal wall, a couple hundred of them surrounding you, anyone willing to strike at any moment.

But above them all were the only two you were seriously concerned about. Cersei, and her son, King Jeoffry of the Seven Kingdoms.

You introduced yourself and gave a small bow. This was the first time meeting the king after all. Both looked less than amused.

“You’re the best archer in the seven kingdoms?” The boy-king laughed. “Is this a joke? I have squires bigger and more impressive than you. You’re a...woman.”

If the king was trying to mock you, he was going to have to try a lot harder than that. What he had said hundreds of men had said before. “My skill doesn’t depend upon physical stature. Only a steady arm and a sharp eye. I’d like to compete and give a presentation of my skill if it pleases the king.” You responded with all the airs of a highborn. Highborn. You were no lower than them. If anything, you were above them where morality was concerned.

“I hope your skill is more impressive than the sight of you. My uncle speaks of you very highly, and I don’t like being disappointed.”

Imagine how the rest of us felt when you became king.

“Your uncle hates being wrong as much as you don’t like being disappointed, your grace. I don’t think he would have encouraged me to enter this most esteemed competition should he think you may be disappointed or should put his intelligent reputation at risk.” You teased, not above mocking your friend in public.

He sighed and rolled his eyes, but knew he should choose his words carefully around the king. “You won’t be disappointed. I’m clearly not keeping her around because she’s good company.”

“She’ll put on a good show.” Cersei smirked.

It will be quite a show when you’re removed from power.

“We’ll see.” You took that as your cue to leave, knowing that was about as much as you could take from the Lannisters.

But when you turned around, you were finally met with the other competitors. They all looked intimidating, but you didn’t feel intimidated. You would only feel that once you saw their skill. You had learned a long time ago that many men liked to look tough without actually being so, and in the skill of archery, no amount of muscle or fancy armor would help you win a competition.

You estimated about 25 yards between you and the target as you stood before it. You had it targets from farther away, but whether or not you could hit the center of a target was another matter completely. You couldn’t remember the last time you had shot arrows for a tournament. Your arrows were meant for damned people, not for sport. But you could use more money, you needed money to survive.

At least that was how you were going to justify all this to yourself.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw the sun catch something shiny and gold. You turned your head to find Ellaria in a peach-colored dress with gold embellishments, and Oberyn in a burnt sienna cloak with the very same embellishments. Both pairs of eyes had settled on you, sparkling with excitement. Oberyn gave you a small nod of encouragement. Show them what you have, brave girl.

“The rules are simple.” The squire began, bringing you and the other competitors to attention. “Whoever does not hit the center of the target is eliminated. After each round, the contestants will move back more and more until one person is standing. Competitors, draw your bows.”

Everyone did as commanded. You took a deep breath.

“Shoot.”

You let the arrow fly without a single thought.

It pierced the center of the target effortlessly. The tall, brutish man next to you did the exact same thing. You saw a few others had as well, and a few who had missed by just a sliver. The man glared at you, but you held your gaze.

You’re the competition here. Most of these people probably know who you are and want nothing more than to beat the legendary Silver Hawk. Do not let some man with more muscles than brains take your place.

“Walk 15 paces back.” The page instructed. You all did as you were told. When the page was sure everyone was in an even line, he signaled to draw your bow again.

“Shoot.”

Your arrow pierced the middle of the target once again, just a hair away from your last arrow. You were making this look easy. No one left this round. The obvious amateurs were gone within the first round. The real competition began now.

It was the same thing over and over again, and honestly? You were getting a little bored. Shoot. Walk back 15 paces. Shoot. Walk back 15 more paces.

Until it wasn’t that anymore.

You were at the edge of the arena. You didn’t even notice that it was only the brute and you. He had hit every single arrow in the middle of the target just as you had. You could tell his bow was handcrafted, and his arrows were from the smoothest steel. He was as knowledgeable as you when it came to wielding a bow, a worthy competitor too, as much as you didn’t want to admit it.

The target was easily 75 yards or so away. You didn’t know if even you could hit that. This was certainly the farthest you had ever been. You would have never taken this shot if it were an animal or someone you needed to eliminate. Was this easy for your competitor? He didn’t look even a tad nervous, you hoped you didn’t either. You did look focused though, as you considered the distance, the wind, your own strength. Would your bow even shoot that far?

Guess you were about to find out.

“Archers, draw your bow.”

You did as you were told, and closed your eyes, just for a second. You felt the fletching brush against the tips of your fingers, your hand holding onto the leather grip firmly, the cool silver of your arrow brushing against your cheek for just a second, your feet planted into the earth. The world fell around you. All you knew was the arrow, and how to make it fly.

And it did.

Flew just inside the center of the target, just barely making a bullseye.

The man’s arrow was just outside.

“Yes!!!” Bronn jumped up and pumped a fist in the air. “That’s our girl!!”

“Did you have any doubt that she could do it?” Tyrion asked cheekily, secretly elated that his champion won the whole tournament, that his friend had her moment of glory.

“It seems I will find myself short of some money.” Oberyn chuckled. “Your Silver Hawk, Lord Tyrion...she is very special.” He said, smiling at you from afar.

Tyrion smiled too. “Yes, she is.”

You let yourself laugh as the sound of applause filled your ears. Even your opponent offered his hand.

“You’re a fine shot. I’m just glad the stories are true. I didn’t want to leave here disappointed.” The man winked at you before taking his leave. You were about to take your leave as well when a voice called out over the cheer of the crowd.

“Wait!”

Your head whipped around. For a moment you forgot the golden-haired king entirely. He studied you with a vicious glare in his eyes that made you uneasy. You tried not to show it, but it was no use.

“Bring out the prisoner from yesterday.” The king commanded.

After a moment, the guard brought out a prisoner in chains. He was a big man, balding and bearded. He looked scared out of his wits and you were more nervous for him than you were for yourself.

“Chain him to a post.”

The guards did as they were told and chained the prisoner to one of the posts holding up the arena. The scared and nervous expression that matched his let him know you were not in on whatever this was.

“Place an apple on his head.”

Fuck.

A target was one thing, but a man’s life now rested in your hands. If you missed, it was his life in the line. The pressure was more intense now. The tournament was to uphold your reputation, it was all you had. But this was something much more frightening. To take the life of terrible people who hurt other people was one thing, to take the life of an innocent person was another, and even more so, to do it by accident.

“Shoot the apple.”

You once again scouted the distance. It was far, but you wouldn’t hurt this man. You would aim high, you’d rather miss far over his head than to pierce it. You gave a small nod to the man. I won’t hurt you, I promise.

You set your target. You aimed a bit higher than the center, not wanting the arrow to be any closer to his head than it needed to be.

1...2...

The juices of the apple ran down the man’s temple and dripped from his chin. The man looked like he could have passed out from relief, or maybe because he didn’t breathe that entire time.

“Oh sweet gods above, thank you! Thank you milady, don’t know ‘ow to repay you”

You smiled kindly at him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “No need to thank or pay me. I don’t harm people without actual cause, and you’ve done me no offense.”

“Now shoot him.”

Your heart stopped in your chest. Your eyes grew wide, looking. To the other to make sure you heard that right, but his fear matched yours.

Even Tyrion looked to his nephew in horror. “Perhaps, nephew, you forget that this is a tournament and not an execution. This is not what she signed up for, this is not what we agreed on.”

“I don’t need to comply with your deal or her conditions. I am king, and you would do best to remember that, uncle, before you are the one tied to the post.” Jeoffey spat.

You tried to clear your head. How could you possibly get out of this? “If I am to shoot him, I would like to know the nature of his crimes.” You demanded.

“He stole wine and has been rotting in a cell. He takes up space there. I want him disposed of.”

All of this for some wine? “Surely your grace can find some other use for him? There is much to be done around the palace with your wedding approaching so soon, is there not? Perhaps he could serve as staff around the castle or-“

“Look at him!” He spat. “He’s fat, pathetic, and lazy. He’s no use to me. Shoot him or die, those are your options.”

Oberyn stood before the queen regent, his fist balled. “Convince your son to forget this. The Silver Hawk has done her part, she’s won the tournament. She kills for Tyrion, not Jeoffey, and even then she does not strike me as the type of person to just kill anyone. Everyone’s been entertained enough.”

Cersei just smiled something wicked. “I have no influence over my son. He is king, his word is the law. If the Silver Hawk is as good as she says, she’ll be able to do this, I doubt you have any cause for concern.” She smirked before sipping her wine.

Oberyn gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes at the queen. “She will not forget this if you make her take this man’s life. She does not kill without reason, but the murder of this man would give her cause to take revenge in the future. Don’t put her through this, and don’t give her an excuse to send one of her arrows flying in yours or your son’s direction.”

Cersei laughed. “You think she would be so stupid? She won’t do anything, not if she values her life.” Cersei leaned towards the Dornishman like she was letting him in on a secret. “The Hawk needs to learn when she is beat, when her arrows can’t save her. This will just teach her. This is good for everyone.”

“Good for everyone? Or good for your pride?”

They didn’t call him the Red Viper for nothing. His tongue was as quick as a snake's bite.

Cersei narrowed her eyes. “Step down Prince Oberyn. You and the Hawk aren’t winning this one.”

Oberyn and Tyrion shared a look of dread before returning their attention to you.

Your mind reeled. Think, think, think. What would Tyrion say or do to get out of this?

Shoot him or die, those are your options.

You took your position and tried not to look at the man for too long. He was trembling, crying, trying to break free and you couldn’t take it. You let your arrow fly.

The man let out a wail as the arrow pierced his leg. But before Jeoffery could protest, you intervened. “You asked me to shoot him my lord, so I did. You wish to dispose of him. Perhaps, Prince Oberyn, you will accept this man as a gift from Kings Landing, welcoming you to our city, and being a most gracious and humble guest. Do with him as you please since he is not fit to stay here.”

Oberyn chuckled and gave a dazzling smile. Now how did she come to think of that?

“Of course. Dorne welcomes all people. You would be most welcome in my family’s city. I could use a court jester. Once I have him trained you may visit him in Dorne, King Jeoffery.” Jeoffery seemed to quite like the thought of that. But you knew better. The same Oberyn who spoke of equality among people, the man who spoke of love and compassion would not make a joke of a poor, innocent man. And Jeoffery would be too consumed with power to think about taking a nice little trip to Dorne. “He may return with Ellaria and I when we depart.” Oberyn nodded.

You knew it was dangerous to say anything right now, you were already dancing with death as it was. But your eyes met the Prince’s, and at once he understood your level of gratitude.

“Take him to Prince Oberyn’s quarters. Chain him up there. Let the Dornish deal with this filth.” Jeoffery scoffed.

Cersei looked as if she could order to have you killed right that instant.

“Why don’t we enjoy some wine of our own to celebrate my champion’s victory? All this excitement is leaving me parched.” Tyrion suggested before his sister could do something brash.

And just like that, the festivities came to an end. As soon as you were out of sight, you stealthily followed the guards to the Lannister brothel. Firstly to escape any harm, secondly, to find the man you had just shot. You entered the brothel through the window, only to be met with the shocked face of a young girl.

“Where’s the man with an arrow in his leg?” You asked one of the girls frantically but in hushed tones. You didn’t need the guards or other Lannisters knowing you were here.

“H-He’s up the stairs in the back rooms on the left. He’s in a bad way.” The girl croaked out.

Sometimes you forgot how intimidating you could be.

“Do you have alcohol? I have to tend to him. I need alcohol and some cloth.” You tried asking in a much softer, calmer voice.

The girl nodded and scurried off. You made your way up the stairs and found the farthest back room on the left. You found the man withering in pain on the bed.

“You need to try and control your breathing. I’m not going to be able to help you if you’re all panicked. I know it’s hard, but you have to trust me.”

The man nodded and tried to hold back the tears in his eyes. You took deep breaths, and he tried breathing with you. “You saved my life...damned my leg but saved my life. Went through an awful lot of trouble. I’m surprised Cersei didn’t kill you right there.”

You knelt next to the man to observe his wounds. “Cersei doesn’t scare me.” You said confidently. “Just because she has power doesn’t make her a true ruler, nor her son, or any of the Lannisters. They only have power if they think we fear them.”

“Most do fear them though. And if they ‘ave the power they can ‘urt us, they ‘ave ‘urt us. Nearly killed me over some wine.” He huffed.

“If more people stood against them they wouldn’t have so much power.” They would have their status, they would have their wealth, but if the people started revolting, the people would stand a chance. Sadly, you knew the Lannisters already evoked too much fear into the hearts of the people they’re supposed to be protecting for anything to happen, at least not now. “I understand...not wanting to stand against them. I’m under the protection of Tyrion so I have more freedoms. I’m just glad King Jeoffery reacted well to the decision not to kill you.”

“'Aye, that makes two of us.”

You turned your head at the sound of a door opening. You were expecting the young girl from before only for your eyes to meet Ellaria’s dark ones. She came in with the cloth and a bag of assorted ointments which she promptly dumped on the bed before unchaining the man.

“How are you?” She asked the man frantically, her mind only focused on helping him.

“Well, other than an arrow bein’ in me leg I’m just great.” He quipped.

“He’s calmed down a lot. We should be ready.”

Ellaria nodded her head, knowing what you meant.

“Ready for-“

Before he could finish, you quickly removed the arrow from his leg. He howled in pain, but Ellaria was working fast. She made quick work of using the ointments and tying his leg tight with the cloth to stop the blood flow.

The man was sobbing and gripping your arm like his life depended on it. It hurt, but you bit back your pain. Didn’t seem right to complain when the man just had an arrow ripped out of his leg.

Oberyn entered and knelt next to you, offering the man a cup. “Drink this. It will help with the pain and help you sleep. It’s a sedative of sorts.”

The man quickly downed the tea, willing to do anything to get rid of the ridiculous amount of pain. He handed the cup to you and laid his head back against the pillow. “Thank you, all of you. I owe you all my life.”

“Just get some rest. Your body has gone through a lot today and you’ll need sleep to recover your strength.” You chided, standing up to leave. Oberyn and Ellaria followed to leave the man in peace.

“Thank you for helping him, both of you. He is alive because of your kindness.” You thanked. You couldn’t help but be a bit surprised. Most royalty would not have cared about the life of one poor commoner, but neither of them wasted any time in helping him. The more you learned about the two of them the more questions you asked. Why were they so different from the highborn you’ve met? You shouldn’t like them as much as you do. Highborn were supposed to be snobbish, egotistical, and rude, they were supposed to be like the Lannisters.

But they weren’t.

“It is you he should thank. If you wouldn’t have tricked the king like that, you would have had no choice but to kill him to save yourself.” Ellaria reasoned.

But you were having none of it. “I still shot him with an arrow. He would still be in pain were it not for the ointments and tea. And you,” you began, turning towards Oberyn, “were you serious about bringing him to Dorne?”

Oberyn smiled and nodded. “Yes, though I am in no need of a jester, my family keeps me entertained enough.” He laughed. “But I will take him to Dorne. From there he can do as he pleases. If he does not wish to stay in Dorne I will find him passage somewhere else. Every innocent man should be free. Stealing some wine does not warrant death, nor imprisonment when they have enough Dornish wine to fill the Shivering Sea.”

“Thank you.” You smiled kindly, placing a hand on his arm. You both locked eyes for a moment and your heart skipped a beat.

What the fuck is this?

Why were your cheeks getting hot? Why did your whole body feel warm and light?

“Ahem.” Ellaria intervened, smirking all the while. You broke your gaze and returned your attention to Ellaria. “I am not as generous as my lover. I demand payment for my services. I spent good money on those ointments.”

You were surprised by Ellaria’s sudden shift in behavior. She had all the riches in the world and she wanted payment? “I earned my money and you have-“

“A dance.” She interrupted before you could rattle off your other five reasons why she wasn’t getting your money. “A dance at the boy Lannister’s wedding. One with each of us.”

Of course that’s what she wanted.

You wanted to say no, you almost did. But Ellaria had spared her ointments and Oberyn put himself in harm's way just by siding with you when you tricked Jeoffery. Sure, Jeoffery had been amused with the idea of the man as a jester for the Dornish, but Oberyn didn’t know the king would go along with it. And they both of them were certainly not going to be in the good graces of Cersei now.

Not that they were to begin with, but this certainly didn’t help matters.

“I don’t know if you even want to make that request, Ellaria. I’m not a dancer-“

“We will teach you.” Oberyn interrupted before you could protest more, clearly excited by his lover’s suggestion. “I am familiar with certain dances, but Ellaria is the best dancer in Dorne. She can teach anyone to dance.” He purred, pulling her closer to his side before they gazed at each other lovingly.

It was disgustingly cute.

Ellaria playfully hit his chest. “He praises me too much, but I will teach you. You are light on your feet, no? You will not be as bad as you think.”

You sighed, knowing you were going to regret this. “Seems I cannot refuse.” You gave them both a soft smile. “I owe you both, and seeing as I am employed by a Lannister, I can’t very well avoid paying my debt. I would be honored to share a dance with both of you.”

“Good.” Ellaria smiled cheekily. “And since it was my idea, I get first dance.” She teased her lover, in which he grabbed her waist forcefully and pulled her close to him, pecking her lips, but sparing you any more public displays of affection.

Secretly, you didn’t mind. They were actually quite cute when you didn’t have to scold them for trying to make you so flustered.

“I suppose I can live with that considering I will have the pleasure of dancing with the two most beautiful women in the capital.”

You smiled softly and blushed.

Then you quickly remembered yourself.

You cleared your throat. “Anyways, I need to return to The Red Keep. I’m sure Tyrion is waiting to scold me about infuriating his sister again. I better get it all over with now.” It was a lame and rather pathetic excuse, but if you didn’t leave soon you were afraid they would make some remark on the sudden flustered state you now found yourself in.

“We will see you in a few days then. Stay guarded, Silver Hawk. Our actions did not please Cersei, she was rather determined to see you kill that man today and she did not get what she wanted. Find us should anything happen.” Oberyn instructed, his sultry voice turning into something much more serious.

Ellaria’s eyes met yours. She was worried, genuinely worried. Every part of you wanted to somehow console her, to assure both of them that you would be okay. But you felt the beating of your heart pick up the pace. Tyrion, Shae, Bronn, they all worried about you, but it was always lighthearted, worry hid under a joke or a tease. But the Dornish knew no such thing, they felt everything, wore everything on their sleeve, and damned all who had anything to say about it. It was a different kind of bravery. It wasn’t charging head-first into battle, but it was more than you could ever muster, more than you’ve ever known or allowed yourself to feel. And it scared you. Because one person caring for you like this was intimidating, two people were terrifying.

“I will not hesitate to seek you both out should anything happen.” You promised. They had earned your trust, despite every bone in your body that still rebelled against them. They risked their alliance with the Lannisters and went out of their way to help a man they didn’t know, a man they didn’t have to save. There was something to be said in that.

You exited the brothel and returned to the palace. You stocked your arrows and checked your armor. The wedding would only be days away. What would become of the Dornish? Would they ever return? Could you ever go to them?

And why were you thinking of these things? It didn’t matter where they would go. They would do as they pleased and you would go where Tyrion led. Tyrion, Shae, Bronn, they were home. But when you slept that night, your mind was filled with flashes of warm oranges, golds, yellows, bronzed skin, sharp features, dark hair, and eyes that could switch between sharp and kind in an instant.

But you didn’t see red.

Not yet.

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Tag List (if I’m missing someone or if you would like to be added please let me know!): @ilikechocolatemilkh @rpcvliz @janelongxox @evyiione @grogusmum

#armor #oberyn x you #oberyn x you x ellaria #oberyn x reader x ellaria #oberyn martell #prince oberyn #game of thrones #game of thrones fic #got #oberyn martell imagine

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nctsjiho · 3 years

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Just LuHo Things (Lucas x JiHo)

Kun (and Ten)’s Children

"LuJi!”

Though Lucas and JiHo are knowns as LuHo in the fandom Kun, the only person who really calls them by a “shipname”, calls them LuJi

Whenever the two are together they are usually goofing around a lot which ends up with Kun being on high alert and scolding the duo sometimes

Lucas is already really playful and he really likes JiHo so he gets her to do stupid things with him a lot

You’ll find Kun cleaning their mess they left behind with an annoyed expression

(no one is asking Kun to do it, JiHo has already told him she’ll tidy up after herself, but the leader has no patience when it comes to those kids)

Ten is the more chill parent who tells Kun to calm down and “let them be kids”

Both of them have heart eyes for Lucas and JiHo together because the two younger members always have such a bright smile on their face when they hang out

Dream’s lost members

We all know Lucas has said he wanted to be in Dream multiple times before

JiHo has joked about it before as well

On multiple occasions, whether it was a VLIVE, NCT daily content or on fancams, they have been seen singing and dancing to NCT Dream’s music as well as fangirling about the group

Multilingual messes

Honestly anyone in NCT who speaks more than 2 languages has a hard time speaking some times

Even though this isn’t specific to LuHo, for some reason when the two are together they have such a hard time saying at least one sentence which is completely correct

Lucas isn’t the best Cantonese teacher out there to be completely honest I’m sorry Lucas but you know this as well

So after a few attempts of trying to teach JiHo some Cantonese he just gave up, thankfully because the Cantonese he did learn JiHo wasn’t all correct either

On the other end of things, JiHo has given up teaching Lucas other languages as well

She’s a pretty good teacher if you’d ask the other members, but Lucas’ motivation only stretches out to about 15 minutes until he’s done “learning” the language

It’s their incredible amount of energy that makes it so hard for them to communicate properly

They’re always laughing and cracking jokes, never really being serious, so they just kind of fumble with their words and make hand gestures in the hopes the other person understands

And they do!

JiHo and Lucas seem to be able to understand each other 95% of the time, even if their conversations are unintelligible to anyone else in the room

Gifts

Lucas spoils JiHo with expensive gifts

We’ve been knew

JiHo doesn’t ask for anything ever, which is just ridiculous in Lucas’ opinion

Which is why whenever her sees something pretty that JiHo would like while shopping for himself, he’d buy it for her no hesitation

At this point JiHo’s closet is at least 1/3 courtesy of Lucas

JiHo wants to return the favour, but she never knows what to buy him

When she does find a cool hoodie or bag to buy Lucas she always checks it with him first to make sure he likes it, which results in either of 3 options

“I already have it, but thank you”

“I don’t really like it” He really doesn’t like it that much

“I don’t really like it” Lies because it’s a bit too expensive and maybe will end up buying it himself so JiHo doesn’t have to make a huge dent in her wallet

There’s one thing JiHo is really good at though

She’s quite observant, so whenever Lucas mentions something small like, “I lost my favourite cologne” or “I recently finished my cleanser” she’ll write it down and the next day she already bought it for Lucas

Those small things really mean a lot to Lucas which is why he keeps trying to repay her with way too expensive gifts

JiHo’s nothing more than a human sized teddy bear

The amount of times the boys have been worried about Lucas hurting JiHo is pretty impressive

The way Lucas tackles JiHo or throws his whole body weight on her, like he isn’t a 183 cm, 65 kg (that’s not even that heavy at all 😭😭) man

It’s concerning

It’s like he’s a Great Dane that doesn’t know his size, but he loves JiHo so much that he just needs to throw himself on top of her

He also doesn’t know his strength sometimes because he will literally just pick JiHo up with one arm and swing her around like she weighs nothing

Lucas seeing JiHo after not having seen her for a month is... dangerous

She always has to brace herself for Lucas coming at her running to just hug her

At this point she just let’s him pick her up and swing her around, because resisting him raises the probability of her accidentally getting hurt

The girl also really doesn’t mind it and secretly likes it a little, even though she wouldn’t directly admit it

Here some quick-fire LuHo things/facts to end this

I guess this is how I end these kinds of posts now

Isn’t fact checked but: Have each other saved as Prince and Princess on their phones

In 2018 had each other as their phone wallpapers for at least a month

When WayV has schedules overseas or JiHo is touring with NCT 127, they call each other at least once a week for a few hours before they go to bed (at least the person who is about to sleep)

JiHo loves Bella, Wayv’s dog (okay quick side note, I don’t know if she’s actually all of the members’ dog or one member...) and comes over to the dorm a lot to play with Bella, Lucas has said that JiHo is officially Bella’s mom and that they (JiHo, Bella and Lucas) spend a lot of time together

LuHo loves to play with each other’s hair and do each other’s makeup or skincare routines -> results in sleepovers

---

Side note: I am completely burnt out from writing 😭 it really sucks so if my posts are less entertaining, for lack of a better word, I’m really sorry.

If you’ve noticed I’m back on posting every other day (besides that one time that Tumblr didn’t show my posts in tags so I delayed that post another day) and even with that schedule I’m struggling. I’m trying my hardest not to quit writing though, because that’s not what I want in the grand scheme of things, even if I do feel like I have absolutely nothing to write. I started about 13 posts in the last few weeks which are now in drafts unfinished... I’ll stop complaining now 😅 but I just wanted to let you guys know, because I do feel a sense of responsibility with this blog and that it would be unfair to just stop posting or post less, or continue posting “bad” posts without an explanation.

So that was that, I’m sorry for that 😅

I hope you all have an amazing day/evening/night 🤍💚🤍

#jiho.guide #nct 24th member #nct addition #nct imagines #nct scenarios #wayv imagines #wayv scenarios #nct fluff #nct lucas fluff #nct lucas imagines #wayv fluff #nct female member #nct extra member #nct additional member #kpop!addition #kpop!oc

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latte-fairytaekwoon · 4 years

Text

𝐴𝑡𝑒𝑒𝑧: 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑅𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑧𝑒 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝐿𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑆/𝑂

♡*:.｡.𝓚𝓲𝓶 𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓰𝓳𝓸𝓸𝓷𝓰 .｡.:*♡

He felt extremely proud of himself. The melody was flowing smoothly and the lyrics were coming to him very naturally. He had been working on this piece for months now and it was finally finished. He listened to the final demo and then quickly grabbed his phone. Dialing the very familiar number, he was not at all shocked that you picked up at the 2nd ring.

"Hey." His heart jumped when your voice sounded through the speaker.

"Hi love. Are you busy?" He really hoped the answer was negative.

"I'm never too busy for you babe. What's up?"

"I finally finished that song I was working on..." He admitted shyly.

"Oh you did? That's great honey! I'll bet it's a masterpiece." Your enthusiasm radiated even through the phone.

"Would you........ do you mind coming over and having a listen?"

"I'd love to! I'll be there in 20 minutes. Love you." You made a kissing noise before hanging up.

It wasn't the first time he's asked you to listen to something he worked on. In fact, you're the first person to listen to any of his creations, he always wants to hear your opinion before anyone else's.

So why is it that this time he's nervous?

It's simple: he's realized he loves you. He loves you, your opinions, your thoughts, everything he creates he feels a need to share it with you and up to a point, have your approval. And you're always so supportive of him and you're his biggest fan.

How could he not fall in love with you?

♡*:.｡.𝓟𝓪𝓻𝓴 𝓢𝓮𝓸𝓷𝓰𝓱𝔀𝓪 .｡.:*♡

Seonghwa just wanted to spend time with you. It had been so long since you two had time to be together. So he planned a date for just the two of you. He was happily telling you about wanting to take you out to the park, when San and Yunho poked their heads out the hallway.

"Did you say park?!" "Can we go too?!"

Seonghwa groaned. He wanted you two to be alone. He was about to say no, when the rest of the 99 liners came out, and upon hearing the commotion, they wanted in too. Mingi even dragged out Hongjoong and Jongho so they wouldn't be left out.

Seonghwa looked over at you, afraid to see the look of disappointment in your face. But quite the opposite, you had a gleeful smile.

"Let's bring them along. It'll be more fun."

They all hollered triumphantly, with all of them hugging you in appreciation for consenting to letting them come along. Seonghwa just chuckled at the scene, his heart filled with warmth. And he melted even more when he saw you wrapping a scarf around Jongho, making sure he was covered enough so as to not catch a cold.

Seonghwa loves his members very much and cares for them a lot. He feels happy knowing they adore you and you love them as well. He's seen how you've taken care of them multiple times, and have never complained once.

That's how he knows you're the one. Your loving, caring and motherly nature touched his heart. And to have those close to him as family adore you? Tell tale sign he has to keep you around in his life.

♡*:.｡.𝓙𝓮𝓸𝓷𝓰 𝓨𝓾𝓷𝓱𝓸 .｡.:*♡

Yunho and you had just adopted a puppy together. You two were just walking around one day and stumbled upon a pet store. The most adorable and fluffiest golden retriever was pressing its nose against the window.

"Oh my God! He's the cutest thing I've ever seen!"

You immediately pressed your palm on the window, cooing at the tiny animal.

Yunho chuckled at your reaction. "Let's go inside."

Once inside, you practically ran to the puppy, and immediately wanted to hold it. The store employee helped you to take the pooch out, explaining how he was the last of the litter of golden retrievers that were for sale.

"Awww! Did you hear that Yunho? He's the last one! Do you think we could..?"

You looked at him with puppy eyes yourself, silently asking him to adopt the puppy together.

Yunho smiled at your expression.

"Baby really think about it. He's cute and all, but remember it's a big responsibility."

"Look at him and tell me if you can say no to this adorable face."

You put the dog in his hands. Yunho looked at the puppy and could not stop smiling. The golden retriever took a liking to him as well, as shown by the fact he started licking Yunho's cheek.

Looking at your face, Yunho knew it was game over. He could never refuse you. He loved you and would do anything to make you happy. And moments like this, where you two could randomly do crazy or insane things spontaneously, it's something he'd only do with someone he really loves.

"Well little buddy. Looks like we're your new parents."

♡*:.｡.𝓚𝓪𝓷𝓰 𝓨𝓮𝓸𝓼𝓪𝓷𝓰.｡.:*♡

Yeosang tends to keep mostly to himself. He rarely talks about how he's feeling, even to his close friends.

However with you it's different. He feels comfortable talking to you about topics that he wouldn't ever even think about mentioning to others. Not just because you're his s/o. He's dated before and still didn't open up to them either. But he's relaxed talking to you.

With you he's free to rant, vent, cry about anything that worries him and you either comfort him with soothing words, or are just there to listen to him, really listen and understand him. Sometimes your silence speaks louder than words ever could.

That's what happened one day. Yeosang was stressed out, you noticed the second he walked in your apartment. You didn't even pester him, you just let him shower in peace. When he plopped down next to you in the bed, you simply began running your fingers through his hair.

That's the moment Yeosang really felt he loved you. Not only does he feel comfortable to let out his feelings to you, you two can actually communicate with no words. You're soulmates, already knowing what to do when the other is feeling a certain way.

You're his safe haven, you're his home. The bond you two share is stronger than anything else in the world.

♡*:.｡.𝓒𝓱𝓸𝓲 𝓢𝓪𝓷 .｡.:*♡

"Will you promise to watch me?" San asked you while you both waited backstage for Ateez' turn to go on stage and perform.

Smiling, you held out your pinkie and linked it with his.

"Forever and always." You assured him before walking away to take your place in the audience.

San stood there in his place, anxious about performing. He'd already done this hundreds of times, but he'd still get nervous every now and then.

What if I mess up? What if I forget the lyrics or choreography? What if I'm not good enough?

All those doubts and worries immediately faded from his mind when he caught your gaze. You shot him a big thumbs up, waving your light stick for him, chanting along with the other Atinys their names. That's when San gathered his courage and gave his usual amazing performance that never failed to impress fans, and that included you.

You were San's strength, the reason he didn't fear not being good enough, you gave him the confidence he needed and for you, he gave his best performance. He wanted you to be proud of him. He danced and sang only for you. Every wink, finger heart, kiss was directed towards you, and only you.

After they finished, you were already backstage waiting to congratulate him. He raced towards you, spun you around before kissing you passionately. He looked into your eyes and that's when he knew...

Forever and always he'd love you.

♡*:.｡.𝓢𝓸𝓷𝓰 𝓜𝓲𝓷𝓰𝓲 .｡.:*♡

It's not a secret that Mingi is a big baby. He constantly needs attention and special care. His members know this and it was one of the first things they told you when they knew you two might end up dating.

You didn't mind though. You thought Mingi was simply adorable and lovable. One of the purest and sweetest boys you've ever met in your lifetime. Sure sometimes he felt more like your kid than your boyfriend. More times than you can count, you've lost him while you two were out shopping. He's had severe kitchen accidents from trying to help you cook. It's little things like that that'll make some people lose patience at times. But not you.

"Are you mad at me?" He asked you one time you were trying to untangle a long headphones cord that he somehow managed to get stuck all over his body.

"No. Why would you think that?" You asked as you tried to get his hands unstuck.

"It's just..... I-I have so many mishaps, perhaps you..." He couldn't finish his sentence, but you knew what he meant.

Grinning, you shook your head and looked at him.

"Mingi, yes you're somewhat clumsy at times, but I don't mind. It's not your fault. So don't worry my little baby. I'll be right here to take care of you."

Leaning in, you pressed a kiss to his lips before continuing your task of trying to unwrap him from his torture device. Mingi just looked at you in admiration. You were always so patient and loving to him, even when he himself knew he tested your limits.

He truly and wholeheartedly loved you.

"I love you....." He whispered softly.

He didn't plan on saying it, it just happened, but he meant it. He got shy about it afterwards, and he secretly hoped you didn't hear him. He was afraid you weren't at the stage just yet.

"I love you too Mingi."

His face brightened up when you said those words back to him.

♡*:.｡.𝓙𝓾𝓷𝓰 𝓦𝓸𝓸𝔂𝓸𝓾𝓷𝓰 .｡.:*♡

Wooyoung is very outgoing and is a cheerful soul who enjoys having a good time and laughter. Some people say he's too loud, or that he's dramatic, or even annoying.

Not you though. You loved his sense of humor and you honestly enjoyed how he teased you when you were first getting to know each other. He acted like the typical school boy that annoys the person he likes only to get their attention. And it worked because here you were, about to celebrate your 5th month anniversary.

Even after you started dating, Wooyoung didn't stop his teasing. The only thing that changed was that you teased him back. You started playing pranks on him just to get back at him when he did so to you. It was even more fun to team up together and prank the other members, especially Seonghwa. He was your most common victim.

Wooyoung loved your extroverted and fun nature. How you weren't afraid to tease, prank him back if he did it to you. You were just so much fun to be around. There was never a dull moment in his life since you came along. And he didn't have to worry about toning it down for you. With you, he can be himself and he loves that he can make you bring out your wacky side. You're his partner in crime, his other half, you're the reason everyday is an adventure for him. He's wildly in love with you.

♡*:.｡.𝓒𝓱𝓸𝓲 𝓙𝓸𝓷𝓰𝓱𝓸 .｡.:*♡

Jongho was already awake before you. It was the first time he stayed over at your place and the first night you two spent together. Nothing dirty happened the night before, you two just ended up staying awake til late night, casually talking and peppering kisses to each other.

Now here you were, snuggled up in underneath the blankets, not aware of the loving gaze your boyfriend was staring at your sleeping form with. You looked absolutely stunning and it was such a precious moment to him, waking up next to you. He could definitely see himself waking up next to you for the rest of his life.

His precious smile was the first thing that greeted you when you woke up.

"Good morning sunshine." He said to you.

"Morning baby." You greeted him back as you sat up and stretched your arms.

"How'd you sleep?" He asked once he noticed you were fully awake.

"Wonderfully. But I'm hungry. How about I go make us some breakfast?"

There was something almost domestic about your relationship, a sense of tranquility and almost familiarity. Like everything fit into its respective place. Watching you shuffle your way through the kitchen, Jongho knew he loved you and that this was going to be the start of your lives together. He could already see your guys' future.

Gifs not mine, credit goes to their respective owners.

#ateez #ateez reactions #ateez hongjoong #ateez seonghwa #ateez yunho #ateez yeosang #ateez san #ateez mingi #ateez wooyoung #ateez jongho #ateez scenarios #ateez imagines

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snowberried · 3 years

Text

Akihiko Sanada dating hcs

(A/N: My first post on Tumblr, starting off with best boy! Hopefully this is good enough for a first post!)

- Character: Akihiko Sanada

-- Fandom: Persona (3)

--- Gender: Neutral (A little bit more feminine, but anyone can still read!)

---- Includes 13 seperate lines for if you have a persona.

----- Spoilers: Yes (Pass by if you don't want to see spoilers!)

----------------------------------------------------------

• Akihiko and you probably met at school, same class (or if you're younger) maybe just passing by the halls.

You not being in his fanclub was a relief to him, finally not some weird fangirl, he wished he wasn't bombarded by a group of girls and could be a normal high school student, and you made him feel that way.

He could hang out with you and not feel awkward, could actually do activities with someone not swooning over him (well, not immediately).

When you do actually start dating, I feel like he'd be the one actually confessing it, probably like the p3p confession, he wouldn't exactly do it in the most romantic way.

If you confess, he'd probably pull you straight into a kiss, a gentle one, he has this huge though soft smile on his face.

He looks like a dork.

"Y/N- I've- felt this way around you.. I think it may be love.."

He would probably take you to Hagakure's ramen shop after he gets done training, sometimes even treating you.

This man would treat you right, hang out with you and buy you things. Ultimate ladies's man. Well- that is if he was actually good at flirting.

This man is also horrible at flirting, awful.

"Uh- the sunset is almost as pretty as your- smile-??"

Actually he's pretty cheesy.

Whether that's cute to you or not is your choice.

Finding it funny and joking about it would make him feel comfortable flirting, him liking to see you laugh, he hasn't been able to do that to much people.

Actually thinking it's cute would fluster the heck out of this boxer champion, him? Being cute? You must have the wrong person, right?

Call him cute, he'll essentially break down, well- him trying to hide it.

He wouldn't try to look flustered, you started dating him because of his strength, yeah, most definitely, just look cool.

Although he would be horrible at trying to hide it, stuttering a bit on his words, and just shutting down quiet style, hiding his face subtly.

You tease him about it? Even more flustered. He'd say things like "Shut up Y/n-" or just telling you to stop. (Well, I mean the joking manner.)

You'd only stop when he'd literally offer you food to stop.

So now y'all asses at Wild-duck Burger, Akihiko ready to cough up some money.

If it wasn't obvious, Akihiko likes giving you gifts, his love language would be gift giving... Well if it wasn't for quality time.

He loves spending time with you! Jogging especially, although it doesn't have to be anything active, it could be baking, or knitting for all he cares. Well- maybe not knitting, he doesn't seem like the kind of person who'd like knitting.

I'm sure one time he took you to train with him.

If you enjoyed it, cool! Something else to do that you both enjoy.

Though I'm guessing you wouldn't, and in that case, he understands, he'd enjoy coming home from training to see you sitting down or laying on the bed, cuddling with you.

"You're always so cold in bed.. do you wait for me or-?"

He'd probably play with your hair a lot, long or short.

You'd probably go to some of his boxing events, and he gets really happy when you do. Secretly trying better to impress you.

He wouldn't flat out say in the ring that he was trying for you, but later in private he probably would, although kinda bluntly.

"I tried to show off for you y'know?"

After all the boxing matches, you'd be the one to patch him up most likely. Your pretty much a makeshift doctor in the comfort of Akihiko's room.

Speaking of Akihiko's room, you two sleep in there most of the time, though you give it your own touch.

There's all the times your boyfriend won boxing matches, and there's one right near the middle of you winning a spelling bee, or the winner of a 2nd grade art contest.

"I think any accomplishment is good enough!"

"Aki I won that 10 years ago!"

Also of course you're allowed to call him Aki, he finds the name cute, the faintest little blush in his cheeks whenever it's said. (he denies it though)

Hope you don't mind the constant smell of protein while sleeping, he most of the time has 2 whole buckets worth of it at all times in the corner of his room.

He offers you some everytime you eat together, saying it's helpful for if you'd wanted to jog afterwards.

declines everytime.

~It is now angst time~ (Final spoiler ahead warning)

You remind him a lot of Mika.

You know about his past, about Mika. You try to comfort him about it when he gets sad over it.

You knew Shinjiro because of Akihiko, you knew they were great friends, they treated each other like brothers.

So obviously, he didn't take his death very well, or at all.

You were the only one to see him cry, he was in his room sad the entire day. You convinced him to open the door, and you immediately hugged him.

He was devastated, and just started crying on your shoulder. He didn't fight them back or anything. You patted his back and brought him to his bed, and laid down with him.

He thanks you so much for that, saying when he gets better he'll make it up to you. If you try to protest, he'll just kiss you and shake his head.

So you'll eventually wore down and accept.

He promises he'll protect you, if it's the last thing he does. He can't lose 3 people.

~If you have a persona~

Obviously you'd join S.E.E.S. and honestly, Aki is all for it, who wouldn't wanna see their partner kick ass?

Just more time to train together?

At Dark Hour you're suddenly woke up by Akihiko every night.

"Aki it's 13 at night-"

"C'mon! Can't we can get a little training in at least-?"

In Tartarus, although not noticable, Aki does try to protect you if you're ever in critical health.

He'll purposefully make Polydeuces keep Dia just in case you may need a heal.

Yukari and Ken wondering why they can't just heal you.

If one of you is sick or tired, the other won't go to Tartarus, simple as that.

You'll stay at the dormitory and help the other get some rest, laying down with the other and singing lullabies to the other.

Akihiko will offer soup, which if Shinjiro is alive, he'll cook

Though if he isn't, Aki will just try to make it instead, it's always better than you'd thought it would be.

"Have a great night Y/N."

----------------------------------------------------------

A/N: I am finished!!! I hope it was alright for my first headcanons.

✿ Have a great day!! *.✧

#akihiko sanada #persona 3 #headcanon #mxm

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read-write-thrive · 4 years

Text

A:TLA Marching Band AU

Honestly this is just a way too long and complicated list of characterizations for a Marching Band AU, but I have too many WIPs to write it out fully right now, so hopefully y’all like this format!

Elements/Nations:

Air= Brass

Water= Woodwind

Earth= Percussion

Fire= Guard

Avatar= Director

Characters:

Students:

Aang= Trumpet, Freshman, has to learn all 4 elements/sections before he becomes the new assistant director, that one kid who’s always screwing around during breaks to try and impress others (cough Katara cough)/ “just have fun!!!!!”, is openly panromantic/demisexual, often brings giant dog Appa to practice because “he likes the exercise !! and the music calms him down !!!!” but also because Appa has befriended the local stray cat, whom Aang has named Momo, and Aang is too much of a softie to keep them apart

Katara= Alto Sax, Sophomore, at first timid third chair but easily gets to first once she’s properly trained, still sister of Sokka and bickers with him over how he leads the saxophones, teaches Aang woodwind whenever Pakku (woodwind staff) isn’t at practice - which is honestly most of the time after the first week or so, hates when Zuko “invades” the saxophones but eventually warms to him (especially whenever he rejoins and takes over the color guard), definitely straight but is very supportive

Sokka= Tenor Sax, Junior, was really close with Yue before she quit, section leader but is still his single-braincelled self, eventually admits to Suki that the Pit counts as marching band and only then does she agree to date him, is openly bisexual, tries to match Jet’s level of playboy-ness but honestly just needs to calm down

Toph- Quads/Tenors, Freshman, fantastic at pretty much all percussion, is legally blind but can see well enough in full light to march with the group, (legitimately) teaches Aang percussion, at first seems like a helpless little rich girl but is actually brawdy, tough, can swear like a sailor, and is definitely queer in some capacity but she sees labels as bs

Suki- Vibraphone, Junior, leader of the pit, agrees to date Sokka once he gets over Yue and calms down on the whole tough-guy act, is super fit and takes her role seriously but isn’t as anti-fun as other characters can be (cough Katara again cough), is straight and a very outspoken ally

Zuko- Guard/Baritone Saxophone, Junior, best at sabres, that one guard guy who is actually pretty good but gets judged enough for it that he’s constantly angry about it, switches to (aka is forced by Azula/father to switch to) bari sax and is taught by Piandao, fights with Katara at first but it gets better, he and Sokka suprisingly hit it off (Zukka, anyone?), he gets pretty close with the gaang, eventually takes the guard section back his senior year after complete falling out with father/sister, teaches Aang color guard techniques, is probably bi but comes from a homophobic family so just doesn’t talk about it

Azula- Guard, Sophomore, best at flags, reigning b*tch, lot of coercing and controlling, director threatens to cancel the guard bc of the drama but then she, Mai, and Ty Lee all switch to pit for a few weeks and that’s somehow even worse so director caves, is year below Zuko but forced to quit band altogether her junior year due to father’s outrage at Zuko (he is also technically forbidden, but does it anyway and has his best year there), Azula tries to rejoin her senior year but director has had enough and won’t let her get any of the glory so she quits for good, homophobic but is not against doing performative bisexuality (aka bicurious/heteroflexible) to get attention from guys

Mai- Guard, Sophomore, best at rifles, somehow rehearses in all black when everyone else is dying of heatstroke, dates Zuko on/off, Azula tries to convince her and Ty Lee that band isn’t worth it once she quits/is forced to quit but both of them agree they’d rather be in band and abandon her, her and Zuko don’t exactly work out once he graduates (Mailee anyone?), doesn’t seem to enjoy anything so everyone wonders why she’s even in band, is probably at least a little queer but she honestly doesn’t believe in soulmates/mushy stuff like that so doesn’t think much about it

Ty Lee- Guard, Sophomore, best at batons/gymnastics, often used for features (if Azula isn’t interested/needs a second, etc), becomes head guard her senior year after Azula quits and Zuko graduates, actually gets along with the pit once Azula isn’t around to keep that eternal rivalry going, is openly pan once she cuts ties with Azula

Yue- Clarinet, used to be 1st clarinet but after continued harassment from guards transfers to another school after freshman year, her and Sokka flirted and got close but couldn’t do distance, is very good at the clarinet but is too soft spoken for section leader, definitely straight, constantly has guys after her bc she’s seen as innocent (and is insanely pretty of course) but manages to hold her own

Jet- Trombone, Senior, token hot guy but definitely a little screwed up in the head, at the very least a smoker, v big straight but still an ally (especially to childhood friend Smellerbee, who is 100% a trans girl and no one can change my mind)

Lu Ten- Drum Major, graduates right before story begins, joins military fresh out of hs

June- Electric guitarist (in the pit), Senior, known for being hot af but ruthless, mostly friends with ppl outside of band, definitely deals

Staff:

Director = Roku

Drill Writer/old Director who still helps on occasion= Kyoshi

Pakku- woodwind trainer, specifically alto sax focused, a little against Katara being section leader/giving her lessons, but she wins him over

Jeong Jeong- Guard trainer, absolutely refuses to take part in the drama as long as everyone learns their sets, constantly harassed by Ozai

Gyatso- Brass trainer, definitely takes a shine to Aang but becomes ill during the middle of the first season and doesn’t come back (Aang is obviously very sad about this, though he’s in denial about him being truly gone at first), very good at brass but doesn’t take anything seriously -including himself and life in general

Bumi- Percussion trainer, kinda crazy, isn’t always the best at actually training but is freakishly good himself, also takes a shining to Aang

Piandao- guest of the director but not an active staff member, can do a bit of everything, helps Zuko learn Bari Sax, takes a liking to Sokka

Other Adults:

Iroh- father of Lu Ten but sticks around for Zuko (no one really minds, he’s beloved by the band), usually helps with refreshments, secretly swole but loves his comfy clothes so no one expects the strength, though its very useful when hauling equipment

Ozai- father of Zuko/Azula, likes to pitch a fit whenever Roku cracks down on Azula/ treats Zuko well, tries to become board president for what would be Zuko’s senior year but is snubbed, demands Zuko/Azula quit, Zuko refuses and takes over guard while Azula obeys and eventually quits for good

Mr./Mrs. Beifong- parents to Toph, biggest financial backers of the band but aren’t actively involved, tried to get Toph all special accommodations in the pit but Toph insisted she could march so director convinced them otherwise

Hakoda- father of Sokka/Katara, usually away for work but tries to come by for the big finales, cheers the loudest in the stands and tries to embarass them both as much as possible

Gran-Gran- maternal grandmother of Sokka/Katara, primary guardian for the two but is constantly busy trying to support them so doesn’t make it to practices often, flirts with Pakku more than Katara/Sokka even know, always shows up to every performance even with packed schedule

(ask for specific characters and I can do more, but these are the ones I definitely had to do! hope you enjoy!)

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sdottkrames · 3 years

Text

Doors That Were Previously Closed (Bros)

@comfortember Prompt 23: Exhaustion

Summary:

Bruce was starting to freak out. Was Peter sick? Had something happened on patrol- some injury he was hiding or some poison he’d been exposed to? It wouldn’t be the first time.

Tony’s gonna kill me! he thought

Bruce knew how much Peter meant to Tony and he was pretty sure not even the hulk would be able to keep him safe if something happened to the boy. He was /this close/ to forcing Peter in the med bay for some tests when he suddenly let out a loud snore.

Notes: Finally caught up a little bit, so I’ll be posting one a day again! Only 4 more left after this, which is insane!!! Thanks for all your love and support, as always.

Read on AO3: Here

Peter looked at his schedule for the week and groaned.

He had a million projects or exams due, and on the day that he didn’t have Academic Decathalon after school to train for their upcoming meet, he was scheduled for his internship with Tony. And that wasn’t even counting Spider-Man duties.

“Tony, I’m going to actually die this week. Can I, like, fake my death and then come back in a week and a half with everything done?” Peter said after complaining to his mentor about his busy week.

Tony just chuckled. “I’d much prefer you alive, even if the death is fake.” His tone was light, but Peter knew Tony’d had a hard time during the five years he was gone, and could hear the strain behind the words. “How about during internship time, we just take it easy. I gotta finish up a prototype for SI, but it’s almost done, anyway, and shouldn’t take us working together more than a half hour. We’ll finish that and then how about I quiz you for that decathlon meet, or work with you on one of those millions of projects.”

Peter sighed, gratefully. “Yeah, that’d be great.” Gratitude for his mentor filled Peter and gave him the strength to believe he could make it through the week. “Thanks, Tony, you’re the best! I love you.”

“I love you, too, kiddo.” Tony’s voice was soft and mushy, and Peter secretly loved that he got to hear it like that. He grinned to himself as he hung up, then took a deep breath, turned on his “focus” playlist, and got to work.

***

TS: Hey kid, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I’m gonna have to rain check on lab day this week. SI meeting that I absolutely can’t get out of, “even for Peter.”

Peter stared at his phone, disappointment on his face. He’d worked so hard that week, and had been looking forward to a relaxing day with Tony, and having some help studying. He really needed to go over his notes to be ready for the meet- AcaDeca had taken a back burner for Spider-Man, and he’d been wanting to put forth a more concentrated effort to help his team.

Now he wasn’t so sure he could do that. But before he could wallow too long in his thoughts, his phone pinged with a text from Tony.

TS: But before you get all mopey, Underoos, Bruce agreed to take my place and study with you tonight. And I’ll get out of my meeting before you know it!

TS: And don’t forget to breathe. I know he’s “Bruce BANNER!” But he’s still just a guy. Don’t freak out. You’ll do great.

TS: love ya kid

Peter was left staring at his phone again, this time not in disappointment but in disbelief for two reasons. 1. It was scary how well Tony knew him. He probably should be used to it by now (they’d both reached the point of handing each other tools without needing to ask for them) but it still surprised and touched him whenever it happened. And 2. BRUCE BANNER?!

He took Tony’s advice and just breathed. Tonight was going to be awesome.

***

“Hey Dr. Banner!” Peter said as he bounced into Bruce’s lab in the compound. “Thanks again for helping me with my chemistry notes. Tony said he was forced to go to a meeting with Pepper, so I really appreciate you agreeing to help me!”

Bruce looked up, an easy smile on his face. “Of course, Peter. I’m glad I could help.”

Bruce had met many, many people in the course of his work as both a scientist and an avenger, but none of them ever really made him smile like Peter Parker did. The boy was just always happy. He talked a mile a minute, but Bruce found it more endearing than stressful, unlike other people. And the hero worship in the kid’s eyes did wonders for his self esteem. Especially since Peter looked at Bruce that way, not The Hulk.

“So, it’s just for academic decathlon. We have a meet coming up soon and I need to review the chemistry questions,” Peter said.

“Not a problem. I need to finish this first, though, if you don’t mind.”

Peter nodded and began pulling stuff out of his backpack, sitting in the chair Bruce had pulled over for the kid.

Once Bruce finished his project, he looked over at the young boy who had been patiently waiting for him. But Peter wasn’t looking through flash cards like Bruce had expected. The kid was staring at the wall.

Is this normal for him? Some sort of spider thing? He thought. Peter snapped out of it as soon as Bruce called his name, so he didn’t bring it up.

Bruce took the cards and began quizzing Peter. The kid was smart, and Bruce was very impressed. His lightning answers were almost always correct, and though Bruce had to explain a few things for some questions, Peter absorbed it quickly.

About an hour in, Bruce began to notice more things that were off about Peter. His words began to slur a little, he would need Bruce to reask the question, or forget something that he very clearly knew.

Bruce was starting to freak out. Was Peter sick? Had something happened on patrol- some injury he was hiding or some poison he’d been exposed to? It wouldn’t be the first time.

Tony’s gonna kill me!

Bruce knew how much Peter meant to Tony and he was pretty sure not even the hulk would be able to keep him safe if something happened to the boy. He was this close to forcing Peter in the med bay for some tests when he suddenly let out a loud snore.

Bruce looked up in shock. He’d evidently been zoning out in panic, staring at the cards, and suddenly all of Peter’s symptoms made sense. Bruce mentally kicked himself for not putting two and two together. The kid had had a rough week, after all, of course he‘d be exhausted.

Some doctor! He thought ruefully, but ultimately decided to consider it a side affect of the superhero life

He packed up Peter’s cards and then stared at the sleeping boy, unsure what to do. Peter didn’t look comfortable, his neck leaned forward at an awkward angle, his legs crossed and sure to fall asleep.

Sighing to himself, he gently slide his arms under Peter’s and lifted him up. Peter was incredibly light thanks to his spider DNA, and Bruce had no trouble carrying him thanks to the gamma radiation in his DNA. As he lifted the sleeping boy off the chair, Peter whimpered slightly, and then wrapped his legs around Bruce’s middle, nuzzling into Bruce’s neck.

“Okay, then, kiddo,” he murmured. “This is fine.”

He carried his precious cargo to the elevator and up to the common area, deciding to let Peter nap while he made a snack and watched a movie. However, it quickly became apparent that Peter had other plans.

As Bruce tried to put Peter down on the couch, his shirt was very nearly ripped off his body by Peter’s sticky fingers.

“Pete, you gotta let me go, kid.” There was no apparent change. “C’mon. Let go. Give me back my shirt.” After a few more murmured pleas with no luck, Bruce accepted his fate and laid down on the couch, clingy Spider and all.

But for all his discomfort, Bruce had to admit that he really did love Peter, and he didn’t mind the innocent physical affection, which was fairly rare for him. That door had been closed for years by his big green alter ego to ensure everyone's safety. He found himself relaxing under Peter’s weight, the kid’s steady breathing making it easier for him to breathe, too. He found himself more relaxed than he’d been in months. (It’s honestly amazing what some physical touch can do when you’re touch starved).

Bruce was very nearly asleep when the door opened and caused him to nearly jump off the couch. Luckily, he didn’t, and Peter continued sleeping peacefully.

“Hey,” Tony called from where he was kicking off his shoes by the front door. “Is he asleep?” Before Bruce could answer, Tony walked over, and a knowing grin spread across face when he saw Bruce’s current predicament. “Kid get sticky on ya?”

Bruce nodded, patting said kid’s back gently.

“Yeah, he does that.”

Bruce could tell Tony wasn't just talking about the sticky super powers. Peter had a way of working his way into everyone’s heart.

“Yeah, he does,” he whispered.

Tony put a blanket over the cuddly spider and his unfortunate victim, and then the two adults settled in to finish the movie, Peter still firmly attacked to Bruce’s shirt. But Bruce didn’t mind.

#comfortember #comfortember 2020 #mine #science bros!!

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charmed-henry · 3 years

Text

Consequences | The Order

The Order responds to Henry and Rose’s attempt at a mission

Date: Mid July

TW: Light references to death, violence, physical abuse (nothing graphic)

@prince--thomas @knightley--phillip @captain--john @thehuntress-rose

HENRY

It made more sense not to have this conversation at the hospital, and yet Henry was grateful for that small mercy. He knew it was because talking about the Order in public was confusing at best and dangerous at worst, but Henry was personally very embarrassed about this whole thing and he really, really didn’t want Eric (or anyone else) to see him have to grovel. The fact that Rose was here was bad enough.

He sat down on the couch and looked around the room, from Rose to Tom to John to Phil, then sighed. Everyone stayed in stony silence. Henry had to say something. He sighed.

“Erm… right then,” Henry started, a little anxiously. “I reckon you will all want to say something about what my punishment will be and before we get into that, I just want to say that this really isn’t any of Rose’s fault. I know you will probably think that because of the way our last conversation went, but I didn’t tell her anything about Eric until last night, and this whole thing has been my idea. I… thought I could get Eric to come back to the Order on his own and I took some very stupid risks to do that, and… I’m very sorry that Rose got caught up in all of it.”

He glanced at Rose again, then back at the others. “Anyway, I wanted to get that out of the way. But… go ahead, let’s get on with it.”

THOMAS: Tom was fuming. He rarely got properly mad. This wasn’t just pissed off with annoyance, like he was at his mates every now and then. No, this was hands curled into fists, blood pounding, he wanted to hit something (preferably Henry’s face) mad.

He had been silent when he’d left the hospital with Rose and Henry in tow with a promise to see Grim and Eric in the morning. Now, he leaned against a wall of the living room, his arms crossed, expression stormy. He knew that he should keep control of his temper. They were young and stupid and he’d been young and stupid once. But, in their line of work, young and stupid meant you got people hurt or killed. Tom had already seen his fair share of death. So much of it. Even with Eric still alive, it hardly tipped the scales back. He was sick of it and he was angry.

So, Henry’s words only stirred a fire in him.

“Rose is responsible for her own actions,” Tom bit out. There that was civil enough…except that he kept going.

“If she didn’t want to be involved she would have called us or tried to stop you. So, she is just as at fault as you for your stupid, reckless behavior. You almost got someone killed! Probably more than one! You’re lucky you escaped alive. This isn’t a game! It’s not a training simulation. It’s fucking real and people’s lives! You two are playing with them as if none of that matters to you. It was irresponsible and dangerous and you should both be ashamed of yourselves. Not to mention all the lying and the secrecy. Does the code mean nothing to you? Does honor mean nothing? Eric is my family!” Tom’s voice boomed across the living room, and then cracked, like thunder. “I should’ve known he was alive!”

PHILLIP: Phillip reached a hand to Tom’s shoulder. He knew it was very likely that Tom would brush him off, but hell, if Tom was getting mad it was definitely a situation. He felt his own annoyance wrinkle in his chest, slowly tugging towards anger. He wasn’t as outraged as Thomas was (and that was justified — because, bloody hell Eric was alive), but he felt… well, betrayed really.

Disappointed.

That felt weird. Honestly, at this point, he’d rather be angry, rather curl his lip and rage.

But he glanced from Tom to Henry now and all he could think was that he was so damn happy they were alive.

“This was incredibly stupid and risky of you,” said Phillip, instead. He stood up, letting his hand drop from Thomas’s shoulder. “Especially after we told you all the risks — you could’ve put more civilians in danger. Did that ever occur to you? Did you even account for that, carrying on this plan in such a public place? What would have happened if it had been someone else who got injured and not Eric? If someone else died because of you lot.”

For all intents and purposes, his voice was rather calm, but he grit his teeth, some of that annoyance now mutating into bitter frustration.

“And,” he said, and this was the thing he did have the most issue with, and now his voice was cold. “You should’ve told Tom that his bloody cousin was alive.”

ROSE:

Rose was no stranger to scolding. The Huntsclan was a lot more barbaric in their tactics of taking a hunter down a peg. She went to the place in her mind that she usually did when she shut down. A place where she didn’t feel scared of whoever was in front of her. A place where her emotions didn’t control her. Rose heard the yelling, the anger in Tom’s voice, and felt Phil’s coldness.

He reminded her of her father.

Avoiding their eyes, she spoke up, “I didn’t know he was your cousin. I’m sorry, Tom.” Looking up to catch those ocean blues, “but you don’t have to grieve him anymore. You’re lucky.” Rose could only hope the people that had died in her time were secretly alive somewhere. She could see her mother walking down picturesque cobblestone roads with her hair down and not a care in the world. It was only a fantasy though, Rose had seen the open casket. There was proof of the impossibility of her return.

“Henry, you don’t have to defend me. We were in over our heads. I just didn’t want to admit I was,” she sighed. Eating crow wasn’t something Rose enjoyed, but to appease the men that had the power to further her fall from grace… she had to do something. If anyone in New York heard about this Rose would never gain back her good reputation.

JOHN

John was silent. His eyes spoke for him, the icy cold expression of contempt and disappointment aimed itself directly at the two responsible for this mess. “You deliberately disobeyed everything that you were told at the meeting when you first brought this business up. You lied directly to Thomas and Phillip.” He hadn’t been at the meeting, too busy with Office Hours he couldn’t leave from to go discuss a possible threat. He didn’t want to seem suspicious by lying to Jane once again to get out of it so he got updates from Tom and Phil throughout.

This was all a huge mess. A mess that weighed on his shoulders. Because although he was not appointed as some kind of higher position, the Order had always viewed him as the point of contact, the ring leader for all of this, he communicated with them and now he would have to either cover this up, or report to them what was going on. It put him in a position he very much didn’t want to be in.

“How is it that you two could be so impossibly daft?” His voice was cold, biting. Honestly, it was as if he was doing the most spot on impression of his father which frightened him a bit if he was being honest. “You’ve betrayed our trust. You’ve most certainly betrayed Tom’s and kept vital information from him. I cannot believe you lot, honestly. I’m in utter fucking disbelief. And now we’ve got a situation that we have to explain ourselves out of which draws further suspicion and more eyes towards us, jeopardizing everything we’ve bloody been working for.”

He would show some sort of reassurance or affection towards Thomas in his moment of crisis, but all he could do was lock his arms up, crossed over himself because he worried what he might do otherwise with them. No object not bolted down was safe. So he stood there, rigid, staring down the two that were the source of his ire.

HENRY

Henry had braced himself for this. He knew it was coming. For all the ways Henry had messed up during training, not fast enough or strong enough or focused enough, he had never landed himself in this kind of trouble before. There was a difference between a failure of strength and a moral failure. For someone who had always prided himself on his convictions, the latter hurt more.

He wanted to curl up in a ball, to crawl out of his skin, to completely disappear, but Henry knew that would only make him look weaker than he already did. So he gritted his teeth and listened, making eye contact with Tom, then Phil, then John, each one’s speech feeling like another punch to the gut. And by the time John was done, Henry could feel something rising in his throat, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.

They were all right. Henry had lied. He had been cocky and selfish, believing he could bring Eric back to the Order all by himself and that everyone would be so bloody thankful they would overlook the way Henry had lied to them. He had betrayed the men who had trusted him and treated him kindly despite his family’s reputation, and he had dragged Rose into it, who should never have even been involved to begin with. Henry’s honor and his morals had always been so important to him, and now he didn’t even have that.

“I understand,” Henry said through gritted teeth, determined not to show any emotion. He didn’t want to risk saying too much more and looking like even more of the pathetic fool he felt like. “You’re all right. There’s no excuse. I thought I was doing right by Eric, but in reality…” Henry cut himself off and swallowed hard. “That’s all I’ve really got to say. I’m sorry. I… don’t deserve to call myself a Prince right now.”

That hurt even more to admit out loud. Henry needed to get out of here before he really let that sink in. He looked between the others, waiting for someone to speak. “...So what’s going to happen to us?”

THOMAS: Nothing Rose or Henry said made him feel any better about this. Their apologies meant little to him and Rose’s argument also meant little. Of course Tom was relieved to have Eric back. He had lost more people than he could count at this point. To have any of them back was a bloody miracle. But, that did not fix the damage that had been done. Not only to Tom’s heart, but to his trust in either of them. (Though, he did not know how much or for how long Rose had known.) Henry, though, knew better. He knew better and he had done it anyway.

Had lied to them as a Prince. Going off behind their backs to put himself and others in danger, trying to play the hero. Tom understood the urge, but you had to be smart about these things. You couldn’t just throw yourself into a mess without a plan. By lying, he knew that he shouldn’t have done it in the first place.

And he had lied to Tom as a friend, as family. Sure, Henry and Tom did not share blood, but they shared family nonetheless. His sister was Tom’s sister’s in-law. They shared an aunt.

His jaw grit as he listened to Henry’s speech and still felt nothing but burning anger. If it was the two of them, and just the two of them, Tom would’ve already punched him and been done with it. But, he had a feeling that it needed more than a fight to get the bad blood out from between them.

Still, he just glanced towards John, knowing he knew the severity of this crime--and the severity of the punishment that must follow. Tom had a feeling if he was the one who doled it out, it would not be taken as seriously, considering the vengeance that it would be.

PHILLIP:

“You’ll be put on probation,” said Phillip, before John could speak. He knew that John would be harsher with his words than he probably intended (or maybe, he’d intend them to be that harsh — either way, harsher than was necessary for the situation). Phillip could deliver the punishment without going overboard, he felt, because while he certainly was pissed off, he didn’t have as much personal stake in the matter (and also, well, he’d felt a little annoyed at the concept of the Order lately, if only because of his forced engagement).

“Well, Henry will anyway. Rose, I’m sure it’ll be up to your superiors, but I reckon the fate will be similar: you’ll still be stationed in Swynlake, but you won’t be assigned on any missions. We can call on your assistance if we need, but it’ll likely be menial work: helping John with the paperwork, cleaning weapons, all that jazz. The probationary period usually lasts for a few months, after which, your status will be evaluated.” He sighed deeply, rubbing his temples. “Should you break your probation, then you’ll be stripped of your Prince status and if you ever want to take it back, you’ll need to undergo the required training and examinations once again.”

He flicked his gaze from Henry to Rose.

“Once again, not sure what the protocol will be for you, Rose, should you violate that probation.” He folded his hands together. “Got all that?”

ROSE: (tw: abuse mention) Great.

John was yelling, which she hadn’t seen before, but she’d never seen him happy with her either. Tom was just stoically standing there, brooding. Rose had seen this more than enough times. Phil, however, was the one speaking calmly, rationally. Well, he was pretty calm most times. But it seemed as if he had stepped up to dole out reprimands.

Rose supposed she should appreciate it. Considering that hearing it from anyone else would most likely be a lot harsher. John probably thought she was the worst person to transfer over from the Huntsclan, but Tom knew exactly why. She wasn’t ‘stationed’ here, she was exiled. The Huntress chose to come here, yes, but it was never really her own choice. Her punishment was being here, she was never going to be sent back to New York for bad behavior.

She sighed, really absorbing the mess she’d gotten herself into. It was bad for her, but worse for Henry. If he stepped out of line, they said he’d lose his position? He wouldn’t handle that well at all. Rose knew the Order was all about, well, order… but she’d much rather just take a quick slap or a bloody nose over a demotion. The hellion huntress had already worked her way down the ladder of punishments so there was not much further to fall.

“Fine,” she muttered under her breath, but still loud enough to hear. Rose looked up from her feet, to acknowledge only Phil, “Can we go now?”

THOMAS: In Tom’s opinion, Henry deserved to have his title stripped. Here and now. Of course, it was not that easy. The Golden Trio they might be, but it was the kings of the Order who decided such things. He would absolutely recommend it. John and Phil had already managed to talk him down from that, but it didn’t change his mind.

It had been so bloody reckless. It had been so bloody deceitful. Tom couldn’t decide what he was more pissed about: the fact they had gone against their direct orders and almost gotten someone killed or that Henry had been lying to his face for…a year? More?

Tom’s heart felt like it was tearing itself apart and he resented it. He resented all of it. The Order and all it’s stupid rules. The Order and how it put them in these positions. Made them make these decisions—about life and death. He resented how it made him lose his family and then lose them again. All of the sudden, it was as if the clouds had parted onto a calm sea after days and nights of a storm raging. Years of a storm raging.

And he could see clearly how all these things came back to one thing: the Order. It had taken his father and his brother in law, his cousins. How miserable it was. But, as soon as he tried to navigate a path away, all he saw was his sisters. Was Phil and John. And he couldn’t—would never—leave them behind.

“Yes, go,” Tom bit out. “And I hope in the future you take the lives of those you care about much more seriously. Life is not guaranteed, death is.”

#order things #tom #thomas #phil #john #rose #consequences #shark attack #shark week

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phantomphangphucker · 4 years

Text

Phango - Not So Strangers In The Night

(Swagger Bishie + Identity Reveal + Ghost King)

Dash wants many things but there’s two he’s sure he just can’t have, Danny meanwhile, doesn’t think ‘can’t’ is an actual word.

Dash sighs mentally, eyeballing Danny out of the corner of his eye. There had always just been something about how lithe the guy’s body was, the way his clothing would occasionally cling or hang off him giving away the skinnier body underneath. Personally, he would never wear oversized clothing himself, but it was more than a little attractive on people with petite frames.

Watching Danny stretch his arms over his head and yawn in a way that was almost cat-like. He doesn’t know when Danny’d gotten his teeth done like that, the fangs, but they added an even more slender and sharp edge to his face. Moving his gaze up the other teens' jawline to mentally trace out a sharp line all the way past the tapered ears. Everything about Danny’s face was sharp, defined...and incredibly attractive.

Glancing back to Danny’s arms just before he lowers them, the oversized sweater just thin enough and just heavy enough to give away the ever so slight hint of defined muscles underneath. Dash has no clue how that happened and he was honestly a bit hurt and dismayed when he noticed Danny bulking up. How could he not notice? It was so very obvious every time he grabbed around the now practically rock hard biceps to drag the kid off for his daily beating. Or when he snuck a peek down Danny’s shirt, as he always did, when pinning him up against some locker. He knows attacking Danny is pretty stupid, but Dash knows he’s not a smart guy. And really? A jock with a loser? A freak? Never. He’d be a social pariah. So he gets his hands on his secret little crush the only way he knows how. With rough hands and a strong dose of aggression. He does relish the closeness too though with that strange muscle Danny’s built, he does wonder why Danny never truly fights back. He honestly wouldn’t mind getting rough up by the lithe teen. That was half the reason he loved football after all, and working out. The bruises, the cuts, the sore muscles. Pain was a pleasure and carried a feeling of power. Knowing just what your body could do and take. And he’ll admit to testing Danny’s limits sometimes. Seeing just how much pain he could take, which honestly just left him feeling very impressed...and attracted.

But back to why Danny’s muscle growth had bugged him. In the beginning, it did anyway. See Danny had always been skinny, there was a daintiness to him, yet lithe. It’s not like Danny never had muscle, no, it had just been muscle potential hidden away. And wondering just what he could do if that potential developed was a bit exhilarating. Just like getting a new teammate on the field. But his fellow jocks were all rather brutish in their muscle and psyche, which Dash firmly did not have an interest in. And sure, maybe he had gone a little blind, thinking that the only real options were skinny, beefy, or fat.

So imagine his hidden horror with that mindset, when Danny -with the perfect femboy bod, with all the sharpness needed to have a somewhat pixie look- seemed to be transitioning into the beefy category? Over time that worry was quelled, Danny’s muscle was so different. He never seen such a lean tight kind of musculature, Danny even seemed to become more sharp; sharper jaw, the ears, even his eyes had a sharpness. It was, dare he say, exotic. Which if anything, only added to the femboy pixie look. Which okay, sue him, he liked cutesy shit; definitely explained his taste in men. Not that anyone actually knew that. Dash Baxter, number one football star and the example of masculinity, being interested in anything ‘cute’? Never. He had an image he had to keep.

That was one thing he was insanely jealous of Danny over. Danny’s freaky family made it so that it didn’t damn matter what he did or how he acted. Nothing was unexpected behaviour from a Fenton. And he was already a social pariah. Danny could literally transform into a dog or some shit and no one would really be all that surprised. He might get a few new insults hurled at him but that’s it. But Dash? The slight wrong move and goodbye scholarships or dealing with a furious father. ‘Cause don’t let it fool you, regardless of what the colleague heads said publicly, they absolutely did discriminate. Especially in sports. And bi in football? Bi and hocked up with a cute little thing who was a social outcast of the lowest most mocked kind? Surely his life and future would explode right in front of his face.

And of course there was the issue of if Danny would even be interested. Because finally owning up only to get rejected? By said lowest of the low twink? That would beyond worse. So yeah, the risk wasn’t worth it. And he wasn’t quite dull enough to not realise that Danny probably did not like him, the ‘bullying’ and all that. So even if Danny did swing that way, well, Dash’s chances were pretty well nothing.

Making a damn point to jeer mockingly and with a level of intimidation at the weirdo trio as he passes them on his way to class, firmly making a point to not react to picking up on Danny clearly not being fearful and even smirking slightly. It honestly pleased him immensely that Danny didn’t seem to actually fear him. Again, it was something like hidden strength. That was one thing that had always separated Danny from the other skinny kids, he wasn’t fearful. He was bold and loud. Even if that only really showed if you looked for it or caught him on more of his more mirth filled days. Simply put, Danny had never been pathetic. Never been weak. Even back when he was physically very much weak -Dash had to give him fitness training for peats sake- he had never been mentally weak.

Sitting at the back of the class next to Kwan, sneaking glances at Danny here and there. This was something he liked to do in the less important and boring classes, recently anyway. Sure he had always admired Danny with glances here and there but another one of Danny’s changes was just too intriguing not to watch.

Danny often slept in classes, that was boring and honestly made him worry some which is why he went easier on the guy on the days he seemed to be napping more often than not, but when he didn’t and it was one of these more useless classes? He’d go between looked over the other students and scanning the town through the window next to him. The sharpness to his eyes was most noticeable then and there was something about the way he looked over the rest of their classmates. It reminded Dash of how people talked about how gods and angels would gaze upon humans. Like they were impossibly and unimaginably above them yet fond and even protective. It really added to that pixie aesthetic Danny had, made him seem just that more ethereal. ‘Ethereal’ that’s a new one, maybe he got more out of Lancer’s crappy poetry babble than he thought. That thought makes him wonder if Danny would like fancy words and that poetry stuff. All the fae in his moms' romance novels -which yes he did secretly read- seemed to love that kind of stuff. And sure, he’s pretty sure Danny’s human, ethereal aspects aside, but a guy can imagine can’t he? Dash quickly brings his attention back to the teacher as Danny’s watchful yet distant gaze travels to him. At least he isn’t a blusher, Dash is more than a little thankful for that.

Dash is laying on his bed, quickly turning his head to the side as an explosion sounds. Promptly springing up and sticking his head out the window at spotting Phantom zip by, “WOOOO! Go get him Phantom!”, he can’t help but beam as Phantom glances back and sends him a little wave with a cocky smile.

Dash sighs and flops back against his bed, his crush on Phantom was another dirty little secret. Sure he may pass himself off as ‘his biggest fan’ and he certainly wasn’t nearly as bad -or delusional if he’s blunt- as Paulina, but he definitely was a part of the Phantom Crush Club in spirit. Since of course no one knew about this crush either. Queer thing aside, Phantom was a ghost. Which yes, was part of the attraction so sue him, again the whole ethereal thing. Man that word’s becoming a personal favourite.

Phantom’s glow combined with the white of his hair and skin, that definitely qualified as ethereal. The powers were whatever really, cool and probably really fun but not where Dash’s attraction is based. And really, if anything made Dash’s type clear it was his two crushes. Both of them had the lithe pixie feel to them. Sharp in all the right places and brimming with hidden strength. Though Phantom’s might be much more literal. But honestly, Dash preferred Danny’s less showy nature. Phantom demanded attention, the skin-tight jumpsuit definitely did not help reduce that, and he was loud in a way that could border on obnoxious. Danny was a sleek black cat with piercing knowing eyes, Phantom was a mighty dragon always coiled for a fight.

Blinking at the ceiling, “I’m getting all fancy, man I really need to sleep”. Turning over in his bed only for his hand to brush against the corner of a book, “hurgh?”, pulling it out towards his face and squinting. Staring at the little scrap paper used as a bookmark, “probably a bad idea”, but flicking the book open anyway; a bit curious where he left off.

“I wondered if my head and heart would ever reconcile, or whether I'd just cursed myself to relive this moment for the rest of my years, half assured I'd made the only choice available to me, half always whispering if only, the whole of me filled with bitter regret“ ~ An Enchantment Of Ravens

Dash blinks and grumbles, “you didn’t have to call me out like that”. Deciding to flip around to a random page.

“Are you in love with me?" I blurted out.

A terrible silence followed. Rook didn't turn around.

"Please say something."

He rounded on me. "Is that so terrible? You say it as though it's the most awful thing you can imagine. It isn't as though I've done it on purpose. Somehow I've even grown fond of your - your irritating questions, and your short legs, and your accidental attempts to kill me."

I recoiled. "That's the worst declaration of love I've ever heard!” ~ An Enchantment Of Ravens

Dash chuckles but sighs, “fate hates me”. Deciding to try once more, flipping closer to the beginning.

“My cheeks warmed, and a wistful pang plucked a sweet, sad chord in my stomach. It was simple, really. He didn’t want me to forget him once he’d gone” ~ An Enchantment Of Ravens

Dash blinks, he did always rather like seeing the slight busies he left on Danny. Which now that he thinks about it, they didn’t seem to form anymore or stay for long. Which, okay yes, bugged him, not like he knew why really. Guess it was kind of obvious now. Maybe Danny would See those bruises and remember him. Was that stupid? Likely. Snapping the book shut and sticking it more securely under the mattress, before making a point to force himself to settle down to sleep.

He finds himself waking up way too early for a school day, turning his head to look at the little football-shaped clock, it’s red light glare at him reading ‘3:42’. If non-ghostly objects could be malicious, he’s sure every alarm clock would be. The early morning leading to him thinking back on his current book, the story of a fae royal and human falling in love. Forbidden love that would cost the fae his reputation. Sounded a little familiar huh?

Twenty minutes later and his mind’s still on that damn book, so he throws the blankets off and decides to get dressed. Thankfully sneaking out was relatively easy in his house, normally everyone was so loud that quiet noises went completely unnoticed. So just walking out the front door was a perfectly fine thing to do.

Five minutes later finds him wandering the sidewalks of Amity. If he’s being totally honest, even if Danny wasn’t some social peasant or whatever, he still wouldn’t go for it; even if he was a girl. Why? Hitting on girls like Paulina was easy, expected even. There was no risk. Even if girls like we rejected him, that’s what they were expected to do most of the time. But someone he was actually interested in? That was risky. The thought of trying to take it was thrilling, attractive, fun. Actually trying? Nope.

Kicking a rock down the gravel as he enters the park, eventually bumping into to something or someone. Snapping his head up and cursing his luck -or maybe he should be thanking it?- at seeing it was Danny he ran into...literally. Watching as Danny steadies himself quickly, his hood fällig down in the process. Dash has to make a damn point to not stare and change his face to a scowl when the moonlight practically glows of Danny’s pale skin. Why did he have to be so, um, right, ethereal? “Watch it loser”.

Danny squints at him, then throws Dash through a loop by responding with, “no one wanders around at four am for good reasons”.

Dash blinks a bit at those watchful blue-eyes, losing a bit of the fake bite that Danny hopefully passes off as tiredness, “then why are you here?”.

“Why would I tell you why?”, with that Danny turns back to look over the rest of the park from the little bridge thingy they’re on.

Dash scoffs, “whatever Fentwerp”, joining in looking over the park. The two settle into silence, though it doesn’t take long for Dash to glance at Danny’s back; the dark grey hoodie was arguably in horrible condition but it just looked like a style choice on Danny. Everything probably looked good on him. Flicking his eyes away to avoid Danny possibly noticing, because really, there was no one else here so any staring from him would be rather obvious. That gets him thinking though, when had he ever been just one on one with Danny? With neither of their friends around or teachers? Never. It had never happened. Dash didn’t do lonely, he also didn’t do silence for that matter, and Danny’s friends were practically attached to him. Honestly, he’s pretty sure both of them are crushing on Danny; Valerie definitely still had a thing for him, everyone knew the goth did and the techno-geek had a thing for everyone. And yet none of them were going for him...why? They didn’t really have anything to lose and Valerie already had once. Right, even Paulina had dated him; even if she claimed it was to piss off the goth. Maybe there was just something about Danny that made him easy to crush on but impossible to love? Maybe it had something to do with how he was, what was that word? How could he have forgotten it already?....oh right, ethereal. Or maybe it was because he was ethereal. It was pretty obvious people are, um, put-off? -That sounds right- by things that seem inhuman. What with all the horror movies about such people, and that was a pretty common theme with human/non-human romances. Personally, he didn’t get it. Sharp, predatory, the thrum of potential power or danger, the otherworldliness -he’s pretty sure he’s read it described with that word once- he liked that.

Flicking his eyes back to Danny watching as he opens his mouth to sigh almost soundlessly, fangs dragging across his lips. Yeah, shit like that is going to be the death of Dash. With the silence officially be too much for the jock, Dash mutters, “four am is a stupid time”.

Danny snorts, “perfect for you then”, before pushing off the railing and eyeballing Dash. Smirking slightly, “you still keep a collection of teddy bears?”.

“Oh screw y-”, Dash cuts himself off, there’s not really anyone here to play pretend for. “Yeah, so what I like cute shit, what’s it to ya Fenton”. Including cute shit like you, being left unsaid.

Dash doesn’t miss how Danny’s eyes seem to glint while Danny tilts his head at him before those eyes glance around a little. Dash isn’t sure what he sees or is looking for, while Danny hums before speaking, “so often you aren’t quite what you seem, huh Dash?”. Then walking a bit to stand side to side with Dash, hands in his pockets, “you allow those around you to dictate who you are. Stop that, it’s stupid. You’ll never find what you want or who you fit with that way”.

Dash turns and watches Danny walk off. In some way it almost feels like Danny was never actually here. Looking back tot the bridge and touch where Danny’s hand had been to find it cold. Was he tired enough to actually be imagining Danny being, well, Danny? He’s not sure he’d even be able to imagine the sharpness of Danny’s eyes. Sighing a bit and not sure if he wished the maybe Danny had stuck around or not. Before deciding to walk some more, the air smelled nice at least and no one was around to give a damn how he acted.

Turning and walking off the bridge only to nearly shriek from some blonde-haired guy just suddenly being there. He doesn’t look friendly and the scar over his face doesn’t help that, yet Dash finds himself frozen in spot. He knew he could move, kinda wants to, but something just feels like he shouldn’t. Maybe it was the piercing blue eyes, how even with the strong moonlight he had no shadow, or the cruel-looking smile that somehow felt kind.

Swallowing a bit thickly as the man approaches, the clicking of his purple walking stick being the only sound. The stranger looks up at him slightly, “restless soul, looking for something in another land. The kind heroes and villains dance upon. You think you know your path best, and yet, are just a vagabond too fearful of quicksand to walk from the desert dunes to find an oasis of blues and greens. You are parched dry from your ways, yet refuse to chase waters deeper than you know”.

Dash blinks, catching the moonlight glint off the strange gear cog collar pins, “what?”.

The man chuckles, “you hold tears of the potential of judgment. A soul of man, whose fading light will one day be at its end. Seeking to paint your existences canvas with the lord of graves. One who you’ll grant find in time, one way or another. Painted soot or painted snow. Regardless. Would you not rather run your hands through the textures while you can enjoy it and endeavour it while having a pulse to half match under your skin?”.

Dash’s brain is pretty well mud right now, “who are you?”.

He shrugs, “I’m a tale of time, that history has lost. I see, I guide, I exist. And you, you are a bird that thinks it’s a boar”.

One thing Dash can always do is pick up on insults, and that was an insult, even if he has no clue what that was supposed to mean, “I’m not a meathead”.

The stranger holds up a finger and smiles, his eyes have an oldness to them that is honestly unpleasant, “precisely. You fear not the dark nor the monster with in, you fear the light and things far weaker than you. The boar charges and fights the bull, the bird lives alongside it. You feign your charges, act the boar, even as your flyer eyes see that the target is something to walk with, not against. You do this so others think you are a boar, why would you want to? boars die foolish. Be glad your bull is more of a lording cat, one that won’t strike you down”.

Dash blinks and steps back a little bit, “er, whatever you weird old man”. To make a point, Dash walls forward and around the stranger, but not too close because seriously, what the fuck?

The stranger doesn’t move but follows Dash with his eyes, speaking again just as Dash walks past, “you may find your lithe cat will enjoy your feathers quite fine. And one more thing”, Dash glances back and the stranger winks with a grin, “it’s not time that’s stupid, it’s what you do with that time”.

To say Dash is confused, as he walks the gravel path feeling slightly paranoid, would be an understatement. Lancer’s weird poetry crap made more sense than that. But the weirdos' last words sounding so much like Danny’s is giving him a weird gut feeling that the guy was somehow talking about Danny. Officially deciding he needs to back to sleep, he must be having awake fever dreams or something.

Dash walks through the school doors, firmly glad he got more sleep. Part of him wants to confirm seeing Danny wasn’t some weird fever dream, the other part is a bit distracted when, in his taking in of Danny’s lithe form, he notices the small gear cog charm hanging off his chain belt. It looked exactly the same as the weird guys' pins, has Dash just walked into some strange fantasy story or something?

Looking away and storming through the halls like he owns them, which he does, when Danny looks to him. Catching Danny’s eyes seemingly becoming sharper for a second and his hand brushing the charm on his belt. Why did he feel like Danny noticing where he was staring was somehow...what was that word? Some that started with a ‘c’?whatever, it was somehow a strong play.

Danny just suddenly appearing and stepping out of a bathroom stall, that Dash is sure was empty, during lunch rather confirms his thoughts. Looking Danny over through the mirror, his head was titled and he quickly locks gazed with Dash through the mirror. This was that sharp edge really showing through, and god damn if that wasn’t stupidly attractive. Snapping at him, “what you being creepy for, you freaky weirdo”.

Danny scoffs and rolls his eyes, “it seemed rather timely”.

Dash blinks a bit at Danny almost jarringly quickly snapping his gaze back to Dash’s face in the mirror. The first thought to worm into his head is that this seemed like a cat stalking after a bird. Then basically getting dropped kicked in the brain by Deja Vu. Muttering at the mirror, “what is it with that bird shit”.

“What, someone give you a weird birds and the bees talk?”, Danny snickers, “thought you were too old for that”.

Dash squints at the mirror, was that what that guy was going off about? Honestly anything seems possible. Looking Danny over, if there was one thing everyone knew it was how used to strange he was. How part of it he was, because of his family. But Dash knows there’s more to it than that, that he was something different and strange all on his own. He’s also sure that’s not just his interest in the ethereal boy talking. Deciding to go out on a limb, not like anyone would judge him for using a Fenton to figure out some weird shit, “maybe? Who knows what’s up with weirdos”, turning around and looking more directly at Danny, who’s looking at him with critical sharp eyes, “some guy going off about drinking ‘oasis’ of blue and green. That my cat will like my feathers”.

Danny smirks knowingly and moves to wash his hands in the sink, “sounds like a riddle if I’ve ever heard one. Maybe think of who you associate with blue and who with green”, chuckling and shaking his head a little, locking eyes with Dash in the mirror again, “and who you think of as a ‘cat’. Otherwise, sounds like someone’s telling you to stop holding yourself back and chase after what you want”. Danny walks out leaving Dash just kind of staring at the sink.

Dash spends the rest of the day casting glances at Danny a fair bit more often than he usually does. Pretty well sure the boy knew what the strange guy meant but was just letting Dash figure it out himself. He finds he can respect that a bit, even if he’s definitely annoyed. The fact that Danny is seemingly brushing up against him in the hallways doesn’t help, or maybe it does. Because fine, yes he likes it. The fantasy of Danny being forward towards him in an attracted way won’t stop circling in his head. But it isn’t until the second to last class that something clicks. Watching Danny suddenly stiffening, like he often did before running off to the bathroom mysteriously, Dash could have sworn Danny’s face twisted in anger and eyes flashed green for a second as he stands and speed walks out of the classroom. Leaving Dash blinking and getting slapped by Deja Vu again. ‘Blue and green’, blinking more at that making other things click in place. Everything about Danny was lithe, he’d even described him as cat-like. Was weird dude telling him to get with Danny? The hell? How did weird guy even know that?

He guesses that’s one way for the universe or whatever to say something’s fate or some bullshit. But real life doesn’t work like that...right? Well okay, ghosts are real so there is some make-believe that’s real. But then Dash, Hell no one, would ever describe Danny as a bull. A bull that’s a cat, that doesn’t even make sense. Shaking his head as class ends.

Walking out thinking of soot and snow, and didn’t that guy also say something about heroes? Soot was black right? Googling away to find that yes it was, as he makes it to his next class. Of course snow was white. So black and white. Well shit, that was Danny and Phantom’s hair colours; and Phantom was a hero. Danny had organised that rescue mission, so could he be labelled ‘hero’ too. Not really, it was a one-time thing after all.

Groaning and hitting his head into the desk only for the teacher to snap at him about paying attention. Mentally shoving all this crap away, basically mentally screaming at it to sort itself out.

Seeing Danny after last class across the hall and walking towards Danny with a glare, because he absolutely needs to take out his romantically frustrated aggression and, if he’s honest, mentally frustrated aggression -because thoughts of that weirdo just will not leave him alone- on someone.

Dash grabs him and slams him into the lockers, speaking without a whole lot of power behind his worlds, because he’s more than a little preoccupied and Danny’s eyes glittering with mirth and knowing does not help, “you know, I kinda feel like making you eat locker, weirdo”.

Danny speaks with a smirk, “weirdly cute you mean”. Dash sputters and promptly drops Danny, turning on his heel and speed walking off. Though he does throw a glance over his shoulder back at Danny, who looks more smug than anything he’s ever seen before; making Dash blush furiously and then feeling annoyed at blushing.

Dash decides that night that if his head’s just gonna be stuck in a pit of ‘just ask him, you know you want to’ and weird mutterings about painting with the lord of graves -whatever the heck that means- then he might as well finish his book. Well, his mom’s book but still. It seems suiting enough.

He flat-out drops the book when he gets to the point where Gadfly -an ageless fae who can see the future and all the twists and turns it might or might not take- functionally admits to setting up Isobel with Rook. The mortal with the inhuman prince, who -as Dash finishes the book with a fair amount of shock- comes to stand as the King of all fae. The lord of fae. The lord of graves? Was Danny some kind of ethereal prince? King? Or something? And heck! Gadfly was even blonde too! The Hell? And didn’t weird guy go off about Dash painting or something? Isobel’s a painter. Officially finding this a little too weird, Dash closes the book and tucks it away. Looking out the window and deciding that another -not really early enough to be morning but too early to be night- walk might get him more answers.

Somehow, Dash thinks as he watches Danny fiddling with a dandelion puff from afar on the same bridge as before, this isn’t surprising. Shaking himself off and making a point to shove down all the weird stupid feelings, before walking over with his hands in his pockets. “So you’re out here again”

Danny speaks without looking to him, “so are you”.

Dash scoffs and looks at his shoes a little, something tells him Danny wouldn’t be out wandering the night because of a book and some weird guy. The boy would probably handle it without being fazed much at all, “what? do you just wander around in the dead of night for fun?”.

Danny chuckles and side-eyes him, “maybe I do, maybe I don’t. Under the moonlight seems like a great place to be, don’t it?”.

Dash leans against the bridge railing, “it is ethereal I guess”.

Danny laughs and it’s a bit loud, “ethereal, that’s a big word for you. Now I wonder what could make you learn a word like that. Something so applicable to the strange and otherworldly”.

Dash bites his lip slightly at that, feeling incredibly called out, though ha! ‘Otherworldly’ was a word used for it. For people like Danny. Dash scoffs, “whatever, it’s got it’s uses”.

They stand in silence, both looking in opposite directions for a while. Until Dash blushes slightly at Danny humming, recognising the tune as Strangers In The Night.

Now Dash isn’t that much of an idiot, he’s not smart but he’s not dumb. He can recognise a blatant call out when he sees one. Danny knew. And...wasn’t being a dick about it, much. Wasn’t brushing him off. Dash isn’t sure if he’s confused by that or not.

Turning his head slightly to look at where the strange man had been last night before blurting out, “you’re mean”.

Danny laughs loudly at that and looks at Dash, who firmly avoids turning his head further to meet the gaze, “oh yes, says the bully. But you know what they say, ‘he only hits you ‘cause he likes you’”.

Dash jerks a bit and gapes, maybe he underestimated the boldness of Danny. While Danny sighs after a while of furthered silence, “it’s a darker night out hmmm? The darkness always holds something, a secretiveness to it. Where you can watch without being seen or act without being watched. In every story it crawls with monsters, things of depravity. Things people think are wrong, shouldn’t see the light of day. But those things are free in a sense that those who secluded themselves to daylight can never be. Monsters and those who hide, yet even they need to be brought into the sun sometimes. Wouldn’t you say?”.

Dash’s brain had stalled on the monster comment. That weird guy had gone off about monsters too. The whole him not fearing monsters or something? Danny was clearly weird, different. Didn’t people get called monsters in all those mutant movies over being different? And Phantom, well, the Fenton’s literally shouted that he was a monster. This was turning into some beauty and the beast shit. That makes him practically pitch forwards and face-plant into the ground.

Danny catches him and mutters, “geez, are you so repressed that the idea of not being so makes you want to eat the ground you walk upon?”.

Dash just blinks at him as he stands in front of him, because the whole thing with beauty and the beast was the beast transformed. Could look two different ways. And Danny’s eyes were green. Phantoms eyes were green. Danny raises his eyebrows at Dash sputtering at him, “that’s, it’s not, that ain’t”, Dash blinks, this explained a lot and Phantom was so bold, he took what he wanted, yet here he? -They? However it works- was seemingly waiting for Dash to make some kind of decisions thingy. Muttering, “have my cake and eat it too”.

Danny scrunches his face up and laughs, “I never imagined Dash would genuinely confuse me-”, getting cut off by Dash just saying screw it and kissing him, hard.

Dash pulling back but promptly hugging the weird ethereal creature, “I am so many levels of confused”. Danny just chuckles and pats his back, “yet maybe less in some way. Though you know, you really should ask first”.

Dash jerks and basically holds Danny by the shoulders away from him, Dash wasn’t that dumb of a guy but he was definitely a little stupid.

Danny rolls his eyes but smirks, batting off Dash hands before grabbing his shirt collar and kissing back, “you’re an idiot”.

Dash mutters, “you’re a weirdo”, as Danny backs off. After a bit of silence Dash looks at his feet and sticks his hands in his pockets, “so, uh, now what?”.

Danny shrugs and goes back to leaning on the railing, “I dunno, you work through your confusion I guess”, glancing at Dash, “just know that I am never a confused person anymore”.

Dash looks out across the park, well that was as blunt as anything. Why though? “I’ve literally beat the crap out of you for years. And,”, Dash worries his lip a little, blushing slightly from the unusual coldness on them, a coldness from Danny, “and you could have fought back anytime”.

Danny gives him a knowing look before smirking a little, “so you figured that out too huh?”.

Dash doesn’t give him a chance to say anything more, “as of two seconds or whatever ago. My head is mud”, Dash barely cuts himself off from saying ‘congrats’ or ‘thanks’. Who the Hell says that to some who just kissed them?

Danny screws up his face and it honestly looks like something out of a bad movie where the characters make some great discovery. When he chuckles and shakes his head, “so that’s what you meant by the cake thing”, squinting at Dash a little, “now you know I have to ask this, but knowing isn’t why you did that, is it?”.

Dash doesn’t know whether to nod or shake his head because both would be a lie, “I just figured out my two, um, interests, were smashed into one. Excuse me for not being myself, or whatever, enough and pleased, to have some self-control”.

Danny smiles at that, shoving Dash’s shoulder lightly, “lucky you I guess. Who’d you like more?”.

Dash sputters, Danny was a little much, always was, but that’s part of what he liked about him. The fearlessness, the hard sharpness, and he was cutting Dash the Hell up, “you”, Dash keeps talking as Danny raises his eyebrows, “Danny”, continuing when Danny raises his brows further, “Fenton. The weird lithe kid with sharp edges and the whole pixie thing going on”. Dash looks around some, ignoring the slight smirk on Danny’s face.

Danny bumping shoulders with him, “oh fancy words Dash. You know I love words with meanings, that I love to give out nicknames. Maybe you should be Teddy Bear”. Dash blushes more than a bit furiously at that which just makes Danny laugh, “oh yes, that will do wonderfully”. Danny sighing after a while of Dash blushing and staring defiantly into the distance, “not that we have to be public about... whatever this is”.

Dash looks back to him at that, nodding slightly, “that is...why I never would have tried normally. Weird dude threw me through a loop”, smiling a little and shoving Danny lightly, “I think I’m glad he did though”.

Danny nods, “if there’s anyone who can understand secrets Dash, especially for safety’s sake, it’s me”, gesturing around, “night seems to suit us. It’s always been something of mine. There’s not really anything wrong with hiding in the night, if you care to join me in that anyway”.

Dash gapes a little, that felt like a stupid question. Why would he question if Dash wanted this to be a ‘thing’. Dash should be the one worried about that, “yes. That is- why would you even ask that?”.

Danny chuckles and gives him a smile that’s got a sadness to it, which Dash is officially having none of and feeling more like his rather brazen self, just kisses him again before he can respond. Dash then saying, “it doesn’t matter”.

Danny chuckles and shakes his head a little, “you sure watch me a lot huh. Like what you see?”, Dash forced down his blush this time while Danny smirks and glances around with that searching look before looking back to him, “care to see how I own my night?”.

Dash just nods a little before going slightly slack-jawed at the near blinding ring of light and Danny suddenly being Phantom and just floating around to be away from the bridge slightly, holding a hand out to Dash, “well? I could rip off superman and say I promise not to drop you or you can stop holding yourself back”.

Dash barely wastes a second before grabbing Danny’s hand and letting him pull him up off the ground. Dash asking the only other question he really has or that’s still bugging him as Danny wraps his arms around him and just...goes up, “so weird guy also said something about king of graves?”.

Danny laughs and shakes his head a little, “that cheeky bastard”, before looking down at Dash’s face, “Ghost King, Dash. Something beyond what any ghost or mortal could be”.

Dash again feels slapped by Deja Vu, he’s never going to be able to look at that damn book the same again, “you know, I was reading a book where...”.

Dash winds up explaining his ‘girly’ book interests as they fly around, oddly unfazed and comfortable with the whole fly thing. While Danny simply exists as the strange ethereal being he is, face glowing brightly against the night sky; leaving Dash feeling like he just caught a star in a wishing bottle and think that maybe poetry might be a good idea.

End.

#danny phantom #phandom #phangoweek19 #phango19 #danny fenton #dash baxter #romance #swagger bishie #ghost king Danny #clockwork #identity reveal #homophobia #acceptence #phantomphangphucker #have a fic suck my dick #my writing #clockwork is just out here setting people up

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fanfoolishness · 4 years

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Steven Universe: Future thoughts

Spoilers for the first four episodes below the jump! All sorts of rambling ahead! Please message me or reblog to share your thoughts, I wanna talk about it all!

I’ll try to organize things by episode. I won’t be able to rewatch them until they go up on Apple TV so this is all off the cuff. AHOY!

1x01 Little Homeschool

Steven has White, Blue and Yellow essences in his bathroom cupboard. Maybe keep a bottle of your own spit just to be safe? You never know?

Aww Cherry Quartz is cute. Did she actually get named? I assume that’s who that is.

I had thought that shot in the trailer was going to be Pink Smoky Quartz. I was wrong, but then we DO get Pink Smoky Quartz next episode ahhhh!

We all know Steven drew that picture of himself and the Diamonds on the brochure.

I like to think that Steven keeps up with his drawing during quiet times, and while he isn’t technically great, most 16-year-old artists aren’t great per se. What’s important is that he keeps doing it and he’ll keep getting better!

Little Homeschool looks awesome and I want to go make some morps with Vidalia. Wait, were Lapis and Peridot there? I don’t remember. They should be!

I’m so glad Jasper isn’t the big bad!!! And I love that she’s just antisocial but not actively harming anyone (beetles and grass aside).

Still no explanation for the blanket, I love it

STEVEN GO OFF, YOU TELL HER NOT TO HURT THAT BEETLE

Whoa Steven, that rage is juuuuust below the surface these days, isn’t it? I get being annoyed at Jasper and I’m sure this isn’t the first time they’ve had this discussion but he really does just go off on her pretty damn quickly, and several times.

I am concerned that he referenced her corrupting herself. I DON’T WANT CORRUPTED STEVEN Y’ALL, this better not be foreshadowing!!!!!

Honestly Jasper just needs to get into wrestling, I’m shocked Amethyst and Steven haven’t pointed this out to her

I’m dying at her attacking all the Earthlings in her little radius

Awww Steven, at first he’s really intrigued by Diamond Mode and wants to learn how to use it better. So optimistic!

Except you totally killed about 10 conifers and only healed one, so way to hurt the forest dude

Am I the only one wondering how conflicted Dr. Maheswaren must feel, knowing Steven can heal all this crazy shit and that a) she’s toiling at doing it the old-fashioned way, b) he could really help her patients, and c) he isn’t?

Looking forward to seeing Steven and Jasper talk again, but I really hope it’s not because Steven’s been corrupted and is trying to get over it. Urrrgh no ;_;

I do want to see if she has tips for how to control anger. Or how to use it and learn from it. But I’m not sure she knows either.

Steven is a shark. Because if he’s not swimming, he’s sinking. And swimming to him is helping people. If he can’t do that, if he can’t do what he’s supposed to do in his mind, what is he doing? He’s gonna sink this season and it’s gonna be FUCKING SPECTACULAR.

1x02 Guidance

Amethyst is so proud of herself! It’s awesome!

Steven is clearly a little uncomfortable that he didn’t come up with the idea, isn’t he? He also has a hard time figuring out that there are ways to use what you’re made for instead of having to run from it. Of course, that isn’t true for everyone. Little Larimar did love screams and children more than ice. The best lesson is that people are different, some are comfortable working in a certain zone whereas others need to struggle past it to feel complete.

Amethyst was sitting in front of the Teens of Rage video game. I FEEL THIS WILL BE SIGNIFICANT Y’ALL.

I’m just so glad Mr. Smiley finally isn’t understaffed. He could take a day off and go visit Mr. Frowny!

Uncle Andy is back! Yay! And he’s getting involved with Beach City in general, I’m really happy to see him putting down some roots.

Smoky Quartz is back!

PINK SMOKY HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THEM GO

Love love love the pink/purple asides for the Steven and Amethyst debate while being Smoky Quartz

TIME SLOWING/SUPER SPEED POWERS??? I WAS NOT PREPARED

The roller coaster exploded IN THE OCEAN I can’t EVEN

So far both Steven and Amethyst are intrigued and impressed by Diamond Mode, and sure, it seems harmless now...

Steven is worried he’s losing his touch helping people. That makes me worried that that’s part of a bigger feeling, not just this particular snafu.

Amethyst being so direct is often the one who gets closest to Steven talking about his feelings. He started to go there, but then Little Larimar showed up again with their terrifying talk about screams....

1x03 Rose Buds

I’m really glad Greg and the Gems aren’t giving Steven shit about not wanting Rose to be looming over him in portrait form. Now if y’all will also TALK to Steven about how he feels about it... but at least they’re okay with him removing the portrait.

HOOOOOOLY SHIT Y’ALL

I’m so happy J-10 and Y-6 are back!

OMFG they are NOT over Greg and it’s amazing

GAH-REG HOW COULD YOU

I’m glad the Zoomans are in control of their own destiny and able to go where they wish!

no no no no no no no no no no we all know what’s coming here

Coming face to face with Rose Quartzes = instant KO for one Steven Universe

I almost had a panic attack with him as the Roses clustered around him and the music got tenser and tenser and the camera zoomed in on his face and that was fucking INTENSE PEOPLE

Greg seeing the Roses and just noping the fuck outta there, amazing, everyone in this family is so repressed

Poor Garnet and Pearl hiding in the bathroom

“Yeah, it’s weird”

Poor Rose Quartz-who-most-looks-like-our-Rose-Quartz, it’s clear she is much more emotionally in tune than the other two (due to her belly gem placement?)

STEVEN GOT NEW PAJAMAS

but let him sleep shirtless you cowards!

Also he just looked... so GROWNUP in that scene by the warp pad? His proportions were just no longer little kidlike? And he is still cutely beefy but not really little-kid chubby anymore and teen me would have had it BAD for him at this point, I’m just sayin’

Steven is S O O O O S T R E S S E D R I G H T N O W

he’s eating his fucking blanket in an attempt to not talk about his problems I CAN’T

also HAVE WE NOTICED that Steven will eventually end up telling strangers at least some of what’s bothering him, but never the people who actually love and care about him

this episode was so damn tense it is masterful

I’m glad they managed to talk things out a little

but clearly Steven is still, as always, just scratching the surface, this poor kid just needs to GO OFF.

did he go pink in this one from stress for a second? Or was that the next one?

1x04 Volleyball

You cannot tell me that that white coat is not a hand-me-down from Dr. Maheswaren, it is CANON IN MY MIND

also damn how many Gems are cracking themselves right and left that this needs to happen regularly?

seriously though Steven, you might just want to get a spittoon and start sending one to every hospital ever, you would undo A LOT of human suffering....

Steven honey I’m so sorry your mom did you so wrong and I’m so sorry you’re so scared of everything to do with her and NONE OF IT IS YOUR FAULT OKAY

but maybe also you need to learn how to face some of this stuff so it doesn’t scare you so badly

Poor Pink Pearl!

Volleyball? Seriously Steven? so insensitive how do you know Pink didn’t throw a volleyball at her head

Poor Pearl and Volleyball feeling so jealous about each other

Volleyball is 8000 years old?? damn how old was Pink?

oooooooh the Reef! so cool and mysterious! Look at all those Pearl possibilities!

So Pink damaged her Pearl, and she sent her to the Reef for repair. They fixed her gem, but when she reformed, the trauma was still so severe that she reformed with the crack. Oh man :(

Now again I don’t want Corrupted Steven but you could probably wrangle that into support for the theory.

I prefer to think that Steven will do something different than straight-up Corruption to himself, but we could see something like the crack form instead of Corruption.

Willing himself into a monster form only works if he thinks of himself completely as a monster. Right now he thinks Pink is the monster, and he thinks, finally, that he isn’t Pink. So either he’d have to really hurt somebody and then view himself as a monster, or, my preference, he would develop something like a scar or pink eyes or stay pink all the time or something until he’s figured out his issues.

I JUST DON’T WANT HIM TO HAVE HORNS, YOU GUYS.

Pearl WAS protecting Volleyball from Steven oh NOOOOO

STEVEN SONIC SCREAM

So we’ve got Diamond Mode Strength, Super Speed, and Sonic Scream, man oh man oh man

this finally makes sense because all the other Diamonds have such well-developed offensive powers

Pink must have been like “no those are dangerous I don’t want them, what else can I do” and developed her healing powers secretly

I always wondered why the Diamonds never recognized Rose Quartz’s healing tears or shield as belonging to Pink

And it must be that she never showed it to them

They maybe only knew about her offensive powers

MEGA PEARL IS SO BEAUTIFUL AND WISE AND HER RIBBON DANCING IS SO MAGNIFICENT AND I LOVE THEM JUST TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER YOU TWO

I can’t believe we got a new fusion so quickly!!!!

Fuck that bitch Shell amirite

look, someone help Steven.

Please help Steven.

HELP. STEVEN.

No new trailer for next week???? COWARDS

omg someone please please scream about all this with me

#steven universe spoilers #steven universe future #steven universe future spoilers #suf spoilers #suf #steven universe: future #steven universe: future spoilers #spoilers #steven universe #su:f spoilers #su:f #haha i have tagged this to high heaven #it's a long-ass post!#please feel free to message me or reblog to share your own thoughts!!!!#fanfoolishness su meta

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shibalen · 4 years

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♡ matchup for @shower-wizard

hihi! my first request! i was excited to do this. i looked up information on your signs and mbti, hopefully that’s all right :)

✩ Boku no Hero Academia

platonically, i match you with . . .

Iida Tenya

You two would make a great team! You're both reliable and care for the ones around you. While Iida's got the firmness and boldness of a leader you have the charm and the ability to harmonize. You'd work together like clockwork, instructing your classmates and helping them out any way you can.

If there's anyone you can trust, it's Iida. He was your first friend in ua and the first person to gain your trust there. If you don't like to talk much or be the centre of everyone's attention, no worries - he's got you covered so you could always be comfortable!

Honestly, he'll fight/tell off anyone if they're being loud and obnoxious and it's bothering you, no questions asked. We already know even Bakugo isn't a problem for him.

Iida has a strong sense of duty so you being nearby assures him and helps him worry less. Your loyalty is like his own, and it makes him happy someone shares his view on it. He knows he can count on you if there's ever the need.

He can't always tell how you're doing because you don't give away much, so he'll ask if there is a single grain of doubt. It's sweet but you can tell him if he's being too big a worrywart :)c

You explore different book genres together. Be prepared because he gives extremely long and detailed reviews of each one he reads, especially if you were the one who recommended it to him.

Coming from a higher-class family, Iida was likely taught how to play the piano from a young age. Though he doesn't remember much of it now, hearing you play brings back some of his old spark. Once he tries, it's more fun than he recalled.

Will take you to grand piano concerts whose tickets should have already been sold out? Sometimes you meet Yaomomo there too and other times three of you go together. You discuss your opinions on the way back while grabbing a bite to eat.

You can go to his house to practice archery whenever you'd like. His family definitely has a space for it. Iida doesn't know much about the sport himself but will cheer you on nevertheless! He learns all the vocabulary so he can understand when you talk about it.

Study sessions with the two of you are the best. It has gotten to the point where you make sure to announce them beforehand so any of your other friends can join you. you're the saviour duo (-人-)

Runner up: Denki Kaminari

romantically i match you with . . .

Shinsou Hitoshi

You know i had to. softness: check. dates indoors: check. cats: double check.

You encourage him so much. While he's definitely improved over the series, your support on his goals saves him from moments of doubt and dark thoughts. You gently remind him even the smallest progress pays off in the end, that steadily working on his shortcomings is better than comparing himself to others and doing nothing.

While he knows you're not easily deceived by others, he still keeps an eye out and making sure no one with ill intentions approaches you.

Ironically enough, the first time you met he probably tried to brainwash you during the sports festival. You'd already figured out his quirk though and just smiled at him and sauntered away. Boy was left kind of annoyed but also quite a bit intrigued.

Whether or not you're easily embarrassed doesn't matter cause Shinsou will tease you anyway. He's a little shit and enjoys cracking your mysterious demenour.

Be soft for him. Take his hand, compliment him and run your fingers through his hair. It won't take too long before he's the one subtly trying to hide his flustered face. And if you cuddle him and kiss his cheek while you're napping, I bet those dark circles would be a lot less visible.

Shinsou loves how comfortable you are to be around. He loosens up whenever you're interacting without even noticing it himself. He laughs and smiles more but if you point it out he'll either claim not to know what you're talking about or come up with a way to sidestep the topic smh

You go over to his house to study and see his cats, or vise versa, and before either of you have realized, you're snuggled up, drinking coffee/tea and exchanging book recommendations with a cat purring in your lap. Basically you're on a date now, congratulations! it comes so naturally.

You two just having a good time in a cosy café, people watching and lowkey trying to guess their stories.

He'll gift you with a lot of cute charms, bookmarks and other little things you might need. Shinsou's very observant so even if you don't tell him you'd like something he figures it out one way or the other. He just wants to see you happy.

"This is the same sheet music folder I've been planning to get. How did you know?"

"Can you imagine? This guy worked his back off asking—”

Shinsou, casually wrapping up a struggling Kaminari: "I just knew you could use a new one"

Everyone else is either lowkey scared of you or thinks you're the coolest couple. You seem like a relaxed but "mess with my s/o and you're dead" pair. Well, it's true for at least one of you.

You guys don't have a lot of pda going on but anybody who knows the two of you believes the compability is incredible. They're jelly.

❋ Kimetsu no Yaiba

Runner up: Izuku Midoriya

platonically i match you with . . .

First thing's first: the aesthetic you two have? 10/10. Tol and smol but both just emitting a calm and mysterious aura. Extra points cause you seem to have a very classy appearance so that adds to your reserved look!

Gyomei Himejima

Both of you are the type to be mistrustful towards others at first. However, although it may take a little time due to that similarity, once you have warmed up you'll be big softies for each other and it's the sweetest thing.

You dislike the same kind of people so you tend to prefer each other's company. That's probably how you met too, while steering clear from obnoxious people at a meeting. You decided to befriend him since he seemed like a more humble person to talk to.

Gyomei appreciates the way you carry yourself because you remain level-headed and kind. He thinks that is a difficult combination to keep up, as the world is far from being a fair place. Going off your infj-a personality type, he also admires that you focus more on inner peace and improving yourself rather than dwell on your weaknesses.

You are both loyal so you always have each others' backs. Your gentle nature is comforting when he's feeling emotional.

This man never fails to hear you out on your problems and give the best advice. It might not always sound like it cause of how blunt it is, but trust him.

A lot of mutual understanding. Can you read each other's mind at this point? rumors say yes.

You spend a lot of time together in quiet reading sessions. He'll read his scriptures and offer to explain them to you (though he sucks at it. . .) Feel free to rant about what you're reading too!

He'd carry you on his back, arms and shoulders and it's one of the most comfortable things ever. There is not always a reason for it. it's more like a quiet way to show he cares for you.

I can easily imagine you feeding and taking care of several stray cats together. You need to make sure he doesn't accidentally overuse his strength though while playing with them.

It's great you play the piano. Since he can't see you, listening to you play helps Gyomei form an image of you in his mind. Also, your music is therapeutic to him. He'll always come hear you play ♡

Some see you as an otherwordly pair, as in: how are you always so collected and wise? are you beings from another dimension? share your secrets with us.

Hear me out! You said you don't like rude people BUT I think Genya needs someone like you to relax more. He's stiff, short-tempered and awkward so your calm and gentle personality would help him feel at ease.

Genya Shinazugawa

Runner up: Giyuu Tomioka

romantically i match you with . . .

Tanjirō likely introduced the two of you, yet the first impression wasn't the best. Genya got too nervous, turned away to hide his blush, and ended up not speaking a word which came off as pretty arrogant.

He is so gentle with you! towards you, he's never disrespectful or mean.

But he apologised for his actions soon enough and quickly explained he wasn't very good with talking to girls. With such honesty, it didn't take too long afterwards before you came to trust him. For Genya, trusting you came easily because of how laid-back you were. He could tell you were being honest with him and it was that genuine kindness that sent butterflies into his stomach uwu

Genya's not the most talkative but his smile speaks for itself. He loves listening to you talk though. Then again, he could stare at you while you're reading him the world's most boring book and still be ( ˊᵕˋ )♡.°⑅

Boy will melt at the affection you give him. He’s very blushy about it but grows more comfortable overtime (on most part at least rip) Secretly happy he's one of the only people who gets to see that side of you.

He looks up to you for having traits he lacks BuT his favourite thing about you is your confidence and passion for what you do. it inspires him to become stronger too and confront his brother.

Teaches you how to defend yourself just in case you're in trouble and he's not there. He worries.

Genya thinks it's cool you do archery, cause he does shooting! You guys often chat about your hobbies respectively. Also, showing the other how to aim with their weapon and gently adjusting their position from behind? Yes, please.

Dates would include romantic walks in the woods, picnics and trying out foods from different stands or restaurants. Don't worry though, no one will bother you. With a big guy like Genya next to you, nobody will dare raise a commotion. though you might want to stop him from death-glaring or picking a fight with anyone who talks too loud

Indoor dates also happen a lot and whatever you may be doing, Genya likes to be holding your hand. It's just so small in comparison to his and he loves it (but won't admit it) If you two are cooking or if you're playing the piano, he settles with standing next to you and enjoys your presence (✿◡‿◡ )

In conclusion, a very sweet couple that balances each other out nicely. You being soft and down-to-earth and Genya being more hot-headed but still incredibly caring ♡ Did i mention i'm a sucker for height differences?

thank you for requesting i hope you enjoyed it! i’d appreciate any feedback you might have ♡

Runner up: Tanjirō Kamado

#anime matchups #shower-wizard #len's matches

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mokkoriness · 5 years

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ROCK AND READ vol. 73 - Saga Interview

Photo credit: ROCK AND READ Twitter

On May 27, Saga uploaded a music video to Twitter without warning. It was the "Yukue Shirezu" music video for VOLLAND GUMP, his solo project which he had worked on, without revealing that it was him, while activities as a band had stopped. "Everything is connected". Saga, who says that they found the ideal way for the band to be through leaving the management company they belonged to for many years, re-starting activities as A9, and "IDEAL", the album that was released after having gone back to their roots. He talks about the "now" of A9, who are dashing towards their 13th year anniversary, and his rock and carefree solo work.

So it seems like for this photoshoot, upon your request, you were wrapped in bandages.

Saga: Yes, because to date, I've done quite a lot of things. Won't people not take a look at my section if there isn't anything to make them go "Huh?!". So even though it might be late, I thought to wrap myself in bandages. It's my first time wearing bandages.

Are the bandages wrapped over your naked body?

Saga: I'm not wearing anything on my upper half. Please relax, I am wearing something on my lower half.

(laughs). Even though you just celebrated your birthday (Interview was done in late June), you are still doing this sort of thing (laughs).

Saga: That's right. Even with my birthday, for several years now, I didn't feel happy celebrating it. But for some reason, I felt glad this year. I felt blissful.

Your birthday this year was celebrated with a live show in your hometown, right?

Saga: Yes. This year, I celebrated it in the place I was born. As expected, it was different. The mood. We arrived the day before, and on that night, the members threw a birthday party for me in Kooriyama. For me, that is where my birthday live started.

Does A9 always hold birthday parties?

Saga: For a long time now, we've always done something. Honestly, on that day, I had to do pre-production for a coupling song on the new single. So at the hotel, when I had turned on my computer and was getting ready to work, all of a sudden, they called me out, saying "Let's go out for a drink now!". I said that I'll go meet them in 20 minutes. While thinking "Is it okay to not do the pre-production?", they took me to a Japanese bar. The boss of Kooriyama Hip Shot and even the lighting staff was there, so that's when my feelings had changed, and I thought that it was a good thing I came. I had fun drinking that night.

Did you get any presents from the members?

Saga: I did. I got an Apple TV.

Do you give presents to each other every year?

Saga: If we don't forget. I think a good thing (about A9) is that we properly do this sort of thing. If I were the leader, we definitely wouldn't be doing these things (laughs). Immediately, I would be like "This is a pain in the ass", and distance the members even more. I think a good thing about A9 is that the members are close.

If you were the leader of a band, it wouldn't be like this.

Saga: I don't think it would. I'm AB-type1, so I have my own territory. There's a line that I don't cross. But after 13 years, that line has been infringed upon...... Like having my parent's home exposed.

Huh? What do you mean by that?! Isn't that infringing on you too much?

Saga: It is. On Nico Nico, we used to do a show called "Alice9 Channel". On that show, without me knowing it, they exposed my parent's house. When I saw the footage, he laid on my mum's lap (laughs). And he also took a bath there. He laid on my mum's lap, took a bath, and ate pizza.

He really infringed upon your territory.

Saga: Yes. That's why I got my revenge. I secretly went to Tora's parent's house. I ate the curry that Tora's mum made. Ever since doing that kind of thing, it's been impossible to say things like "This is my territory in the band, so don't come here".

So perhaps you think it is what it is, because they're your fellow members now?

Saga: Perhaps I think it is what it is because since my 20s, I've been running forward with them and spent emotional times together with them. I think that it a big part of it. Also, A9 falls on hard times at just the right moments. Oddly enough, when that kind of thing happens, it's not a time for us where we start fighting. The moments where things won't work out if we don't work hard together comes upon us time and time again. That's why we all get along well. Or rather, we are in unity.

So you fall on tough times at just the right moment.

Saga: That's right. In general, it happens every two years. Bothersome things or big incidents.

So what would be the real strength of A9, who can overcome these difficulties each and every time?

Saga: It would be because we are blessed. I can only think that we have good luck. When we are at times when it really seems like too much, there is always someone there to save us.

Do you mean that someone like a saviour appears?

Saga: Yes. To be honest, we would definitely have not been able to overcome these difficulties just with our own strength. At each every one of those times, there is someone there supporting us. Sometimes us members even talk about it, that we have good luck. That's why when the difficulties have passed, I can think of it as a good thing. I think that including all the tough times we've had up until now, it is all connected for us to be here now. When things don't go well, we can learn from it and grow. Even as a person, I'm not quite sure why, but I feel like I've gotten more capable. So when bad times come, we face the problem without panicking in a manner that suits the occasion.

I felt that the response to A9's first full album "IDEAL", which was worked on concurrently with such rough times, and the tour in conjunction with that, "IDEAL HORIZON", were both something that made the fans extremely happy, like "This is what A9 is!".

Saga: To put it another way, I thought that we had put something out where nothing could be done if it wasn't received well. So I was confident that it would be received well. Because the goal we have as a band is even further beyond that. With that considered, it wasn't a time for us to take a gamble. We all thought it was a time where we should just put out something that was simply good, something that was A9.

So that's why I got the impression that a lot of former fans came back.

Saga: Oh, many people have told us that, that they had recently drifted away but then came back. It makes me happy. But we could only have done that sort of thing now.

Why now?

Saga: We have a route, after all. I think that if it weren't for the 12th anniversary live where we went back to our roots, we would not have been able to do a tour like "IDEAL HORIZON". Before that, last year, we made "LIGHT AND DARKNESS". I think that we were able to return to our roots only after having done the "TRUTH IN LIGHT AND DARKNESS" tour. In that way, everything is connected. After going from one place to the next, it turned out like this. So it's not something that you can aim to do. We have always chosen the path where we think "We can only do this right now".

And what you can only do now is this release, where the members wrote the same amount of songs.

Saga: That was, if I do say so myself, a success. For our band, it wouldn't be enough if I were to just write plenty of songs on my own and tried to write songs in different genres. This is something that I had thought before making the album. In our early days, we all wrote songs in a balanced way. So in that case, I was free to do any bass arrangement I wanted, and thought the fans would find it more interesting to listen to that sort of album.

To date, with you taking the initiative in terms of the music, did the other members come to write songs less?

Saga: I don't know about that. Everyone does write songs, but there is a tendency for me to arbitrarily narrow down the selection. In my mind, I think "This song is not quite right".

When did this start?

Saga: Quite a long time ago, since around "VANDALIZE". But I've gotten tired of doing things that way. I've come to understand that this is not necessarily something that is good for the band. In A9, there can be no chemical reaction if the personality and musicianship of the five of us is not balanced.

Yes! That is exactly right.

Saga: I thought this around the time before we made "MEMENTO". After all, the people that like us want the see this balance.

When there is that balance, the band shines brightly.

Saga: That's right. No matter what kind of excellent music, detailed arrangement, or good sounds we perform with, that is not the scene that people want to see with A9. That is not the biggest weapon we have in our arsenal. In the end, I think that what everyone wants to see is the five of us doing something. In that way, we are like SMAP (laughs).

Just like SMAP, people want to see all five of you shining.

Saga: That's right. Even if only Takuya Kimura were to shine, the SMAP fans would think "This is not right". I think the same applies to us.

What made you realize that?

Saga: For example, when you look at the songs that our fans want to hear, it's all songs that are different from the songs the members are pushing. To us, we're like "You want to hear that song?".

There is mismatch between the songs the members like and the songs the fans like.

Saga: The mismatch was huge. Of course, there were also fans where there was no mismatch. Somehow, for me, I felt discomfort at that mismatch, and thought that we couldn't let it continue. So once again, when I thought about what it is that the ship called A9 wants to ultimately do, I thought that it would be pointless if the band wasn't shining. It's not that one member of the band is cool, it's that all five of us have to be cool. At that time, I realised that sometimes, the fans look at us from an angle that we can't even imagine. They look at the parts of us that are cool and that we don't even notice.

The fans knew of the different types of cool you can be.

Saga: I learned that fans have things that they are particular about, and there are as many favourite angles and many viewpoints as there are fans. So I reached the conclusion that if the five of us shine the most when we are united, then no matter what angle they look at us from, we would be cool.

Until then, it was as if for the music side, you were like "Now we're going to wear mode clothing and show this to everyone. Does it look good?". It's like you were coordinating what A9 would do.

Saga: When you do that and wear the clothes you like, even if people on one side thought it looked very cool, the people on the other side would be like "What's that? It doesn't look good at all". That's why the songs (that people want to hear) are always completely different from my own expectations. Since that mismatch kept getting wider and wider, I realised that it couldn't keep on going like this. That's why for the album "IDEAL", as a result of creating the album with the concept that it had to be something the five of us were involved in, it turned out the way it did.

In that respect, you were able to make something where there was no mismatch between the band and the fans.

Saga: That's right. Even on tour, the members were really liberated. From my position as the bassist, I saw the members performing really energetically.

In actuality, the fans were also happy, saying that on the tour, it had been a long time since they saw a live where the five of you were shining brightly.

Saga: That's right. To me, that's why made me the happiest. I really do think it was a good thing we did that.

So with that momentum, you will be releasing the new single "Re:Born" and rushing towards your 13th anniversary live.

Saga: First of all, regarding the 13th anniversary live, Show had said that our next stage costumes would be red. Then, when we were discussing what to do for the next single, since "MEMENTO" and "IDEAL" had a heavy feeling to it, there were concerns that if we kept going down that road for the next single, then we would be seen as that kind of band, so we talked about departing from that style and making a cheerful song. So I wrote the song. Then after that, there was the opinion that since people are saying that our style now is good, we should keep on going with that style (laughs). It makes you think "Don't screw with me!" (laughs).

That is quite cruel.

Saga: So we had a meeting. We were able to find balance by first showing the cheerful side and then not a cheerful side.

And the cheerful song that you wrote is "Re:Born"?

Saga: Yes.

It's not often that you write a cheerful song.

Saga: That's right, because I'm not good at writing cheerful songs. I'm not good at it, but I can't just leave it at that. If you only use cheerful chords, it's quite disgusting, so I tried to use as many minor chords as I could. As a result, it's a song that has quite a lot of changes. There's even a part where it's like Show is reading poetry. It's a confusing song (laughs). I hope that it's a song that sits well once we try playing it live.

So it's not a song that's straight up cheerful.

Saga: It's not. I can't write a song that is straight up cheerful. There is a part of me that stops me from doing so. Since it's cheerful, I have to do something weird with it. Something inside of me just makes me do that. I'm scared of it, like "Is it okay to write a cheerful song?". You need quite a lot of courage to release a cheerful song in this scene.

Is that so? You need courage?

Saga: At least I do. A part of me does not want to be seen as a cheerful band. I think there is a huge part of my subconscious that would hate it if we released a cheerful song as a single and people who listened it would say or think "They're a cheerful band". I don't like "cheerfulness that is easy to understand".

But if we had to say if A9 were a cheerful or gloomy band, then--

Saga: We're a cheerful and. But we're a "cheerful band" after having done many things, and there is nothing wrong with that at all. But personally, I am really against releasing a cheerful song as the lead track on a single. That's why naturally, we do many things with "Re:Born".

I see. And Tora was the director for the "Re:Born" music video, right?

Saga: Yes. It was great. It was so good there virtually weren't any unusable scenes. During the shoot, Tora took out his own phone and recorded my scenes, while saying "Cool" and "That was good~". That kind of thing has never happened before, I thought "It's going to start snowing" (laughs). I guess his senses would change now that he is directing.

But I was surprised that that kind of creative side was inside of Tora.

Saga: Tora is the type of person to see to the very bottom of things without rest regarding the things he likes, and the same goes with making videos. If the members can skillfully control that, then he is like a worker ant.

That is the user manual for Tora.

Saga: Yes (laughs). If you handle him in the wrong way, he just ends up being a guy who only drinks.

That's certainly true (laughs). And as for you, activities as the Chairman of the "Nose Mountain Club" are livening up.

Saga: That's right. I am deepening my social network.

How did that club start?

Saga: I've been curious for a long time now. I've arbitrarily thought "This person has a high nose bridge. I somehow feel some affinity with them". When I tweeted "I wonder what it would be like if such people came together and took a photo?", the fans reacted. And even the people themselves reacted to it. I was happy that they had interacted with me, and also a guy who had the look on his face that they also wanted to join the club appeared (laughs). There are actually more than I thought. If we can find a drummer, then we can put on a live show.

Isn't that amazing? The Nose Mountain Club.

Saga: Some fans even sent me information about a drummer with a high nose bridge, but that person turned out to be YOSHIKI (laughs). Isn't that just impossible, no matter how you look at it? So we are desperately looking for drummers! With a high nose bridge. If you find one, please let me know on Twitter (laughs).

Weren't you originally a person that didn't interact with people from outside your inner circle? But when it comes to the Nose Mountain Club, why are you so social?

Saga: I wonder why. Lately, I've been really popular among males. Even though I'm really unsocial, I've heard from people things like "That guy really likes Saga". Both my seniors an juniors. Encouraged by that, I've gradually become more social, like "I guess I will go talk to him then".

Wow! You go up and talk to them?

Saga: Only sometimes (laughs). Some time ago, Pentagon's Minpha...... Ah, but I couldn't approach him. One of the members had said to him "Saga wants to take a photo with you". It was kind of like a middle-schooler confessing to someone. Minpha came to me, as if he was summoned by his senior, and took a photo with me. He was a little embarrassed (laughs). So it's been gradual, but I've come to be more sociable. Usually, I'm not social at all. But everyone is nice. When we play to two-man shows or events, there are many nice seniors and well-mannered juniors, so I thought that I couldn't be unsociable. I came to think that I had to be more sociable. Some time ago, when we did a two-man show at Kooriyama, since the dressing room at Hip Shot is tiny, we rented a part of the dressing room at Club #9. On that day, Takuto Nakajima was doing a live there. It seems like he knew that we were using the dressing room. When I went there, he left a note on the table that said "Happy birthday, Saga".

Wow!! That's wonderful!

Saga: It's too wonderful. He's a real veteran. It made me wonder why he can just casually do these things. As expected, most of the veterans are really wonderful people. They're very nice. It made me want to be that kind of senior too.

While becoming more sociable and going out in the world as a musician, the other day, on your own Twitter account, without any hesitation, you publicly announced the "Yukue Shirezu" video for VOLLAND GUMP, your solo project which up until then, you had not publicly announced. It was so sudden, I was a little surprised.

Saga: Ah~. It was uploaded out of the blue. That was a song that I had secretly written two years ago. Two years ago was just the time when the band was not active, and I had nothing to do. So I thought about doing that kind of thing. To me, it felt natural. It didn't feel like I was taking on the challenge of doing it. Originally, I wanted to be a singer-songwriter, so rather than it being a bassist trying to sing, it felt like I was able to express the person that I had originally wanted to be, and it came really naturally. I pretty much played all the instruments in that song!

You even played the drums?

Saga: I got someone called Tsuyoshi Ratatouille (actually Nao) to play the drums (laughs). Apart from that, I played every instrument. I recorded it all at home.

And you also demo'd the song?

Saga: I had written the song some time ago, since when I was a high school student. Even though I thought that the song would never be released, since I had time, I thought about making it into a song, so when I worked on it at home, it turned out pretty good. So that's why I like the song. Since it's a song I freely made.

Did you not feel like doing that song with A9?

Saga: I didn't. It were to be done through the filter of A9, it would not have turned out that way. I'm sure that there are some fans who think that I should have done this song as A9, but by doing the song as a band, the melody changes. Also, A9 has two guitarists, and we arrange the songs with a heavy focus on Hiroto and Tora. If I were to write the song imagining how they would play it live, the guitar would be completely different. And if that is the case, then it wouldn't be the kind of tune and melody that I would do as a solo artist. But since it is my solo after all, it turned out that way.

I see. So what was the reason behind you disclosing that you were VOLLAND GUMP?

Saga: I thought about saying nothing about it and doing it secretly, but...... The reason why I did it in secret was because this part of me was gradually becoming weaker. I felt a sense of discomfort at the thought of fans buying the CD, even though it's not Visual-kei music, just because I made it. That's why I didn't say anything about it at first.

Oh. Fans would want to buy it if they knew it was you.

Saga: They probably would, and won't other people see it as more like "A9's Saga tried singing"? I didn't want it to be thought of that way, so I did it in secret. But my feelings changed to one where I didn't care what people thought. However, I really don't think of it as something I would make a business out of. I don't mind even handing it out for free. Because it's not something that I think has the value to be sold.

So it's more like you were sharing something that you freely made and had people listen to it, like "Please take a listen".

Saga: Yeah. It really was like that. That's why I made it so that you could listen to the full thing for free. And if you listened to it and liked it, you could also buy it.

What does "VOLLAND GUMP" mean?

Saga: I combined the names of the main chracter from two of my favourite movies: The music teacher Mr Holland from "Mr. Holland's Opus" and Gump from "Forrest Gump". Gump is a person that lives off his instincts quite a lot, and I do look up to him. With the feelings that that is the form that I want my music to have, I chose that name.

Do you have any other songs?

Saga: I still have a lot more songs apart from this one that I haven't released. I have about 30 songs. Because I have to sing those songs. I mean, I am the one who understands the song the most. So I want to give shape to it.

Do many of the songs solitary and a North European feel to them?

Saga: It's varied. There are also bright songs. I've always liked the shamisen. I really like Tsugaru-jamisen.

How did you come to like it?

Saga: What was it...... It was much earlier than the Yoshida Brothers, but it wasn't Fuyumi Sakamoto. Who was it? It was an enka singer, and the prelude to their song was tsugaru-jamisen, and it was really cool ("Come Home" by Kazuko Matsumura). It was really cool. So cool that I thought "A guitar couldn't beat this". It felt like that coolness could only be got with the shamisen, so ever since then, when I've got nothing to do, I was videos of shamisen playing on YouTube. At home, I would imitate the playing style of the shamisen on the guitar or bass. When I did that, I thought "Oh! This is pretty cool". And that phrase I played with the guitar--

Is in VOLLAND GUMP's "Sayonara Rosalia"?

Saga: That's right! I still have many of these shamisen-like phrases. I've not used them even once in A9 songs, but I actually have a lot of them. Personally, it's those phrases that are the most rock-like.

Huh? Really?

Saga: Yeah. The rock music I make = shamisen-like phrases. They are phrases that I can be confident in saying "Only I can make this phrase". So no matter how many times I listen to it t home, I think that it's really good. I really do think that only I can make this kind of phrase. For this phrase, I played it on the guitar only with downpicking. In the same way a shamisen is played.

That's why the guitar sounds so percussive.

Saga: That's what's so good about it! It's rock. Even just playing it gets me fired up. I have about 10 songs in that style. I really like the phrasing in the introduction of "Sayonara Rosalia". I still have plenty more amazing things! I even have a song in this kind of style that is 10 minutes long.

You should put them out into the world.

Saga: Rather than it wanting to sell well, I want people to listen to it.

When you performed a VOLLAND GUMP song as "THE ALTERNATIVE" with Nao, while singing, do you play the bass or guitar?

Saga: I sang while playing the guitar. Although performing in front of fans, they would say "Saga is standing in the center playing a guitar and singing~", won't a person who knows nothing about me not react in that way? Because they would think it's normal. That's the way I actually wanted to present my songs. But I don't care about that anymore.

So you should release an album.

Saga: I will. Since I have completed songs. All I have to do is write lyrics.

Will this be done concurrently with A9's activities?

Saga: That's right. But I don't want to get in the way of A9's activities. I hope I can release the solo album by the end of the year while doing A9 activities. I want to release the fruits of my labour.

The fruits of your creative activities.

Saga: Yes. Since that is the only place where I can present 100% of myself. For A9, don't we have to think about how to not let this ship that we're all riding sink, and have to move it towards our destination? That's why the simple attitude of just making anything won't work. But for VOLLAND GUMP, there is nothing riding on this, so I can take it easy, like an amoeba drifting in the ocean.

You should also make some songs for the Nose Mountain Club! Since you're the one who suggested it, you need become more sociable to bring the people together and lead them, or else nothing will happen.

Saga: That's right. Please put an ad in ROCK AND READ too, saying "Looking for drummers with a high nose bridge" (laughs).

Since A9 is doing well, your extracurricular activities must be fun.

Saga: That's right. It would have been great if it were like this from the beginning, but there are many setbacks in life. The same goes for bands. But we have to use that as motivation. If not, we can only live an unfortunate life. If we use it as motivation, when things go your way even in the slightest, you'll be able to think "I'm so happy". So to those people who think their life is a mess right now, please use that as motivation.

Where did that mature life advice come from?

Saga: The fans have it tough too, you know? There are also some fans from the generation that says "It's tough giving care to my mother, so seeing Saga is the only bright spot in my life". That's real.

Of the fans supporting you, there are some fans in that generation?

Saga: That's right. And fans that were once elementary school students now have kids. Hearing that, I feel that even more so, I have to support the fans with all my strength as A9's Saga.

You've become a little more sociable, and it seems like you are becoming a more dependable person.

Saga: I'll keep working hard!

1 In Japan, some people believe that different blood types have different personality traits.

#A9 #a9 translation #saga #rock and read #alicenine.#alice nine translation

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msbeccieboo · 5 years

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Arrow 7x14 brain dump

I loved this episode!! I think I hadn’t really hyped it up too much in my mind so that undoubtedly helped, and sure, there was a lot of superfluous shit, but I feel like I just have to come to terms with that now, and overall it delivered on some areas I’d hoped it to, and also in lots that I hadn’t expected it to! As always, succinctness is not my speciality, and I think this one is at an all-time record length (*titters*), so get comfortable…

Olicity

SHE TOLD HIMMMMM!!!! I think that was just my minimum requirement for the episode, which is probably why I ended up loving it; we got lots more than that!! Olicity didn’t get as much air time as I would have liked for the episode immediately following the Olicity Baby Reveal, but I think the episode delivered quality, where quantity was definitely lacking.

I loved the parallel of Felicity’s nightmare with Oliver’s from 7x01 respectively. In the first half of the episode we could see that she still was doubting herself and her ability to keep the baby safe, which although wasn’t stated explicitly, was clear to me at least, and I am so glad we saw that and not just immediate baby-bliss. This lead into poor Oliver trying and failing to get in touch with William 😭 by filling up his answering machine (to which we later find FF William discovering an answer machine-style cassette…subtle as ever there arrow writers).

The next time we saw Olicity was in an OTA scene (at long last), which I will delve into later, but special mention to Oliver’s little Felicity Smile™ when she cracks her OTA joke 😍.

Source:olicitygifs

Continued under the cut

The most wonderful Olicity scene for me wasn’t the big reveal, but the sofa scene. I loved this so so much. For the first time, Oliver really acknowledged Felicity’s pain from when he was in prison, and acknowledged that he hadn’t acknowledged it haha. This in and of itself made me tear up…Oliver the GROWTH 😭😭

Source:oliverxfelicity

But then he continued!! He told Felicity that he thought there was a better way than killing Diaz, but that he had no right to make that call for her. He would back any move of hers and have her back “no.matter.what” *ugly crying*.

Source:feilcityqueen

Furthermore, he wants her to make her choice so she can get closure on Diaz, allowing Olicity to move forward!!!

This recognition and support are what Felicity has needed from Oliver for months!! He has likely only just been able to come to these realisations himself recently, after dealing with his own crap, and losing William etc, but he came to them on his own, before knowing about the baby and knowing he would have to ‘do better’. He knows there has been a distance between him and Felicity and he will do his part to allow her to help herself so they can come back together, and it is glorious!!!

Source:oliverxfelicity

This scene could have only been improved by some hand holding or other canoodling, but I am more than happy with the scene as we got it!!

Then at last we come to the big reveal. I must say I think they could have and should have given more time and attention to this scene; I can only hope that they didn’t because of all the fluffy parent-to-be-ness that we are about to see unfold over the coming episodes??? Let a girl dream for now at least! Stephen and Emily, as usual, killed it with what they had to work with. From Oliver’s gentle acknowledgement of Felicity’s go-to comfort food, mint chip, to Felicity’s explanation of why she didn’t need to kill Diaz; she needed her family to live in the light and their children to know that they would do anything for them….wait, what??? *cue Oliver’s gorgeous confused puppy face* Your children, because…

Source:oliverxfelicity

Felicity’s beautiful smile when she told him, and Oliver’s sappy happy face when he realised….YAAAAAASSSS!!!! My heart exploded!! Then, *end scene* 😡. But you know what, at this moment in time I’m still so floaty-happy for them that I can live with this!

Flash Forwards

Oh my wow I love the Clayton-Smoak-Queen siblings!!! You can clearly see Oliver and Felicity in both of them; but Will is still obviously a mini-Felicity, whereas Mia is SO MUCH OLIVER, which is so bittersweet, given that she seems to have been raised by Felicity alone (WHYYYY?!?! *sobs*).

Source:oliverxfelicity

Mia, it seems, has a somewhat typical love/hate relationship with her Mother, which I’m sure lots of us can identify with. On one hand she clearly resents Felicity’s paranoia, her insistence on ‘bonding’ with things such as the Rubik’s cube and tech, which she doesn’t seem to have an interest in, but then her love for her shines through with her insistence of going after her alone (hello mini Oliver) and the line “my Mom is the only person I care about” 😭😭😭

Source:ebett

Then our gorgeous grown up Will 😍 is all Felicity in his belief in Oliver as a hero and his techy geekdom, but HELLO OLIVER in the way he instantly loves and sticks up for his sister (even with them arguing, he just softened, and even turned on Dinah when she questioned Mia) and talks about family, despite how he has come to feel abandoned by Olicity. That last line in his scene with Mia where he says “Well did it work?” could have been spoken by Stephen himself; his expression, his intonation…perfect Oliver impression Ben, well done, A+! They work so well together on screen; I loved their back-and-forth in their scenes. I can’t wait to see them interacting more, especially, I hope, in the all FF episode. I think they will be a force to be reckoned with!

The bro-sis Rubik’s cube solving champions discover the mini answering phone cassette, which Mia can’t even comprehend; “can you hack it?” lol (makes me feel suuuper old). This has surely got to at least contain some of Olicity’s attempts to contact William, to let him know he wasn’t abandoned, and at most, another of Felicity’s clues. I just can’t wrap my head around the blatant plot-hole that is Olicity not ever managing to get in touch with William, even with the crazy tech skills on both ends of the dynamic?? I call bullshit! I need to know what’s going on guysssss!!!

Elsewhere, Connor supposedly didn’t know about Mia’s heritage (so no baby OTA growing up together *sad face*), except he secretly did cos his adopted father Dig asked him to watch over her! So Connor isn’t JJ?? Where is JJ?? ISTG Larry if you erased another baby Diggle I will travel through time and kill you myself!! Connor and Mia are clearly super close (shipping them already), and the hurt on Mia’s face when she found out Connor had lied to her the whole time broke my heart!! I also need a scene with Roy and Mia soon; did anyone else notice how as soon as Mia revealed her parentage, he dropped his bow from pointing on her…YAAAAASS UNCLE ROY!!! But why does no one but Dig know about Mia’s existence???? Did Olicity go into hiding?? Is this why they never managed to contact William again? Whaaaat??? Je suis confuse!!!

Bonus: Future OTA, or FTA, if you will, is totally going to be a thing I’m sure of it! The actors seem so much fun and are always interacting on social media/live tweeting etc. It is so nice to have cast so actively participating in promotion this year. It’s at a point now where I would definitely give a next generation series a watch, and I can’t wait for the all flash forward episode now, even though the whole future set-up seems harrowingly disparate from what we would like to imagine. I need to know more damnit!!

OTA/Delicity

OTA has finally (just about) reunited!!!! It’s only been 6437280462308 years guys!! Dig finally realises he’s been keeping the Diaz secret from Olicity for too long, so he offers them up the truth, in a “SPONTANEOUS OTA MOMENT”. Honestly, Felicity’s sass in this scene and all the Dig scenes to be fair is just a beautiful thing to see. Felicity rightfully tells John that this is the second time he has prioritised his ARGUS work over his friends’ safety and he looks rightfully ashamed of himself. Oliver naturally doesn’t agree with using Diaz, but has suddenly become official OTA reconciliator, and trusts Dig to get shit done, eventually offering his help with Felicity’s blessing and assistance.

With OTA officially back in the field and like 57 things going on, Felicity takes her chance on taking out Diaz, confronting him with a gun again, and finally telling him that she is in fact stronger than him, and hence doesn’t need to kill him…Dig is ultimately left to decide between helping Oliver capture Dante, or Felicity stop Diaz and praise the salmon ladder he chooses to help Felicity!!

Source:felicitysmoakgifs

I loved Felicity realising her own strength, and maintaining her ‘light’, seeing and knowing that her teammate finally had her back!! Dig tells her that although Dante was the mission objective, Diaz (and by that he meant Felicity) was his priority!! My Delicity heart!!!!! Dig has one last ace up his sleeve, later telling Olicity that he realised how letting Diaz go last time had hurt Felciity, and that the most important thing should be to just protect his OTA family!!! And just like that, OTA RISES FROM THE ASHES!!!

Bonus: OMG I just realised that the Brothers and Sisters theme of the episode relates to OTA as well!! 😭😍😭😍😭😍

Felicity/BS

When did I become a BS stan?? Who even am I? What do I believe in? 😱 🤷‍♀️🤯

I love Felicity’s relationship with BS. I want to be friends with both of them. I want to drink wine with BS whilst Felicity grumbles about drinking de-caff coffee. I think I need more sleep. Forgive me fandom friends for I have sinned 🙈😂😂

I see people saying that their friendship doesn’t make sense, and no, if you look directly from S6 to now, it doesn’t. But if you watch S7 episode-by-episode you can totally believe that they got to the place they are in now. They’ve grown from reluctant allies, to gaining a mutual respect, to growing to like one another. And the shade is still totally there on both parts from Felicity’s “fake lawyer” (CLASSIC LINE), to BS calling Felicity out on her chocolate consumption haha.

So BS knew about the baby before Oliver did. I am not majorly angry with this because…she just guessed!! Felicity didn’t tell her. Felicity was mortified that she’d put it all together and begged her to not tell anyone. Our girl was just coming to terms with it herself, and working out how to tell Oliver, which she is perfectly entitled to do.

The scene where BS brings Felicity food and gives her a pep talk was totes adorbs 😍 Do I wish it was the type of conversation Felicity had had with Oliver instead? Sure, and I’m sure we will in the future, and we got different Olicity goodies in this episode in its place.

Source: felicitysmoakgifs

BS is all over Felicity being preggers…I’m wondering if maybe she lost a baby or lost someone with a baby on E2?? She just seems to be all about looking after Felicity, and the baby, to almost an excessive point, with random pregnancy knowledge thrown in there too 🤔

Side-note: I am all about Felicity eating ALL OF THE FOOD in this episode hahaha! “I ate that much choc before I was pregnant” LOOOOOL!! She continues to be the cutest.

Source:felicitysmoakgifs

Emiko/Oliver

Oh Oliver. I feel for him so much with Emiko. He just wants to get to know her, and make up for lost time and poor choices by Robert. He misses Thea. He is blinded by his love for his new sister. This is why whenever they try to tell us ‘Oliver doesn’t trust people’ I’m like HUH?! I see Oliver as probably the most naturally trusting person on the show, only his experiences have proven him wrong so often. He has to believe in others, so he can believe in himself after everything he has been through/done. He gives almost everyone the benefit of the doubt, especially family, even when it’s blatantly obvious that they don’t deserve it. Oliver has such a big heart, and loves his family so deeply and at times, blindly. And here, with Emiko, that is what he is doing (when he should have been at home celebrating baby-making with some more practice baby-making 😉). I don’t like Emiko…oh she’s working with the Big Bad, shocker! I thought that she would turn out dead or a villain, given as she isn’t part of the ‘mark of 4’ gang in the future. I’m not convinced she’s full-on evil though, not yet at least. But the concept of her being a baddie kind of makes sense as to why they’ve made her so unlikeable. That said, I really enjoyed the ‘sibling rivalry’ scenes they shared. Oliver in her personal space “do you have to stand right there?”, Oliver critiquing her arrows, “don’t touch my things!” 😂😂 I do think they spent too much time on them in this episode (even though it was called Brothers and Sisters, I know). I just can’t be bothered to get too involved with her storyline, for the minute at least, as I think it will be temporary.

ARGUS/Diaz

This is my let-down of the episode, (and every episode) but you can’t win them all! Suicide squad blah, Diaz blah, Virgil (isn’t he a Thunderbird??) blah, Dante (Highlander!)….kinda blah! The shame is, I think Dante could’ve been a far better villain if they’d made me know/care about him earlier in the season? Maybe they can rescue him? I mean, Prometheus didn’t really come into his own until the last few episodes, so I guess there’s hope???

But Diggle quit-yaaaay!! Bye bye ugly security guard outfit!!

LIZARD BOY GOT LIT UPPPPP!!!

Burn bay burn!! Bye bitch!! I’m pretty sure this is the episode that the actor tweeted his goodbyes after? What a sorry exit if so *evil laugh*. There’s a fair bit of speculation over who killed him, but unless it was Felicity sneaking in in the dead of night to do so, I struggle to care 🤷‍♀️

Massive thank you to the gif makers; you have made this long-ass post more colourful 😘

#arrow #arrow 7x14 #olicity #arrow season 7 #OTA #FTA #beccie's brain #sorry this is so long #but I had to let my thoughts escape

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jaynaneeya · 5 years

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History Repeats Itself

Okay, so I originally intended this to be my entry for the Shipwrecked Five contest, but I got kind of carried away and it was ending up way longer than I originally intended, so I didn’t get it finished until now. Honestly, I don’t even know if it’s good anymore, and it’s about 7500 words, but if you want to read my unnecessarily long conspiracy theory tying together the Shipwrecked Comedy Cinematic Universe, here it is. Spoiler alert for Poe Party, Kissing in the Rain, American Whoopee, and The Case of the Gilded Lily

Revenge was so close he could taste it. The lifetime of dreaming, scheming, plotting; it had all come down to this moment. Struggling with all his might, he could feel his enemy’s strength yielding, the blade of the ax inching toward his throat. In just a few seconds, Edgar Allan Poe would be dead, and Eddie would be on his way to Canada, where he planned to spend his remaining days contentedly stringing along both Brontë sisters. This was his final thought before something hard struck the side of his head, abruptly ending his life.

What happened next was a mistake. Lenore found another psychic ghost summoner to bring back Edgar’s friends, but she inadvertently summoned everyone who had died in the house that night. From the moment he was conscious of it, Eddie hated being a ghost. He had thought his thirst for revenge had been all-consuming in life, but at least then he’d had other things he needed to focus on, like eating and sleeping and working. In death, he had none of those distractions. This wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d been able to exact his revenge on his killer, but Edgar was now surrounded by ghosts, most of whom were in that state because of Eddie, and if preventing him from hurting Edgar made him unhappy, they were determined to dedicate their afterlives to doing just that. At least, that was how Mary Shelley put it, and the others readily agreed, when they forced him out of the house.

He stole one final glance at Annabel’s face before his departure. She didn’t look angry like the others. She looked – he searched for the word as he glided away from Poe’s property – hurt. Betrayed. True, she had always loved Edgar, had only chosen Eddie because he seemed more respectable. Eddie in turn had only chosen her because she was close to the poet, and thus would be extraordinarily useful in his diabolical plot. But for the first time it occurred to him that they could have been relatively happy together. She might be secretly pining after Poe, and he would be secretly thirsting for revenge against disgusting hacks who called themselves writers, but they could have suppressed these urges and chosen to live in comfort, pretending to be normal, contented people.

“What am I thinking?” the ghost asked himself aloud. “I managed to kill seven authors! I wouldn’t trade that for anything!” And then it hit him: he would never have managed to maintain the charade, but Annabel would have. Even though he had strangled her with his own hands, she had been the stronger person.

Thoughts like these haunted him for weeks as he wandered aimlessly around Baltimore. When he could stand it no longer, he found a psychic and begged to be un-summoned.

“I-I beg your pardon?” the psychic stammered.

“Send me back! I was summoned by accident, and I want to die. Let me move on!” Eddie pleaded. He tried to shake the psychic by the shoulders, but he hadn’t quite gotten the hang of becoming corporeal and instead fell straight through the psychic, who sighed.

“I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that, sir. Only you can determine when you move on. Once all your remaining unfinished business is complete, you should simply be able to…slip away.”

Eddie furiously struggled to his feet. “But I can’t finish my unfinished business! They won’t let me kill Poe! Isn’t there any other way?”

“If you can’t finish your unfinished business, the only other way is to forget about it completely…I’m sorry, they won’t let you WHAT?!”

“Never mind,” he mumbled. “How do I forget about it?”

The psychic looked quite wary, but replied, “I believe some manage it by moving on to another century.”

“So you’re telling me I have to wait at least 100 years before-”

“Oh goodness no! I mean, just travel to another century.”

“What do you mean? How do I just…ghosts can time travel?”

“Sure, why not?” the psychic shrugged. “Some do it constantly. It’s one of the few advantages to being dead, I’m told.”

“But how does one travel through time?” he asked. The question had barely left his lips when his surroundings disappeared. He could see nothing but molten lava. The earth had just been formed. “That was easy,” he marveled.

What was harder was controlling when he traveled to. He could jump eons by simply thinking about time travel, but initially he always ended up in random times. He encountered several terrifying creatures from either the distant past or distant future – he was never quite sure which was which – and occasionally humans wearing strange clothes, often speaking languages he didn’t recognize. None of this particularly interested him. Eddie had never cared for anything that he couldn’t control. It wasn’t helping him move on either; all he could think of was that he had unintentionally done H.G. Wells a great favor by killing him.

Eventually, he found himself in a time during which the world seemed to consist entirely of giant slugs. “Oh, good, I’ve hit a new low,” he commented to one of them, which continued slowly gliding without acknowledging the ghost that had just appeared next to it.

“My dear Lenore, did you hear someone speaking?” asked one of the last voices Eddie had ever wanted to hear again. He threw himself flat on his stomach, hoping the slugs would block him from view.

“Who cares? Let’s get out of here, it’s disgusting!”

“Do you think the slugs can talk?” the first voice pressed.

“Listen, H.G., this time traveling is great and all, but I hate it here. Haven’t we made 100 trips yet?”

“Nearly. This is our…” Eddie heard the sound of notebook pages being turned. “…97th. Only three more randomized travels and we’ll be able to control it! All we’ll have to do is think of a year and poof! There we’ll be!”

“Good, let’s move on to our 98th. I’m getting slime on my dress.”

Silence returned. Eddie stood up. He was covered in slime, but this felt like the first productive trip he’d taken. Unlike H.G., he didn’t know exactly what number he was on, but at least he knew that eventually he’d have some control over when he went.

After that, he thought of a year every time he traveled. At first, it was clearly wrong; he thought of 1700 and ended up surrounded by machines that hadn’t even been invented in his time, then 1900 and came face-to-face with a dinosaur. But then, at last, he thought of 1850, and ended up in surroundings that looked familiar. He found a newspaper stand. The date on the paper was August 22, 1850. He couldn’t resist; as passersby stared, he gave himself a slow clap.

After a few trial periods in various eras, Eddie decided to settle in the year 2010. Safely in a different millennium from his own time, surrounded by humans who essentially looked and talked like those he was used to, seemed like the perfect environment in which to forget his unfinished business. He was unpleasantly surprised to learn that none of the authors he’d killed had been entirely forgotten, but while most people had heard of them, it seemed that relatively few had actually read their work, so he could easily avoid hearing about them. Best of all, it was a time of many distractions. He took to haunting various electronics stores; when they closed, he would turn on a device and play games all night, trying not to think about how his revenge had failed.

He had passed through a few years in the normal way before he admitted to himself that it wasn’t working. The games weren’t distracting him. As he played, he always found a way to pretend he was killing Poe. He tried to tell himself that as Poe was long dead by now it no longer mattered, but he couldn’t convince himself this was true. Eddie could forgive Edgar for killing him – it was self-defense, after all – but he couldn’t forgive him for winning. Eddie was supposed to emerge from that night triumphant, and Poe had snatched that victory from him. No matter how many games he dominated, Eddie was never going to recover from that humiliating defeat at the hands of a liar and a thief (just like every writer) who was too pathetic to ever leave his own house.

One day, late in 2013, he was wandering outside aimlessly, thinking that perhaps he should try a different century, when he heard something that completely changed his afterlife.

“Edgar, you can’t. You can’t be here.”

“Just listen, Annabel.”

Eddie turned. There they were: the couple he hated with every bit of ectoplasm that composed his ghost. But was it them? It certainly looked like them, and yet, somehow, they seemed…different. Edgar obviously could have changed in appearance after Eddie knew him, but Annabel…she should have looked exactly the same as the night he’d strangled her, but she had definitely changed, somehow. As Eddie gaped at them, they kissed, and he suddenly realized that they were standing in the rain, even though it wasn’t raining, and that’s when he noticed the film crew.

“That was beautiful! Cut.”

The rain stopped, and Edgar and Annabel broke apart awkwardly. It wasn’t them. They were actors, making a movie. Eddie was impressed by the casting; they greatly resembled the original people their characters were based on. Then it began to dawn on him that perhaps he could have his revenge after all. The trifling facts that these people had nothing to do with him and that the real Edgar Allan Poe would never suffer even if they did barely troubled Eddie. He’d killed a bunch of unrelated authors because of something William Shakespeare had done to his ancestor centuries earlier. This was no different.

Before he was asked to leave for ruining a shot, Eddie managed to overhear enough scraps of information to start him off on his new quest. The actors were named James Rochester and Lily Thomas, and it was their last day of filming on this movie. They had clearly worked together before, but they did not seem to be on very good terms personally. Nevertheless, they were going to start filming their next project in Los Angeles in a couple of months, during which time Eddie vowed to spend learning everything he could about filmmaking.

When the next James and Lily film started shooting, Eddie was part of the crew. He’d invented a resume that he didn’t think fooled anyone, but it was a low-budget film and he was working for free (ghosts had no use for money, after all), so they were happy to have him. But his plan to get close to the stars didn’t go very well; they were too busy snapping at each other to pay much attention to anyone else on set. At first, Eddie found it immensely satisfying to watch the people he saw as Edgar and Annabel constantly fighting. Then he actually started to like them. Edgar and Annabel had been such pushovers; James and Lily were both strong and sassy, which Eddie admired. But as filming progressed, he noticed that they seemed to be softening toward each other. Their insults had lost their zest; they seemed to be fighting out of habit rather than dislike.

On their next film, it was even worse. They were nice to each other, and once when they were kissing, they didn’t immediately break away when the director yelled, “Cut!” A few weeks after filming wrapped, Eddie heard that Lily and James had started dating, but they didn’t have any future projects lined up. After that, he didn’t have any direct contact with either of them for several months.

The bus station was almost deserted. She sat alone, staring into space, not even pretending to play on her phone. He had never seen anyone look more dejected. He forced the triumphant grin off his face and approached her.

“Excuse me, but aren’t you Lily Thomas?”

She glared at him. “Don’t tell me you’ve heard of me.”

“I worked on two of your films. I’m Eddie De Vere. I don’t really expect you to remember me.”

“Oh, now I do. Sort of.” They both knew she was lying, but he sat down next to her anyway.

“So, where are you going?” he asked.

“Away from here.”

“Still acting?”

“No.”

“Still seeing James?”

She started, then narrowed her eyes at him. “Why are you asking me all these questions?”

He did his best to look uninterested. “Just making conversation. Last time I saw you, you were still acting, and it seemed like you and James were together.”

“James and I had a misunderstanding, and the entertainment industry and I had a falling out. That’s why I’m leaving. Now I don’t want to be rude, but will you please leave me alone?”

Having orchestrated both the misunderstanding and the falling out, Eddie was well aware of this. He had followed her to the bus station merely to gloat. But he didn’t find it nearly as satisfying as he’d anticipated. He wanted her to go off on an angry tirade, abusing her jealous ex-boyfriend who had thrown her out based on unfounded rumors, and berating the film industry for unfairly blackballing her. But instead of boiling with anger at the injustice of it all, she merely seemed resigned. She was prepared to move on with her life, perhaps ultimately to find happiness. After all his hard work. Eddie wouldn’t stand for it. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked.

“No. Honestly. I’ll be fine. Life just sucks sometimes.”

“I think it’s a tremendous waste of talent for you to quit acting.”

“It would be a tremendous waste of time to try to keep acting after everything that’s happened.”

A light bulb turned on in Eddie’s brain. “What if you tried to keep acting before everything that’s happened?”

Lily considered his face carefully. When she realized he was serious, she started to inch away from him. “That’s okay, I-”

“You don’t understand! I can time travel! I’ll take you back to the Golden Age of Hollywood, and you’ll be a sensation!”

She stood up. “I just remembered, I’m at the wrong bus station.” She grabbed her suitcase and started to run away from him.

“Wait!” he cried, jumping up. Taking a running leap, he dove through her, landing on the ground in front of her. She couldn’t stop in time and ran straight through him before she stopped dead, then slowly turned to face him. “I’m a ghost,” he said unnecessarily.

“I noticed.”

“I can time travel,” he added, standing up.

“And you can take me with you?”

“Yes.” He didn’t know if this was true, but it was worth a try. It wasn’t like he cared if anything bad happened to her.

She raised an eyebrow skeptically. “And why exactly do you want to help me?”

“It’s the only way I can move on,” he invented. “I have to help someone find happiness. Otherwise I’m trapped as a ghost forever.”

She still looked suspicious. “Why?”

“How should I know? I don’t make the rules! Are you coming or not?”

Lily thought about it for a few moments, decided she didn’t have much left to lose, and said, “Okay, take me to early Hollywood.”

He grasped both her hands tightly in his, screwed up his face in concentration, and thought about them both traveling through time. Her gasp told him something had happened. He opened his eyes. The bus station was gone; they were on a deserted street, lined with a few scattered cars.

“I don’t believe it!” she cried. “Where are we? I mean, when?”

“I was going for 1940, but the cars look too old.” He supposed the timing was less precise when someone else tagged along.

Lily pointed to a movie poster on the building next to them. “The War. That came out in 1923. We must be around then.”

“Want to try making it in silent pictures?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Why not? If we fail, we can always try a different era, right?”

“I guess…wait, what do you mean, ‘we’?”

“You’re trying this experiment with me, aren’t you? You weren’t planning on letting me fend for myself in a strange year, were you?” she added, somewhat suspiciously.

“Oh, no, of course not,” he lied hastily. “Let’s both be silent film stars. How hard can it be?”

Extremely hard. Even from its earliest days, Hollywood has always been about connections, and since everyone working there in 1923 was born after Eddie’s time and died before Lily’s, they had none. Eddie wanted to offer to forego wages like he had done in the future, but that wasn’t going to work for Lily. He couldn’t understand why he wasn’t just abandoning her. That would certainly complete his revenge, and then he could move on with his afterlife. But, much to his own disgust, Eddie actually wanted to see how she would fare in this unfamiliar world. So he stayed.

They started working as extras. Their combined wages were barely enough for Lily to survive on, but she didn’t seem to mind; she was constantly marveling about how inexpensive everything was. Most importantly, they had their feet in the door. Eddie was greatly impressed to observe that Lily was almost as good at schmoozing people as he was, and although it took time, eventually they started to land slightly larger roles. They decided to adopt new names; Lily became Minta Monroe, while Eddie went by Johnny Busterfield. They appeared in several mildly successful comedies and a couple of dreadful dramas, but they were having fun. Eddie grudgingly admitted to himself that he was starting to like Lily, and he enjoyed being around her so much that he almost forgot his ambition to make her as miserable as possible. Almost.

Then came what looked like their big break: a new teen comedy with a huge cast was announced. Minta Monroe and Johnny Busterfield murdered their auditions and landed key roles, alongside such big names as Buster Keaton, John Barrymore, and Slim Sockwillow. Eddie thought Slim looked an awful lot like both Edgar and James, but Lily didn’t seem to notice any resemblance to her ex, so Eddie decided it must be all in his head. He also could have sworn he’d seen most of the other actors before. He told himself that this was probably because they’d been in other silent movies he’d worked on, but deep down he knew the truth: he was still seeing images of the lives he’d ruined everywhere. But he pushed away these thoughts and plunged into the project.

The picture was to be called American Whoopee. Eddie had far more fun making it than he’d ever had in his life or death, but his enjoyment was nothing to Lily’s. She managed to convince the director to add a bunch of references to future teen comedies, simply for her own amusement. Minta Monroe was hailed as a creative genius. Eddie enjoyed sharing in her private joke too much to care that his plot to ruin her life was backfiring horribly. He started to notice that it was getting harder to stay solid; perhaps he was finally on the brink of forgetting his unfinished business and moving on to the other side.

American Whoopee was almost finished filming. Eddie was reading the newspaper, enjoying a rare afternoon off, when he heard a knock at their apartment door. He answered it, to see Slim Sockwillow holding a bouquet. “Hiya, Johnny, is your sister in?”

Eddie was bewildered. “My-”

“It’s okay, Johnny, I told him our secret,” Lily interjected, hurrying to join Eddie at the door. “Sorry, I meant to tell you I have a date with Slim this evening. You don’t mind, do you?”

Eddie liked Slim. They’d worked very closely together on this film and were constantly making each other laugh. But as he contemplated the young man holding flowers outside his door, Eddie didn’t see Slim; he saw Edgar Allan Poe, holding a pet rock.

Slim’s grin faltered. “Say, Johnny, I know how you feel; I have two kid sisters myself. But I promise to have her home at a reasonable hour. We’re just going out for a bite and a dance. Unless…unless you have any objections,” he added, quivering under Eddie’s hostile glare.

“I don’t care if he does,” Lily asserted, pushing the fuming, completely corporeal Eddie out of the way and taking Slim by the hand. “See ya later, Johnny,” she called, slamming the door behind them.

The newspaper Eddie had been holding immediately turned into a crumpled ball of fury. The one and only thing that could have ruined his contentment had happened. His alternate Annabel had fallen for this Prohibition-Era alternate Edgar. The fact that Eddie actually liked them and didn’t mind if they were happy was immaterial. The horrible night he’d almost forgotten about replayed in his head over and over as he paced around the apartment, interspersed with new images of Lily gasping “It was always you” in Slim’s arms.

After what felt like weeks to Eddie, Lily finally returned from her date. “Fine time to get home!” he spat at her the moment she walked through the door.

She had the audacity to laugh at him. “It’s only 8:30, and I can’t believe you’re jealous.”

Eddie was completely taken aback. “I-what? I’m not jealous, I-”

Lily rolled her eyes. “Oh please. Eddie, you’re a great guy, but I mean, you’re dead. You can’t honestly think you and I could have a potential future together.”

“I don’t- That’s not why I-” he stammered.

“I’m sorry about the brother thing, but he asked me if I was living with you, and I thought he’d be more likely to believe ‘Yes, but he’s not my boyfriend, he’s my brother’ than ‘Yes, but he’s not my boyfriend, he’s the ghost that brought me here from the future.’”

Eddie found his voice. “Exactly! You’re from the future! He’s old enough to be your great-grandfather! That doesn’t bother you?”

Lily shrugged. “Not really. We’re the same age now, and besides, I really like him a lot, and we had a great time, and we’re going out again tomorrow night, and if you don’t like it, you can go haunt somebody else!”

Eddie didn’t like it, but he had a better idea than haunting somebody else. The following day, he managed to sneak away from set long enough to make a few important calls from a phone booth around the corner from the studio. The day after that, American Whoopee’s final day of shooting, several papers reported some dreadful rumors about the film. It was said to be “filth” created to “corrupt the minds of young America” whose cast was “entirely comprised of drunken rabble-rousers who eagerly flout the laws of the land”. Each day that followed brought news of a new scandal involving either the film itself or its cast. By the time the trailer was released, the studio had received hundreds of angry telegrams, and after seeing the trailer, the public took to the streets to protest. Naturally, the film was never completed, and almost the entire cast (with the exceptions of Buster Keaton and John Barrymore, whose reputations had remained unsullied) were fired from the studio, with almost no hope of being hired elsewhere.

Lily was furious. “I can’t believe my life has been ruined by rumors AGAIN!” she fumed. “If I ever find out who fed the media those ridiculous lies, I will literally kill them.”

“Yeah, this sucks,” Eddie agreed, suppressing a smirk. “You want to try another era?”

“What I want is a drink,” she muttered.

“So that’s a yes?”

She sighed. “I guess. Hey, you couldn’t bring Slim along too, could you?”

Eddie managed to hold his temper. “Sadly, I can only time travel with one living person. Are you okay with that?”

Lily wasn’t sure she believed him, but she nodded and let the ghost take her hands. Eddie thought of the mid-Cretaceous period, reasoning that no Edgar look-alike could exist where there were no humans, and that even if he ended up a few decades off, that wouldn’t make much difference. But when they’d completed their journey, the world didn’t look nearly different enough. The streets looked essentially the same as the ones they’d just left, although there seemed to be a lot more homeless people around.

“When were you trying to go to?” Lily asked.

Before Eddie had to answer, a shabby-looking man approached them and said, “Hey, brother, can you spare a dime?”

Eddie reached into his pocket and found a quarter. “I’ll give you two bits if you tell me what year it is.”

The man eyed the coin hungrily, but with a trace of suspicion. “It’s 1934. You a Rockefeller or something? Nobody just gives away a quarter.”

Eddie handed over the coin and turned back to Lily as the man hurried away. “Sorry, I guess we didn’t go very far. Why are you smiling?”

“Because Prohibition ended in 1933 and I can get a drink here!” She hurried into a nearby bar. Shaking his head slightly, Eddie followed her. He was starting to think he would never succeed in making her miserable.

The bartender greeted them cordially. “Welcome to Bixby’s Lounge. I’m Bixby. What can I get you, and why are you dressed like a flapper?” he added, eyeing Lily’s outfit.

“Oh, just had an audition,” she replied casually. “I think I blew it though,” she added. “I’ll have a dry martini.”

“You’re okay staying in 1934 for a while, I take it?” Eddie asked when Bixby had busied himself with other customers, as she drained her martini glass.

“Sure, this is about when we were trying to go the first time, remember? Talkies should be easier for me than silent films. We better think of new names, though. I like the sound of Vivian Nightingale, what do you think of that?”

The name made him uncomfortable. He couldn’t place it, but he thought it was vaguely connected with that horrible night at Poe’s house. “That sounds familiar. Wasn’t that the name of an Oscar Wilde character or something?”

“Not that I know of. I’ve never come across it before. But I think it suits me, don’t you?”

The familiarity of the name still bothered him, but he shrugged it off. “Sure.”

“What will you go by?”

“Eduardo Dantes,” he decided, determined not to let anything distract him from his revenge from now on.

Once again, Lily and Eddie started as extras. This time, however, Eddie did everything in his power to prevent them from booking auditions. They got a couple of bit parts, but nothing that would gain them any recognition. But Lily was more resourceful than he’d given her credit for. After a few years of almost constant failure, she managed to finagle two invitations to a party for producer Roger Haircremé. “If we make a good impression on him, we’ll have this town in the palm of our hands,” she told Eddie.

Eddie accompanied her to the party with plans of creating the opposite of a good impression. As if she had read his mind, Lily suggested they split up as soon as they arrived. “If he sees us together, that might hurt both our chances,” she reasoned.

“You mean it might hurt your chances,” Eddie muttered, but she had already disappeared into the crowd of stars. She was beating him at his own game, and it hurt his pride more than he wanted to admit.

“Cigarette, sir?” asked a voice at his side.

He turned to say “No, thank you,” to the attractive cigarette girl, but before she walked away, he noticed her nametag. “Wait! Your name is Lily Thomas?”

“Almost. It’s actually TH-omas.”

It took Eddie a moment to digest this. “Wait, really?” When she nodded earnestly, he said, “I used to know someone named Lily Thomas.”

“Oh, well she can’t be any relation. The TH-omases and the Thomases have completely different origins. I’m from Minnesota.”

“Really? What brings you to L.A.?” he asked, though he thought he knew, and if he was right, he could still manipulate the evening after all.

“I wanted to be an actress, but it’s a lot harder than I thought it would be. I thought maybe if I could meet Roger Haircremé…”

“There he is right now!” Eddie exclaimed, spotting him across the room. “Here, I’ll hold your cigarettes, why don’t you go up to him and turn on the charm? Just don’t tell him who you are; he’ll never know.”

Eddie expected her to be suspicious, but she immediately did as he suggested. It worked perfectly; Roger had eyes for no one else the entire evening.

As the party was winding down, Eddie finally found Lily Thomas (not TH-omas) again. “How did your evening go?” he asked her, waiting for her disappointment.

“Fine,” she replied. “Hey, Bill, come here, I want you to meet my brother.”

Eddie froze, preparing for the worst, but the man named Bill looked nothing like Edgar. “Nice to meet you,” Eddie sighed with relief.

“Bill’s a director,” Lily explained. “He thinks I’d be perfect for the lead in his next picture, and he wants me to audition for him tomorrow.”

“That’s great, congratulations,” Eddie managed.

“You can head home now if you want. Bill will drop me off later.”

Vivian Nightingale booked the lead in Bill’s new film, and in his two films after that. Between the second and third, they got married. Annoyed as Eddie was by her success, he knew that Lily didn’t love Bill, and so could never be truly happy. It was almost enough.

Then the inevitable happened. Eddie was having a drink at Bixby’s Lounge when he heard a familiar voice ask for two fingers of scotch and limited eye contact. There, a few seats down the bar from Eddie, was the Edgar Allan Poe lookalike of the 1930s.

Eddie nearly panicked, but he calmed himself with the knowledge that Lily hadn’t met this one, and probably never would, if his anti-social demeanor was any indication. Still, just to be on the safe side, when the Poe doppelganger had left, Eddie asked Bixby if he knew who he was.

“Ford Phillips, private investigator,” Bixby said. “Why do you ask?”

“I thought he looked familiar. He’s not an actor?”

Bixby laughed. “That man hates show business and everyone involved in it. Personally, I love show business, but he’s one of my best customers, so who am I to complain? I’m Bixby, and Bixby never complains about customers.”

“Say, Bixby,” Eddie began slowly, an idea forming on how to keep an eye on this Phillips, “I notice your floor show is a little thin, and I could use a job. Think you could use me?”

“How good are you with puppets?” Bixby asked immediately.

This was not the response he’d anticipated. “Excuse me?”

“I love puppets. If you can do a puppet act, you’re hired.”

“Can you provide the puppets?” Eddie asked.

“Of course. Bixby’s got everything.”

“Then I can come up with an act,” Eddie agreed.

Ford Phillips came into Bixby’s at almost exactly the same time every night, but he never talked to anyone except Bixby. When Lily asked to see Eddie’s act, he told her to come several hours before Ford would be there, and he made sure to hurry her out before he arrived. Still, Eddie had a lingering fear that the more famous she became, the more difficult it would be for even someone who hated show business to avoid seeing her, and if Ford was indeed the Edgar he appeared to be, Annabel’s face could easily change his opinion of actresses. Eddie needed to interfere with Lily’s career yet again. But how?

The answer came with the following morning’s headline: “WILHELMINA VANDERJETSKI WEDS HOLLYWOOD MOGUL!!!” Underneath was a picture of Lily TH-omas, and the article detailed her wedding to producer Roger Haircremé, as well as glowing reviews of her first starring role, in a film which had just been released. Roger was quoted as saying, “Willie’s a breath of fresh air in this tawdry town. I was about to leave Hollywood before I met her, but as long as she wants to star in my films, I want to keep producing them.” So Eddie had done something right at that party after all.

Eddie prided himself on his ability to manipulate people, and Bill turned out to be even more of a pushover than he’d anticipated. It was almost too easy to convince him to switch to Roger Haircremé’s studio. Bill willingly signed a contract on behalf of both himself and Vivian Nightingale. The wife of the director didn’t stand a chance against the wife of the studio head, and Lily TH-omas beat out Lily Thomas for role after role after role.

“She’s not even that good of an actress, and she has to be the stupidest person I’ve ever met!” Lily vented to Eddie. “If I could work for a different studio, I might stand a chance, but that moron I’m married to thinks Roger’s the best producer out there. If it weren’t for that stupid contract-”

“How is dear Bill?” Eddie asked, thoroughly enjoying himself.

“Ugh, don’t ask. If I didn’t need his money, I’d divorce him in a heartbeat. What a bore. Luckily, he’s not the only man in the world.” Eddie couldn’t believe his ears. Had she managed to meet Ford despite all his efforts? But then she added, “It’s too bad I haven’t met anyone like Slim in this decade. I can’t find out what happened to him either. Man, I miss the internet.” Eddie started to relax, but she went on, “I’m thinking about finding another job, to save up for a divorce. Bixby’s seems like a good gig for you. Do you think he’d hire me too?”

That was the last thing Eddie wanted, but she wasn’t to know that, so he just shrugged and said, “It’s worth a try.”

When he got to work the following day, Eddie told Bixby, “Listen, I heard Vivian Nightingale was going to ask you for an audition, but I’m not sure she would be the best fit for your place.”

“Why not?” Bixby asked.

“I mean, she’s a film actress. I just think she’d seem out of place in a lounge.”

Bixby had a strange look on his face. “Well, I didn’t think so. She sang so well at her audition this morning that I hired her immediately.”

Eddie’s heart sank. “Oh. Okay. Well that’s…that’s good then. She’s more versatile than I thought.”

Somehow, Eddie managed to keep Lily offstage whenever Ford came in. This was made more difficult by Bixby, who seemed to want Lily and Ford to meet. Eddie noticed that Bixby’s manner had gotten much colder toward him since Vivian Nightingale had started singing there, but he didn’t give it too much thought.

Then Wilhelmina Vanderjetski hired Ford Phillips to find out who was blackmailing her, and her rival Vivian Nightingale was an obvious suspect. So Ford and Vivian met. And even when her name was cleared, they stayed in touch and became friends. Eddie was beside himself with rage.

“Four different men in five different states?” Bill repeated. “How is that even possible?”

“Trust me, it’s possible,” Eddie insisted. There was silence on the other end of the phone. “You still there, Bill?”

“Are you sure? That’s not the Vivian I know.”

“Sounds like you don’t know your wife at all. I thought you had a right to know. But you didn’t hear it from me,” Eddie added hastily.

“I understand. Thanks, Eddie.”

That evening, Eddie was distracted during his puppet act by a loud argument from Vivian’s dressing room. When he was finished, he knocked on her door and called, “You’re on in five minutes, Viv!” A moment later, she burst through the door, slamming it behind her. “Everything all right?” he asked innocently.

“Bill found out,” she fumed. “And what’s more, he has the gall to be angry about it. It’s all well and good for him to run around, but as soon as I do the same thing…”

“You married a misogynist in the 1930s. Shocking.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m going to sing, and then get drunk. He’ll calm down eventually.”

Eddie waited for Bill to emerge from the dressing room, but he didn’t. Vivian finished singing, and another act started, but still, no Bill. Finally, Eddie knocked on the door. “Bill? You okay?” He opened the door. “Look, buddy, I know it’s tough, but…” He stopped abruptly. Bill was dead. He had ripped the cord off the blinds covering Vivian’s window and hanged himself. “Oh, buddy,” Eddie groaned disappointedly.

This hadn’t been part of the plan. Bill wasn’t supposed to kill himself. But it suddenly occurred to Eddie how to use this to his advantage. He stole the suicide note, which simply read, “I can’t go on, knowing you don’t love me.” Next he untied the cord from the rafters and positioned Bill’s body on the floor. Then he went to see a movie at his favorite theater where the ushers recognized him, to give himself an alibi.

As Eddie had anticipated, the death was deemed suspicious enough to warrant an investigation, with the widow as the prime suspect. As Eddie should have anticipated but didn’t, this prompted Lily to hire private detective Ford Phillips to launch his own investigation. With the help of his sidekick, Fig Wineshine (who Eddie thought bore a nauseating resemblance to Lenore), Ford was able to prove that Bill had committed suicide, reasoning that his body could have fallen to the floor between his death and his discovery, and that not all suicide cases involved a note. Vivian Nightingale was not going to jail and was no longer married, and Eddie waited in trepidation for the thing he most dreaded to come to pass.

About a year later, it happened. Despite booking a few film roles, Vivian and Eddie were still primarily working at Bixby’s. After their last set of the night, Eddie was about to leave when he heard Lily tell their boss that she was taking a two-week vacation the following month.

“Where are you going?” Eddie demanded.

Lily actually blushed. “Well, on my honeymoon, if you must know.”

“You’re getting married again? To whom? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Calm down, Eddie. I’m marrying Ford Phillips next month, and I didn’t tell you before now because I knew you’d get upset and try to stop me. But Ford isn’t like Bill, or any of the others. He has a tough exterior, but he’s kind and genuine and intelligent, and I think he’s my last chance at happiness. You told me once that you needed to help me find happiness. I stopped believing that a long time ago, but please don’t prove me right.”

Eddie was startled. He stared into her eyes, trying to discern how much she had figured out.

“Absolutely, take as long of a honeymoon as you want,” said Bixby, making both Eddie and Lily jump. “And congratulations!”

“Thank you, Bixby!” She hurried off to change out of her costume. Eddie gaped after her, wondering how he could possibly win this time.

“Whatever you’re thinking, stop it.”

Eddie turned to see Bixby glaring at him. “I don’t know what you’re-”

“Drop the act, Eddie, I know who you are.” To Eddie’s shock and horror, Bixby put his hand through the bar. He was a ghost, too. “That’s right,” said Bixby. “I’m not Bixby.”

For the first time in his crazy, mixed up afterlife, Eddie considered the possibility that he had lost his sanity. “Who are you?” he asked.

“I used to be known as Constable Wesley. I helped arrest the Brontë sisters, but I never caught you. When I died, I was forced to return as a ghost until I brought you to justice. I travelled through the centuries until fate brought us together here. I’ve been keeping an eye on you. I notice you seem to have lost some of your murderous tendencies, since apart from almost allowing an innocent person to be executed for a murder that wasn’t a murder, you haven’t gotten close to murder since you’ve been here. But if you try anything more to ruin the happiness of this person you plucked from the future because of her resemblance to Annabel Lee, I will be forced to make the rest of your afterlife a literal hell.”

Eddie’s head was spinning so fast he had to sit down. “How do you know all that?”

Not-Bixby poured himself a drink. “I’m Constable Wesley,” he replied simply, toasting himself.

Before Eddie could fully appreciate how completely stymied he was, the door to Bixby’s burst open, and a man stormed in.

“We’re closed,” Constable Wesley announced casually, as though he hadn’t just revealed himself to be a time-traveling ghost.

“Where is she?” the man demanded. “Where’s Vivian Nightingale?”

“I’m right here, Edwin, calm down,” Lily said, emerging from the dressing rooms.

The man was shaking, red-faced, and having trouble getting his words out. “You…said…you said…if not for…your husband…you and I…we…”

“Edwin, I’m sorry, but-”

“And now…you’re going to marry…” Suddenly he pulled out a revolver. “I won’t let you!”

“Edwin, don’t!” she screamed, but he pulled the trigger, then dashed out the door as she crumpled to the floor.

Constable Wesley glared at Eddie. “Tell me you didn’t call him.”

Eddie was in shock. “What? I didn’t even know-”

“Good,” Wesley snapped before taking off after the shooter.

“Eddie!” gasped Lily.

Eddie rushed over to her. There was blood everywhere. “You’re going to be okay,” he assured her, kneeling down and taking her in his arms.

“Stop lying to me,” she groaned.

“Lily, listen! I swear I didn’t mean for this to happen. I thought I wanted revenge, but really I just wanted-”

“Eddie,” she gasped again. His heart leapt expectantly. “Tell Ford how much I love him.”

The ghost of Constable Wesley helped bring Edwin to justice, which was apparently enough; he was able to move on. Eddie envied him desperately. He had no idea what to do with his afterlife now. He made several attempts to time travel back to that day and stop Edwin from showing up, or at least to take the gun out of his hand, but it didn’t work. He couldn’t be corporeal in two places at the same time. Stupid ghost rules.

He took to haunting Lily’s grave. Her tombstone had the name Vivian Nightingale on it, but no one had been able to find out when or where she was born. Eddie had been disappointed by how few people had shown up at her funeral, and he felt even more disappointed later when no one else except Ford Phillips ever visited her grave, until he remembered that her lack of connections had mostly been his fault. How could he have thought that ruining her life would help him? She deserved better than this pitiful grave that only one man and one ghost ever visited. She deserved some sort of memorial.

And that’s when it hit him. The Vivian Nightingale Memorial Ball. She wasn’t an Oscar Wilde character, but she had effectively introduced him to Oscar Wilde. And there was only one way that Vivian Nightingale could have a memorial ball established in the century before she existed.

He considered not doing it. If the ball didn’t exist, that night could go differently. Oscar Wilde wouldn’t be there to confuse his emotions, and his plot might succeed. He might win, or at least survive, and none of this would ever happen. Lily Thomas would be happy with James Rochester, American Whoopee would be released with actors other than Minta Monroe and Johnny Busterfield, and Lily TH-omas would never meet, marry, and be blackmailed by Roger Haircremé.

Eddie resisted for as long as he could, but ultimately, he realized it was futile. He couldn’t create a paradox. He needed to go back and establish the Vivian Nightingale Memorial Ball so everything could happen exactly as it was supposed to. And then maybe, just maybe, his unfinished business would count as complete, and he could finally move on.

#shipwrecked comedy #poe party #kissing in the rain #american whoopee #case of the gilded lily #fig and ford #there's also a very small nod to bertha's attic song in here #i'm sorry this is way too long #and kind of on the depressing side #but i couldn't help myself

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martisxladyshura · 5 years

Text

A Chance Dance: A Tale of Friendship Between Two Lost Souls

Notes:

1. "City of Stars" is, of course, taken from the La La Land OST.

2. Cover art by me

*******

City of stars...

Are you shining just for me?

The hall of the once resplendent fortress was littered with broken, rotten furniture and ripped paintings, all veiled under thick layer of dust and cobwebs. The small, eerily green flames on each post that circled the room barely lit the area. Critters crawled to and fro the cracks on the walls.

On a fallen pillar near the entryway sat a restless Lady Shura, her golden eyes wide with curiosity as she tried to catch as much detail of the place as she could. Her beautiful white and silver dress, complimented by jewelry of the same color, stood out against the darkness enveloping the whole castle.

Leomord stood in attention a few feet from her. The cursed knight wore light vestments but still carried his sword, the Oath Keeper, in its sheath. He was ordered by Queen Vexana to keep an eye on the Ashura King's companion as they had important matters to discuss.

Martis owed the Necromancer Queen nothing for bringing Lady Shura back to the mortal realm as he had paid his dues with the Wings of the Apocalypse Queen, which he reaped with his blades when the seductress tried to work her spells on him (from what he heard, the Vampire Queen has since grown them back). He hated dealing with demons as he was used to killing them, and he held disdain for magic as the Shura saw it as a cheap trick the weak use in the absence of true fighting prowess. But Vexana claimed Lady Shura's reformed body needs constant upkeep that was not part of their original deal. Thus he had to at least consider the queen's whims if he wanted to keep his woman alive.

Unbeknownst to the two rulers, their subordinates had met a few times in the planes between life and death. Before her revival, Lady Shura held dominion over the underworld, harvesting the souls of warriors that met their end at the hands of the Ashura King to amplify his abilities. Mysteriously, after his dark resurrection, Leomord found himself in her domain the few times he fell asleep and dreamed.

During their time in the middle plane, the two lost souls spoke of their lives above ground, though Leomord carefully omitted disdainful parts such as killing himself, fighting for the Abyss, and murdering the innocent in the name of his Queen.

This was their first time meeting in the mortal realm.

"So... this is where you live..." There was concern in Lady Shura's voice as she continued to look around, trying to find something good to say about the place. "It's... um... quite massive. It must have looked incredible."

"It did." Leomord remained stoic as he spoke in a low tone, his voice having acquired a cold, metallic reverb after he was summoned back from the dead. "You should have seen this place in its glory, especially this hall. This used to be a ballroom. Every week, the king and queen held massive celebrations just to entertain the people. Royalties from all over the land would come in their best, most flamboyant attire. Everything and everyone was a spectacle of dancing colors."

Memories suddenly flooded Leomord's mind. He had not thought of the time before the fall of the kingdom since his reawakening. They felt like a distant dream, a different lifetime.

He bowed his head and closed his eyes as he recalled his boyhood.

"I had many foolish fantasies when I was still a squire. I dreamed of being a brave and gallant knight that would go on unbelievable adventures, saving beautiful ladies in distress from vile creatures, being hailed as the greatest hero of my kingdom, then finally meeting and falling in love with the most beautiful princess in this very hall."

"Really?" Lady Shura leaned a bit towards where he stood, her interest piqued.

A weary smile broke across Leomord's face. He looked up and stared far into the empty hall. "I imagined the crowd parting and there she would be... my beautiful, enigmatic future bride from a far away kingdom. I would charm and dance with her throughout the night. She would find me irresistible. But then her father would require proof of my valor. I would have to complete impossible tasks to win the fair maiden's hand in marriage."

"That sounds so romantic!" Lady Shura swooned.

Leomord chuckled.

"Romantic and foolish. I secretly practiced dancing during my free time to prepare for the day. But being a knight is far more taxing than what I had envisioned in my youth." He let out a sigh. "Protecting this kingdom and its people took precedence over my ego and fantasies, and it is no easy task." He rubbed the back of his neck, remembering how tired he would be by the end of each day. "Honestly, by the time I was finally honored with this post, all I wanted was to come home to a wife who will feed me and massage my aching body to sleep."

Lady Shura's smile waned a little. "A small cottage with a beautiful garden to greet you as you entered the home."

"A warm dinner."

"Children running to meet and pester you for stories of your gallant exploit."

"Yes."

Silence fell between the two. Melancholy filled the thick air.

"It's cruel that the world would deny such simple dreams." Lady Shura ran her hand around her neck. Martis may not have required her collar today, but the feeling of its tightness lingered.

"Such is the will of fate." Leomord's stoic and cold demeanor returned.

They remained quiet for a while. Lady Shura looked at Leomord, studying her friend as he stood completely still, not a hair from him moving.

"You know... No one has ever asked me to dance before." Lady Shura confessed.

"I find that hard to believe, my lady." Leomord spoke, still looking at the empty hall. "You are a very lovely woman. Only a fool would pass up the chance."

"Not when your hometown believes you to be the wicked witch of the forest." Lady Shura laughed uncomfortably. "The Shura Clan may not be warmest people, but at least I'm safe from being stoned and whipped to death. Again.”

Leomord turned to face her. "Not even the Ashura King has danced with you?"

Lady Shura raised a brow. Sarcasm was written all over her face. "Does he look like someone who dances? I am happy to be by the king's side but the man has no romantic bone in his body."

She folded her arms tightly and puffed out her chest. She furrowed her brows, crossed her eyes and shook her head mockingly as she spoke in the deepest tone she could muster. "You and your foolish fancies, woman! I only fight fight fight fight fight fight!”

Leomord tried but failed to stifle his laugh at her impression. She giggled at her silliness.

She took another look around the hall then stood up.

"Dance with me!"

"Huh?"

"Let's see those moves you practiced for your princess!" She teased.

"My lady..." He stammered as she got closer. "I... I don't think our lords would approve." He looked around the hall, checking to see if his queen or her king heard them. He shouldn't even be talking to her.

"Pffft!" Lady Shura brushed off his warning. She leaned to him, keeping her hands behind her back. "They're probably too caught up with their schemes. Come on!"

Leomord gulped as she took his hands and tried to pull him to the dance floor. "My lady, I... I am strongly against this idea."

"Please? Just a quick dance! They won't even know we moved from our spots!"

Leomord furrowed his brows as he stared into her pleading eyes, brilliant and golden despite the dimness of the room.

"Uh... there is no song to dance to..." He pointed out, trying to excuse himself from the situation.

"We'll sing as we dance! You must know some songs!"

"Well..." He wanted to lie, but he answered truthfully, much to his own surprise. "I can still recall 'City of Stars'. Somewhat."

"Oh, I love that song!" Her eyes lit with joy. "I heard it from a bard and couldn't get it out of my head for DAYS!"

Lady Shura continued to egg him on. "We'll sing it together as we dance! Come on!"

She clearly had no physical strength in her, yet Leomord found himself taking a step forward.

He wanted to stop but his other foot followed.

The next thing he knew, she had dragged him to the center of the hall.

He looked at her with uncertainty.

She looked at him with an encouraging smile.

He sighed.

He slowly unstrapped and laid his sword on the ground. He stretched out one hand and carefully wrapped his other arm around Lady Shura's waist, barely touching her with the back of his thumb.

Lady Shura showed no qualms, completely resting her hands and arms on him.

Just being this close to her felt like he was testing fate.

Then again... Only a fool would pass up the chance.

"City of stars, are you shining just for me?"

There was hesitation in his voice, which was barely an audible whisper, as they moved.

"City of stars... There's so much that I can't see.

Who knows?

I felt it from the first embrace I shared with you."

He felt embarrassed but she never took the smile off her lips.

"That now our dreams...

They've finally come true."

Her voice was gentle and unwavering. Slowly, he gained his momentum as she sung.

"City of stars...

Just one thing everybody wants."

Vividly colored memories of the celebrations held in the hall filled his sights, melting his fears and the dreadful scenery surrounding them away.

"It's love...

Yes, all we're looking for is love from someone else"

She giggled at her missteps but Leomord finally took lead, catching her faults and moving her with calm, sure gestures.

"A rush."

"A glance."

"A touch."

"A dance!"

He placed one hand behind his back then raised the other to his side while moving along the hall swiftly. Lady Shura followed, instinctively turning to meet his palm with both of hers alternately. Her dress flowed gracefully as she spun and twirled.

"A look in somebody's eyes...”

His deep voice melded with her gentle tone as they sang together.

“To light up the skies...

To open the world and send it reeling...

A voice that says, 'I'll be here' and 'you'll be alright...'"

He caught her hand, motioned her to spin, pushed her away then pulled her back to him, his hand now boldly pressing against her waist. His moves had conviction as if he danced every day. Lost in their moment, they didn't even notice their voices had gotten louder.

"I don't care if I know just where I will go 'cause all that I need is this crazy feeling...

A rat-tat-tat on my heart..."

He lifted her with one arm. She was light as a feather. He looked up at her with adoration as they spun. She was beaming with joy. The glow in her dress and jewelry reminded him of the magnificent chandeliers that sparkled brilliantly across the room.

"Think I want it to stay..."

He gently lowered her then pulled her close, holding her hands tightly.

"City of stars, are you shining just for me?"

He let her go, gently motioning her away from him.

"City of stars... You never shined so brightly."

The two curtsied in unison, Leomord bowing with one hand over his chest and the other behind his back. Lady Shura knelt slightly lower than him while holding the sides of her skirt, fanning it out.

The two remained still for a moment then looked at each other. Both had warm smiles on their faces.

They stood back up but before they could utter a word to each other, they felt the ground rumble. It was immediately followed by something heavy and sinister breaking through the floor.

A loud snap echoed through the hall.

Lady Shura was thrown to the ground away from Leomord by sheer force. As she was regaining her senses, she felt tight restraints snap around her neck and wrists. She shook her head and looked at her hands.

Both her wrists were wrapped in black shackles on heavy chains. She looked around and realized she was trapped within the Ashura's Teeth.

Meanwhile, before he could react, Leomord felt a strong force hit him on the face. He was sent flying across the room until he hit the wall, causing part of it to cave in.

A hand caught his throat before he could slide off the wall. He felt the force of two heavy blades land very close to his head. Debris flew everywhere.

"TREACHEROUS SNAKE!"

The Ashura King raised Leomord in the air then slammed him with all his might to the floor, which also cracked and caved upon impact.

There was ringing in Leomord's ears and his vision was cloudy. Blood trickled from his head, nose and mouth.

He could hear Lady Shura's muffled scream amidst the noise.

"MARTIS STOP PLEASE -!!!"

Martis held the knight by his hair and was about to deal another blow when a dark force pass through him. He was thrown back then realized he couldn't move.

"ENOUGH!!!" Vexana's voice echoed throughout the hall. She stood in front of the Ashura Teeth, one arm outstretched towards Lady Shura, the other to Martis.

"LET ME GO, NECROMANCER!"

"LAY ANOTHER HAND ON MY CHAMPION AND I WILL TAKE BACK THE LIFE I GAVE YOUR PRECIOUS LITTLE PET!!!"

Martis let out a growl through gritted teeth while Vexana hissed at him. A greenish light emitted from the hand she held in front of Lady Shura, who was kneeling and holding on to the Ashura Teeth like prison bars.

"IT WAS MY IDEA!" There was clear desperation in Lady Shura's voice. "IT WAS MY FAULT! I SHOULDN'T HAVE-"

"QUIET, YOU FILTH!" Vexana snapped.

Leomord slowly regained his faculties. Instead of getting up, he moved to bow on one knee, hanging his head as low as he could.

"Forgive my foolishness, my queen, Ashura King." The coldness in his voice returned. "I had requested the dance out of selfishness. I am at your mercy but let the lady go. I only forced her to indulge my request."

The king's crimson eyes blazed with fury. "YOU DEPRAVED ANIMAL! I WILL -"

"I SAID ENOUGH! HOLD YOUR TONGUES, OR I SWEAR I WILL TURN YOU ALL INTO TOADS AND CRUSH YOU WITH MY FOOT!"

Lady Shura shook her head. She was on the verge of crying.

"I will let you go now, Martis. Do NOT act brashly." Vexana warned. She observed Martis, weighting the chances of him continuing his attack. He grunted but seemed to understand the situation.

The queen removed her hold on him.

Martis clutched his fists, trying to control his impulses. The Ashura Teeth slid back to the ground, returning to the underworld. Lady Shura remained kneeling, her hands on the floor, too afraid to move.

Martis walked towards Leomord, who remained very still, his black hair covering his face completely. The Ashura King loomed over him, disgusted and furious.

"MARTIS!" Vexana increased the energy she held in front of Lady Shura as a warning.

"Tss!" Martis walked towards his ward. "Train your dog to stay away from another man's property, Necromancer!"

"Only if you teach your bed woman to keep her legs closed! Take your whore and leave!"

Lady Shura looked up at her king and meant to explain further, but before she could speak, he picked her up with one arm and threw her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

"Ow!" The spikes on his clothes and the tight space created by his armor constricted and pierced through Lady Shura's waist. She slapped his back with all her might, which Martis barely felt. "You are a brute!"

As they walked away, Lady Shura looked longingly at Leomord, remorseful for the trouble she put him through.

Martis and the lady's figure slowly disappeared in the darkness. The king's twin swords flew from the wall and followed their master just as they completely vanished.

Sure that they had gone, Vexana turned her attention to Leomord.

"YOU IDIOT! Your actions almost cost me MONTHS of plotting! What was that all about?"

"A lapse of judgment, nothing more. Forgive me, my queen."

"Tsk!" Vexana turned and slowly walked away. "If you do anything to sabotage my plans again, I will curse half the souls of this kingdom to damnation, is that clear?"

"Yes, my queen."

Leomord remained in his position until he could no longer feel the queen's presence.

He felt immense guilt for the elation he felt, knowing Lady Shura, the only friend he had left, would pay a heavy price for the moment they shared.

He swore never to let his emotions get the better of him again.

He stood up, wiping off the blood on his face with his sleeves and brushing off the debris on his clothes. He was walking to his sword when he noticed something shining on the floor.

One of Lady Shura's bracelets had fallen off during the commotion.

He knelt down and picked it up, examining it closely.

In the darkness that filled the halls of the fortress, the bracelet shined brightly like stars across the blackest night sky.

#mobile legends #mobile legends bang bang #fanart #fanfic #martis #martismlbb #mlbbmartis #ashura king #lady shura #oc #otp #ships #friendship #friends #leomord #vexana #dancing #romance

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