#god i never know how to tag ghost trick art

[carlos-in-glasses]

Thank you for the tags lovely @lemonlyman-dotcom @orchidscript @alrightbuckaroo @paperstorm @tellmegoodbye @heartstringsduet @thisbuildinghasfeelings 🥰

Excited to share one more snippet of Ghost Gabriel Fic before it's posted on Sunday - in which TK and Carlos embark on a question of faith.

“Helloo?” Carlos is waving for TK’s attention.

“What?”

“I asked if you want to get into bed?” Carlos sidles over to the bed himself and sits down on the edge with a small smile, eyes wide and lustrous, left hand patting the comforter, wedding ring shining. He wants to make out until they pass out. TK knows this expression well.

“Never stop looking at me like that,” TK told him not long after they started using the term boyfriend with each other openly. And he never has.

TK’s eyes drift again to the closet. He takes a step but stalls, glances at Carlos apologetically.

“Babe. What Mom said freaked you out, didn’t it?”

TK, for whatever reason, puts both hands over his chest like he’s protecting his nipples from something. “Maybe a little.” he says. Carlos stares up at him while he awkwardly bobs on the spot. “Okay. Maybe a lot.”

“Come here,” Carlos says. When TK doesn’t, he says it again. “Come here.”

TK more than responds this time, hurrying to Carlos and sitting himself down firmly in his lap. Carlos rocks back a little on the bed, keeling with the unexpected full-weight of his husband.

“Hey,” Carlos says calmly, kissing TK’s shoulder, “You know Mom’s side are all spiritual. The Reyes are more…fusty with their Catholicism. God exists, but ghosts don’t. Anyway, don’t let it throw you, what she said.”

“I know. I won’t. I’m not.”

“It’s just part of how she’s grieving and coping. Like you call your mom’s old number and write to her sometimes.”

“Yeah, but my mom never replies!” TK covers his mouth. “Sorry.”

“Sweetheart,” Carlos whispers, stroking the back of TK’s head. “Don’t be sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I just mean we all have our ways. I’ve come to realize it, these past months. The times I’ve seen my dad since he died, I put it down to–”

“Wait–” TK lurches out of Carlos’ grip and tumbles down from his lap. He lands on his knees on a fuzzy beige rug, pulls at the shirttails of Carlos’ pajamas. “Say that again?”

Carlos rolls his eyes. TK tuts at him for it. “It’s nothing,” Carlos says, but his voice is to starting to tremble. “Trick of the light. Fault in the shadows. Call it anything you like.”

Tagging with no pressure!: @strandnreyes @chaotictarlos @bonheur-cafe @reyesstrand @goodways @lightningboltreader @rmd-writes @welcometololaland

@ladytessa74 @heartstringsduet @liminalmemories21 @cold-blooded-jelly-doughnut @kiloskywalker @chicgeekgirl89 @rosedavid @taralaurel @freneticfloetry @theghostofashton @sugdenlovesdingle @catanisspicy @wandering-night19 @ambiguouspenny @fitzherbertssmolder @herefortarlos @mikibwrites @three-drink-amy @jesuisici33 @inflarescent @redshirt2 @whatsintheboxmh @inkweedandlizards - if you want to share any writing and/or art!

❤️🧡 💛 💚 💙 💜

[thesinglesjukebox]

KESHA - "EAT THE ACID"

Harlan recommends an artist about whom we've always had lots to say...

[6.86]

Leah Isobel: The other night, I was walking home from work and listening to the Song Exploder episode about this song. For 20 minutes, neither Kesha nor any of her collaborators -- nor Hrishikesh Hirway, the podcast's host -- ever mentioned Luke. Instead, they talked about advice that Kesha received from her mom, Pebe, not to take acid; they talked about a dream or vision or panic attack that Kesha had had one night, in which she felt that she had come into contact with the immortal being at the heart of the universe. She described this as a deeply comforting and beautiful experience, but the song is paranoid and itchy, its synth tones dissonant and harsh. I found this episode affecting in ways I can't quite articulate. I see a lot of myself in Kesha's story, and the hardest part about the years since The Stuff That Happened To Me is how I find it seeping into my brain and my life and my perspective basically all the time. I don't even really think about it that much anymore; I have mostly forgiven him, or at least the version of him that still lives in my heart. And yet, a few days ago, I had a fight with my partner in the way that we fight, which isn't combative but sad and puzzled and hurt, and they asked me if I really allowed myself to be angry. I know that I don't, and I knew it then, but hearing it asked so openly did make me think about The Stuff That Happened all over again. I've been having dreams about it. It never really goes away. I remember feeling, after it was over, as if I had seen through something, like the curtain blocking reality as it is had pulled back slightly. Some old friends, whom I have since stopped talking to, described DMT as having similar effects. Trauma affects brain function; in some ways, it's a drug that stays in the system forever. And yet I still petulantly cling onto the vision of who I once was, who I could have been. I go to work, and I feed myself, and I clean my room, and I write. I kiss my partner. I go to choir rehearsal. I play Ghost Trick on my Switch. And in all of it, that shift -- that change -- lurks. Maybe I spoke with God, back then, and didn't know it. Kesha sings "hate has no place in the divine" without passion, reciting a mantra without really believing it or hearing it. Maybe this is how God speaks: with indifference. [8]

Harlan Talib Ockey: "Eat the Acid" doesn't address Kesha's struggle for justice as explicitly as "Fine Line," but it's a powerfully unsettling meditation on the sheer depths of the wilderness in the universe. Kesha has sounded this raw before ("Praying" being an obvious example), but here she does so with incredible understatement, bringing unearthly intensity to dark, minimalist production. (From Rick Rubin!) It's like nothing she's ever done before. [10]

Alfred Soto: It took fifteen years of craft and a lifetime of torment to produce "Eat the Acid," the natural sequel to "Tik Tok." Eloquent as gesture and devastating as product, it maintains its austerity because even at its most electro-shivery the Kesha of 2010 shivers in its core. [7]

Taylor Alatorre: Credit to Kesha for managing to get "art pop" as a genre tag on Wikipedia before Gaga did. Unfortunately, most of "Eat the Acid" is diminished by what made that achievement possible: a Rick Rubin-helmed effort to reverse-engineer a Strange New Respect by brandishing the familiar totems of artistic maturity. No one's asking Kesha to go back to the Animal/Cannibal days (though maybe one more Gottwald-less entry in the series wouldn't hurt), but would these circular ruminations about the dangers and/or benefits of hallucinogens have suffered if they were set to a higher BPM? Only in the final minute is the minimal-ish mood-setting sharpened into something like a point, with the word "divine" serving as a sleeper cell activation code for rhythm and propulsion and full-bodied sonic texture. Wish it didn't take that long to get there, though. [6]

Micha Cavaseno: I said elsewhere, but Gag Order feels less like a victory of emancipation than a morose departure, a heartbreaking turn for one of the most charming songwriters of the '00s. "Eat the Acid" demonstrates this perfectly in how hollow the vocals, organ, and guitar loops just languidly hang there disjointed. Sebert's hollow mourn is devoid of glamour in the way someone fresh from jail has yet to learn how to have someone to be again, flatter than a stilled pulse. There's no sense of unity or oneness in this supposed revelation; instead it gestures at the hint of a phantom limb as proof of survival. I don't need the old "her" to come back and mask the pain, but I'd like to know that the spark isn't hidden away forever. [3]

David Moore: "Eat the Acid" is track two on Kesha's Gag Order, her collaboration with Rick Rubin that serves as the exit from her straitjacket contract with Kemosabe Records. When I heard this, it made me wonder whether it was her "Paranoid Android," and thus Gag Order was her OK Computer. Well, it was, and it is, for me, anyway. When I was 16, hearing OK Computer in its entirety for the first time unspooled reams of totally unhinged poetry from me that I threw in the garbage a couple years later. With distance, I see how good music and bad poetry sparked a lifetime of chasing down the sublime in music with words, and I have some fondness for the kid who bought Radiohead's miserablist codswallop and was inspired to write the way it made him feel. It becomes clear as you get older that some parts of you are just you, always were and always will be, some parts are just habits and inheritances you might be able to nudge or massage or exorcise out of you, and you really have to muck around in there to sort out which is which. You start to understand that the totality of yourself includes your past and its people, even the ones you've discarded or who've discarded you, even and maybe especially the ghosts, and it also includes a whole bunch of other stuff you thought you'd forgotten but almost certainly didn't. And if you have kids -- god, the kids! Mercenary little memory-dredgers. Was I like that? Are they really like that? Or am I just thinking about me again, unable to see them? (Projection is the second-worst sin of decent parents, after possession.) At pushing-forty I've started to make acceptance with all of those accumulated parts of myself, and to preemptively make some amends for the sins of my present. That's what Gag Order is, an album that articulates ugly and beautiful and inconveniently truthful moments in one's life, the jagged edges and things that can't be unseen, with unflattering documentary clarity but also a premonition of the eventual grace from having healed from it someday. Life keeps on fucking you up, and you keep figuring out how to say thanks, even if you need to indulge in a little woo-woo to get you through now and then (preferably stopping short of falling for outright charlatans like crystal people or Radiohead). From the liner notes: "THANK YOU to the universe for compiling the life force of atoms and energy to make this cosmic dimensional existence available for me to experience." And I can't help but say yes to this, just like I said yes to misanthropic robot rock back in the day, the "no" that I treated as a yes. I was convinced it was telling me something important about the universe and my place in it, and in some sense, it was. But now I only seek the "yes" that is actually a yes. And I ask, hopefully not in an oblivious butterfly meme sort of way: is this wisdom? [10]

Aaron Bergstrom: Fragmented shadow reality. Fear of a higher plane. Partial realization. Hostility. Overwhelming visions. Hidden truths revealed. Understanding. It's Kesha's Allegory of the Cave. [8]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Mimics a real comedown from a high: "Eat the Acid" aims for apotheosis about the divine and universe, but instead of transcendent, the result is dully profound and profoundly dull. [4]

Michelle Myers: Apparently, Kesha and I both have "Dark Minimal Gothic Synthwave Compilation 2 Hours" in our YouTube recommendations. [7]

Dorian Sinclair: "Eat the Acid" is a stylistic departure for Kesha, but if you -- like me -- still think twice about her weird decade-old Bob Dylan cover, you knew she's always had an interest in this kind of minimalist, droney accompaniment and deliberately-undersung vocal line. I don't think that cover entirely works, but "Acid" absolutely does, pairing the buzz and mumble with a spectral backing choir, delicately plucked guitar, and ominous, evocative lyrics. The additions give it a structure and direction that her take on "Don't Think Twice" lacked, and the decision to build the tension to an almost oppressive degree before abruptly cutting the cord feels like the only right choice for how to end the song. It's an audacious choice for a lead single, but a great one. [9]

Oliver Maier: Undeniably a bold move from Kesha -- but "from Kesha" feels like an important qualification. I don't mean that in a demeaning way, just that it's hard to imagine taking an interest without the name tag. I wouldn't go back to this if I heard it from a relative nobody on Bandcamp. Shame to snuff out that intriguing build-up at the end, too. [5]

Nortey Dowuona: Rick Rubin, Stuart Crichton and Jason Leder are listed as producers, but the drum programming, bass and keyboards on this song are played by Tom Kahre. Did you know that he helped TiRon and Ayomari make their album The Great New Wonderful, one of the best forgotten albums of the 2010s? That he's been Big Sean's engineer since at least 2016? That he engineered a Babyface Ray song in those duties? That he got Mya nominated for Best R&B album in 2016? That with Erica Campbell he won the 2015 Grammy for Best Gospel Album? That he got Charlie Wilson a 2014 Grammy nomination for Best Gospel Song? If you like this song you should. [7]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Like a bedroom pop version of Nico's Desertshore, "Eat the Acid" plods along with a knowing sense of importance and mysticism. It mistakes negative space and minimalism for grandiosity, reducing Kesha's vocals to textured detritus. [3]

Jonathan Bogart: In October, I visited my family in Texas. It was only supposed to be for a few days before my younger sister and I flew to Guatemala for a shared vacation slash pilgrimage to the land of her birth slash memorial for our brother, who had died there in 2022. But massive protests against government corruption erupted a week before our travel plans, crippling Guatemalan infrastructure and indefinitely postponing our trip. So I spent my accrued vacation weeks in Houston instead, and splurged on a quite different set of expenses. One of those included a road trip to see Kesha at Austin City Limits with my sister and brother, resurrecting an old shared interest and bonding ritual. We played her most recent albums on the way there to familiarize ourselves with her current state of play. Like most of America, they had stopped paying close attention to Kesha once she dropped the $, and even I had only taken in the recent singles. Thirteen years on from the culture shock that was "Tik Tok," which fundamentally rewrote the rules of pop music in my head -- I had been a classicist who overvalued Sixties models of rock and soul -- Kesha has grown into being less of the wild child she was initially marketed as and more of an institutional provocateuse. Like her role models, Mick Jagger and Iggy Pop, she combines a swaggering attitude, a limited but effectively deployed vocal instrument, and a generic set of rebellious postures that seem frozen in time. The sounds of current pop have moved far away from the gleefully scuzzy vulgarity that made her famous, so she's free to chase her own rather basic aesthetic muse rather than the prevailing winds of pop fashion. In Austin, the audience on the floor appeared to be primarily made up of gay white men in their thirties and late twenties, who came alive the most at the old reliable bangers from Animal and Cannibal, but for whom the emotional highlight was undoubtedly when Kesha got choked up introducing "Rainbow." "I'm fucking free!" she hollered when she found her voice again, to a responsive roar, and that conflation of a lawsuit settlement (and the gendered violence that originated it) with the queer identities of the fans drinking up her emotional catharsis is perhaps the most quintessential aspect of Kesha's post-Dr. Luke career. "Eat the Acid" was the first song in the second act of the three-act show, coming after four dancefloor bangers in a row followed by a routine by her dancers to Macklemore's "Good Old Days" while she changed costumes. It was performed so deep back on the stage that she was invisible to my section of the balcony, and its near-tempolessness meant that it was the only time in the show that her audience seemed even a little bit bored. The ancient knock against psychedelic music has always been that a meaningful trip is uncommunicable to anyone else. The lysergic quality of "Eat the Acid" is limited to Imogen Heap-style vocal processing, so there's not even a lot of texture to get lost in; while the lyrics, in post-2015 Kesha's special blend of self-mythologizing, hippy (and occasionally -dippy) spiritualism, and It Gets Better sloganeering, allude to an experience of transcendence that remains permanently out of focus. All the better for listeners to apply their own history and desires onto, of course; as much as critics like me love specificity in lyrics, too much of it is alienating to the broader audience for whom pop is about large, communal emotions, not granular interior ones. Unfortunately, "Eat the Acid" falls between both stools. I bet it means a lot to Kesha, but like recounting a dream, the meaning fades in the telling. It's time to wake up. [4]

Ian Mathers: Not all knowledge is helpful. Not all trips are good. But maybe nobody else gets to decide or interpret which ones are which for you. [8]

Anna Katrina Lockwood: There's a pervasive aura of dread, and terrible consequence, in semi-contrast to approximately half of the lyrics. Giving it up to the divine isn't really my thing--I'm a bit too rage-filled for that--and my personal relationship with psychedelics is less cognitive exploration, more barricading myself in a club restroom until things stop moving wrong. However, I've never had a massive public trauma and personal excoriation in the manner Kesha has, so if this song helps her to live the life she wants, so be it. [6]

Will Adams: Yes, the subtext runs deep (don't be changed like what changed you?) -- it always does. What is more striking to me is how "Eat the Acid" sounds. The searing organ tones; Kesha's vocal, numbed and distorted and frayed; the clipped synth arppegio; guitars filtered to sound like ghosts; elegiac choirs; it's all arresting. I'm reminded of the William Orbit remix of Sarah McLachlan's "Black" -- both move their respective elements in and out of view, like scenes of a dream, all the while maintaining an unsettling energy. It's a crystal ball of a song, showing a dark future that might be yours, whether you choose it or not. [7]

Katherine St Asaph: "Right after it lobbed off its own knees," Kristin Hersh wrote about Crooked single "Moan," "[the song] told me I should drop my weapons. The ether's smart about weapons. I'm not, particularly." The song she describes is one of hope, telling you that "we're messes sometimes and messes are sometimes OK." But the song she recorded is restorative only like oblivion is. What "Moan" tells you is that "in the deep cold, you won't be brave; in the deep cold, you can't be safe," over murder-ballad chords, barren fuzz, and an unchanging guitar solo with the melodic contour of trying to pull yourself out of your grave and giving up fast. It's among the bleakest songs I've ever heard (though not the bleakest by her), and it reminds me a lot of "Eat the Acid." The songs share a dirge pace that jolts to anxious action in the final seconds, and a moldy-timbred four-chord buzz that sounds more like an empty machinery room than a communal musical space. Kesha's voice is starting to sound a little like Kristin's, too. Much was made of her upbringing by country songwriter Pebe Sebert, but Kesha's roots increasingly seem to lie in folk instead -- specifically, the prickly, sometimes stark, sometimes psychedelic and always harrowing subgenre that includes Hersh, the late Sinéad O'Connor, and maybe Beth Orton ("Eat the Acid" also sounds like the equally bleak "Pieces of Sky.") It says a lot about Kesha as a musician that she's drawn to this kind of folk, rather than the broadly palatable sort favored by so many of her peers who worship their Joni and their Crow, and who could probably sing about brushing their teeth with a bottle of Jack and have it seen as a quippy meta-enabling lark rather than a sign of the party-house decay of civilization. But the path that led Kesha there was pain, and once you've taken that path, that pain can re-emerge anywhere. "Eating the acid," going strictly by the words, is meant to be daring and restorative, in an Erowid-vault, Erehwon-enjoyer sort of way. A few grains of that do remain; Kesha's backing vocals punch up "eat the acid" like an electro hook she might record in some other unrecoverable universe. But Kesha chooses one line as her refrain, and truncates it until it means the opposite: "you don't wanna be changed like it changed me." On the verses, her voice sounds small; on the refrain, she sounds sure. What do you do when people consider you a completed cautionary tale? When what's left for you in life is to find "acceptance" of things that should never have been offered, much less accepted? "Eat the Acid" offers an answer in its final act to everybody but one. "Hate has no place in the divine," Kesha sings, and the divine assumes its understood musical form: celestial choirs, happier keys, soprano harmonies, air-conditioned space above the arrangement, Meanwhile, the song itself is somewhere else, weaponless on its knees. [9]

Brad Shoup: I don't know that "You don't wanna be changed like it changed me" gains much from this much repetition; by the second or third time I was already thinking about fame. (It does make me wonder if Pebe Sebert's ever written a song about acid. In my mind she has, and it has this vibe.) That fluttering sequencer gets Kesha to the cosmos, tab-free; its imperiousness emphasizes how much she's in control. A similar vastness ducks in and out of the comparatively table-flipping "Fine Line": I guess I'll have to hear the LP to find out if it touches or recedes from the face of God. [7]

Rose Stuart: Kesha's post-lawsuit era has centered on moving on from trauma, but "Eat the Acid" is raw like an open wound. There are no pop hooks or bright choruses. Instead, accompanied by the refrain of "you don't wanna be changed like it changed me", Kesha creates an unsettling meditation that feels paralytic and overwhelming. The sparse electronic instrumentation creates a drone in your mind, before bursting into lights at the end. It's a song that forces you to stop and listen to it, and more importantly to feel it, every note buzzing inside your head. [8]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: The drones and the distortion and the hymn-like refrain run up helplessly against Kesha's deep and well-learned skill with a hook -- even as the song threatens to fall into itself, into ego death and self abnegation, she still sounds as captivating as she has since 2010. She's not who she was then, but she's not entirely separate, either; the process of freeing one's self from trauma and specifically the trauma of being made into a symbol or legal instrument will inherently be one of recapitulation and self-paradox. This is a hard song in all regards, but it feels worth it. I hope it is. [8]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

[starter-library]

GOOD MORNING BEDLAM'S LULU LYRIC STARTERS

EDIT AS YOU SEE FIT

I Am Sad

“Dance it off and let them see only ever part of me”

“You're far too quick to let me in”

“I feel your fear it hurts my chest”

“I too am fighting loneliness”

“I'm sad to say that I am sad”

“I'm sad to say it, but I've done the best that I can. Just had to say,My best is sad”

“I've done it in forty four states”

“Steal your words and bite my tongue cus every story's now been sung”

Blue House

“When I woke the sun was new”

“Even ink that marked our height will be repainted out of sight”

“It all must go under the knife every dent from making life”

“The fall of Rome was bound to be. Not to endure eternally”

“Now it's time to leave what we know, chase the new and let love grow”

“It's more than bricks that make a home”

“She'll learn to love and all it's ache and how to mend after it breaks”

Hold Me

“Well I've been sitting around since a quarter to three”

“Ain't found a god for whom I'd fall to my knees, But I haven't had a half bad time”

“I won't win an award for what's inside of my brain, Just found out New Jersey was a U.S. state”

“I've got you on my arm as we walk in the rain, So I guess you'd say I'm in my prime”

“Baby tell me once more that you're mine”

“May be losing all my sanity to the hunger of humanity if you're losing it right next to me I swear I'll be just fine”

“My mouth will run itself right into first place so I guess that I'm doing ok”

“You love me still can't seem to change that a bit, wouldn't have it any other way”

“Once broke my nose just from falling down”

“My talking voice is as loud as my shout”

“I'm trying to keep it together as I'm falling apart”

“I find you to be a work of art, Need no one else to share my days”

“I am standing here just watching all the people going round. Seems no one else is doing better at figuring this out”

“We're all stumbling around and picking ourselves up but I went tripping into madness and falling into love”

Haint Blue

“I sing your praises to the waning moon”

“I'm haunted and so are you although we smothered all our ceilings in that bright haint blue”

“It's only in my dreams where he lets be, you see I'm waking up to find that the ghost is me”

“Time won't let us be”

“We're on borrowed time since you set me free”

“I'm haunted and so are you”

I’m haunted, can’t you see him too?”

The Haunting

“We keep repeating the same words in heightened speech, with cutting verbs”

“If i don’t hear, your words won’t hurt”

“Never put up any fight except when it’s in my own mind”

“Like a smothered storm my thoughts they go unknown: Patch the boat, mind the water, make it home”

“I’m so scared i’m the one that is to blame”

“But lies will rot the heart and thoughts and never shield me like I think”

“Someday we’ll learn to shut our mouths”

“Over and over and over it goes with the wine playing tricks and the room spinning slow”

“And I’m trying to focus and show you I notice your eyes perfectly match the dress that you’ve chosen”

“And if you’re saying that you love me--say it slow. And I’ll need you to show me”

Enough

“And I hear it And I see it And I breathe it. It echos, echos, Round it resounds without end”

“Sometimes I don't know if I am loved”

“Sometimes I don't know if I'm enough”

“Not even God could love someone like you”

“I've been trying to retrace my tracks, Hoping to find my way back; When the only running was tag, when you know being it won't last”

Blessed Boy

“I have no one to care for, no one to need and only when running am I ever free”

“I'll fly to the moon and I'll never return, There I can rest as I watch the world turn”

“Blessed boy I've heard your voice and I know they've done you wrong”

“In between your fitful dreams will you learn you do belong”

“It takes more than moonlight to cause you to bloom, come to the garden there's plenty of room”

You are Gonna Miss Me

“Always had this feeling that your hearts not really mine and that some perfect lover was always on your mind”

“You are gonna miss me you will miss my face someday”

“Oh my darling boy i was looking up to you- Well not physically except when you put lifts inside your shoes”

“Boy you did me wrong how could you let me fall- couldn't catch me with hands that were that small”

“You want to make all my decisions but i don't want the same”

“Honey this is my show here i always drink for free”

Salt

“But tide will rise and reclaim her command”

“Mother I'm scared your waters are much too high for me”

“Your changeable ways throw me for days as if lost on the sea”

“The water's calm but still I cannot rest while storms are ever raging in my chest”

“From her I was made with love and care but by her hand I'm scattered everywhere”

“Leaning back the water holds my weight now it will be my turn to create”

Lulu

“I see no way will I hold her like the cinema told me to try”

“When I look at you I see no chance of pushing through and I must be the one to say goodnight”

“Some wishes made are wises left behind”

“She kissed me so sweetly and she promised me nothing but sweetness to last”

[kastillia]

are you... like me?

[excitedlysuffering]

Green With Envy

It’s past 2am and my eyes hurt so it’s unedited for now sorry y’all😅

Original Request (from Wattpad account): What makes the boys jealous, if possible?

Guest stars: Sasori and Sai!

Masterlist     

Naruto~

Oh, this boy… he’s too oblivious sometimes he doesn’t even know to be jealous. He was at a hot spring with friends once and someone says, “(Y/N) is so hot…” Naruto just grinned and said, “Yeah, she really is.”

But that doesn’t mean he won’t protect your honor. If someone says something a little too… risque like ‘Yeah, I’d tap that’ for example, get ready for more Narutos than you can count all charging you with a Rasengan.

He will not stand other guys cozying up to you. He’s the one who should be blessed with your hugs and cuddles. Won’t hesitate to cause a scene and yell to the entire world that he loves you and won’t let any other guy make a pass at you.

“Naruto, you didn’t need to go that far! You blasted him through three walls!” He’s endearing, really.

Sasuke~

Is jealousy an Uchiha thing or just a Sasuke thing? One of life’s many mysteries. Anywho, unlike Naruto, the second your name is brought up in conversation, he goes on guard and he’s listening closely.

If anything is said that he deems inappropriate, whether it be disparaging or otherwise, Sasuke had better be held back or he just might punch you into next week.

“Sasuke, calm down! He just said I had good taste in clothes!”

Even though he can easily get jealous, he knows the importance of freedom and he trusts you. He won’t come guns blazing (or sword slashing rather) and drag you away unless you need it of course.

The last thing he wants is for you to feel like you’re dating your dad or something. He’s very blunt and if he becomes uneasy with the way another male is talking to you, he’ll let said male know. Maybe after scowling with his Sharingan activated, however.

Neji~

Neji doesn’t really get jealous per se, more like offended on your behalf. Because of his upbringing, which taught him manners and the utmost respect, he really can’t understand talking about girls like they’re objects? Will never refer to a woman as ‘hot’ or anything like that.

If someone even dares speak of you like that, (even if you’re not necessarily together yet) he will fight them, and they will experience the 64 palms technique.

He especially hates people in your personal space. He really does trust you, just not others. Is not afraid to embarrass someone on your behalf. Half the time his glare is enough to scare them off, but some people are just clueless. (They wake up in the hospital)

“Neji! You can’t just throw me over your shoulder and leave! And that guy looked like he had seen a ghost?!” Needless to say, even cool, calm, and collected Neji has his limits.

Shikamaru~

Shika is too laid back to get jealous over little things. Somewhat like Neji, he doesn’t get jealous. He might feel threatened on your behalf, but never jealous. He can trust you with his life why shouldn’t he trust you with your relationship?

However, if someone is clearly harassing you or just generally making you uncomfortable, he will not hesitate to step in and make them leave. He won’t resort to physical violence (too much work), but he will intimidate them or put his genius to use and play some kind of trick on them.

He honestly has endless patience and at the same time no patience? Patience with you if you’re having a pleasant conversation with someone, but will go from 0-100 (or 50, really, anything more is a lot of effort) real quick.

“Shika, that guy thought he was really paralyzed, thanks to your shadow possession!” Being jealous is a waste of time, but clever revenge is always a treat for Shika.

Kiba~

So. Jealous. So. Easily. Kiba is naturally animalistic (in the best way) and just like a dog, can be very possessive. If explicitly asked, he will try to tone down his jealous fits, but will still be protective. If he does have free reign, however, oh boy…

No chill at all, whatsoever. Whether it’s absolutely destroying the object of his rage or just simply making out with you right there. No matter how annoyed he may get, he respects you with every fiber of his being and would never tell you to change or try to control you. He wouldn’t ever embarrass you (unless Kiba and Akamaru pummeling a room full of guys is embarrassing).

Just let him FIND OUT someone is making you feel the slightest bit of unease. One second, they’re chatting you up and then BAM! There’s a flash of white and a huge dog ready to maul them.

“Kiba, what do you mean they all looked at me for too long?! We walked in the door, of course, they turned to look!”

Gaara~

Gaara is a bit of a conundrum, but in a way that makes sense? Like, he doesn’t feel the need to get jealous of guys because when you leave, he’s going to be kissing you goodnight, and he’s the one who gets to spoil you.

However, he will get jealous of little things. Oh, you’ve spent a good amount of time playing with an animal/pet? Be prepared to walk in on Gaara giving them a stern lecture on stealing you from them. Gaara knows he has any potential suitors beat, but tiny adorable animals and children? In his mind, he can never be too cautious.

He gets a little pouty but that can easily be cured with cuddles, sometimes with that evil little pet that stole your affections from him. He can never stay jealous for long, he views it as an unproductive waste of time. He could be actively trying to get your attention, but instead, he’s going to be sulking in a corner? Yeah, no.

“Gaara! Stop scolding my cat, that’s not doing anything!”

Sai~

On the rare occasion that this cinnamon roll gets jealous, he’s confused and shocked. Like just imagine the surprised Pikachu face and that’s him. He knows what jealousy is, he can identify it just fine, but he doesn’t know why he’s jealous.

You aren’t doing anything, all you did was laugh at someone else’s jokes, but still… do you find them funnier than him? Are you going to leave him because he’s not that funny?! Cue the slow onset into insanity… Poor Sai is losing his mind to paranoia and made-up scenarios.

Will most certainly drag you away (gently) from whoever is taking your attention and leave. He doesn’t even bother with a fake smile, they don’t deserve it. He’ll explain to you calmly even though he’s panicking on the inside. Once he is back to normal he’ll show you his nearest artwork.

“What the-! Sai, you can’t just draw caricatures on people’s car!” You don’t even want to know how he figures out which car is theirs...

Kakashi~

Too cocky to be jealous. He has the right to be though because one glance at him without his face mask can cause instant pregnancy. Anywho, he knows you love him and some guy trying to hit on you like some high school douche isn’t going to change that.

He does like to intervene, however, just to flex like ‘yeah, I’m the boyfriend, now get lost’.

He’s not big on PDA, so he won’t start kissing you to ward off strangers, but he will wrap on arm around you or hold your hand and ask who your ‘friend’ is.

When there’s that one stubborn person who won’t take a hint, Kakashi doesn’t mind rocking someone’s world or getting kicked out, he needed to perfect that one offense technique anyways. He’s pretty laid back though, so it has to be somewhat drastic for this though, plus he knows you can handle yourself.

“A thousand years of death?! Isn’t it weird to be poking old men in the butt?!

~Akatsuki~

Pein~

Pfft. Who does he have to be jealous of? He’s a god among mortals, after all. To him, you’re a goddess and as such you belong with someone like him, not the peasants around you.

But on the offhand chance that someone doesn’t heed his godly status, he will not hesitate to pull you into his side and yell ‘Almighty Push’ and totally obliterate that loser. (A/N: Holy crap I think that needs to be a one-shot cuz, wow, Pein being all protective is making me swoon?)

If it’s not a big deal, he’ll easily let you take care of it. If you’re strong enough to catch Pein’s attention, you’re more than strong enough to deal with some lowlife. That doesn’t mean, however, that they won’t feel his wrath too.

If you ever want to witness a true royal rumble, dare someone to mess with Pein’s S/O. It’d be an epic tag team match (slaughter, really) for the ages. One would d be surprised how quick he can lose his cool when it comes to you.

“Pein, that’s the fifth time this month! Kakuzu is going to murder me if I ask for money to fix this wall!”

Deidara~

Need I even say it? Jealous boy all the way. You’re his favorite masterpiece so why should let an uncultured swine who doesn’t even understand your worth touch you? Rhetorical question, he wouldn’t.

He is not above fighting or placing a bomb on someone who gives you one too many glances. He’d make sure they knew it wasn’t art, they weren’t good enough for that, before blowing the offender up.

No one and he means no one gets to talk bad about his S/O. If someone insults you in his presence they might as well as swallowed one of his explosives and trusted him not to blow them up.

Will one 100% hide you from view if you look too appealing. He thinks you look ravishing, but he’s the only one who should be able to think that, in his opinion. Don’t worry, no one’s ever gotten close enough to harass you with Dei around. His one-eyed scowl is a great deterrent.

“Deidara! You blew up my favorite restaurant! He didn’t even say anything to me!”

Sasori~

Would rather die before admitting he was jealous. As adamant about not being jealous as he is about art being eternal. That’s not to say that he won’t take action though. He will use chakra strings to make the perpetrator walk away, meanwhile making them bump into literally everything in the general vicinity.

The two of you don’t leave the base all that often so it’s unusual to see an envious Sasori action, but it’s a real treat when it happens. After he deals with whatever idiot crossed him, he’ll be a bit more affectionate that day/night.

Not huge things, but instead of working on puppets all night, he’d be more apt to hold you that night. Average people hitting on you make him insecure because he realizes he’s not that great at normal relationships but he still doesn’t want to lose you. That feeds into his jealousy and he figures the only way to get rid of it is to make sure those other guys can’t offer anything he doesn’t have.

“Sasori! If you wanted a hug, you could’ve said that instead of treating that guy like a ball inside of a pinball machine!”

[bansheeoftheforest]

OC Masterlist

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Welcome to my OC masterlist! I have a lot of ocs! I hoard them like a goblin and I will never stop! SO!!! OCS!!!! So far we got two collections of OCS; The O’Jekylls, which is Dr. Jekyll’s fam, and my very own DND character who I turned into a Lodger! <3

All OCS can be found under the tag #Banshees OCS!

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               --Lodgers--

——————Humans——————

Cederic Beumont

Cederic Beumont is a French artist (and prostitute) turned mad scientist throughout multiple events happening in his early adulthood. He is the oldest twin out of him and his sister, Cassandra, and the two of them were raised by their single father in a small village in France. After the death of their father by the age of twenty, Cederic and his sister travel around Europe until they move to America, where they lived for five years. During those five years, Cederic and Cassandra-- previously inseparable-- have a falling out which ends in Cederic storming out and leaving Cassandra to run the hotel they had set up on the coast of Florida. The falling out, combined with a lot of other stressful and dramatic things happening around him, manages to make Cederic’s mental health crumble until he practically goes insane. Previously an artist, Cederic turns to science in hopes of being able to achieve something that would make him “more” than his sister, who always has been the “smarter” one out of the two of them, which ends up in him studying Frankenstein’s life like the Holy Bible. He gets obsessed with the study of lightning and he gets obsessed with the idea to one-up God, as he previously had been born and raised Catholic, and he feels like he would be able to do everything that Frankenstein failed to do (take care of Creature, own up to the responsibilities, keep the innocent safe, etc) despite having no proof of him being able to do everything differently.

With the help of his boyfriend, Wilhelm, and Wilhelm's biology studying friends, he manages to continue his experiments. He moves between calling himself a Fulminologic Necromancer and a Necromantic Fulminologist, depending on the people he surrounds himself with, as he studies lightning as a whole and applies the knowledge to necromancy. His early experiments involves reviving dead animals with the use of electricity, although he does dabble in alchemy and chemistry when it’s needed.

Around the time he is 30 years old, he hears the word upon the street about the Society For Arcane Sciences in London, England. His boyfriend helps him scrap in enough money for a one-way ticket to London on the promise that they will still hold contact, to which Cederic immediately agrees. He travels to London by ship and marvels over how fantastically dirty and gross the entire city is, there is slums everywhere! So many animals and mythical creatures!! The moment he is within the city walls, he manages to find Sergeant Enoch Brokenshire and pleads for him to show Cederic the way to the Society. Brokenshire is, of course, very put off by this hyper-energetic bastard he can barely hear over his (normally trained away) french accent, but Brokenshire does not get paid enough to care. He basically just grabs Cederic by the collar and drags him like a stray cat over to the Society and to Dr. Henry Jekyll’s office, to which he basically dumps him on the doorstep and leaves. As Jekyll practically collects scientists, and as they already have a necromancer in the Society, Jekyll welcomes Cederic with open arms and shows him around, unaware how Cederic... is an actual mad scientist, not just using that word as a moniker.

Cederic quickly becomes friends with Sinnett and Luckett, all three of them having a knack to blow things up and play with fire. Cederic also loves to harass Tanis, the local necromancer, as he loves that they practically study the same thing and did you know this and that and wouldn’t it be cool to blow up a corpse? You know Moreau might actually have been onto something with the animals and yadeyadeyada-- Tanis does not like Cederic. Cederic thinks that they are best friends.

Cederic joins the Society sometime before the events of TGS, however, immediately jumps all over both Jasper and Frankenstein like a yappy dog excited to have new friends. He is absolutely in love with Frankenstein, much like everyone else, but quickly has a change of heart as he feels she is a wimp, because he could do this and that so much better and why would you do x y and z when you could have done a b c instead. He has a massive ‘R.I.P to them but I’m different’ complex and feels like Frankenstein can’t own up to her work and her legendary image like she should. He thinks he can one-up her, and basically tries to snatch her stuff and studies when she isn’t looking. Creature would very much like to bonk him over the head with a frying pan.

Cederic also has a pet ghost cat-- or more or less spirit cat as she has never actually been alive-- that he has had since he was a baby. He named her Adelaide-Antoinette because he is french and extra like that, and the two of them are actually inseparable, as Adelaide is connected to Cederic through a bunch of magical hijinx. Adelaide can talk to Cederic, however, no one else can hear or see her, making most people think that Cederic is genuinely insane as he is not afraid to walk around talking to himself. The only one who knows about Adelaide is Maijabi, who saw her in one of his ghost mirrors one time, but he thinks its fun to see the other Lodgers thinking that Cederic is insane, so he doesn’t say anything.

Random Trivia: Cederic is originally my DND character, played in a specific type of campaign called Scion. It takes place in the real life world, and our campaign is set during the 1960′s if WW2 had never ended. Cederic and Cassandra were originally forced to flee by the outbreak of the war and the invasions of France. Scion is also based on mythologies, were the player characters (the Scions) are children of the ancient gods. Cassandra and Cederic are children of the egyptian god Bastet, ergo, the ghost cats.

Tags: #Banshees Cederic

Art of Cederic / Original Info dump on Lodger!Cederic

-

——————Animals——————

Adelaide-Antoinette

Adelaide-Antoinette is a spirit and companion cat connected to Cederic. She has been by Cederic’s side for as long as he can remember and her, her sass, and her snobbishness were many of the core influences that shaped Cederic into the person he was before his mental breakdown he is today.

Adelaide is a Birman and lives up to the snobbish reputations of such breeds. When she is particularly feisty, she likes to sit on top of Cederic’s head and use him as her steed, and also loves to call him a peasant. She is also very territorial, and very protective of Cederic too. She is basically the epitome of “No one is allowed to bully him but me”. She is also very vocal and loves to have Cederic seem like he is talking to himself. Cederic has a knack to recite Hamlet and other Shakespeare plays to her, and while it’s fun for him, Adelaide wish she could bite his tongue off after the 10th recitation. After so many years, the recites might be up in the thousands.

Adelaide also did not like all the other creatures in the Society immediately, but quickly realized that it was either them or Cederic forever, to which she quickly began to force herself to warm up to them. Her favourite is Jasper’s unicorn, who most likely share her snobbishness, but a close second is Zosi and Griffin’s cat. When she is particularly mad at Cederic, as he tends to neglect her a little once he gets caught up in his work, she likes to hang around Maijabi as he is the only other living person who can see her. Cederic also uses her to spy on the others sometimes, as she can go through walls and can’t be seen.

Tags: -

-

————————————————

        --The O’Jekylls--

——————Humans——————

Collin O’Jekyll

Collin O’Jekyll is Henry Jekyll’s “paternal uncle” and also his make-shift father. Collin and Henry loved each other from day one and the two of them often spend most of their free time in the pastures with Collin’s horses. Collin is an artist, who dabbles in both writing and art, but mainly breeds and sells horses for income, despite not really needing it due to his inheritance. He has always been supportive of Henry’s scientific interests and was the one to take him out to all of the scientific plays that Henry watched as a child, as his parents were less than supportive of the boy’s interests.  While mainly breeding and raising horses, Collin also buys and takes care of every animal he can get his hands on. One of his oldest pets is a male calico Maine Coon named Paddington, who got dumped by his breeder for being male. All of Collin’s animals seem to hate everyone but him, and of course, Henry. Collin also bred and gifted Henry his own horse once he turned 15; a dapple grey Clydesdale named Mayhem, named after her fiery temper. Much like Paddington, she hates everyone but her owner.

Random Trivia: Collin has a very weak immune system and therefore always wears a scarf, no matter the season or weather. He also knows how to sword fight and taught Henry a few tricks before he left Scotland. He is mainly a very cheerful and optimistic guy but won’t hesitate to throw hands if you try to hurt those he loves.

Tags: #Banshees Collin, #Collin O’Jekyll

Art of Collin / Art of Collin and Paddington

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Douglas O’Jekyll

Douglas O’Jekyll is Henry’s “biological” father and Collin’s older brother, but dislikes his role as both father and brother. He is a policeman and known for his ruthlessness and hatred for those he deems have done wrong, and he also has a massive superiority complex. He has always disliked Collin greatly and the two of them have always had a rivalry between them, however, that rivalry got to it’s boiling point when Douglas and Collin were in an accident as kids, mainly caused by Collin unintentionally during a riding trip in the Highlands, which made Douglas earn some of his scars and bred the resentment between the two of them even more. Douglas has always been disapproving of Henry’s... Well, he has always been majorly disapproving with anything that comes to Henry. He dislikes Henry’s love for his uncle, his scientific interests, Henry’s friends, his wish to become a doctor... Douglas dislikes pretty much everything with Henry, which might have its grounds in Henry looking like and taking after a lot from his uncle. As Henry grows older, Douglas’ dislike for both him and Collin grows stronger, and Douglas starts getting outspoken of his hatred for Henry. He also gets physical every once in a while, which was one of the reasons for why Henry left Scotland completely despite Collin doing his best to protect him.

Random Trivia: His scars are either from the Accident, from his work as a policeman and also from many of Collin’s animals. He has a family pedant made out of emerald with a ‘J’ for Jekyll in it, as he is the first born and the heir of the family. He has always felt like Collin was the favourite with everything, both by their parents and by the fact that Douglas’ own son and wife likes Collin more than him, which just bred his resentment for his younger brother even more.

Tags: #Banshees Douglas, #Douglas O’Jekyll.

Digital art of Douglas / Traditional art of Douglas

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Abigail O’Jekyll (Née O’Haggins)

Abigail is Henry’s mother and Douglas’ wife. She comes from a long line of Scottish non-aristocratic nobles and she is the oldest out of six sisters, making her the main heir of the O’Haggins as she has no brothers. In her youth, she was very sought after by many bachelors, and met the O’Jekyll brothers during a ball hosted by her parents. She immediately took a liking to Collin and during the dances, they fell quite in love. However, as the first born, she was forced to marry Douglas instead due to pressuring from her parents who deemed Douglas more worthy than Collin, but she and Collin continued their relationship in secret. Both Douglas and Abigail knows that neither really loves the other all that much but they play their parts due to societal expectations, even if that doesn’t make Douglas any happier when the suspicion of Abigail’s and Collin’s relationships arise. Abigail is, too, not very supportive of Henry’s scientific interests due to all of its stigma and consequences that it can bear, not to mention that she is quite afraid of Douglas’ reactions to Henry’s continuous love for science, but she allows Henry to pursue non-harmful studies in secret to keep him happy, as his happiness is the most important thing for her. She does her best to be a good mother and succeeds in that, although everyone has their bad moments. Random Trivia: While Henry looks more like Douglas and Collin, Hyde takes after Abigail’s side of the family. She wears a locket with an ‘A’ on it with a picture of Collin and Henry inside, which needs a lock to be opened (mostly to keep Douglas from discovering the photo). While she is indifferent to most animals, she loves cats (that are well behaved, which rules out all of Collin’s cats) and she likes horses, although she will never, ever ride one ever again after she fell into a hay bail when Collin tried to get her to ride one of his horses. Tags: #Banshees Abigail, #Abigail O’Haggins.  Old Art of Abigail / Updated Art of Abigail

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——————Animals——————

Paddington

Paddington is one of Collin’s most beloved cats. He is a male, calico coated Maine Coon that got dumped by his breeder for being a male calico (therefore, sterile). He lived in the streets for a while until Collin found and adopted him, to which Paddington immediately became a little diva who hates everyone but Collin and Henry. He is the cause of some of Douglas’ scars and have torn more than one of Abigail’s dresses, but is as good as gold to Collin and Henry.

Tags: #Banshees Paddington

Art of Collin and Paddington / Written description of Paddington

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Mayhem

Mayhem is Henry’s own horse that Collin bred and helped Henry to raise. She is a dapple grey Clydesdale named after her fiery temper and knack for chaos, much like most animals that Collin has been responsible for. She is quite spoiled but very well behaved when needed to be, and she often thinks that she is the mother of those she likes, such as Henry, Paddington, Zosi and Collin. Once Henry left Scotland, she was one of the few things he took with him, and he still owns her to this day; allowing her to live her best, destruction-bringing life in London, striking terror in every stable boy in the entire city.

Tags: #Banshees Mayhem.

Written description of Mayhem

[vinyls-and-valentines]

Description: Tommy finally goes to visit an old friend after a long, long time

Warning(s): Brief Canon Character Death Mention

Tagging: @always-and-forever-a-killjoy, @wishiwasthemoon-tonight, @dagger-queen, @tasteofamnesia​

First time Tommy Chow Mein leaves his shop in years is after Better Living falls. The thing that gives it away isn't the earth's trepidations or the chatter carried over the airwaves- it's the sudden lack of the feeling of belonging in a place he'd spent day and night in for the past 15 years. It's like he'd been wearing a pair of tinted glasses the entire time and now that they have been removed the store that once was his entire world looked cold and bleak.

Threading like a ghost through the still shelves, he pushes the door open and steps through before pausing for a moment. It isn’t hesitation, that stops him in his tracks, but rather determination to meet again with an old friend, as he sets off into the Zones. Memories he never even realised to have forgotten slot back into place, bringing into focus the image of the life of one, so-called, Tommy Chow Mein, and the 40-something years that have passed before him.

The sun is barely hovering above the horizon when he reaches the radio station, shy rays of light seeping in through the cracks in the wooden walls of the shack covered in photos, post cards, pieces of art and poetry like a veritable scrapbook. Sitting behind a desk filled with audio equipment is a person with long greasy black hair and an american flag bandana tied around his head like a rocker straight out of the 90s. The pale light in contrast with deep shadows, give him an almost translucent glow, but maybe that isn’t a trick of lighting at all.

“Hey, Bruce Springsteen, seen my friend around here? He’s a real handful with absolutely incorrect opinions on which is the best Beastie Boys album, but has good intentions- heard he goes by some edgy like Doctor Death or something, these days.“ Tommy speaks up, leaning against the old doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest and a crooked smile playing on his lips.

“Well, i be damned if it isn’t the Zone’s resident entrepreneur-” Dr. Death Defying smiles back, turning his chair to face the other, “took you long enough to visit.“

“What can i say, economy is booming.“ the ex-salesperson rolls his eyes sarcastically, “How’s your charity work going?“

“Worked me to death.“ D chuckles to himself, waving a hand in the air that passes right through a bundle of low-hanging cables, “So...Tommy Chow Mein, huh?“

Tommy hums in agreement, “My father’s namesake. Didn’t want to forget him, i suppose.“

“He’s not you, though.“ the latter asks, though it comes out more like a statement, despite the uncertainty underlining it.

“Not anymore than i am a man, no.“ he quietly chuckles to himself, though it quickly dissipates in the cool morning air, “Sometimes it’s easier, to pretend though.“

“I know what you mean.“ the doctor nods solemnly before changing the subject, “Motorbaby helped free Bat City- can you believe? She’s a spitting image of her mother.“

“God. The squirt little thing hanging off your runners? She was clutching onto the Cobra’s leg like yesterday.“ the younger muses, thinking back to when ‘The Fabulous Killjoys’ had first rolled into his shop with the newest addition to their crew.

“Watch your language, Chow Mein, that’s my niece.“ D jokingly warns the other, pride underlining his words when he calls The Girl his niece, “It really feels like that was yesterday, though, doesn’t it?“

“Don’t go soft on me now, Dee.“ he teases and the doctor dismisses him with a wave of the hand like what does he know, “But it does- i swear we were in college just last year. Never thought you’d be the kind to take care of kids, though.“

“You, me and Gertie all thought so and yet look where we ended up.“ Dr. Death Defying sighs, silence falling over the two.

Somehow, despite neither of them being too fond of children or the complicated situations that raising them entails, the three of them became something of the Zones’ caretakers. They were lousy parents at best, but nonetheless they cared about every undergrad, tumbleweed, crash queen and motorbaby who dropped by their respective places. Perhaps, that’s why at the end of everything the only question weighing down on Tommy’s mind was, “So...what now?“

“Now we retire.“ Dr. D shrugs, like it’s a resolve he’s made peace with long before any of this was even put into motion, “Go on that vacation around the world you always wanted to go on.“

Tommy is nowhere as confident in that answer, but still he nods in agreement.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. I think i’d like that.“

[lightsonparkave]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LIGHTS ON PARK AVE! WE’RE OFFICIALLY A ONE-YEAR-OLD BABY (our birthday was on the 22nd). Join the celebrations by submitting a work! There’s one week left until Round 12 closes on August 31, and you have 80 prompts to choose from. There are no minimum work requirements or limit to how many works you can submit.

Not sure you can finish your work in time? Little messages are great presents too. What has the past year of Lights on Park Ave been like for you? Do you have a favorite prompt or round? A favorite LoPA work? Want to make a rec list of your favorites or wax poetic and show some love for a specific work and/or creator? Go for it. Let the Steve/Tony community know! The LoPA askbox is open or if you want to make your own Tumblr post or tweet, you can mention @lightsonparkave or tag #lightsonparkave. Whatever method you choose, I’ll make sure to share your message/post on here and Twitter.

Or maybe you’re not up to making anything this time. In that case, let’s take a walk down memory lane. Here are all 46 Lights on Park Ave works for previous rounds.

ART

3490 & 616

A comparison between 616 Civil War and universe 3490 where the war was averted by the marriage of Steve Rogers and Natasha Stark - @jarvisuanddumetoo​

ANY UNIVERSE

A framed portrait of a smiling Tony, drawn and signed by Steve - @hundredthousands

Steve steals his husband’s helmet and gives his king a springtime crown - @starksnack

AU

Tin soldier Steve and ballerina Tony dancing - @jarvisuanddumetoo

BATTLEWORLD

Steve watching Tony flying in on the battlefield - @thingexplainer

MCU

Old Steve holding flowers and seeing a blue butterfly after Tony’s death - @hundredthousands

So much of life feels like drowning... but when I’m with you my troubles recede like waves on the shore - @jarvisuanddumetoo

Stranger Things AU where Steve is the one who was experimented on in a lab and doesn’t understand pop culture and Tony is the guy with no powers who is still doing his best to fight these weird new aliens - @jarvisuanddumetoo

Steve and a dandelion that represents him weathering all his hardships over the years - @jarvisuanddumetoo

Tony on fire and Steve’s reaction - @jarvisuanddumetoo

Steve crying while holding Tony’s helmet after Tony’s funeral - @noririna

I wish you could see yourself the way I see you. You’re a hero. - @starksnack

ULTIMATES

Steve and Tony leaving marks on each other’s bodies that are only visible in the dark - @sirsapling Ults Steve and Tony are tragically bound to one another. They can always feel the trace of each others hands, it leaves an invisible mark they will cary with them till there is nothing left. Only a ghost of something lost in the chaos of the past.

FIC

1872

Say My Name - @citsiurtlanu Steve reminds Tony that there's more to him than the war his weapons were used in.

616

Snow Day - @captainneverever The Avengers think that Steve and Tony got engaged at the annual holiday party. It’s news to Steve and Tony.

Kiss me rough before you go - erde Tony is dying. His life is slipping away and Steve wants to be better than this, but he can't quite manage the feat. Tony's war has made a bitter man out of him, a lesser man.

Boys, boys, boys - Missy_dee811 (@viudanegraaa) (AU) Steve keeps putting off his oil change. Finally deciding to see the mechanic in town.

Without the rusty music of my machine - Missy_dee811 (@viudanegraaa)  Tony was lying on the hood of his car. He had taken off his leather jacket, gently folded it in half, and draped it across the windshield so he could rest his arms on the supple leather.

Muddy Waters - RossKL (@but-damn-is-he-lovable) (also on Tumblr) Tony bleeds. It's not real.

ANY

(A Dream is) A Wish Your Heart Makes - @helovedyou Cool evenings together and laughing free and all the nice things Tony never thought he’d get

Afternoon Off - Neverever (@captainneverever) Freedom is just another word for getting with your boyfriend on the downlow during a mission.

BULLET POINTS

Those We Were (For A While) - sadisticsparkle The blueprints hadn’t prepared Tony for the light bouncing off the battered metal, for the empty stare of its empty eye sockets or the dim circle in the middle of the chest. He traced its lines with his gaze, remembering every day he had spent hunched over the schematics picking its inner workings and every night he had spent sprawled under its pilot letting him take Tony apart.

MCU

border state - @areiton (also on Tumblr) They exist in the in between.

star crossed - @areiton (also on Tumblr) "The gods made the stars,” you whisper, a lifetime ago, a heartbeat ago, now, “and they were so bright, so beautiful and strong, that they ripped them in two. And half of ‘em fell to earth, and woke from the dust and walked as men.”

this is how - @areiton (also on Tumblr) This is how the world ends: Gaps in the code.

kiss me hard before you go - duckmoles​ & starxreactor (AU) “I love you, you know that?” Tony says just after popping another grape into Steve’s mouth. He watches as Steve’s jaw works, chewing and then swallowing. Steve smiles up at Tony with a bright, toothy grin. “I love you, too.” “I’m going to miss you,” Tony continues. “I’m going to call you everyday, okay? And—and, during the holidays I’ll show up at your house and we can—we can—sit together on the balcony, and—” The last day of summer, and it's time to hold on to what you might lose.

No Winter Lasts Forever - Fluffypanda (@ayapandagirl) Steve stopped, white breath clouding the air around him, to look at the little shoots of green and purple peeking out from the scant layer of snow left on the ground.

snippet of a post-apocalyptic A/B/O AU WIP - Fluffypanda (@ayapandagirl) Steve’s fingers traced the bite, a half-moon of red marks, from in front of the largest mirror he’d ever seen.

the first blush of morning - Fluffypanda (@ayapandagirl) (AU) The sun rises on the Atlantic ocean and Steve isn't alone - or is he?

Santa Paws - @heartsandmuses [I]f there were two things the public couldn’t get enough of, it was cute puppies and shirtless Captain America — and Tony, ever the philanthropist, decided to give the people exactly what they wanted, right on Christmas morning.

Philautia - @helovedyou Tony dies and Steve keeps on living. Well. He doesn’t die. Living might be a bit of a generous term

To the Victor - @helovedyou There are rainbows flying and people hugging and others ranting and raving, spittle flying, he thinks this. We have won this, this tiny victory.

Snippet of a WIP set post-IW - @ishipallthings The numbers keep climbing, for hours, in the aftermath.

Shuffle Off This Mortal Coil - jellybeanforest (@jellybeanforest-a-go-go) (also a Cap-IM Bingo 2020 round 1 fic) Tony hadn’t been a cruel man, but he had been a practical one. Or: In his twilight years, concerned about how his slow-aging possibly-immortal husband will adjust to his death, Tony builds an AI version of himself that he updates nightly, intending for it to keep Steve company after he’s gone. When the inevitable comes to pass, Steve doesn’t know what to make of the AI or whether its presence lessens his grief or makes it significantly worse. He’s leaning towards the latter.

Five Bells - @lazywriter7 (also on Tumblr) After returning the Stones, Steve takes a detour through time.

if we’re gonna heal, let it be glorious - @littlemissstark forgiveness. The salty air was intense enough to wake Steve up completely, snapping any left over drowsiness away. He was alert despite the sky still being a shade of navy that tapered into a purple at the sea’s horizon. The world was still dormant, but Steve couldn’t stay asleep – not when he woke to coldness on the right side of the bed and empty arms.

In My Hands and Gone Again - @nostalgicatsea (also on Tumblr) Memories were like fish, Tony had explained, or the tease of one. A flash of silver, and his hands would plunge down. Sometimes he would catch one; other times, it would dart out of reach. He wouldn’t be sure whether it had been real or just a trick of the light, after.

Leaving You Forward - @nostalgicatsea (AU) It would be easy, staying here like this with Tony. But Steve knew he couldn't—because he had never taken the easy way out and because he loved Tony.

i choose: me, you, us - @onlymorelove (also a Cap-IM Remix Madness 2020 fic) “We, uh. We’ve been together five years, and you’ve never— I’ve never let you see it. I told you I’d let you see it on our wedding night.” In which Tony and Steve marry, but Tony hasn't let Steve see the arc reactor—and the scars around it. Yet.

best of summers gone - rosycheeked (@lovelyisthedawn) Tony's favorite month has always been August.

when we all fall asleep - rosycheeked (@lovelyisthedawn) Tony wakes up and questions why Steve loves him. It's a surprisingly complex question for such a simple answer.

you anchor me (back down) - rosycheeked (@lovelyisthedawn) Steve still loves Tony, no matter what mask he’s wearing. He’ll never tell Tony that, though. He’s read enough books and watched enough movies to know that it only ends well when it’s just a story. Or, everyone needs an anchor sometimes, and Steve and Tony just happen to be each others’.

take me to the feeling - smalltonystark (@theotherwasdeath​) Steve looks gorgeous in the lights. He always looks stunning, but here, late at night, in the faint glow from the streetlamps underneath them and underneath the stars, he looks magnificent.

POETRY

A Toast to Cold, Hard Facts - @onlymorelove (also on Tumblr) The world is brutal and coarse, but...

Love was fading stars - @onlymorelove (also on AO3) Blackout poetry based on “Failing and Flying” by Jack Gilbert on top of an original print.

not married - @onlymorelove (also on Tumblr) Grief works in mysterious ways.

[ddaenggtan]

forever rain | knj | m

Being dead isn't anything exciting. Just a lot of walking the same halls of the same apartment day after day after day. Things change when the new tennant arrives, though. Kim Namjoon isn't anything you could have expected; not the way he's so careful and gentle with his plants because he breaks so many other things, not the way his friends joke that he's psychic because you refuse to let him get in the face one time, and certainly not the way he comes home after literal months spent moving things away from table edges for him and announces that he knows he's being haunted and he has some questions for you. You didn't know ghosts could fall in love, but he makes you feel alive again, like you're standing in the rain while thunder crashes around you. You should've known nothing good would come of falling in love with someone living, though. You should've known that heartbreak was the only way this could end...that the rain doesn't last forever. 

part of the Love Yourself Collab, please please please go check out the other fics. Everyone involved is so freaking talented and I have been vibrating out of my skin with how excited I’ve been to read all of these. 

pairing | kim namjoon x reader (unspecified gender, even!)

word count | 18.8k | cross posted to ao3

genre/warnings | ghost!reader, slight fluff, hard angst, literally the most angst ever it gets fluffy for a bit but litERALLY this is an angst fic, major character death, unprotected sex (idk what the etiquette for ghost sex is but you should still wrap it before you tap it fam), depictions of terminal illness (v mild), mentions of blood (several, but not graphic), major character death, allusions to violence, namjoon is a klutz whats new, depictions of terminal illness, major character death, i added that tag three times pls dont read this if you aren’t comf with mcd bc i literally tagged it three times so y’all would definitely see it, also probably have some tissues ready bc i cried while writing it so 

a/n | this is, to date, the saddest thing i have ever written in my entire fucking life. formal apologies to this joon bc oh my god you poor soul. i’m not kidding when i say you might cry, because i’m a big baby wuss and cried while writing the fucking outline when i first decided to write this for the collab so like......rip my own heart. i was really honored when i was approached about the LYA collab, bc like,,,,,mE? WHAT? and i was really nervous because i’ve never been part of any collabs in any fandom ever, and to have to do something like forever rain and mono as a whole justice, like,,,,,,, *screaming* y’know?? so i went on mono lockdown and just had the whole thing on repeat and was like “alright. what emotions does this make me feel.” and i eventually settled on the loneliness and isolation that he expresses, and feeling like no one understands what you’re going through, but that ultimately the album as a whole and forever rain give off this feeling of like. things get better, you’re not as alone as you feel, and you just gotta get through the bad stuff to find the good stuff. basically i just got really in my feels about it and was like ‘lets make myself cry ahahaha’ and,,,i dID i cried several times while planning and writing and editing bc im a Soft Bitch and don’t read much angst for that exact reason lmao. so buckle tf up y’all, this a helluva ride!! 

Of all the things you'd heard about death, all the different possibilities that existed in the world, the one thing you hadn't been prepared for was the boredom. You hadn't been prepared for any of it, really, too surprised by your own demise to plan at all, but even if you'd been able to, you don't think that this is what you would've counted on. An eternity - or however long ghosts existed - of being stuck in the same studio apartment you'd lived in when you died. The same walls, the same floor, the same view out the only window of the alley beside the building. It's boring and lonely and boring.

You've found more creative ways to entertain yourself as time passes. First, you started by figuring out just what being a ghost meant. You can't really communicate with anyone, haven't figured out how to make sure everything you say is heard, but you can manipulate objects pretty easily these days. The most difficult thing is becoming fully corporeal - completely visible and able to interact with things at the same time. It's hard enough to be visible, and you aren't really sure what the point of it would be when it would just scare whoever's living in your apartment; that's the last thing you want to do, run them off when they're the best source of amusement you've found.

You won't lie, you were a little offended when the first tenants moved in after you. It was difficult to watch your things get packed up and moved out by your friends, hard to lose all of the little things you loved in your apartment, like the shitty bead curtain you'd gotten as a gag gift or the photo collage of all of your loved ones. It's frustrating to not know how they're all doing these days; the one time you got brave enough to fuck with a laptop to check on them, you nearly broke the thing, and you haven't tried since. Still, it seemed cathartic for them to clear out your apartment, and it was a bittersweet sight, but you tried to focus on the positive side of it.

And then the couple moved in.

Not only did they fuck like rabbits - which is something you're going to stay pissed about, because there's no satisfaction to be had by you anymore, and it's the one thing you can think of that would be endlessly entertaining - but the couple was also grossly obnoxious. They had zero respect for your apartment , or you, and while one could argue that they didn't actually know you were there, it still made the sting of losing your entire life that much worse. You spent you don't know how many nights hovering awkwardly in the bathroom while they fucked, would constantly wander in to see them going at it on the kitchen counter at ass o'clock in the morning, and once you came in to see them tossing actual literal eggs at the ceiling like the absolute fucking weirdos they were.

So, naturally, you got a little mad. How dare they treat your apartment like that? They had no respect, but they were going to learn it real quick if they were going to live there with you, whether they wanted to or not.

They didn't last long after the first night of slamming cabinets and squealing hinges, but the thrown picture frame of their family was the conclusive end to their stay.

There have been others, since then. They haven't all been terrible, not like that first couple, but most of them have been sub-par roommates, and if you decided early on that if the rest of your immortal life is going to be locked in one shitty apartment with the absolute worst view in the city - because no one wants to see the drunken hookups and potential body dumps that take place in that alley - then you're at least going to share said apartment with someone nice to exist with.

You release a heavy sigh, staring at where your hand disappears through the shower wall. You've taken to testing the boundaries of the apartment again; you already know what the result will be, learned in the first few hours that you're stuck here, but you can't help trying when you get really bored. You just got distracted fucking around with the pipes in the meantime, because you're literally too bored to even focus. It's part of why you miss the last tenants so much, because you weren't ever really bored with them around.

A single mother and her two kids, crammed into a much-too-small apartment because it was all they could afford, and they were the light of your un-life. One a budding teenager that wrote angsty poetry who loved your trick of making things float around, and one an adorable toddler who adored playing peekaboo with you and coloring, and a mom that was too busy to notice anything out of the ordinary. It was like having a family again, made you feel useful when you could pull the meat out of the freezer for her to make dinner with or scratch a quick 'do your homework' on a steamy bathroom mirror. It was fun and it made being dead that much more bearable.

You really should've known that letting the toddler draw the two of you would be a bad idea, especially since there were several artistic liberties taken. It's not your fault the kid thought you'd look cool with fangs and bloody holes instead of eyes and claws that reached the floor. It was art, it was supposed to be a little different from reality. Still, you can't blame her for seeing the picture of her kid and 'my new best friend' and immediately calling the landlord. And a priest.

So, perhaps you gave the apartment a bit of a reputation. Maybe it's been a couple of months since the mom moved out and took your two buds with her. There might be the possibility that you've been the slightest bit salty about losing your friends and you've been extra-ghost-y whenever someone comes by to view the place in an attempt to make yourself feel a little better. Can you really be blamed for that? You just want a decent damn roommate for your life after death, and if that means putting the potentials through a little bit of a test, then so be it. You only feel a little bit bad for the landlord.

The creak of the front door pulls you from your thoughts, and the echo of a voice makes you narrow your eyes. Your first instinct is to slam some windows to scare off whoever's in your apartment, but you repress the urge. You'd die of boredom if you could die again, and whoever this is could provide a few hours' entertainment at the least.

You pop your head through the bathroom wall to see what's going on, and wow , who let an actual giant into your apartment? Fucking with the pipes could definitely wait for this guy.

"I know it's last minute, yeah," He says into the phone that's held carefully between his cheek and shoulder. His arms are loaded down with boxes and he's angled away from you just enough that you can't see his face, but he's tall and broad and wearing what looks like the world's comfiest sweater, and you want to badly to wrap yourself up in him. "But you know Joon needs the help. Don't pretend you aren't constantly willing to put off your thesis, I know for a fact that you went out to look at stationery with Tae last week, and everyone knows that's the most boring thing on the planet."

He's quiet, listening to the soft crackle of a voice from the other end. You slide through the wall completely, hovering as close as you dare to try and hear what the other person is saying. Tall, Broad, and Comfy scoffs.

"He can stare at one sheet of paper for at least ten minutes, Yoongi. Do I need to remind you of the time he spent an entire fucking hour debating which set of holiday scrapbook to buy because, and I quote, 'this one has the really nice rose pattern on it that would look great with the invitations, but, oh, look at the pinstripes in this one!'" His voice morphs into what you guess is an approximation of whoever Tae is, and you laugh at the high-pitched, nasally tone.

Tall and Broad spins, eyes narrowing as he looks around the room, and fuck , he's literally gorgeous. You've never seen someone more attractive in your life or your death and it would probably knock the wind out of you if you actually had breath. Comfy McGorgeous turns back around and sets the stack of boxes in the corner, continuing his tirade about Tae and stationery while simultaneously trying to talk Yoongi into coming, you assume, to help Joon move. You don't know who any of these people are, but they're already proving to be the most entertaining bunch that's ever graced these walls.

The door to your apartment flies open, making both you and Boyfriend Material whip your head around.

"Christ, Jin, you couldn't hold the fucking door open for us?" Someone grunts. Beauty Von Softness - or, Jin, as you should probably refer to him - winces and strides over to do just that as two more guys stagger in with a couch suspended between them. The second they're in the door they drop it to the ground and flop onto it, panting and sweaty.

"Listen, I was busy trying to get our resident hermit out of his cave to help us carry some of this shit," Jin spits back. "And you all know what it's like getting him out and about."

"Did you tell him that there's pizza after we're done? Because I've found that food is the best motivator for him," the guy closest to the door says. His hair is soft-looking and long and you wish you could pet it.

The other guy, the one who cursed Jin out and has the softest pink hair you've ever seen, laughs. "Jeongguk, you always think the best motivator is food."

"Well, yeah, because it is."

"For you, maybe. Other people require actual rewards."

"But food is a reward," Jeongguk mutters into the fabric of the couch. Jin tsks and smacks As Yet Unnamed on the back of the head.

"You're lucky I hung up on him when you bombarded your way into this place, or he'd definitely not come help us," Jin says as he leans against the back of the couch.

Unnamed starts to say something else but is cut off by someone running straight into the end of the couch. They all shoot to their feet, spouting apologies as the three of them maneuver the couch into the apartment properly.

"Sorry, sorry, Jimin distracted us from properly finishing our job," Jeongguk says quickly. He looks to the stranger with a small apologetic smile, and you're pretty sure if it were humanly possible, there would be actual literal stars in his eyes.

"Oh, it's okay, Jeonggukkie. I should've been looking where I was going." New Challenger walks straight towards where you stand, and you realize seconds before it's too late that he is not aware there is a massive stack of boxes in his path. Instinctively, you shove them to the side with your foot. Tall And Oblivious sets his boxes down without any trouble, none the wiser about any of it, and the three near the couch are too busy bickering in hushed whispers to have noticed you doing anything.

The newcomer straightens and turns to look at them all with a bright smile, and you think you might actually see The Light in the way his cheeks dimple. If you thought the other three were beautiful - which they are, no doubt about that, you're seriously wondering why the hell a bunch of supermodels are moving stuff into your apartment - then this guy is easily an Actual Fucking God or something. His brown hair is soft and shiny, his smile is warmer than the sun, and you're fairly positive that for the first time since you died, you feel goosebumps along your arms.

"Seriously, Namjoon, we should've realized you'd be up soon. You stay, start unpacking while we go get the rest of the furniture." Jimin shoves Jeongguk out the door while he's speaking, ignoring the taller's complaints, and Jin just shakes his head at the sight.

"Yoongi'll be here soon, he's finishing up another draft of his thesis. Hobi and Tae are stopping to get the pizzas and then they'll be here, too." Jin's voice is calmer than it was Jimin and Jeongguk, more soothing, and it makes you curious. Not only because of the tone change, but because you know Hobi, he owns the building and is the one who rented you the apartment when you first moved in. One of your favorite things to do is scare him when he comes by to make sure everything’s ready for a viewing.

"What? No, I said I was gonna pay for pizzas!" Namjoon looks distinctly more upset about this than someone should over not having to pay for pizza, at least in your mind, and it only makes you more curious.

"Yeah, but you also just moved out of your old apartment because it was too expensive, and had like an hour to load everything into a truck, so you're gonna let their trust fund asses pay for pizzas. We're seven adult men, and Guk could eat an entire horse and still be hungry. I'm not letting you pay for that."

Silence hangs in the apartment for a while before Namjoon gives a soft thanks to Jin. They share a smile before Jin makes his way back out. You follow each step, shadowing him all the way to the door before you're stopped. You lean your entire body forward, struggling against the invisible barrier keeping you inside, and the force of it nearly slams you back into the wall when you sag in defeat.

You aren't sure why you try anymore, but you know yourself well enough to admit that you're not going to stop until you can at least make it to the hallway.

Whatever you expected Namjoon to be like as a roommate, however unknowing he is about the situation, you don't think you could've guessed what he's actually like.

Out of the seven boys you saw the day he moved in, he's the only one living there. Not a complete surprise, considering it's a studio apartment, but you remember when there were nine people living there at one point, and there was barely room for anyone to breathe even if it had been pretty consistently amusing. Still, for one person, he's got a ton of stuff, and it's a shock it all fits. His bed is massive and comfortable and the best place to lay during the day because it's shoved between the brick half-wall and the large windows that take up one wall. The area's supposed to be for a dining table, you think, but you'd had your bed there, too, and the familiarity is nice.

His couch is small and old but manages to fit five of them, and it's a pleasantly jarring difference from the coffee table that looks like - and might actually be - an old steamer trunk. The exposed brick wall you love holds his mounted TV, a feat that took Jeongguk and Yoongi a solid hour and a half because they kept stripping the screws, and it's got one of those 8-cubicle bookshelf things under it that stores a frankly obnoxious amount of books.

He's got mugs for days, an adorable if odd collection of figurines and mini-statues scattered around the apartment, a strange obsession with some reclaimed wood shelf he's got hanging above his bed, but the absolute highlight of it all is The Wall.

It took them three hours to get it installed and set up the way he wanted, between the placements and the thick wooden shelf they’re perched on with supports and a small safety bar along the edge to keep them from falling off, but along the entire windowed wall and partway after it turns the corner runs a long shelf absolutely covered in plants. There are some elsewhere, like the one he keeps hanging from the bathroom ceiling and the couple in the kitchen, but most are on The Wall. Each one is in its own special pot, each a unique color with a name painted carefully along it, and most of them look half-dead. They're all distinct and unique from each other and they all surely have different needs and ideal conditions, but you'd never guess because Namjoon is so wholly committed to them all. He takes time every day to water them and prune them if he needs to, he checks on them constantly. He even reinforced the safety bar for the ones that sit beside his bed, so there was less chance he'd accidentally knock them around while sleeping.

It's fascinating, watching him tend to them. He's so careful and gentle, with absolute precision in every moment. He cares for his plants the way some people would care for a pet or a child. He doesn’t believe any of them are past caring for, slowly nurses all of them back to health and frequently turns up with more he’s saved from some department store. The most endearing thing, though, you decide as you sit curled among the haphazard blankets of his bed and watch, is the talking. It's every day, for as long as it takes him to care for the plants, and it's the cutest thing in the world. He's talking to some succulent as you just stare at him, filling the comfortable silence of the apartment with his soft, soothing voice, and you wish he could hear you when you talk back to him.

"I know they mean well, but at some point, I've just gotta live my own life, y'know? I can't study something just because everyone expects me to, and I can't pursue some dream just because people think I'd be good at it. I've gotta do what's right for me, don't I?" His tone is positive and bright, a contrast to the gloomy sky that casts shadows across the apartment.

You float over, hovering beside him to look at the plant he's lovingly stroking with his thumb. It's in a pretty periwinkle pot, with the name 'Mang' painted in careful but shaky black handwriting. It's not your favorite - that's the one in the bathroom that hangs over its light blue bowl, a quickly scrawled 'Koya' on the bottom - but it seems to be one of Namjoon's personal favorites based on how often he talks to it specifically.

"I think it's nice you do things for yourself," You tell him. He doesn't react, unable to hear you, but it's nice to hear your own voice after so long. You slide one of the plants - Chim, in a small yellow bowl - to the side and away from his elbow, and he doesn't notice. "You know yourself better than they do. You should trust yourself."

He keeps mumbling to Mang, something about everyone following their own dreams and doing what they need over what people want or expect, when you lay your hand over his.

Thunder cracks through the sky and the first raindrops hits the window as your non-existent skin hits his, and it's the most real thing you've felt in a long time. It's as if the scent of ozone and electricity is in the apartment itself, crackling in your hair and filling your nose with the overpowering scent of the sweet summer rain. You can almost feel the water hit your skin, the way the wind whips at your hair, and it's so intoxicating that you almost miss the sharp inhale from the man beside you.

He's not looking at his plant when you look up, but instead at the window in front of the two of you. You glance at it, and for a fraction of a second, you can see yourself in the reflection. The glimpse has you jerking towards it before you can stop yourself, desperate to know if something has changed. You haven't seen your reflection since you died, not in the mirror or the window or the toaster, and maybe, just maybe, it means something's changed.

Your hand stops against the glass of the window as you reach forward. You can't feel the cool of it under your palm, but it's no less a barrier for you as it would be for Namjoon. Something in you breaks as you watch the raindrops race each other to the ground.

"Ah, I forgot the forecast called for rain today," he mutters, eyes focused on the lightning that streaks by. He doesn't react when your fist slams against the glass, nor when you let out the scream that's been building in you for however long it's been since you died. You're so close, not even a hair's breadth from feeling something new yet familiar for the first time in so long, and you can't. You're still stuck in these four walls, unable to even reach the air outside.

You just want to feel the rain again.

You move dejectedly away from the window, ignoring the way Namjoon shivers as you pass. The temperature in the apartment has dropped considerably, you think, between the storm and your own mood. You can't tell, really. You haven't felt warm or cold or hungry or anything since you died that isn't the oppressive loneliness of life after death.

A dry sob tears itself from your throat and you hurry to hide in the bathroom as Namjoon turns to look around him. He mumbles something you can't hear and after a few minutes, he returns to tending to his plants, leaving you to your tear-less cries in peace.

It becomes quickly apparent to you that Namjoon should really have a roommate, if only to save him from himself. It takes a few weeks for you to realize this, but luckily he seems to narrate his life as he goes through it - which is overwhelmingly adorable to you, and you refuse to acknowledge that - and that means that you hear it every time he goes, "Ah, Namjoon, be more careful next time," or "Oh, shoot, that's not, fuck, I gotta buy more eggs now." It's painful to watch, even for you, and at some point, you just couldn't take it anymore. No one else is around to help, but someone needs to you, and clearly the universe means for you to be that someone.

It's a full-time job, protecting him from himself. You've saved countless mugs, pushing them farther away from the edges of counters and tables, and been just in time to shove bowls or vases an inch over so that his elbows glide harmlessly past them. It's almost exhausting, if you could get tired you would, but it's worth it, you think, as you catch the bookshelf under the TV as it tilts. You slide it gently to the floor, glad that Namjoon is distracted by how close he came to losing a toe to notice.

Because that's the other thing about this tree of a man: he's the most oblivious person you've ever fucking seen. It doesn't matter what it is you do, whether it's bouncing his spray bottle of water so it doesn't break on the hard floor or shake the counters so that the knife he's about to drop on his fucking hand falls the other way, he doesn't see a single fucking thing. You'd think he was blind if he wasn't so attentive to the way his plants grow. He notices nothing and you're glad for it because you really aren't sure what he would do if he knew you were going around haunting him just to keep him alive. You just want to help, want to keep the soft smile he wears more often around for as long as possible.

You don't dare to look into why you want that, too afraid of what you might find there.

It's also just fun to watch him and his friends, relaxed and unreserved. You never had many friends when you were alive, just a small handful that you really truly loved and whom you miss every day. Watching these seven boys fills you with nostalgia and a strange sense of joy because they really are some of the funniest people you've ever been around.

Like now, with four of them sprawled on the couch while Jeongguk and Hoseok make themselves comfortable leaning against the bookshelf under the TV - which has been bolted to the wall since it almost broke Namjoon's foot - and Namjoon watches them all from his bed since it's the only other place to sit. There are beer bottles scattered around and decorating the half-wall that separates the bed from the room proper, everyone is varying levels of drunk, and you're curled up close to Namjoon, leaning against the wall so you can stop him from knocking over any of the bottles nearby because you know him too well at this point.

"I'm just saying, I don't understand why they made him so over-powered in the new movies, because he's supposed to be some kid from Brooklyn! Giving him the high-tech suit essentially strips him of the friendly neighborhood persona that he's always relied on!" Jeongguk has been ranting for a while about the newest release in the Spiderman franchise - apparently, he's part of the actual Avengers now, which is a shock to you since the last thing you heard before you died was that the franchise was canceled until further notice or something.

"And I'm saying that if they didn't give him the suit then it would've made no sense how he was able to do those things," Yoongi responds. You're pretty sure he's just arguing to be contrary at this point, because you remember him telling Namjoon the other day that he prefers DC over Marvel.

"Garfield's Spiderman could do those things," you mutter, "And he didn't have a fancy suit."

"Okay, then how do you explain Andrew Garfield's version being able to do that stuff? He doesn't need the suit, he never has!" You preen at the way Jeongguk echoes your thoughts. "I'm telling you, I don't care how good the relationship with Holland's Spidey and Iron Man is, by giving him the tech and the advancements they did, they've undermined everything that Spiderman is supposed to be about."

"Jeongguk come off it, everyone knows Garfield's Spidey was just all bad writing. I mean, what kind of person can do all that stuff, realistically? He's the one that really needed the Stark suit." Taehyung's voice is slurred and quiet, definitely as drunk as the rest of them. 

"What-! No! I could do half of that without being bitten by a weird science spider!" Jin scoffs at Jeongguk's words. 

"Yeah, sure, Guk. The same way you can do that bottlecap challenge."

"Bottle cap challenge, and yeah, I could!" The youngest stands and you don't bother to hide your grimace. 

"This isn't going to end well, is it?" You ask. No one acknowledges you, too busy finding something Jeongguk can kick the cap off of as the boy readies himself. He's steady on his feet but his face is red and he can't seem to stop giggling. 

"If I do this, you gotta call me SpiderGuk from now on, okay?" He says. No one agrees, but it doesn't stop him from laughing again and doing a couple of roundhouse kicks to warm up. 

"Okay, okay, Joonie doesn't have any regular water bottles, but we found a screw-top beer in the fridge so ya gotta use that," Jimin says as he stumbles over with said bottle. Jeongguk just nods, an adorable focused expression on his face. Jimin holds the bottle in the air, and you can already tell his grip isn't tight enough to keep the bottle still when Jeongguk kicks it. 

The next ten seconds happen in slow-motion. Jeongguk's leg flies out to kick but his drunken body isn't able to handle the sudden shift in balance, and he slips. His foot hits the bottle slightly too low, and it goes flying out of Jimin's weak grip into the air. Everyone in the room watches as it hurtles straight towards Namjoon's face, and you react out of habit and instinct, catching it in one hand before you even realize you've moved. 

Everyone freezes, staring at where the bottle hovers in front of Namjoon's face. You're the only one able to see your fingers wrapped around it. A shock jolts through you at the realization of what you've done and you drop the bottle as if it burned you. Fuck, they were all going to freak, then Namjoon would move out and you'd be stuck alone once more. You should've just shoved him out of the way, what were you thinking, you're so fucking stupid-

"Dude," Hoseok mutters from where he's perched on the arm of the couch. "Holy shit, Joon, you're fucking telepathic." 

Yoongi rolls his eyes and smacks his chest. "Telekinetic, you fucking-"

"Holy shit, you've got fucking superpowers!" Jeongguk squeaks. "Do it again!"

Namjoon isn't even able to get a word out before there's a book flying at his face, and you panic. You can't catch it, too rushed, but you manage to deflect it so it hits the bed with a soft thump instead of braining Namjoon straight in the nose. 

"Woah, you really do have superpowers," Jimin whispers. He lobs a bottlecap at Namjoon, and you catch it in your palm before letting it drop onto the half-wall. 

"I don't have...what the fuck you guys," Namjoon insists. His eyes are as wide as saucers behind the thick glasses he has on. He looks freaked out and you want nothing more than to hug him. Your hand reaches out of its own accord, halfway closing the distance to stroke his hair before you catch yourself. 

"Hey, levitate your plants," Jin demands. Namjoon looks panicked as he glances at the wall of plants, and you heave a sigh. With any luck, they're so drunk that they'll remember this as a strange fever dream, but you can't just let them keep throwing things at him. You crawl over to the wall, avoiding Namjoon as you do, and grasp one of the plants tight. It's a white pot with red polka dots, a simple RJ on the side, and it's fucking heavy. You only get it a few inches off the shelf before you're forced to put it down.

"Oh my god, catch this!" Taehyung throws a coffee mug straight at Namjoon's head and you panic again. You catch it, and you've decided you're fucking sick of them throwing things at him, so you lob it back and dart across the room to bounce it safely to the counter before it can break. 

Everyone in the room stares at the mug and then looks back at Namjoon, who hasn't moved from his spot on the bed. 

"Oh my god, you're a superhero," Jeongguk whispers, awe in his eyes. 

"That's fucked up," Yoongi mutters, wincing when Hoseok elbows him. 

"Maybe we should get some sleep," Namjoon says quietly. The others look like they want to disagree with him, and you have no doubt they want to explore the newfound 'abilities' of their friend, but they still start gathering trash together before they head out. 

Namjoon lays awake for a long time that night, glasses folded and sitting atop the half-wall beside you. He's oblivious to the way you watch him, too lost in thought to feel the weight of your stare or the chill in the air. 

"I don't understand," He says after a while. "I really don't, but there's got to be a reason for it." He doesn't elaborate, merely turns over and evens his breathing out until he starts snoring, but you watch him for most of the night. He's fascinating, this human, and you wonder what makes him so different from the others you've met. 

He apparently decides to experiment. You've known Namjoon is intelligent since he first moved in and you saw his collectible encyclopedias, but you hadn't realized just what it would be like in actuality. 

It starts simple. He'll toss something in the air and let it clatter to the ground. Nothing big, just little things like pencils or bottlecaps, and not far, just enough that his eyes narrow as he apparently tries to use his telekinetic abilities to manipulate them. 

It slowly graduates from there. Next comes the way he stares at something across the room, hyper-focused on whatever it is until you notice and move it around for him. It's a guessing game, sometimes, trying to figure out just what he wants to move or how he wants to move it, but each time you're successful, he smiles so brightly, dimples on full display. Who wouldn't want to make him smile like that?

It's hit or miss, sometimes. You're only so strong, and while you've had a lot of practice, you still get tired. You lifted his bookshelf almost a full inch before blacking out. Next thing you knew, a couple of days had passed and Namjoon was staring at a coffee mug. That was a significantly less fun day; between losing time and having to catch coffee mug after coffee mug, you were exhausted and a little shaken. 

So when he stops staring at things for extended periods of time, when he starts to go back to reading and scrolling the internet and bingeing all the completed shows that Netflix and Amazon had to offer, you're grateful for it. He still occasionally tests it out; he's always subtle about it, choosing to stare quietly until you notice and make whatever it is float around for a minute. Once you wandered around looking for him - a feat in a studio apartment - and found him just sitting on the bathroom floor, staring at a shampoo bottle.

You'd like to say that you don't move things entirely because he wants you to. It's a good test of your abilities and how far you can push yourself until it becomes too much, and it's always nice to have actual evidence that you still exist - in some form, at least - in the world. The validation that comes from seeing him smile every time you lift a pencil or slide a coffee mug to the side, it's not for any reason but the satisfaction of knowing that you have some kind of existence. Some kind of impact on the world, even if you can't be seen and can't leave the apartment.

It's part of why you start moving things around yourself more often; you're hoping he just blames it on his overactive 'abilities' if he notices because you really aren't sure what he would think otherwise. But you also know for a fact that just seeing that you have some kind of sway over the world still - over the things inside this tiny apartment - makes you feel just that bit better about being dead.

Which is why it's such a fucking shock when the door to the apartment slams open one evening just for Namjoon to slam it closed again and announce into the air, "So I know you're haunting me, please don't try to deny it, I only want to talk to you."

You freeze where you are, halfway through the closet door from where you were reorganizing his clothes because they made no sense and you were bored. He's looking around the apartment, almost desperate in the way he's searching, and you can't bring yourself to move. It's obvious he can't see you, and you aren't even sure if he's being serious, but the way he huffs and clenches his jaw before moving into the kitchen tells you that he probably is.

You follow him, curious, and watch as he pulls a small package out of his bag and starts ripping it open. You float the remains of what looks like gift wrap over to the trashcan, because you know Namjoon will forget, before going back to watching him. He's only a little careful as he cracks something in his hands and then slaps it onto the fridge, and you peek around him to see that it's some kind of words or something. There’s a wide variety, with no clear theme to them, as well as at least one of each letter of the alphabet. It's then you remember the throwaway comment Yoongi made during that night - "You need, like, poetry stuff, like those magnets that go on the fridge that people write that deep shit with, y'know? I'm gonna buy you one," - and realize that he'd followed through on his vow. 

"Alright," Namjoon says, leaning against his kitchen counter and staring at the magnets. "First and foremost, am I really being haunted or is this some kind of hallucination?" His gaze never falters, doesn’t ever drift from the magnetic words now spread across his fridge doors. It takes several minutes to build up the energy and the courage to move closer to the fridge.

You don't look at him as you move the words around, but you can hear the sharp intake of breath. That's likely all the confirmation that he needs, but still you clear a spot and let the words ' I am here ' sit where he can see them clearly. You wrinkle your nose, disliking how formal it sounds, but you have to make do, you suppose.

"Okay," Namjoon breathes. "Okay, prove it. My brain could work this into a hallucination. How do I know you're really a ghost?"

"Seriously?" You huff. "What the fuck am I supposed to do that wouldn't work into a hallucination, dude?"

He gets fidgety in the few minutes that you spend wondering how the fuck you're going to prove that you're a real actual ghost to someone who clearly doesn't believe in them. His foot taps at the floor and he scratches at his hand, which only makes you want to wrap your own hands around his until he stops, much like your best friend used to lay her legs across your lap to get you to stop shaking your knee.

The realization comes in a flash, and you're moving letters around before you can stop yourself.

Face book, Park Jihyo, best friend.

Namjoon stares at it for a long while before he brings his phone out of his pocket and begins to tap at the screen. You don't get too close; you've got a history with shorting out electronics, and you aren't sure you want to know what your best friend is up to without you there with her.

"Okay," Namjoon says. "Okay, I've never seen her before, so I don't think my brain could work her into a hallucination. Okay. Alright. I'm being haunted. This is fine."

"Calm down, I'm haunting the apartment, not you." He doesn't react to your words, as usual, but it still makes you feel the slightest bit better. He stares at his phone for a little longer, and the curiosity burns under your skin, but you resist. You know from experience that if you try to get too close, his phone will stop working. Just like TV, the stereo, the laptops, everything. You've had enough experience with that kind of thing to know what will happen.

"Okay, Casper," Namjoon huffs out after several minutes of waiting. He looks up and his eyes dart around the apartment, and you wonder if he's just nervous or if he's trying to spot you. "Where are you right now? Can you make yourself visible? I mean, I know you're a ghost, but it feels rude not talking to you to your face."

You huff a laugh but reach for a coffee cup. You know you can't just make yourself visible at will; you've only done it a couple of times, to your knowledge, and none of them have been on purpose. It's even more difficult to make yourself corporeal and physical, harder than just manipulating objects, but you did it once. Back when the single mom still lived here, when her toddler was falling and you had no way to cushion the fall except with your own body; you still aren't sure how it happened, but you remember being able to feel the floor against your back and the warmth of the baby on top of you for a split second before you were gone again. You won't forget that any time soon.

You float the mug towards where you stand, holding it in front of your face long enough that when you pull it away, Namjoon's eyes don't follow it. It's a strange feeling; you know he can't see you, can tell by the way his brow furrows and his eyes slide around the space, but it feels like he's looking straight at you. It feels like you're being seen for the first time since you died.

"So, where are you from, Casper?" His tone is forcibly conversational, as if he's trying his best to keep himself calm. You roll your eyes and move the magnets to show ' here ' and he nods. "You're not gonna try to possess me, or kill me, or run me off, are you? No offense or anything. I figure you would've already at this point, but...cover my bases."

No. Am nice. I think.

"You think? You don't know if you're a nice ghost?"

Does anyone truly know if they are nice? You frown, trying to figure out how to say what you want to say with the limited words available. I can only try. It's still not perfect; there's more that you want to say, more that you want to be heard, but this has to do for now.

"I can accept that. Alright. Just talking to a ghost in my kitchen. Okay. This is totally normal." He rubs a hand over his face, and you're a little impressed. Everyone else that's lived here has freaked when presented with the knowledge that you're a ghost. Namjoon looks very much like his world is exploding, but he doesn't have the same fear and apprehension in his eyes. He's certainly coping better than the single mom.

"Are you the only ghost? Here, I mean, are you the only ghost here?" He breathes a sigh of relief at your 'yes.’ "Can you see other ghosts? Do you know any other ghosts?" The 'don't know, no' that you move around on your fridge seems to unsettle him a little, but there's a curiosity burning behind it that makes your skin tingle.

Can't leave, is what you say next, cutting off whatever question he was about to ask.

"You can't leave at all? The building, or the apartment?"

The second.

"Wow. You're really stuck here?" He looks around the apartment as if seeing it for the first time and sucks in a breath. "What do you do all day?"

Watch. He cocks a brow. You are... You hesitate. The word you need isn't there, everything that comes to you is too poetic or corny for you to actually say, but the weight of his eyes is heavy on your hands. Fun is what you settle on, but it's not right either. 'Interesting' isn't there, nor is 'fascinating' or 'lovely,' and you don't want to scare him off by telling him that part of the reason you watch him so much is that he's so full of life that you feel less dead when he's around.

He laughs at your words though and shakes his head ever so slightly. "Alright, well, I'm gonna shower, so just, don't...watch that?" You squawk at the insinuation that you would, quickly rearranging the letters to spell ' privacy' and making a large angry face out of the rest of the words. He's already turned away, though, and it makes you angrier.

You don't want him thinking that you would peep at him. You already make sure that you're facing the windows when he finishes showering, you've been determined to not be creepy since the day he moved in, and to have him think otherwise is like a slap in the face. You slam the mug against the counter and he startles, turning to gape at it. You carry it to where your words and make-do emoji sit waiting for him to notice them.

"Okay," He says quickly. "Okay, privacy, yeah, got it. You respect my privacy. Appreciated."

"How fucking rude," You mutter as you set the mug back down. You don't adjust the magnets as he disappears into the bathroom. You want him to see them, want him to be reminded of the fact that being dead doesn't mean you don't have basic decency.

You can't get him to shut up now that he knows you're there. He still forgets sometimes, mostly when he's talking to his plants or narrating the way he carefully constructs some origami creation, but more often than not, he's talking to thin air. He spends a lot of time perched on his counter, watching you move magnets around his fridge through the thick lenses of his glasses before he spouts off some other question for you to answer. 

He covers the basics first: how old you were when you died, when your birthday is, your favorite color, what you were studying in school, and of course your name, though he insists on calling you Casper. You aren't sure why but you also don't get a chance to question it, because he hits you with more and more questions every day. Sometimes you don't answer because you can't, too limited by the poetry magnets to be able to really converse; sometimes you just don't have the energy to move the magnets around, but those are days are rare. The only times you use the tired magnet are when you find your limbs too heavy to move, weighed down with the memories of what it meant to be alive. 

Those are the bad days, but his questions make them just a little easier.

"How do you move around? Do you just float everywhere?" Walking, but different. No weight. Soft.

"How are you able to manipulate things in my world? Are they different from things in your world?" Focus. Takes time. Same.

"Do you sleep at all? Do ghosts dream?" No sleep. Just existing.

"You don't eat, do you? Should I be stocking up on snacks for you?" No. Save your sustenance. "What was the last thing you ate?" Don't remember. "Huh. I hope it was something good." Same.

"Were you ever in a relationship?" Once. A long time before. "Do you miss them?" Not anymore.

"What did you do while you were alive?" School. "Oh, really? Do you remember what you studied?" Boring. Important then, but it made me forget to live. Not important now. Namjoon goes quiet for a long moment after this one, staring out the window at something you can't see. He nods but doesn't ask any more questions, and he reads for the rest of the night.

It only takes a couple of weeks for both you and Namjoon to get tired of standing in his kitchen fucking around on the fridge. His legs get tired and he gets distracted by his thoughts, and you can barely keep up with the rapid-fire questions you get.

So Namjoon buys one of those cheap cookie sheets with the slightest lip at the edge and dumps the magnets on that. He leaves it on the coffee table, usually, there for you to pick up if he asks something but out of the way for when he stretches out to nap lazily in the afternoon sun.

You like the cookie sheet more than the fridge. He watches you as you work out your responses, can see the way you start to move one word before moving another instead; it makes it feel more like a conversation.

It becomes a favorite pass-time of Namjoon's, curling on the couch and putting some sort of music on in the background and just talking to you. A lot of nights his questions stop with a lingering silence from one or both of you; yours because you don't have the ability to share the words running rampant through your mind, and his for reasons still unknown to you. Still, you've missed it. You've missed talking to someone, being heard when you speak, having someone ask how you are at the end of the day.

It's the little things.

"You said you can't leave, right, Casper?" Namjoon's curled up on his couch, tucked into the arm with a blanket thrown over his lap, a mug of something warm in his hands to combat the chill of the season, and some R&B track playing lightly from his phone. You knock your fist against the cookie once - a sign for yes that you'd both agreed on. "So, are you just always here then? You don't go anywhere else?"

"Fuck, how do I explain this?" You mutter. You stare at the magnets in front of you for a long time before rearranging them. Not always. Tired sometimes, disappear.

"Disappear?" He reads. "What do you mean? You just, what, stop existing?"

Don't know, you respond. Only happens when tired. When used too much of me. He hums an acknowledgment, eyes focused on where the cookie sheet sits on the couch between you. You? What entertains you?

"Everything," he answers without hesitation. "I'm trying to work through my stack of books I want to read and finish all the shows I'm interested in, but the guys would have my head if I didn't get out and do things like a normal person."

That's where you leave to?

"Yeah." He sets his mug - now empty - on the coffee table and settles into the blankets. He looks cozy and soft and you would wrap yourself up with him if you could. "I take a lot of walks, and bike rides. I like to see the river, the trees, all the animals that live there. The beach is always fun, I get to see all the crabs and whatnot that wander in and out of the ocean."

"I wish I could go with you," you whisper.

Fun is what you spell on your sheet.

"I guess," he mutters. "It's enjoyable, at least. I'll bring you some souvenirs, or pictures next time."

You let the sheet settle on the couch as he turns the TV on, setting up a drama that he's on recently. He doesn't say anything else for a few hours, waits until the sound of rain hits the windows and stifles the apartment in an otherworldly haze.

"How long have you been dead?" His voice lingers in the air. You've been expecting these questions, and you're honestly impressed he's held them back for as long as he has. That angsty teen hadn't hesitated a single second to start asking you questions.

A while. Years. I think .

"Do you ever get tired of being a ghost?" There's something in his voice that you can't place, something that tells you this is more than just his usual morbid curiosity. Every part of your soul - whatever's left of it, anyway - is screaming at you to lie to him, to tell him that no, being a ghost is great. You've never wished he could hear you more than this moment, when all you want to is wrap your arms around him and ask him why he looks so much older than he is.

Sometimes, you tell him. It is lonely here, and boring. Fun to be unseen, but unable to do much more.

He nods like that makes all the sense in the world to him, and he brings the blanket up around his shoulders. "Do you ever miss your friends, or your family?"

Would you not? He huffs out an unamused chuckle, nodding again.

"Yeah," He says softly. "Yeah, I would. Do you want me to help you check on them? See what they're up to?" The single knock that echoes in the room is deafening to you, filled with a hope that you haven't felt in years. You've never let yourself think about them for long; if you did, you don't think you'd be able to come back from whatever that place is that you disappear to when things become Too Much.

Namjoon pulls his phone closer and starts fiddling with it. He doesn't hesitate when he types in your name, and you feel an emotional blush fill you when you see that he doesn't even have to finish typing for your profile to pop up. You glance at him, the way his brows are furrowed behind his glasses and his tongue pokes into his cheek just a little while he concentrates, and you wonder how many times he's looked at the pictures of you when you were alive. How many times has he scrolled through, reading the words people shared after you were gone, scrolling through the grief and loss to get to the words you posted yourself, the little snippets of your daily life that you would give anything to be able to relive?

"Do I still look like that?" You wonder aloud. As expected, he doesn't react, just continues tapping at his phone.

You two spend the rest of the night like that, each curled at opposite ends of the couch while Namjoon slowly looks up your friends and family and updates you on each of them. Jihyo got married, to someone she'd gone on a date with a few weeks before you passed, and she's apparently trying to start having kids; Your mother and father aren't very active, but they never were. They both share pictures of you when you were a baby each year on your birthday, and more recent photos of you on the anniversary. They have a dog now. It's cute. You wonder if it helps them cope with the loss.

Your other friends are doing well, too; most of them are still figuring out their lives, but it seems like all of them are settling in their skin and finding comfort in who they are. They're out there, navigating the world and doing things they enjoy, meeting new friends and making new memories.

You stand by the window for a long time, cookie sheet of magnetized words pressed against your chest as if you can feel the cool of the metal against your skin, and watch rain drip down the panes as you imagine what your life could have been.

You can always hear Namjoon before you see him. He whistles as he walks down the sidewalk, his small way of letting you know he's on his way back from wherever he's gone that day, and today isn't an exception. Relief sags through you and you move away from the windows, let your fingers trail against the ceramic of the newest succulent he'd bought, and head towards the kitchen. The kettle is turned on and heating a few moments later while you pull a mug down from your cabinet and set it carefully on the counter where Namjoon will see it.

It's a regular routine, for the two of you. He heads out, usually in the early morning after turning on some music or a show for you, and when he comes back, you make sure there's hot water for his tea or cocoa or whatever he feels like drinking that day. The sound of his whistling gets louder the closer he gets, a simple way to let you know he's safe and he's home. You glance through the cabinets and quickly make a note on the fridge that he needs to buy more of his special tea blend soon.

The lock turns and you smile, waiting patiently as Namjoon saunters into the apartment. He sets something down on the kitchen counter just as the kettle starts to scream, and you wait while he pours the water and gets it ready.

"The cherry blossoms bloomed," He says. You grin. "They look great. I got some really nice pictures while I was there, I'll show you tonight. I was thinking we could try to finish Voltron tonight if you want. We'll have to go back an episode though, I think I fell asleep during the last one." You knock once against the counter beside you, and he turns with a wide grin to glance at the spot where you stand.

It's ridiculous for your heart to speed up in your chest, for the hair on the back of your neck to rise, for breath to catch in your throat; you don't have a heartbeat, you don't have breath, you're a shadow of the person you used to be, and yet...

And yet, seeing his dimpled smile focused so naturally on where you are, as if it's just second-nature, is like a breath of fresh air after years underwater. It smells like flowers, like dirt and earth and a new beginning. It feels like you're alive again, and you don't want it to end, but too soon he's turning away to finish steeping the tea. Something lingers in the air for a moment after but it's gone too soon for you to place it.

You both settle on the couch, Namjoon tucking whatever he brought home with him under his arm, between his body and the arm of his ratty old couch. Your cookie sheet is in its place on the coffee table, unneeded at the moment. You can't help the glare that you give it; the things you would give to be able to just speak and be heard are endless.

It rattles a little and you look away.

Namjoon is quiet as the show plays. He doesn't react when you move to turn the oven on, but he does laugh quietly and thank you for it when he goes to put his dinner in. He eats and you don't bother him, though the way he keeps his little package hidden away makes curiosity burn through you. Eventually, once he's eaten and washed his dishes and laughed at the way you rubbed them dry before setting them carefully in their places, he settles back into his blankets and turns on the music he loves so much.

He's got a book balanced in his hands and your cookie sheet rests on the coffee table, and you both just sit like that for a long while, enjoying existing.

"You remember your life, right Casper?" You thump lazily against the wall in response, eyes drawn from where you watch the gloomy sky slowly get lighter with the dawn. He isn't looking at his book anymore; he probably hasn't been for a while, based on the way the pages have migrated around his thumb, too busy staring at the wall across from him. "Do you remember your death?"

You hesitate. You've tiptoed around the subject before. He's always been too afraid to ask directly, and it's too painful for you to offer it freely. You thump against the wall once more, and he nods like he already knew the answer.

"Are they very different?" His glasses are falling down his nose and your fingers itch to push them up. Instead, you reach for your cookie sheet. He makes a sound in the back of his throat when he sees it moving, reaching under him for his package. "I forgot, I got you this. Thought it might be easier."

He sets it down and you slide the contents out of the wrapping easily. Inside is a small dry-erase board, complete with markers and eraser, small things that should be easy for you to manipulate. You beam at him; he can't see it, but you think he might be able to feel it because he perks up and smiles a little.

"You don't have to answer," He adds. "I was just curious to know if being dead is really as different as everyone makes it out to be." You nod and thump once against the board before you uncap a marker and start writing.

It's a bizarre feeling, after so long. The muscles in your hand don't ache, no matter how much you write, and you can't feel the smooth surface of the board under your fingers or the weight of the marker in your palm, but it glides against it cleanly and leaves a thick black streak behind.

It takes you a minute to write everything out, get it worded how you want. Namjoon doesn't interrupt you, just watches the marker move against the board and smiles every time you go to erase something that isn't right. Eventually you show it to him.

There are similarities. I'm still me, I still enjoy TV and music and books. Things are duller now, like there's a filter over them, and it's harder to do things. Like when you're in water, or mud, like that. Resistance.

"Oh," Namjoon replies, "That's not what I expected. It makes sense though I guess." His hand moves against his chest, rubbing lightly as he looks over your words again. "Is there anything you actually like about being a ghost?"

"Well, being invisible is pretty cool," You say, writing the words as you do. "And it's actually really fun being able to walk through walls and stuff, even if I can't go anywhere outside of the apartment."

"I'm sorry you're stuck here," Namjoon says. You startle a little, looking up at him. You think he actually heard you for a split second, but his eyes are locked on where you're writing your words out on the dry erase board.

"Yeah, me too," You tell him. He stares at the board for a long moment, chewing nervously on his bottom lip as he does. "Ask what you want to ask, Joon," You write as you say it.

"How did you die?" He blurts. You sigh and he jumps a little, looking fully at where you sit. You're shocked; you know that sometimes little noises cross over, like when Jin heard you laughing, but it's still rare. You can't figure out how it works, but you want to.

You write for a long time, letters small so they fit on the board. The whole thing is crowded together, looks like one long string of letters instead of the story it is.

There's a lot of violence in this neighborhood. You probably know that by now. People are always getting robbed or mugged or something around here. Someone tried to break into my apartment by banging the door down. It didn't work, luckily, but I got really paranoid afterwards. One night I was cooking, and someone's door slammed really hard. I spilled the water I was boiling, slipped. Blacked out after a while, and when I came to, there were police everywhere. I guess I hit my head harder than I thought, because they carted me away, and I couldn’t follow.

"I'm sorry," Namjoon says softly. "You deserved more time."

Yeah. The universe had a different plan, I guess. He smiles at that, and it settles the anxiety thrumming under your skin. Wouldn't have met you, so I guess that's a bonus. He rolls his eyes at you but he laughs softly, so you consider it a win. You doodle on the board then, simple little designs that don't mean anything beyond being able to see your effect on the world.

Namjoon sucks in a breath beside you and you look up at him. He's always been good about looking towards where you are, doing his best to make eye contact with someone he can't see, but he still always tends to look through you.

Not this time.

This time, electricity sings through the air as your eyes meet his. You don't know how, but you know he can see you. His eyes roam over you, taking in the crumpled sweater you were wearing with the stain you like to think is pasta sauce on the arm, the hair you can't ever really tame, the way you sit cross-legged on his old thread-bare couch with a dry erase board in your hands.

Neither of you moves. He looks torn between fear and amazement, every emotion in between flitting quickly over his features, and you're terrified that if you move, whatever spell that's been cast will fade. It had been so long since you talked to anyone when Namjoon slammed those magnets on the fridge, and the conversation has been a reprieve, but to be seen for the first time in years...

It's invigorating.

Watching Namjoon just look at you is something you won't ever forget, not for as long as you exist in the world. He looks at you like he's memorizing every detail, every hair and wrinkle and pore, and just knowing that he can see you fills you with something new.

"Namjoon...?" You call hesitantly. His eyes fall on your lips.

"Again," He says. Your brows must furrow, maybe you frown, you don't know because it's been so long since you've needed to pay attention to your facial expressions, but he notices your confusion. "Will you say something again?"

Breath you don't have catches in your throat, wraps itself around a heart that doesn't beat, but you smile a little. "I'm glad I met you."

Namjoon smiles. It's big and blinding and knocks everything out of you except for that emotion that's been sitting in your chest since the first time you watched him talk to his plants. You lean forward, and you can tell the exact moment you disappear, because his smile falls and his eyes unfocus. A whimper leaves your throat, but he doesn't react, and that may be the most painful thing that's ever happened to you.

"Can I feel you?" His voice is hushed but the words reverberate in your head. His eyes dart around, looking for any glimpse of you, and your hand trembles as you reach out.

Goosebumps raise on his cheek where your hand touches him and his breath stops for a moment, but he smiles again and leans into the chill. You bring your other hand up to cup his other cheek, your dry erase board lying forgotten on the ground, and Namjoon's eyes flutter closed.

"I think I might love you," You say quietly just before you press your lips to his. He doesn't react to your words, but he lets out a soft sigh at your kiss. Thunder cracks through the apartment, a torrent of rain unleashed on the windows, but you don't move.

The two of you sit like that for hours, until he starts shivering and his nose turns red, like it does when he forgets his scarf on the cold days, and his breath puffs in the air. When you finally pull away from him, he smiles, and the blush on his cheeks has nothing to do with the cold air that makes up your form.

"Yeah," He says softly, voice nearly drowned out by the storm raging outside. "Yeah, I can feel you."

If you expected things to change much after that, you were wrong. At least a little. Namjoon still disappears to go on his walks, you still start the kettle the second his whistles drift up to the apartment. He still asks you a million questions, but they're more normal now. Your favorite music, color, what you wished you'd done with your life, if you've been able to corporealize again recently, what you wanted to watch that night.

"Come on, Casper," Namjoon groans. "I promise you can do it." You huff and he smiles, clearly having heard it. You're tempted to just disappear somewhere, rattle some pipes in the bathroom or the kitchen so he thinks you're in there and leaves you alone, but he smiles at you again and you're weak for that dimple.

You grip the watering can again, doing your best to lift it and manipulate it the way you need to. It's heavy, and something about the metal makes your skin itch, but the more you struggle the more you're able to pour the slightest bit of water where RJ - a giant plant that you don't even know the name of - sits in the corner of the room across from Namjoon's bed. It's the twentieth-something time you've tried this today, and you're ten seconds from just giving up completely, but you can tell this is important to Namjoon.

He's been talking all week, between the late nights where you lay over his blanket-wrapped form and the mornings where he ducks out with a soft goodbye. He's told you everything about his plants that you think he possibly could, teaching you about them and showing you how to care for them. It's interesting, you won't lie, and it's always fun to see him light up when you recall something he's told you, but you're exhausted and every part of you is shaky, and you're more than a little worried of what might happen if you push too far again.

Still, Joon hasn't looked great lately, like he might be getting the flu, and you want to be able to help him with all the things he does in the house. You've already started doing the dishes and folding laundry, since those were the two things he was the absolute worst at, but you feel like you should be doing more.

"Good job, baby, I'm proud of you!" You grunt and let the watering can fall back to the ground with a loud thump that almost definitely has the downstairs neighbors cursing Namjoon's name. "See, and now we're done for the day! C'mon, we can put on Sens8 and cuddle."

He's on the couch before you can stop him, wrapping himself in blankets except for one lone hand that sticks out, expectant. You roll your eyes and sit beside him, close enough that if you had a body you would be cuddling instead of just sitting awkwardly beside him.

You know that this is just going to make your hand all pink and gross, right?

He just smiles when the board flips around to reveal itself and wiggles his fingers. "It's worth it," He says. "I'd rather be pink and gross than never get to hold your hand at all."

You can't even feel my hand, Joon, there's literally no point to this. He huffs and wraps his hand around the marker in your hand, shivering at the chill that runs through him when he does. He grins and gestures down to where the tips of his fingers are already turning red.

"Clearly I can feel it, Casper."

You're glad he can't see you, that you don't have a heart that beats or blood that runs, because if you did, your face would no doubt be red. You have no doubts that Namjoon would tease you about it.

He's quiet as you both watch the show; he makes the odd comment here or there, but his mood seems to have calmed some. When he first got back from whatever place he visited that day, he'd been anxious and jumpy and entirely too on edge.

"Hey, Casper?" He asks quietly. You slide a hand against his cheek to let him know you're there, and he leans into the chill again. "What do you think about me?"

You don't move for several seconds, hand still poised around his cheek.

"Like, your feelings. What are they? Will you tell me?" You knock once on the wall behind the couch. Your hand stays poised over your board for long enough that Namjoon starts to get a little restless. Words refuse to come to you. Every time you start to think you have a way to describe to him what he means to you, they disappear as quick as fog on a summer's afternoon. Frustrated, you let the board fall to the couch and scrawl a quick 'hold on' so he knows you aren't just ignoring him.

It's been weeks since you've seen what you're looking for, your cookie sheet with the word magnets having been basically forgotten in lieu of the more personal and convenient dry-erase board, but right now you know that if words won't come to you, you'll have to go to them.

You finally find it, shoved under several encyclopedias and magazines, and the noise you make is so triumphant that even Namjoon hears it. You curl back up beside him, careful to make sure the blanket is wrapped tight around him, and make sure he can see the words as you move them. It still takes a long time, constantly changing and rearranging and stacking to make sure it conveys the things you need it to convey.

You are like music. A symphony of summer days and peach skies with soft rain. You are a storm in the moonlight. I'm not lonely when I have you pouring around me. You make me feel alive again.

Namjoon is silent for a long time, and you wonder if you've gone too far. It's more poetic than you'd like, too frilly and fancy and emotional than you usually are, but they're the only words you have.

After too long, he exhales. It's heavy and deep and it feels like he's trying to expel more than just air from his body.

"You make me feel alive, too," is all he says, whispered into the softness of his blanket in a voice too small for his long limbs. He shivers, and you hear him choke down a cough, and then he disappears into the bathroom for a long time. When he comes back out, he doesn't say anything, just slides into the mass of blankets on his bed and lays his arm out across the mattress. You spread out across from him, watching the rise and fall of his chest as he looks through you and out the window where the rain is letting up.

"Looks like the rainy season is gonna last longer than everyone thought." You slide your hands around one of his large ones and just hold them like that. His eyes sink closed and something like relief stands on his face for a moment before it's gone, swept away by the peace of sleep.

You wonder what it is that he sees when he looks out the window. If it's the plain brick wall and windows of the building next door, or something more.

You aren't sure you want to know.

Namjoon's flu only seems to get worse. He leaves early in the mornings, as if he thinks you might not notice the way he coughs into his scarf just because the sun hasn't risen fully yet. He stays gone most of the days, and even when he apologizes quietly during the twilight when he slinks back in to the sound of the kettle screeching on the stove and his tea already waiting to be steeped, he still doesn't stop.

You've taken to playing blues while he's gone, mostly the old school stuff, digging out the vintage record player he has buried in the closet and setting it up on the coffee table. It’s the only technology you can use without shorting it out. You don’t know why, but it makes you grateful the record collection Namjoon keeps tucked away inside the coffee table that you’ve learned is in fact an actual steamer trunk that he salvaged and restored himself.

The music fills the apartment, distracts you from the oppressive weight of his absence. He knows you wait at the window for him, you told him that back when the two of you were first getting to know each other.

You're so fragile, you had told him. He had laughed at you, quiet and fond, and waited for you to explain further. You're so full of life and breath and possibility, and the world is so big and so dangerous. I'm scared you won't come back.

"Of course I'm going to come back," he told you. You didn't even need to tell him that you're afraid of what being alone might do to you, now that you're so used to his presence. You're being heard again, sometimes even seen, and you don't know if you can go back to the stagnant depression of solitude. "I'll always come back to you."

That was the first time you thought you might love Namjoon. The feeling has only gotten stronger, and now that you wait at the window with your eyes focused on that tiny section of sidewalk you can see at the end of the alley, it threatens to consume you whole.

You wait at the window for hours. You know because you glance at the clock every minute and a half, mocking you with every tick as it hangs limply on the bathroom door. The sun sinks below the horizon, the moon rises to take its place, and they switch again while you wait. The dawn paints the sky in beautiful shades of pink and red and orange and the faintest purple, but you can't appreciate any of it, because you're too anxious.

He could be hurt. He could be gone, and you wouldn't ever know until his friends came to pack his things. He could have left, too; maybe he finally decided that living with a ghost was just too much for him and just ran. Maybe he figured out that you love him, that you would move heaven and earth if it meant he was safe forever if only you could leave this apartment, and it was too much for him.

What if he knows about how you lay beside him every night? How you tuck the blankets tighter around him, cover him in warmth and comfort before settling on top of them and closing your eyes and pretending that you can feel his arm draped over your waist and his breath on the back of your neck. What if he felt you, that night you wandered into the bathroom while he was showering to write on the steam-covered mirror that he needs to buy more eggs soon and got distracted by the way he looked stepping out of the shower? What if he knows your stomach flipped at the long limbs and the hidden muscles and the sheer size of him? What if he knows the real reason you were quiet that night, the way you kept replaying the moment in your mind and wishing you had a body so you could have just touched him, at least.

It's closer to noon than midnight when his whistle echoes up through the window.

"Hey, I'm home," He calls as he enters the empty apartment. You're upset, but you're more filled with relief than anything because at least he's safe and he's here now. He makes a beeline for where the kettle is just starting to whistle, already reaching for the honey and the tea you set out on the counter for him, and you do your best to calm the storm of emotions inside you.

Did you have fun, wherever you were? You ask him, floating the whiteboard in front of his face so he has to acknowledge it.

"Yeah, I did," he responds as he stirs his tea. "Jin invited everyone over for some end of summer thing. I didn't feel too great at the end of it, so I just spent the night there."

Don't party too hard, you might remember how to have fun, you joke. It falls a little flat based on the grim smile Namjoon gives you. Are they gonna come over here again anytime soon? I've missed scaring Hoseok.

He lets out a real laugh at that. "I don't know, maybe. My birthday's coming up, after Jeongguk's, so they could definitely be planning something. I'm heading over to Yoongi's later to help plan for Guk's party. I might stay there tonight, so try not to worry, Casper."

I'll try, you tell him. You both know you'll stand at the window every second he's gone, but you don't want to tell him why. You don't want to tell him that you love him through a dry erase board, or some fancy poetry magnets. It doesn't matter that you may as well have already said so by telling him that he makes you feel alive again; you haven't said the words to him, he hasn't seen 'I love you' in the messy scrawl that is your handwriting on some stupid board, and therefore he doesn't know.

You don't know if you want him to.

He stays gone that night, as he said he might, and reappears the next day to shower and change before he vanishes again. The next time he shows up, he takes a bag with him when he leaves, which only worsens your fears. He stays gone for three days this time, doesn't apologize when he turns up again and just mumbles a soft hello into the air before he makes tea and sags into his couch. He's asleep in seconds, and as much as you want to scream at him, you can't bring yourself to disrupt how peaceful he looks.

When he wakes, he takes a shower and ignores the ' can we talk ' you scrawled in the steam. He packs a bag of fresh clothes and doesn't say goodbye when he leaves, just disappears and leaves you standing at the window with the pail in your hand, caring for the plants he isn't. The slam of the door sounds like nails in a coffin and breaks what little was left of your soul.

He shows back up nearly a week later, and the relief at seeing him again is overridden by the sheer anger at being left in the first place. You don't start the kettle when you hear his whistle, the quiet and hoarse tune of a familiar song barely reaching the window, but there's plenty of noise when he enters.

The cabinet doors are quaking with your fury, the lights flicker and threaten to burst, and Namjoon just leans back against the door. He’s soaked from the storm thundering outside, even his jacket plastered to his skin, and he’s shivering slightly, but you can’t see anything past the rage.

"Where the fuck were you?" You demand; there's no point, it's not like he can hear you, but the way he sighs makes you feel like he can, so you continue anyway. "It's been almost a week, you didn't even think to stop by for ten seconds so I know you're okay? I thought you were dead somewhere, you could've been, like, shot, or something, I don't know, just bleeding out in some ditch, and I wouldn't know! And what about all the plants? I know how to take care of them, sure, but do you know how hard it is for me to do it?"

Namjoon sighs again, the breath catching in his throat and coming out in a cough, but you don't pay much attention to it.

"Why would you act like this, Namjoon? What did I do, is it because of the things I said? Do you not want me to feel like this about you? Because this a damn good way of making sure I don't, I assure you, so by all means, just keep disappearing and leave me alone with the plants you decided to rescue and save!"

His cough gets worse and he just shakes his head, covering his mouth and making his way towards the bathroom.

"If you want me to hate you, it's too fucking late, Joon!" The slam of the bathroom door punctuates your sentence, and you quiet at the sound of continued coughing. You knew his flu was getting worse, but it's never sounded like that. Even when you were alive, you knew that the wet sound that's muffled by the bathroom door isn't what a cough should sound like. The lock of the door clicks, and it shocks you into movement because he's never - never - locked you out of anywhere. He knows it wouldn't stop you, knows it as well as you know that you'd respect that boundary if he set it, and yet here he is, locking you out even as he coughs up what sounds like a lung in the other room.

You hesitate at the door, torn between respecting his boundaries and knowing what’s happening. You want him to trust you, always, and yet you find your hand disappearing through the door before you can stop it. You stand like that for a long moment, just listening to the sounds of his wracking coughs; the sound of a crash echoes through the apartment, though, and you’re through the door completely in the span of a heartbeat. 

Nearly everything that had been on the counter is scattered on the ground, Namjoon himself gripping the sides of the toilet as if he would fall apart otherwise. A single glance tells you that the crash happened as he turned from the sink to the toilet, and if his jolting shoulders didn’t tell you why, the sounds of his retching would. That isn’t what fills you with dread though; the disorientation, the vomiting, all of it comes with being sick sometimes, but the red staining the bathroom sink? 

That’s not normal, and you know with every part of you that it’s the reason he’s been gone so much. 

The temperature in the apartment drops with the sun, but your arms surround Namjoon as best they can. Goosebumps break out on his arms, shivers run down his back, but you don’t move away from him; he doesn’t say anything, just sits there with his forehead pressed against the cool of the porcelain. He stands eventually, ignores the way he passes completely through your body to rinse the sink and brush his teeth. 

You let him stay quiet until you’re both on his bed; you’re pressed up against his side and running your hands along his forearms, idly wondering if you would be able to feel his heartbeat if you were alive. 

“It’s not...it’s not gonna get better,” He says eventually. “There’s not a cure, just some things to draw it out and give me a little bit longer even if they come with more pain. I go once a week to see if it’s gotten worse, check how much longer I have. It’s why Hobi let me move in here rent-free. He pays the bills, says it’s the least he can do. I wanted to be closer to him anyway, so that’s a bonus, I guess.”

“I’m so sorry, Joon,” you whisper. Your board lies forgotten, somewhere on the couch maybe, you aren’t sure and can’t be bothered to pull yourself away from him long enough to find it. You don’t need it right now, though; he knows what you mean by the way the cold presses against his bicep with your palm. 

“I didn’t want you to know.” You’re not exactly surprised at that; you’d figured as much. You just don’t understand his reasoning. “I didn’t want you worrying about me, or anything like that, like the guys do. They always look at me and it’s all they can see. Like they’re already mourning me, even though I’m still here. I didn’t want to feel like that with you.” 

“I know,” you say. You don’t, not really. Your own death was sudden, a shock to everyone you knew; you didn’t get the luxury of saying goodbye, didn’t have the burden of knowing you would be gone soon. 

The two of you sit in silence for a while, until you can feel Namjoon’s chest quivering under your palm. When you look up, he looks at you, really and truly at you , and he has tears in his eyes. 

“I don’t want to die, Casper,” He whispers. You suck in a breath because he can see you, and you don’t even know why, but you don’t want to lose this moment. “I don’t want to leave all of this behind. I don’t want to leave you.” 

“It’ll be okay,” you say softly. His brow furrows and a tear slides down his cheek. “I promise you it will be okay, Namjoon. It gets easier, and people remember but they aren’t stuck forever. And I…” You falter, and it takes his eyes meeting yours to make you realize he can hear you. And there’s only one thing you’ve ever needed him to hear. 

“I love you,” You tell him. “I love you, and I will never forget you.” 

He surges forward, lips meeting yours in a rush of air. You moan at the feeling of him against you, realizing that for the first time since you died, you can feel something under your fingers. His skin is warm against your fingers, his lips soft against your own, and when he reaches up to cup your jaw with his hand, he doesn’t pass through your form. Instead his hand settles heavy against you, and he moves your head to lick into your mouth. 

Tears that won’t fall prickle at the back of your eyes and you climb into his lap before he can stop you. He’s still crying so you wipe away the tears before they can fall, pressing soft kisses to his cheeks, his dimples, his nose, every bit you can reach. A question sits at the back of your mind, and you can see it lingering in his eyes, but neither of you asks it.

“You’re so cold.” His whisper is nearly lost amidst the thunder that shakes the apartment, but it makes you smile a little. 

“Warm me up?” 

His chest is still quivering with unspoken sobs, but he nods. “Always,” he tells you. “I’m always going to be here.” It doesn’t take long to pry him out of his clothes, takes even less time for him to sink into you. It feels just like it did when you were alive, only magnified; you can feel him hot and warm inside you, can feel the beat of his heart in the firm muscle under your hands. His moans are quiet and hoarse but you wouldn’t have it any other way. 

He keeps one hand on your waist and the other on your neck, holding you close enough that he can kiss whenever he wants. “You’re beautiful,” He whispers. “The most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.” You just press another kiss to his chapped lips and let him dig his fingers in hard enough that it would bruise if it could. When he’s close to his peak, he stops thrusting, just sits inside you as he grinds your hips down to his, and presses his forehead against yours. 

“I love you,” He tells you, lightning casting his shadow across the wall for a brief moment. “I love you, I do, I wish-”

“I know,” you tell him before he can continue. “I know, Namjoon, I know, and I do, too. I love you, too.” He comes a few seconds later, the warm seed soaking into his sheets because it has nowhere to go. His warmth disappears from under your hands and his arms fall to his lap when the only thing holding them up is gone. All you can hear is your quiet sobs mixed with his and the rain against the window, and for the first time since you came back, you really, truly, wish you had died. There’s no point in being a ghost when you can still feel your heart breaking in your chest. 

“Casper, are you ever scared?” 

It’s the middle of the afternoon. Namjoon is sprawled across the couch wrapped in blankets while Lucifer plays in the background and you doodle aimlessly on your board. You don’t need it as often now; you’ve gotten better at focusing your energy into being heard, though being corporeal still eludes you. You don’t know how you did it that night, but you’re grateful for it. 

“Of what?” You ask, looking towards him. He’s not looking at you or watching the show, just staring at the ceiling. He focuses at your words, lifts himself up into a sitting position. A shiver runs through him when his legs move through you, and you settle a weightless hand against his knee out of habit. 

“I don’t know,” He replies. “Just...whatever comes next. If there’s something that comes next. Being forgotten. Being stuck here forever.” 

You aren’t stupid; you know why he’s asking. The question lingers in the air, colors all of your conversations now, but the truth is that neither of you has the strength to ask it and neither of you knows the answer. 

“Sometimes,” You tell him. “Sometimes I wonder what Jihyo is doing, if she ever had a baby like she wanted to. I wonder if my parents are still alive, and what they say if they visit my grave, what they tell me now that I can’t respond to them.” 

Namjoon nods like he’s already thought of that, and he probably has. 

“Most of the time I try not to focus on it, though. It’s not helpful, it only upsets me, and I don’t…” You trail off, unsure of how to word your thoughts. “I don’t know what might happen if I only focus on the negative. I don’t know anything about what’s true about ghosts and what isn’t beyond that I exist now, and I can’t risk becoming something bad. So I try not to focus on it. It’s easier when you’re here.”

He grins and blows a kiss in your general direction, and you pretend not to notice the blood on his cracked lips. He’s quiet for the rest of the episode of half of another. 

“Have you ever seen a light?” 

“What?” He doesn’t seem to hear you, and you repeat your question on your board for him. 

“A light,” He echoes. “Like, the light.Y’know, the light at the end of the tunnel, ‘don’t go into the light,’ that thing.” 

You hesitate at that. You knew what he meant, what he actually wants to know here. He’s easier to read now than he was in the beginning. 

You watch him as he watches the space where you sit, curled up beside him on his couch. He can’t see you, of course, but he can see where the board rests in your hands. His gaze is heavier than it was when he first moved in; his cheeks are hollower, skin more gaunt with a grey tint that’s only made worse by the constant rain. The sun is just starting to break through the clouds, a brief reprieve after weeks of the dreary stone-colored clouds. It casts shadows along the walls, reflects off something in the window across the alley, and backlights Namjoon beautifully, casts a halo of light around the brittle brown hair you love. 

Once, you tell him. Just once.

“Why didn’t you go to it?” 

There are so many things you could tell him, so many different ways to answer such a simple question, but you find yourself lingering on the one thing you know is the ultimate truth. 

Because I love you.

September comes with even more rain and a bittersweet atmosphere. Jeongguk spends his birthday at Namjoon’s apartment and then comes back a little over a week later, surrounded by the other guys and carrying enough food to last a few months. You stay curled on the bed, one of the only safe places for you to not mess with anyone or anything. Your board is tucked into the blankets, ready to be used but hidden from view just in case. You watch as Namjoon sits on the couch, tucked between Taehyung and Yoongi with both of them leaning into him as much as possible, Yoongi’s hands wrapped in one of his and Tae’s head on his shoulder. 

The other’s aren’t far, leaning against the back of the couch and on beanbags they’d brought with them, all laughing as Hoseok does his best to act out whatever he’d been given in charades. He’s not bad at it - you’ve guessed the last few he’s done - but he is utterly ridiculous in his mannerisms. You know why; it’s the same reason everyone kept smiling when Namjoon refused all of the food he was offered, why Seokjin would crack a terrible joke whenever it got too quiet for too long, why everyone is resolutely ignoring the growing pile of tissues on the table. 

It keeps a smile on Namjoon’s face, though, and a laugh in his eyes, and you can’t ever be anything but grateful for that. 

Hoseok stumbles, nearly falling and whirling his arms to catch himself before eventually falling anyway. You laugh along with the others, grinning at the way Hobi pouts and rubs at his hip. You’re focused on the way Joon laughs, the way it lights up his face and brightens the entire room, which is why you see it first. 

The tickle at the back of his throat quickly becomes a cough, wet and wheezing and enough to make him throw the blankets from his lap and stumble to the bathroom. 

You’re there before he is, helping him slide the door closed and locking it behind him as he bends over the toilet again. The six of them are quiet in the main room, speaking in hushed whispers that neither you nor Namjoon wants to hear. You turn the knob on the sink, wetting a towel while you drown out the sound of voices, and letting a hand run over Namjoon’s back. 

“I’m okay,” he mutters. You ignore the way his voice shakes, the way his lips are redder than before, the way this happens more often than before. Instead, you just press the damp rag to his neck and watch his eyes close in relief. When he stands and flushes the evidence away, you already have his toothbrush ready and waiting, and you stay as close to him as you can until he takes a deep breath. 

“I’m okay,” He repeats. “I’m okay. It’s my birthday, and I’m okay.” 

He goes back out with a smile on his face and a laugh in his voice, teasing Hoseok about the way he fell and reenacting it, even. When he settles on the couch, he urges the others to continue the game. There’s a brief moment of hesitation before Jimin declares that he’s next and pulls something from the bowl on the table. 

You know you aren’t the only one that notices the way Namjoon’s eyes linger on the six men around him, but you are the only one that notices the way they also linger on his steamer trunk, the shelf with his books, the TV, the record player, the scrapbook of his life that they all worked on and Taehyung pieced together over the months, the plants on the wall that he had cared for. He looks around his apartment as if he’s looking at it for the last time. 

As if he’s already planning who’s going to get what. 

He finally asks the question you both have been thinking about, nearly two months later. His breathing comes in ragged pants, his lips stay chapped, and he keeps several blankets around him at all times to try to hide the shaking of his body. Your soft sobs echo through the apartment constantly; while you reheat the tea he doesn’t drink for the millionth time, while you quietly water and prune the plants he’s saved from death the way you wish you could save him, while you sit curled around him as he sleeps, soothing his coughs with quiet whispers. 

Night has just begun to fall, the rain of the day turning into a soft drizzle, and you stare at him blankly, unsure how to process what you’ve just heard. 

“Do you think I’ll come back?” He asks again, slightly louder. As if you hadn’t heard his shaky voice the first time. It’s not the question that floors you. You’ve been expecting this for weeks, months even. You’ve wondered it yourself as you prepare tea and ignore the sounds of him vomiting blood in the bathroom, as he disappears to the hospital and returns with a worse prognosis than before, as you’ve adjusted to the idea that you are dead and he is dying and you cannot do anything to help him. 

You never would have expected the hope that his words carry though. 

“Why does it sound like you want to?” You ask. Your voice is clear in the air and you’re glad for it, because this isn’t something you want to talk about through your board. 

“Because I do?” His response is delayed and sounds more like a question than a real answer. 

“Why?!” You demand. 

“Are you serious, Casper?” His brow is furrowed as he sits up and lets the blankets fall away to sit haphazardly off the couch. 

“Are you? Joon, why would you want to come back?”

“You’re seriously asking me that question? Why would I not? I’ve got so much I still want to do, I never thought I’d get the chance to after I got the diagnosis and now I might be able to. Why wouldn’t I want that?”

“Because it doesn’t work like that! You don’t get to just wander the world and fuck around, Joon, you’re dead.”

“Yeah, but you can still read and write and everything. I’d have all the time in the world to read the books I want to read, watch the shows I want to watch, write the music and stories and lyrics that I want to write.”

“Yeah, so long as it all stays in this apartment!” The light in the room flickers slightly with the force of your irritation. “You can’t do anything that isn’t in this room, Namjoon, you can’t use any of the electronics, you can’t read a book unless it’s here, you can’t write music unless it’s on actual paper, you can’t do anything.” 

“Yeah, and I could make that work. Why are you so upset about this? I thought you’d be happy.”

“Happy? You think I’d be happy that you’d be stuck in these four walls forever, too? Why would that make me happy?” Namjoon stands, running a hand through his hair and shaking his head. 

“Because I’d be with you! We’d be together, forever! Do you not want to be with me?”

“Of course I want to be with you, Joon, but not at the cost of you being stuck here. I don’t want that for anyone, certainly not the man I love.”

“And what if that’s what I want? What if I want to spend the rest of time with you? I’m already spending the rest of my life with you, I’m in love with you, I don’t want to leave you.”

“And I don’t want you to go, but Joon, why would I want you stuck here, too? This isn’t something fun. This isn’t anything that I enjoy.”

“Oh, so you regret it all then?”

“I didn’t say that, I just don’t want you to be stuck in a shitty studio apartment for who knows how long when you can’t fucking do half of the things you love! You wouldn’t go on walks, Namjoon, you wouldn’t go with Guk and Jimin to the movies, you wouldn’t get visits from Hobi, you wouldn’t get to shop with Taehyung or Jin, you wouldn’t get to drag Yoongi away from his thesis or celebrate with them when he finishes it! It’s not like being alive, Namjoon, you’d be dead and alone and in hell!”

“Whatever,” He mutters, shoving his arms into his coat. “Why can’t you understand for one fucking second that it wouldn’t be like that with you? I’d rather be stuck here forever than have to die in some shitty apartment and not even be able to touch the person I love.”

“Why can’t you understand that it’s still death? You’d be dead, Joon, your friends would go to your funeral and disappear from your life, and you’d be stuck staring out that window at that shitty alley for the rest of time. You don’t get it, you don’t how terrible it is to be stuck here and watch life pass you by.”

“Then why the fuck are you still here?” He asks. The door slams behind him before you can answer him, and your scream shakes everything in the room. You just barely catch one of the plants in the kitchen, a brown-potted one with ‘Shooky’ scrawled in Yoongi’s familiar handwriting, before it crashes to the ground. You return it to its place gently and huff another frustrated groan. 

You wish you could explain it better, but you know he wouldn’t get it even if you could. He doesn’t understand what it’s like to be trapped between four walls and unable to do anything without massive amounts of effort. And he won’t, not unless he experiences it himself. 

You’ve already watched him wither away. You’ve watched him become thin and sallow and a shadow of the Namjoon who first moved in, and you don’t know what you would do if he came back. You wouldn’t be alone anymore, of course, and you’d have him here with you, but at what cost? Namjoon was built for cherry blossoms and sunshine and the riverside. He would hate being trapped here even more than you do.

Still, you could have been more understanding of his view. You can admit that even being stuck in a shitty apartment wasn’t so terrible when you had Namjoon there to make you laugh or watch TV or read to you. It may even get better if he turned into a ghost; maybe you could hold his hands in yours, could feel him wrap his arms around you, could press kisses to his skin again. 

You move to the window and stand there waiting. It’s not good for him to be out, even if the rain had stopped a few days ago and the forecasters promised it was the end of the downpours. He was still weak, you’d be surprised he even went anywhere to begin with but you know he likes to walk to calm himself down. 

You worry for what feels like hours. You can’t focus on anything, not the way the sun starts to set, not the sound of cars passing or the neighbor leaving. You’ve worked yourself into knots by the time you hear his whistle echo up through the streets, nearly lost in the sound of some argument in the alley below you. You catch a brief view of his coat and smile when you see that he’s got some half-dead plant tucked under an arm. There’s the briefest glimpse of what looks like a Ca scrawled onto it, and your heart jumps in your throat.

You make your way to the stove, turning the heat up slightly too high so that it’ll be ready when he comes in. The arguing outside gets louder but you pay it no mind, pulling the honey out and setting it next to his favorite mug. You’re reaching for the tea when you hear something else. It definitely sounds like Namjoon’s voice, but it’s not in the hall or at the door like usual. It’s raised, like he’s yelling at someone, like it was just a while ago when he was fighting with you. A crash startles you and before you can even reach the window to see what’s going on, there’s a deafening bang. 

You slam your fist against the window, watch the red mix with dirt, and the kettle isn't that only thing that screams. 

“I think that’s the last of it,” Jeongguk says. His voice is scratchy and quiet, but it’s deafening in the silence of the apartment. 

“Yeah,” Hoseok replies. His eyes are rimmed with red and his hands shake as he slides the last mug into a box. “Thanks for the help, Guk. I don’t, um.” He sniffles. “I don’t think I could’ve done it myself, y’know?” 

“I know,” Jeongguk agrees. They’re quiet again, adjusting the things they’ve boxed and avoiding finishing what they’re doing. 

“Oh, can you get that?” You don’t have to look to know what Hoseok is talking about. Jeongguk grunts an affirmation and makes his way over. It’s a strange feeling, having someone pass through you again for the first time since. His hands fly into the air as he tries to lift, clearly not having expected it to weigh anything. 

His reflection in the window frowns, and he tries again, tugging on the pot. 

“I can’t get it,” He says. “Do you think he glued these things down or something?” 

“No,” Hoseok replies as he wanders over as well. “He used to pick them up to re-pot them, remember? And the others came up with no problem.” 

“Well it’s stuck or something, you try.”

Hobi takes Jeongguk’s place and pulls hard at the plot, but your grip doesn’t waver. He huffs and disappears. When he returns, he’s got a butter knife in one hand that he does his best to slip under the pot. He tries hard to pry it up, so hard that you almost want to give in. You don’t though. 

The knife clatters to the floor with as much force as Hoseok can put behind it, a curse following quickly behind it. 

“Fuck it,” Hoseok says. His voice is shaky and you know he’s near tears again. “Just fuck it.” 

“But that was-”

“You can try if you want, Guk, but I just-” He chokes back a sob, shaking his head and moving to pick up the boxes he’d set down. “I just can’t, okay?” He disappears out the door in a hurry, and you wish you could follow after him. 

Jeongguk looks down at the small plant, with its painted periwinkle pot and soft leaves. He runs a quivering finger over the leaf and sniffles. He doesn’t try to lift it again, just stands and lets his tear soak into the soil.

“I wish you could come back to us,” He whispers. “We thought...we expected more time. It’s not...it’s not really fair, y’know? So if you can hear me, if you can come back to us, please do. Please.” 

He turns and leaves, the apartment door slamming behind him like the lid of a casket. Your grip on Mang loosens now that you know no one’s going to try to take it. You’d watched them pack everything else up; you’d let them take the steamer trunk full of records, the shelf full of books and movies, the collection of mugs, the soft blankets, the ratty couch, the rest of the plants he’d cared for so tenderly. 

Piece by piece they had packed Namjoon up and walked him out of the apartment, but this was the one piece they couldn’t have. This was his favorite and none of them knew how to care for it like you did, and you had to. You owed it to him. He deserved to come back to at least one familiar thing, never mind that you woke up not even a day later and it’s now been weeks. If there was one thing you wanted him to see when he got back, it was his favorite of his plants. 

The sun glares into your eyes from where it shines down on the city. It reflects off something in the window from across the alley, would be blinding if you actually had eyes. You pay it no mind, focused instead on the remains of the broken brown pot down in the alley, the way you’ve pieced them together in your head a thousand times just to trace the word Casper with your eyes. You can almost hear his voice saying it, even now.

You whip around, eyes darting through the empty space of the apartment as your hands tighten around Mang.

All that rests there is empty space, mocking in its loneliness. You remember when he moved in, remember how it felt to test the boundaries of the apartment and wish you were free. The want is still there, to leave and never think of it again, never think of him. You know better, though. You could never escape the memory of him, the way he laughed and smiled and spoke. You could never abandon Mang. Not when he said he’d always come back to you. 

You turn back to the window, cursing the sunlight with every other breath. It fades, slowly, into the black of night, before returning again, and again, and again. Days pass, each one feeling like years. Hoseok doesn’t appear to show the apartment, no one comes to collect the small periwinkle pot between your palms, and the ghost of his laugh echoes around you. 

The sun blinds you again. You don’t even know how long it’s been, just that you’ve yet to move. Light glints off whatever hangs in the window across the alley. That's when you see it, a vague reflection in the weathered glass of a dimple and a grin, and warmth surrounds you.

“I told you I’d always come back, Casper.”

[marinette-adrien]

MischiefGod!AU

Ok, so the amazing @sidsinning came up with an amazing AU and gave me persmision to write a fanfic about it. It took me a long long time and I’m sorry for that. But finally here it is!

The lovely people who asked to be tagged: @kay-great @geminikessa @carolinaleo-blog @nadinemarie-art @ellysia-banearrow @skellingtonia @waitingfortheshadows @ink-stains-on-ceilings @crisjim @dulcetfoxao3 

Sorry if I forgot someone. Totally not intentional.

People who I saw asking for writers to write it or if someone was writting it, saying they’d read it or needed more of it, will be following this au or something along those lines: @washikook @smackthat-allonthefloor @greymouser13 @miraculousshipping @missca7astropcat @rhymeringlamb @sharkiethesharkperhaps @bridgetinerabbit @wewonmrstark3-0-0-0 @a-mahou-shoujo @thenovelartist @me4ml @inkshila @sakuramarie @parlezvousladybug @blue-peach14 @teardroplet @theunfortunatefangirl @doll-gloss @berry-loves-otome @trapqueeni @onesmolbirb @millie27love

I deeply apologize if you didn’t want to be tagged. Please ignore it. I just didn’t want anyone to feel I left them out. 

And finally I can’t start without a big shout-out to @thecaptainfandom who bore with me for three days and beta’ed the flip out of this work. It was a mess and now is readable. She deserves all the praise.

Anyways, here’s the story! Hope you enjoy. 

AO3 link

The Mischief Bride

I

Gods die too. They live and they age, even if it is slow enough to deceive time and humans. Gods live and play and sometimes, they trick and they lie. Sometimes they love and they care. Other times, they just want entertainment.

Kim, god of rivalry and fire, was one of the latter. And he got bored pretty quickly too. He was a relentless god who didn’t discriminate between humans or other gods to challenge for a competition. He had a reputation of picking random humans who were good athletes to compare his abilities to the very best of the human race.

Generations ago, the townspeople, tired of being spirited away randomly, asked for the lord of the land to make a pact with the god. Every year, they would offer a competitor, the very best of their sport, to be challenged by him, in exchange for leaving the other humans alone.

Now, every year, Marinette’s town would offer a “sacrifice” for Kim, the god of fire and rivalry. The reason they were called sacrifices instead of competitors these days was because they never came back. Nobody knew what happened to them, but people speculated that no matter if they won or lost, they ended up dying. Perhaps they perished trying to keep up with his challenges or perhaps were punished by the god’s wrath for not being able to.

The day of the sacrifice was just around the corner but Marinette didn’t have the mind to worry about it. Sure, she was in good form but was by no means an athlete, so there were very little chances she would be picked as the sacrifice, and she had better things to worry herself with. Primordially, her parents were both sick.

Autumn had brought the flu to her household and she had her hands full attending her family’s bakery and tending to her parents. Regardless, she knew no matter how much she worked, she couldn’t afford medicine for both her mother and father.

She was scared.

She spent nights alone with her thoughts, unable to sleep and just watching them breathe. She bit back tears, wondered how she could make the medicine last just a little longer, hoping that somehow, it would be enough.

II

Kagami didn’t have many friends. To be precise, Kagami had only one friend, Marinette. Since they were little, people tended to mistake one for the other because they seemed very much alike. They had the same blue hair and similar height and build. Their skin was pale and their hearts were kind.

Despite appearances, one thing that they didn’t have in common was their families. While Marinette’s parents were loving and caring, Kagami’s mother was cold and reserved. She was a proud samurai that served the feudal lord of the land, which proved to be her daughter’s downfall.

Just as her mother, Kagami was a very good swordswoman, a trait that was rare among the villagers. Almost no one around these parts dared to practice and excel at any sport because then they would be selected as a sacrifice to the god of fire and rivalry. The Tsurugis, regardless, were a proud family that had always served the royal family, and was expected to be good samurai by them.

The people started to become restless. They didn’t practice any sport for fear of becoming good enough to be selected as the new sacrifice. Due to the lack of athletes this provoked, the sacrifices started being picked between people with almost no training at all. Tired of this situation, the town demanded for the feudal lord to do something about it. The solution that was finally approved and exposed to the god by prayers and rituals with incense, came in the form of a last sacrifice in the shape of a wife.

They promised a wife who would be as powerful and athletic as she was beautiful and thus, Kagami was selected. It was a great honor for Tomoe, as the lord put it, to be able to prove her loyalty by offering her daughter.

Tomoe couldn’t afford to lose her daughter, but she couldn’t afford to lose her honor either. She looked at Kagami and felt a pang of pride and shame at the same time when the girl took the news with dignity and resignation. She only made one request: to go visit her friend one last time to say goodbye. Her mother granted her permission without protest.

To Kagami’s surprise, Marinette looked exhausted. Her eyes were red and had big purple bags under them. She was paler than usual and perhaps a little bit thinner too.

They hadn’t seen each other in a while, since Kagami’s mother didn’t usually let her out of her supervision for too long, and the catching up was sad for both parts. They both cried in each other’s arms until their eyes ran dry.

Marinette felt like she was losing three people dear to her now instead of two, and life seemed gloom and grimm like never before. Late at night, Kagami’s mother went to pick her up since her daughter hadn’t return, she was hit with the resemblance of the girls that she had forgotten, and a twisted idea was planted on her mind, making her both ashamed and hopeful at the same time.

On their way home, Kagami told her mother about what Marinette was going through and that she felt bad she couldn’t do anything to help her anymore. Selfishly, she asked her mother to help her friend in her place and to her surprise, Tomoe accepted.

The very next morning, Tomoe went to see her daughter’s friend and offered her help, in exchange for a favor.

Marinette accepted.

III

Marinette knew she was being taken advantage of, but she bit back the injustice and kept going. For her parents. She knew that when Kagami realized the scheme, she would make good of her mother promise to nurse her mom and dad back to health. She hoped her friend would forgive her for taking her place, too.

Tricking the feudal lord of the land was easy. He had never seen Kagami up close and Marinette covered her head with the wataboshi anyways, so no one would suspect a thing.

Like all sacrifices before her, Marinette walked willingly to the sacred mountain where the gods would be descending soon. Legend said that during the fifteenth day of the seventh month, gods and youkais descended to Earth to have a festival and, sometimes, to interact with humans.

For that reason, anyone who had the intention of meeting them would venture to the sacred mountain. Said mountain that was actually a sleeping volcano, the very same that would wake if they dared anger the gods.

But Marinette’s step didn’t quiver when she set foot on the holy ground. She lighted her way with an oil lamp through the misty woods of the mountain and repeated to herself that she would find her husband-to-be walking northeast, so she walked until the oil ran out. She walked until the mist grew heavy and her feet hurt, and then she walked some more. She walked until she realized the moon changed positions in the sky randomly, making her confused as to where to go. She stopped when she realized she was lost.

She dropped to the ground in defeat, feeling tired and hopeless. She rubbed her feet and wondered if she was lucky or unlucky if she ended up not meeting with the god. Probably unlucky, if her town suffered the consequences.

Then, she heard a chuckle.

It was soft and falsely sweet. When Marinette lifted her gaze looking for the source, she met a pair of olive eyes.

“A human,” said the apparition. “Are you lost?”

It was a girl with caramel colored skin and brown, long hair. She was dressed in orange from her clothes to her smile, and even though there wasn’t particularly anything wrong with her, Marinette’s gut told her something was off about the lady. When she squinted, she realized —and how could she have missed it— that the girl had the ears and the tail of a fox.

She was a kitsune, a youkai better known to be a trickster. Marinette felt alarm rise to her head, but bit her tongue to remain calm.

“I am,” she said. “Do you happen to know which way is the northeast?”

The kitsune disappeared and reappeared closer to her, to her right. Marinette stood up and followed her gaze, her uneasiness increasing. The youkai ignored her question.

“Are you, perhaps, by any chance, the god of fire’s new toy?”

She didn’t think it was wise to offer the spirit too much information, but figured that either way, there was little else she could do.

“I am this year sacrifice, yes. Would you be so kind as to point the way to the northeast, please?”

The kitsune chuckled and disappeared again.

“He’s not at his usual spot right now,” she informed, appearing right at her back. Marinette jumped to get some distance between them. “He got tired of waiting and decided to go the Ghost Festival instead”

Marinette cursed her luck. She hoped he wouldn’t be too angry because she didn’t appear and roast their village by morning.

“I can show you the way to the festival if you want,” offer the kitsune with a sweet smile. A little too sweet, perhaps.

The young baker still had reservations. She didn’t feel comfortable following a kitsune. She would probably play a prank on her, preventing her from reaching the god Kim.

“I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you. It would be more than enough if you pointed the right way for me to follow.”

The kitsune laughed again and disappeared once more. She wasn’t in sight for a few moments and Marinette feared to have offended her, provoking for her abandon her to her luck. But the youkai talked to her once more, making herself visible again sitting on a low branch of a tree.

“It’s that way,” she said, pointing ahead.

Marinette looked to the path that the mist opened when the youkai pointed at it, still feeling uneasy. Sensing her discomfort, the kitsune giggled one last time.

“You can trust me,” she said making the gesture of crossing her heart. “I never lie.”

Having no other alternative, Marinette thanked her and sighed, trying to appease her distrust as she heard the spirit ghostly laugh disappear as she followed the path she had told her.

IV

It had been a lie, of course. Marinette kept walking until the sun threatened her with down, but she couldn’t find nor the festival nor the god. She felt stupid, gullible and hopeless but refused to give up. She swallowed her tears and kept going, not ready to abandon hope yet.

Then, she heard sobbing.

Her eyes tried looking for the source jumping from place to place around her until she finally located it. A very small, red creature kept flying around a spot near the overgrown roots of a tree. Even with her own problems unresolved, Marinette couldn’t help to stop to see if she could help.

“Hello,” she said to the creature, approaching slowly. “Are you okay?” She asked as an icebreaker.

The little spirit turned in surprise and regarded the bride she had in front of her.

“Oh, hello,” she returned the greeting politely, drying her big blue eyes with a tiny, tiny hand. “Well, no,” she admitted.

“What’s the problem?” Inquired Marinette, coming closer. She noticed that it was a kind of fairy with antennas and big black spots that made her resemble a ladybug. She didn’t recognize the kind of youkai that she was, but thought that it was perhaps a zashiki-warashi. If she offered assistance, maybe the youkai would actually help her in exchange.

“It’s one of my earrings. I dropped one of my precious earrings down this hole in the ground, but it’s too small to reach, even for me.”

Marinette approached the area the youkai was hovering over, and discovered a small hole that formed between the roots of the tree and held something that shined. It was far enough to be unreachable for the small creature or her fingers, but she gave it a thought and looked over her surroundings to find some inspiration. She ended up grabbing a thin stick and one of her hair pieces that she tied with a decorative ribbon from her outfit to make a tool long enough to reach it and pick it up with the hair piece, so in a few minutes, the earring was back to its owner.

“Oh, thank you! Thank you!”

The little creature was beyond happy, and her happiness was contagious. Marinette laughed with her but promptly remember that she was in a predicament too.

“Hey, by any chance, would you know how I can get to the gods? I have only encountered youkais tonight.”

The spirit then seemed to become aware of the human in god territory and taking notice of her clothes, she had a feeling about what was happening.

“Oh,” she said quietly, “where you offered as sacrifice?”

“Well, yes. But it’s fine. I did it willingly. I cut a deal to save my parents, so it’s alright for the most part, I guess.”

“I see. You must have a very kind heart…” said the creature, noticing that the young lady in front of her seemed to have her motivations always in helping others, and took a like of her almost instantly.

“Marinette. My name is Marinette.”

“Well, Marinette, my name is Tikki and I can help you find the god you are looking for”

“Really? That would be amazing! Thank you!”

“Which god are you searching for? This part of the mountain is the territory of one of them, actually.”

“Really?” Marinette asked, surprised. Perhaps the kitsune hadn’t been lying after all. “Then I was in the right path, after all!”

“I can send you to him if you want, I can sense he’s close”

“Oh, thank you, thank you Tikki! That would be wonderful, you’ll be saving my life!”

Tikki giggled. “It would be my pleasure, Marinette!”

Feeling like things were finally getting back on track, Marinette saw Tikki fly around her a couple of times and then, she felt the ground disappear under her feet. She stumbled backwards a couple of steps and then fell on her butt.

She sat up and lifted the wataboshi to inspect her surroundings and was immediately met with a pair of green, mischievous eyes.

“W-where am I?” Asked Marinette disorientated.

In front of her was a young man with golden hair wearing a montsuki. Similar to the previous youkai, he had a pair of black cat ears crowning his head. Unlike the previous spirit, though, she could feel a different aura from him. It felt old and dangerous. He wasn’t a youkai, he was a god.

His eyes gleamed with excitement when he saw her and he showed her a smile full of teeth and untold secrets.

“You’re in the Sacred Mountain, girl. In our territory, to be precise.”

Marinette then took notice of the small black creature floating close to the god’s head. It had green eyes too and was similar in size to Tikki, if not a little bigger. Much like the god beside him, he resembled a cat.

“Oh. Are you the god of fire?” She asked, composing herself.

Both of them interchanged a look and then smiled down to her.

“Why, yes. Yes I am. And who are you, pretty lady?”

She jumped to kneel in front of him, suddenly assuming a formal posture. The most important part was yet to be accomplished. She had to make sure that the god accepted the new pact.

“I am Marinette! And my people begs for you to take me as a wife as a last sacrifice, as our prayers had supplicated in the name of your clemency!”

There was a moment of silence, and neither the god nor the creature said a thing.

“Your people thought that getting the god of rivalry, the very one that likes to challenge anything that moves to an athletic competition, a wife, would solve the problem?”

Put it that way, Marinette recognized that it sounded kind of moronic but she was just trying to help her people, especially her parents, and following orders.

“Please,” she said quietly having no other argument.

He looked at her and found nothing but sincerity in the form of big, expressive eyes, pleading and impossibly blue.

The god’s heart jumped on his chest without his permission, making him feel a weird tug on his heartstrings. Usually, if it wasn’t funny, he was not interested, but there was something about this lady that felt odd, though not in a bad way.

“She smells… like luck,” said his companion, getting close to her and giving her a sniff, bringing his attention back to the matter at hand.

“Well, then I guess it’s your lucky day, pretty lady. I’ll take your offer.”

Marinette blinked.

“Really?”

“Yes, really,” he extended a hand to her, to help her stand up. “Yes. It was wife day after all, wasn’t it Plagg?”

“Yes, yes it was!” smirked the little black fairy-like-creature.

Marinette admitted to herself that indeed she ended up being pretty lucky, successfully achieving her goal to reach the god and convince him to take her as a wife. She extended her hand to take his and he grasped her in a tight grip. He pulled her to her feet and a red string tied their wrists together. The ribbon shined and popped, disappearing into tiny sparks.

Marinette felt the ground banish from underneath her for a moment, unable to divert her gaze from his face. It was probably rude. Humans weren’t supposed to look at gods in the eyes, she believed, but couldn’t help herself. His green gaze was mesmerizing, all deep and lively and fresh as a lime. He caught her when her footing failed and gave her a wicked smile.

“T-that’s it?” She asked, catching her words. “Are you my husband now?”

The gleam in his eye sparkled with mischief.

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

V

Marinette had kept going for the last couple of weeks by mere will power. First taking care of her increasingly ill parents and then of the bakery by herself. She lost a whole night of sleep after Kagami’s visit and later operated almost on automatic mode focusing only on the task she had been entrusted with. When she successfully achieved it and her worries about the village and her parents were lifted from her shoulders, it was as if the strings that had been keeping her standing and going were cut.

She remembered the god of rivalry and fire had asked her to come with him, as he was bound to return to his castle since the festivities were ending, and follow him she did. Or at least, she thought she did because now she was waking up, which meant she must have fallen asleep at some point. She didn't remember when it happened but there were a few times in her life when it did. She woke up disoriented, covered in silks, in a room she didn't recognize.

The sun was high in the sky while the last time she had seen it, it had been just rising. She looked around and she found herself in a big bed, like the ones people from other parts of the world slept in, the ones lifted from the ground. It was very comfortable and probably the reason she had slept like a baby. The room was spacious and a big balcony window let the sunlight in, painting golden rays in the dark floor and blankets.

But most importantly, she noticed, she wasn't alone.

A familiar blond head lied beside her. He was not touching her and was facing the opposite side of the window and her. His breathing was even, denoting he was asleep but when she fell off the bed in her haste, he woke up.

Marinette grimaced in pain and heard a chuckle. A pair of mischievous green eyes looked at her from above on top of the bed, paired with a playful smirk.

"Where am I?" asked Marinette.

"I carried you like a princess. You fell asleep on me on the way home.”

"Why were we on the same bed?"

"Well, I mean we're married, remember? Why wouldn't we be?"

Marinette was speechless for a moment. She tried to come up with a reasonable answer to rebutt his argument, but could only come up with none. She sat there on the hard floor letting her eyes stare into nothingness. At that moment, she was hit with the realization.

She was married. To a god.

“Are you okay?” He asked when she didn’t say anything else.

“No,” came the immediate answer. She was a little overwhelmed.

He had the nerve to chuckle again. Marinette recomposed a little to glare at him, but he just stretched, completely unimpressed. He looked like a cat perched in a tree looking down at her like that and she could almost picture him swaying a tail contently.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she pointed out.

“We are in my castle of course, princess. Your new home. Or should I call you queen?”

“Queen?”

He crawled out of the bed towards her, never losing his smile. Something in him screamed “danger” but something else locked her in place and made her heart race. He kept getting closer and closer until she could feel his breath on her face.

“Queen of Fire and Rivalry. Queen of everything that I reign of. My Queen.”

He took her left hand, the one he had taken when the invisible ribbon tied them together, and kissed it without dropping her gaze. She blushed. He was very attractive.

She noticed then that the ribbon had left a mark like a bracelet on her wrist, a remainder of their pact.

“Or would you like to be the Queen of something else?”

He was teasing her, she knew, but she couldn’t find it in herself to be mad. She was just a sacrifice. She had ventured the mountain, giving up on her future so her parents could have one. She was ready to die trying or live like a prisoner in a loveless marriage. She never thought she would look at her husband and blush. She never thought that he would call her his queen, sharing his rein.

Perhaps, she thought, gods didn’t think so little of humans. Perhaps she was starting to feel truly lucky, and not just by being able to save others. Perhaps she wasn’t doomed. Perhaps she didn’t hate her situation anymore.

“Your queen is fine” she said, quietly.

He raised his eyebrows, clearly not expecting an honest response.

“Your queen is fine,” she repeated, letting a smile tug at her lips this time.

Slowly, he returned the smile and for the first time, it wasn’t mischievous or teasing. It had something in it that reminded Marinette of tenderness and hope.

VI

Marinette followed him to the dining room, where a banquet was expecting them. The little black creature that accompanied the god the night before was already filling his mouth with cheese. He introduced himself as Plagg and then proceeded to explain to her that he was a kwami. Every god had one following them around who shared the nature of the god powers. They were the companions of the gods.

She discovered Plagg loved cheese as much as he loved teasing Kim, and that the blond pretended to be deeply offended if the tiny creature dismissed his puns but Plagg had worst on his repertoire, if she was honest. They seemed to be very good friends.

She didn’t pay much attention to their banter once she focused on her meal though. Now that she thought of it, she hadn’t eaten in almost a day and even before that, her meals had been frugal thanks to her lack of appetite. The table in front of her was filled with delicious fruit, cheese, seeds, tea and wine so she helped herself to seconds of everything. She ate until her belly couldn’t fit one more bite.

Shortly after breakfast, Kim excused himself, saying he had some business to attend to, but that he would be back in a few hours.

“You can familiarise yourself with your new home in the meanwhile, my queen,” said her new husband with that mischievous smile that she was learning to recognize as the one he almost always wore. “If you need something, just ask for it and it shall be given to you.”

He stole a kiss from her cheek and then he was gone with his kwami before she could ask to who she could ask for her hypothetical needs.

So she finished her breakfast and decided she would follow his advice and explore the castle. She spent the next couple of days wandering around its hallways, which were empty for the most part. The palace was made of stone and has long staircases that led from one floor to another several times. It was huge and a little lifeless, with dark marble walls that gave the palace the appearance of being cracked. It reminded her of the European fairytale like castles, where invisible servants would tend to the inhabitants from the shadows.

The god of fire and rivalry disappeared everyday by the afternoons, but always returned to have their meals together, which Marinette had to admit, was nice. He was a bit of a dork with a bad sense of humor that never failed to pull a smile out of her nonetheless. As the days pass, she learned that his jokes and bright smiles hid a lonely, old soul underneath the youthful appearance.

During her exploration around her new home, she discovered that everything was… raw, in a sort of way. The bed was covered in linens and silks, but they were just fabric instead of blankets. The walls were bare of paintings or any kind of art, and even the furniture, despite being indeed luxurious and made of high quality woods and materials, was simple and minimalistic.

Even their meals were simple. Their table was always full of delicious fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, grains, seeds, milk, honey, cheese and bread but they were all fresh or cooked very simply. There was plain bread but never pies or cakes. There was meat but never stew. The fruit was always fresh and clean but never in a dessert. When she asked him about it, he shrugged.

“It’s because I’m the god of…” he stopped, with the chopsticks midway to his mouth.

“Fire,” said Plagg, giving him a funny look. “He’s the god of fire and sometimes he burns his own stuff by accident. The servants are not good at crafts and that’s why the castle is what it is”

“You burn stuff by accident?” asked Marinette, alarm in her voice.

“No,” said he quickly. “Well, sometimes, I guess. But it hasn’t happened in a long, long time, has it Plagg?” He glared at his kwami.

The Kwami agreed dismissively, getting back on his cheese, and the subject was quickly diverted after that.

After that incident, Marinette took it to herself to make something of the materials that were scattered around the castle. She made actual blankets for the bed and found the kitchen to cook when she could. She made quiches and cookies and dumplings. Bread, of course, she always baked because old habits die hard.

The first time Kim got home to a table full of dishes, he had a bewildered expression on his face. He didn’t stop singing her praises when he discovered that she made something new everyday. Not only food, but the palace was suddenly beginning to feel like a home. The windows had curtains and the bed had actual blankets. Suddenly there were cushions on the chairs and an amazing smell of bread in the air at lunchtime.

“You’re amazing, Marinette,” he’d whisper every night before falling asleep while holding her hand, and she’d felt a tingling in her heart at the tenderness of his voice.

The only thing he did was hold her hand, but she found herself snuggling closer and closer with every moonrise. He never asked for a consummation of marriage, but she didn’t know how god-human marriages worked. She already felt very lucky to have control of his domain.

She only had to wish for something out loud or command something to be done, and as if by invisible servants, her instructions were followed. She never saw anyone outside or inside the castle, besides Kim or Plagg, but even though she appreciated the hours he gave her for herself, she started to feel lonely.

And then, she met Tikki again.

Tikki, now that she thought about it, looked just like a Kwami, but Plagg was always near Kim and if the little red creature was indeed a Kwami, Marinette wondered why she wasn’t with her god.

She had been sewing in the castle, making clothes for herself with all the pretty fabrics available in the house when her little friend appeared.

“Marinette! I was hoping to find you here.”

“Tikki! I’m so happy to see you! What are you doing here?”

“I came to visit Plagg.”

“Ah, I should have guessed you were friends. He’s not here though. But I’m sure they’ll be here soon. Would you like to wait with me?”

“I’d love to,” she said, and sat on the table Marinette was using as a desk.

“Tea and pastries for Tikki, please,” she said, and in a few moments, a trail with what was ordered appear beside the Kwami.

“I can see that you are doing well,” said her guest. “Now you manage a castle instead of being lost!” she giggled.

Marinette smiled.

“All thanks to you, Tikki. I was so lucky that I found you before the night ended. I could find my way to the god I was looking for and convince him to stop the annual sacrifices. My village is safe because you helped me.”

“You did mention your village. I’m glad they’re safe but how are you doing?”

“I’m doing better than I thought possible, to be honest,” Marinette confessed. It was easy talking to Tikki. She picked the needle once again and let herself ramble while she worked. “I feel a little lonely sometimes, but I never imagined I’d actually come to like my new husband. He’s kind and attentive. He respects my space and I think he genuinely is amazed by my cooking and sewing skills” she giggled. “He gave me power over his domain since day one and… yeah, I think I like him.”

Tikki looked at her with giddy eyes and a kind smile.

“I’m happy for you, Marinette. I knew Plagg chose well. Adrien is such a gentle soul, a perfect decision for the God of Destruction.”

Marinette went rigid.

“The god of what?”

“The god of destruction” repeated Tikki slowly, eyeing her reaction. “And mischief. And misfortune.”

Who, now?

Marinette looked at her friend like she had just slapped her.

“But… but… no. His name isn’t Adrien. He is Kim, the god of the sun, rivalry and fire! The one who would melt my land with the volcano if there isn’t an annual sacrifice!”

But her memory was bombarding her with all the times he had almost slip. The times Plagg and him would send each other furtive or disapproving glances, as if trying to keep a secret from being revealed.

“Oh. Oh, no Marinette,” said Tikki, with heavy realization. “I think there has been a misunderstanding. You were on the territory of the god of destruction, misfortune and mischief when I found you. I should have asked for clarification.”

“No, but.. but he said so himself! He is Kim, god of fire; not… not…”

“Adrien?” asked the voice she had learn to miss on her afternoons.

She turned abruptly to face him, and for the first time since she knew him, a guilty expression cast a shadow over his features.

“I am,” he said softly. “Adrien, god of destruction, mischief and misfortune. That’s me.”

There was a long pause. Tikki, who had been longing to meet with Plagg, couldn’t help but get offended on Marinette’s behalf. She flew right towards him, a big frown on her face.

“Plagg! This has your mark painted all over! Was it your idea to trick Marinette like that?”

“Well, hello to you too, cheesecake. Can see that you missed me. I didn’t know you knew the bride.”

“Plagg!”

“Ugh, I can’t talk to you when you are being unreasonable,” he said, and flew off.

“Unreasonable! I can’t believe you’d trick an innocent girl who were just trying to help her parents! How cruel can you be?” Exclaimed Tikki, following him while giving him a piece of her mind. Soon, both of them got lost in the hallways of the castle.

“It’s true, then. You are not the one who I was supposed to marry,” Her tone was calm, but her mind was racing, going through all of what that entailed. Was his kindness, the kindness that got her, fake? Was he laughing at her back while she blushed and thought that she was oh, so lucky to have such a kind and humble husband? Did he realize what he jeopardized? Her parents, her village?

Oh, her people…

What if they were already gone? What if Kim, enraged, had already burned to ashes her village while she was here playing house? She could not fathom the thought.

“Well, I… it’s true I’m not the one one you were looking for, but even gods are not free from The Fate’s domain, and after knowing you, I was hoping…”

“Hoping?” She interrupted him. “Hoping for what? That I’d forgive you? For impeding me of helping my people? My parents, who were the only reason I had to…” her voice broke. But she bit back her tears and continued. The more she thought about it, the more betrayed she felt, the more hurt she got and the more stupid she knew she had been.

“I’ve been here! Losing time, married to you! When I should have been saving my people!”

She dashed towards the door, but a hand on her wrist stopped her.

“Let me go, I have to make sure that they… that they’re not…” she could not finish that thought.

“Marinette. Marinette, listen to me. They’re fine.”

“How can you know? They could all be dead by now. My parents, my friends…”

“They are just fine, please listen to me -”

“You lied to me! You tricked me into marrying you and to let my village to die! And for what? A stupid prank?”

“I know you are mad at me, and I shouldn’t have lied to you, but I couldn’t help it. It’s who I am. I am the god of mischief.”

He probably should try to excuse himself after he explained, he realized. Marinette turned to him and pushed him hard. He stumbled back and she kept throwing her fists in his direction.

“The god of mischief! And destruction! Very well played! You destroyed everything that I care about!” She accused with tears streaming down her face. She finally collapsed to her knees and started sobbing.

“Marinette, please listen. They are fine.” He said softly, kneeling beside her. He wanted to touch her but noted that perhaps it wasn’t the best of ideas.

“How can you know?”

“Because I have been going to visit Kim everyday. I don’t really need to leave the castle to do my godly duties. And even if I did, I’m sure the world would do just fine without cataclysms for a few weeks. Or years.”

“You went… to Kim?” She asked, perplexed. She wasn’t following completely, but figured she could at least trust that her village was still intact.

“Yes, I went to offer him a deal. If he gave up this year sacrifice, then I’d be his challenge buddy for the next decade. No questions asked, every time he wanted. Turns out he has been challenging me to play various sports every day. I hope the novelty passes after a few months, but I’ll still have to accept his challenges for the next ten years,” he grimaced.

“He… gave up the sacrifice?”

“Well, not exactly. Since you were supposed to be the last one, I could only buy you a chance. He’ll challenge you to a match. If you win, he’ll revoke the sacrifice policy off your village. If not… well, you’ll be his challenge buddy, like the rest. And your village would have to send another every year, like before.”

“Wait. The rest?”

“Yeah, every single one of the previous sacrifices are alive. They live in his domain now. They have to accept every challenge he asks of them, but they have good lives. With all the luxury a human blessed by the gods could expect.”

It was a little too much information for Marinette to handle. She needed a moment.

“So everyone is alive? All of them?”

“Every single one of them,” he smiled.

Marinette felt so relieved that she almost hugged him and thanked him, but she held herself back.

“You still lied to me.”

“You’re right. It was a stupid prank that got out of hand, but I did my best to make it harmless. I’m also giving you an opportunity that none of the others had: a chance of freedom. Would you… accept that as an apology?” He asked hopefully.

With all that he’d done to take the danger out of the situation… it was indeed a harmless prank from his point of view, she guessed. Except that she was tricked into marry the wrong guy.

“You still tricked me. To marry you.”

His smile, ever changing, was a little sad then.

“I tricked you into believing that we’re married,” he said.

He took her hand again. The one he held in their sleep and the one that had the binding bracelet painted on her skin.

“This is just a mark that shows you as a blessed-by-the-gods human. It’s not a marriage contract. I can easily remove it, if you want. I thought that perhaps it would give you at least a little of an advantage in the upcoming match, but… perhaps coming from me,  the God of misfortune, you’ll want it removed.”

“So you’re saying that we’re not married?”

“No.”

“Oh,” for some reason, she felt a little empty.

“When were you going to tell me?”

He made a pause, uncomfortable.

“Ten years?” He tried.

“Adrien!” She reproached. It was the first time she said his name and a little magic mingled in the air, like every time you said a god’s name out loud in their presence. She realized that she had been sharing a home with one of the two most powerful gods that there were. And he was kind of a goofball. And sweet. For a god of destruction, of course.

“Sorry! I’m kidding. I was planning on telling you the very next day, when I made the arrangement with Kim. But when I came back… you were wearing the kimono I picked for you and you made the most delicious bread I have ever tasted, and… you smiled. You didn’t seem bothered by being here, with me. And… I guess I wanted to pretend for a little longer.”

There was a pause. Marinette realized he had mentioned Kim had a kingdom. Perhaps the other gods did too. Perhaps his land was empty because no one wanted to pray to the god of destruction and misfortune. Perhaps his castle was built with raw materials because everything broke in his presence. Perhaps “everything” included his relationships with everyone else too.  

“I can challenge Kim whenever I want?” She asked after meditating it for a moment.

He nodded.

“Well, I’ll be challenging him tomorrow, then,” she declared firmly.

He sighed.

“I’ll take you there.”

“And,”

He looked up at her face. She averted her gaze.

“And if you’d have me… I’d like to come here. And pretend for a little longer. If you want.”

VII

Kim was nothing like she imagined him. He was goofy instead of mighty and gave the impression of not being too bright. Yet, just like Adrien, he had a youthful appearance and that aura that Marinette was learning to recognize as one that outlined the gods.

The real Kim’s Kwami was a little monkey that, much like his companion, was extravagant and playful, pure chaotic energy. He fluttered around him non-stop, apparently unable to stand still for more than a minute. When Adrien and Marinette entered the Chinese-style palace to meet their king, they found the owner and his Kwami immersed in a childish fight that included faces, grimaces and stuck out tongues, provoking each other like little kids.

They had been waiting for them on the palace throne room, but didn’t notice them when they arrived. Adrien cleared his throat to announce their presence and the pair turned in their direction, their attention effectively redirected.

“Hello, there. I see you were expecting us, so I’ll cut the formalities short. Kim, this is Marinette.”

"Ah, finally!” He exclaimed, not seeming to care much for said formalities and jumping from his throne to have a closer look at his guests. “I was starting to get bored of always challenging the same people. Tell me, girl, what are you good at? What challenges can you offer?”

"Not so fast," Marinette interrupted. Kim stopped and looked at her raising a brow. She bit her lip fearing that she overstepped by being rude, but Adrien squeezed her hand beside her and she continued. “I need confirmation first. Adrien says if I win, I can be free, do I have your word?”

Kim gave her a smirk.

“Of course” he promised. “If you win”.

He eyed her critically. Marinette knew that she didn’t look so much of an athlete. She was small and skinny, but he’d be disappointed if he thought she would abandon so easily.

“I’ll even let you pick the challenge, just so you see that I’m a just god,” he promised and promptly dropped to the ground to start a warm up. He looked eager to start.

Marinette tried to think of a sport she could have a chance with, a frown on her face. Adrien looked at her and squeezed her hand one more time. When she met his eyes with her own, he gave her an encouraging smile.

“You’ll be just fine. I have faith in you. You are amazing, Marinette. I’m sure you can win.”

She smiled back and nodded her head. Adrien and Plagg stepped aside and watched her form the lines.

“You’ll do good, Marinette,” said Tikki and kissed her cheek. “For luck.” Then, she flew to join the unlucky pair.

Marinette turned her attention once again to the god of rivalry and fire, trying to think of an option that would allow her to win. She thought that he might not get along with water, being the god of fire, and perhaps challenging him to a swimming competition would be a viable idea, but it was very obvious. Surely others would have previously challenged him to a swimming competition without success. As Adrien had told her, Kim always won in every competition he had suggested.

If only shōgi was a sport she might have suggested it. Looking at Kim, he looked more on the side of impulsiveness rather than on the analyzing side. She had a strong pair of arms due to all the kneading and lifting and carrying sacks of flour, but nothing as near as a god’s strength. She didn’t want to test his endurance either because Adrien once told her that he didn’t need much sleep, but it was nice and relaxing to lay on bed. He supposed Kim would be the same.

He was still doing a warm up when she lifted her eyes in his direction again. She tried to look at his body type to guess which kind of sports he had less experience with, when it hit her.

“I know which challenge I’d like to propose,” she declared.

“About time!” said Kim, jumping from the floor where he was doing squats. “Well, what is it?”

“Gymnastics” said Marinette, with no trace of doubt on her voice, despite her inner turmoil.

“Gymnastics?”

“Yes, especially flexibility.”

Kim was surprised. He had never been challenged for a gymnastics match, and despite that his Kwami was a monkey, he was only a monkey in name. He was good at climbing trees and swaying from one branch to another, but that was about it. Truth be told, he wasn’t very flexible. But how could this girl have known?

She must have seen the insecurity twinkle in his eye, because she smiled.

“Are you backing down from a duel? I have no problem by winning by default.”

“Never!” He responded immediately, like a petulant child. “I never back down from a dare!”

“Very well, then. Shall we start?”

Marinette challenged him to three different disciplines form gymnastics, and he lost all of them. First part of the challenge, he could not touch his head with his toes. For the second he couldn’t do a split and for the third, he could not even reach to grab his toes while sitting down. She won fair and square.

Plag and Tikki cheered. Adrien smiled at her and she returned the smile. After a moment, she ran to him to hug him. Despite everything, he returned to her the one thing she thought she had given up for ever, her freedom.

“Thank you”

He held her a little tighter before he had to let her go.

VIII

Marinette didn’t really go back to her village. Spirited away people were not always well received among mortals. She visited her parents in secret though. And Kagami. She told her about her adventure and how she didn’t regret it.

She also made good friends with the goddess of curiosity and investigation, who’s name was Alya. One afternoon, she told her that no youkai dared to venture the mountain during the festival of the gods. They stayed in the festival but did not wander around to interact with humans. They had no interest in them since, unlike the gods, youkai interacted with humans all the time, even if people didn’t notice.

“But then, who did I…?”

“Probably the goddess of lies. She likes to disguise herself as a youkai, especially kitsunes. Which sucks because kitsunes are the kind of youkai I reign above”.

Marinette visited her frequently, but for the most part stayed with Adrien. She thought about going to another human village or city, where no one knew her, but every time she returned to the European style castle, Adrien’s eyes lit up like a million fireflies, and her heart felt warm when he said her name. So she returned. So she stayed.

“They sure make a lovely couple,” said Plagg, voice casual, to Tikki.

“They do,” she replied, a little dreamily.

“Too bad she’s a human who’ll die too soon.”

The little red Kwami made a pause. She looked over to Plagg and saw him eating cheese without looking at her, making a show of not caring about what he was saying. She knew him too well to notice his intentions, though. He was the yang to her yin, after all.

“What? Why would you bring that up?”

“Well, she is. She’s a human. Human lives expire faster than cheese. But I think she would be a good goddess, given the chance, if you ask me.”

“I’m not.”

Plagg shrugged and kept eating cheese, but the silence was heavy with the weight of the idea implied.

“They just seem so… compatible, like you and me. The kid’s been happier than I’ve ever seen him.”

“Are you suggesting that I make Marinette the goddess of Creation?”

“Ugh, no. Wouldn’t that be awful? She’s been creating stuff since she put a foot in this place. Curtains, clothes, bread. What’s next? Furniture? As if the simplest creations of a human girl could endure the power of the mere presence of a god? Ha, no.”

Tikki knew exactly what Plagg was doing, and even if she didn’t entertain the lazy way he was using to try to get in her head, she took a moment to think. She remembered how spontaneously Marinette had created a tool to help her regain her earring, the very same piece of jewelry that helped the Kwami to give mortals the power of the gods.

If she gave Marinette the earrings… she would become a chosen one. A goddess.

“She does create a lot of things, doesn’t she?”

“I was just pointing out how well they fit” said Plagg. “It’s important that our charges do, if we don’t want things to get unnecessarily complicated. Again.”

Tikki sighed. She liked Marinette very much, and she could also read her heart as Kwamis could. She was a kind soul. She would be a compassionate goddess.

The silence stretched while she kept thinking about it. Plagg had long finished his cheese when he spoke again in a soft tone that he rarely used.

“You’ve been alone for so long…”

There had been a couple of centuries since her last goddess.

Tikki sighed, and looked in the direction where Marinette and Adrien were. They were laying on a blanket on the grass, laughing and watching the sunset. The air around them felt different. Electrified, complete. Like it usually felt when she and Plagg where near each other and in perfect harmony.

Plagg had a point. No matter how mischievous he could be, he was always serious when it came to matters of her, like her lack of a chosen one. He was always serious when it came to them.

“Let’s give them this night,” she finally said, when the sky was upon them with a million stars. “Tomorrow, I’ll ask her.”

Plagg, who was dozing beside her, smirked with his eyes closed.

“Ah, you are so easily influenced.”

“Don’t push it, stinky tabi.”

He chuckled and she smiled. She laid her head against his and closed her eyes. She knew it was a good match.

-.-

Just adding a little vocabulary in case not everyone is familiarized with traditional Japanese clothing and/or mythology:

Wataboshi: The all white hood called the wataboshi is the Shinto equivalent of the western bridal veil.  The bride wears it before and during the ceremony and is a symbol of innocence and purity.

Youkai: A are a class of supernatural monsters, spirits, and demons in Japanese folklore.

Kitsune: In the literal sense is the Japanese word for 'fox', specifically in the red fox of East Asia. Foxes are a common subject of Japanese folklore; in English, kitsune refers to them in this context. Stories depict legendary foxes as intelligent beings and as possessing paranormal abilities that increase with their age and wisdom. According to Yōkai folklore, all foxes have the ability to shapeshift into human form.

Montsuki: All black formal kimono for men. Worn in ceremonies or parties. They are also used for the martial arts, theater and very popular among artists.

Shōgi: Also known as Japanese chess.

Tabi: Traditional Japanese sock.

-.-

Well, there it is. I’m sorry if you were expecting a multichapter series and I only offer a oneshot. Also, I write fluff and made it as less controversial as posible in order to keep it one chapter long. I’m sorry if you were expecting angst. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoyed! I wrote it with all my heart.

[bladekindeyewear]

HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2020-04-02

Alright I’ll fix the broken images later right now lets goooooo read the updaaaate I’ve been only spoiled on the chapter title

I don’t even wanna guess.  Jake?  This makes me think of Jake for some reason, even though that doesn’t make much se-- oh right the Vriskas are locked in a school closet with a dead clown.

> CHAPTER 7. Distress Call From the Closet

Yep.

Also, this is how a car design looks when it was invented to have its first appearance be it flying with a human named Tavros looking out from an open side door.

(I’m not ENTIRELY against designing something for its immediate-art-use-purpose first and functional or historical-origination thought later, but usually when you make it that obvious that that’s what your doing it’s best to make that fact funny.  Like the Conveniently Shaped Lamp.)

Also I appreciate this using of Candy as kind of more lighthearted breaks in the action?

> (==>)

I thoguht that protruding fang (?) was drool for a second and wondered what the fuck they were up to in this closet all of a sudden.

Vriska, thriving on it, has not felt so decadently alive in a very long time. Tavros has never in his tragic existence felt so close to death, which is surprising to him.

Vrissy is trying her best not to grapple with any cosmic truths at the moment, since she’s getting a phone call in the middle of hiding for her life.

Vrissy’s implied to be somewhere in-between all that by this joke.  I bet she’ll be comparing herself to Vriska and Tavros alike throughout this mess, wondering where on the spectrum she lands and being ashamed of it AND both of them regardless.  Vriska Original had a ghost version who went on a fair bit of a Page dress-up thing and personality shift, so maybe we could expect Vrissy to struggle with being caught in the middle of the scales... or does that qualify as overthinking it classpectways?

VRISSY: Yeah Harry I would say we are Extremely Aware of the Situ8ion. VRISSY: As it Unfolded the fuck all around us.

Good Christ, Vrissy’s selectively-capitalized Kanaya-isms continue to be cute.

Oh, he’s on speakerphone.

> (==>)

Yep, telling Rose and Kanaya would be the smart thing to do, but it isn’t the Them thing to do.

--ROXY’S PLACE?!??  Hoo boy.  On the other hand, though, we get more Roxy, so it evens out.

Also, I like how Harry Anderson has to spell out Harry Anderson’s entire name for his Harry Anderson chat tag every single time.  Harry Anderson.

> (==>)

Part of the reason, Tavros thinks, that he’s been so game to continue on with the worst plan anyone has ever concocted, is that the more bullshit they endure, the longer they can put off actually doing anything that matters.

If he’s getting sprayed with a sprinkler and getting clown feet in his face, it’s a farce. It can’t hurt him. But if they get to the part where he’s shoving the uncooperative weight of his uncle’s corpse in an incinerator, he will stop floating in protective semi-consciousness above his body and it will all be real.

Ouch.

Can’t one of you assholes just captchalogue him?  Or did you leave all the appropriate-strength moduses at home?  Even you Vriska??

Oh, right.  Everyone knows and you can just leave him here.  Good call.  I mean you don’t really have to worry about forensic evidence with the pictures circulating.

> (==>)

VRISKA: 8ye 8itch.

Oooh!  That feels satisfying!  Yeah, tell off Gamzee’s corpse!

...Wait.

If they just leave Gamzee there, Jane can revive him, can’t she.

Fuck.  Maybe it’s up to Jake to try and stop that.

> (==>)

Karkat and Meenah resistance-time, then, with them presumably hearing about this development on the internet.  Wow, Meenah’s horns are getting long fast.  Plus a hint more of her grown-up self’s height.  I didn’t think she’d keep maturing so fast with her absurd lifespan ahead of her.

Oh shit, I didn’t see at first--

Right, Candy might still be lighthearted compared to the broader plot just due to lowered stakes, but it’s still the Carpet-Bombing-and-War-Filled Shituniverse.

Trolls are made for the battlefield.

From the moment a troll oozes out of the mother grub’s pulsating sphincter, through the trials of the brooding caverns, across the brutal day to day slog of Alternian society, all the way to their Ordeals, to the sucking void of space. They are bred for nothing but endless war.

But Commander Vantas...Commander Vantas is different.

Is... is Meenah narrating right now?  Because fuck.

Or so all the pamphlets say.

The actual Commander Vantas has blisters on his heel and has been taking pot-shots at scouting drones for the last six hours. He could use a bath, honestly.

Or is this one of the trolls on the side narrating who’s kind of internalized the stories of trolls’ prior warlike nature?

> (==>)

MEENAH: yo nubs is that u MEENAH: pretty rank KARKAT: OH MY GOD. KARKAT: I FLATLY REFUSE TO BELIEVE THAT YOU CAN SMELL MY NATURAL MUSK OVER THE STENCH OF BLOOD AND BURNING FLESH.

I guess it probably was Meenah narrating, then.  Unless it’s a really biased alt!Callie doing the talking.

MEENAH: didnt i warn u bout thinking tho? KARKAT: GOD DAMMIT MEENAH, DON’T MEME AT ME.

I don’t know what meme this is and I really don’t want to know.

They have had this argument more than once. In fact, both of them could play either side of it. Karkat has done his time in the field, of course, leading small guerilla operations to free prisoners and sabotage Crocker’s supply chains, but Meenah and the rest of the council is right. Which is why he’s here, instead of at the front lines with his rebels, where he belongs.

His true value is his face. His symbology. At the end of the day, he is a fucking ad campaign.

...is KARKAT narrating here???

SWIFER: boss check the news!

Oh shit, right, Swifer is in the resistance in Candy instead of just a breeding assistant in Meat as the bonuses remind us.

KARKAT: OH FUCK. MEENAH: what KARKAT: JESUS CHRIST. MEENAH: nubs i swear 2 god KARKAT: IT’S GAMZEE. KARKAT: HE’S DEAD. MEENAH: oh MEENAH: well shit KARKAT: I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE THIS. MEENAH: u okay KARKAT: NO!

Huh.  Them’s some complicated feelings that could fall in basically all directions at once.

Also, I can’t believe Karkat has hung around humans enough to fully internalize the full-throated exclamation “JESUS CHRIST”, which wouldn’t even really be a thing on Earth C with people who aren’t from Earths B or A.

MEENAH: u outlawed fishpuns i gotta make my own fun

How could you, Karkat.

KARKAT: AND I GUESS IF YOU CALL AN OBSCENELY PUBLIC PALE ACT, PERFORMED IN A FUGUE OF DESPERATE PANIC INTENDED TO PREVENT HIM FROM MURDERING ALL OF MY FRIENDS INSTEAD OF JUST HALF OF THEM “A THING”. KARKAT: THEN YES, I GUESS WE HAD A THING. KARKAT: BUT IF YOU’RE ASKING ME IF I’M SAD THAT HE’S DEAD? KARKAT: ABSOLUTELY THE FUCK NOT.

Okay, I’d hoped not, good...

KARKAT: THAT’S NOT WHY I’M SAYING FUCK A BUNCH OF TIMES. MEENAH: u need a reason to say fuck a buncha times KARKAT: SHUT UP. KARKAT: LOOK AT THE PICTURE.

--Right!  That’s a good reason to not be okay.

KARKAT: I DON’T THINK SO? I CAN’T SEE HER EYES IN THIS PICTURE, BUT SHE’S COVERED IN BLOOD, AND SHE’S CARRYING GAMZEE, SO SHE’S CORPOREAL AT LEAST.

I love this form of analysis somehow.

KARKAT: OKAY...HERE. OH. OF COURSE. CROCKER IS CLAIMING HER SON WAS KIDNAPPED AND FORCED TO PARTICIPATE. KARKAT: AND THEY’VE NAMED ME AS THE MASTERMIND. MEENAH: well we woulda taken credit for it anyway so this saves us the time MEENAH: thanks jane owe u one

Meenah isn’t the “concerned” type.  Lemonade out of lemons.

> (==>)

That middle tweet is my favorite.

Oh dear, “#GamzeeAnon”...

KARKAT: SHIT. OF COURSE THIS WOULD HAVE TO DO WITH FUCKING SERKET. KARKAT: LITERAL MONTHS OF PLANNING, HOURS AND HOURS OF LOGISTICS, AND ALL OF IT GOES UP IN SMOKE BECAUSE OF ONE SPIDERY ASSHOLE. KARKAT: SHE *WOULD* FIND SOME WAY TO WRECK MY SHIT FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE.

indisputable

KARKAT: NOW? KARKAT: NOW WE PIVOT FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE RIDICULOUS.

Um...

What does that mean?

I’m having a lot of trouble not only understanding the basic meaning of what he’s saying, here, but understanding why KARKAT of all people would employ it.

......it’s a meme, isn’t it.  Gotta be.

> (==>)

(Ooh, an eyepatch designed to invoke a Strider-shade.  Nice.)

KARKAT: I NEED TO TALK TO EGBERT.

But....... why??

> (==>)

Oh right, cause his son’s girlfriend is involved.

> (==>)

Oh my goooood what a pair of John and Roxy caaaars! :D

He is too busy with these mental gymnastics to notice his father’s car parked outside.

Ah right.  John’s... not on the best terms with him, I recall that.

> (==>)

Ohhhh myyyy goooood what an image!!!

John, Roxy, and Harry Anderson proceed to have the tail end of a conversation they had before, in another medium.

What the fuck!?  Harry had that conversation WHILE this dead body situation was going on?!  Let me reread that linked bit...

(And she has such a somber smile on her face, but given the conversation content it’s not surprising.)

Harry Anderson looks at the two of them all teary and laughing and hikes his bag higher on his shoulder, shifting his weight. Roxy sees a muscle tighten in his jaw. Her beautiful, smart boy. She wants to run over and hug him, to protect him from the possibility of pain at talking to his father, but she doesn’t. She knows how much he’s wanted this, no matter how much he jokes about it.

She looks back at John, and sees her own awe mirrored in his face. She wills him not to cry, not to fall back on his self-imposed suffering and blame loop. Something about the last hour must have done the trick, though. John stands up, brushes his hands on his jeans, and walks, back straight, toward his son.

JOHN: hey harry anderson. JOHN: it’s really, really good to see you. JOHN: do you wanna go for a drive?

The muscle in Harry Anderson’s jaw clenches a few more times, but when he smiles, it is genuine.

HARRY ANDERSON: yeah, dad. HARRY ANDERSON: that could be cool.

Oh son of a bitch.  Well isn’t that entertaining.  Harry you’re just going to ditch your friends for I’m kidding, this is life fulfillment you’re aiming for, of COURSE you’re going to agree.  (Too bad bringing the current situation in is gonna throw a wrench in things.)

> (==>)

Oh right, that means more of THIS Vriska and THIS John.  They’ve had a good start talking already, I wonder what more they can learn from each other.

HARRY ANDERSON: but no worries, i asked my mom to pick me up some snacks so she’ll leave to go to the store in a sec. HARRY ANDERSON: just sneak in after she leaves and hide in my room, and i’ll be back in a bit.

Harry you enormous shortsighted asshole.  And John’s about to learn all this from Karkat over the phone to blow his cover.

> (==>)

aaaaa roxy art i cannot :D

Wonder if her stealthiness attunement is gonna catch them in the act?

> (==>)

From this jealousy bit, I wonder to what degree Earth C humans are used to Troll quadrants and their various interplay mores.

> (Room: Examine yourself.)

Oh, a proper room introduction for Harry Anderson!  Very fashion-focused, very liking the spotlight--

Oh wait, shit.  This is traditionally where classpect associations are hinted more obviously than anywhere else.  Time to stop holding back on the classpect stuff and take in every fucking word with capital-C Classpect fully in mind.

A bedroom stands empty. There is no boy standing in this bedroom, or indeed anyone else. However, if the boy whose bedroom it was were here, one might remark that his name was HARRY ANDERSON.

And FUCK, one might say, does he like MUSICAL THEATER.

Spotlight, definitely.  But is it for the attention? The possibilities? The acting?

He has been in his fair share of school plays, but he has LOFTY ASPIRATIONS to STAR in bigger and better productions. He especially appreciates modern MUSICAL REMAKES of classic OLD EARTH MOVIES. It's a craze that not everyone is happy about, but in the absent boy they have found a DEVOTED FAN. There is also just enough overlap between his taste and his father’s to allow for SOMEWHAT STILTED CONVERSATIONAL BONDING from time to time.

Hmmmm.  Is it about the majesty of important works of media (I see “Pokémon” and “Alien vs Predator” up there...), or is it about the fact that they’re remakes of past works?  Those are a lot of awards and stage lights now that I zoom in to look... and hats... hats could be important......

The boy who is not yet here has also been known to dabble in ACCESSORIZATION. He could be described as a COBBLER ASPIRANT, a NEOPHYTE MILLINER, or even a BIT OF A WHIZZ WITH A NEEDLE AND THREAD.

Oh, interesting!  Not just putting out different outfits, but making them?  And Milliner is hat-specific creation...

His mother got him his first SEWING MACHINE when he was 10, to keep him from using hers all the time. His looks are HAND-CRAFTED, often IMITATED, but never DUPLICATED.

Space is obviously possible from sewing, but-- A focus on uniqueness!!!  The broader theme is getting VERY specific.  You might feel where I’m leaning already.

His COSTUMES appear in various AMATEUR PRODUCTIONS, the devising of which takes up most of his FREE TIME. His friends are usually LESS APPRECIATIVE of his attempts to dress them up than he would like, though.

Holy fucking shit.  He dresses up and makes unique HATS for his friends and others.  Specifically so they can use them as COSTUMES to act parts!!!!

And the other unique thing mentioned about him here took the time aside to note how he appreciated the intersection in personal interests between him and his father for it.

So you all know what I’m thinking, right?  HATS???  It’s got to be Heart, isn’t it.  Maybe even a Page of Heart, with his long-off aspirations and talent for arming others with it.  Any other additive/giving class might do the trick, too, like Sylph or possibly Maid.  Knight could technically still fit pretty well, but I feel Page is better given what little we know so far, what with so much outward focus bleeding out.

(You can comb through the saga on my infamous hats tag or the summary on the Aspect Duality post, but the gist is that hats (and others’ clothes, but especially the hats. even shoes -- SO many shoes in that picture!) represent the gist of an expressed identity, personal uniqueness whether innate or affected ala a costume.  Nepeta, Dirk, Terezi, and even Stitch have given us examples, some of them deeper than we realized, MOST of them probably overthought bullshit like I thought when I first created the hats tag and started tracking the wonderful importance of hats. ¬_¬)

I’d like to see anyone else’s interpretation. (EDIT: One more potential Nep-allusion in this room.)

> (==>)

Oh nooooooo!!!!  Tavros’s sprite is the saddest looking thing I’ve ever seen!! D:  Like a mix of Jane and Jake that thoroughly regrets his entire existence!  Which he practically does!  D:  Why the Caliborn-like clothes though?

(Some hint at “how different alt!Callie’s Caliborn must have been” like the commentary suggested exploring in fanfiction?  Was the suggestion meant to divert attention from the idea that it’d be addressed in the plot?  Andrew pulled that trick a time or two, why not these authors?)

Also:

Pffff.  Vriska just accessorizing immediately--  Oh, wait.  That might just be a bandana she had at some point coated in Gamzee’s blood. 

Tavros is looking at the news on a borrowed phone -- nice call on disabling the tracking on yours, Tavros.

> (==>)

TAVROS: It’s getting a bit surreal to see my, uh,, frozen mask of horror on every news site,, TAVROS: It’s a good shot of you,,, though, Vrissy, VRISSY: It really is Shockingly well composed.

Heheheh.  It’s fun that Tavros knows exactly what Vrissy/ka would care about.

And yes, Vriska is over there trying out ALL the bandanas.

> (==>)

VRISSY: Oh, is trying on all my 8oyfriend’s accessories not passing the time well enough for you? VRISKA: Desper8 times call for desper8 measures, Vrissy. VRISKA: And this is some dire shit.

They stare each other down. Did she mean the fugitive situation, or Harry Anderson’s fashion choices? Vrissy feels silly wondering this, but despite the situation they’re in, she can’t help but feel more acutely anxious about Vriska’s presence.

She likes her life, and she trusts her own choices. But now, looking at everything from Vriska’s vantage point, it all feels silly. Unimportant. Childish.

She can’t tell if she wants Vriska to rip in to Harry Anderson or if she wants her to stay silent. To put off the moment where she has to defend him or join in.

Real interesting.  Like she’s caught between these worlds after all.

> (==>)

They say it was a long drive, but...?

...WOW.  What a chill, disinterested-looking affect his sprite makes for.  Huh.

He kisses Vrissy’s temple and she leans in to the warmth of him.

HARRY ANDERSON: aren’t you a sight for sore eyes. HARRY ANDERSON: so sorry it took so long. HARRY ANDERSON: can’t rush a heart to heart, you know how it is.

Stop making me deliberate whether you’re trying to drop teasing Heart-aspect hints.  You already know I’m going to be obsessively scrutinizing every word of dialogue around Harry to see if it fits, story. No need to rub it in.

VRISSY: You actually had a Heart to Heart with your dad? How many times did he Cry?

I DIDN’T EVEN READ THE NEXT LINE QUIT SAYING HEART TO HEART YOU EVEN GAVE IT PROPER CAPS THAT TIME

HARRY ANDERSON: but god, it was a mess. i had to keep talking to keep him from looking at his phone or turning on the radio. HARRY ANDERSON: i may have told him more about my deep passions and emotions in the last hour than the whole rest of my life combined, just to keep him from hearing the fucking news.

Holy shit.  You exploited conversation about your deep passions and interests for a separate goal???

Aaargh!  Classpect everywhere!  I’ve relapsed!!!  D:

> (==>)

JOHN IS SO HAPPY

John Egbert has not had a day like this in a very long time. He can barely keep track of this series of epiphanies he’s having. He stretches out on his couch to relax and process the gifts of advice and connection his friends and family and ex-family have just given him.

OH RIGHT TIME TO RUIN IT WITH MAXIMUM SHENANIGANS

JOHN: hey karkat! great timing! JOHN: so much just happened and im kind of reeling about it. KARKAT: YEAH NO SHIT.

Ohhhh.  Much of the time I hate dramatic irony, but those moments before someone is about to be let in on the discrepancy... oh man I love that.

JOHN: is something going on? i just spent the afternoon with my son, and i think he would have told me if something was up with his friends? KARKAT: OH MY LUSCIOUS SHITTING CHRIST JOHN LISTEN TO ME. JOHN: listening!

"Luscious”??  Did they try to type “Lusus” and get autocorrected?

Who’s writing Homestuck on their phone???

> (==>)

J...John?? Are you okay?? XD

This picture.  These two paragraphs.  I fucking love them.

(Wow, being closer to the “canon” story due to ridiculous shenanigans right after his back-to-back self-insights and outlook changes have really been healthy for him huh.  He can probably sense HS^2 reaching him out here.  And you can see the helpless comedian his probably-still-depressed ass became on Earth B in his reaction here. EDIT: Also, how appropriate that even by DYING, the Bard of Rage managed to fulfill his role and shatter the last vestiges of John's narrow-outlooked despair?)

John can’t answer. He can’t speak. His body has given itself over to the long-lost feeling of manic euphoria. It had felt like Harry Anderson was holding something back on the drive earlier, but he had already told John so much. He hadn’t wanted to press for more.

Yeah... after what John’s gone through across his life and session, finding out Harry managed to hide THIS for a whole car-ride is the best sort of punch-line for him.

John can’t breathe. Something is happening. Something is finally fucking happening, and he’s finally awake enough to appreciate it.

--yep.  I was just guessing earlier, but this kind of confirms it’s in part a closer-to-relevance, closer-to-canon feeling bleeding in.  Something is happening that’s important enough to SHOW onscreen and not skip over.  I guess he really does like being anchored in Light after all.

> (==>)

John wheezes himself into relative calm. He has to get Karkat to understand. He clears his throat and breathes.

JOHN: karkat, this can be how we win. JOHN: i know what we need to do.

...holy SHIT.

Karkat, how did you know calling JOHN about this would work out this well??

John actually taking confident action to solve a problem, in a way that isn’t going to end up depressing like his attempt to provide Tavros escape in the Epilogues... this should be interesting.

See you next time.  (I had to image-fix some stupid linked hat posts for this blogpost and I’m out of energy, so I’ll fix the other old post I promised that asker to fix in like, a day or two; I’ll post when I do.)

[agrestebug]

It starts with coffee

Hey everyone! The Miraculous Fanworks Discord is celebrating their anniversary! HUZZAH! So here is a little one shot as a treat - thank you so much to LadyBuginette from the server who submitted the prompt!

Trying to act casual, Marinette peered slyly over her large sunglasses. Her gaze focused on the café across from where she and Adrien were having lunch. Adrien shook his head at his girlfriend of eight years, but couldn't hold back the smile at her antics, "They'll be fine."

"I know they'll be fine." Marinette told the love of her life quickly, "I just want to make sure. Kagami is one of my best friends,"

"And Felix is my cousin." He reached across the small table and laced his fingers through hers, "Princess," he called her softly, immediately getting her attention. "They'll be fine."

He held her beautiful blue eyes with a soft smile on his face. Her fingers squeezed his and she let out a heavy sigh, "I know, I know you are right, but I was the one who set them up. If it backfires,"

"It won't. You have always been a people person, ever since college. You and your miraculous instinct to know when two people are a good fit has never been wrong." He reminded her triumphantly, lifting her hand and placing a gentle kiss on her knuckles.

She smiled at the move, her cheeks dusting with a soft pink, "Tomcat."

"How dare you." He teased, "I am a purrfect gentleman."

"No, don't start with the puns Kitten, please." She practically begged.

"Promise to enjoy your own date instead of worrying about theirs." He told her instantly, "Only then will I purromise."

She groaned but relented, taking off the sunglasses and taking one last look over at the café, seeing how awkward her two friends looked. This wasn't a mistake… right?

"All right, okay. I promise."

…

Felix had his eyes glued to the address on his phone. Why in the hell did his cousin want to meet him for lunch like this all of a sudden? This was his ONE day off from Gabriel, and he was sure there were much better things he could be doing than grabbing a quick coffee with his obnoxiously positive cousin.

God he hoped Adrien hadn't ordered for him. If he had to force down one more of those, cups of sugar Adrien liked to think passed for coffee, he was going to walk out without so much as a word.

He entered the small café, glad at least that it seemed pretty empty. Adrien's fame tended to haunt them at the worst of times, and it was even worse when they were both out. One of the unlucky side-effects to being practically twins.

He waited for a minute or two, getting ready to call and check on Adrien's whereabouts when his phone rang. He saw her face and frowned, answering it quickly, "Marinette, where is he?"

"I kidnapped him!" She said brightly, "Sorry to steal your lunch date, BUUUUUUUT, I sent a replacement. Make sure you treat her well or I will tell everyone about your love for little black cats."

He groaned as he realized what she had done, "You planned this didn't you? Damn it Marinette I told you I didn't…" he paused, seeing a very beautiful girl with short dark hair walking into the café. She looked around, a slight scowl maring her distinct features. He knew instantly that she was Japanese, but never had he seen eyes quite like hers. They were hazel, yes, but he felt like that description was dull and more of an insult no matter how he thought about it.

"I… have to go." He managed to force out, clicking off when he heard Marinette giggling.

The dark haired beauty made eye contact with him, her expression turning knowing as she slowly made her way towards him. He placed his phone inside his jacket pocket when she stopped in front of him, "Marinette was correct. You could pass for Adrien quite easily."

Her tone was flat, not a judgment in any way whatsoever. Surprised by her bluntness, he said it in the same flat tone, "Our mother's were twins, so the odds of their children bearing similar likeness is purely based on genetics."

"Statistically however, the odds of twins birthing separately and still having a child bearing remarkable resemblance to one another is less than one percent, assuming your father's were not related in any way." She stated, her somewhat cold gaze piercing straight through him.

"I guess." He muttered, fighting the urge to shift uncomfortably under the strength of her gaze. It was a rare person who could hold his own cold gaze for so long. Let alone make him consciously feel uncomfortable.

She was interesting, to say the least.

"Marinette said I would like you." She told him.

"That right." He asked skeptically, even though it didn't come out like a question.

"Yes. However I believe she's biased." The girl told him, giving him an awkward smile that was all teeth.

He cleared his throat at the underlying implication, "Well she didn't say much about you. I was tricked."

The weird smile fell off her face easily, replaced by a carefully masked neutral expression. "I don't need your charity."

She turned to walk away, and his hand moved of its own accord. He gripped her arm, just hard enough to force her stop before instantly letting her go when her expression hardened.

"It's not charity." He clarified, "My apologies if that is how it came across. It was not my intent."

She studied him carefully, staying silent for a moment before telling him, "Pressed dark roast, no sugar, no cream. I'll find a table." She turned away from him again, and he stared at her in a new sense of shock. She drank her coffee the same way he did. He turned and went to the counter, placing the order and adding a few vanilla and almond biscotti's.

Just because he liked his coffee dark, didn't mean he didn't enjoy having something sweet with it.

He paid and the waitress told him they would bring the order out to the table. He found the dark haired girl sitting at a table outside, glaring angrily at her phone and texting quickly. He heard her small huff as he sat down across from her. She immediately put her phone away, a scowl still on her face as she looked at him.

"I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Kagami Tsurugi."

He nodded once, "Felix Graham de Vanily."

They went silent, only holding eyes for a few seconds before looking away. He was going to murder Marinette for this. How could she have possibly thought that putting him through this sort of awkward endeavour would make him happy? He huffed out loud, already planning multiple ways to get back at Marinette for this stunt. And Adrien too. His cousin was wrapped around the designer's finger, so he had no doubt that he'd had some part of this.

"If something is bothering you, you shouldn't let anyone see or hear it."

He glanced over at her, freezing his face before he could let the emotion pass, "Of course. A momentary lapse that won't be repeated, I assure you."

She nodded tersely, the air between them turning awkward again when the waiter saved them for a few moments by bringing their coffee. He took a sip, enjoying the deep, rich flavor of the coffee when a warm breeze brushed past them. "It's nice out today." He commented, watching over the rim of his cup as she took a sip.

A ghost of a smile graced her features, "It is."

He was lost in the image of that small smile that she let out. He was a Graham de Vanily. He'd be damned if he couldn't find a way to make her smile for real. He tried to make small talk, to see what he could trigger to get her really talking. If he could find out what she liked, he knew he'd be able to see a real smile on her face.

He was surprised through his questioning to find that they had more than their taste in dark coffee in common. Kagami practiced both aikido and mixed martial arts, something that he himself had taken since he was four. They had both spent a majority of their life outside of France, but had still ended up being drawn back here. It even seemed that they had similar upbringings, with parents of influence that forced them to play a part.

Felix mulled over her words about how strict of a schedule she followed while finishing off another cup of coffee. This girl was… amazingly unique, to say the least. She was strong, both in will and in heart, but carried an air of calm that could intimidate anyone with a single glance. She also had a bit of a sarcastic nature, one that he fully appreciated.

He watched her finish off her first cup of coffee, thinking that this really was nice. He wished his other dates had gone the way this one was.

"I am surprised." He started slowly.

She caught his eyes, "That right," she stated, the same way he had earlier. His lips twitched, wanting to turn into a smirk. So, she wasn't just beautiful. An idle thought crossed his head, most dragons were beautiful, but it didn't make them any less deadly.

"Yes." He said calmly, "That you agreed to stay. This isn't the first time Marinette has pulled something like this on me, or Adrien for that matter."

"Your surprise then surprises me." She said, placing her cup down gently, "I knew what I was walking into, granted, it was more to quiet Marinette's…" Kagami went silent, her brows knitting together.

"Obnoxious positivity." He supplied simply, pointing towards the biscotti, "Ladies first."

She grabbed one, smirking, "You've been on the receiving end of it too then?"

He said it tiredly, "If you only knew."

A soft smile finally formed on her face, and her voice lost some of its harshness, "I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours. I bet I have you beat."

He let his manners slip just the smallest bit, "Not a chance in hell."

She giggled, and the sound echoed in his heart. He smiled, diving into the story and knowing he would win this. The second he was done, she started her own story, one he could hardly believe. But he could do one better. He told her one of the worst stories he had, where Adrien and Marinette had tag-teamed him. He had ended up on a double date with the sickeningly sweet lovebirds, trying the entire night not to gag. His 'date' was more consumed with her phone than anything he'd had to say. And she had the gall to ask him to go out again.

Kagami laughed as their third cup of coffee was brought out to them, "That sounds painful, extremely so."

He shrugged, but was smiling himself, "It can't be as bad as Adrien and Marinette dancing around each other in college. He was so blind to her feelings, I offered to buy him glasses more than once."

Kagami's smile widened, "I remember that. Poor Marinette. I tried to give her the confidence to go after him the way she wished, to no avail."

They said it at the same time, "Thank god for that masquerade."

They smiled at each other, "Marinette in that Ladybug dress." "And Adrien in that cat suit. They were a sight to see."

"Adrien told me that night, he hadn't been that happy since his mother passed. As obnoxious as they can be, I'm glad he has her." Felix admitted, thinking back to how different he and Adrien had reacted when they lost a parent. When his father died, he'd secluded himself, and purposely pushed people away. His uncle had trapped Adrien in his gilded cage, but Adrien never lost his light. He fought so hard to keep that light bright, and in the end it had acted like a beacon that brought Marinette to him.

Kagami's solemn voice broke though his thoughts, "Sometimes, I wish I had reacted the way Adrien did."

He nearly choked on his coffee at her words. He hadn't said all of that out loud had he?

She heard him sputter and continued quietly, "When my father passed, I secluded myself. I purposely pushed people away to avoid ever feeling that way again. If that was what love brought, pain, from a fate no one can escape,"

"Then it was better to be without it." He finished, understanding her perfectly.

She nodded, asking him gently, "You as well?"

"When my father passed." He admitted, "My mother pushed me to date for a while, wishing for an heir to the estate after me," he scoffed as he thought back to his mother's not so subtle hints, and saw Kagami shaking her head tiredly.

"My mother has spoken the same to me on numerous occasions. That's why I left and moved in with Marinette." She said heavily, "Children have never been one of my desires."

"Nor mine." He agreed, "What sort of father would I be? I can barely deal with Adrien and Marinette half the time."

"Deal with them?" She said scoffing, "I walk away when they become too much."

They shared a laugh, and he noticed the sun beginning to lower. She glanced around too, seeing his look, and said it sounding almost disappointed, "It is getting rather late in the afternoon. Maybe we should wrap this up."

She stood and he stood with her, not ready to let her go just yet. "Perhaps you'll allow me the chance to make up for my earlier rudeness."

He held his arm out for hers, and to his inner joy that seemed to have bloomed in her presence, she put her arm in his. He smiled at her, really smiled, and she smiled back as they left the café. On the way to her and Marinette's apartment, they exchanged a few more stories and were laughing again by the time they made it to the apartment door.

"Oh wait until I bring it up, he is going to go scarlet." Felix told her happily at the embarrassing story of Adrien she had just shared with him. Making fun of Adrien and Marinette was another thing they had in common.

"Make sure you take a picture and send it to me." She told him, taking her arm out of his. "Thank you, for walking me home." She said sincerely.

"It was my pleasure." He whispered, his voice barely able to get the simple sentence out. He pushed a small piece of her loose hair behind her ear, lowering his hand slowly.

A small blush appeared on her cheeks, and he asked her softly, "Would you, consider doing this again, with me? A real date."

She smiled, the hazel of her eyes turning to amber gold, "I'd like that."

He smiled brighter, "Whenever you are free next. I'll alter my schedule to meet yours."

"That won't be necessary,"

"It would be my honor." He said, taking a small step back away from her so that he could leave, "Have a good night Kagami."

He turned away from her, the urge to stay much harder to push down than he would have ever thought.

A firm hand grabbed his arm, pulling him to a stop. There was a fierce expression on her face, "Idiot."

She pulled him back to her and kissed him soundly. His eyes briefly widened in shock until he returned the pressure. A soft hum escaped her as she pulled back with a triumphant smirk, "Good night Felix."

She opened the door to the apartment and walked inside, closing the door softly behind her.

He smiled to himself, staring at the door like an idiot for a minute before turning to leave, already in anticipation of seeing her again.

The elevator opened, and he laughed as he entered, hearing dual squealing coming in the direction of the girls' apartment.

Thanks for reading! I’d love to know what you guys think! This is cross-posted on A03 and FFN under the same username AgresteBug - so please don’t repost without my permission!

[smokeybrandreviews]

The King of Iron Fist

I don’t talk about this much but i am a massive, massive, fan of fighting games. I’ve been playing these things for decades, since all the way back in ‘92 with the release of the original Mortal Kombat. Watching the growth, decline, and then resurgence of the fighting game community has been a goddamn treat for me. Admittedly, i suck at the Capcom titles. Absolutely terrible. I do okay with the Rival Schools franchise, but outside of that, straight up balls, man. Never my forte. I’m pretty good with the original MK trilogy, the sprite based one, but absolutely awful with Deadly Alliance through Deception. I hated the fighting styles in those games. They were so goddamn awful, it was sickening. I do okay with the MKIX, MKX, and MKXI titles, though. They feel like the old games which lends itself to my old timey skill set. That said, my strength lies with the two Namco headliners; Tekken and Soul Calibur.

I mastered every Tekken title through 7, though, admittedly, I'm not so godly in the newest release, only great. Personally. For me, Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection is the title I'm best with. I love that game, man. I can use literally everyone in the roster to perfection. All of their moves. All of their ten-hits. I maxed out my rank in the Ghost Battles with several of the characters and ranked in the top-10, worldwide, leader boards when it was first released. I was feeling a bit nostalgic and wanted to revisit my favorite fighting franchise, giving a little love to my favorite fighters, kind of like how i did with my Persona 5 mains. They are ranked, top to bottom, in order of my skill with them. I even threw in the rank i reached in their respective Tekken games, just for good measure. Since 6 is the last one i really spent any time with and there might be a few characters introduced in 7 or, like, the Tag titles that I'm pretty good with but don’t really have a correlation in rank, I'll have to approximate my skill with a Tekken 6 rank, just to keep things equal.

1. Emilie De Rochefort - Tekken 5 - Tekken God

Lili is my main from 5 onward. Her speed, power, and cross-ups are ridiculous. There is a fluidity to her style that makes for an amazing number of possibilities. All of those flips, somersaults, and hopping knee pokes make for a varying arsenal of devastating stuns. If you can time your attacks right, you can string one, long ass, chain of hits that will deplete an enemy with a Perfect within seconds. Her strength carried over into Tekken 6, easily winning me over in that title, too. I haven’t played much of 7 but what i did get into, Lili feels a little nerfed. She just feels a bit slower than she should. That’s not a problem or whatever, but it is kind of annoying that have to have so many gaps in my assault.

2. Hwoarang - Tekken 3 - Tekken God

Hwoarang was my main for years. He was the very first character that i mastered in any Tekken title. See, my older brother would come over with his PlayStation and commence to beat my ass in Tekken 3 for hours. One day, he told me to actually get good and lent me his Sony for a week. Welp, i did just that. I got good. Real f*cking good. Hwoarang uses Tae Kwon Do, which is dope because it’s easy to combo with, but this dude’s strength is in his juggle potential. His kicks lack the power of his master, Baek Doo San, but they come out faster and in more numbers. Within that week, i was able to string together a flurry of devastating kicks that not even my big brother could counter. Twenty-three years later, he still hasn’t beat me in a single game. If Lili isn’t available, Hwoarang is my guy. Even so, i am probably equally skilled with both, i just prefer the stylish flourish my darling Emilie has with her style.

3. Steve Fox - Tekken 4 - Tekken God

Steve was a quandary when he first released. Dude has no kicks and it was ridiculous to see in a game with such an expansive roster of fighters like Tekken, especially in the fourth iteration. His addition was ridiculous to me. And then i tried him. My, god, was his speed stupid. See, in a fighter like this, speed kills. If you can bust a quick combo, maybe juggle a cat, maybe fired off a quick combo before retreating out of counter range, you can destroy an opponent in seconds. That’s why i love Lili. That’s why i love Hwoarang. Steve Fox has that same potential but it’s different. You can’t launch characters too easily and being a puncher, his reach is limited, but you can juggle the f*ck out of them if they end up airborne. Steve has a lot of weapons to f*ck you up in a near infinite juggle if you’re not careful and i know all of them. Interestingly enough, he’s gotten better with age. I prefer his 5 version but 6 and 7 are pretty beefy, too.

4. Kazuya Mishima - Tekken - Tekken Lord

Kazuya is my power hitter. I’m a speed guy, admittedly. I love the juggle. I love the chains. I love the artistry in forging a string of consecutive, devastating, combo hits. The issue is, there are motherf*ckers like Paul Phoenix who can punch a planet into retrograde in this game. Now, against a computer, I'm fine with my main three Tekken Gods. I’ll dog walk a computer, no matter how high the difficulty. Once you’ve beaten Jinpachi on the highest setting in Tekken 5, you are ready for anything. However, against a real person who knows how to use a power character like the f*cking bears or goddamn Jack? Nah. If they’re good with that heavy-hitter, i have to bring in my own and Kazuya is that ringer. Dude’s probably the second strongest character in the the game after his pops, Heihachi Mishima. The difference? Kazuya’s cross ups are f*cking ridiculous. All of that twirling and overhead kicks make for some confusing hurt when you know how to execute.

5. Eliza - Tekken 7 - Tekken Lord

Eliza was an interesting character for me to pick up. I was curious about her so i bought that money pit Tekken Revolution or whatever. I hated that game so much but i played enough Eliza to feel borderline conceited in my ability. Imagine my elation when my darling drowsy vampire made her cannon appearance in Tekken 7. Again, i didn’t play much, but i did find that my Revolution skills translated well and i was even able to pick up a few new tricks. Eliza, admittedly, is super wonky to master, she’s similar to Alisa Bosconovitch that way, but her mix ups are superb. If you put in the time, Eliza is a very rewarding character to play.

6. Marshall Law - Tekken - Tekken Lord

The elder Law is my guy. I’m a sucker for a Bruce Lee facsimile and Marshall is one of the best out there. He has a good combination of speed and power but it’s his mix ups that endear him to my heart. That and i learned how to play with him because Forest Law, Lee’s son, was the character my brother beat my ass so handily with for months in Tekken 3. I learned Forest out of spite but, when his pops returned in 4, i made sure to master that version, as well. Over time, i grew to love playing with Marshall. He has a very unique, very acrobatic and showy style, like his real life inspiration.

7.  Jun Kazama - Tekken - Tekken Lord

Jun ain’t no joke. That Kazama style martial art is something nasty. I could have probably put Asuka here, i am about as good with her as i am Jun considering how similar their styles are, but i have to give respect to the original tooth fairy. Jun Kazama is a f*cking problem, man, She’s deceptively powerful but quick with those hands. She will poke the f*ck out of you with such insidious precision, you won’t even realize you died even after the match is called. The way her blows flow make for some unwieldy mix ups and stupid juggle stuns. I hated fighting her in 2. I hated fighting her even more in the Tag titles. But i love fighting WITH her, especially if you can master that funky timing she has.

8. Lee Chaolan - Tekken 4 - Tekken Lord

Lee is bit of a detraction form my usual fighting fare. He’s kind of a gag character. A little effeminate and a little cruel, Lee’s kicks are the real deal. This cat sends those footsy out at blinding speed and you know how much i love my speed. The thing is, he lacks the power of, say, Hwoarang, Baek, or Bruce. I actually picked up Lee n 4, then Violet, on a whim because i thought it would be funny to beat someone with a character i had no idea how to play. After that first round, though, i was on it.Dude felt good in my hands. I knew Lee was something special and spent the rest of the night with his pokey kicks and flying drop kicks. It was f*cking incredible. I couldn’t believe i slept on such an amazing character for so long. I went back to Tekken 2 and spent weeks with him just to get a proper feel from start to finish. Now, he’s a staple of my rotation. Only when I'm feeling flamboyant, though.

9. Devil Kazuya - Tekken 2 - Dragon Lord

I picked up Devil Kazuya way back in Tekken 2 because i liked the design. Also, the face laser. That sh*t was stupid. As time went on, and the games advanced, i always went back to Tekken 2 in an effort to hone my skills with the original Devil. To my surprise, when Tekken 7 dropped, Devil Kazuya was playable once again and my skills translated perfectly. Dude has a few new tricks and i immediately ate those f*ckers up but it felt so good taking to the air once more. It sucks he only has two, official, appearances but this is one of those cats that i played a lot with in the Tag titles. Like, SO much. Devi was my second choice after Hwoarang in the original Tekken Tag and, like, my fourth in Tekken Tag 2. Obviously, I'm just as good with Angel, too. I mean, they’re the same f*cking character so i better be!

10. Anna Williams - Tekken 2 - Dragon Lord

Oh, the Williams sisters. Similar to the case of Jun and Asuka, I'm probably equally as good with both the Williams but Anna is my preferred character. I just like her design better. That and her deceptive ass sexuality. Anna is gorgeous but she will f*ck you the f*ck up. The Williams sisters are power characters and you can’t tell me otherwise. These chicks will ruin your life as a fast as Paul Phoenix if you’re facing off against someone who knows how to use them. I know how to use them very well. Again, Anna over Nina, but I'll mess you up regardless.

11. Zafina - Tekken 6 - Dragon Lord

Zafina was a surprise. Her style is all over the place. I read somewhere it was designed after a snake or something. That sh*t is fitting because she is a slippery motherf*cker, man. Zafina took me a while to master, kind of like Eliza, but once you understand her strengths, this chick can be a proper powerhouse. She’s quick, juggles well, but pokes like a f*cking champ. If your poke game is strong with her, there’s a good chance you can stun lock an opponent into a perfect or two.

12. Devil Jin - Tekken 5 - Dragon Lord

Admittedly, i wanted to put Jin from Tekken 3 on this list. His mixture of Kazama and Mishima style martial arts is mad potent. I love the way dude plays. It’s like fighting with Jun and Kazuya at the same time. However, with the release of Tekken 4, Jin unlearned literally everything about the Mishima style and decided to master normal karate. That sh*t was whack, man. I mean, it was fine, i learned the new Jin fine, but it wasn’t MY Jin. That said, my Jin was in the game, only he took the form of a devil. Devil Jin is f*cking ridiculous. I understood a lot of his abilities because of my mastery of Devil Kazuya but, with the addition of the Kazama style martial arts, Devil Jin was a f*cking beast in that game. He’s kind of a beast in every game he makes an appearance. between the two, i prefer Devil Kazuya, but I'll wreck a guy with Jin if necessary.

13. Bryan Fury - Tekken Tag Tournament - Dragon Lord

I love Bryan Fury. The design, the inspiration, the brutal fighting style, that ridiculously evil laugh; Dude is just amazing. I got pretty good with Bruce Irvin in Tekken 2 so when he wasn’t around in Tekken 3, i was a little bummed. It took awhile for me to pick of Fury, i actually first really got into the character in Tag but i did fool around with him in 3 a little bit. That was after i was surprised by how effortlessly powerful he was in Tag. Dude ain’t Bruce, but he’s still pretty dope.

Honorable Mentions: Unknown, Armor King, Ling Xiaoyu, Alisa Bosconovitch, Heihachi Mishima, Bruce Irvin, Kazumi Mishima, Miguel Caballero Rojo, Josie Rizal, Eddy Gordo

[smokeybrand]

The King of Iron Fist

I don’t talk about this much but i am a massive. massive fan of fighting games. I’ve been playing these things for decades, since all the way back in ‘92 with the release of the original Mortal Kombat. Watching the growth, decline, and then resurgence of the fighting game community has been a goddamn treat for me. Admittedly, i suck at the Capcom titles. Absolutely terrible. I do okay with the Rival Schools franchise, but outside of that, straight up balls, man. Never my forte. I’m pretty good with the original MK trilogy, the sprite based one, but absolutely awful with Deadly Alliance through Deception. I hated the fighting styles in those games. They were so goddamn awful, it was sickening. I do okay with the MKIX, MKX, and MKXI titles, though. They feel like the old games which lends itself to my old timey skill set. That said, my strength lies with the two Namco headliners; Tekken and Soul Calibur.

I mastered every Tekken title through 7, though, admittedly, I'm not so godly in the newest release, just great. Personally. For me, Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection is the title I'm best with. I love that game, man. I can use literally everyone in the roster to perfection. All of their moves. All of their ten-hits. I maxed out my rank in the Ghost Battles with several of the characters and ranked in the top-10, worldwide, leader boards when it was first released. I was feeling a bit nostalgic and wanted to revisit my favorite fighting franchise, giving a little love to my favorite fighters, kind of like how i did with my Persona 5 mains. They are ranked, top to bottom, in order of my skill with them. I even threw in the rank i reached in their respective Tekken games, just for good measure. Since 6 is the last one i really spent any time with and there might be a few characters introduced in 7 or, like, the Tag titles that I'm pretty good with but don’t really have a correlation in rank, I'll have to approximate my skill with a Tekken 6 rank, just to keep things equal.

Emilie De Rochefort - Tekken 5 Dark - Tekken God

Lili is my main from 5 onward. Her speed, power, and cross-ups are ridiculous. There is a fluidity to her style that makes for an amazing number of possibilities. All of those flips, somersaults, and hopping knee pokes make for a varying arsenal of devastating stuns. If you can time your attacks right, you can string one, long ass, chain of hits that will deplete an enemy with a perfect within seconds. Her strength carried over into Tekken 6, easily winning me over in that title, too. I haven’t played much of 7 but what i did get into, Lili feels a little nerfed. She just feels a bit slower than she should. That’s not a problem or whatever, but it is kind of annoying that have to have so many gaps in my assault.

Hwoarang - Tekken 3 - Tekken God

Hwoarang was my main for years. He was the very first character that i mastered in any Tekken title. See, my older brother would come over with his PlayStation and commence to beat my ass in Tekken 3 for hours. One day, he told me to actually get good and lent me his Sony for a week. Welp, i did just that. I got good. Real f*cking good. Hwoarang uses Tae Kwon Do, which is dope because it’s easy to combo with, but this dude’s strength is in his juggle potential. His kicks lack the power of his master, Baek Doo San, but they come out faster and in more numbers. Within that week, i was able to string together a flurry of devastating kicks that not even my bog brother could counter. Twenty-three years later, he still hasn’t beat me in a single game. If Lili isn’t available, Hwoarang is my guy. Even so, i am probably equally skilled with both, i just prefer the stylish flourish my darling Emilie has with her style.

Steve Fox - Tekken 4 - Tekken God

Steve was a quandary when he first released. Dude has no kicks and it was ridiculous to see in a game with such an expansive roster of fighters like Tekken, especially in the fourth iteration. His addition was ridiculous to me. And then i tried him. My, god, was his speed stupid. See, in a fighter like this, speed kills. If you can bust a quick combo, maybe juggle a cat, you can destroy an opponent in seconds. That’s why i love Lili. That’s why i love Hwoarang. Steve Fox has that same potential but it’s different. You can’t launch characters too easily but you can juggle the f*ck out of them if they end up airborne. Steve has a lot of weapons to f*ck you up in a near infinite juggle if you’re not careful and i know all of them. Interestingly enough, he’s gotten better with age. I prefer his 5 version but 6 and 7 are pretty beefy, too.

Kazuya Mishima - Tekken - Tekken Lord

Kazuya is my power hitter. I’m a speed guy, admittedly. I love the juggle. I love the chains. I love the artistry in forging a string of consecutive, devastating, combo hits. The issue is, there are motherf*ckers like Paul Phoenix who can punch a planet into retrograde in this game. Now, against a computer, I'm fine with my main three Tekken Gods. I’ll dog walk a computer, no matter how high the difficulty. Once you’ve beaten Jinpachi on the highest setting in Tekken 5, you are ready for anything. However, against a real person who knows how to used a power character like the f*cking bears or goddamn Jack? Nah. If they’re good with that heavy-hitter, i have to bring in my own and Kazuya is that ringer. Dude’s probably the second strongest character in the the game after his pops, Heihachi Mishima. The difference? Kazuya’s cross ups are f*cking ridiculous. All of that twirling and over head kicks make for some confusing hurt when you know how to execute.

Eliza - Tekken 7 - Tekken Lord

Eliza was an interesting character for me to pick up. I was curious about her so i bought that money pit Tekken Revolution or whatever. I hated that game so much but i played enough Eliza to fell borderline conceited in my ability. Imagine my elation when my darling drowsy vampire made her cannon appearance in Tekken 7. Again, i didn’t play much, but i did find that my Revolution skills translated well and i was even able to pick up a few new tricks. Eliza, admittedly, is super wonky to master, she’s similar to Alisa Bosconovitch that way, but her mix ups are superb. If you put in the time, Eliza is a very rewarding character to play.

Marshall Law - Tekken - Tekken Lord

The elder Law is my guy. I’m a sucker for a Bruce Lee facsimile and Marshall is one of the best out there. He has a good mix of speed and power but it’s his mix ups that endear him to my heart. That and i learned how to play with him because Forest Law, Lee’s son, was the character my brother beat my ass so handily with for months in Tekken 3. I learned Forest out of spite but, when his pops returned in 4, i made sure it master that version, as well. Over time, i grew to love playing with Marshall. He has a very unique, very acrobatic and showy style, like his real life inspiration.

Jun Kazama - Tekken - Tekken Lord

Jun ain’t no joke. That Kazama style martial art is something nasty. I could have probably put Asuka here, i am about as good with her as i am Jun considering how similar their styles are, but i have to give respect to the original tooth fairy. Jun Kazama is a f*cking problem, man, She’s deceptively powerful but quick with those hands. The way her blows flow make for some unwieldy mix ups and stupid juggle stuns. I hated fighting her in 2. I hated fighting her even more in the Tag titles. But i love fighting WITH her, especially if you can master that funky timing she has.

Lee Chaolan - Tekken 4 - Tekken Lord

Lee is bit of a detraction form my usual fighting fare. He’s kind of a gag character. A little effeminate and a little cruel, Lee’s kicks are the real deal. This cat send those footsy out at blinding speed and you know how much i love my speed. The thing is, he lacks the power of, say, Hwoarang, Baek, or Bruce. I actually picked up Lee n 4, then Violet, on a whim because i thought it would be funny to beat someone with a character i had n idea how to play. After that first round, though, i was on it. I knew Lee was something special and spent the rest of the night with his pokey kicks and flying drop kicks. It was f*cking incredible. I couldn’t believe i slept on such an amazing character for so long. I went back to Tekken 2 and spent weeks with the character just to get a proper feel with I'm from start to finish. Now, he’s one that’s in my rotation. When I'm feeling flamboyant.

Devil Kazuya - Tekken 2 - Dragon Lord

I picked up Devil Kazuya way back in Tekken 2 because i liked the design. Also, the face laser. That sh*t was stupid. As time went on, and the games advanced, i always went back to Tekken 2 in an effort to hone my skills with the original Devil. To my surprise, when Tekken 7 dropped, Devil Kazuya was playable once again and my skills translated perfectly. Due has a few new tricks and i immediately ate those f*cker up but it felt so good taking to the air once more. It sucks he only has two, official, appearances but this is one of those cats that i played a lot with in the Tag titles. Like, SO much. Devi was my second choice after Hwoarang in the original Tekken Tag and, like, my fourth in Tekken Tag 2. Obviously, I'm just as good with Angel, too. I mean, they’re the same f*cking character so i better be!

Anna Williams - Tekken 2 - Dragon Lord

Oh, the Williams sisters. Similar to the case of Jun and Asuka, I'm probably equally as good with both the Williams but Anna is my preferred character. I just like her design better. That and her deceptive ass sexuality. Anna is gorgeous but she will f*ck you the f*ck up. The Williams sisters are power characters and you can’t tell me otherwise. These chicks will ruin your life as a fast as Paul Phoenix if you’re facing off against someone who knows how to use them. I know how to use them very well. Again, Anna over Nina, but I'll mess you up regardless.

Zafina - Tekken 6 - Dragon Lord

Zafina was a surprise. Her style is all over the place. I read somewhere it was designed after a snake or something. That sh*t is fitting because she is a slippery motherf*cker, man. Zafina took me a while to master, kind of like Eliza, but once you understand her strengths, this chick can be a proper powerhouse. She’s quick, juggles well, but pokes like a f*cking champ. If your poke game is strong with her, there’s a good chance you can stun lock an opponent into a perfect or two.

Devil Jin - Tekken 5 - Dragon Lord

Admittedly, i wanted to put Jin from Tekken 3 on this list. His mixture of Kazama and Mishima style martial arts is mad potent. I love the way dude plays. It’s like fighting with Jun and Kazuya at the same time. However, with the release of Tekken 4, Jin unlearned literally everything about the Mishima style and decided to master normal karate. That sh*t was whack, man. I mean, it was fine, i learned the new Jin fine, but it was MY Jin. That said, my Jin was in the game, only he took the form of a devil. Devil Jin is f*cking ridiculous. I understood a lot of his abilities because of my mastery of Devil Kazuya but, with the addition of the Kazama style martial arts, Devil Jin was a f*cking beast in that game. He’s kind of a beast in every game he makes an appearance. between the two, i prefer Devil Kazuya, but I'll wreck a guy with Jin if necessary.

Bryan Fury - Tekken Tag Tournament - Dragon Lord

I love Bryan Fury. The design, the inspiration, the brutal fighting style, that ridiculously evil laugh; Dude is just amazing. I got pretty good with Bruce Irvin in Tekken 2 so when he wasn’t around in Tekken 3, i was a little bummed. It took awhile for me to pick of Fury, actually i first really got into the character in Tag. I fooled around with him in 3, sure, but that was after i was surprised by how effortlessly powerful he was in Tag. Dude ain’t Bruce, but he’s still pretty dope.

Honorable Mentions: Unknown, Armor King, Ling Xiaoyu, Alisa Bosconovitch, Heihachi Mishima, Bruce Irvin, Kazumi Mishima, Miguel Caballero Rojo, Josie Rizal, Eddy Gordo

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

👀

send me a 👀 and i’ll post a snippet of art/writing that i never got around to finishing this year (r.i.p)

okay so here’s the tea on all the things that didn’t get finished in 2019!

2019 was the year of abandoning short stories lol oops! Here’s the hit list: :’(

1. Growing Season

This is such a hard hit because who doesn’t want to read a story about a woman replacing her boyfriend with a cactus, narrated BY the cactus?? I’d love to revisit this story because a) it’s told in my fave POV (first person directed to “you”) and b) “you” is an apathetic college dropout who goes for the hard dRAG after a bad breakup with her boyfriend, and c) because a cactus NARRATES it.

I’m at a little over 800 words in this story (it def gives me Sea Life by Eliza Robertson vibes).

2. Phantom Limbs in D Minor

Biggest hit! I’ve been working on this story since March, made good progress in the beginning, and slowly began drifting from it. I’ve chipped away at it sporadically over the last few months, and I’ve made it my goal to finish it over break! I don’t see myself hitting this goal, but I do hope to actually finish this story because I feel like it contains some of the best prose I’ve written and I love the vibe! I’m at over 2k words with a scene of about 1k floating around. I’ve actually toyed with making this story a novel because the scope seems quite large, but I definitely want to finish the short story before I think about that more! We follow chaotic Linda as she stress renovates her childhood home (a past! commune!) after her mother’s death. Linda is so precious to me, and I’d love to give her a story! If New York by Ex:Re was a person, it would be Linda lol. 

3. Anatomy of a Swinging Door

I’m making a statement, and my statement is that this is my designated cult story which means it must happen in the future. This was originally my “test out first person retrospective” story, though I think the point of view isn’t working super well here, but we’ll see! I conveniently wrote a logline for this story when I was trying to narrow down the scope, so here you go: A young woman visits her childhood home on the one-year anniversary of her brother’s disappearance and meets the new (and strange) family who lives there. 

(cult!)

So the second round of tragedies goes toward novels, AKA Houses With Teeth (which I can share excerpts from!). 

4. Houses With Teeth

I really struggled with this book this year, because it came to be in a time where my writing was getting an overhaul (though I didn’t realize it at the time)! I’ve learned a lot about intention in writing over the last year, something the Fostered series has lacked (oops). This led to me being very unsure about where I wanted to go with this book in particular--the same route as all the others (weird contemporary with dystopian elements that haven’t fully gone away yet) orrrr plan out something a bit more literary! I’ve fought with myself over this since April, and still don’t know where I’m going, but I’m missing my chaotic diva narrator Reeve and would love to get back into her head! 

This book has gone through about 3 openings, and I haven’t fully landed on any yet. I’m rethinking how I want to start this book, but taking my time with Moth Work to work me up to the timeline in HWT (which takes place about 8 months after the end of Rewired). I think I’ve shared most of this!

Some excerpts of first person retrospective Reeve (AKA Rachel trying to be Emma Cline looool):

Though the church was only a fifteen minute walk from the apartment, I packed a picnic basket of cha siu bao and a bottle of red wine and wore heels so they would know I wasn’t Christian. The basket wasn’t mine and neither were the bao—these were both things I’d taken from Liu. This wasn’t the first time I’d stolen from her. I’d once taken her fifty-dollar jar of saffron from the pantry because I’d heard it was the most expensive spice and wanted to feel rich. I took her jade Buddha necklace because she’d left it in the back and I wanted to feel cultured in her city, I wanted to become her history. The saffron jar was replaced. She didn’t comment when I wore the necklace at my next shift. This was why Liu and I worked well together. She pitied me so would never fire me, even when I skipped shifts and cussed at the customers. I felt entitled to her things because she was kind to me. I felt entitled to her kindness. 

lol I haven’t read this in months and it made me laugh #valid:

I crossed the street before the streetlight changed because this is how I lived in New York City. The world was unfair and lightless and I was an atheist who believed in God, walking in five inch heels on a busted road in the ghetto so I could get enough holy water to drown the ghost out of my apartment. 

When all else fails, add a dash of mother:

The air that summer was always the same: dense and wet, even on the good days. It clung to my arms and threatened to erode the skin there, even when it wasn’t sunny. I remembered my mother’s insistence of sunscreen when I was a child; before the pool, in the pool, out of the pool, when we weren’t even at the pool. Her hands were always cold and the sunscreen was always liquid—Izzy was never good at temperature or putting things in the right places. She’d put the instant coffee in the fridge and the cream on the counter. She’d cook the eggs too long and the ice too little. My father would criticize her as a joke and she’d threaten a divorce. This was the only thing I knew was true about my mother. Sunscreen was expensive, so I never bought it. 

Reeve bringing out the drag:

“Grab me a pack of cigarettes?” I shifted the picnic basket so it rested in the crook of my elbow.

“ID?”

“You don’t need my ID.”

“I ID every customer. You’re nothing special, baby.”

The man’s mustache wilted in the tungsten light of the variety store, spindly like loose threads. My father had grown a mustache like that once, and it took only two nights before my mother cut it off in his sleep. Izzy was brash like that, and I wanted that too; to find a pair of scissors in one of the aisles and chip at that flaccid mustache. There was nothing special about this man, either. All men in New York City tried to look like that; facial hair like coiled up leeches, a gut they pretended wasn’t a gut, but the fault of an unflattering polo from their wives. I imagined the snip of the kitchen scissors on my father’s upper lip, the same snip I heard the next day when he clipped the evergreens lining the walkup. There was something coarse about how similar it all was—pruning trees, grooming facial hair. I had turned twenty that spring—it would’ve taken only a minute for him to pass me a pack, but this was too easy. I wasn’t biological in New York City; I shouldn’t have been. 

5. Fostered But It’s Magic

So this was never meant to be a full project, though I had hoped to write a bit of it just for fun and never got around to it! FBIM (obvi working title lol) is exactly what it sounds like: the Fostered series but with a magical twist! I don’t write very much genre fiction, nor have I ever written fantasy, but a few months ago, felt drawn to the idea of putting Fostered in a magical world (my comp titles are SHREK 4 meets HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE). 

I don’t have any of this written, but I do have a few notes which I can share! 

I didn’t realize I’d made a tag yourself writing these notes but (I’m Lonan):

Reeve is a magical con artist who runs her own business selling bootleg magic. 

Lonan is absent and part bird

Harrison *believes* he is #magic free but has been recently getting hot flashes during nightmares.

Foster has an in-home herbalism business where he helps mostly the elderly and children. He has a cart that he wheels monthly into town. Kind of a failing business.

The gist is that Harrison (who we’d be following) can’t sleep due to hot flashes and nightmares of his ex (@ Lonan) and is referred to a small business run by a clairvoyant who promises to make all psychological problems disappear—relationship issues, sleep issues, life issues. This clairvoyant is actually Reeve who is telikinetic of some sorts, and doesn’t actually provide magic, but manipulates (usually weak) brains, AKA tricks people into paying her large sums of money when she gives them no magical help in return. We ALSO have a “past” plotline, and this is the very loose logline I’d written down (tho if I ever write any of this, is subject to change):

After being tormented by nightmares of his ex lover resulting in violent hot flashes and an inability to keep up employment, Harrison seeks a magical intervention. When the clairvoyant he hopes will cure his strange ailment turns out to be a con woman—and his old friend—he is thrown back into the past and forced to rekindle relationships he thought he’d left behind.  

Some dialogue I wrote down ft. clairvoyant Reeve being Reeve:

H: Why are you doing this? 

R (reapplying lip colour): Is my lipstick distracting you? The colour is dazzling.

H: It’s bullshit. 

R (abruptly stops drawing on lip colour): The lipstick? 

H: Your work.

My fave interaction tho has to be this bit I’d noted down with pure Foster comforting Harrison after a nightmare:

Foster *reading on couch when Harrison wakes up in #panique*: What happened? Harrison? Do you need some eucalyptus? 

*do u need some eucalyptus*

That’s basically all the writing related things I didn’t finish in 2019! I’d love to explore them all in 2020 though! Thanks for asking. :)

--Rachel

[midzelink]

"#listen i know exactly how these two meet and how they start dating and it's beautiful and i LOVE THEM" Please tell me everything!

(( in reference to the tags I made on this Ilia x Ashei art ))

HOO, BOY, OKAY - where to begin?  A lot of this is going to be stuff that I didn’t really want to make a post about, because my hopes were that I would eventually write their meeting and eventual dating into a multi-chapter fic of sorts (called “Love & Horses,” and there’s good reason for that, I swear), but I struggle with writing enough as-is, and by the time I do (if ever) get around to it, this post will absolutely be lost to time - so, what the heck!  Lemme gush a little bit.  Some of this I’ve already written about in the description of this wedding piece I had commissioned, but I’ll expand on it a bit here. (Also, shoutout to @therealflurrin for inspiring a lot of this - we somehow fell in love with these two independently of one another, which just goes to show how much potential these two have. Spread the Iliashei love!)

So, what’s important to understand about Ashei (and this is all just my headcanon, of course) going into this is that she was raised alone by her father in the Hebra Mountains, with very sparse and sporadic human contact outside of him.  As she says in-game, he was a “knight in his own right,” and he “taught [her] the arts of war as though [she] was his son” - he taught her how to wield a sword, but unfortunately for her, that was pretty much all he taught her.  He was a troubled man haunted by the ghosts of his past, perhaps, but he was a terrible father, and when Ashei was only fifteen years old she bested him in battle and ran away from home. She was on her own for quite some time, surviving in the harsh wilderness of the frozen wilds, but she did so aimlessly; all she had was her sword, and with nowhere else to turn, she eventually found her way to Hyrule proper, choosing to enlist as a knight solely because she would have a roof over her head and some money in her pocket.  She was only sixteen at the time - she lied and told them she was twenty - and when she bested every captain in the entire royal guard in a single evening, they agreed to take her in.

Another important thing to note is that Ashei’s arrival in Castle Town (and one particular encounter with Princess Zelda herself, but that’s a story for another time) awakens The Gay within her; she’s never really been around so many people before, let alone women her own age.  This has some interesting side effects, namely that Ashei has no idea how to talk to or behave around women, and it plays into the first time she and Ilia (improperly) meet.

So, picture this: a short time after the events of the game, Ilia travels back to Castle Town to visit Telma, whom she bonded following her kidnapping and memory loss.  Ashei is sitting in the bar, sipping on some ale, and she hears someone come in and begin chatting; she thinks nothing of it, of course, until she takes a quick little peak -

- and sees the most drop-dead gorgeous person she has ever seen in her entire life.

She panics.  Face goes completely red, she hides her face in her hand, nearly drops her ale.  Her fight her flight instincts kick in, and she chooses flight, rushing out of the bar before the girl can even notice her, let alone speak to her - and though it’s a few days before she can get the image of her out of her head, eventually things go back to normal, and Ashei finds comfort in the fact that she’ll probably never see that mystery girl again.

Except, y’know - she does.  Because of course she does.

Fast forward a bit, Hyrule Castle is a still a mess of being rebuilt, and the people need something to keep their spirits up - so Zelda is like, f**k it!  Dance time!  An outdoor ball, in the afterglow of twilight, with food and live music and all what have you.  Ashei attends in a full set of royal armor, complete with helm and all the fixings, as she’s only there on guard duty, but just as soon she thinks the night is going to end without incident, who do you think she sees sitting all alone, and does she looks slightly sad or is that a trick of the light, and oh my gods that dress is lovely, was it handmade, did she make it, and what are the chances she would see her again -

Ashei is still quite flustered, of course - only this time it’s different, because here, she isn’t herself.  Here, she’s just a nameless solider among many - she could be anybody - and somehow, someway, she musters up her courage to approach the young woman…and offers her hand in dance.

And I think now would be a good time to talk about Ilia’s side of things; we know a lot more about her story, of course, but it’d probably be good to mention that, yes, she did love Link - and perhaps, once upon a time, he could have loved her, too, but after everything that happened, he was unable to readjust to life back in Ordon, and as we see in the final credits, he leaves, in a scene that tells us almost certainly that he only said goodbye to her.  Ilia goes through quite a lot both during the game and in the months after; romance aside, Link has always been her closest friend, and suddenly he’s so distant from her.  It’s difficult to handle, and as she watches him leave after a few months of struggling with this, with no idea of when or if he’ll return, I guess you could say that she fell out of love out of necessity; he was, and always will be, a very dear friend to her, but the weight of what had happened to both of them had changed them, and their relationship would never be exactly the same as it once was.  It pains her - but she accepts it, and moves on.

So, Link is AWOL for a while, yeah?  Ilia has a lot going through her mind, and like Ashei did before she found a good friend in Shad and a makeshift home in the Resistance, she feels aimless.  On top of that, she’s still dealing with the trauma that being kidnapped had saddled her with, and what sticks with her the most is how helpless she felt waiting for someone else to save her.  Then wouldn’t you know, one day she gets a letter from Telma inviting her to festivities to be held in Castle Town, and Ilia makes up her mind about something.  She packs up her things…and sets off.

The night of the festival, Ilia does take the hand of that mysterious stranger - and as they dance it’s wonderful and magical and lovely and for a time she forgets all of her troubles, but before she can see their face or even learn their name they’re gone, leaving her wanting and curious.  Some time passes, and the festivities come to and end; Ilia makes for Telma’s Bar, where Shad, Ashei, and Auru are unwinding from the night’s events.  Telma introduces the younger woman to the gang, and Ashei almost begins to panic, before she realizes that Ilia would have no way of recognizing her, that Telma was just introducing them to a friend, that this would pass and be done with in no time at all, but then -

“I want to join the Resistance!”

And Ashei is just like,

Ah.

Ah, shit.

This post is getting rather long, so I’m gonna try to wrap things up here - but as you can imagine, hijinks ensue!  Things reach a climax when Ilia insists that Ashei teach her how to fight, and Ashei lashes out and flat-out refuses in a burst of anger, which triggers an episode of “oh my god am I turning into my father oh f**k no” and sends her running, truly panicking this time; Ilia runs after her, of course, and when she finally finds her they get to talking.  Ilia tells her that whatever it is that’s bothering her, she doesn’t have to open up about it now, or tomorrow, or any time soon, but if she ever wants to, she will be there to listen - and then Ilia opens up, about why she joined the Resistance, about her kidnapping and her scars and the horror she’s endured.  She chooses to be vulnerable where Ashei cannot, and then suddenly the mood is lighter, and Ashei is sheepishly admitting that she couldn’t teach her how to fight because she likes her too much, gods be damned, and Ilia is joking about how she never knew she liked girls till now because there were none her age growing up in Ordon, and Ilia thought Ashei liked Shad and Ashei thought Ilia liked Link, except Shad doesn’t like women and Ashei doesn’t like men and Link has been gone for months now, and oh, aren’t they both so stupid - and then they hear music, and Ilia stands and offers Ashei her hand, and in that moment both of them know, y’know?  Ashei still has a lot of stuff she’s got to work through, and it’s not going to be easy by any means, but for now, she can do this much - so she takes Ilia’s hand and the two of them dance into the night, pushing aside their worries till morning’s light.

Do the two of them start dating pretty much immediately?  Yes.  Do they love one another completely and utterly?  Absolutely.  Do they get married and is their wedding super, duper gay?  You bet your ass it is.

There’s a lot more to this that I won’t get into here, including Link’s eventual return (after three years of being away!) and the aftermath of that, and the exact specifics of Ashei’s troubled history with her father and how being with Ilia helps her to heal from it.  On the plus side, Bo becomes like the father that Ashei never had, and fun fact: the two like the arm wrestle!  Like, a lot!  (And Ashei sometimes lets him win.)