#like Yeah he is like. a person and all that but Spectra doesn’t Interact with him when it doesn’t concern his business so

[nullians]

It’s actually insane how fandom in general has become so scared of making weird and dark and ugly works. Like I look at myself and see how I have also subconsciously adapted this instinct to self censor and make things “marketable” and it’s making me want to crawl out of my skin. I need to get weirder and worse and more off-putting hello

[via-the-ghoul]

Anyways here’s some concepts for how some currently not in Gen3 characters could fit into the universe part 2

Wydowna Spider

Ok, so first of all, Weberella, her super hero alter ego, is just straight up real now. She actually is a super-hero, protecting monsters from the forces of evil. However, no one knows her secret identity as high school girl Wydowna Spider. It’s tough, but with her multiple arms she can juggle both lives… until this new supervillain threatening Monster High might be too big for her to handle. So Clawdeen, Ghoulia, Spectra, and Frankie, who have figured all of this out somehow, decide to become superheroes to help her!

Isi Dawndancer

A popular eektok dancer who also does little explanation videos on her Potawatomi culture (which also informs her dances). Cleo adores her videos, but just can’t understand why Isi does all of this anonymously (oh yeah she usually wears a mask so people don’t know her identity). So after Isi transfers to Monster High and Cleo somehow finds out she’s the eekdok dancer Cleo… reveals her identity. After this, Isi starts getting a bunch of attention she doesn’t want, from the paparazzi, to racist people. Isi understandably, once having a moment of peace, confronts Cleo and reveals that she genuinely doesn’t want to be in the spotlight. Cleo apologizes, deletes the video, and casts a curse to remove Isi’s identity from everyone but herself and Isi.

Jackson and Holt

They shift based on if it’s night or day again, and due to school like being nocturnal, Holt is the main one now. Jackson is a teen inventor who made a teleporter so he could go to human school while Holt was at Monster High, and both of them use fake last names for obvious reasons. IDK what Jackson’s is but Holt’s is literally just “Hide” and it works. I don’t have any specific episode ideas other than Clawdeen having to try and hide Jackson’s existence from Bloodgood after some weird specific mishap with an invention or something.

Elissabat

A new up and coming boovie-star that Dracula and Draculaura enjoy. So when she transfers to the school, Draculaura immediately wants to befriend her. The issue is that Elissabat and Lala’s personalities just… don’t click. They just don’t get along well. Draculaura is freaked out by this, worried that Elissabat will put a bad name for her out there in the world, and she won’t be able to chase her dreams. This causes distress, and Elissabat reveals that while they may not get along, Drac shouldn’t jump to conclusions on what Elissabat will do to her image… after Frankie and Clawdeen reveal all this to her out of fear for Drac. Elissabat doesn’t really interact with others all that much, so she couldn’t really tell what was going on. Maybe a later episode could be about her terrible social skills?

[dekalko-mania]

Adding onto this post right here, I have some additions, mainly in terms of how this mindset affected how Danny first interacted with Jazz. To reiterate that whole post, I theorize that Danny’s parents raised him to equate good grades to intelligence, and due to his recent plummet since the accident, he thinks he’s not smart. 

How That Affected His Relationship With Jazz

In the beginning of the series, we see that him and his sister have a greater rift. They obviously do care for each other, but he views her more as obnoxious or a know-it-all. On her part, she kind of sees him as a naive little brother who obviously needs her more informed guidance. 

There’s honestly some grade A character development that takes place with both of them, but let’s start with Jazz. She initially cannot handle being wrong, and although she cares for Danny, she shows this more through means that make her come off as arrogant. Which like honestly, can’t even blame her for. It wouldn’t surprise me if she got hit with a case of gifted child syndrome later. 

When Danny really starts to hit a tough spot is when she finally realizes this is something completely out of her control. She doesn’t know what’s wrong, just that it’s bad. Once she does find out what it is, she still has no clue what to do. This is new territory for her, but the previous episodes already taught her to deal with not knowing everything, so she’s at least better equipped now. 

The entire reason I think she even struggled with that in the first place is because, well, coming from the same household as her brother, she was affected by this mentality too. It’s expected of her to always be intellectually ahead.

Then on Danny’s behalf, I think he may have developed some resentment towards his sister because she’s more academically inclined, and he always takes the brunt of the sibling comparisons. He’s pretty often sarcastic towards her in S01, and while it’s common for siblings to be little shits to each other, his quips are usually along the same lines of him poking fun at her for being a know-it-all. Simultaneously, he also places a lot of importance in how his sister views him. So while he may feel that slight resentment, a bigger part of him honestly does look up to and respect her. When Spectra lied to him claiming Jazz said he was a loser, it hurt him more than anything else up to that point. Because here’s the pride of their family, someone he views as the best, saying he won’t amount to anything. 

Here’s just some quotes/scenes from canon to show a bit of this earlier (and sometimes still occurring) tension:

Jazz: “C’mon, we used to talk all the time!” Danny: “Yeah, when I was eight and you weren’t a fink!” (So around here maybe was when the distance started)

Jazz: “Still mad?” Danny: “Wow, you are the smart one!”

Danny’s despondent expression when Jazz is announced as the student who got the highest score in the history of the C.A.T. 

Danny at Jazz: “Okay, I get it! You’re brilliant and I’m stupid, and I’ll never be able to get as high a score as you.” 

Jazz often talks down to him without intending to. Such as when he really was making an effort to study in the ultimate enemy, and she was kind of calling him out on every wrong answer. It’s done with good intentions but y’know.

There’s definitely a lot of growth that happens and makes this issue appear less often. Besides her finding out his secret, giving him more space, and backing him up, there’s one major difference that changes the game later on. That is, after she officially joins Team Phantom, there’s finally something he feels confident about. 

In terms of ghost hunting, this is his territory now. His existence as a half-ghost already ensures he has an advantage, and as mentioned before, he’s extremely good at handling the mental gymnastics he has to pull in this profession. He also makes an effort to talk to the ghosts, map out the GZ, and store information. So it’s something he learned with a lot of personal experience and research. While Jazz is the know-all on academics, he’s the go-to for anything ghost. 

She has the leverage at home and school, but on the battlefield, he really is a pro. He finally has something that he can feel proud of and confident about. The problem isn’t automatically solved, and we do still see the occasional inferiority complex show up, but it’s getting there. Wish we could’ve had an actual sit down where they both discussed their respective experiences.

Jazz and Danny’s relationship is honestly one of the best in the show. Like they really do prove in the end that they will protect each other, and he even starts to feel safer around his sister than his own parents. But honestly, really taking a step back and seeing the progression of it, they had lot’s of ups and downs. It’s complex in its own right. 

This is a long ass post, but I’m really having fun elaborating on this topic. Will have one more to wrap up this little trilogy lmao.

[delightfully-deranged-dagur]

Okay, I'm just gonna write out my main ideas for my Reimagined Monster High. Here we go.

-it takes place in a world where monsters are outnumbered and shunned by humans, so monsters are forced to basically live in secret. Away from humans, in their own secret communities.

-The school itself was founded by Nora Bloodgood. Monster High was the first school of its kind to accept all kinds of monsters and has been running for hundreds of years. Also, it's a boarding school.

-The story will be mostly character driven with the main players being,

-Toralei Stripe. A werecat.

An orphan adopted by Headmistress Bloodgood. Toralei made friends with twin sisters Meowlody and Purrsephone Moon. Unfortunately, the 3 of them became the biggest bullies in the school. Though the twins were much more worse then Toralei. The twins were send to juvy after "the freezer incident".

"The freezer incident", Without Toralei's knowledge, the twins played their most dangerous prank of all. They locked Deuce Gorgon, a cold blooded monster into the school freezer, resulting in him almost freezing to death.

After that, Toralei took a long, hard look in the mirror and decided to change. Trying to redeem herself. So far most students are still untrusting of her. But 2 of them have forgiven her and became her friends, those 2 being...

-Clawdeen Wolf and Draculaura. A werewolf and vampire couple.

Clawdeen is a fashion designer with quite a following. Monsters love her designs and she's gotten quite a lot of commissions.

She always speaks her mind and has an extreme dislike for lies and liars. She's also fiercely loyal and protective of her friends and family, especially her younger siblings, Clawd and Howleen.

Draculaura is vegetarian vampire, no meat or blood for her. Unfortunately, due to her diet she's also extremely vulnerable to direct sunlight and always carries a parasol or umbrella with her.

Draculaura is one of, if not the most kind person in the school. And yet, there's some hints she's got a dark past. She's 1599 years old, so of course she has some secrets she doesn't want anyone to know about.

-Frankie Stein. One of the 3 new students at the beginning of the story.

Frankie is only a month old and still doesn't quite understand how the world works. She only knows stuff from outdated teen girl magazines. So, yeah. She knows nothing.

Frankie is assigned as Toralei's new roommate. Which means Toralei is half the time busy with making sure Frankie doesn't piss off the entire student body with her antics. Luckily she's helped by Clawdeen and Draculaura.

The 3 of them become Frankie's guides to life. With varying degrees of success.

-Gil Webber. The 2nd of 3 new students at school.

Gil was raised by highly abusive and bigoted parents. Constantly talking about how dangerous and despicable other monsters are. They sheltered Gil never letting him outside or go to the surface. Gil grew up terrified of the world.

Eventually, word got out about Gil's situation and the authorities got involved. Gil's parents were arrested and Gil was taken to Monster High and put in the care of Nora Bloodgood.

Gil is assigned as the new roommate of...

-Deuce Gorgon. Half gorgon, half human.

Deuce has lived for thousands of years since ancient Greece. Son of medusa and inherited her stone gaze. If he looks someone in the eye, they turn to stone. Luckily, since Deuce is half human the gaze is only temporary. And it doesn't work on monsters made out of stone or the undead. Like ghosts, zombies and mummies.

Deuce is a nervous wreck. Freezer trauma notwithstanding, he's constantly worried about dropping his sunglasses and turning someone to stone. He's also insecure about his skills as a chef and artist. He tries to look cool and laid back but he's not fooling anyone.

The snakes on his head are named, Jefferson, Addison, Carson, Maddison and Ed. He treats them as younger siblings even though they're all the same age.

Deuce has some trouble helping Gil not being afraid of everything. So he finds help from other water monsters. Sirena Von Boo? Too ditzy. Finnegan Wake? Comes on too strong. So his only choice is...

-Lagoona Blue. Half Sea monster, Half Water nymph.

Lagoona is bubbly, kind, carefree and very much a Himbo. She's genderfluid so they go by any pronouns he feels like at the moment.

They have 2 passions. Sports. And helping people out. And Gil is just the person that desperately needs Lagoona's help.

-Cleo De Nile. A mummy.

A princess who disowned her family because of how horrible they were. Cleo's lived long enough to know that being bad doesn't get you anywhere.

She's kind, understanding, and extremely generous. She's a natural born leader who takes charge when needed.

-Billy Where. An invisible man.

Billy, or "Invisi-Billy" as some call him is a theater kid at heart. Aside from that Billy also loves discovering the unknown and mysterious.

While his father is invisible all the time, Billy can control his visibility at will. He can even make other objects or people he's touching invisible.

Billy was assigned a new dorm room by Headmistress Bloodgood. A room down in the catacombs. He was put there cuz Bloodgood believes he can help the student living down there with his problems. That student being...

-Johnny Spirit. An unchained ghost.

Johnny died during the late 50s and he's got the greaser look down pat.

Johnny refuses to leave the catacombs and interact with other students, he does not wanna get involved or get attached to anyone. So he does not like having a roommate forced upon him.

And yet, as time goes on Johnny starts caring for Billy and thinking of him as a friend. Eventually trusting him enough to tell him the reason why he shut himself off. The story of how he died.

But that's a story for another time. ;P

Other important characters include,

Abbey Bominable. 3rd new student. She's blunt and likes photography. She has no roommate but gets taken in by,

Clawd Wolf and Heath Burns. Boyfriends that guide Abbey through the school and drag her into their shenanigans and schemes.

Ghoulia Yelps. Cleo's best friend and assistant. Genius.

Jackson Jekyll and Holt Hyde. Mad scientist and laid back DJ sharing a body.

Neightan Rot. Gay zombicorn. Can go from dishevelled hobo to fabulous drag queen in 10 seconds.

Spectra Vondergeist. Ghost "reporter" that runs the ghostly gossip.

And many more students.

So that's my basic idea. What do you think?

Feel free to leave questions about other students and their roles and what kind of plans I have for this au.

[five-rivers]

Medium Despair

For @sapphireswimming

.

Danny woke up gasping for air and fighting against his sheets. By the time he’d recognized his surroundings, he’d already rolled off his bed. He dragged in ragged, shuddering breaths. He could breathe. He could breathe. He wasn’t suffocating. He wasn’t at school, in his locker or otherwise. He could move he could stand. He did stand, skin prickling with the memory of electricity.

“Sydney?” he called, softly. “Is that you?” He could see a glowing form in the corner behind his dresser, and with that dream there weren’t a whole lot of other people it could have been, but it was polite to ask. At least in Danny’s opinion.

The ghost slid out, slowly, flickering. “Sorry, Danny,” he said, and he really did sound remorseful.

Danny might believe it more if it wasn’t 2:20 in the morning on a school night, and this wasn’t the third time Sydney had done this. Still, Sydney was something like a friend.

“What is it, Sydney?” he asked. “Did something happen at the school?” Casper High was one of the most haunted buildings in Amity Park, which honestly didn’t make sense.

Danny had done his research. The school was old, sure, but Sydney was the only person who had ever actually died there. That didn’t stop the Lunch Lady, Technus, and a whole host of others from hanging around the place, although most of those others were pretty weak. Hardly strong enough to even interact with Danny or other ghosts.

Sydney shrugged.

“Then what’s wrong?”

Sydney looked down at the ground. The puddle of not-light he cast on the ground – visible only to only Danny and other ghosts – rippled and glimmered.

Danny frowned. “I have fun talking to you during the day, Syd, but I do have to sleep. I’m human, you know?”

“I know,” said Sydney.

“So why are you here?” asked Danny, briefly spreading his arms in exasperation and the dropping them to his sides again. He was still unsettled by the dream he’d just had.

Being close to ghosts while he was sleeping was just a recipe for nightmares. They weren’t always about their deaths, but more often than not…

Sydney’s death was a particularly unpleasant one. Danny did not expect to get back to sleep. Not tonight. Hence his annoyance.

“I need to…” started Sydney, before trailing off. “I need…”

“Sydney?”

“Warn you.”

“About what?”

“Not what they seem,” whispered the ghost. He looked away and phased out through the wall.

Danny’s frown deepened. Usually, Sydney was much clearer than that. Sometimes, talking to Sydney, Danny forgot he was talking to a ghost.

Danny sat down at the edge of the bed and tried to work a kink out of his neck. He caught himself scratching at his skin as if he wanted to pull it off a minute later.

It was always like this since the accident. Especially after he had a dying dream.

Forcibly, he stopped himself. His skin was fine. There was no electricity flickering under his skin. He was alive. He was safe. His body was his body. His body.

(He was not floating above it, light as air, staring at its waxy pallor, at the glassy, empty eyes.)

He was alive, alive, alive.

Awake.

Not dead.

Slowly, he laid back down on the bed. He was alive, awake. A medium, yes, associated with more ghosts than could possibly be healthy, either physically or mentally, yes, but alive. Definitely, clearly, alive.

He didn’t like it when ghosts woke him up. Especially when they came with ominous warnings about the future.

Maybe Sydney would let Danny track him down tomorrow, but Danny doubted it.

.

“Something’s off,” said Danny, staring up at the tall front of the school.

“Yeah,” agreed Sam, “it’s Spirit Week. When the teachers participate in medieval rituals to brainwash us into supporting the troglodytes that ‘represent’ our school in sports.”

“I was going to argue,” said Tucker, “but that is about what it’s for, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” said Danny, “I don’t think it’s that. Probably. Unless there’s a ghost that appreciate the pun?”

“You appreciate puns.”

“I’m not a ghost,” said Danny, frowning at Sam.

“That’s true.”

Danny sighed. “I just have a bad feeling about this. I know you can’t see like I can, but… be careful. If you do see anything weird, let me know.”

“Hey, Danny!”

“Oh, I changed my mind. Kill me now, I want to be a ghost.”

Jazz ran up and threw an arm around Danny’s shoulders. “You left so early!” she said. “Are you excited about Spirit Week, too?”

“No,” said Danny.

Jazz paused, looked at Danny more closely. “You look terrible,” she said. “Maybe you should talk to the counselor?”

“Pass,” said Danny.

“You know, you’ll have to talk to me in more than monosyllables at some point.”

“Do I?”

Danny rolled his eyes.

“Anyway, I’ve got to go to talk to Mr. Lancer about my speech! Have a great Spirit Week, guys!”

She ran off.

“I will never understand her,” declared Sam. “But I think she does have a point about the counselor. Maybe they’d be able to help with the nightmares? At least the non-ghost-caused ones.”

“All my nightmares are caused by ghosts.”

“Eh,” said Tucker, giving a half-shrug.

“Will it make you feel better if I agree to go?”

“Yes,” said both Sam and Tucker.

“Ugh. Fine,” said Danny.

.

Danny walked though the deserted hallway, pass in hand, study hall abandoned behind him as he looked for the counselor’s office. He’d never been there before, but it should be around here somewhere, right?

A cold hand settled on his shoulder.

“You must be Danny Fenton! Your sister told me all about you.”

Danny turned to look up at a tall woman. She was dressed a lot more flamboyantly than Danny would have expected.

“Yeah? That’s me. Who are you?”

“I’m Penelope Spectra. Your counselor! Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong with you?”

“Uh,” said Danny. There was something unpleasantly an unexpectedly pejorative and assumptive about that statement. Weren’t counselors supposed to tell you that there wasn’t anything wrong with you? That your feelings were valid.

He shrugged. He couldn’t put his feelings into words.

(Couldn’t open his mouth for fear of cold leaking out past his teeth, his soul exhaled with his breath.)

(Why did he feel this way?)

“Why don’t you step into my office?”

The room was… not what he expected.

“Sorry about the dust,” said Spectra. “I’m just moving in. They upgraded me.” She smiled, showing all her teeth. “So… like I said, your sister told me a lot about you, and I have a few things I’d like to try for your laz—Excuse me. Your difficulty with staying focused. It happens sometimes with traumatic brain injuries, that a promising young mind can be—Well. In any case. I am here to support you and find a way for you to succeed. What’s troubling you?”

Danny’s ginger perch on the dusty chair turned into a frustrated slump. “Nothing,” he said. He pushed himself back up. “I should go—”

“Oh, just humor me,” said Spectra. “There has to be some reason you came. Anxiety? Stress? Social pressures?”

Danny shook his head and stood up.

“Nightmares?”

He sat back down.

.

Danny leaned over the table to whisper to Tucker during English, when they were supposed to be reviewing vocabulary words.

“Have either of you seen the counselor before?” asked Danny, after what was easily the worst week of his life. He was starting to have suspicions, but…

“Yeah,” said Tucker. “When you were in the hospital. He was pretty cool.”

“He?” asked Danny. “He?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been seeing a ghost for the past week.”

“Ghost therapist? Well, if it’s working…”

“It isn’t. She’s from hell. I swear. A literal demon from hell.”

“Exorcism?”

“Exorcism.”

.

Jazz didn’t often come to school after hours, but she’d left several important things and she was the student body activity director, voted for and everything.

Important thing #1, her speech, which she had to practice.

Important thing #2, the—what was that?

Already spooked by the late-night atmosphere, she ducked into a doorway and peeked at the place she’d seen movement. There weren’t many classes held down that hallway, and she didn’t come down this way often, so maybe she was just—

No. That was her little brother and his friends conducting some kind of satanic ritual over a wastepaper basket.

Their parents were terrible influences. She was going to give them a stern talking to when—what what what what WHAT—

What had she just seen?

She looked back around the corner to see the… whatever it was dissolve in smoke and fire and shadows. Then Danny and his friends started cleaning up as if this was a perfectly normal Thursday night.

Jazz… Jazz was going to process this. Later.

She turned around and walked straight back out to her car. There was, after all, nothing that important.

.

“So,” said Danny, leaning towards Sam on the bleachers as he watched his sister give her speech. “Looks like we saved Spirit Week.”

“Never say that to me again,” said Sam.

“But we did. Look at all this spirit-filled people.”

“You were literally the only victim.”

“But Sam~”

“It does seem less grim, though, doesn’t it?” asked Tucker, contemplatively. “You are no longer the goth bird of happiness.”

“Maybe a bit,” allowed Sam. “I think that’s just because everyone’s glad this week is over, though. No offense, Danny.”

“None taken. I’m glad it’s over, too.”

[goliath-de-senfina-sango]

Jazz was struggling to process the weird things going on in her life. While she was far more interested in psychology than parapsychology, she /did/ offer a ghost a bit of therapy now and then and he seemed to be doing better for it. That was all the ghostly interaction she really needed. the giant hornet in school apparently disagrees with her on that. It truly amazed Jazz what the mind could conjure up during stressful events. For instance, it occurred to her right this very second how odd it had been to cool even slightly down from the argument days before over ghosts with her parents only for the ghost of the infamous Sydney Poindexter to show up in the library seeking comfort and a safe person to vent to. The topic of Sydney’s guilt had been hard to stay objective about, but between his clear and honest regret, his admitted decades of hell in a replica of Casper in the Infinite Realms (and wow, she shouldn’t be surprised that ghosts had a name for the world they manifest in but there she was) and the fact that Danny had befriended him led her to feel Sydney was, while not at all justified in what he’d done, not as bad a person as he’d been making himself out to be. When she asked questions he responded much more clearly than when he spoke unprompted, she’d noted, and so she’d asked right away if there was even one person he could remember who didn’t hurt him. The green and sepia bleeding into his form nearly vanished as his older brother, his little sister, and the school nurse came to mind. His brother hardly cared about the things that he was being bullied over, doing his best to keep Sydney looking toward the future and making amazing things to lift his spirits. Apparently, he was a genius like Tucker and Danny, a compliment that made Jazz smile at the time. His little sister didn’t know enough to really understand it all but she was unerringly sweet and a source of sunshine that he never ever mentioned at school. The nurse, however, had been the brightest of those three lights in the dark for him, as the nurse wasn’t family and had no pre-established reason to be nice to and patch up the gross, nerdy queer kid that everyone else had shown nothing but contempt for. She did it anyway though, and he’d aspired to be a nurse like her one day. This aspiration led to more bullying, of course, but Jazz suggested he try learning how to heal people up the same way that nurse had him, and a look of realization and hope crossed his face before he hugged her, waved, and flew off. That had been a very good ghostly encounter. The giant hornet casting a sinister green glow over the hallways as a long, slimy black tongue curled around her entire skull and sharp mandibles the size of said skull extended to their most open was distinctly not. Jazz would never look at bugs the same way again. Before she could even manage to get a scream out of her though, the whining charge of one of her parents’ weapons filled her ears and the hornet jerked back with a sound that could’ve been pain, could’ve been fury, and mixed the kind of clicking hissing one expects from a bug with a very human voice. There was a burn mark on its center dripping ectoplasm that smelled awful , and it turned big black eyes to the same ghost boy she’d seen before. But now Jazz knew he was dangerous because that was a Fenton Plasma Rifle in his hands and his eyes were torches, hair flicking between cloudy wisps and crackling flames. “ Did someone call for an exterminator? “ “Oh, you think you’re funny!” The fucking hornet said, starling Jazz into motion - backing away slowly so as to not draw its attention. It flew like a blur at the boy, stinger cutting a gash in his suit and up his arm that leaked a thick green fluid and the rest of it’s lower half crashed into him with enough force to slam the boy into a few lockers with a bang. “Swat this , big boy.” “ Buzz off ,” the boy growled and the lights flared up brighter around them. He swung the rifle at the bug and the green ectoplasm shone a blinding white as it fired, burning a hole straight through the hornet and drilling it through the wall between the school and its yard. The boy flew after it and Jazz took a deep breath. There were ghosts fighting in her school, one with her parents’ weaponry. That one had saved her though and Jazz also had Fenton weaponry on her. She rushed outside to help, determined to keep her savior from being skewered by a hornet. Jazz poked her head out from the hole that the boy had made and froze. He was smacked out of the air by one of the long hairy legs of the hornet and into a tree and his head cracked loudly against bark. As he slid down his body was enveloped in light that retreated inward to his center and left behind Black hair, tan skin, a nyan cat hoodie- “Danny?” Her whisper went unnoticed in the face of a green ray piercing the hornet’s left wing. Bleeding ectoplasm in three places, it curled in on itself into a mass of green goop that dove into the ground and everything was still. Danny looked around with bright green eyes as he clutched his head, before growling and punching the tree. He stood up slowly, closed his eyes and grew difficult to look at, to even see as the light within a foot of him grew intense like a halo. He let out a breath and slumped against Tucker when the other boy made it to him, checking him over. Jazz stepped back away from the hole and took deep, shaky breaths. My brother is a ghost. That thought played over and over in her head even as a teacher gently guided her to her feet (when had she sat down among the debris?) and to the nurse’s office. It was only when Danny appeared in the nurse’s office, wrapping her up tight in a hug and rambling a mile a minute to ask if she was ok in every way he possibly could that her brain shifted focus even slightly. “Well, I didn’t get stung. Just licked by a dad sized hornet and saved by a ghostly teenager.” She hugged Danny back just as tightly, and tears began to flow as his argument to their parents before he blacked out in the hospital bed came back to mind. If the portal accident had killed me, would you have comforted your child or attacked the ghost in your lab? Danny’s arms went slack for a moment but Jazz clung tight to him. “I just. I just need a moment. Please?” Instead of pulling away and cracking jokes about gross sibling feelings her blessed baby brother hugged her back again and nodded into her neck. “Of course, Jazz.” “I swear to every star that listens,” Danny said behind his bedroom door where Jazz really shouldn’t be listening in. “Next I see of that smart-mouthed, rancid piece of protoplasmic filth I’m going to turn him into a smear and burn him.” That certainly sounded more like Dad than Danny. “At least save me a little bit to beat up,” Sam’s voice called through the speakers of his newly upgraded laptop. “I just commissioned your Mom for a ghost fighting melee weapon and Sydney’s healing me up pretty fast.” So Sydney knew about all of this. “There’ll be some of Spectra left to beat up with that once the Peeler has finished its work.” What?! “Probably. Maybe. It’s made to weaken the target not kill them.” The scoff she heard was definitely Tucker and definitely in the room. “Yeah, you’ll leave a scrap of shadow that none of us can distinguish from our own shadows, that’s something Sam can beat up.” Shadows? “I think the ectoplasm is enhancing your emotional response.” “You’re right Tuck, if someone threatened Jazz’s life normally I wouldn’t try to shoot them into a pile of goo. I’d only beat them up with the gun.” Jazz would normally admonish such a violent reaction, and aloud she might if she was in there and not eavesdropping. But truly, if someone hurt Danny they’d find out what a 1st degree blackbelt can do to them. “I think Sam will be good to go either tomorrow or the day after.” Sydney’s voice crackled over the speakers like static. “I think your healing powers mesh better with living beings than mine can since you’re halfa human.” Danny sighed and Jazz moved back into her room, sitting down to process. She pulled out her notebook and set it on her desk, mechanical pencil already in hand. “Organize all my thoughts and maybe it’ll make sense. What information do I have?” Danny was in an accident involving the ghost portal and it changed him. Danny was vehemently against their parents’ anti ghost genocide plan The ghost boy she’d seen at school the other day was clearly the one that had attacked the hornet thing when it attacked her Danny had all the access to the Fenton Armory as she did with their porta pockets, which was effectively full access. Danny was too smart to give any unknown entity their only model of plasma rifle Danny had directed Sydney Poindexter of all people to her Sydney knew Danny on a personal level that he wasn’t willing to fully disclose to her. Sydney had called Danny half-human and Danny hadn’t corrected him, nor had Tucker nor Sam. Jazz saw the mystery ghost boy transform in a flash of light into her brother, who proceeded to hug her and act much the same he had since the portal accident. Her conclusion? Danny had died in the portal when it turned on, and now he was a ghost, fighting off ghost robots and giant bugs with their parents’ weaponry. Sam and Tucker knew about it, and he had befriended at least one ghost. This was, of course, the most ridiculous thought to cross Jasmine Dana Fenton’s mind in her entire life. But then, her parents had opened a portal to the afterlife and she’d just been attacked by a giant glowing green hornet. “Ok, Danny is a ghost. He didn’t tell me that, but for obvious reasons,” she muttered to herself. “That must be what he was going to tell Mom and Dad before and now he doesn’t have the courage to try again. Oh god Danny died. ” Jazz picked up Bearbert Einstein and hugged him close, deciding right then that she was going to hug Danny a lot more from now on. Just to make sure he was still there. That was a silly thought, but she needed to be sure.

[aramat-mayhem-hub]

Default Verse

Since obviously I should do this... So let’s talk about all the default versions of the characters on this blog. Since that’s important. So yeah.

I’ll do them in order of their sort of Priority I guess... Or something, I don’t know. Anyway.

Halfa Mechanic: The default verse is relatively obvious, Arthur has been a half-ghost for just over three months. Things have settled down fairly well, but Arthur is still learning how to really be a ghost. He tends to travel through the ghost-zone fairly freely, and is still rather childish since he hasn’t stabilized on the emotional side of things.

His default response to any alternates of himself is just to kind of roll with it. His responses to any Vivis and Lewises will depend heavily on how he meets them. For the most part though, he will always be excited to see Vivi, and depending on if Lewis is more human appearing or not, he’ll either be very puppyish and eager to share some new “trick” he’s learnt or a bit more wary and nervous.

Officer Paranormal: The Default for Officer John is as a recognized Officer of whichever local police that the thread needs him to be. And on the other side of things, he’s relatively well known by the Paranormal, since he’s able to interact with and see it. He can either be pretty casual, or much more anxious about things depending on why he is where he is. If he’s off the clock, he’ll typically be more willing to roll with things though.

Depending on the muse, I don’t mind characters from a more paranormal setting recognizing him as “that one officer”... whether from a previous case of their own design, or just from his paranoid reputation from the station. While he is generally respected, he is recognized as the Officer who’s something of a conspiracy theorist after all.

Childish Crown: Cheraphian’s default verse is them as a ghost. They have been dead for years, they wouldn’t even be able to give an accurate time-frame because a good chunk of it was stuck in a time-loop under the control of an eldritch creature calling itself a God of Time. They spend most of their time wandering around looking for their brother, and most of their interactions will default to they don’t know who you are, and aren’t really interested in finding out either...

Pteranadon Punk & Stego Star: Both of their verses are by default set either just after the events of the series, or during the events of the series. And honestly there isn’t much more that I can really say. Their default is pretty vanilla.

Official Cloneboy: Oh joy! Time for my funnest default! First of all, I generally default all of my DP style muses as being pretty post-canon with Phantom Planet being treated as a dream that Danny might have had once, and so if anything from the episode were to be mentioned, Dennis would be very much confused. But also, Dennis is an outsider, but he was hidden by default for the rest of the series, although he might have peeked out during D-Stabilized... but ymmv.

Defaultly, he is jealous of Danielle, and conflicted over Danny. Although, it’s up to the various muns whether their muses would actually know Dennis. I default as “by reputation only”. Dennis knows that Dani is the clone before him, the only other surviving clone, and he is also aware that she escaped. He is really sore about this, and wishes that he were in her position, seeing the world and free. Whether she knows him or not, he would likely be known as the one after, and the “perfect son”.

As for Danny... That’s a bit more tricky. As a whole he is incredibly conflicted. Part of him, really deeply resents the other boy, the original, another part of him, is desperate for validation and some small feelings of being siblings and family, and wants to be accepted by the other. Which side is stronger, is very dependent on the day and his overall mood. As it is though, he has never officially met Phantom. Also, he’s not entirely aware of Danny’s status as a half-ghost despite the logic that he should be if he is. He doesn’t really view Fenton and Phantom as the same person. Fenton is just... some kid in his mind. This distinction, is something that could cause conflict, but as a result, the default interaction is generally dismissal towards Danny as Fenton, and very conflicted feelings towards him as Phantom.

Again, it’s mostly as reputation only, and has never really met him... so his default interactions with any Danny would be the first official meeting between them. Expect at least some aggression if Danny is in Phantom form.

Button Mechanic, Pepper Princess & Magenta Buttons: Considering that all these guys are in the same verse, I decided to group them all together as well. Since welp, better than splitting them apart and explaining the same thing. They’re all post a story I’m semi-working on, a Coraline/MSA crossover that I have under the working title of Buttons. And the events of that have left them all in a bit of a mess. To various degrees they’re all traumatized. And there is some level of self-blame from them all. Interactions with counterparts would vary, because the one time they have so far met a “double” of someone close to them, it ended really, really badly.

Paprika is the most defensive really. Lewis somewhere in the middle, and Aothur generally rolls with things for the most part.

Rat Brat: Again, default is post series. But also, for Snitch, their default is somewhat a mirror of Danny’s situation at the start of the series as they have been a halfa for approximately a whole month by this point. They still don’t know how to really human that well. As for interactions with other Danny Phantom blogs, my general wish, is for ghosts to be familiar with them in the sense of “Oh great this pest again!” because they are the pest of the ghost zone... Spectra non-withstanding and people can decide whether they accept the connection in Snitch’s backstory or not...

As for Phantom... he might recognize them as a ghost he may have dealt with a time or two before should one wish to go with that... or just by their reputation as that ghost who brings rats with them... But I do have one thing... in human form they would be completely unknown to him, and, they personally would never recognize Fenton.

Mana of Time: Mana’s default is pretty vague really. He’s a child who just kind of shows up at random, and is usually knowing of people, but not sure if they know him... since he exists out of time, he treats all meetings like they are the first one. And event references can be confusing.

ROOT Rodent: Default is out of place. They just roll with what’s going on, whether they are in a crossover situation, in the future, or whatever. They do not change age, and I will keep them as they are, as stated in their profile.

But defaultly(in Naruto roleplays), they will react to certain situations and people the same way; Obito is their little brother figure, Minato shares their birthday, and Danzo is their commanding officer.

Pharaoh Skelepapa: His default is typically before the events of the film, but I am willing to play him a little bit after the film since things mostly won’t change. Usually I would hope for a thread with curses in play, but I am willing to have threads where Hector is the one who’s being dragged into whatever situation... In such cases he’ll be a bit like a ghost, and probably low-key freaking out the whole time, because what kind of weird curse is this?

Okay but seriously, primarily I will try to keep his threads to the Land of the Dead. Where your muse has gotten cursed in some form or another. Whether it’s through breaking into where his body is stored and getting cursed that way, or stealing something from a grave and getting cursed that way with Hector being called in as the “expert” on curses and how to deal with them. You will also likely get to see members of his support system in these threads, whether it’s from his Guardian Lydia, friends from Shantytown or a few of the Officers and Agents he’s gotten to know at the department.

But... that said, I am willing to do threads that yank him out of his comfort zone and pull him into the Land of the Living or, into a whole other world entirely. Again, he’ll mostly be operating under “ghost” or “monster” rules. Although I lean more towards monster/fae being on the spectrum, because he doesn’t have any ghostly abilities aside some followers... who mostly hang around his mummified body otherwise.

But almost always, threads will be based more before the film, although exceptions apply, and I am willing to explore him dealing with the curse continuing even after he’s finally made it home.

Wilde Dogg: Honestly, the verse for Buziba is kind of vague... but in general what you really need to know is that Buziba is a very hurt and scared boy. He’s also not too likely to take too kindly to people approaching him from nowhere. He’s out in the wilds on his own, and he prefers it that way... or at least that’s what he tells himself. But by default, you’ll find him in an undisclosed and unknown woods, deep hidden in the bush. And he won’t be eager to interact with anyone...

Although he can also be on the streets or just wandering near the roads and curious. But will always be wary, and he’s been on his own for little over a year... trust is not exactly something he’s good at.

[floofyeol]

spectra oath

chanyeol x reader. floofy floof. 9k words. basically, dorky and bad luck!chanyeol who’s too awkward to get a girl.

As if his bad luck isn’t enough to mess up his life, no, Park Chanyeol just had to fall for a girl he has no idea how to talk to.

A painful whack to his nose and a little bit of blood smeared on his face doesn’t seem to be enough of a force of bad luck to crack past the idiotic–yet ever inspiriting—’happy virus’ that is one, Park Chanyeol. For he is, in fact, trapped in his own little bubble of happiness, paying no mind to the blood on his hands, or the kink at his neck from leaning forward for too long to stop the humiliatingly obtained nosebleed. It’s rather unsettling and question inducing to those who pass by him, that startlingly happy expression of his, despite how he shouldn’t look that bright considering what happened to him.

His smile for this particular day has nothing to do with the nickname the campus’ residents has nicknamed him with, and more so that it has something to do with his streak of bad luck finally bringing him something good for once. Good being: yes, a cute girl who he’s for once quite positive he has a chance with is whisked into his life, a turning point that could mean he has the upper hand to his dorm mate Byun Baekhyun.

But more importantly: oh my gosh I just got smacked in the face and got a nosebleed from a really cute girl.

To say the least, it’s quite an interesting first meeting.

He was on his way to the coffee shop, as he recalled, it was a particularly nice morning that calls for blue skies and perfectly white puffs of cloud, with the last remnants of dew visible on lush greens of grass and trees. He was walking with his head down, eyes scanning the ground for any cracks or holes he could fall into—like last time. And the coffee shop he passed by on his way to the other side of the campus had just freshly brewed their coffee beans, he knew, for when the door swung open he was struck with a divinely rich smell and the warm breaths of steam that came from their whirring machines.

There’s a barista holding open the door for customers, but he couldn’t care or focus on that, as his attention was solely centered to the roasted coffee behind the counter. For the previous night’s streak of drafted project had really tipped Chanyeol’s sanity and mind enough to not focus on anything other than caffeine, and despite how his eyes were technically open, his mind was as heavy as lead and body as numb as a corpse. He just had to grab a coffee before heading for his class.

With a bounce in his step and a crack of something awakening on his face, Chanyeol swerved towards the small cafe. But Chanyeol should’ve known nothing ever came easy for him with his bad luck, not even when it’s just a matter of getting coffee.

Only the tip of his worn sneaker was able to make it past the stone pavement and inside the wooden floors of the cafe when he stepped in, before suddenly, a wave of air came straight at his face, with it, the strong force of a glass door which he could not process or react to in time until—wham!

He’s pretty sure he heard a small crack in the air somewhere, but he couldn’t be sure over the sound of him falling on his butt. With a less than graceful fuck, his hand immediately sprung up to clutch at his face, a dreadful sting ringing his muscle and bones.

Shit, am I bleeding?

It took him some time to adjust to the pain before he could open his eyes, slowly, with difficulty through unwilling tears and twitching muscles.

Yup, that’s blood.

Life hated him, it seemed.

“Agh..” he scrunched his face into an expression of pain, however, it only further hurt his nose, to which he slip another curse out.

“Oh dear lord, sir, are you alright?!”

Chanyeol had to squint when he looked up at the person hovering before him, small mumbling noises surround him, soft and light—a woman’s— rushed, and much like the roller coaster at the local fair he went to last month: it went up and down like the screams of him and Baekhyun—panicked. Even then, he couldn’t properly make out her features due to the sun’s light behind her.

“I am so sorry! I didn’t mean to slam the door in your face, I swear. It’s just that, um, you see—agh this is awful—there’s a squirrel!”

Wait..what?

“Oh gosh,” the light left his face when she crouched down to be on his level, and Chanyeol, who was just about done with the predicament, found himself unable to vocalize his complaints when he actually got a good look at the girl who slammed the door on his face, “please forgive me, sir. I was opening the door for you, but a squirrel tried to get in at the same time so I had to close the door to make sure it didn’t come in. And...unfortunately, that meant that I also closed the door on you...hard.”

Her tone faltered the further she spoke, and with it, her panicked features fell to a mix of embarrassment and mortification. And yet, that wasn’t what Chanyeol was focused on.

“Sir? Oh my gosh, you’re still bleeding. Please say something so I know that you’re okay?” Her hand, it was touching him. It’s pressing on his shoulders desperately to gain a reaction, but how could she receive any reaction when her face was far too close to his, too close for him to actually think properly?

But truly, in the end, the reaction she wanted was not what she expected. And he could only have this girl: with eyes that glints and shines and takes his breath away like the prettiest of sea glass in that soft yet warm yellow radiance, soft lips glossed with red rather unevenly yet ever enticing, cheeks pink and adorable and slightly puffed from her pout, and so many more intriguing and wonderful details he noticed in that span of seconds, he could just go on—yes, because Chanyeol has a tendency to be a little dramatic and extra, but he’s pretty sure he knows beauty when he sees one— he could only give this girl an unattractive and rather amusing grimace, because Park Chanyeol forgot all about his anger and annoyance and how he’s supposed to function because of how attractive she was.

“You just slammed the door on my face, what else is there for me to say?” He added a sprinkle of laughter by the end of his sentence to mask the stutter and nervousness in his attempt to seem nonchalant and not at all in pain.

“I swear, I didn’t mean to! I would never deliberately try to—” He felt guilty for not taking her panic seriously, too enticed by the way her lips move and twitch to pay attention.

“I mean..um..I know you don’t mean it. Why would you anyways, right?” She was staring at him, going quiet out of nowhere.

And the nervousness he felt over such an intense stare made him temporarily forgot about his still ongoing nosebleed.

“Sir—”

“Chanyeol.” She blinked, startled.

“Alright, Chanyeol. Let’s get inside and I’ll take care of your nosebleed, okay? And free coffee too, I’m buying. It’s the least I could do after messing up your face.” Chanyeol wasn’t going to object.

The girl lead Chanyeol inside the cafe and sat him down at the table nearest to the counter where she disappeared off to. He vaguely remembered how she avoided her co-workers’ questioning gazes when she approached the counter. She returned quickly by his side with tissues before Chanyeol had the chance to text Baekhyun to tell him about what just conspired.

“Does anywhere else hurt? Your head? Eyes?” Chanyeol was silent for a moment to process his pain, but it seemed that most of his dizziness and the stinging feeling had slowly dissipated. He shook his head, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

“Alright, I guess the nosebleed is the only thing we need to take care of. Um, I need you to lean your head forward just a bit.” Chanyeol quirked an eyebrow up, questioning her.

“Don’t you have to lean your head back to stop the bleeding?” She didn’t answer him immediately, and instead began dabbing the tissues slowly all over his face, where the blood had taint his complexion.

Chanyeol leaned back by reflex when the warmth of her fingers met the apple of his cheeks, and she—this stranger he’s yet had the guts to ask the name of—giggled at his sudden reaction.

“Hey, you don’t trust me? I’m majoring in nursing, so don’t worry, I know what I’m doing. If you lean your head back instead of forward when you have a nosebleed, don’t you think that the blood will clog your nose even further?”

Chanyeol had been the one to blink, confused, this time. And he didn’t recoil away because he didn’t trust her, he recoiled because she had touched him, and he’s too embarrassed to admit that it actually made him feel shy. But, he played along and appeared enlightened by her words.

“Ah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.” Chanyeol leaned his head forward to comply to her words, and the stranger slowly stuffed Chanyeol’s nostrils with wadded tissues.

He took notice of the careful attention she put into taking care of him, going back and forth for more tissues and softly apologizing every time he flinched (which really wasn’t her fault) until the third time she came back, she finally spoke.

“So, what would you like for your coffee? I did promise you a free one.” Chanyeol felt almost upset when she was done with patching him up.

“Oh, you’re serious about that? No, seriously, you don’t have to—”

“Are you kidding me? If I don’t do something to make up for this I wouldn’t be able to live with myself! Seriously, it’s cool, it’s my fault anyways.” At that moment, Chanyeol understood the feeling of those high school girls in cliche rom-com movies who sigh dreamily whenever their crush so much as pass by them. Because it’s what he wanted to do right then when he saw the smile on her face.

An idea propelled itself to him the second her smile disappeared, and he’s left wanting to see it again. It was an idea to actually land himself a date. Something he hadn’t even thought of for years now. Chanyeol had been so busy with college and producing his music he forgot the last time he actually interacted with females outside of campus related things. Damn, no wonder Baekhyun teased him relentlessly.

And he knew exactly how he could get her smitten over him—hopefully. What was supposed to come out of his mouth was: Thanks for the offer, but I’d rather have my coffee to go, that is, on a date with a cute girl. And boom, he’d find himself an amazing date.

He couldn’t help but feel proud of himself, for the cheesy yet witty words he just thought of deserved a pat on the back. It would’ve been the case if Chanyeol hadn’t stop to look her in the eyes. If someone would have told him that a person’s eyes were the most dangerous thing about them, right at that moment, Chanyeol would agree in a heartbeat. Because her eyes were just like a black hole, sucking all the thoughts and courage and breath all out from Chanyeol.

Wow..

In the end, his frayed nerves, uncoordinated thoughts, and fear of being denied had jumbled the words he wanted to say to a:

“Um, a caramel frappucino, please. With whip cream.” His lips were pulled into a smile, but it was tight and forced.

She hadn’t noticed it seemed, and she made her way behind the counter to began making his order. Chanyeol slumped back in his seat like a deflated  balloon right as she left. He was disappointed, but most of all, annoyed at his stupid self.

“Hang in there alright, Chanyeol?” He was startled by the call of his name, but through his clogged nostrils and awkward smile, Chanyeol managed a thumbs up for her who was busy putting items in the blender.

“Make sure to lean your head forward so you’ll get all the blood out.” He ducked his head low, as far as hitting his head on the table, as she requested, however, it wasn’t really due to compliance, but more so due to the confusing yet exhilarating situation Chanyeol was in and his incapability to believe that any of this was real.

For his bad luck had never given him as much as an opportunity to be taken care of and be treated by a girl before, especially one who he found himself attracted to. Chanyeol almost found this too suspicious, but he decided he should enjoy this as much as it would last.

He raised his head when he saw the white colored tissue starting to turn red from his blood, and he changed with new tissues to stuff into his nostrils. Unlike what his family had been telling him to do if he ever had a nosebleed, this pretty stranger’s technique seemed to work better. A nursing major, was it? How interesting.

Chanyeol was halfway from opening his mouth to thank her, however, he realized one thing.

Shit, I didn’t get her name.

The blender she was watching was making a very loud noise, loud enough that she wouldn’t hear him if he even had the guts to ask for her name. He hated to admit it...but Chanyeol had been out of his game for awhile. How embarrassing was it for a guy to be too shy to ask for a girl’s name?

And that’s when it hit him.

Maybe he didn’t have to ask for her name. After all, baristas usually wore name tags on their chest right?

That’s when Chanyeol thought up of a plan to try and peek at the name on her name tag. Unfortunately, Chanyeol failed to notice the flaw in his plan. For while what he was trying to do was relatively innocent—he just wanted to know her name—to others that would see him? Well, it’d look very different.

Squinted eyes and furrowed brows were directed at her chest once she turned around, and boy did it look misleading. Chanyeol was too focused on looking for her name tag that he didn’t even realize when she was directly standing in front of his table with his drink. Then she frowned.

“Are you staring at my chest?”

Chanyeol was so startled by the anger in her tone that his focus broke. And when he saw the annoyance in her face as he attempted to soothe her, he knew that he didn’t think of his methods well enough.

“N-No! I swear—I would never disrespect a woman like that! I was looking for your name tag because I wanted to know your name. And I—” his order was placed on his table, but not with any hint of anger like he expected, instead, it was rather gentle.

And just when he thought he’d receive a slap along with his nosebleed, Chanyeol instead heard her laugh. His eyes were wide as they stare up at her, confused, but nevertheless relieved.

“Oh my gosh, calm down. I believe you, Chanyeol. You don’t seem like a pervert anyways,” she sat down on the seat across him, and Chanyeol didn’t know what else to do besides to sip on his drink and avoid her eyes “I actually haven’t put my name tag on because we just opened up. But if you really just wanted to know my name, you could’ve asked.”

Chanyeol shrugged his stiff shoulders at that statement, because she wasn’t aware of how awkward he had become around girls after years of not focusing on flirting or interacting much with them.

“Well, um, then, what is your name?” He mustered up his courage, but he figured it was a little too late, and that was why she had laughed at him again, however, it wasn’t something cruel or mocking, she was simply entertained by him.

At least that fact cheered him up a bit.

“It’s [Name].”

Chanyeol finally got what he wanted. Despite having to be subjected to embarrassing things prior, he was satisfied.

“And I really am sorry for giving you a nosebleed.” Chanyeol waved his hand to assure her, while his other hand played with the whip cream on his drink with the end of his straw.

“It’s alright. I’ve always had a rather bad luck.” [Name] couldn’t help but scrunch her face out of confusion.

“Why’d you say that?”

Chanyeol shrugged again, this time, shoulders drawn forward and relaxed. He didn’t answer immediately, he had opened the lid to his cup to eat the whip cream with his straw first before he even thought of a reply, and though he didn’t notice, [Name] smiled at how childish he seemed when he licked the tip of the whipped cream coated straw.

“It’s nothing important, really. I’ve just always had a particularly bad luck. Anything that can go wrong will probably go wrong around me. So, yeah.” He didn’t sound at all upset or resigned at his unfortunate fate, but to [Name], it seemed rather sad how he just accepted his so called ‘bad luck’ so willingly.

“Don’t say that. You’re just probably having a bad day—” Chanyeol shook his head “—a bad past couple of months—” another shook of his head “a bad year?”

Chanyeol laughed, loud and unhinged and deep, but nonetheless, he appreciated her attempt to cheer him up.

“Don’t worry, I don’t mind. I decided not to let bad luck affect my life. I much prefer to look to the brighter side of things instead of the bad ones and face everyday with a smile. Besides, my bad luck has to run out sooner or later, right?”

Chanyeol realized that he had finished his drink by the time he finished talking. And with a quick glance to his phone, he realized he’d been in this cafe for more than half an hour. Which would mean that he probably only had 5 more minutes to get to class, and with that thought, Chanyeol got rid of the tissues stuffed up his nose and hurriedly stood up, nearly toppling over the small table in front of him.

“Shit, um, I’m gonna be late for class if I don’t leave now. It was really nice to meet you and I’d love to talk to you some more, but I really have to—” she stood up along with him, a gentle and understanding smile displayed to assure him that she didn’t mind for his sudden need to leave.

“It’s alright Chanyeol. I guess I kind of see what you meant by bad luck, though.”

Chanyeol managed to slip a small chuckle as a response. But as he left the table to grab for the door, Chanyeol was stopped by a warm hand around his wrist. And Chanyeol, startled and completely unprepared, let out a loud yelp that also startled [Name] into letting go, wide eyed and confused.

Chanyeol cleared his throat and looked away, a horrible attempt to mask his embarrassment.

“Um, anyways...before you go, I just wanted to say that,” she grabbed for Chanyeol’s empty cup and opened his palms—an action that rendered Chanyeol blushing and stuttering nonsense—to put the cup on his hand, “maybe your luck isn’t so bad after all.”

Chanyeol didn’t know what she meant when she said it. All he could think of was getting to class in time. And so he left her with a wave, and a smile that’s hopefully enough to make her see past his bad luck and awkwardness he had displayed to find him at least rather cute. He ran to the designated campus building as fast as he could, and fortunately, his bad luck wasn’t cruel enough to make him late.

That was 3 minutes ago. And Chanyeol can already feel himself turning upset, because: why the heck didn’t I get her number?

“Agh..Park Chanyeol, why are you such a loser?”

As he arrive on campus, Chanyeol is huffing and puffing, face glistening with less than hygienic sweat, and his chest muscles ache from the short run he had to do. With a minute to spare, he made it, and that is good luck enough for him.

“Hey, where’ve you been, Yeol?”

Baekhyun comes like an unwanted and annoyingly clingy ghost from behind him, and Chanyeol is too lethargic and full of thoughts to fight the shorter man from slinging his hand around the taller one’s shoulder, bringing Chanyeol down in the process. It’s only 8 AM, and Chanyeol is about done with the day—another new record broken by Chanyeol’s bad luck.

“Oh, uh. I was smacked on the face with a door and got a nosebleed. Nothing new.” Chanyeol tries to make his point by tapping at his nose which is fortunately no longer bleeding.

“Yikes, sorry to hear that. But hey, at least your good looks aren’t smacked off, right? Otherwise I might just leave you in search for a best friend just as attractive as I am. And you know how picky I can get—”

“Oh, shut up.” Chanyeol pushes Baekhyun away with a smile, and both starts walking towards their designated first class—with one of them sporting a smile that’s too bright to be used in this time of day.

And Baekhyun, he notices this, though doesn’t find it odd, because Chanyeol is always finding excuses to smile. He does however, notice something else, and he stops both himself and Chanyeol in order to grab for the empty coffee cup in Chanyeol’s hand.

“Hey, why aren’t you throwing this away? Oh, hold on a minute, what’s this—” the tone Baekhyun uses draws Chanyeol’s attention to the coffee cup, because Baekhyun doesn’t sound nearly as intrigued as this whenever he lies or pranks Chanyeol.

Baekhyun turns the plastic cup over to the other side, and both their eyes are wide and surprised to see someone’s number scribbled in black marker.

And, like with the cafe door, it hit Chanyeol again.

“This is what she meant with my luck..”

“Dude, do you expect me to believe a girl willingly wrote down her number for you on your cup? Life’s too short to bullshit, especially some bullshit as low as—”

“Baek! She gave me her number!”

Chanyeol has a tendency to injure himself. What with his long limbs, incessantly attaching bad luck, increasing stress due to the campus’ workload, and his best friend who won’t stop getting him into doing stupid and reckless stunts, Chanyeol shouldn’t be surprised that a round of playful basketball with the accounting majors lead to a sprained and swollen ankle.

And because neither he or Baekhyun are in anyway reliable—especially when it comes to something potentially serious—Baekhyun had to resort to other means to help his accident prone best friend. And that happens to be: secretly calling the number Chanyeol received on his cup a week ago from the ‘girl’ who he claims to be a nursing major. In all honesty, Baekhyun feels rather uncertain if this girl really exists, despite the amount of Chanyeol whining ‘she’s real!’.

So it comes as a surprise to Baekhyun when someone actually answers the phone—and that someone, more importantly, is female, or well, has the voice of one—and he has to take the phone off of his ear for a moment because: holy hell Chanyeol actually got a girl’s number.

“Uhm, hi? Are you perhaps the girl that gave away their number accidentally to a tall, big eared guy around a week ago at a coffee shop? Because if this is she, I’m his best friend—who I might add is a lot hotter than him—and he needs your help right now.” Baekhyun is nothing short of straight to the point, and [Name] is rendered speechless for almost 30 seconds before she finally comprehend his words enough to agree to help.

When Chanyeol hears the door to his dorm opening and closing after Baekhyun has left his bedside, he expects Baekhyun to bring him a random medic student. But what he is not expecting—especially at this horrendous looking state of his with mussed up sweaty hair, tight lipped expression and boxers printed in embarrassing cartoon characters—is the girl who he doesn’t have the guts to call since receiving her number a week ago.

And out of all the person who could have called her here to help, it had to be Baekhyun, the one person who has access to embarrassing Chanyeol for the rest of his life. How wonderful.

Still, Chanyeol can’t lie and say that he’s not at all happy to see her again, especially with how much she’s been on his mind lately. He just wish they could’ve met on better circumstances, and with less disturbances—and by that, he means the smiling Baekhyun currently standing behind her and mouthing the words ‘Wow! She’s actually real!’

“Wow.” He doesn’t know if it’s a good thing, or a bad thing, the way she says it.

Chanyeol hopes his smile is charming, despite his red and swollen ankle and the way his fingers fist at the bed sheets, Chanyeol still wants to make a good impression.

“Um, hi.”

She doesn’t wave back, and he’s immediately worried. [Name] dives straight to Chanyeol’s sprained ankle, pulling out a number of things from the box she brings to begin examining his ankle. The unresponded greeting fails to do well on Chanyeol’s accelerating heartbeat.

“So,” Chanyeol’s head shoots up at Baekhyun’s voice, and he desperately, very desperately, orders Baekhyun to shut it, conveying it in the best way he can: with dramatic facial expressions and wild hand gestures, but silently, as to not cause suspicion from [Name], “why’d you hand Chanyeol your number?”

But of course, Baekhyun being Baekhyun, he doesn’t listen. Or more like, Baekhyun will never turn down an opportunity to humiliate Chanyeol. [Name] takes her attention away momentarily to look to Baekhyun, who acts too casually as he leans on the doorway.

“Um, why’d you ask?” She sounds nervous, and Chanyeol hopes, dear god, he prays to the god above: that his bad luck and his awful best friend won’t end up chasing [Name] away from his life.

“Because I’m much hotter, and less accident prone.” Baekhyun shrugs.

Chanyeol glares, “dude, shut up—ow!”

[Name] is looking at Chanyeol now. Her gaze silences him, and he can’t really pinpoint or decipher as to why she’s looking at him like that. And Chanyeol is guilty of not being able to look away.

Sea glass, the swirling colors of her eyes are as deep and rich as that of a sea glass. He still can’t compare her eyes to anything else other than that.

“It’s alright, Chanyeol. Your friend’s really entertaining.” Baekhyun is fist pumping the air and cheering quietly for himself at the compliment, rubbing salt to Chanyeol’s self inflicted wound.

“Thank you, [Name]. And for that nice compliment, I’ll give you a free advice. When a guy you gave your number to hasn’t called you in like, a week? Yeah, it’s not because he’s not interested, he’s just too much of a chicken to—” a pillow is thrown over Baekhyun’ face before he can finish.

“Shut up, Baek! Get out!” Baekhyun does end up leaving, but not without an annoying cackle, knowing that he’s done the damage he wants.

And Chanyeol, well, he doesn’t know what to say when Baekhyun actually left them.

[Name], however, seems to be bursting with things she wants to say by the look of her pink cheeks and flustered expression.

“So, I’m assuming what your friend Baekhyun said is true?” Chanyeol can only nod silently, but then hisses when he puts an ice bag on his ankle, the cold biting his skin.

“Oh, sorry I forgot to warn you about the ice, you’re gonna need to ice your ankle for the next 48-72 hours to keep the swelling down alright?” Chanyeol nods wordlessly again.

“So..um..are you mad? Mad that I didn’t call you..” There’s a slight inclination at the end of his question that suggests his hope for her not to be mad at him.

For once, his bad luck didn’t interfere with him, and [Name] releases a breathy laugh that is anything but angry or sad.

“No, of course not. I mean, it’s not your fault if you don’t want to call me. It’s totally up to you. And I get that college takes up a lot of time so—”

“But I do want to call you! I swear. I even practiced texting Baek a couple of times so I don’t send the wrong kind of texts and end up making you feel weirded out..or something..”  Chanyeol realizes his mistake too late when her scrutinizing eyes slowly turn to him, gaze growing sharper the longer the silence drag on.

“It’s true! I have the texts on my phone to prove it.” The muffled voice of Baekhyun manage to pass through the door and slip between the silence.

And a further infuriated Chanyeol who wishes he could kill his best friend for eavesdropping on their conversation clench his fists and glares towards the door, attention diverted from the girl by his feet whose emotions he can’t decipher to momentarily send waves of anger that he thinks can somehow pass through solid wood and Baekhyun’s thick skull.

“I swear to god, Byun Baekhyun—”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m leaving.” And then, faint footstep noises follows, growing fainter, and fainter, until there’s barely any noise.

Neither talks until they’re certain Baekhyun has disappeared from behind the door.

“Your friend’s really cute.” [Name] is the first to speak up again while she’s wrapping Chanyeol’s ankle with what seems to be a cast, and it’s light, the tone she uses. So fortunately for him, she’s not mad or upset.

But he doesn’t focus much on what she’s doing or even dwell too long on how she feels. Because the fact that she decides to talk about Byun Baekhyun and his annoying antics and label them as ‘cute’ really brings a great sense of disappointment to Chanyeol. Not towards her or Baekhyun, but more so towards himself, he who can’t grab the attention of girls’ as easily as Baekhyun and his confidence can get a girl’s number or name.

Life continues to suck for Park Chanyeol, what a surprise.

“Not in a way that I’d date him, god no,” and the pouty Chanyeol perks up almost immediately, eyes wide and glued almost too strongly on her and the way she smiles at him, so soft and kind and tinkling with mirth, “I wouldn’t be able to handle him, I think. I meant in a way like: he reminds me of my annoying younger cousin, who’s also cute.”

Chanyeol is visibly relieved when she says it. Silence breeze by like wind on an autumn day, with only the noise of [Name] still working to wrap his ankle meticulously filling in as the small crackle of noise that signifies the warmth that permeates the air around them. In that moment of Baekhyun-less tranquility, Chanyeol wonders if this would be the perfect timing to buck up and ask her. He hesitates for a short while, and starts playing with his own fingers and biting his lips, before— “and what about me?”

[Name] looks up at him with a raised eyebrow.

Chanyeol responds with a barely managed out sentence: “Which category of cute do I fall in?”

He thinks it’s a mistake as soon as he says it, because she stops herself from attending to Chanyeol to blankly stare at the sheets, a reaction that can’t mean good. But it’s only because she is caught, in a barely strung together net thrown without much consideration, but somehow, she still manages to get caught in it, in that question of his. Surely he must know, or at the very least, be able to guess her answer. And she’s contemplating whether she should just play dumb or to just say it out loud, for it’s not as if the attraction she feels towards him is unclear, it just remains unspoken: a horribly kept secret.  

[Name] is too wrapped up in her own head that she actually forgot to formulate any answer and leaving Chanyeol a mess of taut nerves.

God damn it, Chanyeol can’t believe that he’s actually regretting sending Baekhyun away. Well, at least with him around—despite the inevitable humiliation that will be brought upon Chanyeol—Chanyeol isn’t going to be the one to embarrass himself by asking such stupid questions that has probably freaked her out too much, which would explain why she’s not answering.

“It’s um.. the other kind of cute.”

Wait..what?

And [Name], she somehow manages to surprise him, and herself. Both heads turn up at the initial shock of her unexpected response, finding themselves in a stare off of awkward gazes: shaking and wary and unsure, but somewhere deeper is a strong sense of hope and something that increasingly flutters.

“I mean—” [Name] clears her throat and stands up almost too quickly, which Chanyeol can’t help but be happy about, for it is her embarrassment that blooms hopefulness in him.

She reaches for a pillow on the floor and carefully sets it under Chanyeol’s wrapped foot. Before giving a chance for Chanyeol to speak, [Name]’s already fumbling to put her items back in her box, fingers clumsily moving against one another and doing more damage than good, which results in her pout and silent curses. Chanyeol chuckles at this sight.

With a flick of her slightly messy hair and a light tap to her foot, [Name] finally turns to Chanyeol, all packed up and neat.

“Well, I better get going—” and the rest of her sentence falls on deaf ears, Chanyeol is guilty of not listening, yet, he can’t bring himself to care, not when he now knows that he has a chance with seeing more of her in his everyday, of possibly having someone to hold, of possibly kissing her? Gosh, he’s such a desperate sap.

“—Chanyeol are you listening?”

Chanyeol nods his head with a smile, despite having not listening to what she’s been saying. [Name] now seems rather miffed at Chanyeol’s obvious lie. But she only sigh, as if expecting it, and then makes her way to the door.

“Just remember to treat your leg with RICE, okay? If you need me for anything else, you can find me on the campus building across the street.” She rattles her box of supplies and turns herself around, but this time, Chanyeol actually listens to what she says, and his response comes almost too suddenly.

“Wait, campus building across the street? You mean...you’re a nursing major here? In the very same campus as me?” Chanyeol almost can’t believe this luck of his, for this is too good to be true.

There’s a small, almost mocking smile on her face when she replies, “Didn’t realize you were so slow, Chanyeol. I mean, I do work in the cafe near the other campus building.”

She does a small wave when her one foot steps out the door, but Chanyeol can’t let her leave just like that without:

“Thank you! And I think you’re cute too! You know, the kind you’d want to date.”

He doesn’t know where his spurt of confidence comes from, but he likes it, likes the elation and excitement that it brings him. And he hopes [Name] likes it as much as he does too, because he doesn’t know what that small giggle she does when she leaves means, but he hopes it means good.

If it isn’t for Chanyeol’s dongsaeng Jongin—who happens to own a pair of crutches courtesy of his broken leg two summers ago—Chanyeol would have to resort to other, cheaper, and undoubtedly, more humiliating way, in order to walk.

It’s only been three days since [Name] visited him, and three whole days it takes for him to find out [Name]’s schedule, three whole days it takes to build up his courage and endure Baekhyun’s taunting of his lack of balls for delaying their meeting for so long, three whole days to finally enter this side of the campus building and be faced to faced immediately with someone strolling along a body bag past him as if it’s normal.

A refreshing sight to look at in the morning.

Thanks to his friend Yixing who shares part of this campus building with nursing majors, Chanyeol is aware that at this time of a Saturday, she’d be in the cafeteria just about to grab breakfast. Chanyeol hobbled towards the cafeteria with a reserved smile—one that has [Name]’s name written all over it—of nervous happiness trying to pass for something charming.

But Chanyeol’s bad luck always catches up to him and his life too quick for him to react appropriately to. In hindsight, perhaps carrying a bag worth the weight of three bags of rice while he’s on crutches and walking an unfamiliar path isn’t the wisest decision. But Chanyeol always realizes too late his mistakes. And the students milling past him, occupied with stacks of books and papers and coffee cups and eye bags for days forces him to not ask for help and be any more of a bother to anyone.

As Chanyeol finally reach the dull grey cafeteria doors, he settles the bags of rice down on the floor to free his other hand and open the door for himself. But, again—fortunately less painfully, though still equally embarrassing—Chanyeol finds himself getting slammed with another door, one that lands him back on his butt.

“Ah, shit!”

Chanyeol does nothing to get up immediately, or do anything to let out the clotting annoyance at whoever had just pushed the door—and himself—open from the other side. He can only sigh and attempt to pick up the fallen crutches at his side wordlessly, acting almost too apathetic about his inevitable bad luck.

“Chanyeol!” His head turns almost too quickly, too eager and too knowing of that voice.

Because that voice, despite how little he’s heard of it, is familiar and encompassed in tenderness and warmth he’s dreamed of hearing for the past three days.

She crouches down to his level and picks up the fallen crutches at his side too quickly for him to process that he was knocked down by a door because of her again. Not that he minds, of course. There are strands of hair falling over her face, messy and tangled but somehow through the panicked look on her face, lack of color due to the haziness still surrounding her and her messy state of hair, Chanyeol is still breathless.

“Let me help you up.” She offers him her hand, but is almost pulled down along with him by the force he pulls himself upright with.

[Name] settles the crutches under Chanyeol’s arms and dusts off his shoulders, forcing on a smile that still holds onto the guilt over smacking him with a door for the second time.

“I’m so sorry—”

“It’s cool. I’m just lucky it was you who knocked me over with the door again, and not some stranger. That’ll probably be extra embarrassing.” He scratches the back of his ear as he speaks, awkward and adorably out of place.

[Name] tilts her head, lips twitching mischievously.

“Lucky, you say? So, maybe I bring you good luck, huh? Like a good luck charm sort of thing.”

Chanyeol shouldn’t feel this dumbstruck over a light teasing like that—his best friend is Byun Baekhyun after all, perhaps the epitome of misfits and playful teasings. But when she says it, when she directs it at him and elbows at his side lightly and brush her arm with his, Chanyeol feels unnecessarily flustered.

“I-I’ve never had a good luck charm before.” Chanyeol attempts to take the bag of rice from the floor to carry on his fingers, however, [Name] has beaten him to it.

But her first attempt on lifting it nearly fails because of how she underestimates its weight. She blinks, peeks inside, then takes the plastic bag with two hands this time. Chanyeol lets out a sound of protest—something like whining, but in a deeper baritone—but he can’t do much with both his hands and his god damn foot busy.

“Well, now you have one!” Chanyeol feels his cheeks warm up too quickly for his liking.

She takes the lead and direct herself to a more secluded part of the large hallway as to not get in people’s way, with Chanyeol hobbling along as fast as he can. [Name] puts down the bag of rice and stares at it with so much question once they found a nice corner to rest in, yet, there’s also mirth in the way she laughs softly before asking:

“So what are you doing out here carrying three bags of rice? Are you planning a cookout with your friends in this building?” She asks, hand on her hip.

Chanyeol shakes his head, rather perplexed that she wouldn’t know why he came all this way with bags of rice when she’s the one who told him to.

“Um, you told me to treat my foot with rice, remember? So I just wanted to make sure I got the right type of rice and brought these—”

“Wait, what?” She giggles into her palm, shoulders shaking, eyes crinkling, and Chanyeol is again, flustered, for two different yet nevertheless heart thundering reasons as he watch her.

Did he say something funny?

“Wow, you didn’t listen to me at all, did you?” That’s not at all true, in fact, Chanyeol is certain he can hear her talk all day and never get bored of it.

“What? Of course I did! But...maybe, um, I sort of drifted off on some of your words back then..” Now that he remembers it, he did blank out for awhile.

“Am I that boring?” She crosses her arms over her chest, with a pout that is not at all fair to use on poor Chanyeol’s heart.

“No! No—god, no. My brain sorta just...started thinking about you..and I..well..” Neither expects the raw truth in his confession, and are both stunned to momentary silence.

She clears her throat, fortunately, a few seconds after, which really relieved Chanyeol, because if she had taken longer to say something, Chanyeol might just combust out of nervousness.

“When I said, rice, I meant it as an acronym: RICE. It’s the standard steps you use to take care of something like your foot: Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation, and not soaking your foot with actual rice.” Chanyeol is mortified.

Never has he felt the urge to be swallowed into an empty void and disappear from reality and all its responsibilities and its uncomfortable consequences more than he does now. Not when he came to class without preparing for the quiz he forgot, not when Baekhyun had accidentally let his feelings for his crush slip to the entire school in high school, not any of those. But now, that urge is stronger than ever, towing along a sense of humiliation.

Damn, his bad luck is really biting hard at his ass this week.

“You’re so cute..what am I going to do with you?” He jerks his head up, his already large eyes presses themselves to open wider to express his surprise.

Because she’s giggling at him, but not for the reason he thinks.

Or, did he heard wrong?

“You could, um...maybe, not speak of this to anyone? Especially Baekhyun.” [Name] still can’t let go of the amused smile on her face, and if anything, it only stretches wider when she looks at him.

Chanyeol feels completely better in a matter of seconds.

“Of course I won’t. Promise. But, only if you don’t say anything about me slamming you with a door, again.” Chanyeol draws a cross over his left chest where his heart is.

“But seriously, all this trouble just to ask me about rice? You could just text me if you’re unsure. It must’ve been really hard for you to walk all the way here on crutches while carrying these.” She kicks at the bag of rice.

Chanyeol shrugs, ruffling through the messy tangles of unkempt dark hair to soothe his nervousness.

“Well, I needed a reason to see you.”

And Park Chanyeol might not know it, or even believe it if anyone will tell him, but truly, Park Chanyeol is too sweet and adorable to not be able to win any girl’s affection. Especially with eyes so pure and innocent, and words so simple yet heartfelt.

[Name] can’t help but silently gasp at this man, too good to be true, yet so frustratingly unaware of it.

“I don’t know Baek..I don’t think that, ‘you fascinate me more than fundamental theorem of calculus’ is even considered a pick up line.”

Baekhyun chews sloppily at the fried chicken that Chanyeol ordered on the small kitchen counter, pointedly scrutinizing at Chanyeol laying sprawled on his bed.

“Well, do you find her more interesting than calculus?”

“Well, obviously—” Baekhyun throws his hands in the air, with an expression of ignorant confusion that stuns Chanyeol into silence.

“Look,” Baekhyun makes a dramatic effort to cross the dorm from the small counter to sit on the edge of Chanyeol’s bed, “instead of forcing me to find elaborate ways for you to ask her out, have you ever considered just straight out going: ‘hey! I like you, wanna go on a date with me?’”

Chanyeol scoffs, but it’s not completely out of denial for Baekhyun’s words, and more so to not give Baekhyun the satisfaction of being remotely close to being right. And Chanyeol began to wonder, if all this time he’s been over thinking things with [Name], and that Baekhyun—despite how unreliable and often stupid he is—might be right about the approach he needs to take.

Should he risk listening to Baekhyun and just go for it?

“Do you think..that’ll work?”

Baekhyun shrugs his shoulders, with it, comes a cough that racks his body quite violently, choking on the chicken he chewed too quickly.

“You’ll never know until you try, right? Besides, with a simple approach like that, what’s the worse thing that could happen?” Chanyeol wonders that too.

He convinces himself and Baekhyun that he’ll ask her out by Monday. But then the day rolled around and went ignored like a tumbleweed, and Baekhyun feels further and further frustrated for having such a coward for a friend.

So, when the coward won’t take a step forward, Baekhyun will have to trip him forward. Literally.

“Look who’s here~ 3 o’clock.” Chanyeol turns his head to the right.

“Um, who?” Baekhyun sighs and tugs Chanyeol’s head to the left, hand wounding over his shoulder.

“I said 3 o’clock dumbass.” Chanyeol has to squint to see clearly over the distance, his glasses laying forgotten by his bedside.

But when his eyes can finally make out a faintly detailed silhouette of a girl in grey sweaters, Chanyeol gulps.

“Ah, [Name]...” Baekhyun senses the anxiousness and hears the shake in his voice.

And he’s quick enough to press down hard on Chanyeol’s shoulders to keep him in place, making the taller boy wince.

“Dude—”

“Hey! [Name]!” The way he shouts and the over the top way in which he waves his hand catches most of the student’s eyes in the college’s park.

Including the girl who’s name was called.

Chanyeol struggles under Baekhyun’s arm, elbowing and pinching at his ribs to try and break free. [Name] is approaching them, and Chanyeol doesn’t know if Baekhyun will behave enough to not humiliate him. But by Baekhyun’s mischievous smile and the faux innocent crinkle he has around his crescent shaped eyes, Chanyeol knows Baekhyun’s going to try and meddle into his business. As always.

She is bathed in brightness, soaking up the sun’s radiance without even realizing how much she’s burning him with every step she takes closer, and closer. Chanyeol feels the rush in his veins, unexplainable but delightfully exhilarating whenever she’s around him.

Baekhyun pulls his arm away from over Chanyeol’s shoulder and nudges him hard on his shoulder blade, pushing him forward and landing him on his feet.

“Go—”

“No! What are you—”

“Dude, seriously?”

“Yes. seriously—”

“If you don’t start talking to her she might actually think that she did something wrong.”

“But she didn’t—”

“Exactly! Now go.”

Baekhyun shoves Chanyeol away, after his incessant attempt to punch and elbow Baekhyun out of annoyance, he relents and meets her halfway with forceful strides and an awkward smile. She doesn’t notice, fortunately, by the lack of shift on her expression.

Chanyeol waves again as the distance between them blurs closer, but he is too preoccupied with keeping eye contact with her to notice that Baekhyun has been trailing closely behind him, so when he sticks his foot forward while Chanyeol takes a step, the man tumbles to the ground on his knees with the grace of long and flailing twigs: “Ugh!”

And back on the ground he goes—what is this, the third time this has happened?

“Chanyeol!” [Name] picks up the pace of her steps and kneels down before him.

He groans, feeling the skin on his knees sting and the grains of rocks digging into his skin. Chanyeol is too tired of the continuous bad luck befalling him to stand back up and pretend as if it’s alright. No, instead, Chanyeol pushes himself off his knees and falls on his butt, sitting on the ground.

“Baek! What the hell did you do that for?” Chanyeol looks over his shoulder, spotting the said man grinning far too wide to be innocent, just a couple of ways behind him.

Oh, so he was tripped. By his own guiltless best friend. What a jerk.

“Sorry, my bad. But now I guess you can tell that Chanyeol’s fallen for you!” A wink, and then he scuttles away like a little kid, giddy and excited for a reason that’s not very apparent to [Name].

But it is apparent to Chanyeol, and he senses dread tugging heavy on his heart when her attention returns to him, very much confused.

“Your friend is an odd one.” She laughs.

Chanyeol makes no gesture to agree or disagree. He clears his throat and folds his knees over his chest, tucking himself as if he’s something small. [Name] finds it adorable.

“Um..yeah..listen, [Name], I have something to ask you.”

She peeks through lashes filtered by light, there’s a spark in her eyes that emits warmth like the flame of a candle, a small thing it is, but in this close distance, Chanyeol can’t help but be the one to feel small under her gaze. He curse himself, for he should’ve known by now that looking into her eyes will ruin him. But he can never resist the temptation to stare.

“Chanyeol? Are you alright?” Her hand is back on his shoulder in the way that they first meet: him confused and bleeding, her concerned and still with the same capability to wrench his heart.

“Caramel frappucino. With whip cream.” He says in one breath.

Oh no.

He has the inexplicable urge to slap himself at that moment, for apparently, thinking back to the first time they met has screwed his mind over, and he unconsciously says the coffee he ordered on their first meeting instead of asking her to go for coffee.

[Name] draws her eyebrows down, unsure what he means by that.

“Um...do you want one right now? We can drop by together if you’d like. It’s not my shift right now, but I guess—”

“No!”

[Name] blinks.

Chanyeol’s face shifts into many different emotions at once: frustration, nervousness, somewhere between flustered and disbelief, and then one of defeat.

“I just…” he sighs, long and deep, “wanted to be the one to ask you out for a coffee date. Not the other way around. Seriously, I’m such a loser, I’ve been building up the courage to ask you out for weeks now, and in the end it was you who ended up asking me out. Agh, this is so embarrassing. Baekhyun’s right, I’m—”

He feels it light and soft, as if his lips are pecked by a flower petal, it happens too short for him to process, but enough to have him wanting more of it. Chanyeol blinks, trying to wake himself up from this dream, for it is only in his dream would this girl he’s been vying for to kiss him just like that for no good reason.

She giggles. And the sound is as clear as a river’s roaring current, but it is smooth and light like taking a bite out of sweetness itself. Chanyeol knows that even in dreams, he can’t make up the sound of her giggle as beautiful as this. He isn’t dreaming.

Wait, she kissed me?

“Well, lucky for you, I happen to like this loser who doesn’t have the guts to ask me out. Somehow, he fails to see just how cute he is. And technically, I never said that I was taking you out on a date. So, you’re good.”

Chanyeol almost doesn’t believe her, because the smile on her face is something entirely new — it is a timid smile, one that’s never been shown to him before — and the way she avoids his eyes makes him feel suspicious. Yet it all suddenly suddenly makes more sense once he sees her tug at the sleeves of her sweater — she is nervous. Chanyeol feels happiness suffocating him when he looks back into her eyes. Because for once, she is nervous because of him.

“Though, since you did make me wait for like three weeks, I believe this time, the coffee’s on you.” Chanyeol’s grin grows gradually wider, and once it’s reached as far as it can get, his eyes disappear and crinkles form on its side.

“I’m cute, huh? Well..I’m not going to complain...much.” [Name] mirrors his grin with another, but smaller, less confident and more flustered.

“And I guess that’s only fair too.” He picks himself up from the ground, holding his hand out to pull her with him as well.

For once, his clumsy limbs and bad luck hasn’t done anything to ruin this moment, and his confidence only spike even more when she didn’t let go of his hand, even as they’re already standing back up on their feet.

The breeze whisks past them, blowing browned leaves, with the smell of fresh papers and worn books that is the scent of their college surrounds the air. Chanyeol still doesn’t want to let go of her hand, and from the looks of it, neither does she.

“So..coffee?” Chanyeol smiles, bright and wonderful and not at all burdened by any of his worries.

“Ah, right.” Chanyeol hides the frown when [Name] lets go of her hand and walks past him to lead the way.

But Chanyeol follows suit quickly, walking by her side like he’s meant to be there all along. And god, does it feel good to actually get to the stage that he’s been imagining for weeks. Perhaps he should thank Baekhyun as well when he returns? Or perhaps should he rub it in his face about the second date that he’ll take her to after this?

She stumbles, out of nowhere, and Chanyeol staggers in his steps, mind centered again as he reach out a hand to her quickly.

“Whoa, are you alright?” [Name] glance down at the ground, spotting a long crack that the tip of her shoe was caught in.

“Ah..I tripped.” Chanyeol scrunches his nose, thinking.

“That’s odd..usually I’d be the one to fall over a crack.” He looks down at his shoes to see that he’s stepped on the crack too, but it didn’t make him trip the way it did to her. Odd.

“Is it quite possible that you’ve transferred your bad luck to me when I declared myself your good luck charm?” [Name] turns her head to him, glaring in playful accusation.

Chanyeol laughs, loud and beautiful and body shaking from joy.

“If that might be it, are you going to leave me?” He pouts, a sight too adorable to be able to be done by a man as hot as he is.

[Name] has to look away to hide her blush from witnessing such a beautiful sight: of Chanyeol smiling and pouting and showing her more confidence than she has ever seen, something she’s eager to see more of.

She hums, “Well, with someone like you along the way, bad luck doesn’t seem like such a bad thing.”

Chanyeol nearly chokes on his own spit.

Damn, that was smooth as hell.

Hopefully, he’ll actually make it through this first date.

[monotype-on-phantom]

My Best Girl Jazz Fenton

Or at least I’d say she’s probably my favorite human character.

My Brother’s Keeper is easily one of my favorite episodes, and part of that has to do with the contrast between Jazz and Spectra and what interesting foils they can be for each other.

Warning this one actually did get very image heavy because I love Jazz.

While Spectra uses psychology to hurt people for her own needs, Jazz has a passion for using it to help others. Even in the first episode, she’s shown having a talk with another kid trying to help him to open up to his parents, and the majority of her priorities center around making sure her brother is safe and cared for. She’s incredibly flawed, of course. She can be a busybody and she thinks she knows more than she often does, but she really is a very kindhearted girl, and I really don’t think there’s anyone who loves Danny more than she does.

Right from the very first scene she’s in, we can get a pretty good idea of what Jazz is like. She thinks of herself as a mature adult who’s more responsible than her parents, she really hates their obsession with ghosts, and she’s very protective toward her little brother.

It’s easy to see why Danny considers her annoying. She always believes she knows best and as a result, she can be bossy and overbearing. There’s also the insecurity that Danny feels because she’s such a brilliant student and his grades have never been the best. Especially in My Brother’s Keeper, though, it’s also easy to see where Jazz is coming from.

Jazz does love her family, but she feels that her parents’ obsession gets in the way of their role as parents, and she’s not wrong. As the older child, she feels it’s her responsibility to look after Danny and make sure he isn’t hurt by their parents in any way.

She’s not perfect, but she does her best.

My Brother’s Keeper is episode 9. Jazz finds out about Danny’s ghost powers before we even hit the double digits, and it’s because she was concerned about him and was the only person who didn’t know Danny’s secret and noticed that something was wrong. She even managed to hit the nail on the head when it came to what might be the cause.

Jazz is the only one outside of the trio who ever mentions the portal accident, and that’s huge. That means that, despite what Memory Blank seems to say, the accident wasn’t a secret. The family, or at least Jazz, knows that he went into the ghost portal and was hurt in some way. We don’t know any of the details (whether he had to go to the hospital or anything), but Jazz gets especially pushy and concerned because Danny was actually hurt by one of their parents’ inventions. And when he starts acting strange, she notices, and wants to reach out and help him.

She starts by trying to get him to talk to the therapist in school (Spectra), likely due to her faith in psychology, but she doesn’t leave it there. She continues trying to be there for him, despite the fact that he’s beyond annoyed with her at this point. She even notices his shivering due to his ghost sense, a minor detail that most people never comment on.

Honestly, with how observant and persistent she is, it was probably inevitable that she’d find out his secret. Danny’s not always the most careful when transforming, probably due to the fact that he’s not really someone people pay much attention to, but he’s Jazz’s number one priority, and when she’s already worried, walking in on him was going to happen at some point.

The scene afterward where she talks to Danny is one of my favorites. At first she’s a little hesitant since she doesn’t really know what’s going on, but after confirming that yeah, this is still Danny, she sits down and talks to him, letting him know that she knows how she comes across sometimes, but that she’s there for him and he can always talk to her. It even seems like he’s actually willing to open up to her until their parents start talking about destroying ghosts again.

Even then, she’s perfectly understanding of why he wouldn’t want to talk to his family, and she just continues silently supporting him until he’s ready to tell her himself.

Danny doesn’t find out Jazz knows until TUE, which is almost an entire season later. The whole time, Jazz simply supports him in any way she can. She makes sure he has places to hide so he can transform, watches to make sure he’s safe (especially from their parents), and covers for him when she can. And if her brother’s in danger, she’ll grab whatever she can and fight to keep him safe.

Then there’s this scene.

I’ve seen a few people complain about this, saying that acting afraid of Danny (running away and screaming “ghost!”) was more harmful than helpful, but I don’t think that’s the case. At least not for Danny, and Jazz knows that. If Jazz saw him as a threat, she’d shoot him with the Fenton Peeler, and I think Danny’s aware of that. Instead, she makes sure he’s okay, then uses the “oh no it is a scary ghost!” as a cover before assuring him that she knows he’s not bad by saying “you’d better go.”

And Danny’s relieved.

Even though he’s changed a lot, I think Jazz knows her brother enough to know he’s far more worried about accidentally being outed right now than the idea of someone thinking he’s a spooky ghost. He hasn’t gotten a reputation yet, and I imagine he’s hesitant to interact with humans much as Phantom at this point. Had he needed some reassurance, I’m sure Jazz would’ve provided that, and she does whenever she can while he’s in human form. She just keeps her distance from Phantom because that’s what he wants.

Once all the cards are on the table and Danny knows that she knows, though, she becomes Danny Phantom’s #1 fan, and I think that’s freaking adorable.

There is nothing in the world purer than Jazz’s scrapbook, I swear. It’s one of the few truly great additions to season 3. Even Tucker, Sam, and Danny himself will sometimes play along with the whole “Danny Phantom is evil” idea, but not Jazz. She’s always standing up for him against their parents, hoping to both show her brother support and perhaps sway her parents.

Jazz got a decent amount of screen time in the first two seasons, and I do love the arc she has with her brother (it’s one of the best in the show), but I honestly wish we got to see more of her personal life. In Reality Trip, she uses her knowledge of psychology to get into Freakshow’s head and is vital to defeating him in the end. I would’ve loved to see more of that, drawing parallels to how Jazz uses psychology and how Spectra does it, and showing contrast between their motives.

There are also a couple of instances that imply Jazz does have friends, such as when she makes plans with someone in Maternal Instinct and when she tells Spectra “my friends call me Jazz,” though we never see any friends of hers. It seems that both Danny and Jazz were pretty negatively affected by their parents’ work, but we don’t see much about Jazz’s problems.

And how interesting would it’ve been to see Jazz’s ghost envy come into play later on? It’s shown that she was able to relate to Freakshow, and while part of that was playing with him, she does have plenty of reason to have those feelings. Jazz never got to be a villain like the main trio did. I would’ve loved to see Jazz teaming up with Freakshow after being corrupted in some way and turning on her brother in ways she never would. It would’ve been an amazing way to explore her character further.

But I could go on all day about the what ifs with Jazz, and this has gotten long enough, so I’ll save that all for some other posts. I think this is enough to explain why I love Jasmine Fenton so much. At least for now.

[five-rivers]

Interview with a Ghost (part 4: Strange)

Sort of a tenuous connection to the prompt.  Oh, well.  

(PART 1) (PART 2) (PART 3)

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.

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They had asked the Fenton parents for an interview with Daniel Fenton to ask him about things he might have seen at school. They had agreed, heartily, but had insisted on staying because 'the kids are a little biased towards Phantom, teens, you know,' and they wanted to keep the record straight.

The other two children had, with extreme reluctance, gone home. His sister, however, had refused to leave, saying that she knew just as much about things at the school as Danny, and they might as well question her at the same time. Collins couldn't really argue with that, and he had elbowed Paterson when she tried.

Daniel looked very small and meek against the large armchair he was perched on. Nothing at all like Phantom, who projected personality and confidence even when nervous.

Collins could see how he had gotten away with... whatever he had gotten away with... for so long. He still wasn't entirely convinced that Fenton was Phantom. It seemed pretty incredible, and there wasn't any physical evidence. Especially with the body gone.

Paterson took out a pad of paper and a recorder. "Do you mind if I record this?" she asked. "For record keeping purposes."

"Not at all!" said Jack, grinning. "We're glad to be of help!"

Daniel looked at the recorder as if he thought he'd be ill. He looked pale. Almost green. Was that because he was a ghost, or was he really just that nervous?

"Alright," said Collins. "Do you see Phantom around Casper High?"

"Not really," said Daniel.

"Everyone does," said Jasmine.

The siblings glanced at each other.

"I try to stay away from the ghost fights," said Daniel, shrugging.

"Yes. Your classmates seem to think that you have some kind of sixth sense, as you always leave class right before an attack."

Daniel's eyebrows pinched together in genuine confusion. "They think what?" He shook his head. "I just leave when I need to go," he said.

Paterson looked up from her notepad. "Go as in...?"

"You know, go," said Daniel, a blush dusting his features with pink.

"I see," said Paterson. Daniel blushed harder.

"Have you ever spoken to Phantom?" asked Collins.

"Yes," said Jasmine, crisply, to murmurs of disapproval from her parents. "He saved me from from Spectra. The ghost who masqueraded as a psychologist."

"I remember that," said Paterson. "Old Elroy had that case." It was from before the existence of ghosts had been widely accepted, even in Amity Park. "You were one of her victims?"

"I'm the one she tried to blow up."

"Ah," said Collins. "And what did you talk about?"

"With Spectra?"

"With Phantom."

"Nothing much," said Jasmine. "Not that I remember, anyway. It was over a year ago."

"Try to remember," said Collins.

Jasmine shrugged. "I think it was basically just agreeing that Spectra was terrible."

"Have you had any other interactions with Phantom?"

"None worth mentioning," said Jasmine.

What a strange way to phrase that. Collins decided not to call her on it, yet. Even with Paterson pointedly poking his ankle with her toe.

"Daniel, what about you?"

"It's Danny," the boy corrected. "I've never really talked to him. Unless you want to count things like 'look out!'"

"Nothing about his origins, then?"

"No?" said Danny.

"Have you heard anything about his origins from anywhere else?"

"We already told you about that," interrupted Maddie, frowning. "His origins are unknown, but he's existed for hundreds of years, at a minimum."

"Yes, but we'd like to hear from Danny and Jasmine," said Collins, giving Maddie his best professional smile. He turned back to Danny, expectantly.

"Someone once told me they thought he was a plague doctor, but, like, updated. I don't remember who, though."

"Right," said Collins. "Now, we'd like you to think back to about two years ago. Call it late summer, early fall. Did anything strange happen around that time?"

"Yeah," said Danny. "The Lunch Lady attacked the school for the first time. I don't remember the exact date, but it was right before the meat-vegetable protests."

"It was that early?" asked Collins, surprised. "That's months before the first recorded attack! Are you sure there was a ghost?"

"Pretty sure, yeah," said Danny, crossing his arms.

"Hey! That's about when we saw Phantom for the first time!" exclaimed Jack.

"Is it?" asked Collins.

"Yeah! He stole our prototype Fenton thermos! I still don't understand how he got it working." The last was a grumble.

"Interesting. And did anything strange happen other than that? Anything out of the norm?"

"Well," said Maddie, thoughtful, "we got our portal working about a month before that. Danny did, anyway."

"Did he? How?"

"Knocked a loose wire back into place!" boomed Jack, laughing. "That's my boy."

Danny's face was whey-colored again. Interesting.

Oh, hell. The portal definitely had something to do with all of this, didn't it.

"How does your portal work, exactly, anyway?"

"Excellent question!"

Fifteen minutes later, Collins had no better idea of how their portal worked except that it involved a great deal of ectoplasm and electricity, both of which they had found on the corpse. He couldn't help but think that he had finally discovered how Phantom had died.

And hearing Jack and Maddie, the boy's parents talk about the portal with such obvious pride while Danny squirmed in the armchair, looking for an escape...

"Thank you," said Collins, quickly, while Jack drew a breath. "I think that's all we need for today."

"But-" started Paterson.

"It's really all we need," repeated Collins. He saw Danny relax, marginally. "Just one more thing. Do you know anything about the break in at the city morgue last night?"

Various expressions flicked over the Fentons' faces. Jack's and Maddie's were blank. Danny's was was angry. Jasmine's was, surprisingly, guilty.

Did she steal the body? Collins would have never guessed it. The image she presented was too neat and mannered.

"Was it a ghost?" asked Maddie. "I'm afraid we can't do anything about it, otherwise."

"Right," said Collins. "We'll contact you if that evolves to be the case. And-"

"Oh, I can't take it anymore!" exclaimed Paterson. She pointed at Danny. "Are you Phantom?"

Danny jumped about a foot. "Wh-What? Nooooooooo. No, I'm not Phantom. I'm alive, aren't I?"

Damn. If that wasn't all but a confession.

The other Fentons started to laugh. The adults heartily. Jasmine uneasily.

"You've been listening to what's-his-name, haven't you? The West boy?"

"Weston," corrected Maddie. "No matter how many times we explained things to him..." She sighed. "I think there's something wrong with him, to be honest. But just to assuage your doubts..." She stood up and walked over to Danny. "Danny, do you mind."

"Nope," said Danny, standing up and holding out his wrist.

Maddie beckoned the detectives forward. "Here," she said, "feel this." She tapped her fingers on Danny's wrist.

"Go ahead," said Danny, staring up at him with a mix of apprehension and determination.

Collins put his fingers on Danny's wrist, on his pulse point. Danny's skin was smooth and cool, but not at all corpselike, or what Collins imagined a ghost would feel like.

"I have a pulse," said Danny. "Ghosts don't." Sure enough, Collins' fingers detected a slow but steady thump thump thump.

Maddie nodded. "Their closest equivalent is more of a constant rush. I could explain the science... but you were just leaving."

"Yes. Sorry about that. My partner can be a bit susceptible to conspiracy theories. I had to talk her out of hiring a psychic, once."

"Thank goodness you did," said Maddie, smiling. "Almost all psychics are fake."

.

"They don't believe it," said Danny, watching the detectives pull away from the curb below from the window of his room.

"Mom and dad? Of course not," said Jazz. "They won't believe you're Phantom unless you show them outright."

"No, the detectives. They don't believe I'm human. They still think I'm Phantom."

"Danny," said Jazz, cautiously. "Don't do anything rash."

"It isn't like I can make this any worse," said Danny. "I'm going to talk to them."

.

"What was that?" complained Paterson. "I never tried to hire a psychic!"

"Yeah, but you did agree that we wouldn't out Phantom in front of his parents. He said he doesn't want his family to know about him, and I don't want an angry ghost trying to throttle me! He can bench press a bus! I don't want his hands anywhere near my throat." He inhaled deeply and sighed. "At least we know what did him in."

"Do you?" asked a very cold voice.

It was a testament to Collins' steely nerves and rigorous police training that he didn't immediately crash the car upon finding a ghost in the back seat. Paterson nearly threw herself out of the car.

"Hi, Phantom," he said, instead, looking at the young ghost in the rear view mirror. "I don't suppose you know what happened to your body."

The ghost scowled. "It wasn't me. I told you to stop messing with stuff."

"Who, then? Your sister?"

Phantom's scowl deepened to something like rage. "Leave her out of this."

"Oh, god, you really are Fenton," said Paterson.

In her defense, Collins hadn't completely believed it, either.

Varied emotions passed over the ghost's face. "Come on, you don't believe Wes, do you?"

"There's other evidence," said Collins, voice wavering just a little. "I don't know how you're keeping up a pulse, or the rest of your human disguise, but you died in that portal, didn't you?"

Phantom was silent for a moment, then he reached through Paterson's chair and neatly plucked her recorder from her jacket, along with her phone. He tossed the phone into the seat next to him and crushed the recorder. Then he started riffling through Collins' pockets.

"Is that really necessary?" asked Collins. He guided the car to the side of the road and put it into park.

"You made it necessary," said Phantom. He pulled out Collins' phone as well and gave it a once over. "Look," he said. "I'm sort of," he paused, "upset that you guys dug up my body and then freaking lost it."

"Lost it-"

"Fine. Got it stolen from you by one of my enemies. One of my most dangerous enemies. Okay? Happy? Are you starting to understand why I wanted this left alone?"

"Are you trying to say that this isn't about your family not knowing you're dead?" asked Collins.

"Of course it's about that!" exclaimed Phantom. "It's just about half a dozen other things at the same time! You knowing about me could get me killed. Knowing about me could get you killed. The only reason Wes isn't dead is because he's completely ridiculous and no one believes him! You're credible!"

"By that enemy you mentioned?" asked Paterson, having regained some composure.

"Yeah," said Phantom. "He's got an interest in it not getting out."

"Why?" asked Paterson.

"Reasons," said Phantom, stubbornly.

"Does he have the same thing going on as you?"

Phantom crossed his arms and shrugged.

"One second," said Collins, "what do you mean, kill you? You're already dead."

"It's a figure of speech," mumbled Phantom. "Either way, the GIW would be more than happy to cut me open. Do you have any idea what they do to ghosts?"

"You- you're not actually dead, are you?" asked Collins. "Holy-"

"Yes, I am," said Phantom, quickly.

"How did you manage the pulse trick, then?"

"Lots of ghosts can do that. My parents don't know everything."

"You're a terrible liar. How the hell does that work? This- Ghost powers while alive?"

"I am dead," repeated Phantom. "How do you explain the body?"

"Half of it was missing," said Paterson.

Silence.

"I'm begging you to let this go," said Phantom. "People are going to get hurt. I'm going to get hurt."

"You don't think we'd let the GIW have you?" asked Paterson.

"I don't think it's a matter of 'let.' I-" he sighed and buried his face in his hands. "Ugh, I can't believe I made this even worse. What are you going to do?"

"We-" said Collins. Honestly, he had no idea. He looked at Paterson, who shrugged. "It isn't up to us, it's up to the captain."

"You can't tell more people!"

"Then you tell him. Come with us," said Paterson. "It's just one more, and he knows all of our suspicions, anyway." That wasn't completely true.

"If you really wanted to convince us not to, you could tell us more about your terrible enemy who may or may not be like you."

Phantom shook his head. "It's not worth it," he said, floating halfway out of his seat. "I'm going home."

"Wait," said Collins. "Your accident- It really was an accident, wasn't it? Your parents didn't-"

Phantom's face scrunched up. "Of course it was an accident. I was messing around someplace I shouldn't have been because of a dare. Are we done, now? Right up until you decide to ruin what's left of my life, anyway."

"Do you have a cell phone?" asked Paterson. "So we can call you, instead of your parents, if necessary." She offered up her notepad.

Phantom jerked it out of her hands and scrawled something on the paper. "Goodbye," he said, shortly, before flying out of the car.

Paterson swore, loudly.

"Yeah," agreed Collins. "Yeah."