#yes the title is a twenty one pilots reference

[wallflowerwritesstuff]

Snap necks (and snap back)

Simon hated the idea of you, a newbie, at first.

Now, he's focused on making sure you don't run yourself into the ground despite your obvious distrust in him and the others.

TW: Minor Implications of PTSD, Slight Hurt/Comfort (In a Simon way), One shot (for now?), Minor Injury mention

****

Simon loved when you kept eye contact. 

“Don’t test me today, Riley.”

It was a sign. 

A sign of what, he wasn’t sure just yet, never having been the type to care if people saw him or saw what had been molded by years of life attempting to drag him down both physically and mentally. 

Not many could handle it—avoiding his eyes entirely or folding in order to show they were the farthest thing from a threat. 

You, however, were not intimidated by his size or the sound of his voice. You never bothered to pry into why he always wore a mask, taking Johnny’s explanation for face value and moving on swiftly from the conversation. Even after hearing about what he looked like through the grapevine, you hadn’t attempted to sneak a peek just to say you’d gotten one over on him. 

In fact, you might have done your best to avoid it—and him—entirely. 

Which made the situation at hand all the more tense: a storm in the making. 

“Ain’t a teacher to be givin’ exams, Spitfire.”

Your jaw rolled as you debated addressing the smart ass comment vs. the unwelcome nickname. 

While everyone had taken to trying out new names every so often without much response, he’d been dead set on what he’d wanted to call you from the get go. Perhaps it would have landed better if not for the fact you and him had never once seen eye to eye on anything, even the smaller things such as what to eat or drink. 

Neither of you had started off on the best footing, if on any at all. 

The idea of a newbie on an already solid team had come as a surprise to them all, for Simon more irritating than helpful. He’d expected a person full of nerves: pure deadweight that wouldn’t last longer than a week, if even. And if he were being honest, seeing you for the first time had barely changed his opinion despite the cold demeanor you’d had.

You didn’t look like much of a soldier even under all the gear: if anything, appearing better suited for a desk or office rather than a borderline field servant like the rest of them. 

“Name?” Price had asked, more for the others to know than himself. He’d no doubt already gotten your file prior to your addition. He wouldn’t have accepted you so graciously if not for that insight.  

“Hitman,” You’d answered, earning a snort from Johnny which he choked down after a scathing look from Price. He had tried his best to pass it off as a cough, Gaz shoving him with an elbow before smiling and taking over to avoid the other from shoving his foot in his mouth any further. 

“Hitman, huh? You must be pretty skilled to have a name like that.” 

You hadn’t reacted to either comment made, staring directly at him with an almost eerie calm that had the room’s light atmosphere faltering. 

“Dunno,” you’d said dryly, scanning the area before doubling back to scan each of them, “Not like I picked it.” 

While half true, Simon had learned through Johnny, with his shit-eating grin and all, that you most likely knew very well why you’d gotten that name pinned onto you. 

“Pure dead brilliant, ‘at one,” he’d said while cackling to himself, not even attempting to hide how pleased he felt at the information. “Bet th’bastard deserved it an’ mair. Shuid o’ called ‘em Hook or Boxer instead!”

That knowledge, along with how well the first mission had gone despite all the unexpected issues which had nearly ended the task force altogether, was the beginning of a partial shift in his perception of you. 

You’d gone from possible deadweight to a person of interest after hauling ass with Johnny back to safety, Gaz hanging off the two of you with a broken leg and a hell of concussion. He had still managed to cover you as you ran, later admitting he had just shot and hoped for the best with his slowly darkening vision.

You had proven dependable both alone and while working with the others despite being a practical stranger to them all. That was more than he could say for most people. 

The confusion on your face afterward when Price and Johnny had offered their praise had been comical, held down only by the fact that the medic had kept you longer than intended. Simon had expected you to accept the praise and finally smile for once, but instead you seemed almost angry as your ankle was being flexed back and forth. 

The fuck are you all on about? Give me some fucking quiet and go check on Gaz if you want to hover someone. He’s worse off.

The response had only earned a slap on the back from Johnny, a slew of curses leaving his lips when you nearly buckled where you sat from the action. Your expression had shifted as you nearly let out a gasp, only to swallow it down and force that same cold expression back onto your face. Price had dragged him away and wished you a speedy recovery, Johnny following but not without a final apology and only earning an icy look in response.

How you’d avoided a scolding into next year for such righteous indignation against your superior was beyond Simon. What should have been a write up instead had earned a smirk and almost proud expression from Price, the reason why only hitting Simon once he’d taken his leave and finally left you alone like you’d seemingly wanted. 

You had been worried. 

For Gaz, specifically, considering you had no reason to mention his state if you truly just wanted to be left alone. 

But you had also been hurt somewhere along the line, embarrassed by it for some reason. Simon had nearly turned back once it had clicked, but he stopped himself before he could. He understood why you’d lied about your status, the memory of you barking out orders for a medic while holding up Gaz as he went in and out of consciousness burned into his thoughts. 

Besides, you hadn’t pried in his personal life, so he wouldn’t in yours, either. 

That didn’t mean he’d forget that you were surprisingly soft when you wanted to be. 

The sensation of being shoved brought Simon back to the present, you standing in front of him with a raised brow. He huffed out a breath in amusement, it coming out as more of a sigh. Not because of your shove itself—you were military trained, after all—but because of the fact he had already been leaning against the wall when you’d entered, meaning there wasn’t much point in it apart from essentially hitting him. Even if he had been standing without the wall behind him to support him, you wouldn’t have been able to so much as make him flinch. 

He supposed you using him as a punching bag was a vast improvement from pretending he wasn’t there at all.

“Fuck you.” 

The rest of the laugh from earlier threatened to escape, and part of him debated whether or not to let it. Your face would twist in a rage at the sound, no doubt, but maybe he wanted that. 

Maybe he wanted to see you lose it for once: let out the emotion you kept inside and away from them all despite the months working together. He had learned early on that while emotion on the job was a liability, processing outside of it was what allowed for a clear head on the battlefield. 

Your frustration had already festered and bubbled over, obvious by how you were attempting to pin him down with your sharp gaze alone. 

 (you’d never be able to, but that didn’t mean he didn’t enjoy seeing you try.)

He tilted his head, scanning over you slowly before working his attention back up to your tense expression. If he wanted, he could defuse this situation. He could leave without feeding into your anger and allow you the time alone to decompress from whatever had left you shaking in front of him. 

In the time it took to consider his options, you seemed to have had enough and wandered off toward the cabinets. Simon watched you slam them open and shut, grumbling under your breath about something he couldn’t quite catch. What he did catch was what you were gathering: two mugs. tea packets, a pot. 

Pushing off the wall, he moved to a stool, sitting at the island separating the both of you instead. 

Your body tensed as he grew closer, but you didn’t snap at him or remove your attention from the water. That was an improvement considering how he’d seen your hackles raise the first time you two were so much in a room together. He always assumed it was due to training, but a part of him had a feeling that was only a small part of it. 

A calm slowly settled over you as the water began to boil, Simon catching the exhaustion and contemplation more clearly without your anger masking it. You didn’t move a muscle which was odd in and of itself, as no matter how much training you’d had, when on base, you’d always be fidgeting somehow. 

Finger taps, leg bounces, lip or cheek chewing, skin picking, lash pulling. 

Something.  

“You’re off.”

Surprisingly, you didn’t move. You didn’t even look up at him. 

“How so?”

Simon squinted at the tone, crossing his arms as he exhaled deeply. “Quiet.” 

“I recall that being something you hated when we first met. Something about scurrying about like a mouse. Or rat.” 

You finally lifted your head after shutting off the stove top, meeting his gaze once again as the steam from the pot rose before disappearing entirely. Simon grunted, recalling his harsh words and owning them rather than attempting to recall context. 

Had he been aware of how good your memory was, he might have been more careful about what he’d said to you early on. 

(he wouldn’t have. but you’d been around long enough to know he wasn’t exactly known for tact.)

“I hate lots’ve things. That ain’t one’ve ‘em.” 

A whistle echoed as you tilted your head. “Getting mixed signals here, Riley. Keep this up and one might think you actually like my presence.” 

“Whatever it is,” he stated, not breaking eye contact and ignoring the attempt at avoiding the conversation, “Solve it. Soon.”

The last thing they needed was to lose one of the few competent people that actually meshed well with them all. Maybe not off the field, but that didn’t matter nearly as much at the moment as on it. 

“Worried about me?” you said with a chuckle as if laughing as some sort of inside joke, turning your back to him and pouring the water into the mugs as the tea began to steep. 

“Depends on what it is makin’ you so…” 

He paused, attempting to find the word for what you looked like. 

Burnt out. 

No, you were full of energy as he’d seen earlier. Not the kind of energy you usually were, though. This was more subdued yet intense. 

Like you were watching and waiting for something to happen, almost. 

He squinted as you turned back around, a mug in each hand as you stepped closer for once, placing them both down on the kitchen island and pushing one toward him. He didn’t look at it as a single word slipped from his lips. 

“Nervous.” 

Your eyes widened a fraction, barely noticeable but enough so that he could clock it. With a clenched jaw, you swallowed hard and stared down into your mug. 

“I don’t do nervous.” 

He didn’t respond, knowing a lie when he heard one. The room dove into silence, somewhat more suffocating than the anger you’d ripped into the room with as he was attempting to relax. 

“What about you?”

“What about me?” 

“Do you do nervous?” 

You shifted your head just enough to meet his gaze, holding it as you always did. This time didn’t feel as amusing or interesting, threatening to cause a frown to slip onto his lips. You cradled the mug in both hands, eyes flickering down when he didn’t respond immediately, as if it’d give you whatever answers you were looking for. 

“It was a stupid question, sure, but you don’t have to think so hard ab—”

“Every day of my life.” 

Your head snapped up at that, but before you could say anything else, he stood, moving toward the door. You didn’t need more than that—you weren’t looking for anything other than that, he knew. 

All you’d needed was something (or one) to relate to after months of being unable to do so. 

An olive branch, if nothing else.

“Thanks for the tea.”

He wondered what you looked like as he walked out of the room. If your eyes were about to bulge from your skull, or if you were irritated all over at the fact you’d made him something and he hadn’t even touched it. 

(He would have never guessed that you were left staring at the untouched mug in confusion, expression darkening at the realization that old habits truly did die hard.)

[kismetconstellations]

@sockdooe You absolutely do not need to apologize, ever, for "dumping" rants in the tags of my posts. I happen to love reading everything you have to say, and look forward to these "dumps", every time I see your username pop up in my notifications.

People are allowed to write and headcanon whatever they want (Looking at you, "Black Paladin Lance" AUs), but, it's concrete, indisputable canon that the Black Lion and Shiro had the strongest bond of any human Paladin and Lion pair.

Yes, Lance was the first to have a connection with a Lion, and the Red Lion came to Keith's aid of her own volition, just as the Green Lion likewise rushed to protect Pidge. That in no way negates just how much focus was given to building Shiro's bond with Black, and establishing him as the Paladin she chose, because they understood, valued, and trusted one another. Sure, the Black Lion absorbing Shiro into her inner quintessence might very well be a reference to the episode of Neon Genesis Evangelion where Shinji Ikari's body is similarly absorbed by his EVA Unit. Goodness knows there are plenty references to NGE and other anime scattered about. Shiro's Season One/Two design seems to have taken some heavy inspiration from Guts- shock of stress-induced white on a head of black hair, strong, square jaw, prosthetic arm, distinct lateral scar across the bridge of his nose-

-and he was originally intended to marry Roy Focker.

Nevertheless, it speaks volumes that this ancient, sentient force looked at a traumatized, battle-scarred, yet still extraordinarily gentle man with blood on his hands, sins to atone for, and feelings of self-loathing and desperation to prove himself worthy, prove that every fight in the Arena and every life he took to keep himself alive, every precious second of time he was able to steal back from Death's inescapable grip meant something if he can do good with all of the evil that has touched him, permeating the very essence of his being, and decided Him. He's the one I want. To the point of holding onto whatever she could of him after he died.

And, as much as this show tried to undermine that with Keith and the Clone Shiro being able to pilot the Black Lion, and later showing the previous Paladins also being preserved by their Lions' quintessence- inside of Haggar/Honerva's mind, despite the fact that she killed them outside of their Lions, because Season Eight's writing is an absolute convoluted mess- it will never, ever diminish the fact that Shiro is so special, not one, but two magic-powered sentient spacecrafts adopted him as their Person.

(I do wish the Atlas's interior wasn't so dark, dreary, and dull, though. They couldn't have given this poor man a ship with white walls and turquoise accents, or something? It had to be dingy gray and Galaxy Garrison orange?)

Even if we ignore the fans who hyperfocus on Lance and Keith, determined to turn them into the ultimate tragic heroes/victims of the universe/hyper-competent badasses/supremely empathetic Hearts of the Team (sorry, but that title belongs to Hunk. It will always belong to Hunk)/discount Shiros, the treatment of Shiro by the fandom has, since its inception, been dubious, at best.

He's a cheerleader for Keith/Lance. He's an obstacle to Keith/Lance, so we'll pair him off with Allura. No, wait, never mind, he's twenty-five, and therefore, absolutely off limits to every single one of the Paladins, and Allura, as a potential romantic partner, and anyone even slightly okay with one of these ships deserves to be harassed and indiscriminately labeled a "pedophile", including Shiro's voice actor. (We'll completely overlook, of course, that Keith is also a legal adult, and shipping him with any of the younger Paladins should, by those standards, be verboten, as well.) Shiro is the "Token Gay" who we'll cast aside in favor of Keith and/or Lance, but throw him the meagerest scrap of bone in the form of pairing him off with either the (dead) man who canonically ended their relationship on poor terms because he couldn't handle the emotional strain of another one of Shiro's medical scares, or the piece of glorified set dressing with no personality to speak of who Shiro barely interacts with, and whose name is never once spoken onscreen. Wait, no, Shiro's actually not gay enough (because he's not a mincing, flamboyant stereotype?), so we'll complain that we were "queerbaited" over a ship featuring a canonically heterosexual teenage boy that was never, ever going to happen.

And, the fans who do gravitate toward Shiro tend to sexualize him to the extent of discarding- or fetishizing- his trauma to get him naked and railing (in the most Out of Character portrayal imaginable), or being railed by, their character of choice as swiftly as possible.

Disgusting.

I can only hazard a guess that Shiro has been afflicted with so much extensive, irreversible trauma, fanfiction authors who are simply writing for fun with the intention of living vicariously through these characters don't want to have to confront the ugly, less than titillating reality of that trauma, or so much as touch it with a thirty-nine and a half foot pole. So, they choose to pretend it doesn't exist, or gloss over it, in exactly the manner the show, itself, does. This includes his illness, which, if we take Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim Dos Santos at their word, was written into Shiro's character from conception, along with his homosexual identity.

"I think a lot of his backstory was created independently, even from his sexual orientation, ‘cause that was just a part of who he was but it wasn’t necessarily a discovery moment. So the vast majority of the conversations of his backstory were around figuring out what else is there, the illness and those aspects of it. Him being gay was just something that we had always wanted to do with him from early on."

And, in the case of fans who try to turn their favorites into Shiro, which is one of the strangest, most inexplicable phenomena I have ever encountered in all of my years on the internet in fandom spaces- why designate a character as your favorite if you desperately need them to be someone else, instead of accepting them as they are?- they have to be slapping a prosthetic on those characters purely for the cheap angsty aesthetic.

Which is to be expected when people steal distinct traits from another character to apply to their favorite like a patchy, uneven coat of paint layered over top of what was already there. They don't understand why that other character had those traits, to begin with. They, presumably, see Shiro with his scars, his personal history with Sendak, Haggar, and Zarkon, the three most powerful and intimidating villains in the series, the physical and emotional evidence of the experimentation and torture Shiro was subjected to while in captivity, his relationship with the Black Lion, his irreplaceable presence and role on the team as a firm but gentle guiding light, and decide, "That's unique and makes him stand out as someone special and important. My favorite deserves to be special and important, too! So, I'll take what he has and give it to them!" It really is like a kid wanting another kid's favorite toy because their own isn't "good enough", and I can honestly say I've never seen this sort of behavior in any other fandom. If Lance and Keith fans, as they tend to be the prime perpetrators, recognize that Shiro has innate narrative significance and desirable qualities, why not adopt him as their favorite, instead?

It all comes back to the fanbase's rampant ageism, the ages of the fans, themselves (you'd have to be pretty darned young to think a twenty-five year-old is old enough to be a teenager's "dad"), and, I think, the fact that Shiro is a conventionally masculine gay man, rather than a skinny twink, so it isn't as easy to project more effeminate characteristics onto him.

Lance uses skin masks and moisturizes.

Shiro either doesn't sleep, or wakes up inhumanly early to do push-ups.

Characters with more reserved, subdued personalities also tend to be cast aside and written off as "boring" in favor of overtly loud, flashy, mostly comic relief ones. There is nothing wrong with preferring one or the other, and both have their place, especially in stories aimed at child audiences where a bit of levity is necessary after watching characters go through high stakes and intense emotional strain. But, it has always been my opinion that people who overlook the guarded, noble, self-sacrificing leaders who voluntarily bear the weight of the world on their shoulders have poor taste. That sort of frank dismissal demonstrates an unwillingness to peer past the supposedly "uninteresting" surface and see what makes these characters pillars of leadership, virtue, and heroism, in the first place.

Like reaching out to a kid the rest of the world has given up on, and offering him a helping hand.

Like being willing to paint yourself as a bloodthirsty savage and attacking a scared friend to keep him out of a fight where he surely would have lost his life.

Like offering encouragement, guidance, and support to the people in your care, so they come to trust you as a friend, and confidante.

And, never hesitating to protect someone who can't protect themselves.

Takashi Shirogane is beautiful, inside and out.

The "fans" who don't understand or appreciate that, and especially the ones who think this show could have possibly stood to benefit from killing him permanently, have objectively rancid opinions. And, should almost definitely steer clear of trauma survivors, because they fail to understand what Shiro means to us as a representation of the kind of person we all could be if we're willing to never give up on ourselves, and try.

Let him be showered in all of the tender forehead kisses, get to sleep on the comfiest plush mattress, and be surrounded by an army of soft and fluffy plushies. Forever and ever.

[aftgficrec]

Idk if y’all do this but I don’t know who to ask but your favorite aftg SPOTIFY playlists? I like the “Andrew in clubs” by rb and the “andriel/AFTG” by sunellix but so far my favorite has been “untitled 1” by palmettofoxden because they made a tumblr post that went with it and I loved how they included the reason to each song. So if you can find playlist AND post related like that one I’ll love y’all more !!! Thanks

Oh, friend, you have no idea what you just got yourself into here.  You want playlists?  We’ve got playlists (and a little personal commentary from us).  A number of fics have amazing playlists to go along with them, so we’ve included little bits of info and links to those fics; then there are playlists for characters, and some general ones for the books.  We didn’t really find Tumblr posts to explain song choices, but we hope you enjoy this collection anyway! -M

NB: Fic links go directly to AO3. You can click on ‘recced here’ to see the trigger warnings that we’ve previously listed.

Playlists Based on Fics 

Red Rabbits Universe series by bloodydamnit, Jeni182, SeaBear13, windeavesdrops [Rated M-E; 647408 words in 3 works; 2 Complete 2019/2020, 1 WIP] (recced here)

If you’re unfamiliar with Red Rabbits then you’ve probably been living under a rock. From the very beginning the team behind this true crime themed fic have been excellent at providing a playlist for the characters, for the story, and for the highly interactive blog that can also be found here. If you’re looking for explanations as to why some songs are on the lists, check out the Tumblr asks and read the fic - there are many layers to this one but you can discover a lot in both Seasons. 

TFN by The Foxhole (2019) - Short and sweet (just like our favourite characters) this is a great list and sits perfectly alongside Season 1. 

TFN Minyard by The Foxhole (2019) - Africa is really the only song you need to listen to on this playlist but this is the list designed to represent Andrew in Red Rabbits. Sit back, listen, appreciate how very very well done this list is: emo bangers sit against indie bops, Lykke Li and MISSIO clash against Explosions in the Sky and Pink Floyd.  

TFN Seth by The Foxhole (2019) - Oh Seth, our sweet baby DJ, whose journey is honestly one of the best in fanfic. Here you’ll find Childish Gambino, Jay Z and Kanye, City Girls and The Weeknd. 

TFN Dan by The Foxhole (2019) - What a queen, it’s Dan Wilds with a mix of Beyonce, Frank Ocean and many more r&b, hiphop and pop tunes. Upbeat and powerful.

Neil Josten’s Music + Mathematics / The Calculus of Nocturnes by fuzzballsheltiepants [Rated M; 7863 words; Complete 2020] (recced here)

Like everything by fuzzballsheltiepants, this playlist is as well thought out and perfectly rendered as the story itself. The fic centers around Neil Josten, a high school math teacher with a secret obsession: the classical piano he hears music teacher Andrew Minyard playing every afternoon. Eventually his secret is found out, and his world begins to open up. This playlist can be listened to along with the fic, giving you an immersive layer to the story. 

Slinging Mozart Sideways / Slinging Mozart Sideways  by justadreamfox [Rated T; 9962 words, Complete 2020]  (recced here)

Some fun facts about this one - firstly, the working title was “gay pianists need to eat” (which I love) and secondly it was part of the 2020 Gift Exchange for Willow_Bird. Excellent fic. Excellent prompt. In which Andrew is in the music business, Neil is a classical cellist (with a British accent) and they bond over Nils Fram. It’s super pretty and the classical music choices are sweet, subtle and sometimes heartwrenching. 

One writer in particular, scribbleb_red, has been prolific in creating playlists for all their longer fics, and some of their Twitter hc fics.  There’s overlap in themes and genres across most of them but here are some of my faves:

Playlist: L'amour parle en fleurs / l’amour parle en fleur by scribbleb_red [Rated M, 61919 words, Complete 2019] (recced here)

Also known as The Lavender AU, this fic is set in the lavender fields of Provence in Southern France and deals with loss and recovery, grief and hope - and that’s exactly what the playlist lays out as well. Intended to accompany the reader through the fic, this playlist is a journey just like the story itself. 

Playlist: (don’t fear) the reaper / (don’t fear) the reaper by scribbleb_red [Rated M, 73111 words, Complete 2019] (recced here) 

for the fic of the same name, in which Andrew and Neil don’t meet in life but in limbo. Andrew is a grim reaper and Neil is the soul he’s meant to be helping cross to the other side. There’s just one issue: Neil isn’t really dead.  

Playlist: monster (under my bed) / monster (under my bed) by scribbleb_red [Rated: M; 1262 Words; Complete; 2020] (recced here)

In which Neil is the monster hiding Andrew’s bed and this changes everything.

not your homeland anymore (2020) for the fic of the same name, inspired by Taylor Swift’s folklore, this angsty fic is still being written and asks the question: what if Andrew hadn’t been there after Baltimore? 

NB: We have not recced this one yet. Please refer to the fic for TWs.

Playlists Based on Characters 

Oh yes, there are some highly creative folks out there exploring their headcanons via the spotify playlist. Here are five of our favourites: 

THE FOXES DEADLIEST INVESTMENT by realpeachy (2019) - Their ain’t no rest for the wicked and this playlist is as relentless, beat-heavy and secretly instigative as Andrew Minyard himself. Some familiar themes with Billie Eilish, Ruelle, Halsey and the like, but some quirky additions like badflower and tedy as well. 

NEIL JOSTEN by Arizona Kestler (2019) - A curious collection of songs on this one, ranging from Kendrick Lamar to Radiohead, AJR to Jack’s Mannequin. It definitely leans into the new-wave emo that many associate with AFTG but it always comes back to the high octane energy we associate with our favourite starting striker. 

yes or no? by jmoriartty (2018) - Could there be a more iconic playlist for andreil? well ok, maybe that’s just this contributor’s taste but having been steadily built through 2018 to 2019, it’s one of the most followed playlists on spotify for AFTG. Two Feet, MISSIO, Twenty One Pilots and grandson are all big hits on this bluesy, gritty, alternative playlist. 

you can call me king by scribbleb_red (2019) - As if any list was complete without a villainous inclusion, like with most of scribble’s lists this one deliberately lays out a journey for Riko Moriyama, his rise and fall. Maybe you’ll also feel Sympathy for the Devil. 

Double Trouble by an.fouda (2019) - Yes, it’s a twinyards playlist and it’s full of absolutely exquisite artist choices and emo hits. Try listening to Night Knuckles by Cavetown or Plastic Joy by Raw Fabrics. It’s a whole new level to this most complex of sibling relationships. 

Playlists Based on the Books 

Some of these are classics - they’ve set the tone for AFTG playlists all over the internets - and it’s fascinating to see how even now people come back to similar tones: alternative rock, grunge, hiphop, the high energy songs that mix a sense of hope and fear and danger. Plug in your headphones and prepare for a ride. Others are more recent and you can very much see how the themes of the music line up over time. If you want a playlist to remind you of the original series, here are some great places to start:

The Foxhole Court (Nora Sakavic) by pjofangirl2  (2017) 

You Are A Pipedream by lokisarmyismydivision (2017)

This is the moment you stop being the rabbit by Warren Vipod (2020) 

[cassyapper]

loving you may mean losing you but i dont mind (jotakak playlist)

dont talk to me about the title of this thing im embarrassed enough

anyway but okay so!!!! very excited to share this!!!! this has been in the works since september but my picky ass finally found an adequate amount of songs so here it is!!!!!! my jotakak playlist (:

special thanks to my lovely and wonderful friend jade for helping me finish this this thing <3

track list nd why i picked the songs that i did under the break!

1. the predatory wasp of the palisades is out to get us! by sufjan stevens i chose this song because it’s all about internalized homophobia and being in love with your best friend as a kid which RLLY resonates w jotakak imo. esp cause in the song, stevens’ friend ends up leaving abruptly, leaving stevens to wonder about what couldve blossomed if they had stuck together and worked through the difficulties together, which JOTARO....THAT IS JOTARO-CORE esp cause kak also “leaves” (dies). so this song was a v obvious choice for me and in fact this song is what inspired me to create this playlist in the first place

2. we are beautiful, we are doomed by los campesinos! this song is abt being in love with someone but you both have ur issues so it’s kind of a mess. considering jotaro and kakyoin’s (to point it quite frankly) trauma and the fact that both of them do jack shit to try and cope with it healthily, this song DEFINITELY fits them. esp cause this song mentions physical fighting and the imagery that goes with it (”he got his teeth fixed/im gonna break them”, “i’ve got a fist on fire”, etc) and the entirety of the bridge/last verse rlly gives me these two’s vibes so! ya (:

3. love love love by of monsters and men this song is the singer feeling like shes completely unworthy of being loved by this important person in her life, particularly because she has NO idea how to show affection and love the (for lack of better word) “acceptable” way, or any way at all really. this REALLY has jotaro vibes cause he is one repressed motherfucker and as we see the entirety of his story, jotaro is full of love he loves so much it’s just he has no idea how to properly express it cause he’s scared essentially. but that didn’t stop people from loving him, in this case, that being kakyoin. hhhhHHh

4. ribs by lorde this song is about being scared of growing up but due to the lyrics being written the way they are, i kinda spin the interpretation of it to be the fear jotaro and kakyoin had on the crusade to egypt, as they were the youngest and didnt know if they’d make it back and everything is just incredibly overwhelming there is so much going on all the time those 50 days. i can do a full analysis on why but that would be kinda long LMAO. for now let’s leave it at they have a very Unique fear of growing up but it still fits with the lyrics. particularly the last bit of the song with the “youre the only friend i need” verses,,,makes me think of these two...

5. can i call you tonight? by dayglow i interpret this song to be about trying to figure out what, exactly, your feelings are for this very specific and important person in your life. since jotaro and kakyoin r both repressed and also suckers of internalized homophobia, i think they fit that theme very well. particularly with the whole “i feel like we’re close, but maybe we’re not actually? what are we?” theme going on in the lyrics, this whole song makes me think of jotaro and kakyoin figuring out their intense and sudden (cause again only 50 days but also, those 50 days had So Much going on) feelings for each other. also the “now i’m no longer alone” line in the chorus HHHHHHH that’s them

6. la la la love song by toshinobu kubota ft naomi campbell SO I KNOW THIS SONG IS KINDA JUST FLUFF but we need some light-hearted moments in this thing hjgg;. ALSO toshinobu kubota is canonically jotaro’s favorite musician so i wanted to reference that and this was my fav love song of his that i’ve found so far so (: also the “you are my shining star” line,,,heh

7. truce by twenty one pilots so this song is very soft. it’s about tending to wounds and taking a moment before continuing to push on. it makes me think abt jotaro and kakyoin taking care of each other on the journey (for example the lovers arc/n’doul fight). also the whole “stay alive, stay alive for me/you will die, but now your life is free/take pride in what is sure to die” makes me go fucking nuts that is. that fits these two to a T fuck

8. this side of paradise by coyote theory this song has big “two lonely people are in love with each other for the first time” vibes and OHHHHHHHHHH THAT’S JOTAKAK.... there are a lot of little lines that make me specifically think abt these two, such as “love so strong it makes me feel weak” (jotaro-core...), “if you’re lonely come be lonely with me”, “i’ll be yours if you’ll be mine” (wanting some security while ur in love for the first time is common but especially for these two i think it works spectacularly) but yea this song as a whole is just...ohhh them. theyre in lvoe HK;FNJFL

9. i saw you in a dream by the japanese house EVERY. SINGLE. LINE. OF THIS SONG IS POST-EGYPT JOTARO. EVERY SINGLE LINE. and the ghost the singer talks about seeing? they hadnt changed at all? they were such a pretty vision, a perfect hallucination? BRUH... just listen i could do a whole analysis on this song it all just fits jotaro mourning kakyoin throughout the years so so so so well it makes me feel nuts holy shit i just. literally every line. every line fits i am not joking. i cried when i first heard this song LMAO

10. video games by the young professionals SO LMAO obviously kakyoin’s epic gamer moves are being referenced but beyond that i interpret this song to just be the fun parts of being in love esp when ur young (backed up with the “kissing in the blue dark” and the “watching all our friends fall” lines). also the chorus just makes me want to cry cause just, happy jotakak moments PLEASE. “the world was built for two only worth living if somebody is loving you, and baby now you do” THEYRE NOT ALONE ANYMORE THEY FOUDN EACH OTHER IM GONAN WAILLLLLLL oh my god. im nuts theynkjNJKNJF also “i heard that you like the bad girls” please. these two shitty teenagers

11. ikanaide by sohta ft. yuki kaai this song is abt not wanting someone u love to leave u cause youll miss them obviously but also ur scared of how the time will change you and if it’ll make you unrecognizable eventually. big post-egypt jotaro vibes 😔 especially cause one part of the chorus translates to “i shouldnt cry, i shouldnt cry, but the truth is i want to say dont go” and im jus like OHHHHH NO IT’S JOTARO FINDING OUT KAKYOIN DIED jkfnNKJFNJDhkld

12. therefore you and me by eve ALRIGHT. god this song is one hell of a doozy. i interpret this song to mean being sincerely in love but youre in the wrong place/wrong time. considering the uh Whole Situation in part 3 there were definitely better times to fall in love for these two. jotaro and kakyoin try to be happy w the moments they do have (i think the second verse in particular adds to this sentiment what with the selfish ghosts part) but they want a better environment understandably so theyre also just kinda ignoring things until they can properly care for a relationship. but well...who knows if theyll live to make it to that better environment ):

13. mayonaka no door/stay with me by miki matsubara this song is a v sweet sentiment abt like “it’s not just heat of the moment!! i do care about u a lot!!” and asking the person u have feelings for to stick around. big kakyoin and jotaro vibes as it would be easy to call what they have a fling considering how relatively short of a timeframe they had but i genuinely think their relationship was deeper than just that and this song nicely reflects such. “jotaro and i will share a room cause we’re both students” fuckin head ass

14. a thousand years by sting oh sting.... so since sting is kakyoin’s favorite musician canonically i had to add one of his songs here as well but beyond just that i do think this song fits them!! it kinda gives me big “if not in this life, then the next” vibes which is a big uhhh thing for jotakak. they may be doomed to tragedy but the moments they have together make the tragedy worth enduring ironically i feel like this song is mostly from jotaro’s pov considering i dont think he ever completely got over kakyoin and this song def has that kinda sentiment but hey it fits them...

15. mr loverman by ricky montgomery SO FUNNY STORY i actually REALLY. REALLY didnt wanna add this song at first cause i felt it wouldve been...idk too cliche? i guess? and i was ALL kinds of picky when choosing songs for this playlist HOWEVER. eventually i relistened to it and read the lyrics while thinking specifically abt jotakak and it actually rlly does fit quite well KJDFN; another jotaro mourning song ): it’s not just the chorus tho the whole song fits jotaro immediately post-egypt but also i feel like some time around part 4 this sentiment would come back to him cause Yknow. Gays In Morioh and the mess of his family life back in america. it just aches for him cause while he’s happy josuke is happy he wishes he couldve had that for him and kakyoin too but yea jus ... them

16. you by petit biscuit an instrumental?? in a ship playlist?? yes that’s right much like mr loverman i was hesitant to put this song in cause it’s harder to justify since i dont rlly know much abt music (and not to b controversial but interpreting lyrics and interpreting music r two different things) however i really think the vibes of this song fit jotakak. it’s got a somber melody but the keys of the piano are high which im taking to mean “light in the dark” which. jotaro and kakyoin (along w the rest of the crusaders) were each other’s lights in the dark. also the ending samples a conference/lecture talking about space flight and like. star platinum. space symbolism. jotaro. yeah

17. saturn by sleeping at last MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. this song is all about losing someone very close and important to you, but reflecting on the good they brought into your life rather than the pain of losing them. this song also has HEAVY space imagery which stardust crusaders is absolutely chalk fucking full of so also it’s a very philosophical song and considering that jotaro and kakyoin are both Nerds and both got a nice view of the stars/space in the desert with each other, im sure they had conversations similar to the one highlighted in the song. i think it’s a good note to end the playlist on cause kakyoin is dead and jotaro is the survivor but it’s not a mourning song so much as jotaro taking the love he had for kakyoin and pushing forward with it allll th way into part 6

but yeah that’s the tracklist! i might add or take away a song or two but this is mostly it (: hope yall enjoy!

[thisweekingundamwing]

This Week in Gundam Wing (Sept 27-Oct 3, 2020)

Welcome to spooky season Gundam Wing fandom!  Lots of treats below the cut, so be sure to show your fellow fans some love!

--Mod LAM

Fanfiction

Warmth by @deejayers​

Characters: Heero, Duo

Pairing: 1x2

Rating: General

Tags / Warnings: fluff, mermaid AU

Summary:  In which Heero and Duo have a somewhat lazy morning and play around like kids a little.

Gundam Wing Diaries by @noirangetrois​

Tags / Warnings: personal diary entries on GW

Summary:  I have recently rediscovered the diaries I kept back in eighth and ninth grade when Gundam Wing first aired on Toonami [and] I decided to share them.

Entry #1 (Episode 10)

Entry #2 (Episode 11)

Entry #3 (Episode 12)

Entry #4 (Episode 13)

Twenty Kisses (Ch.17-18/20) by @bobo-is-tha-bomb​

Characters: Heero, Reader

Pairing: Heero x Reader

Rating: Teen and Up

Tags / Warnings: romance, kissing, drabble collection, reader insert

Summary: drabble collection of kissing Heero

Het Circus (Dutch) by @bobo-is-tha-bomb​

Characters: Trowa, Quatre, Catherine, Dorothy

Pairing: Trowa x Dorothy

Rating: Teen and Up

Tags / Warnings: one shot, romance, mild adult situations

Summary:  Dorothy vond het altijd prachtig om ze zien hoe fatsoenlijke mannen over zichzelf struikelden als ze hun een miniem glimlachje toewierp, om ze vervolgens af te wijzen. Maar Trowa zou niet over zichzelf struikelen. Oh nee… hij zou haar eerder verslinden.

Niet voorbestemd (Dutch) by @bobo-is-tha-bomb​

Characters: Trowa, Dorothy

Pairing: Trowa x Dorothy

Rating: Teen and Up

Tags / Warnings: romance, drama

Summary:  Haar affaire met Trowa Barton was van korte duur geweest. Twee maanden van geheime ontmoetingen en zinderende seks… en daarna… daarna had ze het beëindigd.

The Empress’s Third by @tziganecaffiends

Characters: Wufei, Meilan, Treize

Pairing: Wufei x Meilan x Treize

Rating: EXPLICIT

Tags / Warnings: character death fix-it, everyone lives / nobody dies, post-canon, prisoner of war, coercion, Dom/sub, pegging, happy ending, multiverse

Summary:  Out of a war, she had secured the safety of her husband, obtained a third, and had a daughter. They had managed to fix their colony, and they now had viable economic gains that were steady and sufficient to support their people because she had felt greedy, angry, horny, and petty, yes. Because her husband had been fascinated by the man who was now showing Mei-Xing the parts of a rose bloom, and stumbling for a moment as Wufei gave him the right words in Mandarin.

Summer Fires (Ch.1/3) by @destinysblackrose​

Characters: Heero, Relena

Pairing: Heero x Relena

Rating: Teen and Up

Tags / Warnings: reference to lockdowns, angst, fluff, smut, slice of life, married life, love and expectations

Summary: Set a few months after February Ice, the newly titled Mr. and Mrs. Yuy head to the L2 Colony to try to live a 'normal' life. But, nothing seems to be going according to plan, much less meeting their individual expectations of 'marriage'. Will they still be able to make things work?

Behind the Sea by @storiesfromthebanshee​

Characters: 5 pilots and original female character

Pairing: Heero x Duo, Trowa x Quatre, Wufei x OFC

Rating: EXPLICIT

Tags / Warnings: language, violence, blood, time skips, kidnapping, sex trafficking

Summary: Wufei hadn't expected the leader of a mercenary group to be a girl. Let alone a girl his age. She also shares a striking resemblance to Relena, but she is the exact opposite. Ayame is crass, foul mouthed and occasionally violent. They get on each other's nerves and want nothing to do with one another. However, they have to come to terms, instead of blows, in order to work together.

LAM!Verse Snippet (#1) by @lifeaftermeteor

Characters: Wufei, Relena

Pairing: Wufei x Relena

Rating: Teen and Up

Tags / Warnings: romance, adult situations, married life, slice of life, fluff

Summary:  They had bid their guests farewell on the tarmac and took one of the jeeps back to the plantation house.

LAM!Verse Snippet (#2) by @lifeaftermeteor​

Characters: Duo Maxwell, ESUN President Reuson

Pairing: Heero x Duo, background Wufei x Relena

Rating: General

Tags / Warnings: slice of life, post-canon

Summary:  Duo stood in the kitchen, still bleary-eyed and half asleep as he hovered over the coffee pot and skimmed through the alerts on his phone. 

Fanart

Duo Kiriban Giftart shared by @cuteciboulette​

Duo and Heero Giftart shared by @cuteciboulette​

Duo and Wufei by @lemontrash​

Heero and Relena by @enelle89​

Trowa for Blacktober by @desarea-doodles​

Quatre and Dorothy by @yawniverse​

Other Fanwork

Gunpla and Cosplay

Shenlong by @ss3dj​

Heavyarms WIP by @ss3dj​

Deathscythe by @christianmswanson​

More Deathscythe by @christianmswanson​

Headcanons and Discussion

So You Want to Build a Preventers Organization by @lifeaftermeteor​

Duo and Wufei: The (Wasted) Potential by @ikuzeminna​

Scene Analysis: Treize’s Suicide by @ikuzeminna​

OC October Days 1-3

Day 1 by @noirangetrois​

Day 2 by @bobo-is-tha-bomb​

Endless Waltz Opinions by @mama-birb-raevehn​

Scans, Edits, and Other Fun Stuff

Bookmarks by @cuteciboulette​

A full set

Detail of macrame and beads

More details with Duo, Quatre, and Wufei

MS Gundam Wing OST on Spotify (shared by @bobo-is-tha-bomb​)

Operation 1

Operation 2

Operation 3

Operation 4

Operation 5

@incorrectgundamwingquotes​ still making us laugh in these trying times (for example...)

Wufei luring drunk friends by @incorrectgundamwingquotes​

Calendar Events

Cocktail Friday Prompts continue over at @gwcocktailfriday

Post your prompt on Friday between 3-5PM EST

This week’s prompt is over here

GW OC October has officially kicked off at @gwoc-october​

Check out daily prompts over here and be sure to tag your submissions!

The Holiday Exchange is gearing up over at @thisweekingundamevents​

Participants have been announced over here

Creation period runs October through December and posting begins in early January, so stay tuned!  More info over here.

[gumnut-logic]

We’ll Be Home For Christmas 4.6

Title: We’ll be home for Christmas

Day Four – Five Billionaires and No Wives – Part 6 Prologue | 1.1 | 1.2 | 2.1 | 2.2 | 2.3 | 3.1 | 3.2 | 3.3 | 3.4 | 3.5 | 4.1 | 4.2 | 4.3 | 4.4 | 4.5 | 4.6

Author: Gumnut

24 May 2020

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS

Rating: Teen

Summary: The boys can’t fly home for Christmas, so they have to find another way.

Word count: 3495

Spoilers & warnings: language and so, so much fluff. Science!Gordon. Artist!Virgil, Minor various ships, mostly background. A little angst in this one along with a little minor sexual reference.

Timeline: Christmas Season 3, I have also kinda ignored the main storyline of Season 3. The boys needed a break, so I gave them one. Post season 3B, before Season 3C cos I started this fic before we saw it.

Author’s note: For @scattergraph​​​​. This is my 2019 TAG Secret Santa fic :D

Wow, written all in one day. I’ve been rereading the fic and running out of it and wanting more. Unfortunately, for there to be more I had to write more. I checked my archive and the last bit went up on May 11 right before everything at work went to hell, so I’m guessing that was the cause of the delay of this bit. I hope it was worth waiting for. This fic is nearly finished. A few threads to tie up in the next chapter, which, depending on what the characters do (cos they’ve thrown me two curve balls in this ::glares at both Grandma and Virgil:: so who knows what else they will do). i hope you enjoy it.

Many thanks to @i-am-chidorixblossom​​ @scribbles97​​​​ and @onereyofstarlight​​​​ for reading through various bits, fielding my many wibblies, and for all their wonderful support.

Disclaimer: Mine? You’ve got to be kidding. Money? Don’t have any, don’t bother.

-o-o-o-

Scott stared as his home crawled over the horizon. Lit from the west, the peaks of Tracy Island were sculpted in gold, the water surrounding her sparkling in the dying sun.

It was a beautiful sight.

Virgil shifted against him, snorting softly in sleep.

Scott had been out on the bow of the boat for hours. First talking to Virgil, working through some of the events of the day until his exhausted brother slowly tipped sideways, falling asleep despite the breeze and the soft toss of the boat.

Scott just wrapped an arm around him and held him while his brother slept.

His butt was numb from lack of circulation, but he didn’t care.

John had approached at one point and quietly handed him a tablet full of information about whales. It was full of data he didn’t understand and he desperately needed to talk to his genius brother about what it all meant.

But for the moment, he was content to listen to Virgil’s breathing, the wind and watch their home inch closer and closer.

He was aware of Gordon keeping an eye on both of them, the pilot adding more speed to the journey today than he had any other day. There had been relaxation, but all of that had disappeared with recent events.

Hell, it had disappeared the moment they had discovered the trapped calf.

Fire ignited in his belly at the thought. He needed to speak with Penelope and follow up on what had happened to those responsible.

His father’s desk lay waiting on the Island.

Relief and dread waited with it.

He closed his eyes and evened out his breathing. It had been such a relief to let go last night. Mel had met his energy with her own, her hands in his hair, a pardon on her lips. No ties, no obligation, just a moment to be himself, find comfort in her arms and let go.

He was ever so grateful. His brothers may laugh, but it was the only way he could truly release everything that built up day after day. Life was a challenge and he was willing to take it on, but everyone needed a moment.

Mel had given him that moment...and a little more.

Virgil shifted against him as Gordon turned the boat slightly and began to slow on approach.

Scott opened his eyes to watch Mateo shift to starboard. The bow dropped a little as their speed lessened, the background noise of the engine changing pitch.

Virgil muttered something and shifted again.

Scott held him that little bit tighter.

A Little Lightning arced around the smaller island that protected their caldera from the open ocean and the yacht entered the sheltered lagoon smoothly.

The petrel colony raised a ruckus and squawked like crazy as they motored past, Gordon cutting their speed to almost nothing as the yacht coasted over coral.

There were two docks on Tracy Island. One on either side of the villa. Gordon chose the one adjacent to Two’s runway for obvious reasons. It was harder to dock such a large vessel, but it would be easier to get Virgil onto land, and, via the hangars, up to the villa. The other dock, near the beach huts, required a hike up to the house that Virgil was in no shape to make. Scott had checked his brother’s incisions earlier in the day and they were well into healing, but...it had been a weird day and Virgil was still asleep.

Gordon nudged the yacht ever so slowly up to the little used dock. It had been designed for supply delivery early on in the venture, but once the runway had been built, it had been used for little other than the occasional Thunderbird Four testing regime and a little recreational boating.

Nothing as big as A Little Lightning.

Gordon had mentioned early on that they would likely use the inflatable when they reached home, but the aquanaut had obviously changed his mind.

Virgil was definitely the reason.

John darted past Scott and Virgil, docking pole in hand, turquoise eyes targeting both of them. He didn’t say anything, but the concerned frown shot at Scott said everything.

Ropes were launched at the wharf bollards and the engine dropped down to a bare rumble. Alan yelled an acknowledgement at the back of the boat and John held up a hand to signal to Gordon. A slight shift sideways and A Little Lightning nudged up against Tracy Island and was secured.

Gordon cut the engine and its absence was profound.

John turned and smiled at him.

They were home.

-o-o-o-

Soft fingers touched his cheek.

“Honey, it’s time to wake up.”

He screwed up his face. He was in that pleasant warm place just below consciousness and he didn’t want to leave it.

But his pillow rumbled just a little with quiet laughter. Cotton moved against his temple and an arm tightened gently around him.

“You’re going to have to be more direct than that, Grandma.”

Those words, said in his brother’s voice, and enough neurons came online to recognise that he was curled up on something hard, leaning against...the warm cotton shifted and a breath was drawn in. A heartbeat pulsed against his ear, slow and sure.

The whirr of a scanner made him frown.

Light flickered under his eyelids and he clenched his eyes shut.

“C’mon, Virgil, we’re home. You can’t sleep out here all night and my butt is going to drop off if it doesn’t get circulation soon.”

Another voice piped up. “And then you’ll have to face Mel for the loss of that perfect butt.”

“What do you know about Scott’s butt?” Higher pitched. Alan?

“Remember number twenty-nine? Or was it twenty-eight? The one that worked in that circus we saved from the flood? She wrote letters about it.”

His pillow shifted sharply. “What the hell, Gordon?”

“Hey, you’re the one who left your email open for all to see.”

“It is encrypted!”

“Only to those who don’t know the encryption code, Scotty.”

“Boys, keep it down. Give Virgil a chance to wake up properly.”

He found his mouth. “Too late.” A groan and he was pushing himself upright. Everything complained.

Everything. His gut, his back, the numb leg that had somehow been denied blood when he leant on it.

Several hands helped him sit up and he found himself blinking against the golden light of sunset.

Sunset?

What the hell?

“How long have I been asleep?”

“Long enough.” His eldest brother was standing up, stretching his limbs and obviously rubbing blood back into his extremities. “You’re heavy.” But the smile Scott sent him was fond and happy. “We’re home, Virg.”

John, Alan and Gordon were arrayed beyond Scott, but as he turned his head, two other presences made themselves known. Grandma was in front of him, scanner in hand, blue eyes frowning at him in concern.

And on the dock, beyond the railing, stood Kayo.

Her frown vanished the moment she realised he was looking at her and was replaced with a small smile. “Welcome home.”

It was addressed to all of them, but she was looking at him when she said it.

“Let’s get you off this boat, young man.”

Yes! He was home. His ‘bird’s runway stretched along the cliff above them and the whole purpose of the boat trip came home to rest in his heart. As he stood, Scott helping him to his feet, he turned to his brothers. “Thank you.” He could claim that his voice was rough from his half drowning a few hours ago. “Thank you for taking me home. You didn’t have to, but you did anyway.” Okay, now he was getting emotional. “Thank you.”

An arm slung about his shoulders. “Anytime, Virgil, anytime.” Scott’s eyes flashed almost green in the evening light.

Alan muttered something and darted past Gordon to wrap his arms around Virgil. “Don’t do that again.”

Virgil blinked. “Not planning on it.” He wasn’t sure whether Alan was referring to his appendix or the whale thing, but whatever. His arm came around his brother and held him tight.

John’s smile was soft, but full of enough to swell Virgil’s heart.

Gordon...

A moment and Virgil untangled himself from Scott and Alan, took those few steps to his fish brother and smothered him in a massive hug. As expected, Gordon squawked and struggled just enough to make his protest shown, but Virgil hung on.

“Thank you, Gordon. Best idea ever.”

Arms encircled his waist, but his brother didn’t answer.

The moment was broken by Grandma placing a gentle hand on his arm. “Virgil, I would like to do a full medscan. John reported that you’ve been rather active today.” Virgil shot a look at his younger brother. John just smiled a little more and shrugged.

It was to be expected. Virgil would have done the same thing under the circumstances.

He sighed and let Gordon go.

Russet brown stared up at him a moment before Gordon stepped aside and gestured Virgil towards the gangplank that connected A Little Lightning to the dock.

Scott materialised on one side and John on the other and he had to force himself not to roll his eyes in exasperation.

Between the two of them, they made sure he stepped securely onto solid ground, ghosted him up the hill to the runway and to one of the little runabouts they used to transport cargo about the Island. It was clear that he was the cargo.

Well, at least it wasn’t a hoverstretcher.

He let out a sigh as Scott drove him into Two’s hangar and his ‘bird loomed over him.

Home.

It was a matter of elevators and examinations after that. Grandma was very thorough. The word ‘pneumonia’ was bandied about as a possibility if he didn’t look after himself properly. Apparently, he had breathed in a little too much seawater.

Fortunately, his incisions were quite happy and well on the mend despite the two dunkings for the day. Grandma didn’t frown at him, but the firm line of her lips was enough to keep him quiet.

You did not mess around with Grandma regarding medical matters.

Hell, when cornering his brothers as a medic himself, often the only threat that kept them corralled was that he would bring in Grandma if they didn’t behave.

When Virgil was ill, there was no-one else. Grandma was always the one who looked after him. She always had.

And, in turn, he now looked after her.

“What happened out there, Virgil?” Her voice was soft. They were alone and his grandmother was putting away her instruments. She had run him through everything, even a brain scan. She was obviously concerned.

“I don’t know, Grandma.”

“John says you spoke to whales.”

He shook his head and let it drop. “I don’t know.”

A finger caught his chin and drew his head up to look into her eyes. “You keep yourself safe, Virgil. You hear me? You have family who need you. Family who love you.”

“I’m okay, Grandma.”

She stared at him a moment longer before letting out a breath and turning back to her instruments. “You’re off rescues for another week, but I suspect you knew that.”

He did, but part of him had hoped he could shorten it. One glance at Grandma and he knew he didn’t have a hope. “Yes, standard recovery period for an operation of this type.”

Blue eyes shot a suspicious glare at him, but he didn’t respond.

“Lots of bed rest. None of your heavy lifting. No gym until next week.”

Damn. “Yes, Grandma.”

She turned back and he was in her arms. “Welcome home, Virgil.”

He blinked and returned the hug. “I’m fine, Grandma.”

Those arms tightened just a fraction.

He frowned. “Grandma?”

She let him go and turned away. “You better go downstairs. Kayo has dinner ready for all of us. It’s Christmas Eve.” She straightened up and looked at him, her eyes saying something he couldn’t quite decipher. “We should celebrate as a family.”

“Okay.”

Her hand landed on his arm and squeezed gently before letting go. He took that as a dismissal, slid off the bed and grabbed his shirt. “Thank you, Grandma.”

She didn’t turn. “I’ll see you down there shortly.”

He frowned, but did as she asked and headed off to the comms room.

-o-o-o-

Scott stared at John and Gordon. “You think he is actually communicating with the whales.”

A pair of copper eyebrows rose. “We think so.”

“But Virgil told me himself that he doesn’t understand it.”

Eos’ voice was deceptively wise. “Commander, he may not understand consciously, but subconsciously.”

“Explain.” Scott glared at the simulacrum of spinning lights on the holoprojector.

“His brain is at least partly processing the information, enough to receive an impression of the content, but not enough to clarify it. He has processed enough to produce a vocalisation that connects with the whales despite the lack of range in his vocal cords. Humans cannot produce the sound required to emulate whale song without electronic enhancement. Virgil’s physical contact appears to have amplified his emissions enough for the whale to recognise his voice as a form of communication.” A graphic appeared on the ‘projector. A small portion was set aside and fit into the larger like a puzzle piece. “The whale was able to clarify his vocalisation into something that could be understood.”

“What did Virgil say?”

John answered him. “We don’t know.”

“We should ask him.” Gordon stood up. “And I think he should be part of this conversation.”

Scott bit back a retort. Every bone in his body wanted to protect Virgil from this.

But he knew he couldn’t.

Sagging, he sat down on the couch behind him and nodded.

Gordon stepped around the ‘projector and perched beside him. “Sam and I will find out more. I promise, Scott. This is a major breakthrough, you know that.”

Scott turned slowly to look at his little brother. “You saw what it did to him.”

“Do you trust me, Scott?” Russet brown bared his little brother’s soul.

He stared into those eyes. Little rapscallion Gordy, the prankster of the family. The ray of sunshine on moments so dark Scott feared his own survival. Did he trust Gordon? Trust him with Virgil’s life?

All the time.

“Yes, I do.”

Gordon swallowed. “Then trust me with this. I’ll keep him safe. I promise. We’ll work this out. Discover what it means. What exactly is going on.”

John cleared his throat. “Perhaps you should both speak to Virgil first?”

Scott turned to find his engineer brother standing by the kitchen stairs, staring at them.

-o-o-o-

“Virgil-“

“No!” His older brother threw his hands up and Gordon took a step back. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

So, of course, Scott took a step forward. “Vir-“

“No, Scott! Not now. Just leave it. I need to work this out for myself. I...I thank you for the information, John, Eos.” He nodded to the ‘projector. “Gordon, I understand the interest and I...empathise.” He sighed. “I just need time, guys, okay?”

“Okay.” It was parched and apparently his voice. The frown creasing Gordon’s forehead was deep enough to hurt. Why wasn’t Virgil letting him help?

His brother reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Just some time, Gords, please.”

“Okay.”

“Then I’ll come to you.” Eyes a deeper brown than his own were pleading for understanding. “I promise.”

“Okay.” Gordon swallowed and cleared his throat. “Well, in that case, I vote we go eat before Alan inhales everything.” It was a simple distraction, but it worked.

Virgil squeezed his shoulder, his expression flashing thanks before turning away. The tension in the man’s back was pulling his shirt tight.

Maybe he was right. Maybe they should wait.

A blink and another swallow and Gordon followed Virgil from the room, Scott and John behind him.

-o-o-o-

The evening was a quiet one. All five brothers were tired after the day’s events, even Virgil who, despite having slept a few hours in the morning and afternoon, still looked like he was going to fall on his face at any moment.

Even Grandma was more reserved than usual, her gaze landing on Virgil repeatedly, her eyes distant as if in thought.

It was unnerving.

Kayo served dinner. A buffet of Asian dishes accompanied by rice and noodles. Most were purchased, but she had also made her own stir fry, a family favourite with just the right amount of chilli and cilantro. An appropriate welcome back feast, but none of them had the energy to truly appreciate it as much as it deserved.

After dinner saw them stocking presents under the massive Christmas tree in the comms room. Alan made various comments, especially when Virgil lugged out what was likely a painting wrapped in several layers of wrapping paper.

The fact he lugged it by himself led to words from Scott and the present being confiscated. Virgil’s protest that it wasn’t heavy was followed up by John stepping between the two of them and declaring he was going to help Virgil with his load. The two of them disappeared upstairs and Gordon was left with a grumpy Scott.

The whole lack of spirit finally cracked the aquanaut and he grabbed some tinsel off the tree, wrapped it into a ball and threw it at Scott’s head.

The astonishment on his big brother’s face was worth it.

Scott carefully placed the painting-shaped present down beside the tree and turned to verbally retaliate only to have his face muffled by a lounge cushion thrown by Alan.

“Bullseye!”

Gordon idly noted Brains taking one look at the resultant expression on Scott’s face and, grabbing Max, making a beeline for the elevator.

“Alan!”

“Yes, Scott?”

Gordon threw another ball of tinsel, silvery strands fluttering in the air as it flew.

“Gordon!”

Another couch cushion whacked Scott in the face.”

“Ala-“

More tinsel to the head.

Hmm, this tree really did have a lot of tinsel on it, but just in case, Gordon darted in and grabbed two of the balls he had already thrown.

He was not surprised when the remaining tinsel ball retaliated and hit him between the eyes.

Alan was landed by a return cushion volley. Scott really was a good shot.

“Oh, you are going down, bro.” Alan was positively gleeful and before they knew it, cushions, tinsel, several Christmas baubles and a pile of tribbles were hurtling back and forth across the room.

Kayo stood to one side and just rolled her eyes. Grandma joined in and was the likely source of the tribbles.

When John and Virgil returned, it was to utter chaos and not a small amount of laughter. Both got tribbles stuffed down their shirts and tinsel bounced off their heads.

John protested loudly at the use of his tribble stash, but Grandma told him to lighten up...right before she bounced one off his nose.

What followed that was a free for all.

The night got better, much to Gordon’s relief. His brothers loosened up, a little alcohol was dragged out and moods mellowed.

Of course, Alan was the first to nod off, curled up beside Gordon. He was fast followed by Virgil who yet again fell asleep on Scott. The worry that appeared on Scott’s face only made Gordon’s heart sink.

Grandma called it then, sending them all off to bed.

Virgil was nudged awake enough for Scott and John to get him on his feet and guide him to his bed. Gordon shouldered Alan and dragged him to the elevator.

“Thans, Gords.”

“Not a problem, bro.” The elevator was taking forever to return.

Alan turned into Gordon’s shoulder and slumped against it, half snoring.

“C’mon, Allie.” The elevator arrived and he helped his little brother aboard. If there was one thing Alan had in common with Virgil it was his ability to sleep.

Some complaints about the boat still rocking and Gordon tumbled his little brother into his bed. Shoes off, covers on. Gordon sat down beside his sleeping brother.

It had been one hell of a trip and now it was over. It was less than a week since Virgil folded in his pilot’s seat, yet it seemed years ago. One boat, four days and five brothers.

Alan rolled over and snorted in his sleep.

Gordon reached out and placed his hand on his arm.

“I’m gonna getcha, John.” It was quiet and mumbled into Alan’s pillow, but it was enough to push Gordon to his feet.

Blimey.

A blink that lasted longer than it should have and Gordon realised he was exhausted. One more glance at his little brother who was now muttering something about space resources and was no doubt plotting his brother’s video game demise, and Gordon made his way to the door.

One boat, four days, five brothers...and tomorrow.

Gordon went to bed.

-o-o-o-

End Day Four.

[mr-lancers-english-class]

High Court of the Ghost King

Ghost King, Wes Weston, and Post Reveal

AO3

Word Count: 2633

Danny was not sure how this had happened. No, that’s not true. He knew exactly the series of events. He could trace back, day by day, to the moment this timeline had been set in motion. He also knew that that was a load of bull, and that he could easily manage to trace this as far back as he felt, being that he was the apprentice to the Lord of Time and all. As it was though, he was tracing it back to nine days earlier. Nine days ago when he’d been talking to one of the Far Frozen yetis in a back corner of Amity Park Park. That had led to four days ago when the largest blizzard in recorded history buried Amity Park in seven feet of snow, which had led to two days ago when he had gone flying off in the Specter Speeder to visit Frostbite to talk about how he did not mean seven feet, he had just meant enough to close Casper High for a few days so he could catch up on his sleep schedule and maybe actually get a book report finished. He hadn’t known about the stowaway, but he’d heard the news of a missing kid when he got back to his house. And then, three hours ago, Dora had sent a messenger to tell him that the yetis had apprehended a human trespasser. Given that he was the king of the Ghost Zone (and possibly also the god of the yetis) and that the human realm of Amity Park was his lair, he had complete jurisdiction over the human trespasser. He had been planning on just sneaking them out of the Ghost Zone and paying back Dora and Frostbite tomorrow. Of course, one hour ago, he’d found out that someone might have mentioned to someone else that there was a human in the castle who the Ghost King himself had been summoned for, and word might have spread from there to another someone else, who may have told everyone they knew that there was going to be a trial, even though that was not ever conveyed to them.

And that was how Phantom found himself borrowing the courtroom of the Dragon Queen Dorathea, surrounded by hundreds of important ghosts from the far reaches of the Zone, glaring at Wes Weston. He had plans for the evening, damn it, and now he was here, holding court, because Wes freaking Weston didn’t know when to stop. The air around Phantom seemed to warp with power and annoyance. Wes did not seem to understand the gravity of his situation.

“What the hell, Fenton?” One of the ghosts, a tall sharp fellow, stepped forward towards Wes and raised his hand menacingly.

“You shall refer to His Majesty by his proper title, or not at all, human.” He spat the last word like the worst possible insult. Wes didn’t seem bothered.

“It’s alright Cornelius. He is unfamiliar with our customs.” Phantom called back his herald in the ghost tongue common in Dorathea’s kingdom. “As far as he is aware, I am simply his weak classmate who happens to be dead.”

“That does not excuse his behaviour, Your Majesty,” Cornelius spoke angrily. “He must be punished for his insolence.”

“I’m aware, Cornelius. And I plan on doing so-”

“Seriously Fenton, what’s going on?” Wes was annoyed that no one was explaining anything to him. Phantom groaned. As much as he was pushed around at Casper High, no one dared interrupt him when he was holding court. Even Technus shut up when the Ghost King was speaking in court, and Phantom would not allow Wes to ruin that reputation.

“Cornelius.” Phantom muttered and nodded towards Wes. Cornelius stepped up, and with a giddy expression, slapped Wes across the face. “Thank you.”

Wes didn’t say anything, but he had fallen over backwards, eyes and mouth open in shock. Phantom waited for a few seconds. When Wes didn’t show any signs of getting back up, Phantom sighed and began the official court proceedings.

“For the sake of the human, I will continue in English. I am aware that not everyone understands English, so there are translators among you.” There was a pause as many of the onlookers moved around the stands to find said translators. When the shuffling quieted down, Phantom continued. “As of now, the High Court of the Ghost King is in session.” There was a flash of bright light, and suddenly the Crown of Fire sat amidst Phantom’s white hair and the Ring of Rage glowed on his right hand.

On the ground, Wes muttered “Ghost king?” under his breath. Phantom made eye contact with him, and continued.

“This human, Wes W. Weston, stands on trial, as requested by Lord Frostbite of the Far Frozen. Could the legal representative of the Far Frozen read the charges?”

A smaller yeti stood from within the crowd, and leaped down next to Wes, cracking the ground beneath them.  Phantom and Wes both turned to the yeti. They pulled a scroll from a hidden pocket, opened it, and began to read. “The Far Frozen charges this human with stowing away on the Great One’s speeder, trespassing in the homes of Wintermire, Icebeam, and six others, and stealing food from Lord Frostbite.” The yeti rolled the scroll back up, bowed to Phantom, and leaped back into the crowd.

“And how do you plead, Weston?” Phantom turned back to Wes, who had finally managed to close his mouth.

“Um, uh…”

“Do you plead guilty or not guilty?” Phantom asked, emphasizing the first option. It would be so much easier for both of them if Wes stated his own guilt.

“I uh, I plead guilty?” Wes whispered, confusion written across his face. Cornelius turned to Phantom, who nodded back.

“The King accepts your guilt,” Cornelius shouted. The crowd applauded, though many were disappointed. They had wanted to see the human on trial for more.

“Are there any other charges to be brought against Weston?” Phantom scanned the room. He could see the various nobility and common ghosts alike frantically trying to come up with a crime Wes had committed, but none of them were confident enough in their ideas to challenge Phantom. They could see the King was tired and wanted to get this over with. “Alright then. By the power vested in me, I declare you, Wes Weston, guilty of stowing away, trespassing and stealing. For stowing away, I sentence you to twenty hours of service, as dictated by Lord and Lady Fenton of Amity Park. For trespassing eight times, I sentence you to eighty hours of service upon your death, as dictated by Lord Frostbite of the Far Frozen. For your thievery, I sentence you to fifty hours of service upon your death, as dictated by Lord Frostbite of the Far Frozen.” Phantom finished, and the crowd cheered. The yetis present were by far the loudest, especially Wintermire, who already had plans for what Wes was going to do for him.

“I now declare the High Court of the Ghost King closed. All are dismissed.” Phantom floated up from his seat as the Ring and the Crown disappeared in another flash of light. The rest of the ghosts began slowly filtering out. Many were taking their time to converse with friends or to see what would happen next. It had been quite some time since a human had stood trial and not been sentenced to death in the Ghost King’s Court. It had also been quite some time since the Court had been held, and Phantom was so different to the previous King, that many weren’t sure that was a bad thing.

Phantom lowered himself down to where Wes had managed to finally stand up, and switched back to English. “And now, asshole, I’m taking you back home. Follow me.”

Wes followed as Phantom floated down a corridor hidden in shadows in the back of the room. They moved in silence for a few minutes, before Phantom pulled a hidden ladder down from the roof.

“Up you go,” he said. Wes climbed the twenty feet up to a panel in the roof of the hallway. Phantom had already flown through the roof, and Wes was not keen on being left behind.

He poked his head out into surprisingly bright open air. The Fenton Specter Speeder was parked twenty yards away, and Phantom was off to the side talking to a very well dressed female ghost.

“Thank you for letting me know, Dora. And thanks for letting me borrow the courtroom.”

“Of course, Danny. You’re my friend.”

“No, but seriously, thank you. If there’s anything I can do,” He gestured vaguely.

“Come by tomorrow for tea. And do bring your friends. It’s been too long since we’ve had time to relax together.”

“I will. School is still closed for at least a week, so we can stay for longer this time.” 

Dorathea laughed. “From what I heard, you may have had something to do with that.” Phantom winked, but didn’t answer.

“I will see you tomorrow, Your Majesty.” He bowed.

“And I will see you tomorrow, Your Majesty.” Dorathea bowed as well. When they both straightened up, Phantom went in for a hug. If Wes didn’t know about Danny and Sam, he would have thought there was something going on here. They were hugging very tightly.

“Now then, Mister I-Think-It’s-A-Good-Idea-To-Sneak-Off-Into-The-Land-Of-The-Dead,” Phantom was right in front of Wes now, shocking him out of his thoughts. “Get in the Speeder.” Wes did as he was told.

Phantom expertly piloted the ship into the Ghost Zone’s sky and set it on autopilot to the Fenton portal, before making his way to the passenger section of the ship, where Wes was being uncharacteristically quiet. He let his transformation rings wash over him, reverting his color scheme back to normal and setting him down on the floor with a clunk.

“I know you have questions. We have two hours before we reach the portal.” Wes made eye contact with Danny, who was relieved to see confusion and anger. He had been expecting emptiness, so this was a good sign.

“They called you the Ghost King.”

“Yes.”

“You’re the King of the ghosts?”

“The ghosts, and the Ghost Zone, and sort of the human realm as well, but that’s more just a title than anything. It keeps most of the ghosts out of Amity though, so I guess it comes with some perks.”

“Do they know you’re,” Wes gestured wildly at Danny. “You?”

“You mean, do they know I’m just an undead corpse being possessed by my own revived soul?” Wes nodded apprehensively. Danny snorted. “Yeah, yeah they do. I actually think it makes them more likely to respect me as their king. I’m not your average ghost. I’m powerful. They like that.”

“Who was that ghost you were talking to, that lady at the end?”

“Dora? Oh, she’s the Dragon Queen. We were in her castle.”

“Wait,” Wes held up his hands to make sure Danny would listen. “If she’s the Queen, and your the King, does that mean…” He trailed off. Danny laughed once and shook his head.

“No, not at all. I’m the Ghost King, as in, all ghosts everywhere and that whole thing. She’s the Dragon Queen, meaning she’s the queen of the Realm of the Dragons. It’s sort of like she’s the governor of New York, but I’m the President. There are a bunch of other minor kings and queens throughout the Zone, but I’m on top. Dora’s just a good friend. She helped a lot with teaching me how to actually be the King.”

“Do your parents know about all of this?” Wes asked.

“Yeah, they do.”

“That’s why they’re always so quick to shut me down whenever I say anything about you as Phantom.”

“Yup!” Danny said, popping the ‘p’ sound. “It’s not super helpful to my whole ‘stay under the radar because there’s at least one government agency that would love to take me away’ thing when you’re going around shouting about how I’m Phantom.”

“But you are.”

“Uh huh, but I don’t want anyone to know. It’s safer for me when they don’t know.”

“And you’ve never said any of this before because?” Wes trailed off, waiting for Danny.

“Because I fully expected you to go off and tell the whole school if I said anything. I’m only telling you now because I had Cornelius slap you and I want to make up for that. Also, because now you’ve seen what I can do if you do to you if you say anything.” Danny smiled, and Wes could have sworn he saw a glint of light reflecting off of fangs. “By the way, that sentencing was serious.”

“Wait, what?”

“Oh yeah. I can’t just let you get off. You committed some pretty serious crimes, at least by ghost standards. When murder’s off the table, other stuff is significantly worse. The only reason you aren’t being executed right now is because I’m nice. Pariah would have had you killed without a second thought.”

“What was my sentence again?”

“Of course you weren’t listening,” Danny muttered. “Just a lot of community service. Most for Frostbite when you actually die and become a ghost, so you got some time there, but some for my parents.”

“Why for your parents?”

“You snuck into their house, onto their Speeder, and now they’re taking the flack because you’ve been gone for two days and everyone is blaming them and their ghost portal. And the ghosts recognize them as being positions of authority over the human realm, so I can.”

“So you’re making me work for them? For free? Isn’t that child labor, or slavery, or something?”

“No, not at all,” Danny said. “Because neither Danny Phantom nor Danny Fenton are going to make you do anything. Danny Fenton has no authority over you, so that’s useless.” He smirked. “Danny Phantom, on the other hand, is both the ghostly ruler of your entire town, and also the dead guy who saved your life, so when he suggests you do something, it’s a good idea to listen.”

Wes nodded, eyes wide.

“So, you’re going to get back to Amity Park and tell everyone how you were kidnapped by a ghost, just any generic ghost, please don’t come up with or use a preexisting name, and then you’re going to say that Phantom came and rescued you. Now, like anyone who was just threatened by a dead man, you want to learn how to defend yourself and how to protect the town from ghosts in the future, so you’re going to tell your parents that you want to help out at FentonWorks. My parents can find something for you to do. Of course, all of this is just a suggestion from Phantom, but I’d recommend you listen.” Wes nodded again.

“No, I got it. I got it.”

“Good, because if you don’t, I will have to change your sentence to something significantly harder. After all, as the eternal overlord of the dead, the god of the cold, and the junior apprentice of Time,  I need to set an example, and many of my subjects have a deep-rooted sense of justice.” Wes stayed silent as Danny finished. After a few minutes with not a peep between them, Danny made his way back to the cockpit and took over the controls.

Wes saw the flash that indicated that he was back to being Phantom up there, but didn’t react. He was already planning on how to get out of this. If the Fenton’s knew, that would make it harder, but he’d also probably come away with more information about both Fenton and Phantom. Maybe that would be enough to convince his classmates...

[thefigureinthecorner]

finished the covers for my caleb and adam playlists! putting them together because like......... i have to. i can’t separate them

there is a caleb/adam playlist too but i’m gonna post that cover separately bc i have a different idea for that one

playlist notes under the cut!

caleb

yes, this playlist is 40% sleeping at last. no, i am not going to apologize for that. they have an album called emotions, it was kind of impossible to not use those songs.

falling for the first time- barenaked ladies: this gives me some strong caleb vibes, and i think it’s because it’s kind of an upbeat but also vaguely self-deprecating song? i mean, come on. I'm so cool, too bad I'm a loser/I'm so smart, too bad I can't get anything figured out/I'm so brave, too bad I'm a baby/I'm so fly, that's probably why it feels just like I'm falling for the first time

son- sleeping at last: And I will try, try, try to breathe 'til it turns to muscle memory I'm only steady on my knees One day I'll stand on my own two feet And I'll run the risk Of being intimate with brokenness Through this magnifying glass I see a thousand finger prints On the surfaces of who I am

soul meets body- death cab for cutie: it’s got some caleb/adam elements, but ultimately i chose to use it as a caleb song, because it feels more specifically like caleb seeking out adam’s emotions because they make him feel more like himself; So brown eyes I'll hold you near/'Cause you're the only song I want to hear/A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere

joy- sleeping at last: i just really love the way emotions are described in the songs on this album (well, except for fear, which has no lyrics and is also not on this playlist). i also just really love The clumsy start of adolescence/The glue that mends our broken remnants/An overwhelming sense of reverence/It's a glimpse of light in a mine of gold for caleb

a new mission- josh whitehouse: ah. this song. this was the song that made this playlist really, really difficult to make, because it was the first song i added and it set a very high bar for literally every other song on the playlist. it just feels so perfect as a caleb song to me, especially early on, when he was still figuring things out and he was constantly overwhelmed by all the feelings around him and in him.

Sometimes I can't control a feeling that I get inside my chest Even with those who are close to me, the ones I call my best I lose sight of all my confidence, in a heavy single step It's happened ever since my childhood, things I thought I'd put to rest I can keep my mind intact by getting on with a new mission I can push myself, having heavy ammunition When something gets me down, for a second I'm distracted I look back amongst the lights I consequently lit my path with

anger- sleeping at last: I mean, it kinda feels like this song has to be on here, yknow? especially with this part, which genuinely feels like how caleb describes anger sometimes: Like wildfire, it starts in my chest/The silence grows louder, ringing out in my head/I feel the Earth shaking under my feet/I feel the pressure building until I can't breathe/And it takes everything/And it all spills out, reckless but honest words leave my mouth

if i say- mumford and sons: aaand now we’re at the sad part of the playlist, because i can’t make happy playlists apparently. this one is definitely a safehouse caleb song; Show me your hands/Are they cleaner than mine?/Show me your face/Did you cross the line?/Show me your eyes/They any drier than mine?/Your soul survives/But peace, you'll never find

organs- of monsters and men: also a safehouse song, but more aftermath than in the middle of things. it’s sadder, more subdued.

sorrow- sleeping at last: more safehouse! who would’ve guessed!

I feel out of focus, or at least indisposed As this strange weather pattern inside me takes hold. Each brave step forward, I take three steps behind. It's mind over matter-- matter over mind.

Slowly, then all at once A single loose thread and it all comes undone

up with the birds- coldplay: caleb likes coldplay, so i had to include one of their songs, and this one is just. kind of perfect?

The sky is blue, Dreamed that lie 'til it's true, Then takin' back the punch I threw, My arms turn wings, Oh, those clumsy things Send me up to that wonderful world And then I'm up with the birds

--

adam

some of these songs are here for tone; the line between what adam would listen to and what helps me draw him is very thin compared to most characters. i did try to make sure they were all songs that fit him at least a little bit, though.

all the kids are depressed- jeremy zucker: i mean. i feel like the title kind of speaks for itself here, honestly. also the lyrics fit pretty well. there isn’t a ton of explaining that needs to be done for this one.

three- sleeping at last: yes i am back on my sleeping at last bullshit no i don’t care this song is perfect go look at the lyrics they’re all good here’s some of them: Maybe I've done enough/Finally catching up/For the first time I see an image of my brokenness/Utterly worthy of love/Maybe I've done enough

velodrome- dessa: this was one of the songs i included primarily for the tone; it’s one of the songs i listen to full volume on my Nice Headphones when i’m feeling too much at once because it kind of just gets rid of everything somehow. it just creates this kind of,, pleasant hollow feeling, if that makes any sense at all. but i realized after i added it that some of the lyrics do kind of fit: With a bell to tell us when we're hungry/There's a bell to tell us when we're tired/A bell that tells us to rise and fight/A bell to rise and die/It's just all bells/Sometimes I ring myself/To see if I might chime

drowning- jay brannan: a lauren playlist song, because like. fuck. that is all i have to say on this song: fuck

trapdoor- twenty one pilots: adam is a top fan because of course he is. i listened to this one a lot in high school so i’m passing it on to adam, and it also felt like a good follow-up to drowning

marching bands of manhattan- death cab for cutie: god this song is perfect. also, another song i listened to a lot in high school.

And it is true what you said That I live like a hermit in my own head But when the sun shines again I'll pull the curtains and blinds to let the light in

Sorrow drips into your heart through a pinhole Just like a faucet that leaks and there is comfort in the sound But while you debate half empty and half full It slowly rises, your love is gonna drown

nine: sleeping at last: god, this song. it fits way too well and it hurts. it’s genuinely difficult to choose lyrics from this song, and i recommend looking at the full lyrics because holy shit, but like

Who am I to say what any of this means? I have been sleepwalking since I was fourteen Now as I write my song, I retrace my steps Honestly, it's easier to let myself forget

Still, I check my vital signs Choked up, I realize I've been less than half myself For more than half my life

Wake up; fall in love again Wage war on gravity There's so much worth fighting for, you'll see Another domino falls either way

better days- radical face: 90% of my playlists have radical face songs. adam especially needed one, though, because his playlist notes mentioned he’d probably actively seek out queer artists, and also there was a youtube q&a where ben cooper said he never writes songs while he’s happy, and honestly the whole discography has adam vibes imo. anyway: When you're always drifting out to sea/Because the ground won't stay beneath your feet/And your head is pouring gasoline/On the person you prefer to be/Try to remind yourself/That it's probably gonna take some time/But there are better days to find

the little things give you away- linkin park: it just has that drowning vibe. i mean, it makes sense, they reference drowning, like, a lot in the song, but i feel like the tone of it adds a lot to that too. like, i can feel that guitar, you know? or maybe that’s just me. idk, it just works, i think.

in a week- hozier: you ever just listen to this in a dark room lying on your back with your eyes closed and yeah? because like, i do sometimes, and i kinda feel like adam does too. i needed a hozier song on this playlist and this felt like the most fitting one to add, and a nice subdued end to the playlist.

[goldgalaxytea-fanfics]

Forget me not

Rating:  Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Gen, M/M

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Relationship: Keith Kogane x Lance McClain

Characters: Lance, Lance’s family,  Unnamed generic doctors, Original Therapist character, Keith, Shiro, Hunk, Pidge | Katie Holt

Additional Tags:  Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Memory Loss, Amnesia, Healing, Therapy, Crying, Recovered Memories, Hugs, group hug, Kissing, kissing while crying, Boys Kissing, Langst

Words: 955

Summary:

Lance returned home after he'd been missing for months, except he had no memories of where he had been, or anything before his disappearance for that matter. Though when he slept, his dreams were full of colorful lions, space, and people in colored armor that seemed oddly familiar...

Notes:

I wrote the rough draft for this about a year or two ago and finally edited it last night cuz no matter how many years pass I'll always love Voltron🥺 

It had been a few weeks since Lance had “returned”. At least, that's what everyone told him. His family, his therapist and everyone else he supposedly knew all said the same thing. He'd been attending some kind of space school when one night he just vanished into thin air. But it wasn't just him, two other kids that also attended the school were missing as well. There was no trace of any of them anywhere up until a few months ago when Lance had shown up out of nowhere in his bedroom. At least, everyone told him it was his bedroom. He doesn't remember ever seeing it before. The posters on his walls displayed movies he never watched. The photos beside his bed showed him with people he never met before. The clothes in his closet held outfits he never bought. Nothing in there meant anything to him. Someone could tell him it wasn't his room and he'd believe them without a second thought.

His family, or at least the people who said they were his family, were happy to see him when he appeared. They heard loud noises coming from “his room” and had rushed up to see what the commotion was. They had all stood frozen in shock when they found him stumbling about "his room", confused about where he was. They had all hugged him and cried, but he screamed and yelled. He didn't know who those people were. They thought it was a joke at first, tried laughing it off as some prank he was playing. But as the moments passed and he continued to stare at them in fear, the hard truth finally set in. They had been heartbroken when they learned that he truly didn't remember anything. So they explained. 

They told him about themselves and about his life before he “vanished”. He listened to every word, every story, but a few minutes later it disappeared from his mind like a puddle on a sunny day. Once again he was surrounded by complete strangers and so he started to panic all over again. His "family’s” hearts broke even more. They kept explaining everything to him as they took him to see “someone who would help”. They had doctors look at his brain and what they found baffled everyone. The X-rays showed hundreds of lines all over his brain, skull and neck. There had been a severe amount of blunt force trauma to his head. The Frankenstein monster like healed seams suggested his head was cracked open like an egg.

Yet they had no idea what exactly had caused it nor how he had been able to physically heal from it. The amount of force needed to injure his brain that terribly should've killed him. Or if he was lucky it would've put him on the verge of death. Even then no human technology could've helped in time, he would've died within minutes from the wounds. There’s no way Lance should be alive right now, yet here he was…

That left his “family” even more confused. Where exactly had he gone? What had he done to injure himself so badly? How did he manage to survive an injury that was guaranteed to end him? Their questions were all left unanswered, for the only person able to answer them didn't even know.

They then learned that there wasn't a surgery they could do to help with his memory. There was nothing physical they could fix and magically make better. If his mind was going to heal it would have to do it on its own. The doctor said there was a small chance that with time Lance would be able to retain memories again, and an even smaller chance that he'd remember his old memories. That made his “family” sad, but they were at least happy there was a possibility of getting “their Lance” back. But Lance didn't know what to think of everything going on around him when he woke up on a cold metal table. He was surrounded by people crying their hearts out, scary looking metal tools and people in white coats observing his every move. He didn't know what this place was, or who those people were.

Lance started to scream.

☆☆☆☆

As time went on, Lance started retaining memories. By some miracle he seemed to be recovering. It started with his name, Lance. Then he was able to remember where he was, his house. And then he was able to gradually remember his family, all their names and who they were to him. After that he was slowly able to remember the stories they told him about them, himself and his life before the accident. 

Lance was also regularly going to a therapist (the doctors had suggested it, saying it could help him). He was even able to eventually remember her. She was a woman somewhere in her late twenties with long brown hair styled into a messy bun. Her outfit changed everyday, but her bright red glasses were always the same. Her name was Lilly. Wait, that wasn't right. Lilu. Her name was Lilu. Lance paused, trying his best to remember. That wasn't her name, it was a nickname. The woman said it'd be easier to remember and it was less formal than calling her by her last name. Surprisingly though, the first thing that Lance remembered about her wasn't her name. It was her glasses, or more specifically her red glasses. That was the only thing he was able to remember about her for quite awhile. He'd just refer to her as Red. But that hadn't felt...right. For some reason he felt like the name belonged to someone, or something, else. When he first told his therapist about it she figured the color red must be in some way important to him. Possibly it was the color of someone close or important to him. But Lance didn't know who or what the color was connected to. And that made him upset, yet he didn't even know why 

★☆☆☆

As he got better, he started to have strange dreams. He never remembered them when he woke up, except for a few bits and pieces. Space, lions and people in some kind of colored armor. The one that stood out the most to him was the person in red. Lance didn't know who they were or what they looked like, but he'd wake up feeling like he was forgetting something important. This left him frustrated. He was tired of not being able to remember stuff, even if it was just a dream. 

His dreams continued and it was always the same story. Space, lions, those people, waking up and barely remembering the dream, the feeling that he forgot something important, that person in red… Lance was getting tired of it. He desperately wished that something would change. Eventually, he got his wish.

It had been exactly a year since Lance had returned. Nothing about the day felt different, just a normal Saturday. He woke up to his alarm, his therapist appointment was early today. But when he awoke he didn't scream in frustration like he usually did. Instead he sat there, eyes and mouth wide open in shock. His dream had been different that night. He remembered it, he remembered all of the details, including what the people looked like. Except he didn't know their names. He was upset about that fact, but that didn't stop a large grin from spreading across his face. He was finally able to remember the dream that had been eluding him for almost half a year. Lance jumped out of bed and quickly got dressed, excited to go tell his therapist about what had happened. Lance hoped that this meant he was getting better. He didn't realize it also meant other things...

★★☆☆

He burst into his therapist’s room, excitement bouncing off of him in waves. The door slammed into the wall with a loud BANG. Lilu didn't seem to mind though, she just looked up from the book she was reading (something about Person Jackie and the Olympics? Lance was too excited to really read the title) and smiles at him. 

“You sure seem excited this morning, Lance. What's up?”

Lance grinned. 

“I remembered my dream!”

Lilu set down her book as Lance walked over and got comfy in the chair in front of her desk. 

“Really? That's good, Lance!”

The woman reached into her desk and pulled out a notebook and a pencil. She opened the book and then glanced at Lance, smiling softly. 

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

Lance smiled and nodded.

“So it takes place in space. There's giant colorful lions and they fight a bad guy who's trying to take over the universe.”

His name is Zarkon

Lilu nodded, making notes about what Lance said. 

“Except they aren't actual lions, they're robots. And there's people that fly them. And when they combine together, they make one giant badass robot!”

It's called Voltron

Lilu glanced up at him. 

“Who were the pilots?”

Lance paused for a moment, thinking. 

“There's four of them.”

There's five

“There's three guys and a girl.”

You're forgetting someone

“The leader, he wears black armor and he's very muscular. And he has a robotic arm that's a weapon. How cool is that? His weapon is the ultimate bitch slap!”

This earned him a laugh from Lilu. She silenced herself and gestured for him to continue. 

“He's also the oldest and he acts like he's the dad of the others. He's really amazing! He makes the best leader. Oh! And he pilots the black lion!”

Lilu nodded, “Do you know his name?”

Lance’s face scrunched up. Trying to remember, but finding nothing. His head started to hurt. 

“No…”

Yes

“The only name I can think of is space dad.”

His name is Shiro

Lance stopped trying to remember the name and the pain slowly faded away.

“Then there's this big guy in yellow armor. But he's the good kind of big, like he would give amazing hugs! He's also hands down the best cook ever! He's a really nice dude! He has a big heart. He pilots the yellow lion!”

Lilu wrote some things down in the notebook. 

“Are you able to remember his name?”

Lance's head began to hurt again. 

“No, I can't…”

His name is Hunk

Lance stopped trying to remember.

“Then there's this small girl with short light brown hair, big round glass and green armor. She may be tiny, but she's mighty! You don't want to mess with her. I know from experi-” Lance stopped suddenly, gripping his head in pain.

You know from experience

Lilu put down her pencil, concerned about the boy in front of her. 

“Lance? Lance, are you okay?”

No he's not, he doesn't remember!

Lance stopped thinking and the pain slowly eased away. Lance let go of his head and smiled nervously. 

“Yeah… I'm fine… Anyway, she's super smart and good with technology! And she pilots the green lion!”

Lilu glanced over at him, still concerned about the man before her, but let him continue.

“Her name was K- wait no it's-”

Pidge

Once again his face scrunched up in pain, but he couldn't remember. Lance sighed and stopped.

“And then there's this guy who has red armor-”

Lance's chest hurt.

“-and a mullet. A mullet, can you believe it? But-”

Lance's eyes burned.

“-it looked good on him. He piloted the red Lion. He was my-”

Boyfriend

A choked scream burst from Lance as his face contorted in pain again, but this time it was different. His head wasn't the only thing that hurt, so did his heart. He gasped, struggling to make the pain go away.

Before he knew it there were arms wrapped around him, and without thinking Lance muttered a name he didn't know or understand.

“Keith…”

I'm here, Lance!

Lilu pulled away, her face full of concern. She held out some tissues to Lance. He just stared at her, confused. She put the tissues in his hand.

“Lance, you're crying…”

He reached up and touched his cheek. Sure enough, there were tears. He was crying, and he didn't know why...

“Lance-”

Lance!

Lance jumped, startled from his thoughts. He looked at her, eyes blank, mind racing.

“-who's Keith?”

His boyfriend!

Lance struggled against the avalanche of pain.

“I...don't know….”

You do know!

Lance cried harder, the pain getting too intense.

Lance…

Lance!

Please, you have to remember!

★★★☆

“Please, you have to remember!” He raised his fist, about to slam it into the side of the building.​ “You have to-”

The man’s cry was cut short. He stood there, unable to move, but his mind racing. His red armor shined brightly in the sun.

“Keith…”

He met the gaze of the man in Black armor and glared at him, but then he noticed his face. It was sad, and his eyes were wet. With a start, Keith realized so was his. Shiro cleared his throat.

“I'm sorry. I know you miss him and you're hurting. We all understand​ how you feel…”

Keith let his gaze wander to the other two standing with them. Hunk and Pidge had streams of tears running down both of their faces. Keith choked on a sob as he let his arm fall limp. Shiro released his grip on the Red Paladin's arm. Keith collapsed, sobs shaking his entire body. Shiro caught him before he hit the ground. The older man held him tight as he clung to him.

“Keith… I'm sorry, I really am… but we need to go. He doesn't remember us, we might make things worse for his mind…”

Keith’s sadness quickly turned to anger, an old defense habit of his. He knew it wasn't good for him, but right now he didn't care. He forcefully pulled himself out of Shiro’s embrace.

“How can you say that?!” Keith snarled, barely able to see anything through his tears. “How can you give up on him?! He's starting to remember! He's remembering who he is!! Who we all are!!! How could you just give up on him…”

The end of Keith's yelling turned into a whisper. He blinked the tears out of his eyes, finally able to see clearly again. Shiro was crying just as hard as he was. Keith glanced at Pidge and Hunk, both sobbing as they held onto each other. Keith screamed, his voice strained and pained as he kicked the side of the building. His foot throbbed in pain, but he didn't care at the moment. Keith took deep breaths and stared at the ground. He couldn't meet anyone's eyes.

“I'm… sorry. I shouldn't have gotten mad or yelled I just… it hurts so much I just… I just can't…” Keith trailed off, still refusing to meet their gazes. He saw Shiro approach but didn't move. The older boy put a hand on his shoulder.

“Keith… it's alright. You're upset, I understand what you're feeling… I want him back too, more than anything… but, we can't. We tried our best but he just… he doesn't remember… I'm sorry…” Shiro tried his best to reassure him as he pulled him into another hug. Keith gladly returned it, eyes closing as he tried his best to calm down.

It was a nice moment, until he felt a new pair of eyes on him. Instantly his eyes flew open, worried someone had spotted them. When he found the source his eyes widened, hope daring to raise inside of him again. A few feet away, a pair of bright blue eyes met his.

★★★★

Lance didn't know what came over him. One minute he was doubled over in pain in his therapist's room, and the next thing he knows the pain is gone and he's staring at the people from his dream. He didn't remember hearing screaming from outside, he didn't remember Lilu asking him where he was going, he didn't remember anything about following the strangely familiar voices, but he did remember the people that stood before him. Silent tears flooded his face as he finally remembered everything.

He remembered running away from the Garrison and ending up in space. He remembered Blue, his lion. He remembered becoming the Blue Paladin of Voltron. Along with his friends, the other Paladins. He remembered every fight, every mission, every injury. He remembered how he forgot.

A mission they thought was over, ruined by a surprise blast from a barely conscious galra guard. Keith had been distracted, too busy kissing Lance in celebration to notice. As they pulled back, Lance had seen the blast a second too late. He couldn't push Keith out of the line of fire in time so he switched places with him. The blast destroyed his jetpack and sent him flying over the edge of a steep fall. He had landed head first, skull cracking on impact. The other paladins had managed to get Lance into a healing pod just in time to save his life, but they couldn't save his memories. He had awoken and panicked, not knowing anything at all. But no matter how many times they explained things to him, it would simply vanish from his mind a few minutes later. It had been a hard decision, but they were left with no choice. He was in no state to fight and they weren't able to look after him until he got better. If he got better… So with teary eyes they took him back to his family on Earth. Lance sobbed, how could he forget his family, his friends, his boyfriend?

A hand gently wiped his tears away. Startled, Lance's bright blue eyes meet violet ones.

"Keith!" Lance grabbed the black haired man's face and pulled it to his, smashing their lips together in a messy kiss. Keith jolted in surprise before trying to return it, his broken sobs making it difficult. The brunette pulled away first. "I-"

"Please tell me you remember…" Keith whispered. Words quiet, as if he spoke louder it would cause the man before him to disappear once again. Lance gave a small peck to his cheek.

"I remember everything. I missed you guys, even if I couldn't remember you till now." He said with a smile. Next thing he knew, Lance was being crushed by four pairs of arms covered in suits of armor. No one could tell who's limbs or tears were who's as the five just held each other and cried, so happy to finally be reunited.

"We missed you too, Lance."

Notes:

Fun fact! This was based on a short story I wrote in middle school about a Homestuck fan session involving my friends lol

[solvskrift]

Where do you get your ideas for chapter names?

Lyrics mostly! A song will usually really resonate with me for a specific chapter and the title ends up being a line that when combined with other verses embodies the chapter in my head:

Make No Sound - from Hold Me Down by Halsey - Even before his encounter with Romilda, Harry is struggling with things like eating and sleeping and processing Sirius’s death (My demons are begging me to open up my mouth) and at the end of the chapter he hears Romilda’s voice (Throw me in the deep end, watch me drown)

And We’re Starting at the End - from Alone Together by Fall Out Boy - Harry is assaulted, Romilda promises to lead him back to the safety of Gryffindor and, well...doesn’t (I don’t know where I’m going, But I don’t think I’m coming home, And I said, I’ll check in tomorrow if I don’t wake up dead, This is the road to ruin and we’re starting at the end)

Somebody Catch My Breath - from Goner by Twenty One Pilots - Harry’s first day after it happens (I’m a goner, somebody catch my breath)/(The ghost of you, is close to me, I’m inside out, you’re underneath) and he hasn’t told anyone (I’ve got two faces) and he feels pretty out of it (Don’t let me be gone)

Way Down We Go - from Way Down We Go by Kaleo - Harry’s eating worsens and he begins to fall into the dangerous obsession with exercise (Way down we go, you let your feet run wild, yes and they will run you down, down til the dark, down til you fall) and he wrestles with the meaning of what Romilda did to him (Oh, Father tell me, do we get what we deserve?)

Lightning in a Bottle - from Electric Love by Børns - Harry realizes, quite suddenly, that he fancies Ginny (Baby you’re like lightning in a bottle, I can’t let you go know that I got it, All I need is to be struck, By your electric love) and spends some more time with her, driving thoughts of Romilda (She’s sweet like candy in my veins) a little further away

Hours on Empty - from Control by Halsey - Harry gets...well, a lot worse, his eating habits slip even further (I’m bigger than my body, I’m colder than this home, I’m meaner than my demons, I’m bigger than these bones), he tries to suppress his bad dreams (I sat alone, in bed till the morning, I’m crying, “They’re coming for me”), his behavior becomes more about a power struggle both over himself and between other people (And all the kids cried out, “Please stop, you’re scaring me,” I can’t help this awful energy, God damn right, you should be scared of me, Who is in control?) and as a perfect snapshot of where he’s at: (I paced around for hours on empty, I jumped at the slightest of sounds, And I couldn’t stand the person inside me, I turned all the mirrors around)

Even If It Hurts - from Even If It Hurts by Sam Tinnesz - from Ron and Hermione’s point of view, things have reached a critical juncture and this is when they really start pushing though they know it will make Harry angry with them (Even if it hurts, Even if it makes me bleed, I’m gonna carry you, Pushing through, With the dirt on my sleeves)/(Not gonna run, I’ll be there when you need me)

With the Dirt On My Sleeves - also from Even If It Hurts by Sam Tinnesz - the same song, but from Harry’s point of view - he opens up a bit to Luna, and then, finally, to Ron and Hermione because deep down he knows it’s his only chance (These nails, In my hands, Erasing all the lines in the sand, I’ve got no, Regret, ‘Cause if I could I’d do it over again) and his secrets make it to the surface (’Cause when you get this close, You can feel the heat, Now you’re so afraid, Of what’s underneath, Oh don’t)

Face of Contusions - from Cut My Lip by Twenty One Pilots - Harry is making an effort to ‘get better,’ both for Ron and Hermione’s sake and, less enthusiastically, for his own because he knows his choices are disappearing (I’ll keep on trying, Might as well)/(Though I am bruised, Face of contusions, Know I’ll keep moving) but the pull to retreat back into his disordered habits is a little too strong (I keep on going back, Even though it’s me I abuse, I’ll keep on going back) - there’s also, of course, the reference to Harry’s fight with Malfoy (Face of contusions/Cut my lip)

Chapter 4 (Trials and Tribulations) is the only one so far without a lyric for a title, simply because it was appropriate for the chapter (Quidditch tryouts and Harry’s episode in the changing rooms) and I really liked that it sounded like a chapter from the HP books. ✨

[dottie-wan-kenobi]

I loveeee all the songs u chose for Tim!!! Can u maybe do a post or smth explaining why cus it’s so interesting seeing the choice behind these songs

Hi yes I can!! I’m not gonna do all of them here (I can def do the rest if you’d like!!) bc that’s just a Lot all at once lol. Also I might have typos and I apologize but dkjsfhakh I have bandaids on my fingers and it’s hard to type :^/

Disclaimer: some of these songs fit a lot better than other ones

Hard Times by Paramore

I chose this song bc it’s abbout being sad, but the tone is upbeat and happy. Something I’ve noticed abt Tim is that he is (usually) functionally depressed. Like, I read an article about high functioning depression, and it said that a lot of people who have it have a hole in their life – that they can have a job (and Tim does, being either CEO or Red Robin or both), a partner (who I like to think of as Kon), and be part of a family, maintaining this happy/upeat facade, but if you ask them what they do for fun…they usually can’t answer that. And I don’t think Tim can. When he was younger, he could, but what now? 

Fave Lyric: “Walking around / With my little rain cloud / Hanging over my head/ And it ain’t coming down / Where do I go? / Gimme some sort of sign / You hit me with lightning! / Maybe I’ll come alive”

Little Lion Man by Mumford & Sons

I chose this bc I can picture Tim, during a low moment like when Kon or Bruce died, just falling apart and thinking he’s not going to survive it, isn’t strong enough, had something to do with their deaths happening,,, etc. Also there’s a line that references anxiety and like lmao that’s Tim!

Fave Lyric: “Tremble for yourself, my man, / You know that you have seen this all before / Tremble, little lion man, / You’ll never settle any of your scores / Your grace is wasted in your face, / Your boldness stands alone among the wreck / Now learn from your mother or else spend your days biting your own neck”

Heroes (we could be) by Alesso feat. Tove Lo

I chose this bc Tim needed a happy song and also because this has such Young Justice vibes !!!! This is Tim and his friends having fun, roaming around, kicking bad guy ass together!! Actually upon looking at the lyrics again, it’s both YJ and Batman & Robin. It just encompasses Tim’s early days of being a hero I think, the happy carefree nature and the bravery and the hope

Fave Lyric: “Everyday people do everyday things but I / Can’t be one of them / I know you hear me now, we are a different kind / We can do anything”

Burn The House Down by AJR

Tbh I mostly chose this bc its a bop and I think he would sing along to it. BUT I also think this kind of represents his life as a public figure/celeb??? And if I wanna go even further, I think it could represent him when he’s older and more confident, with a better self esteem and maybe a lil less depressed (which I hope is in the cards for his future). Also it talks about lying a lot???? I’m sorry, I don’t have a good analysis for this one lmao

Fave Lyric: “Way up way up we go / Been up and down that road / Way up way up, oh no / We gon’ burn the whole house down / Watch me stand in the line / You’re only serving lies / You’ve got something to hide / We gon’ burn the whole house down”

Don’t Let Me Down by The Chainsmokers feat. Daya

I chose this bc it reminded me of Tim and Dick. I’m of the opinion that Tim getting fired from Robin was the right choice and that Dick wasn’t being cruel or anything like that at all, but I also think that Tim probably saw it that way which is valid. So it’s like, to him, Dick was his big brother who was basically always there for him, and then suddenly… he’s not. And everything else going on in his life starts to suck dramatically, and not having his big brother makes it worse, and he feels betrayed. Meanwhile Dick really is on his side, life is just also terrible for him too so they can’t be as close as they were when Tim was Robin. It can also be about Bruce or Kon tbh – just, wanting one of them to be there and they’re not.

Fave Lyric: “Crashing, hit a wall / Right now I need a miracle / Hurry up now, I need a miracle / Stranded, reaching out / I call your name but you’re not around”

More under the cut!!

Don’t Play by Halsey

This…. I chose this bc I really love the celebrity versions of the Bats, and also how competent Tim can be, and this song brings both of those together. Lol this could also be like…what other people think the Bats/Tim think like?? “Don’t play with me, I’m rich and will fuck you up” kinda thing. This is one of the ones that fits less well than the others but I still get Tim vibes from it so I’m keeping it

Fave Lyric: “Tryna take back what you say to me / I don’t give a damn what you say to me / There ain’t no time for games with me”

Over My Head (Cable Car) by The Fray

I get the feeling that after bad shit happens to Tim, he feels the way this song shows. I haven’t read much YJ so I can’t be sure, but I get the feeling that Tim, no matter what the truth is, feels like he’s alone and there’s no one who will help him. Obviously that can be tied back to his childhood and how he had to take care of himself, and so when there are people who actually do wanna help him he doesn’t see it?? And he’s down on himself so he’s probably thinking “they don’t want to help me, and I can’t blame them”

Fave Lyric: “But that’s how it’s got to be / It’s coming down to nothing more than apathy / I’d rather run the other way than stay and see / The smoke and who’s still standing when it clears” 

Icarus by Bastille

Okay not so much the drinking aspect of this song but EVERYTHING ELSE. I even used one of the lyrics for a fic title. Basically my thoughts here are: 1) everyone looks to the Robins and sees how much they do and it’s just A Lot, 2) Tim knows Jason died and so he probably thinks that’s in his future too even if Dick survived, and 3) Tim is doing a lot and feeling a lot and trying to protect himself and his feelings, which is hard work especially for someone so young

Fave Lyric: “Living beyond your years / Acting out all their fears / You feel it in your chest”

Needed Me by Rihanna

Again,,,, the Competence. I love that shit. I love BAMF!Bats, and tbh I think this could apply to more than just Tim, but I picked it for him bc of the first lyric!! This is also one of those ones that doesn’t fit super well but djkhfjkdshah I think this could really fit an AU Tim where he’s like. More morally gray. Not necessarily a bad guy but just more confident, more arrogant maybe, and more jaded from the hero-ing life

Fave Lyric: “I was good on my own, that’s the way it was, that’s the way it was / You was good on the low for a faded fuck, on some faded love / Shit, what the fuck you complaining for? / Feeling jaded, huh?”

What I’ve Done by Linkin Park

Okay I think this fits a lot of different things: his actions after Kon’s death, his and Damian’s relationship, the lies he’s told (to ppl like Steph, his dad, Tam?), his relationship with Bruce maybe?? I can also see it as him thinking on who he was as a kid – a stalker basically lmao, but ultimately harmless – versus who he is now – a skilled vigilante who’s definitely not harmless. Stark difference there. Also he’s forgiving himself, which is something I think is important for somebody with a low self view

Fave Lyric: “In this farewell / There’s no blood / There’s no alibi / ‘Cause I’ve drawn regret / From the truth / Of a thousand lies”

Tell Me You Love Me by Demi Lovato

I chose this because I think Tim is fucked up by the neglect he suffered in his childhood. I think parts of this song can be directed at his parents, the Batfam, his partner(s). He’s afraid that they’ll leave him and he needs the reassurance. Whether or not he gets it is another matter but kdsjfjkdsah. Really, I think this is all just what he’s thinking, and NOT what he’s saying. He needs the reassurance, yes, but he’s not actually asking for it because he doesn’t know how

Fave Lyric: “Bad at love, no, I’m not good at this”

bellyache by Billie Eilish

When I first added this to his playlist I somehow didn’t realize it was about a murderer but dkjfhkjshjkah whatever I’m keeping it. Let’s just go with this is a song about being fucked up (in whatever sense u wanna take that as) and it’s not happy? But like the first one, it’s upbeat and positive. I think the happy sound hiding the less pretty truth is something that explains Tim a lot. Also its a bop and he might sing along to it

Fave Lyric: “Everything I do / The way I wear my noose / Like a necklace / I wanna make ‘em scared / Like I could be anywhere / Like I’m reckless”

Migraine by Twenty One Pilots

Just Another Song About Tim’s Abysmal Mental Health

Fave Lyric: “Behind my eyelids are islands of violence / My mind ship-wrecked / This is the only land my mind could find / I did not know it was such a violent island / Full of tidal waves, suicidal crazed lions / They’re trying to eat me, blood running down their chin / And I know that I can fight or I can let the lion win / I begin to assemble what weapons I can find / 'Cause sometimes to stay alive you gotta kill your mind”

Fake Love by Drake

I hate Drake but kjdsfkjdsfhajh this goes back to a few things. His celebrity and how he’s seen/treated differently by others because of it, his low self view and the paranoia that people aren’t really there for him no matter what the truth might be, how he sees things others wouldn’t, his relationships with people like Damian and Bruce. I think he’s more forgiving than this song would imply, so maybe this is also for that AU Tim I mentioned above???

Fave Lyric: “I’ve been down so long it look like up to me / They look up to me / I got fake people showin’ fake love to me / Straight up to my face, straight up to my face”

Six Feet Under by Billie Eilish

TIMKON TIMKON TIMKON. Post Kon’s death TimKon and Tim is grieving and trying to forget bc it’s so painful!!!!!!

Fave Lyric: “Our love is six feet under / I can’t help but wonder / If our grave was watered by the rain / Would roses bloom? / Could roses bloom / Again?”

Flaws by Bastille

Idek, I feel like this could be how he could view his relationship with Steph, Cass, Damian, Bart, Dick??? Anyone? Just feeling like he hides his flaws and how he feels, and they don’t really (or at least, he thinks they don’t), and he likes that.

Fave Lyric: “There’s a hole in my soul / I can’t fill it, I can’t fill it / There’s a hole in my soul / Can you fill it? Can you fill it?”

do re mi by blackbear

I’m mostly joking when I say this but this is how he feels about Ra’s al Ghul. It doesn’t fit exactly, bc Tim and Ra’s were NOT together ever at any point, but this song is about being annoyed by someone you have a history with and wishing you’d never known them. Which is how I feel Tim should feel about Ra’s. lol

Fave Lyric: “If I could go back to that day we met / I probably would’ve stayed in bed / You wake up everyday and make me feel like I’m incompetent”

Bored by Billie Eilish

I really think this is Tim talking to his parents. Like, when he’s a kid, or when he’s older and looking back, he’s thinking “I did everything I could, it wasn’t enough, and I know it’s not fair but I can’t do anything about it.” I think this song is supposed to be romantic but I’ve never heard it that way skdjfkjsdhakjh I just always think about Tim, home alone and thinking about his parents.

Fave Lyric: “I’m not afraid anymore / What makes you sure you’re all I need? / Forget about it / When you walk out the door and leave me torn / You’re teaching me to live without it / Bored, I’m so bored, I’m so bored, so bored”

Rose-Colored Boy by Paramore

This one is like… everyone else seems to have an easier time being optimistic and positive than Tim does, in his mind. Idk I don’t have much to say kdsjfhsdjkah

Fave Lyric: “Hearts are breaking, wars are raging on / And I have taken my glasses off / You got me nervous / I’m right at the end of my rope / A half-empty girl / Don’t make me laugh, I’ll choke”

King of the Clouds by Panic! At The Disco

This is mostly because it’s a bop and Tim would like it. But also…this is a song about dimensional travel (apparently) and having ambitions that seem lofty, both of which I think Tim can definitely understand!! 

Fave Lyric: “And when I fall to rise with stardust in my eyes / In the backbone of night, I’m combustible / Dust in the fire when I can’t sleep a wink, I’m too tired / This old world, this old world”

[sprachgefuehle]

I was NOT tagged by @linguisten ​ but I will just count myself as one of the “usual suspects” because I need to procrastinate

Nickname: Mare

Gender: Maybe?

Sign: Pisces

Song stuck in my head: That horrible new song by Alicia Keys that keeps playing on the radio (”Underdog” or something like that?)

Sexuality: Yes!

Favorite animal: Cats, pandas, elephants

Current time: 14:01 h

Cats or Dogs: C A T S

Last movie I watched: El Hoyo (The Platform) on Netflix. One of the best movies I have seen in a long time, but trigger warning for...everything I guess. 

Last thing I googled: The English title of El Hoyo

Other blogs: main @notgreengardens​, the magnus archives fan blog: @napping-in-the-buried​,  poetry: @calderapoetry​ (hiatus), twenty one pilots fan blog: @rebelupeast​ (hiatus)

Do I get asks: A few

Dream Job: Working in an NGO for human rights 

When I created my blog: 2019

Reasons for URL: it’s a pun. “Sprachgefühl” refers to the intuition regarding the appropriate use of language (be it your native language or a foreign language). Sprachgefühle is the plural of that word which doesn’t exist, but it insinuates that I get very emotional about languages...which I do.

Following: 690

Average sleep: 9 hours

Lucky number: no idea but I have synaethesia and 12 has a nice color

Currently wearing: my purple sweater made of alpaca wool that I bought in Peru and sweatpants

Dream trip: Latin America and Japan

Favorite food: Everything involving broccoli and cheese

Favorite song: too many, right now probably “Shrike” by Hozier and “Bloodflood” by Alt-J

Instruments: Nothing even though I am officially the theremin player in a band that does not exist.

Tagging:  Go wild, I tag everyone who is reading this.

[chiseler]

Utopia and Apocalypse: Pynchon’s Populist/Fatalist Cinema

The rhythmic clapping resonates inside these walls, which are hard and glossy as coal: Come-on! Start-the-show! Come-on! Start-the-show! The screen is a dim page spread before us, white and silent. The film has broken, or a projector bulb has burned out. It was difficult even for us, old fans who’ve always been at the movies (haven’t we?) to tell which before the darkness swept in.

--from the last page of Gravity’s Rainbow

To begin with a personal anecdote: Writing my first book (to be published) in the late 1970s, an experimental autobiography titled Moving Places: A Life at the Movies (Harper & Row, 1980), published in French as Mouvements: Une vie au cinéma (P.O.L, 2003), I wanted to include four texts by other authors—two short stories (“In Dreams Begin Responsibilities” by Delmore Schwartz, “The Secret Integration” by Thomas Pynchon) and two essays (“The Carole Lombard in Macy’s Window” by Charles Eckert, “My Life With Kong” by Elliott Stein)—but was prevented from doing so by my editor, who argued that because the book was mine, texts by other authors didn’t belong there. My motives were both pluralistic and populist: a desire both to respect fiction and non-fiction as equal creative partners and to insist that the book was about more than just myself and my own life. Because my book was largely about the creative roles played by the fictions of cinema on the non-fictions of personal lives, the anti-elitist nature of cinema played a crucial part in these transactions.`

In the case of Pynchon’s 1964 story—which twenty years later, in his collection Slow Learner, he would admit was the only early story of his that he still liked—the cinematic relevance to Moving Places could be found in a single fleeting but resonant detail: the momentary bonding of a little white boy named Tim Santora with a black, homeless, alcoholic jazz musician named Carl McAfee in a hotel room when they discover that they’ve both seen Blood Alley (1955), an anticommunist action-adventure with John Wayne and Lauren Bacall, directed by William Wellman. Pynchon mentions only the film’s title, but the complex synergy of this passing moment of mutual recognition between two of its dissimilar viewers represented for me an epiphany, in part because of the irony of such casual camaraderie occurring in relation to a routine example of Manichean Cold War mythology. Moreover, as a right-wing cinematic touchstone, Blood Alley is dialectically complemented in the same story by Tim and his friends categorizing their rebellious schoolboy pranks as Operation Spartacus, inspired by the left-wing Spartacus (1960) of Kirk Douglas, Dalton Trumbo, and Stanley Kubrick.

For better and for worse, all of Pynchon’s fiction partakes of this populism by customarily defining cinema as the cultural air that everyone breathes, or at least the river in which everyone swims and bathes. This is equally apparent in the only Pynchon novel that qualifies as hackwork, Inherent Vice (2009), and the fact that Paul Thomas Anderson’s adaptation of it is also his worst film to date—a hippie remake of Chinatown in the same way that the novel is a hippie remake of Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald—seems logical insofar as it seems to have been written with an eye towards selling the screen rights. As Geoffrey O’Brien observed (while defending this indefensible book and film) in the New York Review of Books (January 3, 2015), “Perhaps the novel really was crying out for such a cinematic transformation, for in its pages people watch movies, remember them, compare events in the ‘real world’ to their plots, re-experience their soundtracks as auditory hallucinations, even work their technical components (the lighting style of cinematographer James Wong Howe, for instance) into aspects of complex conspiratorial schemes.” (Despite a few glancing virtues, such as  Josh Brolin’s Nixonesque performance as "Bigfoot" Bjornsen, Anderson’s film seems just as cynical as its source and infused with the same sort of misplaced would-be nostalgia for the counterculture of the late 60s and early 70s, pitched to a generation that didn’t experience it, as Bertolucci’s Innocents: The Dreamers.)

From The Crying of Lot 49’s evocation of an orgasm in cinematic terms (“She awoke at last to find herself getting laid; she’d come in on a sexual crescendo in progress, like a cut to a scene where the camera’s already moving”) to the magical-surreal guest star appearance of Mickey Rooney in wartime Europe in Gravity’s Rainbow, cinema is invariably a form of lingua franca in Pynchon’s fiction, an expedient form of shorthand, calling up common experiences that seem light years away from the sectarianism of the politique des auteurs. This explains why his novels set in mid-20th century, such as the two just cited, when cinema was still a common currency cutting across classes, age groups, and diverse levels of education, tend to have the greatest number of movie references. In Gravity’s Rainbow—set mostly in war-torn Europe, with a few flashbacks to the east coast U.S. and flash-forwards to the contemporary west coast—this even includes such anachronistic pop ephemera as the 1949 serial King of the Rocket Men and the 1955 Western The Return of Jack Slade (which a character named Waxwing Blodgett is said to have seen at U.S. Army bases during World War 2 no less than twenty-seven times), along with various comic books.

Significantly, “The Secret Integration”, a title evoking both conspiracy and countercultural utopia, is set in the same cozy suburban neighborhood in the Berkshires from which Tyrone Slothrop, the wartime hero or antihero of Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), aka “Rocketman,” springs, with his kid brother and father among the story’s characters. It’s also the same region where Pynchon himself grew up. And Gravity’s Rainbow, Pynchon’s magnum opus and richest work, is by all measures the most film-drenched of his novels in its design as well as its details—so much so that even its blocks of text are separated typographically by what resemble sprocket holes. Unlike, say, Vineland (1990), where cinema figures mostly in terms of imaginary TV reruns (e.g., Woody Allen in Young Kissinger) and diverse cultural appropriations (e.g., a Noir Center shopping mall), or the post-cinematic adventures in cyberspace found in the noirish (and far superior) east-coast companion volume to Inherent Vice, Bleeding Edge (2013), cinema in Gravity’s Rainbow is basically a theatrical event with a social impact, where Fritz Lang’s invention of the rocket countdown as a suspense device (in the 1929 Frau im mond) and the separate “frames” of a rocket’s trajectory are equally relevant and operative factors. There are also passing references to Lang’s Der müde Tod, Die Nibelungen, Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler, and Metropolis—not to mention De Mille’s Cleopatra, Dumbo, Freaks, Son of Frankenstein, White Zombie, at least two Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals, Pabst, and Lubitsch—and the epigraphs introducing the novel’s second and third sections (“You will have the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood — Merian C. Cooper to Fay Wray” and “Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more…. –Dorothy, arriving in Oz”) are equally steeped in familiar movie mythology.

These are all populist allusions, yet the bane of populism as a rightwing curse is another near-constant in Pynchon’s work. The same ambivalence can be felt in the novel’s last two words, “Now everybody—“, at once frightening and comforting in its immediacy and universality. With the possible exception of Mason & Dixon (1997), every Pynchon novel over the past three decades—Vineland, Against the Day (2006), Inherent Vice, and Bleeding Edge—has an attractive, prominent, and sympathetic female character betraying or at least acting against her leftist roots and/or principles by being first drawn erotically towards and then being seduced by a fascistic male. In Bleeding Edge, this even happens to the novel’s earthy protagonist, the middle-aged detective Maxine Tarnow. Given the teasing amount of autobiographical concealment and revelation Pynchon carries on with his public while rigorously avoiding the press, it is tempting to see this recurring theme as a personal obsession grounded in some private psychic wound, and one that points to sadder-but-wiser challenges brought by Pynchon to his own populism, eventually reflecting a certain cynicism about human behavior. It also calls to mind some of the reflections of Luc Moullet (in “Sainte Janet,” Cahiers du cinéma no. 86, août 1958) aroused by Howard Hughes’ and Josef von Sternberg’s Jet Pilot and (more incidentally) by Ayn Rand’s and King Vidor’s The Fountainhead whereby “erotic verve” is tied to a contempt for collectivity—implicitly suggesting that rightwing art may be sexier than leftwing art, especially if the sexual delirium in question has some of the adolescent energy found in, for example, Hughes, Sternberg, Rand, Vidor, Kubrick, Tashlin, Jerry Lewis, and, yes, Pynchon.

One of the most impressive things about Pynchon’s fiction is the way in which it often represents the narrative shapes of individual novels in explicit visual terms. V, his first novel, has two heroes and narrative lines that converge at the bottom point of a V; Gravity’s Rainbow, his second—a V2 in more ways than one—unfolds across an epic skyscape like a rocket’s (linear) ascent and its (scattered) descent; Vineland offers a narrative tangle of lives to rhyme with its crisscrossing vines, and the curving ampersand in the middle of Mason & Dixon suggests another form of digressive tangle between its two male leads; Against the Day, which opens with a balloon flight, seems to follow the curving shape and rotation of the planet.

This compulsive patterning suggests that the sprocket-hole design in Gravity’s Rainbow’s section breaks is more than just a decorative detail. The recurrence of sprockets and film frames carries metaphorical resonance in the novel’s action, so that Franz Pökler, a German rocket engineer allowed by his superiors to see his long-lost daughter (whom he calls his “movie child” because she was conceived the night he and her mother saw a porn film) only once a year, at a children’s village called Zwölfkinder, and can’t even be sure if it’s the same girl each time:

So it has gone for the six years since. A daughter a year, each one about a year older, each time taking up nearly from scratch. The only continuity has been her name, and Zwölfkinder, and Pökler’s love—love something like the persistence of vision, for They have used it to create for him the moving image of a daughter, flashing him only these summertime frames of her, leaving it to him to build the illusion of a single child—what would the time scale matter, a 24th of a second or a year (no more, the engineer thought, than in a wind tunnel, or an oscillograph whose turning drum you can speed or slow at will…)?

***

Cinema, in short, is both delightful and sinister—a utopian dream and an apocalyptic nightmare, a stark juxtaposition reflected in the abrupt shift in the earlier Pynchon passage quoted at the beginning of this essay from present tense to past tense, and from third person to first person. Much the same could be said about the various displacements experienced while moving from the positive to the negative consequences of  populism.

Pynchon’s allegiance to the irreverent vulgarity of kazoos sounding like farts and concomitant Spike Jones parodies seems wholly in keeping with his disdain for David Raksin and Johnny Mercer’s popular song “Laura” and what he perceives as the snobbish elitism  of the Preminger film it derives from, as expressed in his passionate liner notes to the CD compilation “Spiked!: The Music of Spike Jones” a half-century later:

The song had been featured in the 1945 movie of the same name, supposed to evoke the hotsy-totsy social life where all these sophisticated New York City folks had time for faces in the misty light and so forth, not to mention expensive outfits, fancy interiors,witty repartee—a world of pseudos as inviting to…class hostility as fish in a barrel, including a presumed audience fatally unhip enough to still believe in the old prewar fantasies, though surely it was already too late for that, Tin Pan Alley wisdom about life had not stood a chance under the realities of global war, too many people by then knew better.

Consequently, neither art cinema nor auteur cinema figures much in Pynchon’s otherwise hefty lexicon of film culture, aside from a jokey mention of a Bengt Ekerot/Maria Casares Film Festival (actors playing Death in The Seventh Seal and Orphée) held in Los Angeles—and significantly, even the “underground”, 16-millimeter radical political filmmaking in northern California charted in Vineland becomes emblematic of the perceived failure of the 60s counterculture as a whole. This also helps to account for why the paranoia and solipsism found in Jacques Rivette’s Paris nous appartient and Out 1, perhaps the closest equivalents to Pynchon’s own notions of mass conspiracy juxtaposed with solitary despair, are never mentioned in his writing, and the films that are referenced belong almost exclusively to the commercial mainstream, unlike the examples of painting, music, and literature, such as the surrealist painting of Remedios Varo described in detail at the beginning of The Crying of Lot 49,  the importance of Ornette Coleman in V and Anton Webern in Gravity’s Rainbow, or the visible impact of both Jorge Luis Borges and William S. Burroughs on the latter novel. (1) And much of the novel’s supply of movie folklore—e.g., the fatal ambushing of John Dillinger while leaving Chicago’s Biograph theater--is mainstream as well.

Nevertheless, one can find a fairly precise philosophical and metaphysical description of these aforementioned Rivette films in Gravity’s Rainbow: “If there is something comforting -- religious, if you want — about paranoia, there is still also anti-paranoia, where nothing is connected to anything, a condition not many of us can bear for long.” And the white, empty movie screen that appears apocalyptically on the novel’s final page—as white and as blank as the fusion of all the colors in a rainbow—also appears in Rivette’s first feature when a 16-millimeter print of Lang’s Metropolis breaks during the projection of the Tower of Babel sequence.

Is such a physically and metaphysically similar affective climax of a halted film projection foretelling an apocalypse a mere coincidence? It’s impossible to know whether Pynchon might have seen Paris nous appartient during its brief New York run in the early 60s. But even if he hadn’t (or still hasn’t), a bitter sense of betrayed utopian possibilities in that film, in Out 1, and in most of his fiction is hard to overlook. Old fans who’ve always been at the movies (haven’t we?) don’t like to be woken from their dreams.

by Jonathan Rosenbaum

Footnote

For this reason, among others, I’m skeptical about accepting the hypothesis of the otherwise reliable Pynchon critic Richard Poirier that Gravity’s Rainbow’s enigmatic references to “the Kenosha Kid” might allude to Orson Welles, who was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Steven C. Weisenburger, in A Gravity’s Rainbow Companion (Athens/London: The University of Georgia Press, 2006), reports more plausibly that “the Kenosha Kid” was a pulp magazine character created by Forbes Parkhill in Western stories published from the 1920s through the 1940s. Once again, Pynchon’s populism trumps—i.e. exceeds—his cinephilia.

[blurry-fics]

When The Party’s Over

Pairing: Josh Dun x Reader

Warnings: Alcohol use, drunken shenanigans, tiny bit of angst?

Word Count: 3894

Request: Bed sharing fic with Josh? I'll leave all the creativity up to you!!!! -Anonymous

Author’s Note: Yes, this fic title is based on a Billie Eilish song, but it isn’t a song request! I was just listening to the song when I got the idea for this request so I thought it would be fitting to name it after the song. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this one! :) (picture credit)

A slight drizzle of rain started to coat the driveway as you stood on your porch, watching the last few party guests make their way back to the cars. Some of them were stumbling, but all of them had someone sober to drive them home. You had made sure to check with everyone before they left to make sure that nobody was driving home unsafely.

When the doors of the car were closed and the headlights of the car had turned on, you finally turned and walked back inside. Only a few people were left in your living room: some of your childhood friends who had come in from out of town and Josh Dun, also known as the boy you had been in love with since you first moved to Columbus. Or, as he was more commonly referred to, your best friend. It hadn’t been Josh’s intention to spend the night at your place since he lived close by, but after a few too many drinks he had ended up being too sick and way too drunk to get himself home safely, so you offered up your room for him to stay in.

“We should get up to bed, shouldn’t we?” one of your friends mumbled.

“Probably not a bad idea,” her husband answered.

You waited until the two of them had gotten up the stairs before turning your attention to Josh. He was passed out on your couch, one arm resting over his stomach and the other hanging over the side, his mouth partially open. Not wanting to disturb his rest just yet, you started to collect some of the discarded cups that had been left on your coffee table. You didn’t want your house guests to wake up to filth and, if you were being honest, you didn’t really want to either.

“Y/N?” a muffled voice carried over from the other room.

You quickly set down the bowl you were washing and hastily wiped your hands on your jeans as you walked into the living room. Josh was awake now, though the expression on his face indicated that he would rather still be asleep. After his eyes landed on you, he collapsed back into the couch cushions.

“Where am I?” he asked. His eyes slowly fluttered closed again.

“You’re at my house. You said you were feeling sick earlier so I offered to let you stay here. I can take you home, if you want.”

Josh quickly shook his head, only leading to a pained expression. A frown tugged at the corner of your lips. Although he had technically brought this upon himself, you hated to see him in this state.

“Here,” he mumbled, rolling onto his side.

“Alright. Let me finish cleaning some stuff up and then we can get you into bed.”

You waited a moment for Josh’s response, but you were only met with snores. With a sigh, you made your way back to the kitchen to finish washing the last few plates.

Josh was still fast asleep when you finally finished cleaning everything to your liking. From the looks of it, he hadn’t moved an inch since he initially passed out. You took a moment to admire how peaceful he looked, knowing that in just a moment you would end it and force him to deal with his drunken state once again.

“Josh,” you called softly, hoping that it would be enough to wake him up. As should have been expected, Josh didn’t even stir. Even with a slight increase in volume, he showed no acknowledgment that you were even in the room with him. It wasn’t until you reached forward and started to lightly shake his shoulder that he finally blinked his eyes open.

“What?” he asked. His eyes were wide as he rolled onto his back to look up at you. 

“Hey, it’s ok,” you said, letting your hand linger on his shoulder in hopes that it would provide some comfort. “You just need to get up to bed.”

“Where am I staying? The guest room?”

“No, I have guests. You’re going to sleep in my bed.”

“Where are you going to sleep?” he asked, rubbing at one of his eyes.

“Down here on the couch.”

“No, you’re not. I’m not going to steal your bed.”

“Josh, you feel sick. I’m not going to make you stay down here while you feel awful.”

“I’m fine,” he frowned, crossing his arms across his chest for emphasis. “I can sleep down here.”

“Joshua Dun, I am not going to let you sleep down here and I really don’t feel like putting up a fight right now.”

Josh studied for your face for a minute, though you couldn’t be sure if it was because he was shocked or trying to form a coherent answer. Just as you were about to say something else, he slowly started to get himself up into a sitting position and off the couch.

“Thank you,” you mumbled, already walking around the couch in case Josh went stumbling headfirst into the coffee table.

“I got it,” Josh said, holding a hand out towards you when you started to reach for him.

“Are you sure?”

“Mmmhmm.”

“Ok.”

You followed Josh up the stairs towards your room. He collapsed down on your bed the second that it was in his sights, immediately burying his face in the covers.

“Sorry it isn’t made,” you said. “I didn’t really expect anyone but me to be sleeping in it.”

“You mean you didn’t expect to have a sexy guy spending the night?” he mumbled from beneath the blankets. Even with his face hidden, you could perfectly picture the smug smile on his face.

“You’re lucky I’m tired or you would be getting roasted right now. Also don’t look over here, I’m changing into pajamas.”

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, Y/N/N.”

“Yeah, because somebody doesn’t know how to knock before entering rooms.”

“It was one time!”

“And look at what the consequences were.”

“I play shirtless in front of people all the time. What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is that you choose you play shirtless in front of people. I was just trying to change my clothes!”

You tossed your dirty clothes into the hamper and shut the closet door. Josh seemed to be feeling better - or at least, more sober - based on the back and forth you two were having. It was a nice change from earlier when he was passed out on the couch, hardly able to say more than a few words at a time. Not to mention that having some alone time with him was nice after a whole night of being separated despite being at the same party.

“And I look good while doing it.”

“Hey, do you want something more comfortable to sleep in?” you asked, redirecting your conversation.

“Do you have something for me to wear?”

“I think I have some old clothes of yours that you’ve left here at one point or another. Let me check.”

Josh pushed himself up to a sitting position while you rifled through your dresser. You eventually came across a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt that looked more like something of Tyler’s than Josh’s, but it would have to do. 

“Try these,” you said, tossing them in his direction.

“Ok.”

Josh immediately started unbuttoning his top, making you turn around in embarrassment. As badly as you wanted to take a look, there was no way you were risking Josh seeing the flushed color of your cheeks. Instead, you made a quick excuse about brushing your teeth and slipped into the bathroom so that he could finish getting changed.

Josh was staring at the ceiling when you emerged from the bathroom, now wearing the pajamas you had provided him with. The shirt you had given him was a little tight, meaning that your assumption it belonged to Tyler had most likely been right. His previous clothes were sitting in a messy heap towards the end of the bed.

“You’re back,” he smiled.

“I was only in the bathroom,” you laughed.

“Yeah, but I missed you.”

You swallowed hard and tried not to think too much into his words. Despite him being a little more sober now, he was still way too drunk for his own good, which meant that he was also most likely too drunk to really think about what he was saying. This conversation would be a fuzzy memory, if that, in the morning.

“Do you need anything else before I go downstairs? Some water or something?”

“I think I’ll be ok. I’d rather not put anything else in my stomach.”

“Ok. I’ll see you in the morning, Josh.”

“Wait.” Josh said it just as you reached the door to your room. Your fingers had just barely brushed the handle when his words made you stop dead in your tracks.

“Yeah?”

“Can you stay here? Just for a little while longer? I still feel kinda sick.”

Your hand immediately dropped away from the handle. Even if he hadn’t been sick, you would have stayed just because he asked.

“Yeah, I can stay.”

Your heart fluttered as you took a seat on your bed. Josh was still sprawled out on the other half, though he shifted a little as you joined him, giving you a little more space. You leaned back against the headboard, making sure to keep yourself upright so you weren’t tempted to fall asleep next to him.

“Thanks,” he said softly.

“For?”

“Not leaving.”

“I’m not going to leave you when you feel sick.”

“No, I mean,” he paused to swallow. “Not leaving for good. I know I haven’t exactly been the best friend to you over the years, so it means a lot that you never gave up on me.”

A sad smile tugged on your lips. You and Josh had been through your fair share of arguments over the years, but you knew you loved him too much to ever fully let him go. It wasn’t uncommon for you to wonder if holding onto him so tightly was the right decision or not.

“I’m never going to give up on you, Josh. You’re my best friend.”

“Just your best friend?”

“Well, yeah,” you said. Your fingers began to play with the hem of your sleep shirt, which just so happened to be an oversized Twenty One Pilots shirt from the early days of their career. “What else would you be?”

Josh blinked a couple times at the ceiling, letting the silence between you steadily grow. You were beginning to think that he had fallen asleep with his eyes open when he spoke again.

“I don’t know. Your neighbor or something,” he laughed.

“Right,” you joined his quiet laughter, feeling the tension release from your shoulders.

Josh’s eyes squeezed shut for a moment as he brought another hand up to his stomach. You scooted forward so that you were a little closer to him.

“Are you ok, Josh?”

“Yeah, I just- another pang of nausea,” he said, pushing his head a little further back into the bed.

You reached out and placed a hand on his bicep, rubbing your thumb in small circles. “Are you going to puke? Should I grab a trash can?”

“No, no. I’ll be ok as long as I don’t move. You’re still staying here, right?”

“Of course. I won’t leave until you want me to.”

Josh opened his eyes for a moment and looked at you, “Then you’re staying here forever.”

“I have to sleep at some point.”

“Who says you can’t fall asleep next to me?”

“A lot of people. Or rules. I don’t know,” you said, scrambling for an excuse. He was just drunk and wanted comfort from someone. You weren’t about to let yourself fall asleep next to him and make something out of it that didn’t really exist.

Josh reached over and grabbed your wrist with his free hand. His touch was gentle, but you could still feel every callous on the palm of his hand. “Please.”

There was a pause, quiet enough for you to hear your shaky intake of breath.

“Ok.”

“You should get comfortable.”

“Not until you start feeling better. If I get comfortable, it’s just going to be that much harder for me to get up and grab you something to throw up into.”

“But you’re not leaving?”

“I’m not leaving.”

“Good.”

You expected Josh to pull his hand away from you, but he kept it wrapped gently around your wrist. His other hand was still resting gingerly on his stomach, as if it would somehow make the nausea go away.

“You’re the best person in the world. Did you know that, Y/N/N?”

“Thanks, Josh.”

“I mean it. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

You brushed a couple pink strands of hair out of his face. His eyes watched you as you did so.

“You would find someone else to take my place.”

And it wouldn’t be the first time, either.

“Nobody could take your place.”

You held back a laugh. Why were you even having this conversation right now, anyway?

“People have before and I’m sure they will again.”

“They didn’t take your place. Not really.”

“You’re just saying that.”

Josh’s eyebrows furrowed, “I don’t ‘just say’ things.”

Not wanting to start an argument, you decided to redirect the conversation. “How are you feeling?”

“Better. I think I can move now.”

Josh finally let go of your arm and moved to a normal position on the bed, You followed suit and started to get comfortable on your side of the bed, but a hand reached out and rested gently on your upper arm.

“You’re not going to lay that far away, are you?”

You rolled more onto your back, allowing you to look over your shoulder. Josh was on his side, facing you.

“I was giving you space.”

“I don’t want space. I want you close to me.”

You wanted to allow your heart to flutter at his words, but each time it started to you reminded yourself that he was just a drunk person seeking comfort and you were readily available.

“I’ll come a little closer,” you said, rolling so that you were now facing him and moving a few inches forward.

“Closer,” he pouted, reaching out to rest a hand on your hip.

“Josh,” you sighed, grabbing his hand and moving it away from you. “I’m not going to cuddle with you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re drunk and you want to be close to someone and I just so happen to be here. I’m not going to let this night mean something to me when it’s something you’ll barely remember in the morning.”

“I’m not as drunk anymore,” he protested.

“But you’re still drunk.”

“Not too drunk to know I’m in love with you.”

All the air in your lungs was gone in an instant. A million things began to piece themselves together in your mind, but you could only focus on Josh. His expression was sincere as he looked at you, quietly waiting for some kind of reaction.

“Josh, I love you too but… I need to hear it from you when you’re sober. Just to know that you mean it.”

“I just said I’m sober enough to know how I feel.”

“I know you did, but I need you to do this for me.”

Josh was quiet. The air between you smelled of alcohol, reminding you why you needed to do this. There was still a chance that this whole ordeal would be forgotten in the morning.

“Can I at least kiss you?” he asked. His voice was hardly more than a whisper.

“In the morning, Josh, if you still feel the same.”

“I’m always going to feel the same.”

“Then it won’t be a big deal to wait.”

“Ok.” 

You paused for a moment, waiting to see if he would say anything else. When he remained quiet, you asked, “Are you going to be able to sleep ok? Or are you still sick?”

“I think I’ll be ok.”

You reached forward until you found his arm, then let your fingers run along it until you found his hand. Gently, you interlaced your fingers with his and rested it in a place that was comfortable for both of you. His mouth curled up into a small smile.

“Goodnight, Josh,” you said, giving his hand a light squeeze.

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

*     *     *

You were the first one to wake up the next morning. Sunlight was pouring in through the windows and the clock on the bedside table read 10:30, much later than you usually woke up. That wouldn’t have been a huge concern if it hadn’t been for your guests, who you silently hoped had slept in later than you so that you still had time to make breakfast for them.

You started to stretch, but were stopped when your back pressed up against something firm. Shortly after, you became aware of the weight that was pressing into your waist and feeling of fingers interlaced with your own. Panic flowed through your body as you recognized the colors of an all-too-familiar tattoo. Slowly, you began to unravel yourself from where your limbs were tangled with Josh’s without waking him up. Memories from the night before began to flood your mind, both making your heart flutter and filling your stomach with dread.

Once you were out of Josh’s arms, you quickly slipped into the bathroom and shut the door behind you. Your chest was heaving, so you took a moment to steady your breaths before doing anything else. It was just one night of being cuddled up together; that was far from the worst thing you two had done together.

You took your time washing your face and getting ready for the day, trying to stall as much as you could before you had to walk back into the bedroom and face Josh, if he was even awake. There was no telling how much of the night that he would remember and you weren’t entirely willing to find out.

Eventually, you ran out of things to do to get ready and decided to make your way back into the bedroom. You slowly opened the door and started to tiptoe into the room, but when you looked up you realized Josh was already awake and staring at the ceiling. His eyes snapped to you as soon as he heard the door open.

“You’re awake,” you said plainly, dropping your feet so they were resting firmly on the ground. “How are you feeling?”

“About how you’d expect,” Josh laughed, running a hand through his hair. “My head is killing me.”

“That makes sense. You were pretty out of it last night.”

“Yeah. Everything is fuzzy, but stuff is slowly coming back to me.”

Equal parts relief and panic flowed through you at his statement. You avoided eye contact as you shuffled over towards the closet to look for something clean to wear.

“How are you feeling this morning?” he asked.

“I’m ok. Tired, I guess, but not hungover like most people will be.”

“I’m jealous.”

“We can get you some medicine when we’re downstairs to help the headache. And breakfast will help, once I get around to making that.”

“You don’t have to do that. I live just down the street and I already feel like I’ve overstayed my welcome.”

“It’s fine, Josh, I swear. I’m making breakfast for my friends, anyway, so you might as well stay and let someone take care of you.”

“You know I’m not very good at that.”

You looked at him over your shoulder, raising one eyebrow, “I think drunk Josh would beg to differ.”

“Was I a pain last night?”

“In a lot of pain is more like it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. Last night was… well, it wasn’t the worst night we’ve spent together.”

Josh didn’t say anything else, so you waved at him to close his eyes while you got dressed. He made some comment about you stepping into the bathroom to change, but you simply laughed and told him that you had done more than enough for him so he could cover his eyes for the sake of you not having to go back in the bathroom again.

“Do you want me to see if I have any more of your spare clothes?” you asked. “Or are you going to wear the old stuff?”

“I’ll probably just wear the old stuff, but I’m sticking with the pajamas now because they don’t reek of alcohol.”

“Good call.”

“Um, can I ask you something kind of weird?”

You finally fully turned around to look at Josh. “Weird, how?”

“Personal, I guess.”

“Sure.”

“Did I, um… confess anything last night?”

“What do you mean?”

Josh rubbed a hand along the side of his face, once again squeezing his eyes shut. “Like, I don’t know. You know what type of things people usually confess.”

“Like your feelings for someone?”

Josh bit down on his lip and slowly released it from between his teeth. “Yes.”

“You might have mentioned something.”

He sighed and leaned back into the headboard, “I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” you said. You made your way over to the bed and sat down, keeping a considerable amount of space between you and Josh. “I guess, to keep things fair, I should remind you that I said I felt the same.”

“You did?”

“Do you not remember?”

“I remember bits and pieces, but it’s fuzzy. Do you mind, um, running me through it?”

You explained to Josh what happened the night before, from him asking you to stay upstairs with him to asking you for a kiss. His ears continued to grow more red as you walked him through the details.

“I’m really sorry that I was acting like that,” he sighed. “That’s… wow.”

“It’s fine, Josh. Like I said, not the worst night we’ve had together.”

“Yeah,” he laughed. “But, I guess what we should focus on here, you feel the same?”

You broke eye contact and looked down at your bed. “Yeah, I do.”

“Does that embarrass you?”

“I guess,” you shrugged. “I mean, you were obviously drunk last night and I’m not entirely sure you meant what you said. I just thought you deserved to know since I told you all the things you said to me. Now we can both be embarrassed.”

You continued to stare at the bed, but Josh reached out and hooked a finger under your chin, bringing your eyes up to meet his. 

“What’s embarrassing about two people being in love with one another?”

“You mean, what you said… you meant it?”

“Every word.”

You hesitantly started to move forward, but Josh caught your cheek and quickly closed the space between you. His free hand came to your hip, guiding you closer to him until you were straddling his lap. Your kisses were eager, but you had no intention of taking this any further. Not yet, anyway.

“I told you I would kiss you if you still felt the same in the morning,” you said, smiling against Josh’s lips.

“And I told you I would always feel the same, right?”

You nodded before pressing your lips to his again.

[wolfpawn]

I Hate You, I Love You, Chapter 73

Chapter Summary - Tom and Danielle head to the spa to relax, but Tom has been on tenterhooks since the Golden Globes.

Previous Chapter

Rating - Mature (some chapters contain smut)

Triggers - references to Tom Hiddleston’s work with the #MeToo Movement. That chapter will be tagged accordingly.

authors Note - I have been working on this for the last 3 years, it is currently 180+ chapters long.  This will be updated daily, so long as I can get time to do so, obviously

tags: @sweetkingdomstarlight-blog @jessibelle-nerdy-mum @nonsensicalobsessions @damalseer @hiddlesbitch1 @winterisakiller @fairlightswiftly @salempoe​ @wolfsmom1​

If you wish to be tagged, please let me know.

Tom insisted they take the Jag to the hotel, so he was driving and as they pulled in, looking at the building, he turned to Danielle. "This is extravagant."

"I know," She gave a loving smile. "It is supposed to be."

"What did you…?"

"If you dare ask me one more time what I paid, I swear, I will hit you," She threatened. "It is paid, it is done, so stop going on about it."

"It's too much Elle."

"No, it's not, now please, get your arse inside so we can relax."

In the week since his return from LA and the Golden Globes speech debacle, Tom was anything but his usual self. He was not half as good-humoured or indeed enthusiastic for many of his favourite things. He was confirmed to go on the Graham Norton show again at the end of the month as well as to get interviewed for GQ magazine, so all in all, there were things to look forward to, but overall, he seemed less animated in himself; something Danielle noticed and hoped that their two days together at the spa, away from the city, noise and talking would help with. Luke had been informed of what they were doing and agreed it was very much needed, promising to keep everything unimportant from them for a couple of days, as well as ensuring to keep an eye on if they were spotted, but Danielle had chosen the hotel specifically for its reputation. Though she had not intended to come with Tom at first, she wanted him to have peace in his time there, so ensured she chose a place that apparently even British Royals had gone on occasion; if they got privacy there, surely Tom and she would have the same experience.

They checked in swiftly and were brought to their room. As Danielle looked around, she smiled at knowing every penny had been worth it, she collapsed on the bed a few moments after the bellboy left their bags.

"Comfy?"

"Not sure if it is the mattress or the blanket, but something is terribly soft." She responded, sighing contently.

"So I could be in for a bad time with my back then?"

Danielle snorted, "You'd swear you were an old man with the way you talk sometimes." Tom smiled down at her, before joining her on the bed, looking at her pensively. "You okay?"

"I think so, thank you for being so good this week, so patient."

"Just remember, no matter what, no one can take your hard work from you, people have forgotten it already."

"Then how come I haven't?"

"Because you are you, trying to please everyone, trying to see if you can step on no one's toes when in truth, but some people want to be offended, they want to find fault in everything you say and do, based solely on the fact that you are famous, and since you got nervous, they are eating it up," Danielle's heart felt like it was breaking as she looked at Tom's eyes, filled with the hurt of what people that called themselves 'fans' had said about him.

Tom looked at her, "I am so glad you're here."

Danielle leant on her elbow and kissed him. "So am I, now I know you are hungry, I heard your stomach, let's get something in the bar to eat."

"Downstairs?"

"Well, there isn't a restaurant in the room here."

"You want to eat in public?"

"Well, it's not public, but yes, I do."

Tom's eyes lit up for a moment before his face fell again. "Are you doing this because of what happened in LA?"

Again, Danielle snorted, "No, nothing like that, one, I'm hungry and two, it's time we started doing things other than hiding in the house, we are not going to be able to hide this forever, though I doubt here is where it goes public, everything is so quiet and private."

With newfound enthusiasm, Tom went for a quick shower while Danielle cleaned herself up and checked her emails. "Ready?" She turned to look at Tom, "What happened, were we spotted?" He asked worried, noting the odd look on her face.

"No, I was asked to do a reshoot for Game of Thrones."

"When?"

"When that GQ interview is on."

"Isn't that okay though?"

"Yeah, no it's actually good timing since you were saying about doing the interview at the house, this ensures I am not spotted, it's just weird."

"Why?" Tom sat beside her.

"They said they weren't willing to take anyone but me apparently."

"That's a good thing though, isn't it?" Tom asked, "You said it is something you want, your own business, if you have directors and producers from the biggest show on telly demanding you, you are going to be very hot property."

"I suppose, it's just weird, I never thought…I thought I was nothing outstanding you know, just your run of the mill."

Tom cupped her face in his hands, "My Elle was never 'run of the mill', you are incredible." Danielle smiled slightly back at him. "Now, lunch."

"Yes."

The bar of the hotel was comfy and empty except for themselves, so the pair chose the seat by the fire, warm and neatly tucked in a corner as they ate a small enough meal, knowing the dinner that evening would be bigger. As they say drinking their tea afterwards, Tom's brow furrowed. "What's bothering you?"

"How am I going to deal with the Taylor questions for the magazine, or if it comes up on Norton?"

"Be honest, if you want to avoid it, do so, if you want to talk about it, be honest."

"I can hardly say I was going through a bad time."

"No, but you had some fun, didn't you?" Tom looked at her, his discomfort blatant. "Look, Tom, you know how I feel about what happened, but it did happen, and for a long time, you will have the badge of 'Taylor Swift's ex-beau' around your neck, sure even if in five years, you are marrying Hollywood royalty, hell, even if you were marrying actual royalty, you will still have that title, it sticks," Tom's brows furrowed further at that. "But that is not as defining as the papers make it seem, and it does not stop the fact that in a few of those pictures, you were actually enjoying yourself, Rome, you seemed fairly happy, some of the other ones, don't lie, just say there were good times."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"How is saying you had some fun before me hurting me? I had fun for twenty odd years before you."

"Look me in the eye and tell me it doesn't bother you."

"What do you want me to say, Tom, I don’t like some parts of it, no. I get jealous, I get normal pangs of envy, I wish I could just call my pilot and fly wherever in the world I wanted at a moment's notice, I wish people would literally be willing to defend me bitch-slapping a newborn puppy because they think that I am above others, but I am not able to, but you know what, I have something that the PR Princess doesn't have."

"What's that?"

"Tits, sass and you."

"Most women tend to have…"

"Tom, I have seen enough pictures of her to say those are bee stings, not boobs, she has a figure I will never have, she is far thinner than me, partly due to genetics, partly due to the fact I like food, but I got the trade-off of boobs and ass, so I think I have the better deal." Tom's eyes flickered down to her cleavage for a moment, his tongue unconsciously sliding over his bottom lip as he did so, "And going by your actions, you seem to agree some bit too."

"Maybe I do." He smirked.

"Besides, be honest," Tom's smirk fell, he knew whatever Danielle was about to say was going to be something important. "What is her MO? Date 'em, get dumped or dump, whatever way around it is, then write scathing songs about them. Go first, make it that you are all 'oh, we had a great time, it was nice when we had it' so that when Little Miss Bratty decides to get bitchy and catty in her new album, anything she says looks immature, you struck first, you set the tone, and it was a polite mature one."

Tom eyed her carefully, "If you decide to go into PR, Luke will make you partner in fifteen minutes."

"Look, it's all about just getting on with things, you will have this on you for a while, it's like a skunk smell, dealing with these questions is the ketchup bath."

"I don't follow."

"Saw it in a movie, apparently ketchup gets rid of skunk spray smell, anyway, you need to do this Tom, there are going to be questions, and that is something you have to endure, just don't let it get you down, sooner you accept them and move on, the sooner we are fully rid of her and the world focuses on her finding her next victim," Danielle stated.

"What about us?"

"Well, in that time, I was hoping that among the work, promotion tours and general life juggling, you and I would be getting more and more comfortable and perhaps try and throw in a few days away for ourselves in a nice location, photographers hopefully not included, lest I be accosted by Greenpeace trying to put me back in the ocean." Tom looked at her in bemusement, but Danielle just smiled back. "You know some people are going to say it, don't deny it."

"Elle?" She looked and him expectantly. "Thank you."

"What for?"

"All of this, being so understanding."

"Some would argue I am the one with everything to lose here, why wouldn't I be understanding?"

"You're not like that."

"No, yet people will think such things."

"Don't let them eat at you like that."

"It will, I know it will from time to time, I just can't let it show."

"No, you cannot let what they say matter, they are only out to upset you," Tom stated sternly. "Why are you smiling at me like that?"

"Because you cannot see the hypocrisy of your words, you are letting people getting to you at the moment. You are allowing people who have never met you, who will never know the dorky sweet man that loves his mum more than words, who still is protective over his sisters, even though they are both happily married and who nerds out at the idea of the summer listings for the Globe this year, dictate your mood, your happiness, yet you give out to me that I would allow it."

Tom looked at her for another moment with his brows furrowed. "Damn you." Danielle laughed. "You're right."

"I usually am," She winked. "Now, your treatment starts in half an hour, so get your fine ass upstairs so you can be ready."

"What about you?"

"There is a conservatory at the back of the hotel, it looks over the gardens, I am going to get my ass down there with a cup of tea and relax with a nice book." She grinned.

"You're not getting anything done?"

"No, you are, you need to relax, so come on," she rose from her seat.

Notes:

[ladyanatui]

Ultimate Daiken Playlist, Pt. 2

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

This is the abridged version of my Spotify playlist for all things Daiken, organized from the start of 02 to...eventually.

Part 2 specifically covers from Ken finding Wormmon’s Digi-Tama to just after XV-mon and Stingmon Jogress-evolve into Paildramon.

TRIGGER WARNING: This post discusses depression, suicide, emotional abuse, and PTSD quite a lot. Take care of yourselves, folks!

Spotify Playlist

Click the song titles for YouTube links (apparently you can’t have more than five videos in a post), and otherwise, enjoy me rambling about Daiken.

One final note: Within the lyrics, I’ve emphasized meaningful words, such as night/nightmare, dark/darkness, miracle(s), kind/kindness, courage/bravery, friend/friendship, sun/star/light, fire/burn/ignite, angel(s), and words related to water/drowning.

“What If This Is All the Love You Ever Get?” by Snow Patrol

What if it hurts like hell? Then it'll hurt like hell Come on over, come on over here I'm in the ruins too I know the wreckage so well Come on over, come on over here What if this is all the love you ever get?

If “Tell Me Why” by Three Days Grace focuses on Wormmon’s death, this song focuses on Ken’s trip to the Village of Beginnings, where he finds Wormmon’s egg and brings him back. Because Ken is absolutely scared that he won’t be able to find Wormmon because, as far as he believes, he doesn’t deserve to have him back. Obviously, that’s not true, and the pair is reunited and Wormmon even evolves to Stingmon between episodes (unfortunately).

“Aftermath” by Adam Lambert

Wanna scream out, no more hiding Don't be afraid of what's inside Gonna tell ya you'll be alright In the aftermath

Alright, this song is probably pretty obvious. Ken has to deal with the aftermath of what happened to him/what he did, and so do the rest of the Chosen Children. The others are cleaning up the Digital World while he’s learning to be an eleven-year-old boy again and allowing his parents to get to know him for the first time, even while he still tries to figure out who he is.

“Demons” by The All-American Rejects

Am I even here? Is it still even me? Am I some of the man that I still claim to be? It's like losing a fight, I'm alone in the ring You come to fix me? Would you believe, could you believe you need me?

Obviously, it’s not that easy, though. And when we experience trauma the way Ken does, having his choices and very personality taken from him, there’s a long road of recovery.

“Sinking Man” by Of Monsters and Men

Cold, dark sea Wrapping its arms around me Pulling me down to the deep All eyes on me

I pushed you away Although I wished you could stay So many words left unsaid But I'm all out of breath

I associate this song especially with the scene Ken and Daisuke share by the canal, where Daisuke asks Ken to apologize and join the team. The moment apologizing is mentioned, Ken agrees--which, of course, has Daisuke over the moon--but then he asks if Daisuke thinks the others would forgive him, if a mere apology would make up for everything he did.

Although he’s certainly right about them not accepting an apology without action and follow-through to back it up, he’s also (surprise, surprise) self-sabotaging. And that’s even more apparent the moment Daisuke calls him their “partner.” Ken flips out and runs off pretty quickly.

“The Real You” by Three Days Grace

And it seems like I've known you forever I'll keep you safe for one more night Need you to know that it's all right I see the real you Even if you don't I do I do

And this is the other side of the coin. Daisuke’s perspective of that same scene/situation. Because Daisuke looked into the Digimental of Miracles and he knows that Ken is good. He knows it with all his freaking beautiful heart, and he’s willing to completely ignore the other Chosen Children when they outright tell him they don’t want Ken on the team. He doesn’t care what they say because he knows how wrong they are, and he knows how wrong Ken is about himself.

It’s pretty safe to say that Daisuke is the only person in all of 02 who sees Ken for who he really is, and he’s willing to put everything on the line, including the team morale and dynamics, to support Ken.

“Numb” by Linkin Park

Can't you see that you're smothering me? Holding too tightly, afraid to lose control 'Cause everything that you thought I would be Has fallen apart right in front of you Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow Every step that I take is another mistake to you Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow And every second I waste is more than I can take

What playlist about a character with depression would be complete without this? “Numb” is an iconic depression song, made even more so by Chester Bennington’s death, though Linkin Park has so many songs related to depression and mental health.

**Okay, it’s pretty safe to say the next six songs have to do with the two-part episode (episodes 26 & 27) revolving around Daisuke and Ken’s initial Jogress evolution. It’s kind of a big deal, so it’s a big deal in the playlist as well. The event functions as 02′s midpoint and centerpiece, so it’s one of the most emotionally charged and important scenes in the whole season. It really can’t be summed up in a song or two.**

“This Is How I Disappear” by My Chemical Romance

Can you hear me cry out to you? Words I thought I'd choke on figure out I'm really not so with you anymore I'm just a ghost So I can't hurt you anymore

This song in particular is about Ken’s suicidal ideation, the technical term for suicidal thoughts. Ken is what is sometimes called “gray suicidal” (since people often think of suicide in black and white terms, which isn’t accurate) because he has no specific plan to kill him, he’s never attempted suicide, and he doesn’t want to actually die.

And yet, he thinks about death a lot and that he deserves to die and that his death would help fix things because he can’t hurt anyone if he’s dead. He wants to punish himself, and he wants to carry all of the burden because he thinks he deserves it. (Obviously, this isn’t true, as Ken’s story arc is more about overcoming trauma than about redeeming himself--but you’d have a hard time convincing Ken of that fact.)

“Friend, Please” by Twenty One Pilots

Would you let me know your plans tonight 'Cause I just won't let go till we both see the light And I have nothing else left to say But I will listen to you all day, yes, I will

So basically, these next couple songs sum up the argument Daisuke and Ken have before their digivices light up for the Jogress evolution. First, Daisuke tries to convince Ken to let them help, that they’ll work together, but...

“Save Yourself” by My Darkest Days

I’m the devil’s son straight out of hell And you’re an angel with a haunted heart If you’re smart you’d run and protect yourself From the demon living in the dark There’s nothing to be gained cause I can never change And you can never understand my sickness

Oh, look, Ken is being stubborn and frustrating and self-sabotaging yet again. He legitimately thinks the others will be better off if they leave him alone, and he means that both because if he’s the only one inside the base when it explodes, they’ll survive and because if they keep their distance from him in regards to friendship, he can’t hurt them emotionally. And worst of all, he’s roped Wormmon/Stingmon in on this suicidal atonement thing. *smh*

Ken: I won’t let people suffer anymore because of what I did...no more. ... I want to restore the Digital World with my own hands, but things just keep getting worse. I can’t stand it! Stingmon (to XV-mon): If there’s any way I can atone for the sins I’ve committed... Ken: It doesn’t matter what happens to me! Right now, I have to stop this reactor.

Bonus points for references to angels and hearts, though since this is from Ken’s perspective, Daisuke would be the “angel with a haunted heart.” Not sure that imagery works well, but the rest of it does.

“Die for You” by Starset

Some day when galaxies collide We'll be lost on different skies I will send my rocket ship to find you Because I know you're lost when you run away Into the same black holes and black mistakes Taking all my will just to run alone Until I bring you home

And what’s Daisuke’s reaction to Ken being stubborn and stupid? Bitch-slap him! He fucking needs it. (That’s everyone’s solution in this show, I swear.) And Daisuke isn’t going to let him get away with that shit. He yells and shouts and berates Ken until he finally looks at it from someone else’s perspective:

Daisuke: You idiot! *slap* How can you say that? Daisuke: Think of who would be sad if you were gone. If I let you go now and you never come back, I’ll regret it forever. So I won’t let you go! Daisuke: You may be okay with it, but I’m not. Ken: Motomiya... Daisuke: Live! Daisuke: If you die now, you won’t be able to accomplish anything. I don’t want that. Ken: I don’t want that either. There are still many things I must do. Ken: Besides, I don’t want to make my family sad anymore...

Note: I cut out XV-mon’s lines to Stingmon here because Daisuke’s words are the important part of this conversation, but I separated Daisuke’s lines where XV-mon spoke for clarity.

“Divide” by Bastille

Why would we divide when we could come together? Just bodies that collide, lost and found each other So don't, don't leave me alone Don't leave me alone, don't leave me alone Why would we divide when we could come together?

It’s only after that, after they understand each other on a monumental level, that they are able to Jogress evolve. And boy is that an experience. No other Jogress partners (except maybe Taichi and Yamato) have this intense of an experience with Jogress evolution, none have their bond.

And quite frankly, this song is about as poorly veiled a hint at sex as Jogress evolution is. Just listen to it. You’ll see.

But this song also shows Ken’s hesitation when it comes to Jogress. They work so well together, they’re completely in sync, they understand each other, but he’s definitely not ready to join the team or be Daisuke’s partner.

“Heartlines” by Florence + The Machine

Your heart is the only place that I call home Can I be returned, you can You can, we can

Just keep following The heartlines on your hand

Okay, and last one about the Jogress evolution! This one should be pretty damn obvious too: When Daisuke and Ken have their initial Jogress, one of the most notable things that makes it different from all others’ Jogress experiences is the fact that they can feel/hear each other’s heartbeats.

Soul fucking mates.

“Pieces” by Sum 41

This place is so empty My thoughts are so tempting I don't know how it got so bad Sometimes it's so crazy that nothing can save me But it's the only thing that I have

But when everything is over and Daisuke explains exactly how the experience was for him (“When our Digimon combined, our thoughts and feelings flowed through each of our bodies. Our hearts beating as one…it was an amazing feeling of unity! That’s when I knew we were partners.”), Ken panics and tells him, “I’m qualified to be your partner yet,” and walks away before Daisuke really has the chance to process what happened. Despite Daisuke’s words before they Jogress-evolved, Ken is still determined to redeem himself before allowing himself to join the team.

“Run” by Snow Patrol

Light up, light up As if you have a choice Even if you cannot hear my voice I'll be right beside you, dear

Of course, that would require Daisuke to know how to take no for an answer. Even if Ken isn’t going to listen to him and join the team, he still includes him as much as he can, and he is determined to stick by Ken’s side even if he doesn’t want him there.

And it may look to an outsider like Daisuke isn’t respecting Ken’s wishes, which yeah, that’s technically true. But by this time, Daisuke understands Ken better than anyone, save Wormmon, and while Daisuke may not respect Ken’s wishes, he respects Ken more than Ken respects himself. More than anything, he wants to help Ken, and he will be there for Ken to lean on if he ever needs to.

“Not Today” by Twenty One Pilots

Heard you say, "Not today" Tore the curtains down, windows open now, make a sound Heard your voice, "There's no choice" Tore the curtains down, windows open now, make a noise

I'm, I'm out of my mind, I'm not seeing things right I waste all this time trying to run from you But I'm, I'm out of my mind

To an extent, it is because of Daisuke’s forwardness that Ken keeps running away, as Hikari says on multiple occasions. He keeps trying to run away from Daisuke, from the other Chosen Children, but for some reason (*cough* Daisuke *cough*), it doesn’t seem to stick.

“Arch Drive Goodbye” by Eve 6

Wanna keep you from breakin' Wanna keep you from shakin' Wanna keep you from keepin' You down Wanna keep you from sinkin' Wanna keep you from drinkin' Sometimes Wanna keep you from keepin' You down

Ringing in my head All the things you've said All the things you've done I wish I could compromise But there's only one way to go And I'm going alone I'm going alone

I see this song as a sort of duet. There are sections/lines that would be from Daisuke’s perspective (the first quote, though obviously ignore the line about drinking--they’re eleven) and sections that would be from Ken’s (the second quote). Daisuke wants to help him so badly, but Ken is still so determined not to need help and to go it alone.

“Someone to Save You” by OneRepublic

All right Sit down and spill your heart

Let’s start from the very start 'Cause I can see by your eyes You're wasted Your energy comes and goes You taking your time, you know Nothing can change what happened

Not that Daisuke will listen to that, right? No matter how much Ken insists he can go it alone, Daisuke is always there to be supportive. He’s just as determined to help Ken as Ken is to refuse help. Actually, no, Daisuke is way more determined. He will always, above all else, persevere.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4