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michelangelinden · 1 year

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Colors blooming around us (this will go down in our history)

Merry Christmas Lea!!!!

I hope you had the best day, had good food, and enjoyed your presents! Ily!!!

You posted that drawing and I immediately knew I had to write a fic about it. I hope you enjoy it!!

(drawing in the middle by @lyxchen, used with permission)

Thanks @sunsetcurbed for beta reading <3

Taglist in the reblog, I'll post this on AO3 in a couple days <3

Alex lets his sticks hit the cymbal one last time before he allows the sound to ring out. Around him his friends have lifted their hands off their instruments, are leaning away from their mics, the last notes echoing through the gigantic hall in front of them.

Alex always says that that gig at the Orpheum has been the most important gig of their career. He’s right of course, it’s what got them the attention of labels, which eventually got them signed.

But this show feels important like that. It’s in the middle of their first Europe tour. They’re playing at their biggest venue yet. They have an entire camera crew filming every angle of them, so they can cut it into a movie of their concert. And they have special bits planned for this show that they’re not doing at others. One of them is going to happen during the next song.

Alex feels like his veins are vibrating. Both from the adrenaline of the show that is going the best it can, but also from nervousness and excitement about what he is about to do. When he looks around at his friends, he sees that they’re not feeling much different. Julie is breathing heavily from having sung her heart out, Luke’s chest is already bare, feeling too hot and constricted in his shirt, and Reggie and Bobby keep shaking and brushing their hair away from their foreheads. Alex is no longer wearing his hat, too scared that it will fall off.

He locks eyes with Luke. Luke is grinning at him, raising his eyebrows in a question. Alex doesn’t hesitate before he nods. Luke’s grin widens and he winks.

Alex lets out a slow breath and chances a look at the audience. He can’t see much further than the first few rows, stage lights are burning bright in his eyes, but he clearly sees how the masses of people—they really are masses tonight—are all cheering, shouting, crying. It’s overwhelming to see so many people being here just for you. Celebrating with you.

Alex manages to catch Willie’s eyes in the crowd. He’s standing at the front, in the very center. Alex wonders if they’ve told the people around them who they are. As soon as their gazes lock, Willie cheers loudly, and Alex likes to think he can hear their voice through the shouts of everyone else. He’s so excited that Willie is here tonight, coming all the way from the US to the UK to support him. Willie has no idea what’s about to happen, but Alex knows that he’s gonna love it.

Julie turns around to look at all of them. They all nod at her to let her know they’re ready. Smiling, she turns and sits down at the piano standing a bit to the side. The crowd goes wild, even though they don’t know what song they’re gonna be playing next.

“This next song is from our first album and it’s special in many ways,” Julie speaks into her mic. “Our beautiful drummer helped write it,” she lifts a hand to show off Alex while the crowd applauds for him, “and we filmed an amazing music video for it, that to this day, is the most clicked video on our channel.” The crowd cheers once again, now that people realize what song she is mentioning. “And for a good reason,” Julie continues, setting her hands on the key, “it’s our queer anthem.”

She doesn’t actually say the name of the song, but she doesn’t have to, just plays the first chord. She holds it until the crowd calms down a little, giving the song the weight it deserves. Then she continues, playing the intro of the song.

Alex adjusts his sticks in his hand. He still has a couple of beats until he starts playing, so he checks his surroundings. Everything is where it’s supposed to be. Or rather nothing is where it’s not supposed to be. There are no stray wires, no boxes, and the little step at his riser is in the correct spot. He’s ready. Now he just has to wait for his turn.

“Hearts on fire, we're no liars, so we say what we wanna say,” Julie begins to sing. People are joining in, knowing the words by heart just like they do on stage.

Alex catches Willie grinning up at him again, and he grins back easily.

“I'm awakened, no more fakin', so we push all our fears away.”

In the studio version Julie does the first verse and the pre-chorus by herself, but to give it more wham on stage, Reggie and Bobby are already tuning in with their instruments once the first verse is over. Julie looks over at them when they join as she begins the pre-chorus, adding depth to her piano playing, and together they lead the band into the chorus.

With a bang, Alex and Luke join the party. Luke and Julie sing together, their voices forming the harmonies that makes their sound so beautiful, and Alex finally adds the rhythm he’s worked so hard on. But the best thing is what happens around them.

As soon as they start playing the chorus, colors bloom around them. Bright, rainbow lighting tints the stage into a giant pride flag and has the crowd screaming. They’ve likely seen photos of it, the Gay Times wrote an article about it when they started touring, but to experience it themselves must be ten times better.

As Julie continues into the second verse, the colors around them shift. First it turns blue, purple, and pink, the bi flag proudly shining around them. Then the colors shift to pink, turquoise, and yellow, the pan flag. Just as Luke joins Julie again for the pre-chorus, someone throws a trans flag on stage, and Luke leaves his mic for a second to grab it. He holds it high in the air as the lights change to match the colors, a powerful sign of trans pride. Alex’s chest glows with admiration.

More flags join the round—ace, nonbinary, lesbian, aro, agender, just to name a few. Alex remembers sitting in the studio, brainstorming for the show, and coming up with this idea. He’d been hesitant at first, unsure if it would be possible or too much effort, but as soon as he told the others about it and they’ve been strongly in favor of it, Flynn promised to insist on it happening. She immediately started talking to their light technician about what was possible, drafted a design and an order for the flags, and made notes to plaster light sensitivity warnings all over the walls and doors of the venue and have the band repeat it on stage too. It was worth it. It all turned out so beautifully.

Julie and Luke lead into the second chorus. Alex’s turn is inching closer, and he almost slips up his rhythm. Reggie shoots him a glance and Alex responds with a nod. Reggie turns to the crowd again, but now with a giddy smile on their face.

The stage lights turn to the classic rainbow again and the chorus ends. That’s Alex’s cue to go.

While Julie and Luke slide into the bridge, Alex stuffs his sticks into his pocket and slips out from behind the drums. Confused sounds, shouts of questions come from the crowd as Alex, who is usually so content with staying behind his drums, moves to the front of the stage. His heart rate has tripled in speed, at least, as he gets to the edge of it. Julie and Luke begin the lyrics of the bridge.

A bodyguard meets Alex as he sits at the edge, helping him hop down to the pit. Just six feet separate him from the crowd, safely behind the barricades, and he sees about a hundred phone cameras facing him, as well as at least two of their camera crew. Only one person is standing still and staring, right in the center of it. Willie.

“And you’re a part of me,” Luke responds to Julie on the stage.

Alex steps up to the barricades, the bodyguard holding a secure arm around his middle.

“What are you doing?” Willie shouts at him over the cheers of the people surrounding them.

“I’m going to kiss you!” Alex shouts back. It’s barely audible over the sound from the stage and the singing of everyone around them.

“Now till eternity,” Luke continues to mirror what Julie is singing.

“Okay!” Willie responds, and Alex’s heart soars. He quickly steps up to them, taking their face in his hands, and Willie grabs a hold of the front of his hoodie.

“Been so long and now we’re finally free,” Julie sings, and right as her voice goes high on the last word, Alex kisses Willie.

The crowd erupts into madness. Alex knows it’s visible on the screens left and right from the stage, they made sure of that. He imagines the phones being pushed right into his face as everyone tries to get a good video. But all he chooses to focus on is Willie in front of him, holding him, kissing him back with as much enthusiasm as Alex is giving. Being surrounded by people screaming and shouting, his friend’s voice ringing from the speakers, all while being kissed by his favorite person, has Alex’s head spinning in the best way possible. He’s kissed Willie many times before, but he knows that this kiss, even though it’s not much more than their lips slotted together, will go down in the history of their relationship.

Alex pulls away when Julie’s note ends. They added a short guitar solo for Bobby to bridge the time for Alex to get back, but he only has a good 30 seconds until he has to sit behind his drums again.

“I love you!” he shouts at Willie before he books it, blindly using the bodyguard as leverage to get up the stage again. He’s not even able to wait for Willie’s response, but he knows that it’s probably a shouted “I love you too!”

He twists around Julie and Luke, ducks around the neck of Reggie’s bass, and slides the last couple feet to his setup. He takes a little more care as he climbs behind his drums, too anxious to kick something over. Grabbing his sticks and pretentiously spinning one, he locks eyes with Julie, and on the correct beat, she and him jump back into the song.

Their last chorus is a party. Bobby and Reggie join him on the riser, nodding their heads to his rhythm, before Reggie will take a leap off it as the song ends. The crowd is dancing with them, shouting the lyrics back at them.

Alex feels like they’re all experiencing the same shift in energy, going from Moment, to Movement. A bisexual Latina and a trans man sharing the center of a huge stage, masses of people coming to see and celebrate with them. A nonbinary person and their queerplatonic partner sharing that stage and actively taking space. A gay man jumping off that stage to go and kiss his boyfriend on camera, screaming “I love you” at them, getting everyone to look at them. That’s the world Alex strives to live in.

And when Julie closes off the song with her gentle words, Luke, Reggie, and Bobby lift the hands off their strings, Alex stands up, raising his sticks into the air, and the crowd doesn’t get a hold of itself for almost five minutes, then he knows that they’ll get there. And their little movement is just one step into that direction.

#this drawing my absolute beloved #thanks for sharing it with the world #i hope the fic matches what you imagined when drawing it <33 #merry christmas!!#linden writes stuff #lea tag #julie and the phantoms #willex #alex mercer #willie jatp #pushing the aroace!bobby agenda #and also nonbinary Reggie in this one #beloveds

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carnivalcarriondiscarded · 3 months

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most of you will not understand the agony of this outfit. but hey here's fantasy au Howdy!

rambles:

yes. i know. he looks like a gunslinger. but I think it'd be funny if Howdy shows up and he minorly tweaks the genre simply by Existing! plus, he has to make himself useful beyond being a traveling salesman - he doesn't have a scrap of magic in him! so! alchemist gunslinger!

due to much of this "final" outfit design being Miguel's (@indigopoptart <3 thanks for your help homeslice <3) influence, i have less to say than usual! i'll talk about the things i Kept from the first terrible, terrible draft!

i wanted him to have full-coverage gloves because One, gloves fuck, & Two, shooting gloves! plus, he regularly works with dangerous materials! gotta keep his hands as safe as possible! speaking of his guns, they were a Ton of fun to draw. i wanted to make them ornate... Howdy seems like he'd enjoy nice things? fancy stuff perhaps? anyway the guns have his tavern "logo" on them!

the "second safety" mentioned triggers a magic-oriented mechanism that allows him to piece the guns together! they "unfold" into a big ol clusterfuck of a powerhouse weapon! unfortunately, using this immediately breaks the guns and they have to be repaired, so it's a "break glass in case of emergency" ace up the Neighborhood's sleeve!

i like to imagine that his bandolier, while cool, stresses everyone out a little bit. each bullet is full of pressurized weaponized magic. If they break while on the bandolier, well! Howdy would probably be very much Royally Fucked! i also drew the bullets too large here, so imagine that there's a lot more than shown and they're a lot smaller. I didn't realize this mistake until right now! oopsies!

i want to keep elements of the canon outfits in these fantasy ones. hence why his vest is striped and blue, he's still got the reddish brown pants, and! why his cloak clasp is shaped like a tie! and why the inside of his cloak resembles his apron!

i like to think that Howdy got his magic pack by swindling some poor soul out of it! when the buckles are undone, it unfolds into a vendor stand that looks Much different than the tiny scribble provided! said scribble is there to ah... what's the word. Demonstrate? get the point across? it's actually quite a nice stall! he has space to sell, and a workbench to tinker on! the pockets on the bag actually do function as pockets, though.

#'why does he have a ponytail' yeah i dont have an excuse for that one #im projecting my mullet & mullet-esque hairstyle loving self i suppose!#he's just like me now....#< nah im jesting! my back floof isnt nearly that long!#anyway howdy my absolute beloved <3 #hes so funny. i love thinking about him #in general but also this is an au post! thinking about That!#i love it when he comes along on adventures #everyone is having downtime and he's on the side of the road handling volatile materials and bothering passersby #its a good thing he's coordinated! probably!#he's coordinated right? ehhhh i have faith that he is #scribble salad #wh fantasy au #ohhhh i should draw him with his hood up...#OHHHH I SHOULD DRAW A LIL FANTASY AU RAINY DAY THING #< i say this as if i have the energy!#its been low lately... very low...#i love being tired and drained for literally no reason!

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