Scene: Thunderhead Savanna with Familiar Buff Dunerunner.
Also pairs well with the Lightning Gryphon.
Addendum: This is the Golem Workshop partner to that Engineer. I unfortunately don't have the dragon for this just yet, but I'll be using a Baroclinic Hunter for this. How well you can get the steam mask to look well depends heavily on the breed and pose unfortunately. Still looks great without it though.
Also, male Guardian looks very sad with this outfit.
look okay I KNOW I said I was going to upload chapter 6 of we are fleeting, we are feeling today but I accidentally blacked out and started writing a new fic that's david centric instead 💔 but since it'll be a one-shot it'll be a while before it's done, so here's the intro because im very proud of it and I need validation more than I need to breathe
Okay okay I wrote like three angsty ones, I'll do a nice one.
I really love ghost fics so I'll take this as an excuse to do that (so like, CW for past character death ig). I'll explain how this ties into the prompt at the end, just bear with me for a while. A very long while. No, seriously, this is disgustingly long for absolutely no reason.
So we've got the Jacobs family moving into a new house for whatever reason. Let's say Meyer got a new job. The house seems fairly unassuming, a bit smaller than their old one but still nice
It also just so happens to be home to three teenage ghosts. My first instinct is to say they all died together in a tragic accident, or maybe they were all murdered by the same person. But, I promised to make this a nice one, so all of their deaths are unrelated.
Anyways, the first day in the new house, David finds himself alone in his and Les's new bedroom (He's not happy with this arrangement but the house only has two bedrooms. His parents had to put their bed in what's supposed to be the dining room) He's just unpacking and being moody about having to leave all his friends to move to a new state when he hears a weird noise from behind him.
David can see and hear the three ghosts that live in his new house. For some reason. Lovely.
After a lot of confusion and freaking out (from both David and the ghosts, who've never been seen by a living person before), he reluctantly agrees to not immediately tell his parents that he can see freaking ghosts and listen to their story.
Their names are Jack, Charlie, and Race (a nickname, apparently), and they've been haunting this house for nearly forty years. Except they didn't die together, they tell him. Race died first, despite appearing the youngest, back in the 1980s. Charlie joined him a couple decades later and Jack has only been dead for five years.
No, they didn't know each other when they were alive. Yes, they can still remember everything about their lives. No, they didn't die in this house. They each had a strong connection to it when they were alive, so their souls were bonded to it when their bodies died.
They can't leave the house, can't even step outside.
Naturally, David asks how they became ghosts. (Don't ask me how they know the answer, it's not important) When they died, they had something holding them back from crossing all the way over. They don't know exactly what it is, but until they can break free of that last chain, they're stuck as ghosts.
And while he's still not entirely convinced that he's not dreaming all this up, David has grown kinda fond of the ghosts. So he decides to help them figure out how to cross over. Easier said than done.
This wouldn't be the order that everything happens; all of their stories would be intertwined. So we'd learn a bit about Race's backstory and then we'd find something important to Charlie and then Jack would have a breakthrough, that kinda thing. But for simplicity's sake I'll split it up into each individual ghost's plot. I'll do them in the order that they cross over.
Charlie
Charlie was diagnosed with a rare, terminal genetic disease when he was four and basically grew up knowing he was going to die young. David's new house is Charlie's childhood home where his family lived until he got too sick and had to move to the city to be closer to the hospital. (Yes, Race was haunting the house while Charlie's family lived there)
He claims he was never afraid of dying, not really. He was afraid of being forgotten, afraid no one would care enough to remember him when he was gone. He didn't live long enough to do anything important (in his mind, at least) so why would any of old his school friends ever think of him again?
So David does a bit of digging and finds the Charlie Morris Foundation (not 100% sold on the name, but you get the idea). It's a nonprofit organization that raises money to fund research towards the treatment of genetic diseases. One of Charlie's friends founded the organization, another is a research scientist, and the rest are all involved in some way. There's no cure for the disease Charlie had, but the life expectancy is now 50-60 instead of <20.
They also discover that Charlie's parents found a bunch of poems and short stories he wrote and had a collection of them published as a book. It's not a New York Times bestseller or anything, but it's his, and people like it. People read his work, it's in libraries and bookstores, and it's proof that he existed.
So he writes one more thing. One last poem for his parents and his friends as a final goodbye. He makes sure that it seems as if he wrote it while he was alive and David writes an anonymous letter saying he found it and wanted them to have it.
As soon as they drop the letter into the mailbox, Charlie is no longer afraid, he feels at peace. So after one last goodbye to Race, Jack, and David, he's gone. And the others miss him, but they know he's happy now and he's finally able to rest.
Not sure if the reader would ever learn this, but the letter does make it to Charlie’s parents and they just know that it’s real. They’re not sure how, but they can recognize their son’s writing, even twenty years after his death. They show it to his friends at the CMF and yeah it’s just a lot of really sweet reminiscing and such.
Race
Race doesn't tell David how he died. He hasn't even told Jack yet. Charlie knows a little, but Race doesn't want to talk about it so none of them pry.
He claims he doesn't have any regrets in life. Based on the way he talks about them, David can safely assume his parents weren't good so Race didn't miss them or have anything to say to them. He was barely passing school so he hadn't planned to go to college (he had undiagnosed ADHD but it was the '80s, so people just thought he was stupid. He's actually really smart and I would find some way to show that). He was good at singing and dancing, but he wouldn't have had the financial means to pursue that professionally. Race thinks he probably would have ended up doing a physical labor job or basic office work.
They hit a bit of a wall with Race. He won't tell David much about his past, so David can't really do anything to help him. But, after watching David help Charlie, he eventually opens up a bit more and tells him about his best friend, Albert, whose family used to live in the Jacobs's new house.
Surprise surprise, you guessed it, they weren't just friends. They were in love and as close to boyfriends as two scared fifteen-year-old boys in the 1980s could be. Race's biggest regrets are that he never got to say "I love you" and never found out what happened to him. Al's family moved away a few years after Race died and he wasn't able to follow them.
David does his best to track Albert down. He would be a little over fifty years old at that point, but he manages to do it. But before he reaches out, Race tells him one last story. Before he moved away, Race saw Albert bury something in the backyard. He wasn't sure what it was, but he'd always been curious and figured that might give them an excuse to reach out to Albert.
So after a really convoluted game of Hot-Or-Cold (because Race can't go outside and has to yell at David from the window) David digs up an old metal tackle box wrapped up in plastic. And inside is what must be hundreds of letters, scraps of paper, little notes, and random doodles. All of them from Race to Albert. He kept all of them, and while Race is a bit confused why he decided to bury them, he never knew Albert had saved them. There are notes from years before they even started "dating". From heartfelt letters to scraps of notebook paper where Race had doodled in the corner of Albert's history notes.
When David reaches out to Albert on Facebook, they agree to meet at a nearby deli (Yes it's Jacobi's). A few of the letters are addressed to Albert by his full name and some of them are dated, so David is able to lie and say he just happened to dig up the box and piece together a story. I think David would find a way to have Race on the phone so he could listen to what they say. Albert tells David the whole story since he has no way of knowing David met Race, obviously.
Race was his childhood best friend, but they were secretly dating. They were terrified of what would happen if anyone found out, but they wanted to be together. About a year after they started dating, Race died in some kind of accident. Albert isn't very keen on talking about the details either, but what he does say is that he doesn't think it was an accident. No one ever told him the full story, but his father always acted really off whenever he brought it up. Albert was heartbroken, of course, and didn't date again for close to twenty years. Eventually, though, he found love again and was able to get married about ten years before the story takes place. He and his husband even adopted a couple of kids (One of them is named Anthony but Albert doesn't tell David that).
After the story, David gives Albert the box and he reads through a few letters. He misses Race, of course, but over time it's become nothing more than a sort of fond sadness. He enjoys reading a few of the notes and telling David the stories behind them. But he eventually comes across a letter that's still sealed, a letter Albert has never seen before. David claimed it was like that when he found the box, and he left it unopened just in case it was meant to be kept private.
Before David left to meet Albert, Race wrote him one final letter. Like Charlie, he makes sure it seems as if he wrote it before he died, but he tells Albert everything he wished he'd been able to say when he was alive. That he wished they could be together for real, that he wanted him to be happy more than anything else, that he loved him.
Race holds on long enough to say goodbye to David. He thanks him for giving him and Albert the closure they needed. He's not upset that Albert moved on, he's over the moon knowing that Albert was able to find love and start a family, just like he'd always wanted. And then Race is gone. Which leaves David and Jack.
Jack
Jack is technically the youngest of the three ghosts, but he appears and acts the oldest. (We'll say Race is 15, Charlie is 16 and Jack is 17.) He had a good home life when he was younger but through a series of events that Jack is less than keen on talking about, he ends up in the foster care system by age ten. The Jacobs's new house is where Jack and his parents used to live. (Race and Charlie were haunting during that time)
He lived in about a dozen different homes over the course of six years and basically grew up into a textbook troubled youth. He skipped school, stole candy bars from convenience stores, got into fights, the whole shebang. He was never a bad kid, not really. He just had a lot of anger and emotions that none of his foster parents ever took the time to help him deal with.
Until, finally, he got placed with the lovely Miss Medda Larkin, who was patient and stern and loving and everything Jack needed. She helped him work through all the pain and anger and self-resentment that he'd been bottling up for six years, and taught him how to let it out in healthy ways. She helped him realize he had a chance at a future, a chance to break free from his past and make something of himself.
Then he got arrested for assaulting a police officer and died in prison a month later.
Jack swears he didn't do it. That he saw what happened and tried to help but somehow he was the one who got charged. (He knows how. He was a POC teenager with a history of getting into trouble with the law. His "trial" had been an absolute joke) I don't know the exact details, but David and Jack would figure out a way to prove Jack was innocent. Not because Jack wants justice for himself. He had only just started to believe he could have a future, so he was able to let that pain go a lot easier than he should have.
His biggest regret is that Miss Medda must have been so disappointed in him. He promised her that he didn't do it, but he doubted she believed him. No one believed him. He hated how she must have thought she failed him, that he had let her down. He wants to prove his innocence for her, to show her that he wasn’t a screw-up
Again, I don't know the details but they would find some kind of evidence to prove Jack's innocence and Medda would reach out to David and ask to meet him. They don't have any way for Jack to send a message to Medda, but they set up the speakerphone thing again and Jack gets to listen.
Medda always knew Jack didn't do it. She never once doubted him and she fought tooth and nail trying to prove his innocence. She never stopped trying to clear his name, but in the past few years, she had begun to give up hope. She thanks David for getting justice for her son and they talk a bit more.
She had just taken in a new foster child a couple months before the story, another teenager with a rough past that reminds her of Jack in more ways than one. (In my head it's Spot; he and Jack knew each other cause they were in the same foster home at some point, but I'm not sure if the reader would ever learn that. Spot's the same age as Jack was when Medda took him in, so he would have been about five years younger than Jack when they knew each other)
Finale
Anyways, it'd be all nice and sweet and David would come back home to find Jack already beginning to flicker the way Charlie and Race did when they crossed over. And then suddenly David isn't ready to let him go.
I would have dropped in a few nice Javid moments throughout the story so it doesn't feel like it's coming out of nowhere. David was sad when Charlie and Race crossed, but he was happy for them, happy that they were finally able to rest after being stuck in limbo for decades.
But Jack... he sees Jack flickering and all he wants to do is hold onto him and never let go. David knows it’s selfish, he knows that Jack has to go, but he can’t help but feel like the universe is laughing at him. He’s met what feels like he soulmate, but they can never be together, not really.
And Jack knows this, he feels it to and he doesn’t want David to end up like him, getting caught up in the past and the “what could’ve been”. He doesn’t want David to become a ghost.
Just before Jack crosses over, he asks David not to forget him, but to learn from him. To remember what they went through together and to carry those lessons for his entire life, to make sure he never has a regret that could hold him back, to never let a fear overwhelm him so much that he gets stuck.
And David promises. And then Jack is gone.
Of course, David goes on to live a full and happy life. He takes risks, he finds love, and he never lets go of what the ghosts taught him.
I don’t think we’d ever see the afterlife, but I know that there’s a trio of teenage spirits watching one particular human with an unusually sharp eye until he finally joins them one day far, far in the future.
So, how on earth does this make sense for “Did You, Do You, Will You?” Well, those are the big questions that was holding each of the ghosts back. Charlie wanted to know if his friends and family remembered him when he passed, Race wanted to know if Albert still remembered him, and Jack wanted David to always remember him.
Did you remember me? Do you remember me? Will you remember me?
Yeah, it’s kinda cheesy but that’s what I came up with when I started writing this and then I just kinda took that idea and ran off with it. Now we have this thing.
Just a few extra thoughts
I'd also probably add in a nice Newsbians subplot. Sarah and Katherine would meet at school, and they would eventually find out about the ghosts and start helping David.
Ooh, maybe Katherine had ties to Jack, like her father was the lawyer who got him convicted, so she's able to help David find evidence to clear his name. OH WHAT IF PULITZER FAKED EVIDENCE BECAUSE HE KNOWS THE ACTUAL GUY WHO DID IT HECK YEAH
So imagine all of my past descriptions of what happens and then Sarah and Katherine are also there. Maybe I'll do a more cohesive plot outline one of these days, cause I definitely want Sarah and Katherine to have a big role in the story.
I also think it'd be hilarious if they keep having to pull off increasingly ridiculous stunts to keep Les from finding out and then we find out at the very end that Les knew the whole time. Like, he was listening to David's one-sided conversation with the ghosts on Day 1 and just figured it out.
"Why didn't you ever say anything?"
"I thought it was funny watching you scramble to make up an explanation for why pens and stuff keep floating around the house. Plus I wanted to see how long it would take you to just tell me."
Les is like thirteen in this btw, just cause I said so.
Despite the fact that Race and Charlie are technically older, Jack immediately just adopts them like "ope these are my kids now I guess". Race and Charlie had to teach him how to do all the ghost stuff but Jack's the only reason they didn't haunt the old homeowners 24/7. He can vaguely remember a lot of weird stuff happening when he was a little kid and figures they were probably terrorizing his parents. He doesn't even want to think about what it had been like when Race was haunting alone.
Charlie has plenty of horror stories from when his family lived in the house, Race was an absolute menace.
I'd probably go for Julie and the Phantoms vibes, like that kind of balance between happy/sad/funny/etc. So like, it's a romantic comedy story but when you think about the actual plot you're like "oh wait this is kinda depressing", ya know?
Oh and I think Esther and Meyer would hear their kids talking to “Jack”, “Charlie”, and “Race” whenever weird stuff happens around the house, but they’d just think the kids made up some elaborate inside joke about ghosts living in the new house. So they start talking to the ghosts too and sometimes it was actually one of them and sometimes it was just a weird draft in the house. The ghosts get oddly offended when one of the parents refer to them by the wrong name.
“Davidddddddd I closed the door on your mom and she called me Charlie again! When has Charlie ever done the door thing that’s my thing!”
Sarah and Race are best friends despite the fact that they can’t actually talk to each other. Race just moves stuff around in her room to get her attention and Sarah will tell him about her day and her relationship with Katherine and all that good stuff. And they’ve developed a system for Race to respond by moving various objects in her room. It’s a weird friendship but it’s cute and she genuinely misses him when he’s gone. She’ll sometimes talk about her day as if he’s still there but it’s not quite the same.
Oh wait what if Sarah got those plastic buttons that people on TikTok use to teach their dogs to talk? Oh yes that’s hilarious they definitely did that
Charlie really likes Katherine cause she’s also a writer and he enjoys reading her articles in the school newspaper whenever he can steal it from Sarah. Eventually David starts getting him his own copies because Sarah complains that Charlie keeps taking them before she can read it herself. Sometimes Charlie will leave Katherine one of the poems or stories he wrote and she’ll talk to him about it as best she can. Katherine keeps all of them after Charlie crosses over.
I have absolutely no idea if any of this made sense cause I wrote most of it past 11:00pm over the course of the past week. But this was fun to write! It took way too long, but I like it a lot. Probably won't make it into a full fic but the idea is fun so feel free to send an ask if you want me to flesh it out a bit more!
“it’s a mess but it’s a good mess[tm]” (the name of the playlist)
HERE WE GO
Kevin Day:
Fairly Local - Twenty One Pilots
Golden Days - P!ATD
House of Memories - P!ATD
Castle - Halsey
Centuries - Fall Out Boy
Victorious - P!ATD
Emperor’s New Clothes - P!ATD
Hey Look Ma I Made It - P!ATD
Neil Josten
Ride - Twenty One Pilots
Goner - Twenty One Pilots
Johnny Boy - Twenty One Pilots
On The Borderline - Thomas Sanders
Jumpsuit - Twenty One Pilots
Saturn - Sleeping At Last
Woah There Kimmy - Felix Hagan & The Family
Salt - Bad Suns (t r a n s n e i l)
Lane Boy - Twenty One Pilots
New Americana - Halsey
The Run and Go - Twenty One Pilots
The Village - Wrabel (look, buddy, trans Neil, I will never shut up abt it)
Run Boy Run - Woodkid
New Perspective - P!ATD
Andrew Minyard:
Blonde - Waterparks
TANTRUM - Waterparks
Ode To Sleep - Twenty One Pilots
Ignorance - Paramore
Semi-Automatic - Twenty One Pilots
Hallelujah - P!ATD
Lavender Blood - Fox Academy
This Bird Has Flown - The Ghost Club
Don’t Threaten Me With A Good Time - P!ATD
Say Amen (Saturday Night) - P!ATD
Control - Halsey
Colors - Halsey
Crazy=Genius - P!ATD
Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing - Set It Off
American Idiot - Green Day
Gasoline - Halsey
Not Warriors - Waterparks
Youth - Daughter
Nicotine - P!ATD
Killer In The Mirror - Set It Off
Strawberries and Cigarettes - Troy Sivan
Nicky Hemmick:
Not Today - Twenty One Pilots
Girls/Girls/Boys - P!ATD
I Want It That Way - Backstreet Boys
Would You Be So Kind - Dodie Clark
Perfect Symphony - Ed Sheeran & Andrea Bocelli /this specific version
Cell Block Tango - Chicago (don’t sit here and try to tell me that Nicky hasn’t tried to sing it all by himself)
Never Met You - Tom Law
Cheater - The Vamps
Like or Like Like - Miniature Tigers
Nine In The Afternoon - P!ATD
Absolutely Smitten - Dodie Clark
Dancing Queen - ABBA
Seasons Of Love - RENT (there’s no changing my mind on this one)
Stupid For You - Waterparks
It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You) -The 1975
Aaron Minyard:
Lemon Boy - Cavetown
Venus - Saturn
Someone You Like - The Girl and The Dreamcatcher
Matt Boyd:
Sarah Smiles - P!ATD
Rare - Waterparks
11:11 - Waterparks
Forget The Lies - Quietdrive
Falling In Love In A Coffee Shop - Landon Pigg
Dan Wilds:
The Last of The Real Ones - Fall Out Boy
Hard Times - Paramore
Allison Reynolds:
She Had The World (alternate version)- P!ATD
Fake Happy - Paramore
When - Dodie Clark
LA Devotee - P!ATD
I Hear A Symphony - Cody Fry
6/10 - Dodie Clark
When I Met You - Ethan Nestor
Renee Walker:
Oh Ms. Believer - Twenty One Pilots
Lucky People - Waterparks
She’s So Gone - Lemonade Mouth (what a bop)
Rainbow Connection - cover from Sleeping At Last
Secret For The Mad - Dodie Clark
When The Day Met The Night - P!ATD
