#Highest Hopes

[madlovenovelist]

Book Review – ‘Free Space’ (#2 Admiral) by Sean Danker

A kidnap, an escape, and a botched date. Genre: Science Fiction No. of pages: 320 I’d impersonated a prince, temporarily stopped a war, escaped a deadly planet, and survived more assassination attempts than I could conveniently count. After all that, there shouldn’t have been anything simpler than a nice weekend with a charming Evagardian girl. However, some corners of the galaxy aren’t as…

[superstargaycare]

guys the tsams rewatch is going great btw . its so crazy that we all just let them get away w this like it wasnt the most insane moment in modern cinema

[dilidos]

Rewatching season 1 and can't stop tearing up every time Petey is on screen. He was looking at Mark with so much trust and desperation but oMark has no way to know how much they mean to each other. That scene when Petey was standing at the gas station looking so lost and alone and the moment his eyes landed on Mark he just lit up. He looked so relieved. For a split second he probably thought Mark would (could) make everything ok now that he was here. And then at the funeral we're shown Mark grieving the man he didn't know he knew while Petey's body was being violated in the next room. I hope we get more Petey in s2 because he deserves much more than being a matyr (sacrificial animal, lifestock).

[summonernoctis]

The Muppet VHS Christmas Carol

[shakooo]

1/2 JAKSHAHA HIIIIII GUYS IT'S ME AGAIN here is the comic that i promised....just the day before yesterday i was able to advance this, school is killng me now hahaha and i definitely have to focus on it like never before, but well, about the comic AAAAGH I WANTED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT ISABELLA you know, her design is very interesting and fun to draw for me

apart from the fact that in the conceptual art she has a much more sophisticated outfit AND that was the one that gave me the inspiration to do this hehe

this is what i'm talking about >:), the whole family has their elegant version and k love the concEEEPt

there are still 3 pages left to color so wait for it ª

Here is the drawing without text....AND I LOVE HOW IT LOOKED

[cressidagrey]

Dust off your Highest Hopes - Part 1

Summary:

Eavesdroppers never hear anything good about themselves, goes the idiom. 

When Solana hears an admission from the High Lord of Day, she’s ill-prepared for it. She doesn’t believe in fairytales any longer, but maybe there was a happily ever after for Solana and Helion somewhere.

Warnings:

Mention of Rape, Mention of Domestic Violence. It's all in the past, it's none graphic, but Solana is still dealing with it.

Notes:

This was supposed to be a one shot. One day I will find a way to be less wordy.

(thanks to @tsunami-of-tears for the super pretty dividers!)

When Solana grew up, she believed in fairytales. 

Why shouldn’t she? 

She had been raised as a daughter after two boys…raised to be the perfect lady, the perfect wife…and expected to climb society‘s ranks and find herself a proper husband. 

And Solana had done that. 

She had excelled at it, in fact. 

Solana hadn’t just married any High Fae Male. She had married a High Lord’s son. Her mate. 

And for just one moment…her fairytale had become reality. She had believed that she had found her happily ever after. 

Not much later, she realised that she had been a lamb led to her slaughter. 

Just that…a lamb…a lamb led to its slaughter…it was killed quickly. She wasn’t. It was death by a thousand cuts. 

Solana may was Castor‘s mate, but she was not the female he loved. 

And the mating bond snapping and the arranged marriage that had followed, pleasing both their families but neither of them…well, for the rest of Castor‘s life, that marriage was at fault for everything. Solana was at fault for everything else.

Solana could divide her life into three parts: before her marriage, during her marriage and after her marriage... 

Before she had been a child. 

During…during it she had been a prisoner.  

Caged into her marriage…into her husband's whims. 

Castor had stripped her of everything she held dear, of every bit of dignity she had possessed…he had done unspeakable acts to her, things that she couldn’t and wouldn’t ever talk about to anybody. Solana had been a spectacle for the court to watch, something to gawk at, watching as the years passed and her womb refused to swell with a child. 

Some people had known what went on behind the closed doors of their marital chambers…others hadn’t. Nobody had put a stop to it…to what Castor had done to her in private and in public. 

Nobody. 

Not the servants. Though she didn’t give them the fault for that, because they couldn’t have done anything. They didn’t have the power. 

Not the High Lord or the Lady of the Court. They had known too. And they hadn’t cared. Castor was their son. Solana was just his wife. She was supposed to adapt. 

But how did one adapt to the daily torture he liked to dish out? Solana had tried. Solana had done her best. It had never been enough. 

Regardless of what she had done, Castor had never stopped his torture of hers. Not in their marriage bed… nor out of it. 

And then he had died.

And the After had started. 

After two centuries of living in the hell that was her mating bond and marriage…Her tormenter was dead. Slain. 

The one thing that bitch Amarantha had ever done well in her fucking life was to kill her husband, as far as Solana was concerned. 

Being Castor’s widow was…the third part of her life. And the best. 

She wore widow’s black and pearls for the better part of two decades. She shrouded herself in her grief so that nobody could ever doubt that she had loved him. (He owed her that. Even when hadn’t loved him anymore. Not at the end. Not after what he had done to her for centuries.) 

Castor’s death had pleasant consequences for Solana.  It left her as the only female in the High Lord’s immediate family. 

It left her under Helion Spell-Cleaver‘s personal protection. It made Helion the only male that held any power over her. As long as Solana didn’t remarry, she was part of his family. Any suitor who wanted Solana’s hand in marriage needed to get through him.

(Good Luck with that.) Helion had promised her that as long as he drew breath, nobody would lay a hand on her again. And he had kept that promise. 

In return, her unwavering loyalty laid firmly with him and his court. 

50 years of Under The Mountain…but somehow she had kept that Court running in his absences. She had done that. For him. 

And then Amarantha herself had died…bested by a human girl of all things. 

Another monster slain. 

They had spent 5 years rebuilding. Half a decade. Just a blink in the eyes of a fae.

It wasn’t enough. They weren’t done. They were so far from done. But they had a start. They had made a start. 

Solana had loved every second of it. 

Castor was dead. Her monster had been slain. And Solana…Solana finally had her freedom. 

She could deal with everything else. It didn’t matter what else happened. 

It didn’t matter if Helion admitted to a bastard-born son who ended up being his heir. 

She would deal with it all. Because she was free. 

Lucien turned out to be lovely and his mate Elain grew to be one of Solana’s favourite people.

It didn’t matter what Solana’s mother thought about her lack of interest in suitors… She was never going to put herself at another male's mercy ever again. Her mother’s opinion didn’t matter, because Helion turned down every request of her company without discussion.

She didn’t need to entertain anybody. 

Unless she wanted to. And unless she went to Helion and told him that this was the male she wanted…everybody else got turned away in no uncertain terms. 

It didn’t matter what anybody else in the Day Court thought of her. Thought of her taking on most of the duties of the Lady of the Court. It didn’t matter what kind of gossip they came up with now. She would do her duty to her High Lord. 

And if it made his life even just a little bit easier to have her be the one who selected what courses to serve at the meals…who picked out the porcelain and the cutlery and the drapes…who redecorated, who checked the accounts on every ledger and ran the palace with diligently and carefully…she would do so gladly. 

Until a time when she was no longer needed. (Elain was shaping up to be a worthy replacement soon enough, after all.) 

It had taken her centuries, but Solana had finally found a place where she could be…content. No more worries of what horrid thing the next day would bring. 

In a way…she could simply exist. 

Solana could simply open her eyes when she woke up alone in her four-poster bed…the white sheets pristine and clean…and she could pull on a silk dressing gown over a nightgown that was never ripped apart nowadays, never sprinkled with her own blood. 

There were no bruises on her body as she took a bath…No ripped-out hair or contusions…nothing. 

She no longer needed to shroud herself in widow’s black…she could pick a buttercup yellow dress that bared her shoulders to the sun, not worrying about whatever anybody would see if she didn’t bother with a glamour. 

She could pick long, hanging hearrings, without worrying about having them ripped out of her lobes…with fat pearls from the Summer Court. An indulging solstice gift from Helion himself. 

Solana was content.

Sometimes it startled her how much. How she had somehow carved out that little corner of peace for herself. 

Nia, her handmaiden, fussed with Solana’s curls that morning…pinning them up in her usual style and scattering a handful of pearl-headed pins throughout it to decorate the updo. It was pretty. Beautiful in fact. Solana thanked her with a smile, grabbing her usual lace-trimmed shawl to wrap around her shoulders before she made her way downstairs for breakfast. 

These days, Solana no longer lived in the marital quarters that had been the place of much of her plight and agony…and instead she had her rooms in the main wing, above Helion’s. 

He was her last line of defense, he had told her with a charming smile and she remembered how she had laughed at the pure ridiculousness of that statement. If somebody murdered their way through all the sentries they kept stationed…even a High Lord would have trouble stopping that invasion single-handedly, she imagined. 

Her new rooms did put her up high in the Sunray Palace…named for its many, many spiky towers and the fact that the sun rose right behind it, falling through the many painted glass windows. It had been built into the luscious mountains and hills of the Day Court, with every level seemingly worked right out of the stone.  The only beings that had rooms even higher than Solana were the Pegasi. 

(And they had wings, so Solana supposed it was just fair that they had gotten the uppermost tower and the luscious planes of grass that covered the top of that mountain.) 

Solana nodded a greeting to the few servants that she saw that morning, and then reached the door to the private dining room, where she was supposed to have dinner with Helion, Lucien and Elain. 

 Her hand was already on the doorknob as the voice from within made her hesitate for just a moment. 

“Are you aware that you are in love with her?” Lucien asked, his voice bone dry. 

What? That who was in love with whom? 

Solana’s mind was immediately sent spinning, mentally sorting through the different possibilities. 

If there was one thing that Solana was well versed in, then it would be the Day Court’s gossip.

She knew every bit of it. 

She knew who hated who, who loved who, and who would give her whatever she wanted if she just twirled a strand of hair around her finger. 

She knew who to ask for what. She knew what each noble family strived for, what they were ambitious about. 

She knew about marriage alliances, and who was related to what family and how. She knew who would gladly stab their siblings in the back if that meant that they got a bigger slice of cake in the end. 

Solana knew all of that. 

She had played this game for centuries at this point. 

Still…the last thing she had expected…the last thing she had expected to hear…that was Helion’s voice responding: “What?” 

His voice was hoarse, thick with something that she couldn’t place. 

Helion…Helion was in love with somebody? With whom? Her stomach lurched. 

The late Lady of Autumn had been before her time…Lucien and Solana were just a few years apart in age, not enough for her to have been old enough to be privy to any gossip of that particular affair…

 “Are you still stuck in denial?” Lucien continued, his voice lifting at the end. “Or are you in the *She’s my best friend and she’s the one thing that is keeping this court running and the servants adore her and we attend symphony performances together and we walk in the garden and my Pegasus loves her but it’s all totally platonic* phase?”

…what?

Solana’s heart jumped in her throat, thumping so harshly that it felt like it was going to shatter her ribcage from within. 

No. Lucien couldn’t…Lucien couldn’t mean her. Right? 

That was ridiculous.

She wasn’t the only Female on Helion’s small council after all! 

But Solana was the only one that Helion attended symphony performances together with…with who he walked through the garden…the only one that Meallan liked. Liked well enough to let her brush his silky black coat and braid little golden rings in his mane if it struck her fancy…

This was ridiculous. 

Helion didn’t love her. Helion didn’t…Helion had his myriad of different lovers and the less Solana knew about that, the better. That was the kind of gossip she didn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole. 

(And even if she did…if she did look at the males and females Helion took to his bed…one thing was obvious: They were all extraordinary in one way or another. And Solana…she didn’t fit that bill. Not at all.)

“Be nice, Lucien,�� came the sweet voice of Elain. “We talked about this.” She said it pointedly like Lucien would know exactly what she was talking about. 

“You talked about this,” Helion repeated flatly. 

“Of course, we did,” Elain responded, sounding amused. “I spent nearly a month thinking Solana was your mistress until Lucien told me otherwise.” 

Solana swallowed. Elain wasn’t the first person who had had that particular thought. Granted, that particular rumour had never gained legs because there was nothing to gossip about. 

There had never happened anything between Helion and her that could be constructed as…romantic. Or as him being interested in her. 

Why should he be? 

Solana was…Solana was used goods in a sense. And before Lucien had taken care of Helion’s lack of an heir… it had been more than clear that she hadn’t been blessed with a particularly fruitful fertility either. Solana he was pretty much useful for that purpose.

She hadn’t given Castor a child in 300 years. 

The one blessing of that marriage: no children had come out of it. 

She hardly thought that that would change even if she would ever marry again. 

Which wouldn’t happen, because alone the thought of what had happened in her marriage bed made a shiver work its way over her back. She couldn’t live through that again. Not even for Helion. 

“I would never do that to her,” Helion said quietly, her ears just so managing to pick up the words. “This whole Court has failed her once already. I have failed her once. I will not be part of a second time.”

He thought he had failed her? Why? 

He hadn’t failed her. He had been seemingly the one person who hadn’t failed her…throughout much of her marriage, he had been off in the Day Court’s military…He had never been there to see the day-to-day of what Castor had done to her. He hadn’t borne witness to much of it. 

And she hadn’t expected him to protect her either. She had been her husband’s property, her mate’s… Castor had been supposed to be the one taking care of her…and instead, he had seemingly gotten a sick sense of satisfaction out of hurting her. 

Solana had thought that that should have gone against every instinct of that Mating Bond…she had been wrong. 

A Mating Bond didn’t promise a happily ever after. 

Not for everybody. Some fae…Some fae met the love of their lives and they turned out to be happy…and some…like Solana…they had met…their undoing. 

“Is that why the servants are that protective?” Lucien asked at that moment, thoughtfully.  

“They couldn’t protect her against my brother. But they will protect her against any perceived threat on my part,” Helion answered, something akin to amusement in his voice. “They’ll choose her over me in a heartbeat. The Day Court needs Solana. I can be replaced. She can’t be.”

No. No, that wasn’t true. Any halfway intelligent fae could do what she did. She only tried to make herself useful. Nothing more. She wasn’t a High Lord, not even his right hand, not truly… She was just his…She was just…

She was just Solana. 

“You haven’t answered the question,” Lucien pointed out quietly at that moment and Solana froze in place. 

The question? 

That question? 

She couldn’t help but brace for an impact. She wasn’t sure what kind…She wasn’t even sure what answer would hurt less. 

“Of course, I am in love with Solana,” Helion said. He said something else, but the blood was rushing in her ears and she couldn’t…she couldn’t listen to more. 

Couldn’t stay here…couldn’t…

Not when seemingly every bit of safe, constant ground under her feet had just been ripped away, her breathing coming in sharp gaps as she turned and ran.

She needed…she needed…

She didn’t know what she needed. 

Solana didn’t know what she was doing as she somehow managed to open one of the doors leading outside into one of the gardens…crossing the patio and leaning both of her hands onto the grey stone railing, her fingernails painfully biting into the stone, as she tried…tried. 

Her breathing came in short, painful gasps, her knees buckling as she fought with her own…

She wasn’t sure what she was fighting with. 

Solana didn’t know what to think, her mind swirling nearly painfully with a barrage of thoughts. 

He was in love with her. Helion fancied himself in love with her.

She couldn’t understand why. She couldn’t for the life of her understood what he wanted with her. For every other male who wanted to court her…she was nothing but an…ego boost. Or a choice made out of arrogance or out of a desire to climb the ranks. 

A desire to enforce their own influence onto the Day Court. 

But Helion…none of that…none of that could possibly be the reason. 

He was the High Lord. His word was law. 

He could have anybody in his bed if he wanted to. And he took advantage of that and she had never faulted him for that either. 

Solana had never…

Why? Why her? Why did he…

And if he did…if he truly did…then why had he never said anything to her? Why had he kept it a secret…a secret he admitted to before Elain and Lucien but not to her? 

What was…

The loud neighing that was suddenly in front of her, startled her out of her thoughts and she couldn’t help but flinch as Meallan kicked the grass just feet in front of her, staring at her with dark eyes. 

Half wild, half-tamed…still as much a creature of myth as actually in front of her. (Though right now he was demanding her attention and she knew that he was not going to stop destroying the landscaping until she gave in.) 

She lifted her hands from the stone and stumbled her way down the stone steps to the middle of one of their many, many gardens.  Meallan came trotting forward, lowering his proud head so that she could scratch him behind his ears with shaking hands. 

“Good Morning to you,” Solana whispered, her voice shaking just as much as her hands. 

Meallan gently snuffled over her hand in response and then stomped one of his front hooves down onto the grass, making a massive dent, the size of a dinner plate. She gave him a pointed look, but he was utterly unapologetic, stomping once more before he started to lay down. 

The only way she could actually get on that bloody massive pegasus if she didn’t have a High Lord throwing her up there. 

“You want to fly?” she asked him, surprised. He didn’t often come to her. It was much more likely he showed up on the balcony of Helion’s study and demanded his High Lord’s attention. 

To Solana he only came when Helion wasn’t available for one reason or another. 

It always had been like that. 

If any Pegasus came to visit Solana, it was his mate, Clodagh. That sweet-natured mare that wasn’t so sweet-natured if anybody ever tried to ride her. 

Clodagh came to visit Solana in the gardens and Solana offered her apples and brushed her perfectly white mane and tail and generally spoiled her rotten. In return, Clodagh followed along with her like a dog that turned out to be just a little bit too big. 

Meallan turned his head towards his wings and then stared at her with dark eyes, waiting. 

He was wearing neither a saddle nor a bridle, though Solana had long since thought that the bridle was absolutely useless anyway. Meallan did what Meallan wanted. Anything else was simply a suggestion to him anyway.

“Don’t let me fall,” she warned him, her voice weak as she carefully clambered up between these massive black-feathered wings, making sure that her dress covered her. She patted his neck before she wound that beautiful mane around her hands. 

Meallan huffed in response like even that warning was preposterous from her, before he clambered up, shaking himself and then launched into the sky with one flap of these majestic wings. 

All Solana needed to do, was to cling onto his back. 

She had half expected him to fly the looping circles around the Day Court’s capital of Odeira like he usually did, but nothing of that sort happened. Instead, he turned towards the east side of the Palace, towards the highest tower…towards the Pegasi Stables. 

That was unexpected. 

Solana didn’t try to change his mind, letting him take the course and then land easily just inside that wide gaping door that the Pegasi used to let themselves in and out at all hours of the day. 

Helion allowed them to roam free in Odeira, and while they mostly kept to the green plains of the Sunrise Palace, sometimes some of them went off flying on their own and then came back later. 

Meallan stopped and she slid off his back, only for him to grip the fabric of her dress between his teeth…surprisingly gentle and then pull her with him. 

“I am coming! I am coming!” she said with a laugh, letting him lead her to the pen that housed him and Clodagh. 

It was right there in the back and everybody knew better than to try and walk into, unless it was Helion or Solana herself. 

Only a moment later, she suddenly smelled the scent of blood, a gasp leaving her mouth as Meallan pushed her forward with his massive head…right in front of…

Clodagh. 

Clodagh that was standing up, gently nuzzling a pitch-black newborn foal that was greedily nursing from their mother. So fresh, that it was still wet, long legs still shaking. 

It had surprised them all when last year Clodagh had suddenly started to round with a foal and had started to bite at every poor long-suffering stablehand. The only ones allowed to feed her and Meallan were Solana and Helion. Meallan himself had spent months stomping and standing his ground if anybody even looked at his mate wrong. 

After 3000 years…they had decided to have another baby. 

And now it had arrived. 

“Oh sweetheart, you had your baby?” she breathed and Clodagh whinnied softly like she was in agreement. “It’s so beautiful,” Solana said softly, not daring to approach. 

Meallan’s massive head pushed her forward again and she stumbled right next to Clodagh’s head, which turned to nuzzle Solana for a moment. She immediately reached out to rub the mare’s forehead and press a kiss between her ears. “You did such a good job!” she praised her. “You did so well,” Solana cooed, just as the foal seemingly had enough milk and the long legs gave in so it could lay back down again. 

She couldn’t help but stare at it in wonder, even as it mustered her in interest and she crouched down, shooting a hesitant look to Clodagh and Meallan, who seemed content to watch her. “I am Solana,” she introduced herself to the foal softly. “When you are old enough, I’ll bring you all the apples you want…and I’ll probably sneak you some sugar lumps,” she promised the foal, feeling the tears prickling in her eyes as she held out a hand…

Solana held her breath for just a moment, and then Clodagh’s baby pushed his or her head against her hand, nuzzling her softly. So soft. So sweet.

She gently traced her fingertips over the white mark on their forehead, a near-perfect sun…the emblem of the Day Court. 

Somehow that was the thing that sent her over the edge.

She wasn’t sure why. Wasn’t sure why that was the thing that was suddenly making her start crying. 

She didn’t cry. Not anymore. 

Solan had shed so many tears in her life that she didn’t think she had any left. And now, there she was, collapsing into the ground right next to the foal and clinging to the straw as she cried her eyes out. 

Clodagh whinnied, sounding worried but Solana didn’t even have it in herself to reassure her… the white mare leant her head down, and nuzzled her hair, nearly maternal…nearly…

Solana couldn’t remember her own mother ever doing anything like that. And she just cried harder. 

Cried because she didn’t know what she was supposed to do. Didn’t know what she was supposed to even think. What she was supposed to feel?

It was churning deep in her gut. 

What was she supposed to feel? 

Castor had taken a lot from her. Including her ability to love. 

She didn’t love anybody anymore. 

Her brother? Would sell her for a handful of silver coins if that meant that he could climb the ranks.

Her mother? Would do the same, or throw her at another male if that made her look good.

She couldn’t love anymore. Castor had burned that out of her. He had twisted and strangled her with her love for him until nothing was left anymore.

Nothing good at least.

Helion deserved better than that. Helion deserved better than her. 

[lesbian-thesbian]

kyle adams you are iconic for this

🎥 @medium-observation

[certifiedfeedee]

Happy 2024 everyone! Hope this year is better than the last in many ways but I’m most excited to try and get back into gaining when the time finally comes 🤗

[raeofgayshine]

Thinking again about the fact that when Eddie and Dustin finally convince Steve to play DnD with the party, all of them, but especially Eddie, quickly become exasperated with Steve who has extremely high charisma, and decides that he can fix almost any situation by flirting with whoever they were in conflict with. Especially the fucking monsters, this man is bound and determined to himself a monster boyfriend and until it happens, he will make every single person they come across fall in love with him. So naturally, this happens a lot:

Steve: I’m going to flirt with them

Eddie, exasperated: Steve, you can’t date this monster, he’s trying to kill you-

Steve: Hot.

Steve: I’ll flirt with them harder then

[ricky-mortis]

Have some Ted doodles- as a treat.

[madlovenovelist]

Book Review – ‘Almayer Station’ (#1.5 Admiral) by Sean Danker

A space station inspection uncovers things that challenge your loyalty and beliefs… Genre: Science Fiction No. of pages: 256 Lieutenant Deilani already had trust issues. Now she has an appalling new assignment to inspect an independent mining station in territory that’s been recently annexed. The Demenis System might have become Evagardian space, but it’s populated by the Free Traders who got…

[of-lemons-and-beansprouts]

hi. i had to put him somewhere bc he might die in wip hell. you know how it is.

[tiistirtipii]

Only Friends + Textposts part 10/?

[ato-dato]

HELP! I don't know what comic idea to work on!!! Please!!! This is a life or death situation!!!! Help!!!

[dandp]

Something so objectively funny about the new go-to donation incentive being eyebrow slits

[astrobei]

hi i love your fics and I was wondering if you had any byler fic recs

thanks

hello there! in all honesty, i have not had the time to read a lot of byler fic as of late, but it’s been a while since i posted some recs so i’ll drop a few that i’ve enjoyed recently! as always, i do endorse every fic in my bookmarks to the highest possible degree, so always feel free to look through those for new reading as well <3

say it with your hands by pseudologia (@hellfiremike) — will is a new employee at the movie theater mike works at, and mike starts thirsting over will’s hands to a degree that’s downright detrimental to his employment status

GOD. this fic. i gushed in their dms immediately after finishing it because this might be my favorite modern will characterization of all time, and this is coming from someone who has a million and one takes on modern era will byers. this fic just checked all of my boxes — from the summertime romance to mike’s painfully in-character teenage angsting to will being a frequenter of star wars reddit threads and an enjoyer of sufjan stevens. and the TENSION. oh god the tension. i’ve read all their fics probably three times over each, and i also highly recommend like i am home again, a college au set during a halloween party which made me stare at my phone refreshing ao3 hourly until it updated, and can this be a real thing (can it?) wherein mike and will reunite in a gay bar. enough said

landslide by chamb3rs — the party’s senior year of high school

i don’t often reach for chaptered fics since i usually have such limited reading time, but i’m sooo so so happy i stumbled across this one. there have just been very few fics that have touched me like this one did. i blew through this in one sitting a few weekends ago and subsequently experienced the full range of human emotions (and then some) all in the span of a few hours. everything about this was perfect — the will pov, the weird liminality of transitional periods, the party and byhop family dynamics, down to my favorite portrayal of theeeee jennifer hayes in any fic ever. on top of all of that, this fic perfectly captures the heartbreaking euphoria of being in love with your best friend, and all the ups and downs that come with it. i crawled out of the ao3 tab covered in blood and my chest was hurting and i was shaking and i had damn near chewed my own arm off — and then i sent the link to my friend 10 minutes later and watched her experience the same exact thing like a train wreck in slow-mo HAHAHA

what a time to be alive by passerine_in_jade (@newlesbianprideflag) — will disappears and haunts mike from the upside down

i’m forever a total sucker for a good haunting metaphor, so it’s absolutely not a surprise that this fic is appearing on this list. the premise for this was so so so cool and interesting, and it’s another chaptered fic i’m glad i had a little extra time to read. the way the author had me rooting for mike and will the whole time even though half of the pairing was offscreen for a large majority of the fic is a highly commendable feat. mike’s unyielding loyalty to will and will’s constant faith in him felt so true to their canon selves, and there were so many moments that were so quiet and intimate and tender that i really felt like i was intruding on something. good good stuff

that’s what you get for falling in love by harriet_vane — will gets his first boyfriend in college, and mike, ever the ally, has very normal feelings about it

i want to preface this by saying that this fic is rated m, mostly just for mentions/allusions to sex, and one largely non-explicit portion of a scene in the last chapter. if that’s not your cup of tea, it’s easy to tell when it’s coming up and to skip past it without detracting from the plot, but i think it would be a greater detriment to not rec this fic at all, because it has quickly made the list of my favorite byler fics of all time. something about this take on jealous mike especially resonated with me — his inner monologue is simultaneously hilarious and depressing, and his obliviousness regarding his feelings for will feels so true to life without being overdone or cartoonish. you can tell just how much they really care for each other, and the conflict in this actually made me start crying because it felt so visceral and so fundamentally them. you can tell this author really understands their characters, and the love put into this fic is soooo palpable. it’s the kind of fic where you want to bonk their heads together to knock some sense into them, but you are helpless to do anything but hold on as you’re swung along for the ride.

finally, i try not to just rec fics written by my friends, but my recent reading list would be incomplete without these two wonderful additions:

the way you love me by strangeswift (@strangeswift) — byler exes (absolutely heartwrenching edition)

i’ve been hearing abby talk about her ideas for this fic for the better part of a year as she worked on it, and she actually edited and posted the first two chapters while i was visiting her! and by god is this world a better place with her byler exes concept in it, because if you want angst, you’ll never have to look further than her ao3 page. something about the way she writes will in this fic just makes my heart shrivel up and die in my chest — his quiet resignation, the bitterness (always love a good bitter will byers moment) and the Longing that never quite went away. mike’s characterization is also top notch, and you can really feel the chemistry between them during every interaction. at the time of me posting this list, chapter 4 is not yet up, but trust me when i tell you guys it’s going to soooooo be worth it. :-)

the end is here by bookinit (@bookinit02) — a speculative byler-centric season 5

if you’ve been following my blog for any amount of time, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that haven’s canon rewrite series is hands-down my favorite series across any pairing and fandom. her creativity with her season 5 concepts never fails to astound me — from the scripts she’s been working on as an alternative to the episodes she rewrote for s1-4, to her ideas for possible plot lines, and just incredible writing all around. i’ve had the privilege of reading through her scripts before she posts them to her blog (definitely go check them out) but special privilege bias aside, it takes soooo much skill to create such a visually powerful story in a medium that allows for such little narration, and the corresponding chapters just totally pushes it over the edge. pre-s5 required reading for every byler, and 100000% my new canon if the show doesn’t pan out

this definitely is not an exhaustive list because i have a million and one fics on my to-read, and one day i will get around to reading them all, but i hope there is something on this list that strikes your fancy!!