Just reread the whole scs tag and now I want to see Three's first meeting with Etho (Iirc the clip of Grian being scared of Etho sneaking around and then seeming to teleport outside the ice shop is Grian's first meeting with Etho? (And it was season 7.) And I think the "two nervous animals stare at each other" vibes could fit.)
Three is nervous.
It has heard of Etho before. Etho is very high on the threat rankings it had memorized; Etho is considered more of a threat than is currently worth taking out; Etho is, apparently, a legend even around Players who do not understand quite how much of a threat he is. There are standing orders and plans still programmed into Three on how to take him out in a way that would not make a martyr of him. Three thinks many of these plans are stupid.
Three--
Three is nervous. It has heard of Etho before, and it does not know if Etho would have heard of a Blade before, or if any of that would get in the way of it conversing with Etho. Three is relatively confident it could beat Etho in a fight. For all Etho is a threat, he is merely a Player, and Three is a Blade. That had never been why Etho is a threat. That had...
Mumbo had promised Etho was not mean. Three had asked Mumbo what that had to do with anything. Mumbo had mumbled something about how, well, if Three was worried about Etho yelling at it, then Etho wouldn't. Etho would actually also worry, Mumbo assured Three. Etho seems cool at first, but he's actually kind of awkward, Mumbo assured Three.
Three had commented that 'seeming cool at first but actually being kind of awkward' is, apparently, a common problem. It can understand why.
None of that really solves why Three is nervous, but going over the ways Etho is a threat, and the plans it has to mitigate that threat is... nice. It should not use them, because Mumbo has promised that Hermitcraft is safe. Three finds it does not want to be the reason it is not safe. Three will not mitigate the threat of Etho. Three should not have to mitigate the threat of Etho.
Three is nervous because it wants something from Etho, and doesn't have anything to offer in return.
It stands in the jungle and waits. It sees Etho arrive, because it is watching for him, but Etho seems surprised, backing away nervously on seeing Three.
"Oh. Um. Hello there. You're Mumbo's scary friend. The new one he brought here. That one. That needed help? Um, I'm Etho."
"I know. Does Mumbo describe me as scary?"
"Not usually?" Etho says.
"Oh," Three says. It does not give away its disappointment. Etho is not a handler and not another Watcher, but it is best not to give away emotions like disappointment when it wants something from him anyway.
"Is there a reason you're, uh, lurking in my base?"
Three does not fidget. It is too well-trained to. "I am here to ask a favor."
"Shoot, uh, I guess I can hear it," Etho says.
"You are making your base out of interiors, you said, in the meeting," Three says. "I--I want. I want to do that. I want--I want you to show me how to do that." The words are harder to pull out of its mouth than it thought they would be. "I do not have much to offer you. I could take care of one of your enemies, but Mumbo says Hermitcraft is safe, and I do not know if I want to do that, I just know that I want..."
Three trails off.
"Apologies. I am unclear. Will clarify," Three says.
Asking for things it wants is--hard. It's still hard. It is not good at reporting on what it wants. Etho is staring at it. Three stands perfectly still, because it is well-trained.
"Most builders aren't a big fan of interiors," Etho says slowly, "let alone a base entirely out of them. That's, uh, a big favor you're asking. Can I ask why?"
Beneath the mask, Three opens its mouth. It closes it again. It does not know how to say: because I am the thing that replaced someone who built big empty shells. Because I filled one of those empty shells. Because I could have been one of those empty shells. Because I do not want to leave behind empty shells. Because if I am gone, I want the things to leave to be knit socks and cozy rooms and laughter, not a big empty temple with a farm in the middle. Because I am Three, and I am a person, and I want the world to remember that.
What Three says instead is: "I can pay you back. I am useful."
Etho looks at Three. He rubs the back of his head. "You know, normally no one is dumb enough to give me an IOU this early in the season?" He laughs almost nervously. "Sure, man, I can teach you to make a base out of interiors. Why not."
"Thank you," Three says, and its shoulders do not slump, because it is well-trained.
"No problem. Say, what do you think about pranks?"
"I would like to learn to do those too," Three says promptly.
Etho also wears a mask. This does not stop Three from being able to tell the man is smirking.
"You know what? We're gonna get along just fine," he says. Strangely, Three believes him.
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as much as i love traditionally married dreamling - and do i - i also have this bruised softness in my heart for 'what we have is outside relationship constructs, define it at your own peril' dreamling, for 'drifting in and out of each other's orbit with each other as perennial anchor point' dreamling, 'i haven't seen you in sixty years but what's that to an immortal, you are always in my heart' dreamling, 'our lives are not quite one but neither are they apart' dreamling. drop in on me, i am always ready to welcome you. and i will always let you go.
hob as a fixture, a constancy, a hearth, and dream as a wild creature coming in from the cold. it cannot be kept, and you would commit no such sin of trying to, but it can be held, warm, before the fireplace for a while. let it go, and trust that it will come back.
hob as a wanderer, life to life to life, and dream as an ancient, enduring kingdom whose protection is reachable just by closing your eyes. continuance impossible in the waking world but offered as easily as a kiss on the cheek.
there is no keeping a dream, is the thing. and dream does not want to be kept, but he does want to be held, held and let go and held again with those arms always open to him. there is no keeping an adventurer, either, and hob is an adventurer at heart, always ready to see, do, the next thing, but adventurers need a home, too, one that doesn't mind when they come back a little bit different.
go where you need to, when you need to. carry my love with you. and come back to me.
that kind of dreamling.
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[Image ID: a digital drawing of the original poster's original characters, julian, robin, and feliks, together on a pink background with pink flowers. robin, a petite woman with short dark brown hair is grabbing and closely pulling julian, a tall, muscular, heavy-built man with brown skin and short, messy, dark brown hair, and feliks, a tall, thinner man with very pale skin, and wavy blond hair pulled half up in a ponytail. they are all wearing variations on a kind of school-style uniform, a navy sweater over a white button-up shirt, a black tie, and black bottoms. julian and feliks are wearing slack and robin is wearing a black skirt and opaque black tights. the three of them are smiling, robin and feliks with their eyes closed and julian looking lovingly at robin. /End ID]
i keep saying this but i am still working hard on moonlight valley 😭 here's a preview of a future chapter cover that i just finished and really like
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So, I don't normally post for Danny Phantom very often, but I got this idea for a story for it that I'm probably never going to write, so I figured I'd dump all my thoughts about it here just so that they'd, y'know, be somewhere. Maybe someone will pick it up and actually do something with it, or maybe it'll start floating about torturing other people's minds as it is my own, who knows!
So, this idea is based off of a fanfic for another story I read for bnha called Nevermore (which is apparently heavily by persona 4, but I don't know anything about persona so I'm taking all my info from this fic lol). Due to another character's power, everyone in this story has to go into a manifestation of their subconscious and face their Shadows. In the fic, Shadows are described as a manifestation of the darkest parts of someone's personality, or "the parts of yourself that you pretend doesn't exist". So basically, I was thinking of taking this idea and thinking about what it would do for certain DP characters.
Another quirk haha about Shadows in this story is that they tend to have abilities that are the inverse of someone's actual powers, or a corrupted form of it, and if it's not it's because whatever said person is repressing is tied to their powers. For a bnha fic of course, this is very important considering every character involved has superpowers of some sort. For Danny Phantom however, this could probably only be applied to certain characters, but it might be fun to come up with something else to reverse about each character.
I have a couple ideas for characters already. For Valerie, assuming this takes place after Destabilized, I could see her Shadow representing her conflicted feelings about hunting ghosts now, what with now knowing that Danielle and Vlad are both human and ghost, but I'm not entirely settled on that. For Jazz, I imagine her Shadow representing how she constantly has to be the adult, how it can get frustrating being relied on for everything and how she wants some freedom for herself. (Maybe there could even be a scene near the beginning foreshadowing this, where Jazz mentions waiting to go to college so she can be around the house more and Danny knows it's because she feels like she needs to watch over him.) I could see Sam and Tucker's Shadows actually being found together and working together (a reverse of all their differing opinions and how this causes them to get into fights often), but they begin to argue and get into a huge fight when talking about Danny's accident, both of them blaming themselves for what happened. Maybe other students could be involved too, but idk exactly what would work for all of them, especially since most of them are literally background characters with no speaking lines.
But the one I've thought the most about is (as you might expect) Danny himself. Now, Danny would probably go into this situation thinking that his Shadow is going to expose him being Phantom to everyone there (which wouldn't be a problem if it were just Jazz Sam and Tucker, but that's where all the secondary and background characters come in to play). So while everyone else is dealing with their Shadows, he's trying to figure out how to get out of this with his secret identity still intact. (Maybe he and his friends split off from the group to find his on their own? Maybe they find his, but the Shadow tells him no and that he'll only show himself once all the others have been dealt with? Maybe one or two more people follow behind them and ask them what the hell they were talking about?) Eventually tho, Danny comes to the conclusion that there's no way out of it at this point, and that he should just get it over with asap so nobody gets hurt. They all finally meet Danny's Shadow, who tries to speak. Before he can say anything tho, Danny stops him and outs his secret himself, getting everything off his chest. With everyone there knowing he's Danny Phantom, he no longer has any secrets to keep, and his Shadow will go away and they'll be free, right?
But then his Shadow calls him stupid for thinking it'd be that easy. The thing he represses the most isn't the fact that he's Phantom. It isn't even his evil future self or anything relating to his secret identity. Danny's biggest secret is something he's kept hidden even from himself. The thing he represses the most is how much he blames himself for the ghosts attacks. After all, he's the one who got the portal to open, and without the portal there'd be no way for the ghosts to even get to Amity Park. In a way, Danny's subconscious equates this to him bringing the ghosts to town.
And here, I'm actually taking some inspiration from the Portal au too, because to represent Danny's guilt about the ghosts coming through the portal, Danny's Shadow is the portal.
(I even got some amazing art done by @darling-has-a-smol-heart for Danny's Shadow, but it's got some gore and body horror elements going on, so I'm putting it under the cut)
But anyway, that's basically the gist of it lol
(Left picture has slight afterimage effects, right picture has no effects)
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