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0613magazine · 2 years

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210513 Rolling Stone

The Triumph of BTS

How seven young superstars rewrote music-biz rules and became the biggest band in the world

“This is a very serious and deep question,” says RM, the 26-year-old leader of the world’s biggest band. He pauses to think. We’re talking about utopian and dystopian futures, about how the boundary-smashing, hegemony-overturning global success of his group, the wildly talented seven-member South Korean juggernaut BTS, feels like a glimpse of a new and better world, of an interconnected 21st century actually living up to its promise.

BTS’ downright magical levels of charisma, their genre-defying, sleek-but-personal music, even their casually nontoxic, skin-care-intensive brand of masculinity — every bit of it feels like a visitation from some brighter, more hopeful timeline. What RM is currently pondering, however, is how all of it contrasts with a darker landscape all around them, particularly the horrifying recent wave of anti-Asian violence and discrimination across a global diaspora.

“We are outliers,” says RM, “and we came into the American music market and enjoyed this incredible success.” In 2020, seven years into their career, BTS’ first English-language single, the irresistible “Dynamite,” hit Number One, an achievement so singular it prompted a congratulatory statement from South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in. The nation has long been deeply invested in its outsize cultural success beyond its borders, known as the Korean Wave.

“Now, of course, there is no utopia,” RM continues. “There’s a light side; there’s always going to be a dark side. The way we think is that everything that we do, and our existence itself, is contributing to the hope for leaving this xenophobia, these negative things, behind. It’s our hope, too, that people in the minority will draw some energy and strength from our existence. Yes, there’s xenophobia, but there are also a lot of people who are very accepting. . . . The fact that we have faced success in the United States is very meaningful in and of itself.”

At the moment, RM is in an acoustically treated room at his label’s headquarters in Seoul, wearing a white medical mask to protect a nearby translator, a black bucket hat, and a black hoodie from the Los Angeles luxury label Fear of God. As RM has had to explain too many times on U.S. talk shows, he taught himself his fluent English via bingeing Friends DVDs. Still, he makes understandable use of the interpreter when the conversation gets complex.

RM is a fan of complexity. He was on a path toward an elite university education before a love of hip-hop, first sparked by a Korean group, Epik High, detoured him into superstardom. Bang Si-hyuk, the cerebral, intense-yet-avuncular mogul-producer who founded BTS’ record company, Big Hit Entertainment (now HYBE), signed RM first, in 2010, and gradually formed BTS around the rapper’s talent and magnetism. “When I first met RM,” says Bang, “I felt a sense of duty that I must help him grow to become a great artist after acknowledging his musical talents and ways of thinking.”

When BTS debuted in 2013, Big Hit was an underdog startup in a South Korean music business then dominated by three huge firms (Bang had been a producer for one of them, JYP). Now, thanks to BTS’ success, HYBE is a publicly traded corporation so large it just snapped up the American management company behind Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande. “We always set goals and standards that may seem ideal, and try our best to get there as close as possible,” Bang says. “It’s still the same.”

A lengthy recruitment and audition process brought RM his six bandmates: fellow rappers Suga and J-Hope, and singers Jung Kook, V, Jimin, and Jin. Jung Kook, the youngest member, whose multiple talents include an extraordinarily soulful tenor, had offers to sign with multiple entertainment agencies, but chose Big Hit and BTS because of RM. “I just simply thought RM was really cool,” Jung Kook says. “I really didn’t know a lot about being a singer. But when I saw him rap, I just thought he was really, really awesome. And I believe maybe it was fate that drew me to him.”

Suga and J-Hope were the first two members to join after RM, at a point when Bang imagined a pure hip-hop group. (There were a bunch of other rapper trainees on board with them, all ultimately jettisoned in favor of the singers as BTS became more of a pop hybrid.) Suga, also a fan of Epik High, as well as American rappers like T.I., was already a skilled rapper when he joined, much to his parents’ displeasure. “They didn’t understand rap music,” says Suga. “It’s natural that they were against what I was doing. I think that helped me work harder because there was something that I had to prove.” On the intense 2016 solo track “The Last” (recorded under the alias Agust D), Suga revealed battles with OCD, social anxiety, and depression. “I’m comfortable now and feeling good,” he says. “But those sort of negative emotions come and go. For anybody, these emotions are not things that need to be hidden. They need to be discussed and expressed. Whatever emotions I may be feeling, I’m always ready to express them.”

With the group’s sunniest personality, J-Hope is beloved by his fellow members. (“I think J-Hope can run for president of the world,” says V; “There will be at least six votes from us,” RM adds.) J-Hope is a stunning dancer, and a surprisingly aggressive rapper, a skill he learned in his trainee days. “When I first started training, all the members were rappers,” he says. “So when you went into the house, beats were dropping. Everyone was just rapping in freestyle. It was kind of not easy to adapt at first.”

Jin, whose background was in acting, was recruited on the street by a Big Hit scout on the basis of sheer handsomeness. He’s developed formidable musical skills, but enjoys joking about the attention to his looks. “I want to emphasize, for the record, that everybody went berserk about how good-looking I was,” he says of a recent appearance on a South Korean TV variety show. At the same time, he can be touchingly insecure. “I lack in many areas,” he says. “Other members will learn a dance once and they’ll be able to dance right away to the music, but I can’t. So I try to work harder so I don’t hold the other members back or be a burden.”

V, a fan of jazz, classical music, and Elvis Presley, with a distinct baritone, ended up a Big Hit trainee by accident, after showing up to support an auditioning friend. He was a “hidden member,” who didn’t appear on camera in the endless vlogs and other ingenious online promotion that preceded BTS’ debut in June 2013. “I actually can’t understand it whatsoever,” he says now, with a laugh. “Why did they do that? Why was that the concept? I really had no idea!” (Bang belatedly offers an answer: “We needed momentum to announce that the team called BTS was finally complete. V had great charms in terms of appearance and personality, so I thought it would be impactful when he was revealed last. It was an effective strategy in forming the team’s overall image, as well as leaving an impression of each member.”)

Jimin is a virtuosic, formally trained dancer who also hits some of the most impossibly high notes in BTS’ catalog. He has a strong perfectionist streak. “Dancing was my own world and my own space,” says Jimin, who feels he owes BTS’ fans flawless performances. “For their sake and for their devotion, I shouldn’t make mistakes.”

He’s also deeply attached to his team. “We were very different people that came together,” Jimin says. “We argued a lot in the beginning, of course, but I think now, because we have spent so much time together, I began to like even the things about the other members I used to hate. The time we spent together really made us close, like a family. No matter where I go, there is someplace that I can come back to. I’ve come to feel that way about our group.”

RM carries himself with a level of gravitas that was perhaps incongruent with his initial stage name of Rap Monster, officially shortened in 2017. He drops quotes from Nietzsche and the abstract artist Kim Whan-ki in interviews, and celebrated his 26th birthday by donating nearly $85,000 to a museum foundation to support the reprinting of rare fine-art books. He and Suga fill their rhymes with double- and triple-entendres that would impress U.S. hip-hop heads who’ve never thought much about BTS.

The group as a whole shares a penchant for weighty themes, basing an album cycle on Jungian psychology, brilliantly using Pluto’s loss of full-planet status as a romantic metaphor on the song “134340,” lacing music videos with a labyrinthine ongoing storyline. Even their between-song banter is full of uncommon depth. “We all have galaxies in our hearts,” RM once told an arena full of fans. “Even my dad, who works every day. And my mom, who’s a realtor. And my little sister, too. Even the stray dogs and stray cats on the street. Even the rocks on the ground. . . . But there are people who will never know this until they die.” (Later, he’d co-write the 2019 BTS track “Mikrokosmos,” which draws on a similar theme.)

It’s not uncommon for the members of BTS to shed a tear or two while they’re addressing fans onstage. Along with their comfort with makeup and iridescent hair dye, it all plays into their instinctive rejection of rigid conceptions of masculinity. “The labels of what being masculine is, is an outdated concept,” says RM. “It is not our intention to break it down. But if we are making a positive impact, we are very thankful. We live in an age where we shouldn’t have those labels or have those restrictions.”

In their early days, with their singles “No More Dream” and “N.O.,” BTS wrote directly about the frustrations of South Korean youth, who faced relentless pressure and competition in school and the job market. (BTS were carrying on a tradition: K-pop progenitors Seo Taiji and Boys hit similar thematic notes in the early 1990s, while drawing on then-current American hip-hop and R&B, just as BTS would — the first single from Taiji’s group prominently samples Public Enemy’s “Bring the Noise.”) BTS has since learned that their initial message, along with later lyrics that grapple with identity, self-love, mental health, and much more, had enough wider currency to make them spokesmen for a global generation — literally: They’ve addressed the United Nations General Assembly, twice.

“When we wrote those songs, and those messages, of course, it wasn’t from some knowledge or awareness of the education system in the United States or anywhere else,” says RM. “We were teenagers at that time. There were things we were able to say, from what we felt and from our experiences about the unreasonableness of school, or the uncertainties and the fears and anxieties that teens have. And a common thought and a common emotion resonated with youth, not just in Korea, but in the United States, and the West.”

BTS’ full name, Bangtan Sonyeondan, translates to “Bulletproof Boy Scouts,” and the idea, roughly, was that they would be friends and protectors of youth, on an almost spiritual level. (Later, they declared that BTS also stood for “Beyond the Scene.”) “I didn’t want them to be false idols,” Bang once said. “I wanted to create a BTS that could become a close friend.”

In December, BTS had another Number One U.S. hit with “Life Goes On,” a wistful ballad that stands as the definitive pop response to the pandemic year. But because the lyrics are almost entirely in Korean, the song received virtually no play on U.S. radio; its chart position came from streaming and purchases, and the obvious demand wasn’t enough for radio to reconsider. RM, for one, is still hopeful that particular wall will shatter. “If they feel it, I think they will change,” he says. “The barriers are still breaking down. It keeps going on and on.”

In the meantime, BTS is following up “Dynamite” with another English-language single, “Butter,” due May 21st. Like the lighthearted “Dynamite,” “Butter” has no heavy message. It’s a pure, swaggering dance-pop celebration in the retro vein of Bruno Mars, with layers of Jam and Lewis-style synths and boasts of being “smooth like butter” and having a “superstar glow.” “It’s very energetic,” says RM. “And very summery. It has a very dynamic performance.” There’s clearly more music coming as well — several Western songwriters who’ve worked with the group in the past say they’re currently in touch with BTS’ team about new songs.

By taking a strong hand in the writing of their music, BTS have always stood apart from traditional K-pop methods, and, for that matter, much of songwriting-camp-dominated U.S. pop, too. (Whether BTS are actually part of K-pop at this point is a hotly debated topic among their fans, known as ARMY — many believe the group has transcended the label.) “They feel organic and unique,” says Late Late Show host James Corden, a fan who’s had them on several times since 2017. “It never feels like they’re in the machine. They are the machine.”

RM and Suga have both been producing for years, and Suga has numerous songwriting credits for other artists. Outside of the members’ contributions, most of the production and songwriting was long accomplished in-house at Big Hit, with Bang and a team of producers and songwriters collaborating. Starting circa 2017, Western songwriters and producers joined the process, but their contributions were part of a group effort.

Head producer Pdogg tends to select the best melodies and sections from various creators, who could be anywhere in the world. “It’ll come back and they’ll say, ‘We love these two parts that you did,’ ” says August Rigo, a Filipino Canadian songwriter who worked on the 2020 singles “Black Swan” and “On.” “ ‘Then we have this verse, and we have this section that we’re not quite sure of.’ So it’s like piecing a puzzle together in collaboration with BTS. . . . It wasn’t like, two days and it was done. No, it was two, three months, maybe six or seven revisions.”

In at least one case, BTS ended up scouting collaborators on their own. After the Brooklyn production duo Brasstracks noticed one of their songs playing in the background of a behind-the-scenes BTS video, they tweeted about it, and soon heard from Big Hit. “The next thing we knew there was an email, saying, ‘Hey, we’re doing this and we’re looking for this’ and ‘BTS is into your work,’” says Ivan Jackson, one half of Brasstracks, who previously worked with Mark Ronson and Chance the Rapper. “I just think they have their ears to the ground in a way they don’t get their flowers for. Because we’re not huge producers. They didn’t get Timbaland.” Brasstracks sent a beat that ended up as the track “Dis-ease,” with a bridge section added by Pdogg and another producer, Ghstloop. “It was a really awesome case of collaboration,” says Jackson.

“Dynamite,” produced by U.K.-based pro David Stewart (not the Eurythmics guy) and written by Stewart and songwriting partner Jessica Agombar, another Brit, was an exception. HYBE put out word that BTS were ready for an English-language single, and BTS and their label chose the song from multiple submissions. “ ‘Dynamite’ would not have been released if BTS had been on tour as scheduled,” says Bang. “The project was chosen to shift the mood as a response to the pandemic situation. I thought it matched BTS, and that the song’s trendy vibes would be better expressed if sung in English.”

Forming a Covid bubble, BTS kept busy in the studio last year, first with “Dynamite” and then November’s album Be, the mellowest and most mature work of their career, which includes “Life Goes On.” But 2020 still provided their most time off since they joined Big Hit as trainees. For years they’d cheerfully mention how behind on sleep they were. Last year, they finally got some rest, and all of them speak of months of reflection and self-discovery. For Suga, who had been quietly struggling for years with a shoulder injury sustained while moonlighting as a delivery boy during his trainee days, it was a chance to finally have surgery. “There were times,” says Suga, now feeling better, “when I couldn’t lift my arms in a full range of motion during a concert.”

The bond between BTS and their ARMY is real, and the guys have genuinely missed their fans, missed the road. “When we couldn’t go on tour, everybody felt a sense of loss, a sense of powerlessness,” says Jin. “And we’re all sad. And it actually took us a while to get over those feelings.”

“The roar of the crowds and ARMY is something we loved,” says Jung Kook. “We miss that more and more. And we long for that more and more.”

BTS are as passionate in their advocacy for their ARMY as the fans are for them. “The ARMY is a lot more levelheaded than even we are,” says RM. Fans have lived up to BTS’ faith in them again and again, assembling professional-level documentaries, embarking on ambitious research and translation projects, and collectively matching BTS’ million-dollar donation to Black Lives Matter in just 25 hours.

Over the course of the group’s existence, none of the members of BTS have acknowledged any romantic relationships, though several have alluded to dating before they joined. The official line is they’re too busy. The usual pop-group thinking might suggest BTS worry about fan reaction on this subject, but Suga, at least, rejects that idea. “I have a hard time understanding this question,” he says. “The ARMY is a diverse group. In this hypothetical situation, some may accept it, some may not. Whether it’s dating, or something else, they’re all individuals, and they will understand things differently.”

In 2018, BTS negotiated a renewal of their contract with Bang’s company, committing to another seven years as a band. Two years later, they were given a financial stake in HYBE. “It’s very meaningful,” says RM, “for us and also the company, that we admit and recognize each other as true partners. Now Big Hit’s success is our success, and our success is Big Hit’s success.” It also meant a multimillion-dollar windfall for the group when HYBE went public last year. “That’s very important,” RM says with a grin.

There’s a pitfall waiting for BTS that every enduring male South Korean group has faced: In light of ongoing tensions with North Korea, men are typically required to start a 21-month term of military service by their 28th birthday. Jin turned 28 on December 4th, but that month, the government passed a law offering him a direct reprieve: “A pop-culture artist who was recommended by the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism to have greatly enhanced the image of Korea both within the nation and throughout the world” would now be able to wait until he’s 30 to serve.

“I think the country sort of told me, ‘You’re doing this well, and we will give you a little bit more time,’ ” says Jin. Military service, he adds, “is an important duty for our country. So I feel that I will try to work as hard as I can and do the most I can until I am called.”

Assuming that the law isn’t changed again, offering another extension, Jin understands it’s possible BTS could go on without him for a while. “I have no doubt that the other members will make a good decision because, you know, this is not something that I can tell them what to do,” he says. If they do spend time as a six-piece, “I’ll be sad, but I’ll be watching them on the internet and cheering them on.”

Suga is 28, J-Hope is 27, and RM turns 27 this year, so their service looms as well. At least one K-pop group, Shinhwa, got back together after their own time in the military, and are still a group after 23 years. BTS may well aspire to that kind of longevity. “So, yes, we will want to see ARMY as we do now,” says V. “I’m sure it will work out so that we can continue to see ARMY. About military service, or what will happen, we haven’t discussed it in the specifics amongst ourselves, but I’m sure it’ll work out eventually.”

For Jimin, at least, BTS is eternal. “I don’t think I’ve ever really thought of being not a part of this group,” he says. “I can’t imagine what I would do on my own. I think when I become older, and I grow my own beard” — he gestures to my facial hair and smiles — “I would like to think that at the end, when I’m too old to dance, I would just like to sit onstage with the other members and sing and engage with the fans. I think that would be great, too. So I’d like to keep this going as long as I possibly can.”

Source: Rolling Stone

#2021 #bts #rolling stone

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slunatic · 3 years

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My KiGo stuff

The fandom where I got my start. Here’s a list of my KiGo works with summaries. Goes from newest to oldest. *Note, these are not all of my Kim Possible works, just the ones with KiGo.

1. Build it Up: Pariah series finale. Shego and Tatsu search for a way to occupy their time while their girlfriends are busy with school. They end up going into business together to build a better future for themselves. (Pariah is a 10 part series).

2. Written on the Ten: Kim and Shego are trying to figure out how to spend their anniversary. They're open to advice and they reminisce a little to figure it out. One shot. KiGo. No real plot. Just sort of fluff.

3. Going with a Smile: Short sequel to One in a Billion. Take a trip back into the Walking the Line universe to see how Kim and Shego's children are faring as Todd moves out and gets closer to Mayah Director. Also watch as Jayden goes to talk to Bokuden Stoppable and meets his aunt, Hana. There's trouble to be had by all, of course. (Part five of the Walking the Line saga).

4. Humanities and Sciences: BoKiGo. Sequel to In the Middle! Come see how Bonnie, Kim, and Shego live their lives, live together, and try to work a relationship between the three of them. A series of one-shots... kinda.

5. Era of the Warring States: In a world without Kim Possible, war between Shego and SSJ has destroyed the land and the people. 20 years later Kim reappears and finds a world she doesn't recognize. A world that she may not be able to save. She may not even be able to save herself. This story is based on a series of “What If” pictures by the very talented artist, YogurthFrost.

6. Bubblegum Flavored: KP fusion with the anime Bubblegum Crisis 2040. When Kim moves to Mega Go City, she joins the Knight Sabers to fight against berserker Bebes while something darker involving Gemini and Drakken seems to be going on. Eventually KiGo, BetViv, and TaraFelix.

7. Family Gathering: Pariah Universe. Set after "Re-education of Jocelyn Possible." The Possibles get together to celebrate Christmas in Middleton with their loved ones. The Possible family seems to grow during this holiday when a few new guests show up. KiGo. Series Part 9 of Pariah.

8. For Fame, Fortune, and Freedom: AU. After being accused of a crime that she didn't commit, Kim becomes an outlaw to avoid being executed. Join Kim on an adventure as she learns how to be a pirate and eventually becomes the captain of a pirate ship. KiGo, BetViv, BoNique, and RonYori.

9. Blood Out: For the Halloween spirit. Sequel to Blood In. Kim and Shego find that they haven't moved past Shego's fears of Kim leaving and she is pushing Kim away, but they don't know why. What will they do? And just who is Carmilla? Come find out. KiGo. Series Part 4 of Vampire Kimmie.

10. In the Middle: KiBo. KiGo. BoKiGo. Shego wants Kim. Bonnie wants Kim. Kim wants them both. Who's going to have her way? Probably Kim because she can do anything. Series Part 1 of In the Middle.

11. The Re-education of Joss Possible: Sequel to Cryptic...kind of. Latest in the Pariah universe. Joss comes to stay with Trin and Kim for the summer. The sisters try to connect with Joss, who is a little difficult about things. Can Joss learn to get along with her cousins? Series Part 8 of Pariah.

12. Blood In: For the Halloween spirit. Sequel to "New Life." Kim and Shego are still haunted by demons of their past, even though they are free. Is Shego in jeopardy of losing Kim after everything they've gone through? KiGo. Series Part 3 of Vampire Kimmie.

13. Change Your Mind: Oneshot. Shego remained Miss Go and started a relationship with Kim that doesn't seem to be working out. Is it her or is it Kim? KiGo.

14. Be Careful What You Do: Kim attends an important party where a pretty redhead hits on her at the end of the night. This is a night that could cost Kim her reputation and so much more. KiGo.

15. New Life: The sequel to New Blood, for the Halloween spirit. The quest for the cure continues with Kim still being a vampire. She and Shego are still under the thumb of GJ. Will they get away? Will Kim be cured? KiGo. Series Part 2 of Vampire Kimmie.

16. One in a Billion: AU. Sequel to The Gods Must Be Laughing. Shego and Kim are now trying to be a regular couple and do the things that they see their friends doing, like get married and have kids. Series Part 4 of Walking the Line saga.

17. Underdogs: Sequel to Cryptic, sort of. Set in the Pariah universe. The past comes back to bite Trin and Shin in the butt. Kim finds herself affected by the problem too and Shego's along for the ride as usual. Drakken's back. Series Part 7 of Pariah.

18. Dirty Little Secrets: Everyone has secrets. Some deeper than others. Come take a sneak peek at some secrets. Various pairings. Series of one shots, some of which contain romance. (Only the first chapter of this is KiGo).

19. Honor Bound: AU. Set in Japan during the Tokugawa era. Director Betty recruits samurai Kim and ninja Yori for a job to find out about a plot to overthrow the government. The job: go undercover as geisha. Kigo. RonYori.

20. Black Hole Philosophy: An AU of my Pariahverse. Pretty much, the pairings have been reversed and Shin has a girlfriend. By the end of it, things should be in their proper order. Can it be done? Series Part 6 of Pariah.

21. New Blood: For the Halloween spirit. Kim and Ron go looking for missing persons, only for Kim to become one. Is it really because of a vampire? The story will be Kigoish. Series Part 1 of Vampire Kimmie.

22. The Gods Must Be Laughing: AU. The sequel to On a Short Leash. Shego and Kim continue their odd relationship. Still a weird sort of Kigo. Series Part 3 of Walking the Line saga.

23. Night Terrors: Set in the Pariah universe. When Kim makes cupcakes, it brings the crew the worse nightmares when they go to bed. What could possibly frighten this crew? Series Part 5 of Pariah.

24. Another Time, Another Place: When Shego discovers an old book in the attic of her family's old house, it leads to Kigo in two different eras.

25. There For You: AU. Kigo. Kim is a hero, an author, and a painter who can do anything, except get a date. That probably explains why Bonnie gives her a card to an escort service.

26. Cryptic: Sequel to Pariah. There is a Possible clan get together at the Lazy C Ranch. Insults fly while problems arise. Shego never knew that Montana could be so interesting. Series Part 4 of Pariah.

27. Maybe: Kigo. One shot. Shego loves making Kim angry, but she can't figure out why. Maybe the reasons don't matter.

28. Forsaken: Set in the Pariah universe. A Possible has been chosen to save the world from the apocalypse. Wait, it's not Kim. It's Trin? We're as good as dead. Series Part 3 of Pariah.

29. A History of Yesterday: It starts with a honeymoon and ends with an affair. Or does it start with an affair and end with a honeymoon? Whichever.

30. On a Short Leash: AU. This is the sequel to Walking the Line. Kim and Shego look to renew their unorthodox relationship. Series Part 2 of Walking the Line saga.

31. Pariah: AUish. Who does the hero Kim Possible look up to? Check it out. Series Part 1 of Pariah.

32. Walking the Line: AU like a mug. Shego is a cop and Kim...well, you won't believe what Kim is. Series Part 1 of Walking the Line saga.

33. Addiction: Kim and Shego find themselves addicted and now they're looking to quit each other. Kigo. I feel I should warn people about the humor in this story, apparently, some people find it funny.

34. Comprehension: Kigo of sorts. Shego sits and thinks about a certain girl that can do anything.

These three fics are only on FFN because I haven’t moved them yet.

35. The Beast Within: AU. Middleton is a town where everyone has special powers. Well, not everyone. Kim is the only normal one. How does she cope? Will be kigo eventually.

36. The Beast, Without: Sequel to the Beast Within. Kim is still trying to get the hang of her dragon powers while former members of WEE seem to be plotting against her. Is she ready for them?

37. The Beast Within: Special Edition: Just like the title says. Two people with super powers come into Middleton to take on Kim and Shego. Who are the new duo? Whose powers are better? Who will win the brawl?

#kim possible #kigo #ao3 work #romance #drama #angst #fanfiction #fanfic #shego #kim possible x shego #f/f romance #lesbian characters #lesbian relationship #epic stories #novel length #starvinglunatic #starving lunatic #writing #alternate universe

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captain-danwilds · 3 years

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Too Broken for A Fox: Janie Smalls

I know I have a bad habit of falling for minor characters, but my heart just aches for Janie Smalls. It’s probably because she’s the Fox with the trauma most similar to mine that even though we know next to nothing about her, I have lots of feelings about Janie Smalls. (And yeah there’s potentially triggering things so mind the tags. Recovery Focus, but still proceed with caution)

It’s easy for her teammates to think everything’s fine.

Their captain is going to be playing for a division 1 school.

It’s Palmetto so only barely division 1, but still.

Janie actually smiles when Coach Wilmer announces the recruitment to them.

And they can count the number of times she’s smiled on one hand.

But even as Janie prepares for graduation, prepares for the life she’s worked for since she was eight and first picked up a racket, she knows she’s not fine.

It starts slowly at first.

Picking scabs before they’re healed, pressing bruises, driving less cautiously, rubbing the scars on her thigh from sophomore year.

She knows she should be happy. She’s got everything she could ever hope for.

But that’s it really, what is supposed to happen now? What happens when you’ve spent half your life working to get to this point (and the other half not believing you’d live this long anyway?)

The future is vast and intimidating.

“But it’s happy change.” Her mother whispers as she’s smooths down Janie’s hair. “Aren’t you excited?”

The pit growing in her stomach doesn’t feel like excitement.

Exy is an escape.

It’s always been an escape.

The Fairview Royals have been how she outran her troubles, outlived the thoughts in her head.

Because if she can just keep scoring, she’s worth something.

But then the season ends and she’s no longer a Royal and not yet a Fox.

Then they find her bleeding.

And she’s too broken to be a Fox.

Too broken to do anything really. Because what does she have left if she doesn’t have Exy?

The team sends a card and Janie only barely resists tearing it to shreds.

She rolls her eyes at the goal keeper’s pretty words about how Janie will get through this, but she adds Renee’s number to her phone anyway.

There’s a sick sort of joy in the pit of her stomach when she hears about Seth Gordon’s overdose.

She isn’t the only one who couldn’t handle it, handle living.

I mean objectively she knows. It’s not like she was in the hospital alone, didn’t attend group therapy alone.

But this is different.

Her suicide attempt had been called typical of a Fox on every platform that followed College Exy (and quite a few that didn’t.)

Seth’s death completely overshadows it.

She wasn’t really a Fox yet. He played for four years.

Janie’s no longer the face of too broken to make it.

She should probably hate Neil Josten for taking her spot.

For coming out of nowhere, Arizona with one year of experience on a team that didn’t even make playoffs, and taking her spot.

Her therapist thinks she’s being very mature that she doesn’t.

It’s easy to shrug the complement away. It’s not like she can use it when she hasn’t been allowed on a court in months.

But she sees herself in how Josten plays.

In those moments she steals when the nurses think she isn’t there to watch games in case it triggers her.

They have very different styles, his built on speed and instinct, hers on precision.

It’s the desperation that ties them together.

The way the court is the only thing that seems worth living for.

The slight madness in his eyes that says I play Exy or I’m nothing.

She’s nothing now.

But she’s learning how to be something.

Even if it makes her feel like she’s breaking apart all over again.

Still she sits in therapy, colors an almost comical amount of pictures, blows bubbles just to be able to destroy something that isn’t herself.

And things get better.

When the foxes make the spring playoff season, she smiles a genuine smile that makes one of her favorite nurse’s cry.

After she’s out of the hospital and the constant vigilance of her mother’s concerned eyes, Janie goes back to her high school Exy court.

One of the younger players lets her in after practice and doesn’t ask too many questions.

She just sits in the middle of the court. There’s no one around, but the memory of the sheer energy on game day is enough.

It’s not the first time Janie cries about exy and it won’t be the last, but there’s no longer a jaded feeling in the pit of her stomach.

She wants to be better, to live, and that’s so much bigger than just Exy.

Janie has other things to live for now. Things that make her heart jump more than scoring on a particular skilled opponent.

But she still loves Exy.

So Janie picks up her racket again and bounces the ball off of the Rec Center wall between therapy sessions.

As she lifts weights or goes on runs, Janie tells herself it’s because the doctors recommended it, not because she feels the need to whip her body back into shape after months of trying to only get through the day even if that meant never leaving bed.

She just wants to feel like her body’s her own again.

And her body, the small voice in Janie’s head whispers, is meant to carry her through an Exy game and shove away even the largest of backliners.

Her friends and parents purposely avoid talking about the Foxes even as the new rookie causes trouble left and right or Kevin Day nonchalantly creates the largest conspiracy the sport has ever seen. They don’t know she has all their news alerts set up on her phone.

When the Foxes make the finals, Janie is the one to announce it to them by covering the house in an obnoxious amount of orange paper paw prints.

And when they win, she cries.

Maybe they think that she’s mourning the fact that she should have been there, should have been part of the underdog team that finally brought the Ravens down.

But she isn’t.

It’s more the fact that they did it. The foxes beat the unbeatable.

And for the first time in forever, Janie Smalls feels like a Fox.

Her victory isn’t touted over the news, isn’t the topic of podcasts and already slated to be next decade’s feel good sports movie.

But Janie’s alive and she’s determined to be for a long time. And for a long time, that felt unimaginable.

Janie calls Renee to offer her congratulations. Even after all this time, she kept the number. It’s a small thing, showing joy for the girl who had faith in her when few did.

Janie doesn’t expect their conversation to mean much.

Doesn’t expect it to continue for months.

Or for Renee to casually slip in how the ERC expects Coach Wymack to drastically increase the size of the team.

It feels like a sign Janie didn’t even know she was waiting for.

She doesn’t tell Renee when she films a practice session with her best friend and sends it in with doctor’s notes.

Or the voicemail she leaves in the middle of the night on Wymack’s phone because she doesn’t think she can state her case if he’s actually listening in real time.

“You wanted me once. And I’ve only gotten better since then. You’d be a fool to pass me over now Coach.”

Maybe she’s convincing. Maybe they’re desperate.

Maybe it’s just because Coach Wymack believes in giving more chances than what anyone else wanted to give you.

But the following year, Janie Smalls is officially a Fox.

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rossumtrinity · 5 years

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So what is Megatron like in Trekformers?

the million dollar question!

the short answer is: i don’t really like megatron, especially in idw, for a whole variety of reasons. so megatron doesn’t get his mtmte season 2 redemption arc, but i haven’t 100% settled on what i’m doing with him.

in the present day of trekformers, he’s Full Shithead. in the past, he was kind of cool, but there’s not really any going back at this point.

the long answer i’m gonna go ahead and put below the cut, because in order to talk about megatron i have to talk about the whole federation-decepticon war. which is a lot. there’s another TL;DR at the end also. sorry i like to talk

(properly capitalized for ease of readability)

Megatron, at age six, was one of the first wave of settlers of a new Federation colony along the Federation-Cardassian border. A newly established colony a fair distance from the core of the Federation and very close to contested Cardassian territory is Not A Good Place To Have A Childhood.

Despite this, when Megatron applied to Starfleet Academy at age 18 he was a strong believer that, by joining Starfleet, he would be able to make a change. He had his life planned out: he would graduate from the Academy at the top of his class, become Starfleet’s youngest captain, and eventually command the fleet’s flagship and go down in history for his exploits. He’d be able to help people, to make change, to ensure others didn’t have to suffer.

During his first year at the Academy, Megatron was roommates with the Trill Orion Pax, with whom he became fast friends. They started dating in their thrid year, to the surprise of none of their acquaintances. Another goal was added to Megatron’s plan: He’d be commanding the fleet’s flagship, with Orion by his side.

In Megatron’s fourth year, he wrote an anonymous critique of the Federation standing by and doing nothing about the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. This caused quite a stir and, unfortunately for Megatron, ended his career before it ever started.

After graduation, Megatron and Orion served on the same ship for two years, before Megatron transferred to an out-of-the-way outpost, Messatine, where he hoped he would be able to advance his career.

A year into his posting at Messatine, and Orion broke off their relationship, stating their careers were headed in drastically different directions, but that he wanted to remain friends. This was bad enough, but Megatron also came to the realization that his critique of the Federation had made him no friends in Starfleet Command. The glorious career he’d planned was going nowhere fast.

By 2351 Megatron was a captain–but he was commanding Croteus 12, an outpost in the middle of nowhere, on an inhospitable, icy planet. However, his continued writings had gained traction, and he’d made a valuable friend in the form of Soundwave, a Betazoid with exceptional telepathic abilities. He’d also become aware that Starfleet was keeping a careful eye on him and conducting investigations on him. His resentment for Starfleet, and Federation ideals as a whole, only continued to grow.

By 2353 the Decepticon movement was named and had attracted a fair amount of attention, both positive and negative, including attention from forces outside of the Federation. Three Tal Shiar operatives, Starscream, Skywarp, and Thundercracker, were sent to Croteus 12, undercover as Vulcan scientists, to investigate the Decepticon movement, hoping to manipulate what could become a Federation civil war in the Romulan Empire’s favor. Megatron ended up gaining three new, loyal recruits.

In 2357, Sentinel Prime, head of Section 31, was assassinated, the Decepticons defected, and the Federation-Decepticon war officially began. Initial Decepticon efforts were covert, keenly aware of the fact that they were fighting a war on two fronts against the Federation and Cardassia, a war that they would not win openly. This created an image of the Decepticon as ‘underdogs’ which, combined with Decepticon ideals and Megatron’s charismatic leadership, meant that the Decepticon forces only grew over time, including Federation defectors as well as recruits from outside of the Federation.

Over time, the idea of loyalty to the Decepticon cause soon became indistinguishable from loyalty to Megatron. When the idea of a “Decepticon empire” began to spread, no one questioned it. When the Decepticons shifted to more violent tactics in the 2360s, causing harm to innocents, no one questioned it, as long as Megatron was leading.

Starscream was one of the few who openly disagreed with Megatron’s tactics, stating he was unfit for leadership and losing sight of the bigger picture, prioritizing his anger and personal resentment over the movement’s goals as a whole. But despite being second-in-command, Megatron had ensured that Starscream had few friends and little support among the Decepticons for his attempted betrayals, none of which succeeded.

In 2368, Megatron authorized the use of biogenic weapons on Cardassia Prime, rendering the planet uninhabitable and effectively eradicating one of the Decepticons’ enemies. Cardassia out of the way, Megatron took control of Bajor, defenseless, its government in shambles. He claimed his intention was purely to help the ravaged planet rebuild–despite establishing martial law and occupying the planet with Decepticon forces, putting puppet leaders in power of the provisional government while he insisted he knew what was best for the planet.

In 2370, following the discovery of the Bajoran wormhole and a Whole Bunch Of Galvatron Bullshit (sincerely sorry to people who haven’t read phase 1 and want to know the specifics; phase 1 is a nightmare and I prefer to leave most of it Vague in trekformers to spare my sanity), Megatron disappeared. Without their leader, the Decepticons were left largely directionless, and many dispersed in various directions, with various new goals.

Megatron shows up again in 2371 for some Dark Cybertron But Trekformers Bullshit, and from then on Trekformers is kind of a shapeless mass in my brain because I haven’t figured everything out yet.

I’m not sure if I’ve actually done a great job Summing Up Who Megatron Is As A Person in all this… so TL;DR: He’s an idealist who came to realize that the people and organizations he believed in were corrupt and selfish. Becoming the leader of a movement of defectors only granted him more power and magnified his resentment and anger, leading him to resort to more and more violent tactics and lose sight of the ideals he once espoused, turning into a self-righteous despot and imperialist who believed he knew better than the people he claimed he was trying to “help.”

And I have barely touched on his relationship with Starscream here because we would be here for days, but it’s! Bad! Megatron is abusive, that’s really not up for debate here. He’s interesting in several aspects, but also he sucks, and he’s not getting a redemption arc in my self-indulgent AU.

#asks #trekformers #megatron #minerfromtarn #someone: asks me abt trekformers #me: cracks my knuckles and prepares to write up a character's #entire biography

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fakemuggle529-blog · 5 years

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"HARRY DID YOU PUT YOUR NAME IN THE GOBLET OF FIRE?!?!"

I could go on for days about the differences between the HP books and the movies (just ask my wife). 7 books, 8 movies, 4 directors, 2 screenplay writers, a myriad of actors or varying levels of talent, but this 1 line haunts every single Harry Potter fan. One comment about this line was "we're never going to get over this, are we?" That one comment sparked this post, which was originally meant to be a list of my least favorite movie moments and why.

But Harry Potter is my favorite subject, and my rant about this became a separate post to answer that rhetorical question.

Simply put, no, we're not going to get over it. But why won't we?

As with any adaptation, since the world isn't ready for a 10 hour movie based on 1 book, bits and pieces of the Harry Potter books needed to be cut out. (I'd be down for that movie, but I digress)

Things like the Draco/Pansy romance, Rita Skeeter being an unregistered Animagus, or winning the Quidditch cup ultimately don't have an impact on the plot of "evil wizard finds path to immortality, boy wizard must stop him with the help of his friends," so they can get cut pretty easily.

Even things like the Marauders' full moon adventures and creation of the Map, Umbridge setting the dementors on Harry, and Neville's parents' fate are secondary material, meant to give more weight to the main story:

- The world would still be in mortal danger without four teenagers creating a map of their school, but that map helped stop that danger;

- Umbridge would still be a cruel bitch if we hadn't known she sent the dementors, but that tidbit show her own demented state of mind and how far she'll go to get what she wants.

- and we'd still want Voldemort dead even if we'd never heard of Neville Longbottom, because we've seen the impact he had on Harry. The info about the Longbottoms just gives more depth to the characters involved.

But regardless of what they left out, the basics stayed the same: "evil wizard finds path to immortality, boy wizard must stop him with the help of his friends" continued, except the written version had more information than the visual. The fans already knew what was missing, so our brains filled it in for us. And leaving out that bit of info for the adaptation process allowed people who hadn't read the books to know what was going on and how the information fit together, even if they had less information than the fans.

(I think of the miniseries Chernobyl, when the general asks how a nuclear reactor works. He gets a bare bones explanation, and can parrot it back to his subordinates later. He might not me able to do the math or understand all of the technical jargon, but that simple explanation has given him enough info to get things going.)

As the movies progressed, we saw more and more get left out since the books only got longer, or more in depth, or both which each new addition, but no matter what, that skeleton was still there, "evil wizard finds path to immortality, boy wizard must stop him with the help of his friends." And the 'friends' part was even more accurate with supporting characters!

Hermione was the nerd from the books, Ron was the goofy best friend, Neville was the underdog, Draco was the bully!

Every single character was fitting their book counterparts perfectly, they just couldn't be as in depth in this medium!

Lucius was the oily bastard you knew he was, Sirius was the Godfather who wanted to be there but couldn't, Bellatrix was the psychotic fanatic who'd do anything to earn Voldemort's praise, Dumbledo--

And that's where the similarities stop.

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore is a lot of things: he's the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot (the Wizard High Court), honoree of the highest medal of Honor possible for Wizards, one of the most notable contributors to the field of alchemy, and from what I understand a PHENOMENAL dancer.

He's human, and fallible like any other human, but he is definitely not stupid.

Just in book 1, before Ms. Rowling had even gotten into her stride as a storyteller, we see Dumbledore:

Send Harry to the safest place possible; watch over him as much as possible; send updated owls to Harry with every change of address; send Hagrid as the most friendly way to introduce Harry to his true world; Send Harry the invisibility cloak as a connection to his dad; say that he 'doesn't need a cloak to become invisible;' RETURN the cloak after Harry lost it; and turned around on his trip to London on some intuition, barely managing to save Harry's life.

While he might not be the warmest of people, probably due to a tendency to think too deeply, Dumbledore shows the strongest of power when he needs to fight, the quickest of words when he needs to talk, and what seems to be a clear sense of right and wrong (the waters get a little murky with that last one, but he stands up for what he sees is wrong, regardless of what he thought at 18), and a calm dignity, even while getting his feathers ruffled.

And that's exactly why this gets under our skin so much.

As fans of the books, we see Dumbledore do it all, in great detail. Even that infamous line is ended with "he asked CALMLY" (All Caps is my addition). We see Dumbledore:

-sit next to an 11-year old who nearly died recently and promise to some day tell him about the first time he nearly died as an infant AT THE HANDS OF THE SAME GUY... Calmly, because this is a conversation he's been dreading for years, so he's prepared.

- hire a clear fraud just to fill his staff; have two 12-year olds crash an illegal flying car into a living tree AND talk down the teacher that wanted to skin them alive; deal with an unknown threat that was attempting to kill his students; get forcibly removed from the school, only return ready to console grieving parents AND watch the same 12 year olds from earlier emerge from an unfindable chamber WITH the 11 year old who was thought to be dead....calmly, because he's lost loved ones, and he knows what it is to grieve.

- Hire a werewolf; keep that a secret from his students, their parents, and maybe even the government; and have two 13 year olds illegally time travel to save an animal an a convicted felon...calmly, because an innocent man's life is important.

- Host a death tournament specially designed to 'not kill;' and slowly watch a plot to revive to worst wizard ever unfold before his eyes....calmly, because he didn't have all of the information yet.

- Get slandered by the entirety of the government, and forcibly removed from his position in the Courts; have a government spy forced onto his staff; purposefully pissed her off; evade arrest and go on the lam...calmly, because he knows he's right, and the truth will out. THEN come back, fight every Death Eater in the ministry, fight Voldemort, convince the government not to arrest him, then talk Harry through his Godfather's death....calmly, because he knows he messed up, he even says that Harry show be so much angrier, and 'please, by all means, destroy my possessions'.

- Find out he's dying; find out there's a hit on him; recruit an old colleague, and use Harry as a means to reveal a crucial part of Voldemort's past, which he's been teaching to Harry all year; find a horcrux as well as pass on as much info about them as possible; AND get psychologically tortured mere moments before being murdered....

- AND, postmortem, we find out that Dumbledore has been playing pretty much everybody, but especially Harry....calmly, because for once, it really was "the greater good."

But he was fun loving too, maybe childishly so due to the fact that he had to grow up so fast.

- Some of His first words after Harry starts school are, "Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! And tweak!"

- He did what was best for the school AND Firenze by hiring the centaur, but he clearly enjoyed shoving it in Umbridge's face.

- and let's not forget the night he picked Harry up front Privet Drive. He obviously made those glasses hit the Dursleys as some small payback for how they treated Harry.

That's Dumbledore. Serious, wise, and seriously wise, with a penchant for mischief.

The movie Dumbledore gave none of that, especially with that terrible, terrible reading of that line.

That one line changed the entire character of Albus Dumbledore. Instead of the cool, calm, and collected man he always was, he lost control. In front of his foreign and governmental guests nonetheless. That would never happen to Dumbledore. He's seen the signs, and can tell something is up. That's WHY he hired "Mad-Eye."

Even that stupid Christmas scene added to the HBP movie, as much as I freaking HATE it, doesn't CHANGE anything. The Death Eaters attack and for some reason burn the house down. Boo hoo. Nobody gets hurt, nobody dies, the house is back to normal the next movie. No big deal. They just wanted to add to the drama some, instead of the usual deduction from the cuts.

This change is why we hate SO many other adaptations, or "cuts" as they call them.

-Those of us who are old enough to remember will freaking riot over the "Han shot first" argument, because we knew that there was no way in hell Han would sit and let Greedo take a shot at him, ESPECIALLY since they freaking showed it first, then changed it later.

-It's why we all hate M. Night. Shyamalan's fucking guts, because he took the single greatest cartoon masterpiece ever created, and tried to make it better. The one scene that sticks out to me is when they're trying to escape the earth-bending prison camp. First, they had to be removed from the land entirely, or their pride would cause a rebellion instantly; second, 6 benders did what we see Toph do her first lesson as a blind toddler. Unlike Lucas, Shyamalan wasn't trying to appease anyone. He just wanted a name for himself, so he decided to take on the most popular cartoon ever. Pass or fail, he has that fame now.

Some of the fault might lie with the director, or possibly even the actor himself. Michael Gambon is a respected actor, and probably had a sense for how the character would play, even if that sense might not have been based in the books. Couple that with multiple directors by this point, multiple actors having playing Dumbledore, and the books still gradually coming out, and the information and range for the character of Dumbledore might have been quite limited.

And let's not forget those cuts that needed to be made. With a shorter story comes a need to get the information across faster.

Instead of mulling it over for a moment while the rest of the group argues (and probably for a good year or so by this point), and calmly asking Harry if he entered himself in the tournament, the quick explosion both saves time by cutting the opening argument AND gives the audience a cue for suspense. They know something is wrong NOW, and they don't know what, but they'll find out as the people on screen do.

Personally, I believe that this system can be broken by a rather simple solution: TV show.

Instead of one movie, each book gets one Season, and every couple chapters or so gets an episode. I foresee problems as we get to the later books as opposed to the early one, since they start getting thick AF with GoF.

But I think the pros outweigh the cons.

-The locations for HP are actually incredibly limited. They pretty much go back and forth between the same dozen locations all seven books, so you could make sets to switch out whenever needed, and just reuse the exact same sets for seven straight years, with little to no change in between.

- We have all of the books now, and then some, and then some extra BS on top of that, and the plethora of headcanon out there, so we have more than enough information for every single thing about this place, excluding literal physical dimensions. Find a kid who looks like Harry, another actor who can flawlessly pull off Snape, and some old guy who wants to be goofy sometimes, and you've got gold.

- We could actually include the minor characters too. Peeves could pop in and out every few episodes, Dobby can play the role he was meant for, Kreacher can exist as more than 3 lines. The vanishing cabinet could actually be introduced in year 2, then addressed in Year 5, then revealed properly in year 6. Moaning Myrtle has her scenes, Bill Weasley has his, Tonks could be the most important female character besides Hermione or Ginny.....

Anyway, you get the picture. This whole thing was inspired by one comment, and I've been working on this for almost 6 hours now. Pretty sure I've worked harder in this post than any papers in high school...

Hollywood, if by some miracle you see this, I'll totally be a screen writer for the Harry Potter TV show. In the meantime, goodnight.

#harry potter series #harry potter #albus dumbledore #dumbledore #draco malfoy #ron weasley #hermione granger #sirius black #molly weasley

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jackoshadows · 5 years

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Jon and Sansa had nothing in common as children in book one...

I constantly keep hearing from Sansa fans - on the Jon Snow Tag - about how Jon and Sansa had similar/parallel journeys and were pretty similarly bratty when they were children - pointing to Jonsa because they are so compatible you guys! - and that only Sansa gets unfairly criticized as opposed to Jon. Let’s tackle this:

Was Jon emo and bratty in the first few chapters in AGoT? No doubt. But as Maester Luwin aptly put it, bastards grow up faster - they have to deal with the harsh realities of life - unlike the popular, privileged daughter of the Warden of the North. Jon does look down on the other recruits of the NW as soon as he gets there, but Donal Noye very swiftly puts an end to that by explaining the circumstances to Jon and Jon LEARNS. Jon then goes about teaching Grenn and Pip and the others, protects Sam, talks to Aemon about taking in Sam etc. That’s the character growth that Jon shows in book one.

Meanwhile, Sansa continues to be bratty and selfish for pretty much the whole of the first book despite Ned’s constant pleas and warnings for the girls to not fight, that they were in a dangerous place (KL), that they had to be united as a family, that the Lannisters were bad people who had killed loyal Stark men. Sansa ignores all this and learns too late - after Ned loses his head, she is trapped in KL and the Lannisters start abusing her.

Sansa also goes against her family twice - she lies about the Trident incident, not supporting her own sister against Joffrey. And she tattles to Cersei all of Ned’s plans that was useful for Cersei to trap the girls - Sansa, Jeyne, Arya - in KL as opposed to on a ship bound for WF. Jon on the other hand wanted to leave the NW to fight for Ned, Robb and the rest of his family when he heard what happens. He feels deeply that he cannot save the people he loves:

Forgive me, Father. Robb, Arya, Bran... forgive me, I cannot help you. He has the truth of it. This is my place. "I am... yours, my lord. Your man. I swear it. I will not run again. - Jon, AGOT

That’s why it’s all the more significant when Jon does end up breaking his NW oaths for Arya at the end of the last book ADwD. Jon ends up choosing love over duty finally - like honorable Ned did.

The parallels about Jon and Sansa both wanting to leave WF also makes no sense. I mean, if you want to strip away all context, then yes, they were the two characters who wanted to leave WF in the beginning. But does not context matter in these so called parallels?

When Jon had his little tantrum with Benjen about leaving WF, it had just been made very clear to him what his status was among the siblings. Catelyn had made him sit at the lower tables while his siblings sat with their esteemed guests. Jon was bitter and angry. As we saw, Catelyn makes it very clear to Ned that Jon had to leave WF if Ned left for KL. Which was why Ned agrees to Jon going to the wall despite 14 being too young to make such a decision. Jon basically did not have a home anymore - the home he grew up in is not his - Catelyn made sure of that. Jon wanted to leave WF to make something of his life in a place - NW - where even a bastard could climb the ladder based on merit.

Sansa? She had a home. She had a loving family. A mother who doted on her. She was considered beautiful and admired for her skills unlike Arya. She wanted to leave WF to marry Joffrey and become Queen of the 7K.

So there’s a reason for why Sansa gets more criticism than Jon in the first book. Jon is an underdog trying to make something of his life as an outcast in Westeros. Sansa selfishly betrays her family twice - despite already having what Jon desired (home and family) - so that she could marry Joffrey and become queen. For reasons like this:

“Go Ahead, call me all the names you want," Sansa said airily. "You won't dare when I'm married to Joffrey. You'll have to bow and call me Your Grace." - AGOT

As show Sansa tells LF at the end of season 6 - “I came here every day when I was a girl. I prayed to be somewhere else. Back then I only thought about what I wanted, never about what I had. I was a stupid girl.”

Of course, then show Sansa negated that development by once again acting like her mother, never fully supporting Jon and passive aggressively undermining him in season 7 - but that’s D&D’s terrible writing that does not allow characters to grow for plot reasons.

Sansa gets criticized because she was a character created to have conflict among the Starks as per GRRM - not because she’s a girl.

When the series was originally conceived, it was only three volumes long and I did not know that several of the main characters were going to be stuck with being children for so much of it. The hardest chapters for me to write are the ones about Bran, just because he is the character most involved in magic, the youngest child and he is so seriously crippled--I have to write in that sense of powerlessness and it has always to convince. Sansa was the least sympathetic of the Starks in the first book; she has become more sympathetic, partly because she comes to accept responsibility for her part in her father's death. Jon Snow is the truest character--I like his sense of realism and the way he copes with his bastardy. - GRRM

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/feature.html?tag=westeros-21&ie=UTF8&docId=49161

Jon and Sansa do not have much in common at all. Both in the books and the show. That’s why their stories have nothing to do with each other in the books, why they hardly ever think of each other and why their stories will most probably never intersect. I mean, Sansa spends an entire book impersonating a bastard in the Vale, and never once, not once thinks about the bastard brother she grew up with in WF! Is that not amazing?! In fact Sansa admits to forgetting about Jon till Myranda Royce brings up his name. That’s how unconnected Jon and Sansa are in the books.

On the show, we see them clash again and again. Sansa keeps important information about LF and the Vale from Jon and then berates him about fighting with less men. Jon, like Ned, tells Sansa that they have to trust each other and be united as a family. Sansa undermines Jon, disagrees with his policies, Jon never listens to Sansa and instead does what he thinks is right.

As in the books, Jon has the steady, unwavering support of Arya - who stands up for Jon and defends him when he is not there to defend himself. Remember this in the books?

Sansa looked at Arya. “What did you think of Prince Joff, sister? He’s very gallant, don’t you think?”

“Jon says he looks like a girl,” Arya said.

Sansa sighed as she stitched. “Poor Jon,” she said. “He gets jealous because he’s a bastard.”

“He’s our brother,” Arya said, much too loudly.

A variation of this is pretty much what we saw last season as Sansa complains about Jon and Arya defends him on the show:

Sansa: I warned Jon this would happen. That he couldn't leave the North and expect it to just sit and wait for him like Ghost.

Arya: He didn't. He trusted you to hold it for him

Their clash over Jon escalates so much that Sansa considers having Arya executed to depose Jon and Arya lets her know that she is keeping an eye on her.

LF: He was named King in the North. He can be unnamed.

Sansa: Even if I wanted to, Arya would never go along. She always loved Jon far more than she ever loved me, and she'd kill anyone who betrayed her family.

Jon and Sansa have a non-existent relationship in the books and an almost antagonistic relationship on the show. That’s why Jonsa is just an absolutely baffling syndrome. I don’t know of any actual Jon Snow fans shipping Jonsa. Jon-Dany, Jon-Arya, Jon-Sam, hell even Jon - Satin and Jon - Val are more believable positive relationships than Jonsa. I constantly hear from the Sansa fans about how much Jon loves Sansa. Like where? You guys want to see what actual love is? You will see it next season when Jon finally reunites with Arya.

#Jon Snow #Sansa Stark #Arya Stark #Jon and Arya are the best sibling duo around #Always there for each other #The Jon Sansa parallels make absolutely no sense to me #They are two very different characters with nothing in common

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ultimavolatusrpg · 5 years

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ACCEPTED // DELSIN RHODES

35 years old, 77th Hunger Games, FC: Aaron Paul

Haunted, Impulsive, Personable, Resourceful, Loyal

tw: death, under the influence, drug use, prostitution mention

THE ARENA

The Tributes were raised up into what appeared to be a dark tunnel. Everything was metallic, dim lighting along the floors and a few years down every tunnel in the bunker. The Cornucopia was situated in a common area, one of the walls lined with broken computers and controls. When the countdown hit zero, Tributes ran for the supplies in the Cornucopia or fled into one of the many tunnels of the bunker. Delsin had grabbed a pack with an empty water canteen, a small pack of tools, a granola bar, and a six foot long heavy chain.

He had tried to avoid most of the Tributes in the Games, ducking into tunnels to avoid them, sneaking into compartments to hide from the Careers. Listening to the screams of the other Tributes as they were brutally slaughtered. Delsin had almost been caught by one of the rogue Career Tributes, but managed to rig a trap that went off when he passed the doorway of a tunnel into the Cornucopia. The trap went off, sending burning shrapnel and metal firing off at the Career, and his own back.

The finale had forced the remaining Tributes into the Cornucopia. The boy from Ten had always been a favorite, an underdog for The Games that people rooted for. Delsin was a lanky little sixteen year old, but he was fast. Though he was barely able to handle fighting the kid from Ten, who was bigger and older than he was. Strangled nearly to the point of blacking out, Delsin managed to jab the screwdriver of his tool kit in the kid’s eye, forcing him off of him. Then, he grabbed the chain in his bag and with all his might, he strangled the boy from Ten to death.

BIOGRAPHY

Delsin Rhodes was the eldest son to Cooper and Astrid Rhodes. Growing up in District Six was tough for the family, especially as it grew. Delsin helped look after his younger brother, Otto, and his sister, Piper when he wasn’t at school. Made sure that they got enough to eat, even if it meant he had to skip a meal and lie to his parents about having eaten. His father had run an auto garage in Six, fixing up all sorts of vehicles for the Peacekeepers and The Capitol. When he was older, Delsin got to go to the shop with his father on occasion and he picked up on the basics of the mechanics pretty quickly. Eventually, he too, was working in the garage with his father.

Whispers of rebellion had made their way around the auto shop, eventually reaching Delsin. He was tired of his family barely scraping by while they were making and fixing all of these fancy, luxury cars for The Capitol. Helping them live their lives in luxury while they suffered. Each time he tried to bring it up to his father, he told Delsin to keep quiet, but he never once denied his son’s views on the world. Delsin knew he had to act, especially before Otto and Bentley would be of Reaping age.

What Delsin wasn’t counting on, though, was having his name being drawn from the Reaping bowl for the 77th Hunger Games.

Delsin was only sixteen years old, kind of a lanky kid that didn’t have much going for him going into the Arena. He hated The Capitol even more when he stayed there, saw how the people acted and lived their lives without a care in the world. They had everything at their finger tips, while he knew of families in Six that were starving. That constantly lived in fear of The Games and the people that governed the Districts. Still, Delsin knew his life was on the line, and he knew there was no way he was going to make it out of The Games alive. Until he did.

His Games had consisted of a lot of hiding, luring the Tributes to their deaths while he hid and watched, listened to their screams. His District partner had died in the Bloodbath, so he was on his own. After he had strangled the boy from Ten to death, Delsin had become a shell of his former self. He had moved to the Victor’s Village with his family, and while he had their support and love, he was still struggling. Due to his injuries from his Games, Delsin was introduced to morphling and had formed an addiction to the drug. His parents had tried to wean him off of the drug, but Delsin seemed to find ways to obtain it, one way or another, whether it was at Capitol parties or smooth talking his way into getting his fix.

President Snow had requested to meet with Delsin after he had turned eighteen, requiring him to be involved in the Victor prostitution ring. Delsin told Snow to kiss his ass before storming out of the mansion to go back to his home. One by one, tragedy had fallen on his family. His parents had died in work related accidents, Otto had been killed shortly after, and Piper had been Reaped in the 79th Hunger Games and was killed very quickly. Instead of being whipped into shape, instead of complying with Snow’s request, Delsin had buried himself deeper into his morphling addiction. After all, who would want a drugged out, washed up Victor from District Six?

A few years after his family had been killed, Delsin met Camille. At first he thought she was just another Capitolite trying to make small talk with him, but eventually, he realized she was different. She hadn’t even been from The Capitol, but one of the outer Districts. She told him that she was part of a rebel group hoping to recruit the Victors to their cause. Immediately, Delsin wanted in. After all, what did he have to lose? He reported as a contact within the Village to Camille, and eventually, their relationship became more than something professional. The couple had worked together to help keep up communication between the Victors and the rebels, and they had a good system going. However, as Delsin’s luck seemed to run lately, it stopped running so smoothly.

Camille would sneak into the Victor’s Village often to visit Delsin and they would spend a lot of nights together. That night had been no different. Delsin was talking with Camille about plans for another run of messages tomorrow and they would continue on like normal. The two had been working together for a long time, having been intimate for about as long. Delsin had high hopes in their cause, felt optimistic for once in a very long time. When he woke up the following morning, Camille was laying still next to him, a needle of morphling still in her arm. Her body was cold. Dead.

He knew Camille wasn’t a morphling addict; she had helped him get clean after they met. But once she was out of his life, Delsin was right back at it. If there was anything consistent about Delsin, it was how good he was at self destruction. Any ties to the rebel group had been severed and he lived his life keeping his head down, shooting up morphling and barely being coherent as a Mentor, or as a Victor when he was called on by The Capitol.

It was when he had mistakenly tried to get into the wrong house that he had met Dahlia Holmes, one of the Victors from District Seven. For some reason, she had talked with him often and Delsin enjoyed her company. Over the years they had an unusual friendship, until they ended up having a fling one night that ended up getting Dahlia pregnant. He tried to keep Dahlia at arm’s length after that, afraid to get close to her or the baby, even though he felt inclined to try and be there for her. But he was also afraid. Afraid that he would have yet another family, more people he cared about that would end up getting killed because of him.

PENNED BY: KAT

#accepted #character bio #delsin

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hollowedrpg · 5 years

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CONGRATULATIONS, CAISEY! — You’ve been accepted for the role of Lily Potter. I’m so glad you decided to rework your application. It’s clear you understand not only who Lily is, but how she fits into this verse. Lily is trying her best to appear as though she’s doing fine, as though she’s ready to take up arms and fight again, but in truth, she’s struggling more than she ever has. I also really liked your addition that she’s suffering from postpartum depression. I think that fits into how I envisioned her as a mother, and I can’t wait to see where you take her from here.

Thank you so much for applying. Please create your account and send in the link, track the right tags, and follow everyone on the follow list. Welcome to Hollowed Souls!

ooc.

name: Caisey

age: 27 on the 25th

preferred pronouns: she/her

timezone: EST

activity: 7ish! I work weekday mornings/afternoons, but my weekends and evenings are free.

are you applying for more than one character?: just one!

how do you feel about your character dying?: Lily is living on borrowed time, honestly. She was never intended to live through this; she doesn’t know this, obviously, but it was her death that ensured Voldemort’s first defeat through protecting Harry from him. I would find it narratively justified for her to die protecting Harry.

anything else?: I wrote the app out of order (basically from the bottom up), so I feel like I should apologize if that messes with the coherency at all.

ic details.

full name: Lily June Potter, née Evans

Lily: from the flower. In the Victorian language of flowers, lilies are used to symbolize love and affection; in Christian religion, lilies are often used to represent purity and virtue.

June: from the Roman goddess Juno, associated with marriage, military, and the community.

date of birth: January 30th. Aquarius sun, Pisces moon, Taurus rising.

Sun in Aquarius: “You carry a lot on your shoulders and have need to fight for the underdog. It’s in your tenth house, meaning you feel the need to distinguish yourself from others through career, goals, success, and responsibility.”

Moon in Pisces: “You feel vulnerable much of the time, and desperately wish for a partner who deeply understands you. It’s in your tenth house, meaning you find security and safety through career success and responsibility.”

Taurus Rising: “You give people the impression that you are reliable, settled, sensible, and deliberate, though sometimes stubborn.”

former hogwarts house: Gryffindor. Severus told her that she would be perfect for Slytherin; since he was her sole fount of information about the magical world before her letter arrived, Lily believed him. When she made the suggestion, however, the Hat laughed in her face–so to speak–and Lily’s immediate anger caused it to place her in Gryffindor. Though the Hat could have made a case for Ravenclaw easily enough, Lily’s instincts lie in loyalty and daring. The pluck that led her to argue vehemently with a sentient hat within seconds of making its acquaintance has served her well throughout her life.

sexuality: pansexual panromantic

gender/pronouns: cis female, she/her

face claim change: none!

more.

how do you interpret this character’s personality? how will you play them? include two weaknesses & two strengths.

Strengths: Magnetic, kind, hardworking, selfless

Weaknesses: Selfish, obstinate, anxious, proud

Lily’s never been a failure at anything before. She has struggled, certainly; nothing has ever been easy, necessarily, or accomplished without effort. She has always been adept at identifying what was necessary to achieve her goals or tackle a problem. She’s the golden girl: compassionate, smart, hardworking. Even bigotry from being Muggleborn hardly phased her, except to strengthen her desire to fight back against the so-called “blood purists.” Lily is vivacious, empathetic, and convinced of her ideals–she married the love of her life, joined forces against the evil wizard trying to murder people like her, excitedly looked forward to her son’s birth.

There’s a reason she was given a place in Order recruitment: she’s gregarious and likeable, especially with the endearing pregnant belly and a baby ready to kick whenever a new palm pressed against her stomach. Being genuine and earnest has always come naturally to her, and it’s drawn people to her for her entire life, made some things easier than they might have been otherwise. It’s true that this has led her to take elements of her life for granted: finding a job post-graduation was easier due to Slughorn’s influence, and James’ family funds smoothed over her financial concerns when she discovered she was pregnant. She has experienced a considerable amount of bullying and bigotry, but because unconditional love and support has always existed in her life, Lily has developed a selfish streak. She expects the love to always exist–she expects to be able to find a solution to the problems she encounters–she expects to be capable of overcoming her struggles–and when these things fail to be true, she stumbles and grows resentful. Lily strives to better herself through acknowledging these tendencies whenever she finds them in herself and surrounding herself with people who aren’t afraid to call her out, people who challenge her and make her better (James and Marlene chief amongst them–without them, she indulges the introspection, finding herself unable to break the cycle of seeing the world through a specific filter designed by her life experiences).

She needs a project to focus on to keep her anxieties at bay; inactivity makes her fret over things she can’t control, and she’s never enjoyed an aimless lifestyle. Typically, these projects are exercises in discovering purpose, usually with a humanitarian angle or some sort of personal growth intention. When Lily finds something to focus on, she truly can make an impact; she is idealistic almost to a fault, having come from a Muggle world and introduced to a world of magic possibilities at an impressionable age. She believes strongly in making the world a better place and in her own ability to do so.

The way she is now is more accurately reflected below; the war has changed everything for Lily and she is, at present, a combination of the optimistic, driven woman who happens to be a wife and mother described here and the grieving, guilt-ridden widow and struggling mother described below.

how has the war affected this character, emotionally and otherwise?

The Lily described above exists primarily in the shadows now. She’s not gone, not entirely, but she’s treading water in the shallows, while in the depths lurks a haunted woman with a sad smile and perpetually red-rimmed eyes. Every day, she wakes up in her worst nightmare and must push through the hours as if she isn’t rotting slowly from the inside.

She sees her life in flashes, like scenes of a book she’s read countless times. Moments blurred between chapters–how did she get from the tent to the house? Where did Harry get that toy? Is that voice she hears calling her name a faint memory of Marlene or is it actually Pandora trying to get her attention? Her grief casts a pall on everything, dampening any other emotions in her life.

Without James or Marlene, she has nothing and nobody left to rely on, her only living friends sunken in their own despair. Lily knows everyone is sensitive and this makes her wary of reaching out and burdening anyone else with her problems. They all praise her for “holding up so well” and pat her gently on the arm, like she might fly into pieces if they touch her too hard; it feels like everyone is holding her at arm’s length. Nobody wants to take responsibility for handling her emotional state, and she can’t be responsible for handling anyone else’s. She worries constantly, her emotional state strained without anything to focus her energies on: are they only allowing her to stay with them out of guilt? Do they care more about Harry, the prophesied one, than her? She was only part of the Order because of James–maybe that’s all she is to them. James’ widow.

She wonders if she has outlived her usefulness. She wants to help, but everything has changed in her life. Is she expected to just be the widow and single mother now? How much agency can she still have, now that everyone sees her differently? Will they listen to her opinions or give her a choice if she wants to leave? Will they take Harry from her if they feel she can’t protect him better than they can?

She feels she must keep up appearances of being the resilient, unflappable Lily Evans Potter she has always been, even without any of the supports that made that Lily possible. She wants the Order to be proud of her–she wants to keep being their golden girl–and she’s clinging desperately to all she has left. Her pride won’t let her ask anyone for help as long as she can see how much they are struggling, and her fear that she might lose what little she has left won’t let her admit that she is falling apart.

where does this character currently stand? with those who wish to hide in godric’s hollow until the war ends, with those who wish to rebuild the order and continue fighting the war, or on neither side? Why?

Lily wants to fight. She always imagined herself going down swinging, James at her back, taking down their killers with them. They were young and the war seemed more like a game back then.

If she didn’t have Harry, it would be an easy answer: get back in the fray, find the rest of the Order, track down any survivors who might join their cause now that the Death Eaters have made their stance on murder clear. Lily has never been one to sit and wait. Even while heavily pregnant she insisted on being involved, even if it was just in recruitment. She’s of the opinion that now is the best time to band together, recruit in a frenzy, and strike back while Voldemort is least expecting it–they might be weak now but so is he, and the Death Eaters might be cowed by a show of force from the organization they thought was beaten. To stop now would be to admit defeat.

That said, she’s also scared. Staying in the Hollow isn’t a long-term option, obviously, but going back into the fight means risking the little they have left. A second blow to their ranks could be the last; if they can’t find more survivors, if their forces don’t grow, then that’s the end of the war. The Death Eaters rule through fear and if they’re not stopped, they could continue their massacre in another town, maybe a Muggle one this time.

And now she has Harry to think of, and this godforsaken prophecy that cost James his life, nearly took Harry the way they got the Longbottom boy. Recruitment, at least, seems like the safest option to move them in the right direction: toward rebuilding and fighting anew.

How is Lily coping with being a new mother in the midst of a war?

She never really planned to be a mother. It seemed inevitable, of course, once she committed to marrying James; a natural trajectory of being in that kind of a relationship. But she didn’t really plan for it–she didn’t want kids the same way James did. Oh, of course she wanted children with him, but when she pictured it, it was always in peacetime–and she was always much older. And then she was pregnant, suddenly, and James was transported with happiness, so she had to keep it, and then she and the baby became a unit: a source of hope and new life amidst the threat of war. Her pregnant belly was a buoy keeping their heads above water, and everyone wanted to touch her, like she was some witch Madonna bringing a messiah into their world. If she thought too hard about it, it was disconcerting, but she didn’t think too much about it–she had enough to think about just preparing for the baby to arrive.

James was a better parent than her, or at least a more natural one. Lily admired how easy fatherhood was for him; while she struggled with postpartum depression and the necessary change in her priorities, he willingly shouldered as much parental responsibility as he physically could. She loved Harry, loved being his mother, but she had to struggle to find that love. James, Marlene, and eventually Molly Weasley worked to convince her that she was not a failure as a mother, and eventually she believed them.

And then they were all gone, and all the things she learned about parenting seemed to disappear from her mind the moment James left her side. She had no idea how to be a mother–especially not a single one. Muscle memory seems to take over much of the time, and maternal instinct fills in the gaps, but Lily struggles most with keeping her emotions in check enough to prioritize Harry. Sometimes he reminds her so much of James that she can hardly stand to look at him, and sometimes she is so overwhelmed by the grief that permeates Godric’s Hollow now that she can’t bring herself to let him go when he squirms. The routine that she relied on is gone, and she struggles to establish a new one, to deal with Harry’s distress every time he asks for James and she can’t explain to him that Dada is gone forever. When she desperately needs a break, she can arrange for someone to babysit, but the moment he is out of her sight a panic grips her chest–her nightmares are of Voldemort reappearing in the Hollow with James’ dead body at his feet, Harry dangling, lifeless, in his grip.

The worst part is that she still can’t shake the desire to maintain appearances. Everyone thinks she is so brave, so resilient: she can’t let them know she’s a terrible mother and falling apart at the seams. As long as Harry is happy and healthy, they’ll never notice the weight she’s losing, the hesitation when she talks, the red rims around her eyes that never fade. By sheer force of will, Lily will prove to everyone and herself that she is strong enough to get through this.

extra.

Pinboard: https://pin.it/tvyj7td56b5ave

Relationships with others:

Marlene: The love of her life, James notwithstanding. The one woman Lily thought she would always be able to rely on. Even now, she struggles to speak of her best friend in the past tense, catching herself mid-sentence in the mistake; sometimes she still thinks she can see Marlene entering or exiting a room, only to realize it was actually Charity or Pandora with the light catching their hair just right. Marlene kept her bright and optimistic–lifted her head up even when she was in the depths of postpartum depression. James was her counterpart, but Marlene was her North Star.

Remus: With James and Marlene gone, Remus is the closest friend Lily has left. He has always been one of her closest confidants–the first person she trusted at Hogwarts after watching Severus join the table of green and silver. True, he became more James’ friend than hers over the years, but she appreciates how steadfast a friend he has been more than she can say. When she tried to push him away, he refused in a patient sort of way. She knows he is struggling, and she hates herself for not doing a better job of supporting him.

Sirius: Lily is afraid of him. She’s always loved him like her brother–or, rather, she’s loved him like James’ brother, because she has always relied on James to bridge the gap in her relationship with Sirius. They agreed, together, to make Sirius godfather, but right now, she doesn’t feel comfortable leaving Harry alone with him. This Sirius isn’t the same one she used to trust with her son’s life.

Alice: Oh, the guilt–it’s strongest when she looks at Alice. They were never really friends to begin with, and now Lily feels responsible for Alice’s grief. She can’t bring herself to make eye contact with the other woman, and she always self-consciously grabs up Harry if they are ever in the same room as her, stops him from getting too close. Seeing Alice’s steep decline into grief and the ensuing marital problems makes Lily feel lucky for still having her son–but then miserable for not being a better mother to him. Perhaps, she finds herself wondering, things would have been better if they’d gotten to Harry instead of Neville; at least Alice and Frank planned to have their son. Maybe they deserved to keep him more than she deserved to keep Harry.

Frank: She avoids him, as she does Alice, but for different reasons. Frank is fueled by vengeance, same as Sirius, and that scares her. But he doesn’t have the same emptiness that Alice seems to; his search for answers seems at least vaguely productive, and she wonders if maybe she could lend her efforts to helping him. If she could ever overcome her guilt about Harry’s survival, she might even offer someday.

Arthur: She wants to get closer to him, and she certainly has the opportunity, since Harry often plays with his sons, but Lily was more in contact with Molly than him and doesn’t even recall a single time she was left alone in a room with him before James’ death. She’s intimidated by someone who handles all those children so deftly, without complaint, and she’s afraid that he’s going to judge her for her inadequacies as a parent.

if I were…

if i were a season, i’d be fall.

if i were a time of day, i’d be midday–a few minutes past noon, when the sun is at its hottest and the world is at its brightest.

if i were a type of weather, i’d be a brisk wind.

if i were a scent, i’d be a garden in full bloom, blossoms open and full, the mixture of scents of the various flowers almost overwhelming.

if i were a plant, i’d be an orange lily.

if i were an element, i’d be fire, dependent on a counterpart to stay alive.

if i were a color, i’d be blood orange.

if i were a song, i’d be “Wish that You Were Here” by Florence + the Machine.

if i were an item of clothing, i’d be a headband.

if i were an object, i’d be a quill.

if i were one of the seven deadly sins, i’d be pride.

if i were one of the seven heavenly virtues, i’d be kindness.

if i were a god/goddess, i’d be Nike/Victoria.

The Candlelight Vigil

She could have used Harry as an excuse not to attend. Past his bedtime–really much easier if we keep him on a schedule—he’s too young to understand and might ruin it—Lily rehearsed several versions of the conversation she planned to open with Charity. When it came down to it, though, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Not attending would probably bring more attention to her grief than she liked; suffering in private seemed so self-indulgent amidst the public signs of mourning that existed everywhere in the Hollow. At least at the vigil she would be expected to grieve. If it was more than she could endure, she could always leave early and it would be dark enough that nobody would demand an explanation. She should at least try.

It was late for Harry, of course, but he was delighted by the nighttime activity and the flickering lights and if she couldn’t keep him from talking he at least acquiesced to her request he keep his voice to a stage whisper. Lily didn’t expect to feel closure tonight, but the sense of community that the vigil sparked was enough. They might be all that was left of the Order, but they were enough to keep it going. To honor James’ and Marlene’s sacrifice.

Harry fell asleep on her shoulder before too long so she left early, quietly thanking Charity on her way out, walking slowly lest she jostle him too much. Glenda’s voice cut through the blanketed sobriety of the nighttime air and Harry awoke with a cry. She was too far away to hear everything clearly but Lily hurried back to the cemetery the instant the broadcast ended. Another headquarters? Did that mean Glenda knew about this one and would send people to them, like she (inadvertently) had sent Greta? Good news? Could some of the presumed dead still be alive?

The chatter and speculation was unbearable, especially when Harry began to cry, a toddler roused far past his bedtime too upset to be soothed back to sleep anywhere other than a bed. Tearing herself away from the feverish conversation should have been easy—but even as her head spun and ached Lily felt the adrenaline pumping through the night. Who had Glenda found?

#hp rp #rp #rpg #marauders rp #lsprg #accepted

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recommendedlisten · 6 years

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Recommended Listen has gotten into the seasonal swing of things when it comes to highlighting great music that didn't receive a proper review, may have slipped this sole scriber site by since the last solstice or equinox, or in the case of more complex artists like Björk and Fever Ray, just needed more time to digest on the senses. At this point in the year, it's especially been remarkable to see how many new efforts have been released in the days since every publication has already shored up their best album accolades. There's a solid argument to be made that calendars don't matter so much anymore (nor do year-end lists...), and that it's actually a great opportunity to grab listeners' attention just as the competition for it dwindles. Winter's a great time to catch up on all of that, so here's 10 albums to keep you company for when the weather outside is frightful.

Angel Olsen - Phases [Jagjaguwar]

Today, we known Angel Olsen as a shape-shifting indie rocking siren, but her master craft has seen her sound evolve significantly since she entered the music world’s conscious nearly a decade ago. As a collection of B-sides, rarities and covers spanning the course of her entire career, Phases is aptly titled in that it uncovers these hidden gems that span back as far as her days strumming sparse acoustic folk songs into a hollow space into tape, all the way to her fully formed My Woman sessions that left a couple of standouts on the cutting board. For the Angel Olsen enthusiast, it’s more than just a collection of odds and ends, as even the songwriter’s lost tracks are better than most of her contemporaries, and for the novice, it’s the perfect introduction that makes it easy to catch up on what one might be missing if they’ve not paid attention to her already.

Björk - Utopia [One Little Indian]

Björk’s 2015 album Vulnicura arrived in the dead of winter, and really offered no consolation from Mother Nature’s wicked ways. It was a devastating breakup album inspired by the dissolution of her marriage, and for the first time in a very long time since concentrating the past decade of her creative force on boundary-pushing sound into the future did we get to hear from a more human, intimately vulnerable side of her psyche. Its follow-up Utopia is the natural extension of the emotional wreckage Vulnicura left in its wake, but from a polar opposite end. The Icelandic alternative innovator jokingly has called it her “Tinder album” because of the way it finds her rediscovering what love is through the distracting noise of modern technology, and the validity of our emotions in spite of it. Putting the compositional purity of golden harps, flutes, and fluttering strings at odds with Arca’s deconstructed electro-pop sounds like a commentary on her pursuit for an inner Utopia, and her sung wisdom suggests she’s found it.

BROCKHAMPTON - Saturation III [Empire / Question Everything, Inc.]

Saturation III concludes a series of homemade mixtapes released by the rising rap “All-American boy band” BROCKHAMPTON throughout 2017 that increasingly along the way found the Internet-bred collective growing more confident in their rhymes, style, substance, and individual identities. By now, they’re no longer a message board secret, as we find them here coming to terms with that new found success in full bravado. Ringleader Kevin Abstract leads the circus by gussying up production in a way that branches he and the pack away from already-spurning sound-a-likes and even the hip-hop influences they looked up to two chapters ago by making their beats gleam in the spotlight, and every member an avenue to speak to it. In short, it’s got as many rhymes to celebrate with as it does to take seriously. For those who were trolled by BROCKHAMPTON’s self-made rumor that it might be the group’s last album, Saturation III instead makes its presence known like like their own take on “Auld Lang Syne”, seeing that 2018 should be an even bigger year for this crew of cool kids.

Charli XCX - Pop 2 [Asylum / Atlantic Records]

We may never get another proper full-length album out of Charli XCX again, but that’s alright if she continues to keep turning pop on its ear as she did throughout 2017. Capping off a year that included the SOPHIE-inspired twisted breakup mixtape Number 1 Angel and her standalone standout “Boys”, Pop 2 sounds like the closest thing to a culmination in the UK superstar’s pursuit of experimenting with style and substance. Its guest list features a who’s who of “it” makers (indie darlings Carly Rae Jepsen Chairlift’s Caroline Polachek, rap and R&B futurists Cupcakke and MØ) on top of production PC Music’s A.G. Cook that swirls Charli XCX and friends in fizzy effervescence of big-hooked Europop, post-trap fog, and rave light dimmed down to the minimal. Its cohesion that pieces together Charli XCX’s most daring recent fashion statements, and leaves behind an icy cool sheet on the speakers that glistens with her star power.

Fever Ray - Plunge [Mute Records]

Fever Ray’s 2009 self-titled debut album contrasted what the Knife had made before it in its dense, dark matter, and focus on an electronic pulse that slotted her work in perfectly with the cruel witchhouse hunting of those times. The morbid creature Dreijer had created gave a visual alter ego to everything that her other work was not by indulging abrasive minimalist textures as frightening as the stage outfits Dreijer adorned when publicly supporting the effort. On her sophomore follow-up Plunge, Dreijar sounds as if she’s rekindling her spirit with what the Knife detached itself from in those final moments, however, in face-melting appreggios and staccato’s sputtering blood on the dance floor, without losing any of the grotesque, fetishizing spectacle of human error. With her electronic freak show, Fever Ray shines a spotlight on our sociopolitical climate -- A strange sexual tension that’s hard to fuck in, yet insatiably adventurous.

Gingerlys - Gingerlys [Topshelf Records]

In a vastly growing sea of dream-pop, it should be easy for any new artists to get lost in its waves, but Brooklyn quintet Gingerlys not only stand out -- They do so almost effortlessly on their self-titled debut. It’s a 30-minute breeze of melancholic euphoria framed in a colorful atmosphere of shimmering keys and the duality of crisp jangles and hazy reverb between guitarists Collin O’Neiil and Matthew Richards soaring over rough romantic tides on the shoulders of singer Jackie Mendoza’s clandestine coo. It’s dream-pop with a sparkling pep in its stride despite its faded reflections, and in the winter months when colder weather, shorter days, and being held captive by the occasional snowstorms if you so happen to live outside a sunshine state, their sunny melancholia is a suitable substitute for your vitamin D deficiency.

Glassjaw - Material Control [Century Media]

Most bands out of the early Aughts post-hardcore and indie-emo scene have made big ados about their comebacks for the sake of the cash grab. Material Control, the first new album in 15 years from seminal Long Island scene wrecking balls Glassjaw, really doesn’t need to preemptively bank on hype to get itself over, having initially dropped within days of its announcement and given even their loyalists no satisfaction in predictability. The effort finds vocalist Daryl Palumbo, guitarist Justin Beck and new-ish rhythm recruits in bassist Travis Sykes and drummer Chad Hasty accentuating the heavier -- albeit, weirder -- moments in their sound. While they’ve never really been of the more melodic ilk of post-hardcore, Material Control is a modern day reassessment of that in the way sludged riffs battle for space with meatier basslines, the occasional unattended live wire, and mathematical metal chaos. This is the kind of hardcore album that gives your brain a workout when the outdoors leaves your physical energy contained.

Lemuria - Recreational Hate [Asian Man Records / Big Scary Monsters / Turbo Worldwide]

For their first album since 2013′s listmaking The Distance Is So Big, DIY scene staples Lemuria went into business for themselves by recording the album in secret with just the faith of their fanbase (who’d pre-ordered something, but weren’t sure exactly what it was until it was announced) fueling the journey. The experiment is evident on the Buffalo indie-punk trio’s fourth full-length Recreational Hate. Here, they bridge together a happy medium between the super chunky pop-punk riffs of their early work and an adulting alt-country twang that finds a safe place for their music and their existential anxieties with Saddle Creek new schoolers Big Thief and Hop Along. Working with production pro Chris Shaw -- who has recorded in the past with Nada Surf, Weezer, and Wilco -- in the studio has further fleshed out Lemuria's sound to fill bigger spaces beyond their usual digs. In a day in age when the element of surprise in late-year releases isn’t like it used to be for Bey, hearing one of indie rock’s most beloved underdogs pull it off on their own terms is well worth celebrating, and to the benefit of diehard listeners at that.

Lost Film - Broken Spectre [Self-released]

No, Western Massachusetts is not just a bunch of bands who have a bed of fuzz pedals at their feet. Lost Film, the moniker of Easthampton songwriter Jimmy Hewitt, is living proof that not every sound coming out of the 413 is drenched in dense layers of reverb. On latest mini album Broken Spectre, he instead opts for crisp cut layers of guitar pop that paint its wintry calloused surroundings with light pastel hues and faded rays. Normally, you might expect this sort of indulgence in sun sounds from bands dreaming up an escape from their concrete jungles, or tempted by the brink of the beach, but take into account while listening that Lost Film calls home an area defined by sleepy college towns, strip malls, and the occasional back road sprawl home, and you’ll realize it’s not very difficult to hear how the isolation of suburbia can have the same effects of malaise. When snowed in and hibernating, Broken Spectre sets you adrift to some place in the air.

Special Explosion - To Infinity [Topshelf Records]

To Infinity, the debut full-length from Special Explosion, couldn’t be more true to advertising in what the band call themselves, the album’s title, and their categorization as a “dreamo” band. The Seattle five-piece, who has been quietly building an arsenal over the years in the forms of EPs and singles, mechanically assembles them in awe-striking form here, and for the spectating listener who prefers their rock to indulge in all of the beauties of life, this is most definitely experienced in the big bang universe of their sound. At any given point, the music can rumble and burst in with the enormity of post-rock mountains soundscaped with grace and intimidation, an aurora borealis of electric synapses and folk strings reflective of Hundred Waters, and the eerie solace of something much bigger than that which can be captured by any sound at all. To Infinity and beyond, Special Explosion’s escape into the unknown is one of this season’s most welcome ways to embrace the cold void around you.

#angel olsen #bjork #charli xcx #fever ray #gingerlys #glassjaw #lemuria #lost film #special explosion #lists #features

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homenum-revelio-hq · 4 years

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BASICS.

NAME. Daisy Hookum AGE: 24 ALUMNI HOUSE. Slytherin BLOOD STATUS. Half-blood ORDER RANK. Mid-Level FACECLAIM. Naomi Scott

PAST.

Daisy Hookum always knew she was born to change the world. A bouncy, outspoken little girl, she was often saddled with the label of being precocious. It wasn’t inaccurate; far from it. But it was a word that made Daisy easy to dismiss - and even as a child, she balked at the idea of being dismissable. It surprised no one who knew her when this daughter of badgers was sorted into Slytherin; maybe Daisy was too much an inveterate half-blood to support the ideals that many of her housemates espoused, but she just about dripped with ambition and wasn’t ashamed of that. “Little girls should be seen and not heard” was a saying that got no play in the Hookum house. In fact, it was Daisy’s mum who first whetted her taste for activism with her work for Nobby Leach‘s government - a position that earned her daughter little love from her more uppity housemates, but Daisy never had a problem making friends or enemies. It would take more than the occasional shouting-match to drive her away from the soothing stone rooms and underwater view of her beloved dungeons and as far as friendships went... quality always beat-out quantity in her opinion anyway. Daisy held onto those ideals as she joined the Order of the Phoenix and found herself among people who shared them - or some of them, at least. She had been an easy, obvious recruit thanks to her very vocal, very public anti-Voldemort sentiments - and her almost obsessive need to throw herself into every underdog cause she came across.

PRESENT.

The riot that ended the Squib Rights Marches deposited Daisy neatly into Order hands, although she was disappointed to learn that they hadn’t been there in active support of the cause; just watching from the sidelines in case of Death Eater activity. Daisy thought they could - should - do more. She found the secrecy with which the Order of the Phoenix operated baffling tool. It might help you fight a war when the enemy doesn’t know who you are, yes, but how are you going to change the world in silence from the shadows? She accepted the strictures they imposed - tell no one about us, tell no one you’re part of us - but that didn’t mean she was going to be quiet. As the self-elected “public relations department” of the Order, Daisy walks a fine line between speaking-out and secrecy. She still hosts rallies to fight against the devaluing laws the Ministry of Magic imposes on minorities (though their attendance continues to shrink thanks to the growing fear of Death Eater reprisals), along with giving lectures and writing letters to the Daily Prophet, but she doesn’t mention that she’s doing more than just talking about it - although she hasn’t been, for the last year. Her latest stunt involved putting her wand aside and learning how the “other half” lives and she’s just returned from that, ready to put the finishing touches on her sure-to-be-controversial manuscript (tentatively titled My Life As A Muggle: Why Those Without Magic Shouldn’t Make You Afraid). Daisy didn’t expect to return to find so many had died in her absence, though - or that so many of her allies resent her for that absence. Don’t they understand what she’s trying to do? You can’t win a war just by fighting; you need words, too. If you don’t change minds, you don’t stand a chance.

CONNECTIONS.

AMELIA & EDGAR BONES. The Bones family is notorious for not playing by the rules and Daisy respects that. In school, she’d made friends with Amelia in that way younger students do with older students, even though they’d only been at Hogwarts for a few years together. When it was Edgar who Daisy discovered went head-first into the Order after school, she’d been surprised. But she trusts both of them wholeheartedly and it’s them she hopes will accept her return more than anyone else. MARLENE MCKINNON. Marlene’s really doing it. She’s putting her money where her mouth is, to use the Muggle phrase Daisy picked-up in her year away. While Daisy was gone people had died, but things had grown, too. The Task Force had barely been in discussion when Daisy left, but look at it now: Marlene has all-but given up her family home in order to support the group that needs it most. Sure, Daisy wishes these people didn’t have to run and could just speak up and take over the world. But at least they aren’t dying! REGULUS BLACK. Daisy hates him (well, most people do, but she really does!). It’s very obvious how much Regulus judges her for her love of Muggles. It’s not that he just doesn’t understand year away... it’s that he views it as something to be disgusted by. It’s hard to have a conversation with him for too long. His bigotry is revolting!

Alternate FC Suggestions: Shay Mitchell, Brenda Song, Ana de Armas

DAISY IS OPEN.

#harry potter rp #harry potter roleplay #marauders rp #marauders rpg #marauders era rp #daisy hookum #daisy hookum bio #slytherin #half blood #mid level #character bio #open

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idolizerp · 5 years

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LOADING INFORMATION ON MAYDAY’S LEAD VOCAL, LEAD DANCE LEE JUEUN...

IDOL DETAILS

STAGENAME: N/A CURRENT AGE: 21 DEBUT AGE: 20 TRAINEE SINCE AGE: 15 COMPANY: MSG SECONDARY SKILL: N/A

IDOL PROFILE

NICKNAME(S): juju INSPIRATION: watching artist perform on the music shows as a kid. SPECIAL TALENTS:

Can count backwards from 100 in under 90 seconds

She can fit an obscene number of cherries in her mouth at once.

NOTABLE FACTS:

she came in first at a track meet in middle school.

it’s known she was a terrible at studying while in school, she often comments that she had ‘okay’ grades.

growing up she was a huge Jubilee fan & she owns an autographed album from a contest her mom entered for her.

IDOL GOALS

SHORT-TERM GOALS:

Jueun’s short-term goals may seem like company talk but she genuinely wants to see their group grow in popularity the year after their debut. A large part of this is personal, she knows how hard she has worked and now finally having debuted she doesn’t ever want to go back to the days of auditions. Another aspect of it though is knowing the company’s expectations for the group.

LONG-TERM GOALS:

ueun’s long-term goal is to become a lasting figure in the entertainment industry. She wants to carve out a place for herself whether that’s as a host, on variety, actress, or otherwise she isn’t too picky. Ideally she’d like to stay in the industry as a singer but if she’s honest with herself she isn’t quite so confident in her skills to see it as a viable option – at least on a soloist level.

IDOL IMAGE

The problem, or perhaps the benefit, of having past failures is that it gives an easy narrative to those who want to paint it. In Jueun’s case the company decided to take her audition failures – and eventual success – to shape a story for her persona. It’s no secret that the public likes someone who works hard, even suffers a bit before reaching their goal. It garners sympathy with the public and inspires them to root for their success. Everyone can relate to an underdog after all. At least that was what they hoped for Jueun. While it’s true that she did fail to proceed at auditions with two other companies it was decided that the story would be played up and exaggerated for sentimentality. With this backstory Jueun was given the story of someone who might not be the most talented or the most beautiful but someone who overcame failures to reach her dream.

To coincide with this Jueun is also given the image of the kind, reliable, down-to-earth friend, doubling down on being someone who the fans can connect with. To the fans she’s not an untouchable goddess, she’s a girl who’s just like them. Someone who you could see as your best friend or a person you could meet casually walking down the street. She’s a good listener and someone you could tell your problems to. She wasn’t the crush but she was the kind of person a fan could talk to for advice about their crush. When it comes to things like variety she isn’t the one who is going to be wacky or witty, she’s seen as the normal one.

This image trickles down to what the stylist give her and how she appears during social media interactions as well. In instagram lives she would be dressed casually as if she might have just been lazing about in her every day life before deciding she wanted to see the fans.

In truth there are nuggets of reality in her persona when compared to reality – Jueun does think of herself as hard-working and she isn’t terribly up-tight or difficult to be around. In fact she often accepts things too easily, especially if it’s what the company wants. It’s a bit ironic she is seen as someone who listens well given in reality she’s often the one going to her brother for advice.

One major difference between herself and her image is the bit of selfishness that lies in her and rears it’s head when no one is watching. She wants to succeed and be a lasting entertainer and can often get frustrated when faced with reality that it might not happen. In a way her desire to succeed is in conflict with her image; she doesn’t want to simply be the normal friend who gets looked over every time, she wants to leave an impression.

IDOL HISTORY

Jueun was born into a very stable household. Happily married parents, an older brother, and eventually a younger sister. It was also a very practical household, her mother was a middle school teacher and her father an officer worker. They didn’t have an extravagant living but she also didn’t want for anything growing up either. It was in this typical family environment that little Jueun was allowed to dream. Born in 1998 she grew-up in the perfect time, at least by her standards.

The entertainment industry was changing, becoming a production larger than life, and it was all taking place before little, wide-eyed Jueun as she sat in front of the living room television. By the age of six she was begging her mom for lessons but vocal coaches and dancing lessons simply weren’t in the household budget. It was one or the other and she chose dance lessons – after all, she could always practice singing on her own. And for the longest time that was that. Jueun lived a fairly ordinary life. She would attend her dancing classes, which fortunately she had taken a shine to being at least above average for her age group, but things like school and Sunday service came first.

Contrary to what fairy tails her dream didn’t come after she started working towards it. It was a bit of a bitter reality, even at a young age. However one benefit of youth was that she was not fully soured by the bitterness and cynicism of the world just yet. And while her dream might seem unreachable with each passing day, she was still allowed the luxury of dreaming.

ii.

By the age of fifteen it was largely assumed that any notion of pursuing the dream of becoming an idol had faded away with age. At least that was the case as far as her parents were concerned. Sure she continued to take dance lessons and sang in her room when they were trying to watch the television but as far as they were concerned these things were merely hobbies. Not to mention that her failure to be noticed or recruited to this point, for them, was a sign that a future in that profession simply wasn’t realistic.

And if in that moment in time Jueun was being honest with herself she’d confess to having similar thoughts. Soon she’d have to start thinking about other careers and singing and dancing might just have to be a hobby. With that in mind she made to deal with herself, she’d try for the next year and if it didn’t get her anywhere then she’d accept reality.

To say the early returns were disappointing would be an understatement. her first audition she didn’t make it past the first cut and the entire time she could recall noting how disinterested the evaluator looked. it was disheartening, even a bit humiliating, and she couldn’t help but wonder if it also was a dose of reality. Despite that feeling she pushed on, determined to keep the promise she made to herself.

There was a sliver of hope the next time around. She received a second audition but was ultimately cut again. It was here that Jueun began to think she was setting her sights too high; she came from a normal family. They didn’t have the money and influence that surely other kids had. And while she was an above average dance and okay singer; she was far from a prodigy herself. Auditioning for companies like Midas and 99 Entertainment? After two failures she began to view those chooses as foolish and feelings of self-doubt bloomed from these episodes.

These two failures left a significant imprint on her. Jueun had never just been flat out told she wasn’t good enough. That isn’t to say she was cocky and arrogant about her skill, she new her deficiencies, a better label might have been naive. She thought if she worked hard enough her effort would show through and that would be enough.

To this day those failures have made her a bit more cautious and self-conscious.

At the time though it was a conversation with her brother and his advice that led her to try another audition, this time at MSG Entertainment. In his words if she was going to strike out she might as well do so swinging. At the time she thought her brother, who played baseball, using that kind of metaphor was lame but it got the point across nonetheless. So she practiced, waiting for the next time the company held auditions.

The day of the auditions she would never forget. For starters she spent the morning sitting by the toilet. Her father said it was good that she was ‘puking her nerves out’. Somehow she didn’t see how that was a good thing, especially because when she arrived for her audition she felt even more nervous than when she woke up.

Throughout her audition she tried her best to ignore the nausea in her stomach. When it was over she felt like she had done her best but past disappointments kept her from getting her hopes up too high. Jueun wanted to believe that her hard-work would show through and count for something; after all it was what her parents had taught her growing up, but how had that worked for her in the past? Therefore it was understandable that she had cautious excitement when they contacted her for another tryout. And when she was accepted she was bursting with joy, naively believing the hard part of the process was done.

iii.

Initially after being accepted to the agency there was a period of serenity. The joy of sharing the news with her parents and closest friends; the elation at having taken the first real step to achieving that dream she had as a girl. For all intensive purposes this was were the happily ever after would begin in a storybook ending. However this period of elation was quickly met with a harsh reality. While being accepted as a trainee was a big step for her personally, she learned it was a small step in the grand scheme of debuting as an idol.

Until that point her only formal training had been in dance, and while she thought she was a good singer her audience had only been her mirror and family at holiday gatherings. As her training began under the company she quickly learned that simply being happy to have made it this far wasn’t enough. In a company like MSG the trainees she had lunch with on Monday could be gone after an evaluation on Tuesday, and often times were. This was perhaps one of the harder things for Jueun to adapt to. To begin with she already wasn’t someone who easily made close friends; so to have those that she did get close to and hoped to debut with be dropped that easily was a sobering experience for her throughout her trainee life, but especially early on.

For all the glitz and glamour that she had seen and admired on stage, the process to get there was equally as grueling and trying – perhaps even doubly so. And for Jueun, like many, she was training and practicing with no promise of debut, no promise that this would payoff in the way she wanted. With that in mind it was after two years of being a trainee when her first breaking moment hit. She had them before, minor ones, often brought on by exhaustion after a practice or frustration at herself for not progressing the way she wanted to; but this was the first time she felt like calling it quits - that she felt whatever payoff would come from this training simply wasn’t worth it.

She was well aware that even among her fellow trainees there were those that had been around longer than she had yet she couldn’t put that into perspective. Two grueling years as a trainee with no news of debut was hard to stomach when she had friends who she remembered auditioning with preparing for debut with other companies.

She remembered this time vividly, in part because she remembered getting mad at her brother for not taking her complaints on the matter seriously. Instead of sympathizing with her he told her that she wasn’t the only one going through struggles.

At the time her seventeen year old mind took it badly, as if he was belittling her hardships. It wouldn’t be until later that she truly gained perspective on his words. The fighting though, did prove to be cathartic for her. All the frustration and emotion that she wasn’t allowed to show in front of her trainers seemed to come out and, despite his words, her brother allowed himself to be her verbal punching bag. It was just the relationship they had. She shared a closeness with her brother despite him being five years older than her and in moments like these throughout her life he was there w- even if she didn’t always want to hear it.

From then on it was a routine, a draining and tedious routine that required all her efforts and then some, but Jueun pushed on. Saying goodbye to friends didn’t get any easier and seeing her fellow trainees excel didn’t help her own inferiority complex go away either. She merely did her best to compartmentalize those emotions, or at the very least she’d try to ignore them. In a weird way it was funny, as the years went by her dream of debut seemed further away than before she was a trainee. Back then she was allowed time to sit and think about it; however during those years between school and practice there wasn’t much time to leave her head in the clouds.

iv.

The day she was told she would be apart of the debut group was a day Jueun would never forget. The words barely registered with her at the time, it was almost like an out of body experience. When she called her mom to tell her, Jueun could specifically remember how her hands were shaking while holding the phone. Everything she had wanted since she was a little girl was finally coming true: she was going to be an idol.

Like with everything in her journey so far, reality soon followed after the elation. Jueun wasn’t blind, she knew both the success and criticisms that came with the company’s senior groups. Even without receiving much, if any, information on what their debut concept and image would be at the time there was a clear sense of expectation from management that, if she was being honest, scared her.

What followed was a blur for her; the long practices and various training for debut was like a whirlwind and quite frankly like nothing she could have imagined. It was different than being a trainee yet challenging in it’s own right, maybe even more so, and there were days when she was just happy to keep her head on straight.

She was told about the image she would play, a persona of sorts, and trained on it without much input. A fact that she, perhaps naively, accepted without any complaints or suggestions. One thing that did become clear to her throughout their preparations was that she wasn’t particularly high on the metaphorical totem pole within the group. It was something she expected, after all she had a gauge of her own skills after training for five years, but it was still a fact that she struggled with internally despite the smile on her face.

For Jueun, the debut stage was something she would never forget. The lead up was filled with nerves and worries and afterwards her heart felt as though it’d burst from her chest, but for those few minutes on stage she was allowed to revel in the realitt of having achieved her dream – or at least the first step of it.

Of course it isn’t all honey and roses; among the joy of having debut the knowledge that success is a requirement doesn’t simply fade away. Being self-aware that she might not be the fan favorite doesn’t simply disappear, in fact it becomes even more glaring at their first fan events. She’s not going to be the first choice by the company or the fans but she told herself she knew that already.

Jueun’s way of coping was to work more on her image, to become the best version of their Jueun so that they would like her. It might not be a healthy solution but she found it freeing as the year went by. It was something that was helped by the constant social media content that was being pushed out as well, it allowed her to get practice. She started to think that if she wanted to be long for this industry, or at least try to improve her popularity, that trying to convince the company she would be good on a variety show or in a small role. However, thus far her efforts have proven fruitless. In her private moments it has bred quiet frustration and there are times when Jueun knows she’d accept whatever was offered to her. She does view it as somewhat selfish of her to want these individual activities and praise, even on a small scale, and she isn’t sure if she should feel shame about that.

With all that beneath the surface, in 2019 Jueun does genuinely want their group as a whole to become more popular this year. After all her biggest fear is falling short of company expectations and the idea of them cutting their losses. She’d do anything to prolong this dream and that, she doesn’t realize, is perhaps the most dangerous part of it all.

#id.bio #id.msg #id.mayday #id.lee jinsuk

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bevioletskies · 7 years

Text

20 questions [3/20]

characters: peter/gamora, guardians-centric

fandom: avengers academy/marvel cinematic universe

summary: wasp has a new competition in store for the students of avengers academy, and there’s money involved. so obviously, peter and gamora have to pretend to be a couple in order to win. wait, what?

chapter preview: gamora worries about thanos, peter and gamora have a moment, and the sovereign have returned to be terrible and annoying (again).

word count: 4121 | total word count: 118k

a/n: warning for canon-typical violence and vague descriptions of injuries near the end - attempting space battles with regular quinjets ain’t easy, yo.

ao3 | previously | next | masterpost

“Nomination forms? Nomination forms! Right over here!” Pepper was hovering over the crowd in her repulsor boots, hollering down to anyone who bothered to listen. It was Friday afternoon, and everyone was spread out across the lawn, lazily soaking in the sun and enjoying the good weather. Pepper, however, was determined to help Janet get her project to work.

Gamora’s eyes scanned the area for her friends, nervously adjusting her guitar strap on her shoulder. They had been too busy the last few days of the week for socialization, aside from a quick “hello” around campus, but now? It was showtime.

Upon spotting Yondu’s fin (it really was quite helpful in distinguishing the Guardians from the crowd), she walked over in what she hoped was a casual manner, and neatly dropped herself down next to Peter. She removed her guitar and set it down in front of her, before turning to pat him on the cheek with a gloved hand. “Hello,” Gamora said in a passably affectionate voice.

Peter grinned, reaching to gently grasp her wrist with his fingers and hold her hand there. “Hey yourself,” he said. “You have a good session with Ares?”

“It was acceptable,” she said. “I broke a dagger on his helmet.”

“That’s my girl,” Peter beamed, releasing her for a moment, only to reach over and squeeze her hand. Somewhere, Gamora could vaguely hear Kamala crying tears of joy.

“Think I’m gonna be sick,” Rocket said, looking up from his pile of junk. “Can you two do this someplace else?”

“We’re trying to win,” Peter whispered. “Let us be cute, man.”

“I am Groot.” The little one stuck his head out from under a pile of coils. “I am Groot?”

“No, don’t call them mom and dad, that’s weird.”

“I’m leaving now,” Nebula announced loudly, standing up. “Congratulations on being insufferable within 30 seconds of your arrival.”

“Bye!” Peter called after her without a hint of irony in his voice. Gamora would’ve scolded him, but his fingers tightened around hers as if to reassure her, and she decided she would let it go this time. She instead decided to move slightly closer so their shoulders were touching, and he turned back to smile at her so dopily that she smiled back.

“You are ridiculous,” Gamora informed him. She finally removed her hand from his so she could set her guitar on her lap and began plucking at it idly. “Drax, have you checked the amps at Club Galaxy like I asked?”

“Yes, and they are in terrible shape,” Drax said more cheerfully than she would have liked. “The money you and Quill will win us should get us a more than sufficient set of replacements.”

“Hey now, why is it down to me and Gamora?” Peter protested. “There’s like, a million other things we could win, too. Like, Groot is totally gonna win Cutest Recruit.” The little tree nodded enthusiastically in agreement. He was very cute.

“That is only five thousand units,” Drax pointed out. “We require ten to fix the equipment at Club Galaxy.”

“Dude, that was just an example,” Peter groaned, slinging an arm around Gamora’s shoulders. “Point is, Gamora and I have a pretty good chance of winning, but you can’t rely on us alone.”

“That reminds me,” Gamora said, letting her fingers rest for a moment. “Elektra is trying to coerce - I mean, convince - me that you and I should go on a ‘double date’ with her and Murdock.”

“Oh god.” Peter slapped a hand to his forehead, slumping slightly. She felt his body weight shift to rest against her. It wasn’t completely unpleasant. “Matt’s cool and all - I mean, blind ninja! - but Elektra scares me.”

“You’re dating the most dangerous woman in the d’ast galaxy,” Rocket reminded him, fishing Groot out of the pile of parts and setting him down on his lap. “Nothing should scare you at this point.”

“Grow a spine, Quill!” Yondu punched him in the arm. “Ain’t nothing about that Elektra should scare you when you've got Gamora here.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Gamora spotted a flash of yellow swishing about a few feet away. Thinking quickly, she continued to move closer until she was practically on Peter’s lap and turned so her nose was mere inches from his cheek. “You aren’t scared of me, are you, Star-Lord?” she said softly, her mouth ghosting over his ear, though not so softly that Janet couldn’t hear. Sure enough, an excited squeak joined in on their conversation, along with the sound of a phone camera.

“Cu-u-ute!” Janet sing-songed, lowering her phone so she could get a better look. “Don’t mind me, just checking in on the Academy’s hottest new couple. Well, when I say new - ”

“Hottest? Don’t you mean cutest?” Peter winked. Janet giggled, holding up her phone again.

“Say hello to the Academy’s Snapchat,” she said. “Exclusive - Star-Lord and Gamora are officially dating. What's their ship name?” She ended the recording and looked at them consideringly. “I should totally have a brainstorm sesh with Kamala. Catch you guys later!”

“She is pleased to see you are happy, Gamora,” Mantis said thoughtfully, closing her book. “I think that Janet was hoping you would eventually date Peter.”

Peter raised an eyebrow at this, sitting up a little straighter to look at Gamora, but she purposely ducked her head to adjust one of her guitar strings. Deciding to let it go, he turned towards Yondu and quickly changed the subject to a story about when he and Yondu decided to be young and stupid (read: something they had done about two months before joining the Academy) on some random planet they weren’t allowed to go back to. Drax laughed uproariously at the appropriate (and inappropriate) moments while Rocket groaned and attempted to cover Groot’s ears. “Oh come on, Quill, not in front of the kid, his language is bad enough…”

Gamora smiled privately to herself, and, feeling generous, gently patted Peter on the thigh, hoping it would convey her gratefulness for his choice to not dig further into Mantis’s comment.

______

“He-llo, viewers, and welcome back to another episode of The Latest Buzz!” Janet grinned widely into the camera, her smile practically reflecting light back into the lens. “Oh - no, Mr. Jameson, I swear this is super important for The Daily Bugle - no wait -”

A cut. “A-a-a-and I’m back, sorry about that everyone. Mr. Jameson gets really grumpy when I’m not trying to run stories on Spider-Man or any of the other, quote-unquote, ‘spider menaces’ running around campus. Anyways, in case you haven’t heard, we are publishing a yearbook this year so that you - the lovely public - can get to know our amazing students and see what we’re all about. It will feature photos, quotes, funny moments, and, of course, the best part of any yearbook - superlatives!”

“Now, I’m not supposed to share, but I’ll give you crazy amazing people some exclusives.” Janet tapped her mouth with her pointer finger. “But don’t tell anyone, okay? So far, the top contender for Best Hair is Thor - Odinson, that is, not Jane Foster, though her hair is pretty sweet, too - the competition for Biggest Brain is currently down to Hulk, Iron Man, and Black Panther, and, if you can believe it, the most-nominated pair for Cutest Couple is Peter Quill and Gamora!” Janet sighed dreamily. “I think they’re my new favourite ship, I’m not gonna lie. If you check out our Snapchat account - QR code up here - you can see them being totally adorable this afternoon while we were all hanging out together. They seemed like an underdog at first, because we literally just found out they were dating like, two days ago, but who knows? Maybe they’ll sweep this whole competition and boom!”

______

Gamora stared at the holo-screen in horror, nearly dropping her spoon into her bowl of stew. “Did she just tell the whole world that we’re dating?”

“She did Snapchat it,” Peter reminded her, shuffling past her on the couch to settle down on the oversized armchair.

“I thought she only sent that around to other students,” Gamora groaned. “What if Thanos sees?”

“You worried Daddy doesn’t like your new boyfriend?” Rocket teased. Gamora didn’t have time to tell him to shut up when Nebula decided to whack him in the gut with the currently-detached hand she was fixing. “O-ho, wouldn’t do that if I was you!”

“It’s not disapproval I’m worried about, it’s revenge,” Gamora exclaimed, nearly flinging her food everywhere in agitation. “It is bad enough he knows of this school, if he thinks that I have become romantically attached to someone, he will go after them first. He will torture Quill and tear him apart, slowly, painfully, and make me watch.”

“I’ve dealt with some pretty overprotective dads before, but that sounds like a worst-case scenario kind of thing,” Peter said, kicking up his feet on the coffee table. “Relax, Gamora. We’ll deal with it together, like we always do.” He began shoveling his food into his mouth with abandon. “I mean,” he continued, spraying chunks everywhere, “Thanos has been threatening to rain hell on the school for ages. It’s gonna take him like, six years to actually do anything, as far as I can tell.”

“You are too relaxed about this,” Gamora said, standing up. “It’s your life on the line.” Exhaling slowly, resisting the urge to yank out one of her blades, she stalked off to her room.

An awkward silence fell over the common space. “Should I go and talk to her?” Mantis finally said, worrying the hem of her skirt between her fingers.

Peter shook his head. “No, we should just leave her be for now. I’ll go talk to her later. She’s only mad at me.” Mantis moved closer to Peter, sitting on the armrest of his chair, and draped an arm around his shoulders, patting him slowly.

“As she is on any day that ends in ‘y’,” Rocket snorted.

“I agree with the fox,” Nebula said. “My sister finds you particularly annoying.”

“Yeah, well, what else is new,” Peter said resignedly.

______

A couple hours after dinner, Gamora was lost in her argumentative essay on superhero ethics. She and the Guardians had not participated in the Academy’s infamous civil war of last year, but she still maintained it was a rather pointless thing to fight about.

Knock. Knock. “Gamora? It's Peter. Can I come in?”

She sighed. “Yes.”

Peter walked in slowly, clearly freshly showered. His hair was damp and slightly sticking to his forehead, and there was a wet spot on his T-shirt where he hadn't dried himself off enough. She also spotted a slight knick in his neck where he had cut himself shaving. Internally shaking herself, she nodded to indicate she was ready to talk.

“I didn't mean to brush you off earlier,” Peter said. “I just think that there's no point in worrying right now. But if I was worrying, I’d be way more worried about you than me if Thanos comes knocking. I mean, let's face it, I'll be dead in two seconds flat. But he knows how to hurt you. And that's way worse.”

“How is that worse?” Gamora looked down at her book, not seeing the words printed before her. “Maybe I deserve it.”

“Oh, no, Gamora, no way.” Peter immediately moved to sit across from her, their legs brushing once again. “You can't think like that, okay? You're super amazing, and a badass hero. Thanos did some really shady stuff to you and Nebula, and you came out of it wanting to help people.”

She smiled despite herself. “You don't have to be so kind, Quill. I'm not actually your girlfriend.”

“No, but you're kind of my best friend,” Peter confessed rather shyly. “Well, unless Yondu helps me get a pretty big score. Then he's my best friend for like, a few days. But usually it's you.”

“Oh.” Gamora didn't know what to say. “I don't know how to be a best friend.”

“You don't have to know how to be one, you just are one. Here.” Peter pressed a small object into her hands. “I found this in that haul Rocket got from his trip to Halfworld. It's some modified Terran weapon.”

Gamora turned it over in her hands, feeling the grooves of the small metal item. It appeared to be a simple pocket knife, until her finger grazed one of the buttons and a series of small weapons popped out from the side, including a lock pick and a laser.

“I don't know how effective it actually is,” Peter admitted, “but I have no use for it. I'm more of a guns guy. So, um, happy one-week-fake-relationship anniversary?”

“Oh,” Gamora said again. “I don't have anything for you.”

He chuckled. “It's not really for that. I just thought you might want it. Anyways, I’ve said my piece. Are you still, uh, mad at me?”

She smiled softly, running her finger along the blade. It was dull, but with a little work, it could prove useful. “I am always a little bit mad at you. But no. Not anymore.” Then she sighed, releasing a breath she didn't know she was holding in. “Pitiful, isn't it? It’s the first Friday night since we got here that I haven't been able to play a show at Club Galaxy. Instead, we’re stuck here. No missions, either.”

“We could always ‘borrow’ a Quinjet,” Peter suggested impishly. “We’ll get you those new amps, Gamora. But in the meantime, maybe talk to Vision, see if he'll take the night off from DJing and let you do a set at Club A.”

“I suppose if I borrow one of the Winter Soldier’s guitars, it could work,” she said thoughtfully. “You’ve been having a decent amount of good ideas lately.”

Peter puffed his chest out exaggeratedly. “Damn straight.” He tilted his head, considering Gamora carefully. Her hair was plaited with some of Groot’s flowers woven in, the stark white of the petals contrasting the dark reddish-purple tones of her hair. She looked quite soft, and Peter almost wanted to reach out and touch it if not for the fear of losing his arm from the elbow down. “So, you still think this fake relationship thing is a good idea?”

“It was technically Rocket’s idea, not yours,” she teased. “I am worried about the repercussions, but I suppose in the end, it's no different than taking on galaxy-wide missions. Thanos will be a threat regardless. At least this way, we will earn money with little effort.”

“That's more like it,” Peter declared, standing up. “You planning on going back to the dorms? I can walk you back.” Gamora raised an eyebrow. “Okay, more like I'll walk back with you.”

“I'm too sleepy to bother,” she admitted. “My bed here, although awful, is sometimes more comforting than the one in my dorm.” She watched as Peter walked to the door, and worried at her bottom lip. “What was that movie? The one with the rats and the poison and the sword fighting?”

“Of course that's how you remember The Princess Bride,” Peter laughed, shaking his head as he turned back around to face her. “You liked that one?”

“Yes.” Gamora nodded, setting the small weapon aside and shutting her book. “I wouldn't mind watching it again.”

He tilted his head again as he assessed her, curious about what she was up to. Was Gamora volunteering to spend time with him that had nothing to do with school or Guardians business? “I'll go grab the tape,” Peter said, fondness seeping into his voice. It made Gamora feel oddly warm. After he disappeared, she laid back onto her bed and stared up at the ceiling, where Peter had put glow-in-the-dark puffy stickers in the shapes of constellations (“I have too many,” he had said, “unless I wanna wallpaper the place with ‘em.”). They were quite inaccurately placed, as she later learned when consulting the Terran night sky in one of Odin’s lectures, but she remembered the nervous smile on Peter’s face as he stepped back to turn off the light and admire his handiwork (“Well? What do you think?”).

“You are a strange one, Peter Quill,” Gamora murmured to herself, folding her hands over her chest.

______

The next morning delved into complete and utter chaos. Although Gamora had been hoping for a relatively calm Saturday for finishing her homework and getting a training session in at the Combat Simulator, she was instead unceremoniously woken up by the sound of Rocket racing through the Milano, his claws clicking frantically on the metal floor plates, yelling about how the Sovereign had come back.

“Where's Adam?” Peter exclaimed as he burst out of his room, hastily yanking a shirt on. “If his damn sister is involved - ”

“Of course it's his sister, who else in the Sovereign would care enough to attack us again?!” The sounds of crashing and metal items tumbling everywhere echoed through the ship. “Dammit, we’re gonna have to haul the weapons to one of the Quinjets.”

“I’ll contact Stark.” Gamora raced up the ladder to the cockpit, ignoring Rocket’s protests, to settle down into her chair and pull up Tony’s contact. “Stark, it’s Gamora. The Sovereign are about to attack the school again. We need to find Warlock and get him over here to us, and we need to borrow a Quinjet since the Milano is down.”

“Understood, I've already sent him a message and he should be on his way,” Tony said, his voice crackling sharply over the malfunctioning comms system. “I'll get Pepper to send over the Quinjet access codes, and a couple bots to get you guys some more of those intergalactic weapons I built from last time.”

Gamora let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Stark.”

“Let's get it done,” Tony said confidently. “Hey, so what's this I’m hearing about you and Peter? I was under the impression he was a ladies’ man like me. Not to knock you, of course, if I had the chance to date a girl like you I would take it, but - ”

“And you've ruined it,” Gamora said dryly, rolling her eyes. “Goodbye, Stark.”

______

Fifteen minutes later, the Guardians were wheels up on one of the Quinjets, with Adam not too far behind. As always, Rocket and Peter were at the controls with Gamora assisting with navigation. Mantis was attempting to comfort Groot, who was cranky from being woken up and scared at the prospect of another attack, and Drax was attempting to organize the frankly ridiculous amount of weapons that Rocket had brought and Tony had provided. The Sovereign were descending from above as they always did by the hundreds, with completely empty, remote-piloted craft, identical haughty expressions of arrogance on every screen.

“I thought she was gonna leave us alone,” Adam said over the comms. “I'll talk to her, I promise.”

“How does she even have lackeys left? I thought she pissed off all the other priestesses with her attitude,” Peter said, dodging an incoming blast. Rocket let out a manic laugh as he shot down the Sovereign craft that had been responsible for it.

“She really wants the Infinity Gauntlet,” Adam sighed, his exhale causing the speakers to emit sudden, sharp feedback. Gamora winced and moved to adjust the volume dials. “Hey, Gamora, by the way, if you have some free time after this, I heard you were having trouble with the equipment at Club Galaxy. Do you want some help? I am, after all, a cosmic rock god.”

“That’s debatable,” Peter muttered under his breath, reaching to check the Quinjet’s thruster levels. There was no guarantee they could climb as high as they usually would with the Milano, but damn if he wasn’t going to try.

“I suppose you could take a look, but they’re basically dead,” Gamora said. She paused to cling at her armrests as the ship was rattled by another near-miss of a shot. “Thank you, though. I was going to see if the Winter Soldier had an acoustic guitar I could borrow for the time being, and play a show at Club A while I wait for some money.”

Adam snorted. “No offense to Bucky, but the acoustic guitar? That’s not your thing, Gamora. You freaking melt faces when you shred on your guitar, sometimes literally. Let me take a look at your equipment. Tonight at 8?”

“Are we really having this conversation right now?” Rocket hollered. “We got some Sovereign douchebags making a go for the dorms!” He proceeded to gun down another five craft with a strong cry of victory.

“I’ll see you then,” Gamora said quickly before cutting the communication line. She looked up to see that Peter had tried his best to maneuver the Quinjet perpendicular to the ground, with little success. It simply wasn’t built for the same purpose as the Milano, as powerful as it may be. “Quill, this isn’t going to work.”

“It’s gonna work,” Peter insisted. “As long as I keep flying and Rocket keeps shootin’, we’ll - SON OF A - !”

Gamora could only watch in horror as the glass in front of Peter’s face was struck by about five energy blasts at once, piercing a hole clean through and sending a spray of shards everywhere. It was only Peter’s and Rocket’s self-preservation instincts to duck and screw their eyes shut that prevented them from being horribly injured, though she could see bits embedding themselves in Peter’s skin and Rocket’s fur.

She shot out of her seat and ran for the front, hollering back to Drax to take her position, grabbing the controls from Peter as the Quinjet tumbled hopelessly, rolling and causing Rocket to be flung out of his seat and slammed into the wall beside him, knocking him out. Drax was trying desperately to get in contact with the Director, Pepper, Maria, anyone, and Mantis was frantically shushing Groot, who had started to cry.

Peter managed to scramble himself back up properly, though he appeared to be bleeding from several little cuts along his forehead and hands. Gamora had no time to ask him he if he was okay, though, pushing the controls back into his hands and running over to scoop up Rocket and set him down on one of the passenger benches, strapping him in so he wouldn’t roll around.

“We’re gonna crash-land, Gamora,” Peter called to her, and his voice was much weaker than she wanted to hear. There was a raspiness that made her eyes wander to his throat, causing her heart to leap once more - tiny bits of glass, embedded in his neck.

“Shh, don’t talk, Quill,” she said desperately as she ran back to fling herself into Rocket’s seat. “Just get us back on the ground, and we’ll let the others take it from here, okay?”

Energy blasts continued to rattle the Quinjet around, rolling til they were nearly flipped upside down, causing Drax to let out an alarmed shout from behind as he clung onto his armrests for dear life. He managed to mash the buttons to get him back to the comm line. “HELLO? IS ANYONE THERE? WE ARE ABOUT TO DIE!”

“Not on my watch,” Peter rasped, leaning forward to put some weight on his elbows, forcing strength back into his arms long enough to direct the Quinjet downwards onto one of the open fields of the Academy’s campus. “Strap...in.”

“Warlock is back on the ground,” a voice finally said, filled with static. It vaguely sounded like Maria Hill. “Agent 13 is leading a fleet of SHIELD agents up to the battle, and they’re loaded with enough atmospheric smoke bombs to drive the Sovereign away. Get yourself on land, now, Guardians.”

“Wha’d’ya think we’re tryin’ to do,” Peter wheezed, glancing over to watch Gamora shooting down about six more Sovereign craft. “G’mora…’m angling us downwards now...try not to blast anything.”

“What? No, we have to - ”

She was cut off by her own anguished yell as a rather large piece of glass tore through her thigh, pinning her to the seat. An immediate agonizing heat flared up in her leg and made its way up her torso, causing her stomach to roll, threatening to empty its contents everywhere. Screwing her eyes shut, she let go of the controls and turned herself away from the dashboard as much as she could. For an agonizing two minutes, all she could hear was Peter’s laboured breathing, Groot’s frantic cries, and the constant, crushing sounds of the Quinjet being torn apart, whizzing past her ears dizzyingly, endlessly.

The last thing she remembered was choking on her own breath as smoke filled the Quinjet’s cabin before she blacked out.

a/n: whoops there goes another destroyed ship and it’s only been three chapters, guardians wyd

also i admittedly know very little about adam, so 100% of his characterization is from the game, where he’s a rockstar who wants to help the guardians defeat his sister, and that’s basically it.

#marvel #starmora #peter x gamora #gotg #avengers academy #myfic #myfic: 20q #in other news ao3 google docs and ms word are all giving me different word counts #what is the truth *shakes fist*#the word count is now just a ballpark figure and not really gospel tbh

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doppeldonger · 7 years

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Well, I guess, a favorite Borderlands ship of mine would have to be Rhys/Timothy. My favorite time of day would be around sunset. And an emotion would be... oh I don't know... Envious?

There’s a tall figure standing by the grand windows when he enters the office, watching the city almost fifty floors down buzz with life. The sun has started to set, which gives the inhabitants about four hours to bask in the golden light reflecting off of the windows of the various buildings, architecture crisp and meticulously ostentatious.

He walks towards the person clad in a magnificent shade of midnight blue, fully aware of how shabby his own clothes look in comparison; all the wear-and-tear of the wildlife out there is taking its toll on his clothes as well as he himself, after all.

His boss turns to look at Timothy with a genuine smile on his face, opening his arms in a welcoming gesture. His mismatched eyes are bright with excitement, warm happiness gracing his features when the ex vault hunter walks up to him with a tired smile of his own (which is plastered on his face out of courtesy rather than actual joy, to be honest).

Standing just a feet away from his superior, Timothy regards Rhys with a thoughtful expression, choosing to ignore the hug the other was hoping to get. Rhys actually pouts, disappointment contorting his beautiful baby face. Timothy isn’t fooled, however, so he simply walks past the other man with a scoff and stands by the spot Rhys has recently vacated, absentmindedly watching the city below.

Rhys has changed, that much is certain; not a downright trip to ‘murderous psychopath’ like Jack once did, but a change nonetheless. Timothy wasn’t around him when it started, triggered by the AI haunting the cyborg’s mind, but he’s been around Rhys for long enough to notice the differences occurring through time.

He’s gotten smarter, to begin with, and definitely more cunning. He can actually manipulate people, be it with his good looks, mercy or money. He can get downright ruthless when circumstances need him to be, and Timothy wonders if Rhys actually enjoys being so. The bastard has an air of arrogance and pompousness he carries like a prized medallion; he deserves to be like this after all his hard work, doesn’t he?

Somehow, despite the gentle, loving exterior Rhys sports, he has become self-preserved over time; he hides his true feelings along with his intentions under layers and layers of masks not unlike the multi-layered clothes he so lovingly wears.

And he runs Atlas with an iron fist.

Rhys’s Atlas isn’t merciless and empty like old Atlas, but it’s not filled with hubris and backstabbing like Hyperion either. Well, let’s say just not as much.

Honestly, Timothy feels like he got off the lap of one powerful CEO to fall into another’s at this point. He frowns as the sunset washes over him along with everything else, hands tucked angrily into his pockets.

He continues to stand there, frozen in time like a statue, stubbornly ignoring the man coming to stand next to him. Rhys seems to consider placing a friendly hand on Timothy’s shoulder, but decides against it when the other man throws him a look that shows that he sees the hand as nothing more than a claw about to strike him.

Timothy is angry at himself more than anything at this point, because he knows, deep in his heart, that he can’t help but continue being in the orbit of a man in the position of power. It’s not because his brain or heart (or hell, his dick) dictates him to…

…it’s because he’s envious.

He envies the money, the power, the fancy clothes and expensive cars. He’s envious of Rhys’s guns, of his apartment, of his office.

But the most important of all, he’s envious of Rhys’s happiness.

Being the man with a tyrant’s face that’s long bitten the dust in a now-forgotten vault, the attitude he has to put up with on a daily basis ranges from mild annoyance to downright insults; and despite all the precautions Rhys has taken against the shitty response Timothy is getting, it just continues.

But then again Timothy has changed, too. He has suffered Jack’s abuse (first-hand, unlike Rhys), he escaped and hid, he fought and survived. All alone, until one random accident, one hiccup in well-woven plans had Rhys and Timothy meet; just their weird luck… or fate, maybe.

While Rhys ruled the company he came to own thanks to being the ultimate fanboy (and the ultimate destruction) of Handsome Jack, Timothy ended up traveling the shithole planet, first for Jack himself, then for him.

Rhys climbed the stairs of corporate assholery five steps at a time, finding Opportunity among the wilderness of Pandora and building it anew. The city, now aptly named Serenity, houses ex-Hyperion workers as well as Pandorans and Hyperion bots who have gained sentience since Handsome Jack’s death.

Timothy stayed as the underdog, nothing but an errand boy sent to look for tech that could improve Atlas and recruits that could help the company grow. He got better with guns and vault hunting, with torture and destruction; he grew stronger, and he grew numb.

And despite everything, he stayed; always static as opposed to Rhys’s dynamic, and unlike the reason of his anger right now, it is not envy or despair that chains him to the other man. Deep inside, he knows the Atlas CEO didn’t do anything to ruin Timothy’s life; and although he’s vexed, he can’t take his anger out on Rhys, because none of it is his fault.

They’re so like and unlike Jack, and they share so many similarities with and differences from one another that they grew fond of each other, and grew together.

“What are you angry at?” Soft words snap him out of his annoyed reverie, he realizes he’s been giving Rhys a deep, dangerous frown, his lips pulled taut in an almost-snarl.

“You.” He crosses his arms.

Rhys looks confused for a moment (of course he does, that bastard) and inclines his head to the side, “Why?”

Timothy curls in on himself and growls, “I don’t know.”

Rhys chances to move closer to the other man despite the glare he receives, “I think you do.” He gently caresses the other man’s cheek with his flesh hand, fingers catching on the scar branded on his skin. Timothy tries to shake him off, albeit only half-heartedly. His reluctance to punch Rhys gives the taller man enough courage to get close, crowding Timothy’s personal space; he snakes his arms around the former doppelgänger, nuzzling into his neck, breathing in the familiar scent of Timothy. “Someone pissed you off again?” Rhys mumbles into the other’s skin, leaving a kiss along with the question. Timothy graces him with more of his annoyed growls, but Rhys counts it as a win when the other leans into his touch.

“Same old, same old.” Timothy replies, eyes not meeting Rhys’s. The CEO can feel the other tense under his arms, “Just tell me.” His voice is cold and distant, not because of Timothy, but because of the currently-anonymous asshole who dared upset his lover. A quiet “Nevermind.” earns the shorter man a shake and he eventually gives up, turning to look up at Rhys.

“Gosh, just… stop with the face already.” he chides, gently hitting Rhys’s chest to stop him from worrying his lower lip between his teeth so hard. “It was just some idiots who said someone like me shouldn’t be with you.”

“Were these their exact words? Come now, Tim, don’t sugarcoat it for me; I’m a big boy, I can handle it.” Rhys’s lighthearted tone makes Timothy snicker involuntarily for a moment.

“Well… it was more like 'a piece of trash like him has no right to be the CEO’s bitch’ but yeah, you get the meaning.” There’s a crease forming between Rhys’s brows, and that alone is enough to ring alarm bells in Timothy’s head. Something bad is gonna happen and he can’t say he complains.

“Did they say it all to your face?” the CEO asks, pulling the other closer to him protectively. Timothy can appreciate the notion, although it’s silly.

“They were talking behind my back, but noticing I was hearing everything they said didn’t change anything, as they continued to mock me in my face.”

“Okay, tell me who they are, describe them to me, and I’ll take this matter in my hands.” He sounds so damn cold, and so damn sure of himself that Timothy is all the more envious of him.

“Just let it go, okay? It’s not like they’re wrong anyway.” He makes a move to turn away from Rhys, but the other man prevents him from doing so.

“What do you mean?”

Timothy sighs and pets Rhys’s cheek mock-affectionately, “For a big company’s CEO, you’re awfully dense sometimes, Rhys.” He turns in the other man’s arms to face him, gently interlocking his fingers behind Rhys’s head. “Just look at me. See me for who I represent to all these people. They have every right to despise me, I’m honestly surprised they haven’t offed me yet. We both suffered, Rhys, I know; but you ended up cleansing yourself of your mistakes and sins while I stayed the same, all the more hated, just because I have this stupid face.” Trying to swallow the lump in his throat along with the tears in his eyes, Timothy focuses on the view outside once again, sniffling slightly.

Rhys’s hands grip his waist all the more tightly, “Tim…”

“Don’t 'Tim…’ me-”

“No, you listen to me, alright? I love you, Timothy Lawrence, I love you with all my heart. You’re one of the bravest, funniest and most resourceful people I’ve had the chance to meet; and as cliché as it sounds, you’re something else. I can’t even imagine what you must have gone through in the past, and I can’t possibly relate to how you feel right now; but I’m here for you, always. I care about you and your well being, more so than you yourself do. So just… don’t leave me out when you’re having problems, with other people or with your own past and demons.” Rhys sighs, searching the other man’s face, “I guess we’re just different kinds of fucked up and that’s how we clicked so well the moment we met.” Timothy lets out a wet laugh at that, hugging Rhys close. “So… promise me we’ll always talk, share and figure things out no matter what?” he asks, voice muffled by Timothy’s collar. The other man raises his head, giving him a nod.

As it is custom to end every climactic argument with a heated kiss, their mouths find each other, a gentle caress breezing through their lips. Timothy sighs into the kiss and so does Rhys; but before they can take it to the next level, the CEO leans back, “You still haven’t told me these assholes’ names.”

Timothy gives him a lopsided, entertained grin, “There’s no need, Rhys, they’re already dead.”

Unbelievable. The man just went full drama queen over a bunch of people he already got rid of. Rhys shakes his head and matches the other man’s grin. They have grown in the past years, but some characteristics stay the same throughout one’s life, it seems.

Thanks for the request, @hyperioncompanyman, I hope this is to your liking!

#borderlands #borderlands the pre sequel #Tales from the Borderlands #timothy lawrence #Rhys the Company man #dongart #fanfic

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