#THERE'S SOMETHING HAPPENING SOMEWHERE ; ( self promo )

[survivehcr]

there's a final girl. does she look like me? independent, private, alternate universe portrayal of Dolores from The Umbrella Academy. survived by rhys. follows back from @tempportal.

[kangaracha]

QUEENMAKER | CHAPTER 17

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pairing chan x reader

genre ninth member au, angst, fluff, coming of age, social media, cancel culture, anxiety, depression, forbidden love,

summary To JYPE, the solution is simple; take the sole trainee that will not debut with your brand new girl group, and use her to replace the missing vocalist in your male group that insisted on starting as nine.

Unfortunately, to the fans and the members themselves, it isn't that simple.

status ongoing

taglist OPEN

a/n today's self promo is catskin which is a felix x reader fantasy/fairy tale oneshot that i am pleased enough with that i might write a part two. anyway, here's more of the drama you're really here for.

previous | masterlist | next

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At 6:05 on the dot, there's a knock on your door.

He must have been up all night waiting for your text, you think as you answer it, the way that he'd made it down the stairs within five minutes of your alarm going off. You're still in your pyjamas, a hoodie thrown over the top when you'd dragged yourself out of bed to combat the early-morning cold of your apartment. 

The boys waiting outside your door are dressed similarly, at least, padding around in clothes they've chosen at random from a laundry hamper somewhere and shoes that they kick off as soon as they pass through your doorway. You're not surprised to see Chan, hair sticking up at every end like he's gotten straight out of bed for this and not bothered to even try to stick it back down again, but you are surprised to see Changbin. You don't think you've ever seen or heard a peep from Changbin at this time of the morning.

"Good morning," Chan says as you close the door, lingering within arm's reach as Changbin wanders his way further into your apartment like he's looking for something.

"Good morning," you echo, your attention divided between the two of them. "What are you doing here?"

"Well," Chan hedges, hesitating like he's not decided yet what he's going to say next. "Changbin is here to steal your cereal."

"Hyunjin ate all of mine," Changbin says, his feet carrying him one step closer to the kitchen in question.

You wave him towards it, despite warnings you've been given against ever giving him free reign over your pantry. "There's eggs in the fridge too if you want them," you offer, and your heart lifts at the way his face lights up. It's funny how such a little thing could cause such simple joy.

"Gamsamnida, noona," he says, and disappears into your kitchen. 

Chan steps into your line of vision.

"What are you doing here?" you ask when he doesn't immediately say anything, though the pit in your stomach and the sleepless night unravelling behind you say that you already know the answer.

He draws in a breath and holds it, anticipation paling his face just enough for you to notice. "I'm being honest," he says, his eyes flicking up to the kitchen door. Changbin doesn't appear - he's busy making a lot of noise with your pans in there, the slam of a cupboard door a little too obvious to be anything but deliberate. "I promised I'd be honest with you, so...I'm here."

"About the things they're saying online, or what's going to happen next?" you question; and you don't miss the way that his face falls, his brow tightening imperceptibly.

"You've seen it," he sighs, as if he'd been hoping for something different.

A grim smile twists itself around your mouth. "It's trending," you point out. "It's kind of hard to miss."

"True." He looks away, eyes casting behind him to where Changbin is being deliberately noisy in the kitchen as he hunts through your cabinets for something. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" you question. "You didn't do anything."

"They're my fans," he says and then blinks, correcting himself. "Our fans - if something I've done makes them think-"

You've seen the messages he's talking about, the back-and-forth between fans debating whether this was his idea or something that had been forced upon him by the company. Always Chan - Chan's group, Chan's members, Chan's decision. If the trending tags were anything to be believed, the general consensus was that the Chan they knew and loved would never do this to them, nor would he endorse it. It was obvious that you had forced your way into the group, and at first opportunity he would drop you right back out again; if only they screamed loudly enough in opposition, JYP would give him that choice quicker.

You didn't find that daunting at all. There wasn't a black pit opening inside your gut every time you thought about it, the urge to get back to the practice rooms and gruelling hours of work scratching at your skin. 

"You're acting like you told them to do this," you tell him wryly, and the corner of his mouth quirks upwards. Nearly a smile, despite how sardonic it feels. 

"I definitely did not," he answers, a hand pressed to his chest in honesty. "I meant what I said the other day. You're one of my people now."

Inexplicably, warmth blooms in your chest around the icy cold that has had a stranglehold around your stomach since you'd first seen...well, everything that's happening. The reminder of the conversation you'd had before all of this began is timely - it was easy to forget sometimes, around the screaming of a thousand voices that it couldn't be true, that he had chosen you, in a backwards way. That all of this was only happening now because he'd fought with the company for you. Because he'd won the fight, a feat you've never seen accomplished before, in a long career of letdowns.

Your teeth grit together at the thought of those voices online, hiding behind screens as if they know anything about what’s happened in the last three months or even the past six years. You had forgotten for a while last night, all the things that Chan had said; you’d felt like throwing something across the room, God’s Menu playing over and over through a tinny speaker until your body moved without thinking. You’ve contained most of that rage since, under the assurance that none of them know what they’re talking about, and truly, you don’t think that you’ll really care at all as the days wear on; but still-

"Someone should have told them that," you say without thinking, and then watch as Chan's brow furrows. "Sorry. I didn't mean you. It's not your fault."

"Someone will," he replies. "Once I've been to this meeting with management. Which I am probably going to be late for."

His phone appears in his hand, the screen lighting up to show him the time. "If you have to go-" you begin to say, already moving out of the way of the door.

"He's eating breakfast first," Changbin says from the kitchen door before Chan can argue with you himself. 

"Am I?" Chan asks; but his voice is mild and his feet are already turning towards Changbin, all the fight draining from his body before he has even begun.

"You think I'm going to eat all of the eggs myself?" Changbin fires right back. "I'm not a pig."

"But I thought you were a pig, Changbin," Chan says and watches in amusement as the sound of Changbin shouting indignantly fills the air of your apartment.

TAGLIST

@kokinu09 @rainfallingfromthesky @lixie-phoria @mysweethannie @chlodavids @hanniemylovelyquokka @tfshouldidohere @lauraliisa @puppysmileseungmin @kalopsian-thoughts @puppy-minnie @readerofallthingss @dvbkie099 @kthstrawberryshortcake-main @acker-night @d-chagi @lynlyndoll @borahae-reads @ihrtlix @yienmarkk @minhwa @i2innie @jinnie-ret @conwunder @amesification @starssongs98 @weirdhumanbeinglol @morinuu @the-weird-mold-in-the-sink @bokkiesplace @amyyscorner @jiisungllvr @skzstaykatsy @blackhairandbangs @jungkookies1002 @hyuuukais @imsiriuslyreal @thatonedemigodfromseoul @gini143 @mercurywritesstuff @splat00z @filmbypsh @palindrome969 @crabrangoongirl25 @enzos-shit @jabmastersupriseee @kayleefriedchicken @slutfortits @duhgurl @cheshireshiya @keepswingin

[just-some-guy-joust]

Just Some Guy OC Tourney - Side A: Round 4

Rules:

do NOT be mean to anyone or any characters in these polls. you MUST clarify if you are joking/teasing or you will be blocked. if you are someone who entered an oc into this and you are mean to other contestants you will be disqualified

do NOT claim a character doesn't deserve to be here. yes including your own. be nice

if you are posting propaganda you have to @ tag us, including if your propaganda is in the reblogs. it is difficult to tell when something is or isn't propaganda. anything not tagging us will likely be missed

please don't hesitate to let me know if i messed something up!

have fun, hype each other up <3 thank you

Adan Botello | He/him | @rainecloud020604

Adan is a highschooler who is just looking to pass class, go home and play Minecraft. He doesn't want to be unique or special any more than he is, maybe being a Minecraft YouTuber would be awesome but that's all he wants out of life. No matter what is thrown at him he tends to run away from it, like a fantasy world trying to claim he's a prince, he wants nothing to do with it. He just wants to be a normal kid, graduate high school and play Minecraft. He's also got transgender and autistic swag

Promos: https://toyhou.se/17322997.adan-botello check out the comic featuring Adan on this blog @a-tale-in-a-bottle

~

Wally Rosette | He/him | @hershelchocolateart

Wally Rosette is a 15-year-old kid who was chosen (and then kidnapped) to attend the Elite Villainous International Learning facility. This position, however, is solely because his parents were world-famous villains. Wally himself has no interest in the business, and is often described as the sweetest person any of the cast has ever met. He spends most of his time in the background, helping out faculty and students with their homework or various tasks, and only ever becoming relevant when homework *is* the plot of the week. Wally is just a kind kid who knows better than to get involved in the plot and loves his friends so so so so so so so fucking much it's unreal

Promos: https://toyhou.se/8256045.wally-rosette <-wallys toyhouse profile! https://www.webtoons.com/en/canvas/the-villain-school/list?title_no=97541 <-the comic he's in (discontinued because I'm doing a different one - it is 6/40 chapters with a planned remake Somewhere in the distant future)

~

Tulip | It/Its | @joyfulness03

-Literally just a little tulip mouse -Caught in the middle of a monster war, but is entirely oblivious to anything happening (not privy to The Horrors, because it is literally just a mouse) -Day plans: curling up in the sun to photosynthesize. it is fully booked, indefinitely -The most neutral of neutral parties (group pet) and the most background of background characters (group pet) -very friendly to everyone that pets it and gives its treats. it only bites a little bit, just little love nibbles. Average rodent behavior but with slightly sharper, plantier teeth

~

Full images and descriptions under the cut!

Despite the fact all he desires to be is just some guy the universe keeps trying to make him more than some guy. He's supposed to be a hero, a prince, but he keeps running from the idea of it so much he ends up in another world entirely and all he wants is to go home and be normal, all he wants! He's not looking to save his sister, she can save herself she's strong. He just wants to go home :( that's all he really wants in life and he's getting really tired of the universe saying otherwise

THIS IS MY VERY FAVORITE BABY BOY So Wally is a sweet kid, but because his parents were world-famous, he never really got a choice in who they raised him to be. This resulted in him having a BUNCH of self-worth issues that he tries to deal with on the side because he doesn't want to get his friends involved. He has two (2) major points in the plot (OUT OF 40 CHAPTERS)- one plot point where he ignores the main antagonist to get a boyfriend instead, and one where his entire arc finally culminates in "Wally Learns How To Say No To People." Outside of that, he does NOTHING regarding the main plot and is a C plot character at best. He is simply involved and there in the background because I love him so much and he is my precious little baby boy and yeah sure maybe I loved him so much I made 27 alternate universe versions of him that all have plot relevance in all my stuff but *this* wally is simply a boy and he is blue and he is lovely and I would kill and cry for him every day

[no extra description provided]

[tadpoles-and-daydreams]

An insight into my tarot readings

Alright, I've gotten the green light to talk about my first paid reading! To make it very clear, if you get a reading done by me I will ONLY ever post what I've been told I could share.

In part, I admit; this is shameless self-promo, since I want my readings to go somewhere and that doesn't happen if I don't share my page often and without shame. I'll put the Ko-Fi link at the bottom of this post for those who are interested. However, this is also because I genuinely want to share since this was a cool experience, just as a witch and a tarot reader!

For context: My readings are all typed out and written, because that's where my skills lie; in writing. It's also what I find is the easiest way to communicate with deities, since the feeling of channeling through typing is similar to when I'm writing fiction and some characters just "write themselves."

All that said; This was a reading with Kali for @jessreadsandreads! I feel the need to @ you since this post is literally about your reading. My deity readings come with a little bonus that I should, probably, actually mention more often; I also type out channeled messages from them. Sometimes it's only one or two, sometimes they have something to say for nearly every card.

I always make a point to ask them to join me in my space, all that jazz, and make SURE they are there using the cards. I've never had to tell someone their deity didn't show up, but I still always ask- I'd rather not get "voicemail." Kali's energy in particular felt firm, but quieter than I expected. And as I learned, she is NOT someone to mince her words.

My phone, barely any time into the writing of the interpretation, started blaring an alarm at 3 PM. I didn't even know I had an alarm made for 3 PM, much less set and ready to go off. As I was yelling at it for the fun of it, the term "wake up call" was promptly thrown into my head, and Kali seemed VERY pleased with herself for something so clever. (And kind of amused at my dramatic wailing.)

I am also 90% sure that a few sentences in that reading are more for me than anything, because I felt a wording was way too harsh and was asking "are you SURE YOU WANT ME TO KEEP THAT????" and just generally staring at what I'd just typed in vague distress. Kali eventually continued with a few sentences elaborating on exactly what she meant by that, which was less harsh than how I would have interpreted it. So yeah, just so you know; if you have a deity involved in your reading, I am NOT responsible for what they say, please don't shoot the messenger!

I already feel like this post is too long, so I'll end it with those two little blips; but I feel like I'll start posting little tidbits from my personal readings more often, since sometimes things look a little funnier than you'd expect them to.

And of course, as promised: Here's my Ko-Fi! If you want get a reading done or just support my blog you can head over there. All the details are on there, but if you have any questions about the readings (or about my blog in general) my askbox and DM's are always open!!

[piracytheorist]

Do you think any of the Forgers believe in ghosts or have a fear of the supernatural?

Anya is part of a supernatural force, courtesy of her mind-reading powers. And she's a child, so she definitely has some kind of belief or fear of something related. I wonder what kind of nightmares she might have and whether she has the instinct to run to someone for comfort after she's had one, cause she most likely didn't have someone to comfort her after one when she was in the lab or in any of the orphanages. Maybe the scientists drilled into her the thought that nightmares aren't real and there's no monster hiding under her bed or her closet.

She probably believes there are aliens and the kinds of monsters she comes up with.

She's like, five, and her imagination runs wild. And again, she herself is a result of human experimentation and has a dog that can see the future, so her imagination limits are probably even broader than the average five-year-old's. But I don't think she has a particular fear of ghosts or anything. Again, maybe the scientists took that fear away from her and maybe not in the kindest and most supportive of ways.

Twilight is a very logical person, and I doubt he believes in anything he cannot see or prove for himself. Even his own feelings are a difficult concept for him to grasp. Shameless self promo of my time loop fic, in which upon his realization that something supernatural is happening to him, he doesn't think "OMG magic is real! What else, am I gonna see ghosts or whatever?", instead he goes like "Okay, how do I work around this".

He's also a spy, putting himself in danger and dirtying his hands to create the world he wants. He doesn't seem to believe in a higher power or benign force that could help him in his mission; if he wants a better world, he has to work for it himself. He also probably doesn't fear of any divine judgment, I doubt he'd be able to do as much morally questionable stuff if he feared he'd be judged for them in the afterlife. He may not even believe in afterlife, period. How would he deal with the idea that, if judged for his actions, he wouldn't get to see his mother again in the afterlife?

As for Yor, she might be somewhere in the middle. Like Twilight, she took it upon herself to rid the world of dangers; she isn't expecting from a higher power to help her. No-one protected her and her brother when they were innocent, so she might as well dirty her hands to protect her brother, because what kind of a higher being that didn't help them when they needed it would have the footing to judge her for that?

That said, I wonder how accurate the translation of that line of hers is here. Cause here it sounds like she will be punished (by whom? Some higher power? The Shopkeeper if he finds out?) for thinking about harming an innocent person.

In the manga translation, it sounds like just by thinking of hurting an innocent person, she could jinx it and actually cause it to happen... or that if she thinks about it too much, she'll somehow end up convincing herself she should go ahead and harm Fiona?

In any case, she might lean more towards thinking supernatural things could happen, but it's not something that concerns her on a day-to-day basis. I don't think she fears of anything supernatural... if nothing else, because she might be confident enough she'll be able to fight off anything with harmful intentions. Gurl was absolutely ready to fight sharks if needed, I wouldn't doubt she'd be able to kick some ghost and demon ass no problem. I doubt she fears of divine judgment either, but unlike Twilight it wouldn't be because she doubts it exists, but because she concerns herself with the present and protecting what she cares about now. Future her can worry about that. And then kick the ass of the deity or demon punishing her for committing murder on the regular because excuse me sir where were you when me and my brother were two starving war orphans? Yeah, thought so.

(anime only here, don't spoil me for the manga)

[boltlightning]

So, Pinterest found out my love for Jorrington. However it showed me some other aesthetic scenes of AWE. Which makes me wonder, if he was still alive and survived, or perhaps kept alive by David Jonathan.

What side do YOU think he would be on in the stand off, why, and what would his response be?

Does this differ to you depending on how he would be alive (escapee or enslaved by Dave Johns)

I imagine angles could be: Civil yet sassy, violent either by skill or having more numbers, obedient (to whomever is his leader).

david jonathan..............

i've definitely thought about this an inordinate amount, and my biases are on fully display as i say norrington would be at elizabeth's side, or at least hovering behind her glowering, when dealing at the parlay.

i've gone through a lot of mental turbulence over a version of events where norrington ends up a pirate, because it's so antithetical to what he stands for both as a vessel of themes and a character with feelings, i have a hard time wrapping my head around it. i think he needed to die in the canon narrative. HOWEVER. i think there's a lot of good theme resolution if he metaphorically dies on the dutchman to save elizabeth, survives and escapes with her, and casts out his former self to become a pirate, even if just to kill cutler beckett in revenge. it's more about loyalty to elizabeth and revenge than it is actually believing in what the pirates stand for than anything, but even getting to that point requires a major ego death.

for all that the title is hollow, norrington is an admiral and a lifelong seaman. he could outgambit beckett in a fleet vs armada situation, were the fleet at his disposal not a pirate fleet, and i think he'd have real valuable input at the parlay...just nothing he'd want to reveal out of hand, like everyone else.

(more thoughts below this got out of hand)

furthermore: consider that the pearl and dutchman have their final standoff during a maelstrom. his canonical ego death happened while chasing the pearl into a hurricane; if he follows elizabeth, he can help steer the pearl out of a storm to safety. the bookends! the parallels!!!

in this consideration i do imagine he's somewhere between the snarky-yet-stuffy cotbp and scruffy-and-blunt dmc norringtons, as you say. that's a great read, and a fun little thought experiment about who he is without the blade of duty/expectation hanging over his neck. civil with a sharp tongue and little reason to hold it back, but with renewed purpose and less of a vendetta against the world at large.

tldr: swap out his literal death with a metaphorical one and he'd follow elizabeth anywhere, especially to battle

(not to self-promo on an ask from a friend but i did write a 20k fic about this very subject; i'd change some stuff now but the bulk of my thoughts are in this big ass thesis. thank you for your time now back to the show)

although..........i am thinking very hard about the idea that he, like jones, is still being forced into service here? like maybe beckett keeps swann as a hostage not to keep elizabeth compliant, but to keep norrington compliant, to make sure the dutchman follows orders in the big fight.

(aside: i don't think norrington fears death or would want to live as anyone besides himself, so he'd never accept jones' offer of undeath unless it was to protect someone else from the same fate. hmm hmm much to consider)

either way: beckett brings norrington to the parlay just to flaunt "look how many of your people i have in my charge! haha!" maybe norrington is trying to drop hints to elizabeth that her father is still alive during the parlay, but she's focused on will being there ALSO trying to drop hints, and it gets messy fast.

having received confirmation that everyone ignores the puppet admiral and uses him for leverage, norrington frees both jack AND governor swann and escapes into the narrative. or something. hmm i'll workshop it

this is a very interesting idea!!! thank you so much for the ask

[lovecolibri]

SaL anon here friend and I don't know about you but I'm so, so tired. Amazing how the rush of excitement I got at seeing the promo pics for an actual dramatic emergency could instantly be taken out by a 7 second promo. I feel like KR got the news well before the official announcement and said "I'm going to turn this finale into everything I want", and basically decided to push everyone but Buck to the sidelines and make them observers while pairing him with her failed self-insert. And ugh, the only thing equally as bad as the prospect of L being involved in saving everyone is the prospect of the emergency just being like a quarter of the episode and us wasting the rest of the time on wrapping up Buck's many, many, many storylines. I know we don't know for sure this is what would happen, but KR has given us no reason to think it won't. Frankly I think we should let ABC know that should they, in taking over 911, choose to retcon anything (or everything) from the last two seasons we're okay with that, and no questions will be asked.

And yeah, I can definitely agree that while Buck taking over during a crisis would be a nice way to get closure on his doubts from episode 1, the path there (if one can call it a path, which implies it goes somewhere) makes absolutely no sense. I don't even want to think about how they are going to shove Natalia (I think she's around next episode?...still) and a baby into the whole mess. I honestly would have easily taken 50% less Buck this season if they had just taken the time do the leadership arc well and have this grand emergency to show that off.

So while I'm kind of resigned on the finale for OG, I have a bit more hope for the LS one, though I too am hard side-eyeing the "earn the wedding" comments. Who exactly has to earn this wedding? The audience? They make the effort to tune in regularly despite some pretty shitty writing choices, I think they're owed a debt. The characters? Not sure how two people being in an long-term relationship and seeing each other through hardships hasn't earned them a wedding. We'll see what happens, but at this point its the odds are 50/50 that this "tragedy" will involve either a hospital or a crime scene (or both)

Hi my friend! I have been under the weather this week and ended up being out of town all day today so I am *literally* tired, but also I am WITH you on my excitement for the finale getting sucked away by half that promo being of L and her once again butchering line delivery on something as minimal as "mayday" 🙄 I already got my hopes up for a good firefam feels focused episode and got let down by 6x11 SO HARD, so I'm just going to operate under the worst assumptions that way I can, hopefully, end the episode with a "could have been worse I guess". Although I went into 6x17 with zero expectations and the show still managed to let me down anyway soooo 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

I'm sure KR knew something was up, the negotiations were *rough* last year so I'm sure they were all told to prepare. And since it's something the show usually does, wrapping up nicely each season, it won't feel out of place, however I'm also worried the emergency won't be that long. Seasons 2-4 all had a cliffhanger in the penultimate episode to get people to tune in to the finale but 6x17 did NOT give people a lot of reason to HAVE to tune in. At least s5 made the effort of showing that firetruck crash like 8000 times over the week and making it look like Bobby was in danger, even if it was just a 5 min emergency that ultimately didn't do anything at all or affect anyone. They couldn't even be bothered to give a promo until Friday and without a cliffhanger, what's the hook to draw everyone in for the finale? Because you know those casual viewers are scouring the internet for news about the show, hell, most of them probably figured with no promo that 6x17 WAS the finale! Madney got engaged which is usually a season finale thing so I wonder how many of them though that was it!

"I honestly would have easily taken 50% less Buck this season if they had just taken the time do the leadership arc well and have this grand emergency to show that off." 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 SAAAAAAAME. They should have spent less time trying to turn everything about his storylines into a joke and actually delved into HIS emotions more. Instead we got the whole sperm baby now being about some rando characters we don't even know or care about's emotions for some reason?! His death being turned into "haha funny math skills for ONE episode only!" And this whole death doula thing where we haven't even heard them actually really talking about anything and what we did see was her being DEEPLY insensitive and unempathetic for her line of work, and then a parade of Buck's awful choices to remind everyone of them for??? What reason exactly? To give her a reason to leave? When after what we've seen we....didn't even need her in the first place? Like, WHAT has she actually said or done that has actually been meaningful or addressed Buck's death? We saw some of the aftermath in his talk with Eddie at the cemetery but what purpose besides giving Buck another LI he met on a call is she actually serving? Anything important could have been imparted by a victim at a call, and that triggered Buck to talk to someone in his firefam (OR HIS THERAPIST FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST!), and given us a peek into Buck's head about it. Instead we have wasted all this time on what? An excuse to bring two of the most audience hated characters back? WHAT?! Like, literally, who allowed this to happen? WHOMST in that production team looked at this absolute mess that KR presented as an idea and said "yeah, that works!" ?!?!?!?! Sorry, I'm too grouchy to try and make sense of this, it's just SO stupid and such a waste of time, the ONE thing KR is good at.

As for LS, I still haven't gotten to watch last week's episode. I'm hoping to watch it tomorrow but at this point I'm just watching that show with an "eh. This might as well happen I guess" because I'm out of energy for much more than that. I've seen some of the spec floating around but mostly I'm just excited that we were all right and Paul is officiating. Bobby is gonna be sooooo jealous. But for real, WHAT is this idea on shows that characters have to "earn" happiness and that always meaning that someone like, dies, or they have to be miserable in 98% of the episodes to get one or two happy scenes before the next tragedy strikes? Because I think the WRITING should have to earn the payoff and neither show has managed to do that this season.

Here's expecting the worst so we aren't TOO disappointed, while holding space to be happy if Andrew manages to get around the nonsense KR insisted on to give us a decent emergency because I doubt we'll get a satisfying wrap up for anything else on the Buck or Eddie front. Maybe we'll get extra lucky and the backlash after this week (and on that TVLine article, seriously what did they expect with that question?) will get L's scenes cut as much as possible again. For old times sake. Pretty much every article comment space, review space, and SM space I've seen has been pretty clear about KR needing to be gone so here's hoping ABC is taking notes! At the very least, their promo team can't possible be worse, right?

[fukutomichi]

Aaiiight! Time for my Rings of Power gigantic post. It’s been IONS since I’ve written one so here we go. Warning: IT’S LONG!

Okay, where do I begin. 

It’s somewhere around October 2001, I’m this tiny 10 year old middle school kid and I see a giant poster of a movie coming up in front of our local cinema. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. I don’t even know what it’s about. But something about this poster just PULLED me in and made me FEEL something. It’s the giant promo poster with the Argonath and above them with giant letters “The legend comes to life”. 

December comes in and I’m BEGGING my parents to let me see this movie, I don’t even care about x-mas presents, just let me have some ticket money and let me see it with my friends. My first “solo” cinema trip without my parents. And they did.

It’s one of those cinema experiences where it changes your life forever. I still remember it like it happened yesterday.

Fast forward the beginning of 2002, my dad finally caves in and gets me and my big brother access to the internet for the first time. Dial up of course. Good old early 2000′s. And where do I and my big bro first go web searching? The official movie site to download some wallpapers, screensavers and icons. You can’t imagine the excitement! 

And then we find the forums. Whoa, now I wanna to read what other people from around the world say about it.

At that time, my english was basically at “self taught” level from movies, games and music. Luckily my big brother was there to fill in the gaps that I was missing.

You can’t imagine the whiplash shock that I had when we found comments about people not liking Fellowship of the Rings at all. I ask my brother “Why are they not liking it?? “Wow Frodo is a misscast” ‘Nothing like the books at all” “No Tom Bombadil??”, “Why is Arwen the one saving Frodo that’s not in the book” 

“This is not LIKE THE BOOKS” “THIS IS NOT TOLKIEN” 

The books. Do we need to read the books for this? Are we missing something? Everyone we knew had a perfect time with the moves and this was something completely new that we were reading about which was confusing.

My brother decides to look for the books to read them. I choose not to. I wanna experience the rest of the trilogy now just I started out. Completely unaware of the books.

And what an experience it was. THE MUSIC! The entire cast of actors!! GASPED when Gandalf shows up in Fangorn forest, cried like a baby with Haldir died, cheered as hell when Gandalf saves the day at Helm’s Deep, cried AGAIN at Sam’s speech...and was gross sobbing at “You bow to no one”...the entire cinema was sobbing.

Were all the people in the cinema books readers? Doubt it. Did it even matter? Not even a little. Were they the best movies you can experience on the big screen? Most certainly. I mean, sweeping the Oscars tells you something.

After all the hype had passed from the movies, I thought it was time to give the books a shot. Start from the beginning. The Silmarillion. Big mistake. This is more like a history book than an adventure book? But I did read it. The Hobbit. Okay this is much better. And then the trilogy. So now I see which parts they missed, skipped. changed. but how COULD they even cram everything in?? They would need 5 movies for all of this. Needless to say. even after reading the books, my feelings for the movies never changed. No, they were not like the books, but they FELT like Tolkien.

I was hopping they would manage to make the Hobbit too. Which they did eventually.

Then years after comes the article were Christopher Tolkien absolutely trashes the trilogy. WHY? People are literally becoming fans of the books BECAUSE of the movies!! Me included. I figured maybe it was money, maybe some deal that wasn’t honored? At that point I was much more mature on that subject and my feelings were made up, I both loved the books and the movies. Book adaptations to movies are just that. They can vary from each other, take out or leave out parts, change names or places. As long as they FEEL like they’ve come from the same source.

Years pass and rumors start flying around that T.V studios are fighting for the Tolkien rights, I thought huh, maybe some opinions have changed towards adaptations at Tolkien’s house? Or just money lol.

This is after the Hobbit movies were done and left some people “eh” about them. Me? When you take a look at the book and imagine making 3 movies out of it, I knew they were gonna try to cash in with them as much as they could. I was fine with them. Some of the original cast is gonna be back, probably for the last time and P.J was doing them! What could go wrong right? Probably too much CGI? (¬_¬ )

Anyways, Game of Thrones set a HUGE bar for fantasy shows now. Even after that dumpster fire of a Season 8. I still haven’t watched the last two episodes of it. OF COURSE studios are gonna fight for the biggest fantasy I.P there is! With TONS of lore still not adapted. 

The first rumor is the Adventures of Young Gandalf and Aragorn, Cinematic Universe Marvel Style. Who pitched thiiiis?? I WAS CRYING LAUGHING! Who was pitching sexy Gandalf?? And just a couple of weeks ago, we finally found out it was Netflix!! OF COURSE IT WAS THEM!! Talk about dodging a bullet! 

Next, was a rumor of a complete reboot of the trilogy. Now that a bold move. Dangerous. Batman you can reboot all you want. But the trilogy? THE TRILOGY? Turns out it was HBO, and if you looked at what’s happening at their house right now, I wouldn’t trust them for a bit. It was smart of the Tolkiens to not let them touch the triolgy while it’s still a giant part of today’s pop culture. Not yet.

And then comes this weird rumor of some guys pitching a prequel. Uhhh, for Aragorn and sexy Gandalf, again? Nope. Waaaaay back prequel. The Second Age. Huh, okay. Not a lot to go in from there? Then they go “with filling in the gaps”. Now, wait right there. Please don’t go the “unfinished text” route, don’t pull a D&D “Danny kinda forgot about the ships” please god no. USE THE BOOKS!! And then they say they don’t even have the entire rights for the lore. They have only 6 pages worth of material to work with.

Game of Thrones still fresh SALTINESS rushes in me and my mind is made.

That’s not Tolkien then. And my skepticism was turned on.

In the end, it was Amazon with Big Boy Jeff who got the rights and their 2nd Age pitch. Of course it was him with all the fuck you money in the world. The savior of The Expanse, The Boys and Invincible with their big F U to Marvel, Reacher and Jack Ryan for all the manly men, Good Omens for Gaiman fans.

In the meantime, HBO goes, wait a minute, we have a prequel too! Here’s House of the Dragon. ASOIAF fans can just groan and keep trashing the last season all they wait, HBO is still doing it, even after that disaster.

So now we have TWO giant fantasy shows coming up and I have little to no feelings towards both. And for the most part everyone else as well. 

Soon promos start rolling out, casts get introduced.

And THAT’S were things start to shift. 

I remember my first reaction “THAT’S gonna be Elrond?? HIM? Baby Ned Stark?? Excuse you, but my Hugo Weaving COULD NEVER!”

There are times when I forget what the internet is filled with, and the period we live in. It’s not the innocent times of dial up. And I should have known, I SHOULD have known, where the hate is gonna go towards first. 

The people of color.

There were no other complaints other than that, when the official story and the cast with their roles were introduced. BLACK ELVES? BLACK DWARVES?? THAT’S NOT TOLKIEN!! WAAAAA!!

I was not surprised, coming out of what was happening with the Star Wars fandom and the dude bro fans, but I WAS SURPRISED that THIS was happening within the Tolkien fandom. Since when did it became like this? The fuck? (←_←)

I suddenly became aware that I haven’t been in contact with that fandom IN YEARS and that the same dude bros have infested even that part. 

House of the Dragon also starts facing the same problem with their cast and promos. BLACK VELARYONS!! WAAAAAA!!

Nobody had any strong thoughts about these shows at first. It only started AFTER their casts were announced.

And now both shows don’t have a good footing because of dude bros crying with just a few months before their premiers.

July 2022 rolls in and the trailers for both shows drop. Rings of Power IMMEDIATELY catches me with the music, BUT STILL I’m being held back by those “fill in the gaps within the text” quotes. 

During a meet up with friends we talk about Comic Con finally happening live after the pandemic. We’re discussing about what big panels are gonna be up. House of the Dragon and Rings of Power come in discussion. This silence falls around us and we start going around. “That last GoT season sucked ass, how are they gonna pull this off” “Uhh those Hobbit movies were kinda meh” “These are just cash grabs” “Streaming Fantasy Wars”

Nobody that I’ve known in my life has a problem with people’s skin. That’s not how I’ve been brought up in my life. Not my circle of friends. The core problem with us now falls in “What if they’re just shit stories”...But how can we know if we don’t check them out first, right?

After the pandemic kinda mellowed down, there was this giant hole of misery in my group of friends for something NEW to experience and maybe to watch something not so dystopian but, something that gets people excited and a little hopeful. 

Tolkien fills the spot just right.

So I made some free time for one Saturday and decided to watch the Rings of Power SDCC panel. I needed more info for it.

15 minutes in and suddenly I felt that feeling when I saw that first promo Fellowship of the Ring poster. I FELT THAT FEELING.

And that’s the start of my shift.

Here’s a little post I made immediately after I watched the panel and my mind was FINALLY made up!

The cast was visibly giddy and excited, nerding out with their tales about their first encounter with anything Tolkien related. Some were movie fans, some HEAVY book fans, GAMING FANS?? WHAT?? Maxim Baldry telling his story about playing War of the Rings IMMEDIATELY transported me back to me and my big brother playing the shit out it it as well. The cast? These guys are fans. Certified fans. The show runners on the other hand, knew exactly what they wanted and they even said “We’re gonna take this slow this first season” so slow pace it is then. Don’t mind that at all! Love a slow burn! Question after question you could VISIBLY tell this was something that was gonna be made with love and appreciation towards the source material. 

This made me realise that I have almost become the person that I was reading on the forums all those years ago.“Not like the books”. Did it matter to me that they didn’t follow the books accurately all those years ago? Hell no. Does it matter now? HELL NO! It’s an adaptation! ADAPTATION! And I wanna see if its good! Game of Thrones REALLY did a lot of damage to me with that last season, not letting me take a chance at all.

House of the Dragon rolls out first, and what do you know! People like it! I mean where else are people gonna get their soft porn and gore galore in a fantasy setting on TV. And so the dude bro’s go quiet on that one.

The Rings of Power finally roll out their first two episodes. 

For me, the excitement that night is through the ROOF, but there’s STILL that little “they are gonna just rush things and cash in the money” thought going on.

Meanwhile, dude bros are LIVID! Amazon just cashing in, RUINED the lore! Absolute crap! Suddenly it’s only about cause it’s on Amazon. These same people were singing high praises when Jeffy boy took the rights for the Expanse so they can finish up the story cause apparently he was a huge fan. This is the best sci-fi show that has ever graced the TV. Their words. But now this LOTR series that has people of color in it, Amazon automatically bad. Good Omens season 2 coming up soon and people are beyond excited. It’s on Amazon. You see my point. They needed to mask the racism somehow so they picked “jeff rich bad”. Jeff is still a piece of shit, but he certainly didn’t write, direct, act, produce this entire series from his ass alone. He just threw money on it.

So I’m not gonna lie. Those first 20 minutes had me worried.

LOOKS BEAUTIFUL!! But holy shit they were just POWER BLASTING with the prologue!!! They said they were gonna go slow!?!

Then the 20 minute mark passes. 

And the show begins.

Settings are being introduced, characters are entering the scenes, lines are being spoken. This is it. 

THIS IS IT!

MOMENTARILY my hobbit biased ass goes for the harfoot storyline. But the moment Khazad-Dum enters the scene, DISA AND DURIN enter the scene, I’m just over the moon. FINALLY!!! WE GET DWARVES LIKE WE SHOULD!

I’ve never been more glad to be proven wrong when it comes to Elrond. The showrunners said “Give me kind as summer” AND BOY DID HE OUTSUMMER THE SHIT OUT OF THAT ROLE!!  Robert Aramayo, I’m so sorry for ever doubting you. You ARE Elrond Half-Elven. (ಥ﹏ಥ)

Galadriel having a long arc till she gets to be the Lady of Lothlórien?! I wanna know what happened!  Morfydd Clark! *chef’s kiss*

We’re not discussing Halbrand. Charlie Vickers you little shit.You did great!

NUMENOOOOOR!! HOLY SHIIIIIT!!! Who would have thought that a certified LOTR meme like Isildur would become such a soft character in the show. Titanium plot armour, but you still wanna see him make it. I wanna see MORE of MIRIEL!! Pharazon was such a good cast too!

Make Lloyd Owen the official voice of all the Tolkien material. Audiable versions. Everything. A++ casting for Elendil.

Talk about Audible, who would have thought that the Sandman’s Richard Madoc in that version is gonna be also be here playing the Stranger?? And with my harfoot bias comes the Stranger bias, visibly on my blog lol. God, what a performance by Daniel Weyman, we were always on the brink of “It’s gotta be HIM right? IT’S HIM RIGHT?”...well, ISTARI BAYBEEEEEH!! Grey, Blue, doesn’t matter!!! (ง ื▿ ื)ว i’m kinda leaning on olorin tho but i’m also conflicted cause i wanna go to the far east ugh

What can I even say about Arondir and Bronwyn. The softness, the angst. And then Theo enters the picture. I did a whole 180 on his character which took me off guard!! LET THEM BE HAPPY!!

UNCLE BENJEN AS ADAR!! The orc storyline.The one were you get a moral dilemma and it WORKS! In his own twisted way, he’s right? ლ(ಠ_ಠ ლ)

THE MUSIC! Now this was the final deal breaker for me. I’ve always loved Bear McCreary ever since I’ve gotten my hands on the BattleStar Galactica OST when the series was still running. I was sure Lucasfilms was gonna scoop him up for one of their next big Star Wars movies cause he has a certain flavour with themes and motifs. And I was sure he was gonna end up there. But no. I’ve never been more glad to see this man compose for Tolkien’s world. I LOVE THIS SOUNDTRACK! And my favorite track? Is the one that he talks in an interview that he was most scared of releasing. The Numenor theme. God I love it so much. It almost starts like a distant memory of a forgotten place. And then it builds, it builds to JUST MAJESTICALLY BLAST YOU INTO THE SOUL! Do I have to mention how Plea to the Rocks made me cry the first time I heard it? I was holding it, holding it, Sophia Nomvete lets out those crushing vocals AND I WAS A PUDDLE OF MESS!! The Stranger’s theme is my number 3 fav theme cause it’s just pure magical waltz bliss until it GOES OFF!! ISTARI BAYBEEEEEH!! The rest of the cast also sings?? This Wandering Day?? Certified gross sob bop!

I can go on FOREEEEVER nitpicking the goodies this show has to offer. But it’s time for some of the baddies too.

They NEED to get help with writing. The foundation is there, but they gotta up the game especially when the actors have such good chemistry with each other! GET HELP!! 

I get there’s gotta be some plot holes left cause duh, but some are just gaping so large, I’m thinking that’s gotta be intentional. I do realise that with limited rights given to them, they gotta work around somehow. HOPEFULLY that changes for S2.

Obviously we got very little time with Gil-Galad and Celebrimbor, but I know that’s gonna change as the story progresses. The same also goes for the Numenor storyline, with Kemen and Earien, which as we know, it’s not gonna be a happy one.

But in all honesty, I can’t WAIT for season 2. I can’t wait to see some new cast news. I wanna see some Celeborn casting soon!! We need to know where’s that silver clam at!!

So looking back now, this show really suffered from all the early crying of “THIS IS NOT TOLKIEN WAAAAA” AKA just straight up racism.

This show is a love letter to Tolkien. THEY UNDERSTOOD THE ASSIGNMENT. 

The got the music right, the characters right, the settings right, the themes right. IT’S ALL THERE! 

This feels like Tolkien to me. And that’s all that matters. ♡

And hey, if along the way it turns out into another GoT S8 dumpster fire, I would have no trouble dropping it like it’s nothing. That show took 10 years from me. Don’t need to know how it ended. It was just plain bad at the end.

But for now, The Rings of Power is good. House of the Dragon is good. There should not be rivalry at all cause in the end, fantasy fans are eating good, regardless. 

Now I can officially start the hiatus period till Season 2 drops. Expect lots of gif sets coming up. I got my templates ready, my extended versions ready, broken PS version that crashes all the time, ready.

I love this show. ♡( ◡‿◡ )

[afirewiel]

i don't know about s3 theories but i have some questions

what is the scandal that drives the montroses to sanditon? is it about the sister (some unsuitable lover?) or the brother (gay)?

i found it so sus that georgiana gave otis' full name to lockhart in s2. otis is coming back and i'm wondering if lockhart uses him in his lawsuit somehow.

are the writers really going to write another season of edward just being his usual sleazy self, or will we see some character growth? maybe he actually ends up doing right by augusta? but what could be the catalyst for him to start behaving?

what's the deal with lydia montrose? will she be genuinely interested in colbourne or just there to create drama?

the whole story behind mrs. wheatley, samuel being georgiana's attorney, alexander really disliking his father. the colbournes have to have some connection to the sugar trade or antigua or something.

who finds georgiana's mom? otis? an agent of the parkers or the colbournes? or maybe she reads about georgiana's court case in the papers somewhere.

will georgiana marry lord montrose for convenience to gain the protection of his status, while he begins a relationship with arthur? it looks like that from the trailers, but i'm not convinced it's the endgame.

samuel colbourne + lady susan? will they end up together or is this a red herring in the promos?

I think it will be the latter (the brother being gay). My theory is that Georgiana will grow close to him, not realizing he's gay.

I don't think Otis is coming back, but I do find it odd that we haven't seen Lockhart in any of the promotional material. We know he's coming back as the writers said so early on.

I'm all for redemption arcs, BUT, as long as they are well done and planned out from the beginning. I don't see how they can try and redeem Edward in our eyes after everything he's done the last two seasons. It would require a lot of work on their part.

It could be both. She could be genuinely interested in Colbourne, which would create drama between her and Charlotte.

I really hope we do get more of a back story on that as well.

No clue. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

I doubt it. That would be a very un-Austen like thing to happen.

He either ends up with Lady Susan or Georgiana.

[gayhoediaz]

five fave fics

tagged by @ekstasisandangst (who is absolutely right, self promo is always the way to go,) and @loveyourownsmiilee 💕

stupid people.

160k | E | Buck/Eddie

New in Los Angeles, and having recently admitted to himself that he's gay, Eddie figures that hiring a sex worker might be a good way to keep his private life cut off from his job and his son. A way to keep things from becoming too complicated.

It works. For a while.

moonlight, nightmares, and tearful confessions

9k | E | Buck/Eddie

“Want me to tell you that I can’t fucking sleep? Ever? That I’m terrified - every single day of my life, because I came back from a warzone, only to be shot in the middle of the day, on a busy LA street, and I had to realize that I’m not fucking safe? Which means my son isn’t safe? Which means none of the people I love, will ever be safe? That it could happen again?”

Buck stays silent - although somewhere, in the back of his mind, some part of him is saying 'Finally.'; is saying 'Thank god. Let him break. Let him break, so that I can break, so that we can break together, and then heal together, and finally - finally - start to leave that day behind us.'

blood in, bleed out

214k | E | Ian/Mickey

The year is 1954. Tony Bennett is on the radio, Marilyn Monroe is on the silver screen, and as Ian Gallagher is about to find out - the Ukrainian mafia is in full swing.

thunderstorms, candlelight, and filthy words in the dark

12k | E | Buck/Eddie

The wind is screaming louder now, the rain pours and pours with no sign of slowing down. The thunder is getting a little bit louder with each time it rolls.

It doesn’t matter. It’s all outside. Inside, it’s warm. Inside, it’s safe.

nightskies, crickets, and whispered words of love

1.9k | E | Buck/Eddie

Buck wants this, he thinks. Always. Forever. Not just this, though - not just a best friend, and his best friend’s child - he wants more. As he stares up at the sky, he lets his mind drift to the thought of soft kisses, and lazy morning sex. Rings. Perhaps even a larger house someday - more children, if that’s something that Eddie would like. He thinks of reading glasses, and aching joints, and stray grey hairs.

It doesn’t scare him anymore. In fact, he’s not even all that worried about the feeling being mutual. It is. He knows it is. They’ve never actually talked about it, but he can sense it. He can sense it in the lingering touches, and the eye contact that nowadays always seems to last just a second or two longer than it needs to. He feels it in the peace they’ve found with each other.

I don’t know who’s done this or who’s been tagged so, if you don’t want to, just ignore this but @fearlessdiaz @mmtions @eddiessluttytanktop @eddiediazes @eddiediass @imsupposedtobewritting @eddiediazisascorpio

[hopewilled-archive-blog]

tag drop

⋅   meme   ╱   run the risk of being intimate with brokenness .  ❜ ⋅   open   ╱   i’m not looking to be found ; i just want to feel unlost .  ❜ ⋅   call   ╱   initiate the heart within me .  ❜ ⋅   wishlist   ╱   add our question marks to periods .  ❜ ⋅   ooc   ╱   the human equivalent of a trainwreck .  ❜ ⋅   psa   ╱   if you or a loved one has been diagnosed with mesothelioma . . .  ❜ ⋅   saved   ╱   kept safe from the horrors of the world .  ❜ ⋅   queue   ╱   thank queue for your time .  ❜ ⋅   promo   ╱   there's something so magic about you .  ❜ ⋅   self promo   ╱   sit on back and watch me crash .  ❜

⋅   character study   ╱   for the world is hollow and i have touched the sky .  ❜ ⋅   playlist   ╱   lost between the silence and the sound .  ❜ ⋅   likes   ╱   daring to sleep beside the dying fire .  ❜ ⋅   desires   ╱   i keep a close watch on this heart of mine .  ❜ ⋅   body   ╱   let the scaffolding be strong enough to hold this tired body up .  ❜ ⋅   skills   ╱   try to breathe until it turns to muscle memory .  ❜ ⋅   aesthetic   ╱   broken halos ;  folded wings that used to fly .  ❜ ⋅   self   ╱   angel boy ;  narrow and straight laced and fallen astray .  ❜

⋅   v ;  arc i .   ╱   what happened to the soul you used to be ?  ❜ ⋅   v ;  arc ii .   ╱   back before i lost myself somewhere .  ❜ ⋅   v ;  arc iii .   ╱   you don’t want to know my darkest lows .  ❜ ⋅   v ;  arc iv .   ╱   falling feels like flying until you hit the ground .  ❜

⋅   v ;  statesman   ╱   when the whiskey is the only thing you have left to hold .  ❜ ⋅   v ;  lantern   ╱   in fearful day and in raging night .  ❜

[survivehcr]

tag drop

[fruitydemogorgon]

Okay so here's my proper analysis for the new promos we've gotten!

(I'll probably think of more things later)

Waking up to new Stranger Things content is a tumultuous experience- I giggled, I cried, I almost screamed but didn't want to awaken my sister. This morning we were gifted with four new promo images, and most social media platforms have been bombarded with the tag; stranger things season 4.

Despite the wait- it's becoming easier to fathom the idea of 3 years between seasons. With double the episodes, and over a year and a half worth of filming, one can understand the struggle. Especially amidst a global pandemic. But, it's coming. On May 27th, Volume 1. Season 4 of Stranger Things will be bestowed upon the public, and us nerds will finally get the satisfaction we have been waiting for!

I'll start by reviewing the first promo image we received (I believe).

001; Russia. Getting the band back together. Bring a jacket.

From the statement "Getting the band back together", it's obvious that Joyce and Murray are the ones standing beside Hopper. The three are standing in a snowy courtyard, presumably inside a Russian base. There's blood splattered across the ground, and bits of debris as if some sort of explosion happened. As in all the other promo images, a portal to the upside-down looms in the centre frame, with the characters walking towards it.

It seems as if Hopper is either looking at Joyce or looking behind himself, possibly hinting that they're being followed (which would make sense considering they're most definitely not supposed to be here/escaping). Hopper's shadow is covered by the season 4 logo, and Joyce and Murray's are right beside it.

002. The Lab. Every story starts somewhere.

:"Every ending has a beginning."

I think it's finally safe to assume that this season we will be revisiting the earlier moments of Stranger Things. Discovering more about Eleven's past, The Lab, Brenner, etc. This is super exciting, and as I stated in my earlier post I cannot wait to see Eleven uncover the depths of her past.

There are multiple pieces of evidence that point towards the place in the image being Hawkin's Lab. However, she was captured in California (explained in my analysis here), so it doesn't make much sense how she's ended up in Hawkin's Lab (unless she was taken there by her capturers). But if that were the case, I don't understand why they would be working in such poor conditions. Maybe, Eleven is the reason the place looks demolished? (More on that later). Just a theory, but I'm not sure.

We also know that the room at the end of the hallway is the rainbow room; the layout of the hallway is same to that of the trailer, the rainbows either side the screen, etc. If that's the case, then Eleven's room is at the opposite end of the hall, where Eleven is walking from. Meaning she may have just been in her room. :O

Anyways, there's blood everywhere, and pieces of paper and shattered glass litter the floor. In the distance it also looks like there is cardboard or something.

Below I'll outline the few significant things I notice, then discuss them;

-Eleven's reflection in the mirror

-The rainbow room

-The Coca-Cola can

-The broken light switch

-Headset thing

-The door number

I've brightened up the image so that we can actually get a good look at what's going on:

Eleven's reflection in the Mirror

In the mirror, we see Eleven's younger self in the reflection.

It makes sense that this is hinting towards El revisiting her past. And the shattered glass could be a metaphor for her 'broken past', and how she's coming to put the pieces back together to uncover who she truly is.

The Rainbow Room

In the furthest door at the end of the hall there is a rainbow. We know that this is the Rainbow Room from the trailer 'Eleven, are you listening?' The rainbow could also be (and this is just me throwing out ideas) to show that on the other side of the Upside Down sits the answers and clarification Eleven's been searching for. That after all the strife she's endured, she will find some kind of serenity (and even if that not what this means, I hope it still happens).

The Coca-Cola Can

On the bottom left of the image, at the entrance to the first door on the left, is the Coca-Cola Can. For Eleven, this is a symbol of her powers. When she crushes the can with her mind, it is one of the very early times we see her using her powers. It's also one of the items she uses to practise control. At the moment, Eleven has lost control of her powers, and this could be hinting that at Hawkin's Lab she will regain control. This also leads me to theorise that she may be the on who 'demolished' the place.

The Headset Thingy mabob

Eleven's mind control headset is on the bottom right corner of the image, I've developed a theory for this that I will elaborate on later.

The door number

I'm almost certain it says 11

(I've zoomed in and signs (my impeccable vision) point to yes)

(Also in bottom right corner)

My Theory:

From gathering all the things I just mentioned, I have developed a theory. I believe Eleven was in her room, and, overwhelmed by the memories, had her powers come back to her in a strike of emotion where she threw all the objects around her out of her room (explaining the headset, door number, coca-cola can).

The Broken Light

I've established that this poster has many references to season 1, but I've found something that links back to the first five minutes of the series. To when the Demogorgon was the biggest, scariest threat. I know the lights were flickering, rather than completely broken, but I like to think of it as at least something. Probably isn't anything, but it's a little detail I think could be quite cool. Especially if this season is about the past/origins of Stranger Things.

--

This poster had a lot to unpack, and I think the next few have quite a lot too!

003. Creel House. Tick-tock.

Again, this poster is only further confirming that we will be learning more about the history of Hawkins, The Lab, The Upside Down, etc. 'Tick-tock', reinforces that too. I think for this promo it'll be best to sort my observations into qualitative observations and what I infer from that.

Qualitative

Composition of Characters;

The seven characters, arranged in sets of two, three, then two, are standing centre frame. Max and Lucas are closest to us viewers, and Lucas is looking to Max whereas Max is looking back. She is also wearing headphones. In the middle row stand Steve, Dustin, and Erica. Dustin and Erica are looking forwards, and Steve is looking to his right. In the final row, closest to the portal, are Nancy and Robin, heads tilted towards one another.

Inferences

Composition of Characters;

First of all, I've seen many theories that this season Max and Lucas will be breaking up. Eleven and Mike's composition in the s3 poster resemble Lucas and Max's in this one, and in s3 Eleven 'dumped' Mike. I've also seen theories that Max is experiencing depression in this season, and is going through grief/trauma after what happened at Starcourt (understandably). She's been seen wearing darker/flatter coloured clothes, wearing headphones a lot, and the released 'audition' of the Hawkin's School Counsellor 'talking to her' emphasises on this as well.

She's also the only one looking back, and in the 003 teaser trailer, she was standing at the front of the group. In the s3 poster, Eleven was also looking back, and throughout the season Billy kept trying to contact her. Maybe this season Billy is trying to contact Max, and she responds to him in 'Dear Billy'. I've also seen a speculation that the headphones are symbolising her trying to 'block out the voices', i.e., Billy.

In the next row stands Steve, Dustin, and Erica. On this poster, Steve is in a similar position to Will in the s3 poster. He's turned slightly to his right, possibly looking down at Dustin. Honestly, I haven't seen many other connections between Steve and Will so I don't know what this could mean. Maybe he's going to be able to sense the Mind Flayer? I can't really see that happening. Unless it's hinting at Steve going through some of the trauma Will experienced (or something along the lines of that). I know some people have found lots of evidence suggesting that Steve will die this season, so it could relate to that.

Finally, we have Nancy and Robin standing in the final row, closest to the portal. This is interesting, because Nancy seems to be one of the characters that has experienced most of the supernatural monsters first-hand. Whereas Robin experienced the full-extent of the Russian (human) side of things. Nancy 'fell?' into the Upside Down, and was practically chased by the Demogorgon. She was also chased by the Mind Flayer and it's prey. Robin was drugged and beaten by the Russians underneath Starcourt. And aside from Steve, none of the others in 003 have really experienced (what I will call the full-extent) of the supernatural (and natural) world.

The two are looking at one another, which I kind of hope means they develop a friendship this season (however I will also happily accept it if they end up being lesbians in love- now that I've said that I think I should clarify that I do not ship ronance, because I personally do not see much evidence (suffice to say, I haven't searched for any), but I would not mind seeing two attractive ladies in love on this show that I already love- but, enough of that).

Qualitative

Settings/Surroundings;

The seven are standing in an aging room, with a grandfather clock at the end of it. I've brightened up the image so that we can actually get a good look at what's going on.

What I see:

-Cobwebs

-Chair

-Boxes

-Fan

-Chair

-Wheelchair

-Chair

-Weird tall thing next to chair

Inferences

Settings/Surroundings;

We can definitely assume that they're standing in the attic of Creel House. Most of the items we can see are just general attic-items. 'Tick-tock', and the big grandfather clock both point towards the Creel House having to do with the history of Stranger Things (most of the posters are about the history of ST). I saw a post about how on the other side of the room to the wheelchair was a bassinet (this may just be in the trailer, and not the poster), however I cannot see that now. The only thing I'm curious about is the tall item next to the first pole on the left (in between the fan, chair, and pole)

--

004. California. Hold onto your butts, brochachos.

Neither 001 or 004 have any 'references' to time or the past, like 002 and 003 do. Which makes me wonder what their storylines for this season are going to be about. I'm not sure really how to go about analysing this poster, so I guess I'll start by stating what I see.

This promo is a pain in the ass because there aren't many items or such to look into, and obviously I want to build the tension before jumping straight into what I actually want to say!

In saying this, I realised something. This whole town, lighting, and setting reminds me so much of the Goldfinch. Like. Maybe not exactly the 004 teaser trailer, but this poster specifically is giving me the same vibes. (The part I'm talking about specifically is when Theo is in Las Vegas with Boris-who, I should mention, is played by Finn Wolfhard, and is in love with his best friend).

Anyways, it's always possible that was an intentional action of the Duffer Brother's, but probably not.

There are only three possibly significant objects/items I can see in this image.

The Surfer Boys Pizza Truck

The bike

The car

--

Honestly, I don't think this has any deeper meaning, I feel like the truck is probably more there to show that it's going to be an important vehicle in the season (I know that's so lame for someone who's meant to be analysing everything but i dOnT cArE).

THE bike. Now. I've seen a ton of stuff about this. Is it relating to the Smalltown boy theory? Is it the same bike from the s1 poster? We don't really know, but I saw someone get pretty pissed over another person assuming it to be from the Smalltown boy theory- so I won't go too far into that. Pretty much, the post was pondering why Nancy didn't come with Mike to California. And speculating if Mike had went to Cali himself, i.e. the Smalltown boy theory.

Finally, the car in the very distance (parked in the 3d house down on the left). It looks very similar to Lonnie's car from when Jonathan visited him in s1.

I apologise to those reading this, because at this point when I'm writing I start to just feel off. I really want to finish this now, so I'll keep going, but excuse me if the tone of my writing becomes less formal.

I'm pretty sure this is the first Byler poster with only them (out of the party), so that could mean this will be our first season we see something more than friendship with them (there's also double the episodes! so everyone who was worrying there wouldn't be enough time for them to have a good romantic developmenttt wooowee)

Also like- the 004 teaser trailer completely DOOFED us. like mike and el went from literally holding one another's hands in the other poster, to being in cOMpletely different posterss bruv (yes, i get that they have seperate storylines but aahh).

ALSO, in the s3 poster, El and Will were both looking back at us. Mike was looking at El, who was to his left, and the two were holding hands. In this poster, Will has replaced El, and is standing to Mike's right. The two are also both looking at each other. Was the s3 poster hinting that Will would be replacing El? There may have been a double-meaning to it.

ALSO. JUST. aah

they're looking at each other. last season we barely got anything between them, and now they're looking AT EACH OTHER!!!

(sorry i'm going crazy over such a little thing- but i KNOW you all are too).

Last of all, I saw someone else say something about this and I think it's really interesting. Maybe the cracks aren't going towards Will and Mike, but they're coming from them. Or from Will, at least. I like this theory a lot, that somehow Will is connecting to the Upside Down again after all this time (I don't want him to get hurt-but I also love watching my comfort characters go thru shit- i dunno what it is don't judge).

--

Rightio, I have one final point to make about the last poster.

Lots of people noticed that in this poster, Mike and Will have been shifted. At first, many people were stressing that they were further apart, and that something (maybe Jonathan and Argyle) was going to come between them. Most, through, assumed it was just for composition. I've seen another theory, though.

To El's right are Joyce and Hopper. To El's left are Will and Jonathan. The composition has been arranged so that she is surrounded by her family. We may be seeing it as Mike being moved further from Will, but what if we saw it as Mike being moved further from El.

--

Okay! I think this is one of the biggest analyses that I've written! This is also the first season 4 promo that I've seen upon release, rather than a couple of months later, which is really exciting!

Since this has gone on a while, I'll make a separate post analysing the social-media aspect of these promos!

Hope you're well, and happy stranger things watching (it's almost here!!) <33

[feelingofcontent]

DNP Rewatch: Giving The People What They Want

Date video was published: 04/15/2018 (X)

DNP Main Channel Rewatch: 375

Time for the pre-Interactive Introverts videos! So good.

0:04 - “the Dan and Phil in 2018, eh?” line has so many implications with the hindsight of knowing they were planning to come out that year

0:16 - Dan really was proud of that graphic design

0:35 - very different from the first tour when they were really playing up their “characters”

0:46 - Dan immediately thinks Phil is doing this very awkwardly...he really never goes by “Philip”

1:07 - lol at Phil’s scared face

1:22 - Dan had tweeted about a week ahead of this...love that they put Tyler’s tweet in the forefront in editing there 😂

1:39 - we haven’t seen the giant TATINOF “P” in Phil’s background before

1:43 - Phil’s ginger roots in this video! and the little shoulder bump

1:49 - “I was just there as a guest reading the questions” sure.

1:59 - even Dan had to add an “I’m joking” on the end of that. didn’t want to leave any confusion on that

2:13 - I can’t believe they were too surprised about that

2:16 - both of them with soft smiles looking at the screen before playing it 🥺

2:24 - Phil went very northern with the “we look so young!”

2:38 - that wasn’t a horrible era of Phil hair though

2:44 - Phil’s like ‘don’t insult my editing!’ 😂

3:00 - the shock! lol

3:15 - self-aware Dan there with the “literally”

3:21 - Dan putting this clip full frame with no comment was really something 😭

3:26 - how after editing his own videos for years does Phil not know he does the tongue-thing when laughing?!

3:43 - love Phil calling out his own messy room...and pointing out the pants specifically 👀

4:03 - “we’ve still got that in our kitchen” help. the really do keep all the memories

4:09 - Dan now being able to imitate baby Phil’s “light” exactly too is adorable

4:20 - Phil does not look like he wants to give an answer to this on camera

4:37 - Dan calling him “Philip” here after earlier saying it doesn’t work for him, lol

4:45 - Dan refusing to say PINOF is cringe

4:54 - “ten years next year. ten years of knowing you” just 😭

5:06 - the difference in colors in the piles is hilarious. also Dan with an inside-out pair of jeans there

5:21 - did they decide to film this in the hallway right outside the bedroom from pure laziness of not wanting to move the clothes anywhere? haha

5:23 - love Dan’s giant grin when he walks out in the first outfit...also Dan looks so good in color!

5:57 - and every time we see Dan wearing these jeans now, all I think of is “crotch slapper.” thanks Phil

6:08 - and Phil does look great in black! he’s got a bit of nervous finger-snapping happening

6:17 - bit of Dan hyena laugh there

6:32 - love Dan’s immediate laughter at “ladybird chic” 😂

6:37 - and the “everything is improved with a bit of glitter” is one of my favorite Phil lines

6:58 - yeah, this one does not look like Phil at all

7:00 - Dan’s “wooo” at the ripped jeans takes me right back to Viewers Pick My Outfits!

7:31 - a good description for the original DITL video

7:55 - the wheel 👀 Phil was not pleased when the tore it down in 2012

8:02 - @calvinahobbes​ explains Dan’s “metaphor” comment SO WELL in the tags of this post

8:15 - “a Manchester macchiato” help 🥺

8:23 - awww, the actual recreation bit

8:56 - fuck they’re fond about that first apartment

9:11 - I actually think they were in Manchester and filmed this before Dan even tweeted for ideas for this video...they must have known “recreate videos” would be a suggestion

9:15 - when this video posted, this was probably the most surprising of the things they actually did. also the one Phil hinted at when promoing this video

9:31 - unnecessary hand gestures from Phil there. “christ” is right, Dan

9:41 - I feel like they could have had a little more floorspace somewhere else

9:55 - “I’m just gonna put my ass in the air and hope for the best” 😂😂 also Dan’s “choice” Phil quote of the video

10:03 - don’t want to know, thanks 😳

10:12 - actually impressed that they managed one

10:33 - Dan with the call out there and also a Dan line that randomly just goes through my head in his exact tone

10:41 - Phil then changing his mind is just great...I think this one is difficult for them because their legs are so much longer than their arms

10:49 - Dan being extra dramatic while Phil just laughs

11:02 - LMAO just...them even picking this one. was a lot.

11:13 - just...what even was this

11:49 - Dan at this point definitely thinks people want them to get a dog for “couple” reasons

12:05 - “meet a new member of the family” 🥺 almost 4 years later, still on actual dog hill

12:34 - they’re wearing the same clothes, but Phil’s wearing different socks so I’m guessing this might have been filmed a different day

13:02 - god all of the dog footage is adorable

13:34 - they talked at some point...in a live show I think? that Phil did not know this one was coming and was actually super nervous about it

13:54 - Phil swears a lot more now on YouTube...just still no “shit” or “fuck”

14:41 - curling up into a protective ball 🥺

14:46 - what happened during that jump cut. somehow the pillow Phil was grabbing got into Dan’s hands, and it’s such an immediate cut in

14:54 - Dan’s smiling so big

15:05 - ahahaha at Dan using the fireworks effect too

15:11 - I like “trapped in a world” there

15:46 - Dan really can’t say anything after calling him “Philip” at least twice during this

16:02 - Phil looks so fond about that. also Dan bleeping “shit” after Phil just said “fuck” ...sure

16:36 - lol at the single tweet with the “archery” suggestion

17:45 - teaser for the next video!

I mean, I love this video, but it’s not one of my favorite joint videos of all time. Like, it wouldn’t make a “top 10″ list for me. And I think that is mostly due to how Dan seems almost...aggressive? in parts of it. Which makes some sense after the reaction to TTLMT and everything. 

I am fascinated by the difference in Dan’s attitude toward their audience in this video versus in the Mukbang after they had met a lot of the audience irl. I really do think the tour was a crucial part of Dan’s journey.

[angry-slytherin]

We Really Like Fluff

a totally incomplete guide to dousy fan fictions that are a must:

according to me, anyway

no idea where to start? looking for a fic you read a year ago? I’ve got you.

help me find the tumblrs of those not tagged (if they have one)!

all we do is drive. (romantashas) @romantashas

Daisy has missed the open road. She used to always love taking her van out and just driving. Los Angeles was where she liked to stick around, but she would always go on these road trips just because she wanted to explore somewhere new.

She's always liked running away from things.

It was different, having someone with her.

In which Daisy Johnson helps Daniel Sousa explore the modern world by taking him on a cross-country road trip in a van. Post-Finale road trip AU with MCU tie-ins.

the first beloved fic by this fandom. completed in august 2020, it strays from canon somewhat at S7E11, but the characterization makes you forget that anything is different at all. truly a masterpiece, and definitely a must-read.

6/17/55 (lazyfish)

6/17/55.

She never thought it would mean 1955.

(Spoilers up to 7.06.)

one shot. soulmate au. beautifully written. it’s only just under 2k words but one of the most popular fan fictions under the tag on ao3. absolutely adorable and you’ll feel your heart flutter for them.

One Year Later (marvelsquake) @marvelsquake

Set right after the series finale's 'one year later' part where Daisy stares into space with Sousa and Kora.

Inspired by the 'anatomy analysis' bit Jemma says to Daisy.

there are so many amazing “anatomy analysis” fics out there. that is one of those “if you know, you know” things;) this one is really thoroughly written, and marvelsquake took their time to make every detail perfect. really, just excellent.

Stay (SteeleHoltingOn) @steeleholtingon

Not everyone knew she could feel heartbeats. Sousa’s sped up every time he looked her way.

His reaction wasn’t particularly unusual, and Daisy was an expert at fending off unwanted advances. But that was just it: Sousa hadn’t actually made any advances, and if he did, Daisy wasn’t sure she’d ward them off.

Her heartbeat, it seemed, liked to match tempo with his.

this one needs little introduction. it has been recced(??) to death, and rightfully so!!! the author is this incredible genius and I love them for giving this to us. it’s over 150k words, so be ready to commit some much deserved time to this excellent character study on both Daisy and Daniel.

Feel Good(I Like It) (enigmaforum)

It's not the the first time she’s felt something for someone since Lincoln but it’s the first time she felt like it had the possibility to actually turn into something. Something Good.

I’ve always loved the title of this fic, but that’s besides the point. enigmaforum is a very talented writer who does plot AND characterization like a pro. definitely an A+ in terms of quality. also part of a series with some other excellent works!

Exposure (agentquakingskye) @blcssqvake on instagram

Dying in a half-second blast of radiation wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be.

Dying all over again, slowly, because of that half-second of radiation?

That was worse.

okay I lied. we also love angst and this work is angst central. it’s a cancer AU following the finale, but it’s just as happy as it as sad. prepare your tissues, but also prepare for some seriously good writing.

A Week After Death (manoutoftimeandquake) @puddle-of-awesomeness

An explosion in an alien junkyard sends Daisy, Sousa and Kora back in time to meet some people from Sousa's past.

the astro ambassadors sent back in time to meet the AC cast(essentially). such a fun, action-packed, hilarious work. such a classic. go read it now!!

Where I Need To Be (JennaPotter)

This is set from Episode 7x03 onwards and follows the story of Daisy Johnson and Daniel Sousa, and how their relationship has been developing throughout this amazing season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.! This story mostly follows canon but is interspersed with missing moments between Daisy and Sousa that I imagine could have happened off-screen.

almost 200k words of absolute beauty. it’s incredibly detailed and excellently written. it’s like reading a published novel!! but with dousy!!

you’ve got that power(over me) (romantashas) @romantashas

"It's you," Daniel whispers. He's in awe, looking at Quake. She steps back away from him. "Let me help you," he says, reaching out toward her injured arm slowly.

Daniel only gets a moment more to admire her glowing eyes and her purple hair before she turns and runs away, her hand slipping out of his.

In which the superheroes of the Marvelverse actually try to keep their identities a secret and Daniel Sousa is determined to figure out who is behind the mysterious Quake mask. Superhero AU with MCU tie-ins.

yet another classic(I’m definitely misusing that word… it’s deserved by these authors) work by romantashas. the description gives the gist of it, but it’s one of the best dousy AUs out there.

get ready for the shameless self promo…

Your Heartbeat On The Highline(Once In Twenty Lifetimes) (doctorsimmonswilson) @angry-slytherin

He’s a man out of time and she’s an orphaned superhero. They’ve just got to figure out what to do next, after the mission is over.

[aka Daisy and Daniel’s story post finale]

welp… I included my own story. honestly it’s because it is one of the most popular in the tag(I’m sifting through too kudos and top hits). I’m really super proud of it, so read it if you’d like. it’s canon compliant (and extremely fluffy for the most part:)

somebody hurt you(but you’re here by my side) (agentmmayy) @agentmmayy

Daniel doesn't leave Daisy's side, even when she's out of the healing chamber.

very popular, and for good reason. such a sweet, nice fic. I very much enjoyed it and it’s a quicker read than most on this list!

and here’s to the question marks

aka: unfinished works that are beautiful and deserve your attention

want you(to unravel me) (IzzieBee)

Daisy never wanted to be rescued, by anyone. She never wanted to owe someone that debt, but especially not to a handsome WWII Vet, traveling through time. Daniel, who was brave and decent, and kind of funny, and who she could easily depend on, which was way too dangerous to consider.

OR

Daisy really wasn't ready for Daniel Sousa.

sexy, fun, well-written… what more could we ask for? it’s missing the last chapter, but the brunt of the story is there, and it’s satisfying either way.

A Truth Stranger Than Fiction (wordsmithraven)

Daniel Sousa was having the worst day of his life...and he’d lived through a war. Service had always been something he’d understood. Honor. Sacrifice. Duty. He’d just never thought his journey would mean leaving everything he loved behind.

a lot of daisy and daniel getting to know one another… a little bit of season 7 adventure… a whole bunch of fun.

Loving The Journey Together (manoutoftimeandquake) @puddle-of-awesomeness

Moments in the lives of Daisy and Sousa (and Kora) after the end of the team's final mission.

this one is a WIP(being updated currently). manoutoftimeandquake has some amazing snippets/slices of life waiting for you in that work!

it’s in the subtext (eggsaladstain)

Snippets of the relationship between Daisy Johnson and Daniel Sousa through the words they said and the ones they didn’t.

SO. FREAKING. GOOD. just go read it, okay?

and finally, some links to some authors who’ve written a bunch of amazing stuff.

romantashas

manoutoftimeandquake

enigmaforum

@hecckyeah

lazyfish

hereforthephilindafics

dearemma

seriously, there’s so many more amazing fics in this tag. I didn’t have the energy to include all 800+. these are just some that are most popular and/or deserve your attention.

thank you for taking the time to read through all of this! I hope you’ve found some things to bookmark(or binge-read;)

[lambourngb]

a skeleton of something more [2/6]

previously here. malex wip fic. a short serial leading up the premiere.

spoilers for the trailer and promo, will be instantly AU. If I’m going to the trouble of writing a malex fix-it for the season 3 opener, why not fix 2x13 too?

**** THEN **** 

After Alex closed Tripp’s journal, he met Michael’s gaze across the table at the Crashdown. 

His golden-brown eyes were heavy with pain, the reminder of how his mother’s story had ended was still fresh between them despite the span of months since the fiery end of Caulfield. What had resulted in being the fiery end of them, even though Alex hadn’t known it at the time. The look of sleeplessness in Michael’s face reminded Alex, that outside of this small piece of Nora, he had the weight of Maria still in the hospital recovering from the pathogen Flint had released. The press of the Deep Sky ring in his pocket warred with the hesitation to place one more burden on Michael, would the abacus of their fragile friendship balance out?

He flashed to that last argument in Michael’s bunker, a disaster of his own making, thinking he could believe in his father, but thankfully harm was averted at Crashcon. That recent memory was motive enough for Alex to decide. Whatever happened next, he needed Michael on the same page with him.

As Isobel moved to leave the table, explaining to Michael that she needed to check on Max, Alex held Michael’s gaze deliberately. Then he folded his fingers down, until the last three fanned out in a downward W. 

“After what happened with Maria, maybe you should come with me, Michael. You can help me shake some sense into Max,” Alex heard, tuning back into Isobel’s voice. Her eyes moved back and forth between them, a crease of suspicion wrinkling her upturned nose, as she stopped on him. “It’ll be a good distraction.”

Without looking at Isobel, Michael’s eyes remained trained on Alex��s hand. “No, thanks, I’m good here. I’ve had my fill of stubborn ass people who don’t want to listen to sensible advice from me, so I’ll catch up with you later, Isobel.” 

She made a dismissive huff but did not argue, leaving with the barest semblance of a polite goodbye to Alex, but that was typical Isobel Evans. Michael waited until his sister was on the other side of the door, before speaking quietly, his gaze finally moving up from Alex’s hands to his face. “I haven’t seen you flash that sign to me in years.” 

“Glad to know you haven’t forgotten it.”

“You, making the ‘wait for me, I want you now’ signal? Nah, that’s been burned into my brain over the years.” Michael said it with a faint trace of bitterness. “I guess news travels fast, Maria only dumped my ass this morning.”

Alex winced and looked down, swallowing the surprise and spark of hope that welled in his throat at that disclosure. It was better to concentrate on the unique talent he had of stepping on landmines around Michael, than wonder about what had happened with Maria. It looked like he was still good at causing harm without intention, judging by the stung bite in Michael’s voice. “Fuck, I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have-”

“No, I’m sorry,” Michael cut off his apology firmly with a wave of his hand, calling a time-out. Alex waited, his teeth pressed into his lower lip as Michael rubbed his eyes with a weary half-smile. “I’m being an asshole right now, and that’s not fair to take it out on you. It’s been a shitty day already, and — anyway, … you definitely know how to get my attention, Alex.” He tilted his head, self-deprecation on his face, “for better or worse, you’ve always been good at that.” 

It had been the sign they had developed whenever their paths had crossed over the years while Alex had been on leave in Roswell, but it had started that summer after high school. After Michael’s hand had healed poorly from Jesse, the last three fingers had been left frozen in a claw, it had been a shared fuck-you to his dad to use it to form their own secret communication. A three-fingered W, turned upward meant it wasn’t a good time, and he would find Michael later; turned downward, well, that meant it was safe to approach him, and it had often ended in a hurried blowjob in his car. Perhaps he should have used more care in using it now, but Michael wasn’t the only one running on the fumes of insomnia and stress. “Sorry, I needed to talk to you, and I wanted to make sure you didn’t leave with Isobel-”

“It’s fine, really. It’s not a bad memory either, remembering that we had our little secret language.” Michael wiggled his fingers in reassurance, his left hand still wrapped with a bandanna. “I can make that signal a hell of a lot easier now, too. But anyway, what did you need?”

There was still a voice inside Alex’s head that said ‘you’, no matter how long it had been. He shoved that down deep, along with his curiosity about Maria, and concentrated on his purpose. “Your advice on something, and then if it’s not too much to ask, your help.”

“Anything.” 

Alex blinked, nonplussed by the easy acceptance. 

Michael gestured encouragingly, “seriously, anything, just tell me what’s going on because the way you’re hemming and hawing, it is freaking me out.” Suddenly, all expression washed out of Michael’s face as a horrible thought occurred to him. “Did you get deployed or something?”

“Not exactly, not how you’re thinking,” he winced at the earned glare from Michael as he continued to stall while the words still tripped and fumbled around his mouth, heedless to the mounting frustration between them both. He sighed, and regrouped. Pushing the closed journal aside, Alex dug into his pocket and laid the signet ring on the table before Michael. “Let me start at the beginning, I found this in my dad’s things.” 

“Jesse never seemed like a jewelry kind of guy to me.” Michael picked up the ring, examining it closely with a sarcastic smirk. “Other than parading around town with that wedding ring, when everyone knows your mom left him back during the Bush years, Dubya that is.”

“My father is all, was all, about appearances.” Alex placed the photo of the group on the table, sliding it over to him. “That ring marked his membership in this paramilitary group called Deep Sky. Every man in that photo worked at Caulfield, at one time or another.” He tapped his finger over the face of his father, then moved it to the right. “That’s my dad, and that is Ricky Long.”

Michael frowned, pulling the picture closer to squint at the faces. “Wyatt’s dad?”

“No, Forrest’s.”

“Nazi guy? Seriously?” He rubbed at his chin, the stubble longer than usual painting his jawline. Alex dragged his eyes away with effort as Michael considered that information. There was a reluctant understanding in his eyes, having recalled that Forrest Long wasn’t just ‘Nazi Guy’ to Alex, but someone who had expressed interest in Alex. Personal interest. “I guess that’s something you guys have in common then, dirtbag dads.” 

He didn’t look thrilled to admit that to Alex, but it was a mark of how far they had both come as friends that Michael had said it anyway regardless. It was kind of him. It was the same type of empathy Alex had extended toward Michael, when he had expressed interest in Maria. Cut open, bleeding under his skin from all the ways he had squandered his own chances, he had said something similar to Michael once upon a time. That was what love was all about. Then he had kept saying it, until he believed it most days because wanting Michael to be happy was the easier ask.

It was a gracious sentiment that was entirely wasted by Michael when it came to Forrest Long. 

“It would be, uh, something to bond over, if I hadn’t noticed that Forrest wears the same ring now.” 

Michael’s eyes sharpened. “Family heirloom or do you think he worked at Caulfield?”

“I don’t know, but he is an ex-Army vet.” Alex tapped the photo of the members gathered together, “That was part of what I’ve been looking into, identifying everyone who worked at Caulfield right until the end. As for Deep Sky, I don’t know if it’s military service, Caulfield, or a family legacy that ties every member together, I just know that Dad kept in touch with those who were involved at the prison.” 

“Makes sense, Jesse was able to get a hold of the atomizer and pathogen that Charlie developed from somewhere. For all of his strutting around at Crashcon with a uniform on, that didn’t look like it was an official use of government property.” 

“Right, it definitely wasn’t, and before you tell me to leave it alone-” Alex began, remembering Michael’s response to the investigation into 1947. He had considered Alex’s actions back then to be an act of futility, something that could only hurt by being revisited. The past being the past, unable to be altered. 

This time Michael cut him off, “No, I was wrong about that. I, um, I finally realized that just because I don’t see you connected to that place or the rest of your family, doesn’t mean you don’t. And while I wish that you didn’t, Alex, if digging into this gives you some sort of peace over it, then do it.”

Alex looked down, feeling the weight of relief that Michael understood. After his father’s body had been removed, after the questions and lies had been spun, he had spent the entire night sleepless over having been made into an effective weapon to force Michael’s compliance. Helena had known where all the weak spots were thanks to Flint, and had armed herself with a depowering agent. Once Flint was recovered, there was nothing stopping him from employing a similar tactic in the future.

“If anyone’s going to destroy me, it might as well be you.” Michael had once declared with a bold carelessness that had infuriated and terrified Alex at the time, but that was nothing compared to now having a lived experience to back it up. His mind had easily used the memory of Maria’s collapse after the faintest exposure at the Crashcon and had exchanged her with Michael, being torn apart molecule by molecule, by an invisible threat.

Give him an enemy that he could see any day, especially one that bled. 

“I’ve been fighting so long, I don’t know what peace looks like anymore.” Alex held out his hand for the ring, and Michael gently laid it in his palm, brushing his fingertips over Alex’s skin. A lifetime of controlling himself kept the reaction off his face as he rubbed his thumb over the raised emblem of Deep Sky. “But I have learned recently that when something seems too good to be true, it is.” 

Neither of them mentioned Jesse and his performance from the last few months, but Michael frowned again, “Wait a second, you think Forrest targeted you on purpose?” 

“A member of a secret paramilitary organization just happens to ask me out after I was involved in the destruction of Caulfield? You really think that’s a coincidence?” Alex raised his eyebrow skeptically at Michael, before looking out the window to watch the pedestrians on the street. 

“I think you’re the hottest guy in Roswell, so I’m not surprised he asked you out.” Michael flushed a little when Alex turned back to stare at him in surprise over the flattering comment. “Seriously, you’re a catch, but I will agree, it’s not a good look that he’s got that ring. But maybe it’s crap he wears because of his dad, and he’s got no idea he’s parading around?”

“You’re being awfully generous.”

“Isn’t that what you want? Because last time I checked, you were the one telling me that I should have faith in people, even if they give me no reason to.” Michael flattened his hands on the table, drawing Alex’s attention to the bandanna on his hand again. That damn fight kept echoing between them to Alex’s dismay, but Michael didn’t let him linger over it, “While I stand by what I said about Jesse, ‘cause he messes us both up, all I know about Forrest Long is that he is way too interested in Nazi history and he has good taste in guys.” Michael wetted his lips, nervously to tack on, “I also know that I trust you, and your instincts, so if you say there’s something not right about him, then I believe you.” 

“There’s something not right about him,” Alex repeated seriously.

“Then I believe you, so what do you need me to do?”

“He wants to get close to me for some reason, probably related to what I know about aliens, so I’m going to let him. And I need you to back me up in case something goes wrong, and maybe use that lock pick you have in your brain?” Alex waited until Michael nodded in agreement, feeling the swell of gratitude at his support. Anyone else would probably think he was being paranoid, or that this was a delayed reaction to his father trying to kill them, but Michael, for all of his previous counter-arguments, had never truly believed in the good of humanity. Maybe in a few days, Alex would feel guilty in relying on that. Maybe in a few days, his suspicions about Forrest would be eliminated.

“He’s involved in running the open mike night at the Wild Pony with Maria, so I thought maybe I could perform a song or something? He drives a Prius, and while he’s listening to me sing, you could slip out mid-song and insert this into the code reader of his car.” 

On the table was a small device that mimicked a thumb drive, small and black. It was the type of technology that Alex had used in the Air Force, tracking terrorists abroad. It had taken a fair amount of searching to purchase the equivalent stateside to have on hand. Michael picked it up curiously, turning over his hands.

“It’s designed to download the GPS history of his car,” Alex explained, before rubbing the back of his head in thought. “That’s how I uncovered what my dad was up to, first by tracking his movements. If I let Forrest take me home, I can gain access to his laptop and phone.”

Michael furrowed his brow in concern, “You’re really willing to go that far? And what if he is involved in something shady, what then?”

“My father and brother both used me to get to you, there’s really nothing I wouldn’t do to keep that from happening again and if it means playing along with this guy, letting him lead me to the members of Deep Sky? Then I will.” If anything, his words only deepened the concern on Michael’s face, but Alex had been committed for a long time. Since the red level threat. Since the short ride to the recruitment office. Maybe as far back as his guitar going missing in the music room.

“I’ve slept with guys for worse reasons.”

CONTINUED HERE