#like laugh tracks whenever you get revived

[glitxd-shenanigan]

Scug,,,,

Scungus,,,,,,,,

Hi scungus :)

[iamnotyourgodsherald]

Chapter 2 of Meeting the In Laws!

Contains: NSFW themes. Loving and fluff themes. 18+ only.

Thursday morning came. We packed our bags and donned our crow armor, leaving my crow mask in my bag. I made sure I had my poison vials on my hips and my arrows all accounted for while Lucanis counted his knives. Making sure he had exactly eight of them on him, which he then put on his person.

As we were heading to the Eluvian, we started saying goodbyes to everyone in the Lighthouse. Taash stopped me as Bellara pulled Lucanis to the side, talking to him.

“Trix, hold on.” Taash urged.

“Yeah, Taash?”

I had to crane my neck to look up at her, towering over me like a huge wyvern. Her long white braid hung down in front of her like broken chains, and those intense eyes staring down at me with a small amount of concern behind them. She was massive and glorious, and constantly scared the shit out of me. She could break me, and I’d honestly let her.

“Think you can handle going to meet the family? I mean, who's gonna be there if you pass out again? You know they make supplements for that?”

“You think you’re funny, huh?”

“I know I’m funny. Seriously though, are you going to be okay? These Crows… Sounds like shady shit. I mean, with everything still going on…”

“It’s important to Lucanis and I. Though, I understand your concern. Crows recently don't have the best track record.”

“Yeah well. Try to take it easy while you're there, if you can. Don’t overexert yourself. Emmerich won't be there to revive your ass.”

“Come on, I’ve been embarrassed enough! It’s bad enough you and Davrin make fun of me constantly for it, now Emmerich is playing Mother Hen because of you two.”

Emmerich piped up, rushing over and handing me a satchel of strong smelling plants. Manfred standing close by and peeking out from behind Emmerich.

Noooooooo…

“Take these herbs, Demitrix! Whenever you and Lucanis are about to have intercourse, chew on them thirty minutes before you start!”

I put my hood up and snatched the herbs from Emmerich.

“Thank you, Emmerich…”

“What do the herbs do? Keep him hard?” Taash inquired.

Kill me. Please, Creators. Fucking kill me.

He turned to Taash. “No! Hes young enough where that shouldn't be a problem. Although if that does happen, i have a remedy for that as well. No, These will help him combat the fainting if it remains an issue. There's a special chemical inside the plant that helps with-“”

“Alright, I’m leaving.” I quickly said, turning towards the Eluvian. “I didn’t realize you guys were just gonna talk about this right before we left.”

“Wait! I’m not done bullying you yet! I came up with new jokes! I have a list!” Taash laughed.

“You've been bullying me all week!” I yelled back.

“Remember! Thirty minutes before!” Emmerich giggled.

Manfeed only hissed at me.

“Yeah, what Manfred said.”

“Goodness! Manfred, I didn't even see you there!” Emmerich gasped.

Hissssss

Davrin stepped in, laughing.

“Enough, enough. Demitrix, are you sure about all of this? A place full of assassins. The very thought makes me uneasy. Not that I don’t trust your skills or Lucanis’s. I just… Don’t trust their intentions.” Davrin spoke with concern.

“I appreciate the concern, Dav. I know how the Antivan Crows work but I can’t say I don’t have any reserves about the whole thing. I have a really bad feeling about it. Like… something is lying in wait.” I explain.

“So Why go at all?” Davrin asks, tilting his head. “If you think it'll go sideways, why not bring all of us? I don’t think you should go by yourselves.”

“If it’s important to him, then it’s important to me. I want to go, but I am keeping myself open to the dangers of being around a bunch of high ranking Crows. Trust Lucanis and I to handle it.” I spoke with conviction.

I held my hands up, showing off the rune signatures painted on my nails.

“Besides, I have some precautions in place as well as antidotes. Trust me, I didn’t get this far being an Antivan Crow by chasing tail and partying. I am from Viago de Rivas cell. We are a paranoid bunch, to be sure. You’d be too if you knew the effects that some poisons do… Even after you’ve been given an antidote.”

“What is that?” Davrin said, taking my hand and looking at my nails. “Are these runes painted on you?”

“It's a special kind of paint that has a very tiny pinch of refined lyrium in it. A rune symbol is painted on my nails to dip into drinks and liquids. If the paint feels anything corrosive or poisonous, then the paint will peel off into the drink and melt into the liquid. Coloring it black.”

“That's… Really handy to have”

“That’s why it's an Antivan Crow special. Only for Viago’s faction.” I say, showcasing a smirk. “I am not going into this meeting unless I know I can defend myself.”

Davrin smiled at me and crossed his arms.

“I knew that pretty boy face was hiding some cleverness.” Davrin joked with a chuckle.

I laughed along with him.

“This pretty face has always been clever.”

“How do we contact you? In case we need you guys? I know this is important but we need to be able to contact you in case… things happen. It always does.”

Bellara bounced over, Lucanis rejoining my side.

“With this!” She yelled, holding out a pair of crystal necklaces.

“What is this?” I asked.

She then put it around my neck and then around Davrin.

“These are sending crystals! I found them just sitting around in Minrathous on a bench near a bar! Crazy right? Anyway, if you speak directly into the necklace, the other recipient will hear it and be able to respond to you! As If you guys are standing like… how you are now!”

Davrin looked at me and then lifted the necklace to his mouth.

“In peace, Vigilance.”

Davrins voice came through the crystal, clear.

“Damn! Leave it to Bellara to find a solution to everything.” I said proudly.

Bellara giggled. “I figured after… well, it shouldn't be a problem now! If we need to talk, we can do so easily now!”

I turned towards the Lucanis, tucking the necklace into my leathers.

“Are you ready to go, amore?”

“Very ready. Let us hurry.”

We said our last goodbyes to everyone before going through the mirror leading out into the Crossroads. We got to the Treviso mirror and as the Eluvian closed behind us, the smell of clove and sea salt air hit my face. The soft scents of incense floated from the nearby chantry and I thought longingly of my balcony back home, and with a groan, I started carrying off our bags to the street.

The streets were quiet with a few locals wandering around, the gulls squawking as they flew overhead.

“Wait here, I will find us a carriage.” I spoke up, putting my stuff down. “Can you watch our stuff until I come back?”

He nodded.

“Be safe, amore. I will wait for you.”

I smiled and went off to find a carriage driver while Lucanis stayed to guard our luggage. He's not a social bird and I could probably get us a cheap ride if I “flaunted” my job title. He's not the one for flaunting, more intimidation.

Time rolled by as I went searching and asking around for where a carriage service was and as I finished up talking with a local, something flew by me, and then something was falling softly to the ground. A single black raven feather that shone brilliantly with an irresistible shimmer.

I quickly sprang into action and looked towards the roofs quickly, diving into the shadows of the alleyways. Quickly, I pulled my bow out and notched an arrow, aiming towards the rooftops where the bird flew from. A shadow was seen looking down at me, cape fluttering in the wind. A shiny crow mask adorning their face along with poofy curls peeking out of their hood. They watched me before they turned and disappeared from view.

I see. They are making sure that Lucanis’s and I are on our way. If they meant harm, they would have shot an arrow or threw a dagger. Quiet and subtle. This was loud and a message. “We are watching.”

After taking a minute to look around and nothing happening, I relaxed, taking a breath of relief. I walked over to the feather and picked it up, inspecting it. The feather was marvelously well kept and had no signs of wear or weathering. This was a pet raven, One that was spoiled.

It’s really pretty.. I should give it to Luca! It fits with his look! I always love giving him little trinkets like these.

After tracking down the carriage the local directed me to, I rode it back to Lucanis and helped him with our stuff.

“Luca, I caught a glimpse of an Antivan Crow when I was getting the carriage earlier. They are making damn sure that we know they are watching us.” I spoke in a hushed tone.

“They were making sure we were on our way. Illario is being impatient.”

“This is normal then?”

“For Illario, Of course.” He chuckled.

Lucanis looked focused. This probably felt like he was on a job so he was acting accordingly. Short conversations, his eyes darting around in a cautious manner.

“I have a present for you!”

“For me?” Lucanis said, surprised.

“Yeah! Here.”

I placed the feather in his hand and watched his face, but he seemed confused.

“What is this? Why are you giving me a feather?” He asked, perplexed.

“Oh. I figured you would like it. I thought it was pretty and it fits you… so I just… Nevermind, It was stupid, I’ll take it back and-“

“Don't take it back, I love it.”

“Don't take it back? You seemed so-“

“I LOVE it. I was only confused about why a feather and why this one. Now that I know, It is mine. I want to keep it.”

I smiled and watched as he fiddled with it on his clothes. As we got into the carriage together, I saw he tucked it right behind the vials that are strapped to his chest. I smiled to myself and blushed at him displaying it on himself.

As we started on our carriage ride there, I leaned my head on Lucanis’s shoulder as we rode off. Looking up at him and smiling, I grab a hold of his hand, intertwined my fingers with his and relaxed into him. He must have been tense, for his shoulders lowered and his body relaxed as I squeezed his hand.

“Nervous, mi amore? They’re your family.”

“A family of Crows.”

“Fair, but aren't you more familiar with them? I mean, at least with Illario. They love you-“

“I am not worried for me.”

“You're… worried about me? Please, I can handle a few Crows, darling.”

“I worry about what they have planned for us. For you.”

He cupped my face in his hands, kissing my forehead.

“I don’t want them to scare you away from me.”

“Lucanis…” I purred, holding his hand that was cupping my face. “I love you. They can’t scare me away from you. It’s you and I now. Plus our little family.”

He searched my eyes for a moment, his eyes shaky and searching for something in me. Maybe doubt? Any sign of apprehension? Either way, he must have not found it. He began to calm and leaned his forehead against mine, taking a deep breath, his eyes closed. He squeezed my hand tighter and then pulled me in for a deep kiss, holding the back of my head gently.

I melted so easily to his lips locking onto mine, and closed my eyes. Just letting the world melt away and all of its problems to just Lucanis and I. I enjoyed his romantic heart, even if I was still not used to it. His romance made my chest warm and almost made me feel so… shy. So vulnerable. I was used to more primal urges. This kind of care and love… It was foreign to me.

“I love you, Luca…” I longingly sigh.

“I love you too, Trix…” He said a similar tone.

I kept my face pressed against his, holding us like that for a while before Lucanis kissed my forehead and relaxed, looking out the window. His eyes seemed to focus elsewhere. I could only guess his family was on his mind. More worry. My love’s mind was vast and hard to pin down and it was hard at times to see what exactly was on his mind. I decided to do the same as him and looked out my window, watching as we passed through the Antivan countryside.

Autumn was in full swing in Antiva. Comforting colors of reds and oranges were dotted amongst the rolling hills of the grasslands, blotches of yellowing grass that surrounded the fields of the farms that passed by made only miss the fresh green of spring. Farmers were out with their scythes, getting crops and loading them into carts for the yearly harvest before settling down for winter.

The sea in the distance glittered with the afternoon sun, making it look like a portal to the Maker had opened in the water. It was so tempting to swim in that holy looking water, but given recent events, decided against it.

I wondered to myself whether or not the family gathering would allow me to sneak away to peek at nature. I also haven't swam in a while, and it was still early enough to do so without it being too cold. I lamented that I haven't had the chance to go swimming, being busy with the Veilguard and you know… The whole world ending business. Maybe Where we go will have a nice lake, or a small pool? One could only hope. After a bit, I just fell asleep, dreaming of being away from everything.

A couple of hours passed before the driver spoke up, spooking me out of sleep.

“We are nearing the lake house now, sers!”

“Good.” Lucanis said curtly.

I looked at Lucanis, half awake still and groggy. My hair, draping in front of my face.

“Lake house…?”

“Good evening, Sleeping Beauty.” He laughed.

“Fuck off.” I chuckled back, punching his shoulder. “We’re going to a lake house?”

“Yes, Lago de Novo.”

Oh fuck.

“Isn’t that where…?”

“‘The Great Betrayal’ happened? Yes.”

Great. They are sending a message. Hurt Lucanis and you'll be killed the same way the traitor Talon was. Lago de Novo was where a Talon betrayed and killed most of the other Talons of the Antivan Crows. Dealing a severe blow to the order. While we managed to pick ourselves back up from the incident, people are still weary of talking about it. Especially in front of Viago and Teia. Now, I am about to go there to meet them.

“Boy, your folks really know how to make a man feel welcome…” I jested.

“You know The Crows are dramatic. Illario especially.”

“Yeah well they don't scare me. You know that. Just. Makes me nervous.”

Lucanis shuffled in his seat uneasily for a second, before looking at me with big soft eyes.

“Demitrix… You… You know I am not good at this. For you… I want to try. You DO know if you need to talk to me or tell me something… I will always listen. Right?”

“Of course…? Where did that come from?” I looked at him, confused.

“You…tend to keep things hidden. I just… I want you to trust me. I don't want you to keep it inside. Right now, this level of trust is crucial. You understand?” He said delicately.

“Same goes to you, love.”

“Trix-“

The carriage driver stopped abruptly and hopped down.

“We are here, sers!”

Lucanis gave me a “we will talk about this later” look and I felt my face flush with embarrassment as he got out.

Wow, Demitrix. Way to piss off Luca. Just fucking talk to him!

My fear got the better of me, however, and I got out cracking jokes just as before.

Lucanis and I then grabbed our things and headed over to the black gondola waiting for us by the docks.

“Oh I can't wait! I'll go swimming! Or I could go for a walk? You could cone too! Anything you feel comfortable with! Either way, I am going swimming, autumn be damned.”

Lucanis just seemed to watch me talk as he loaded our things in the boat, a small smile on his face.

“You have always looked adorable when you are excited.” He cooed, walking over and kissing my cheek. “I’ll do whatever you want to do after dinner and introductions. Crows are patient but not for other Crows.”

I nodded at him, keeping a lid on my excitement for now. Lucanis gave a soft chuckle at me and nodded at the gondola driver to start moving across the lake. While Lucanis sat, perfectly poised and noble-like, I dipped my hand into the water, feeling the cold refreshing water against my hand.

“You know this lake is full of carnivorous fish, right?” Lucanis piped up.

“What?!” I yelled, yanking my hand out. “Really?!”

“No.” He smirked before covering his mouth. “Just wanted to see your reaction.”

“You're an ass! No sex for you, tonight.”

“Demitrix!” He barked.

“What?! You tricked me!” I yelled back.

“We are not alone!”

He motioned to the gondola driver.

“And? I'm sure the gondola driver has had lots of sex! Probably have a lot of kids! From having sex!”

“DEMITRIX.” He yelled, exasperated

“What?! Tell him, Have you had lots of sex?” I ask the Driver.

Lucanis just put his head in his hands,

sighing loudly. The driver just stayed quiet and kept his head bowed but I saw his body start to shake as if he was holding back laughter. I gave a smug grin to Lucanis before sitting back.

As we got closer to the shore, we saw a familiar woman in a long black silk dress seemingly waiting by the shore. She had a slit in her dress showing off her long smooth leg and her hair down and poofed out, her long curls swaying in the breeze. As soon as we came up on shore, she rushed over and greeted Lucanis.

“Lucanis! My dear! Glad to see you are still doing well!” She chirped, kissing both his cheeks. “You know, you could always visit, let us know how you are.”

I recognized her as Andarateia Cantori, the Seventh Talon who was as beautiful as she was deadly. She used both her beauty and her assassin skills equally well and quickly gained respect and fear in equal measure within the Crows.

She turned and looked at me, smiling opening her arms out wide to me and pulling me into a hug. I happily greeted her back, keeping my guard up at the same time

“Demitrix! It's been a long time! I can't wait to get to know you more over this weekend. See what Lucanis sees in you and what you see in Mr Grumpy over there. I also hope you've been treating him well.”

“I hope so! Otherwise, Lucanis has some explaining to do.” I laughed, grabbing a hold of Lucanis’s hand. “I cant wait to meet everyone and get closer to the family. This is obviously very important to Lucanis, and what can I say? I am a sucker for those big sad brown eyes.”

“I do not have big sad brown eyes.” Lucanis growled.

“The cutest pair~” I purred.

Teia smiled, giggling a bit.

“You two are so cute! I cannot wait for you to meet everyone else, Demitrix. Lucanis had mentioned that you loved swimming! I am sure you are very excited to be here. We could go swimming together if you wished.”

“Are you kidding? I’d love that! I was over the moon when Lucanis surprised me with it! I have loved the water since I was small!”

Teia smiled a bit brighter. More genuinely than before.

“I am glad you are so excited.” She snickered.

I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Lucanis looked away towards the lake surrounding us. The wind blowing at his hair and armor, making him look like a moody, elegant painting. I must have been staring at him for s minute and not paying attention to Teia because she stepped in front of me, looking at Lucanis and then looking back at me with a mischievous smirk on her ruby red lips.

“You are getting distracted, dear~” She teased.

“Ah! Sorry, hes just… very distracting.~” I sighed longingly, smiling as I watched him. “Verrrry distracting.”

“Hey! Come back to me! You can look at Lucanis later! Come! Let's meet the family!” She chirped quickly, hugging my arm and pulling me in. “Viago! Illario! Lucanis and Demitrix are here!”

Lucanis walked slowly behind us as we approached the building, almost looking like a large dark-furred wolf, watching over me. I looked back at Lucanis, whose intense eyes wandered the villa, looming close to me. We walked inside where I marveled at the look of the place, almost feeling like I was in an Antivan storybook. We were standing in a large open foyer decorated with black marble with dark cherry colored wood accents. Green satin curtains decorated the windows and clung to the floor like a dress. Dark green carpets, Antivan rugs and runners laid across the floors. Leading to a grand set of wooden doors with the Antivan Crows logo on it. A balcony hung over the grand twin doors with silky green banners hanging from the railing. The floors were the same color of dark cherry as well. The hardwood was not even creaking as we stepped in, The only thing heard was Teia’s heels clicking on the floor as she walked forward, yelling for everyone.

“She's very loud and quite flamboyant. I like her. It'll be nice not being the only elf in a house full of humans as well.” I whispered towards Lucanis.

“I knew you’d like her.” Lucanis said with a smile.

She came back over to me and grabbed my hands, holding them up, her heartwood colored eyes staring back into mine.

“Let me be the first to welcome you, Demitrix. You must know, I didn’t think anyone would ever come to us on Lucanis’s arm.”

“What is that supposed to-” Lucanis started to say.

“I am so overjoyed that it is you. His savior and now his lover. Almost like a storybook!”

I smiled at her kind words, but the back of my head itched. I knew this felt way too friendly compared to what Lucanis told me back at the Lighthouse, but I kept smiling, holding her hands back. Part of me was almost upset at the fact that I couldn’t trust her honeyed words.

Deep down, we are all Crows. A suspicious lot, but that's just how we survive.

“Oh!” I chirped. “Before I forget, Lucanis will need coffee soon. He hasn't had it for a minute.”

“Did I hear that my Cousin is home?”

I looked up at the balcony to see Illario with a glass of red wine in his hand. His hair slicked back and a black, opened and pressed button up shirt with a green sash across his waist and black dress pants.

“Hello Illario.” Lucanis said plainly, his eyes looking Illario up and down. “Do you still not know how to button up a shirt?”

“Ha! Youre funny.” Illario said, leaning on the balcony. “ Does your lover?”

He gestures at my Crow outfit, my chest and the top part of my stomach exposed. Playing up my confidence. I spin in place on my heel and toss my scarf.

“It’s my signature! I’m a lure. A siren~.”

“He can actually pull off the look.” Lucanis smirked.

“Ouch! Such sass! I hope you don’t let him talk to you like that, Demitrix.” Illario laughed, finishing off his wine. “I’ll be down in a minute. Viago should be there momentarily.”

Illario disappeared down an upper hallway and almost as if on cue, We see the large twin doors opening and out walks Viago in a nice suit with black gloves. His icy cold eyes narrowed as he walked in. A beautiful looking Death Adder snuggly wrapped around his arm.

Lucanis put his hand gently on my back, rubbing it as Viago approached us. Teia went over to him, planting a big kiss on his cheek and taking his arm that was free of the cane and snake.

“Hello, love! You remember Demitrix, right?”

She leaned in and whispered something in his ear and let go of him, gesturing towards me. Viago stepped forward, his gaze sharp and locked onto me. As he stepped over to me, I stepped forward as well, Lucanis grabbing my hand.

“Demitrix.” Viago sighed, a bit of annoyance floated with my name. “Good to see you again. I look forward to getting to know you.”

I gulped but shook the dread away by squeezing Lucanis’s hand and letting go of it. Smiling, I held out my hand.

“Good to see you, sir! You and Teia look amazing this evening. You both and… Arainai.” I said nervously.

“Lucanis must have told you about him. Yes. The snake that nearly killed me in this manor. The only thing that ever came close to killing me.” He spoke with a lowered tone, his eyes narrowing. “As for Teia. She always looks amazing. However, Be respectful. She is still your Talon. Do not ogle at her.”

I sweated a bit and put my hand back down, letting out a forced chuckle.

“Don't worry, I have my own lover to ogle at.”

“Yes.” His eyes shot over to Lucanis. “You seem enraptured by him. I do hope that you aren't getting distracted from your contract.”

“We arent, Viago.” Lucanis spat sharply.

“Just something to keep in mind. We shall see how you both fare in the coming days. So far, Demitrix hasn't had a good track record.”

Lucanis went to say something but I raised my hand slightly looking at him. He closed his lips, and glared at Viago instead, letting me speak.

“I…promise I will not disappoint.”

Viago turned and rejoined Teias side, staring at me with a mixed look. Almost hopeful? Teia gripped onto Viagos arm and smiled apologetically at me.

“I hope not.” Viago growled under his breath.

Illario popped into the doorway, rushing over to hug me.

“Hello, little bird! So you are the one, huh? The one that managed to claim that icy heart of his?”

“Icy? Not at all! He's a sweetheart!” I joked, trying to be as charming as I could be. “The kindest man I have ever met! The most handsome one too! I am the luckiest man in Thedas!”

“Demitrix…” Lucanis hushed in an almost bashful tone.

“Oh! This is a new face and voice for you, Lucanis! Demitrix, you must be a miracle worker! Look! He's blushing!” He laughed.

“Illario. Quit it.”

“Ugh! You are no fun, Cousin! Demitrix, what do you even see in him? You seem like you'd be my type. Mind switching to me for an evening?~”

I blushed brightly, and nervously chuckled. Lucanis got between us, his arm wrapping around me and pulling me into his body.

“He is mine.”

Illario shot a smug look towards Lucanis, before peeking down at me.

“As you wish, Cousin.”

Previous Chapter

[m1ckeyb3rry]

LMAO no in between either cute or majestic where are the horses with the goofy ass names at (just an example but imagine someone w a horse named sock)

AHAHAH YEAH compared to karasus otoyas bfb has a lot more crack in it LOL lowk before discovering you whenever I saw crack it was usually like….brainrot crack where the characters would fully be like “OH MY GERD WHAT JN THE SKIBIDI SIGMA” “LMAOO DEEZ NUTS IN YO FACE” which personally had me clicking the close tab button asap I’ll be forever traumatized your crack content is the Goldilocks zone of crack

Imagine instead we just form a bllk au where the entire setting is the same we just bring justice to characters who need it LMAOOO people will be like bllk au? Aren’t they already in bllk?????

I’m fr just waiting to see the end the last few chapters have just been “hmmm who’s getting revived this ch?” Instead of who’s being thrown into the Sukuna fight arena shdgshshs yeah I have NO clue what’s going on tbh I thought higuruma was a confirmed goner alr but ig not??

I wanna see an expansion of the Barou aiku rivalry….like wdym we see them on the same nel team but we never address that??? Cmon…

Also PAUSE SPEAKING OF WE MANIFESTED OUR PRAYERS ANSWERED EGOIST BIBLE V2 RELEASING AFOUND S2 START TIME!!! Will be dropping translations ofc drop your requests here…there’s apparently a new ranking for “top 3 [insert category here]” so I’ll def do that along with any profiles we don’t have

I remember immediately getting rid of moves like leer and growl LMAO ofc if there was an obvious type disadvantage I’d bring appropriate pokemon (like gym leaders) but otherwise it’s kinda just brute forcing my way through with an op pokemon I liked

The way I completely forgot some of the teams you listed already Im gonna have to like copy it and paste it to the side so I can reference it faster shshshs imagine she traded that away and then later was like lmao u scammed me so this is my gyarados gimme the skrelp back /j wait that’s so funny LMAOOOO you fr had that trading business down…but on that note was there demand for phione for a particular reason….like did they just think it was manaphy….bc now that I think about it I fr cannot remember any significance to phione…

Mcs team sparking the whole uprising talk about girlboss!!!! Her exposing the govt plot on live tv stop that’s such a good idea (I’m crying the kids do everything trope is so funny thinking back on the pokemon plot)

No bc I was about to say I definitely feel like something similar happened in the plot (now I distinctly rmr some like clefairy moon tribe ep..?? Trust we’re definitely thinking of the same one) IM CRYING Reo finally getting gallade only for the competition to be over is SUCH a pokemon plot I can fr see it happening in canon like ash runs back asking where everyone is only for the worker to calmly be like “oh it’s over” and ash falls to his knees screaming LMFAOO but I DO RMR THAT we know my memory’s kinda shit though so idk exactly which pokemon ash brought (was it primape??? Idr tbh)

LMAO THE REVERSE OTOYA TEAM I kinda love that the unexpected trips are lowk my fave like you get ready to battle hiori fully expecting like, a Mareep and maybe a lanturn or a azumarill but no metagross and luxray you really cooked crafting mcs team though I could never LOL

AHDHSA gagamaru having no contact info is so funny he runs a elusive ifykyk business yuki having his Alakazam telepathically track him is so real

Nagi tweaking over the aegislash and having an unspoken sort of one sided Karasu rivalry is actually hilarious if this au actually comes into existence I will fr be laughing my ass off in this arc WHIMSICOTT NAGI SO REAL

LOLL fall is hibernation time that’s still only a quarter of the year idk how you do it

Ok time to merge asks before the other one gets too long and then your blog is fr flooded with these

NAH BC STEVEN STONE WAS JUST THE IT BOY/DUDE IG??? I’m ngl I see a lot of Steven fans around too idk there was just something so charming abt him….

Me conveniently forgetting the teams you talked about even after I fr sent in info about said pokemon on that team but hiori embodying “I can fix it” for that ducklett and succeeding and then Karasu losing it like “wtf wdym it can do shit” would be so hilarious

Gyarados being flying never fails to make me scratch my head but wtv it’s pokemon logic but i love lowk inner team pokemon dynamics swanna and nidoqueen having beef LMAOO SWANNA MEETING BAROU IN HELL IS DIABOLICAL LMFAOOOO ig now you know where the pokemon universe gets it roasted fowl dishes from

Im ngl kangaskhan is fr like the otoya of the pokemon world it’s fr just kinda forgotten (by myself too) i totally forgot it can mega evolve LMAOO mega houndoom is fr cool as hell though (imagine mc and Barou got their houndoomite together SHDGSHS) galvantula being the secret ace of the team is so funny i bet everyone’s like “bro u brought this random ass spider” and then proceed to get decked

LMFAOO in your prev response I was fr gonna respond with Pablo’s last name but I couldn’t rmr how to spell it and did not want to look it up so I just left it bc lowk he’s not that relevant generally either I was almost gonna write “ca-“ and just dip

OOOOH LMK WHAT TEAMS YOU END UP CHOOSING

- Karasu anon

well i did know a miniature horse named boytoy KDCBSHSN idk if that quite counts as goofy in the way you were describing but it’s definitely up there in terms of craziness 😭

oh i have definitely seen those kinds of fics and agreed i’m not a huge fan…MY version of crack is just the characters being sassier than usual with each other and ending up in kinda ridiculous situations that are treated as completely normal in-story LMAOO tbh it’s basically just me writing in the comedy genre instead of doing angst/character studies but that doesn’t sound as fun as calling it crack does

HELPP bllk but it’s miraverse au…everyone reading is like “wtf does miraverse mean” BAHAH like no just trust the process your mind will be altered by the way each character is written TRUST

no literally it’s such a reversal from the sukuna fight that i’m just like 🤨 it feels very…not gege…idk like wdym this is the same guy that wrote shibuya?? honestly i wonder if he’s under pressure from his editor or smth to change the story/ending from what he wanted because if so that’s kind of sad

nah because so much could’ve been done w barou and aiku tbh idk why they made lorenzo try so hard to be friends with barou that role could’ve easily and more sensibly been filled by aiku 😭 also OMG NEW EGOIST BIBLE LET’S GOOO pls the top 3 categories are always so funny especially the little snide comments if you happen to translate those def send them in ‼️ and yess hopefully more characters will get profiles!! or the current profiles get updated with more silly stuff

LMAOOO I WAS EXPERIENCED WITH IT i think it was mostly people trying to finish the pokédex?? because you can’t catch or get phione in any way but the manaphy breeding trick so before most people figured that out i was able to get a bunch of cool pokémon in return for my fresh out of the egg level 1 phiones and then other people caught on so the market got saturated and they stopped being in demand 😒 so i had to differentiate myself and started using tms and training them up which worked for a bit but eventually even that stopped working 😓

no because pokémon is INSANE w the kids doing everything trope like wdym the literal champion is telling MY ten year old ass to go and fight a literal god?? is that not their job…anyways yeah i think this method allows for the e4 and all to maintain their notoriety and authority as well as showing the flaws in kids doing everything (because reader is lowkey reckless for confronting the entire govt without a plan and she got lucky that the e4 + gym leaders has smth up their sleeves or else she would’ve been done for) so i like that route a lot!! also the image of reader and houndoom standing there exposing the government to a defeated mr mikage while the camera quality slowly gets blurrier and shakier and right before it disappears into static entirely there’s just a shot of her and houndoom abt to be attacked by govt pokémon and then there’s a region-wide blackout does cook a little i fear

yess it was the mt moon episode!! but ash misty and brock had a researcher w them iirc meanwhile mc trio is literally just the epitome of yolo 😭 they’re honestly like living their best pokémon journey vibes (especially reo and chigiri because nagi does get dragged into reader’s bs with some frequency so he’s not as relaxed as the other two) LMAOAO like while reader and co are fighting corruption and processing grief and enduring trauma mc trio is just fucking around getting gym badges and completing side quests HAHAHA they’re so stupid i love them 🥹 and yeah i think it was his mankey/primeape i forget if it had evolved at that point or not

i think it’s so funny that hiori just wanted nice pokémon to play with and he ended up with a super well balanced team which includes a pseudo legendary, a dragon type, and a prehistoric pokémon revived from a fossil meanwhile otoya wanted a cool strong team and he just has really cute pretty sweet pokémon 😭 although in his defense his pokémon are all really strong as well it’s just a matter of the aesthetics not matching up with the vibe he was hoping to curate 😩

to be honest i used a website that allowed me to input my team and it told me its weaknesses and i just messed around with that until i got to a team that didn’t have any glaring holes!! i’m super happy with it especially because of how unique some of the choices are…like let’s be real how many people are picking DONPHAN for their pokémon ocs 😭

LMAOAOA pokémon au confirming the yuki x gagamaru bestie agenda fr 🤩 nah because lowkey maybe gagamaru’s just in hiding because he’s scared ness will come after him if he becomes a genuine competitor (not a wrong thought to have tbh)

THE AEGISLASH ARC IS SO HILARIOUS like out of context it’s just like “did mira forget what story she’s writing” but when you know what’s happening it’s so so funny especially the way nagi and reader decide to approach it 😭 “oh i GUESS we have to get married for uhhh the plot” “yeah i mean if i HAVE TO i’ll risk my life for you uhhh i mean the plot yeah the plot” (<- two idiots who will one day be madly in love) DNDKLSJDS nagi def wakes up afterwards like “damn dream me is so rizzful good thing i don’t act like that irl because i don’t even like anyone like that especially not y/n 😰” (not that they were really flirty or anything it was more of a “i’ll die for you if that’s what it takes and if it means you live and get to go home then i’ll even do it happily) and then he sees aegislash and is met with the horrifying knowledge that he did in fact try to rizz reader up and furthermore he might actually like her 😩 HAHAA the karasu beef is so funny too because when they’ve first been “isekai’d” reader’s like “yeah ok let’s just follow the plot of the world and get married or wtvr” and nagi’s like “what about karasu 😱” and reader’s like “uh idk what about him” and nagi’s like “aren’t you guys dating won’t he be mad 🤔🫣” which prompts reader to be like that one tik tok sound that’s like “EWWW no he’s like my BROTHER he’s so UGLY this filthy disgusting creature why was he even BORN” (i hope yk what i’m referring to HAHA)

no because steven is literally the ideal man like he’s smart…rich…pretty…strong…talented…shy…sweet…i’m realizing he’s lowkey a nagireo love child but we shall ignore that!!

HAHA to be honest swanna isn’t rlly a great pokémon competitively plus hiori has 0 interest in battling so i can rlly see him taming swanna just by being like “oh ya idrc if you don’t fight” and ducklett/swanna is like “oh fr okay” and decides to just be chill with him (imagine it tweaks when it sees karasu though he’d be SO offended)

swanna and barou #bestiesfortheresties 😜🤩 LMAOAO agreed some pokémon logic is kinda crazy but oh well!! and agreed it’s fun to give the pokémon personalities too!! within reader’s team we have houndoom who’s super loyal and cuddly but also strict w the other pokémon, galvantula who’s really sassy + has a napoleon complex + is besties with houndoom, dragalge who’s mostly rlly shy and keeps to itself but seems to like otoya’s greninja, aegislash who goes from supervillain to mild prankster after getting the beating of its life from houndoom (there’s no beef there but aegislash def has a healthy respect for houndoom and sticks close to gyarados after that), and gyarados who is CONVINCED that it’s still a baby magikarp that should be carried around by reader even though it’s ENORMOUS now (kinda like those huge dogs that try to cram themselves into your lap)

okay because hear me out…baby reader + barou find a really pretty rock when they’re playing so they break it in half to keep as like mementos of each other when they’re apart?? but it turns out to be houndoomite…and in the final battle both reader’s houndoom mega evolved so it kills its iwn brother as well as barou while wearing the proof of reader and barou’s love for each other…the way reader’s love for barou gives her the mental strength to command houndoom to destroy his body (out of respect to him/accepting he’ll never come back) and it also gives houndoom the physical strength to overpower its own brother and put an end to things no matter how hard it is…just thinking yk…haha…😭😭😭😭

LMAAOOA the galvantula downplay always goes crazy especially because a tried and true reader combo is sending out gyarados to use rain dance (100% accuracy for electric moves) and then she returns it so naturally her opponent is like what pokémon could she possibly have that’s scarier than a gyarados but then she sends out galvantula HAHAHA the opponent cracks up but they’re not laughing so hard when galvantula absolutely annihilates them w a combo of sure-hit electric moves and sneaky bug attacks 🤩

according to the wiki it’s cavasoz so that’s what i’m going with…anyways i THINK i have the teams down!! and i managed to avoid repeating any pokémon (more difficult than you’d expect) although if you see any repeats lmk so i can change it!! anyways in this au i’m going w the theory that the gym leaders have diff teams that they use depending on how many badges the challenger has (tbh this might be canon from pokémon generations or smth idk it’s miraverse canon) which is why some of the gym leaders seem noticeably weaker!!

gym leaders:

first gym leader — dada silva — ground-type

cubone + diglett

second gym leader — adam blake — normal-type

furfrou + sawsbuck + purugly

third gym leader — anri teieri — psychic-type

meowstic + slowbro + malamar

fourth gym leader — yayoi karasu — flying-type

hawlucha + skarmory + braviary + gligar

fifth gym leader — pablo cavasoz — fairy-type

wigglytuff + mr. mime + togekiss + dedenne

sixth gym leader — julian loki — electric-type

heliolisk + magnezone + stunfisk + electivire + emolga

seventh gym leader — leonardo luna — poison-type

tentacruel + roserade + scolipede + crobat + nidoking

eighth gym leader — jinpachi ego — ghost-type

mismagius + froslass + chandelure + golurk + trevenant + sableye

elite 4 members:

first e4 member — lavinho — bug-type

beedrill + shuckle + butterfree + scizor + heracross + volcarona

second e4 member — chris prince — fire-type

magmortar + camerupt + simisear + darmanitan + magcargo + blaziken

third e4 member — marc snuffy — fighting-type

medicham + scrafty + throh + mienshao + toxicroak + poliwrath

fourth e4 member — noel noa — steel-type

aggron + klefki + excadrill + bronzong + empoleon + bisharp

[blog-reflection]

ONE / Thirteen - Fragile - Pls be Gentle

Well back I am.

I’m back in Dover and well, nothing has changed. Except, power is back on. I may or may not got some help from Lucia, who helped me out after I told her what all happened. No sight of Mildret being here, everything’s how I left it a view days ago. 

Brighton is far away from all that Bullshit I had to deal with. And the best of it, the train to Windsor only takes around two hours which is one hour less than from Dover. It's not like I visit Jesse that often, but it's great to know that even the opportunity is given. I already texted them the good news, they were so happy and offered their help if needed. Soo Next thing will be, packing up everything I own. I already saved up a lot of boxes over the last month just in case that I do figure out a way to leave this place. Luckily, it’s a whole apartment. I’ve started with my desk, which I rarely used last month. Folders I’ve already forgotten, more than one million pens, pencils, acrylics, you name it, a tone of different coloured papers, books I didn’t even know I own and…what the actuall fuck!? How in the hell did Jesse snoop one of their tank tops in here? This thing must be in here for at least 10 years prior to today. It even smells like they frequent if I’m honest. It’s a basic one, dam coloured, leaves a tiny bit of transparency, has really small stripes and no sides. I think I’m going to keep it, not because I want to wear it but to have it as a memory of Jesse. Still funny though. I will nail this to my wall just because I want to see their reaction. If I’m honest I don’t even think they miss it at all, they lose track of so much and have a really small recall ability. I turned on the music and continued packing the boxes while doing awful and probably embarrassing dance moves throughout my room getting lost in memories of the old time, our old time. Jesse is quite a loud and extroverted person, after they were out of school. Apart from that, Jesse is living with the best person ever; Charles, Jesse's dad. He is just the nicest human being. He never had anything against anything. The way he had handled the quite emotional outing from Jesse was just done in the dreamiest way possible. Ever since, he uses the right pronouns, makes sure Jesse is doing just well and ensures to give them the time they need to not get stressed out. He cares a lot about Jesse without controlling them nor so ever. Some people say Mr. Owen doesn’t care about Jesse because he gives a fuck about everything. Truth is, he knows how Jesse's mind works and does everything to not get Jesse stressed. A few years ago, he left the two of us alone in the apartment for around a month. This was nuts, a lot of chaos and fun. I actually haven’t seen Jesse since I graduated 9 years ago. But we still haven’t lost connection at all. We chat on a weekly basis, update the other one with the latest tea and gossip, laugh and play a lot of online games, like Minecraft together. 

They are just the most talented people on the planet. Doing their own music, playing the guitar, is a master in arts and craftsmanship and a true gamer. Whenever we started something, they made it better. Even in school. The only subjects where I was superior were either history or forms. They are even able to read but compared to me that’s not really a hard thing to do. They are aware of me being jealous. Jesse can take it. I explained why it is the way it is but even this can’t tear us apart. We stuck together like a bag of wine gums in the middle of the summer left in the car. I started packing some boxes again, since there was no chance for me to sleep now.

I played some music in the background and continued filling some of the boxes. Four hours passed and I got around 30% of my stuff wrapped. I had some breaks whenever I found some old things that revived memories, especially the ones with Jesse. We somehow managed to get a lot of memories in a really small amount of time. Most of them are from my time in Windsor, when things were much worse. We had so much fun during that time. I looked towards a picture underneath the book that I just put away. We were so young. Jesse was so small, they were even shorter than me. Now It’s the complete opposite. Based on the pics we exchange sometimes, Jesse must be around six feet and some inches by now. I myself managed to get stuck on five feet and around eight inches. Their skin had this bright coffee touch, light brown curls with a touch of red all over the face. Jesse is a person that never sweats and is always a walking radiator. I barely see them wearing any clothes as soon as the temps rise over 20°C, especially in summer. They don’t show it off though, it’s just Jesse being Jesse. For me that’s normal. We’ve seen each other naked so it’s literally no big deal rather or not they wear fabric. Sometimes, I’d wish I’d be as confident in my body as they are. Jesse is just all pure, pure skin, pure mind, knowledge, smart, clever, outstanding, you name it. I could never pull off any of their trades. I’m really insecure sometimes, which makes life even harder than it should be. But Jesse knows that. They know I have a tendency for low self-esteem and, honestly, they support me so well in almost all the stuff, especially when I get stuck in BII. 

The picture was taken on the last day of year nine and showed the two of us. I wore one of Jesse’s tank tops and Jesse themself was not dressed at all. I can see that moment right before my eyes. It was mid-summer, a really really hot day, so we went to a local river Jesse knew about. It was a really spontaneous idea; therefore, we weren’t really prepared. We grabbed some stuff at a local store before heading to the lake for some good chills. We were alone, no one really knew about that spot, so Jesse did some proper skinny dipping. I for myself haven’t had proper swim wear, which resulted in me jumping in the water with my clothes. We had a lot of fun, but when I got cold and got out, I realised that I had nothing to change. Jesse said I can have their clothes, a tank top and some really short pants. I took it and dressed to feel warmer. We stayed at the river for a really long time. We talked a lot, laid in the sun, enjoyed the small breaths on our backs, made some kind of sandcastle and so on. Even when the sun went down, it was so hot that the temps did not fall. My clothes haven’t fully dried yet, since I’ve been jumping in and out of the water, so I asked Jesse if they brought anything to change. They just looked me dead in the eye, shrugged, got out of the water, shaked their hair like a dog after a rainy day, grabbed their bag and started walking. I remember how they looked back at me asking whether or not I’d follow. At the end, Jesse walked home naked,only covert by the night, me next to them, dressed in their clothes. This constellation was so horrendous, we laughed the entire way home. I’ve known that Jesse does not care about others opinions, but that got it up another level. When we got home, we took that pic to remind us of how much fun we had that day. That’s for the good old days. I framed the picture with a spare frame I found, wrapped it in paper and carefully put it in one of the boxes. I closed it and rested my elbows on it, holding my head. I looked through my room and thought…what a mess. 

Boxes all over the place, some of them were open, most of them closed and stacked above each other. It lowkey looked like a toddler, trying to build a cardboard castle or something. Truth is, it’s still a mess. Blankets everywhere, pillows, plants that I don’t even remember I had. I have lived in this room for around eighteen years. Never realised how much I got in those years. I changed the music to some Loft vibe music and set my focus on boxing and unboxing again. One shelf left, the one with the most values in my entire room. There are a lot of pics, one from my graduation, one from Jesse attending Royal Holloway for the first time, one with a not so happy family and yes, I did rip my dad out of it, trophies and certificates as well as a collection of pics with Jesse as well as with Lucia. I took the picture I framed before out of the box and took a slightly smaller one to proper store all of these memories. I found a cute pastel pink ribbon to secure the box, took a pink sticky note and wrote “!fragile, pls be gentle!” In a bold font of the note before sticking it to the box. I placed it on top of one of the smaller box towers next to a plant, which is held in a self-made macramé mesh and used to hang from my sealing window next to my fairy lights, which are now tangled up somewhere in those boxes. That’s it, within a week, this room will be empty. Or already occupied by something my mum has in mind. Truth is, she’ll be pretty alone once I’m gone. And if love is genetic, she will stay single for a while. I’ve never had an official boyfriend, at least not one I’d count to that. There is more experience to prove the fact that I like boys. But that’s all, no deeper connection, no hard feelings, most of the time we barely even talk. I looked over to my phone. Four am. Well, now I know why I took these weeks off work, so I can focus on the move. I got out of my jumper and crawled onto my bed. 

Orrr come one for fuck sake, not again. I stretched my leg to reach my phone, which is laying on the floor about four feet away from the bed. I almost fell out of bed when my toes finally hit the screen of my phone. I reached out a little further and with a hard pull I managed to kick it under my bed. I took a disappointing look towards the middle of my room before getting upside down and grabbed it. Now it’s chill time. I plugged in my phone and browsed through a variety of social media until I eventually fell asleep, around 6am, in the morning. 

Fun am I right? I’m not even tired. Well, not anymore.

[missing-sock-misto]

​Hmmm. ‘Better’ is not the word I’d use- but definitely different. (I have only seen Revival Tour Live. I have seen it 8 times, and I Would see it again if I could. I have seen it from Orchestra, back of the theater, Balcony, mezzanine and Front Row).

It is… approximately 100x more intense in my opinion. Now, this is likely due to CATS being my hyperfixation and me being AuDHD. On all except 3 views, I had to travel to a different state to see it, so there was the additional build up of “I took a plane to SPECIFICALLY see this show, I have been WAITING to see this for months”. So there were many factors feeding in. I HIGHLY doubt a neurotypical person who just wanted to see something to pass a weekend would have the same reaction as me.

But I think that anticipation IS part of the experience. If you’re like, “Hey, I want to watch CATS 1998,” you can find it on YouTube or play the DVD or buy it online and have it playing in minutes. For a live show, you had to plan for it, buy tickets months in advance, pay money, travel to the theater, sit in your seats and WAIT. Your heart is racing, and your nerves are electric, and you can barely sit still.

And then the lights dim, and the audience falls quiet, and you wait.

… Being able to SEE it, in front of you… it’s the difference between seeing a picture of the ocean and standing on the beach, feeling the breeze on your skin, the sand on your feet, the brine on your tongue. It feels unreal. The music is loud, you can FEEL the drums in your feet and the bass in your ribs.

Performers who you may only have heard about take the stage. Their performances are unique, with vocal flourishes and flairs and acting choices you may never have anticipated. The angles are fixed, there are no cuts, no close ups, no camera deciding that “You will look at THIS character” while your fave is in the background. The best you’ve got is your eyes and your binoculars.

There’s something freeing about it. You choose where to look. You want to watch Mistoffelees the whole time, you can, there’s no one to force you to pay attention to something else. And, you get the bigger picture. The choreography makes more sense at times, seeing everyone moving together. The balcony was by far the worst view for me, but it still had value, the view revealing patterns in the blocking.

The audience adds a lot too. Laughing at jokes and clapping and cheering after every number. They impart an energy that is infectious.

But also… it’s overwhelming. Thirty characters running around at once, all doing different things, you cannot physically keep track of it all. Your adrenaline is so high that your ability to pay attention slips, and it’s worsened by being unable to pause and take a break whenever you’d like.

I am so grateful that boots exist of US Tour 6, because despite seeing it with my own eyes, I always hit a point where I disassociate, where my ability to pay attention and SEE things has hits saturation, and I stare at the Jellicle Ball without seeing anything and with my emotions behind glass.

And sometimes, the crowd is annoying, laughing at the wrong moments, disruptive or rude. Sometimes an actor just isn’t your favorite, and you grimace through a performance by someone who isn’t hitting their notes or has a strange voice or a character interpretation that you don’t like. Sometimes the sound board breaks and the show has to stop because the microphones aren’t working.

It is not at all like watching CATS 1998. It’s charged with an energy that is so unique to live performance, the experience surrounding you even while you stare with pinpoint focus on your favorite actor. You catch a moment between two characters that you’ve never seen before, a look, a smile, a joke. Skimbleshanks flustering over a kitten, Tugger and Misto miming dogs barking during Pekes, Jenny coaching Teazer in boxing. Someone cheers somewhere unexpected, and you later find out that it was a family member of a cast member that had driven 4 hours to see their child as a professional performer.

It’s an unreal and intense experience. After it’s over, I sit in the car, shaking like I ran a marathon, not quite sure HOW I feel, just kind of floating, like my brain and body has been stretched like taffy. All of the anticipation, the tension, has been released, but I still can’t quite breathe right. And sometimes, I can’t even figure out if I ENJOYED it. I feel sad that I can’t remember every detail, disappointed that an actor wasn’t what I wanted, frustrated at an audience member.

But I also keep replaying little moments in my mind, desperate to burn the feelings into my subconscious, to preserve lightning in a bottle. So many people had to come together to make what I experienced possible. Not just actors; musicians, lighting techs, sound techs, costume directors. People Did That. Something Clicks, a moment that will stay with you for years, an actor who changed the character for me, a moment that sparked ideas. Not feeling quite present, but so desperate to be there again.

It is not like watching a movie or a boot. Whether it is “better” or not is up to the individual and the specific performance, but it is SIGNIFICANTLY more intense.

Honest question to those who have seen CATS live, specifically London replicas but does it really feel different or "better" then just watching a recorded version (1998 or boot) of the same replica ?

[capt-spooki3]

...And Sunrises Were Worse

A sequel to Sunsets Never Felt The Same...

Pairing: Revivebur and Reader

Warnings: blood mentions, fighting, angsty feelings, kissing, manipulativebur

Y/n was finally recovering after the unfortunate demise of their lover just to find, he is back and better than ever...

3.6k words

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Y/n watched him from afar, arms open wide as he took in the rays from the rising sun.

“This is my sunrise..”

Hearing the words from him sent chills through their whole body. Watching him stand there, alive and grinning like a mad man, made them sick. Whether it was from shock, disbelief, or anger they weren’t sure yet.

It had been nine whole years that he had been gone and the only piece of him left was his ghost. Ghostbur was a comforting presence, but it just took so much for them not to try and question Ghostbur on why he left them. Not only did his ghost not remember them, but they learned quickly that he had no memory of his past mistakes.

They never expected his lonely soul to be so innocent and sweet, especially after seeing face to face how far he had fallen once he lost his darling country. That last glimpse of him they got, shook them to their core and took years to recover from. Though honestly, it never fully left them. They were ready to move on and look for love in someone that wasn’t six feet under. But there stood their former lover, watching as Tommy, Tubbo, and Ranboo walked away from him with Friend following close behind. He was smiling in a manic way, looking the exact same way he did when he kissed them and ran off to face his demise but this time there was something different that they just couldn’t place their finger on. Maybe it was that this time, he had a will and a want to be alive.

Y/n shook their head, letting a shiver run down their spine as they turned and started to walk away, not wanting to look at him anymore and hoping that they would just be able to forget he had come back to life.

“My dearest sunflower... “ They stopped in their tracks as they heard the voice say softly, just loud enough for his words to reach them. They held their breath, hoping to hear him speak again or not at all, while a cold sweat went down their back. Everything stood quiet like the world was holding its breath along with Y/n.

“Don’t ignore me now, love. Please, turn and look at me. I want to see your face again, it’s been too long.”

“What the hell are you doing here- yOU WERE GONE WILBUR! YOU WERE GONE! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO STAY GONE!” They balled up their fists and squeezed their eyes tight to try and not let the tears slip through. Emotions that have been kept under wraps for years were finally coming forth to plague their mind. All from hearing his sugar-coated voice again, but they knew all that laid under the tooth-rotting exterior anymore was pure venom.

“Y/n… please don’t be upset. I’m back. I’m here, I can make things better than ever.” His voice was growing closer and was only unraveling them farther.

“NO! Wilbur stop- stop moving. Don’t come closer.” They pleaded, voice growing frail as tears were trying harder to run free. “Please…”

“Listen to me at least, darling.”

“No. I won’t.

“Y/n.” He sounded like he was warning them to comply. A big red waving flag telling them that even in death, he hasn’t changed.

“I’m leaving, and once I’m gone. So are you.” They started walking down the small mound of rubble they were watching him from as soon as they finished their sentence and picking up the pace as soon as their feet hit the glass that kept them from falling into the crater of L’manburg.

“Y/N!!” Wilbur called out to them desperately. “H-Hold on, just wait!” But they didn’t stop, they didn’t even look back and just kept their eyes on the swirling vines that tainted the space below them.

Harsh footsteps rang out on the glass, they sounded like boots as they clicked nicely. Suddenly they were pulled back when a hand grabbed onto their arm to stop them, Wilbur took small gasps as he caught his slightly extended breaths. Y/n looked back at him and finally looked him in the eyes again after nine years. His mouth hung open just a little as he steadied his breathing. Dirt was smudged on one cheek while a bit of blood was dried on the other and a long past dried bloody nose. He looked tired too, very apparent bags were under his eyes now though his glasses sat perfect and untouched on his nose. The red in his eyes was so easy to see and up close made it even more unsettling especially as he looked at them so fondly and softly like he never stopped loving them even in death.

“Don’t leave me, please.” He whispered, pulling them just a bit closer, looking like a puppy pleading for their owner not to go to work.

“Wilbur. It has been nine years. Nine years you’ve been gone, nine years tha-”

“Thirteen years!” He leaned forward just lightly as he emphasized the number. Y/n stopped and just looked at him, confused by him one upping them.

“What?”

“I have been in limbo for thirteen years Y/n. An empty train station. No exit. No one else there to help. I screamed and clawed at the walls. I was stuck there for so, so long. But I never forgot you. I missed you so much.” Wilbur finally let their arm go and let his arm fall back to his side, looking defeated. “I can’t tell you how many times I relived memories of you just to make me feel something again. Like… remember our sunset?” He looked down through the glass floor, smiling sweetly as he was obviously thinking back on the time. But Y/n simply looked at him in disbelief and almost disgust that he was thinking of them.

“Do you even realize how much it hurts? The things you told me before you went and got yourself killed? I held onto that for so many years, Wilbur.” He fixed his gaze back on them, his smile having been lost as soon as they started talking. “I was so ready to be healed from you and pursue love. Just… be happy. I haven’t forgotten you, but that’s because you hurt me so.. so bad.”

They let out a shuddering breath and took a few steps back from him to which he started to reach for them but stopped himself, lowering his hands to his sides and dropping his shoulders.

“I’m leaving. And I need you to let me leave and forget I was ever here.” They demanded once and for all before turning sharply and walking away from him.

“CAN YOU… can you stay. For just… for just a bit. Till sunset. Let me stay with you.” Y/n slowed to a stop when hearing his sad request. “Sunset can be the limit and you can bring me back here and I won’t follow you. Please just… Can you give me this?”

They sighed deeply, their addiction to his voice returning much faster than they hoped it would. They started to move again but not before calling back to him.

“Well come on then. I told myself I’d sort the books at the library today.” Y/n knew they didn’t need to wait for him because a few paces in and he had caught up to their side, hands in his pocket as he took smaller strides by their side.

“You finally built the library you always talked about?” Wilbur asked fondly, they could feel the constant glances he was throwing their way, and frankly, it took a lot of effort not to look back at him.

“Actually Foolish did it for me, I commissioned him. It looks really good too, almost everyone frequents it. I’ve even gotten Techno and Phil to drop by a good number of times.” They found their way onto the Prime Path as it made the walk to the library the easiest amongst all the rugged land.

“Yeah? I bet that Ranboo guy is there a lot, he looks like a bookworm.”

“He stops by quite a bit, yeah... Ghostbur was always there though.” They said as their voice grew softer. “Unless he was traveling around or visiting others to spread his blue, he was sitting there with Friend and reading.”

Wilbur didn’t try to make any comment after that and Y/n had to give him that. At least he still knows when it was best to shut up and bear the silence.

The rest of their walk remained rather quiet other than little comments here and there and Wilbur requested a quick walk by the museum once he saw it. Even though they could have cared less about what he wanted, Y/n agreed to walk by it since it wouldn’t set them off their path too much. They couldn’t help but admire him as he was now, they always thought Ghostbur was the actual soul AND mind of Wilbur with just amnesia. After being around him for so long, they got the urge to explain events to him whenever he would mention them, just to be reminded that he was there and remembered it all.

-

“Oh, so this must be the library ey?” Wilbur said excitedly as he stared at the two-story building and nodded in approval. “Gotta tell that Foolish guy he did a good job.”

Y/n laughed a little and went in with Wilbur close behind and quietly observing the interior.

“Go ahead and do whatever you want, I’ll be… kinda everywhere do just call if you need anything okay?” They glanced back to him to see his eyes already on them, smiling softly before he nodded.

“I can help too if you need it.”

“Uh- no. No, I’ll be fine, thank you.” They said quickly before rushing to start upstairs and get some distance between him, still not all that comfortable being so close to a man that was dead mere hours ago. They knelt down to a bookshelf and went on autopilot while they sorted through and put books in the right order.

It was so hard for their mind to fully process that he was revived. They overheard Tommy when he met up with Tubbo and Ranboo so they heard the whole story and followed behind secretly. They watched from afar when they found Wilbur but sadly didn’t hear most of what he had to say out of pure shock that he was standing right there without a sword through his chest. As much as they wanted to completely forget about his existence, They doubted they would be able to get rid of him now. All they could hope is that he would keep his distance and not be kind enough to make them fall in love with him all over again.

Hours passed by in minutes for them and they were finished with the top floor of books and went downstairs to find Wilbur standing there with obviously freshly baked bread, contemplating walking up the stairs.

“Y/n! Sorry um… here.” He offered the small loaf to them, he didn’t have his gloves on anymore and his hands were cleaned. “You’ve been working hard, but you need to take care of yourself.”

They took the bread from him carefully, taking a piece and trying to find it surprisingly good. He must have gotten it from the bakery.

“Thank you, Wilbur…. You eat too.” They took their leave into the rows of bookshelves to distance themself and eat near one of the back windows.

Things weren’t looking good for them at this rate.

-

“Alright Wilbur, got all your things? I’ve got to walk you back then go home.”

Wilbur hopped up from the chair he was sitting in, pulling his gloves out of his pockets and slipping them both on before adjusting his coat.

“Yep, all ready. Lead the way.”

And lead they did, though this time they took the more remote path down to his shrine. They took the path that Phil and his group used when they were first trying to revive Wilbur by using Ghostbur. It was calmer and it let Wilbur see other parts of the nearby area that he didn’t before.

“You know… Y/n. Have you ever been down here at night?” Wilbur asked as they were nearing the shrine.

“Huh? Oh, no I haven’t. Not since… you know.” They cast a quick glance to their side at him. “It doesn’t bring back the best memories so I try to avoid it.”

“Right, right, that makes sense.” He went quiet, but it was obvious he wanted to add on and most likely ask them something.

“Why?”

“Well, I saw them earlier and thought they looked rather nice. Did you see the floating lanterns? There were just a few, but they stood out to me among all the destroyed land.” He took a breath and looked over at them until they met his eyes. “I wanted to ask you if you could stay and look at them with me.”

Y/n just looked at him, expressionless and not saying a word.

“Look, the sun is literally already setting. Just for a few minutes, please? We can uh- we can stand on the other side of the shrine and look at them. Okay?” He looked up at the sunset before it was hidden by the land. “Just before you leave.”

“Just before I leave.” They softly echoed him and got a rushed thank you as he picked his pace up now.

They finally reached the stone steps that led to the shrine and Wilbur happily took the lead, walking to the backside of the shrine to lean up against the lapis wall. Y/n fell back against it and sighed, closing their eyes and being thankful for a moment to rest. They opened their eyes and looked up at the lanterns floating nearby, glowing brightly against the land now that the sun was set. They let themself slip away while watching the calming float of the lanterns.

Feeling eyes on them, they looked over to Wilbur. He didn’t even try to look away, just looking at them with a distant gaze and hands resting in his pockets. He looked numb as he silently watched despite the soft rosy look of his cheeks. There was something there they could only describe as numb and lovesick. As odd as it sounds, it fits.

“Wilbur-”

“Shh just let me… you look too lovely right now.”

They felt the heat rising to their face as much as they hated to feel it with him. It felt too right to hear it from him again and their mind pushed them to beg him to say those words again.

“I… I need to go home.” Y/n whispered to him, not even sure if that’s what they wanted anymore.

“I know, but darling I’m selfish.” He spoke softly to match their tone. They looked away to let out their held breath and contemplate what they were supposed to do. With a deep and grounding breath, they looked back at him. As much as they were ready to tell him they were leaving him here alone, him giving obvious glances to their lips just stopped them from being able to go forward with it.

With a soft bite of his lip, he tore his gaze away and sighed as looked up at the star-speckled sky, resting his head back. They were frozen now, admiring him this time. They swore they wouldn’t fall again but look at them now, ready to throw caution to the wind.

And they did.

Y/n closed the distance between them willingly for the first time that day and grabbed onto the arm of his jacket to get his attention, just above the L’mamburg flag patch that was covered with old dirt and blood. He looked down at them with wide eyes, very obviously surprised to see them so close.

“Are you… okay?”

“I-... I don’t know.” They admitted, meaning it completely. Wanting any of him now felt wrong but with someone as addicting and beautiful as him, what were they to do? “I want to leave… but I can’t.”

Wilbur snickered, bringing a gloved hand up to rub their cheek softly.

“Can’t or don’t want to?”

They opened their mouth to answer but were just met with blank thoughts, knowing he was right.

They just stood there, looking at each other and neither one making any advancements or turning away to end it.

“If I… Wilbur, if I kiss you right now, what will you do?”

“Well, Y/n I might just not be able to let you go. So if you want to leave and never see me again, then go. I won’t stop you. But sunshine, if you kiss me right now I won’t be able to keep myself away.” He opened his hand up to put it fully on their cheek, holding them as though this contact meant the world to him. They leaned into his hand just a little, not breaking eye contact.

They thought hard about if this was really a good idea. They still had the time to back out if they wanted to, it wasn’t too late for them to keep him out of their life forever and not try to get to know him all over again.

It was a good idea to leave. The best and smartest idea even, but even still they chose the latter.

“You’re an evil man, Wilbur Soot.” They muttered before grabbing onto the collar of his jacket, pulling his face down to theirs, and kissing him hard, making both of them stumble a bit by Wilbur being off balance. His hands found their way back to their cheeks immediately though, holding them so softly. He pulled them closer, not seeming to want to give this moment a chance to leave. Y/n pulled away finally to catch their breath, they couldn’t help but look at his eyes just to find that he was crying. He was smiling as well though. The sight made tears prick their own eyes though they blinked hard to try and hold them back. Before, seeing him in tears never failed to make them cry. They could never figure out why but it still held true.

"Why are you crying, you idiot? '' They mumbled just before he put his forehead to theirs and closed his eyes, taking in a deep yet shaky breath.

"You’re finally back in my arms… after so long of wishing for you.” He pulled their face to him to kiss them again and laugh softly. “It’s just crazy.”

He leaned back when he slid his hands off their cheeks, but not before running his hand through their hair and sighing as he looked at them. “Y/n… I need you to listen to me, okay?” He still spoke sweetly, but something seemed to lay underneath the surface of this and this time they could tell.

“Okay… but I don’t know if I can trust what you are going to say.”

“No no love! Please,” He reached down to grab and hold both of their hands close to his chest as he looked into their eyes. “You can trust me. You can. I just… I have things I need to do now that I’m back. And these things, I know some people aren’t going to agree with, but no matter what happens. As long as you stay on my side, I can promise you the world.”

Wilbur leaned in close to them, voice growing quiet now but the small smile he bore looked sinister. “I can promise you the world because I am going to capture the world in my hands. And as long as you’re mine, it will be yours as well.” He stroked their hands with his thumbs comfortingly as if to smooth over the words he just told them.

“Wilbur… I have friends. People I think of as family and if you end up hurting them I…” They trailed off, looking away from him and at the rubble of L’manburg and reflecting on what happened the last time he had a great goal in mind.

“That’s perfect! No, that is just perfect Y/n!” He let go of them, eyes wide along with his smile. “You have time. Think it over sunflower, I will give you time.”

He easily slipped past them and took a few strides away. Y/n turned to look at him, their mind in a hopeless scramble of pieces. The two sides of their mind battled on if they should tell him off or blindly trust him. He looked back at them, glancing away again before he walked up to them and gently lifted their chin to get a good look at him.

Memories flooded back to them with the familiar look he gave them. As much as they wished it could be a positive moment, all they saw was the man who grabbed them and kissed them as he said his adrenaline-filled goodbye. The only difference now was he wasn’t ready to die, but looked more than ready to cause any other kind of damage.

“You really are beautiful… I hope you choose me.” He held their chin and rubbed his thumb over their bottom lip before kissing them again, longer and sweeter this time before he spoke against their lips. “Find me when you’re ready. I’ll be waiting for you.”

___________________________________________

While you're here...

pss pss psss 👁👄👁 i made art for it too

[natromanxoff]

Queen live at Forest National in Brussels, Belgium - August 24, 1984

Some parts of the Hammer To Fall promo video were filmed during this show - the camera was filming the audience reactions during TYMD, Radio Ga Ga and Hammer To Fall. On the next day 20 fans from the Dutch fan club were invited to come again to the filming of the promo video.

At the gig, the band asked the audience to return the following day for the shoot. However, most likely assuming it was all a joke, the vast majority stayed away; in fact only a dozen fans turned up. Undeterred, the shoot went ahead anyway, with the band's performance that day interspersed with footage shot the previous night.

(x)

This is the first show of The Works tour.

According to the July '89 issue of Record Collector, Queen ran through about 40 songs during rehearsals. This list of songs rehearsed that didn't end up in the setlist comes from someone who worked on the tour:

Great King Rat (longer version), Brighton Rock (full song), I'm In Love With My Car, Sweet Lady, White Man, We Will Rock You (fast), Play The Game, Need Your Loving Tonight, Put Out The Fire, Las Palabras de Amor, Life Is Real (both Freddie solo piano and Freddie/Brian acoustic duet versions)

The keyboardist for this tour (and also the '86 Magic tour) is session musician Spike Edney. He would also lend some vocals to many songs and play rhythm guitar in Hammer To Fall. He and Roger Taylor would form a band called "The Cross" in 1987 which spawned three albums, and he would return to Queen in the 21st century to play on the tours with Paul Rodgers and Adam Lambert.

Spike was recruited in a very informal way by a Queen associate. He went to Munich for their first rehearsal in early August, wound up partying for most of the first night, and missed the first day's rehearsal. It later transpired that everyone else had. He recalls, "The next day, we all managed to get to it eventually, to the first rehearsal, and all the gear was set up. The stage was huge, and I thought "Oh well, here we go then" and we got to the first song , and what I'd forgotten was that they hadn't actually played together for two years. So they said, OK, let's try one of the new songs, I think it was Radio Ga Ga, and we started playing it, and course, I knew it, I'd been studying it for weeks. You know, 1,2,3,4 and we start and we get about a minute into the song and the whole thing collapses. And they all look at each other, you know, very sheepishly, and they say, "Anyone know how it goes?" and I say "well, actually, I know. I know how it goes" and they said "Ah". And so I started showing them the chords and everything and Fred looked at me and said "You don't know the words, do you?" and "Well, yeah I do actually" so then they all came round the piano and we spent the whole day just going through songs, and I thought, "I'm gonna be all right here, this'll be OK"!"

The show started very late, as the band were still doing soundcheck when they were supposed to go on. Apparently over the previous week there were few occasions when all four band members actually showed up for rehearsal. Many songs (likely those listed above) never made the setlist, and soundcheck was an extensive cramming session, particularly for the older material that they hadn't played in years.

Roger Taylor later reflected that this European tour was one of his favourites, and many fans cite the early Works setlist as their favourite ever played by the band. Three medleys are now played, two of which have revived many old songs: Killer Queen, Seven Seas Of Rhye, Keep Yourself Alive, Liar, Stone Cold Crazy and Great King Rat. Staying Power from Hot Space returns to the set, as does Sheer Heart Attack from News Of The World. Only half of Staying Power is played, and it runs into Dragon Attack, followed by an improvisation running into a more compact version of Now I'm Here compared to previous tours.

Many people who attended shows on this tour recall Queen having a very heavy sound, especially on songs like Liar and Stone Cold Crazy. By 1984 they had gained a reputation as being one of the best live rock acts in the business.

Six songs from The Works are performed each night, and the introduction tape is from the album track "Machines". After the heavy G chords are heard on the tape twice, the band walk on stage in the darkness to play the chords the third time, which leads into the brand new "Tear It Up". This is yet another effective opening to a Queen show, something they would perfect time and time again.

I Want To Break Free is performed each night in 1984-85 as the first encore, with Freddie coming on stage sporting a pair of huge plastic breasts under a pink shirt. Part way through the song, he would remove the breasts and twirl them around for a while before finally throwing them into the audience. Some souvenir! As a result of this gag, Another One Bites The Dust has been moved from the encore to be earlier in the set.

This tour showcases an incredible lighting rig and an overall setup mimics the movie Metropolis, from which scenes were used for the promo video of Radio Ga Ga last year. The huge wheels behind the stage (modelled after the ones on The Works album cover) rotate at mostly random times - usually because they are turned manually by various crew members such as Roger's tech Chris "Crystal" Taylor whenever they have a free moment (Freddie Mercury's assistant Peter Freestone told the tale in 2021):

“Yeah, I mean Rio was… amazing. The feeling from that crowd… you know, something like 350,000 people. Oh, you can’t beat that. And when you’re flying in a helicopter over that crowd, it was stunning. But the thing is, I know this sounds really, really stupid but [laughs]… one thing I will always, always remember from that tour was, remember, in the back of the stage you had these wheels that turned every now and then, not constantly but just every now and then. That was because there was… the guy looking after Roger’s drums and me who actually turned those wheels. And there was no set cue or anything that, “Oh, it has to start on this bar, on this song.” No, it was when he wasn’t doing anything and I wasn’t doing anything, we’d say “Ok, let’s go and do it.” And we turned the wheels for a couple of minutes and then left them alone. He had then to do something for Roger and I would just sit there like I always did. And then you’d go back and you’d turn the wheels, like a hamster. We were like hamsters…”

However, a crew member who worked on the tour recalls otherwise: "I do know local crew members were used on the UK shows and certainly (a number of) European gigs. The other thing is that Radio Ga Ga had a set piece with the cogs and lighting, using low ambient lighting and strobes to emphasise mechanical motion of the cogs during the instrumental break. Would Roger Taylor be happy with no one covering him/his kit during a show? Possibly Peter Freestone is remembering production rehearsals when any spare bodies might have been asked to operate the cogs?"

During vocal improvisations on this tour, Freddie would often include bits of "Foolin' Around" and "Living On My Own" from his pending first solo album, which he had been working on during this period.

Freddie now plays a Telecaster for Crazy Little Thing Called Love. It would remain like this through the Magic tour.

The band no longer bring a gong with them on the road. Roger now does a cymbal roll at the end of Bohemian Rhapsody.

A fan recalls hearing the band running through Tear It Up whilst queuing up to enter the venue.

Freddie's voice is in superb shape for this show, but it will quickly weaken as the tour progresses. As incredible as Freddie Mercury was, he certainly did not take care of his voice at times, especially in the mid-80s. After a couple years of heavy smoking, Freddie's voice now sounds a lot deeper and raspier overall.

Before It's A Hard Life, Freddie says, "I think tonight we're gonna do songs from just about every album that we've ever made. You heard some very early stuff from the first album. Right now I think we're gonna do something very new, and we'll see what you think of it."

Freddie does a vocal exchange with the audience before Staying Power, singing "Get Down Make Love" and "Gimme Some Lovin" a few times. The band would improvise bits of the latter a couple times in 1986.

This is the only show on the entire Works tour where Roger plays regular acoustic drums on Another One Bites The Dust (before which Freddie teases the audience with a bit of Mustapha). For the rest of the tour, he'd play electronic drums. He'd also integrate the electronic drum kit into a few other songs, like at the beginning of Hammer To Fall, where one might argue that his sounds don't appropriately complement the guitar to create the intense, heavy sound.

The band sound very tight on this opening night of the tour, with the only exception being the rough transition from Stone Cold Crazy to Great King Rat. The keyboard and guitar solos are integrated together for the first few shows of the tour, during which Brian plays a few bits from Machines. Spike Edney uses his vocoder (a Roland VP-330) for the "machines" and "back to humans" lines heard throughout the tour during this spot (he would use his vocoder for the "radio" lines in Radio Ga Ga as well). After this segment, Brian then gets a few minutes to play on his own as usual.

Parts of the promo video for Hammer To Fall were filmed during this show. Claims from some (even official) sources state that Freddie invited the audience back for (what would actually be "additional") filming the following day aren't true. Here is all that Freddie had to say before the song: "This next song we're gonna use in our next video. So everybody just go mad and maybe later you'll see one of you guys inside the video one day. Oh, just go crazy, take your clothes off. It's called Hammer To Fall." After the song, he simply says, "Good night, you guys!" as that was the last song of the set.

Here is a fan's recollection: "On the night of the gig, there was a camera mounted on an arm that would swing over the front rows of the audience during a few songs. These audience shots were taken during Tie Your Mother Down, Radio Ga Ga, and Hammer To Fall itself. I guess they also had a camera up in the box at the back of the hall [as there are a few shots of both the audience and the band]. I don't remember any cameras onstage during the gig - just the one mounted on the arm."

The Dutch fan club invited only about twenty of its members to attend the video shoot the next day. They were instructed by a roadie to sit quietly on a chair and not to move or approach the band members. After a few hours, Brian came over and had a chat with them, checking to see if they were enjoying themselves and if they were hungry. He then promptly ordered them some take-out!

A minute of Tie Your Mother Down from this show was later broadcast on the Belgian TV station "RTBF" (x) (x). An audience-shot video allegedly exists as well, containing five songs.

After years of speculation, the existence of more footage from this show was proven when bits of it were included in the promo video for Let Me In Your Heart Again in 2014. About 30 seconds of Somebody To Love (largely crowd shots) were seen. There is, however, no accompanying audio. (x)

The first photo is from the autumn 1984 Queen fan club magazine. Brian is seen with a watchful eye over the proceedings. Tour manager Gerry Stickells and his wife are also in the shot.

Pics 2 through 6 were submitted by Alessio Rizzitelli, and the seventh pic was taken by Dave Matkin.

(x)

[seokiloquy]

Game Cartridges - Kenma Kozume

Au: Regular/Gaming

Requested

Tags/Warnings:  GN! Reader, short and fluffy, Time Skip spoilers

Word Count: 2.1k+

"Lev, are you almost done?"

A deep raspy voice echoed into the gym, loud and authoritative, startling the volleyball players. Once all eyes turned your way, you laughed, letting your natural voice still the silent atmosphere. Your hand smacked the metal door as you hunched over, gasping for air between each series of laughs. 

Lev, who had just landed from a spike, opened his mouth in a loud cheer at the sight of your slumped form in the door. “(Y/N)!”

You straightened your spine, sighing as you watched Lev’s nose get caught on the mesh net as he tried to limbo under it. He looked like a pig for a moment, before the bottom of the net snapped and Lev ungracefully fell on his face.

“Ow.”

As he laid flatly on the gym floor, Kuroo —who you managed to identify based on Lev’s description (though you did expect a comical beak to be attached to his muzzle)— walked over, thumbs playing with the waistband of his shorts. Before he started to talk, you leaned over, looking behind him to see a partially blond boy dig the toe of his shoe into your tall friend’s side. Kozume Kenma.

The rooster in front of you started to speak. “You sure gave us all a shock. Thought you were a janitor coming to kick us out,” he chuckled, lifting a hand off his hip to scratch the back of his head.

“Ya sorry, Lev just finds that voice creepy so I use it every now and then to scare him.”

Kuroo sidestepped as his hand moved to gesture you inside. “So, you’re a voice actor?”

“That’s the plan at least.” You bowed and walked to the bench that was pressed against the wall, a small bag swinging over your shoulder. The old man, Nekomata, gave you a wrinkly grin as you sat next to him, watching your hands as you pulled out a DS from your small bag.

Kuroo smiled, snapping his head to the clock before looking over his teammates.“Nekomata, should we start cleaning up?”

The couch hummed thoughtfully, turning his attention away from you and onto the team captain. “We still have a half-hour before our practice is officially over. How about we do 3 vs 3, to, ah, 7 points?” He then turned his attention to Lev, who was rubbing his nose as he got to his feet. “Pair up evenly for the beginning, the odd player out will be keeping track of scores and rotate into the next team. Got it?”

Lev raised his hand. “Can you explain the rotation again?”

You looked up from your handheld console to give your friend a deadpan look. Nekomata laughed before answering, “The odd player will take out a player of the next team and so on to keep teams fresh. Got it?”

The Silver hair boy hummed, standing to his full height. “Got it.”

As players dispersed randomly, not selecting any teammates, in particular, to play with, you were vaguely aware of the new bodies that came to sit alongside you on the bench. Instead of looking up to whichever boy had chosen to take the spot next to you, you kept your head down as you played on your DS.

“Ah.” Quiet

“Um.” Again.

Sighing you turned your head on a swivel to the blond boy who sat next to you. His head was downcast but through the dyed strands, you could see his eyes flicker from his fidgeting fingers to the device in your hands. His eyes shot up to meet yours before quickly turning away.

You wore a kind smirk. “Need something?”

Kozume turned his head slowly, pointing to your small bag that was laid open, exposing the variety of games you owned. In a calm voice, “You have lots of games, why are you playing Nintendogs?”

You laughed looking back down at your small virtual pet. “Well, a lot of those I haven’t started yet, Lev gave them to me yesterday as a gift. And well, I’m only going to be waiting for about 30 minutes for you guys to finish before we leave, so I don’t really want to start something new.”

You heard the clicking of the plastic game cartridges as Kozume riffled through them. He pulled out one, a Pokemon game you had yet to touch. “Play this.”

“But my dogs.” 

“They aren’t real. Play this, it’s fun.”

Nekoma called for the teams to switch. Kozume stood up but waited for you to take the game out of his hand before he left for the court.

You sighed, pulling Nintendogs out of the DS and putting the Pokemon game in, Pearl, apparently. 

“Your name is (Y/N), right?”

“(L/N) (Y/N), ya.”

Kozume hummed, before stepping onto the court, letting a sweaty Lev fall into the spot he had previously occupied.

Another day, another practice and you were back to sitting next to Nekomata, waiting. Occasionally, you looked up from your DS to see the two setters toss a ball up for the players to hit, watching as the players ducked under the net to collect their balls. 

Once their final water break came around, Kozume, who had been eyeing your DS since you sat down, shuffled to sit beside you. “Ah, use the water attack.”

“Are you sure?” you asked, head tilting as you showed him your progress.

“Hmm, gym battles are mostly element-based, you want to use mostly water attacks for this one.”

Nodding, you clicked the option Kozume had so helpfully pointed out. “I know nothing about how to play this.” The battle ended, giving you a pretty badge, to which you realized there were more empty slots to fill. “Damn it.” You turned to see partially bleached blond chugging back his water. “Kozume, could you help me with the other gyms?”

“Kenma is fine. And I could, but you’d probably have to be here for that, you have to find the other gyms after all.”

The wince you wore caught his attention. Hissing you dropped your hands into your lap, still holding the sides of your plastic game. “I’m not sure how possible that would be. My luck is just running out isn’t it.” He kept watching, half-listening to Nekomata as he explained the cooldown drill before practice ended. You pulled out your little red flip phone from the side pocket of your back. “Put in your email. I’ll message you and give you my contact.”

Taking the device from your hand he quickly typed out his address before dropping it unceremoniously into your bag and running onto the court with his teammates. You smiled at the sight of his hair bouncing before your smile dropped and your head lowered to look back down at the game in your lap. The colours on the screen seemed a bit dimmer.

Where did the Pokemon go?

Kenma had quickly become your go-to Pokemon consultant. Always there in your time of need.

Which one?

He responded quickly, which helped.

Uh, one of the three ones? I was trying to catch it but it’s not there anymore. I tried dropping revival items and stuff but it’s not there.

(Y/N) did you kill it?

….Maybe?

Reload the game.

I’ve done that.

Did you save after you defeated it?

Messages with Kenma typically surrounded classes and videogames, more so the latter. With that though, came a sense of consistency with messages outside of active school hours and giving your mind a constant timeline to follow throughout the chaos that surrounded you.

Ya, I had to save my progress.

It took a minute for him to respond, but you could feel the sorrow radiating off him through the screen.

You’re going to need to restart the game if you want to continue.

Shit. Well then, got any other recommended games? Ideally RPGs.

Plenty.

After many practices with your presence sitting silently against the wall, Kenma was surprised when the end of practice came around, and you were nowhere in sight. Kenma pushed the rolling basket of volleyballs up next to Lev as they gathered up all the equipment.

“Where’s (Y/N)?” he asked, crouching down to pick up a stray ball.

Lev lowered his chin to see the setter clearly. He hummed, “Ah, I think it was called, New York?”

Kenma paused, dropping the volleyball into the basket with cold hands. “What?”

“They moved to the USA. I don’t think that they’re going to be there forever though. But Mr. (L/N) got a job there from what I remember. They were staying with my family before they moved.”

Kenma’s nose scrunched. “Why did I have to make friends with someone who was moving away? You’re terrible, Lev.” He gripped the blue fabric of the basket a bit tighter and began pushing it into the storage closet, grumbling.

“What did I do?”

After practice, Kenma quickly got to his phone, typing away as he walked home alongside Kuroo.

Your response, despite being in a different time zone, was quick.

IM SO SORRY I TOTALLY FORGOT!!! I just liked talking to you and it slipped my mind whenever you were around

Kenma sighed, washing away the anxious feeling in his chest. 

Another email came through.

I’m only going to be here for a couple years, then I’m going to come back. Messages may be slow because of time and all, but I’ll always respond.

You didn’t lie that day. You were always quick to send a message back, but over time those messages stopped coming and you didn’t have the heart to send anything in return.

You’d ponder on it occasionally, hoping that all it was, was forgetfulness, or a changed contact. But after a couple years, it was easier not to think about it, and go on with life and pursuing your passion.

“Stop spamming the chat guys, please,” Kenma grumbled, wincing at the repetitive notifications that rang in his ear. Turning to look at the live responses, he paused the stream of messages to read over a few. “You’ll stop once I start playing? Fine, fine. Let me get it booted up.”

As he pulled up the Japan-made open-world RPG that had been released for Beta earlier that week, the chat went into a flurry of excitement, with various images and repetitive cheers rolling by.

Kenma turned to face his main screen as The main intro to the game played with a flurry of colour. The chat increased in speed as the two-player options appeared on screen, ready to be selected. When his mouth moved over one of the characters they moved, reciting a line.

“Oh they’re voices are nice.”

The chat exploded again.

(Y/N)

(Y/N)’s voice is great!

They do both of the MCs voices

All the talent 

Selecting the male character, Kenma listened to the boyish tone, furrowing his boy as he caught sight of the name being repeated over and over again in the chat.

“(Y/N)? That sounds familiar, are they in an anime?”

The chat responded with a list. 

Tilting his head, Kenma pulled out his phone as the game began to load, talking out loud for the viewers of his stream.

“(Y/N). that sounds familiar.” He entered the search for the game’s voice cast. Immediately seeing a familiar portrait at the top of the list.

The chat quickly caught on to Kenma’s look of surprise and started spamming again.

“(Y/N)?! Ah! I know them! It’s been years!”

Ignoring the chat and fully loaded game for a moment, Kenma smiled at the image of an older you on his phone screen. Putting down his phone and sitting straighter, he looked at the camera that was focused on his face.

“Hmm, this makes me want to play Pokemon. Maybe later. Time to start this.”

I was going to write a full-length fic with this au but…. You know how it goes.

Short and fluffy cause I have to get back into the groove of writing after 2 months. Ahaha. I finished all of One Piece this week (when I wrote this), 966(now 971) episodes thus far and all the movies. Makes me want to write for it. Maybe If Kiwi watches it I will. 

….If I do, it’ll probably go on Ao3… but if you’re reading this and want me to…. Let me know… I’m tempted.

Kiwi. Watch One Piece so you can edit One Piece fanfiction that I’ll probably never write…. Unless. - Bacon

Maybeeee I can still edit without watching it thoughhhh. I’d edit whatever you’d me too - Kiwi

Unless!- Bacon

Posted: 25/04/2021

[senorarelojes]

Pizzaverse artwork and ficlet: 'A Little Piece'

@maiyashu made this really cute and beautiful Instagram post of Pizzaverse Dave being silly and drawing little monsters/creatures on the notes he leaves for Alan and their kids around the house. Of course, Alan shows off his husband's work on Instagram. Under the artwork is an accompanying ficlet set in the future for the Pizzaverse timeline. Thank you dear Shu for your gorgeous (and funny) artwork! Happy Father's Day to the boys!

Title: A Little Piece Pairing: Dave/Alan Rating: General Tags: Pizzaverse, Kid Fic, Fluff

Dave was always amused whenever Alan teased him about being the one in their relationship who was more addicted to social media. It seemed they were both on an even keel; Alan posted more often, while Dave had a variety of accounts across various platforms that he’d lost interest in after the initial posting frenzy. They had their different addictions too: Dave liked the spontaneity of Twitter and TikTok, while Alan for some reason preferred Facebook and Reddit. But Instagram was their common vice, and most of their friend circle were on it as well.

Before fatherhood, Dave had imagined that his use of social media would dwindle because he simply wouldn’t have the time. But instead he’d found the opposite to be true: now he wanted to post about Alan, Paris and Stella all the time, and he didn’t even care if no one outside their family and a few chosen friends would find it cute.

Of course, both Dave and Alan took care to obscure the faces of their daughters. But the adorable things they did were up for grabs: Paris’ first steps, then followed by Stella’s in a few years. Their first stuffed toys. Their first drawings. Dave shamelessly spammed his IG feed with various pictures and videos, and refused to feel bad about it because Martin was doing the same with his kids, and so was Fletch, who seemed convinced that his daughter was a maths prodigy.

Of course, Dave posted pictures of Alan on his feed as well. Naturally his husband was usually included if it was a picture or video with one of the girls, such as Alan helping Paris with her homework or feeding Stella at dinnertime. But sometimes Dave saved a few precious shots he’d snuck on his phone, like Alan frowning at the computer in his tiny makeshift home studio, or stealing a rare moment after the girls had gone to bed to listen to one of the many records he owned. Those didn’t get as many likes and comments as anything Dave posted of the girls, but he didn’t care much.

In truth, Dave would have probably gone on like this if Alan hadn’t taken him aside one night and asked him why he’d stopped posting pictures of his art. “My art?” Dave echoed, genuinely surprised that Alan had been keeping track because Dave certainly hadn’t.

“Yeah, your paintings.” Alan gestured towards Dave’s most recent effort, which was a white cat posing regally by a candle. Even that had been painted more than a year ago, before Stella had come into their lives. “You don’t really post them anymore. Or paint much more, for that matter.”

Dave just kept staring at Alan in astonishment. When they had gotten married and subsequently made the decision to become parents via surrogacy, it had been pretty much an unspoken agreement between them that family and work would have higher priority. This meant their hobbies were naturally the first thing to be sacrificed for time, and Dave had been fine with that. They hadn’t touched the band in years, not since the last time everyone had performed at Martin’s wedding.

But now Dave realised that he missed painting with an ache like a phantom limb, like something that had always been a part of him was now oddly missing. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d picked up a paintbrush for the hell of it. Everything he’d designed or illustrated over the past year had solely been for work, and that thought pained him like a spike through his solar plexus.

In contrast, Alan - who had always been very driven and disciplined - seemed to have no problem reviving his interests in mixing and composing after Stella had started sleeping at more regular hours. So Dave didn't even have the excuse of fatherhood.

“You should pick it up again,” Alan told him with a gentle squeeze of his hand, before moving on to the topic of Father’s Day, which was coming up. Dave just nodded distractedly when Alan suggested ordering in brunch from a nice restaurant, still preoccupied with thoughts of Alan’s mind-blowing revelation.

After that conversation with Alan, Dave decided to try and carve out time for painting. Although that wasn’t always possible, he did want to show Alan he was trying, so he started with small gestures. If he left reminders and post-its for Alan around the house, he’d be sure to draw a funny cartoon to accompany his loopy handwriting, like a sentient postbox (to remind Alan to go to the post office) or a funny caricature of Martin and Fletch (to ask Alan if he wanted to have dinner and catch up with them).

Alan never really mentioned the little drawings beyond an amused eye-roll, but Dave knew Alan was never particularly verbose about his true sentiments anyway. Dave had learned to look towards Alan’s actions instead. Sure enough, Alan started taking pictures of Dave’s little drawings and posting them on Instagram with an accompanying dry and witty caption, along with the hashtag ‘#artisthusband’. To Dave’s surprise, it really took off among their friends and other family members, and Dave always had to fend off demands from his mum and Sue about more cute artwork everytime he called home.

Since Paris and Stella loved the drawings too, he started drawing little monsters for them on their paper lunch bags, which he would prepare for them before Alan would drop them off at daycare. It wasn’t long before Alan started posting these on Instagram too, and his comment section would get animated at times because Martin, Fletch, Paul, Daryl and the rest would start discussing which creature Dave had meant to draw. He didn’t have the heart to tell them he’d made them all up on the spot.

Having Alan’s support like this, even for his silly little drawings, was more fulfilling and touching than Dave had expected. So he’d really meant it when he said he was going to get art supplies, but more often than not Dave would get distracted and buy Elsa colouring books for the girls instead. Alan hadn’t said anything at all, but Dave knew how to read him pretty well by now. His husband was definitely planning something.

On the morning of Father’s Day, Dave was the first out of bed so he put in the order at the restaurant before going for a run in Hyde Park. His metabolism wasn’t what it used to be, and he’d gotten into the habit of eating off the girls’ plates whenever they couldn’t finish their food. Alan was a really good cook too, so Dave knew he had to fit in a run today if he was going to be feasting on french toast and eggs benedict for Father’s Day.

When he got home, he thought he spotted Alan in the study with a giggling Paris and Stella. “Hello, my loves,” he yelled out at the door, even more mystified when Alan quickly stepped out of the study with the girls, closing the door hurriedly behind them.

“The food’s just got delivered, I’ll set the table,” Alan told him with a too-bright smile. ‘You go shower first, yeah?”

Dave decided to let his suspicious behaviour go for now. “Alright, sure.” He loped over to where they were, giving Alan a brief kiss and a I’m-on-to-you squint before bending down to stretch his arms out to the girls. “Can I get a hug first?”

“Daddy’s stinky!” Paris protested laughingly, while an uncomprehending Stella just giggled along with her older sister.

Dave’s jaw dropped in mock outrage. “Stinky, am I? How about I make you stinky too, huh?” He pretended to chase a squealing Paris and Stella for a hug, laughing when they ran to hide behind an amused Alan’s legs.

“Just go shower, the food’s getting cold, you lunatic.” Alan shook his head at Dave with a grin before shepherding the girls to the dining area. Dave left him to it, washing up quickly so he could join his family for breakfast.

However, he wasn’t expecting to find Alan and the girls waiting for him outside the bedroom, all of them grinning innocently at him. “What’s going on?” a suspicious Dave asked.

Paris took his hand and tugged him to the study, Alan picking up Stella and following with her in his arms. When Paris pushed open the door, Dave stared in shock at the brand new easel waiting for him, along with the art supplies neatly piled on top of a blank canvas. He stepped forward, picking up the paints and brushes with trembling hands. Alan had gotten everything right, remembered every detail from when Dave used to paint before they’d gotten married and become fathers.

“I had to take a bit out of the holiday budget for this,” came Alan’s soft voice behind him. “But it’s worth it for me to delay our trip. I’d rather see you painting again.”

“We want more of Daddy’s paper monsters!” Paris declared gleefully, while Stella stared at all of them in bafflement.

“I--” Dave just couldn’t speak. His heart was so full, like it was going to overflow with joy and sentiment and his overwhelming love for his family. There were simply no words that could possibly encapsulate the emotions warring within him now, so instead he grabbed Alan and the girls to him in a tight hug, his breaths ragged and his eyes wet.

“Happy Father’s Day,” Alan said quietly, the smile evident in his voice even though Dave couldn’t quite see his face.

“You too, Al.” Dave pulled away to kiss him, then smothered his squealing girls with equal affection.

[lovemeafterhrs]

friends w benefits | k. kenma (end)

chapter 19: you can fall in love with anyone

fun fact: bro this is the last one.. my heart cant handle it but i just want to thank all of you for all of your support with the series. you all are SO important to me and im so glad that you guys came along with me on the fwb! kenma rollercoaster. see yall in the next one! (or when i post a new smau at the end of the week lmao)

~~~~

the night had started out relatively tame. light hearted games had turned much more heated as bokuto carried nora away in his arms to keep her away from killing kenma.

in the corner sat miyuki, typing out his obituary as kuroo tried to convince him to talk to the girl he’d been avoiding the whole night.

at that current moment, said girl was sitting on kuroo’s balcony as loud vibrations from the music boomed behind her.

tetsurou sent a sharp look to a petrified kenma, who was busy wondering if he could disappear from the situation without anyone noticing.

he’d admitted his feelings many times, and sat stone cold as he awaited her rejection. he didn’t want to say the words again. he didn’t want to lose the connection they had.

as much as he hated just being friends, he didn’t want to ruin the dynamic that he found himself becoming more and more fond of. he just wanted to be in her presence, even if that meant drowning the butterflies in his chest just to see her smile.

he didn’t know what answer he was seeking, or how the events would play out when they existed outside of his mind.

his mind began to lose track of the daydreams, and the possibilities left him with more questions than answers.

by the time he convinced himself to step onto the balcony, everyone in the room had already gathered around the window to witness his confession.

“uh.. can i sit here?” he cursed himself for being so nervous, but the light nod from her was enough to get him to sit next to her on the dark wood bench.

he’d never known her to be so quiet, but they sat together in silence and enjoyed the muffled slow song that echoed behind them. it was something out of a movie, but he feared that it wouldn’t have the ending that he’d been dreaming of.

“hey kenma?” she asked, and her voice was so hushed that he almost didn’t hear her. when he replied, she moved to wrap her arms around her legs, her head resting on her knees as she looked out to the dark blue skyline.

“do you believe in love? like the stupid, illogical, makes no sense kind of love that leaves you wondering what life’s really like?”

“i think i do..” he paused, and she looked up at him with a look in her eyes that gifted him with the urge to pass out on the spot. “why, are you in love or something?”

“i don’t think so.” she watched his demeanor drop as she turned away from him, facing the dark sky once again. “i think i could be though, eventually. i still have a lot to work on, but i wouldn’t mind being in love again. it’s only moderately inconvenient.”

“moderately inconvenient? how so?” they were laughing now, and the stress that pressed itself firmly onto his shoulders lifted as soon as he heard her small giggle.

“i don’t know.. admitting feelings is kinda stupid. being that open with someone who could just tell you to fuck off is absolutely terrifying.” her choice of words cut through him like a knife as he observed the cloud of guilt forming over her.

“you know, i’m really glad that you didn’t tell me to fuck off.” she laughed at his joke lightly as she rushed to wipe her eyes. “i’m really relieved that we’re talking again. i got used to our dynamic sooner than i thought, and animal crossing just didn’t hit the same.”

“i don’t think that’s gonna be a problem again anytime soon.” one smile was all that it took to revive the butterflies deep in his chest that he’d been stomping on for the last few weeks.

he was confused now, throwing out a soft “what do you mean?” she rolled her eyes at him, and she watched his lips form into a pout from the corner of her eye.

“i don’t know.. that maybe i want to be more than whatever this is? but who knows honestly, could mean a lot of things.” she was fucking with him now, and he knew it. “you still haven’t taken me on that date.”

“was getting coffee not a date?”

“i was in my pajamas. not a date.” he stuck his tongue out at her in response and was met with a playful glare in his direction.

“what do you want to do then?” he asked, and she looked at him like he’d just burned through his last two functioning brain cells.

“i don’t know kenma, you’re the boyfriend.”

“i’m the boyfriend?” surprise displayed against his normally quiet exterior and his smile was contagious

“..uh.. duh, i thought we went over this?”

“we didn’t but.. does that mean i can kiss you whenever now?” her cheeks scorched under the pressure of her hands as she nodded and covered her face. “you’re never this flustered, did i say something?”

“no, i just want you to kiss me idiot.”

and he did, standing on his balcony in front of all of their friends. gagging sounds could be heard from behind the glass panels, but he didn’t care as he pulled her closer.

why dont we go somewhere only we know?

masterlist:

taglist: @bby-bokuto @jazzofmine @beanst0ck @jaegersblogh @cuddlesslut @deimmortales99 @neomuxuxi @ladymartiini @kathya420 @paripedia a @sugassimp @moonlightaangel @momoinot @mochahyuck @idiot-juice-enthusiast @jiminscarmex @teenlife1599 @fourelementskal @breaking-ur-kneecaps @intohobiverse @aizawasthotty @badbyeyoongi @animeanxiety @stfucanunot @inuroku @animefan7420 @matamiskookie @neouihobi @iixyia @iloveanime691 @dancing-in-the-rain54 @kageyamasbabygorl @peachymochimochi @todobruhski @flrtykawas @krxstynnn @jiminifiess

[loruleanheart]

Desired Fate, Chapter 13

Read on ff.net

Read on AO3

One step closer to Hyrule Castle and one second closer to the Calamity…

And Zelda was no closer to awakening her power than when she began all those years ago.

Zelda cast a side-glance at Astor, who walked beside her. He was being very quiet, almost mirroring her dour mood. What was he thinking? He looked completely absorbed in his own headspace. She wondered what sort of inner demons he must have been fighting. He must have been under a great deal of pressure just as she was. What was it like to serve an ancient evil and be expected to be the perfect instrument to bring about its revival? Not to mention trying to turn away from such a destiny.

He’s changing... I was somehow able to persuade him, and now maybe he could be the key in turning back Calamity Ganon since it seems I won’t be able to… What if I’m being too optimistic? Believing he could change... Or that I had anything to do with it… He’ll always see me as the pathetic royal girl that can’t wield her power. He’ll never see me as anything more. He’ll never love me… Or anyone for that matter... Possibly why he turned to Ganon in the first place... Not that any of us are going to live long enough to worry about that, and it will be my fault...

Astor looked down to Zelda, who seemed as though she were about to break into tears again at any moment.

“I must envision a life after the Calamity, I must...” Zelda said aloud and to herself.

Hylia’s prophecy echoed in Astor’s mind. He wondered if those words could set Zelda’s mind at ease. If so, it seemed almost cruel not to tell her. But he couldn’t bring himself to say the words out loud. What if Zelda shut down the same way he had when Hylia had told him? For all he knew Hylia had noticed his weakness and had come up with a lie to tempt him, Ganon’s chosen, exploiting his weakness to gain the advantage in the war against her greatest enemy. There was no way the goddess herself had ordained THAT for the girl that bore her namesake and her blood. 

Yet, Zelda had been unreasonably kind to him. She had ordered her knight to spare him, even after he tried to kill her. She had gone above and beyond in reasoning and pleading with him. There was the way she looked at him, spoke to him. She made him feel desired. But how could that be? Astor briefly wondered if this was Hylia’s doing as well, as far-fetched an idea as it was, but Astor was running out of explanations for Zelda’s behavior towards him. Weren’t the royal daughters supposed to be able to hear the voice of the goddess?

“Zelda…” Astor paused, trying to get used to using her given name. “Does the goddess ever speak to you?”

“No… Not really… I’ve had these dreams though... but I can never quite hear her words.”

This answer satisfied him. Zelda seemed to be unaware of anything Hylia had planned. Her actions and words towards him were genuine.

“There’s something I can’t quite wrap my mind around... Why aren’t you afraid of me? Why don’t you hate me or find me repugnant? For all that I am, and all that I’ve done… Anyone else would.”

“There’s something about you… I can’t describe it.”

“I’m not worthy of whatever it is you feel for me…”

“That's not how it works… It just is…”

“But I swore myself to Calamity Ganon for so long… I am damned.”

“I refuse to believe that.”

“What about that knight? You must have feelings for him?”

“You mean Link? Why do you say that?”

Astor braced himself for what he would say next, but he knew it couldn’t go unsaid if he wanted to show any kind of true compassion towards Zelda.

“You’re fated to unlock your power because of him. It was a vision given to me by my harbinger.”

Zelda stopped in her tracks. It was a lot to take in. “So I haven’t failed after all? It’s really going to happen? Why would you tell me that?”

“I guess to redeem myself a bit, though what I’ve done up until now is unforgivable... I want to help you because you spared my life and helped me to see the truth about Calamity Ganon, and you seemed like you needed to hear it.”

“That’s surprisingly kind of you… But I don’t know if I believe it… I’ve already had my hopes raised and dashed so many times.” Zelda paused for a long moment. “But if an individual could be the thing to bring out my power, I... I want it to be you.”

“I can’t be that person for you…Fate has already decreed it…” He said in a soft, sullen way.

They walked in silence a bit longer.

Astor thought of the Harbinger. Its absence didn’t bode well. It was likely aware of what its seer was up to and it certainly wouldn't let such grievous disloyalty go unpunished.

Astor’s eyes darted around his surroundings. Astor had never been afraid of his Harbinger before, but now he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was capable of doing something really horrible to him.

After some time, they reached a high cliff overlooking Kakariko Village.  She had passed through the village on her way to Mount Lanayru in the early morning hours before anyone would be awake to see her, now the village was bustling.

Astor hadn’t set foot in a village in ages, and as soon as they started to cross paths with other people, Astor remembered why. The Sheikah Villagers were giving them odd looks, and of course they would. This village was pretty closed off from the rest of Hyrule. It was rare for them to see non-Sheikah.

A couple of small children darted past them, laughing, barely acknowledging their presence or personal space as children often did.

A Sheikah woman standing outside of a garment shop smiled at them, trying to wave them down. “Pretty clothes for your girlfriend?” The woman said sweetly.

Astor gave an exasperated, flustered moan, drawing his hood further down his brow.

“No, not today, but thank you,” Zelda responded kindly to the Sheikah shopkeep, beaming and radiating a sense of joy even for a moment. Her smile was like the sun, and any doubts Astor had dried up and disappeared. She loved him, and nothing seemed to be able to sway her. Hylia’s prophecy was one step closer to being realized.

I could tell her the prophecy, and she might just die of happiness…. Astor thought darkly. Loving her. Loathing her. He still couldn’t shake his aversion of Zelda realizing her power. It was too deeply ingrained. Although now he suspected that it was out of jealousy for the knight. And then there was Hylia’s prophecy which filled him with a feeling that had been foreign to him until lately. It was a feeling that both disgusted and thrilled him. But he couldn’t summon the words to tell her. Saying them would breathe them into existence even more so.

They passed houses and other shops, including an inn. Other Sheikah villagers were taking notice of them. 

“Isn’t that Princess Zelda?” one of the Sheikah villagers whispered loudly to another.

Astor walked faster, eager to clear the village. Zelda walked a little faster, too, despite that her legs felt heavy from covering so many miles. 

They made their way through a wide-open valley known as Sahasra Slope, which boasted a magnificent view of Hyrule Castle.

“Father is going to be so cross with me…”

Astor looked at Zelda strangely. She kept bringing up her father. It was almost like she was afraid of him. More afraid of her own father than she was of him… which really said something. Astor knew just enough about the royal family to make some assumptions.

“Does he believe the same as the people in your court?”

Zelda flinched. “Oh… You know about that…? It feels that way sometimes.”

“I don’t understand. You’re the one with the blood of the goddess. Shouldn’t he be worshiping the ground you walk on?”

“Well… He doesn’t see it that way. Tough love, I suppose…”

“What does he have to be angry about? Aside from you breaking custom to go to the Spring of Wisdom? Not a reason to be angry, if you ask me. This is a war, after all. You’re just doing what you must to have the potential to be victorious.”

Zelda looked at Astor with surprise. “You really believe that?”

“I’m… I was... Ganon’s chosen… I’m not ignorant or blind, although I suppose it would be accurate to say that Ganon kept me blind for so long. It’s important to understand your enemy. Your father is a fool. Trust me on this.”

“Hmm…” Zelda hummed. “What about your parents? What were they like?”

“I never knew them… I grew up in an orphanage in Deya Village.”

“Oh… I’m sorry… Now I feel silly for complaining.”

“It's fine. It stopped bothering me years ago and it’s beyond irrelevant now.”

They crossed the Rebonae bridge, on the last leg of their journey, and passed through a vast apple orchard, slightly off from Zelda’s original course.

The sky grew a vibrant orange as they entered Hyrule Castle Town. Zelda gave an audible exhale. “… Almost home…” She knew she had to prepare herself for anything now. 

Astor jolted when Zelda took hold of his hand. She was barely aware of how tightly she held onto him. But he felt her… or rather a time in the future where she would squeeze his hand with such intensity, to the point of pain. Her ragged breath was in his ear, as she braced herself against him. A wave of intense emotion washed over him and he...

...ripped his hand away,  Zelda looking at him puzzled and a little hurt.

“Whenever you touch me… I see and feel things.”

“Oh… Do these things displease you?” That wounded expression lingered on her face.

“I… I suppose it doesn’t…” He said, offering his hand to her. The vision didn’t continue, but it still left him stunned and strangely longing for more.

The streets were almost as devoid of life as they had been the night before. No one gave them more than a cursory glance as they passed by.

They walked up the winding brick pathway that led up to the castle, and when they reached the sanctum, all four champions, Impa, and Link turned to them as they appeared in the doorway. All was eerily quiet as they came forward. Zelda’s eyes were red from crying and everyone looked with suspicion at Astor. Link placed his hand on the hilt of the Master Sword.

Urbosa and Impa ran to Zelda.

“Well if this isn’t a fine how do you do?” Said Revali in a dry tone. “We all thought the princess was in danger when in reality she was just off on some tryst. The Calamity is about to occur at any moment, and we’re all miles away from our Divine Beasts with our fingers in our tailfeathers...”

“Oh, Revali. Go suck an egg. This is NOT the time.” Urbosa chastised the rito, and then she turned to Zelda. “Are you alright, little bird? Where were you? And why is HE here?” Urbosa looked at Astor with great dismay and distrust.

“Urbosa, remember when you said you would always support me and to just say the word? This is it... I need your support now more than ever.”

Urbosa considered this, her azure blue lips parting slightly, although at a loss for words.

“Tell me what's going on? I’m all ears.”

“Alright, now that Zelda is safe and sound, can we get back to our Divine Beasts and forget this whole asinine situation.” Revali interrupted again.

Astor spoke up. “That’s exactly where Calamity Ganon wants you when he returns. Ganon’s blights are set to take over the Divine beasts and kill their pilots.

Everyone turned to Astor with a look of disbelief. Mipha reached for Link’s hand for support, but stopped short, growing self-conscious.

“And why should we believe you, vile follower of the Calamity? How do we know you’re not trying to set us up? You may have convinced the Princess, but it’s going to take a lot more to gain our trust.” Urbosa responded curtly.

“Urbosa!” Zelda protested.

“Forgive me, little bird. You may have shown this man mercy, but I won’t…”

“I believe him,” said Daruk. 

Urbosa turned to Daruk. “You’re kidding right?”

“I mean, he sounds sincere enough to me.”

Mipha quickly assessed the energy between Princess Zelda and Astor and intervened, speaking. “I believe him as well… Or rather I believe Princess Zelda. Let’s give him a chance before we jump to rash conclusions.”

Urbosa turned her ire back to Astor. “What are you trying to pull?”

“I’m not trying to pull anything. You can take my warning or leave it, for all I care. I just wanted to spare Zelda the heartache of losing her champions.”

Urbosa folded her arms. “I swear if you hurt her I’m going to cut you up piece by piece and feed you to the Molduga. She is precious to me and I must do right by my dear friend, Zelda’s late mother… We Gerudo have our ways of dealing with voe who take advantage of one of our vai, especially when said voe is a member of the Yiga… or an affiliate.”

“Do I make myself clear, Prophet?”

“Crystal…”

King Rhoam appeared on the balcony, alerted by the commotion of the Champions.

“What is the meaning of this…. Zelda? You’ve returned? What were you thinking, running… quite literally running from your duty when the Calamity is nearly at hand?” There was much derision in his voice.

“I did no such thing. I would never.” Zelda’s voice wavered. She wasn’t surprised her father would make this accusation, but it still hurt terribly.

“Then. where. were. you?” Rhoam said evenly, and in a way that shook Zelda to the core.

“I went to the Spring of Wisdom… In a bid to unlock my power. I’ve failed. I’m sorry. I didn’t feel anything. Just like all my other attempts.”

King Rhoam shut his eyes. “That was not your decision to make. You know it is forbidden for you to set foot on Mount Lanayru until you are of age. For all you know your disobedience  may have cost all of Hyrule!”

Zelda began to break down. “But…”

“No more excuses, Zelda! You are to spend the rest of the night in prayer, asking the goddess for forgiveness and discernment, and so help me, you WILL unlock your power.”

Zelda clenched her fist. “No, I won’t! I’m not a child anymore. Please stop ordering me around like one. We must prepare to oppose the Calamity in whatever way we can, and I won’t waste another second praying for this cursed power to awaken!”

“Zelda, you are out of line, and I will not tolerate another word from you!” Rhoam raised his voice, almost shouting. “There is no excuse for this behavior. As long as I am King, you will obey me. Your mother would be very disappointed in you, Zelda. What a waste…”

 “You should watch your tongue, old man… How could you speak thus of the one who carries the blood of the goddess? Perhaps it is you who should beg forgiveness.” 

Everyone went deadly silent as they directed their attention to Astor.

Rhoam glared at the younger man, indignantly, taken aback by his words. He felt a deep sense of suspicion just from the look of him. There was a darkness about the young man that gave Rhoam a great sense of disquiet. “You… You must be the prophet I’ve heard about. What role do you play in all this? And who are you to tell me how to speak to my daughter? You know nothing of the responsibilities I have to my kingdom or of the pressures of raising a daughter of the royal family.”

Astor was about to protest when something violently rocked the very foundation of the castle. Everyone braced themselves, gasping.

Zelda’s eyes widened, horror in her expression. “It cannot be…” Zelda raced outside, already knowing what she would see. Everyone followed her out.

She looked up and sure enough, the worst had come to pass, and it was beyond her worst nightmare. Circling and raging around the highest spire was a purple-red miasma. It was just like the image on the Sheikah Slate, except now Zelda could make out that it resembled a great swine. There was a clap of thunder, and embers of malice floated down all around them.

“Ganon…” Zelda stared up at the being in terrible fear as 100,000 wretched screams of despair rang out across Hyrule.

[tf2-headcanons-and-scenarios]

How would the mercs react if their s/o were to faint in front of them (from something relatively non dangerous)? How much would the reaction differ if it was a friend? p.s love your blog, always brightens my day

A/N: I’m glad I can bring a smile around, hope you enjoy these!!

Scout:

- The first time Scout ever saw someone faint was from blood loss on the Battlefield, so whenever someone faints he usually starts acting childish

- Think of his reaction like poking a dead rat with a stick

- The first time he saw YOU faint, however, was from the sight of a big fat Spider during Halloween

- Now because of how he always reacted to fainting spells, everyone kind of assumed to hear him laughing and poking at you

- They were surprised to see Scout freaking out and asking if you were alright

- You bet your arse that he was asking Medic all the dumbest questions, from if you were dead to if you were losing blood somehow etc.

- He feels a bit foolish overreacting when you eventually tell him you had a fear of spiders and seeing that monster of a spider just didn’t sit well for you

- If you guys were friends, however, he would laugh at you and poke at you until you wake up

- Tell him you’re fearful of spiders and he’ll always put spiders in your room or on your gun

- Yeah he’s a massive dickhead about it if you’re just friends

Soldier:

- Fainting was not something that Soldier understood. AT ALL.

- An enemy faints on the battlefield, he just blows them up and moves on

- If someone on his team faints, he scolds them for sleeping on the job or being a big fat coward

- The first time Soldier sees you faint in front of him is when he comes towards you with a smile on his face and shows you his box full of heads

- Now in-battle, you were fine with gore. Outside of conflict? NOPE.

- Soldier was just sitting beside you the entire time, poking your cheek with a finger and asking if you got enough sleep last night etc.

- Medic found himself walking into this sight and Soldier has grown worried after you didn’t wake up for a while

- Medic then talked some reason into Soldier that fainting wasn’t as he originally thought

- Soldier panicked but he calmed down when you woke up. From then on he doesn’t show his his head collection

- If you guys were just friends, he’d lecture you about it once you woke up and he would keep insisting on showing you his head collection

- You avoid that specific interaction like the plague and he calls you a coward. You can live with that so long as it means not seeing the heads again

Pyro:

- You and your team’s Pyro were just hanging around an abandoned building one fateful day

- You were both exploring and playing in the area with them, and you were having the time of your life

- At some point in time, both of you began to mess around with the roofing of the building, occasionally jumping to grab onto the beams above

- Eventually you managed to lose them somewhere in the building, so you went to look for them

- You found them doing something to something else, and you went to have a look

- You immediately regretted it as you saw them butchering an unfortunate enemy Spy who somehow crossed paths with them

- You fainted from seeing what remains of the Spy, and you wake up seeing Pyro PANIC about you and your health

- When you tell them you’re fine, they pick you up and give you a piggyback home, apologising and reassuring you they won’t do something like that again when you’re around

- They do keep to their word, they don’t do it outside of battle but in-battle? Hell has literally been manifested into one creature

- If you both were friends, Pyro would just shrug and continue doing what they were already doing to the poor Spy

Demoman:

- Your team won a round and were going out to celebrate

- Medic, Pyro and Heavy opted to stay at the base, while Spy went to go to a theatre

- Everyone else went out to the local pub to drink their hearts out

- Demo invites you as his romantic plus one, and you both went together to the same pub

- You guys started drinking and having fun, laughing as it was revealed that Scout was a light-weight very quickly

- Your last memory of the evening was feeling tipsy and sitting in Demo’s lap as he was starting to get drunk

- You wake up feeling terrible, your head pounding, your throat dry and feeling sweaty all over

- You eventually realise you were still in your evening attire in another person’s bed, and you were worried until you saw Demoman walking into the room with a tray in his hands

- He was very relieved to see you awake, and explained how you passed out drunk, and how he was worried for you and everything

- You tell him you’ll be fine and thank him for bringing you a glass of water, some painkillers and a hot plate of breakfast for two people

- You spend the morning eating breakfast together with Demoman nursing you better

- If you guys were friends? He’d laugh at how much of a light-weight you are and then wake you up forcefully with a nice bucket of ice-cold water

Heavy:

- It was right about Flu season in the Badlands and you were the unfortunate one who managed to get sick with the Flu

- You were relatively fine dealing with it on your own, but Heavy stepped in wherever he could to help you out

- Eventually you managed to infect Spy and Soldier with the Flu, and Medic has to send you three into isolation to prevent further contamination

- Scout thought it was wise to mess around with Spy’s medication and decided to switch out his medication with sleeping pills

- Unfortunately for Scout, he didn’t put the sleeping pills in the right container. Unfortunately for you, you ended up with the bottle of sleeping pills

- When Heavy went to check up on you, he had the biggest panic attack known to mankind when you were unresponsive

- He begged Medic to save your life, and was immensely relieved when it was discovered that you just took some Sleeping Pills that knocked you out like a light

- When you woke up, Heavy was right there with your proper medication, a bowl of warm Chicken Soup (his mother’s recipe) and a glass of water

- He gave you kisses on your forehead to check your temperature every now and then

- He would not care if he got contaminated, he isn’t letting shit like that happen to you again

- Yes He did discover Scout was responsible for the sleeping pills. Yes Scout’s week was absolutely miserable

- If you and Heavy were just friends, he’d make sure you were alright, but would leave you and the others in isolation until you guys were better

- He would still make Scout pay for such a potentially dangerous prank though

Engineer:

- Engineer has just finished working on a nifty little invention one day and he asked you and a few other mercs to test it out for him

- You were the only one willing to do it, everyone else was promised a full crate of booze to share if they participated

- There was an even number among the group of volunteers, and you were left to test the invention out with Soldier

- It was going well at first until Soldier got the brightest idea to start fiddling around with his end of the machine

- Despite the warnings Engi gave him, Soldier kept on doing his thing until he managed to loosen something up that made the machine malfunction

- Both you and Soldier fell unconscious from the electric shock you both received just as Engineer turned it off

- He was worried sick about you, and gently carried you over to Medic’s lab to get you checked

- He was a lot less scared for you when Medic told him the shock was nothing too serious, and you didn’t have any serious injuries anywhere internally and externally

- When you woke up, you swore you’ve never seen him more relieved in his life, and he apologises immensely to you

- As another way to apologise to you, he took you into town for a quiet evening out, spoiling you with dinner and romantic tunes from his guitar

- If you guys were just friends, he’d make sure you were alright and apologise for the accident with your own crate of booze

- In both scenarios Soldier would not get his share of alcohol and he would be banned from using any of Engi’s buildings on and off the battlefield for at least a week

Medic:

- Medic doesn’t usually invite someone in to help him with medical experiments as an assistant. Usually he invites someone to BE the medical experiment

- However, it was one of those days where Medic wasn’t opening up the torso of a team member, but it was the day he got a new fresh shipment of human transplants

- Said human transplants were harvested, cleaned and revived into working condition from the corpses of respawned mercenaries

- Thanks Saxton Hale

- Medic invites you to help him unload his new medical supplies along with Heavy and Sniper, and you happily agree

- You guys did your thing unloading the crates and putting them into Medic’s lab, but you guys were called to look at something Medic found

- Apparently his request for a large pile of blood bags went through (said blood was hijacked from a blood donation van that had conveniently crashed)

- Catching an eyeful of blood in bags did NOT sit well for you, and you fainted from the sight of it

- You woke up to Medic apologising and Heavy returning with a cold glass of water Medic asked him to fetch for you

- Medic still brings you into the lab to help you out, but he will warn you if there’ll be blood involved in his work

- The blood bags in question are carefully stored in a place where you won’t be able to find them

- If you guys were just friends he’d literally not care and ask Heavy and Sniper to finish unloading the supplies

- He would take advantage of your unconscious state to probably experiment on you though. Hey, saves him the trouble of sedating you!

Sniper:

- You had been visiting Australia with Sniper and the rest of the team for an assignment Miss Pauling sent you on.

- At some point in time you and Sniper were tracking someone down in the Outback and it had been a hot day and you were dying from the heat

- You both wanted to conserve as much water as possible but hot damn you were feeling lathargic

- You both stopped to sit and rest for a moment to have a sip of water, but you fainted at the sight of a very large snake sitting right next to you before you could even open your flask

- You woke up with a cloth over your forehead and Sniper sitting beside you looking relieved

- You began apologising for fainting at the sight of the snake but Sniper cut you off saying that it wasn’t your fault and you shouldn’t apologise for it

- He will give you his flask to drink as much water as you’d like, and he will cuddle you better

- If you guys were just friends he’d set you in the back of the team truck and take the driver’s seat. He knows you’ll be fine

Spy:

- It was a quiet and tense night out, you and Spy had been assigned to assasinate a growing enemy of Mann. Co and so far it wasn’t going well

- One good thing was that you both managed to eliminate the target at a high-class restaurant but now you both are utilising utensils and metallic pans to escape from the security guards and body guards

- You had been doing fine up until you were unsuspectingly caught with a frying pan to the back of your head, rendering you unconscious

- When you woke up, you were in Spy’s arms travelling in the back of the pick-up truck Miss Pauling was driving. You had not seen him this uneasy in a while and you had a feeling as to why

- Pauling caught you up on what happened after you got knocked out. In short, Spy got thrown off his game and almost captured trying to rescue you. Needless to say Miss Pauling got her hands dirty cleaning up Spy’s sloppiness but thankfully promised to keep this between you three

- The rest of the trip has Spy cuddle you in his arms as he carefully nursed your injured head

- One could say he was overreacting over your concussion but you allowed him to fret over you

- If you guys were friends he would have finished the job yourself and scold you for being so careless

- It would also be a very long time before you were even considered to accompany him on another mission

[thisonesforfanfic]

Light in the Dark (10/?)

Bucky x Reader

Word count: 2.2k

Summary: You and Bucky finally stop running around and settle in an abandoned nightclub as your safehouse for the time being, however, he is still reluctant in letting you help him recover

Bucky was hesitant to let you accompany him, but deep down, he didn't want you to leave either. After all, his feelings for you erupted once more and he wasn't ready to let you go so easily.

Just until I make sure no one is on our trail

Those words echoed on Bucky's mind as your head rested on him. It was about 3 am, there were still a couple hours to go until the train you jumped into got to the next station. The cargo wagon was silent and eerily familiar to him, Bucky let you rest for a while as the tension on him showed no sign of relieving any time soon.

You looked so peaceful, even your breath on his neck was comforting. This was definitely the hardest decision he had to make, risk hurting you himself, or not being there for you if you were ever in danger.

Lies. Yes, though not completely. He definitely wanted to keep you safe, but most of all, he wanted to keep your embrace, to have your scent overflowing his senses, the taste of your lips still lingered on his.

---

It was the fifth destination you were headed to, even though being with Bucky was amazing, you kinda missed not having to look over your shoulder whenever you were in public. It was a little less stressing after you left everything you had on you for a certain someone to retrieve.

Steve was mad as hell because you wouldn't wait for him to meet you, and even though you wanted him to be there as well, you had to make sure no one knew where you were. Bucky and yourself had been part of Hydra's elite squad, even if the organization was dismantled, the ones who knew about you, and how to control you, could take Bucky in a heartbeat, and that was a risk you were not willing to take.

"I know it's shitty Steve, but we have to keep moving, I wasn't as careful as I should have been. You have the locker number and the password"

"Y/N, don't be so stubborn, I can get there in just a couple of hours, ju-"

"Neither of us want to put you at risk Steve, and you know we can't sit still while they might be out here hunting our heads. We are leaving right now; I will contact you as soon as I can. Just keep these things safe. Please stay safe"

Aside from a couple trinkets, photos and documents, you had left everything behind, in fear you were being tracked somehow. If Hydra infiltrated Shield, what could guarantee that their experts didn't get to the gear Steve provided you beforehand? It would be foolish to think Hydra wouldn't use all of the power they had left to get you.

And sure, hiding out with Bucky was far from the worst-case scenario. It was already immensely better than your plan of running off on your own, back then Bucky was still the winter soldier, and you knew Hydra would have sent him after you. That felt like a thousand years ago. From seeing Steve, then Bucky, saving him from the organization that took Y/B/N life, followed by stalking him and now trying to lay low, even that morning in Spain felt like ancient history.

Feelings of passion and comfort sprung out since then, and though you tried to keep them back as much as you could, having Bucky at your reach made everything OK. Even if it was just his hand brushing against yours while walking, the slight grin he couldn't hold back when you tried lightening his mood, making him laugh.

"We're here" the low groan pulled you away from your thoughts

Bucky got up and extended a hand for you to follow. The train slowed down as yet another city approached in view, the short suburban constructions rushing past you on the outskirts of Berlin were the cue to jump off once again. Your grip on his hand tighten as you stood on the wagon's door. The leap was short, but by the speed you hit the ground, bruises would definitely show.

The necessary precautions were yet again made. Your waking hours were inverted, the few times you had seen daylight lately were either dusk or dawn, either entering a new hideout or transport, the places you sneaked into were usually long abandoned, and this time you both thought it was safe to stop skipping towns. After two nights sleeping at a backroom in what once had been a nightclub, it seemed as, if anyone had still been following you, you'd lost them.

However, this meant your time with Bucky was short, since this was his condition, being safe. And despite his earlier agreement, he didn’t really want you to use your powers on his mind.

"You want me to kill you?" His voice sent chills down your spine, and though you tried to keep a brave face, he could see right through it "Y/N, I won't let you- I can't let you do this, I'll never forgive myself if anything happens"

"James, listen to me" He was stiff, the best of intentions were not enough to make him cooperate "I can tie you up if you think you'll hit me that easily, but I won't let you go without at least trying to set you free" the space between you slimmed as you approached slowly, Bucky's tension becoming more controlling of him with every step you took "You would do the same for me" your words were soothing, but it didn't make the situation any easier. Bucky reluctantly nodded before pulling you into his arms

"Just promise me something" his forehead in yours, his lips barely brushing yours, you locked eyes, waiting for him to finish "knock me out before I can do anything"

You pressed your lips on his as if it was your last chance to do so, then pulled away with a smirk.

"As if you would even have the chance" your playful laugh echoed on the empty room while you both sat crossing your legs, facing each other. You rested your hands on his temples, allowing a sheer green glow to dance over his skin.

"This might sting a little" you waited for his nod to continue "try thinking of something you remember, a good moment"

"Go ahead" his eyes were shut, concentration emanating his every pore, his flinching was barely noticeable when the color became more intense, almost aggressively pressing against his skin before flowing into him.

There's no telling how long you did it for, it felt like hours, the painful groans Bucky let out were making in harder by the second for you to keep going, not long after, you felt the exhaustion numbing your limbs before collapsing on the floor, Bucky's voice calling out your name sounded so distant, his arms around you felt warm yet barely there.

"I'm okay" your voice was as loud as a whisper, you heard him curse something under his breath while burying his face on your neck "I just need a minute, alright?" You let your hand run through his hair, softly holding him in place

"No! We are not doing this, look at you!" He cupped your face in his hands, looking worried like you had never seen him before "You can barely open your eyes Y/N"

"Seriously, I just need to rest for a while" your senses were slowly coming back, making it a little easier to move "I only did this to my mind before, I didn't realize it took so much energy to do on someone else" you locked your Y/E/C eyes on his blue ones, with a reassuring look "It's just a different kind of healing... Like multiple gunshots all at once, too deep for me to heal it all without getting the best of me" Bucky was still worried, not willing to let you free of his grip.

"I promise Buck" you sat up straight, reaching for a flask you had left nearby "but how are you feeling?"

You took a sip of something that went burning down your throat. It felt like it was reviving you in a way, connecting you back to yourself. Alcohol only had this effect on you on rare occasions, when your powers were drained by so much use, like just now.

"I guess I'm okay? If anything, I feel some sort of lightness… I can remember some things more clearly, sure" you handed him the flask, he drank in gulps, as if the burning you felt didn't affect him at all "But Y/N... I don't think we should do this right now, you should rest"

"I will have to agree" you shrugged your shoulders "If it worked to any capacity, the effect of the healing shouldn't brush off too easily just yet... Besides, you wouldn't be able to live with yourself if I destroyed your ass while like this" a yawn took the place of your laughter as you got up, Bucky practically mirroring your moves.

"You are getting too cocky for someone who couldn't even tail me properly, not to mention that miserable tackle in DC" his hand rested on your lower back, guiding you to the cushions you had been sleeping on the past couple of nights "No answer huh? This thing really ran you dry" you stuck your tongue out as a response as Bucky laid you down and took his place beside you, chuckling.

"I love you, jerk" you wrapped yourself around him and fell into a dreamless slumber before you could even hear his answer.

"I love you too, doll" he didn't even dare to move as you fell asleep on his shoulder, for a moment, he actually felt grateful for what you did, especially because it meant he could be with you for a little longer.

------

The smell of fresh coffee woke you up a few hours later

"Well, this is oddly familiar" You walked out of the backroom to find Bucky setting coffee cups on the counter by the wall

"Except this time, you're the one who passed out last night, not me" his gaze met yours with a large smile "Though, I remember you were a much better drinker back then" He remembered.

"It worked! I knew it would!" You couldn't help but run into his arms, your words overflowing with relief "How are you feeling?"

"It's all coming back slowly I guess" Of course he didn't recall everything at once, but the more he talked about things, the clearer they became, so you sat there for a while, just sharing coffee and memories, forgetting about all the other problems for a couple of hours. Right now, it was very simple, just to lovers, finally laughing carelessly together again.

Almost everything you knew about Bucky's life had been recapped in your conversation, it was time to see if it really was to any use. The green glow penetrated his skin again for a few seconds, just so you both were more comfortable with continuing with the plan.

As Bucky had requested, you tied his feet together and his hands behind his back. Leaving him vulnerable enough for you to attack before he did, just in case.

"I could get used to this" You stood up, towering over him with a smirk, making his cheeks burn red

"I- *humpf*, let's just get this over with, please?" he tried avoiding your gaze for a second, a little too embarrassed by your comment

"Are you ready?" recollecting the haunting words in your mind, you waited for his last nod before saying the aloud "I love you, James, don't forget that"

But of course, it had to go wrong somehow. As soon as the words slipped out of your mouth, pain, anger and madness started taking over Bucky, you tried letting your powers flow to him, in a helpless attempt to make it go away, but to no avail.

As you stepped back to knock him out, you heard the rope snaping, just in time to dodge his blow.

Bucky was stronger than you, but much more predictable, you could tell his moves before he completed them, which thankfully gave you the advantage you needed in the occasion.

A few nearly deadly blows later, you managed to knock him out cold, or at least it seemed like it. Not willing to take that risk, you kneeled beside him to tie his hands again, only to be surprised with an unexpectedly cold grip on your neck, making it hard for you to breath.

The metal arm lifted you off the ground, Bucky's eyes were in a trance of fury, fixated on you while he pinned you up against the wall, and pulled his other arm back, ready to smash your skull right then and there.

The surroundings began to blur, you managed to lift your hand up to his chest and a barely visible wave floated to him, along with a faint whisper of his name before his fist got any closer to you. The last thing you saw was the horror take over his eyes as your whole body gave in, along with a loud thump just inches from your face.

#############

Thanks for reading!

[sinceileftyoublog]

Doug Clifford Interview: Shuffle & Flow

Photo by Brent Clifford

BY JORDAN MAINZER

For All the Money in the World is a time capsule. The album, written by Creedence Clearwater Revival drummer Doug Clifford and Greg Kihn Band bassist Steve Wright, was recorded in 1986 but won’t see the light of day until the end of the month. Since then, it’s been waiting in Cosmo’s Vault--the self-proclaimed storage area for Clifford’s unreleased music--until the right time. “There’s some good music on this album,” Clifford told me over the phone earlier this month. “Right now, more than ever, we need some good music that’s uplifting and makes you feel good.” Plus, for Clifford himself, the tunes have barely scratched the surface: “To me, it’s still new.” 

After Creedence Clearwater Revival broke up in 1972, Clifford released a solo album and later joined the Don Harrison Band, which also featured former CCR bassist Stu Cook. In 1995, he and Cook formed Creedence Clearwater Revisited to play CCR songs live without singer John Fogerty, who retained artistic control over CCR. Revisited’s last show was in February 2020 in Mexico, and based on what Clifford told me, that’s likely their last, at least in this version, as Clifford is suffering from Parkinson’s Disease. All in all, though, he’s ready to move on from those songs, instead choosing to look into different parts of the past. Last year, he unearthed his lost second solo album Magic Window. And now, with For All the Money in the World, released under the name Clifford/Wright, he’s beginning to revisit a series of recorded writing collaborations whose release never came to fruition.

Though Clifford/Wright was formed around the rhythm section, the rest of the band that plays on the album is nothing to sniff at: guitarists Greg Douglass (Steve Miller Band), Jimmy Lyon (Eddie Money) and Joe Satriani and keyboard players Tim Gorman (The Who) and Pat Mosca (Greg Kihn Band). The lead vocalist picked for the project was Keith England, whose emotive howl ties it all together on the title shuffle and stadium anthem “I Need Your Love”. While the first two songs sound like something you might expect to be recorded in 1986, other tracks operate under different styles and recording aesthetics. The rockabilly echo of “She Told Me So” lies in stark contrast to the ripping guitar jaunts of “Lost Pride Fever” and “Weekends” and the funk snap of “You Keep Runnin’ Away” and “Just In The Nick Of Time”. Indeed, some songs on here sound like they could be Steve Miller or Eddie Money jams, but for the most part, they sound like lost relics of rock radio, comfort food for troubling times.

Clifford hopes For All the Money in the World is more than nostalgia, though. For one, he’s “calling the shots,” releasing the album on his own label, Cliffsong Records, with a distribution deal through Bob Frank Entertainment. “It’s like a publisher’s outlet for the songwriters involved,” he said. “It’s really kind of exciting.” His hopes are that the songs do land on today’s rock radio or do well streaming so they can release it on vinyl. “I still get a kick out of it,” Clifford said about hearing his songs on the radio. Not bad for somebody who started playing in bands at age 13. And while it’s very much not a CCR album, he’s excited for CCR fans to hear it, okay with the long-disbanded legendary outfit as the connecting bridge for listeners. They might just come away with a new favorite song.

Pre-save/pre-order For All the Money in the World, out August 27th, here, and read my conversation below with Clifford, edited for length and clarity.

Since I Left You: I was struck by the variety of styles on this album. You think to yourself, “What would music written around the 80′s sound like?” There’s some of that, but there are other sounds, too. Do you remember consciously trying to write in a number of styles?

Doug Clifford: Yes, because we were trying to get a record deal. We were the only writers in the group, and we wanted them to know we could write more than just “Bad Moon Rising”. There’s really not much in there that sounds like Creedence. With Steve Wright on bass, that changes a lot of things. It puts a different spin on it from the standpoint of the house the songs are built on, the rhythm section. It’s exciting. I listen to it as if it’s another band. [laughs] Normally, I don’t do that. Steve passed away in [2017], so we won’t do any more writing or playing, but this album is a chance to hear a great bass player and songwriter. I’ve got three terrific guitar players in there, too, Joe Satriani, Greg Douglass from Steve Miller Band, and Jimmy Lyon from Greg Kihn and Eddie Money. A guitar extravaganza. A lot of good stuff coming from this record.

SILY: Not only does the record sound different from CCR, but I heard a lot of the other projects the players were involved in, like Eddie Money and Steve Miller.

DC: Yeah, but when we were doing the writing, those guys weren’t in the band. Steve Miller is one of my best friends. He loves “She Told Me So” on this record. He sent me an email all excited that said, “I was dancin’ around my studio! You still got it!” [laughs] I love that guy.

SILY: I like songs like that, that have a little more of a shuffle.

DC: That would be [the title track], too. I love shuffles.

SILY: You’ve said people need songs like this at a time like now. When you wrote and recorded them, did you know you’d put them away for a while?

DC: Not really. If you’re a songwriter, you want to have versions of your songs that sound radio-ready instead of just [recorded on] an acoustic guitar. I produced everything that we wrote, so we had good versions of our work and presented it that way. The idea was not to put these things out as albums, but for record companies. Then you’d go out and play, and they’d send their A&R guy. Steve didn’t want to play in any of the clubs we’d have played in, and you need a band that plays, so that started the tailspin of this project. [After that,] I did a solo singer-songwriter album [Magic Window], and I did projects for areas that had overgrown forests and droughts. I had kids that were going to school. So I sort of slowed down on the music and slapped [these songs] in Cosmo’s Vault. That’s where they stayed till a year or so ago. I [finally released Magic Window], but nothing happened because...COVID hit, and it really changed everything. There’s been enough time that we’re all living through the virus that it’s time to hear [For All the Money] on the radio to make me feel good. It’s a labor of love that all songwriters have. Allowing people to hear the excellent musicianship of Steve Wright playing bass. There’s a little difference in my playing as well. It’s fun, really enjoyable.

SILY: When you were originally writing the lyrics and instrumentation, were you going for a feel-good, uplifting type thing?

DC: When you’re looking for someone to invest in you and put you on their label, you want them to like your music, too. I’ve never been a guy to write songs that make you feel bad. [laughs].

SILY: What were you looking for in a vocalist, and why did you end up going with Keith?

DC: We were so fortunate to have Keith in many ways. He was the youngest guy we were working with. I would be the guy to teach him the songs, as the writer of the words. He had to sing those words and get the idea of the song across, which is a big job for any singer. He took special care to get the essence of the song. It makes a big difference to learn the words and melody. I took extra time to write the melody, because I’m putting the words out there, and a lot of time, the melody would depend on what the words were. You have to give the singer places to breathe. I gave Keith liberty to let me know if something wasn’t working for him vocally, to sing it the way he was comfortable. He always came through. The idea of a song is like a chapter in a book. It has to have meaning and a certain ambiance and feel to it. That’s at least my approach to writing and performing, really. He nailed every song in a very professional approach. That’s not an easy thing to do, especially over 11 songs. 

There are other songs in the vault from the sessions that he did. He was the only singer we had. I’d like to see success, not just for myself and Steve, but for Keith. He was the only guy on the session that wasn’t in a band that had a Gold or Platinum album, and he’s very deserving of it. I’d love to see this thing be successful on that level because I’d love to walk up to his front door and knock on it and hand him a Platinum album. He’s still trying to do it. He has been for 30-some odd years. He can still hit most if not all of those notes. He doesn’t complain about it, he just stays at it, trying to get to that spot. I’d like to see that happen for him.

SILY: This album was recorded in a number of different studios, and some tracks do sound a bit lower-fi or raw. Did the difference in sounds among the tracks correspond to the different studios you recorded in?

DC: Not really for that reason. What’s really important is trying to get an attitude out of a certain song. It is rock and roll after all. The sound of the studio wasn’t something that dictated the direction.

SILY: At what point did you decide to name the album after the title track?

DC: That song, the first time I heard it, it was one of those that Steve said, “Listen to this!” He had the chorus and the lyrics. [sings] “For all the money in the world, girl / For all the kisses in the sea, baby...” I went, “That’s a hit.” Whenever I play that song for people, they all say, “That’s a natural hit.” Being a shuffle adds a lot to do with it. Shuffles have a magic to them. You just can’t help but tap your foot. Your body moves with it. The approach to have it be a shuffle is right up my alley. Creedence didn’t ever do one, and I always wanted to have a shuffle to record. There it was! It was a natural as the first song on the record. The second one that’s out now is a different type of song, to show the album’s versatility, but I had an inkling that it might be a good idea to name it after the first song on the album.

SILY: At what point did you come up with the order of the tracks?

DC: Listening. [laughs] That’s very important. Again, they’re like chapters in a book or story. I did a lot of shuffling around--there’s that shuffle again--seeing which order played best. It took a while, but that’s something worth spending time on. You want to get it right.

SILY: You’ve said any of these songs could be a single. Do you have a favorite?

DC: [The title track] is probably my favorite for that reason. It’s simplistic in its style, and usually, those are the best ones, the easiest ones to understand, though everybody has their own understanding of music. It is art; you can look at a painting, and 10 different people can have different opinions on it. It’s the same with music. Each song has a different meaning to a different person. That’s great; that way you can touch millions of people instead of 10.

SILY: What’s the story behind the album art?

DC: The story behind the album art is my son [Grady Clifford] did it and I needed a cover. That’s it! I didn’t tell him anything. When I saw it for the first time, I just went, “Wow!” He’s very talented. He did the Revisited cover. Whenever I need art, I don’t tell him what to do. He just does it. My wife [Laurie Clifford] is an artist, too. She did the artwork for [CCR]’s first album. Very recently, she got it in the de Young Museum. They had a show of album covers from the 60′s. The Clifford family has a drummer and artists. One of the things about going from vinyl to CDs is the art is a pretty good size. I miss a lot of aspects of the packaging. I have a couple of good album cover folks within the confines of the house here.

SILY: What’s next from the vault?

DC: A project I did with the same songwriting concept. Two of us did all the writing. The other guy was Bobby Whitlock. I’ve got a Bobby Whitlock album with a group we had for a short while. Bobby’s wife didn’t like living in the East Bay. She wanted to live in the Northeast. Happy wife, happy life, so we had to split when we were close to getting a deal. Another addition to Cosmo’s Vault!

[omniswords]

if you’re still taking kiss meme requests, a combo of 19 + 27 with marichat or adrienette?

19. One person stopping a kiss to ask “Do you want to do this?”, only to have the other person answer with a deeper, more passionate kiss. +

27. Kisses exchanged while one person sits on the other’s lap.

leave me a pairing and a number and i’ll write you a kiss! [CLOSED FOR NOW]

You can’t tell me Adrien and Marinette wouldn’t have Animal Crossing dates if they ever got together. Because they would. They totally would.

It’s been a month. A month. (Well, Thirty-two days and a half, but who’s counting?) And yet for some reason, Marinette literally can’t believe that Literal Adrien Agreste is her Literal Boyfriend. Literally.

It’s not because of anything she’s done. And it’s definitely not because of anything he’s done. In fact, he’s been as perfect as the day he gave her his umbrella. He’s put up with her rambling, and started to figure out how to make her stop rambling, and that dopey look he gets on his face when she keeps going and going—it makes her squeal into her hands just thinking about it.

He’s so good. He’s actually perfect. The perfect boyfriend.

Now that they’re in high school, too, his father’s become… a little more lenient with his scheduling and practice sessions.  And she’s become way more lenient with actually keeping track of it, even though it’s still good to know when she can stay after school in the art room while he’s at fencing practice, or when not to call him because he’s having his Chinese lesson. Or when he can come over and watch a movie with her, just because she wants to see him outside of school. The difference, though, is that she can just ask him now, because she wants to know for his sake. And he’ll just tell her, because he wants her to know for hers. It feels deceptively easy, carrying themselves like this. Carrying their relationship like this. And yes, it’s still so, so unbelievable.

In fact, the only thing that’s more unbelievable is the fact that he hasn’t kissed her yet.

She gets it. It’s something people get nervous about; even she does, from time to time, get more than her fair share of flustered whenever she daydreams about how it might happen. She just… sort of figured it would happen by now. They’ve gone on dates—date dates. They’ve hugged, and exchanged cheek kisses hello and goodbye. They’ve even held hands; he even did that thing he rubbed his thumb against her knuckles, and for a while she thought she could die happy. Does her breath stink or something? Or does she have to be the one to start it? Or what?

It’s just about the only thing she can think of the next time Adrien comes to visit her, to the point that she can barely get her words out. Like she’s fourteen all over again. At least her parents have the good sense to leave them alone this time; they’re so busy with the bakery downstairs that they probably don’t even have the chance to hover the way they usually would. (Especially her dad. God, she loves her papa, but sometimes he needs several hints before he can just take one.)

Not that there’s anything to see. They’re just huddled up on the couch playing video games—a relaxed village-building one, nothing like Mecha Strike 3. And honestly, she kind of wishes they were playing that instead. It would give her something else to think about, at least, besides the overwhelming fact that they are alone and sitting so close that they could be cuddling, but aren’t, and they definitely could be kissing, but they definitely aren’t.

Maybe, because he’s the perfect guy, he’s waiting for the Perfect Moment.

She just… wants the Perfect Moment to be Right Now.

“I really like the way you’ve set up your town, Marinette,” Adrien says over the calming music and faint jingling bells. Even the way he says her name makes her want to melt into the couch. Has she always been this dopey about it? About him? “It’s very you.”

“M-me?” she stammers, wincing internally for it. “What do you mean by that?”

“Oh! Um, nothing bad.” Awkwardly, he rubs the back of his neck, still holding onto his controller. “It’s just very artful. Like you have a design in mind, and you want to see it through to the end. I’ve only been here for a while, and I can already see it… I could never think up stuff like that. I usually just time travel to try and get everything right away.” Then he sighs, almost dreamily, and sits back with a smile that look—unbelievably—admiring. “I shouldn’t be so surprised. You’ve always been kind of amazing.”

Marinette wants so badly to quip back that she’s not just kind of amazing, she is amazing, or even to tell him that he’s pretty amazing himself. Instead, she chokes out some garbled, unintelligible noise, and immediately wants to kick herself for it. One month, and she’s still pulling this nonsense.

Adrien lets her down easy at least, with a laugh hidden behind his fist. He puts his controller down and coaxes hers out of her hands, so that all there is to accompany them is the game’s music and their two little characters, swaying side by side in the middle of an orchard. And he… hesitates, before draping an arm over the back of the couch. “Can…” He pauses. “Can I come closer?”

He’s killing her.

“Yeah,” she says, her voice cracking with her own nerves, and she’s buzzing from head to toe when his arm comes around her shoulders, pulls her closer to rest her head on his chest. His heart is pounding under her ear. She almost can’t hear anything else over it. She doesn’t know how long they stay like that, but the whole time, something in her is screaming, DO SOMETHING. FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING HOLY, DO SOMETHING BESIDES SITTING HERE AND HAVING AN ENTIRE INTERNAL CRISIS ABOUT HOW GOOD YOUR BOYFRIEND SMELLS.

Eventually—and she doesn’t know how she does it—she shifts out of Adrien’s arms, just to look up at him. He’s still got her close, though loosely, and as soon as he meets her eyes, he smiles. “Hi.”

And she smiles back. So wide she knows her face is going to hurt. “Hi.”

There’s that hesitating again, while he’s looking at her so intently, and little by little that amusement fades away into something more pensive. Like maybe he’s coaching himself through something, but she doesn’t know what that something is. At least, not until he leans in, so slowly she thinks she might die from it, and presses his lips to hers in the softest first kiss she could have ever imagined. No, softer than that, because she never imagined him holding her face like this, or breathing in so deep, like he’s been revived, as soon as they make contact. And when he pulls back, it’s slow, almost apologetic, and she totally regrets him doing that.

“I…” Adrien swallows hard, his face flushed and his fingers trembling against her jaw. “Sorry. I should have asked if that was okay—”

It’s all he gets to say before she’s kissing him back, shaky and nervous and wanting to kiss him and not stop for anything. Not even to save her game. It doesn’t matter. It auto-saves anyway. Who cares about hitting a button or two when Adrien is finally, finally kissing her? Holding her close the way she holds him, all but clutching her back as he tilts his head and whispers another apology when their teeth accidentally clack together.

“It’s okay,” she whispers back with a breathless giggle. “It’s okay.”

“You’re okay?”

“I’m okay.” Her face is burning, probably bright red, but she finds the resolve to crawl into his lap and lace her fingers together behind his neck. And she doesn’t bother asking what took him so long, because there’s no need to ask when he lets her lean in and make up for lost time.

[cyberhwas]

➳ pairing/characters: hercules! mingi x reader, wooyoung as terpishchore (muse of dance), seonghwa as erato (muse of love poetry), hongjoong as euterpe (muse of music), jongho as polyhymnia (muse of hymns), yeosang as thalia (muse of comedy), san as clio (muse of history), yunho as urania (muse of astronomy) 

➳genre: fluff, greek mythology au, inspired by hercules (the animated disney film), romance, angst, mutual pining, denial of feelings (reader is very stubborn hehe) 

➳ tw: mentions of death, slight violence, light swearing, soul-selling, servitude, mentions of bullying (nothing too intense)   

➳ disclaimer: may contain slight inaccuracies concerning dates, i also changed the story a little bit to make it a less bit intense, so there won’t be anything like what happened in the movie, which is honestly a bit intense? i mean, hercules goes to the underworld and retrieves meg’s soul after she gets crushed by a boulder so i won’t be including that outcome in this series. 

➳ rating: m, 18+

➳ wc: 5.8k

➳  summary:  after your first relationship had ended quite tragically, love was the last thing on your mind. however, after countless encounters with song mingi, the beautiful hero, being open to love again seemed possible.

 ➳ note: this was originally supposed to be a drabble, but i guess it’s a mini fic series now? oops? anyways, i hope you all enjoy this, and, as always, feedback is always appreciated💖!! i adore all of you so much and i hope all of you are staying safe and drinking lots of water!! please take care of yourselves my loves!! also this is my first time posting a fic on this blog, so it’s lowkey nerve-wracking but here goes nothing! 

“it’s too cliché, i won’t say i’m in love.” - megara (hercules, 1997)

( june 1, 1300 b.c.e) 

you sighed, wringing out your wet hair, gaze shifting to the muscular male a few feet away, whose cheeks were flushed with pink and looked quite embarrassed. “s-sorry about that.” he mumbled, blush deepening. despite that fact that you had just gotten splashed with water, you couldn’t help but let out an amused laugh. “don’t worry about it, wonder boy. besides, you saved me from the nessus, after all.” 

he laughed softly at the nickname,  hand rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “it was nothing, really.” you rolled your eyes, fingers combing through your damp hair, ridding it of tangles. “you are too humble, wonder boy.” “i-it’s mingi, actually.” “hmm, it suits you, but i think i like wonder boy better.” you smirked, trying not to laugh at how flustered said male was, turning a shade equally as red as his hair. 

 out of the corner of your eye, you noticed a flash of pink and green, as well as a tendril of black smoke, and tried not to grimace at the sight. “well, i better go. thanks for saving me, wonder boy.” you turned to go, ignoring the dread pooling in your stomach at having to talk with hades again. “wait, can i at least get your name?” mingi blurted, stopping you in your tracks. you glanced over your shoulder, making sure to keep your expression as neutral as possible. “it’s y/n.” and with that, you disappeared into the heart of the woods, ignoring the erratic beating of your heart. 

you braced yourself for the annoying lecture you were going to receive from the god of death himself, watching as he took physical form, tendrils of black smoke filling the air. a few seconds later, hades stood in front of you; his two minions standing attentively at his side. “y/n, how was your first meeting with wonder breath?” “fine.” hades frowned. “that’s it?” “nothing, you know, dramatic happen?” you tried not to roll your eyes at how clueless hades was acting, as if he wasn’t the one that summoned the monster in the first place. “the monster grabbed me, i pretended to act like a damsel in distress, wonder boy saved me; i got splashed with water, that’s about it.” “so, he didn’t, you know, show a weakness that might help me defeat him?” 

“no, wonder boy’s as strong and unbeatable as they say.” hades’ dark eyes narrowed. “we’ll see about that.” he murmured, and you ignored the uneasy feeling in your stomach. “good work today, y/n. once wonder boy falls for you, then we can find out what exactly can break him.” you swallowed against the bile rising in your throat, and managed a weak nod. 

“don’t forget the deal we made.” you resisted the urge to scowl at the way hades’ lip curled at your reaction. 

centuries ago, you were a completely different girl, romantic and open to love. you had fallen in love with your then boyfriend at the time, only to have him taken away from you, permanently. a sickness had plagued the small village you lived in at the time, and your boyfriend had been unfortunate enough to succumb to the deadly illness, and died just a week after he had contracted it. you were desperate and heartbroken, and then during one rainy day, hades had appeared before you, offering you a deal. he would revive your boyfriend, but only if you would sell your soul to him, as well as promising years of servitude. agreeing to such a deal would be foolish and unorthodox, especially for a dead lover, but because your heart and mind were so broken, you had agreed to hades’ terms. 

hades had summoned a scroll and a black feather quill, and thus, your soul had been signed away. the god of the underworld had kept his word and revived your lover, but he had soon ripped your heart out by leaving you for another woman. you had never felt so foolish in your life, and from that day on, you swore off love, and built walls around yourself, refusing to let anyone in, afraid of suffering the same fate you had with your first love. 

“you’re my servant, don’t forget that. and what i tell you to do, you do it, unless you want to be thrown in tarturus, or maybe suffer the same fate as him?” you fought the urge to punch hades in his horrifyingly gorgeous face as you shook your head, careful not to let your anger show. “i don’t have any complaints.” hades smiled, seemingly pleased. “good, you know what to do, with wonder breath then?” you nodded, tearing your gaze away from his dark, soulless, eyes. 

hades gave you a mock wave as he disappeared in a cloud of black smoke. when you were finally alone, you collapsed onto the soft, green grass, burying your face into your hands, sobbing. 

(months later) 

you allowed yourself a small smile at the dainty, white flower in your hand, the sweet-smelling petals invading your senses; the petals soft and velvety against your fingertips. it was a particularly beautiful day, with the sun shining brightly above you, the sky cloudless and a gorgeous shade of light blue. there was even a small breeze that tickled your skin and hair,  fresh air washing over you, relieving you from the otherwise unbearable heat. you were sitting on a stone bench in a garden, enjoying the great weather and admiring the flower in your hand. it’d been nearly four months since you had begun to flirt with mingi, and there were days where you had forgotten the reason you were talking to him in the first place. mingi was not only unbelievably gorgeous, with fiery red hair and forest green eyes that turned into crescents whenever he smiled, but he was also unfailingly sweet, gracious, humble, clumsy, and polite. 

mingi would also turn an adorable shade of pink whenever you would compliment him, rubbing the back of his neck shyly. you also tried your best not to stare at his arms, which were corded with muscle, as they were quite distracting. 

and over the past few months, you had found yourself becoming more and more intrigued and infatuated with mingi, of which you couldn’t help but scold yourself for. there was a part of you that was convinced the sweet words he spoke so often were sincere, but then there was also the part of you that thought otherwise. after all, your last lover had left you to wallow in your own sadness, without so much as a goodbye, even after you had sacrificed so much for him to be able to live again. 

suddenly, annoyance coursed through you and you threw the flower over your shoulder in disgust, not bothering to see where it landed. “y/n, seriously? you’re throwing away a perfectly good flower? it’s like you don’t even care about nature.” you fought the urge to roll your eyes. “wooyoung, i didn’t throw it away, i just carelessly tossed it.” “uh huh, sure.” you couldn’t fight the fond smile that tugged at your lips as you turned to look at the muse, who was standing behind you, mock disapproval on his face. beside him, a tall, silver haired male scoffed and smacked him lightly on the shoulder. “would you quit being a pain in the ass, woo?” seonghwa scolded good naturedly. aforementioned male pouted, the gesture nearly childlike. “you’re so mean seonghwa-hyung.” the older rolled his eyes, expression brightening upon seeing you. “hey, y/n, how’s everything?” you shrugged, ignoring how wooyoung’s hazel eyes narrowed in suspicion. “alright, how is everyone?” “oh, you know, being a pain in my ass, as always.” 

“ignore him, he’s been having writer’s block and has been moping about it for days, so he’d taking out all his pent-up anger on us by being a mother hen all the time.” “kim hongjoong, you better shut it right now before i throw you into tarturus.” 

said muse giggled, head popping out from behind a tall tree, blue hair falling in strands across his forehead. “hi!” hongjoong called out from his hiding place, small hand waving in greeting. “hi , joong, it’s nice to see you!” “likewise!” “what are you doing over there?” “o-oh, i was picking flowers, i was going to weave them into a flower crown.” hongjoong mumbled shyly, a light shade of pink settling across his cheekbones, and you couldn’t help but smile fondly at the sight. 

“you’re adorable.” “am not. i am older than you, you know.” “yes, but you’re as intimidating as a baby bunny.” “shut up, i am not adorable!” “fine, fine, whatever you say, joong.” “i hate you.” “aw, i love you too.” 

hongjoong sighed as he stepped out from behind the tree, a bunch of pink flowers in his hand, settling down on a patch of grass a few feet away, setting to work on his crown. “if any of you dare to annoy me while i do this, i will bite you.” “wow, cannablism much, hyung?” “san, shut up.” “wow, hyung, you’re so cruel! i just got here and you’re already insulting me!” “san, i swear to zeus, you better shut your mouth and let me weave this gods-damned flower crown before i strangle you.” “damn, someone has a-” “san, would you please just stop being a pain in the ass and listen?” “ok, ok, fine.” san plopped down on the ground next to wooyoung, who was busy admiring the flower in his hand, violet eyes shifting towards you, a smile breaking out on his gorgeous face, dimples indented in his cheeks. “y/n! i haven’t seen you in a millennia! how are things?” “alright, how are you?” “oh, you know, just trying to make sure wooyoung doesn’t get kidnapped or thrown in tarturus, the usual.” “why am i always being bullied?” “because you’re so easy to pick on, woo.” the blonde male gasped in mock offense. “san! how could you say such a thing? i thought we were friends!” said male only rolled his eyes. “quit being so dramatic, will you? you’re giving me a headache! and would you stop yelling? i’m pretty sure zeus can hear you.” “y/n, help me! i’m suffering!” wooyoung whined, falling dramatically into san’s lap, white chiton billowing with the movement. you laughed. “sorry, woo, i’m kind of outnumbered here.” 

wooyoung huffed in annoyance. “stupid hyungs won’t go away and leave me alone.” that earned him a finger flick to the forehead, causing him to cry out in pain. “san, what was that for? that fucking hurt, you know!” the former ignored him. “you should be grateful we’re even around to look after you, you big baby.” 

you rolled your eyes fondly at their incessant bickering, and settled down on the grass next to san, leaning your head on his shoulder, closing your eyes. immediately, you felt an arm wrap around your own shoulders. ever since you had met the muses all those years ago, you had become extremely close with all of them, and they were not only your best friends, also the older brothers you’ve always wanted.  they always looked out for you, no matter what, and was there for you when no one else was, and had always treated you like a sister. 

“seriously, though, what’s up with you? you seem happier these days.” san’s tone was light, teasing, but the question was enough to make your face flush scarlet. “you’re as red as a tomato, are you seeing someone?” wooyoung asked, hazel eyes alight with curiosity. one of san’s perfect eyebrows raised in question. “well?” “there’s no one!” “liar.” seonghwa sing-songed from where he was sitting with hongjoong a few feet away, watching the latter with a fond gaze as the petite male wove flowers into a crown. “ok, ok fine, there might be someone.” you mumbled, immediately regretting it when san’s face practically lit up, green eyes twinkling with mirth. “oh? who is it? maybe we know him?” you hesitated, not sure if telling them about mingi was the greatest idea, but you decided to just do it, for you knew that the muses would keep pestering you about him for gods knows how long. 

“i-it’s mingi?” as soon as his name left your mouth, san and wooyoung gasped. “NO WAY! SONG MINGI??? AS IN THE HERO HIMSELF??!”  “yes?” san gave your shoulder a light shove. “how long?” “how long what?” “how long have you been seeing him for?” you blushed furiously. “we’re not dating.” “oh, so do you have a crush on him?” “what? no!” san chuckled, a knowing smirk tugging at his lips. “y/n, you’re not fooling anyone. you definitely have feelings for mingi, don’t you?” you sighed in defeat. “i really don’t know yet. i’m still trying to figure out my feelings.” san hummed in acknowledgment. “well, you didn’t confirm nor deny, which means that we have the right to tease you about your potential lover!” “say it a little louder, will you?” you hissed, a light shade of red settling across your cheekbones. 

seonghwa snickered, ducking his head down slightly so that hongjoong could place the now finished flower crown on his head. “there’s no shame in being attracted to someone, it’s normal.” “it’s not that i’m embarrassed, it’s just.. i don’t know if i’m ready or willing to be attracted to someone, not after-” san cut you off by throwing his arms around you, pulling you into a tight hug. “don’t you dare finish that sentence. that jerk deserves to rot in tarturus for hurting you.” wooyoung nodded, expression darkening. “i really wanted to punch his face in that day.” 

‘‘we all wanted to.” seonghwa mumbled, crossing his lean arms over his chest, frowning at the memory. “i’m sorry for ruining the mood.” “oh, don’t you dare. you did nothing wrong, y/n. and you did not ruin the mood.” “i did though?” hongjoong shot you a look from across the garden, chestnut eyes flashing with warning. “y/n, please stop blaming yourself for things that aren’t your fault. i hate seeing you miserable, we all do.” his voice was gentle, yet firm, and your heart clenched at how sincere he was. “i really don’t deserve you all as friends.” seonghwa scoffed. “i think it’s the other way around, y/n.” 

where’s yeosang, jongho and yunho?” “jongho’s probably forcing yeosang and yunho to listen to one of his newly written hymns. he’s very picky about them, you know.” “but aren’t they-”  “the muse of comedy and astronomy? yes, which is why yeosang and yunho always complain when jongho asks them for feedback, as they know nothing about music.” “yeah, that’s my forte.” hongjoong mumbled, a slight pout on his lips. “he never asks me for help on anything, hyung.” seonghwa rolled his eyes half-heartedly, reaching out to ruffe the younger’s hair affectionately. “it’s ok, joong, he’ll ask you one day.” “i’ve literally been waiting for a whole gods damn century, hwa!” 

seonghwa tried not to laugh as he pulled the younger into a hug, rubbing comforting circles on his back. “i know, i know, just be patient.” hongjoong huffed, but didn’t say anything after that, burying his face into the crook of seonghwa’s neck, sighing. “the day jongho asks me for help on one of his hymns is the day i will throw myself into tarturus.” “please don’t do that, joong. someone has to help me keep jung wooyoung and choi san in check, i can’t do it on my own.” aforementioned muses cried out in protest. “hey!” seonghwa ignored them, hugging hongjoong tighter. san rolled his eyes, falling back onto the grass, pulling you and wooyoung down with him. you laughed and closed your eyes, letting sleep take over.

mingi couldn’t help but smile as he tossed a stone carelessly across the smooth surface of the river, face flushing scarlet as it always did when he thought of her. cheesy and cliché as it was, she was truly unlike any girl he had ever met, for most of them practically fell at his feet, which made him highly uncomfortable, especially when they would propose marriage. he shuddered, remembering coming back from a particularly difficult mission, which had included killing the hydra, a three-headed beast that had begun terrorizing a small, defenseless village, and as he had walked through the streets once home, girls had tried to grab at him and even went as far as to chase him around the town. 

while mingi was happy that the village acknowledged him, the female attention was well, irritating. people had teased him for it, claiming that he secretly loved it and just was pretending not to like the attention. he really truly hated it, dreaded it even, and would breathe a sigh of relief whenever he managed to escape his very, very, enthusiastic admirers. 

you were different. while you were aware who he was, you didn’t know the “heroic” side of him, which was something that mingi could rarely keep under-wraps lately, and it both surprised and relieved him that you didn’t have a clue about his accomplishments. mingi always felt so awkward whenever people would constantly praise him for his bravery, heroic deeds, the like. he never knew what to say, as he didn’t want to sound arrogant or narcissistic. deep down, mingi hated it when people would talk for days on end about his heroic deeds, for it made him feel a bit uncomfortable. and yes, maybe he asked for all the praise and the glory when he had practically begged maddox to train him, in hopes that people wouldn’t see him as “different” or a “freak.” 

when he’d been living with his parents in the small village he used to call home, all the kids wanted nothing to do with him, for they thought the unnatural strength he possessed was scary and abnormal. after enduring their harsh words for years, mingi decided to leave home and try to find someone who would help him control his strength. 

at first, maddox had been reluctant, especially after all the past heroes he trained died tragically, but eventually gave in when he realized that mingi wasn’t going to take no for an answer. training was difficult, and there had been times where maddox was ready to give up on mingi entirely, to tell him to go back home, but mingi was determined, and he began to improve. 

the training had paid off, mingi supposed, as fighting was something that now came naturally to him. “still thinking about that girl, huh?” mingi fought to hide the blush that was spreading across his cheekbones. “n-no, what makes you say that?” maddox scoffed. “kid, please, you’re making it obvious. you’ve been spacing out a lot recently. plus, you always have that look on your face.” “what look?” “oh you know, the look that says i’m a fool in love, something like that.” “i-i’ve only known her for a few months.” “and?” “there’s no way-” maddox held up a hand, silencing him. “look kid, i know i may not look like the type who’d be in love, but i’ve been there. and you definitely look how i felt centuries ago.” “i mean, i guess i am, i don’t know.” 

maddox leaned against a tall tree, scoffing. “you are kid, trust me. i can see the way you look at her, you’re very much smitten.” “i-i guess?” “you’ll see for yourself one of these days.” mingi ignored how his face flushed at the thought of you having feelings for him, and turned away from his mentor, looking out at the smooth surface of the river in front of him, trying not to let his mind wander. 

“so, are you sure you’re not in love with him? not even a tiny bit?” yeosang asked, lifting a perfect eyebrow in question. you scoffed, placing the scroll you’d been reading off to the side of the large wood table in front of you. you and yeosang were currently in the spacious library that the comedy muse often occupied during the week, reading various scrolls. “did the others tell you?” yeosang rolled his eyes. “of course they did. well, it was mostly wooyoung. you know that little shit can’t keep his mouth shut sometimes.” “wooyoung may be loud, but he’s the sweetest and he means well.” 

“yeah, yeah. anyways, how’d you meet mingi?” you groaned, burying your face in your hands. “how much did wooyoung tell you?” yeosang chuckled. “too much.” “i will kick his ass later.” you mumbled. “i’ll help.” the former offered, lavender eyes twinkling with mirth. 

“he saved me from a nessus months ago, and from then on, we just kept bumping into each other after that.” “by coincidence? or by chance?” you shrugged, ignoring the pang of guilt that shot through you. “probably by chance. we just somehow end up seeing each other in the most unlikely circumstances.” yeosang hummed thoughtfully. “you definitely have it bad.” “what? what do you mean by that?” “y/n, even the dumbest person alive can tell that you are in love with him.” 

you threw your hands up in exasperation. “why does everyone think that?” yeosang reached out and gently patted your shoulder, as if to comfort you. “y/n, i love you, you know i do, but it’s kind of obvious. you’re kind of shit at hiding your feelings. even i can tell, and i’m the muse of comedy!” 

“he’s right, you know.” you turned to glare at the source of the voice. seonghwa was leaning against one of the white pillars that surrounded the outside of the library, golden eyes practically sparkling in the warm sun. “not you too, hwa.” aforementioned muse shot you a sheepish smile. “sorry, y/n, but it’s honestly undeniable at this point.” “but i’ve only known him for a few months!” seonghwa shrugged, pushing off the pillar with a sandaled foot, making his way over to the center of the room. “so? love is a funny thing, you know. you can realize you’re in love with someone in a short span of time, it’s not unheard of.” the love poetry muse plopped down on the chair next to you, hastily tucking a stray strand of hair behind his ear. 

“how you long were you standing there?” “not long. i was just passing by and happened to overhear your conversation.” “where are the others?” “they’re in the garden, doing gods knows what.” “is hongjoong with them?” seonghwa nodded. “yeah, but he’s probably making a flower crown and purposefully ignoring wooyoung and san’s antics.” “but, jongho is there, and he scares the shit out of those two, for whatever reason, so i trust that he’ll keep an eye on them while i’m gone.” 

yeosang huffed a laugh, picking up one of the discarded scrolls on the table, lavender eyes scanning the contents curiously. “so, what are you doing here?” “i needed a break from san and wooyoung, and well, i thought that, since i’m here, i can look for some inspiration for poems. like hongjoong mentioned, i’ve been having terrible writers’ block recently.” 

“do you want help? i’m not doing much today anyway.” seonghwa’s expression practically lit up. “you would do that? it’s not going to be a lot of fun, though.” you shook your head. “i love looking through scrolls, gives me an excuse to read.” “want to join us, yeosang?” said muse in questions shook his head. “i’d love to, but i have some errands to run. i’ll see you two later at the garden?” you nodded and waved him goodbye, smiling fondly as the blond male rushed off. 

“he was lying, wasn’t he?” seonghwa asked, an amused smile on his face as he scanned the massive shelves that took up a quarter of the other side of the library. you chuckled. “definitely.” 

hongjoong rolled his eyes fondly at the sight before him. jongho, wooyoung, and san were in a heated debate about which olympian god was the best, of all things. he sighed in exasperation and turned back to the flower crown he’d been working on for hours now, ignoring wooyoung’s petulant cries. it was nearly done, and all he had to do was string one more flower together. hongjoong furrowed his brows in concentration as he wove the last flower together, sighing in relief when it stayed intact after he’d finished tying it off. he’d always loved making flower crowns, as it was something that calmed him after a particularly difficult day, or when lyrics for a song just wouldn’t come to him immediately like they normally did. weaving flower crowns often made his anxiety and worries dissipate like smoke. the others often teased him for it, but their words never had any bad intent behind them.  he had been mocked for his favorite hobby in the past, and hongjoong was glad that he finally found people, a family, who accepted him for who he was, flower crowns and all. 

hongjoong hummed softly to himself, placing the finished flower crown onto his head, making sure it was secure, and laid back onto the soft green grass, letting the cool night air wash over him. he didn’t realize he’d fallen asleep until he felt someone shake his shoulder gently. “joong?” hongjoong’s eyes fluttered open slowly, and seonghwa was next to him, golden eyes twinkling with amusement. “did you fall asleep again?” hongjoong blushed as he slowly sat up, adjusting the crooked flower crown on his head. “n-no.” 

seonghwa rolled his eyes, but his smile was fond as he helped hongjoong to his feet. the former led him to a more secluded part of the garden, where the rest of their friends were waiting, gathered around a table of fruit and bread.

you waved at hongjoong, a sheepish smile on your face as he drew near with seonghwa. “it’s not much, and i know it’s not quail eggs or anything luxurious, but i thought i’d try and prepare something nice for once, since all of you have done so much for me.” wooyoung shook his head and pushed past san, bounding forward and throwing his arms around you, hugging you tight. “don’t say that, y/n! this is more than enough! and you really didn’t have to do this! you already do enough just by tolerating us.” you huffed a laugh, wrapping your arms around the muse of dance. “you guys are too kind to me.” 

“we love you, and you know that you’re like a sister to us. you never have to do anything for us.” “i wanted to, though.” “yes, and we appreciate it a lot, so don't you dare say it’s not anything special.” yunho declared from behind san, light green eyes bright with happiness. you fought back the happy tears that were threatening to spill and smiled. i love you all.” “aww, we love you too!! group hug!!!!” yunho shouted. a few seconds later, you were being squeezed tightly by seven muses, and you had never felt so loved in your entire life, which made you feel even more guilty for what you were about to do. 

after a light dinner of fruit and bread, you found yourself laying on the soft green grass of the garden that you now considered your safe place, surrounded by seven muses, staring up at the midnight blue sky, stars like tiny specks from afar. the night air was crisp and cool, and you allowed yourself a smile, leaning your head against seonghwa’s shoulder, who immediately wrapped an arm around your shoulders, squeezing gently. stargazing had become a daily thing after hongjoong had first suggested it after a practically exhausting day of work, and you had come to love it. 

suddenly, you felt a wave of sadness crash over you, and before you knew it, you were being pulled into a warm and firm chest, strong arms wrapping around you, comforting circles being rubbed on your back. “y/n, what’s wrong?” seonghwa asked, and you didn’t have to see his face to know that he was extremely worried. you didn’t answer, burying your face into seonghwa’s chest, feeling your heart ache with immense guilt. “i-i’m s-sorry.” you choked out, voice shaking. “darling, what could you possibly be sorry for? you’ve done nothing wrong.” you shook your head, reluctantly pulling away from seonghwa’s warm embrace, refusing to look any of your friends in the eye, instead focusing on a blade of grass. 

“i really don’t deserve to have you all in my life, and i am the shittiest person in the world. i-i lied to you all.” “about what?” you closed your eyes, turning away from the people you never deserved to call your friends. “about how i met mingi. it wasn’t a coincidence. it was all on purpose.” 

“what? what are you talking about, y/n?” yunho asked, and your heart broke at how confused he sounded. “hades.” you mumbled, voice barely audible, but you knew they heard you, from the way the tension in the air seemed to thicken. “what about hades?” seonghwa asked, voice deadly calm. “d-do you remember my past lover?” “the one that broke your heart into pieces? we’re familiar with him, why?” san asked, clear disgust in his tone. you fought back tears as you forced the words to come out. 

“w-when he died, i was so heartbroken and desperate for happiness that hades appeared to me and he offered me a deal, which was that if he would bring him back, only if i agreed to sell my soul to him and become his servant. and then, he wanted me to make mingi fall in love with me in order to discover his weakness. hades wants to kill him. i wouldn’t have agreed, but he then threatened to hurt all of you, and i- i c-couldn’t let that happen so i-” 

you couldn’t bring yourself to finish that sentence, and felt your knees give out from under you, your pale blue chiton billowing around you as you fell. you didn’t dare open your eyes, as you couldn’t bear to see the looks on their faces. to your surprise, you felt strong arms wrap around you, holding you tight. you felt your eyes flutter open due to shock, and tears practically leaked out of your eyes. 

your friends, no, your family, were gathered around you, hugging you tight. san looked up at you, violet eyes glimmering with tears, smiling sadly. wooyoung, lips quivering, reached out and wiped your tears away with the pad of his thumb. seonghwa had his face buried in your shoulder, crying softly, lacing your fingers with his, squeezing tightly. hongjoong was curled up  in your lap like a child,small hands gripping the fabric of your chiton, trembling as he cried. yeosang had his lips pursed tightly as he placed a gentle hand on your head, fighting back tears. jongho and yunho were both a mess, swollen eyes and flushed cheeks, resting their heads on each other’s shoulders. 

“h-how can you all forgive me? how can you all stand to even look at me?” “we could never hate you.” “b-but-” “you’ve gone through so much, darling, and you grieved in your own way. if i was you, i would’ve probably been desperate enough to do the same.” “i really don’t deserve to be forgiven.” that earned you a light shove to the shoulder. “shush, don’t say that. you could lie to us a thousand times over and we would still love you just as much as we do now.” you allowed yourself a soft, sad laugh as you buried your face in the crook of san’s neck and cried happy tears. 

after your shocking revelation and the tears had subsided, you lay back down on the grass with your head resting on san’s lap, letting him play with strands of your hair, while the others were curled up next to you. “thank you.” you whispered. “no need to thank us. just promise us that you won’t keep stuff like that from us again.” you nodded. “is anything going to happen to you?” “probably, you never know with hades.” “we’ll protect you.” you smiled sadly. “i know you all want to, but hades is too powerful. i don’t want any of you getting hurt.” “y/n, we would never be able to live with ourselves if anything happened to you!” hongjoong exclaimed, chestnut eyes glimmering with determination. “the same goes for me, if anything happened to any of you, i would never be able to forgive myself.” “don’t worry, y/n, we’ll figure out a way to protect you.” san reassured you, ruffling your hair affectionately. you returned his smile, but deep down, you weren’t so sure if that was possible. 

➳ a/n: this was part one, and i hope you all enjoyed this! let me know if you have any suggestions for the sequel! this was so much fun to write! what do you think will happen in the sequel? let me know your predictions! 

tagging: @deonghwa​ @subinily​ @hwacinth-main​ (ily all MWAH)