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softquietsteadylove · 25 days ago

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Helloo, how are you?

So its halloween and i have a little request for something scary. Maybe the eternals somehow end up in this very old and problaby haunted house, and then the ghost in said house take a liking for Thena, so they start to hide her and make the others see her when she is not there. And poor Gil is more scared that he would like.

(Also thank you for answering to my asks🩷😭)

"This place really is massive," Gil commented mildly as he moved the flashlight around the walls. It was just the sound of their steps and their breathing. The halls of this old asylum were oppressively quiet.

"It's easily the largest space we've ever been in," Thena agreed as she too moved moved her light to examine their surroundings. "Its a good thing the others agreed to come with us to man the equipment."

Their friends were being good sports about it, whether or not they were present as true believers or because if half of their group was already in, they might as well all come.

"I hope they don't hate me for dragging them out here all Halloween night," he gulped as they turned a corner down - what a surprise - another pitch black hallway.

Thena scoffed at the idea, though, allowing him to walk even closer to her, all but clinging to her arm. "Please, all they would be doing is loitering at Phastos' anyway. He and Ben would be watching something, Makkari and Druig would be pretending not to make out in the corner and Ikaris would be trying - and failing - to hold Sersi's hand during the whole movie."

Gil snickered beside her. Thena's observations could seem cutting at times, but they were never all that inaccurate. And they could be pretty funny, in that way. "I'm sure he'd get there eventually."

"I have yet to see it," she drawled about their mutual friend, more frenemy when it came to her and Ikaris in particular. "Speaking of, when did they last check in?"

Gil pulled pulled out his walkie-talkie. "Ground floor, do you copy?"

"Ugh, Gil--aye, we're still 'ere. You don't have to go all air traffic control for it."

Well, if he was going to be such a stick in the mud. Gil huffed, "roger that, Party-Pooper."

"Oi!"

Thena took his hand and pulled the walkie closer to her. "Sersi, tell us if he holds onto you too tight and we'll switch floors."

"Watch it!"

The constant radio static of the channel clicked again and Sersi laughed. "He's really quite all right, you two. Anything up there?"

"Nothing, so far," Thena sighed before remembering to add, "over and out."

Gil smiled as he put the walkie back in his pocket. Thena probably thought it was silly too, but she would never actually say anything. It was one of the many ways in which she indulged him on these ghost hunts. "Hey."

She looked at him, wondering what had caught his attention. Once she saw him wiggling his hand at her, her smiled turned a little bit shy as she slipped her hand into his. "Do you think they'll know what to look for?"

"I told them about what all the equipment does, they should be able to tell if they get any activity," Gil murmured as they turned down a hall into a more residential looking area. "Whoa, this looks like an actual house."

"This must have been an area for those in a palliative sort of care, like a true hospice," she muttered, pressing closer to him. It was still old floors and concrete walls, but there were now rooms with more than nothing, some even still had an old metal bed frame in them. There was a dresser or two, even a mirror.

Gil winced as their flashlights both hit it head on. He lowered his, but he blinked and rubbed his eyes after the fact. "Can't believe something like that is still standing in a place like this in one piece."

Thena had no comment on it, apparently.

"Kinda freaky, right?" he sighed as he rubbed at his eyes again before shaking it off. "Thena?"

He looked around.

"Thena?" he called out with a little more urgency. He moved the flashlight around, plenty of the room doors were open, but he would have heard her. He would have felt her, wouldn't he? "Thena?!"

He rushed to check each of the rooms, forgetting how creepy everything was. His stomping feet were echoing all over the place, but that didn't matter. "Thena, where are you?!"

All that came back was his own voice bouncing around. He was starting to panic.

"Thena, please, answer me!" he panted, even moving the creaky, old doors to make sure she wasn't hiding somewhere. How could she have just vanished into this air?

He shouldn't have let go of her hand.

"Thena, please!" he shouted, retracing their steps, shining his flashlight down every hall he passed. He knew most of them led to dead ends. Where could she have gone? His hand pulled out the walkie-talkie again, fumbling with it a little. "G-Guys?!"

"Gil, what's wrong?"

"Th-Thena!" he gulped, knowing they needed more information than that. "She was right next to me and-and now-"

"Whoa, Gil, slow down. Nothing's happened to Thena, I'm sure she just went to look at something that caught her eye," Sersi attempted to diffuse his worry.

"Why the hell weren't you keeping an eye on her?" Ikaris snapped at him in sharp contrast.

"Oi," Druig chimed in on his set. "You all need to calm down, I just saw 'er."

"What?" Gil frowned. Druig and Makkari were on the second level, although most of it was sectioned off thanks to a fire from the last century. He rushed to the stairs, "you're sure?"

"Yeah, I saw her walk clear through that light grid you put up, actually," Druig narrated. He paused and then continued, "Kari saw'er goin' down the far stairwell."

"You mean the one to your left?" Gil asked, rushing down the main stairs so quickly he almost tripped at the very bottom. But he took off, full on sprinting.

"Yeah?"

Based on where they had set up, there was no way Thena could be on the stairwell to their left, because it led to absolutely nowhere, just a collapsed hallway downstairs and a boarded up room at the top. Whatever they had seen wasn't Thena.

"Keep your nightvision cam on, okay? And you two stay there--and stay close together!"

"Gil, man, you okay?" Ikaris asked a little more sympathetically, obviously hearing the urgency in his voice over the loud and static-y walkies. "Like Sersi said, I'm sure Thena's just fine."

"I'm on my way to you, just sit tight," Gil huffed. His chest felt tight, like it was on fire. He looked around, only now on the second floor. This place was such a massive hell hole, who knew what kind of malevolent spirits were in here. "Guys?!"

"Hold yer bloody horses, man, hell," Druig flashed his light at him from within the main hallway of the floor. As soon as Gil rounded the corner, though, Druig was already on his feet. Despite his words, his face was dead serious, "she really not with you?"

Gil gulped. Tears sprang to his eyes, although he knew this wasn't the time. He shook his head, trying to catch his breath. The light grid they had set up to pick up any kind of movement was still shining into the closed off areas ahead.

He jumped, but Makkari rubbed his back with a reassuring smile. Druig shone the light a little closer to them to illuminate her words. This place is like a maze, I'm sure she's looking for you too.

That was actually what worried him. He had screamed for her, at the very top of his lungs. And not only had he not heard anything back, but apparently none of their friends had heard him either, which seemed impossible.

And if he couldn't hear Thena, then how would he know if she needed his help?

"Where did you see her?" he asked, shining his own light closer to his face for Kari to read his lips.

She pointed. I swear I saw her walk through the grid. I thought she saw something in the window.

Thena would never walk through the light grid herself; it would compromise any evidence they got of a spectral figure. Still, Gil moved closer to it. He shone the flashlight into the corridor, through the propped open door. It was hard to tell with the light in the window reflection, but he was pretty sure it was just a boarded up, empty room through there.

Druig took the liberty of packing up the light grid and putting it back in his bag. "Take a look."

Gil slid closer to the darkened hallway. Despite never having been on one of these hunts before, all their friends were far less scared than he was. Maybe because they definitely didn't believe in ghosts. His heart hammered as he entered the suffocating dark of the hallway. He pressed his flashlight to the window of the door that was boarded closed. If something jumped up at him he might have a heart attack.

It was just a closed up room, full of evidence of fire damage. He angled the light around as best he could without giving himself nothing but reflection to look at. He jumped as some kind of movement caught his eye. He tried to follow it but it was gone as soon as he saw it. But he knew it moved towards the other door to the room.

And it looked blonde.

Druig and Makkari made room for him as he started running towards the main stairs again. "Come on!"

"If she's messin' with us she's makin' us go through a hell of a workout," Druig felt the need to chime in, following him down the stairs.

But Gil knew that wasn't the case. Maybe - maybe - she might mess with Ikaris a little, possibly Druig, all in good fun. But she would never make him worry about her like this, she just wouldn't. She would never scare him like this, not when it was always her calming him down on these hunts.

It really was like a labyrinth in this place. Gil leapt down the last two stairs and whipped open the doors to the main floor. "Did you see her?!"

Ikaris and Sersi both jumped off the bench of the entrance hallway. They looked at each other and then at him. They still had most of the equipment set up around them, and a floodlight pointed at the ceiling for a little more illumination of the area.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Ikaris growled at him for storming in the way he did. "Didn't you see her on your level?"

Druig shrugged, "thought we did."

But Gil rushed past all of them, taking a right and pulling open the doors. This place was so massive, it was hard to keep track. But if the figure he had seen in the other room had been Thena, or worse, something else, it would have ended up in here. "Thena!"

Still, nothing but his own voice. It didn't echo like it did upstairs, though. He moved his flashlight around, seeing all the junk that was pushed into this empty but undamaged area of the building. He moved more slowly.

His heart was still hammering, but he made himself take each next step. He couldn't stop until Thena's hand was in his again. "Thena, are you in here?"

He could have sworn a voice whispered back to him. It would have been great potential evidence if he had any equipment or was recording anything. But for now, he took the potential whisper of 'she's mine' and scowled. "No, she's not."

Whatever whispered at him didn't have another reply to that.

Gil slid around a corner constructed of old office furniture, flashing his light in every nook and cranny. "She's my girlfriend! Whatever you are, find someone on your own plain of existence!"

Something rattled in a far corner. He really was going to have a heart attack in here. But he gulped, re-grasping his flashlight in his sweaty palm. No ghost was getting his precious Thena--not tonight.

He moved closer to the rattling. It was a doorknob turning. Okay, so he might die in here tonight. He hoped his friends would escape, at least. But if he did die, then maybe he could be with Thena. If she had died alone in here, he would never forgive himself.

There was a door, and the doorknob was turning.

Gil let out a breath and steeled his resolve again. He could do this. He would do this! He could do anything if it was for Thena. Thena, he repeated to himself as he reached for the doorknob, Thena, Thena, Thena.

As soon as he touched the doorknob, it was no longer locked, and flew open. Thena tumbled into the room, straight into his chest as he caught her. Both of their flashlights fell and rattled on the ground as they held onto each other.

"Gil!" Thena gasped into his shirt, burying her face in it as soon as she knew it was him. "I-I-I didn't--I-I thought-!"

"It's okay, it's okay," he gulped, holding her as tight as he could without hurting her. It was really Thena in his arms, small and warm, blonde hair under his chin. His tears came again, and he didn't force them away, "you're really here."

Thena held onto him just as tightly, clawing at the back of his shirt so she could hold fistfuls of it. "I-I turned around and you were gone--just gone! And I tried shouting for you but I couldn't hear anything around me but silence. And then I thought I saw this--th-this thing-!"

"It's okay, I'm here," he whispered. He couldn't process any of what she was saying right now. All he could think about was the comfort of having his Thena in his arms again.

Slowly, they released one another. Thena sniffled, laughing as she put her hands on his cheeks. "I'm supposed to be the one here for you."

He laughed as well, just as watery and tearful. He put his hands on her cheeks as well, "I can be here for you, just this once."

She leaned into him again as he kissed her.

"You two okay?!"

Thena pulled back and picked her flashlight up first. She shone it around the room, "where are we?"

Gil frowned as she handed him his flashlight as well. "We're on the ground floor, in that side room we checked out first thing tonight."

"The ground floor?" she repeated, looking completely baffled. "We were on the third floor. I-I felt something pull me and I thought it was you, then I was in this completely other room. I was trying to find my way back to you in the hall."

Nice try, ghost creep; Gil took her hand, weaving their fingers together. He could carry his flashlight in his mouth if he had to.

"Gil," Thena continued to frown as he guided them back towards the entrance, "I didn't go down any stairs. We can't possibly be downstairs again."

"It's okay, Thena," he reassured her blindly. It didn't matter. None of it mattered, now that his fear was lifting. He waved as a flashlight circled from where the door was. "I got her!"

Collective sighs of relief were had. Ikaris was the first to bark at them, "what the hell, Thena?! You nearly scared the big guy half to death--that's not funny!"

"Shush," Sersi soothed the beast beside her, as she always did. "We're just glad you're both okay."

Druig and Makkari gave them both more curious looks, "where the hell were did you go?"

"I-" Thena looked at each of them, seeming completely stunned. "I don't know."

"Doesn't matter," Gil spoke up, more sure of this now than he had been about anything all night. "We're getting out of here--now."

He pushed through them, pulling Thena to the door to the outside, hand in hand. He could hear their friends packing up all the equipment behind them.

"Yappin' orders at us now, is he?" he could hear Ikaris gripe behind them.

"Stop it, they've been through enough." How did Sersi put up with him?

Finally outside, Gil took a deep breath. He put his hands on Thena's cheek again, urging her to do the same. She did, but she looked up at him. "Really Gil, I thought I was making my way back to you. I didn't even see any stairs, there's no way I could have-"

"We'll figure it out later," he resolved. They could do that in a safe place, where there was overhead lighting, and a warm mug of her favourite tea. Maybe he'd even have a blanket around her shoulders and massage her feet. "All that matters is you're safe."

Thena's face shifted to something like guilt. She looked down at their joined hands. "I thought I saw you."

"What?"

"What lured me away," she admitted quietly, and maybe with the first bit of true fear he had heard her voice all night. "I thought I saw you in one of those other rooms. That was what made me follow...whatever it was in there."

It had lured him the same way. But, again, that could wait until they were in a brightly lit space with firmly locked doors.

Gil kissed her forehead and pulled her into his arms. "I found you again, so it doesn't really matter."

"Hm," she sighed, nuzzling her face into his chest again. "I knew I'd find you, I guess you finding me is okay, too."

Ah, his invincible Thena. She was the truly unshaken of the two of them. But he had to admit, he was assured by tonight that he had what it took to square up if he really needed to. If it was for the woman he loved, at least.

#Oh my gosh sweetie thank YOU for sending me asks!!!#I always try my best with all of them #and it's nice to feel wanted y'know?#Thenamesh Ghost Files AU #as always shared with the amazing @taran-chan #I thought about it and I thought this was the best au #because the immortal Eternals either #A: cannot be touched or harmed by ghosts or #B: have plenty of experience with ghosts and thus don't fear them #but this Gil loses hold of Thena's hand #and he freaks out loses his mind #he's like where is my emotional support girlfriend please???#that sad hamster with the eyes and the music #meanwhile everyone else came along for the ride for fun #for the halloween vibe #and now they're like um im sorry are ghosts real #Phastos comes and picks them up like you all look like shit #Thena really doesn't believe how it happened #she just kept going into room and after room chasing glimpses of him #until all of a sudden she's in a locked room on the ground floor scared and alone?#Gil tells her everything #and she's like are you FUCKING KIDDING that's the best evidence we've ever had and we don't even have solid recordings of all of it?!#Gil: it doesn't matter just let me hold you #more sad hamster with eyes music #Gil says no more hunts for at least a month maybe ever #and he wants them to be tied together at the waist from now on #the others still kind of don't believe but hey it was kinda cool #and Gil is now in his overprotective boyfriend era #also imagine you're a ghost and this group of - let's say - late twenty somethings barges into your home #if I were a ghost I too would have a crush on Thena all I'm saying

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crystallizsch · 6 months ago

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hi ian i come bearing angst fuel for the yuusha as twsted elsa (maybe an idea for her possible overblot idk she kinda reads to me as someone whod preemptively isolate in the case she feels...blotty)

(also seeing that art of her playing violin totally didnt fuck me up im still nursing my bruised heart 🥴🥴💕💕)

https://youtu.be/NDldNaEZTt8?si=Wm71pgTltuJLjFvk

^^this is from the frozen musical where they gave a song to elsa to explore her emotional turmoil and it just fleshed out her character so much more than the orig movie (ok i havent seen frozen 2 oops) but just this section here:

Is everyone in danger as long as I'm alive?

Was I a monster from the start?

How did I end up with this frozen heart?

Bringing destruction to the stage

Caught in a war that I was never meant to wage

anyways lmao i jus think the song is neat i think yuushas neat (i wanna see more of her ahehehe i love seeing infodumps abt ur yuus)

-diodellet

(throwback to this “what if yuu had magic” ask where i had a ✨realization✨ and this more recent yuusha lore drop that i gave zero elaboration on 🙃)

very rough ob yuu design??? idk i came up with it on the spot ;;; and it’s kinda based on disney’s concept art of elsa when she was supposed to be the villain.

evil ice queen vibes :3

also i know the ob monster is supposed to be based on the villain— which is elsa in this case— but lowkey. an ice monster is way cooler.

also also i just realized after i drew this i couldve done a grim/yuu tandem overblot ough 🤧🤧 (next time I'll do that instead if i ever go back to this concept)

(read more below because it got SO long)

AAH anyways hi hi dio!!! when i saw your ask i went —

— with this entire post

AAGH HOW MANY MORE UNINTENTIONAL CONNECTIONS ARE GOING TO BE BETWEEN FROZEN AND YUUSHA

i guess watching the movie everyday when it came out when you’re like 9 does something to your brain chemistry (and still haunts you at least a decade later) 💀

but anyways the angst ;;; overblot yuu ;;;;; my brain is rotting and the worms have taken over

also i didn’t even know that there was a frozen broadway musical so im gonna have to check it out later 🏃💨💨💨

(also dont worry frozen 2 is a nice watch for the most part but the way they concluded the characters did not feel 100% satisfying to me 😭 BUT i love some of the songs tho ;;; kristoff’s goofy 80s ballad song is one of them specifically, i need everyone to listen to it)

hfgnnfhfgv anyways thank you so much i’m chugging that angst fuel as i expand more on a possible ob yuusha with another infodump 💪💪💪

⚠️⚠️⚠️ ALSO IM SORRY BUT mentions of taking one’s own life so please proceed with caution ⚠️⚠️⚠️

i had to reread what my initial thoughts about it bc it was months ago??? and after rereading im just like, huh what was i on— (just that feeling when you just cringe at your old posts ;; but idk i think the insanity/cringe sometimes can loop back into being a genius and the cycle just continues)

anyways i’ve been on and off writing yuusha’s bio and overblot yuu was just at the back of my mind chilling but i didn’t really do anything with it.

but now that i have the opportunity,,,, im gonna go on the magicless route this time bc i feel like I've said all what i thought if it was an overblot due to her own magic.

so uh from what i gather overblots are a mix of overuse of magic + intense negative emotion.

since it’s magicless yuu, i guess the one of the general headcanons around the fandom is that they’ve been too exposed to overblots and then intense negative emotions suddenly just triggered their overblot.

uh anyways onto the elsa parts

Is everyone in danger as long as I'm alive? Was I a monster from the start? How did I end up with this frozen heart? Bringing destruction to the stage Caught in a war that I was never meant to wage

THE LYRICS ARE SO GOOD ;;; i really love how some broadway interpretations expand on the source material

and yeah you're right 🤧🤧🤧— yuusha would try to hide and escape, especially as she overblots bc she would try to avoid hurting people (and like elsa, it'd only hurt others more trying to escape bc of probably how she leaves destruction in her wake trying to make others stay away from her 😔)

(this is a small tangent but i remember thinking about an overblot kalim and i imagine him to be similar, like he would not hurt anyone intentionally in his overblot.)

anyways so the way it would go is that i imagine her friends got fatally injured either because a) she feels that she’s too “useless” without magic to help and wasn’t able to do anything OR b) her attempts at helping to try and prove that she can help without magic made everything worse.

and then she just goes into a guilty spiral then boom — overblot.

ALSO in the song, the way elsa briefly contemplated taking her own life but then realizing there’s no guarantee that would solve anything hnghgh (<- another unintentional parallel to my yuusha lore because that’s actually how she ended up in twst except she did NOT have the latter realization)

there’s this “yuu is dead” theory i’m just using and that the black carriage actually just caught yuusha’s soul after she took her own life from all the burden.

also some bonus angst context for that violin post :3

yuusha back in her homeworld is raised and known to be a gifted musician. people can feel the life and soul in her music but when people interact with her, they are usually met with an ice-cold (heh) personality.

the dead family member was the one who taught her music and the only one who was kind to her.

there’s always an expectation from her family to perform well and to keep up appearances as to not be a humiliation since anything she does can reflect on her entire family. (also hi, slight yuusha/jamil parallels maybe???)

the way she presents herself also stemmed from an incident as a child when she went apeshit on another kid bc she was defending a friend.

so from then on she was taught taught to conceal don’t feel those emotions — which just unfortunately extended to any positive ones, not just negative ones like rage.

so when she is brought to twst, there’s no memory of her being forced to hold back her emotions so she’s just unapologetically affectionate and open with everyone bc that’s how she really is.

but every now and then, memories of her breaking down haunt her in her dreams or as subtle reminders in the waking world.

then yuusha just goes on her day like she just wasn't reminded of her past.

(unnecessarily tragic lore my beloved, but anyway—)

another extremely brief tangent and bonus -> the two songs i had on loop while drawing pre-twst yuusha

lindsey stirling my beloved i love her music

the songs are such a vibe

her instrumentals in “lose you now” especially makes me feel some sort of way 😖

#AHH THIS IS /SO/ LONG #THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN IM GIVEN THE CHANCE TO RAMBLE #but thank you for the ask dio!! 🤧🤧#it makes me so happy to hear you like yuusha 😭💕💕#this also took a bit because i needed to like #actually turn all these thoughts into actual coherent words #and for them to actually. make sense together.#idk im proofreading this myself during the gamer hours of midnight hfdjslkf #i sure /hope/ they do make sense for the most part because this is pure massive brain vomit #[—✦ chatting #-✧ my art #-✧ oc rambles #(💜) yuusha #pretwst💜#-✦—]#at this point too i’m sticking to the twst elsa concept #it just felt weird admitting it bc i have a history with this movie and its fandom in general #kids would ask you “whos your favorite disney princess it cant be elsa” bc everyone would pick her so i'd have to pick another </3 #she was too famous and therefore too obvious and basic #not to mention “let it go” was EVERYWHERE and it did become annoying at one point 😭#the fandom around frozen back then was v questionable too ngl and i was also in that hole for a bit so it's just /ack/#but rewatching the movie i realize how elsa kinda speaks to me hgjkdsjfaljsd #i could lowkey highkey rant more about her but anyways #imma be an elsa defender and apologist for as long as i am able

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