#anyway. got me thinking abt birds and danger days

[cowboycatss]

hello. corvids in the zones tend to gather around folks who have experienced death or had a loved one with unfinished business die before their time. the girl always has crows hopping around after her when she’s out at the market or playing at gravel gertie’s orphanage, and when ghoul dies there’s always clusters of ravens roosting on the DI E of the defunct diner sign.

ougghhh... this fucks ... worse if you have no idea someone's died but suddenly there are crows following you around

[everythingsinred]

Okay with the character bingo, I must inquire about your fandoms bc I don't want to be like "ahh what do you think of this fine lad"

And you being like :/ idk who that is nice bird tho

Like that would be kinda funny, but also it would be neat to hear about your other fandoms than GA. Like I've seen Go Piss Girl (Gossip Girl, but the only thing I know about that show is that meme 😅), The Office, something to do with spies? And one with characters that have big ol eyes but idk what it is.

In any case, for the time being, what your thoughts about ✨Mikan✨? My impression of her has changed a lot over the years, I first thought she was annoying but now I'm just kinda sad for her :,)

hi!!

yeah i dont watch owl house but im pretty sure thats hunter? if its not im sorry i only know what i see on my dash in passing lol. nice bird tho (hehe)

yeah i like gossip girl! i was at the height of that when i was 13 but its a nostalgic show for me. its not a show that i think too much abt ig. mostly i just quote it all the time w my sister. i have a gossip girl character as my icon now bc i like having matching icons w my sister! we like to switch through fictional friendships/sibling dynamics. 

i also LOVE the office and also all sitcoms of that nature (i love parks and rec, superstore, new girl, etc. i love funny shows that focus on sentimental relationships that end up making me ugly cry. i think the office might be my fav but tbh i thought that abt superstore AND new girl before so idk if i even have a fav).

spy x family is a new anime im into these days! its found family and very cute!

and show w big eyes... im not sure which one u mean hhh. i like a lot of anime, my favs being ga (ofc), jibaku shounen hanako-kun, and fruits basket. im also really into the webtoon hooky, which is abt witches.

anyway mikan time:

ONE OF MY FAV CHARACTERS OF ALL TIME. i talk abt natsume all the time so it might feel like hes my all time fav, but he and mikan actually share that place in my heart. 

yes similarly i also felt she was annoying when i first watched the anime (i was twelve when i first got into it). at such a young age i had a tendency to get irritated with the female mcs in media (internalized misogyny, etc) and mikan was 1. loud 2. bold 3. stupid, which are naturally unforgivable traits for a character to have (sarcasm). when i rewatched/reread at 14 i realized that i was looking at her all wrong. around the time i started observing the ga tumblr fandom around age 15 (i only recently started being active in the ga fandom bc i was too nervous before), there was a pervasive idea that mikan was a mary sue.

UGH so let me go off real quick. i will talk way more abt mikan in my next nm essay, but ill summarize some of my ideas briefly for this. mikan’s arc is all about feeling useful, having agency, and how best to help others. she is maybe one of the few characters who undergoes OVERWHELMINGLY negative character development. i dont mean she was flanderized or ruined, i mean that this little girl started developing the idea that she should smile all the time and hide all her negative feelings in order to make OTHERS feel better. this is not good! but its treated like its good, like thats the best choice she can make (this is the actual reason that i only ship her romantically w natsume actually, but ill go into that in my essay). it can be fun for a character to devolve, to make the wrong choice, but this change wasnt treated that way.

another issue is i genuinely HATE mikan having the stealing alice. she should never have had the stealing alice. do i realize thats more than half the manga im talking about? YES. it completely upended her character arc. her nullification alice was so understated! she felt like it was useless and was SO insecure about it. then all of a sudden she has the stealing alice, which can be dangerous, but definitely cannot be called “useless” and her story about uselessness/having a “boring” alice just. falls short. yukas story w the stealing alice was so meaningful and impactful on its own. mikan ALMOST being the next yuka couldve been compelling if it didnt ruin the set-up that the entire first half of the manga was focusing on. 

anyway mikan is NOT a mary sue for the above reasons. she is not effortlessly perfect. many people in the manga call her plain. she can be really stupid. she doesnt always save the day. in fact, other people often have to save her, making her feel useless (which is why she shouldve saved natsume. they were each other’s key to resolving arcs and yet. and YET.) she can be loud, brash, bold, and often says the wrong things. she has a really apparent character arc and calling her a mary sue ignores all that. ppl who think mikan is a mary sue are my worst enemy and i will fist fight them.

now ill talk a little about mikan in fanfics bc i think its worth mentioning, especially since i filled out that square abt her being done dirty. like i said, mikan is stupid. im not insulting her. some people are stupid. shes not good at academics. shes a lot more sporty than she is brainy. she rushes to conclusions and doesnt always think things through. shes not really a rational person all the time. fanfics often treat this stupidity as a negative trait to be fixed. maybe shes stupid when shes little but she’ll be a genius when she gets older! look how smart she is now! instead of just letting her be dumb. she has other traits, like deep empathy, athleticism, passion, optimism, that are often sacrificed in fanfic in order to make room for her made up intelligence. 

mikan in fanfic (especially if shes supposed to be older) is often painted as more subdued than her loud manga counterpart, more often cynical, introverted, skeptical, etc., and ALWAYS pretty even if SHE doesnt see it (despite being described often as plain in the manga). i have some theories about this. 

1: western fans are more comfortable making mikan like a western mc than one more typical of anime. if u think abt what a typical western female lead looks like, she’s usually less feminine, “not like other girls,” a smart bookworm who is cynical and rational. this is familiar so i think a lot of western fanfic writers end up leaning mikan this way even at the cost of making her unrecognizable. so mikan being stupid and loud and optimistic are all traits to be fixed, bc theyre not as familiar in a lead role. 

2. fans want to have a mature mikan, and they think theres no way she can keep her childish traits, like stupidity, boldness, impulsiveness, and idealism, and NOT be a child. i find that ridiculous. why cant mikan be a giddy, happy, upbeat adult? why does she have to lose all the traits that make her mikan in order to demonstrate maturity? 

3. i might be off base with all of these, but this one... i feel the most strongly about. mikan is the main character. in a lot of stories, the reader is invited to relate to the main character, to project onto her. often, the main character is vague or universal BC imagining her as you is the whole point. fanfic (especially the older fanfic) turns mikan into that easily recognizable and relatable mc we can insert ourselves into. 

anyway i have a lot more thoughts on mikan, way more than i could ever say in one post (which is why im doing an essay series) but these are some basic thoughts i have. im sorry its so long. 

[dastardlydandelion]

So...what kind of horror movie would you write featuring the Hargrove/ Mayfield family? (That you haven't written already lol)

oh boy, u may regret asking me this bc i am indecisive af and i can’t pick just one!

two that i'm actually writing are max as (g is for) ghostface killer in the abcs of neil’s death and also the max + tory nichols werewolf movie fic outlined here. also some more misc gorror junk bc i’m a demon and esp horny for susan wearing blood splatter. but more ideas commence below:

horror movie #1: another creature feature! awhile back @lucdarling sent me an ask abt max + billy hiding smth from susan and her like, playing along, pretending she doesn't know, and one of the scenarios that popped in my head was them keeping a baby bat as a pet. max finds it and she’s only like six or seven, and she thinks it’s going to turn into a vampire. so here is that scenario except horror edition: baby bat is actually a vampire type creature. not rly a vampire like, what’s prolly popping into ur head, like an undead human like dracula or smth, but like a bat monster that sucks blood.

billy being a lil older doesn’t actually think the bat is going to turn into a vampire. he makes fun of max for believing this, but he helps her take care of it anyway bc he thinks it’s cool. susan, like in the non-horror version, knows abt the bat but plays dumb bc she’s feeling a lot of guilt abt max’s difficulty adjusting to the blended fam (as of rn tho, neil has yet to reveal his abusive nature. the red flags are not yet red, more of a brownish maroon, and he is on his best behavior almost all the time, showering susan + max with affection and keeping the swears out of his mouth when he scolds billy in front of them) and knows the lil furry baby makes her happy. she tacitly cleans up after the bat whenever the kids miss a spot (bats poop a lot, dude) and distracts neil, deterring him from discovering it whenever he gets close.

baby bat gets rly big rly fast. and the older it gets, the more it starts to look monstrous. it still has bat features but it’s just like, different. its fangs grow suspiciously long, its hooks grow suspiciously long. its feet are elongated. a dorsal ridge emerges from its spine, spikes at first just flesh but soft fur rather like peach fuzz eventually sprouting. billy catches on that smth is strange abt this animal when it's as long as his forearm after two wks and still growing. he nearly shits a brick when the bat is clinging to his sweater one day and he steps in front of a mirror and only his reflection looks back at him— no bat.

max laughs at him all like, “stupid brother, ofc there’s no reflection. nosferatu is a vampire, vampires don’t have reflections.” 😂

susan catches a glimpse of the thing when nosferatu crawls out of the home max built it in her closet the same wk billy realizes it doesn’t have a reflection, and also almost shits a brick. she doesn’t know what it is, but it’s NOT a fucking bat. not a normal one, anyway! cue a comedy scene where she’s chasing it around the house with a butterfly net and it’s always one flap *ba dum tss* ahead of her, flying just out of reach. she suddenly regrets not getting rid of it sooner, scolding herself for ever allowing her daughter to keep a wild animal.

she can’t catch it. max comes home, susan tells her she needs to get rid of it. max cries, flips her the bird, refuses. billy tho…billy has mixed feelings. he loves nosferatu but he’s worried it’s going to get dangerous. he loves his dad and his dad is dangerous too. he’s stressed out enough, always on edge, knowing that one way or the other, neil is going to hurt him again. he’s already waiting for his dad to hurt him, he doesn’t need the added stress of waiting for nosferatu to hurt him too. and while max is 100% nosferatu’s favorite, it likes billy too. billy’s been handling it since it could fit in the palm of his hand, it trusts him much more than it trusts susan and doesn’t know any different when billy takes it out of the closet when max isn’t around.

billy frees nosferatu at an abandoned farm. there are always bats flying out of the old silo adjacent to the dilapidated barn. while he knows nosferatu isn’t a *normal* bat, it’s still bat like enough that he thinks it might make friends and be happy here…

yeah, that doesn’t stick. before long, nosferatu is feasting on that colony. leeches the blood out of a couple bats nightly. the number of bats increases with nosferatu’s size. meanwhile, max mourns her missing friend. she’s sullen af and won’t speak to susan at all. she thinks susan is the one who got rid of nosferatu. billy never fesses up and susan doesn’t contradict max’s assumption bc she wants the step-siblings to get along.

neil, meanwhile, is getting more comfortable. those maroon flags are slowly but surely brightening to scarlet. he starts sabotaging susan’s plans with her friends, trying to keep her around the house more and more, quietly but steadily eroding her relationships with other people. he’s getting more visibly aggressive when he disciplines billy. he curses him out with a virulent venom that dunks susan’s stomach in ice water and scares max so badly, she runs to susan and hides behind her even though she’s still so mad that susan got rid of her beloved baby vampire.

nosferatu’s appetite surpasses what the bat colony can offer. it’s like the size of a ten yr old human child now. fucker’s big. it doesn’t just have fangs on top, but tusks on bottom. it can’t go out in the sunlight anymore, the sun sears its flesh. it misses max a lot and before, it wasn’t strong enough to fly back to her house. but now it is. it’s extremely strong, actually.

so bc it's hungry, nosferatu grabs a snack along the way. some nameless rando, it swoops down and sucks dry. nourished and much happier, nosferatu makes its way back home. patiently waits outside of max’s bedroom in the moonlight, tapping its hook against the window until she wakes up. initially max is a lil startled— nosferatu looks so different, there’s a beat before she recognizes it— him?? yk, ig it’s male, the og nosferatu was a guy. sure, why not, nosferatu is a boy now.

once she realizes who it is, she is so! happy! max opens the window and embraces her friend. she isn’t freaked out by the blood on its fangs. she’s always known nosferatu is a vampire, albeit, she was thinking he’d look more like dracula than this bat-monster-thingy.

nosferatu moves back into max’s closet. it hangs upside-down from her rod by its weird, elongated feet. we get more shots of nosferatu sucking rando ppl dry at night, tho he remains gentle with max. when max drags billy in to show her he came back, nosferatu is less friendly with him. he’s not aggressive with billy, but he is standoffish. nosferatu’s thought process is somewhere between human and animal. he doesn’t quite cognitively understand that billy took him to the farm with the intent of getting rid of him, but he does understand that the last time he clung to billy, billy left him alone and never came back. max puts two and two together, and realizes it was billy who “stole” her friend. she yells at him a lot, he yells back, she then ices him out.

billy acts out bc he’s upset. runs away, thinks he’s going to find his mom…the cops find him first and call neil. neil is rly embarrassed and pissed abt the whole thing. he breaks down and beats billy in front of the mayfields for the first time. nosferatu smells the blood and it’s time for the main event! we love dead!neil, yes, we do.

nosferatu flies out the closet and right into the living room where billy’s bleeding and teary but biting his lip so they don’t actually fall. susan’s covering max’s eyes but so shocked and tbh, FRIGHTENED, she doesn’t move a muscle beyond that. neil’s got the belt raised, preparing to bring it down again, and nosferatu smashes right into him. neil stumbles, turns back to see this freaky monster looking thing. proceeds to whip the belt at nosferatu. tries to fight him off with the belt and it doesn’t accomplish much beyond pissing him off more— nosferatu, like most classic vampire types, has a healing factor!

max rips her mom’s hands off her face in time to see her pet sink its fangs into her stepdad’s throat. nosferatu sucks neil dry. billy’s a little dazed, not quite frightened. susan is just dead ass frozen, too scared to scream, even. nosferatu crawls over to billy and nudges at him, making sure he’s in once piece and forgiving him in the same go. max darts over and that snaps susan out of her stupor, but she isn’t as fast as our blood-sucking bat monster.

nosferatu stretches his wings out and with a truly impressive wingspan, hugs both of the kids. <3

horror movie #2: a haunting! this one opens with a bang. it’s a tragic horror, beware. we’re in hawkins post s3. billy died at starcourt mall. neil’s obvi had a longstanding abusive mindset and abusive behavior, but he rly takes his grief out on susan and max. mostly susan. she does her best to protect max however she can, whether that means shielding her w her body, sending her out of the house, getting neil’s goat to inspire his ire in max’s place, etc. but sue simply isn’t around all the time and when she isn’t, but max is, well. yk.

one day neil comes home early (bc he lost his job for a violent outburst, tbh) and discovers susan packing a suitcase.

sue fights hard. she rly does. but neil is bigger, heavier, crueler, and to boot, he caught her completely unawares. he kills her. and no, no it’s not some accidental thing where neil makes one bad move rage-blind. he strangles her with his belt. she’s clawing at his arms and making these horrible choked, trapped animal noises. thrashes and twists her body with everything she has trying to get him off but he’s so strong, his grip is unrelenting, and she's growing weaker, lightheaded with the lack of oxygen. strangulation can induce incontinence and when susan blacks out, her piss streams to the hardwood— neil hears that as much as he felt the clawing and heard the noises, even now he could stop, but he doesn’t. he just. doesn’t think his wife has the right to leave him, esp not after his son just did.

neil burns the body and the suitcase in the woods while max is at school. max has been spending as much time as she can (and often with sue’s prompting) outside of the house, so it actually takes her about two days to realize her mother isn’t around. neil tells a pretty convincing story about how susan abandoned them, voice saturated with apology and sorrow. he takes her out for a fancy dinner and promises he’s going to be a better father-- that being a better father is the least he can do now that her mother abandoned her and they are alone in their grief.

max doesn’t know what to think. she’s been preoccupied with her own grief and pain. she finds it hard to believe her mother would just leave her to neil’s wrath. she has a lot of hangups with susan and anger toward her for marrying neil and not getting them out sooner, but she’s also old enough to realize there would be risks involved with that. it’s hard to reconcile the memory of her mother just last wk pinning max to the wall to protect her from neil’s blows with her own bod just abruptly taking off without a word in the middle of the night. but hey, maybe that’s why susan left. maybe she got sick of protecting her, maybe the pain got to be too much and she turned tail.

but also…it’s early october now, abt three months after billy’s death but still fairly warm outside. yet neil is wearing long sleeves. neil never used to button his collared shirts all the way up, and yet. every collar is buttoned. also, mom’s car is still here. why would mom leave without her car?

that ceramic pelican she loved so much is still here too, on the mantle in the living room. it doesn’t seem like the kind of thing she would leave behind, she's had it since max was a baby.

max almost wants to believe neil because she’d rather her mother abandoned her than be dead somewhere, rotting in a storage locker or a hole in the ground. under the earth with the worms, just like billy. max has the worst feeling low in the pit of her gut. she thinks she knows the truth. she thinks abt going to hopper and hesitates bc she’s not sure she could handle it if he actually found smth. or what would happen to her if he did, where she would be sent, who she would end up with.

this movie would be more on the ambiguous end of things. an arthouse horror, if u will.

the days turn into wks and neil is crawling in his skin. the viewer isn’t sure if the shadows he’s seeing, always, always susan-shaped shadows, are of a ghostly nature or if he’s just hallucinating out of guilt. but the signs gradually point to the former— that smth paranormal is indeed going on. bc those scratches and bite marks susan left in his skin?

they do not heal. they do not get infected. they do not become necrotic. but they do not heal, either. days turn into wks and the wounds still look fresh, like she just left them moments ago. neil can’t wear light colors anymore because his wounds weep red into the fabric. he isn’t just seeing susan’s shadows either, he’s smelling her.

he washes his sheets and pillowcases a dozen times and the scent of her shampoo, her lotion, it’s like it’s woven into the fibers. he walks into the hallway and chokes on the aroma of susan’s perfume. he wonders if max is screwing with him, if max figured it out and she’s trying to torture him into a confession. one day he stomps off to max's bedroom, furious, adamant on confronting her. he grabs her doorknob, prepared to yank it open and then lets out a yelp, jerking his hand back with a sudden sharp pain.

it feels like a bee sting (which would be esp bad for this fucker in anything i write, bc i headcanon him as being allergic). but there’s no stinger. no injury. nothing. neil is freaked out enough that he backs down.

max, on the other hand, is getting gentler signs. when she turns the radio dial in the camaro, it’s somehow always her mom’s favorite songs that come thru the speakers. when she goes to pull clothes out of her drawers in the morning, she discovers that the things she’d just shoved inside in wrinkled balls are perfectly folded, neat as a pin, exactly like how susan always folded. susan was always fond of cardinals and suddenly max is seeing cardinals, pretty red cardinals, in just abt erry tree and shrub.

neil wakes up one night to his wife’s voice whispering “boo” right in his ear. he throws the covers off and discovers ashes in the bed. he doesn’t smell susan’s shampoo or lotion anymore, he smells the kerosine he’d poured all over her body.

his wounds still won’t heal. whenever he looks in the mirror, he catches a glimpse of susan walking past behind him, peering at him from her peripheral. he whips around, heart hammering, but there’s never any tangible person there.

max is almost certain her mother is dead at this point. neil’s been so bizarrely nice to her lately. she never believed in ghosts but her experiences with the upside-down broadened her perception of reality. she doesn’t know how else to explain the songs, the cardinals, the folded clothes. the way that these days, whenever she does feel fear toward neil, it just fades away. her fear melts like popsicles in the sun, immediately replaced by the sensation of a warm, maternal hug, as if arms she can’t see are trying to reassure her she truly doesn’t need to be afraid of him anymore.

in fact, max feels so unafraid of neil and brave, that one night she calls him out on it. he’s grizzled and unshaven in his recliner, beer in hand. she steps in front of the television he’s vacantly fixated on and folds her arms across her chest.

“you killed my mom, didn’t you?”

quick as a flash, neil leaps to his feet. he brings his arm back like he’s going to strike her and susan’s ceramic pelican on the mantle explodes into shards. the lights flicker, the television program cuts to snow with a static roar. every other knickknack on the mantle rattles and framed photos tumble off the wall.

neil very wisely lowers his hand. he slumps, boneless. he doesn’t say a word. max sees the answer in his eyes. it’s the dead of night and she snatches the camaro keys off the hook, marching out of the house, slamming the door behind her. it’s the dead of night and she doesn’t care. she’s going to blow past every stop sign and pound on the chief’s door until he opens up. and fuck, i just realized if this is post s3 he’s supposed to be in russia. shit. i don’t watch this show, but i know abt russia bc i DID watch the clips of that demogorgon that i rly hope isn’t stuck in captivity!! okay, but let’s pretend that didn’t happen?

it’s an au?? i mean, errything i write is always technically an au anyway, bc when i write stuff susan has an actual personality and billy isn’t *completely* abhorrent. okay, so it’s an au and mr. hopper didn’t blow up and un-blow up in russia. he’s still here. so max drives to his house.

she pounds on the door so hard this guy snaps outta bed, thinking someone���s trying to bust it down. she tells him neil confessed to killing her mom. it isn’t true, exactly, but he didn’t have to. so it’s a helluva grim drive back to cherry lane, this time in the cop car.

but when they go inside, chief prepared to arrest neil, no need. neil’s hanging from the belt he strangled susan with, shirtless for the first time since that night, erry seemingly fresh furrow and bite mark on full display. below his dangling feet is a map, the area he burned susan’s corpse in circled in red marker. did he kill himself or did the ghost do it?

up to u, we soundlessly cut to credits without a concrete answer to that question.

horror movie #3: crossover special! stranger things meets the chilling adventures of sabrina. sequel to that fic i wrote where susan makes out with lilith, queen of hell, and lilith kills neil for her. sue officially joins the church of lilith. bc in this ‘verse the church of lilith actually happens after caos s2 instead of the nonsense that was s3 and the inconceivably godawful migraine-inducing shit-fest that was s4.

killing neil was lilith’s only freebee. susan isn’t a witch, she’s a mortal, so in order to reap the other rewards of worshipping the one and only mother of demons, she has to fornicate with the witches and participate in the sacrifices!!!

this is, uh, well. it’s p much a porno, dude, sorry. 😅

this is just an excuse for susan to have sex with lilith, zelda, marie, hilda, big witch orgies + susan. witches bathing in the blood of their sacrifices, susan so nervous and timid but unable to deny her desire. the witch’s dressing her in their gothic garb.

how does the rest of the fam get it on this?

max joins the church too. she has more age-appropriate conduct with sabrina and the weird sisters, and what have you. just smooches and over-the-clothes groping, and whatnot, even tho the weird sisters, at least, would be interested in going further if given the opportunity.

billy dies in starcourt again, so he gets revived in the cain pit! hilda is the one who goes to him after bc she’s been in the cain pit many a time (i am still BIG side-eyeing zelda for repeatedly murdering her sister since childhood). hilda understands how jarring it can be to come back. suddenly alive!billy is freaking tf out but she brings him inside the mortuary, wraps him up in a big blanket burrito and they have a talk. hilda explains that he’s going to be okay and rubs his back while he tentatively sips the hot chocolate she made.

after billy’s calmed down, she brings max and susan in. max and susan can’t do as much magic as the caos witches— they’re mortals, after all, it’s not in their nature —but they’ve gained some abilities thru being in the church, following the rituals, and being carnally involved with the immortal witches. max happily shows him some of her new magic tricks.

horror movie #4: another crossover with caos. heavily inspired by creepshow episode s2e1, model kid (which i already v blatantly referenced in the last axe snafu update and i’m not ashamed, bc it’s a good series i love v much).

billy picks max up from the byers’ place rly late one night. it’s dark and the weather is bad and okay, yeh, he might be a little high. and a little concussed. he pissed neil off pretty bad the other day and okay, actually he’s defo concussed bc he doesn’t even remember what he did wrong!

needless to say, they take a wrong turn somewhere. they end up in greendale. at first max is pissed. she yells at him a lot! yells so loud hilda can hear them thru the walls of dr. cerberus’s comic shop/diner. she goes outside to see what all the fuss is abt, hilda never rly ignores youth in need. we love hilda, she deserved so much better…i’m getting distracted, okay, back to the story.

hilda ushers them inside. max is like, “ooh, comics? horror junk and comics? nvm, i’m not mad anymore.” she pats billy’s arm and wanders away to go check stuff out! hilda makes billy sit down. caos canon established that she’s psychic, at least when she wants to be. she smells the weed but she also sees his life, his trauma. billy doesn’t remember what he did to piss neil off or the abuse that followed, but hilda sees it clear as day.

he’s rude and cranky w her when she probes a little too much for his liking. hilda gently but firmly reprimands him and gets him a milkshake on this house. then she goes to check on max. she steers max to a v particular section of the shop, the one that sells model kits. now, max isn’t *huge* into model kits BUT they are p neat and she enjoys them well enough. more so when the weather is nasty and she can’t go outside. or when she needs smth to do with her hands (a trait she shares w susan) to distract herself and ease some of the anxiety when she hears her brother being beaten or her mother being shouted at.

max is actually rly impressed by the array of models. vintage ones and newer ones. monsters, slashers, final girls, tiny accessories like knives and bloodied heads. but when she gets to the paint-your-own shelf, her jaw drops to the floor.

there’s one that looks just like neil. unpainted, plain gray vinyl, but undoubtedly her stepdad. the expression on the five inch figurine is one frozen in fear.

“i think that one’s calling to you,” hilda prompts her, with the softest smile.

max blinks away her bewilderment altho she still can’t speak. she turns to hilda and turns her empty pockets inside out. hilda just waves her hand. she tells her it’s on the house. that it wouldn’t be fair if she gave billy smth on the house, but not max.

speaking of billy, when he finishes his milkshake, he’s suddenly totally sober and healed!! no more high buzzing in his blood. no more pounding headache or concussion fogging his mind. he doesn’t feel his bruises anymore, rolls his sleeve up, and realizes they simply aren’t there anymore. like they dissolved off his skin.

albeit it’s muttered under his breath, but billy does thank hilda. then he and max are on their way. max shows him the suspiciously familiar figurine in the box. this night cannot get weirder.

max knows what to do with the model kit. she does. she isn’t sure how she knows, but she does. she grapples with it for a long time. neil’s the closest thing she has to a dad these days. and things aren’t bad all the time, ofc.

sometimes neil gives max a ride when mom and billy aren’t available. sometimes he brings her ice cream entirely unprompted. neil’s the one who picks max up off the sidewalk when she wipes out super bad on her skateboard, carries her inside and then later to the car when her cut doesn’t stop bleeding and she ends up needing stitches.

but most of the time he sucks. she can’t rly be herself around him. he's indifferent to her interest at best, scornful at worst. he would hate all her friends. he scares the shit out of her when he’s angry. he doesn’t have a problem belittling her mother in front of her, tearing susan to shreds and making her out like she’s lower than dirt, the most worthless person on the planet. doesn’t have a problem beating billy in front of her or glaring at her with the promise that she’ll be next if she dares to voice her dissent.

max doesn’t always want to do what she knows she’s meant to do with the model. bc she's kind at heart and bc on the good days, she genuinely does have mixed feelings toward neil. never enough to hope he'll be better, he's proven he won't...but maybe enough to hope he won't get worse, either.

then comes the night neil breaks ribs. bad, like we’re talking, a-sharp-spear-of-broken-rib-punctures-billy’s-lung-and-he’s-coughing-up-blood-bad. that’s a trip to the emergency room. in the days that follow, at her next dnd meeting w the party, max places the fully and attentively painted model of her stepdad on the table. normally her pals would protest her derailing the intended game, but they can sense it, yk, that smth is different.

max takes over as dungeon master to the protest of no one, all other mouths sealed as if bewitched and spellbound. she narrators a scene where the demogorgon devours neil and uses the demogorgon piece and the model for demonstration.

when max returns home, neil is strewn across the house in gory chunks and torn wallpaper curls around massive claw marks.

[danwylds]

Ocean at the end of the lane au (but you don’t have to read the book)

Once again I’m writing bullet point fics

If you haven’t read the book uh. this shit is wild

It starts with Neil going to his childhood hometown (I guess Baltimore then? Not really a lotta places here for this story to take place tho) for a funeral

I literally don’t care who died

He’s walking around town, just thinking abt his life growing up and being angry

He deserves to be

Anyways he remembers the one good thing about growing up here, and it’s Andrew Minyard, the boy who said the pond behind his house was really an ocean

Neil thinks about him and finds himself at the minyards house

He kinda looks around, realising that maybe he shouldn’t of showed up randomly

But it doesn’t matter, bc Nicky Hemmick sees him

He and Nicky walk together to the pond and it’s nice

Neil starts thinking about the time a man who worked for his father stole Nathan’s car and committed suicide in the back seat, after gambling away Nathan’s money

He was around 15 or so during that time

I’m pulling number out of my ass rn

but hdbcnndjd it lets a spirit show up to neils world like hey,, how y’all doin?

Because of the reason the man died, it’s purpose is to leave money for people in terrible and unpleasant ways

This leads Neil to wake up in the middle of the night, choking on a coin

if I were Neil I would simply lay down and die

rip to him but I’m different

Anyways he doesn’t trust his father for shit so he goes to his neighbors

It’s Andrew baby!

Andrew is like okay but I’m gonna call you a dumbass this whole time and you have to come w me to find this fucked up spirit and bind it

And also you can’t let go of my hand

They both hate that part

Drake still happened, just earlier

And Nicky took in the twins earlier

Ig nicky is older in this au

whatever

ANWAYS.

They talk on the way, exchanging quiet truths

It starts from what the spirit did and ends in neil asking why Andrew and Aaron live with Nicky

Andrew says that monsters aren’t always supernatural

Neil doesn’t ask anything after that

They’re goin to find this shit spirit when something almost attacks the 2

Neils first instinct is to be defensive so he lets go of Andrews hand

As soon as he does something gets stuck in his foot and Andrew is like I don’t even care at this point

They don’t have any luck ig so they’re like whatever we’ll try again later (or never talk to each other again)

Neil gets home and pulls what might be a worm out of his foot

rip to him bc part of it gets stuck

He wakes up the next day to his mom telling him she’s starting a new job and a woman named Lola is gonna look after him

So Lola is

yeah she’s Lola she’s a bitch

Lola seduces his father and wins over his people

Neil spends most of his time locked in his room avoiding her

What small fraction of safety Neil felt is ruined when Lola asks Nathan to drown him in the bath

It doesn’t work, obviously

also yeah that’s a real point in the book I didn’t just make that up

Anyways ndncjdm he stays in his room even more, only coming out when it’s some sort of fancy event or smth he has to show up for

He decides to do what he does best

He runs

He runs to the minyard/Hemmick farm, and Nicky takes him in and cleans up the scratches and bruises he has

Nicky also gets the wormhole out of Neils foot

Apparently Lola left it behind as an escape path

This book is weird as hell jfc

Nicky calls Andrew to help neil try and talk something out with Lola

They offer her a way for her to leave peacefully, to a less dangerous world

She doesn’t believe anything could hurt her

She’s IMMEDIATELY attacked by “hunger birds” who are basically scavengers

The hunger birds tell neil they gotta eat his heart out bc a piece of Lola is still connected to him

Andrew is like well cant let the only kid who hasn’t stepped over my boundaries die

He drags Neil to the ocean and tells him to get in

While in there, Neil understands the everything about the world and humans and nature and emotion

He gets out and the memory of it all dips

Andrew makes a promise to protect Neil from the hunger birds, telling him the farm is safe and it’s all very soft

haha get fucked you two bc the hunger birds start eating the world to force him off the property

Neil does leave the property, giving himself to the hunger birds to save Nicky and the twins from them

Andrew does NOT let this slide and jumps between the birds and Neil

He’s near death by the end, and when Nicky finds out he goes batshit and threatens the hunger birds with death that’s a very real possibility for them !

The three take Andrew to the ocean and place him there, and Aaron tells him that he’ll rest and heal until he can come back to this world

Neils memory of this fades, leading him to believe Andrew moved to Australia

He jolts back to the present when Nicky puts his hand on his shoulder, smiling sadly at him

Nicky hints that the hunger birds got his heart after all, but Andrews sacrifice healed him

The power of love, as they say

His heart has been growing back for a while now, it’s almost healed

Again, he begins to forget

He tells Nicky to say hello to Andrew if he contacts from Australia