#or when she’s old enough she wants to learn how to play an instrument

[mrspockify]

I feel like I can’t picture Mario learning and playing an instrument, like whenever I imagine him being musical it’s always with him preferring to sing, but then I don’t know how this would translate into my interpretation of mute Mario 💀

[senipsenipsenip]

The Pines family sat at the table, quietly eating their breakfast, when Mabel slammed her hands on the table and shouted “KERMIT THE FROG”.

Dipper leapt forward to right his orange juice glass, gathering nearby napkins to sop up the puddle. “What?”

“Kermit the frog! He plays the banjo!”

“Yyyyes?”

Ford raised his hand. “Who’s Kermit the Frog?”

Stan snapped his head up from his plate. “Who’s Kermit the Frog? The Muppets, Pointdexter, you were around for The Muppet Show. They had a movie and everything.”

Ford frowned. “Muppets.”

“Yeah, they’re a riot! There’s this Bear whose got some great puns and this pig who really know how to throw a punch. You’d love it, they’ve even got a scientist!”

Ford raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t realize you were such a fan of children’s television.”

“Children?!”

Dipper stirred his cereal. “I’m just impressed you remember all that. Yesterday you forgot you were married.”

“That’s because The Muppets are forever!” Mabel exclaimed.

“Wait, Stanley you were married?”

“Yep. Actually, unless I’m forgetting a divorce, I might still be married.”

“You didn’t,” Mabel chirped. “I’d have it on my Romance Chart if you did. You’ve missed a lot of anniversaries.”

“So has he!” Stan argued. “I’m not the only bad husband here!”

Ford spluttered. “Husband?”

Dipper frowned. “I think we’re getting a little too far away from why Mabel screamed Kermit the Frog and knocked my orange juice over.”

Mabel nodded. “Right, so, I was thinking of Mr. McGucket -

“Stanley you have a husband?“

“I was thinking of Mr. McGucket,” Mabel interrupted. “And how he could maybe help around the Shack. And he plays banjo! He could play banjo and people could put money in his lil banjo case like a real musician.”

At the mention of money, Stan leaned forward.

“But like, no one knows banjo music,” Mabel continued. “So I was like, maybe pop hits banjo? But then BOOM! Kermit the Frog! People love that frog. He could play the rainbow song. He’d be a hit!”

“Interesting,” Stan muttered. “Preying on people’s nostalgia to milk them for cash. I love it!”

Ford hummed. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea, Mabel. Activities like playing musical instruments have been proven to help patients with Alzheimers and dementia. Not that Fiddleford’s condition has the same root cause, but it may prove beneficial to memory recovery.”

“Eugh, don’t ruin this for me.”

“If playing an instrument helps with memory loss, maybe Grunkle Stan should learn an instrument,” Dipper suggested.

“Ooo!” Mabel squealed. “What about guitar? Or the piano? OH!” She clutched Stan’s arm with a fervor. “The triangle!”

Ford grimaced. “Maybe not that one.”

“Sorry, kid. I’m not exactly a music guy,” Stan shrugged out of Mabel’s grasp. “Let’s leave that to the professionals.”

Mabel frowned, but let the topic go.

Ford stood from the table. “Well, I happen to be visiting Fiddleford this afternoon. I can broach the topic and see what he thinks.”

Fiddleford, as it turns out, loved the idea. To the surprise of everyone, Fiddleford admitted that he had always wanted to play in a jugband when he was younger, but could never get over his stage fright enough to audition for the local band. Then he went off to college and then…everything else.

“Maybe I zapped away that scared bit enough to play!” he had cackled, knocking at the side of his head with his knuckles.

It was settled. “Fiddlin’ Fridays at the Mystery Shack with Fiddleford McGucket”. Dipper tried to point out the title didn’t make sense since it was a banjo, not a fiddle. Stan argued that “customers are suckers for alliteration”. The set up was just Fiddleford dragging an old rocking chair onto the porch and opening up his banjo case. Mabel had made a large glittery banner, but it was quickly absconded by Fiddleford’s raccoon.

“Tell your wife to give me back my banner!” Mabel had yelled, chasing the raccoon into the bushes.

“Ex-wife,” Fiddleford sighed sadly. “Apparently I was too emotionally available.”

Ford pulled at his hair. “Did everyone get married without telling me?”

“Excuse me?” A voice piped up. Fiddleford and Ford turned to see a little boy standing at the bottom of the porch. He was dressed in hiking clothes that were obviously new. In the distance, a young woman was unstrapping a baby from its seat in an SUV. Obviously city folk coming to the “wilderness” for the first time.

“Are you a real hillbilly?” The boy asked. Suddenly the door slammed open, Mr. Mystery striding through, eyepatch in place.

“Sure is!” Stan grinned. “Our very own genuine hillbilly just waiting to play you a tune! All you gotta do is put some of your mom’s money in his case there.”

The little boy’s eyes widened, turning around to race towards his mother.

“Stanley,” Ford admonished. “Fiddleford isn’t some show monkey to throw money at.”

“During work hours he is.” Stan turned to Fiddleford. “So, did Mabel teach you that song she was so excited about?”

Fiddleford sat frozen, watching the little boy yank at his mothers pants to try and get her attention, the baby beginning to fuss.

“Well…” Fiddleford cleared his throat. “Some good news and bad news fellas.”

Ford furrowed his brows. “What is it?”

“Good news is, my mind ain’t all broken.” Fiddleford hugged his banjo and turned to look up at Ford. “Bad news is I knows it ‘cause I still got stage fright.”

Stan scoffed. “Stage fright? C’mon it’s one kid and a couple o’ city slickers who would probably think you playing three wrong notes and spitting is ‘authentic’.”

“Stanley, be supportive.”

“I am! Look I’ve been at this job forever. All you gotta do is smile and if something goes wrong, you blame a ghost or something. They eat that up.”

Fiddleford shook his head. “But this is music. If’n I mess up music, ‘specially somethin’ they know. Music is real special to people, I can’t spoil it.”

Ford knelt down next to Fiddleford’s chair. “You don’t have to play that song Fiddleford. You don’t have to play at all.”

Fiddleford looked anxiously between Ford and the family. It seemed the little boy had finally gotten his mother’s attention and was excitedly pointing toward the porch.

“I…” Fiddleford shook his head. “I can’t let the little ‘uns down. ‘Specially not those ones.” As he said this, he gestured with his chin towards the other end of the porch where Dipper and Mabel sat bickering in lawn chairs. Mabel had returned from her raccoon chase covered in twigs and holding a surprisingly docile raccoon. Dipper was leaning away from the pair while trying to convince Mabel to stop feeding it gummy worms before it developed a taste for human food and tried breaking into the Shack.

Ford's gaze drifted to the twins. "Alright," he relented. "But you still don't have to play Mabel's song."

Fiddleford bowed his head.

"Yet!" Ford offered. "Not yet. She'll understand I'm sure."

Fiddleford frowned, looking unconvinced.

"Of course not yet!" Stan interjected. "You can't go playing the grand finale right out of the gate! You gotta warm 'em up first, keep 'em wanting more." Stan slapped his hand on Fiddleford's back. "If you give 'em what they want right away, they won't come back! Hold that one off until tomorrow or...uh...next week. Tease it or something."

Stan had started rubbing the back of his neck with his other hand as he spoke, a tell Ford was quick to recognize. It was the same one he did when he would "begrudgingly" let Mabel choose the movie for movie night or let Dipper rope him into another game of Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons. Covering the most vulnerable part of his body while he let his emotions go soft.

Fiddleford seemed to perk up at Stan's words.

"Well," Fiddleford offered. "I do know some proper jugband music. Only, it don't have the same ring to it without a jug."

"We've got a jug!" Mabel cheered from the other side of the porch. It seemed the raccoon argument had reached enough of a truce that the twins were once again paying attention to the concert. "I used to keep pond water in it, it's in the kitchen!" She hopped off of her chair, lugging the racoon along with her like it was a rather expensive lap cat.

Dipper followed her. "Why did you have a jug of pond water?"

"Because, dummy, if I met a frog prince he would need something in the shack to remind him of home."

"Aren't you supposed to turn him into a person though?"

Whatever Mabel's retort was to be was cut off by the door swinging shut.

"There ya go," Stan grumbled. "You're getting your jug. Just in time too." He gestured toward the SUV. The mother was walking toward the Shack, one hand holding the baby, the other gripping tightly to the little boy's hand. The little boy gripped a few dollars in his fist, eyes alight with excitement.

Fiddleford looked frantic. "I can't sing and play the jug at the same time!" He gripped at his hat, pulling it down over his ears.

Ford sighed. "Then don't play the jug."

"It won't be the same!" Fiddleford shook his head. "A jugband without a jug that's...that's like a body with no heartbeat!"

The door swung open and Mabel emerged with an old ceramic jug.

"Here it is!" she exclaimed. "And it only sort of smells like pond scum."

"I don't think that will be necessary," Ford smiled gently. "It seems Fiddleford can't play both simultaneously."

Mabel frowned. "But it's a jugband. It's in the name!"

"How about we wait another day," Ford offered, patting Fiddleford awkwardly on the back. "Maybe someone in town will join you."

"Oh for Pete's sake, give it to me." Stan snatched the jug out Mabel's hand, sniffing at the top and giving a grimace.

Fiddleford stopped pulling at his hat, peeking out from under the brim. "You'll play?"

Stan grunted. "I'm not missing out on good money just because you have a case of the heebie jeebies. Besides, how hard can it be? It's like blowing on the top of a beer...er...I mean soda bottle."

Dipper crossed his arms. "Grunkle Stan, we know what beer is."

"Not from me you don't."

Mabel squealed. "It's happening! Grunkle Stan is learning an instrument!"

"It's not an instrument, Pumpkin. It's dishware."

"It's a scrapbookortunity!"

Mabel dashed into the house once more, leaving Dipper to grin at their Grunkle Stan.

The family was only a few yards away now. Fiddleford looked between Stan, Ford, and Dipper, and straightened up in his seat.

"Alright. Alright!" He clapped his hands together. "Stanley, you get down here with me, otherwise your feet are gonna get mighty sore from standing." He yanked at Stanley's hand until he sat beside the rocking chair with a grumble.

"Now when I tap my foot," Fiddleford instructed. "You blow on the jug. One short note at a time." Fiddleford tapped his foot in demonstration. "You got that?"

Stanley rolled his eyes. "Gee, I don't know. Seems pretty complicated for the guy without a PhD."

Mabel burst through the door, camera clutched in her hands. "Got it!"

"Excuse me?"

The little boy stood on the porch, approaching the banjo case with far more trepidation than before. Eyes darting between the assembly, he dropped a few dollars in the case.

"Is this enough to play a song?"

Fiddleford didn't bother looking at the money. He turned his gaze to Stanley, who shrugged and raised the jug to his lips.

Fiddleford grinned. "You know ‘Boodle Am Shake’?"

The little boy shook his head.

"Well you're about to!" And with that he was off.

By Fiddleford's standards, it wasn't a horribly complicated tune. Ford had heard him pluck out more complex riffs while waiting for the coffee pot in their dorm room to brew. But Fiddleford was smiling. His shoulders had dropped from around his ears, and he was nodding at the little boy to tap his feet along with him. Ford hid his smile behind his hands as he watched Stanley, eyes focused on Fiddleford's bare foot with as much attention as one would give to diffusing a bomb. Next to him, Mabel was snapping pictures of the pair. Dipper stood on his other side, wearing the small smile he tended to get when feeling introspective. Ford laid his hand on Dipper's shoulder, and Dipper leaned into the touch.

The mother was smiling at her little boy, her baby having finally stopped fussing. Maybe it wasn't the grand attraction Mabel had planned, but Ford thought it was worth far more than those few dollars anyway. Nothing could be worth more than his family standing around him, his closest friend singing again.

I know this song, it don't mean a doggone thing. Just do that good old Charleston swing. When you sing...

[timbit-robin-art]

I saw your Mio doodle and now I wonder about a Light Music Club X-Men Edition.. Scott can be on drums he'd be so good at keeping time... whatever Ororo is on (because she'd slay at every instrument) she has to ALSO be on vocals because I believe that's just canon..

maybe Logan can be their roadie

Ah, K-On. My one weakness. I went a little overboard when picturing this, so whoops.

I imagine this being in a universe where there’s still mutants, but Xavier isn’t making them use their powers to fight. Instead, the institute is for learning how to control their powers/providing refuge for mutants who have nowhere else to go, and they go to a mutant/normal human mixed private school for normal education.

Here’s some of my ideas for the club members so far:

Ororo is the bass player and lead vocalist. She’s been inspired to be in a band ever since she lived on the streets as a little kid, where she saw a bass player performing live. Freshmen year of high school, she hears someone absolutely going ham on the drums, and finds Scott playing on his own. It took a while, but she finally convinced Scott to join her. She’s the heart and soul of the group, and main character along with Scott. I don’t see her living at the institute, though Xavier keeps the offer open. Instead, she may live with a 19/20 year old Gambit, who’s living off of the Guild’s money and trying to lay low.

Scott is the drum player. After Xavier picked him off of the streets, he got a bit lost in the mansion and discovered a drum set in the music room (I imagine it used to belong to Erik/Magnus). Xavier sees that the boy has natural rhythm, and decides to find him a teacher. Scott forms a middle school band with the O5, but they had a falling out, causing everyone to go their separate ways. However, Scott is still very passionate about the drums, which is why he eventually joins Ororo. He may be more pessimistic, but his passion for the drums is more than enough to keep him going.

Kurt is the pianist. He’s a transfer student from Germany and has always wanted to be a part of a band like Ororo. It was him that suggested the idea of forming an actual club, and he’s the big idealist/optimist of the group. I can see him not knowing too much on how to play piano, minus the basics he learned from his mother (she taught him how to play despite his three fingers), so when he moves into the institute, Xavier teaches him how to play better. Even though there are some people at school who treat him just as bad as the mobs from his home, he’s still willing to get out there and play with the group.

Hank is the guitarist. He used to be a part of the same group as Scott, but after everyone split a part, he stopped playing entirely. I can see him being intrigued by the talk of a “light music club,” but after seeing Scott was there, he wants nothing to do with it. Eventually, he joins a practice session after Ororo gets through to him, and he realizes just how much he misses playing. Scott and him have the friends-turned-hostile-turned-back-into-friends relationship. Unlike the other three O5 members, his love for music trumps any hostile feelings after the falling out, and he’s willing to give it another go.

Ah, but you can’t have a club without a faculty member as your sponsor;

Mr. Logan was the only available candidate for this. After a lot of begging (and promises that they’d wash his motorcycle every weekend), they eventually get him on board. He pretends to hate it, but it slowly becomes obvious that he has a soft spot for the group. He sees the passion they all have, and it reminds him of when he was younger (hmm… what if Logan was the bass player Ororo saw when she was younger…).

Of course, if we follow K-On, we must have a 5th member that joins later on. I have no idea who that could be. I think there’s a lot of fun ideas depending on who.

[shadamyheadcanons]

Headcanon #298

Cross-posted on AO3.

Sonic and his friends started a band when they were young. Sonic played guitar and sang lead, Knuckles was on drums, and Tails filled in the gaps on his keyboard. They put on performances here and there, entertaining other Mobians and any small animals who passed by.

The odd one out was, of course, Amy. Sonic hadn’t stopped running from her, and the others followed along, ensuring she never had a place. It was bad enough with just the main three keeping her out, but when Sonic welcomed Mighty and Ray to join in with bass and backup vocals while she was still locked out, the pain was too much.

Amy avoided music for years after that. Even after the others stopped leaving her in the dust, she never felt there was room for her in the band.

She was watching them rehearse one day, keeping quiet and feeling bad for herself. Her dejection was visible enough to draw Shadow’s attention. When he asked, she sheepishly explained the problem while the band obliviously played on.

She’d never forget Shadow’s reaction.

It was far from the first time she’d seen him seethe and glare up at Sonic with rage in his eyes, teeth gritted and jaw clenched.

When his gaze fell upon her, however, his muscles relaxed instead. He stepped closer and lowered his voice to mutter in her ear, telling her he wanted to show her something. She agreed, and he teleported her away. The others didn’t notice.

The two of them reappeared in Shadow’s room with a flash. After peeking out of his door to make sure they were alone, he reached into his closet and retrieved two violins, both old but carefully maintained. He placed one in her hands and started demonstrating with the other without explanation, teaching her how to play by example. She was baffled at first, but his low, relaxing voice complimented the higher pitches of the instruments, and his fingers were gentle as he manually guided hers on the fingerboard. Even when he flinched from the occasional stray squeak of her bow, he provided her with nothing but patience.

After a few sessions, she coaxed out the reason for his behavior. Maria had always loved the sound of the violins from the records Gerald brought from Earth. He initially brought one up just for Maria, but she insisted that Shadow should get one, too. Gerald brushed it off for a few weeks, but she stubbornly put her foot down, refusing to learn until he could, too. Gerald had no choice.

Shadow picked it up quickly, but Maria struggled. He wished she could have had more time to learn and enjoy it.

If she hadn’t waited for him, she would have.

In less than a month, the massacre took Maria from them, leaving only Shadow, Gerald, and the violins behind.

Fifty years later, Shadow retrieved them from the ARK and continued learning in her memory, but he hadn’t felt comfortable sharing his talents until Amy was by his side. Touched by the story, she eagerly learned everything she could from him.

Amy felt none of the hesitation Shadow did and finally stepped up, confidently showing Sonic and the others what she’d learned. They happily invited her to play with them this time, encouraging her to take her place whenever strings were called for. When Sonic asked her how she’d learned to play so well, though, she playfully dodged the question, keeping Shadow’s secret at his request.

Although Amy loved joining in with the band from then on, she loved playing duets with Shadow in private even more. The two of them fell for each other with romantic music as the backdrop--all strings attached.

--

((From an ad for the Sonic Symphony:

...and “Play! Violin,” one of the Party Mode games from Sonic and the Secret Rings:

Every character can play it, but I think it suits Shadow best.))

[m3talmunson]

Steve Harrington is incredibly smart. It's not his fault nobody believes him. Or, well, maybe it is.

Steve used to be his parents pride and joy, everyone knew that. When he was young, doing his piano lessons, his mother would show him off at their house parties.

"Look at my Steven!" She'd say, and all the other mothers around would parrot something like "What a sweet boy!" and he would just keep playing. That night his father would commend him for keeping the ladies occupied, that he'd grow up to be a real ladies' man, and how great it was that he kept the women out of the men's hair. He'd never said "I'm proud of you," or "I love you," but that was as close as he got.

And for a while, Steve LIVED for it. He'd come downstairs, see his mother in her good pearls, her party pearls, and know that he'd be good for them that day. Be needed for something.

And then it got old. So he learned cello. That kept them entertained for a while, until it didn't. Then he learned flute. That one kept them occupied a little longer, Mr. Harrington could stand the fact that it was a "girly" instrument because it kept Steve's mouth shut. He got too good at talking while he played the other instruments.

Then he tried guitar, and well all the instruments just stopped impressing them, because they stopped having house parties. Instead, they'd started going out to them. Started going out and not coming back, for weeks upon weeks at a time. Steve was determined to give them something to show off, something to praise.

He had always been quite book smart, but he started really putting the effort in. Steve gave it a year and a half of straight A+'s, until he realized that his parents would never care. So he tried a new approach, called 'skating along right above failing'. It didn't get their attention one bit.

Even when Steve came home beaten and torn, from the upside down or a fight, they weren't even there to ever notice.

And sure, people like Joyce or Hopper would notice, check in on him until the black eye went away. But after that, they had lives to live.

So no, the adults in Steve's life didn't really give him much attention at all.

Of course he didn't mind it all that much. Some small part of Steve just figured 'I deserve it,' and he rolled with the punches.

He found solace in his instruments, still. He learned more and more. Piano was his best, but once you had learned piano you could learn just about anything else with some dedication. His guitar he could whip out at a couple of his high school parties. In private, alone in his room with a girl, he could strike a few chords and they would just obsess over it. Got him the companionship he so desperately needed for a while.

Even so, he never showed Nancy. She made it clear to him that she loved watching him swim, loved his muscles. The more masculine parts of him. So he never brought it out. When she asked about the shiny grand piano in his living room, he'd just say his mom played. He stashed away his other instruments in a spare room, so she wouldn't see them.

That's not to say he didn't want to show her one day. He wanted to, but once you get called bullshit once, you're pretty much over the vulnerability.

So he continued to hide it, hide his smarts. He skated through until graduation, nursing the wounds in his body and mind all alone. Then he met Robin.

And he was just too scared to show her that part of himself. His instruments had become his little secret, and he just wasn't keen on sharing.

Not until after the events of Vecna. He had lost enough by then. He didn't lose any friends this time, but he was close. Max regained some of her eyesight, wearing thick glasses that Steve paid for. He'd never let Max's mother do it. Eddie got his new government-supplied trailer, and walked the long road to recovery. And near the end of that road, Steve threw one damn good party.

It was early August. Steve and Robin had already celebrated a year of being best friends (and being free of Russian torture), but Max was having a harder time, so they waited a little longer, until the Byers-Hopper group had settled in, but before school started. It was pretty much a "Hey Hawkins is (Relatively) Safe!" party. Everyone had mostly recovered from the events of spring break, the Byers-Hopper clan had finally put the finishing touches on their home in Hawkins, getting a nice big house that someone left behind in the "Great Escape From Hawkins of 1986". Eddie had finished high school, a little bit with the pity of teachers who were sorry that they thought he was a murderer, combined with the pity that he was nearly killed in the "earthquake", but who's counting? It was his year.

It was all of their years, finally over with this upside-down business. So Steve threw a party.

The adults had left, calling in their bedtime at 9. The kids and the older teens were sleeping over though. Steve had more than enough space, and of course, the moment Joyce Byers closed the front door with her last "Call me if you need anything!" they had to break out the good old party games.

The kids insisted on truth or dare, and they got a couple rounds in before Dustin decided to single our Steve for once.

"You haven't been called on much, it's my turn to fix that." Dustin said. Argyle was the only person who had chosen Steve so far, since he was on vacation from California for the summer, staying at the Byers place after helping them move in.

"Yeah yeah just spit it out kid," Steve retorted, taking the last swig of his first-and-only beer for the night, always playing it safe in case he had to drive one of the kids home unexpectedly.

"Truth or Dare?"

Steve contemplated for a moment. He picked dare earlier with Argyle and it had been pretty simple. A truth might make him spill some of the secrets he was content to keep in his brain. Within the kids group half of the truths so far had been about crushes. It left Will stammering earlier, and he wasn't about to let the same thing happen to himself. He could admit he had... new feelings when it came to romance that he'd rather not let out in THIS room. What's the worst that could happen if he chose dare anyways?

"Dare. Hit me with your best shot kid."

"Damnit, I had only thought of a truth! Give me a second." Dustin fumbled, turning to Lucas and trying to think of a good dare.

"All that talk..." Eddie whispered into Steve's ear.

That was a new habit the older teens had gotten into. Whispered secrets behind flexed hands, like a little kid's game of telephone. Something that made them feel like kids again. Though if we're being honest, it was mostly Steve and Eddie.

"I know, right?" Steve whispered back. Admittedly, something about the whispering made the hair on Steve's neck stand up on end. It made him feel like he and Eddie were the only people in the world.

He always had to come back to reality though.

"I dare you-" Dustin interrupted, " -to show us something you've never shown anyone before. Like a hidden talent or something."

Steve thought about it for a second. Maybe he could finally be vulnerable with the group. He had gone to hell and back with these people, multiple times. Surely he could play some piano.

So Steve got up, passing his empty bottle to Nance who eyed it with a raised brow and set it on the side table next to her. He stepped over the boys' sleeping bags, all of them sticking around in the living room that night so the girls could have the basement. Steve chose to ignore when Mike fussed, saying that he got stepped on.

He sat down at the piano bench and cracked his knuckles, looking down at the keys before snapping his head up and asking, "Any requests?"

"Wait Steve you can-" Nancy started, before Robin blurted out a song.

"Take Me Home Tonight!" Robin shouted. It had become their collective favorite song recently, both of them singing it every day on the drive home from work.

"Yeah, I can do that one. Be my backup Robs?"

"You don't have to ask twice!" She swung up from her place next to Nance, stepping over the sleeping bags the same way Steve had.

When she made herself a comfy spot on top of the piano, swinging her legs back and forth, Steve started the intro.

Steve thought it sounded a little dinky on classical piano with no synth. He winced to himself as he played the intro, looking up to Robin for comfort. He just saw her jaw drop, and her mischievous smile go wider. He didn't have to look at anyone else, Robin's nod for him to start singing was all he needed to look back down at the keys.

Steve had never been a confident singer, always putting on a bit of a show, carrying a tune -but never doing his best- so if someone said it was bad, he could say he wasn't trying. This time though, he gave it his all.

By the first chorus he was throwing his head back and closing his eyes, putting on a show for a different reason, smiling as wide as he could whilst singing.

He took some liberties: embellishing a little on piano, changing "Ronnie" to "Robbie" because, honestly, who wouldn't have. He got to her solo and, playing the supporting chords with his left hand, held out his right hand and his fake microphone to Robin, who took his arm in her hands and let out her most dramatic "Be my little baby," straight from the heart.

Playing the intro to the next part, Steve remembered that there were people in the room besides him and Robin. He looked around at the faces of his friends. Lucas and Max were bopping along on the floor, Will, El, and Erica had been dancing haphazardly in the corner the whole time, El dragging her brother up by the arm. Erica followed; she had recently taken an admiring to the bitchin' girl with superpowers, plus both El and Max enjoyed having another girl at sleepovers. Dustin's jaw was still on the floor, although Nancy was more subtle about her shock, her mouth hanging in a little "o" . Jonathan and Argyle were nodding their heads along to the bass chords, having just the time of their lives. It was Eddie's face that made Steve's heart jump. He was marveling at Steve, and anyone could tell. It was enough to make Steve sing the next verse directly to him. It became all too real all of a sudden, and he wouldn't change it for the world.

Soon after, the game was ditched, all the kids rattling off songs for Steve to play for them, so they could sing along. After some Loverboy, Blondie, Grease, and their more-than-fair share of ABBA, the kids tired themselves out. Will and El made a point to thank Steve for his playing, Lucas, Max, and Erica whooped and hollered after every song, and the rest of them showed their thanks in other ways, in hugs goodnight or simple looks, eye contacts worth a million words. Then all the older teens headed upstairs. Jonathan and Argyle headed to their room early, but Robin and Nancy stuck around in the Steve's bedroom, where he was sharing with Eddie.

"When were you going to tell us you were a musical GENIUS?" Eddie asked.

"I'm no genius, I just- My mom wanted something to show off at parties when I was younger, I started learning when I was seven so I could be their free entertainment."

"Thirteen years, Steve?" Nancy felt pretty awful not knowing about something so personal to him.

"Yeah, this is my first time showing someone who wasn't at those parties though. Well, on the piano at least."

"What do you mean 'on the piano?' Do you play other instruments dingus?"

"Well, a couple others! Cello, flute, guitar, french horn, and drums a little. I can carry a tune on harmonica, but I mainly picked it up to learn Piano Man. Thought it'd be kinda funny."

"You are magical Stevie, did you know that?"

Those words, Eddie's words, bounced around in Steve's head for the rest of the night. Magical. Him? Magical.

"Seeing as we know a girl with superpowers, I doubt that I'm the magical one." Steve brushed it off.

The girls took their leave a while later, leaving Steve and Eddie to stew in their awkward nature around eachother.

"I guess I can give up on being the only cool guitar player in the group." Eddie said, faking a heartbroken look.

"You can still be the only cool guitar player, I'm just a guitar player."

"Oh c'mon Stevie! You know these kids think you're the coolest person on the planet."

"I think you've got that one covered, I'm just their ever-so-giving host and chauffeur." Steve tried to make a joke out of it, gave his best self-pitying chuckle and everything. Eddie saw right through it. Saw the tears cloud the edge of Steve's vision before he blinked them away.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey," Eddie stopped Steve, "You're so much more than a ride home and a place to stay to them, okay? I mean it, they think you're the coolest person on the planet. And they're not the only ones who think it."

"Ha, like you think it."

"I do, Steve. I do think it."

"I mean, come on Eds! There's really no redeeming factor," Steve let the tears fall freely, moving off of his bed where Eddie sat, and gesturing to himself,"I have a nice car, a big house, and a shit personality. I'm not good in conversation, I don't know any of their nerd games. I'm no good at keeping them safe from anything that isn't an interdimensional monster. I'm just kind of here. I'm not smart, or nice, or even funny, or magical like you said. I'm just here."

"Steve," Eddie started, this look in his eyes, trying it's hardest to tell Steve everything he means to them, means to Eddie. But Steve just closed his eyes, bowed his head, like Eddie had some power over him.

Steve just stood there, head bowed, flexing and unflexing his fists.

"Come here." Eddie commanded, patting the bed next to him. And, just like the little kid who learned piano to entertain his mom, Steve listened.

Steve sat down and Eddie immediately scooted him closer, putting Steve's chin in both of his hands. Making Steve look him in the eye.

"You are so much more to those kids. And even if I'm wrong, you're so much more to me. You are smart, you are kind, you are generous, and loving, and you care for each and every one of us more than anything or anyone in the world could reasonably ask you to." Eddie wiped Steve's tears as they fell, but he never broke eye contact. "You've saved their LIVES Steve. Many of them wouldn't be here without you. I wouldn't be here without you. You carried me out of that hell hole, and you've been here for me since. If there's anyone in this world qualified to tell you how much you mean to them, I think it's me."

"You really believe all of that?"

"Every syllable of every word."

See, Steve Harrington is incredibly smart. It's not his fault nobody believes him.

Not even himself.

But maybe, for the first time, he was about to make a smart decision.

So he learned forward, into Eddie. Pressed his lips into Eddie's and didn't doubt that Eddie would kiss back. And when Eddie did, Steve's heart soared. He put all of his gratitude, all of his feelings into kissing Eddie.

After he finally pulled away, Eddie just had to bring some light into the situation. He wiped away one of Steve's tears, and said:

"I hope I don't have to see those pretty eyes cry for that to happen again."

"You don't-" Steve leaned in again.

And if Robin found them suspiciously close in the morning, it was nobody's business but her own.

[toskarin]

how did you get started making music, tools-wise?

I've talked about this a bit before and I don't necessarily recommend doing this, so skip the following two paragraphs and go right to the one under the break if you actually want the method I recommend

I lied to a girl I liked from my school and told her that, because I could play guitar I could also play piano, so I could teach her to play piano. both of these statements were lies.

I had to panic and learn both guitar and piano one week ahead of the lessons I was giving her as an excuse to hang out. so I self-taught in a haze of panic and "maybe she'll like me" (she did not) (but she kind of did) (but she was bicurious) (but she was wishy-washy on if she wanted to get together and her parents didn't like me) (and her parents were homophobic) (I think she might have texted me at one point years down the line to tell me she had a girlfriend but it was after I deleted our text history and I'm chronically unable to remember to put people's names into my contacts so who knows)

but that's all an aside. that's a bad method.

anyway if you want to start making music in earnest, doing what I did when I got serious about making songs instead of trying to impress girls whose parents wanted to destroy me with their minds here's a better answer

go acquire FL Studio. it's apparently really easy to do this because people have been acquiring it for years, or so I've heard. FL is good for learning because you've got 20 years worth of free tutorials available to you on youtube to dig through and plenty of stock vsts to play with out of the box

FL Studio is, realistically, the only tool you actually need to start making music. you could get away with less, but it's what I used, and as long as you don't pick up Specific Bad Habits, your experience with it will transfer to other DAWs if you decide to switch it later

that's all, really

if you go this route, the golden rule I'm going to impart on you right now is that you need to have a limiter on your songs. the default FL studio song templates have one, so you should keep it until you know enough to know why you might adjust something like that

it doesn't matter if it sounds fine in the editor without a limiter. everyone thinks it's not a big deal at the time, but as you get more experienced, there's literally nothing short of getting in legal trouble that you'll regret more than realising that your old work is almost entirely unsalvageable because you didn't put a limiter on it and now half of the audio is just lost data to clipping

I'm gonna put a few more recommendations for things I've used, just so you can consider them if you need something else to chew on. everything past this point is entirely optional and you'll do just fine with FL Studio alone. in fact, probably don't worry about everything below the line

-=-

items marked with [F] are free.

DIGITAL AUDIO WORKSTATIONS THAT AREN'T FL

for tracker-based editing and chiptunes, use Renoise. you'll either love or hate trackers, and while they have a steeper learning curve than piano roll DAWs, they might come more naturally to you. I personally think that Renoise is a lot of fun to use. it kinda has an "addictive" quality to it, as funny as that is to say

for quickly sketching songs, use [F]Jummbox. it's an html workstation (multiplatform!) that writes your sketches to a url, meaning it's pretty easy to collaborate on musical sketches. Jummbox is good for making chiptune style instrumentals, but what makes it especially accessible is the fact that it works on a piano roll system, which will be familiar to you if you're working in FL

for writing sheet music, I recommend starting with [F]Musescore. I'll warn you right now that there aren't really any good notation editors and you're making lesser-of-evils decisions when you pick any of them, but it's probably the best compromise out there right now. it's the one I use when I need to hand something to a physical musician. you can also export pieces as midi, although there's better ways to do that lol

-

VSTs

if you can acquire Pianoteq, do that. if you feel uncomfortable with acquiring it, [F]Keyzone Classic is free and can sound pretty nice with a bit of work, but you really have to learn to work with it

if your workstation can handle it performance-wise, go pick up [F]Vital - Spectral Warping Wavetable Synth. there's tons of free presets for this out there and it sounds good. cool synth. Serum: Advanced Wavetable Synthesizer is also good and has plenty of presets, but it's on the pricy side, so consider how comfortable you are with [finding a friend to buy it for you]

[F]Decent Sampler doesn't do much out of the box, because it's just a tool for playing sample banks, but if you go to [F]Pianobook, you can find tons of weird and fun sample packs of just about everything you can imagine. sounds derived from folk instruments, industrial equipment, lego sets, stylophones, choirs, whatever. incredibly useful.

Valhalla VintageVerb. this is the reverb plugin. you want this one. [F]Valhalla Super Massive is also good but it's more focused on alien-sounding reverb effects and enormous spaces, so it's kind of got a niche use case and you should be a little careful with it

if you've heard a lo-fi hip hop song on youtube, it probably used [F]iZotope Vinyl. this one can save you a lot of time if you're going for that sound because it comes with all the little vinyl flourishes outside of compression (like dust crackling) that you'd otherwise have to add yourself

[F]Genny VST is advertised as giving a genesis/megadrive sound, but what actually makes it shine is that it's an actual synth emulating the YM2612 and SN76489 sound chips. this means you can create your own sounds that work within those specs, which is a lot of fun! definitely beats just using samples, if you ask me

-

HARSH VSTS THAT I PERSONALLY LIKE BUT WHICH ALSO MIGHT !!HURT!! YOU. SO BE VERY CAREFUL USING THESE.

[F]Tritik Krush is a bitcrushing plugin. it does a good job of bitcrushing and downsampling. I use it a lot in my songs, but you've really gotta know how to keep this one under control, because it's fully capable of making painful sounds on accident and can completely devour your mix

[F]FSA Latcher is a gorgeous noisebox. it screams in horrible ways and makes dying machine noises in various colours. this is the musical equivalent of working with radioactive material, so be extremely careful using this in anything you don't want to hurt the listener's ears

girlfriend just told me I have to recommend [F]Noise Engineering Ruina to you if I'm making a category with this heading. I don't personally use it, but she likes it (she's better at music than I am) and it's free, so you should go pick it up. "it annihilates sounds very deliciously" (maybe I should use it)

-

hope that helps a bit!

[tcfactory]

Brainrot of the day is all about people mourning the OG Shen Qingqiu, it just happens somewhere where Shen Yuan can't see because he doesn't frequent the places where Shen Jiu used to withdraw when he got anxious or wanted to paint/play music/meditate in peace.

It all starts with Shang Qinghua setting up a kinda memorial - just a pile of rocks, really - but vibes and grief make it so that each time someone discovers it and remembers Shen Jiu they add to it. Someone carves a proper stone for the memorial - no name on it, obviously. Not a fan either, because the new Shen Qingqiu uses fans too. Bamboo stalks, a painter's easel and a pipa - he never played it in PIDW, so Shen Yuan has no idea that it was Shen Jiu's favorite instrument. The guqin is what they teach to the disciples when they are first learning music, so he sort of just assumed that's the one instrument Shen Jiu played.

Ning Yingying, Ming Fan, Mu Qingfang, Yue Qingyuan, Shang Qinghua... even Qi Qingqi starts missing him when his spy network starts falling apart without him. The list of people visiting grows until it becomes a whole thing to seek the memorial out when they miss the old Shen Qingqiu. To offer him a song or a snack or burn incense on his (chosen) birthday...

Cultivators are good at many things, processing grief is not one of them. If it was left to them they would still mourn him a century later as if he died yesterday.

Of course it's Shang Qinghua's fault when something changes. He's visiting the memorial after a very draining argument with Shen Yuan about how much Shen bro is neglecting his peak (he might as well not be a peak lord anymore because he wants to spend all his time with Binghe) when Mobei picks him up one day and takes note of the memorial. And the next time Mobei finds some miraculous rebirth plant (they've been keeping an eye out for something that can bring back Zhuzhi-lang and fix Tianlang-jun) he buries the spares there.

It should be nothing, without a body or even a soul to latch onto. Shen Jiu's presence is mostly gone from the world - except from this one place, where everyone hoards their grief in secret, sharing memories where they can't offend the new Shen Qingqiu.

It's not enough to call a drifting, shattered soul back to life.

Not until Tianlang-jun. He is on his way off the mountain after delivering a thank-you couched in the most infuriating wrapping he could muster to master Shen for his help in identifying what miracle cures were needed to fix him and his nephew up. He sought him out on Qing Jing because at least here his son can't pick a fight without consequences. Still, he's taking the scenic route as a form of spite, so that he can linger as long as possible without giving them an excuse to kick him off the mountain.

The clearing is thick with the presence of someone, a soul that is very much not the peak lord his son is so infatuated with. It's somehow familiar, in the way of people you used to regularly pass on the street remain, even after you no longer live on that street. It takes him a while to remember.

Su Xiyan didn't have 'friends'. Even her 'not-friends' (very much friends in truth, his beloved was just strange about her potential attachments to others) numbered so few he could count them on one hand. Only one of them liked music and arts enough that she introduced them to each other when they met by chance at a recital. They have only met once or twice, but Tianlang-jun carved his memory into his heart, as he did with everything to do with Su Xiyan.

What a curious thing for another Shen to linger so prominently on this peak.

Perhaps it's nostalgia that guides his hand to spill just a few drops of his blood on the dirt. It's not a proper path back, but it's a handhold, if Su Xiyan's last lingering friend wishes to claw his way back to life. Perhaps it's spite, because among all the people that frequent this place and leave their grief dripping over the rocks and grass, he can feel neither master Shen nor Luo Binghe.

Tianlang-jun isn't around for the fallout when Shen Jiu makes his triumphant return, but that's fine. It sounds like it was an unnecessarily explosive affair (Maybe it wasn't his smartest move to add heavenly demon blood to the divine miracle lotus root, but in his defense he had no idea that was there. He assumed, from the general vibe of the clearing, that it was just a plain old grave with a soul that clings through guilt or regret or resentment or, because humans are fascinating and complicated, all of the above). Rumors are always better than reality anyway (especially the ones filtered through Liu Mingyan and the book club) and this one is juicy enough to keep the cultivators gossiping for the next century.

He'll swing around when things have calmed down again, eventually. He wants to meet the new heavenly demon of Qing Jing Peak.

[neonlight2]

Marauders era Headcanons

I’ll be adding to this throughout the storyline

Masterlist

Sirius Black:

- Partially Deaf, because there is no way he came out inbred and totally unscathed.

- Genderfluid because he’s an indecisive bitch

- Loves when his hair is braided no matter how much he says otherwise (also likes his head scratched)

- Paints his nails just to chip them cause he thinks it looks hot (same thing with smudging eyeliner)

- Calls Lily ‘Evans’, until she and James get together then he calls her ‘Mrs. Potter’

- annoyed he has to share James

- Fidgets with his hair and finger/rings constantly, because he definitely had ADD

- Makes this claw thingy with his hand when he’s nervous (if you know where this is from ily)

- Can dance REALLY WELL (ballet), because of that pure blood privilege, and does the stance naturally

-Can play the violin but is embarrassed so learns guitar so if someone asks him if he plays an instrument he can just say that instead

- Sexuality = Hot people aka Remus Lupin ( he’s just a whore idk what else to say)

-Touch starved/attention whore

- Such a fucking G, this man would riot for anything his friends ask

- If you walked into his closet you would think two people put their stuff in there, no, just him

- Speaks French

Remus Lupin:

- Poor boy is depressed

- And actually poor which is why he sells weed or other muggle things (he hustles the shit out of the students at Hogwarts by saying everything is ‘exotic’ and they believe him because everyone thinks he’s smart)

- Touch starved but doesn’t like to be touched (if you know you know)

-Bisexual panic. All. The. Time.

-Oblivious as hell to the fact everyone wants him— I mean everyone

- Loves tea. SO. MUCH. TEA.

- Has a book club with Lily

- Got a ton of piercings and tattoos over fifth year’s summer, but people rarely see them cause he’s always wearing sweaters or covered up some how

-His whole closet look like it should belong to an old man, yet he still slays

- Bites his lips and inside of cheek a lot, so James carries around lip balm for him

- When he’s high he’s chill

- But he’s hysterical when he’s drunk

-Can read multiple languages, but his pronunciation is god awful (Sirius makes fun of him for it)

-Has Chocolate on hand at all times because once he didn’t and he threw Snape across the classroom

-Man is an uncoordinated tree

James Potter:

- Both the Mom and child of the group somehow

- Takes lots of naps

-Sorry to say but Gryffindor is his personality

- Foot taps

- Holy shit this guy is ADHD

- ‘Bambi’ is his other nickname, and he thinks it’s cute until he watches the movie

- The healthiest mentally of the group

- Golden retriever vibes

- If James hasn’t seen Sirius within 30 minutes and he doesn’t know where he is, he gets panicked

-Has a thing for Youngest siblings apparently (Lily and Regulus)

-Obsessed with Babies

- Definition of himbo sometimes

- He’s good at every sport he tries

- Queer

- Trained Sirius not to say Mudblood throughout first and second year

Peter Pettigrew:

- Trans (I’ll go more in-depth later)

- Ace

- if Social anxiety was a person

- Bakes like an absolute KING

- Chews fingernails, so Sirius got him leather gloves to matches his own to get him to stop

- Knows random shit/facts

-also knows everyone’s business because no one pays him any attention

- Short king

- Hilarious, practically makes the group piss themselves when alone in the common room

- Loves everything fuzzy

- Has been in love with Mary since third or fourth year, but hasn’t said anything because he knew about her and Lily

- Has family trauma too, but he doesn’t thinks it’s enough to complain about because of what he’s seen with Sirius

- Was the first to master turning into an animagus

-As bad as Sirius and James with worrying about his hair, just less loud about it

-He knew about wolfstar before James

Lily Evans:

-Pansexual

- Politics Queen

- As sassy and sarcastic as Sirius

-Stress cleans

- the Left corner of her forehead twitches when she’s mad

- Thick girl (her thighs are HUGE and James practically drools over them 24/7, respectively ofc)

- Short 5’

- the others have to keep her within arms reach because she gets lost easily in crowds, her hair is the only thing that helps

- Human calculator (she gets perfect marks on every subject EXCEPT DADA, which is the class Sirius and James do; it annoys her to no end)

- Most likely to actually throw hands

- Fangirls openly about book characters (with Remus)

- Can’t sing to save her life (poor babe just wants to sing abba, but she just ends up being made fun of)

-Vowed to not cut her hair until she graduated, so around sixth year she had to start braiding it because if she didn’t she’d sit on it

- Can forge a signature/handwriting very well

- Is actually really insecure about her magical abilities because of the rift it caused between her and Petunia

Marlene McKinnon:

-Lesbian

-The only person to actually make her question her sexuality is Remus, and that’s because it’s fucking Remus Lupin

- During fourth year when her and Sirius were ‘dating’, they were just teaching each other how to flirt with girls/guys and they’d kiss just to practice

-Obsessed with Piercings (begged Remus to give her a couple after he told her about how he had the supplies)

- One of the best players on the Gryffindor Quidditch team/ uses it as anger management (Beater position)

-Her and Sirius have an agreement to tell each other the weekly outfit plan so they don’t wear the same thing or color (red or black mostly)

- Roasting people is her platonic love language

-Can play every band instrument

-She looks like a tough, rocker chick but is a softie for Dorcas

- Intimidates everyone because she’s low key buff (can bench more than James and Sirius combined) and super tall (looks like a giant next to Lily)

-Can’t speak in front of Dorcas at first, yet Dorcas understands her

-Big on PDA which leads to Sirius gagging obnoxiously

-Her and Sirius “fighting” is for show so people stop shipping them together/ teasing them

- Dyslexic so Lily and Dorcas read to her if there’s anything important (which leads to them doing it even if she’s not around)

-Simps for James Mum (but who wouldn’t)

Dorcas Meadowes:

- Part of the Slytherin skittles

- Non-binary

-Demisexual

- Dark humor and it’s worse when she’s around Regulus and Barty

- Nyx is her first girl kiss in my oc story (Marlene probably was for every other story)

-Big softy when it comes to Marlene

-Resting bitch face

- Amazing artist/ sketching Marlene constantly

- Makes jewelry (Marlene and her matching rings, and friendship bracelets/ necklaces for the others that they can never take off— she warns them before hand)

- Will go batshit crazy if she stays up after 12 am

-Gets super competitive when playing Quidditch

- Rants about how much she loves pockets every 20 minutes

- Instinctively moves closer to someone she knows when she’s in public

- More introverted than the rest, would rather stay in the common room and chill

-makes a ton of your mom jokes

Mary Macdonald:

- Pansexual or Polysexual

-She loves to embroidery/making clothes, so if anyone needs something made or tailored they go to her

-Hypes everyone up all the time, ‘don’t disrespect yourself’ vibe

- Has the best alcohol tolerance in the group

-James potter triggers her for a multitude of reasons; they have a banter relationship

- She always has what you need in her bag— like Mary Poppins

-Lily was her first love and friend

- SUCH a good listener (like I know canon Remus and Lily would be the best listeners, but I think it’s Mary)

- Both her and Remus had a glow up fourth year and everyone wants to either be them or be with them

- Loves dancing, will do it randomly while doing absolutely anything

-Hates cold weather, she’ll literally wear five jackets DON’T play

-Has had or does have a eating disorder because of societal pressure of internal judgment; not to mention people definitely paint her out to be a ‘slag’ because she happens to be more open about her sexuality (and they don’t do it to Sirius because we live in a fucked patriarchy)

- Will scream “fuck the police” or “fuck the Patriarchy” when running away from an authority figure (or just Lily/Remus)

-vegetarian 

-Extroverted (loves to be around people/hates being alone)

Regulus Black:

- Asthma (again, can’t escape inbreeding completely)

-Has permanent dark circles, yet he still looks beautiful??? Looks like eyeshadow to be real

- Demisexual

-trans

-Scratching his knuckles is a severe nervous tick of his

-Writes poetry and short stories

- Plays the piano

-Started playing quidditch to interact with Sirius more and to impress him (but as he got older he didn’t really give a shit anymore)

-Speaks French and Reads Latin

-Really into Astronomy

- He had a crush on James in fifth year but didn’t pursue it because he still somewhat resented him for having Sirius all to himself (and he knew Sirius would get mad)

-Cusses a lot when around his friends

-Best poker face, could lie to anyone and get away with it

-Photographic memory

-Nice to all the House elves (and all the Marauders except Sirius and James)

Pandora, Evan, and Barty

Evan and Pandora are siblings

Everyone in the Marauders and Slytherin Skittles have agreed that Pandora has to be protected at all cost

What they don’t know is that this girl is lethal (Carries around potions she’s created that could burn through steel)

Barty is hella gay, psychotic, and a bit of a pyro

Barty is also low key obsessed with Regulus

Evan is in love with Barty

Rosekiller is a thing, and it is toxic (don’t we just love it)

I’ll probably add more for Barth, Evan, and Pandora later

[dreamstate4you]

Pilot.

Chapter 0.1.

Omashu

"So this crazy king is your old friend Bumi?' Katara asked curiously.

King Bumi turned to face the water tribe girl with an offended look, "Who are you calling old?"

...

"Okay, I'm old."

"Why did you do all of this instead of just telling Aang who you were?" Sokka still irritated by the fact that they were stuck in the rock Candy

"First of all, it's pretty fun messing with people." King Bumi snorted. "But I do have a reason." The atmosphere shifted to a serious tone.

"Aang, you have a difficult task ahead. The world has changed in the hundred years that you've been gone. It's the duty of the Avatar to restore balance to the world by defeating Fire Lord Ozai. You have much to learn. You must master the four elements and confront the Fire Lord. And when you do, I hope you will think like a mad genius." the kind looked around at his friend's "And it looks like you're in good hands. You'll need your friends to help defeat the Fire Nation." Bumi took a pause as Momo climbed on him. 

"Thanks Bumi." Aang replied enthusiastically with a smile.

"Oh and before you leave." Two neatly dressed ladies came out holding a plate." Take these"

Bumi took the papers from the plates of the two ladies, revealing them to be tickes.

" What are these?" Sokka asked. 'Where these slips of money used in omashu or what?' He thought to himself as his eyes shined with greed.

"They are VIP tickets to see the performer Venti. I bought some for myself ,but I guess I bought to much." Bumi let out a giggle. " Now please go, trust me you don't want to miss the show." Bumi waved his hands dismissing the group. He started walking back to his castle room. Laughing along and muttering words no one could hear.

The three teens were left standing together Wondering why they were given tickets to see a performer.

" Well we better get going the show is starting at noon." Katara said as he looked at the tickets they were given.

The three arrived just in time for the open festival , a moment could be spared to buy snacks from the vindors. Aang and Sokka immediately moved to the food section.

One particular food that caught Katara's attention was on shaped of a cloud and arrows coming from the four sides of the could, creating a star in the middle.

"Hey aang look." Katara called out to show aang the interesting food, while sokka was already with a crowd of people anxious eating the food he bought as he waited for the performance in the front row.

"Hey it kinda looks like Appa." Aang whispered as he was handed the cloud cookie, but still loud for katara to hear.

Before katara could answer, sounds of people cheering could be heard, as tall men in Earth bending uniforms came marching behind each other in a neatly formed like. Aang and katara both rushed to join the crowd not wanting to miss a second of the show.

The three men on each side started stomping each of their feet hard enough that the stage started shaking. The instrument started playing from each side of the stage. In the middle a tall, tanned girl dressed in luxurious silks of the earth kingdom emerged. Her long black hair put in an elegant braid that could almost touch the floor.

The moment in that instant, Aang felt the colour drain from his face. The clothes the woman wore were the ones that most women from the Eastern Air template wore. Sure the colour had been green ,but Aang recognized those clothes. The women of the eastern air temple would often visit the southern temple so Aang wasn't a stranger to them.

Questions started to gather in Aang's mind. He wondered how this performer manage to get such sacred clothes.

The voice of the woman brought him back to focus on what was happening.

" Aang are you okay?" Katara asked for Aang's weird behavior. She watched as he looked mostly zoned out.

"Yeah I'm fine" Aang dismissed Katara.

Bringing his attention back to the performance the girl danced with grace as the earth benders created temples and figures of people behind her.

Now that Aang focused on the background dances and not on the main performer he noticed how the temples the earthbender's were bending resembles that of the Western Air temples. The temples were hanging upside down and kept popping out of the sandy wall before being pulled back into the wall by the bender's abilities.

"Wait this song." Aang jumped up almost airbendering into the air.

"Yeah?" Katara asked next to him " it is nice isn't it." She said with a smile on her face. Her face focusing back on the main dancer.

" No its just. IT SOUNDA LIKE... THE AIRBENDERS LULLYBY!"

Aang screamed earning weird looks for the people around him. He knew this song, the tempo and rhythm it had. The song would be hummed around the temples, it had no words so young monks would often make up their own words, allowing for creativity to form, but every monk and nun would always include a small line about clouds that held the ability to fly and taught the Airbender how to fly

.

.

.

.

After the performance. The two immediately went to find Sokka who was on the front of the crowd and crying his heart out.

" That was beautiful." He said between sobs.

"Come on! I need to go talk to that Performer guys." Aang quickly walked infront of the group. Walking backstage to what seemed like a big white tent. He noticed the earthbender's who were in the background chilling on the side of the tent.

Before they could enter they were stopped ,by earth bending guards.

"Hey, what are doing. Let us through." Aang protested

"We can't let you through without a pass." One of the guards answered.

" Please this is very important, you see He is the Avatar and he needs to personally thank the performer for her amazing performance." Katara tried to reason with them earning no reaction from the gaurds.

"Hey!" Sokka shouted from the back. He confidently walked towards the gaurds handing them the ticket that king Bumi gave them. The gurads inspected what Sokka was holding and let him pass.

Aang and Katara quickly did the same. Katara embarrassed about how she didn't think of that.

Inside the tent that was set up We're multiple papers and books scattered around. People inside were also chatting and laughing among themselves, but they weren't here for the after celebration. They were here to talk to the performer, Venti.

After the performance Aang started acting weird and had not said those many words to the two siblings. It seemed that the performance struck something inside him. Sokka too had the performance stuck in his head. He kept rumbling on about how he needs to fly on a magic cloud in the desert then his life goals would have been almost complete.

After some time of asking where they could find the performer. They finally found her.

She was inside another tent, a taller tent that resmbeled a watching tower from the outside, but her tent had no flooring. She was barefoot in the sand and stretching her legs.

"Ah, visitors." She quickly stood up properly. Her hands put to her side as she looked at the three infront of her. "You must have either paid a lot of money to personally see me or have good connections." She said with a hint of an accent.

"Yes, you see this is the Av-" Before Katara could finish Aang inturpted.

" How do you know that song!? WHERE DID YOU GET THOSE CLOTHES!? HOW DO YOU KNOW THESE DANCES?!"

Aang put on his most threatening voice and face he could. ( Which just ended up making him look less threatening.)

... " I got them from... A vendor. Yes a seller-" before the performer could answer Aang once again disturbed.

" YOU'RE LYING. NO ONE WOULD EVER SELL THOSE-" This seem to be a trend to interfere with another persons conversation , because Katara softly pushed Aang to the side.

"Excuse us. You see he." Katara motioned to   Aang who was now on the floor. " He is the Avatar and we would really like to know where you got your knowledge from."

...

"HE'S THE AVATAR!" The young performer seemed to have lost any elegance she had as she figured out the new information. Reacting in the same way Aang was acting earlier.

The performer dashed to the boy on the ground at a ridiculous speed that shocked Sokka.

Venti bent down to help the young Avatar from the floor and looked like she was about to say something before she stopped.

"Wait, how do I really know your the Avatar?" She pointed at Aang.

Aang simply didn't respond and jumped high in the air touching the highest point of the tent and came down ,but not touching the grass, clearly still using his bending to keep him afloat.

The young girl gasped before she also jumped into the air, descending down at a slow rate, she also kept herself afloat for a few more seconds before finally reaching the ground with a smile on her face.

.

.

.

Sokka was the first to faint... Then Aang.

This performer is definitely an Airbender

[thekiabo99]

My Personal Random Headcanons

Am I finally back after months of being offline? Yes, yes I am! I had the urge to write some Headcanons about Lady Dimitrescu, in no particular order, just my personal Headcanons. Please Enjoy!

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Alcina Dimitrescu

-How do they feel about people who are shorter/taller than them?

I personally think that Alcina enjoys teasing those who are shorter than her, for most usually are. Whenever someone smaller is around her, she will tease them purely from the fact that her size alone intimidates others. Often calls people 'Little Mouse' or 'Pet' just to add to her teasing mannerism.

If there is anyone who is taller than her, I believe that Alcina would feel very competitive. She would hold her cigarette higher as she scowled at the one who is taller than her, her lips in a thin, displeased line as she huffs to herself. If she feels intimidated, she won't hesitate to show off her claws and threaten them either.

-What is their sexuality?

I think it's pretty well known that Alcina is a lesbian, there is no way on earth she would be seen by the side of a manthing.

-Prefered weather?

Alcina never really notices the weather since she is so busy with her wine business all the time. However, when she gets te chance to relax, she feels most at ease when it is raining. She has always loved the rain and finds it most relaxing when she is indoors by the fire, with her wine glass and book in hand.

-What's their sleeping schedule?

Alcina has no real need for sleep and rarely does, unless she has a partner, in which case she will sleep alongside them. She tends to keep a relatively normal sleeping pattern, going to bed around 10 and waking up at 7 in the morning, she does not like to be in bed all day.

-Favourite Music?

Alcina's favourite music genre is jazz, one hundred percent. She used to be in a jazz band and has always enjoyed the vibes which the music gives.

-How's Their Cooking?

Alcina has spent her entire life having a maid do everything for her, so she has no idea how to really cook. If she did try, you would be lucky if she didn't set fire to the entire castle.

-How Would They Hold Up In A Pillow War?

Whilst Alcina is very elegant and lady like, she is not against a good old fashioned pillow fight! If you somehow managed to convince her to have a pillow fight with you, you had best be prepared for her advances, for she fights fiercely and is rarely beaten. She will laugh the entire time as well.

-What's their sleeping position?

When Alcina does sleep, she will lie on her side, facing towards the door, that way she can always be alert when someone enters her chambers.

-Who Do They Go To For Comfort?

Alcina rarely needs comfort, as she is very self assured most times. But when she does need some comfort, she will always go to her daughters, for they are the only ones she truly trusts to be open with.

-Something Small They Enjoy?

Alcina enjoys playing the piano, it has always been her favourite instrument and she has never stopped playing since she properly learned how to.

-How Do They Feel About Physical Contact From Others?

Alcina isn't one for physical contact, she actually despises it when someone touches her without her permission. However, if she has a partner, she is all for physical contact, wanting to feel loved constantly, she will always let her partner touch her whenever they want to.

-What Is Enough To Bring Them To Tears?

Alcina is a very strong headed woman and rarely ever cries, however just the very thought of losing her daughters is enough to bring her to tears. She has come close to losing them a few times and every time, she always ends up crying.

-Biggest Pet Peeve?

Alcina's biggest pet peeve is when people lack manners, she has grown up with proper manners and when she comes into contract with someone who lacks manners, she is immediately disgusted by them.

-How Well do They Take Care Of Themselves?

Alcina is a very high maintenance woman, never letting herself be seen without her hair and makeup being done perfectly. She bathes in the lushest, floral scented bath oils and body washes. She is also never seen without her iconic, red lipstick which is made specially for her.

-What's Something They Like That May Be Surprising To Others?

Unknown to most, Alcina actually has a great fondness for flowers. Her courtyard is full of various different flowers and she often goes to spend time around them when the weather is good enough.

-Do They Consider Others Family?

Alcina considers no one but her daughters as family. She will never trust anyone else enough to count them as her true family.

-Any Bad Habits They Have?

Alcina has a bad habit of putting things down somewhere safe and then forgetting where they are. This often leads to her shouting at her maids, accusing them of stealing from her when actually, she has left something in her wardrobe by accident.

-The Strangest Thing They Have Ever Seen?

The strangest thing Alcina has ever seen is when Mother Miranda took Rose apart in front of her and the other lords, she was baffled by this action but never dared to question Mother Miranda. She was even more confused when she received a flask containing Rose's head to take away with her.

-How Well Do They Accept Advice?

Alcina is a strong headed woman and always thinks she knows what is best, so when someone gives her advice on anything, she will immediately assume they're doubting her. This will lead to her being moody and doubtful for the rest of the day.

-How Much Do they Swear?

Alcina never swears, she sees it as a common rabble thing to do and would never lower herself to those levels.

-Do They Like Being In Pictures?

Alcina has a couple of paintings of herself around the castle, she enjoys sitting for paintings but will not do it very often or for just anyone.

-Is There Anything They're Bad At?

Technology. Alcina has no idea about technology, it's as if technology is an alien language to her. Imagine your grandmother trying to use an iPhone properly, that's how Alcina is even with things as simple as a phone charger.

-Any Past Injuries?

Alcina has a scar on the back of her head from the cadou which Mother Miranda gave her. This is why she constantly wears a hat despite the scar not being too obvious in reality.

-Something That Disgusts Them?

Men. Alcina despises all men, for reasons known only to herself, Alcina has never liked men, not even in the slightest. She refers to them all as manthings and won't even allow any to work for her. (Sorry to all the men out there).

[shenanigans-and-imagines]

Thinking About Astarion x Evie (Ace!Tav) Post Game

Astarion x Evie (Ace!Tav) Masterlist

A/N: Some stuff with them in the underdark, some stuff with them exploring more of Evie's family. Honestly just random ideas I've been sitting on for a while. Please let me know if any of these sound like something you'd like to see expanded on in a fic. I've got so much, I have no idea what to focus on. As always thanks to @leighsartworks216 for letting me ramble.

So basics first, Evie convinces Astarion to let the 7,000 spawn live and retreat into the underdark meaning that once the Absolute is defeated, they have a lot of work to do

I am sticking with the idea that Evie actually is Gur, but due to circumstances didn't grow up among her tribe, so not only is this her helping the spawn, but a chance for her to reconnect with that part of herself

Astarion helps the spawn adjust to their new lives while also teaching the Gur how best to help their children, understanding and empathizing with their cravings. 

Evie meanwhile gets the opportunity to learn more about her culture acting as a kind of middle man when Astarion gets a little too heated with some of the leaders

Astarion working with his "siblings" as well

It's a hard adjustment for them from competing for survival to realizing they won. Obviously old grudges and resentments remain, but working through them to be more than what Cazador made them.

Being the oldest of all the spawn, some of them start to step up as leaders in their own right, or while others decide to embrace their freedom and leave the Underdark. 

I want to say that Astarion and Evie stay for at least a year, if not a little longer; enough to get things stable, but neither of them want to stay there forever

Astarion has a lot of the world he wants to see, and he knows it's selfish to keep Evie in the dark forever

Evie too, having now learned more about the Gur, realizes that she might still have family out there and wants to find them

Astarion brings up on occasion about how he doubts they'd be keen on her walking into their camp with a vampire, but that's a bridge they'll cross when they get there

They spend the in between time adventuring

Neither of them really considered themselves heroes before The Absolute, but they find they're actually rather good at it

Evie's more altruistic tendencies have rubbed off on Astarion a bit, but not enough for him to shy away about asking for that promised reward

Astarion also takes this time to experiment with hobbies

He genuinely enjoys embroidery and sewing. It relaxes him and gives him something tangible he created by the end of it.

Evie would try to teach him how to play an instrument and while he’s not completely tone deaf, he insists he’s a better audience member

Astarion in turn starts to teach Evie how to properly read. Although that doesn’t stop him from reading out loud to them when they ask.

He admittedly isn't the most patient of teach at times, but they're both learning

Eventually though, they do find Evie's family

The find themselves battling a vampire lord and get way in over their head resulting in Evie being hit bad

Astarion is able to escape with her, but it’s obvious she needs help fast so he stops for help with the first group he finds, a tribe of Gur who currently have their caravan based on the other side of a river which keeps monsters like him from crossing. 

Still he knows there is nobody else and so yells across the river for help

The Gur come out and tell him to cross, he says that he can’t and that alerts the Gur as to what he is

Astarion realizes he's in trouble, but the love of his life bleeding in his arms takes precedent

He lays her down, holding his hands up and begging them to help her. The Gur recognize her as one of their own, but don’t trust Astarion. So as they start to cross one of them shoots him nearly in the heart sending him down as the other rush to grab Evie.

One of the younger ones looks like he’s going to finish it when another speaks up saying they remember speaking with another caravan about a pale elf spawn traveling with one of their own. Best hold off until they get some answers. 

So they get Evie to their healers and tie Astarion up with silver chains in one of the caravans and out of the sun. Astarion is cooperative enough, save for his tongue which the Gur can do nothing about except tell him to shut up.

Most of his comments boil down to asking about Evie and calling them some variety of the word idiot. 

All of this to say I now have an image in my head of Astarion being tied to a post when Evie comes in. Whatever anger or annoyance he had at the current situation slides off his face when he sees her, breathing out her name in sheer relief. 

Evie then quickly closes the distance ignoring any warning from the guards and checking him for injuries. He’s still hurt from the arrow to the chest and obviously the silver which he’ll worry about in a second as he uses his limited movement to kiss her. 

She starts to untie him which the guards protest against, but Astarion dryly counters “And where will I go this time of day?” Evie then starts to heal him and that’s when the leaders show up and some answers can be given.

Not the best first impression to say the very least, but answers are given and the leaders quickly realize her mother and father were originally from their tribe

I got into it a bit more here, but basically her father was turned away and her mother followed leading Evie to be raised away from her people

She holds her breath expecting them to turn her away, but is shocked when they embrace her too; they won't hold her responsible for what her father did

And while many of them are wary of Astarion, the Gur in Baldur's Gate have let it know that he is their ally

As soon as Evie realizes that not only did she have a family out there, but they would have accepted her back completely shatters her sense of self

All those what ifs start flooding her brain. Resentment towards her father rears it’s ugly head until all she can do is scream at everything she might have had. She could have been happy and safe and loved, and instead…this. 

It makes her want to hold on tighter, diving head first to learn everything she can to the point where maybe Astarion gets a little nervous. Yes, he has his prejudices against the Gur and he’s been working on it, but they also don’t know these people and he doesn’t want to see Evie get hurt. 

Astarion actually starts to back away for a bit. He knows this is important to her and she needs time to figure it out. So having him around, somebody who this new family is rightfully suspicious of might not be the best. He wants to stay with her. He wants to be her family, but it’s selfish of him to assume he can be her only family. From what he’s been able to glean her mother made that same mistake. Perhaps he should go back to the underdark for a time.

Evie feels him pulling away and confronting him about it. 

I imagine Astarion would clam up at first; denying it before eventually blurting out everything he’s been feeling in some not so polite terms. He’s a monster in their eyes not matter how much Evie tries to claim otherwise. Some might see him as a novelty, but they can’t ever trust him. He doesn’t blame them. Smart really. 

Evie then suggests they both leave. And he’s tempted.

He wants to just go, just the two of them on the road going wherever they like whenever they’d like. She’s the only family he really wants, but he stops himself. Hell he’s angry at himself for stopping. He’s about to make the biggest mistake of his life. In what world would she ever come back to him?

But he says no. He tells her she needs to stay. He knows she’s not ready to go. (She may never be ready to go, but that’s a fear he keeps to himself.) He loves her. He loves her in ways he didn’t think he could love another person, but he can’t stay. He’ll be waiting for her when she’s ready.

Evie meanwhile is mentally scrambling. She wants to stay. She still has so many questions. This is the first time she’s felt like she’s belonged in so long. But she can’t lose Astarion. She just can’t. The idea of him leaving only makes her think of every back turned her way, of being a burden, too much, not enough, never enough. But Astarion loves her. She knows he does. So, she has to trust that he means it.

It's their first real test, being away from each other

Evie takes the opportunity to explore aspects of herself she kept buried for a long time

Astarion meanwhile doesn't go straight back to the Underdark

He takes the time to go to Waterdeep to see Gale. He visits Shadowheart and Wyll and Karlach and is surprised every time that they’re happy to see him. He still misses Evie. Gods he misses her every day, but he comes to recognize that there are other people in his life. He’s not alone in the world without her.

Evie would reach out to him first, sending a letter that admittedly takes some time to find him as he’s bounced around the sword coast

Eventually Astarion does gets it and writes back in a heart beat to see her again. Or maybe even gets somebody to cast sending so he can contact her faster.

He only thinks after that maybe he was a little too eager. This is just a chance to see each other again. For all her knows she’s going to tell him she’s going to stay with her people. But he couldn’t seem to help it.

There’s a difference between missing somebody you know you’ll never see again and missing someone you might. Just that little bit of hope makes it so much more painful. He’s not used to it.

So they meet. Maybe in Waterdeep or just some place else between where they are.

Astarion deliberately forced himself to wait at least an hour after sunset. Yes, he could go earlier, but, again, he doesn’t want to appear too eager. He still has his pride, but any bravado disappears as soon as he sees her.

She’s already sitting at a table, an empty plate and drink in her hand. Clearly she had been waiting for some time. And Gods she’s even more beautiful than he remembered.

She’s dressed a little differently, more clearly Gur from the fabric to the way her hair is done, allowing herself to stand out in a way she didn’t before.

She then meets his eye and he all but sighs in relief; she missed him too.

Maybe there was a time they both would have played this a little closer to the chest. They would have politely sat down and danced around the question of who wanted to stay and who wanted to go, reflectively waiting for each to deliver the killing blow. There’s no such hesitation now.

Evie is up and across the tavern in the next second, all but jumping into his waiting arms. He has to tease her just a little, even when he holds her to him like she’s the only thing real in the world. “Miss me darling?”

She only hugs him tighter, tucking her head beneath his chin. “Always my love.”

They do eventually talk. They sit down and tell all of what they’ve done. They talk about where they’ll go next and the list of people they need to see along the way. But there is never a question of whether or not they will stay together.

One separation is more than enough for a lifetime

[savagewildnerness]

Quick, daft improvise to this wee scene today… so I did. I don’t like it so I’m not gonna listen, I’m just gonna post!!!!

I am SO excited to watch Nicolas in full! I can’t articulate it completely. But I’ll say it’s exciting to me both for what I know in my bones of Nicolas AND for what I don’t know!

I started playing violin aged 8: just free lessons in school (I never had a proper, paid for, private violin lesson in my life. Not even one.) then piano aged 12 - so OLD to begin (& incidentally around when I read The Vampire Lestat.)

I danced from before I was 3 years old & through that, always loved music. But I also always knew I was *too old* when I started playing instruments (coupled with my free lessons & nobody in my family being musical… & my own extreme quietness & lack of self confidence… & knowing other children, both objectively better than me & more popular as humans than me & who perceived themselves therefore as incredibly superior to me) to ever be a musician.

I can’t even explain in words how I, even aged 12 related to Nicki’s sense of what can & will never be. It made me feel impossibly ancient. I can tell you that I refused to learn how to ride a bike, even though my Dad was an excellent cyclist aged FIVE as I knew a friend who could already ride a bike at 5, thus was convinced I was *too old* to add to the essence of my self. But I imagine, if you are not me it may seem slightly silly?

Aged 12, I likely didn’t understand the full depth of Nicolas’ cynicism. And, as, even now, an idealist who related to Nicki so deeply in some ways, I do feel there’s a part of me unable to fully comprehend Nicolas beyond how my 12-year-old-self resonated with him. I can’t fully imagine the depth of Nicolas’s existential despair & cynicism as I personally relate to his self so deeply in some ways, yet the idealism in my nature dampens my personal existential despair. But I do despair now…

Anyway; that makes me even more excited to experience Nicki on TV, brought into reality! Because I do not know or understand him fully… yet! But I see Joseph Potter’s acting & I feel the feeling in it & so I know that Nicolas, and how meaningful he is to me shall be deepened. What joy. 🥰🎼🎻

To extend the why of why I relate to Nicolas - My piano teacher went into semi-retirement when I was 13 & cut back on most pupils. I was obviously still a beginner, having only just started playing at 12... so she was going to cut me & told my Mum so. Then I had that week’s piano lesson with her & something about the musicality or emotion in how I played my simple stuff that week meant she told my Mum she simply couldn’t stop teaching me. So I kept having lessons with her till I left school at 18.

I do not consider myself a musician at all. I’m not good enough. But some people felt *some thing* from how I played even as a teen: another way I related to Nicolas! And I knew my failings & all I’d never be, like Nicki knows. And I know how that feels.

Lestat talks of beauty & emotion in Nicolas’ playing. But when you personally know your playing is technically lacking, a compliment is lovely, of course. But Nicolas & I both know the truth: that we are lesser and not-enough and failures.

For me though, never fear - that I know my limitations is a huge part of why I share music here! I want everyone to feel they can create. Not necessarily music, but whatever they feel - to transform it in whatever way to some thing.

And the errors & imperfections don’t matter. The act of creating is being alive 🥰.

[asherloki]

Until I found you

Sherlock x reader

Word count:- 815

Fluff

"oh how wonderful indeed" I exclaimed as I touched each string of violin in order with my index finger, making it buzz. Sherlock was still stuck with his microscope, examining the specimen he's been given by Hopkins recently. This officer, Stella Hopkins, she's a huge fan of Sherlock and to our surprise Sherlock doesn't mind her, he says "this young officer has potential". I took his violin as no response came from the man with the microscope. Imitating how Sherlock holds his violin I took the bow in other hand. When I let it touch the strings, it made an awful sound. That's when I turned and found out the detective lifted his head from it.

"You didn't hold any chord did you?" he enquired getting up from his chair, leaving the kitchen table as it is, messy.

"I don't play violin detective, so I don't know the chords" I replied putting the violin down. As I turned back again I saw my man was walking towards me or was he walking towards the violin?

"perhaps you'd be interested in learning it?" he offered as he stood infront of me.

"how many times have I offered you to learn a bit of piano from me Mr Holmes?" I teased him and I was delighted at how he pouted at my teasing. Whenever we visit my mum's I always play my old piano, perhaps I've asked him to play it a thousand times and he didn't agree to do so for once. Even though I caught him once or twice admiring it, as he pressed a few keys with his index finger.

"I'm not a pianist, sorry Mrs Holmes" him referring me as Mrs Holmes has never failed to make me giggle, "guitar, Ukulele, all the instruments you own" he said walking past me and grabbing his violin, "I'm fascinated by you" he praised holding his violin over his shoulder, then spinning the knobs as he tuned it.

"you were?" I enquired, sitting on the arm of his chair as he faced the window.

"wrong" he replied taking the bow in hand, "I still am, very much fascinated".

I smiled, did he smile too? who knows. Even after being his wife I can't always tell what's going on in his head, the mystery that he is, the man that he is.

"I always wanted to learn violin next" I said for I've always been drawn to how wonderful this musical instrument sounds.

"why didn't you?" Sherlock asked staring at his dearest violin.

"here you are" I replied, the only musical instrument I knew not how to play, my husband does, and he does it wonderfully, "you can, maybe one day I'll have enough courage to ask you to teach me too".

He gave me a hum in response, as if he wondered 'when will you be genuinely willing?'

"what will you play Sherlock?" I enquired, wanting to know if he has prepared anything, he loves to compose sometimes, he did one for me, the day we were married, three years ago, twenty second November, he made a rather happy melody for me. It was so joyous that everyone asked about it, like what is the inspiration behind it. He replied "my sunshine", he named it so as well. For he says he's never truly been happy, until I came one day, while he was playing with Rosie, John's daughter. He says he felt as if the sunrise for which he waited for a long time, rose that day.

"something my wife would love" he replied turning a bit to me, his smile indicated he will play my favourite song. A song that sounds beautiful when he plays it for me. And then his bow touched the strings, and the buzz was perfect, for the man held the right chords, unlike me. With Swift movements of his fingers, as if they were dancing on the chords and the bow sliding over the strings he started the part that goes,

heaven, when I held you again....

I smiled widely as my guess was correct, the song he says is ours, for he never fell in love, true love, in his entire life until he found me. Seriously though, the cold, grumpy detective, melted for someone like me, immature they say, childish too, young, alot younger than him, but then, I love him, so does he.

"would you mind humming with me?" he asked turning to me, with a nod I agreed and started singing,

"I would never fall in love again until I found her" he hummed as I sung then the next line, he joined me,

"I said I will never fall unless it's you.."

"I'm falling to" I continued,

"I was lost within the darkness" we sung together, looking at eachother, for we dedicated these lines to one another, "but then I found her... I found you..."

[marvelstars]

Anakin origin

Anakin´s story is one of dissapointment, he expected the Republic and the Jedi to be different to Tatooine but the truth was that the power plays that are obvious and often brutal on Tatooine are the same in the Republic, just covered under a false pretense of politeness and worse than that they are also involved in slavery and support it either by innaction or active action, there are Senators involved in slavery and the Jedi Order don´t involve themselves there because their authority is the Senate and during the clone wars they made the active decision of supporting Jabba´s rule just so they would get acess to his territory and keep the separatist out of that area, recognizing Jabba´s non official authority over Tatooine.

So Anakin was told to do everything in his power to support a power structure that by all intends and purposes was even more corrupt than Tatooine, because they tried to hide it and he was made also an instrument to support it´s existence as a Jedi and later as Vader.

He does exactly that, he protects the republic, he actually becomes loyal to the Republic as a Jedi, the apparent reckleness the Jedi see isn´t about him personally, it´s about him going outside his usual orders to attend something or someone, be it save Ahsoka from being executed, Plo Koon from being left behind after a battle, investigate who wants to kill Padme in AOTC, investigate if Obi-Wan was still alive after the battle of Jabbin, training defendless citizens in self defense so they can protect themselves from bounty hunters and separatists, him freeding a group of slaves, etc the jedi thought he was arrogant but the main reason why he goes besides or outside orders is because is trying to make a difference within the parameters of his role as a Jedi.

Because being a Jedi came at a price for Anakin, being a Jedi cost him his mother, as a Jedi he was asked to forget and leave behind his mother as a slave on Tatooine, cutting all comunications with each other which lead to her kidnapping, torture and death.

The death of the woman who teached him how to have compassion, how to give without expecting recompense, how the biggest problem in the galaxy was that no one helps each other. Anakin learned his compassion from Shmi despite the fact they were both slaves, she gave them both dignity with those principles despite being aware of their situation.

Part of the reason he supported and admired Padmé and Palpatine so much in his early years was because he genuinely thought they could make the changes neccesary for the system to work in the way Anakin thought it worked, it wasn´t just his madness and love for Padmé the thing that drove him to give her the title of Empress, it was also a recognition of her being someone who actually cared about the people even during his biggest emotional break down and dissapointment on Palpatine for what he had shown himself to be.

So unlike Luke and Leia, Vader doesn´t see much of a difference between the Empire and the Old Republic, he simply sees a more honest version of what happened behind curtains on the republic in the brutality of the Empire, that ressembles Tatooine and at that point in his life, he lost hope of making any substantial changes to the system, his hope died with Padme, his role is bassically to be the "Jedi Order" to the Emperor´s Empire and he has decided that maybe justice is not possible but Order is enough for the galaxy to work better than it did when he was young and certainly a lot better than a civil war like the clone wars, you know, he isn´t a friend of "destructive conflict" as he told Luke. This is how a good person becomes evil, when the ends justify the means.

But Luke gave Vader his hope back, for himself as the good person he used to be, that the dark side and his master didn´t need to have the last word but also hope that maybe, just maybe, things can actually change for the better if the rebellion counts with people like Luke and Leia.

This is one of the reasons why I love Anakin´s/Vader character so much, he brings the complexity of reality to the fairly tale that is star wars with his tragedy, because he truly was a great, wonderful person who lost his hope and sanity, became the instrument of evil but he redeems himself in the end thanks to his Son giving him hope again, Luke was Anakin´s New Hope and it works when you see his complete story.

[ace-and-ranty]

hello! Just finished the entirety of the scholomance trilogy in a few days (and am currently paying for it with Sleep Deprivation Headache) but like. A concept I haven’t seen get spoken about yet is the manner in which outcomes and such get played with, but like. I don’t know, the idea of another entity contriving circumstances that will ultimately result in a good or at least better outcome but first someone has to be totally miserable for a little while, and when it’s over you can’t even complain because said entity was completely right and you couldn’t have gotten there without it. It’s what happened with El with the school and the prophecy, and also probably what Ophelia was going for with Orion

Oh yes, El's and Deepthi's dynamics is profoundly tragic in that way. I think it really says something for El's family that Deepthi doesn't expect El to not complain later. She did what she did fully prepared for her grandson (El's grandpa) to hate her forever because of it, and at the end of the book it's implied neither El's grandparents, Gwen or El have forgiven her, exactly, they are all just willing to try and be a family.

It is still very, very deeply tragic, and I think it falls within a bigger theme in the series and specially in The Golden Enclaves, which is the legacies that children inherit. In a way everyone in the world is born burdened by their parents' choices. They do what they think is best for us when we just aren't old enough to decide... and for good or for worse, we gotta learn to live with those choices. Deepthi is is just an extreme magical version of it.

Like how El is called "a burdened soul" in the prophecy? She didn't choose to be the weight the universe threw to balance Ophelia's dark magic, she didn't choose to be born to parents who wanted to build Golden Enclaves... and through the book she decides, yeah, maybe she didn't fully choose to receive the Golden Sutras, it was an inheritance from her parents, but she decides she loves them anyway.

On the other hand you have, for example, Liu, who was born to the dream of Enclave building, and who was crumbling under the pressure of it, who decides, actually, she is going to be part of this legacy her way: she won't use malia and she won't stay conveniently in the closet. And Naomi mentioned, in her TGE AMA, that what will really help Liu heal is the fact that ultimately, when push came to shove, her immediate family firmly chose her over the dream of an Enclave.

And then you have Orion as well, GOOD GOD, who was an instrument of his parents' legacy much before he was a child, who was LITERALLY crushed to mawmouth jelly under their expectations.

It's all just variations on the same theme, that children have to contend with legacies they just happened to be born into.

You know, LOL. Speaking of this. Funny story. When I was in high school, my mother had to drag me, kicking and screaming, to my English classes because I did NOT want to go. Now?. Now I work translating English/Portuguese.

"Another entity contriving circumstances that will ultimately result in a good or at least better outcome but first someone has to be totally miserable for a little while, and when it’s over you can’t even complain because said entity was completely right and you couldn’t have gotten there without it"? That's me. That's me and English classes. Mom will never let me forget how right she was about it hahahahahaha.

[monosanimegenericzone]

pahntom troupe but mysic

shut up its midnighr ive been up for 18 hours straight i will not spell anything correctly

what instrumenst do i think the troupe play lets find out

kortopi plays the flute. just because. i think he would be a woodwindsy guy and silver looks good on him. and if he performs imagine him in a little dress suit and a bow tie that gets covered up by his long ass hair

feitan plays violin. hes high strung so i gave him high strings.

please laugh.

in all seriousness i think hed want to connect to his birthplace at least a little bit so it would be violin or erhu. and he plays purely for fun but he is quite good

according to my old headcanon i said shal plays the cello. .... yknow what younger me you had a good point. its not very fitting with his personality but it just is one of those unexpected things he does. he just plays cello. and anyone who heard a cello before knows those things sound amazing.

phinks plays guitar. side effect from travel, he heard it a lot and found one of his own and learned just a few songs but theyre good. he cannot improv or read music but with repetition and practice hes a fast learner.

nobunaga knows shamisen or koto. cant decide which but probably shamisen. i still believe he studied with machi so he picked up on asian culture (im hard assuming kirimori valley is based on japan) and he chose to pursue music since that helps to stabilize nen. he probably forgot by now but he used to be decent

machi plays all strings. thats it. she just can. shes familiar enough with strings that she can essentially play anything she wants as long as she applies the appropriate music theory. shes goated

paku also plays the flute. maybe she even taught it to kortopi. who knows. its a personal passion she carries when she has the time and she is damn good at it. she may have even been recruited into a couple of orchestras for jobs or for fun but they never last.

chrollo has experience with wind instruments and percussion. works well with mallets for some unknown reason and has learned how to read all clefs. even altoclef. hes weird like that. with wind his favorite i would say is.... idk probably clarinet. hes a clarinet kind of guy. but he knows how to play various brass and woodwinds

and bono of course plays himself though he may have taught himself piano. opportunities to actually play piano might not be often but he'll be happy to touch some ivory every now and then.

and thats my music nerd rant/old headcanon that im refreshing.

yippee