#it was obvious i wasn't going to stick to it smh

[hailsatanacab]

@the-ghost-trader - ooooh, i love this! it has the potential to be so incredibly sad, too, like poor Damian just trying to carve out something normal for himself only for it blow up in his face

BUT, shockingly, i'm not about the angst today! not yet anyway 😇

---

“So, how was your day?”

Despite his answering groan, Damian likes this. This. This whole… thing he has with Danielle. With Ellie. 

And, yeah, he’s not exactly told any of the others yet, but can you blame him? For wanting to keep something, anything, to himself. Wanting to keep this small little slice of goodness he’s managed to carve out, untouched and unmarred by his family, by their other lives, by the rogues, the vigilantes, the assassins, everyone.

“That bad, huh?”

Being with Ellie is freeing. That’s the best way to describe it.

She knows. Damian surprised even himself when he told her—not about the others, mind, but he supposes it’s not hard to put two and two together and Dani has always been smarter than most—but it’s the best decision he’s ever made, and no matter what the niggling little voice in the back of his head says (the one that sounds suspiciously like Father), he can’t bring himself to regret it.

He won’t. Because having Ellie know gives him freedom.

She’s a safe place, a hand to hold, a warm, welcoming presence when things inevitably turn ugly. It’s the freedom to just be normal when everything else in his life spirals into stranger and more stressful missions.

“Richard is being insufferable again. I do not understand his incessant need to know everything about my life.”

“Oh? What’s he done now?” 

“I was subjected to an hour long interrogation about my love life, like it’s any of his business. It’s infuriating!”

“Ugh, tell me about it. I get the same thing from Jazz, constantly. It can be suffocating.” Ellie says as she curls herself tighter into his side. “But it’s just how they show they care.”

“Yes, well, sometimes I wish he wouldn’t—”

“Hey!” Ellie pushes herself up to glare at him, punctuating her shout with a soft whack to his arm for good measure. “What have I said about using that word?”

“Yes, yes,” he placates with a roll of his eyes, “‘Be careful what you wish for.’ I apologise, it won't happen again.”

“Damn straight it won't.”

She maintains eye contact with him for a second longer before tucking herself back into his side, squirming around with a long, contented hum that Damian can feel rumble through him. He smiles and doesn’t complain even when he has to shift to give her more room after a particularly strong elbow jabs him in the ribs. It means leaving the warm patch on the couch, but he’s rewarded with another long, happy moan as she settles and Damian can’t bring himself to mind.

Ellie constantly makes noises. Little mews and hums and laughs and songs known only to her. It reminds him of a cat, sometimes. He likes it. It calms him down; it means she’s happy, so he's happy.

They settle back into the cushions and Damian lets the subject drop, not wanting to spoil the moment. Outside, the wind changes direction and from where he’s laying he can watch as the snow starts to come down thick and heavy. Hopefully it’ll mean a quiet night's patrol.

“Is that why you haven’t introduced me yet?”

“What?” He can't help it, he stiffens at the thought of losing his secret, of the scrutiny he'll be inviting if he lets anyone know.

“Are you worried I’ll embarrass you?”

Damian’s eyes snap down quick to reassure her, only to see her light, teasing grin. He lets out a breath of relief. It figures she wouldn't worry about that.

“Of course not, don’t be absurd. You could never embarrass me.”

“I don’t know,” she muses, her voice taking on a dangerous lilt, “that sounds like a challenge.”

“Believe me, having been subjected to Father’s Brucie persona at every gala I’ve been to, it would take a lot to embarrass me.”

“Alright, bet. I’ll get you, just you wait.”

“You’ve already got me.”

She flicks him on the nose. “You’re such a sap.”

He hums his agreement, enjoying the tinkling sound of her laughter. And then, before he can think otherwise, he asks, “Is that why you haven’t introduced me?”

“That’s different,” she scowls. “You know how hard it is to get there, there’s no signal, and Danny only gets a break like—oh, Ancients!”

Damian gets another elbow to the ribs as she bolts upright, a manic grin on her face that has him laughing.

“What is it?”

“It’s the holidays! It’s nearly Truce Day! You know I said I had a family thing around Christmas?”

“Yes?” 

“Well, do you want to come to it? I can introduce you then! I mean, it’s going to be a bit formal and you’ll have to meet everyone, not just family. There’s going to be some banquets, you’ll have to sit through some long speeches and you have to be on your best behaviour at all times, okay? Absolutely no fighting, it’s called Truce Day for a reason!”

“What?”

“Yeah, it’ll be perfect! I think Jazz is going in a couple days earlier to help with the preparations, so I’ll get her to let Danny know—and fair warning, he will try to give you the shovel talk, but this is great! It’s Truce Day, so he can’t actually do anything about it!”

“I’m sorry, but you're going to have to explain a bit.”

“Yeah, I know, it’s a bit much—but that’s family, right? Danny can get pretty protective over me, which is why going on Truce Day is the best time to do it! He can’t even command the Fright Knight to stab you! It’s genius!”

“Ellie, what?”

“Like, yeah, sure, he’s the king, but even he has to obey the rules of Truce Day—and then once you’ve spent all day with him, he’ll see that you’re a fantastic, wonderful, kind, brilliant, smart, strong, capable person and he’ll get over himself and everything will be good!"

Damian collapses down onto the couch, the wind knocked out of him. This is… He had not expected anything like this at all. For all that Ellie talked about her family, she had never mentioned this.

“Did you… did you say your brother is a king?”

“Yeah! High King Phantom, have I…” The manic grin slips off her face as she turns round and notices Damian. “Have I not mentioned that before?”

“No. No, you have not.”

“Ah. Sorry. Probably should clarify that I’m also a princess.”

“Right. Yes, that follows.”

“And I’m not really his sister, I’m his clone.”

“What?”

Damian blinks and tries to say more, but he has no idea what he’s meant to do with… any of this information. 

Normal. He thought she was meant to be his normal. Nothing could have prepared him for this.

Not that it changed anything, of course, of that he was certain. It’s just… a lot to take in. Overwhelming. But it's okay! He takes a deep breath, and another, and a sense of calm washes over him. Ellie makes one of her little hums as she cocks her head to the side to consider him and he can't help but relax at the normalcy of the sound. It'll be okay, he's dealt with stranger and he can deal with this.

“I’ve, uh… I’ve told you that we’re half ghosts, though, right?”

“What?”

[mari-guri]

IDOLiSH7 Ep. 3 - Their Feelings | Lotus Reacts

*this post is transferred from my original twitter thread that will be deleted once archived here

This ep starts with a whole summary compilation i see

It's ok girl it's only up from here, and i guess down sometimes too but we start somewhere

Oh he wants to be like a sub(?)manager interesting. Co manager??

Damn this dorm is big 😭 compared to the kpop idol group dorms I've seen this is like heaven

A TWO YEAR PLAN

Mfing center LOL i wonder who it'll be 🤔🤔🤔🤔

Totally shipped i see it

i thought riku was already the center like he was the only one who didn't have a shirt on am i supposed to think anything else

I knew it. But i mean, like if it wasn't obvious enough LOL

How many times am i gonna see this man without a shirt smh

street performances are so charming i kinda miss seeing them from kpop idols ya know

Ah some time for some on field education and shit i guess

OH HERE IT IS

NOT THE MAGICAL STICK NOOOO

Everything that comes out of nagi's mouth is so fucking funny my god

they're all his first boyfriends oop

DAMN this guy oof

omg it’s that meme

you know I'm looking forward to trigger too

their song better be a fucking banger or i'm gonna roast the hell out of them like i did with eden and fine

Forgive them? Ooooo does he havea history with them??? 👀👀

some angst i guess???

I hope you're working on some logistics girl

OH it's over huh These episodes go by quick (even when i get distracted 💀)

END

Episode 2 - First Stage Episode 4 - A Pro's Resolve

Return to IDOLiSH7 Page

[chrmiing-arc]

REPUTATION: HI YES 911 I WOULD LIKE TO REPORT A CRIME, EMM'S CHAD STOLE MY WHOLE HECKIN HEART. okay but memes aside, i wasn't a huge fan of chad while watching the movies, but after stumbling across your blog, i fell hard for him. you bring such complexity and depth to his portrayal, and your love is obvious. not to mention you as a mun are incredibly sweet and open and supportive, and I've truly appreciated our conversations. 48101% of people would agree you are one of the best squad moms EVER!

𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐰𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐦𝐦 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐩, 𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐞𝐫. , @magixmade

          omfg ava! my child! first of all, welcome to the chad charming stanning society. secondly, this level of kindness shouldn’t be allowed. and you have no idea how much it means to hear people enjoy the way i voice chad. like i know i love him with all my heart but to hear other people enjoy my portrayal? ah! y’all know i don’t know many words on a normal day (my vocab being: oml, literally, smh and LMAO) but it makes me all warm and speechless.

             and as for squad mom - i love how you all just kind of accepted me as that? like i started calling you my children and that was it. like as much as i love writing chad it’s the people who make it worthwhile sticking about, i love every single one of you with my heart and care about you. so if there’s anything i can ever do i want to try?? so yes that means y’all having to put up with my bad advice 24/7. ava, hun, i care for you so much - you’re just such a nice person to talk too and i’m glad we do chat. but of course i’m going to support and love all my friends & kids. they mean the world to me.

[mirror-to-the-past]

It is interesting, yes. Perhaps I'm too optimistic in that I quickly assume potential nuance in a character is intentional, but I always saw the hypocrisy as a deliberate choice, because of how stark the contrast is from how Aubrey used to act (as portrayed in Sunny's dream world), and to the items involved with her hypocrisy.

Sunny always imagines her as a protector, actively being the one getting the most worried over Basil, and there's an argument to be had that his overall ideation of Basil within his dream world could attribute to this behavior, but I'll ignore that possibility momentarily for the sake of argument. Dream Aubrey will tell others to lay off of Basil, and get angry at any who are dismissal of him. Even when she forgets Basil within Deep Well, she still feels an emotional pull and obligation to the discarded flower crown, and gets angry when Kel kicks it.

The thing about Aubrey is that she's very self-centered, similarly to Sunny. While Kel was focused on Hero while grieving, and Hero has always been group oriented- ended up focusing on Kel, and Basil was focused on the group and Sunny from the get-go, Aubrey and Sunny both dealt with their grief in a 'retention of an ideal' sort of way, as opposed to focused on the individual. Keeping memories, good feelings, comradeship intact was a priority for them. Sunny escaped into his brain, for that and obvious other reasons, and Aubrey focused on her outside world, and saw her safe haven in her life crumble from the circumstances.

So while Mari was certainly the catalyst for how Aubrey felt, in that church scene, she didn't actually parade herself as the one person who "really cared" about Mari. She remains specifically focused on how the others weren't there for HER, in her dialogue. The offending line, "Who cares what Mari thinks? Mari's dead," actually establishes that core aspect about Aubrey really well. She follows up with stuff like "My friends weren't there for me when I needed them." She doesn't say that nobody understood Mari like she did, or blames others for not seeing the signs. Rather, it boils down to her expressing her frustration that what she thought was her safe haven failed her when shit got real. Like those people that post passive aggressively about "smh, fake friends 😭."

"Even after all this time, I'm still trying to find peace."

She said she wanted peace for herself. Not to atone or anything. More likely, the general loss of her little slice of heaven. Hence, why she tries to recreate it with the Hooligans. Kel kind of points it out when they're at the lakeside, how they're still coming back here and paints it as a "you still care, deep down :D" kind of thing, but I interpreted it more as a 'she can't give up that feeling that she had.' So yes, while she took the photo album to preserve the pictures, specifically of Mari ("they're all I have left of her"), Mari had become more of an ideal at that point, and less of a tangible, real person. So "abandoning Mari" isn't literally abandoning Mari's memory, but moreso abandoning Aubrey's treasured ideal of sticking with it through the tough times, which she saw embodied in Mari the best. It's still about Aubrey's ideals, in the end.

In regards to Basil, to be fair, she never knew he was actively suicidal until neutral ending. Obviously, he was an anxious wreck, and that should set off some alarms in any reasonable person (especially someone who had actively experienced loss from a suicide, since that usually makes you hyper aware of such things, so this is a defense I'm less confident about), but he wasn't shouting "I AM GOING TO KILL MYSELF ON THE COUNT OF THREE," which, might have been what someone as self-absorbed as Aubrey might have needed, to be frank. As long as Basil was still there, in the flesh, that's all Aubrey needed for assurance that this person she was upset with (referencing my archetypes post for convenience), was still going around infringing upon her ideals of loyalty a la photo album.

Touching upon your closing point, yeah, I agree that Aubrey's resolution came very quickly, pretty much spurned on by Hero going "just kiss and make up, everybody!" and she sort of dumps at the stump and everyone hugs and yaaay. It's definitely very cliched at some points, I'll admit, but I've seen worse. 🤷‍♂️

(I still giggle like I did the first time upon reading "The Aubrey you know is long gone," because it's so damn goofy. She talks like some old cowboy in a dusty saloon, having a smoke, and it's like picking stereotypically broody lines out of a hat, so it can be hilarious.)

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