#OH WAIT NICO'S FROM THE 40's

[thaliasthunder]

a scene w nico & will dancing waltz in tartarus would be cultural reset me thinks

[vro0m]

vro0m's rewatch - 174/332

2016 Canadian GP

Alright. For some reason I don't have the pre race to this one but we'll make do anyway. (Hindsight note : not an issue because I was SO MUCH CONTENT for this one. Like several videos as well.)

The weather isn't great. 40% chance of rain, there's been showers earlier in the day. Lewis is on pole ahead of Nico and Seb. Then it's Ricciardo, Verstappen, Raikkonen, Valtteri, Massa, Hulkenberg and Alonso. 

Formation lap. 

As a reminder Lewis is now only 24 points behind Nico. 

Oh there's still people on the grid when the cars get back there. Not great. Lewis is pointing towards the inside, as he starts on the wrong side of the track. I never truly realised how close to the starting line the first corner is in Montreal. Just a few metres. 

And they're racing. 

OH MY GOD. SEB. INSANE START. HE IMMEDIATELY PULLS AHEAD OF LEWIS WHILE NICO AND HIM ARE WHEEL TO WHEEL INTO THE FIRST CORNER. HE TAKES THE LEAD! NICO AND LEWIS TOUCHED IN THE SECOND CORNER! NICO GETS OFF TRACK. HE LOSES PLACES AS A RESULT. Phew. Eventful. Sexy of Seb. Max also made it ahead of Daniel and he's in third position behind Lewis at the end of the lap. P5 is Raikkonen, then Valtteri and Massa, Alonso, Hulkenberg, and Nico is now P10! With DRS, he soon overtakes Alonso for P9. Crofty claims Lewis pushed him wide. I'm unsure about that. Waiting for the replay. Damn Seb's speed at the start is fucking insane. It drives Arrivabene crazy lol. Imo Lewis didn't push Nico wide, he stayed on his line. Magnussen also ran into Nasr btw. Nico is closing on Hulkenberg while Lewis sets the fastest lap. He's gaining on Seb now. But then Seb picks up the pace. Nico missed the chicane and lost time on Hulkenberg.

Lap 10. Seb, Lewis +1.3, Max +6.8, Ricciardo +0.4, Raikkonen +2.9, Valtteri +0.9, Massa +0.9, Hulkenberg +2.4, Nico +1.6, Alonso +4.1. Oh ho, interesting. Max is told not to hold up Daniel. I wonder if he'll comply. Annnd Jenson is stopping off track. His engine is on fire! VSC. Good thing he stopped near marshals, they put the fire out quickly while he jumps out. Seb pits! Just as the VSC ends! They're stacking the cars, Raikkonen is in as well. Seb is out in P4, then. Lewis is still widening the gap to him for now but barely. Then not anymore. Seb is gaining again. I forgot to mention Seb has to pit again anyway apparently they all have to use the softs here for some reason and he went from the ultrasofts to the supersofts so far. He's right behind Daniel now, who's still behind Max. It might slow him down a bit for a minute. It looked to me like Daniel was weaving on the straight a bit but we carry on. He's defending pretty well in the next few corners. Good positioning of the car. But it's not enough. Seb overtakes him even as he locks up. And overtakes Max quickly after. There's another DNF I don't know who, but it's happening in the garages so it doesn't hinder the race. Now Seb is gaining on Lewis really fast. 

Lap 20. I'm trying to check the top 10 but twice they showed replays right when the top 4's timings were on screen. Max pits. There we go : Lewis, Seb +8.1, Daniel +6.8, Valtteri +1.9, Massa +5.7, Nico +1.0, Hulkenberg +5.0, Max +2.4, Raikkonen +0.7, and Perez +4.1. Daniel pits. Nico pits. Hulkenberg pits. Hah, Daniel is behind Raikkonen. He's gonna be pissed about that, given he wanted to get ahead of Max. Wait. Seb just gained 2 seconds on Lewis, did he make a mistake? Ted says his German counterparts are incredibly mad at Lewis for the lap 1 touchette, and now everybody is debating, once again, whether it was a foul or not. Again, from what I saw I don't think it was, but the replays weren't great angles. Oh yeah we see now he went wide, that's how Seb got close suddenly. Valtteri pits. Any minute for Lewis now. Nico sets the fastest lap. Yep. It's now. 2.3, good job! Of course Seb is back ahead now, but remember he has to stop again. The gap is 13.1. For now, Seb is still quicker but Lewis must be managing his tyres as well. He's supposed to go to the end on them. 13.5. 13.1. 13.2. 13. 

Lap 30. Seb, Lewis +11.9, Verstappen +11.8, Raikkonen +4.9, Ricciardo +0.6, Valtteri +0.7, Nico +2.1, Perez +9.2, Massa +1.1, Hulkenberg +3.4. Seb is vehemently complaining about the backmarkers he has to lap. Perez pits. At the front, the gap is down to 10.6. There's a 4-way battle for P4 between Raikkonen, Daniel +0.3, Valtteri, +0.4, and Nico +0.8. Meanwhile Lewis is still gaining on Seb. 10.2. Raikkonen pits, releasing the others. 9.7. Then Lewis gets slowed down by the backmarkers as well. 9.9. Fastest lap. Valtteri overtook Daniel after he made a mistake. Massa is retiring. And Seb pits! 2.4 stop. Out 7.4 behind Lewis. Nico is attacking Daniel, and we see on the replay he suddenly lost his place to Valtteri because he missed the chicane. Nico overtakes Daniel, who pits, slight mishap, 4.1. 

Lap 40. Lewis, Seb +6.7 already, Max +9.9, Valtteri +6.5, Nico +1.8, Raikkonen +15.0, Ricciardo +3.7, Hulkenberg +3.1, Sainz +1.0, and Perez +12.7. Seb is gaining fast. Apparently some people are stopping for a second time, as opposed to the expectations. We're wondering if the Ferrari gamble is gonna work out as the track temperature is falling and tyres are graining. Seb sets the fastest lap. And again. He locked up behind a backmarker though. Aha. Wait a second. Nico, who's almost on Valtteri : "You got to give me more information because of the warning and everything on the steering wheel." The engineer answers : "Copy, the warnings are real." Welp. Max pits suddenly. 

Lap 50. Lewis, Seb +5.0, Valtteri +23.8, Nico +6.0, Verstappen +11.3, Raikkonen +3.0, Ricciardo +2.1, Hulkenberg +14.8, Sainz and Alonso are lapped. Nico pits because of a slow right rear puncture, right after he attacked again despite the warnings! Seb is still slowly closing on Lewis. Bit by bit. Daniel attacks Raikkonen but can't make it. 4.5 from Lewis to Seb. Ah but Seb locked up, missed the chicane and lost a chunk of time! Phew. Nico overtakes Raikkonen for P5. 

Lap 60, 10 laps to go. Lewis, Seb +5.5, Valtteri +31.2 (very nice podium in sight btw), Max +6.3, Nico +4.2, Raikkonen +4.0, Ricciardo +2.6, Hulkenberg +33.1, Sainz +2.2, and Perez +7.3. Seb locks up again. Nico is all over Max's rear now. Woohoooho Verstappen defends FIERCELY and very well. Lol Alonso is asking if he can stop but they're saying no because they might get a point if something happens to a car ahead. He grunts. Max is still defending. Nico locks up, he loses a bit of time over him. 4 laps to go. The situation at the front has clearly stabilised. Nico is gonna try again… OH! Wtf? He attacks at the end of the straight but his car goes sideways right as he gets ahead and he slides in the run-off area after the chicane! He manages to go away again.

And it's the end of the race! 

We get a wonderful Valsewis podium lol can't wait! "Get in there pal, awesome race mate, awesome race!" Bono says. Man the way he's saluting this crowd you'd think it's his home race lol. He's taking his time. 

He jumps to his team and they pull him to the other side of the fence. He does a shuffle, shakes Seb's hand, high fives the grid girls (?). 

Toto gives credit to their strategist who made the right call. They weren't sure the tyres would survive till the end but it worked out. 

Ahhh Seb got to the cool down room and they're just watching the times together.

Val joins them and they barely react.

Lewis says "I enjoyed chasing you down!" with a huge smile. "When you came in I was like???" Breathlessly he says "It was such a bad start, what the hell!" Seb grins "Mine was okay, did you notice?" IAHSGDGEHSZEUEJ THEY'RE SO AAAAAAAH fucking brat omg. Lewis chuckles, they exchange a look, and Seb elbows him.

Lewis repeats his was very bad and then he got to turn 1 and had crazy understeer.

Seb says yeah, tailwind all race. OHHH IS IT THE SEAGULL RACE? Seb interrupts Lewis and asks if he saw them. He says yes, Seb says he avoided them. Is that when you went (???) Lewis asks. I brake for animals, Seb talks over him. That's when you caught up! He adds. I was sleeping at that point, I don't know why, Lewis says. Seb says he looked at the seagulls and locked up.

Suddenly it's like Lewis notices the camera and his face closes off. The conversation dies down. 

While they're receiving their trophies Crofty says listening to Seb and Lewis he gets the feeling they enjoyed their battles and "are desperate to race each other on the track at the moment". He's basically writing fanfic. The merc representative on the podium is apparently one of the tallest men in the paddock according to the commentators and when Lewis holds him by the shoulder for a photo he indeeds looks very very smol. 

Michael Douglas is interviewing for some reason. Of course Lewis is extremely happy. He asks about the first corner. Lewis starts by thanking everyone who came, bla bla bla Montréal is great. He says he had a very bad start, Seb and Nico got a good run, the tyres were cold, he understeered. He feels very grateful Nico and him didn't damage anything on the cars. And after that it was just trying to chase "this guy" down, who was so quick. He's happy with the car. He says he won his first GP here in 2007. Such a blessing. Seb gets a lot of cheers. Douglas congratulates him for the start and asks what the issue was after that. Seb smiles, "Lewis was a bit too quick, that was the issue." He says they might have struggled a bit because of the wind. He says they committed to a different strategy early on and the plan was to come back but the tyres lasted better than expected so Lewis stayed ahead. In the last question Lewis goes full nostalgia talking about his first win. 

Nico is very unhappy. He says Lewis did a "very hard racing manoeuvre" on him. He says he was very pissed in the moment but that's racing and in the end it's his job to make sure next time a battle such as this one comes up he's ahead. The journalist apologises for his language, he seems genuinely surprised. She tells him some words he used can't be used live on TV. "I'll apologise then, you don't have to apologise on my behalf," he says. That's good. He says it's frustrating because they had a good car, Lewis showed the car was worthy of the win. 

In RBR's corner Verstappen is happy with his race and Ricciardo is disappointed. Not too happy about Max not moving out of his way but he plays it down. Horner praises Max, points out they had to pit Danny at a bad time because he locked up and got a flat spot. About the team order he says at some point Ricciardo looked quicker but then Max's tyres cleaned up from the graining and it didn't matter anymore basically. 

Lewis shows up in the media pen bundled up and with a British flag.

He says his practice start for the formation lap was amazing and he doesn't understand what happened with the race start. He's chuckling about it. Then again the understeer, he was under attack, and the "unfortunate collision… Tap, with Nico".

Then he says it was hunting down Sebastian, they both had really good pace, but Seb made a few mistakes. He himself apart from one time in turn 10 didn't make any mistake so he's very happy. Great strategy, good tyre management, the team made the right calls. He keeps sighing, shrugging, shaking his head with a smile.

He can't believe it went as well as it did. He really enjoyed the race, "smooth". For context Muhammad Ali died shortly before that so when Lewis won he said the famous sentence "fly like a butterfly sting like a bee" and he says the last 10-15 laps Ali was all he could think of. The journalist says "fly like a butterfly, these last few laps–" he interrupts her, "it really felt like that, that's why I was thinking of him." "It felt like I was floating," he adds. "everytime he did a good lap i was able pull another lap in which I'm sure was painful for him," he chuckles, "in terms of like a sting, you know?"

She asks if he was surprised to see him pit when he did. He gets serious. He definitely was. He says his team told him to stay out. He was excited because he thought they had a race on their hands, "I wanted to race him on the track," he says with a hungry smile.

He was worried his tyres were graining but he still made it to lap 25, then he moved to the other tyre and it was "just sweet". 

It iiiis the seagull race. They find Lewis again in the paddock. He complains of the cold. He repeats some of the same things he said before. And then, behind his back, we see Seb walking past. A red and white sleeve appears in the frame and reaches for his shoulder.

"He's not braking for animals!" Seb says. "You should give him a hard time because of that."

Simon asks what this is all about, he did hear about seagulls. "2 seagulls, turn one," Seb says. Lewis tilts his head. "I feel like you're using the seagulls, I feel, I feel that they were innocent."

Seb hasn't taken his hands off of him. "Yeah but I'm a racing driver so I have to find some sort of excuse why, why the hell you beat me!" he says, as he grabs him even tighter and shakes him. Seb tells the story while Lewis glares at him with a wide smile. "I have my eyes into turn one, and I saw these… Stupid couple of seagull sitting there, all relaxed!" Lewis interjects. "Hey man it was planned! You know I'm good with animals, right?" he says as he puts his hand on his chest.

"I'm like doctor doolittle I told them to be there and they were there and…" Seb shakes him some more.

Simon says they had their crew check and they couldn't find the images of the seagulls. Genuine surprise in Seb's face while Lewis laughs. "Honestly," he says. "Invisible seagulls," Simon says. "They were white doves," Lewis says bouncing up and down like a boy.

A pause. "Well I don't know, whatever, white birds," Seb says. Lewis laughs. "It wasn't a pigeon, it was a seagull!" Seb protests still. "I could see the beak. I don't know their name but they were there!" He grabs Lewis again. "You saw them as well!"

He nods, Seb shoves him lightly. Simon interrupts, he thinks they might have found the images, but it's not the right ones.

When we get back to them Seb has his own mic. "I will stay here until you find the lap," Seb says. We see the start. But it's still not the right lap. Seb takes time to show off his sponsors on camera "there you go".

Simon asks questions about the Ferrari strategy mistake. "First of all I didn't want to crash your interview I'm sorry," Seb says. "No no no," Lewis answers, "It's good, it's nice! It's nice! You make it easy for me!" Seb goes on to say he'll always defend what they're doing, they have good people. He turns to Lewis : "Did you try to do, would you– honest answer. Were you always going to stay out?" – "No, no, we were going to do a two stop. That was plan… Plan A was doing a two stop as well so." They're constantly talking over one another so it's difficult to transcribe. Seb turns back to Simon and say see, in his shoes, you do the opposite. Aka they went for the two stop so Merc tried the one stop. Lewis approves but then he adds that they were staying out anyway. "Before you decided to go in we were staying out." Seb seems unconvinced. "I'd been told to stay out, so," Lewis continues "I think they'd already decided to go onto another strategy." Seb says with hindsight it's always easy. Lewis cuts him off : "They said plan B and I was like 'the hell is plan B? I don't remember what it is?'" then Simon says Ferrari is faring better and they might be able to chase the Mercedes down. Seb says it's a very ambitious plan but they're going for it. Lewis pretend-boxes him with the flag wrapped around his hand. He adds that 2 years ago they were unbeatable and now they are very close, he smiles and puts his hand on Lewis' shoulder again, shakes him lightly slides his hand down his arm.

"He can definitely feel our breath." Simon changes subject. "In terms of the seagulls…" They are all staring at the screen, Seb points at it "Get the lap! Get the seagulls!" But Simon finished his sentence "... We can't find them." Lewis describes for the nth time when it happened. And here we go. Finally. Everybody exclaims! "Two seagulls, see?" Seb says triumphantly. Lewis is laughing again.

"I had my eyes so deep into the apex," Seb describes with wide gestures. "I locked up!" We see the images again. "Oh my god," Lewis squeals, "They're so far away!" Seb grunts. "Mind the animals! Honestly!" Simon tries to talk but Seb is still processing. "Did you see? They stayed! Can we see that again please?" He's still pointing at the screen. "They stayed there! That's what really annoyed me. They stayed there!" he repeats, his voice high with marvel and astonishment. We see the images again. Lewis comments Seb is locking up way before the seagulls. "Yeah but look, there's a red car coming at, I don't know, a hundred something… They stay there!" he says higher still. "I'm not sure they're very clever, seagulls," Simon says. Lewis chuckles. "Maybe that's why they didn't see you coming." Seb is wild. "If you can catch these two seagulls, you might prove the opposite of what you ever find out in history about seagulls!" he jokes, looking at Simon but his eyes darting to Lewis who is still giggling. "I think I might have to buy you a couple seagulls," he says. "I don't know if they're white seagulls whatever I think you need a couple."

Seb grabs his neck again. "You told me you had some…" he gestures with his hand. Lewis catches on. "One bird did poo on my visor at one stage," he explains to Simon, while Seb laughs. "Is that right?" Simon asks. Seb bows and hands his mic over with two hands. Taps Lewis shoulder. "Thank you, well done man," he says. Seb is gone. 

They pick up the interview where they left off before Seb's arrival as they slowly start walking down the paddock. Simon asks about Lewis' homage to Ali, and points to the "boxing glove". Lewis explains someone gave him the flag and he just wrapped it around his hand because he's freezing. Lewis explains Ali has been an inspiration to so many people etc. Explains about the end of the race again. That's it. 

In the notebook, Ted says Nico seems increasingly annoyed. "But, you know, what does Rosberg expect? Hamilton. Is. Deadly. Absolutely. Unrelenting. Unrelenting. He takes no prisoners ever in a race car. That's why he's so brilliant, that's why he's such an awesome champion."

Videos to come! Stay tuned!

[solange-lol]

hiii in celebration of AUctober, what are some of your fav solangelo AUs?

Anonymous said to solange-lol:

Hi! Kinda a random question: do you have any favorite riordanverse fanfics that you’d suggest reading? I’m looking for ones to read, but I’ve been having trouble finding new ones! Thanks!

rec list #1 | rec list #2

all recs can be found under the tag ‘lizs solangelo fic recs’ on my blog!

technically its past auctober now, but better late then never to drop my third solangelo rec list!! especially considering the state of the world rn ... lets just say its a celebration of me actually participating in sw for the first time in a while

rec under cut as always!! its not all aus but its the count that thots

Find Another Place to Stay by @unwieldyink

personally i think breakup fics are incredibly underrated, and i also think annie is incredibly underrated, so enjoy ur little cry if you read this one (tw // violence in this one)

Hershey’s kiss by @unwieldyink

we love a godswap!! it’s actually been a while since ive read this one and i reread this while making this rec list and can i just say that zeus!nico and hermes!will are both such valid concepts and this just has a rly good dynamic to it

Actors by @buoyantsaturn

i could talk about this fic for hours but lets just say ao3 has told me ive visted this fic 40 times. im not kidding. fake dating is just a godtier trope

start of something new by jinniefic

if you know me, you know that i fricken LOVE high school musical, and this is literally just the start of the first movie but solangelo and honestly a little more iconic please read even if ur not a hsm fan

paper/plastic by @rosyredlipstick

the fact that this is from 2018 and took this long to get into my rec list is tragic because i think about this fic a lot... a lot. mortal au. very chill, strangers to lovers, very good vibes, will be rereading soon (everything rosy writes is amazing we already knew this)

10:37pm by @buoyantsaturn

surprise another cj fic! fun fact she debated with us for a good half hour about what to title this fic so go read it so you can tell her you like the name (and the fic itself... its a very good fic) (tw // alchohol and drug use for this one)

Sunflower by ChiseHatori

3 days in the infirmary is probably the easiest trope u can find in the solangelo tag but i have to say this one really made me soft just bc it feels a lot more in character than some of the others ive read, and it basically picks up right where they ended in the books

Will You, or Will You Not? by @thebluesideofmyworld

marriage fics... also very soft. just boys bein boys. dual engagements. mortal au. all that good stuff vv soft i loved it

let your heart win by @justanothervampiregirl

this one is short but its also probably one of the most in character fics ive ever read and i really like this style of writing mixed with canon compliance so :)

The Magic of Naomi Solace by Sweetymomo

naomi solace, underratted legend. i aspire to have her relationship with will. lots of familial background if you like that!! and its set at a bnb!!

forget all the shooting stars and silver moons by itotallyreadthatbook

when i saw this in the tag i was SO excited bc we love high school aus here and it was!! very good indeed!! this trope is one ive never seen before and i recommend 10/10 good banter

They won’t always live by Phantomxlegend

will overworking himself and coping with loss always makes me :(( so if ur okay with some will angst then buckle up

“I am fully capable of kicking your ass” by @unwieldyink

i remember i saw the email notification for this one and immediately was like yup absolutely im in and it 100% lives up to its title we love capture the flag solangelo

the night we met by peachyytomlinson

a lil ooc but also very angsty and did make me emotional when i read this late at night. i think i wrote something similar a while back but i just aaaaa will angst man

“look how hard i can cry FWSHHH”  by @buoyantsaturn

call me biased bc i like to claim that i originated the idea of demeter!will and cj dedicated this fic to me but like BRO its so soft and i love it here nico leave the plants along challenge failed

femboy hooters, or the time percy jackson failed to keep a secret by luciethebean

its all fun and games until the fic turns out to genuinely be really good. like, yes the title is exactly what you think it is but it doesnt matter bc its so fricken well written im^@*#&(*)($_$#&^@$(@*)* yeah

Of Ties and Significant Annoyances by seokjinvilla (@thechampagnecocainegasoline)

we dont support jkr in this household but what we do support is this bc this plot is genius and i love it

everything’s going swimmingly by tsunamiroll (@catboy-ethan)

fun fact i posed the idea of a sports/team prompt to the sw mod crew literally just so someone would pull through and write a swim au and ethan DID without even knowing. i love them and their writing style is so !!!! please read it

when you smile (the whole world stops) by tsunamiroll (@catboy-ethan)

another ethan fic!! this is the perfect fic for a rough day where u just want some cuddles bc thats literally the plot of the fic. i love this one with my entire heart its very fluffy 10/10 do reccomend

pumpkin spice (i hate it, it's not nice) (ok maybe it's a little nice) by tsunamiroll (@catboy-ethan)

ethan fic part 3!! bc i binge read these all in one night!! literally again their writing style is so amazing and the witty banter!!!! also we love a retail bookstore au 

Burnt Plastic (and Other Bad Ideas) by More_of_This

so this one isnt exactly romantically solangelo but it is hilarious in my opinion and i absolutely adore well written college aus and while i know nothing about college this fic is so funny to me (if you read the tags there is, in fact, a raccoon involved) (tw // drinking for this one)

all because you kissed me goodnight by @buoyantsaturn

i have been WAITING for a mortal counselors au and im sure theres some out there already but y’all already know im a cj stan! lots of slowburn, friends to lovers, coworkers, all the good stuff (and i named this one and offered cj a lot of materials from my own camp so this one especially hits!! i reccomend for those good ol summer vibes!!) (tw // drinking for this one)

Waiting With You by @buoyantsaturn

oh boy buckle up if u want an angst ride because this fic tore me apart. i keep threatning cj with “dont pull another waiting with you”. that being said, very much feels like a movie while youre reading it, very fluffy in the middle, we love mutual pining. 

Little Italian Boy by @buoyantsaturn

stream little italian boy by grace gilmore. youll get it. thats it.

The Clues by @thebluesideofmyworld

secret dating when done well is legit one of my favorite tropes of all time and this!!! this!!!!!!!!! its outsiders perspective also which is another one of my favorite tropes, and just little views on nicos life and i love it

So Come On, Talk it Out (your voice brought me back from the dead) by @buoyantsaturn

will solace, sponsered by kitkats, cj edition

no but if you read tower of nero you’ll really like this missing pieces pre-ton fic this is a really soft little fic with a bunch of easter eggs from the book in it, so i highly recommend! if you havent read ton yet and are still avoiding spoilers, come back to this one!

reaching for the sun (you, you, you) by moonswords (@tortadelimao)

i just read this one about 2 hours ago for the first time and i am Still thinking about it. its like the getting together that i literally feel like is canon and the vibes are Immaculate (also william “what about me looks straight” solace)

“Are we on a date right now?” by @unwieldyink

overworked will, nico helping out in the infirmary, first dates & hikes, canon compliant, we love to see it (also its an annie fic so ur required by law to read it)

Outrunning karma by Phantomxlgend 

more will angst! featuring angry overworked will!

Everlasting Ring by minyoongurt (@blueblackslowtown)

i was Very excited when i read the summary of this one, and i think minyoongurt did a really good job!! healer will, injured nico, the whole dynamic. also i love the idea of nico only knowing “thank you” “go away” and “fuck you” in sign language. im pretty sure thats canon

The Little Thing by Rainbow_Mess

i belive this is also a pre-toa fic thats just exploring all the stuff we found out about will in ton and its very short and sweet :)

and of course, a few of my recent works for your consideration

who is he (and what is he to you?)

just doing my silly little tasks

i don’t need three bars to tell me we’re meant to connect

truly, madly, deeply

[ifantasyfreak]

Percy Jackson X Avengers

Steve Rogers is Percy's Grandpa and Bucky Barnes is Nico's Brother...this is gonna be messy!

Some powers are made up and not from the original book, also ilatics = different language

Why am I doing this? Why why why why why...My college in New Rome wants us to do a family tree thing, both sides. I asked my mom about her side, but she said that only her own mom would know the full history. Her mom, my grandma, was Grandma Peggy Carter. I didn't like going to meet her too much, not because she was mean or something, but because she was so sick, it hurt to see her in pain and hooked up to all those machines. I loved her too much to see her in pain. Annabeth was too busy to come with me. I would have to face this alone. I reached her room.

"Hey Grandma..." I said softly. She smiled weakly when she saw me. "Hello Perseus, come give Gammy a hug." she said, holding her shaking hands out to me. I gently hugged her. She was the only one who could call me Perseus and I'd still be comfortable with it. "How has College been?" she asked me as I sat down beside her on the chair. "It's been pretty normal. Atleast it's in Latin, so I don't struggle too much. They've given us an assignment, the family tree. Mom said you would know more." I said, pulling out my notebook from my back pack. She nodded, sitting up with my help. "My mother was a daughter of Hekate, as in the Roman form of Hecate. My father was a Magician, Egyptian Gods descendants." she started. "Wait wait wait! There's Egyptian gods too?!" I exclaimed. She chuckled and nodded. "If you think that's surprising, then this will shock you. My grandfather was a son of Thor." my eyes bugged out. Norse gods too?! "So you're telling me that I'm the descendant of not only Greeks, but Romans, Egyptians, AND Norse?!" I asked her. She nodded. "How is that even--you know what? Never mind. What about my grandfather?" I asked her. She had a wistful look in her eyes. "Your grandfather was Steve Rogers, or more publicly known as Captain America." my eyes widened. "I'm the grandkid of a World War 2 super soldier?" she smiled and nodded. "Ohhh this is messed up but then again, when in my life are things not messed up" I started muttering under my breath. She squeezed my hand. "Steve was a kind man, he always fought for what was right, and he always fought for the weak and stood up to the bad people. He never got to know I was having Sally before he went into the ice. I kept wondering...if he had known about her...would he have stayed with us? Would he have fought harder to come back to us?" she said. I smiled sadly. "Wait, if we go by your logic, then shouldn't mom be like, atleast 60?" I asked her. "She was Steve's daughter, wasn't she? The serum somehow made her age slower. She's still young, she's got a lot of life left to live, even though she's supposed to be so much older." "Does mom even know about all this? She used to say that grandpa left a long time ago..." I said softly. Grandma smiled sadly. "I told her that. It was easier to tell her that her father left us, rather then to tell her that her father died saving 40 millions of lives to keep a military secret. She doesn't know why she ages slowly, but since she has you, she doesn't seem to care." "Can I tell her?" I asked. She thought about it. "I supposed she's old enough to know now." I nodded. After spending a bit more time with her, I was getting up to leave when there was a knock on the door, just as she fell asleep. I looked over as the person walked in.

The guy was huge, tall, buff, he had blonde hair and baby blue eyes. He wore brown pants and a white t-shirt (that seemed a bit uncomfortable on him) with the word 'S.H.I.E.L.D' stitched on it. Wasn't that Grandma's company? "Uh, hi." I said uncertainly. "Hello." he stood there while we looked at each other awkwardly. He finally looked at Grandma. "Oh Peggy..." he said softly, sitting on her other side and holding her hand. Who was this guy? I looked at the photo frames on Grandma's table. There was a man who looked similar to him, but extremly thin and fragile. Was that his brother or something? I wish it was in colour so I could figure it out dang it! I picked up the frame and analysed it. "Hey, uh, you know this guy?" I asked him, holding up the frame. He looked down with a small smile. "I think that's me." he answered. I looked back and forth between him and the photo, trying to figure out how they were the same person. "I went through a...surgery. Made me what I am right now." he said. How the heck did he get so buff after one surgery?! "So, uh, what's your name?" he asked me, trying to smile. "Percy Jackson. Yours?" "Steve Rogers." he said. I froze. I looked down at my book. I had written the name correctly. Oh god... "You're my grandpa!" I exclaimed. He was taken aback. "Sorry kid, but I think you're mistaken." he said. "No! Grandma Peggy said that you're my grandpa!" I exclaimed. He looked at Grandma with confusion. "You mean...?" "Yep. The night you guys got hanky panky was the night my grandma got pregnant." I said, internally throwing up at the thought of Grandma and Grandpa getting intimate. He blushed. "You didn't really leave, did you?" I asked. He had tears in his eyes. He shoke his head. "No...I just got frozen in ice for 70 years..." he whispered. Grandma woke up then. She saw Steve and started crying in happiness. They hugged and I left the room to give them privacy. I held back my own tears, their reunion had been beautiful. I texted my mom, saying I really needed to talk to her about something important. She told me that she'd come meet me at a cafe near the hospital in 30 minutes. I nodded. Just as I was shutting my phone, Steve came back out.

"Can I meet my daughter?" he asked softly. "Yeah sure, but I'll have to go explain that you didn't actually leave and stuff. Come to this address in 45 minutes." I said, showing it on my phone. He pulled out a notebook and wrote it down. Gosh old people nowadays! "Ok, see you then." he said. I nodded. It was pretty awkward. Do we part with a hug? A handshake? I did a Leo. I gave him a salute and then ran out. I could hear his chuckling as I was running, and slightly smiled. I met mom and I told her about Steve. She was moved to tears. As soon as Steve walked inside the restaurant, I pointed him out and she ran with tears and hugged him. She only reached his chest, but that didn't matter. Steve looked wide-eyed. I smiled as I walked to him and mouthed 'your daughter'. He understood and hugged her back. She pulled back a bit and he cupped her face. "Oh, my beautiful girl..." he said softly. Mom hugged him again and he rested his cheek on her head while holding her tight. Then he held out a hand to me, and I grinned, joining the hug. Then we all sat down on the table once again. Mom and Steve were glowing while they talked. It started getting late. "Well, I need to go, Annabeth's probably waiting for us at home." I said. Mom nodded, also standing up. "Do you have anywhere to stay?" she asked him. He shoke his head. "I was planning on crashing in a bed and breakfast for a few days. My new boss is giving me some time off before I move into his building and start my job." he answered. "Come stay with us!" Mom said brightly. It took a bit of convincing, and then he finally agreed. We went home together in a taxi. The only reason why I didn't go home on Blackjack was because I wasn't sure whether or not I could tell Steve I was a demigod.

"Annabeth! We're home!" mom called as we took off our shoes and put the keys on the bowl next to the door, walking into the living room and sitting on the couch. "I never did get to ask, who's Annabeth?" Steve asked us. Annabeth came then. "Hey Perce, sorry I couldn't come with you today." she said, smiling sympathetically, coming over and side-hugging me. "It's alright. Though you won't believe what I got to know!" I said, giving her a chaste kiss. I heard Steve gasp softly at our exchange. Right, I don't think people did PDA in the 40's. "Who's this?" Annabeth asked, looking at Steve. "Uh, yeah, that's what I found out. That's my grandpa." I said. Annabeth didn't even question why he was still so young, she simply ignored it because of how complicated our lives are anyways. "Hi, nice to meet you, I'm Steve, Percy's grandfather and Sally's father." Steve said, holding out his hand to shake Annabeth's. "The pleasure is all mine! I'm Annabeth, Percy's girlfriend." she said, smiling and shaking his hand. They seemed alright. "What's for dinner? I'm starving!" I stated. My stomach rumbled as I said that. They laughed while I blushed. "I made some pasta. Is Nico gonna stop by?" Mom asked us. "Not really sure, but didn't Hazel say she and Frank were coming from camp today?" I asked, looking at Annabeth to confirm. She nodded. "Great! The house will be filled with happiness and love and laughter!" mom said, gushing. We smiled at her. "Stella! Stella where are you?" I called out, walking into the apartment. I heard a squeal of delight and she crawled over to us. I scooped her up into my arms happily. "There's my best girl!" I said, tickling her foot. "I thought I was your best girl." Annabeth said, fake pouting. "You're BOTH my best girls!" I said grinning. "And what about me?" came a voice behind us. I turned around to see Hazel. "Um, you too!" "And me?" came Frank and Nico. "Oh give me a break you guys aren't even girls!" I whined. They all laughed. "Hello, I'm Steve, Percy's grandfather." Steve said, introducing himself to them. They switched titles around. "Hello, I'm Hazel, Percy's cousin." "I'm Nico, Hazel's half brother and Percy's cousin." "Hi, I'm Frank, Percy's friend, though we act like we're brothers." "Yeah, the gang's big. When were they gonna come over again?" I asked Annabeth. "I think they're all coming by tomorrow lunch time." "Guess we're gonna have to prepare, huh?" my friends all got the double meaning. We were gonna have to prepare for monsters. "Holy shit!" Nico exclaimed with his mouth hanging open, staring at Steve. He switched back to Italian. "Neeks, you went back to Italy." I said, smirking. "That's Captain freaking America!" he exclaimed in Greek. "Gosh, now you've gone all the way to Greece!" Hazel stated. He was almost bursting with excitement, similar to the way he used to when I first met him. Our Nico was back! "Captain America! Huge fan! Thank you for saving us all sir!" Nico said, finally, in English. Steve smiled a bit. "I was just doing my part." he said, while Nico enthusiastically shoke his hand. "No, no, you don't get it! You saved my brother's life!" Nico said. We all looked at Nico confusedly. "You have a brother?" "Yeah! He's from the 40's too! Always took care of us, they said you were his best friend!" Nico said, smiling hugely. Steve looked confused now, as did the rest of us. "They said he got captured and then you saved him from that factory!" Nico said, trying to explain himself. Steve's eyes lit up in recognition. "You're welcome, I guess. Which friend was this again? Sorry, I'm blanking out, there were a lot of people in that factory who were close friends." Steve said, trying to remember. "James Barnes!" Nico said enthusiastically. Steve froze. "Wait...you're his Italian brother who lived in a different city he always talked about?" Steve asked him. Nico nodded happily. "I'm sorry...but he fell off a train when we went to attack an enemy base shortly after...but how are you still alive? He said you were 10." Steve said, confused at the last bit. Nico cocked his head to the side in confusion. "What do you mean he died? He visits me every weekend." Nico said, ignoring the question. "I'm sorry, but I don't think that's possible." Steve said. Nico rolled his eyes exaggeratedly and looked at my mom, who was just as confused as the rest of us.

"Can I borrow your phone Mrs. Jackson?" my friends refused to call her Sally or Mrs. Blofis. "Sure." she said, handing it to him. "Annabeth? Um, can you type the number?" he asked. Annabeth rolled her eyes and took the phone. Nico narrated the number and then Annabeth gave him the phone. Nico out it on speaker as it rang. A few seconds later, the line picked up, but there was no greeting on the other end. "Hey Wint, it's me, Death Boy. Can you come over to the Seashell's right now? There's someone you should meet." Nico said. Then he cut the call. "Shouldn't you have waited till the person said something to cut it off?" Hazel said, not pleased by his manners. "He never says anything on the phone. Says it could be used against him. We have code names for everything for that reason. He knows I call from different numbers so that I can't be tracked." Nico said, shrugging and handing back the phone. "Before whoever you called comes over, you didn't answer the previous question. If you that same Nico then how are you still so young?" Steve asked. "I got stuck in a time-less hotel. Thought I was in there for only a few months, turns out, it had been 70 years! I am a 100 year old man stuck in the body of a teenager." Nico said, rolling his eyes again. "Should we really trust him with the demigod stuff?" Frank asked us. "Guys! This is America's golden boy! Of course we can!" Nico said, like it was obvious. We cracked up at his description. "How is this even possible?" Steve muttered under his breath, rubbing his temples. "You got stuck in ice for 70 years without aging a day. How is that possible?" Nico retorted. "I guess we could tell him. As long as he swears on Styx." Annabeth said. Nico actually squealed. "Right, Steve, we have to tell you something." Just as Hazel was finishing that sentence, there was a thump on the fire escalator. Nico grinned. "James! In here!" Nico called. "Is it like a family thing to turn up through people's fire exits only instead of doors?" I said. Before he could reply, a tall brunette walked into the room. He was wearing all black and his face was covered with a ski mask. His hair was shoulder length, and his left arm was literally metal. The guy stopped in front of Nico and then took off his mask and revealed his face. Steve gasped while standing up. "Bucky?" he asked the man. Bucky? Didn't Nico say his name was James? The man turned and his face looked annoyed. "Who the hell is Bucky?!" he said in a low, dangerous voice. I didn't even realise that my hand slipped down into my pocket and wrapped around Riptide. The other demigods did the same. "James! Calm down! That's your nickname, remember?" at this point, I was glad that mom had taken Estelle and gone to put her to sleep, and Paul was out for a 3 day teacher's conference cross state. I had a feeling things were gonna get messy. "Who is this guy?"

“He’s your best friend from the 40′s!” Nico said happily.  “I think I would have remembered if I had a friend.” James said roughly.  “You don’t remember me half the time, how would you remember your best friend if you can’t remember your own brother?” Nico said, rolling his eyes. James flinched.  “Alright, you got a point, kid.” James stated. “Wait, what do you mean he can’t remember stuff? Does he have amnesia or what?” Hazel asked Nico.  “He got brainwashed by some people.” Nico said flatly. We gasped.  “Do you want your old memories? And to be sure that this brainwash machine won’t affect you again?” Annabeth asked James.  “I don’t see how you’ll be able to do anything about it.” he said flatly.  “Answer the dam question.” I said, glaring at him. I could see that he flinched slightly. He looked at Nico and Steve.  “...yes.” he said, sighing.  “Then I can help you.” Annabeth said.  “How?” he asked her.  “Daughter of Athena. We’re mental.” she said without humor.  “Wait! What’s going on!” Steve exclaimed.  “Dad, they’re helping him. Just sit back, it’s gonna be alright. I promise they’ll explain afterwards.” Mom said, coming from the rooms and sitting beside him.  “Seaweed Brain, make sure he doesn’t move. Hazel, mist. Nico, Frank, this is gonna take power, make sure that we don’t get ‘interrupted’.” she was talking about monsters. We all nodded. We took our positions. Annabeth stood next to James, I stood on her other side, Hazel stood next to Mom, and Nico and Frank took defensive positions near the window and door. I took a swing of water and put down the bottle on the coffee table. Steve was still looking nervous and doubting us. I expanded my senses and when I opened my eyes, the colour was swirling around like a storm was going on. The water on the bottle formed into the shape of my hands. I mimicked them holding onto James and he was stuck in place. I could see that he was trying not to panic. Then Annabeth’s eyes opened and the grey started swirling as well. I’m pretty sure we looked terrifying. She put her hands on James’ temples.  “This might hurt a little...you have to try to not fight it.” Annabeth told him. He nodded slowly. Annabeth focused on his mind and did her mind thingi. She didn’t ever mention she had powers. It was just a given that Athena kids didn’t have extra powers like some other demigods. So to hear that she had these powers she didn’t tell me about? Well...I felt kinda hurt. But now was not the time to argue. Yep, I’ve grown slightly mature...but only in tense situations like these. Pretty soon, Annabeth was clenching her teeth and wincing, while James bit his lip so hard that his lip started bleeding. I was struggling to hold him properly. And then hell broke loose. Frank and Nico charged at the door, which burst open and made 3 empusa’s come in. Hazel joined as well. Steve was trying to help as much as he could, but he was out of his league. Mom went to go get Estelle and her own Celestial Bronze weapon.  “Annie! It’s getting harder to hold him down!” I said through gritted teeth. I had to take a step ahead and physically hold James down. All of a sudden, it was done. Annabeth dropped her hands and fell on one knee while panting hard, and I crawled over to her gently.  “You ok?” I asked. She nodded.  “A little help here?!” Frank called out. I focused on the monsters they were fighting. I focused on their blood and felt it’s flow.  “I’m gonna freeze them. Take your chance.” I said. They nodded. I did as I said. The monsters froze. My friends stabbed their swords through them and the monsters burst into golden dust. They all collapsed onto the couches again. Nico approached James. 

“James?” he asked softly. James caught his breath before answering.  “Not James...Bucky...” he answered. He looked at Steve.  “Did you do anything stupid?” he asked with a playful tone. Steve’s face lit up and they both met in the middle in a hug. I craddled Annabeth in my arms. She seemed...terrified... “What’s up?” I asked her softly.  “He’s scarred almost as bad as us...” Annabeth said softly. I went still.  “That can’t be possible...we went through Tartarus, Annie. No human can ever be as bad as us.” I said. “He is a demigod...but...he had it almost as bad as you...he was tortured...he was constantly brainwashed...he was forced to kill innocents...” Annabeth slowly listed off. With each thing she stated, my mind made images. I could see this guy facing something so horrifying. His expressions showed that. He did experience all of that. We wisely stayed quiet. He turned to us.  “Thank you, Daughter of Athena. And Son of Poseidon.” Bucky stated with a thankful smile, in GREEK.  “How did you know me?” I asked him. He pointed at his eyes. I nodded slowly.  “Ok, now explain to me what happened exactly.” Steve demanded.  “I’ll go get the snacks.” Mom said, already knowing that he was in for a long ride.  “We’re demigods. As in offspring of God and Human. And yes, Greek gods do exist.” I stated. Steve nodded slowly once he finished processing that.  “Let’s officially re-introduce ourselves. Bucky Barnes, Son of Hades, God of Death.” Bucky stated. “Nico DiAngelo, Son of Hades.” “Hazel Levesque. Daughter of Pluto, Roman form of Hades.”  “Frank Zhang, Son of Mars, Roman form of Ares. God of War.”  “Annabeth Chase. Daughter of Athena. Goddess of Wisdom” “Percy Jackson, Son of Poseidon. God of Water.” Steve rubbed his fingers on his temples. He gave a sideways glance to mom.  “How did you manage to attract the god of water to you?” he muttered under his breath. All the demigods heard and cracked up. 

[fallfromthaliagrace]

Percy’s birthday one shot

Percy had come home early from work as it was his birthday, tired and hungry. Percy opened his and Annabeth‘ s apartment to reveal annabeth reading on a dark blue chair in the living room, Percy quietly put his stuff on the table near the door and sneakily went up to Annabeth.

   “ BOO!” yelled Percy. Annabeth jumped, the book she was reading fell to the floor. Percy laughed, then kissed Annabeth on head.

   “ Percy! Don’t do that again, gosh you give me a heart attack.” said Annabeth picking up the book on the floor.

   A cheeky grin appeared on Percy’s face, Annabeth laughed and kissed him. Annabeth quickly went to their kitchen and grab a plate with a bunch of blue cookies,“ Here, seaweed brain happy birthday!”

   Percy smiled, and grab the plate and started to eat all the cookies at once. Annabeth laughed, and wiped the cookies crumb on Percy’s face. Less than a minute, Percy had finished the plate of cookies and put the plate in the sink. Percy turned around and saw Annabeth texting someone. Annabeth looked up from her phone and quickly hid her phone. Totally not up to something.

   “ Wait, was those cookies my birthday cake?” asked Percy

    Annabeth laughed, “ No, those cookies were my way of saying I’m sorry for leaving early and wasn’t there in the morning to say happy birthday to you.”

   Percy smiled and hugged Annabeth, “ It's fine.”

   They stood hugging each other for a couple minutes, not wanting to leave each other’s side. Till, Annabeth’s phone ring and Annabeth quickly looked at her phone and shoved it away in her pocket. Percy raised his eyebrows at Annabeth.

   “ Um, Percy.” said Annabeth, “ I need to run some errands, I be right back”

   Percy nodded, and watched as Annabeth rushed to get her stuff to leave.  Annabeth quickly kissed Percy on the cheek and zoom out the door probably less than a minute. Percy yawned and decided to sleep as he was quite tired.

   An hour or later, Percy woke up from nap. The sky outside was light shade of red, orange, and yellow, Percy checked his phone, the time was currently 7:35. The sunset was setting in New York, it was a lovely view from his bedroom. As Percy got up from his bed, Percy could have sworn he heard something from the living room. Percy grab his riptide and quietly and carefully went left the room. Yeah, It could just been Annabeth but you could never know.

   Percy walked to the living room, with the riptide by his side only to see Annabeth cleaning the house up. Annabeth turned around and her eyes wide open.

   “ Percy, it's just me.” Said Annabeth

   Percy took a deep breath and walked to Annabeth. Grabbing Annabeth and hugging her. Percy released Annabeth and smiled at her, “ You could never be so sure.”

   “ Hey Percy?” asked Annabeth, “ Wanna walk to the park?”

   “ Sure, after the walk we can invite the whole gang to hangout and chill here.”

said Percy as put on his shoes.

   “ Percy, are you sure you wanted to do that for your birthday?” asked Annabeth

   “ Yeah, what's wrong with that?” asked Percy

   Annabeth shook her head, “ Nothing, nothing but we have been doing that for the past two years, don’t you want something different?”

   Percy shrugged, “ No, it honestly fine, as long as my family and friends are there it fine.”

   Annabeth only nodded.  As Annabeth grab her shoes and her favorite blue hat, she told Percy to wait her outside.

   The fresh air of the evening of August hit Annabeth and Percy’s face. The couple looked at the orange/red/yellow sky then looked at each other. The park wasn’t far away, though it took a while. ( The New York traffic didn’t help at all )

   The park wasn’t full of people like it usually is, instead it was quiet and peaceful. There were only some people who were chatting with one another like Percy and Annabeth were. The couple sat by the bench near the fountain of luck,

Annabeth and Percy were talking about how their day went when Annabeth’s phone rang. Annabeth quickly decline the call and was about to put away.

   “ Annie? Why did you decline the call?” asked Percy

   “ uh, um, nothing.” answered Annabeth

   “ Is there something you aren’t telling me?” asked Percy

   “ uh, um, no. not all.” respond Annabeth a little too quickly.

   Percy raised his eyebrows, Annabeth was about to say something when her phone rang again.

   “ For God's sake, why is he keeps calling me?” yelled Annabeth and answered her phone

   “ LEO! Can you stop calling me?” shouted Annabeth into her phone, “ I am in the middle of something.”

   “ Leo? I can’t hear you!” said Annabeth, “ Call me back me later ok?” With that Annabeth close her phone and shove it in her back pocket.

   “ Is everything alright?” asked Percy,  “ Hey, the sky slowing turning dark.”

   “ Yeah.” said Annabeth, “ Wanna head back?”

   “ Sure, I let me text Leo and the others to come,” said Percy as he pulls out his phone to text the others.

   “ Wait! Don’t!” shouted Annabeth as she grabbed Percy’s phone out his hand

   “ Why? Why did you take my phone?” asked Percy

   “ Um, nothing.” said Annabeth, “ I just wanted to go to the beach to see the sunset fades away.”

   “ Oh okay.” said Percy who still kinda suspicious of Annabeth because of her weird behavior.

   “ We should walk,” said Annabeth, “after all, it is a nice day.”

   “ Annabeth, could we just take a cab there?” asked Percy, “ We already walked to the park from our apartment.”

   “ Cmon perc, you walked all the way from there to here. It going to be fine.” Annabeth kissed Percy on lips before taking head start and leaving Percy to catch  up with her.

   It took a good 10 minutes to get there, and by the time they did. It was already 7:40 pm, the beach was crowded with families and friends. Standing before the Welcome Sign, Annabeth asked Percy for him to get her a drink and told him that she was going to be over there by their  favorite spot on the beach. Percy nodded and went to get the smoothie. A minute or so, Percy come back with a smoothie to only see that the beach was empty. Confused, Percy walked over to his and Annabeth’s favorite spot, the sea glinting in the falling night sky, Percy felt the sea calling to him.

   Percy came across a note lying on a chair where Annabeth’s hat is, reading the note, Look behind you. Percy turned around to see...

   “ Surprise! Happy Birthday Percy!” shouted his families and friends.

   Shocked and Surprised, Percy dropped Annabeth’s smoothie on the floor. Luckily, smoothie didn’t spill, percy quickly picked up the cup and put the smoothie on the chair. Percy was about to say, thank you to his family and friends when crowd moved out of the way to reveal Annabeth holding a blue funfetti birthday cake.

   “ Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you…” sang Annabeth as she walked towards Percy.  Everyone started to join in the singing. Percy smiled.

   When Annabeth finished singing, Percy blew out the candles on the blue birthday cake that Annabeth was holding. Everyone cheered, and Percy smiled thankful that his families and friends are here to celebrate his birthday. As Percy walked through the crowd, he thanked and hugged his family and friends.

   “ CAKE!!!” Yelled Leo as he carefully grabbed the cake out Annabeth’s hand and carefully placed it on the table.

   “ Annabeth,” said Percy, “ I love you.”

   Annabeth kissed Percy, “ I love you too.”

   “ Cmon, Love Birds.” said Leo as he pushed Annabeth and Percy towards the cake on the table, “ Birthday boy need cut the cake.”

   Percy and Annabeth looked at each other then laughed, At the table Percy cut opened the cake and placed it on a blue plate. Sally carefully took the knife out of Percy’s hand and started to cut the cake for everyone.

   Percy took the first bit of the cake, like usual it taste like a birthday cake his mom would always make on his birthday. Percy was reminded on all memories he and his mom had during his birthdays, so sweet.

   After everyone finished eating the cake, it was time for Percy to opened his birthday cake. He told everyone that they didn’t need to get him a gift but everyone insisted.

   Percy sat in a chair under a tree, underneath the tree was a bunch of gifts from his family and friends. Everyone also sat underneath the tree, waiting for Percy to open their gifts.

   Jason went first, the gift bag was a sea blue bag. The gift was wrapped up with wrapping paper.

   Percy opened the box to see two dvds, Percy picked up one of the dvd and gasped, “ Jason! You got me the little mermaid dvds?”

   Jason smiled, “ Yes! Even the second one.”

   “ Oh my god,Jason, Thank you!” Said Percy as he hugged Jason, “ Me and Annabeth are totally going to watch it later.”

   Next, it was Piper’s turn, Piper’s was a glittering teal. Percy took out the blanket and placed it on his lap, Piper had got him, one of those mermaid blanket.

   “ Piper, how do you know I wanted this?” asked Percy as he touched the soft fabric.

   “ Percy, you talked about how much you wanted this.” laughed Piper, “ and beside fall is coming.”

   Percy hugged Piper and thanked her. Percy looked at his friends and family and realized that Tyson, Leo, and Annabeth wasn’t there.

   “ Hey Guys? Where is Annabeth, Leo, and Tyson?” asked Percy

   Everyone quickly looked at each other then quietly whispered something that Percy couldn’t hear, leaving Percy confused and suspicious.

   “ Um? Where are they?” asked Percy, raising his eyebrows

   “ erm, um, Annabeth is at the bathroom, while Tyson and Leo are getting, um, smoothie!” shouted Nico, a little too quick if you asked Percy

   “ Why is it taking Tyson and Leo, fifty years to get a smoothie?” asked Percy as he stared at Nico, “ There barely anyone at smoothie bar.”

   “ uh, um-” stumbled Nico

   “ Okay, who’s turn is it?” asked Will, “ Sally and Paul!”

   Sally and Paul’s gift for Percy was a surfboard, it wasn’t wrapped up because it would take a lot of wrapping paper to cover the whole thing. The surfboard was a plain blue with a design of waves.

   “Mom! Thank you!” Said Percy as he hugged her, “ I can’t wait to surf with this!”

   Sally smiled, next, it was Estelle turn, even though she was less than a year. Estelle still had a present for Percy, ( Paul or Sally must had helped her with it.)

   Percy took Estelle out of Paul’s hand and placed Estelle on his lap. Sally took the gift and place it between Estelle’s legs. The gift was a jar filled with Seashells from the beach, the seashell were all different colors. Some were blue, mint, pink, white and some were multi-color.

   Percy opened the jar and took out a blue seashell for Estelle to see. Estelle took it and looked at with curiosity. Percy picked Estelle and hugged Estelle. Estelle giggled and started to play with the seashell. Everyone aww and Percy kissed Estelle’s forehand before giving Estelle back to Sally and Paul.

   Next up was Calypso, calypso’s gift was a plain white box with dark blue ribbon on top. Inside the box was a necklace with seashells and pearls. The pearls sparked in the light.

   “ Calypso, this is gorgeous.” Said Percy, “ Thank you!”

   “ Your welcome, Percy, “ Said Calypso, “ Does it remind you of something?”

   “ Yeah, home.” replied Percy, “ wait, is it from the -”

   “ the sea, yes.” Said Calypso, “ I asked your father -”

   “ Speaking of my father, he didn’t come.” Said Percy as a frown appeared on his face, “ I know he is busy but,-”

   Sally quickly stood up, and went to comfort Percy, “ Percy, even if he isn’t here to celebrate your birthday, we are all here to celebrate your birthday.”

   Percy smiled, “ I love you guys.”

   Sally smiled back, “ who’s next?”

   “ Us!” Yelled Nico and Will and ran over to Percy.

   “ Here!” Said Nico as he handed it to Percy.

   Nico and Will’s gift was unlike the others, it wasn’t wrapped in paper, it wasn’t in a box. Instead, it was just handed to Percy, simple as that. Nico had gave Percy a ticket to the zoo, not just one, but five. Percy was shocked and surprised.

   “ Will and I got you have five tickets for you and your family.” Said Nico

   “ oh, thank you Nico and Will.” Said Percy as he hugged Nico and Will, “ You didn’t have to.”

   “ But, how much did this cost?” asked Percy as he looked down at the five tickets, “ I bet it was pretty expensive.”

   “ That doesn’t matter, with the help of Frank and Hazel.” Said Will, “ We were

able to get the tickets.”

   Percy looked at Hazel and Frank who smiled at him, “ Thank you, Hazel and Frank.”

   Soon, everyone had given Percy’s his birthday gift, all the gifts were left under the tree. Annabeth, Leo, and Tyson hasn't returned yet which made Percy worried. The others told Percy to not worried that much because if Tyson, Leo, and Annabeth were in endangered. They would know how to defend themselves, this made Percy worried even more.

   Percy and Estelle were building sandcastles with Sally and Paul watching the,, mostly Percy was building the sandcastle. Estelle was there playing with the sand.

   “ Percy!”

   Percy heard his name being called by a voice so similar, Percy quickly turned over to see Annabeth. Percy ran over to Annabeth and tackled her into a hug. Knocking Annabeth off the balance and making both of them falling into the sand.

   “ Annabeth! Where were you?” asked Percy, “ Nothing bad happened right?”

   Annabeth laughed,  “ No, I was with Leo and Tyson.”

   “ Why?” Said Percy hugging Annabeth on the sand, “ what were you guys doing?”

   “ A surprise.” Teased Annabeth, “ Top secret.”

   “ Annie..” Said Percy

   “ Just kidding!.” Said Annabeth as she pulled Percy up from the ground, “ Cmon!”

   Annabeth took Percy to the tree with all his presents underneath it. Everything looked normal, except for the fact there was two huge box there is a was underneath the tree which Percy could confirm that it wasn’t there. Percy was about to comment about the big present when he noticed that Annabeth had left. Weird.

   “ Hey Percy!” shouted Leo, Percy turned over to see Tyson and Leo walking together towards the tree

   “ Hey Leo!” shouted Percy, “ Hey Big Guy!”

   “ Hi Percy!” waved Tyson

   Percy rushed over and hugged them, “ Where were you guys?”

   “ Nevermind that, We just want to say sorry for missing half your party.” Said Leo

   “ it fine, do you guys where those two huge present came from?” asked Percy as he pointed to the big present, “ it was isn’t there before.”

   Tyson and Leo just shrugged, “ Maybe you should checked it out,” Said Tyson

   Percy walked to the huge present, and slowly unwrap it. Inside the box, was a medium size pot sculpture with design carved into it. Percy then realized that all designs were all quest he had been on. Shocked, Percy turned around to see Annabeth, Leo, and Tyson with the brightest smile.

   “ Guys,” Said Percy, “ This, This is amazing.”

   Annabeth smiled, “ 10 years ago, was the start of everything.”

   “ Did you guys built this together?” asked Percy as he picked up the pot to examine it.

   “ Yeah.” replied Tyson, “ Both of us did.” Pointing to Annabeth and Him

   Annabeth nodded.

   “ What about Leo?” asked Percy

   “ Oh, he just wanted to Tag along.” said Annabeth as she elbow Leo in the side.

   “ Open the other one!” exclaimed Leo

   Percy laughed and opened the other big box. The box contains a computer inside it.

   “Computer?” asked Percy as he looked at Leo

   “ I heard that you broke your computer, so I thought it why not just make you a computer.” said Leo as smile broke out

   “ Hey! I didn’t break that computer.” said Percy as he playfully hit Leo

   “ Perc, you spilled water on it.” Said Annabeth as she raised her eyebrows

   “ It was an accident!” exclaimed Percy, “ But thank you, Leo”

   “ No problem, Aquaman.” Said Leo as he hugged Percy

   “ Everybody! Group hug!” shouted Percy, “ Cmon!”

   Together, everyone came and squished Percy and Leo.

   “ Hey! I can’t breath” yelled Leo

   Everyone laughed, and released. Everyone started to chat with

each other.

Author’s Note: There’s a part two of this! I posted it soon! Sorry, if it was trashy I wrote this last year and I wasn’t finish with the whole series... So beware! Have a good day!

[stellarboystyles]

1. What is you middle name? nichole 2. How old are you? 22 3. When is your birthday? august 29 4. What is your zodiac sign? virgo sun, cancer moon, gemini eising 5. What is your favorite color? yellow 6. What’s your lucky number? i hate numbers 7. Do you have any pets? 2 puppies 8. Where are you from? ohio :/ 9. How tall are you? 5′5 10. What shoe size are you? 7 1/2 11. How many pairs of shoes do you own? like 40 LOL 12. What was your last dream about? me & my friends were shooting off fireworks from our window and trees were being incinerated and then i was in my parents bedroom with (they weren’t my parents but they were in dream land i guess???? idk???) and this ed kemper looking dude was trying to attack them 13. What talents do you have? double jointed, and i’m a dancer and i sing pretty well IN MY OPINION DONT COME FOR ME 14. Are you psychic in any way? i feel like i can answer yes...like i feel things deeper than other people do, and i can sense when things are going to happen, like bad things 15. Favorite song? The One by Kodaline 16. Favorite movie? scream 17. Who would be your ideal partner? a tall, lanky boy with curly brown hair, four nipples and tattoos. oh, and he has to love love. 18. Do you want children? Y E S  BITCH im so maternal it isnt even funny 19. Do you want a church wedding? not really 20. Are you religious? i beleive in God, Jesus and all that 100% but i feel that times now are a lot different than when the bible was written. we have evolved so much as a species as far as what’s okay, not okay, right, wrong, etc.  21. Have you ever been to the hospital? god yes too many times 22. Have you ever got in trouble with the law? nope by my moms threatened to call the cops on me and have me taken away when i was a kid for standing up to her VERBALLY 23. Have you ever met any celebrities?  24. Baths or showers? hot showers...but i love a good bath bomb yanno 25. What color socks are you wearing? blue with cherries on them <3 26. Have you ever been famous? my lips are sealed 27. Would you like to be a big celebrity? yes but not for the money or fame 28. What type of music do you like? i range from kodaline...to harry styles...to nevershoutnever...to twenty one pilots...to The Vaccines...The 1975...billie eilish...i can go on  29. Have you ever been skinny dipping? nope 30. How many pillows do you sleep with? 1 31. What position do you usually sleep in? so many 32. How big is your house? 2 bed 1 bath 33. What do you typically have for breakfast? raisin cinnamon bread with strawberry blackberry jelly on top mmmmmmmmm 34. Have you ever fired a gun? no but i wanna learn 35. Have you ever tried archery? NO BUT THA WOULD BE COOL AF 36. Favorite clean word? 37. Favorite swear word? shit??? fuck??? idk 38. What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sleep? more than 25 hours 39. Do you have any scars? yes...a biiiig long one all the way down my left arm and elbow 40. Have you ever had a secret admirer? lol no i’m from a small town filled with farm boy and none of them will ever be emotionally developed enough for that shit 41. Are you a good liar? i dont think so 42. Are you a good judge of character? yes 43. Can you do any other accents other than your own? yessss 44. Do you have a strong accent?i’m am*rican so no 45. What is your favorite accent? harry styles’ accent 46. What is your personality type? introvert to the public extrovert to the people i trust 47. What is your most expensive piece of clothing?  48. Can you curl your tongue? yep 49. Are you an innie or an outie? both 50. Left or right handed? riiiiight 51. Are you scared of spiders? YES DONT TOUCH ME GET OUTTA MY HOUSE 52. Favorite food? nachos 53. Favorite foreign food? thai food 54. Are you a clean or messy person? both 55. Most used phrased?  56. Most used word? 57. How long does it take for you to get ready? depends...could be 15 minutes, could be 2 hours lol 58. Do you have much of an ego? not really 59. Do you suck or bite lollipops? biteee 60. Do you talk to yourself? yea 61. Do you sing to yourself? yes! 62. Are you a good singer? i think so 63. Biggest Fear? bugs 64. Are you a gossip? lol NO 65. Best dramatic movie you’ve seen? 66. Do you like long or short hair? both 67. Can you name all 50 states of America? i know the damn song and could sing it rn 68. Favorite school subject? history 69. Extrovert or Introvert? Introvert 70. Have you ever been scuba diving? no but i want to so bad 71. What makes you nervous? talking to people but i’ve gotten better 72. Are you scared of the dark? not anymore 73. Do you correct people when they make mistakes? no 74. Are you ticklish? yes get away from me 75. Have you ever started a rumor? probably, my old self was a dumbass bitch 76. Have you ever been in a position of authority? yes i’m a dance teacher and used to teach (: 77. Have you ever drank underage? YEP 78. Have you ever done drugs? no but dude i can’t wait  79. Who was your first real crush? J*st*n B**b*r 80. How many piercings do you have? 2...ears and belly button...am i trash? 81. Can you roll your Rs? NO I”M WHITE AF 82. How fast can you type? idk probably less than average lol 83. How fast can you run? not very lol 84. What color is your hair? brown with highlights 85. What color is your eyes? green on the outside brown on the inside 86. What are you allergic to? literally so many types of medicine that i’m not gonna name over the internet lmao 87. Do you keep a journal? yes 88. What do your parents do? dad is a maintenance manager and mom’s a babysitter (: 89. Do you like your age? yes 90. What makes you angry? when  91. Do you like your own name? yea 92. Have you already thought of baby names, and if so what are they? omg so many okay here is my full list currently:

girls: felicity, isabella, emma, aoife (pronounced eefah) nora, rose, hera, nola, june, reece, ramona, violet, lydia, lola, naomi, amelia, luna, gemma, grace, waverly, melody, genevieve, eloise, cove

boys: arlo, finn, archie, calvin, bowie, judah, sawyer, tate, nico, ocean 93. Do you want a boy a girl for a child? girlie for sure but i’d love a boy after 94. What are you strengths? i like to believe that i’m kind, respectful and a good person  95. What are your weaknesses? i’m anxious, strong willed and i cry a lot 96. How did you get your name? well the person that gave birth to me gave me my name and when my parents were adopting me they wanted to keep my name 97. Were your ancestors royalty? no idea 98. Do you have any scars? lots, i get hurt a lot lol 99. Color of your bedspread? gray 100. Color of your room? blue

[deliverydefresas]

we talk for hours and hours about the sweet and the sour

yes, hi, this is still a mess. I do hope you continue to like it tho xD

Part 1, Part 2 

au: famous!simón meets college!ámbar

She slapped him.

 Not strong enough to leave a mark of her hand, but enough to feel the slight sting of the hit. Her face after she realized what she’d done, was so hilarious, he ended up laughing instead of being mad, or offended. Ámbar apologized – albeit, she didn’t sound that sorry, at all- and he’d waved it off, telling her not to worry about it. It had been his fault, after all; he was the one who had entered her personal bubble without warning, and made her react in the first place.

 After he’d reassured her he wouldn’t sue her, or hold it against her in anyway, they’d resume with the interview. Simón told her all about their journey to get a label, the struggle it was for the three of them to live in a loft and obey all of Nico’s uncle’s demands to let them stay there, the process of songwriting and song-picking for each album. He told her what his favorite song was (Valiente), his favorite to write (Alzo Mi Bandera) and the one that left him bittersweet (Eres); he also talked about his family, his experience living in a new country and starting from scratch to pursue a dream he wasn’t one hundred percent he’d reach. She even got him to admit the Rollerband had talked about breaking up back in the olden days, and how he’d thought about going solo for a couple of months. That was the exclusive he’d promised, even if she didn’t know it was.

Simón asked her a bunch of stuff about herself, too. He asked her about her family (only child, her mom and dad never married), her friends (a girl named Emilia was her best friend, and she had the occasional friends from her uni classes), her career (she liked it a lot, was on a scholarship since her mom couldn’t pay her full tuition by herself and her dad had another little kid to worry about; she was aiming to be valedictorian, and wanted to have her own firm) and even managed to get her to admit she was single (her ex was too much like her, and liked his hair more than he liked her in a romantic way, apparently). The thing that had baffled him, offended him, and surprised him the most had been her dislike for pets. She thought they were messy (which they were), and too needy (true) and that their cuteness wasn’t enough reason to keep one (… maybe), and he just couldn’t agree on her on that one.

 He loved dogs, he loved the companion they provided, loved how loyal and pure they were to show their love. She’d scrunched her nose at this, but admitted she wouldn’t know since she’d never had one to compare; her building didn’t allow pets, and her mom wasn’t one to take care of one either, so it was only natural for them to own none. Simón expressed he really wanted one, but that his schedule was too unstable to adopt one and give them the love they required. Ámbar had proceed to ask him if his girlfriend wouldn’t be up with adopting one with him, to which he just wiggled his brows at her, not denying, and not confirming.

By the time she felt she’d asked enough, it was a little over 19, and it was darker outside. She picked up her things and put on a sweater while he dropped their little plates on the bar, thanking the barista once again when the guy approached him to take the dishes off his hands. When he was back at the table, Ámbar was ready to go.

He led her to the door, his left hand on the small of her back; as they walked he made sure to look downwards most of the way, careful to not let his face show too much. The coffee shop wasn’t full of people, but there were a couple of teenagers sitting two tables down from them, and another elderly couple by the door; the action was more out of habit than anything else.

Simón opened the door for them, and then his passenger door for her once they were in front of his car. He watched her reaction, curious to know if this surprised her, or impressed her in any way. It didn’t. So, maybe her ex-boyfriend hadn’t been a total ass to her.

“Where to?” he asked as soon as he started the car; she leaned over his GPS to write her address. The little device told him her complex was only twenty-five minutes away from the coffee shop, and a little over ten from his own apartment. 

They small talked for a couple minutes, comments about the weather and the traffic being thrown there and there along the way. He suggested she could turn on the radio if she wanted, or connect her phone to his Bluetooth if she preferred; which she agreed on.

He wasn’t surprised when Whitney Houston started playing, but he was surprised when she started singing along, and heard her carrying the tune like a pro.

“You have a pretty voice.” Simón commented, once the last notes of ‘How Will I Know’ stopped. Ámbar merely shrugged it. “Did you take classes, or is it a natural talent?”

“Natural, I guess. Mom sings a lot around the house, it’s a habit I picked on.”

“Well, you’re more than decent at it.” This time, his compliment was met with a smile. After that, she resumed her singing to 80’s songs, he joined occasionally when he knew the lyrics, or wasn’t passing intersections and had to stay alert on the road.

They were five minutes away when the music got interrupted by an incoming call from ‘Silvana ♥’, Ámbar turned to him and asked him if he minded if she answered with the Bluetooth; when he shook his head, she pressed ‘Answer’, and her mom’s voice resonated from the speakers.

“You close, sweetheart? I told you to text me when you were on your way.” Her mom’s voice wasn’t as reprimanding as her words were, but he could hear the worry in it, anyway.

“Yes, mom, I’m only a couple blocks away, now.”

“Did you take a cab? Do you want me to go down and pay for it? I’m still sorry I took your car today, darling.”

Ámbar shook her head, even though her mom couldn’t see her. “It’s okay, mom. Simón offered me a ride, don’t worry, I’ll be there soon.”

There was a pause. “Is he hungry? I made more than enough pasta for the three of us, I’d like to thank him personally for bringing you home.”

“You mean you want to interrogate him and ask him for a picture.” Another pause.

 “Maybe.”

Simón chuckled quietly at that. He looked her way for a second, enough to see her rolling her eyes at her mom’s words.  

“Mom, it’s almost 20, I’m sure he’s tired and has other things to do than to eat dinner with us-”

“I wouldn’t mind.” He interrupted Ámbar, smiling innocently when she glared at him. Her mom’s squeals met their ears.

“Oh my, am I on speaker?! Why didn’t you tell me, missy?! Simón, darling, you’re more than welcome to come and eat dinner with us! I made this white sauce spaghetti that it’s to die for! I also have some chicken, or I could make you a quick milanesa if you’d like, too!”

“I’d love to, ma’am. Thank you.” He didn’t know it was possible, but Ámbar’s glare intensified.

Silvana chirped her goodbye, excited. “It’s no problem, darling! I’ll see you kids in a bit!”

“Why did you agree?!” Ámbar wasted no time reproaching him as soon as her mom hung up.

“Well first, because your mom sounded so nice I just couldn’t say no.” He shot a quick glance to Ámbar, noticing she wasn’t amused, “secondly, and most important; it’s Nico’s turn to cook tonight. And I would really appreciate if you’d save me from the stomachache or help me save money on take out.”

“Don’t you have more important things to do than to have dinner with a girl and her fanatic mom?”

He pretended to think about it.

“No.”

“Fine. But I’m only agreeing because I know this would make my mom’s week.” Simón whooped beside her, to which she rolled her eyes once more. She looked around, seeing they were already on her street. “Park near the green building.”

He did, turned off the car and got out to join Ámbar, who had opened her own door and was out already. She waited until he’d locked his car to start her way towards the building, looking back at him once to confirm he was following her. She opened the building’s gate, and then led him to the elevator, where she pressed the ‘2’ and Simón guessed (obviously) was her floor.

After the elevator stopped on the floor, Ámbar walked only a couple meters to their left, to a door that read ‘203’; but before she could even put in her key, the door opened and revealed a woman who couldn’t be older than 40. She, like her daughter, had her blonde hair a little under her shoulders, but her color wasn’t as light as Ámbar’s; their faces were slightly similar, but Simón was almost sure Ámbar took more after her dad than she did after her mom.

Silvana’s hazel eyes shined with delight when she saw him. “Simón! It’s so nice to meet you, darling! I’m Silvana, Ámbar’s mom.” Simón offered his hand, which she took excitedly, and pulled him into the apartment.

“Hello to you too, mom.” Ámbar complained from behind them, sounding annoyed at them. Silvana waved her off.

“I see you every day, Bee.”

“I can certainly feel the love tonight. Thanks mom.”

“Stop being so dramatic, Ámbar María.” At this, Simón looked over to her, silent question in his eyes.

“That’s not my middle name.” She denied, and he could see her anointment was turning into lowkey anger. Her left eye was twitching, and her mouth had turned into a scowl, which either her mom ignored, or was so used to it by now that it didn’t faze her at all.

“Did you have fun on your date?” Silvana asked him, leading him to their dining table, where three plates of spaghetti were served already, alongside a simple salad and a few pieces of home-made fried chicken. Simón could hardly help his mouth watering at the sight of food, his two conchas and hot chocolate hadn’t filled him as much as he’d hoped, and he was hungry again.

“Uh, it wasn’t a date, ma’am, but I had a great time.” He corrected as soon as he remembered what she’d asked, his mind too preoccupied with food to care.

Silvana’s cheery face didn’t change at all with his answer, “date, interview; it’s always the same, no?”

He laughed, “if you choose to see it that way.”

Ámbar, who had sat in front of him, rolled her eyes when he agreed with her mom; but chose not to speak her mind. Simón thought she knew how to pick her battles, and not even he could see her winning against her mom tonight.

Both he and Ámbar choked on their spaghetti when Silvana spoke next.

“Do you choose to see it that way?”

He didn’t answer. Didn’t have to, really, since Silvana chose he’d meant a yes.

Ámbar, however, almost threw a fit. Simón could imagine she and her mom would have a very long chat as soon as he was out of the apartment, since he would do the same had it been his mom trying to not-so-subtly to set him up with a girl. Still, neither Silvana or he let the mood go into an awkward place, and he didn’t leave as soon as he’d finished eating.

On the contrary, he stayed there until almost 22, when Pedro had called him to ask if he was still alive and if Ámbar hadn’t kidnaped him yet. Silvana was a good person to chat with, and Ámbar became a lot more open with her mom in the room, so he ended up learning more about her, too.

When his time came, Ámbar accompanied him down to her building’s gate, where waved him off to his car. A part of him was expecting a hug, or even a hand-shake, but then again; it wasn’t a date, and they didn’t like each other that way.

The yet rang in his head very loudly, even to him.

Simón wasn’t surprised when he found both Nico and Pedro waiting for him on the living room; the T.V. on, a sports channel reviewing today’s matches and announcing the next day’s.

“So, how was it, stud?” Nico wondered, moving his eyebrows up and down three times.

“It was great, for an interview and all.”

Pedro’s words were as teasing as they were unbelieving. “An interview that lasted more than five hours?” He could only shrug. “Well, did you at least get it?” 

Simón didn’t know what he was referring to, “get what?”  

“Your beanie. Did you get it?” His answer got him double the teasing and laughter.

At least now he had another reason to see her.

[workingclassdan]

All albums I listened to in 2017

1. David Bowie - No Plan (ep) 2. Ryan Adams - Prisoner 3. Gone is Gone - Echolocation * 4. The xx - I See You 5. The Flaming Lips - Oczy Mldy 6. Cloud Nothings - Life Without Sound 7. Japandroids - Near to the Wild Heart of Life 8. Foxygen - Hang 9. Ty Segall - Ty Segall 10. Camp Cope / Cayetana - Split EP 11. Cuddle Magic - Ashes/Axis 12. Hand Habits - Wildly Idle 13. Son Volt - Notes of Blue 14. Sun Kil Moon - Common as Light… (notable for shitness) 15. PVT - New Spirit 16. Steve Vai - Modern Primitive 17. Dirty Projectors - ST   (little bubble) 18. Middle Kids - EP 19. Father John Misty - Pure Comedy 20. The Waifs - Ironbark 21. Bruce Springsteen - (Odds & Rarities) 22. Thundercat - Drunk 23. Animal Collective - The Painters EP  (kinda bonkers) 24. Los Campesinos - Sick Scenes 25. Grandaddy - Last Place  (lost machine) 26. Methyl Ethel - Everything is Forgotten 27. Kingswood - After Hours, Close to Dawn 28. Holy Holy - Paint 29. Vagabon - Infinite Worlds 30. Spoon - Hot Thoughts  (do i have to talk you into it 31. Brian Eno - Reflection 32. The Shins - Heartworms 33. Laura Marling - Semper Femina * 34. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - The French Press EP * 35. Temples - Volcano 36. Roy Buchanan - Telemaster Live in 75 37. Real Estate - In Mind 38. Depeche Mode - Spirit * 39. Mastodon - Emperor of Sand * 40. Drake - More Life  (Passionfruit) 41. Ben Wright Smith - The Great Divorce 42. Sleepmakeswaves- Made of Breath Only - (hailstones) 43. Aimee Mann - Mental Illness 44. Jesus and Mary Chain - Damage and Joy 45. Steel Panther - Lower the Bar 46. Evyltyde - Rising 47. Spiral Stairs - Doris and the Daggers 48. Julia Holter - In the Same Room * 49. Boss Hog - Brood X 50. British Sea Power - Let the Dancers Inherit the Party 51. Anjou - Epithymia 52. The Melker Project Remix 53. New Pornographers - Whiteout Conditions 54. Future Islands - The Far Field 55. Craig Finn - We All Want the Same Thing 56. Smith Street Band - More Scared of You Than You Are of Me 57. Cold War Kids - La Divine 58. Clark - Death Peak 59. The Black Angels - Death Song 60. Arca - Arca 61. Luke Howard - ? 62. Kendrick Lamar - DAMN. 63. Prince - ep 64. Incubus - 8 65. Amy Shark - Night Thinker ep 66. Mew - Visuals 67. Gorillaz - Humanz 68. Ryan Adams (b-sides) - 69. Tim Rogers - An Actor Repairs * 70. Feist - Pleasure 71. Bill Baird - Easy Machines 72. Bill Baird - Baby Blue Abyss 73. Thurston Moore - Rock n Roll Conciousness 74. Colin Stetson - All This I Do For Glory 75. Bob Dylan - Triplicate 76. Pond - The Weather 77. Alice Coltrane - The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane 78. San Cisco - The Water 79. Doug Tuttle - Peace Potato 80. Big Walnuts Yonder 81. Perfume Genius - No Shape 82. Penguin Cafe - 83. Mac Demarco 84. Afghan Whigs - In Spades 85. At the Drive-In - interalia 86. Slowdive - Slowdive - falling ashes 87. Dead Letter Circus - The Endless Mile - Lines 88. Nick Murphy - Missing Link ep 89. Bob’s Burgers - s/t 90. Fleet Foxes - The Crack-Up 91. BNQT - Volume 1 92. Do Make Say Think - Stubborn Persistent Illusions 93. The Beatles - Sgt Pepper's 94. Dan Auerbach - Waiting on a Song 95. Ben Ottewell - A Man Apart 96. Bernard Fanning - Brutal Dawn 97. Roger Waters - Is This the Life We Really Want 98. Underground Lovers - Staring at You Staring At Me 99. Elder - Reflections of a Floating World 100. Half Waif - form/a ep 101. The Kills - Echo Home non-electric ep 102. Bleachers - Gone Now 103. Amber Coffman - City of No Reply 104. Marika Hackman - I’m Not Your Man * 105. Husky - Punchbuzz 106. U2 - (some bootleg of latest tour) 107. Alt-J - Relaxer  (3WW) 108. Beach Fossils - Somersault 109. Mount Eerie - A Crow Looked at Me 110. London Grammar - Truth is a Beautiful Thing 111. Lindsay Buckingham/Christine McVie - 112. Phoenix - Ti Amo 113. Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly, James McAlister - Planetarium 114. Big Thief - Capacity Mythological Beauty 115. Kirin J Callinan - Bravado 116. The Magpie Salute - The Magpie Salute (Live) 117. Portugal. The Man - Woodstock 118. Lorde - Melodrama * 119. Royal Blood - How Did We Get So Dark? 120. Ride - Weather Diaries 121. Cigarettes After Sex - s/t 122. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Flying Microtonal Banana 123. Jeff Tweedy - Together at Last 124. Tara Jane O’Neil - s/t 125. Baby Driver soundtrack 126. UNKLE - The Road pt1 127. Silicon Valley soundtrack 128. Haim - Something to Tell You 129. Broken Social Scene - Hug of Thunder 130. Jay-Z - 4:44 131. Tex, Don & Charlie - You Don’t Know Lonely 132. Oh Wonder - Ultralife 133. Radiohead - OKNOTOK 134. Waxahatchee - Out in the Storm 135. U2 (live Vancouver) 136. Japanese Breakfast - Soft Sounds from Another Planet 137. DJ Shadow - The Mountain Will Fall 138. Vera Blue - Perennial 139. Lana Del Rey - Lust for Life 140. Nine Inch Nails - Add Violence ep * 141. Singles soundtrack deluxe 142. Arcade Fire - Everything Now 143. Boris - Dear 144. Perera Elsewhere - All of This 145. Manchester Orchestra - A Black Mile to the Surface 146. The Murlocs - Old Locomotive 147. Dan Sultan - Killer  (fire under foot, kingdom) 148. Fountaineer - Greater City, Greater Love 149. Benjamin Gibbard - Bandwagonesque 150. Juanita Stein - America 151. Saskwatch - Manual Override 152. Kid Koala with Emiliana Torrini - Music to Draw To: Satellite 153. David Rawlings - Poor David’s Almanac 154. Damian Cowell's Disco Machine - Get Yer Dag On! 155. Jen cloher - s/t 156. Queens of the Stone Age - Villains * 157. Paul Kelly - Life is Fine I smell trouble 158. Davey Lane - I’m Gonna Burn Out Bright 159. Mogwai - Every Country’s Sun 160. Alvvays - Antisocialites 161. Ben Frost - The Centre Cannot Hold 162. Grizzly Bear - Painted Ruins 163. Iron and Wine - Beast Epic call it dreaming 164. Gang of Youths - Go Farther in Lightness 165. Gold Class - Drum 166. King Gizzard and Mild High Club - Sketches of Brunswick East 167. Steven Wilson - To the Bone 168. The Preatures - Girlhood 169. Filthy Friends - Invitation 170. The War on Drugs - A Deeper Understanding 171. Chris Forsyth and the Solar Motel - Dreaming in the Non-Dream 172. LCD Soundsystem - American Dream 173. Cloud Control - Zone rainbow city 174. Liars - TFCF 175. Neil Finn - Out of Silence 176. Deerhoof - Mountain Moves 177. Jake Bugg - hearts That Strain 178. Gordi - Reservoir 179. Meg Mac - Low Blows 180. The National - Sleep Well Beast 181. Beaches - Second of Spring 182. Chad Vangaalen - Light Information 183. Nothing But Thieves - 184. Foo Fighters - Concrete and Gold 185. Tori Amos - Native Invader 186. The Belligerents - Science Fiction (Sorry to Say) 187. Rostam - Half-Light 188. Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions - Until the Hunter 189. Ariel Pink - Dedicated to Bobby Jameson 190. Davey Lane - Back/Here/Forward 191. Lisa Mitchell - When they Play That Song ep 192. Tired Lion - Dumb Days 193. Mastodon - Cold Dark Place ep 194. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Luciferian Towers 195. Lee Ronaldo - Electric Trim 196. Neil Young - Hitchhiker 197. The Killers - Wonderful Wonderful 198. Hyla - Osaka 199. Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross - The Vietnam War 200. Moses Sumney - Aromanticism 201. British India - Forgetting the Future 202. Matt Cameron - Cavedweller 203. Hammock - Mysterium 204. Ben Frost - Threshold of Faith 205. Philip Selway - Let Me Go 206. Prophets of Rage - s/t 207. Phoebe Bridgers - Starnger in the Alps 208. Pearl Jam - Let’s Play Two 209. Wolf Alice - Visions of a Life 210. Torres - Three Futures 211. Ibeyi - Ash 212. Wolf Parade - Cry Cry Cry 213. Liam Gallagher - As You Were 214. Andrew Bird - Echolocations: River 215. Bladerunner 2049 soundtrack 216. The Horrors - V 217. St Vincent - Masseduction 218. Kurt Vile & Courtney Barnett - A Lotta Sea Lice 219. Beck - Colors 220. Robert Plant - Carry Fire 221. Alex Lahey - I Love You Like a Brother 222. Destroyer - Ken. 223. William Patrick Corgan - wpc 224. Custard - The Common Touch 225. Love Migrate - Somewhere, Over the Mangroves 226. Protomartyr - Relatives in Descent 227. Polish Club - Alright Already 228. Ecca Vandal - s/t 229. Grooms - Infinity Caller 230. Lean Year - s/t 231. Kevin Devine - Instigator 232. King Krule - The Ooz 233. Portico Quartet - Art in the Age of Automation 234. Weezer - Pacific Daydream 235. Hans Zimmer et al (Blue Planet ll soundtrack) 236. Fever Ray - Plunge 237. Julien Baker - Turn Out the Lights 238. Jim Lawrie - Slacker of the Year 239. REM - Automatic for the People (25th Anniversary) 240. Angel Olsen - Phases 241. Stranger Things 2 (Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein) 242. Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats - Live at Red Rocks 243. Tame Impala - Currents (deluxe) 244. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Polygondwanaland 245. Sharon Jones - Soul of a Woman 246. Bjork - Utopia * 247. Aldous Harding - Party 248. David Gilmour - Live at Pompeii 249. Queen - News of the World (deluxe) 250. Stella Donnelly - Thrush Metal ep 251. U2 - Songs of Experience 252. Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds - Who Built the Moon? 253. Taylor Swift - Reputation 254. Kamasi Washington - Harmony of Difference 255. Wand - Plum 256. Weaves - Wide Open 257. Mavis Staples - If All I Was Was Black 258. Neil Young and Promise of the Real - The Visitor 259. Pony Face - Deja Vu 260. The Orbweavers - Deep Leads

Stray tracks: Hans Zimmer & Radiohead Lisa Hannigan - Oh! You Pretty Things Jarvis Cocker & Chilli Gonzalez Jack Whiter Glen Hansard (2) John Butler Trio Ryan Adams - back in your head Brian Eno & Kevin Shields Tropical Fuck Storm (2)

2016 catchups:

Ryley Walker & Charles Rumback Alex Isenberg Lisa Hannigan Margaret Glaspy Catfish and the Bottlemen Badbadnotgood 1 Mile North Chris Forsyth Peep Tempel Tash Sultana Rogue Wave Damien Jurado Love Migrate - Luke Howard Kaleo

[nozoroomie]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CARUSO!! @icaruswings87 !! You’re such a lovely person to talk with and I’m glad to call you my friend! I hope your day has been nothing but the best and that this smol fanfic (lmao small its over 3,000 words I’m a mess) makes your evening even better!

Set in the halflings au :’3! 

 Nozomi yawns quietly as the sound of her phone ringing echoes into their room, waking her up. She glances at her alarm clock and reads the rude “5:40 AM” blinking at her and sighs. Eli stirs next to her, the sound of it causing her ears to twitch and wake her up from her deep sleep as well. The blonde rolls to bury her face into the pillow and exhales lowly. Nozomi smiles affectionately and leans down, pressing a small kiss to onto Eli’s head.

“Go back to sleep, you don’t need to be up this early.” She whispers.

 Eli hums an okay and pulls the blanket over her head to try and muffle the phone for the time being. Nozomi pushes the covers off of herself and climbs out, her tail lazily trailing behind her as she makes her way to the living room. She picks her phone up, swiping the accept button and taking the call without even seeing the number of the person disturbing her.

“Hello?” She greets tiredly.

“Nozomi-chan! Oh good, you’re awake.” The sound of her bubbly younger sister comes from the other side of the phone and Nozomi laughs.

“I’m awake now Rin-chan. Whats up?” Nozomi murmurs into the phone, sitting down on the couch and listening to her surprisingly energetic sibling.

“Well, I forgot to tell you last night and I figured since you usually get up around this time for work, you wouldn’t mind me telling you know.”

Nozomi yawns.

“You’re right, I don’t mind, but I do wish you at least waited until 6:30 to call me.” She smiles as Rin blows a raspberry.

“I’m sorry! It just couldn’t wait! Maki-chan woke up and with her, so did I!” Rin makes her voice sound a little dramatic and Nozomi laughs.

“Cute.”

“Anyway,” Rin continues in her normal voice, “Umi-chan wants to see us and I figured since you’re off today, we could have our siblings day?”

Nozomi frowns a little and glances towards the hallway. While she wants nothing more than to spend more time with her siblings, today is the first day in a while that both her and Eli have managed to have the same day off. It’s not like they have any plans or anything, but she was hoping for a nice quiet day in with her girlfriend. She turns away from the hallway and answers her sister.

“Hmmm... and have you and Umi-chan already planned what we might do?”

“Actually, you’ll be happy to know we do have an idea!” Rin replies giddily. “Umi-chan wants us to go over and have breakfast with her and Kotori-chan, then afterward we’re gunna go out to the new strip mall. Maybe we can do a bit of shopping or something, or get movie tickets! There’s a lot down there. After that I suggested we get Yakiniku at your favourite place!”

Damn. Her sisters know just how to rope her into doing anything by offering a trip to the best restaurant around. Nozomi laughs tiredly.

“How can I say no to all of that,” she sighs, “Alrighty, but I won’t be stopping by Umi-chan’s place until Elichi is awake, alright?”

“Yeah, yeah! Sounds great! So I’ll see you at Umi-chan’s then!” Rin’s voice is so peppy Nozomi wonders just what it is about waking up with Maki that gives her this amount of energy.

The call ends and Nozomi leans back into the couch, glancing over to the wall clock. The time reads quarter to six and she sighs again. Realizing there’s no point in going back to bed, she stands up from her place on the couch and walks over to the kitchen,deciding to bake a small good morning gift for her beloved girlfriend.

****

When the apartment fills with the aroma of delicious, chocolatey brownies, Eli’s awake and clinging to Nozomi. Happy hums much like purring come from her and Nozomi doesn’t mind how she affectionately buries her face into the bend between Nozomi’s neck and shoulder. She laughs when Eli’s reluctant to let go of her so she can take the baked goods out of the oven. Really, Eli’s just so spoiled sometimes.

“I can’t believe you’re awake with me this early on your day off just because of the brownies.” Nozomi jokes and Eli pouts.

“I’d be awake with you at this time on any other day, not just because of the brownies!” She objects and Nozomi laughs, leaning in and kissing the tip of her nose.

“Of course, I know.” She smiles when Eli’s expression melts into a lazy smile.

She guesses now is the best time to tell her about her sudden plans with Rin and Umi.

“Ah, I got a phone call from Rin-chan this morning.” she starts. Eli waits for Nozomi to move away from the hot stove before wrapping her arms around her again.

“Oh yeah? That early in the morning is rare for Rin.” Eli muses and Nozomi laughs.

“Right? Apparently we can thank Maki for that.” Nozomi grins and continues, “Looks like Umi-chan wants us to have siblings day today. I said yes, but I understand if you’re a bit upset since we both have today off.”

When Eli only smiles and dips down to kiss Nozomi’s lips lightly, she’s mildly surprised.

“Sounds good. You haven’t been able to have a good day with Umi and Rin lately, so I hope you have fun with them.”

Nozomi’s eyebrows lift curiously and Eli cocks her head a little as she stares at her in return.

“You don’t mind then?” Nozomi asks with high curiosity. Eli laughs.

“Nozomi, we see each other every day. It’s fine.” Eli reassures, “besides, I do have some errands I really need to get done today. You go have fun with your sisters, and I’ll see you later, okay?”

This time it’s Nozomi burying her face into Eli and Eli hums contently as Nozomi’s tail wraps around them both. Not long after they part, Nozomi’s making their coffee’s the way she usually does and Eli’s cutting herself an oversized brownie from the pan to eat with it. They make small conversation until Nozomi decides it’s time for her to shower and get ready to go out.  Once Nozomi’s down the hall and in the bathroom, Eli grabs her phone and forms a quick message.

“Thanks for this you two. I owe you one.”

A reply from Umi comes first.

“Of course, it’s our pleasure.”

And a second one, from Rin.

“We’re happy to help! :3c”

Eli smiles to herself and places her phone down in favour of cleaning up the small mess in the kitchen.

****

“Hey Eli-chan, where did you want Nico-chan and I to put the banner?”

Eli pauses fixing her tie and looks over to Honoka and Nico, both of them dressed nicely and holding a rolled up banner between them.

“Ah, is there room on the counter for it for now?” She asks.

“Yeah, I think we can put it down here.” Honoka says with a nod.

“Eli, can I ask you something?” Nico speaks, putting the banner down together with Honoka.

“Of course.” Eli says s she goes back to fixing her tie.

She’s clearly becoming frustrated with the damned thing and Nico takes the few strides over to her, reaching up and fixing it for her. Eli mumbles a small thank you and Nico continues.

“What made you want to do this here, of all places?”

Eli blushes a bit and glances over to the wall, where Hanayo and Kotori work on putting up small blue and purple decorations around the bakery. She smiles, remembering the first time she came into the place and the first day she met her girlfriend. The way her long hair was tied into a messy bun, the heavy coating of flour that covered her apron, the way she advertised the sweets in a way that made Eli buy way too many for just one day. Eli remembers every single encounter with Nozomi from then until now and she looks at Nico with an expression so full of love, Nico feels she might regret asking.

“There’s just no better place than here.” Is how the fox halfling answers. “This place means a lot to her and it’s where everything began for us.”

Nico smiles, even if the answer is cliche.

“You’re hopeless.” She decides as she pats Eli’s shoulder. “We’ll make sure everything is perfect.”

The bell jingles and in steps Maki, a coffee in hand and a large bag hanging on her arm.

“Sorry I’m late” She says, pulling her sunglasses off with her free hand. Her catlike eyes adjust to the lighting and she glances around everyone in the small business. “I’ve brought the rest of the decorations, as requested.”

“Thank you Maki-chan!” Hanayo says, walking over and placing a small kiss on her cheek and taking the bag from her.

“N-No problem.” She mutters, bringing her coffee to her lips and following Hanayo to where she and Kotori are working.

Eli decides to lend Honoka a hand, holding the ladder for her as she hangs streamers up onto the walls. Really, they may have been over decorating just a little bit, but it’s a very special occasion. Eli’s been planning this for weeks and with Honoka’s permission to use the bakery and everyone else’s schedules lining up just the way she hoped they might, there’s no time better than the present. Today is the day Eli tells the love of her life just how deeply she feels for her.

Today is the day they hopefully take the next step of their relationship.

Her phone vibrates in her pocket and she pulls away from the ladder, letting Nico take over and checking her messages. She swallows nervously seeing the number it’s from and she swipes the screen open. She reads the message once, rereads it, then says it out loud to the group.

“They’ve stopped by the apartment and Nozomi’s found the note. They’re all heading over right now.”

“WOO!” Honoka cheers, hopping down from the ladder. “Okay time to commence the plan! Kotori-chan, Hanayo-chan, Maki-chan, head right into the kitchen and wait for the cue for the music! Nico-chan, can you light the candles? I’ll kill the lights once you’re done.”

Everyone does as told, Kotori, Hanayo and Maki moving straight to the kitchen while Nico grabs a lighter and begins to light the candles set up around the bakery. Eli turns her phone off slips it away into her left pocket, then slides her hand into the right pocket to make sure the most important item of the evening is there. Her fingers wrap around the small, soft box and she sighs in relief. She’s ready.

As if reading her expression, Nico lights the last candle and looks at Eli.

“Lets run through this.” she declares, “Dressed for the part?”

“Check.” The halfling says, her ears twitching a little.

“You have the thing?”

“C-check.”

“You know exactly what you’re going to say?”

“I.. I think so. I don’t know if it’ll come out the way I want it to but I’ll do my best.”

Nico smiles.

“You look ready to me then. Okay Honoka, hit the lights and let’s get in our spots!”

“Gotcha!” Honoka replies, turning all the lights off.

Eli stands just in front of the counter that faces the door and patiently waits. She holds her hands together in front of her and looks to the floor, mentally preparing herself for the events to follow. She isn’t worried about everything being perfect- no plan of hers is ever perfect. She’s known that for a while now. She hopes that everything does go the way she wants it to. She hopes she executes her speech well and that she doesn’t trip over her words. She doesn’t worry about the outcome, because there’s no need to, but even knowing what the answer will be doesn’t take away from the nerves she has.

The doorknob turns and the bells jingle and the door opens slowly to reveal just the girl she has been waiting for. Eli’s face looks up, her ears are alert and her eyes light up when she see’s her beautiful girlfriend. Her cheeks are rosy from the cold weather and her eyes scan around the bakery curiously as she notices all the decorations and the very dim and romantic lighting. Umi and Rin follow her inside, closing the door behind them and quietly side stepping their way to the other side of the room. Nozomi’s eyes land on the girl standing a few feet in front of her, clad in the same fancy suit she wore the day she asked her out for the first time.

“Elichi?” She says in a voice full of wonder. “What’s this?”

She notices how Nico and Honoka stand off to the side just behind Eli, holding something long and rolled up, but her attention goes right back to Eli as soon as a soft tune begins to play from the back. Eli’s smiling lovingly at her and Nozomi finds her cheeks heating up fast.

“Three years ago, I started becoming a regular customer to this bakery.” Eli begins, stepping closer to Nozomi. Nozomi takes a step closer as well and Eli reaches out and takes her hands into her own.

“The first day I ever came in here, you were at the counter. You had just opened three days ago, and you apologized for the messy setup because you and Honoka-chan we’re still setting up the front. Your hair was in a really messy bun and your new apron was already dusted with so much flour that it looked warn.  At the time, you were all sold out of cupcakes. You told me that if I wanted to try your cupcakes I’d have to come back the day after, but to compensate for it you’d give me a brownie on the house.”

Nozomi smiles a bit, remembering the day just as well as Eli.

“You insisted on paying for the brownie, telling us that it wouldn’t be great for business if we just gave away brownies to customers upset they couldn’t get a cupcake.”

Eli laughs.

“That’s right. And while I was very awkward, and there were probably lots of times I couldn’t hear you and had to read your lips to process what you were saying, you were always very patient with me.”

Eli brushes her thumbs across the backs of Nozomi’s hands and continues her story.

“I saw you so many times after that. My feelings for you probably developed within the first year of coming to the bakery. I was really hesitant to act on them, for obvious reasons.” For emphasis Eli twitches her ears a bit. Nozomi’s still smiling when she continues. “And much later, I learnt that you are just like me and suddenly talking with you became so much easier. My feelings for you were growing much bigger at a really alarming rate, and I couldn’t stop myself from falling for you even if I tried.”

Nozomi’s blush is quite visible in the dim light. Eli knows she’s probably picked up on what’s about to happen. She squeezes Nozomi’s hands and stares right into her eyes.

“We celebrated our first anniversary together last month and that day was the day I knew. I knew that there’s nothing more I wanted than to spend the rest of my life with you. I know our lives can get hectic and there will be lots of stuff coming our way, both good and bad, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

She finally lets go of Nozomi’s hands, dropping onto one knee and pulling the small box out of her pocket. She opens it up to reveal a dazzling silver band. There’s a small emerald in its center, with tiny sapphires on either side of it. Nozomi’s eyes are wide and she looks from the ring to Eli. Her vision’s getting a bit blurry from the tears welling up and she can just barely see Eli’s crooked smile and slightly nervous gaze.

“Nozomi, I love you. With all my heart and more.” She begins in a perfect and clear voice. “I can’t make any promises about our lives being perfect; nothing ever is. But that doesn’t mean I won’t try to make it the best they can be.”

“And so, Nozomi Toujou, will you marry me?”

To the side, Nico and Honoka drop the banner. It’s homemade, decorated by everyone in the room. The “Will you marry me, Nozomi?” is clearly written by Umi. Nozomi can recognize that perfect penmanship anywhere. There’s small hearts and bursts of colour all around it and on the bottom, just underneath the question, Kotori has drawn two little characters. One with a fluffy tail drawn in purple and another with tall ears in light blue. Nozomi’s eyes linger on it for a moment before they fall back to Eli. Her tears fall in big, ghibli esque drops and she can only nod her head feverishly.

“Mhm!” She hums. She opens her mouth to speak and her voice cracks from all the emotions she’s feeling. “I-I will. I do! I want nothing more!”

Cheers erupt from the entire bakery and Eli stands from her knee. Nozomi’s rubbing the tears off her face and Kotori and Hanayo aww as Eli pulls her into a hug, kissing the top of her head and holding Nozomi tightly against her. Nozomi’s arm wrap themselves around Eli and there’s a small bit of applause from their friends as the celebration begins. The couple pulls away from each other and with slightly shaky hands, Eli pulls the ring from the box and slips it on to Nozomi’s finger, which encourages more cheers and applause from the group around them.

As Eli leans down to kiss Nozomi properly, she reaches up and brushes her thumb along Nozomi’s wet cheek and the girl laughs. Eli smiles affectionately and captures her lips in a tender kiss and when they pull away the group of friends presents a beautiful cake, topped with vanilla icing, a beautiful blue and purple trim, two light pink candy flower decorations and completed with “congratulations on your engagement” written right on top of the cake. Eli looks at it in surprise and Nozomi’s gaze falls to Honoka, who only laughs and shrugs.

“There’s no way you were going to say no and I wanted to surprise you and Eli-chan with the best engagement gift!” She laughs. “And just in case Eli doesn’t want the cake, there’s a batch of brownies at the back with her name on it.”

“H-hey! Honoka!” Eli blurts out in embarrassment while the group laughs.

As Nico and Umi make their way to cut and hand out cake slices, Nozomi leans back into Eli and smiles when Eli’s arms wrap around her. Nozomi’s tail wraps itself around Eli and she whispers in a voice only loud enough for them (and possibly Umi, Rin and Maki) to hear.

“Did you plan all of this?”

“Everything but the cake.” Eli answers with a laugh.

“So you’re the reason Rin-chan called at 5:40 this morning?” Nozomi can’t help but tease.

“Actually, she was supposed to do it last night,” Eli mumbles and laughs, “But that doesn’t matter. You still went out with her and Umi, and I had the whole day with Honoka and Nico to help prepare for this.”

Nozomi laughs again and leans up, pressing a kiss to Eli’s lips softly.

“I love you so much.”

Eli beams at her and brushes her nose against Nozomi’s, whispering her reply before kissing her once again.

“I love you too, Nozomi. More than anything.”

[anovembersparrow]

iRules: Tag 10 people you would like to know better thank you so much @stargogh!! you are so nice and I’ve loved talking to you💞 Birthday: november 16th Gender: female Relationship status: single Zodiac sign: scorpio/libra (apparently zodiac signs changed in 2017?!!) Siblings: I have a younger brother named Nico  Wake up time: 6:40 on school days Lemonade or sweet tea: lemonade Day or night: it depends...sometimes I am super active, productive, and creative in the day or sometimes I do nothing and wait until it’s like midnight to start being productive 😆 Coke or pepsi: neither, I don’t like soda Calls or texts: either!! I love getting to know people in general Met a celebrity: noppeeee Smile or eyes: both, oh my g o o d n e s s I loveee smiles because they bring happiness to (most) everything and I also loveee eyes because you can get lost in them Country or city: country  Last song I listened to: How Far I’ll Go (from Moana) by Alessia Cara Nickname: nat/natty Height: 5′2″// 5′3″(idk) Time right now: 3:12pm Favourite music artist(s): Alessia Cara, Pentatonix, Melanie Martinez,, basically lots of random people lol Last movie/ tv show watched: Rouge One What are you wearing right: jeans + a t-shirt  Do you get asks regularly: noooo but I wish! Why did you chose your URL: my b-day is in november and I think of myself as a sparrow Hogwarts house: hufflepuff💛 Favorite color: pale pink, sea foam green, yellow Average hours of sleep: 6-8 Favourite characters: Hermione Granger

Dream job: photographer, author, artist, teacher, genealogist, epidemiologist, film maker, art director

Following: 118

I TAG 🌸💫: @dulcetkid @cloudsgrl @apricaughts @glamon-roll @succulent-dad @goldenbones @smileatthemoon @hintof-starlight @septembernightskies @cottontshirt

[unixcommerce]

Nico Acosta of Twilio: Channels Are Converging to Improve Experiences Throughout the Customer Journey

Last month I had the opportunity to check out Twilio’s annual user conference, Signal. Twilio, a platform that allows developers to build communications-enabled (voice, text, chat, email), shared a few stats that really caught my attention:

Twilio sends 50 billion emails a month on behalf of their customers

They send 200 million SMS messages a day

53% of WhatsApp messages Twilio customers sent got a reply

With numbers like these it’s safe to say that Twilio has a pretty good pulse on how current and emerging communication channels are shaping customer engagement, experiences and journeys. And I had a chance to speak with Nico Acosta, Twilio’s Director of Product for AI/ML, to dig in a bit on what they’re seeing in terms of how voice, chat and other new channels are impacting the customer journey.

Below is an edited transcript of our conversation.  To see the whole interview watch the video or click on the embedded SoundCloud below.

Looking at Customer Journey Channels

Brent Leary: I love this phrase that Jeff Lawson said around the customer journey is becoming the company’s brand. And what role does voice and AI play in that journey?

Nico Acosta: What we’re seeing a lot is all the channels are coming together. They’re converging in the same journey, not necessarily together in the same experience, but in the same journey and customers are interacting with businesses for different use cases through different channels.

One of the parts that we’re most excited about in voice is all the conversation of AI; where this goes hand in hand with what we do in the contact center. We believe that when you think about voice, and especially in the context of a contact center, there’s been this very deeply rooted tradeoff between customer experience and operational efficiency. And there’s always somebody inside of companies that has that knob for how many agents should I staff versus how tolerant am I or how long do I want our customers to wait on hold? And there’s always a decision to be made.

Twilio and AI Research

Brent Leary: There’s one.

Nico Acosta: And when we started looking at this at Twilio and doing all the AI research, we started questioning that. It’s like is that a tradeoff that we are going to have to live with forever or can we build a platform that enables a better customer experience with greater operational efficiency? This is a long journey, but we believe we are on that track where we can automate certain experiences that are well-defined, that are repeatable where customers actually prefer self-service and leverage the power of agents in the contact center when you need to.

Brent Leary: When they need it, yeah.

Nico Acosta: And I’ll give you a couple of examples. You think about three types of customer journeys. Booking an appointment. It’s a well-defined task. You can automate it. If you can, customers will prefer self-service.

Part Virtual Assistant, Part Human

Brent Leary: Right.

Nico Acosta: But then, you might have experiences that are hybrid, that are part virtual assistant, part human. For example, buying life insurance. You might want to ask a series of qualification questions up front, use that intelligence to route intelligently, prioritize and cue to the right agent that has the right specialty and then continue the conversation with a human in a much more consultative way. So while you might have automated the questions of what state do you live, what’s your yearly income, do you smoke, how many children do you have?

Then, when you hand off to an agent and that is a prioritize, you can talk about much broader things of what are your life goals and where are you in your financial planning and all these things that are much more suitable for human conversation. So at Twilio, we believe that it’s really the combination of these two that are going to transform voice and that’s what we’re building with Auto Pilot and that’s what we’re building with Flex, really the conversational AI that works in consonance with the contact center.

Engaging Within Customer Journey Channels

Brent Leary: I think there was also a statement that conversations are eating app’s lunch. Is that part of what you just illustrated? Are these conversations, whether it’s voice or via text, they’re coming together over whatever channel it is, but it’s that opportunity to interact in real time, it’s changing the way customer engagement is done and changing the relationship that customers have in general with the vendors they’re talking to?

Nico Acosta: Yeah, when you look at the history of computing, we started with the command-line interface, which we actually shifted to the command-line interface (CLI) is kind of coming back full circle, which is awesome. We started with the CLI’s right, then the Gooey right, then probably could argue the next big user interface evolution was the Touch. But then it kind of hasn’t evolved much since then. The Gooey was invented …

The Power of Conversations

Brent Leary: Like 35-40 years ago.

Nico Acosta: Yeah, so like early 80s, we’re already seeing products with graphical user interfaces. What is powerful about conversations is that it’s a different paradigm to interact with systems. You’re talking to systems in natural language where that’s a virtual assistant or a bot or you’re just interacting with a routing layer that gets you to a right person inside a company. But just the idea of why don’t companies and systems and computers adapt to how we communicate? Not the opposite.

And conversational interfaces, again, whether it’s a bot or a human, they have this unique property that you don’t need to learn how you use them. You just talk, you just say, you just text. And it depends on the customer journey that you want to build. There might be some parts of that journey that are automated, there might be some parts that are handled by contacts and maybe some parts that are handled by a field worker who’s like the person actually delivering or … and that’s the beauty of the software, the intelligence, the channels and the software orchestration that we provide.

How Has Voice Changed Customer Engagement?

Brent Leary: So, what does voice in particular, what does that add or change aside from the other channels that we talked about that are more text based; where do you see voice changing customer engagement or adding something that’s not there in these other channels we’ve talked about?

Nico Acosta: Yeah, so it’s an interesting question. When I talk to a lot of developers all around the world and a lot of companies building all sorts of customer journeys. When I talk to the IVR developers, they’re excited about chat.

Brent Leary: Really?

Nico Acosta: And when I talk to chat bot developers, they’re excited about voice.

Your Channel’s Role in the Customer Journey

Brent Leary: Interesting.

Nico Acosta: It goes to the point of convergence and I think each of these channels will have a role in the customer journey. We truly believe that real-time channels whether it’s voice, whether it’s video, and then you can split voice into yet two other subcategories where it’s like real-time voice where you’re talking to somebody and a home assistant style voice, the Alexa system where in a sync or turn by turn voice.

Brent Leary:  Oh, right.

Nico Acosta: And I think it has, if you take a customer journey, each channel has its spot. You might get car insurance via a text chat. And then you type all the information that is needed and it goes back and forth, back and forth. If you get into a car accident, you need help, you call and you do not want to talk to bot. You want to be connected to the emergency response team, you want somebody on the phone immediately and you want that customer empathy.

When you file the claim and then you’re like when am I going to get paid? That’s something pretty top of mind, right? You might use Alexa, say hey Alexa, what’s the status of my claim? It’s probably easier than doing anything.

Looking for the App

Brent Leary: Calling and yeah.

Nico Acosta: Easier than pulling your phone, looking for the app, right, it’s easier than anything. So, all these channels where it’s voice, where it’s messaging, will all have a spot in the customer journey.

Brent Leary: The last part of the keynote where the use case … it was a pretty funny use case, but where the guy is at the airport and he left something, he left a piece of his luggage and he’s trying to make his connecting flight and so he reaches out in one channel and the person on the other side needs to bring in somebody else [on a different channel], then they start bringing in the pilot [on another channel], they start bringing all … but it was a really fascinating use case of how you don’t need to know what channel somebody is on. You can reach them and you reach the right person at the right time to bring in the right information. How far away are we from that?

Nico Acosta: We’re doing that every day.

Comparing Customer Experience

Brent Leary: Really?

Nico Acosta: So take … compare the Uber experience that we power versus the taxi dispatcher. You want to talk to the Uber driver, you click a button, you talk … you want to know where your Uber is, click a button, you talk to the Uber driver. The Uber driver is the best person in the world to talk to at that point in time. They know where they are. They know if they’re hitting traffic, they know. And if you want to say hey no, on this corner versus on that corner, they’re the right person to talk to. You’re talking to the right person inside the organization.

Take the experience with before with taxi dispatchers. Like oh no, I’m going to call the taxi dispatcher to let them know that I’ll be on this side of the conference hall, not on that side and then they take the message, they try to radio down. So and we’re seeing the same use cases with multi-party where it’s a three-party transaction for example where there’s the food, the customer, the deliverer and it’s a reality today.

Brent Leary: I’m definitely looking forward to getting more of those experiences, having companies create more of those kinds of experiences.

This article, “Nico Acosta of Twilio: Channels Are Converging to Improve Experiences Throughout the Customer Journey” was first published on Small Business Trends

https://smallbiztrends.com/

The post Nico Acosta of Twilio: Channels Are Converging to Improve Experiences Throughout the Customer Journey appeared first on Unix Commerce.

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[unixcommerce]

Nico Acosta of Twilio: Channels Are Converging to Improve Experiences Throughout the Customer Journey

Last month I had the opportunity to check out Twilio’s annual user conference, Signal. Twilio, a platform that allows developers to build communications-enabled (voice, text, chat, email), shared a few stats that really caught my attention:

Twilio sends 50 billion emails a month on behalf of their customers

They send 200 million SMS messages a day

53% of WhatsApp messages Twilio customers sent got a reply

With numbers like these it’s safe to say that Twilio has a pretty good pulse on how current and emerging communication channels are shaping customer engagement, experiences and journeys. And I had a chance to speak with Nico Acosta, Twilio’s Director of Product for AI/ML, to dig in a bit on what they’re seeing in terms of how voice, chat and other new channels are impacting the customer journey.

Below is an edited transcript of our conversation.  To see the whole interview watch the video or click on the embedded SoundCloud below.

Looking at Customer Journey Channels

Brent Leary: I love this phrase that Jeff Lawson said around the customer journey is becoming the company’s brand. And what role does voice and AI play in that journey?

Nico Acosta: What we’re seeing a lot is all the channels are coming together. They’re converging in the same journey, not necessarily together in the same experience, but in the same journey and customers are interacting with businesses for different use cases through different channels.

One of the parts that we’re most excited about in voice is all the conversation of AI; where this goes hand in hand with what we do in the contact center. We believe that when you think about voice, and especially in the context of a contact center, there’s been this very deeply rooted tradeoff between customer experience and operational efficiency. And there’s always somebody inside of companies that has that knob for how many agents should I staff versus how tolerant am I or how long do I want our customers to wait on hold? And there’s always a decision to be made.

Twilio and AI Research

Brent Leary: There’s one.

Nico Acosta: And when we started looking at this at Twilio and doing all the AI research, we started questioning that. It’s like is that a tradeoff that we are going to have to live with forever or can we build a platform that enables a better customer experience with greater operational efficiency? This is a long journey, but we believe we are on that track where we can automate certain experiences that are well-defined, that are repeatable where customers actually prefer self-service and leverage the power of agents in the contact center when you need to.

Brent Leary: When they need it, yeah.

Nico Acosta: And I’ll give you a couple of examples. You think about three types of customer journeys. Booking an appointment. It’s a well-defined task. You can automate it. If you can, customers will prefer self-service.

Part Virtual Assistant, Part Human

Brent Leary: Right.

Nico Acosta: But then, you might have experiences that are hybrid, that are part virtual assistant, part human. For example, buying life insurance. You might want to ask a series of qualification questions up front, use that intelligence to route intelligently, prioritize and cue to the right agent that has the right specialty and then continue the conversation with a human in a much more consultative way. So while you might have automated the questions of what state do you live, what’s your yearly income, do you smoke, how many children do you have?

Then, when you hand off to an agent and that is a prioritize, you can talk about much broader things of what are your life goals and where are you in your financial planning and all these things that are much more suitable for human conversation. So at Twilio, we believe that it’s really the combination of these two that are going to transform voice and that’s what we’re building with Auto Pilot and that’s what we’re building with Flex, really the conversational AI that works in consonance with the contact center.

Engaging Within Customer Journey Channels

Brent Leary: I think there was also a statement that conversations are eating app’s lunch. Is that part of what you just illustrated? Are these conversations, whether it’s voice or via text, they’re coming together over whatever channel it is, but it’s that opportunity to interact in real time, it’s changing the way customer engagement is done and changing the relationship that customers have in general with the vendors they’re talking to?

Nico Acosta: Yeah, when you look at the history of computing, we started with the command-line interface, which we actually shifted to the command-line interface (CLI) is kind of coming back full circle, which is awesome. We started with the CLI’s right, then the Gooey right, then probably could argue the next big user interface evolution was the Touch. But then it kind of hasn’t evolved much since then. The Gooey was invented …

The Power of Conversations

Brent Leary: Like 35-40 years ago.

Nico Acosta: Yeah, so like early 80s, we’re already seeing products with graphical user interfaces. What is powerful about conversations is that it’s a different paradigm to interact with systems. You’re talking to systems in natural language where that’s a virtual assistant or a bot or you’re just interacting with a routing layer that gets you to a right person inside a company. But just the idea of why don’t companies and systems and computers adapt to how we communicate? Not the opposite.

And conversational interfaces, again, whether it’s a bot or a human, they have this unique property that you don’t need to learn how you use them. You just talk, you just say, you just text. And it depends on the customer journey that you want to build. There might be some parts of that journey that are automated, there might be some parts that are handled by contacts and maybe some parts that are handled by a field worker who’s like the person actually delivering or … and that’s the beauty of the software, the intelligence, the channels and the software orchestration that we provide.

How Has Voice Changed Customer Engagement?

Brent Leary: So, what does voice in particular, what does that add or change aside from the other channels that we talked about that are more text based; where do you see voice changing customer engagement or adding something that’s not there in these other channels we’ve talked about?

Nico Acosta: Yeah, so it’s an interesting question. When I talk to a lot of developers all around the world and a lot of companies building all sorts of customer journeys. When I talk to the IVR developers, they’re excited about chat.

Brent Leary: Really?

Nico Acosta: And when I talk to chat bot developers, they’re excited about voice.

Your Channel’s Role in the Customer Journey

Brent Leary: Interesting.

Nico Acosta: It goes to the point of convergence and I think each of these channels will have a role in the customer journey. We truly believe that real-time channels whether it’s voice, whether it’s video, and then you can split voice into yet two other subcategories where it’s like real-time voice where you’re talking to somebody and a home assistant style voice, the Alexa system where in a sync or turn by turn voice.

Brent Leary:  Oh, right.

Nico Acosta: And I think it has, if you take a customer journey, each channel has its spot. You might get car insurance via a text chat. And then you type all the information that is needed and it goes back and forth, back and forth. If you get into a car accident, you need help, you call and you do not want to talk to bot. You want to be connected to the emergency response team, you want somebody on the phone immediately and you want that customer empathy.

When you file the claim and then you’re like when am I going to get paid? That’s something pretty top of mind, right? You might use Alexa, say hey Alexa, what’s the status of my claim? It’s probably easier than doing anything.

Looking for the App

Brent Leary: Calling and yeah.

Nico Acosta: Easier than pulling your phone, looking for the app, right, it’s easier than anything. So, all these channels where it’s voice, where it’s messaging, will all have a spot in the customer journey.

Brent Leary: The last part of the keynote where the use case … it was a pretty funny use case, but where the guy is at the airport and he left something, he left a piece of his luggage and he’s trying to make his connecting flight and so he reaches out in one channel and the person on the other side needs to bring in somebody else [on a different channel], then they start bringing in the pilot [on another channel], they start bringing all … but it was a really fascinating use case of how you don’t need to know what channel somebody is on. You can reach them and you reach the right person at the right time to bring in the right information. How far away are we from that?

Nico Acosta: We’re doing that every day.

Comparing Customer Experience

Brent Leary: Really?

Nico Acosta: So take … compare the Uber experience that we power versus the taxi dispatcher. You want to talk to the Uber driver, you click a button, you talk … you want to know where your Uber is, click a button, you talk to the Uber driver. The Uber driver is the best person in the world to talk to at that point in time. They know where they are. They know if they’re hitting traffic, they know. And if you want to say hey no, on this corner versus on that corner, they’re the right person to talk to. You’re talking to the right person inside the organization.

Take the experience with before with taxi dispatchers. Like oh no, I’m going to call the taxi dispatcher to let them know that I’ll be on this side of the conference hall, not on that side and then they take the message, they try to radio down. So and we’re seeing the same use cases with multi-party where it’s a three-party transaction for example where there’s the food, the customer, the deliverer and it’s a reality today.

Brent Leary: I’m definitely looking forward to getting more of those experiences, having companies create more of those kinds of experiences.

This article, “Nico Acosta of Twilio: Channels Are Converging to Improve Experiences Throughout the Customer Journey” was first published on Small Business Trends

https://smallbiztrends.com/

The post Nico Acosta of Twilio: Channels Are Converging to Improve Experiences Throughout the Customer Journey appeared first on Unix Commerce.

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