#I'm gonna write about this sometime

[lgbtlunaverse]

the wangxian + a-yuan "dads with an adopted son" thing is fine and enjoyable in fanfics honestly but I think we as a fandom are really not utilizing the idea of all of them in unconventional familial structures enough. Like, canonically it wasn't so much that wwx was a-yuan's guardian as that a-yuan was being raised collectively by the wens and wwx was adopted INTO the larger wen family. And lwj got attached to him through that. A-yuan just has these very attached weird uncles/older cousin figures that aren't related to him by blood at all but keep sticking around.

Just think of a modern AU with a lot less death where lwj does as he does in canon and keeps showering a-yuan in gifts as much as he can and when wwx is like "aiyah lan zhan you're gonna spoil him. Not everyone is as rich as you! What's his family supposed to say if they can't buy him all the stuff you do?" lwj just goes "Hm". And from then on out every year once a-yuan's birthday is near the extended Wen family members (well. the ones that are invited that is. No one wants wen chao at a birthday party) wakes up to a wechat payment from lwj.

Random wen cousin number 6 texts granny like

cousin 6: i just got 400 yuan????

granny: oh that's just wangji

cousin 6: i've never met this guy in my life???

granny: he wants you to buy a-yuan a nice birthday present!

cousin 6: how does he know my bank account???

[essektheylyss]

One thing that I feel is really interesting and often forgotten about Essek is that fundamentally, his characterization has been from the start based upon his desperation for external perspectives and connection, which, along with much of his narrative and mechanical positioning, means that he actually has an extraordinary and almost (but not actually, as I'll show) counterintuitive capacity for both growth and trust.

(Buckle in. This is a long one.)

In particular, I would argue, knowing now that many places where the plot touches Ludinus have long been marked for connecting back into the current plot, that he was quite possibly built as a prime candidate for radicalization by the Ruby Vanguard. He felt isolated from his culture, he was desperate for other connection, and he was certainly of the type to believe he was too smart to be drawn into such a thing, given his initial belief that he could control the situation and the fallout. If things had gone any other way, he easily could've been on the other side by now.

As such, he has been hallmarked by being fairly open to suggestion, perhaps for this reason, but the thing about that kind of trait is that it is both how people are radicalized and deradicalized. This is certainly true of Essek, who experienced genuine kindness and quite frankly strangeness from the Nein and was able to move from the isolation the Assembly had engendered to meaningful and genuine connection, largely propelled by his own internal reflection. By the time Nein are aware of his crimes, he's already begun to express regret to an extent and, furthermore, doubt in the Assembly, including explicitly drawing a line against Ludinus, even in a position where he was on his own and probably quite vulnerable.

Similarly, when the Nein reach the Vurmas Outpost some weeks later, he has moved from regret for the position he's ended up carrying a heavy remorse. This makes sense! He's fairly introspective, seems used to spending a lot of time in his own head, and was left with plenty to mull over. It's not some kind of retcon for him to have progressed well past where the Nein left him; it just means he's an active participant in the world who has done his own work in the meantime.

This is another interesting aspect to him. I've talked about this a bit before but I cannot find the post so I'll recap here: antagonists in D&D have significantly more agency than allied NPCs. Antagonists are active forces, against which the party is meant to struggle; allies are meant to support the PCs, which means they tend to be more passive in both their actions and their character growth. Essek was both built as an antagonist, in a position that gives him significant agency, and also was then given significant opportunity to grow specifically to act as a narrative mirror for Caleb's arc. Even when he becomes a more traditional D&D ally, he still retains much of that, though he occupies a supporting role.

I believe that this is especially true because of the nature of Caleb's arc, which I've already written on; the tl;dr of this post is that Caleb is both convinced that he is permanently ruined and also desperate to prove that change is possible. Essek is that proof, because he is simply the character in a position to do so. But this also means that his propensity for introspection and openness is accentuated! He has to do the legwork on his own, for the most part, because that's where he is in the meantime.

But he still ends the campaign necessarily constricted; he is under significant scrutiny, he's at risk from the Assembly, and he goes on the run fairly soon after the story ends. He spends most of the final arc anxious and paranoid, which is valid given the crushing reality of his situation. It would be very easy to extrapolate that seven years into this reality, he would be insular, closed off, and suspicious of strangers, even in spite of the lessons he's learned from the Nein and their long term exposure.

So seeing his openness and lightness now is surprising, but at the same time, given this combination of factors in his position in the narrative over time and his defining traits, it's not by any means unreasonable.

But one thing that I found so delightful is how much trust he exhibits, which is obviously a wild thing to say about Essek in particular, given much of what he learns is both earning and offering trust, which was something he says explicitly in 2x124 that he's never really experienced: "I've never really been trusted and so I did not trust." It makes up much of the progression of his relationship with Caleb, and the trust that he is offered by the Nein in walking off the ship is the impetus he needs to grow.

But I think it's easy to talk about trust when it comes to people who have proven themselves to you or to whom you've ingratiated yourself, and that's really the most we can say about Essek by the time he leaves the Blooming Grove. There is this sense in a lot of discussion of trust (not solely in this fandom) that it is only related to either naivete or love, but there's far more to it. Trust at its best is deliberate—cultivating an openness to the world at large is a great way to combat cynicism and beget connection instead. It allows a person to maintain curiosity and be open to experience, but it can be incredibly difficult to hold onto.

It is clear that the Essek we meet now is a very pointedly and intentionally trusting individual. He trusts Caleb and by extension Caleb's trust in Keyleth, as he shows up and picks up a group of strangers from a foreign military encampment and walks in without issue. He trusts the Hells to follow his lead moving through Zadash and to exhibit enough discretion so as to avoid bringing suspicion upon all of them. He trusts that Astrid will respond well to his entrance, but he also trusts himself and the Hells enough to execute a back-up plan in the case that she doesn't. In the end, he even trusts them enough to give them his name and identity.

He doesn't scan as someone who has spent half a dozen years living like a prey animal, afraid of any shadow he runs across in an alley, withdrawn into himself and an insular family, which would've been an easy route for him to take. He scans as someone who has learned the kind of trust borne of learned confidence and a trained eye for good will and kindness, which are crucial weapons one would need for staving off cynicism in his circumstances—as if he has survived thanks more to connection and kindness than paranoia and isolation. (If we want to be saccharine about it, he scans quite poignantly as a member of the Mighty Nein.)

So it is easy to imagine this trust and openness as a natural progression of his initial search for perspectives external to his own cultural knowledge. Though he makes those first connections with the Assembly to try to vindicate his personal hypotheses, he finds in them exposure to the deepest corruption among Exandrian mortals, which could've—and did, for a time—turned him further down that same dark path.

But it's also this same openness to exposure from the wider world that allows the Nein to influence him for the better, and in spite of the challenges he's certainly faced simply surviving over the past seven years, he seems to have held onto this openness enough to move through the world with self-assurance and a willingness to extend the kinds of trust and good will that he has been shown.

(I would be remiss not to mention that I was reminded about my thoughts on this by this lovely post from sky-scribbles and their use in the tags of 'light' to describe Essek's demeanor this episode, which is really such an apt word for it.)

[aihaloos]

Tempted to write a replaced au twst fic where Yuu (or alternatively, I'll use my Yuu, Riyuu, who is basically who I'm writing this for) used to be the cutest girl around, the cheery one who's always around everyone, the one you can't seem to dislike even if your crush falls for her because she earnestly says sorry (even though it's not her fault) and will always help you out if you need her back in her old school. But one day, a new girl comes around and her whole reputation got destroyed. She helps the new girl adjust, tells her all the rumours and introduces her to all the popular kids. But the girl ends up backstabbing her, telling the popular girls rumours about how she intentionally plays up the act to steal their crushes to her, and lies to the boys, telling them she's just playing with their hearts and that she's a horrible person.

Yuu ends up alone and excluded, being seen as "annoying" and only having a few close friends who doesn't really interact with her in public in fear of their reputation being ruined. She ends up miserable at school, and wishes to not go anymore. But one day comes a saving grace, she gets whisked by a mysterious black carriage into Twisted Wonderland, or more specifically, Night Raven College. She doesn't mind working if it meant she doesn't have to deal with her old school, there was still 1 and a half years left of school and she doesn't want to deal with all ghe group projects to be assigned that will inevitably end with everyone not wanting to team up with her. Plus, as annoying Grim is, he's like the animal friend all of the anime and storybook protagonists she knows has, and she doesn't mind him too much.

Some things did change after she and Grim got officially enrolled, but she had no problem adapting to the social expectations of the world, part time jobs with Sam -- and occasionally the canteen -- paid enough to get her tools for cooking basic but delicious food, and new friends without the weight of her past helped her get settled comfortably.

The existence of Overblots stunned her for a bit, but a peek into Riddle and Leona's memories helped her understand the concept, even if just a little. However, things began to change eerily simlarly to her old school when a new girl comes, also in a similar position to her, getting transported to a new, unfamilliar world, and seemingly hailing from a similar world to the Earth she knows. She warmly welcomes her, eager to finally befriend another girl, but it seems that the girl does not share the same enthusiasm.

The girl only barely responds to Yuu's attempts at forming a friendship, and always seems to talk her in a condescending way, and often dismisses her, and especially so whenever there are any boys around.

Yuu will not deny any statements claiming she's an attention seeker or that she plays up her sweet innocent girl act, but she knows to never, ever sacrifice a bystander for it. But if someone insists on war with her... well that's another, different story. She's learnt her lesson of being overly optimistic, and she will not make the same mistake twice. She will not let her make her life a living hell more than it already is with Crowley's irresponsibleness.

Aaand thus begins the story. Or well, however you wanna continue it. I'm honestly in favour of most Housewardens (Kalim, Vil, and Idia in particular. I'll put my reasoning in a few paragraphs down) Adeuce, Tweels, and Ortho for team Yuu. Why?

Well, first of all, Adeuce. This is mostly because the duo is like. with Yuu since Day 1, as much of a bitch as Ace is, I think those two are the most likely to trust and know Yuu well enough to not believe the lies R (< Replacer) tells. Especially Deuce, he doesn't want to betray a friend he knew for quite a while, that would not be very honor student-like of him!! And she helped him out in a lot of situations too! He doesn't want to hurt you after all the trouble you go through to help him, and also knowing how horrible your living conditions are. Ace would most likely give in to peer pressure if the student body is overwhelmingly in favour of R, but as of now, he maybe enjoys your company just a bit more than R. Just a bit, promise.

Tweels I feel like is self-explanatory. Those two are perceptive as fuck istg it scares me. Jade especially. I feel like the two would just toy with R for a bit despite her facade and lies before dropping her after she bothers them for attention and favours one too many times.

(Ortho ties in with Idia so I'll explain him in Idia's paragraph)

Kalim is actually very emotionally intelligent. He can come off annoying and stupid, but from all the scenes I see of him, he's actually really good at dealing with people. Have you seen how he deals with the Scarabia residents after Jamil's OB??? The way he phrases his sentences?? He didn't force or even plead with them to forgive Jamil, he simply asks them to wait before making permanent judgements, and I think he's gonna be uncomfy with how condescendingly R talks to Yuu, and even if he's used to people going after him for money, I feel like R mostly eyeing him for money and how she "secretly" sighs in annoyance everytime she goes out of the party for a "bathroom break" will only solidify his dislike/discomfort, even if he doesn't show it.

Vil is also kind of self-explanatory if you read into his character and not just the shell the official English localization makes for him. (I could rant for hours about how the official tl portrays his character istg. He's hardworking and he actually didn't attempt to poison Neige out of pure jealousy, he did it because he felt like all his efforts to be beautiful will never be able to surpass Neige, who, in his eyes, always seemed to be innocent and naturally beautiful. He feels like the villain in Neige's story. He feels like he is reduced to what he often plays as, a snobbish, overconfident villain obsessed with overthrowing the hero. And because of it, it became a twisted self-fulfilling prophecy, pushing him to, in a fit of despair, be that same villain everyone sees him as.) I really don't think he will take well to R's condescension to Yuu, who genuinely wants to befriend R. (I actually have a whole thing in my head where Yuu and Vil occasionally have sleepovers where they do skincare together after the whole VDC thing happened. I feel like this is also a "vent sesh" of sorts for the both of them, just to air out their grievances without much seriousness, and I think Yuu would admit to wanting a fellow girl in the school that she could befriend, since no matter what, being the only girl can be exhausting.) Ik Vil's not a girl but he is such a girls' girl istg.

Idia... this mostly ties into Ortho and The STYX Incident, but like,, I think we can all agree on this one,, Idia is smart and capital V Very pessimistic. Would you rather trust the girl you've known for a while, who saw your memories, who helped you in awkward social situations when she can and is besties with your brother or some random new girl who trash talks said girl behind her back? The former, right? Plus, even if Yuu did only hang out with him and his brother because she likes to secretly laugh at him behind his back, there's mo guarantee R wouldn't do the same, given his experience. And he would rather have someone who actively helps him and his brother out than someone who wouldn't.

I didn't put Malleus in because of how canon him actually treats Yuu. I feel like the fandom kind of put on rose-tinted glasses on with his character, and kind of ignored some things like, idk... him just leaving them to fend for themselves homeless during Octavinelle... maybe he thought Crowley would offer them a place to stay but like... I'm still bothered by how didn't atleast offer a spare room in Diasomnia. He's a housewarden goddamnit. He's not as distant or scary as the rumours say but like. still rubbed me the wrong way.

Anyways I don't think my attention span will let me write it to completion so if anyone likes this and wants to write it feel free. Pls tag me if you do tho. I would love to read it :3

[froschli96]

Can we talk about how Kadar says to Altaïr in the beginning: "An excellent kill! Fortune favors your blade!", and then in the bureau with Malik, before Altaïr goes to meet "Robert", Malik says to him "Fortune favor your blade, brother."

And then THAT is what prompts Altaïr to actually finally apologize to him?

(It's these little things in the writing that make me go feral! Another one of my favorite parts is Altaïr and Malik calling each other "Dai" - Altaïr first calls Malik Dai before doing investigations during the Majd Addin mission, showing his character growth in how he's willing to humble himself in front of Malik by basically acknowledging him as a superior of sorts (he's even THANKING him here for his help - compare this to "I am your superior, in both title and ability! You should know better than to question me!"), and then when they last talk before Altaïr goes to confront Al Mualim, Malik calls HIM Dai, in turn acknowledging his growth 😭 I just... I love them so much, I don't even know what to do with myself anymore.)

[willowser]

getting to a point with nerd bakugou where you're not even playing games online together anymore, you're just — chatting, all day 🥺

and you've gotten close enough that you'll send him a mirror selfie and even if your phone is mostly covering your face, he's ZOOMING IN ON THAT BABY and over-analyzing the hell out of it 🥺 trying to figure out what you look like 🥺 and every single photo he sends in return is assessed for a minimum of 20 minutes, because he wants to make sure his reflection isn't showing anything or his body doesn't look weird, that his posture is right 🥺

and the first time you send something back like, "you look nice today 😊🩷", even though he's just showing off his shirt from a movie you both like — he's having to put his phone down on his desk and put his hands over his face because he feels so airbruqoabdka about you !!!!!

[summoningspark]

so i may or may not have printed out the entirety of @anonymousalchemist's amazing fic like a bird, like a stone onto three Very Large pieces of paper.

you might be asking, why, fay? why did you print out an entire 53k fic for a video game you've never played? well you see, if you read it, you would understand.

[youssefguedira]

V, JoeNicky & Nile

V. An abandoned or empty place.

When Joe pulls the sheet off the couch it kicks up enough dust that it makes Nile sneeze. The couch underneath is old, wooden frame rotting, fabric stained and full of holes where moths have eaten away at it. 

“Sorry,” Joe says to Nile when she finally manages to get the sneezing under control. “Didn’t realise it was that bad.” He puts his hands on his hips and looks down at the couch. Nile looks it over.

“There’s no saving that,” she says, wiping at her eyes. She can heal from falling over ten stories, but she can’t get away from allergies.

Joe frowns. “I liked that couch.”

The house is older than anywhere else they’ve brought her, and has been abandoned for long enough that it’s falling apart. But through some trick of posing as their own sons, or something, Joe and Nicky still own it, even if there’s a giant hole in the roof and all the windows are broken. Why they’d decided to come back here, Nile doesn’t know, but it’s a nice enough area, and a good distraction from, well. Everything. Growing back a leg, she’s discovered, is not fun. 

From one of the other rooms – she thinks it’s the kitchen, she’s not actually sure where Nicky had wandered to – there’s the sound of something breaking and crashing to the ground, and a muffled curse. 

Joe makes a questioning noise in the vague direction of the kitchen. A few moments later, Nicky appears in the doorway, covered in dust. “I am okay,” he says. “But I think we will need to go out to eat tonight.”

“Nothing?” 

Nicky shakes his head. “Unless you want to start a fire and go hunt some rabbits.”

Joe grins. “Just like old times, right?”

Nile shakes her head firmly, which makes Nicky smile. She loves them, but there’s no way they’re doing that. 

“We can probably clear out enough space in here,” Joe says, gesturing to the floor. “Get the sleeping bags out of the car. Probably have to start a fire anyway, but…”

Nile looks around again while Joe says something to Nicky in Arabic that makes him laugh. The house is falling apart, sure, but it’s structurally stable, and the bones are all there. It could be something. They’ve got time to make it something. 

Nicky is the one who goes for pizza in the end – he doesn’t trust Nile and Joe to order it if left to their own devices – while they try to clear out a space in the living room. Eventually, though, after Nile has another sneezing fit, Joe suggests they just take the sleeping bags outside instead, which works out a lot better. He sets about starting a fire with practiced ease while Nile sets out the sleeping bags around it. They’re far enough away from civilisation that she can’t hear cars passing by, which is kind of surreal, and the stars are brighter than she’s ever seen them. 

When Nicky gets back, two boxes balanced on one arm and a bottle of wine in the other, he looks over their makeshift camp and laughs. “Just like old times, then?” he asks.

Joe grins. “Except we have pizza.”

“And actual sleeping bags,” Nile says.

“Ah, these modern inventions could never quite match the comfort of a pile of furs,” Joe says wistfully. Nile gives him a look. She’s ninety percent sure that one’s bullshit, but she can never quite tell with him. 

Nicky sets down the pizza boxes, and jogs back to the car to grab the pack of plastic wine glasses they’d bought before they got here. 

“We should’ve bought marshmallows,” Nile says. “Could have made s’mores.”

“Well, we’ll have to go to the hardware store tomorrow anyway,” Joe points out. “And I think it’ll be a little while before we can actually sleep in there.”

“Tomorrow, then?”

“Tomorrow,” Nicky agrees.

[trilliastra]

many BL fans don't know how to separate actor from character and the way GMMtv and shows keep feeding this thought is truly ruining many shows and many good actors.

the only reason they allowed boston to be the 'slut'/'villain' here is because neo isn't the money maker, he's always been the side character, they put him in this show to create controversy, they didn't even give him a backstory.

the same can be said about mond. we were truly naive thinking mix would be boeing. it would've not only tainted mix/earth but also the angelic aura around mix and his past/future characters.

i enjoyed only friends, i enjoyed the potential it had to be even more messy, to break the spell GMMtv keeps around their actors and the established pairings.

it just could've been so much more.

[kindahoping4forever]

📸: Ryan Fleming

[unfinishedslurs]

welcome to eden

this is a love letter. inspired by this song

As soon as Steve picks up the phone, she knows she’s making a mistake.

“Rob?”

“No,” she says instead of hanging up like she should. 

“Nancy?” He sounds more alert now, and she can picture him standing up straighter, calling to attention at the sound of her voice. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” 

“Not really,” she sniffs, hating herself for it. “I—can we talk?”

He’ll say no. He’ll say no, because it’s one in the morning and he was probably asleep before the phone rang and she shouldn’t be asking to talk years after she broke his heart and didn’t even remember—

“Of course,” he says, and Nancy could kick herself. “Over the phone?”

“No. Not over the phone. I’m sorry, it can wait, you can go back to bed.”

She hears him huff a laugh, even though there’s nothing funny about any of it. “I wasn’t in bed,” he assures her. “Am I picking you up?”

Tears spring anew to her eyes. “If that’s okay.”

“Works for me,” he says. “See you soon.”

“See you,” she echoes, and hangs up. 

She spends the time it takes pacing quietly in front of the front door, berating herself for using him like this. But she needs to talk to him, and the sooner it’s over with the better. 

Headlights cut through the window way too soon, and she nearly throws herself out the door. 

She gives him a look when she opens the car door, telling him she knows how many traffic laws he must have broken to get here this quick. He just grins in return, ready to point out the felony in her closet. 

“Where are we going?” He asks, and her heart clenches. He’s so good. He’s so good, and she couldn’t-can’t love him like he wants. She has to tell him. 

Tonight probably wasn’t the best night for this conversation, but her skin feels like it’s peeling off and the faster she says something the quicker it will be over with and she can go back to how it was before. Back when she didn’t have anyone to talk to, because Robin might never speak to her again after she breaks her best friend's heart for the second time. 

Just rip the bandaid off, Nance. 

“I don’t know,” she says instead. Maybe she’s a coward. “A field? Somewhere I can see the stars.”

“I can do that.”

The drive goes by in silence, Nancy staring stubbornly out the window. She can feel Steve periodically checking on her, and she knows he wants to know why she called. She can’t open her mouth to say it in the suffocating enclosure of the car. She rolls down a window. 

They get to a field almost out of Hawkins, and the car is barely in park before she’s climbing out, going around to sit on the hood. Steve cuts the engine and follows. 

She still doesn’t say anything. She called him to have a talk, why can’t she just open her stupid mouth—

“Nancy?” Steve asks, gentle in a way that used to make her melt. She pulls her legs to her chest, feeling vulnerable. “What’s wrong?”

“Jonathan and I broke up,” she finally gets out. 

“Oh shit.” He looks genuinely surprised. “That sucks, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well, it was never going to be forever.” Except she’d thought otherwise. She thought they were Nancy and Jonathan, the two of them against the world. She hunches her shoulders. “We never talk anymore, and he was pulling away from me, and he was lying to me for months-“ she shakes her head, clearing the anger she feels at that. “It doesn’t matter. I’m starting to realize there’s things I need to work on, too. A lot to work on, actually.”

“I don’t know what that could be,” he says, flashing her a smile filled with boyish, roguish charm. “You’re already the best person I know.”

She sniffs, and suddenly she’s crying into her knees, shoulders shaking. He freezes beside her, before wrapping an arm around her and pulling her into his side. She leans in for a second, chasing the comfort, before remembering what she came here to do and ripping away violently. 

“Fuck,” she whispers. “Fuck, I’m so sorry. I don’t—I can’t—this isn’t what I—“

“Hey,” he soothes. “Slow down. Let it out.”

She wipes her eyes, suddenly furious. “I don’t want to date you,” she says, finally looking him in the eyes. “I don’t—I’m sorry for calling you. I just remembered how much better you used to make me feel, but then I realized that’s like…really shitty of me.”

“Why?” He asks, as if Nancy didn’t come out here to break his heart again. “I want to make you feel better. I like knowing I can make you feel better.”

“I don’t want to lead you on,” she says, mouth screwing up. “That’s why I called you out here. And I know it’s shitty of me—“

“Nancy, you’re not leading me on. I…I don’t want to date you either.”

That stops her in her tracks. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh,” he echoes quietly. “I—don’t take this the wrong way, okay, ‘cause I know I’m gonna sound like an asshole saying it, but, uh, I can’t do that again. And even outside of that, I don’t like you that way anymore. Uh, sorry.”

She tries not to sag at the overwhelming relief she feels at that. 

“Are you sure?” She studies him closely, trying to see if he’s saying this for her sake or if he means it. “Back in the Upside-Down, and when we were fighting Venca, it seemed…”

He grimaces, and Nancy thinks if it wasn’t dark she’d see the beginning of an embarrassed flush on his ears. “I…may have been feeling things,” he admits. “I was testing the waters, I guess. I started feeling nostalgic, and you were there, and everyone was encouraging me, and it all just ended up in this weird…feelings soup. Sorry.”

“You said you wanted to have six kids with me,” Nancy reminds him. “And travel the country in a Winnebago.”

He groans, covering his face with his hands. “I am,” he says, “so sorry. I don’t know why I said that. That had to be so weird for you.”

“It was kind of sweet?” She tries, not letting her relief show. Not yet. 

“We haven’t been together in years, and I decided to tell you I used to dream about you having my babies. How do you deal with me?”

“Well it helps to know you were dropped on your head. Puts everything in perspective.”

“Yeah, yeah, yuk it up.” He looks at her, really looks at her, and she tries not to fidget under his gaze. Too earnest, too caring for someone who doesn’t deserve it. He’s always tried so hard. To woo her, to be a better person, to keep back the vicious streak she still sees in him. “I meant it, when I said I loved you,” he tells her gently, no sign of that cruelty that had him painting her as a whore for the whole town to see. “Back then, I mean. I just wanted you to know that.”

She wants to cry. “I know. I’m sorry I couldn’t say it back.”

“It’s okay,” he says like he means it. He leans back against the windshield, looking at the sky. After a moment, she copies him. 

They watch the stars together, and the air feels clearer. 

“Where do we go from here?” She asks, afraid of the answer. 

“What do you mean?”

“What happens with us now?”

“Well,” he says gingerly, like he’s testing the waters. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard you’re a pretty kickass friend.”

Friends. She doesn’t know that she and Steve have ever been friends, not properly. Even after the apologies they made to each other, she doesn’t know that she could call what they had friendship. It wasn’t substantial on its own, needing Jonathan as the barrier between them. When it fell, so did they. 

“I haven’t had a friend in a while,” she admits. “Robin is kind of a novelty for me. She’s amazing.”

It’s funny, in a way. She was so jealous of Robin, of how close she was with Steve in a way Nancy wasn’t. She’d thought, at first, that it was because they were so clearly dating. After Robin told her they weren’t, she realized how badly she’d just wanted friends. She missed hanging out with Steve, missed his laugh and his squint and his bitchy attitude. She’d hoped that eventually they’d get to that point, was sure they were almost there before Starcourt. In a way, she’d been jealous of Robin for stealing Steve. She knew it was ridiculous. Steve had found a friend, a real friend who hadn’t cheated on him or slept with his girlfriend. She couldn’t begrudge him that. 

She just missed him. 

“She is, isn’t she?” Steve grins, but sobers up quickly. “I didn’t really think about that. How lonely you must be, since…”

She’s already shaking her head. “It’s not your fault. I didn’t reach out.” 

“I didn’t exactly reach out either.”

They fall silent again, at a loss for words. Barb’s death, as always, the canyon between them. 

Finally Nancy huffs. “It’s both of our faults,” she declares, “or neither of our faults. I don’t know. I just missed you.”

“Well shit, Nance, I missed you too,” he says, touched. 

“I’ve heard you’re a pretty kickass friend too, you know,” she says, glancing at him. He smiles. 

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, Nancy Wheeler, I would be honored to be friends with you,” he says, and sticks out his hand to shake, like they’re meeting for the first time. 

She stares at him, and starts laughing. “You’re an idiot, Steve Harrington.”

She shakes his hand. 

Max has always felt like a mirror. One Nancy wanted to smash, pull her out of the shards of her reflective grief and hug. Stroke her hair the way she wanted someone to do for her and say you’ll get through this. So Max could hear it from someone who knows. 

Except Nancy doesn’t know anything. Still drowns in her guilt, the ball and chain dragging her into the depths. She can’t help when she’s still such a mess, three years later. 

Her hands clench when Mike says Max is pulling away from Lucas. She wishes she could look her in the eye and tell her you don’t have to be me. You can be better. 

She’s Mike’s friend. They barely know each other outside of a quick hello as they cross paths or fighting monsters. Max has enough on her plate, she doesn’t need her friend’s weird older sister butting in to tell her how to mourn the right way. 

Nancy just hopes she’s getting out of bed. Remembering to eat. Brushing her teeth. She had more cavities in the year after Barb died than she’d ever had in her life, and she knows Max doesn’t have insurance. 

Now, sitting next to Max’s hospital bed, Nancy wishes she’d reached out. 

With school back comes studying, and with studying comes Eddie Munson, in all his super-senior glory. Nancy is going to get him a diploma if it kills her. 

He laughs when she tells him so. “Shit, Wheeler,” he says. “The day something manages to get you is the day this shithole goes down for good.”

Robin turns down her offer to form a study group. “I’m pretty sure if I joined, I’d just distract Eddie, and let him distract me, and we’d end up throwing things at each other until you killed us. Sorry. Steve’s going to help me study for finals, though!”

She looks at Steve, eyebrow raised. She’s pretty sure it’s fair to be dubious, since she was the reason Steve passed his finals in the first place. 

“I’m her rubber duck,” he says as an explanation, and she nods in understanding. 

Her mom isn’t about to let her study alone with a boy in her room, though, and especially not a boy like Eddie, so she drags him to the library three times a week. He complains, he bitches, he tells her he doesn’t care about his fucking history class anymore. She just hands him a Rubik’s Cube she found to keep his hands busy as she quizzes him. 

Three sessions in, he slowly puts a worksheet down and screams into his hands. 

“Stop that!” She kicks him in the shin. “If you get me kicked out of the library I’m never forgiving you.”

“I can’t do it,” he says, staring up at the ceiling. “I’m so fucking stupid, Nancy. I can’t even get past question two. Is this torture? Did I die and go to hell? That would be fitting, wouldn’t it? Doomed to repeat high school for the rest of eternity?”

“Stupid” her ass. She knows what kind of work goes into those campaigns of his, has absently flipped through his annotated fantasy novels and left feeling as if she’d seen the story anew. Plus, she went and made a tape of everyone’s favorite songs, just in case, and she knew damn well how quickly he’d taught himself to play the song he did in the Upside-Down. “Stupid” and “Eddie Munson” don’t belong in the same sentence, much less belong in the same space in his brain. She hates Hawkins High just a little bit more for it. “Stop being dramatic. What are you stuck on?”

“Fucking nothing! I can’t focus, it’s driving me fucking insane. I keep trying, I swear, but it’s like I can’t even read anymore! This always happens, I swear to God it’s killing me more than the fucking demobats ever did.”

“Don’t joke about that,” she snaps. “You’re smart, Eddie, you know that. You just need to try.”

His face twists, and she realizes that was the wrong thing to say. 

“Oh, thank you, Miss Wheeler, why haven’t I thought of that? Sorry for wasting your time, I’ll get out of your perfect hair now—“

“Sit down,” she protests as he gathers up his stuff. “Eddie, I’ll help you work through the problem, okay? Just sit down, please.”

“No, Nancy!” He swings around, eyes wild. “It’s what everyone always says. Just sit still, stop doodling, be quiet, pay attention, try fucking harder…I tried, okay! I’ve been trying, I tried for fifteen fucking years, and I can’t do it! I might as well just drop out and get it over with. I’m fucking sick of this.”

“Okay!” She feels herself getting riled up. “You want to fail so bad, fine! I’m not your keeper, do whatever you want.”

“I will!”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

They stare at each other, not moving. Finally Eddie storms off in a huff, flinging open the library door in a grand gesture she pretends not to see. There’s a sinking feeling in her stomach, but she can ignore it. 

She pretends not to notice when he comes slinking back five minutes later, shuffling his feet. 

“Sorry.”

“For what?” She asks primly, going over her notes. 

“Nancy, please.”

She sighs. “I’m sorry too. I’m just…frustrated.”

“I’ve been told I’m pretty frustrating,” he offers. 

“It’s not…”

“It is,” he says, sitting down. “It’s okay. God knows I piss myself off with this shit.”

She studies him, looking over his defeated face like he’s one of her flashcards. “You’re trying your best,” she says, sounding it out. She can’t really make sense of it. After all, trying her best has always been straight A’s, not stopping until she knew everything she needed to and more. 

“It’s not good enough.”

“It will be,” she says. “You’ve got me this time.”

“Listen, I know you’re trying to help—“

“Do you want fries?”

“What?” He blinks at her, shocked, as she starts packing up her things.  

“We’re not getting anywhere today. Sometimes you have to step back, and come back with a clearer head.” Usually she locks her door and cleans her guns, the repetitive motion soothing her mind until she can think again, but she has a feeling that won’t work for Eddie. 

“I usually just give up.”

“I don’t. Get your backpack, we’re going to the diner. Dinner’s on me tonight.”

At the diner, he makes her laugh so hard soda comes out her nose. The next day, they go to the library again. 

After a couple of days, he solves the cube. After three weeks, he nearly kicks her door down rushing to show her the B he got on a test. 

Two months later, he throws his cap into the air and his cane on the ground. Swings her around, both of them laughing. 

“Nancy fucking Wheeler!” He crows. “Achieving the impossible yet again!”

“Eddie, put me down!” She shrieks gleefully as he stumbles. She barely makes it back to solid ground before two more bodies are slamming into them, Steve and Robin whooping in their ears. 

It was weird, to see Steve and Robin effortlessly communicate the way she and Jonathan always had and have it be so unabashedly unromantic. She’d always thought that knowing someone like that was a sign you were meant to be, and they did it while still loudly proclaiming Platonic with a capital P. 

She and Jonathan didn’t do it much anymore. It was like dancing to a song that was always a beat off, syncing for just one moment before stumbling again, unsure that they were still allowed this. 

She’d known him better than anyone, once, and he’d known her the same. Now she wonders if that was ever true. 

“So,” Eddie says, throwing himself onto her bed. “Steve.”

She sits in her desk chair, raising an eyebrow. “What about him?”

“You broke up with Jonathan, right? Are you going to get back with him? I thought you would, but it's been months and neither of you said anything.”

“No,” she says. “No, that’s not what I want. It’s not what either of us want.”

“Really?” He rolls over, eyes searching. “What happened there, anyway? With both your boys. I’m a nosy little asshole, and I wanna hear it from you.”

It makes her laugh, the way he admits to it so freely. He grins wolfishly at her, baring his teeth in a grin. That’s probably why she tells him the truth. 

“I wasn’t okay, when I was with Steve,” she says honestly. “I was distant, grieving…I was a mess, and I stayed with him because I didn’t know what else to do. With Jonathan…I was getting closure, I was healing, and things were good between us. They were so good, but after a while, we just started to…deteriorate. I don’t know if we lost momentum, or if the stress just got to us, but we started fighting more and more,” She traces the desk with a finger, remembering the sour taste of Oliver Twist on her tongue. It was a shitty thing to say. “I thought we’d figured it out, for a little while, but then we just…stopped talking. I think, maybe if we’d talked more, we could have worked it out. But I’m…not upset that we didn’t, you know?”

It’s a different kind of loneliness when your partner won’t talk to you. It was different than grieving, different than not having anyone to talk to at all. Because even when she didn’t have friends, she had Jonathan. And then, slowly, she didn’t anymore. 

“Nancy, you’re one of my best friends, so-”

“Steve is your best friend.”

“Steve is my best best friend,” she agrees. “But he’s also more than that? Like, I think we’re literally soulmates. Platonic with a capital P soulmates, but, like, it feels like more than friendship sometimes? Like sometimes it’s like he can literally feel my bad days even when I haven’t talked to him yet. He told me once he just knows sometimes. It’s like I hit my hip on my desk and he felt it, but emotionally. It’s wild. It’s like the drugs literally combined our minds. Where was I going with this?”

“I don’t know,” she says, slightly bewildered. She wants to ask how they do that, but Robin barrels forward. 

“Right. So outside of mine and Steve’s platonic more-than-friendship, you’re kind of my best friend? And you’re, like, the coolest person I know.”

She blinks. She’s not sure she’s ever been described as cool before. 

After Barb, Nancy tried to cut her own hair. 

Her mom found her in the bathroom, unshed tears in her eyes and hair a mess on the sink and floor. 

She hadn’t laughed, hadn't said oh, honey, your beautiful hair. Just clucked her tongue and took the scissors from her hands. Stepped behind her and took over, took the uneven mess and made it something good, something presentable. 

She didn’t say anything until she was done, setting the scissors on the counter. “Sometimes,” she said, wetting her lips. “Sometimes we need a change, before we can move forward.”

The closer she gets to Emerson, the more she feels like she’s letting someone down. Mike. Max. Jonathan. All the people who have relied on her, all the people who trusted her to fight.

In a strange turn of events, her mom is the only one she doesn’t feel is disappointed in her. Her mom is more excited about college than she is sometimes. Chattering excitedly over dishes about the classes she’s going to take as Nancy dries and smiles and tries not to feel like the ground is being pulled from under her feet.

This is everything she’s ever wanted. Why does it feel so wrong?

She takes Eddie to the gun range, because having a gun in her hands has always made her feel safer. More in control. More like the badass protector she wants to be, than the scared little girl she feels sometimes. 

Eddie stares down the scope of the gun and shoots like he has experience, but doesn’t hit a single bullseye. 

“Your hands are shaking.”

“I’m in a fucking gun range and a bunch of small town hicks were hunting me not too long ago,” he snaps, taking another shot and missing the target completely. He swears and changes the magazine. “Excuse me if I’m a little bit on edge.” 

She hadn’t really thought of it like that. “You didn’t have to come,” she says. “I just thought with everything that’s happened, you should know how to use one. Just in case.”

“I know how to use a gun,” he rolls his eyes. 

“You know how to shoot one.” She looks from him to the target pointedly. “Not the same thing.”

“Deep. I could really feel the judgement there. Tell me, is there anything else wrong with me?”

“There’s security cameras all over this place. We’re not in Hawkins, so there’s no mob coming after you. I’m here, and I do know how to use a gun. No one is going to hurt you here.”

“I know all that.”

“Do you?”

He scowls at her. She looks back unflinchingly. She’s been here plenty of times, and the guys laughed at her until they didn’t anymore. By the time she brought Eddie, all she got was a raised eyebrow and a “boyfriend?” from Hunter at the desk. She didn’t know what was more incriminating, so she just shrugged. 

“You’re kind of a pain in the ass, you know that?”

She rolls her eyes, taking the gun from his hands and lining up a shot. “I’ve heard worse,” she says, thinking about Nancy Dre-ew, and Nancy “the slut” Wheeler, and priss, and shoots. It hits the bullseye. 

So do her next five shots. 

Eddie looks begrudgingly impressed when she reloads and hands the gun back to him. It’s more satisfying than it should be, to realize that while he’d known she had guns he’s never seen her actually shoot before. 

She raises a challenging eyebrow at him, and he huffs around a smile. “All right, all right,” he says good naturedly. “Let’s try this again.”

He does a little better this time around, now that he’s actually trying. He does a little dance when he hits one of the inner rings. 

“Take that!” He crows. “I bet Steve couldn’t do this. In your face, Harrington!”

“He’s much more of a close-combat kind of guy, isn’t he?” Nancy agrees. 

“Oh, yeah, definitely,” he says. “Does he really have a bat with nails?”

She blinks, caught off guard by the fact that Eddie hadn’t seen it. She never registered that he hadn’t used it during Vecna. Something about the fact seems weird somehow, as if it was as integral to Steve as his coiffed hair. “He keeps it in his trunk.”

“You and Byers need to update your Steve manuals. He said it’s under his bed now.”

“Ah,” Nancy says, thinking of all the times she’s slept with her pistol under her pillow. Empty, because she’s not stupid enough to sleep with a loaded gun when her little brother sometimes wakes her up after a nightmare, but the comforting weight of it alone makes it easier. 

“Just tell me one thing,” he says, widening his eyes imploringly at her. “Did he look as sexy as I think he did? Byers won’t give me a straight answer.”

It’s a joke, but his cheeks are a little pink. She’s not dumb, she’s seen the looks the two of them share, as if he and Steve were circling each other. Caught in a whirlpool, waiting for the moment the vortex would drag them down and they could finally touch. 

The looks between Eddie and Jonathan, too, that share a certain camaraderie she doesn’t entirely understand and at the same time understands all too well. Steve and Jonathan had always had a strange relationship, too close to not be friendship but not quite there. Surprisingly enough it was better after she and Steve broke up, Jonathan no longer avoiding them and the talk she’d forced the three of them into clearing the air. Sometimes, she’d wake up to Jonathan climbing into her bed, smelling of cigarettes and a hint of something stronger, and he’d tell her it was Steve who drove him there. 

She’s a journalist. It’s her job to notice things. She just wasn’t ready to confront that reality, where the two boys she’d wanted wanted each other as well. But she’s grown since then. 

She also knows that whoever Steve chooses, it won’t be easy. 

“You know,” she says, considering, “when we were dating, Steve never pressed me up against the wall or anything you’d expect from the King.”

Eddie gets this look on his face, caught between confusion and caught out. “…okay? Did you want him to do that or something? Are you trying to ask me to hint to him?”

“No,” she says. “I’m just saying, he never did any of that. It was kind of funny. He always made it so that he was the one pressed against the wall.”

Eddie misses the next five shots entirely, and she laughs at him through it all.

She’s hyper aware of touching other girls now. She didn’t used to be. Even with Robin, who is a lesbian and definitely won’t hate her. Who’s probably gone through the same thing. She can’t help it. 

What if they get the wrong idea? What if someone else sees? What if they can tell, what if they know, what if they hate me?

She hates feeling like this. She doesn’t know why it started, doesn’t know what’s wrong with her. She’s no stranger to casual affection—or at least she didn’t used to be. Why does it make her feel so tense now? It’s been years since she realized she liked girls, shouldn’t this have happened back then?

Deep down, she knows why. The Reagan sign in her front yard. Her dad sitting in his chair, the news always on. “Always that nasty disease, Karen, I swear some people are just asking for it.” She’s always known she could never tell him, but now she knows that if she gets sick he’ll say she deserves it. She doesn’t know what her mother thinks. She’s afraid to find out. 

She’s growing up, and her fear is growing with her. 

Objectively, Nancy knows she and Eddie don’t make sense. 

They’re not cut from the same cloth, like Steve and Robin. They don’t calm each other down, like Jonathan and Argyle. They’re too different, too alike in all the wrong ways, for them to get along. They’re both snappy, a little mean. Eddie’s dramatic enough to get on her nerves, and she’s prim enough to get on his. At their worst, they have earth shattering arguments that end in them not speaking to each other for days. 

When people see them walking down the street together, they whisper about “that nice girl Nancy Wheeler” and “that awful Munson boy.”

It’s not fair, never has been. Nancy hasn’t felt nice for a long time, maybe before Barb ever disappeared. Eddie isn’t always particularly nice either, but the court of public opinion takes it to extremes, twists him into something cruel instead of the kindness he carries under his leather armor. Someone to keep their children away from. It really is a shame, because Eddie loves kids in a way Nancy never has. She can see it in the way he interacts with them, his bright smile fading when a parent comes to drag them away. Even when he’s expecting it, his face falls, just for an instant, before spinning around with a grin that won’t reach his eyes. 

Nancy wants to take him out of here. There’s an offer on the tip of her tongue that she knows he’d refuse.

He’s not her brother, but he’s not…unlike one. It’s almost like talking to an older, flashier Mike. He’s annoying, is what he is. He picks at her, keeps pressing over the littlest things. Tries to get under her skin, succeeds, until she’s on the verge of stabbing him with her pencil. Looks triumphant whenever Robin has to grab her arm to drag her away, rambling an excuse about “some girl thing I totally forgot, yeah it’s an emergency,” while Steve drags him the other way to have bro time. 

“She loves it,” she’d heard Eddie crow delightedly once, when Robin didn’t get her out of hearing range fast enough. “Do you see that fire in her eyes?”

“Do I?” She asked Robin. “Love it?”

“I mean, far be it from me to tell you what you do and don’t like,” Robin answered. “But, uh, as far as I can tell, you totally love it. You look like you’re going to rip him to pieces and enjoy it, and he loves that. I didn’t think you’d be this much of a nightmare together, seriously, like, how are you two at each other’s throats one second and then best friends the next? Steve and I have debated locking you in a bathroom until you get along, but we’re kind of afraid you’ll kill each other.”

So no, Nancy and Eddie don’t get along. They’re kind of a nightmare together. They don’t make sense, and they don’t try to. They have other friends, who they get along with better, that they can seek out. 

But when Eddie knocks on her window, the only surprise is that he could even get there. 

“How?” She hisses, opening the window. He tumbles in, doesn’t even try to play off the utter gracelessness he’s displaying. 

“Wowie, I am never doing that again,” he breathes, flat on his back. “You’re going to have to help me down the stairs when I leave, had to leave my cane at the bottom and I cannot get back down that way.”

She doesn’t even want to know what he had to do to get up on her roof with his bad leg. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m but another lover, nothing but an ant in the face of your unwavering beauty, my queen,” he says, batting his eyes at her. The dramatics don’t hit the way he intends, given that he’s stuck on the floor. He holds a hand out pleadingly, and she rolls her eyes, hauling him up until she can get him to her bed. 

“Never mind.” She puts her hands on her hips, a gesture that is so obviously Steve she removes them immediately. From the glint in Eddie’s eyes, he notices.

She tries not to be jealous. She tries, she swears, but…

Three of the four (five? she doesn’t know what Argyle thinks of her) friends she has are dating each other. Two of them dated her, first. She can’t help but wonder, if she’d known that was an option, if everything would have been different. If she wouldn’t have this aching bitterness between her teeth. 

(Nothing would have changed, she knows. She’d been too desperate for other things. Trying so hard with Steve so her best friend didn’t die for nothing. Staying with Jonathan because he understood her more than anyone else, so maybe they didn’t need to talk. It wouldn’t have helped anything. She still wonders.)

It doesn’t matter. What’s past is past, and she needs to move forward. She can’t stop to think about could-have-beens, because thinking about boys is what got her into this mess in the first place. 

She closes her eyes, taking a shaky breath. That’s not fair. None of this is fair. None of it is fucking fair because Nancy stopped caring about fair when Barb died. 

She needs a drink. She needs a nap. She needs to stop feeling like Atlas with the world on her shoulders. 

She doesn’t do any of that. She calls Robin.

“Barb was my first kiss.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Nancy says, and keeps talking, because Barb is dead and Robin is a lesbian and she’s long forgotten what Barb’s favorite chapstick was back then. “We were seven, and I liked it but I didn’t know if I liked her. But I was convinced I was going to marry her, until my mom told me that girls don’t marry other girls. And I knew she liked girls when she died. She told me when we were fifteen, and I didn’t know the word bisexual but I knew I loved her and that was all that mattered. Not—not like that, not romantic, or maybe it was but it doesn’t matter because she was my best friend and I still love her but she’s gone forever. I loved her.”

She feels Robin lay a tentative hand on her back. 

“I had to look her parents in the eye and pretend. All those fucking NDA’s, I had to pretend there was hope. Pretend she was still missing. It was like everyone forgot about her except for me and them, and they sold their house to find their dead daughter and I wasn’t supposed to say anything and Steve kept reminding me about the fucking NDA’s—“

 “Nancy…”

“It’s my fault,” Nancy says, staring at the water. “I lumped in Steve, because it was easier than being alone. He didn’t know her like I did. She was worried about me. She stayed because she cared, and look where that got her.”

“That’s bullshit!” Robin’s eyes are wide, and she waves her hands around as she talks. “If it’s anyones fault, it’s those—those scientist guys experimenting on El! They knew there was a problem, and they tried to cover it up instead of making sure people were safe. You didn’t know it was dangerous. How were you supposed to know it was going to end up as anything other than normal teenage drama? None of this is supposed to be real, you didn’t know—“

“But I left her,” Nancy cuts in. “I left her alone to go lose my virginity to a boy she didn’t even like—“

“He was your boyfriend, it shouldn’t have mattered if she liked him—“

“It doesn’t matter!” Nancy shouts, and Robin falls silent, mouth still moving. “It doesn’t fucking matter how it happened, because it did and now she’s dead and she’s never coming back and it’s all my fault.”

Nancy is sick of crying. Sick of feeling helpless. Sick of not being able to change the past. 

“It’s not just Barb. I took Fred to the trailer park—he didn’t even want to be there, and now he’s dead. Eddie needs a cane, Max is almost completely blind and might never walk again and it was my plan that put them there. My plan that almost killed them. I’m responsible—“

“Fuck that.”

“Robin…”

“No, you listen to me, Nancy Wheeler,” Robin says, grabbing her by the shoulders. “You are one of the most remarkable people I have ever known. Max would have died without that plan. We all would have died. Venca-slash-Henry-slash-One would have won without that plan, and I am not going to sit here and listen to you blame yourself for saving lives. And-and Fred! Venca had already marked him, you know that. You couldn’t have done anything! And Barb is not your fault, okay? I-I-I know I can’t convince you, but I’ll say it as many times as it takes until you start believing it, because it’s true. You didn’t kill her. You didn’t kill anyone.”

“I killed Bruce,” she says, just to prove Robin wrong. And isn’t that shitty of her, to forget about him until she can use him to prove a point? She’s a fucking awful person.

“I don’t know who Bruce is, but given your track record I highly doubt that.”

“I bashed his head in with a fire extinguisher.”

Robin pauses, and Nancy’s stomach sinks. This is it, she thinks. This is what will convince her, this is what will make her see that I’m wrong, that I’m poison-

“What was he doing?”

“What?”

“Bruce. You had to have a reason for it. What was he doing?”

It’s like Robin doesn’t even care that Nancy just admitted to first degree murder. “He was flayed,” she admits, knowing Robin will take it as proof that she’s right.

“That’s not murder, that’s self defense,” Robin says, just like she knew she would. “Also, if he was flayed he was already dead. Sorry, I’m sticking to your side on this.”

“But I’m less torn up about killing my asshole coworker than I am about anything else. How does that not make me a monster?”

“He was already dead, Nancy!” Robin shakes her. “You’re not beating yourself up over it because you know he was already dead, a-a-and I know you’re using him to try and push me away and I won’t let you.”

“Robin…” she says, tears springing to her eyes. She’s so fucking sick of crying. So sick of the way she never seems to stop anymore. 

“Nancy,” Robin says. “None of us are going to leave you. Stop trying to make us.”

She pulls her into a hug, and Nancy sags into it, boneless. 

There, sandwiched between the sky and the water, Nancy starts to feel like she could forgive herself. 

“Nancy,” Steve says, putting a hand on her shoulder and ducking his chin to look her in the eye. “They won’t be alone.”

Tears well up, unbidden, at the way he seems to understand her now in a way he never did before. 

“I want this,” she insists. 

“I know you do,” he says. “Which is why you’re going to go out there, kick ass, and take names. We’ll be here, okay? We’ll keep an eye on them.”

“I know you will.” She swipes a hand across her eyes. “Can you talk to Holly, too? She gets lonely.”

Steve smiles. He’d always loved Holly, when they were dating. He used to braid her hair sometimes. Asked her about her drawings, her TV shows, listened to her talk with the same attentiveness Nancy’s father had never shown any of them. He’ll be a good dad, someday. To someone else’s children.

“I’ll talk to Holly,” he promises. “Does she still like princesses?”

“Ladybugs,” she says. “It’s ladybugs, now.”

“Ladybugs. I can do that. Black and red, and they’re all ladies. What’s not to like?”

“There are male ladybugs.”

“Wait, seriously?”

She laughs, tearfully, but they’re happy tears. Steve wipes them away gently, and she smiles at him to let him know she’s okay. “You’re an idiot, Steve Harrington.”

“You’re the best person I know, Nancy Wheeler,” he replies, achingly sincere. “You’re gonna have the whole world under your thumb, I just know it. Ever thought of running for President?”

“Can’t be worse than the one we have now,” she says, grimaces as her own joke lands too bitterly to be funny. She sees his jaw tighten before he forces himself to relax. 

“I’d vote for you.”

She grins at him, sharp to punch through the tension she’d made. “I’ll make Eddie my Vice President.”

“Oh, fuck no. You lost me,” he says, and Eddie makes an offended noise from where he’s stealing snacks from the glovebox. Jonathan swats him, and she smiles at him too. He smiles back, tentatively, and wanders to her side. 

“You gonna be okay up there?” He asks quietly. She can hear the guilt in it, still, and she reaches down to squeeze his hand. The one with the scar that matches hers, so their palms line up. It feels full circle, somehow, the three of them together like this. 

“I’ll be okay,” she confirms, and feels the truth of it in her chest. Her boys are here with her, the ones who have been there since the beginning. Eddie’s watching them fondly, munching on a granola bar. Robin is inside somewhere, rambling at her mother. Mike and Holly are probably still bickering over the last cupcake. She loves them so much, all of them. 

“Of course you will,” Steve says. “You’re Nancy fuckin’ Wheeler. Nothing stops you.”

She wants that to be true. She can feel in her bones that it will be. Eighteen has nothing on who she’ll be at thirty. 

She’s Nancy Wheeler, and the world won’t see her coming. 

[astrolotte]

Genuinely intrigued by the potential of Peri and Irep's dynamic but only in a platonic way so I end up not vibing with the fandom's portrayal of it 😔😔😔

(No but listen LISTEN they were kinda-almost-friends when we last saw them in FOP, yeah? Now they're enemies, with both actively fighting each other, and Irep going so far as to try and kill Peri's parents. What happened? When? What influenced it? Did they ever become friends, or did it nosedive the moment the cameras turned off? What about Sammy? How do Irep's parents factor into this? Could it ever be fixed? There's just so much we haven't seen, and romance just feels like too easy a solution to me. Let their friendship be easy to break, fragile. Let them have to work to keep the connection. Fairies and Anti-Fairies are literally made to be opposites, so what happens when two genuinely and truly become friends?)

((and yeah I guess a lot of this could factor into a romantic angle but ALAS the fandom seems to be leaning heavily into the funny toxic yaoi angle 😔 I don't mind it! By all means, please have your very harmless fun! But it ain't my jam :P Perhaps I'll have to write a oneshot myself...))

(((see tags for more rambles i guess. whoops a bitch spoke too much in there as he always does)))

[skylarbee]

i call this 'cuntification'

(credits! x)

[chalkrub]

thank you for the birthday wishes and thank you very very very much for 5000 followers!! wow!! i hit this around a month ago i think, but it's a big number and i want to once again say I appreciate everyone for all the support <:'^)

i'll try not to write a mini essay and wax poetical, but it's coming up on three years since i started this blog after years of putting it off and i'm so glad i did. thank you for following and for all the nice comments you leave, it makes me super happy......much love. muah. MUAH

[pookieace]

kaeya calls you "meri jaan" as a form of endearment. prefers "meri jaan" over baby, or babe and everything else sniffles :(((

you call out for him in another room and he's immediately going "yes, meri jaan?" you ask him for his opinion on a new outfit and he just "you look as beautiful as ever, meri jaan." when he needs to ask you something, he starts off the sentence with "meri jaan". when you're mad at him about something, crossed arms and eyebrows furrowed, he'd hold your chin gently and tilts your head up, "i'm sorry, meri jaan, forgive me?" even when he speaks to others about you when you're not around :(( when he wants to hype you up, he begins his sentence with "well, meri jaan–" and continues to talk about you

and andnndnd and jfdkfdgj whenwhe n w h e n you have your legs pinned to your chest n he's coaxing you to another orgasm, one on his cock this time and and and he jsjuttt GODDD "thaaat's it, cum f'me. just like that. so good for me..." leans down to rest his forehead against yours as you come down from your high, "always so good for me, meri jaan."

[helltigon]

No one: My brain for some reason: what if huskerdusk au where Husk is owned by Vox and Angel is owned by Rosie

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

when you get so into writing your story that it makes your heart pound and hands feel shaky >>>>>>>>>>>