#but i mostly write mike here and . Yeah

[andvys]

sooo... I saw that your requests are open so maybe something with Henderson!reader who secretly has a crush on Eddie/Steve (you know I love them both so it's your choice here 🤭) and she has a fight with Dustin and this little shrimp (with all the love Dusty-bun) and his big mouth scream in nerves something about said crush and of course Eddie/Steve hears it, happy ending here pretty please 🥹

of course you don't have to write it if you don't like the idea! no pressure here, hope you have an amazing day Andy 🩷

My only angel E.M.

Warnings: slight angst, mentions of unrequited feelings, mutual pining, happy ending of course, mostly fluff

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Fem!Henderson!Reader

Word count: 2.5K

Note: thank you for this request bestie! I loved writing it!

stranger things masterlist

-

You love your brother, you really do but that little shrimp, how Eddie likes to call him, can truly get on your nerves sometimes. You do anything for him, which is probably why he is so insatiable. You always spoiled him, that was probably your first mistake but you love getting him things that he loves so much, whether it’s new comics, books, movies or anything DnD related. A lot of your savings are spent on him, you know it’s not your job to get him all this stuff all the time but he is your little brother and you love seeing that big smile on his face whenever he gets excited about the things you get him. 

You drive him around when Steve is too busy to do it, you cook him lunch and dinner when your mom has no time to do it, you bake things for him and his friends and you let him host movie nights even though you love having the living room to yourself on Friday nights. 

You always say yes to him. 

But not this time. 

“Come on, are you serious?” Dustin exclaims, rolling his eyes at you as he follows you to your locker. 

“Very serious, Dustin!” 

“You can literally do it any other night, y/n!” 

Mike, Will and Lucas are tagging along with him, giving you their best puppy eyes. 

You open your locker, staring into blank space as you take a deep breath before you turn back around to look at the teens. 

“You know what? I’ve been waiting for this night for weeks! Mom is out of town, you were supposed to be at Mike’s place if I remember correctly and I was supposed to have the house to myself!” 

Mike furrows his brows, “why can’t you have your girls night at our place? You can have the basement,” he shrugs. 

“Yeah, the basement is nice!” Will smiles, though he doesn’t look like he wants to be a part of this argument. 

“Yeah, I’m sure Nancy and Robin would be fine with that,” Lucas says, giving you an unsure grin. 

“Exactly!” Dustin rolls his eyes. 

You tilt your head, “why don’t you host your DnD thing in your basement? That’s where you always used to play!” 

Dustin puts his hand on his forehead, “or you can just hang out in your room and we’ll have the living room to ourselves, that way we can all have what we want!”

You laugh, shaking your head in disbelief, “I want the living room, in fact, I want the whole house to myself, for once!” 

Dustin scrunches his face up in confusion, “oh come on, y/n, please!” 

Mike and Lucas nod along, “please, we don’t want any parents around, they aren’t exactly fans of Eddie.” 

Your features soften a little, something that definitely doesn’t go unnoticed by your little brother. 

You sigh, crossing your arms over your chest, you shake your head. You, Nancy and Robin have planned your only girls night for weeks, there is no way that you will let any boys interrupt it. 

“Nope.” 

Dustin’s face grows red, he rolls his eyes and throws his hands up, “son of a bitch,” he mumbles to himself, “is it because of your crush on Eddie? Are you scared that you will embarrass yourself when he’s around the way you always do?”

Your jaw drops and your eyes widen as you look at your brother. 

Mike’s eyes widen as well, he opens his mouth to say something but quickly closes it again when he sees the metalhead behind you, his expression mirroring yours. 

Will looks down, feeling sorry for you. 

Lucas cups his mouth, looking like he’s about to burst into laughter. 

Dustin’s face grows pale, regret flickering in his eyes when he sees the shocked and embarrassed look on your face and the surprised one on Eddie’s. 

“What?!” 

That’s the question you ask yourself, internally. That voice did not belong to you though, this is Eddie’s voice. 

Your blood runs cold and your stomach churns. Closing your eyes, you take a deep breath. Oh, how you wish the ground would just swallow you whole. Your cheeks heat up and embarrassment rushes through you. 

Eddie, whose face is more flustered than ever, steps around you, staring at you with wide eyes, “y/n, is that the truth?” 

You can only imagine what he thinks and what he feels, you spare yourself the embarrassment of being rejected. You don’t look at him, you don’t even bother to answer the question, you slam your locker shut, “host your goddamn campaign, Dustin,” you spit before you walk away without sparing any of them a single look. 

Eddie’s big eyes follow you, watching you walk away with your head hung low. His heart skips a beat, butterflies swirling in his stomach. You have a crush on him? The girl he has been pining for, feels the same? 

“Dustin,” Will mumbles, “how can you embarrass your own sister like that?” He shakes his head. 

“Yeah, dude,” Lucas mumbles.

Mike scratches his head and glances at Eddie who looks awestruck.

“Shit,” Dustin mumbles, closing his eyes. 

Eddie finally turns to look at him, putting his hand on the teen’s shoulder, he looks down at him, “Henderson, is that the truth?” Eddie asks, “your sister has a crush on me– on me?” He points to himself in confusion. 

Mike and Lucas share a look, smirking a little. 

Dustin finally opens his eyes, looking nervously up at his dungeon master, he is unsure of what to say, not wanting to embarrass you any further, he shrugs. 

Lucas sighs, rolling his eyes at his friend, “yes, Eddie. She has a crush on you.” 

Mike nods, “yeah, she was actually talking about you with my sister.” 

Eddie looks at them, “really?” 

Dustin squints his eyes, taking in the excited look on Eddie’s face, “wait,” he mumbles, “do you like my sister?” 

Eddie swallows, cheeks growing red.

“Holy shit!” Dustin exclaims as the three teens start smirking at him but before any of them can say anything else, Eddie turns around and runs off just the way you did, leaving them all giggling. 

-

You and Eddie aren’t the closest friends, that is probably because of your huge crush on him. Dustin isn’t wrong, you do tend to embarrass yourself in front of him. 

Whenever he is around, you turn into a blushing mess, you barely manage to form a sentence when he talks to you, all he ever gets are short responses, shy smiles and little waves. The poor guy probably thinks you hate him but he really just makes you incredibly nervous. 

You always had a crush on him, from the first moment you had laid your eyes on him, you had a special place in your heart for the handsome metalhead, not knowing that he feels just the same. 

You never talked much to him, only when you sat next to each other during class or saw him outside of school but you weren’t brave enough to make the move to become his friend or anything more than that. 

When your brother befriended him and he started coming around, stealing your job of driving him around, he always left you a blushing mess. Eddie was always a flirt, throwing random pickup lines at you, gifting you a flower that he picked from your mother’s garden or someone else’s property, holding doors open for you or carrying your books to classes but you never thought much of it, you thought that he’s like that with every girl. 

He is not. 

You fear that, that is over now, that he is weirded out by your crush on him. Thanks to your brother and his big mouth, your day and the rest of your week is ruined. 

All day, you have been avoiding Eddie, trying your best to avoid eye contact. The thought of being confronted and rejected makes you feel both mortified and heartbroken. 

You successfully manage to get through the day without running into him again. Now, you’re alone in your room, sulking, listening to Tears for Fears and glaring at your diary, the one that Dustin must’ve read, how else would he know of your crush and your hopeless feelings for Eddie? 

A knock on your window pulls you out of your thoughts, startling you a little. You throw the ripped out pages on your bed and turn around, eyes widening when you see Eddie who stands in front of your window with a smile on his face, waving at you shyly.

Your heart begins to race, your eyes widen. Nervously, you make your way towards it, he purses his lips, staring at you in excitement. Sliding the window open, you lick your lips and take a deep breath, “h-hi?” You mumble nervously. 

He is not here to reject you is he? 

Eddie smiles and you just now notice the flowers in his hands.

Surely, a guy who is about to reject you, won’t show up with flowers and a smile on his face, right?

“Hello princess,” he grins, looking giddy as he eyes you. 

You blush at the pet name, breaking eye contact, you look down. 

“Can I come in?” 

You nod and step aside to let him in, you dig your nails into your palms, a nervous habit that you have picked up on, years ago. You look down at yourself, growing incredibly flustered when you realize that you’re only wearing a big shirt and underwear. 

He climbs inside and shuts the window before he turns around to face you, he can’t even fight the smile off his face when he sees how nervous you are, “here, these are for you,” he whispers, holding out the flowers for you. 

Your eyes light up, looking up at him, you notice the excitement in his dark eyes, his plump lips are set in a bright smile. 

You reach for the flowers, your fingertips graze his knuckles as you take the flowers from him, “thank you,” you smile, glancing at the pink and yellow flowers, “those are not from mom’s garden,” you giggle. 

Eddie shakes his head, “no, they’re not,” he smiles, “I picked them out just for you, there’s a huge field of flowers close to Lover’s Lake,” he explains. He licks his lips, looking around the room that he has only passed by whenever he came over to pick up Dustin, “maybe I could take you there…. tomorrow? To Lover’s Lake, I mean.” 

Your heart flutters in your chest, excitement bubbling in your stomach. 

“To do what?” You ask, tilting your head, “isn’t that like a popular makeout spot?” 

His eyes widen and he chuckles, “no, according to all the jocks at school, skull rock is a popular makeout spot,” he says, stepping closer to you, he smiles as he watches you smelling the flowers, “but we could always make Lover’s Lake a new makeout spot, just for us, of course.” 

Your eyes widen even more, your cheeks grow incredibly hot. 

Your reaction makes him smirk, a sense of pride rushing through him for being so ‘smooth’. 

You giggle, forgetting all about the embarrassment and the fear you have felt before.

“Just for us?” 

He steps even closer to you, bringing his hand up, he brushes your hair back, tucking it behind your ear, “I wouldn’t want to take any other girl there, sweetheart,” he says, eyes softening, “but you gotta stop running away from me, I’ve been trying to catch you all day.” 

You draw your brows together and look up at him with big eyes, it makes him weak in the knees. 

“Tell me, is that little shrimp telling the truth?” He asks with big and hopeful eyes. 

You blink, your breathing quickens and you grow nervous all over again. 

“If he is, then I’d be the happiest and luckiest man in the world, princess.” 

Your heart leaps to your throat, you can’t believe it. 

“Really?” You breathe. 

He nods with a large smile on his face. 

“If you haven’t noticed, I’m like really obsessed with you,” he admits, cheeks redder than ever. 

“Wait what?” 

He chuckles, shaking his head as he cups your cheek, “I thought, I made it pretty obvious.” 

Not only does Eddie use every opportunity to talk to you, to spend time with you, he also creates DnD characters based on you, he drives around Hawkins, searching for the perfect flowers for you, he picks up Dustin just so he can see you, even if it’s only for one minute, he does anything to see you and to be with you and he explains all that to you, leaving you standing there with a shocked and awestruck look on your face. 

“I-I thought you do that for every girl,” you admit. 

“Never!” Eddie frowns, “I only want one girl,” he says as he reaches for your hand, bringing it up to his lips, he keeps looking into your eyes as he presses a kiss to your knuckles, “I only want you, sweetheart. So, will you take pity on my cynical heart and do me the honor and go on a date with me?” He asks, dramatically and with a teasing look in his eyes. 

Your giggle makes his soul happy.

Eddie is so crazy about you. He loves your beautiful voice, it always makes his heart flutter. He loves your sweet smile. He loves the way you get so flustered whenever he just looks at you. He loves your perfume. He loves the way you make him feel. The way you have always been so good and sweet to him, the way you always make him smile and happy, even on his worst days.

You're his angel.

“I would love to go on a date with you, Eddie Munson,” you smile. 

“Really?” He exclaims happily. 

“Yes!” 

He fist bumps the air before he scoops you up in his arms and twirls you around, giggling at the squeal that leaves your lips as you wrap your arms around his neck, still holding the flowers in your hands. 

“This is the best day of my life,” he whispers when he places you back on the ground, giving you a toothy grin, he can’t even help himself, leaning closer, he kisses your cheek, “can’t believe that your little brother made it the best day.” 

“You should’ve asked me out before,” you whisper. 

“Sweetheart, I didn’t think you were into me, I feel like I’ve been flirting with you for months!” 

“I didn’t think you were flirting!” 

“Wasn’t I obvious?” 

You shrug, “I thought that you were just a flirt!” 

He scoffs, putting his hands on the small of your back, he pulls you tightly against him, “only for you.” 

You smile at him. Raising your hand, you run your fingers through his hair and push it back, reaching for one of the smaller flowers in your little bouquet, you pick it out and tuck the stem behind his ear. 

Eddie chuckles at your action but his heart flutters when you lean in and kiss his cheek. 

“You’re pretty, Eddie.” 

“Yeah?” He asks, blushing. 

You nod. 

“I think you’re prettier,” he whispers, smiling at you, “you’re the prettiest.” 

“No, that’s you.” 

“No, you!” 

Neither of you notice the hushed whispers outside of your door, too busy and focused on each other.

“Oh, they’re so gross already,” Dustin mumbles with a disgusted look on his face. 

Lucas and Mike giggle. 

“I think, they’re super cute,” Will smiles with a happy look on his face. 

“I think Eddie will come over for something other than the campaign this weekend,” Lucas says, wiggling his brows. 

Dustin groans, shaking his head, “ew!” 

[judgeanon]

So About That BATGIRL #1...

I put this review up in another site, but since folks here on Tumblr seem to be realizing I have a lot of Thoughts about Lady Shiva, I figured I'd transplant it here. So here's how I feel about it. The short of it is that I think it's a strong start with a few small quibbles because I'm not sure how much of Shiva's writing is her being intentionally OOC and how much is Brombal trying to humanize her.

The long is here:

Now, one of Shiva's main issues as a character ever since they finally split her from the League of Assassins (God bless you Bryan Hill) is that, instead, writers have stapled her to Cass. Literally every major Shiva appearance since 2017 has involved Cass in some way. That is a problem not so much for Cass, who gets to have her own stories and series with and without the Batfam (although mostly with), but for Shiva, who doesn't get nearly as much exposure as her daughter. If there's a Shiva comic coming out, odds are it's gonna have something to do with Cass. Well, except for the other Shiva comic coming out this month that's gonna suck shit.

But at the same time, I don't think that means nobody should ever do another Shiva/Cass story, because I still feel like that's rich soil that nobody has had the time, space or desire to really commit to mining. Hill in Outsiders was writing a whole ensemble cast and couldn't linger too long on them. Writers like Grayson and Cloonan/Conrad both teased Shiva trying to reconcile with Cass but never took it anyhwere. A Shiva/Cass story can still be compelling and interesting as long as the writer is willing and able to Actually Write It.

So when literally the first panel of this new issue is Shiva addressing Cass and their relationship directly, I'm already perked up. Right from the get go, you can tell that Tate Brombal is absolutely here to tell a story about these two women and pretty much nothing else, and also that Tak Miyazawa and Mike Spicer are a killer art team. I adore how hard Tak's figures look without (usually) being stiff, thanks to some solid body language and expressions. And Spicer's colors have a cool kind of dark-but-vivid look. The last leg of the issue, with everything illuminated by fire, is especially cool.

Going back to the opening, it's curous how despite this being an issue #1, there's very little in the way of character introductions or set up. There's no slow burn here, no lengthy creeping intro like previous Shiva/Cass stories. And while I can't help but feel that it must be a little awkward for readers unfamiliar with them or their current situation, I think it also accurately reflects one of my favorite parts of the comic, which is Cass' being just absolutely fucking DONE with her mom.

After years of hyper dramatic standoffs and tearful moments of cheap heartbreak, it's fun to see a Cass who has no time for her mother, who's not interested in what she's got going on, and who's confident enough in herself to even be a little shit about it. It's fun and refreshing and fits Cass very nicely.

That not-quite-breakneck but still fast pace keeps up when the Unburied show up after just a few pages of setup and you know, in a couple of interviews, Brombal mentioned being influenced by Daredevil. And this is the page that made me go "Ah, yeah, that tracks." 'cause brother, those are some MILLER-ass ninjas.

Why Shiva fears these guys or thinks Cass can't handle them is not yet explained, but her desperation to keep Cass around does lead to a small but very meaning-heavy moment: the first punch in this series is not thrown into the face of the new enemies, but it's Cass decking her mom in the face and Shiva loving it.

It's an excellent touch and a perfect mission statement about the series. I love it as much as I love the ensuing fight, full of cool moves in big and small panels, but the most fun thing to me is how it's choreographed as Cass fighting her mom almost as much as she's fighting the Unburied. And on top of being a great fight, it ends with a small nod to QUESTION #1 or the 'Tec '88 Annual, in case I was somehow not sold enough already.

And while I still love Cass being so willing to call Shiva out on her lies, it does bring up one of the small gripes I have with this issue: I don't like it when Shiva lies constantly. I think she's best when she's strong and confident enough to not need to lie, when she just lays everything out on the table the way this comic is almost doing. It's good for Cass, as it keeps showing her as someone who has grown to understand her mother, who sees Shiva for who she is and what she does. And it does set up a slightly heartwarming scene at the end.

Of course, that's personal preferrence, and I'm not gonna say this is a bad comic because it doesn't follow my own idea of what works best for Shiva, especially since it's clear that Brombal is writing her with a lot of intention here. But that leads to the other big-ish issue I have with this issue: it's a bit hard to tell, from this story alone, how much of these moments are Brombal building his own personal version of Shiva and how much of it is Shiva, in-universe, acting out of character for the sake of some hidden scheme. After all, Cass points out that twice in the issue Shiva backs down, first from a moral fight and then from an actual fight.

So it's possible that even the constant lying is Shiva playing a role in favor of a grander scheme which will be revealed in later issues. Which, fair enough, I'm willing to see where it goes. But that second moment of yielding does lead to what's maybe my biggest problem with BATGIRL #1, and it's the Unburied themselves.

There's nothing in that initial fight with the Unburied that suggests Shiva and Cass would've had trouble dealing with them. Hell, there's very little to suggest even one of them would've had trouble with them. Now, I'm not suggesting that this issue should've started with the titular character and her mom getting their asses handed to them. But it feels like there's just not enough to these new enemies yet to justify the escape. Ninjas show up, Cass and Shiva beat them without getting hit once, more Ninjas show up and Shiva self-defenestrates herself.

Again, entirely possible that Shiva has something up her sleeve here, and issue #2 did promise to show us the main villain behind them, but as it stands it leaves me with this weird mix of not quite intrigue, not quite disappointment. It's just odd. They could've had, I dunno, a bomb set in the building or some other reason for Shiva to exit the venue like that.

Speaking of odd things, however, I did NOT expect to be reading a comic that brings up Shiva's cult from Puckett/Scott's BATGIRL #25. It's an "Order of Shiva" now though, with chapters and temples and stuff. Which is a bit of a change, since back in #25 they came off more like a gang of fanboys than an order of servants or anything like that. And after being summarily disposed by Shiva in that same issue, they were never really explored again.

So this is Brombal not just bringing back a bit of old lore, but also shifting it slightly, turning it into a more organized group... and then summarily disposing of them one panel later.

Also, I don't know what it is but I *LOVE* this panel. Shiva's face, her "wut" pose, the O.O, it's just... beautiful.

Anyway, once they're in the temple for the last bit of the issue, I start to see a bit more of what Brombal's doing. Like Gail Simone and Bryan Hill, Brombal seems to want to soften Shiva up a little, to make it clear that deep inside, she does have at least a bit of a heart, or enough of it to feel sadness at the wasteful death of people she may feel like she owes something to. Compare it to BIRDS OF PREY #62 for example:

This one is not quite as dramatic or vulnerable, but it's clear that Brombal wants to write Shiva with a slightly more human heart. Which, again, I'm not opposed to but I don't think it's the best thing you can do with her. I prefer Shiva being more detached in regards to death, like the most she'll do is see it as a waste but she's not gonna get emotional about it, she's going to be way more matter-of-fact. Death happens and such. But I think that kind of aloofness often gets interpreted as monstrous disdain for life by writers trying to make Shiva into a villain, and if I had to choose between what Brombal's doing and what, well, what Tom King's probably gonna be doing in a few weeks, I'll take this anytime.

Anyway, I also didn't expect to see the apprentice from BATGIRL #26, having apparently gotten a promotion somewhere in the last 20 years. Good for him! Less good for him is the shitload of arrows he eats two pages later but oh well.

The last couple of pages lead to a nice moment of sheer badassery for both Shiva and Cass and one last showcase of Miyazawa and Spicer's glorious team effort. Those two work really well together and I'm excited to see more of them in future issues. And while we're at it, I gotta give props to Miyazawa for being one of maybe two artists to draw a visibly older Lady Shiva.

His version isn't just aged but hardened by that age, looking stern and determined without having to rely on gritted teeth or angry looks. And on top of all that, he still finds more than enough moments to give her the kind of cocky smiles that bring out the more playful side of Shiva that some stories tend to either gloss over or turn into outright sadism.

Man... I just love to see that momma smile.

Other than that, there's a couple of minor quibbles I have with the issue. There's a funny moment where Cass pulls a Batman on her own mother (who charmingly acknowledges Bruce's influence) but it's undercut by Cass poofing back into existence on the next page. And there's also the weird, almost surreal emptiness of the city around them. Even after a building explodes, there's literally nobody on the streets other than Shiva and Cass.

On one hand, it speaks to the intentions of this run. This is VERY much a two-woman show so far, with no room for much else. But it's still glaring enough to be distracting.

However, it's that intentionality that ultimately wins me over. Even with all my personal little issues with Shiva's characterization, it's obvious from the start that this is a writer who is genuinely trying to write her as a character, who is ready to engage with her and with her relation with Cass on a deeper level than just hero and villain, or good daughter and evil mom.

Brombal, Miyazawa & Spicer have put some meat on the grill, and although I don't think the biggest pieces are there yet... I'm ready to let them cook.

[solarlunarsstuff]

Can you write Mike Taking readers virginity or mutual masterbation where he is more dominant and a lot of praise pleaseee

YESSSS, I'll do both my lovely anon💞! (Also if u want to be a certain emoji type of anon u can put "-Anon🦈" or smth like that)

·̩̩̥͙＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚·̩̩̥͙＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚·̩̩̥͙＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚·̩̩̥͙＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚·̩̩̥͙＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚·̩̩̥͙＊*•̩̩͙

☆ Double Night Guards ☆

Synopsis: You were both hired to watched an old run down pizzeria, while Mike and you only had subtle interactions he still thought it count. You would mostly clean the place up here and there, while Mike stayed back in the office watching the camera's, if he wanted to do this he would have to do it quick before you came back...

Tw: mutual pining, mutual masterbation, dirty talk, foul language, LOTS of praise, virginity loss (reader), manhandiling, Dacryphilia, dumbification, mentions of pregnancy, creampies, slow burn-ish, somniphilia, hair pulling, body worship, pet names, full Nelson, smut n' flufff, and nice after care.

A/n: Also I'm sorry other anon my bsf typed 'sure' on it and posted it but I couldn't get it back but I hope it was similar to this... :((

·̩̩̥͙＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚·̩̩̥͙＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚·̩̩̥͙＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚·̩̩̥͙＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚·̩̩̥͙＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚·̩̩̥͙＊*•̩̩͙

You were both hired about a week ago, you still haven't gotten used to your new sleep schedule but you did manage to get up. Only a few minutes late.

Surprised that you woke up early today, you had gotten ready eaten breakfast and drove off for work.

It was obvious you were going to be getting there earlier than Mike, so you decided to look around the pizzeria for some cleaning utilities. You did find them in a closet near the end of the hall.

You grabbed what you needed and got to work, starting in the bathrooms would be a bad idea so you decided to stroll near the front of the run down restaurant.

It took you about 10 minutes to move all of the furniture, stacking the children chairs in a corner and pick up the loose trash off of the dirty carpets.

You had music blasting and hadn't noticed Mike had entered through the double glass doors. He was nervously standing there not knowing what to do, he decided to tap on your shoulder.

That quite obviously scared the living shit out of you, whipping your body around and your shirt and vest hiked up your body a bit.

You had giggled lightly and picked up remaining trash beind you on the danty carpet, you heard Mike shift a little bit behind you. Weird...

"Scared the fuck out of me, Mike!" You laughed out

He rested his right hand behind the nape of his neck while awkwardly stuttering.

"Uhh, I-I'll just g-go to the, uhm.." Mike was clearly struggling

"Office?"

"Yeah, that.."

You told him that you wanted to stay out here and clean around the place because of how gross it was and how it was making your dust allergy kick in.

Mike just nodded in response and walked swiftly away to the shared office you both had, he was kind of relieved that you weren't watching cameras.

He would get the worst aching boner because of you. Mike would become so desperate that he would be clenching the armrests of his chair.

Besides that he was not as overwhelmed as much, that was good, he just sat there and watched the cameras. Checking on the animatronics and something else...

Job wise, you and him were good colleagues. You both have respect for each other and respect boundaries. But he wanted to cross the line, he wanted to see how far you could go without overdoing it.

Mike would have to shift himself in his pants everytime you would bend over to grab something. You broke something in him, he was getting needier the more you both came to work.

You had just finished cleaning the dining area and moved onto the stage where the main 3 were. Opening the curtains manually and shining your flashlight in to see what you were working with.

That didn't matter to Mike, what mattered was how you looked when you had the bottom half of your body hanging off the edge of the duty stage while the top was laying down trying to dust best as possible without stepping onto the stage.

That's when he broke, in that exact moment. 'What if- I could be quick, right, she won't know..' Mike told himself.

He focused onto the old beat up camera screen while palming himself through his jeans, he used the back of his other hand to muffle his deep groans that came out of him.

Mike was extremely focused on you, he unbuckled his belt and pulled his pants and boxers to the end of his thigh. Precum was dripping mini droplets from the slit on the top of his pretty red tip.

He slowly started to palm himself, making sure not to be to loud, Mike took his time and played with his slit and continued to lather precum on his whole length.

Mike ruffled his hair back while he picked his pace up a bit, he let his head hang back while he lolled his tongue out a little. (Futureman reference)

He nearly came when he saw that you had dropped something under a table and had to get on all fours to try and reach for it. Your ass sticking out from behind you.

Mike whimpered from the way you moved, you had taken your vest off and had a black tank top on that made your tits almost spill out when you walked.

He thrusted into his hand and started to moan a little but not to loud, as he was cautious so you wouldn't find out.

Mike's cock was twitching, that was telling him that he was getting closer to his release.

"Fuckkk, {Y/n}-" he groaned

Then the coil in him snapped apart, he came. There's was a lot rolling down his knuckles, his bare thighs, and some splatters got onto the camera screens.

His chest was heaving heavily, soft whispers of your name could be heard from his mouth. Mike reached for his tissues and cleaned himself along with whatever was hit.

Right after Mike threw the last of the mess away into the trash, you entered the room. Also breathing heavily, from the cleaning of course. He fixed his clothing and sat back down onto the chair, manspreading.

This man did wonders on you, but he was so oblivious that it was cute. But when he did that pose. Oh it went straight down to your core, making your walls flutter with excitement.

But you couldn't just take your bottom of right there and spread your legs open and start fingering yourself while playing with your-

You just couldn't, you didn't even know him like that. So you just had to wait, the last of the 4 hours of your shift. Tonight was going to be long..

You would both awkwardly stand there and not utter a word, you noticed that Mike had extremely heavy eyebags.

"Hey, if your tired, you could sleep..I could take over.." you uttered cautiously

His eyes lit up, he nodded a yes and moved to where you were sitting and switched spots. Throwing yourself onto the office chair.

Looking at the cameras seeing that nothing was wrong, you peered over your shoulder to see a beautiful man sleeping before you. I mean, you could?

"Fuck it.." you mumbled barely over a whisper

You didn't want to take all of your clothes off so you came up with a better plan.

While slipping your hand into your pants, teasing yourself through your panties. Glancing from the old cameras to Mike's sleeping body.

You used your hand to grip the armrest part of the chair, getting a bit frustrating. You slipped your delicate fingers past your panties.

Circling your clit and picking up your slick from your needy hole to lather over your throbbing clit. You let out a huff but quickly silenced yourself once you saw that Mike started to stir.

But that didn't mean you were stopping, putting more pressure onto your clit made you gasp. That wasn't even enough.

You picked your pace up and started to slip two fingers into your gaping hole, the silence was loud only to be interrupted by the slick noises of your throbbing cunt.

"Shiiiit- Mike-" you loudly whispered

You started to finger yourself faster and used your palm to rub your clit. This got you closer, making you let out little ah ah ah's every time you slipped in and out.

That's when you burst, your thighs were shaky and your cum was covering your panties and hand. You got up quietly and rushed to the bathroom to wash your hands. And you came back to continue your shift.

And soon it reached 6 AM, you gently woke Mike up.

"What is it?" He groggliy asked

He must've forgotten we were at work.. you thought

"Mike, our shift just ended, we can go home now." You told while putting your jacket on and gathering your belongings.

He mouthed an oh and got up to grab his stuff. You both got out of the pizzeria and Mike locked up, that was because you couldn't trust yourself with keys whatsoever.

You lived a few houses down from Mike which wasn't bad, if him needed anything he would probably come to you first.

Before Mike got into his car you called his name.

"Hey, uhh, do you want to come over for dinner tomorrow night? I was told that we don't have a shift until next week.." you shyly asked

"Uhm, yeah!"

"Oh, also, you can bring Abby!" You happily smiled at him before getting into your car.

And with that, you drove off back to your house. Heart beating rapidly from inviting your coworker over to your house for dinner.

You had no idea what to cook, but then it hit you. You've babysat Abby before, and you knew what food she liked the most. Spaghetti and pizza.

So you got to work, you obviously made the pizza a day before because making homemade pizza dough takes hours to rise. So you didn't want to rush anything.

After an hour or so, you had left the dough in a bowl with plastic wrap on the top to let it rise. And so with that, you went to take a nap.

You woke up around 4 PM, you kind of forgot what time to tell Mike to come over. So you called him.

Ring!

Ring!

Ring!

He finally answered and asked who this was.

"Hey, it's {Y/n} I forgot to tell you what time to come, for, you know, dinner.."

"Anyway, I was thinking 5:30?" You continued

His side of the line went a bit silent.

"Yeah, sounds great. Me and Abby will be there in awhile.." his raspy voice coughed out

You both said your goodbyes and you went straight to the kitchen. Having to make the spaghetti, doesn't seem hard. So you finished that within an hour and set the table as best you could.

You waited in the living room until you heard a knock on your door. Must be them! You thought.

You shuffled to put a jacket on while stumbling to the foyer. You fixed your hair a bit and opened the door.

"Heyy, come on in you guys!" You warmly smiled at Abby and Mike.

Abby rushed in and hugged you by your waist, you happily sighed and hugged her back. Mike just awkwardly stood there and waited.

You let Abby go and took Mike's hand to lead him through your house while Abby let herself in and excitedly explored.

Mike reminded her not to be as nosy at home and not to break anything. You giggled a little from the sibling interactions that they had.

Once all three of you got into your kitchen you showed them to the made dining table. You never saw Abby so happy, she sat down and beckoned for you and Mike to come over.

You both sat down and made plates, after about an hour. Abby was sitting on the living room floor while she watched TV. You and Mike were observing from afar.

"She's so cute, I wish I had my own kid.." you sighed

Out of the corner of your eye you saw Mike flush a tint of red on his cheeks, while scratching the nape of his neck.

Don't say it. Don't say it. He told himself.

"Well, what if...what if I gave you one?" He stuttered a bit but had some confidence in him.

Your eyes widened but soon turned into a soft smile.

"I would love that, Mike.." you said while resting your arms on his shoulders

"Oh!" His voice was above a whisper

You gave him a quick kiss on the lips and walked toward Abby. Leaving Mike all hot and bothered.

"Hey Abs, do you have school tomorrow?" You kindly asked while resting your hands on your knees.

She shook her head.

"I was thinking, what would you think of a sleep over at my house tonight?" You told her

She jumped up and hugged you while thanking you and asking where she would sleep.

You lead her to a guest room and let her choose a pillow and blanket to use, she smiled and got her bed ready.

"If you want, you can continue watching TV until 12 PM." You smiled

She thanked you again and ran off down stairs. Leaving you and Mike alone, you had brought him to your room.

"So, about that baby you were going to give me..." you inquired

He turned beet red, reenacting what he had said to you earlier. Mike's expression softened and he sat on the edge of your bed while holding your left hip and your cheek.

Mike nodded and pulled you into a kiss, it was sloppy but needy. He pulled you onto his lap and pulled on your hair so it made him look down at you.

You moaned into his mouth from the pressure, he smiled against your lips. Moving down to your neck leaving hickeys where he wanted them. Mike obviously made sure to lock your bedroom door before he sat down.

Mike tugged at the hem of your shirt, pulling it over you head showing that you hadn't worn any sort of bra, he whimpered at the sight of you bare.

Just for him, his good girl. And his only good girl.

Mike attached his wet lips to one of your plump breast. He sucked and gave it kitten licks. His actions as of now made your head roll back as you started to roll your hips on his clothed dick.

He bit lightly onto your harden nipple to see your reaction and oh did he get one. You pushed Mike's head further into your chest, unlocking something in him.

He sucked a little harder and thrusted his hips up to meet your low grinding. Groaning into your breasts sending sensational waves through you.

Mike could spend hours touching your tits, just squishing them or giving them little kisses is his go to when he's with you almost all the time.

As of right now, all he wanted to do was give you pleasure and so he did. Mike looked up at you through his half lidded eyes and licked a strip from the bottom to the top of your boobs.

Throwing your head back and babbling incoherent words under your breath.

"Mikey, please! I need it, right now! Please, I'll be a good girl!"

He loved the little nickname Mikey. It sends butterflies straight to his stomach, wanting- needing you.

That was it, he couldn't take it anymore. He struggled a little to get all of his clothing items off but he was soon bare and he ripped your shorts and panties along with one swift movement of his hands.

Mike loved how you were wet for him, making his cock's tip was already leaking with his pretty precum.

Giving himself a few strokes making him twitch in his own hand. Mike let go and positioned you so your head was on a pillow and put another pillow under your lower back.

"Alright baby, are you ready? It might hurt, its okay." Mike whispered beautiful nothings into your ear.

"Gonna start with the tip, okay darlin'?" Fuck, he was doing a number on you with his voice.

Mike swiped his cock head along your folds, making you huff out in sexual frustration.

"Deep breath in..." he muttered loud enough for you to understand before slowly rutting his tip into you.

The head was tugging on your cunt, his praise made your pussy to become slick with your juices.

"I'm gonna go slow, okay my love?" You only nodded in response and waited

It was abrupt, it stung but it felt so fucking good. Mike had only made it a little bit more than halfway before you started to nudge closer to him so he could bottom out.

"Aww, little whore wants more? I'll give you more you fucking slut-" he grunted while thrusting his hips into you entirely.

Arching your back off of the bed and nearly loosing your eyesight from rolling your eyes to the back of your head. Mike chuckled lightly while slowly rolling his hips, in and out of your sopping cunt.

"Thought you wanted it sweetheart?" He teased

He grabbed the back of your thighs and pushed them a little, getting the perfect view of how your needy pussy was taking him. Mike soon lifted your right leg onto his shoulder while the other planted into the mattress.

Mike picked his pace up a bit and started to feel a knot forming in his stomach, as he moved faster and faster until he couldn't move any faster. He grew bored of the position you were in so he gripped the back sides of both of your thighs and moved up and rested your knees on either side of your head.

Eye widening that you were capable of folding like that, not complaining. He continued to fuck his cock into your puffy cunt. You tightened your walls around him.

"Fuucckkk, this pussy is just milkin' me isn't it?" He grunted

You were close, it was obvious because you let little ah's out and your breathing became uneven. Your thighs were trembling a little.

"Gonna be a good girl and let me cum in you?" His grunts became his breath sharpening through his gritted teeth.

You nodded aggressively, giving him the go. It only took a few more pumps until you clenched around him, having your eyes roll back while whispering his name incoherently.

Mike came right after, filling your pretty pussy with his hot seed. He pulled out and saw how your cunt clenched around nothing and his cum spilling out.

He sighed and got up to the connected bathroom of your room and got a damp towel to clean you both up before he gathered a new pair of clothing and dressed you and himself.

Cuddling up, spooning you and letting out a satisfied sigh.

"Did s' good for me, princess.." he mumbled while nearly drifting off.

Rubbing small circles on your shoulder.

"I love you {Y/n}, I always have." Mike gave a quick kiss on your cheek before dozing off while warmly wrapping around you like a love letter.

·̩̩̥͙＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚·̩̩̥͙＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚·̩̩̥͙＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚·̩̩̥͙＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚·̩̩̥͙＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚·̩̩̥͙＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚

I'm so sorry if this is half assed. This is one of the longest fics I've ever written. School just sucks and I type on my phone for writing (I don't have a laptop lmao). Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this, love you pooksters 🫶💤 (I'll prob work on the other fics in a later time. Sorry my luvs💞)

[sweet-villain]

Cause I Believe~ 1~ Older E.M

Summary : You move next door to Eddie Munson, and he welcomes you with his friends.

Author's Note : I had so much fun writing this.

Older Eddie

Boxes crowd the porch as you fumble with the last big box, the air thick with the smell of fresh paint and sun-baked wood.

A figure leans on the fence in the upstairs complex, a cigarette hanging loose from his lips. Eddie Munson. Scruffy beard, long brown hair dusted with silver, tattoos inked into his skin like a personal history. His gaze lingers, unsettling yet intriguing.

" Welcome to the shit hole" His voice carries a gravely edge but he doesn't turn to glance at you.

You offer him an uneasy smile, unsure about the way he stood, " Thanks?"

The air hung heavy. He takes long drags of his cigarettes, eyes moving slowly towards you and looking away quickly.

" What's with the box? You hiding some toys or your stash or porno magazines?" He chuckled, teasing.

" Just some junk" you shrugged.

" You must have a lot of junk, then"

Before you answer him, a group calls out his name rounding the corner. Your eyebrows knit together not really recognizing them.

" Oh! Eddie's got a new neighbor!"

Dustin nudges Mike. “Think they’ll survive living next to Eddie?”

“Probably not,” Robin chirps, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

Eddie rolls his eyes but can’t hide the twitch of a smile.

“Don’t mind him,” Steve nudges Eddie, “he mostly bites.”

" I'm Steve" he offers his hands out. Steve had chestnut hair, long, some strand hanging from his forehead creating a shadow like and you can see chest hair peeking out of his shirt. He sported a scruff on his face and glasses. He was kinda cute.

" Y/N" you shook his hand.

" Stop flirting with my neighbor, Harrington" Eddie mumbles loud enough for Steve to hear.

Steve chuckled, raising his eyebrow. " Aw, don't worry Munson. She's all yours." Eddie rolled his eyes.

Eddie flicks the ash from his cigarette, crossing his arms defiantly. “Yeah, right. I’m just here to enjoy this shit hole of a town."

Dustin leans in, eyes wide with curiosity. “Seriously, though. Are you settling in? Or are you just gonna stare at Eddie all day?”

Your eyes widen at his question, red appears on your cheeks. You didn't mean to stare at Eddie. But he was really pretty, he must of had all the girls in high school.

“I just… You know, boxes.”

Robin snorted."Boxes? That's your excuse?" She chuckles, her eyes glinting with amusement. “If I were you, I’d be more interested in our resident rockstar over here.”

Eddie rolls his eyes and pushes Robin shoulder playfully, " Hey, now Buckley." 

Robin sidesteps, laughter spilling into the cool afternoon breeze. “What? It’s true! Just look at those tattoos. You could practically sell tickets.”

Eddie snorts, shaking his head. " You do know I know how to play guitar and sing." “Yeah? Never heard of a tattooed rockstar that could play a mean bone flute,” Dustin quips, nudging Eddie with his elbow. The laughter crescendos around you, an infectious rhythm that sets the tone.

" Where you all friends in high school?" you asked.Mike scratches the back of his head, glancing at the others. “More like we became friends through, you know, monster hunting and—”

“Way too many Dungeons & Dragons sessions,” Dustin interjects, eyes sparkling with nostalgia.

" What did you mean monster hunting? Like hunting for animals or what?" Dustin beams like he’s about to share a great secret. “Not animals—like, actual monsters. We faced Demogorgons, Mind Flayers, all that fun stuff!” He gestures grandly.

" What?" you looked at them strangly. " What are those?" Eddie notices your eyes look wide a bit. Eddie chuckles, leaning against the fence, arms still crossed. “You probably think we’re a bunch of lunatics right now.”

“Maybe?” A nervous laugh escapes you, face still warm from the conversation.

" You all look nice and welcoming, but you look trouble Eddie.." Eddie lifts an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth tugging upwards. “Trouble? Nah, just misunderstood.” He offers a mock bow, the cigarette dangling precariously.

" I'm sure your great, Eddie" you brushed a piece of hair behind your ear while holding the box still. Eddie's smirk deepens, a playful challenge flickering in his eyes. “Great? That’s quite the compliment. Do I look great?” 

" I mean... fasinating.." Eddie leans closer, feigning a hurt expression. “Fascinating? That’s it? I was expecting ‘incredible’ or ‘magnificent.’” His lips twitch, barely holding back a grin.

“Right! I’m Dustin, this is Mike, and that’s Robin.” He gestures to each as if presenting trophies. 

“Dustin,” you repeat, catching his infectious enthusiasm. “Nice to meet you all.”

Do you need help settling in?" Steve asked as he eyed you up and down, already developing a small crush. “Uh, sure,” you reply, eyeing the remaining boxes stacked like confounding towers. “I wouldn’t mind some extra hands.”

“Count me in!” Steve beams, as if he thrives on teamwork.

" I have things to do" Eddie says, not wanting to get close to you even though you seem nice. He didn't want to get close to you, as in a pretty girl like you.. he just can't. He never gets the girl. Eddie flicks his cigarette onto the ground, the ember glowing briefly before extinguishing under his boot. He scoffs lightly, folding his arms tighter. 

“Yeah, right. Like you’re just going to sit back and let Harrington pullall the weight around here,” Robin challenges, her eyes narrowing at Eddie with a playful fire.

"I'm sure Eddie is doing his best estimate of a rockstar," Steve jabs, nudging Eddie with a grin. 

“More like a rock!”Eddie narrows his eyes at Steve, a mock frown plastered on his face. “Rude. Rocks have feelings too, you know.”

" Some special rocks then" You laugh, the absurdity of it bubbling in your chest. “Maybe a rock that plays guitar?”

Eddie feigns a dramatic gasp. “Excuse me, that’s way too close to my personal brand.” He taps his temple, mocking a deep thought. 

" Maybe those special rocks with have an album on your shelf as a trophy"Eddie glances at you, his eyes brightening for a fleeting moment. “An album? Now that’s not a bad idea. I could call it ‘Rock Solid.’” 

Dustin bursts into laughter, slapping his knee. “

“I’d buy that album,” you shot back, your grin widening. Eddie watches, surprise etching across his face, an unfamiliar warmth creeping into his expression.

Eddie shakes his head, the charming banter swirling around him, but it feels like an echo slightly detached from his reality. 

You swing open the weathered oak door to your apartment, gesturing for them to enter. Eddie lingers behind, his lean frame silhouetted against the twilight sky. He takes a long drag from his cigarette, exhaling a plume of silvery smoke that swirls in the cool evening air. His ring-adorned fingers grip the wrought iron fence, knuckles whitening with tension.

Stepping inside, your guests are enveloped by the warmth of your uniquely curated space. The apartment exudes a cozy, eclectic charm that defies conventional styles. Vintage photographs and vibrant art posters adorn the walls, each telling a fragment of your story. A plush, well-worn leather couch invites relaxation, its cushions adorned with an assortment of colorful throw pillows. The kitchen gleams with polished countertops and neatly arranged copper pots, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafting through the air, hinting at the culinary adventures to come.

A scattering of houseplants clung to the sunlight, their leaves glistening with vitality. 

“Dude, this place is awesome!” Dustin exclaimed, eyes wide as he stepped into the cozy scene. 

Thank you, I love to design and play with colors" you tell him. “Colors really pop,” Mike nods, glancing around the living room before zeroing in on the wall hung with eclectic art. “Did you do all this yourself?”

" Yeah, most of it. My mother used to be a painter.." Mike’s eyes soften, a flicker of understanding shining through. “That’s really cool. It’s got character, you know? Feels warm here.” 

Robin eyes one of the paintings and it's you. " Did she paint this?" Your gaze follows Robin’s, landing on a vibrant portrait. You nod, the warmth of nostalgia washing over you. “Yeah, she did. It's one of my favorites. Captured me during a summer dance in our backyard.”

" I was ten there I believe. At least that was she told me. My mom alwasy thought I've held some magic when I danced, used to sing too..." you trailed. A soft smile dances across your lips, bittersweet memories surfacing. 

"Are you going to give Eddie a run for his money? Be the new musician in the neighborhood?" Dustin asked. You chuckle, shaking your head at the absurdity. “Hardly. My dancing days are behind me, and I’m no rockstar.” 

" You never know, you and Eddie could sing together one day." Steve suggests. Laughter erupts, threading through the air like a playful breeze. 

" I stopped singing when my mother died.." you glanced down at your converse. Silence coated the room like a soft blanket, the lively chatter fading into a hush. A weight pressed into the air, heavy with understanding.

" She was the only one to believe in me. She said I had the most angelic voice she's ever heard. I used to put my little sister to bed singing her a bed time song..." Steve exchanges a glance with Mike, the lively energy of their previous banter dimming. Dustin shifts awkwardly, scratching the back of his head, as if trying to find a lighthearted comment. 

" We're sorry, we didn't mean to bring anything up." You shake your head, a faint smile flickering back. “It’s okay. Just… sometimes things slip out.”

" That's also why I decided to move out, her funeral was... a month ago..." The room remains still, the weight of your words settling over the group like a thick fog. Dustin glances around, his youthful face painted with concern. 

"Hey, we totally understand," Steve says, his voice low and steady. 

“Whenever you’re ready to talk or just need to vent, we���re here.” 

You nod slowly, appreciation swelling against the ache in your chest. “Thanks. It helps, really.” 

" I hardly know you guys, too." The room buzzes with a peculiar intensity, a blend of sympathy.

“Yeah, but that’s how we roll around here,” Steve declares, leaning against the arm of the couch, arms crossed.

" We support one another" Dustin says. " We have each other's back" Robin adds. Eddie shifts his weight, the flicker of cigarette smoke dancing around him, creating an illusion of distance. Unbothered by the heaviness, he taps his fingers against his arm, a nervous gesture that breaks the stillness.

" Like a family" Eddie mumbles. Dustin leans back, nodding vigorously. “Exactly! And you’re part of it now. That is, if you can handle our weirdness.” 

Hey!" Steve plafully glared as he pouted. You chuckle, warmth spreading through your chest.

" It's just might be what I need" you mumble, " It's been a long time since I've really smiled.." Dustin's eyes sparkle, a hint of mischief swirling within. “Then we have our mission! Operation Make Y/N Smile starts now!”

You chuckle at Robin’s exasperation, the tension in the room easing a fraction. “Okay, I appreciate the enYou chuckle at Robin’s exasperation, the tension in the room easing a fraction. “Okay, I appreciate the enthusiasm, but I do need to sort through this stuff.” 

" By the way, what is a dingus?" you asked. Laughter erupts again, and for a moment, the heaviness lifts.

“Dingus?” Dustin’s eyes sparkle with glee. 

“I think it’s a term of endearment,” Mike offers, grinning.

“It means youa bit of a goofball,” Steve chimes in, winking at Dustin. “That applies to all of us at some point.”

" You should get it tattooed then, Eddie" you playfully chuckled at him as a joke. Eddie raises an eyebrow, his expression shifting between mock horror and genuine intrigue. “A tattoo? Of ‘dingus’? That’s what I need, a permanent reminder of my goofball status.” He taps his chin, takingover his demeanor.

“I could design it,” you suggest, your voice light as you scan the room, feeling the infectious energy. 

"Oh boy" Eddie mumbles as he walks into your apartment closing the door. Eddie leans his back against the door, arms crossed, eyes darting around the room. He takes in the vibrant colors, the warped frames holding photographs, each seeming to whisper stories of laughter and joy.

" What's the matter, Eddie? It's not dark and gloomy to your taste?" you asked.Eddie straightens, feigning a look of horror. “What? No skulls? No velvet curtains?” He gestures dramatically around the room. “What am I supposed to do with all this brightness? Wear sunglasses?”

"That looks like more of my bedroom thing" you smirked. Eddie throws his head back, laughter erupting from him as he steps deeper into your vibrant world. “Your bedroom must be a whole other gallery, then. I’m just picturing rainbows and unicorns.”

" I don't like pink, and I am not exactly a girly girl" you glance down at your Metallica worn shirt and black shorts with green converse. Eddie raises an eyebrow, his grin broadening. “Metallica, huh? I can get behind that. At least your style has some edge.” He takes a step closer, his interest igniting as he surveys your eclectic taste. 

" Well I do ride a motorcycle. A harley" Eddie's eyes widen, a spark of genuine admiration flickering across his face. “A Harley? Now that’s pretty badass.” He shifts his weight, leaning in slightly. “What model?”

“Sportster,” you reply, a flicker of pride igniting in your chest. “Nothing crazy, but it gets me where I need to go.”

" I like you" Robin says as she pushes into your shoulder, " you're going to get along with us just fine. Another Eddie though." You chuckle, shaking your head. “Let’s not get carried away. I’m as much of a weirdo as you all are, but another Eddie? That’s a stretch.”

" Hey! I'm pretty great" Eddie puts a hand on his chest. “Sure you are, Munson,” Steve teases, leaning back against the couch with a satisfied grin. “Great at being a lovable weirdo. Best title ever.”

You open the box and it's full of your records you have collected. Vinyl records spill out like treasures from a forgotten past, their covers bursting with color and nostalgia. You can’t help but smile as you pick out a few.

“Whoa! You’ve got some classics here,” Steve says, " some of these are rare. Were you parents rich or something?" “Just lucky to find them at garage sales and thrift shops,” you explain, holding up a record with a tattered cover. “This one’s from an old-school band. My mom loved collecting vinyl.”

" Okay, stop being so cool" Eddie says. " You're going to give me a heart attack. I'm still young...well..you know what I mean..." You laugh, the sound bubbling over like a sunny stream. “Don’t worry, Munson. I’m not planning on stealing your title as the coolest in the neighborhood. That crown’s all yours.”

" Would you two stop flirting already? Get a room" Mike rolls his eyes. The teasing hung in the air like a well-placed joke, your cheeks warming at Mike’s comment. You exchanged a glance with Eddie, both of you caught off guard by the quip. 

“Flirting?” Eddie scoffed, hiseyes darting towards Mike, incredulity painted across his features. “Please. I don’t even know her last name yet.” He takes a deliberate step back, running his fingers through his hair as a way to regain his composure.

" And I'm sorta seeing someone" Eddie says, shrugging. “Sorta?” You echo, the curiosity bubbling to the surface. “That’s a peculiar way to put it.”

“Complicated,” he replies, leaning against the door, arms folded tight. 

" You can just say you have a fuck buddy" you shrug. "We aren't 12" Eddie’s smoky laughter dances through the air, a spark of surprise flickering in his eyes. “Damn, someone’s bold.” 

“Just keeping it real,” you respond, a playful glint in your gaze. 

" How about you, Y/N? Have anyone coming to swoop you off your feet?" Steve asks. The question hangs in the air, a sudden spotlight illuminating the room. A light flush creeps into your cheeks as you shift your weight awkwardly. 

" Not really, but riding a motorcycle like I have, has it's perks" you smirked. Dustin leans in, eyes wide with intrigue. “Oh, are you saying you’re dangerously cool? Like a movie heroine?” 

“Something like that.” You grinned.

Every guy I have came across, stares at my bike then at me, back at my guy and asks for my number." A ripple of laughter courses through the group, each taking turns to react. 

“Nice! That’s how you know you’re doing something right,” Dustin cheers, fist-pumping the air.

"One time I had gave this guy the number of my aunt who lives in California and she didn't understand what he said. She called me telling me some string cheese mop head was calling her in the middle of the night asking for a ride" you giggled. Laughter erupted in waves, the room brimming with shared stories and genuine delight.

“String cheese mop head, eh?” Steve cackled, nearly doubling over. “I’m stealing that one for future use.”

" He had spagetti like hair, greasy too. He didn't have enough balls either to check the name I have written down either on the paper" you snorted. More laughter erupted, the room vibrating with the energy of shared humor. Eddie leaned against the door, a slow grin spreading across his face. “Sounds like a true gem of a guy. Really raises the bar for us, huh?” 

" His zipper was undone too, I had a peek of the small carrot he had" Laughter bursts forth, an eruption of mirth that fills the room like music. Steve nearly collapses against the arm of the couch, howling with glee. “No way! You are not serious!”

" His buddy next to him, listening to our conversation forgot his pants at the bar. He had whales on his boxers, a leather jacket on and a red bandana on his head." The laughter swells, echoing against the walls. Steve struggles to breathe, clutching his stomach as if it might explode. 

“Whales?” Dustin wheezes between breaths. "What kind of guys did you attract?"

" Not just whales, when he turned to walk away, he had a tatoo that said " Mama".“‘Mama,’ huh?” Eddie chuckles, shaking his head. “Now that’s a classy touch.” “Right? I mean, who doesn’t want a walking reminder of their mom on their butt?” You feign a serious tone, and Eddie bursts into laughter, the sound deep and genuine, pulling

Dustin opened the box and gasped seeing a whole system music set up. " You'r rich!" "Rich?" You cock an eyebrow, feigning offense as you retrieve a vintage record from the box. “This is thrift-store treasure hunting at its finest. Beats any of this overpriced junk you find in stores. You just need to look harder.”

" I'm an explorer and a finder" Dustin holds up a record, eyes wide with delight. “You’re telling me you just stumbled upon this treasure?” 

“Pretty much. The thrill’s in the hunt,” you say, your smile reflecting the joy of discoveries made over years.

" I didn't have any friends so this is all I did.." you scratched the back of your head. Dustin's expression turned sympathetic but curious. “What do you mean? No friends? With all this cool stuff, I figured you had a whole crew.”

" My father..." you gulped "...he was a drunk..." you closed your eyes ".... he beat me when I was home.. so I could not show anyone the bruises..." You looked away. " I didn't want to be home, so I went to hunt the best things I could find. Brought my mom things, used my allowance just that I could see her smile." You glanced at the ground. " I was too afraid for anyone to see me like that." Silence enveloped the room again, a stark contrast to the earlier warmth. Each friend’s gaze shifted, taking in the gravity of your words.

" He would beat my mom, but I'd cover her" your eyes closed rememebring the memories. “Things got better after he died..." “...but it took time,” you finish, the weight of the past unfurling in the quiet, palpable stillness.

" Please don't look at me like that" you begged. The weight of silence pressed against you, an unyielding void that seemed to stretch between moments. A cocktail of emotions brewed among the group, each one grappling with the reality of your words.

" Please.." A flicker of concern darkens Steve's gaze, his comforting demeanor faltering under the weight of your admission. He clasps his hands tightly in his lap, wrestling with the impulse to reach out.

" I'm not a broken record" Your voice weaves through the silence, but the weight of your confession seems to hang in the air like a thick fog. 

"It's life, and I'm a survior" The silence thickens, wrapping around you like a tender embrace. You draw a shaky breath, the words reverberating through the room, knitting together empathy and understanding.

Dustin wrapped his arms around you and placed his head on top of yours. The warmth of Dustin’s embrace felt oddly comforting, like being wrapped in a blanket on a chilly night. His head rested against yours—light, reassuring—reminding you that you weren’t alone. 

“ We aren't going anywhere" He says. You lean into Dustin, grateful for the comfort of his presence, the chaos of life momentarily quieting down.

" Eddie lives next door, you can always talk to him" Dustin suggest. But something in Eddie didn't sit right. " I'm not going to be her tharipist" Eddie says. Dustin pulls away, shooting Eddie a look laced with indignation. “Come on, Eddie. That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think? She just needs some support.”

" No" Eddie growled. Eddie’s voice cut through the fragile atmosphere, tension coiling around his words like a snake. His arms remained crossed, but now they looked like a barrier. 

"She has a phone" Dustin’s eyes narrowed, disbelief washing over his face. “Eddie, seriously? It’s not just about talking to people on the phone. Sometimes you just need someone to listen, face-to-face.”

"She's just a girl" Eddie continues, " She is capable of calling someone" Dustin’s eyes spark with frustration. “So what? Just because she’s a girl, she doesn’t need support? Everyone needs someone to talk to!” 

" Not me" he grumbled.Dustin’s frustration flared, his voice rising with indignation. “You can’t just shut her out because you’re scared of getting close! That’s not fair!”

" I'm not scared, why would I want to get close to her? Just because she a cool collection of music? A motorcycle? Ha!" Eddie's words hung in the air, sharp and biting. You shifted uncomfortably, caught in the middle of this unexpected clash. 

" You're being too harsh, Eddie" Robin says. Eddie shifts, jaw clenched. “I’m just saying, people have their own shit to deal with. I can’t be someone’s crutch.”

" It's fine" you mumble, " I don't need some old smoking wannabe rockstar. Don't let the door hit you on the way out" you stood up from where you were sitting storming to your room and slamming the door. Who does he think he is? The thud of the door echoed in the small apartment, a sharp punctuation to your frustration. You pressed your back against the cool wood, eyes squeezed shut as you breathed heavily.

Fuck Eddie.

The walls felt like they were closing in, each breath heavy with frustration. You pressed your palm against the door, wishing for the chaotic swirl of voices to fade. 

" That wasn't necessary, Munson" Steve says. " Shut it, Harrington" Eddie says. Silence followed your retreat, the air thick with unresolved tension. The silence settled like a thick fog, wrapping around the group. Outside your door, muffled voices began to spiral, battling against the weight of what had just transpired.

“Eddie, what the hell?” Steve’s voice cracked slightly, disbeliefundeniable in his tone. 

Eddie leaned against the wall, his head tilted back, gaze distant. “What the hell did you want me to say? ‘Welcome to the family!’? She doesn’t need me.”Steve crossed his arms. “That’s not the point, Munson! She’s hurting, and you just—”

“Just what? Became her therapist?” Eddie cut him off, frustration lacing his words. 

" Don't use your dick, Eddie" Robin says. Eddie stood rigid, swallowing the weight of Robin’s words. The air thickened between them, alive with an electric tension. “I’m not trying to be a dick! I just don’t want to get involved in someone else's mess.”

You walked out of your room pointing a finger at Eddie, " I don't need you to be my friend or my therapist. I understand now why you can't keep a girl. I get it. " Your voice sliced through the lingering tension, brittle and frayed. Eddie’s eyes widened, the surprise washing over his features like a cold wave. His posture shifted, arms falling to his sides as you stepped into view.

" So tell me, why. Enlight me, princess " Eddie spatted throwing his hands. The room bristled with tension, a standoff brewing in the thick air between you and Eddie. His dark eyes narrowed, resentment flickering like embers. 

“Enlighten you?” you jabbed, anger fueling every word. “You think you can just stand there, looking all brooding and mysterious, and expect everyone to bow down? You’re not special, Eddie. You’re just another guy lost in your own mess.”

" Yeah, princess. That's all you got?" Eddie laughs. The laughter bursts from him, a hollow sound that reverberates against the walls, mingling with the tension hanging in the air. 

"You really think you know me?" Eddie sneers, his voice dropping an octave, the confrontation pushing the boundaries of the moment like a taut string ready to snap. 

" You probably never cleaned up after yourself, you reek of cigarettes and cheap smell coming from the trash can. When was the last time you brushed your hair? Look at that too, you're already getting old with all the grey hair. You're dick is probably wrinkyl too." Eddie’s laughter died, replaced by a sharp intake of breath as your words struck deep. The room fell into an echoing silence, the weight of your insult hanging in the air like a lead balloon. 

" Listen here, you brat" he starts, his voice low and steady, a dangerous calm seeping into the intensity of the moment. 

“Maybe I don’t clean up after myself,” he continued, eyes narrowing like a predator assessing its prey, “but at least I have friends." Your heart raced, the anger ricocheting in your chest. "Friends? Is that what you call them—people who watch you smoke yourself to death and enable your miserable attitude?" 

" My health isn't your business, princess" Eddie's words sliced through the stillness, a low growl that resonated with defiance. He stood there, unruly hair framing his face, tattoos shifting against his skin, a storm of emotions flickering in his dark eyes.

"You think your harsh words struck a nerve in me? Think again princess, I've been through a lot worse.." Eddie adds. His gaze bore into you, fierce and unwavering, challenging you to flinch.

“Worse than what? Stop being so dramatic, Munson." You glared back, adrenaline coursing through your veins.

" Try again, sweetheart. I dare you" his gaze darkens. A fierce silence settled like a dark cloud, thick with unspoken challenges. You could almost feel the weight of his words hanging in the air, daring you to dig deeper.

“Why don’t you tell me then?” You shot back, your voice unwavering, defiance twinkling in your eyes. “Let’s see who can out-terrible each other.”

" I don't have time for play time" he mumbles, rolling his eyes. His arms dropped to his sides, frustration rippling through his posture as he turned slightly away, still trapped in the conflict swirling in the room. 

" Did I hit a nerve? You ran out of words to say? Oh poor me" you dramatically put a hand on your forehead. Eddie's expression hardened, a flash of vulnerability battling behind the defiance. He fisted his hands at his sides, straining against the unwelcome wave of frustration that built behind his ribcage. 

“Enough with the performance,” he say, pointing a finger, " that mouth will get you in trouble." Your laughter slipped free, cutting through the tension. “Trouble? Please, I've been living in it long before I moved in next door to you.” 

Eddie’s jaw tightened, a fleeting glimpse of vulnerability hidden behind bravado. “You are nothing but a brat." “Brat? Really? That’s the best you got?” You shot back, arms crossed defiantly.

Eddie leaned against the wall, a slight smirk tugging at his lips. “It fits, doesn’t it? You probably never had a boyfriend dick you down good." Your breath hitched, outrage mixing with surprise. The bluntness of his words struck like lightning, charging the air between you. “Excuse me?” You narrowed your eyes, disbelief draping over your features.

“ Guys, stop fighting" Dustin say. " The both of you are adults" Dustin's voice sliced through the charged atmosphere, a plea echoing in stark contrast to the tension crackling between you and Eddie. 

“Yeah, adults who apparently act like children,” you shot back, your defiance barely holding back the sting.

" Sweetheart, you're acting like you never been laid. That's your problem. "The room tensed further, air crackling as if charged with static electricity. Emotions swirled like a wild storm, and the accusation hung in the air, sharp and biting. 

" Oh god, you two are going to be the enemies to lovers?" Robin pinches the bridge of her nose. Caught in the moment, you and Eddie shot her incredulous looks, both equally infuriated and puzzled. 

“Enemies to lovers? What, am I supposed to swoon now?” Eddie scoffed. " She's nothing but a little girl that needs her pussy fucked." The room exploded with silence. You and Eddie locked eyes, the air thick with tension, his words hanging like a dark cloud over the group. Anger flickered in your chest, a fire breathing life into your indignation.

“Such big words for such a boy like you, Eddie." The sting of your words wrapped around the room, silence falling heavy. Eddie’s smirk wavered for a second, surprise flickering in his dark eyes. 

“Boy? That’s all you’ve got?” 

" I don't think you even had a relationship ever in your life, Eddie. Did you ask someone out and they looked at you and said, no thanks, he's garbage? Oh poor you, " you taunted. Eddie’s expression darkened, the smirk faltering before vanishing entirely. A flicker of hurt glimmered in his eyes, but he quickly masked it with a scowl.

“Wow, real original there.” He crossed his arms. 

" Let me guess, you find some girl in a bar or somewhere and take them to your unmade, unwashed sheets of a bed and fuck them with your little dick until they leave and your back to square one..." Eddie’s jaw tightened, the tension in his body palpable. A flicker of something shattered in his gaze—was it anger, embarrassment? You couldn’t tell.

“Wow, real clever.” He stepped forward, invading your space, shadows playing as he towers over you. You had to admit, he looked really hot right now. 

" Bite me" you looked at him with a sneer. Eddie leaned in closer, the intensity of his gaze sending shivers down your spine. “Maybe I will.” The words rolled off his tongue, a dangerous blend of challenge and flirtation. 

" If the two of you are going to fuck, please let us leave first " Steve whined. Laughter erupted once more, cutting through the thick tension that hung like fog between you and Eddie. The absurdity of the moment seeped back into your bones, laughter bubbling up unexpectedly. Steve’s face morphed into mock horror, eyes wide as he coverd his ears.

" You two are disgusting staring at each other like your ripping each others clothes off" Mike shivered in disgust. Eddie stepped back, amusement dancing in his eyes, a smirk returning to his lips. “What can I say? It’s a hot vibe we got going.” He playfully flexed his arms.

" As If I ever would sleep with him" you scoweld. " I don't sleep with small dickheads who reek of cigarettes and doesn't know what clean sheets are. Eddie’s laughter faded, a flicker of something sharper taking its place. “Clean sheets don’t do much good if they’re just going to end up in a pile on the floor.” He shifted, crossing his arms. 

" What? Are you poet now? Are going to lay down the lines now?" Eddie leaned back against the wall, arms crossed tightly, smirk returning with a hint of daring. “I could be. Got me all inspired, sweetheart.” He raised his eyebrows, a playful glint in his dark eyes.

" Look at yourself, Eddie. Your hair looks like it hasn't been brushed for days. You have drool in the corner of your mouth from looking at me too long" you flipped your hair with a smirk, " you reek and you have mud on your shoes." 

Eddie's smirk faltered for a brief second, and behind those dark eyes, you could catch a flicker of something—something like confusion, maybe hurt. But he masked it quickly, a defensive armor sliding back into place. 

" At least I don't talk too much and use my mouth for other activities" he smirks. 

" Ew! We are still here, you know?" Dustin groaned. " Eddie, I know your old and stuff but please.. " Dustin’s voice pulled the sharp tension from the room like a stubborn thorn, easing the simmering pressure for a fleeting moment. Eddie rolled his eyes, leaning back against the wall, an exaggerated sigh escaping his lips.

" Old? I have a stamina of a race horse. Just because I have few greay hairs, doesn't mean shit.." Eddie says. “Right, and I bet that ‘stamina’ is all in your head,” you retort, raising an eyebrow. Eddie steps forward, a dangerous glint in his eye. “Care to test that theory, princess?” 

" Again. We are in the room!" Steve shouts. " We don't need to hear you two." You roll your eyes at Steve, heart racing from the escalating tension. Eddie’s gaze remains locked on yours, an electric current buzzing in the air. 

Eddie hungrily looks at you, licking his lips. The heat in the room escalates, crackling with unspoken tension as you both stand toe to toe, unyielding and defiant.

" It's like we can smell you two. Sexual tension" Mike says. " Disgusting." The interruption seemed to spark another wave of laughter, but it simmered beneath the surface like an unspoken truth, charging the air between you and Eddie with an electric energy. 

" He smells like a trash can, no way he's getting near my bed or close to touching me." Eddie feigned a gasp, his hand clutching at his heart as if you’d dealt a mortal blow. “Trash can? Ouch, sweetheart. That’s cold.” 

" Go take a shower! A cold one at that!" Eddie squints, pretending to reel from your words, hand clutching his chest dramatically. “A cold shower? You’re trying to torture me now, Y/N?”

“Just trying to spare the world from your stench,” you shoot back. "God knows where your hands have been.." Eddie feigns horror, hands flying to his temples as if you’ve delivered a lethal blow. “My hands? Sweetheart, I’ll have you know they’re pristine. I only touch the finest things… like my guitar and—”

“NO! no need to hear anything anymore!" Dustin shouted putting his hands up. " I"m leaving, I don't know about you guys" he pointed to Mike, Steve and Robin. Dustin pushed through the door, shaking his head as he exited. “I can’t deal with this high school drama. I’m out!” 

“Yeah, good luck unpacking,” Steve called after him, barely containing his laughter. Robin follows knocking her shoulders into you, " I suggest you give Munson a bath yourself " she smirks. You chuckle, brushing her off with a light shove. “As if I’d waste my time on that.” The playful banter lingers, but the thick scent of unresolved tension still hangs in the air.

" You two are disgusting " Mike says. “Goodbye, Mike.” Eddie fires back, his tone dripping with sarcasm as he slides off the wall, an amused smirk etched across his face.

Eddie turns back to look at you as he stares at you with hunger and lust in his eyes. 

" Why are you looking at me, like that?" Eddie’s smirk falters slightly, surprise flickering across his dark gaze. 

“Like what?” he shoots back, defensiveness lacing his words, but the edge of tension still crackled between you two. 

“Like you’re about to devour me" Eddie leaned closer, the heat of his presence enveloping you as he tilted his head slightly, perplexity mingling with amusement in his eyes. “Maybe I am,” he murmured, his voice dropping low, teasing. 

" Eddie.." you warned. Eddie stepped even closer, the air thickening between you like a taut string ready to snap. “What’s wrong, Y/N? Afraid of a little... touch?” His smirk widened, each word laced with mischief.

“ Get your hands away from me" Eddie stepped closer, the space between you a charged battleground. His dark eyes glinted with mischief as he leaned forward, the scent of cigarettes and something inherently Eddie swirling around you. 

"Come on, don’t be scared," he says. 

" I'm warning you"Eddie leans in closer, just barely brushing against you, the energy between you crackling like electricity. “Warning me? What are you going to do? Call your biker buddies?” 

" I know karate" Eddie chuckles, the sound low and teasing, “Karate? You? Sweetheart, I’d pay to see you try.” 

“Try me, Munson.” Your voice trembles with defiance; the air between you thickens. 

His hand shoots out to brush your hair but before he does, you have hsi wrist in a tight grip. His wrist feels warm under your fingers, solid and unyielding. Eddie raises an eyebrow, surprise flaring in his dark gaze. 

" I told you" you challenged. “Damn,” he murmurs, a hint of admiration mixed with amusement dancing in his eyes. The gentle thrill of your defiance makes the corner of his mouth twitch upwards, like a wildfire igniting. 

" Let go," he pushes, but with all your strengh you push him towards you looking at him. " I warned you. Back off." Eddie's gaze flickers with a mix of surprise and intrigue. You maintain the pressure, holding his wrist firm, your hearts beating in unison, the space between charged like a live wire. 

“Wow,” he breathes. " You're something else, sweetheart." His admiration shoots through the air like a bolt of lightning, striking a nerve deep within. You hold his gaze, a mixture of defiance and thrill bubbling inside you. 

" Maybe you should think twice before challenging me" 

Eddie hums, smirking. 

" Fiesty" Eddie's smirk deepens, eyes gleaming with mischief. 

“Feisty? That’s rich coming from someone who’s about to get his wrist twisted off,” you challenge. 

" You're too cute thinking you can take me down. I'm stronger, older and faster." A sly smile curved your lips, unwavering. “Stronger? Maybe. Older? Definitely. Faster?” 

Eddie leaned in closer, his breath brushing against your cheek, a teasing smile barely contained. “I’ve got you there, sweetheart."

You gasp how close he is, scrunching his nose pushing his head away. 

" You reek" Eddie flinches back slightly, feigning mock offense, but the gleam in his dark eyes reveals his amusement. “Reek? This is the scent of a rockstar, princess. A scent of a real man, not like Harrington smelling like a laundry basket." You scoff, unable to ignore the heat rising in your cheeks. “Right, because we all want to smell like smoke and bad decisions.”

" You like me.." Eddie’s smirk widened, triumph glowing in his eyes. “See? You’re already starting to admit it.” 

“Admit what?” You shot back, crossing your arms defensively, though a smile threatened to break your facade. 

" You're into me, all of this" he points to himself. You huffed, arms crossed, but frustration battled amusement in your chest. 

“Please. This is hardly a fair trade—smoke and tattoos for sunshine and charm,” you retorted, an eyebrow raised defiantly. 

" I like my guys bigger and rougher" you add with a smirk.Eddie's laughter rang out, rich and unexpected, filling the air like music. “Is that so? Guess I must be lacking then, huh?” He straightened, feigning disappointment but the glimmer in his eyes danced with mischief.

" Guess so, grandpa" you teased. Eddie feigned a gasp, hand clutching his chest as if wounded. "Grandpa? Wow, that’s harsh. How do you even know I didn’t just fight the Grim Reaper last night for my youth?" 

" Because Eddie, you look like you lost a few battles" Eddie feigned a wounded expression, clutching his chest as if you’d delivered a lethal blow. “Lost? I fought the good fight, sweetheart. Just because I came out with a few more scars doesn’t mean I didn’t win.”

" I have deeper scars" you let his wrist go, looking away. Your gaze drifted to the cluttered floor, the assortment of boxes and memories strewn about like fragments of a jigsaw puzzle. Eddie noticed the shift, the flicker of vulnerability creeping back into your eyes. 

“ Sweetheart.." Eddie’s voice softened, the bravado slipping away, revealing a glimpse of understanding. He stepped closer, his gaze fixed on you with an intensity that felt electric, almost grounding.

“Everyone has scars,” he said, his tone now measured, " but you're alive and here standing arguing with me and bantering, flirting with me." "Alive," you echoed, the word tasting bitter on your tongue. Eyes on the floor, you couldn’t shake the weight of the past. 

“Yeah, you are,” he pressed, stepping closer again, the space between you shrinking. He brushes your hair away, " I"m not a bad guy. But I am not going to let you get too close and treat me like I'm not a human being.." Your gaze flicked up to meet his, the intensity of his dark eyes holding you captive. 

" You're hiding yourself under the tattooes, the scars you say you have, the cigarettes, the music, all of it. " you tell him.

Eddie’s smirk faltered, his eyes glinting with something deeper, a flicker of vulnerability nestled beneath his typical bravado. “Hiding? Maybe,” he said quietly, the weight of his admission hanging in the air. 

" I bet if you cleaned up better, girls will like you" Eddie's brow furrowed, a flash of defensiveness igniting in his eyes. “Girls? Really? You think that’s all it takes?” 

" You would get your wrinkyl dick working" you chuckled.Eddie blinked, surprise flaring in his eyes before he burst into laughter, the sound rich and infectious. “Wrinkly dick? That’s a new one. You’re truly creative, Y/N.”

“ I mean your older than me, grandpa" you teased. Eddie rolled his eyes dramatically, able to switch from defensiveness to affected dismay with the flick of a wrist. “Older? Psh, I’m practically timeless. Can’t put a price on experience.” 

“ How many times you had sex then?" you asked, " Twice?" Eddie threw his head back, laughter erupting, rich and deep. “Twice? You’re cute, sweetheart.” 

“Cute? Wow, thanks for the compliment,” you shot back, crossing your arms. " I know your into me, Munson. That's why your still here.." "Into you, huh?" Eddie leaned back against the wall, arms crossed, a playful smirk curling his lips. “Right, because it’s not total agony standing in the same room as you.” 

“ I'd have you fall to your knees and you know it" The tension in the air shifted, electrifying the space between you. Eddie's smirk faltered for just a heartbeat before morphing into a mock challenge, his brow arching as he stepped forward. “You think so, huh? Pretty thing like you think I'm that easy?" “Easy? Hardly. I just think you’re all talk, Munson,” you replied, holding your ground, each word dripping with playful defiance.

" Oh, sweetheart. Don't play this game. Don't" Eddie closed the distance with a bold step, the smirk on his face morphing into something dangerously playful, eyes glimmering with mischief. “You’re really going to challenge me? This game you're playing? Because I play to win and I get it if you scared..." 

" I'm not scare of you" Eddie's smirk deepened, a glimmer of mischief lighting his dark eyes. “Is that so? Then why don’t we put your bravado to the test?” He stepped closer, his presence stealing the air between you.

“I think I got it..." you mumble, " You're afraid to fall in love..." you gasped. Eddie’s laughter faded, his expression shifting as the weight of your words settled between you like a heavy blanket. The playful energy morphed into something tenser, more fragile.

“Love?” he echoed, disbelief threading through his voice. “ that's stupid." Eddie scoffed, waving a dismissive hand as if your words were a filthy habit to be brushed away. “Love is just another way of getting yourself hurt.”

" Whatever helps you sleep at night" you shrugged. Eddie’s jaw clenched subtly, a flicker of something softening in his dark eyes. He stepped back, breaking eye contact for a moment, the tension coiling tighter between you like a winding thread ready to snap. 

“You think I want the puppy mushy love stuff?" Eddie asked. His voice was a low growl, underlined with an edge of frustration as he ran a hand through his messy hair, careless and wild. 

“Love is about connection and understadning-" Eddie cuts you off. " It's bullshit" he says. “Bullshit?” You echoed, incredulous. “You think it’s bullshit to feel something genuine?” 

Eddie’s eyes flickered with something unspoken, a fire behind his bravado. “Yeah, because it makes you weak." 

" Who hurt you?" You leveled your gaze at him, the question hanging in the air like a fragile thread. 

Eddie bristled, his facade cracking just slightly. “What are you? My therapist?” He shoved his hands into his pockets. 

" Your parents? Friends? High school crush?" Eddie’s eyes hardened, and he straightened, the carefree demeanor quickly replaced by a guarded shell. 

“Does it matter?” he asked, voice low. “Everyone has baggage. I don’t need to unpack mine for you, sweetheart.”

" So it's one of those" you nodded, understanding. “Good to see you get it.” His tone dripped with defiance, but the crack in his armor remained visible—a bittersweet reminder of the façade he wore.

" Do you ever let anyone in?" Eddie’s expression darkened, a mask of defiance shielding whatever fragility simmered beneath. “In? What does that even mean? Letting people in means inviting trouble.” 

" Don't you want connection? To be understood?" Eddie’s gaze flickered, uncertainty glinting behind his usual bravado. “You’re painting a pretty picture, sweetheart. But it’s hard to want a connection when everyone around you turns into lies,” he replied, a hint of bitterness.

" You really think everyone is out to get you, Eddie.." Eddie shifted, his expression flickering like shadows in dim light. “Not out to get me, no. But trust issues? I've got ‘em.” He leaned back against the wall, arms crossing tightly over his chest like a fortress under siege.

" Something we both have in common" you started to chip at your nail polish.“Common ground, huh?” Eddie raised an eyebrow, skepticism lacing his voice. “What does that even mean for you? You just moved here, and we barely know each other. What could we possibly share?”

" Music, banter, a good conversation, understanding, a rough past, parents that were shit...." His brow furrowed, surprise painting his features. “So we’re both a couple of misfits, huh? You think that’s enough to build some sort of bond?” 

" You're scared to get hurt as much as I am too" Eddie's gaze flickered, something raw threading through his bravado as he stared back at you. “Scared? Maybe. But that doesn’t mean I’m looking for some buddy system.” 

" I'm not asking for frienship" Eddie’s brow furrowed, a mixture of confusion and intrigue washing over his features. “What then? A fleeting moment? A couple of laughs between two broken souls?” His voice dipped into a lower register, laced with an edge that

" Maybe.. someone to drink with when you can't sleep, someone to sit in silence with.." Eddie's expression softened for a moment, his bravado slipping. “You think I want someone sitting in my silence?” He pushed off the wall, challenging yet inviting.

“Why not?” you replied, your voice steady despite the tumult of emotions swirling inside. “Sometimes silence is louder than words. It can soothe the chaos, even if just for a moment.”

Eddie sighs as he shakes his head, " You don't understand, kid.." The air thickened between you, charged with unspoken truths. Eddie’s gaze hardened like stone, but behind the wall, you caught glimmers of vulnerability.

“Kid? Am I really that young to you?” Your voice dripped with playful sarcasm.

" You have that sparkle in your eye still, you're young... and too young to play with me.." Eddie says as his eyes flash something in them. “Play with you? Is that what this is to you, Munson?” you quirked an eyebrow, folding your arms defiantly. The earlier tension felt like a tightly wound spring, ready to snap at any moment.

Eddie chuckles, " I'm not going to end up fucking you.." You scoff, arms folding tighter against your chest, “Is that so? So you think I’m just another notch on your belt, huh?” 

Eddie’s smirk loses its edge, the flicker of mischief in his eyes.

" Sweetheart, I have more expirence than you. I know what I'm doing, have you even sucked a cock before?" You scoff, heart racing at the boldness of his question. “And you think that’s all there is to it? Just some stupid experience points?” 

“I’m just saying, if you want to play, play smart,” Eddie replies, " and if you don't, then don't waste my time." Your heart thudded, each beat echoing in the charged silence between you. “Waste your time? Is that what this is to you—a game?” 

Eddie leaned back against the doorframe, the tension coiling around you both like a plague. 

" You're difficult, you know?" He opens the door. The door creaked open, framing Eddie like a chaotic storm on the other side, hair tousled and mouth curling in a teasing smirk, but his eyes glimmered with something deeper—a raw honesty attempting to break through the playful veneer.

“ Are you really not going to let me see you behind the curtain?" Eddie chuckles, " You think there is one?" 

" I think you're pretty good at hiding yourself but your too scared of the world and the people that care about you" Eddie's expression hardened, his facade tipping dangerously close to crumbling. "Scared? You have no idea what you're talking about."

"Then show me," you challenged, stepping forward, watching as his bravado flickered before your eyes.

" Show me the real Eddie Munson" Eddie hesitated, a flicker of vulnerability crossing his features as he weighed your challenge. The charged atmosphere thickened, each heartbeat echoing in the space between you. 

He scratches his head, " You don't want to deal with me, sweetheart. " “I might surprise you,” you countered, your tone steady, eyes locked with his, daring him to back down. 

" Why do you want to?" He asked. "Because I know there’s more beneath all that bravado," you responded, stepping a little closer, testing the boundaries as the air thickened with anticipation. “Everyone has layers, Eddie. You can’t hide behind attitude and tattoos forever.”

[survivalove]

debunking lies zutara shippers say about the atla creators & writers

disclaimer: this is in no way an endorsement or defense of bryke or anyone mentioned. literally just debunking false statements i see spread throughout and outside the fandom as it pertains to kataang

1. that bryke made kataang endgame because the nice guy should get the girl

this is something I see often usually linked with this video of a man ⬇️ who they claim to be bryan/mike echoing this sentiment.

this man is in fact john o’bryan, one of the three known zk shippers in the writers’ room (we’ll expand on this in point 5) talking about how he saw aang. not the creators. so of course it shouldn’t surprise anyone that he doesn’t even like kataang in the first place.

2. that bryke made kataang endgame last minute and zutara was the original pairing

bryan and mike (notice how i’m using both of their names separately. this too will be important in the next point) have talked about how kataang was planned since they originally wrote the show.

they have also talked ad nauseam in a video (which I will not share here cuz it made a lot of ppl angry) about why they do not like zutara and its shippers, so this entire point is bogus.

++ the reason why they say zk was the original pairing is because of one of the zk writers (joshua hamilton) wrote this in the atla fun facts that used to run on tv. (we’ll get into him later) those atla fun facts contain a lot of inaccurate/non canon “facts” which you can check and verify on avatar wiki if you know what i’m talking about.

3. that aang is bryke’s self insert (specifically mike)

yeah, here’s where the separation becomes important. bryan (L) and mike (R) are two different men. mike has never said that aang was his self-insert, nor has he directly talked about relating to aang. bryan, however, constantly talks about how much he relates to zuko. even, going as far to say he tries to think like zuko when he writes characters and shows.

the only time mike has come close to saying he relates to aang is when dante said he thinks mike is more like aang while bryan is more like zuko, and they, mostly bryan, agreed. (mike has actually said he relates to korra more than aang but hey) bryan also is the one who drew mike’s beard on adult aang because he considered it a nice reference to his friend. this is the main reason why shippers ran with that self-insert narrative because half the time, they think bryke is actually one person ☠️

++ in fact, aang’s original character design is based off the mixed black-chinese son of sifu kisu

4. that atla was supposed to have a season 4 where katara and zuko got together

this is mostly something that has come out of a fabricated interview by the head writer, aaron ehasz. he was allegedly asked what he would have liked to do if given the chance to write a fourth season of the show and talked about an azula redemption arc among other things. zutaras then made up a whole fake interview including that he wanted to make the two characters endgame.

ehasz then came out to say that most of these “interviews” were faked and that he has never talked about having a preference for any ship. if you go on his twitter, you will see him talking about an azula redemption arc tho.

as for atla having a 4th season at all, it was never intended. the creators, the music composers have all said at various points in time, the show was written and pitched as three seasons, three elements.

5. that most of the other writers shipped zutara and bryke’s authoritarianism shut it down

as I said above, only three writers on the original show have come out to say they preferred zk at some point. atla has had a total of 21 staff writers. 3 out of 21 is not most if you ask me.

as for bryke (yes now i’m using the shorthand cuz i proved my point earlier) being authoritarians, no writer or staff that has worked with them on the show has said this so…? idk where that came from but i’m not here to back them up just mention facts.

6. that all the women who worked on the franchise shipped zutara while only men shipped kataang

atla has very few female staff as it is:

5 writers (elizabeth welch: zk; others: unknown)

1 director (unknown)

5 storyboard/character artists (lauren montgomery: ka; elsa garagarza: ka; angela song mueller: zk; others: unknown)

1 comic writer (faith erin hicks: ka)

2 comic artists (gurihiru: ka)

++ mae whitman (katara’s voice actress) has expressed her like for both ships throughout the years.

so i’m not sure what defines all and only for some ppl but those definitions are not in my dictionary. disclaimer: i’m not declaring anyone here as a shipper in any official sense. this is just based off statements they have made that you can google!

7. that katara is written poorly in post-atla content because of kataang/bryke

I mean the first part isn’t really a lie, more of an opinion which I can agree with to an extent.

why I mention this here is because zks will not only go on a tangent and link the misogyny in the writing to a m/f ship and say the other m/f ship would have been more feminist…

but they also refuse to hold all the men involved accountable. like I said, 3 known atla writers shipped zk and 2 of them (joshua & john) were men (who would’ve thought men could like a ship and it could still be considered feminist 😃). they were also 2 out of only 4 atla writers that came back for legend of korra, outside of the creators. (19 to 4 ☠️ no comment). these shippers very well know this and instead of holding these men accountable for the misogynistic writing, they instead brag about them shipping it and ask them about zk whenever they have the chance.

another example is gene luen yang, a comic writer who again shipped zk (another man GASPPPPP) responsible for the first 5 comic books. everyone knows his comics suck in terms of characterization, particularly katara’s. in fact zutaras have made multiple threads on how poor the writing is. funnily enough, they always fail to mention that gly was the script writer or acknowledge his part in this mischaracterization, while bragging about him shipping zk in other posts. ironic.

meanwhile, bryke have never offered writers’ commentary on any of gly’s comics besides the search - mike (because they were mostly writing legend of korra during his run.)

basically these shippers don’t care about misogyny or holding male writers accountable if they ship zk which is funny because I thought it was… for the female gaze? why are you hyping men shipping it anyway? confusion.

[havecourage-darling]

Oh my gosh ok so I thought of something for Eddie and you don’t necessarily have to write it you totally can if you want but I was thinking about one of the kids like older siblings is at Lucas’s game supporting him and realizes that Dustin, Mike and Erica isn’t there. After she sees them all coming out of hellfire she gets a little disappointed with them (cause she’s kinda a mom friend) and like kinda gets a little snippy with Eddie (who has known about her but never met her) and is like you really couldn’t change the date for one meeting, this was important all the while Eddie is just standing there stunned with heart eyes

I don’t know why this just popped into my head but I had to tell somebody

A/N: First, I am so sorry for taking forever to get to this. Second, this might not have been what you had in mind but I hope you like it anyway anon! Third, this really didn't need to be this long but, yolo

wc: 3.5k

warnings: none

It was a bright and early afternoon when Steve Harrington’s bad luck streak had finally broken. You’d watched, hiding next to Robin in the documentary section, as Steve asked out the pretty blonde to the championship game. Robin inhaled sharply, expression twisting sympathetically, when blondie blinked at him for a beat but you knew. Steve was one of your oldest friends and despite abdicating the throne, you knew the effect Harrington had on a girl – as gross as he was.

“Holy shit, Harrington I can’t believe she actually showed,” you said out of the corner of your mouth.

It was a solid indication that Steve was actually more nervous than he looked because he hadn’t reacted to your teasing. Instead, he shot you a wide-eyed look and bobbed his head. “Right?” With an anxious swipe through his hair, he glanced at you.

Answering his non-verbal question, you nodded. “It looks perfect as always.” Steve’s hair barely obeyed the laws of physics. Blondie leaned across Steve and waved.

“It’s nice to meet you!” She beamed. “Are you a senior?”

“Oh no,” you said, “I’m a freshman at Indiana State. Go Lions!”

“That’s so cute!” She said and you furrowed your brows. Was it? You could tell she wasn’t being malicious but you weren’t sure where she was going with it.

“Yeah,” you said, laughing, “super cute!” Blondie laughed, hair shaking as she did and you glanced at Steve. Already knowing, he kicked your calf and you swallowed your own laughter.

Nancy pointed at the court, fingers splaying out and the photographer nodded, hanging onto her every word. Her head swiveled to the crowd and, somehow, she’d caught your gaze. Waving, smile broadening, she rolled her eyes when you waved back. You knew she missed Jonathan – he wouldn’t have needed her instructions and would’ve just known.

“Where’s Lucas?” You asked, trying to glance over the jumping cheerleader’s heads to get a good look at the line up.

Steve motioned to the end of the bench, where Lucas stood searching the bleachers in front of you for someone. You followed his lead and realized you couldn’t spot the familiar redhead he was undoubtedly looking for. Heart squeezing a bit, you knew the likelihood of Max showing up was close to slim. She’d retreated into herself after El had left and despite your weekly visits to her trailer – you didn’t want to push too hard.

“Wait,” you said, mostly to yourself, “where’s Dustin?”

Searching out the familiar set of curls, you felt panic start to climb up your spine. Where was Mike? Steve’s warm hand grabbed at your wrist and pulled you to the surface. “What’s wrong?” He asked, his own voice anxious.

“The guys, Dustin and Mike, they’re not here,” you whispered, “what if something happened to them?”

Steve’s furrowed brows smoothed and he exhaled. “Oh, don’t worry they’re fine. I think they had their little game finale or whatever tonight. Henderson tried to rope me in as a substitute for Lucas.”

“Substitute?” You echoed, forcing a wide smile onto your face when Lucas saw you and Steve. His entire expression shifted, excitement and relief at the sight of you two. You waved, lifting your small sign that Robin had helped you paint.

‘DUNK IT! GO #8!’

Lucas beamed at you, waving wildly up at you two. Steve shot him a thumbs up before he started some drills.

Dustin and Mike wouldn’t have ditched Lucas’ game for a campaign, would they? Especially knowing that he’d already be hurt at the fact that Max wasn’t going to show up. No…a flash of long curly hair scampered across your mind. The leader of their new club…the guy Steve was obviously jealous of. Eddie Munson, you snapped your fingers, remembering.

Dustin had shown you photos of the club that Nancy had taken, a proud beam across his face. You knew Dustin was just excited to have more friends but, to give Steve some credit, he did talk about Munson an awful lot. You still hadn’t met him, but you had a brief memory of seeing him in the hallways sometimes, hair much shorter.

But you knew, then, if Munson had refused to move the campaign – there was no way Dustin or Mike would stand up against him. Especially not out of fear that they’d be kicked out the club. It was all they talked about. Shit, you’d driven Dustin to the town over so he could find just the right color for his figurine.

Lucas glanced up again, gaze desperate, and your heart broke.

“Everyone now please rise for our national anthem. Singing for us tonight, we have a very special guest tonight. All the way from Nashville, our very own – Tammy Thompson!” Your jaw dropped, exchanging gazes with Steve before you both whipped around to find Robin.

Shocked, you watched dumbly as Tammy strutted up to the mic and started to sing off key. Robin’s eyes were wide and you heard Steve mutter, “Muppet.” You couldn’t hold back your laughter, Brenda turning to look at you both at the sound.

“Wow, she sounds amazing, doesn’t she?” She asked, tone awed.

Steve’s hand gripped your wrist tightly, both of you clearing your throats in a desperate attempt not to laugh.

You watched Lucas’ leg shake as he stood near the benches, teeth sinking into his bottom lip. He was nervous. Your chest tightened. Please let him play. You plead the universe, crossing your fingers. He needs a win.

/////

“I can’t believe it,” you said, getting choked up again. Lucas beamed under everyone’s attention, but you tucked him into your side, arm squeezing his shoulders. “Lucas, you were amazing!”

“Thanks,” he said, grinning when Jason Carver shoved him excitedly. ‘Party at Benny’s boys!’ The group of morons shuffled off towards a nearby car and you rolled your eyes. Lucas caught your half-scoff and winced. “I know you don’t like them…”

“Hey, whoever you hang out with is not my decision, just – be careful, yeah?” You glanced after Carver and remembered what it was like being in Lucas’ place. “That crowd tends to want to mold you after them and you’re already your own person. A person I really like. Don’t let them try to shove you into some cookie cutter box.”

Lucas smiled, pleased, and looked down at his sneakers. “Thanks. It…really means a lot to me that you guys showed. I know you go to everyone’s stuff, you and Steve, but-”

“Hey, you’ll always have me in your corner, all of you do,” you assured him, your mind drifting to the rest of the party. Will would’ve showed, you thought, smiling at the reminder of the weekly call you had coming up.

Before either of you could say anything else, a loud crash caught your attention.

You watched a group of people rush out the double doors, excited and laughing with each other. Easily picking out Dustin’s curly hair, you glanced back at Lucas’ frozen expression.

Emotions flashing, you opened your mouth to try and do damage control but one of his teammates smacked into his side. “Sinclair, come on! You’re riding with us.” Lucas’ expression pulled into a smile quickly, but it was too late. You’d seen underneath it. Anger building in your chest, it bubbled to the point of discomfort.

Placing your hands on his shoulders, you shook him. “Do not drink and drive, Lucas Sinclair I’ll rip your spine out – you hear me? And don’t take any pills,” you said, shooting him a withering glare. His shoulders were still slumped but he nodded, his smile half-hearted. “Alright, if you need me for a ride or for help, you call me.”

“I will, thanks…for coming,” he said slowly, jogging off without a second glance. Making sure he’d disappeared around the corner towards the other jocks, you whipped around on your heel and stomped over to the loitering group.

As you got within earshot you saw Mike’s eyes drift over to you. He smiled, hand coming up, but immediately froze when he saw your expression. “Oh fuck,” he muttered, and Dustin stopped his excited jumping just in time for you to punch him in the shoulder.

“Ouch, what the fuuu- oh, hey there Widow,” he smiled, a little confused, “what are you doing here?”

///

Eddie raised his brows, watching Dustin stumble as you punched him in the shoulder. Wincing, he knew that had to have hurt. He’d almost instinctually stepped in but Henderson’s expression brightened, smile widening, and he figured you were safe enough.

“Shit,” Eddie heard Mike mutter, watching him take a step behind Dustin at the sight of your furious expression.

“Hi Widow,” Erica said, expression lighting up when you paused your anger and shot her a smile.

Ah, so this was the infamous Widow. Henderson and Wheeler had nothing but praises for Harrington and you. Eddie knew Harrington, because who didn’t? He had his reservations but Eddie was nothing if not fair. He’d save them for the moment he actually met King Steve – not that he thought that would be any time soon. But you? He’d heard all about you.

“What am I doing here?” You echoed, one of your hands dropping, the other flying through the air. “What the hell are you doing?”

Eddie was a little surprised with how intrigued he was.

Dustin looked back at Mike, surprised to see him so far away. “Uh, we had a campaign. Oh, this is Eddie!” Dustin’s hand came out towards Eddie – who waited less than a millisecond to step forward.

“If I may,” Eddie started, wanting to make a good impression on Dustin’s hot friend. How the hell did Henderson even know you?

You, however, barely spared him a glance. “You may not,” you snapped, turning back to the boys. Eddie’s voice died in his throat, blinking at how easily you’d dismissed him. Interest flared to life in his chest, because of course it did. “What the hell guys? You missed the championship game?”

The newfound interest waned. Ah, you were jock. He probably didn’t recognize you because you’d run with the popular crowds. Especially if you knew Harrington.

Dustin and Mike, however, withered like plants who’d been kept in the shade for too long. “It was The Cult of Vecna!” Dustin said, voice going high. Eddie’s eyes darted over to you, where he watched – fascinated – as your eye twitched.

“I don’t care if it was the goddamn reckoning. We don’t abandon our friends! That’s the first rule of the party!” You shouted.

“Actually, the first rule is no girls,” Mike muttered and you turned your sole attention onto him and he winced. “Not that – we’re not…happy to have you. Of course we are! You’ve been there since the beginning almost. And Nancy. And Robin. Obviously. But this campaign has been going on for weeks and and and…we couldn’t postpone! We tried!”

Eddie watched you soften and his interest reared its head again. You had a soft spot for the freshmen. Why?

“You knew Max wasn’t going to show,” you said, quieter, “you knew how important this was for him.”

The guilt that shot across their faces was clear. “He was going to be on the bench!” Dustin said, hands coming up.

Anger flickered to life in your eyes again. “Yeah?” You asked, tone incredulous. “Well, he shot the winning basket. You should’ve seen his face when he looked up and saw you guys weren’t there.”

Dustin and Mike ducked their heads, expressions sheepish, and Eddie was impressed. You really were laying it on thick.

“I’m not mad,” you said, and Eddie could see you rearing back for the killing strike, “I’m just really disappointed in you two.”

Their shoulders slumped, eyes on the floor, and Eddie couldn’t help but whistle. You were playing them like a fiddle. Unfortunately, it seemed to catch your attention and your sharp eyes turned to him.

“And you!”

Eddie pointed at himself, taking a small step back now that your fury was turned to him. “Me?” Interest shot down his spine. Jesus, what was with him with the hot and scary ones?

“What the actual fuck is wrong with you? I know campaigns take time to plan out, I know that!” Eddie blinked, caught off guard at the respect he wasn’t expecting. “But he’s a kid, they’re all kids. You couldn’t have moved it twenty-four hours so that they could go watch his game? Out of what? Jealousy? Some sort of misguided pettiness because the popular kids were mean to you? They’re mean to everyone! That’s what they do! They almost broke my nose senior year. Instead of teaching them to rise above it, you stoop to their level? Ugh, grow up. God, this whole town is such a cliché!”

Dustin looked panicked, Mike had a hand over his eyes, and Gareth turned to him, eyes wide and jaw dropped. Eddie was also shocked, not sure where to start. “I think-”

“Seriously,” you snapped, talking over him again, eyes lighting up with an anger that was most appealing. The flash of your eyes reminded him of a harpy – in the most flattering of ways. In fact, Eddie’s knees went a little weak, his chest unfurling with something that was way too close to blatant interest.

Oh, who was he kidding? He’d give all his month’s tips to be able to sink his teeth into the tendon by your neck. It strained at him, taunting him, as you heaved a guilt trip onto him. Unfortunately for you, he was immune to them. So, it left him a few seconds to drag his gaze up and down your body.

“Can I speak now?” He asked, not wanting to interrupt another tirade, he was getting fond of those at this point.

You inhaled deeply, fingers coming up to pinch the bridge of your nose. “Yes.”

“Why do they call you Widow?” He asked. “Is it because you like spiders?”

If you did, he wouldn’t mind, Eddie decided. He wasn’t particularly fond of them himself but he was also an acquired taste so what did he know?

The withering glare you shot him went straight to his chest and curled around his ribcage. Eddie rubbed his sternum, like that could stop the ridiculous seed of interest from planting itself deep within his skin.

“No,” you said, offering no further explanation. “Why do they call you the Freak? Is it because you’re really Satan Worshippers?”

The way your entire face twisted with regret, and guilt swam into your eyes, Eddie knew you hadn’t meant it. In fact, he already felt a smile growing at his lips.

“I’m sorry,” you said immediately, “that was a low blow, I’m just – no, it’s no excuse. I know you get shit from other people. You don’t need it from me, especially not since I know it’s not – it’s not that.”

Instead of ducking down to look at the floor, you met his gaze straight on for the first time since stomping up to the group of them. Eddie sighed and you’d clearly taken it as a reaction to your barbed reply because you began to wring your hands together. In reality, Eddie wanted to slap his stupid chest. He always did this.

Barely five minutes had passed and the interest dug deeper and rooted around for its new home. The vines grew, twirling around his veins, and reaching towards his chest. Heart, already on his sleeve, skipped a beat as you offered up a sincere apology, Eddie nodded. “No harm done,” he said, seizing the chance to bow, “Eddie Munson at your service. Atheist by the way.”

You nodded, quickly skirting your gaze back to the two boys but Eddie was stunned into silence when he caught the flash of interest in them. Was he still high on the success of the campaign or were you actually glancing back at him?

“I hope you know how shitty this was, Steve had a date and he brought her here instead of missing it,” you said.

Dustin snorted. “Steve’s just cheap and wanted an easy date night.”

Eddie saw you bite your cheek and he winced, knowing it must’ve hurt. You made a valiant attempt to hide it, but the laughter had already made it to your eyes. It softened your face entirely and his heart stirred awake. Jesus, what magic did you wield that you had captured his attention so thoroughly? 

“Still,” you insisted, one last glare at them. Turning to Erica she glanced up at you, smile crooked and you softened. Lifting your arm, she scurried over to you and you draped it across her shoulders. “I won’t even waste my breath trying to straighten you out. You want a ride home?”

“Thanks Widow,” she said, lifting her nose up at the other two. You must be the real deal if you had little Sinclair’s approval. He’d met her a few hours ago even Eddie knew she was a tough nut to crack. Clearly, not for you.

Mike, proving he’d lost most of his brain power during the campaign, stepped forward to follow and you shot him a glare that had Eddie wincing “Uh, no. My offer extends to her only.” He frowned and Eddie heard a very Jeff sounding laugh.

You started to walk away, and Eddie’s eyes dipped – he couldn’t control it! - when you stopped and sighed a few feet away. Eddie startled, eyes raising quickly from your ass to your eyes and winced when realizing you had your gaze directed at him. Eyeing him, Eddie felt his neck flush as your eyes trailed up his body. What the fuck? Since when did he get shy?

“Can you give them a ride home?” You asked. “It’s dark and I don’t want them riding their bikes alone.”

They two started to protest, glancing at Eddie warily, but another glare from you shut them up. Eddie was about start a tirade, asking what it was in for him – a date he hoped – when you spoke up again.

“Please,” you said, barely audible. Eddie was helpless to do anything but nod, fingers itching to see if he could play you as well as his guitar. He just needed a chance.

Somehow, his brain spurred to life before he realized. “Yeah, Widow,” he said, barely containing the urge to fist pump at the sight of your small amused smile, “I can get the nerds home.”

“Hey!”

Eddie was wholly unprepared for the grin that you shot at him. If your fury had sparked interest in him, your smile almost made his knees give way. Bats fluttering around in his small intestine, wreaking havoc, he managed to smile back at you.

“Thanks Munson,” you said, disappearing into the crowded parking lot after one last look.

No one spoke for a moment, the air stilling as Eddie reeled from the way his entire world had shifted in two seconds.

“I’ve never seen Eddie blush,” Dustin whispered loudly.

At that, Eddie snapped. “I’m not blushing!”

“Are you really going to give us a ride?” Wheeler asked meekly, eyes going towards the bike stand.

Eddie nodded. “Yeah, I’ll give you a ride, hurry up.” He’d use this to his advantage. He knew his chances were slim to none but even he wasn’t that stupid to not even try. “So, what’s your hot friend’s deal?”

The two idiots groaned, face twisted into disgust, but Eddie ignored them. He wanted to know everything he could about you.

///

“Stop moving so much!” You hissed, anxiety practically spilling out of every pore in your body.

Eddie whined, his nose scrunching as he shut his eyes tightly. “I’m just so itchy,” he complained, the skin around his bandages bright red.

“They come off soon, just wait a little bit more,” you said, gesturing to the doctor’s office you were currently in. “We’re next I think.”

Grunting, Eddie threw his head back and winced when it collided too loudly with the wall. You rolled your eyes and brought your hand up to check for a bump. “You’re a child.”

Sticking out his tongue, he leaned into your touch like a puppy and you rolled your eyes. You’d known him less than a month but just like Robin – trauma bonded people faster than most things.

“I can see your fingers,” you said, smacking his hand away from the larger bandage by his clavicle. The demobats had really done some damage but you’d been there when the ER doctor had clearly said to keep the stitches dry, clean, and intact. “You’re gonna make it worse!”

“Distract me, please, I feel like I’m going to crawl out my skin,” he begged.

Without thinking twice, you pressed your lips to his for a second. You bit back your smile as he blinked at you, eyes glazed over. “Was that enough of a distraction?” You asked, smile threatening to break through.

“Uh, I might need a second try to make sure,” he said faintly and you only just managed to not smack his shoulder.

“Pervert.”

Eddie’s brows flew up into his overgrown bangs. “Who just kissed who?”

You hummed, ignoring him, and went back to flipping through your magazine.

“Can I ask you something?”

Pulse pounding, you kept your eyes on the article in front of you. “What?”

“Why do they call you Widow?” Eddie asked, surprising you.

Glancing at him from the corner of your eye, you shrugged. “Dustin started it,” you sighed.

“He always does,” Eddie said, smile growing wider.

“After Natalia Romanoff. The Black Widow?”

“The spy and assassin?”

“Yeah,” you smirked, memories flashing through your mind, “I was really good at killing demogorgons. Plus, once actual Russians joined the picture, even I couldn’t deny that it was kind of perfect.”

“Cool, my girlfriend’s nickname is after a Marvel superhero.”

The word girlfriend brought your brain to a sudden halt and you whipped around to look at him. He was grinning, eyes mischievous, and you sputtered.

“Edward Munson?” A nurse called out. “Follow me.”

“Come on,” Eddie said, threading your fingers together. “We’ll talk about where our first date will be on the ride home.”

First date? You blinked at him, letting him lead you towards the exam room.

[barnxsromanxff]

!!! Chris Hartley x Camgirl crush? !!!

maybe Chris has a crush on a reader who outwardly talks about her online anonymous camgirl job? some smutty feels with this request.

I feel like Chris would be kinda into it, maybe even volunteering his hands as props as a joke and reader agrees and it ends up being s p i c y

Cam girl | Chris Hartley x f!reader

| Do not repost any of my writes without credit to me

Request: yes / no

Prompt: Your best friend Chris jokes turn into a fun night

Pairing: no prank au, Chris hartley x f! reader

Warnings: mdni ! 18+ only, this is sexually explicit content. underage (over 18) alcohol and marijuana consumption, p in v, oral male receiving, sort of exhibitionist, sort of voueryism, dry humling, fingering, mentions of pornography and bodily fluids.

A/N: this is like straight up porn! i loved this request and hope i did good by it! I was struggling a little bit with the ending so I hope this is what you meant!! if you haven’t already i’d recommend looking at my masterlist and seeing my previous fic with chris and josh x reader! I hope you all enjoy this one

° 𐐪𐑂 ♡ 𐐪𐑂 ₒ 𐐪𐑂 ♡ 𐐪𐑂

Your friend group was chaotic by all means, and very dysfunctional… but they were like family. For you growing up with people you could rely on was serious fun, and it gave you confidence to be who you wanted to be without any hesitation or embarrassment.

You were who you are and weren’t shy about it at all,

“Beth, Hannah!”

You squeal as you run towards the twins embracing them. It was the yearly Washington lodge party, where the whole group gets together with no adults and no rules. It’s been a few years and even though you’re all adults it still carries on.

“We’re so glad you could make it! Come join the rest of us.”

Beth and Hannah both grab your hand and lead you to the livingroom. There everyone is, you see Chris and Ashley sitting close with Sam and Josh near them. Then Emily and Mike cuddling close near the fire laughing with Jess and Matt. You smiled taking it all in, although it’s been a while since you’ve all been together you were so happy to see everyone getting along.

Sam gets up to hug you which makes everyone turn to see you your eyes fall on Chris.

Chris gives you a smile and small wave, his excitement growing seeing you finally show up. Chris and you have always been close, having a friendship that was a bit more personal than you were with everyone else in the group.

He was there for you in tough times and was very supportive when you told him about what you’ve been doing for work. As a cam girl you do face backlash and judgement but Chris was the one who told you to ignore all of that and do what you want. It warmed your heart and your affection grew from there. It was obvious to everyone except for you and Chris that your feelings were mutual.

Chris stands and makes his way over to greet you, pulling you into a warm embrace.

Josh yells out,

“Hey party girl! Bring anything crazy?”

You laughed and hit his shoulder knowing he’s referencing some weed.

“Well yeah… who do you think I am?”

Chris laughs as he slowly pulls away from you, his hand lingering a little too long on your lower back and mumbles a ‘hell yeah’ to your answer.

Through out the night, the drinks continued and joints were smoked, finally the topic of work came up. Mentions of minimum wage jobs and blogs were spread around until everyone looked at you.

“What? Yes, everyone knows I make videos. Hey i’m not ashamed, I guarantee my bank account looks better than most of yours.”

You laugh and answer some of the questions the girls had. The boys kept mostly quiet besides a few jokes here and there. The only person that was silent was Chris, he watched you intently as you went on about what you do and how much you make, giggling at a few jokes said. His mind wandered to the types of videos you make and a blush subtly crept up onto his face his pajama pants starting to get a bit tighter.

He mentally curses himself for not wearing boxers with his pants.

“So tell me, what’s your favorite part?”

“I mean it’s basically what you think it is, i’m a cam girl and get paid to do stuff. It’s not always sexual, sometimes it’s just small stuff y’know?”

Eventually the conversation turns, and the night begins to slow down. The split drinks left for tomorrow’s problem.

Eventually it was just you and Chris passing the last of your joint, you laughed at his jokes trying to not be obnoxiously loud.

“How did you get into it, the videos I mean.”

You were surprised at his sudden question but answered him nevertheless

“Well it just happened, it just seemed fun. It’s anonymous so no one knows it’s me, that’s the fun part and I love it.”

He nodded at your sincerity, a smile creeping onto his face.

“Okay, okay hear me out…”

You rolled your eyes and listened in waiting for his next joke, waiting for the punchline.

“I’ll be your assistant in your next video.”

Your assistant? You couldn’t believe his offer even if he’s joking. Intrigued, you scooted a little closer to him and laughed,

“Oh really?”

Chris nodded and tried painting the scene for you, using his hands as gesture.

“Just set that camera up and I’ll be there as a help to you, anything you need.”

You hummed and looked at him, his dorky smile plastered on his face

“Anything?”

Your heart skipped a beat at the idea, shamelessly letting it warm your core. Using Chris in all the ways you have imagined, he nodded still laughing until he noticed your shift in mood,

“I’m sorry, did I push it too far?”

You shook your head and picked at the skin on your cuticles, avoiding his eye contact but continued with your teasing.

“Don’t back down now, Chrissy.”

This caught Chris off guard, he swallowed hard and scratched the back of his neck. You grabbed his hand examining his calloused knuckles, your mind replaying dirty thoughts over on how you’d use them.

Chris stayed quiet as your eyes traced him, his bulge reappearing just like earlier. This time it was more prominent, and you noticed immediately.

“Cat got your tongue?”

Your hand traced all the lines and rough spots of his hand, slowly massaging them. You chewed on your lip before finally meeting his gaze. He looked enamored, and was speechless.

“Well I said I would help you didn’t I? Use my hands, or whatever you’d like.”

You could tell his words were still laced with humor but this time he seemed more sincere, waiting patiently for your response.

You moved closer and straddled his lap. You kept his hands in yours and looked him in the eyes.

“Too much?”

He shook his head immediately, desperation in his eyes. He pulled his hands from yours and rested them on your body

“How about we take this upstairs?”

He suggests as his glasses slip a little, he looked obsessed.

You hummed and started to shift off but he held you down, instead he stood up with your legs still hooked around him. He held you all the way up to the room you were staying in, you giggled and kissed his face and neck all the way up.

As you both entered the room he immediately noticed the camera and supplies thrown across the vanity, like you had planned to film later in the night. You blushed forgetting you had set up.

“Planned on getting me naked huh?”

You giggled at his suggestion and purred as he nipped your neck. He laid you on the bed and admired your beauty, even in a loose shirt and shorts he still felt himself getting lost in your look.

“Did you really wanna film?”

He looked up at your face at the suggestion, his mind thinking of all the ways he would make you come undone. Finally with a nod you get up and make your way to the vanity. There’s an array of outfits and a few toys, the camera sitting facing the bed.

“If you’re gonna play with me you gotta mask up.”

You showed him several different ones, both settling on a ghost face one. You humored him as he put it on and tried scaring you,

“Oh, okay nice one bud.”

You adjust the camera on the vanity to face the edge of the bed, then dim the lights so it’s just the lamps on. The lighting and scene setting the mood.

You pat his back before sitting on the bed looking up at him through your lashes, finally putting on your bunny mask that covers only your upper face.

“You ready Chris?”

He nods now being silent, he puts his hand to cup your cheek and you notice his hands shaking a little.

“Come here handsome.”

Switching places now letting Chris sit at the edge of the bed. You stand and dance a little feeling your liquid courage hit your blood stream. Slowly you peel off the baggy tee leaving your upper body exposed.

Chris groaned at the sight and rubs the bulge now poking prominently against his pajama pants for the third time this night, all because of you.

You moved his hands and put them on your waist before leaning in and grabbing the hair at the nape of his neck. You kissed his adam’s apple then his ear, whispering instructions.

“Take my shorts off”

He immediately went to pull them down, eager to see what was under.

“Good job, assistant”

He hums at the sight of you just in your underwear and the bunny mask. You moved your hips and gave him and the camera show, his eyes milking every second of the exposed skin. You make your way to the vanity and start touching yourself sensually for the video, masked Chris in the background palming himself with your every movement.

Slowly you move back over to him and sit on his lap, unbuttoning his shirt to expose his chest. You whimper at the sight and started kissing his neck and shoulders.

Even if Chris wasn’t the most athletically fit man your mouth still watered at his body, you rarely ever saw him shirtless.

His hands trail over yours and cup your breasts, massaging them earning soft whines from your lips.

You move your hips and rub your core on his clothed thigh desperate for some friction, you beg for more.

“Tell me what you want.”

You are surprised at his sudden confidence and it sends shivers down your spine.

“Your fingers.”

He hums in approval and rubs his hand to your ass giving it a squeeze. He moves your underwear to the side and rubs your folds earning a cry from you.

He plays with you with expertise which makes you wonder how much he has done this, mentally you snicker since just a few moments earlier he seemed very nervous, finally he begins slipping in a finger.

You roll your hips riding his hand and begin moaning with ever thrust of his fingers.

Your noises give him confidence, he continues his playful movements on your slit. Your face turns to the camera and you exaggerate your moans making your mouth into an O shape.

Chris helps you slip off your underwear leaving you almost fully exposed for him, if it wasn’t for his mask he would’ve loved to get a taste of your sweetness. He took a mental note to save that for later.

“Let me taste… please?”

You put on your best puppy dog eyes and stick your bottom lip out as show, you want him to feel in control, even if you both know who really is.

You two readjust and suddenly you realize just how big Chris is, you haven’t even seen his cock yet and you know just by looking at him you’ll be overwhelmed,

You grab the waistband of his pajamas and slowly start pulling down revealing he wasn’t wearing any underwear. His cock springs up and slaps his lower stomach, precum dripping down to the base and his tip looking agitated, just ready to be played with.

“So big, isn’t he so big?”

You spit onto your palm and take him in your hands, sensually start jerking him off. Your spit coating his cock ready for your mouth.

Chris grunts and automatically thrusts your way, he wants to apologize but he sees the look in your eyes. He grabs the base of your hair and wraps it around his knuckles balling it up, using it as leverage to push your mouth deeper onto his cock.

He continues his abuse onto your mouth, your eyes watering and noises vibrating against his length as additional pleasure for you.

You eventually move your mouth off and look back up to him, you give him a soft smile before giving more instructions,

“Wanna ride you…”

Your request is a whisper but was loud and clear for him, he helped you up before sitting back down to his previous position. This time you both are naked.

You purr into his ear and tangle your fingers into his hair, setting yourself up onto him. Your chest presses flush against his, feeling his warmth against your own. Finally you sink down, his hands shaking as he grabs onto your hips to stable both of you.

“You’re doing good Chris”

You could tell he had that dorky smile on his face even if you couldn’t see it.

You two continued on like that, but something about this felt different for you than anything else you had filmed before.

Mostly you recorded yourself, with toys or just videos of your body as content. It was amazing, but with Chris it felt so personal and intimate.

Your eyes gloss over as you continue your thoughts, realizing you’re sleeping with your best friend and you’re loving it.

Your bodies mold together with every thrust, and your moans grow louder and louder. You knew everyone might hear but you didn’t mind, you’d prepare for any teasing tomorrow morning.

“Oh Chris, yes!”

Chris is holding onto your ass helping you bounce up and down, his hips thrusting and meeting you at every one.

His whines only motivated you more wanting to help him reach his finish,

“Wanna finish for me?”

As you whisper you kiss his ear lobe and push his chest down, falling down with him. You use the bed to stabilize your arms before continuing your movements. His hands trailed over your body, touching all your most sensitive spots.

Both of your moans bounced off the walls as you contribute to get closer to your climaxes, desperate for it.

Chris rubbed your clit and held you down onto his chest with his other hand, rutting into you.

With a scream of his name you finally feel yourself coming undone, white flashes spreading through your mind as pleasure rips through your body. You continue heavy breathing and Chris chases his own finish.

“M’close…”

He huffed out as he continued his thrusts, pulling you closer with his arms.

You kissed his neck but needed more, you pulled up his mask just enough to see his lips and kissed them. His lips felt so soft against yours, his needy noises coming out as he quickly pulled out.

His warm white cum coated your inner thigh, leaving you slick.

With one last kiss you pulled his mask back down to fully cover his face, and began getting off of him.

You walked over to the camera and blew a kiss, saying your goodbye and clicking off to save the video. You definitely were gonna click back to edit and watch it, your stomach getting butterflies just thinking about it.

“Wow.”

Chris let out a shaky laugh as he tossed the mask onto the bed, his glasses covered in condensation. You laughed as he wiped it off and readjusted them. You slipped off your mask and suddenly felt more exposed than you had all night.

“Was that okay?”

He nodded and rose off the bed walking over to you,

“Was I a good enough assistant?”

You scoffed and hit his arm softly,

“Uh yeah, might need to keep you around.”

He pulled you into a hug and kissed the top of your head. You closed your eyes listening to his steady heart beat. After some comfortable silence you part away and start changing into some pajamas, throwing his pants at him.

“Wanna stay in here tonight?”

It was back to your best friend banter, like nothing had happened.

[reel-fear]

Bendy And The Power Of Representation

So those graphic novel pages huh? Seems I posted my cover post at just the right time because literally minutes after I was informed the preview pages came out and uh. This is Buddy and Norman!

Oh dear... I'll put the full graphic novel pages down below but I have so much to say on how awful this is it'll need several posts. However, right now I want to mostly talk about representation and briefly touch on why it's so damn important + inform others about the current shit Mike and Meatly are saying about the books n such.

Now note: All the things I'm saying below are based on my personal experience, maybe some people don't care about seeing the representation of their identities in the media they consume. Maybe some will think I'm merely being dramatic and I might be but I'm not lying when I say I personally believe being represented and seen in the media you consume can be one of the most wonderful feelings in the world.

Look I'm not here to argue with people who think that Norman in particular was never meant to be a person of color, I would argue he is very coded but the points I'm making here are not about how Norman particularly had to be black. The point I want to make is the lack of diversity in our cast in general and how Norman's design has heavily dwindled it considering most people [including myself] rightfully assumed he was at least one of three black characters in our cast. Not according to this though and looking at the the rest of the pages our chances of seeing any kind of decent diverse character designs dwindle more.

So firstly... Buddy a character who has been said to experience discrimination for being Jewish, lacks any kind of ethnic features at all. That's... Cool but yeah I think this shows a rather grim future for the character designs as a whole.

Also, Norman... As I mentioned he was largely assumed to be black due to his southern dialect, his voice, and other factors. But nope, he's a generic white guy. With... Gross looking hair tbh...

Sadly this is not the first time the topic of poor representation has come up concerning Bendy either.

[note how he disregarded the other mentioned minorities and specifically cites LGBTQ+ characters]

This sucks as a response but sadly considering Mike's recent behavior it seems to fall in line with the Bendy team's general lack of care towards representing anyone who isn't straight and white.

So how did Mike respond to all of this? Well...

TDLR - "Who cares if the Graphic Novel we're selling to our fans for full price sucks, we now no longer consider the books canon."

This is horrible, I know Mike and Meatly are only really in this for the money, the fact BATIM is in the state that it is proved that, but they really couldn't have been less obvious about it?

So basically when it benefited them, AKA when it meant people would have to buy the books to understand important lore like Boris' identity... [the character you spend all of chapter 4 trying to rescue] They were considered canon... At least the author sure thought so.

Hell even in the tweet Meatly made here he doesn't say the books aren't canon, he just says they're not needed to understand Bendy's world. Now Mike is using that as a shield instead of doing the right thing and saying "You're right, the poc in our fanbase deserve better we'll have it fixed right away!" Like most reasonable people would considering how his studio has literally been accused of bigotry, poor rep, and general lack of diversity before. Why risk making more people avoid this franchise?

Also just... Imagine how insulting it would be to be an author who helps flesh out so much of this world and gives its characters depth like NONE of the games have managed to do, filling in plot holes, creating a timeline for events, etc... Then because they couldn't bother to change the graphic novel for ur story to be better they instead throw out all ur writing and declare it non-canon.

If I were her to put it bluntly I'd feel insulted and horrible. Why make her do all the work of making sure her works align with the timeline and game's canon if they're not part of it?

I can't speak for her obviously but Meatly and Mike know of her account, so speaking out against this could very much risk her being fired or at least not allowed to work on Bendy anymore... So I would take all her tweets on this situation with a grain of salt. She very much is not in a position where she could be honest if she was against this.

So with all that history now, the question I'm sure many are wondering is... Why does this even matter? Who cares how diverse the characters are when it doesn't affect the story?

Well for one thing, if you think like that consider having more empathy for your fellow human beings but also it does affect the story. One of DCTL's themes is about the bigotry of the period it is set in.

Now the Bendy team has managed to make the discussion of this book centering around their bigotry which is ironic in a way I almost find funny... Though this entire thing is just a bit too hurtful and upsetting to find any humor in, at least for me...

But another thing is representation can bring people such joy when it's done with care. It really shouldn't be understated how far it can go to make people feel more comfortable in their own sense of self to have a franchise choose to represent them and their experiences. I know this from personal experience.

Now if you've been following me for a while, you know I'm a big fan of Transformers. I no longer engage with it much due to baggage from the fandom's awful treatment of me, but before I left I remember being able to witness the release of Transformers: Earthspark first few episodes.

These introduced the Maltos the family who meets the Transformers and serve as our protagonists and guess what?

It's a family of Filipinos!

Now look I'm not Filipino, but I am half Mexican and I have a lot of love for that part of me. So seeing the representation of any Spanish culture in this franchise I loved made me so happy! I remember just watching the first episode I was happily telling my partner how fun it was to see people like me and my family in a world I love!!

But it didn't end with the Maltos in fact... There was another character who spoke to me, their name was Nightshade. Their pronouns are They/Them and they spoke about it on the show! Not just mentioning it and moving on but actually sitting down to speak about their experiences...

This clip in particular really turned them into an absolute favorite among fans and well... I'll let you see it for yourself.

This scene... Fills me with a joy I cannot describe. It is the creators of a franchise I love telling me they see people like me and find the stories of people like me important enough to include in this series. There really is nothing like being able to say there are Non-Binary characters in a franchise I have so much love for. I was far from the only one too.

This is amazing, this is wonderful, this clip and character were moving to so so many people and...

This is a joy the Bendy creators have no interest in giving their audience. They don't care how you feel as a queer and/or black person, which... Hurts...

I... Discovered I was trans while in the Bendy community... It was where I learned the word Non-Binary and started using it for myself. To me Bendy will always have that connection... But the devs themselves seem to hate the idea of being forced to actually represent that in their games... And I still haven't really gotten over that pain or betrayal if I'm being honest.

So...

With Norman now being portrayed as white here, we are down to two black characters. Thomas [who Meatly has claimed is white in the past] based on a vague conversation with Sammy in DCTL they could easily ignore... And Jacob.... A book exclusive character which according to Mike means he is non-canon.

If we don't count Thomas' vague talk with Sammy about disrespect as confirmation he's black [which the devs don't seem to think so] then we have one black character in all of Bendy... And he recently got retconned into non-existence. Great.

Look... The Bendy fanbase has always been full of wonderfully diverse designs for the staff and even more diverse people creating them. Bendy's fandom was built with the work of queer people from all kinds of places.

If the Bendy team continues to show how little they care for anyone who isn't straight or white... I wonder who they are counting on to buy this book or in general financially support their franchise?

I know right now, I am furious, I am hurt and I most certainly don't feel like buying a book that's currently just a massive fuck you to the fans and I hope I've expressed why I feel this way in an easy-to-understand way here...

Either way, I will not be forgetting this anytime soon and I hope the fanbase does the same. Maybe just maybe, if there's enough backlash to this series of horrible decisions they'll learn better.

Right now, it's kinda of our only hope for a better future, and if you know any poc who are into Bendy right now... Maybe consider making sure they're feeling okay.

I know from experience how much this sort of thing hurts, to have the creators of a world you love straight up tell you they don't intend to fix the fact no one in their stories represents your identity or life...

What I'm trying to say is...

This is a really low point for Bendy and its fans... Even more for the poc who have to witness such ignorant and careless attitudes from Mike and Meatly towards their feelings.

Please don't forget them when you discuss these tweets or this situation. That's exactly what Mike and Meatly want right now.

For them to be unrepresented and therefore... Unheard.

[boytoyhalo]

Can you give me your fitpac headcanons to make me feel better after whatever the fuck Bad's stream was today. I am so unwell...

absolutely i can!!! let's see here hmm

pac likes to sleep/cuddle with fit sprawled out directly on top of him, like actively crushing him, because the deep pressure makes him feel safe (i think I said this in a different post but accidentally switched the names around, tho tbh i could see this being true both ways so maybe they take turns)

pac's ring markings glow bright blue when he's flustered or startled (see my blue ringed octopus hybrid pac headcanon) fit discovered this for the first time with the "how you doin big daddy" incident and since then fit has been going out of his way to sneak up on pac to make it happen because he thinks it's cute, this is also part of why he's gotten more confident with his flirting

fit would never say it out loud (partially because it would embarass him and mostly because he knows it would embarass pac) but he actually capital l Loves it when pac says his name with the "-tch" sound at the end. he thinks about it more than he shoud probably

this is less of a headcanon and more a writing prompt or like. a scenario that i think would happen but i think that at some point they'd be goofing around and threatening each other over whose a better fighter (they both think its each other but theyre arguing for themselves. for the bit) and fit would take off his prosthetic arm to hold it in his other hand and point it at pac like a sword and pac would be all oh yeah i can do that too and try to take off his leg standing up and would of course immediately overbalance and fall and fit would rush to check if he's ok while laughing his ass off and pac would use the leg to knock his legs out from under him so they would both be on the ground laughing so hard they couldn't breathe. and then fit would make a stupid pun about pac "not having a leg to stand on in this argument"

speaking of prosthetic's pac normally likes to keep his metal leg covered but the first time fit gets a proper look at it he's like woah your prosthetic looks so cooler and sleek and high tech i wish mine was like that and pac preens because he made it himself (ok it was him and mike but thats practically the same thing) and after that pac starts wearing his right pant leg rolled up (fit is only half of the reason, the other half is that it makes richarlyson feel better about his own leg but this is a fitpac post)

they both Really Like watching each other fight, hence the dungeon dates, but their favorite part is after all the mobs are cleared when they're cleaning their weapons and sorting through loot and just sitting quietly together basking in the shared victory and adrenaline and praising and complimenting each other for a fight well done

fit is aroacespec (he can count the amount of people he's been actually attracted to on one hand) and between that and his trust-no-one 2b2t background he's pretty inexperienced with most relationship related things, so pac is a lot of firsts for him. Pac not-so-secretly loves this because he's possessive and likes that no one else gets the type of attention he does from fit

fit starts wearing his glasses more often when he's not expecting combat or some other situation that will make them too inconvenient because pac says he looks cute in them

pac likes to make fit carry him on his back because 1. he likes the contact and 2. its fun to feel tall. the first time this happens it's because pac's metal leg takes a hit during a battle and is basically useless til he can repair it, so fit carries him back to chume labs out of necessity. After that pac usually makes up an excuse or plays up any hits he take so fit will do it again, except he's really bad at lying so fit knows what he's doing but he doesn't mind so he doesn't call him out on it

pac's hair looks really soft and fit realllly wants to run his hands through it but he's way too awkward to ask because that feels like a line being crossed and whenever pac runs his own hands through it fit just stares like a total weirdo which tubbo and phil both make fun of him for but somehow even then pac doesnt seem to notice. it takes him a long ass time to mention it to pac who he then finds out really likes having his hair played with and has been wanting fit to do it for forever but has also felt too awkward to ask. and then they laugh at themselves for being dumbasses (and then when they kiss for the first time and every time after that fit's flesh hand immediately goes up to his hair)

fit mentions that when he gets overstimulated sometimes its too much effort to remember to take his hearing aids out so pac asks if he can borrow them for a little bit and gives them back to fit with a new noise cancelling feature, and fit has to stop himself from literally proposing marriage right then and there. He settles for just cleaning chume labs top to bottom and leaving some chocolate and an embarassingly sappy thank you note that would read as a straight up love confession to anyone outside of him and pac's oblivious-but-also-not-oblivious slowburn-but-not-slowburn bubble

sometimes if pac is tired but cant get to sleep he'll go find fit and ask him to just talk at him for a bit because his voice is relaxing and if he falls asleep with his head on fit's shoulder or in his lap fit will sit as still as a rock for hours to not wake him up

ok ok you got me rambling this post is way too long now and most of these can barely count as headcanons but yippeeee i hope u like them!!!! everything will be ok we will have our morning crew and fitpac content back soon i promise

[milkmily]

Hey I love your Nancy fics!!! Could you please write a short fic of reader and Nancy cuddling and just being cute and soft 🥺

I hope you're having an amazing day <3

Missed You [Nancy]

Sum: After being away from Hawkins for 6 months, you finally come back to your girlfriend, Nancy Wheeler.

A/n: thank you sm!! And yes of course i can! Sorry it's so short :( also sorry it took me a while as well I hope you like it! Also a reminder I have a second account in where i post about Balders Gate 3 :) it's @teaffrogy

Nancy Wheeler X Fem! Reader

California was fun!

You get to go to a lot of places with your family. Meet up with your cousins, aunts, and uncles. Yet, you still miss being in Hawkins. You grew up in Hawkins your whole life.

The only reason why you are in California is because your mom wanted to come to meet up with your family. At first it was going to be a month, then it went to two, the three, and finally six months! You love your family, really, but you also miss your friends and your girlfriend.

Nancy Wheeler. She's the most beautiful girl you have ever been with. Her touch just has you melting in her hands like pudding. You send her letters, polaroid pictures of California, and of course, yourself. She sends them back, and you are more than happy to see Polaroid pictures of her. But God, you just miss her so much. You wanted more than anything then, so see her again.

“You got a latter [Name]!” Your mom yells from downstairs. You hurry down and grab the letter from your mom. “Thank you.” You say and open it, a picture of her and Mike. You smiled and read the letter.

“Oh yeah and pack your things we are leaving.” your mom says as she holds out a luggage.

“What?” You turn to look at your mom. “We are going back to Hawkins. Go and pack!” You drop the letter on the table and hurry back to your room.

Nancy looks at a picture of you. She smiles at it and places it back on her mirror. She really missed you. Even if it was for vacation, it was too long for her. She sighs and stands up from her vanity and turns on her radio. Today was her day off from work, but there was nothing to do, really. Usually, on her days off, you two would go out to the mall, but that mall doesn't exist anymore. She lays on her bed and hugs a pillow.

She wondered if they would put one back up again soon. She really missed shopping with you. But mostly you. She groans and looks up at the ceiling.

“Nancy! Come down stairs!” She hears Mike yell. She gets up and runs down stairs. “What?” She says and Mike points at The door. She nods And Mike's goes to his room. Nancy opens the door and is met with flowers to her face. “What the-”

“Hi.” She knows that voice. She moves the flowers away, and it's you! “Oh my god!” She brings you into a tight hug, almost dropping the flowers. She then cups your face “God's! How did you get here? How are you?” She asks. You smile at her and say, “Well, I got here by car. Second, I am okay.” You say, and Nancy smiles. “Let's go to my room. I just wanna smother you with kisses.”

Your mom let you spend the day at Nancy's. Nancy's mom said that it was alright as well and made you so many snacks and meals for you two. She just loved seeing her Nancy back with so much energy again.

“So, how was California?” Nancy asks as she eats the beaked cookies her mom made. “It was, eh? I mean, I like it there. It's just that I grew up here and well, I missed you. “ You say as you take a bite of the cookie. She smiles and brings you in tk a hug. You hug her back tightly and bury your face in her neck. “I missed you so much.” You say as you two lay down on the bed. “I missed you too.” She says as she kisses your forehead. “I missed your hair.” Nancy says as she runs her fingers through it. “I missed your ears.” She says as her hand then goes to Your ears.

You were starting to blush. “I missed how I could hold your face.” She says as she cups your face and presses her forehead on to yours. “I missed your kisses.” She whispers as she presses her lips on to yours, and you kiss her back. Every time you kissed her, it felt like the first time you kissed her. You two pull away, and Nancy kisses your nose. “I missed all of you.” She whispers.

“I missed you too. I missed all of you. I missed your touch I missed your laugh and the dumb gossipe that happens at work, I miss you having me pick your outfits and then you pick the other I said not to wear, I missed how you smell, I missed your currly hair, I missed your hands, I missed everything about you and you.” You say, and Nancy smiles. She holds you close to her. “I want us to stay like this forever.” She says.

“Me too.”

“Nancy I have a question.” You say as you play with her hair. “Yes?”

“Would you still love me if I was a warm.” You say, and Nancy nods. “Yes I would, I'd take good care of you as well.” She says and kisses your cheek, making you giggle.

“What if you kissed Me as a warm-”

“Ew no. [Name], that's gross.” She says, and you laugh. You two hold each other, feeling warm and in love. "Can I stay here for another day?" You ask. "Stay here forever." She whispers.

[bippot]

Pretty please write a Mike Schmidt for me, my sweet dear friend that has made it very clear to me that she's back in her Josh Hutcherson phase? I know that you want to! I'll love you more than I already do ☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️

I love the Josh Hutcherson renaissance! I've been seeing more Future Man love and content out there and that's great! It's one of my favourite shows. And there something about the FNAF movie that just has crack in it or something cause I've watched it 3 times in the past week.

Summary: Mike and Abby move into a new apartment with a new neighbour, but Mike's old mundane responsibilities still persist. That's okay, his neighbour and her dog are prepared to entertain Abby for as long as he needs.

Additional Tags: Moving, Babysitting, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Caretaking, Minor Spoilers, Mike Schmidt Needs a Hug (Five Nights at Freddy's)

Full Masterlist - here

The Schmidt siblings returned to their home after the events at pizzeria and Mike immediately knew that they had to move. The sight of his aunt's dead body on the floor was something that would stick in his brain for a hot minute, and truthfully, he'd seen far too many corpses in the span of 24 hrs than he ever thought was possible.

Vanessa's stabbing and Aunt Jane's murder was reported to the police by the Schmidt's as being done by the same killer - because it kinda was, but also not, but it was thanks to his murderous influence so yeah - although the killer in question hadn't been found when the cops did a sweep of the pizzeria.

So, Mike found a small apartment not that far from Abby's school and they began the process of settling in there. He assumed they'd live in their childhood home until Abby was grown up and wanted to go away to college or get a place of her own, but that wasn't the case.

This new home was smaller and cheaper than the old Schmidt residence, plus it didn't come with a lifetime of memories attached to it. It was an improvement, Mike had to keep reminding himself of that fact as he hauled what few belongings he had left into the back of his car.

All the stuff that wouldn't fit had been sold off and Mike was sad to see a lot of his parents stuff go but it helped him acquire some well needed pocket cash for gas or whatever school supplies Abby needed. Whatever was left was transferred into room 34 of the Greystone apartments.

It was a long process, mostly because Abby was at school and the only other person who'd Mike would ask to help was still recovering. That meant that he had to lift every single box up three flights of stairs since the elevator was currently broken. Or, at least that was what he thought.

After making three trips, door 32 opened and a sweet voice asked, "Would you like some help?" Mike nearly dropped the two boxes he'd stacked precariously in his arms as he spun around to put a face to the voice.

Just his luck! His neighbour was a total babe. To anyone else that would've been excellent news, but to Mike, this ensured that he'd be nervous as hell when entering and exiting his own apartment because his mind would have to be alert in case she wanted to talk to him and get a response that was more than incoherent mumbling.

Look, he wasn't a socially awkward guy. Socially avoidant was the term he preferred. He could hold a conversation with a person, with a woman. With a woman he found attractive on the other hand? Well, he hadn't done that in a while. He was more than a little rusty.

Thankfully, this neighbour didn't seem to notice how weirdly out of his depth he felt. Instead, she nodded towards the boxes he'd been piling outside his front door. "Need a hand with those?" she inquired, voice smooth and melodious like an angel.

He swallowed hard, feeling stupid, but somehow answered anyway, "If you don't mind, yeah, please." It came out sounding like he was choking on his words which, given that he had formed coherent sentences in her presence, was the best he was going to get for now.

"Do you have a U-haul truck full?"

"I, uh, folded the seats down of my Accord and shoved, yeah, shoved e-everything in the back."

"Oh. Smart." She closed her door and gestured for them to start walking towards the exit, and he was happy to oblige. "I'm Y/N, by the way."

"Mike."

Mike wanted to say something, to strike up some really interesting conversation that would have her hanging onto each word he said with rapt attention - but his words died before he could utter them. There were just... no words, no topic of choice, nothing. His tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth. If he tried to speak, he might choke and die.

That would be bad. Really bad.

Y/N didn't seem to mind. She could talk for the both of them, it seemed. Honestly, he wasn't sure what she was saying. He wasn't focused on that. No, he was focused on everything else about her, every movement, every breath, the way her hair fell in her eyes, the way her lips curled into a half smile whenever she made a joke and how it curled even farther up when she laughed. He couldn't stop staring.

Sometimes, he felt like he was a bit of a weirdo. It was a conscious effort of his to notice as much as he possibly could about someone he's meeting for the first time and doesn't understand yet, but there were times - far too many times - when he zeroed in on details that didn't need that much scrutiny. Like, why did she have a very faint scar on the inside of her right bicep? Or pen on her left wrist? Or why was she looking at him like she had asked a question and was waiting for him to respond?

Oh. Because she had asked a question and was waiting for him to respond.

That'll do it.

"Sorry, I totally spaced out. What, umm... what did you say?"

"I asked which car was yours."

It was obvious. It was the Honda they were standing in front of that was filled with cardboard boxes.

"Yeah, this is it. Here we are. This is my car."

"You don't say."

Before Mike could stop himself, he rolled his eyes. It was a good natured, amused roll, but a roll nonetheless. He smiled to himself as he opened the boot and began taking out all the boxes he deemed worthy of carrying to his apartment on this trip.

Together, they got everything from the car into his apartment without too much fuss. It took a while so there had been a few awkward silences, but Mike was slowly progressing in his effort to talk to her without tripping over his feet and ending up flat on his ass. He managed to get his words out without making a complete idiot of himself. It was slow progress, but progress nonetheless.

By the time his belongings were safely in his apartment, it was time to pick Abby up from school.

"To say, to say thank you, would you - you can say no, obviously, - Abby and I are going to order pizza for dinner as a celebration of this place. And because we don't have any groceries yet. If you'd like to, yeah, I'm sure she wouldn't mind if you wanted to join us?" he blurted out in one large breath as they stood in their opposite doorways, half in half out of their living rooms.

"I'd love to, but I'm busy...doing things. Doing stuff."

"Oh. Yeah, of course. Maybe, yeah, maybe another time, then?"

"Uh... Sure, sounds good."

They both looked awkward, and neither of them moved for a beat too long until Mike realised that if he didn't leave soon, he was going to be late for pick up. He gave her one final shy wave before rushing to the stairwell.

Abby wasn't told about the nice, pretty girl from next door that he'd been an idiot in front of so when they'd returned from grocery shopping the very next day and Mike was talking to some lady in the newly fixed elevator, she was a little confused. Because she knew her brother. Her brother didn't get people he'd never spoken to before to smile at him like that.

"Hi Mike," Y/N greeted softly as they approached, giving the dachshund at her feet a gentle tug so he'd give the siblings more space to stand. "I'm guessing you went grocery shopping."

Correct. The hand that wasn't holding Abby's had three heavy grocery bags in it.

"Y/N, hey!" Her brother grinned in a way Abby had never seen before. His cheeks flushed slightly and he cleared his throat, his grin turning shy. "This is Abby. This is my sister Abby."

Something akin to relief flashed across Y/N's face. "Nice to meet you, Abby. Mike mentioned you yesterday, but he didn't tell me how cool your shoes are." She crouched down to pretend to get a better look. "Cupcakes are cool."

Abby giggled at the compliment and pushed her nose into Mike's side. She wrapped her fingers around the edge of her brother's bicep and at the fabric there so he'd lean down for her to whisper in his ear. "She asks, can she pet your dog please? Pretty please?" he repeated. "Why she couldn't ask you, I don't know."

"Tater here would love to be petted."

On cue, Tater barked excitedly and wagged his tail at the prospect of being fussed over. Abby cooed loudly and reached out her hand to pet his head. As soon as her fingertips touched his fur, he leaned into her touch and licked her hand enthusiastically. Abby shrieked in delight at the attention, her small hands flailing wildly for a second before reaching out to stroke Tater's ears. Mike could see the joy in the kid's bright eyes and it sent warmth pooling in his chest.

With Abby occupied, Y/N felt the need to clarify, "I was under the impression yesterday that Abby was your girlfriend."

"Ew, gross."

"That's why I was weird about the pizza. I didn't want to third wheel, you know? Sorry I jumped to a completely wrong conclusion."

At that, the corners of Mike's lips twisted upwards. His shoulders relaxed a fraction as he breathed a quiet sigh. Thank God he didn't weird her out with his odd behaviour.

"No, no, I get it. I'm a guy and I mentioned a girl. It...it makes, well, it makes sense to jump to conclusions, actually." A spark of boldness appeared all of a sudden and forced him to inquire, "Would you have stayed if I had made it very clear that Abby is ten years old and my sister?"

"I would've." Y/N replied instantly. Not missing a beat, she added, "I love free pizza," with a smirk.

Ding. They reached their floor and went their separate ways for now. Abby had to be told quite a few times to stop stroking Tater and come inside, but she was reluctant to. That dog had charmed her to the core, it seemed. Eventually, Abby reluctantly complied and followed her older brother into their apartment.

No more than ten minutes later, Y/N heard someone knocking on her door and opened it to find little Abby on the other side all by herself. "Hey Abby, you okay?" Y/N asked with a warm smile.

"Can I play with Tater some more please?" The little girl put on the most cutesy, pleading smile she could muster and batted her eyelashes in order to make it all the more convincing.

"Did you ask your brother?"

"He's in the shower."

So that's a no. Y/N pursed her lips as she thought of a response. Obviously, Mike would freak out if the child in his care was at a stranger's place without his permission. She had no idea about Abby's temperament either. Would she scream and shout if she wasn't given what she wanted? Would she beg? Or would she just be content and go back to whatever she had been doing in her own home?

"Let me just get a lead." Y/N disappeared from view for a minute and Abby was fully prepared for disappointment so she opened the door to her apartment, just listening for the sound of Y/N's door locking. Yet, she was soon reappearing with the weiner dog on a leash.

The pair sat in their opened doorways and fussed over Tater with enthusiasm only children possessed, ignoring the occasional looks from their neighbours who had to step over the situation to get to their homes. The corridor was filled with girly giggles and the occasional happy yap from the puppy as it happily accepted each scratch and pat Abby gave him.

Mike came out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist and was fully expecting to walk into his room to get changed directly afterwards. That didn't happen straight away. He noticed the opened door before the chatter and rushed to check that his sister was safe and still in the confines of their new home.

Maybe she was talking to those dead kids again. That was not something he needed right now.

"Abby?" he called out tentatively, but upon hearing no response other than more giggles, Mike stepped closer to the door and was rather confused as to why his sister was sitting in the doorway.

Y/N's eyes widened the moment sexy, dripping wet Mike appeared in view. She gulped nervously and took in his attire for a split second, trying her best not to stare too openly at his body. It was a struggle at best and she had to take a deep breath.

"Look Mike, Tater can do tricks!" Abby cheered happily when she noticed her brother coming closer. "Tater, play dead."

The dog did exactly as the girl said and rolled onto its back, exposing his belly in a way that was just asking for rubs. And Abby was overjoyed to give them to him. Mike couldn't help chuckling at the sight of his sister, who he was pretty sure had instigated all of this, laughing like crazy as she scratched Tater behind the ear, his tongue hanging out of his mouth while he let out pleased barks.

"You're such a good boy," she praised, patting his head gently and causing the dog to roll over again. "Can we get a dog?"

"Well, uh-" He paused, "Can we have this conversation when I have clothes on?" The girl frowned but nodded her head nonetheless. "Great. I will do that then. I'll get some, uh huh, I will stop being so naked now. I promise."

Subtly, Y/N hid her laugh behind her hand as she watched the scene before her unfold. It was adorable watching him struggle to find words.

Sitting together and playing around with Tater in their doorways became a daily occurrence for the girls. Abby would get home from school and count down the minutes till Y/N came back from work, only to turn to look at her brother expectantly. "Can I?" she'd ask every time, and he'd say yes every time. It became a routine between them, one that gave Mike free time to look for a new job.

And eventually, he did find one. It wasn't exactly ideal. The hours were long and overlapped with after school time, but it was in the day, and it ensured that they'd get 20% off their groceries. The supermarket in town was looking for shelf stockers. The pay wasn't spectacular, but it was liveable. There wasn't much customer interaction. His main focus was to refill the shelves and that was it, nothing beyond that.

No animatronics. No ghost kids. No serial murderers - as far as he knew. And definitely no Balloon Boy.

Originally, he wasn't going to take the job. But, he happened to mention it to Y/N one day and she immediately tried to squash his worries. "I can pick Abby up from school on my way home from work and she can hang out here until your shift is over. No biggie," she reasoned, placing her hand reassuringly against his bicep and flashing a smile at him. Mike was hesitant, at first.

On the other hand, Abby was not. She loved being in Y/N's apartment. It looked nicer than their apartment because Y/N had decorations and nicknacks to look at, and a sofa that was far more comfortable than the old, busted one they had, and Tater was there with all his toys and treats. And Y/N had cable too so that meant they could watch Malcolm in the Middle when it was on.

Abby was planning to grab onto this opportunity with both hands as soon as it presented itself.

Y/N arrived at Abby's school and was greeted by the child running towards her excitedly. Her backpack thumped along on her back loudly and her curls jumped as she bounced up and down, clearly very excited to spend her evening with Y/N (primarily Y/N's dog, but hey).

"Hi Y/N!"

"Hi Abs, you ready to go?"

She nodded frantically, a huge grin forming on her cheeks as she handed Y/N a piece of paper. "I drew this for you!" she informed proudly, pointing to a cute little drawing of a very familiar looking puppy curled up in his doggy bed.

Looking at the drawing, Y/N's eyes softened. "Wow! Thank you! It's really, really really good," she praised with genuine happiness as she ruffled the top of Abby's head. "Do you think Tater will like it? Shall we show him?"

That question was all it took to convince the girl to be well behaved and not complain about traffic they had to sit through to get home. She just bobbed her head along to the radio softly, tapping her feet along to the beat on the ground. By the end of the journey, she even began humming to the tunes, making sure to keep her voice quiet enough that she thought Y/N wouldn't be able to hear her singing. Y/N could.

"I missed you!" Abby squealed as soon as she saw the dog lying on his side asleep by the living room couch. She quickly hopped on the floor next to him and started stroking his soft fur. "Tater, wake up so we can play," she whispered, petting him under his chin and hoping he might at least stir awake. After a few more seconds, he finally stirred awake, his little tail swinging from side to side the moment he realised who was stroking him.

Tater attacked Abby with wet, sloppy dog kisses, causing her to giggle uncontrollably at every lick. Y/N stood beside the couch and laughed at the scene before her. The little girl was a picture of pure joy as Tater licked and slobbered all over her face, causing her to fall backwards onto the carpeted floor and cry out in delight.

If anyone deserved to be spoiled rotten, it was Abby. In fact, both of the remaining Schmidts deserved to be fussed over and Y/N was prepared to do just that to them for as long as they allowed her to.

Mike arrived home from his shift at the grocery store tired and sore. Most of his day had been spent lifting boxes from the storage room out onto the floor with only a single person helping him. And it hadn't helped that his coworker was an older lady - she was kind to him but there was no way she was carrying half of this shit - so he literally did all of the heavy lifting. His back ached badly, which didn't help his mood in the slightest.

However, as he entered Y/N's apartment - they no longer knocked and just walked in these days - and was faced the sight of Abby grating cheese at the kitchen counter as Y/N warned, "Careful of your fingies, don't wanna accidentally cut yourself. Take it slow, honey."

A sweet smile stretched across his lips as he closed the door behind him and made his way towards the two women. Neither of them seemed to notice, clearly too engrossed in preparing their dinner to see as he silently leant against the kitchen door frame and watched them carefully.

At some point, Y/N had braided Abby's hair and obviously Abby wanted to return the favour but wasn't all that good at it as the end of Y/N's locks were all bushy and tangled, the ends curling up into knots and sticking out from underneath the bobble. He chuckled to himself quietly, thus gaining the attention of the both of them instantly.

"How long have you been there, creeper?" Abby asked, giving her brother a dirty glare and earning her a chuckle from him once more.

"Long enough," he replied and shrugged his shoulders. "What are we cooking?"

"Y/N's teaching me how to make Cowboy Pie."

His eyebrow raised in amusement. "Is that so?" he hummed and crossed his arms over his chest. "Why do you never want to help when I cook, huh?"

"You don't cook. You just heat stuff up."

"Oh yeah? I see how it is," he snickered, but was quick to ask, "Well, you two need any help?" and turned his gaze to Y/N, who simply shook her head.

"Go relax. We've got this," she said dismissively, waving him away with the wooden spoon still in her hand. "Don't we, Abs?" She poked the nodding girl in the cheek affectionately. "See? Everything is alright. Go sit with Tater."

She gave him a gentle push with her hip, prompting him to move into the living room without another word. He sat on the couch and placed his bag by his feet, letting out a huge sigh as his ass hit the soft cushion. He rested his elbows on his knees, placed his chin on his palms and leaned forward so he could see into the kitchen.

Watching the duo cook together was mesmerising. A warm feeling filled his chest and spread throughout his entire body - like fire but not uncomfortable, more comforting, like home. Y/N had such a loving smile on her face while Abby looked content and beamed whenever she was allowed to stir the pot or throw in the ingredients. They were like peas in a pod, Y/N taking care of everything and doing all the things that included knives while Abby tried to follow instructions.

He was completely lost in the scene in front of him until something small and furry pressed itself against his leg. He glanced down and smiled upon seeing the dachshund's black nose pressing up against the side of his pant legs. The dog wagged his tail and then looked up at him, staring with his wide brown eyes, almost pleading for attention. Mike couldn't say no to Tater so he bent down to scratch gently behind his floppy ears.

"Hiya, boy," he murmured happily. "Us guys have got to stick together, right? Can't let the girls boss us around now, can we?" Tater barked and wagged his whole body as if to agree with him.

That meal had to be the best he'd ever had, or at least remembered having. It was mainly potato, sausage, beans and cheese, but somehow, they'd managed to make it taste extra good. Tater was given a sausage or two, so he was beyond happy and fell asleep directly after dinner.

Abby was in a similar state. She'd cleaned her plate then asked for more, which was fine because there was leftovers for her to get through. Her belly was full and she was exhausted, so that meant she could probably sleep through the night. She even fell asleep against Mike's shoulder half way through the episode of Family Feud.

Honestly, Mike was close to dozing off too but kept himself awake long enough to pick his sister up and carry her to her bed. "She's out like a light, how did you do that?" he asked Y/N curiously, his arms wrapped around Abby so she didn't fall out of his grip and slump to the corridor floor.

"It was all Tater," she joked, gesturing towards the passed out puppy lying on his back between the gap between the two couch cushions. "Same time tomorrow?"

"Yeah, yeah please."

"Goodnight Mike," Y/N smiled, moving in to peck his cheek before disappearing behind her door.

Once she was gone, Mike released a large exhale through his nose, his eyes now wide open and fixed on the crooked 32 number plate on the wood. He wiggled one hand free and straightened it up, then brought his fingertip to where her lips had just been on his skin and smiled faintly.

"Goodnight Y/N."

Every day was similar to that one - obviously there were slight variations where Abby didn't eat as much, or Tater decided to be yappy that day, or Y/N didn't feel like cooking and ordered something in, or Mike was grumpier - but they were all better than before. Their lives weren't exactly perfect, but this was close enough, really.

For now.

"My boss offered me some more hours, just in time for the holidays - and it's a big upgrade in pay -"

"That sounds great, Mike. What's the 'but'?" Y/N frowned as she placed some freshly cooked lasagna on a plate and placed it in front of Mike.

"It's night shifts and a weekend or two." He shoved a fork full into his mouth, chewing it slowly before swallowing and continuing, "You've done so much already and asking you to look after Abby for the entire night... it's too much, you shouldn't have to-"

"Mike-"

"I'll pay you. I promise. Abby told me she wants that Robotic Puppy thing for her present and that's $40 and I said I get that for her to make up for the fact I won't let her get a real dog. Factor in groceries. And bills. And..." he began mumbling to himself, working out all the math in his head. He'd never been all that good at maths.

There was a beat of silence before Y/N let out a small chuckle. "Mike," she sighed again, placing her hand gently on top of his, "It's okay. Really, it is. This isn't a big deal at all. I love spending time with Abby and she loves sleepovers."

Recently, there had been a development in Abby's social life; one that involved more hanging out with her friend outside of school. The new friend had been a late addition to the class and was rather shy, so when she spent her time reading right next to where Abby was drawing, they began their quiet friendship.

"And the weekends?"

"Well, I get Sundays off and Saturdays she can come to work with me. There's always a bunch of kids her age in the library on Saturdays. Yeah, it's all the nerd kids," Y/N explained with a laugh whilst pouring two glasses of wine and handing one to Mike. "Relax, Mikey."

With a final deep breath, he nodded his head, his expression changing as he took a sip of wine. "Okay," he breathed and smiled softly. "Thank you. For today. And last week too. And all the times before that."

"Yeah, no problem," she shrugged casually and sipped from her glass as well, trying her hardest to keep the flush off her face.

Working nights again was not something Mike thought he'd ever do again, yet this time, the scenery was far less alive. No, instead it was just dark and cold. And this time, he actually had job responsibilities and couldn't fall asleep at a desk. He had to lift and sort and clean and sweep and tidy and organise and price check and restock. It was boring, mind numbing and absolutely exhausting and he just wanted to go home to sleep and forget about it all.

What was waiting for him when he got home was something else. Something different, something better.

After putting Abby to bed, Y/N had fallen asleep on the living room sofa, a blanket draped around her and a book about to slip from her fingers. Mike knelt beside the couch and grabbed the book and placed it on the coffee table before giving in to the temptation to brush her hair behind her ear, letting his fingertips linger on her cheek.

"Mike?" Y/N murmured, her eyelids fluttering slightly as her eyes met his own, causing him to bolt away and stand up straight.

"Oh! Sorry," he stuttered, clearing his throat. and scratching at his cheek with a little too much force. "Um, sorry. Didn't mean to wake you."

Y/N yawned and stretched, leaning on her elbow and resting her head on her hands as she regarded him. "How was work? Anything interesting happen?" she asked quietly, her voice still sounding sleepy. She ran a hand through her messy hair, messing it up even more and looking adorably groggy, and he had to admit it was kinda hot.

"Not really. The same as usual just at night, I guess."

A hum left her throat and she closed her eyes briefly. When they opened again, they were glimmering with sleepy tears, making them sparkle beautifully. His heart swelled with so much emotion, he couldn't help but stare at them and sigh.

"Abby is -" She yawned again. "Abby's is in my bed. You can leave her there if you want," she murmured, her voice fading to barely a whisper. "You tired? You look it."

"Yeah."

Thanks to the darkness of the room and the bagginess of his clothes, he had the same general shape of a teddy bear - all soft and curly with big brown eyes. That paired with Y/N sleepy kind of not fully woken up state meant that she whispered, "Come here," and held her arms open invitingly. He hesitated for a moment, before finally deciding that he couldn't turn this opportunity down. He crawled onto the sofa and lay down next to her, putting as much distance in between their bodies as he could, which wasn't a lot.

It would've felt awkward to anyone else, but for the two of them it was natural; comfortable and intimate. Y/N snuggled up next to Mike until her head rested comfortably on his chest and he put an arm around her, pulling her as close as possible.

"Y/N?"

"Hmmm...?" she hummed sleepily, her hands coming up under her chin on his chest, looking up at him through her lashes. He looked at her, mesmerised by the gentle glow of the light emanating from the tv screen behind him, before gazing down at her lips, feeling a blush creep up on his neck. He licked his lips nervously and swallowed thickly before he could think twice about what he was going to say next.

"I like you," he admitted bluntly without any preamble, and his eyes widened slightly as soon as the words were uttered. They flew past the tip of his tongue, begging to leave him, and the truth was out there now. In the open and therefore there was no backing out. "Jesus, that made me sound like a middle schooler."

Y/N blinked several times, processing what he said, before smiling warmly and reaching up and stroking his cheek gently. Mike's eyes fluttered shut at her touch, and he leaned into her hand with a contented sigh. "I like you too," she whispered, her smile growing wider and her thumb brushing along his cheek bone tenderly.

"So, um, should we maybe..." he started awkwardly, unsure where he wanted things to go from there.

"In the morning?"

"Good idea."

They fell asleep almost immediately after saying goodnight, holding each other tightly as they slept in a dreamless slumber. A slumber that was cut short when Abby woke them up with a very loud gasp, waking the both of them up. They rubbed at their eyes with the heels of their palms and looked over at Abby who stared at them with wide eyes.

Cheeks flushing red under his sister's scrutiny, Mike burrowed his face in Y/N's shoulder, who just chuckled and curled her hand into his curly hair.

"What's the time, Abs?"

"7:23" came the reply as she pointed at the digital clock on the wall above the TV.

Mike let out a groan of annoyance and pushed his nose further into Y/N. It seemed that once he got some affection, he didn't want to let go. She didn't seem to mind though and laughed softly, shifting a bit to accommodate him.

Or was it to accommodate Abby?

Because Y/N offered, "Well, it's Sunday and there's enough space for three so wanna join, honey?" and Abby was jumping at the chance, clambering on the couch until the girl was lying entirely on top of her brother like a weighted blanket that got slightly heavier as Tater joined in too and curled up between his knees. He grunted at the unexpected cuddle pile but got used to it quickly.

"What do you want for breakfast when we get up?" Y/N asked Abby, stroking her hair away from her face as the child yawned.

"Pop Tarts?"

"I second that," Mike mumbled.

"Pop Tarts it is then," Y/N agreed with a small nod

Somehow, life had got even better.

[sillyunknownkitkat]

Type of writing : headcanons and 2 small drabbles.

Plot: Phillip and his s/o preparing and celebrating Christmas.

Tw: kinda fem-ish reader but still gn, tooth rotting fluff, Phillip being bullied by kids, a bit of angst but full comfort here dw, reader has parents. uncanny fake death situation of Phillip, reader cries.

Definitely loves cuddles on the couch and watching a movie with the fire cracking in the background.

This man loves Christmas. It's not so much all of the traditions and stuff, just you being really happy about this and the cosy ambience that it brings.

Also, he forces the shadows to wear Santa's hats.

I think he has a pretty sweet tooth, so it's one of his favorite seasons because you make him hot chocolate with little marshmallows when he gets back from work.

If you want to see his eyes lit up, then bring him a Christmas market/festival. Phillip's eyes WILL light up like kids' ones.

Now let me tell you something. This blondie can't skate at all. It's really funny to see.

And that being said, he gets bullied by the kids on the ice rink.

Still would go again if it means that you're happy.

Now, I don't want to baby him because he is a grown man, but please throw a snowball at him. I promise you that it's going to be the best snowball fight ever.

If you have played until down, you know what I'm talking about, but if don't here is a video of the said scene

So I think he'd be more Mike-like, but tbh he could also be Jessica (I hope this makes sense). Also, you don't have to be a girl or anything for this exact interaction. He's just a bit cringe.

But that's okay, it's not a crime 😊

THIS.MAN.ALSO.LOVES.TO.DECORATE.YOUR.HOUSE !!!

I hcs he probably didn't really do anything for Christmas as a child.

It's supposed that he lived in South America, so it didn't really snow or anything. His parents didn't see the point in celebrating it.

Well no matter the reason that caused him to be "Christmas-starved", he still is.

I don't think he would go all out like you can see in some Christmas light contests, but he still puts quite the effort.

Inside the house, he would keep it pretty simple but with a good amount of things. Like fairy lights pretty much all around the house, whatever these are called in a banner like display, little Santa's, snowmans, ...

Now, to my favourite part, the drabbles ^^

1. Decorating your first Christmas tree together 🎄:

You moved him with him pretty early in the relationship. He justified it by saying something amongst the lines of "I work a lot, sweetheart. As sad as it is, I won't be here often. If things go south one day, I won't ever kick you out, don't worry. See it as you helping me around the house when I'm not there, and as a payment, you get a free roof over your head, yeah?"

When he just said it, you were kinda offended, but thinking back, he's not wrong. Plus, he doesn't force you to move faster in the relationship. It's just a win-win situation. Of course, he mostly proposed this because he loves you so damn much.

He never felt like that with another person. He swears (in his head) that you have to be his soulmate. How else could you guys fit so well together?

When December came close, he asked you if you would want to make a Christmas tree with him. You said yes, obviously.

You both went to get dressed in warmer clothes before going to the local Christmas market.

Hand in hand, walking and stopping every 30 seconds because one of you saw something that catched your eyes. You both probably went a little overboard with the stuff you got, but you wouldn't wish to go back in time to do otherwise. He was so freaking happy. It made you melt every time you looked at him and his big smile.

After a while, he asks you to go get a Christmas tree (pine?) before all of the good ones are gone. I don't think you would go in a "chop the one you want" type of thing, but in a more store like type of thing. He insisted you guys should get a real one instead of the plastic ones because even tho it makes a huge mess, it's more cosy to have a real one. Don't ask me how, but you got the most beautiful tree ever. It's a nice fresh green colour, not too tall but very large and fluffy.

Once both of you are happy with what you have, you go back to your shared house to actually decorate the said tree.

It starts with unloading the car, then putting everything in the living room and finally doing what you both waited for. Decorating.

You set the tree in the corner of the living room, not too far away from the chimney. He chose to start with the fluffy garland before the light ones and finally the little balls and bauble you got.

Finally, it's time to set the star on top of the tree, and you insist he does it. After all, it's his idea.

"Don't be silly, love. C'mere, I'll help you, " He says before making a come here motion with his hand. You do. He lifts you up by the waist, and you place it perfectly.

Once he puts you back down, you both walk a few steps back to admire your work. He gives you a side hug, and you could swear he's almost crying.

You take a picture of your tree and a selfie of the both of you as a souvenir of this amazing day you guys spent.

2. Spending Christmas together but discreetly.

After his fake death, he had to lay very low to avoid any suspicion. Which also means that this year, it would only be the both of you on Christmas.

You never spent Christmas without your parents, so this was really hard for you. Not only did you have to lie to everyone, saying things like what you were too sad to celebrate this year, that you weren't able to attend, ... but you also had to make they sad and worried.

Phillip knew that it was really upsetting you but didn't know what to do apart for apologizing for making you do all of that.

On the morning of Christmas Eve, you woke up quite early and sat on the couch in front of the tree. When you looked at him once more, you started crying. The worst thing is that you felt terrible to cry. Everything was doing better than it could've. Your lover was alive and well. You had anything you could possibly need.

And yet you still felt like garbage. Even more now that you were felling guilty from feeling this way.

Phillip woke up in an empty bed. Your side was still a bit warm, so he knew that you left the bed not too long ago. Usually, he would've woken up at you getting up, but he was exhausted. He stretched before lazily sliding in his slippers and going look after you.

When he got down the stairs, he saw you curled up with your knees to your chest on the couch. It broke his heart when he heard you quietly sob.

He instantly goes up to you and sits down on the couch before rubbing your back in a comforting manner.

"Hey... what's going on lovely?" He asks in a worried tone.

After taking a couple of deep breaths in and out, you explain the reason why you were crying. He carefully listens, holds your hand, and squeezes it from time to time to prove that he is listening to you.

Once you're done, he drags you in his harm to hold you and pet your hair.

"Oh, baby... I'm so sorry that we have to go through this. That I have to make you go through this. I promise you that everything will be okay, though. I love you so so so much. You can't even imagine. That's why I'm still very happy. I get to spend the holidays with you. The love of my life. I'm going to make sure that you spend an amazing Christmas 'kay? Do you trust me?"

You just nod against him, your voice being stuck in your throat from such sweet words.

"I love you too, Phil's, and of course I trust you," you say after a little while of being in this comfortable hold.

Sorry if this is really cheesy, I just am a sucker for lovey dovey stuff 😅

While Graves is not my favorite COD character at all, I can't lie and say that writing this didn't make me love him a bit more.

Also, I'm very sorry if he's ooc, I tried my best 🥹

I wish you a very merry Christmas and lovely holidays! 🍾☃️🎄

I hope you have a good day/night and that you're safe <3

I love you everyone!

[wiktorianala]

My oc's + characters they were based of in one way or another

I got bored of sewing, maybe gonna continue on weekend, but anyway i decided that it's time to make smthng more with Bouney 'n Handy so there's a lil drawings and if someone is interested in me yapping about them, story, 'n other stuffs then click here \/

Oki, so I'll start with at which point they were based of well, Salad and Madotsuki. Starting from Handy because this will take me less time. She was created waaay later, at moment when I wanted to start working on comic, so I had to make second character just so Bouney wouldn't be only one, well i wanted to make her an object head of some kind to match with the fact that Bouney's head was created out of rotated eye. It is not anymore but that was honestly how I created this little freak. Fine but coming back to topic I wanted to give her some kind of object, and I'm honestly shit when it come to making any decisions myself, so with my friend we just looked throught my entire sketchbook and we found drawing of Madotsuki with hand palm effect (because I was pretty much fixated over this game and bigger part of sketchbook had Yume Nikki drawings), so we just picked hand. Now, with Bouney it's longer story, just like I said, I created him way earlier, so first thing he got after Salad were simple plain clothes 'cuz I'm layzy and absolutelly didn't wanted to bother with drawing anything complicated over and over again (and I picked Salad, because once again, yes it was my fixation at that time, and I want to remind that thos are two different times btw). So at the point when I wanted to start making thos comics and when I already had character designs I had to give them personalities and story, and the story... it was pretty different from what it is now. First vershion of it was too about a empty world and all thos stuffs, this didn't change, but main difference was the fact that in earlier ver Bouney was only living creature in this world. Handy was more of some kind of imaginary friend that appeared in his head due to loneliness there. (this a bit was based out of Salad too, because, ya know, empty weird world, clearly not very sane main creature character 'n thos stuffs) Plot mostly was just like in current vershion pretty goofy 'n just some "everyday stuffs", but at some points it was getting pretty heavy and sad. AND YES I KNOW THAT IT SOUNDED MUCH MORE INTERESTING, honestly at some point even I liked it more in this way, but there were two main reasons why I changed it. First one, fact that Handy wasn't really a physical person caused some technical writing issues that maybe been not that hard to fix, but as once already I said- I'm layzy, so I didn't wanted to be bothered by them. And now second and honestly more important reason (at least for me), it was time when I was making 2nd re-write of "Fragments of Sanity" plot (rn I'm working on 3rd, and I hope last one, because I want to finally make it into comic too) and I mean first version of it was pretty, well sad (I can't really find better word for it), but on second version? Oh boy, let me tell ya this shit is even worse (and main reason for this is probably because I dunno when but Mike ended up being at least in his personality and behavior (not by plot) a bit of self insert). So I didn't really wanted both of my projects to be like that, and I wantd at least one of them to be one with wich I could more goof around, so yeah, I've changed it. Well I guess that's all I wanted to say? I dunno. I know that in 95% no one is about to read this, but anyway I feel at least better when I can yap somewhere about some certain stuffs, and hey, ain't that for what blogs even exist? For people to yap, and do stuffs they like? Damn after writing for such a long time about them I guess I have a need rn to finish this god damned 3rd chapter. So yeah, now that's all.

[kolbisneat]

MONTHLY MEDIA: July 2024

I read a lot more than I was expecting this month but I ain't complaining. Here's how I spent the month of July!

……….FILM……….

Evil Dead II (1987) Didn't love Evil Dead (not that it's not good, I just get too spooked by straight horror) but had no idea that this would be what it is. Puppets and stop motion! Looney Tune antics! Magic with rules! This is my kinda movie and I'm baffled the modern films in the franchise don't try for this sort of energy.

Poor Things (2003) It took a while for me to settle into this, but around the time Dafoe's Godwin explains Bella's condition, I was all in. It's a dreamlike movie with dreamlike logic so despite some of the discourse I tried not to take too much of it literally. Beautiful and far funnier than I expected.

……….TELEVISION……….

Columbo (Episode 1.04 to 1.07) Gosh I love the era of television where each episode was self-contained. Episode 7 features Columbo smoking in a doctor's office and I was not at all expecting him to comment on the dangers of tobacco, but he did! I notice this first season only had a handful of episodes with the classic "oh one more thing" schtick so I'm curious if that pops up more in later seasons.

Scavenger's Reign (Episode 1.01 to 1.12) This is a show where I sit down, turn it on, and while the beautiful opening credits play, think, "I wonder what horrifying imagery is gonna f*** me up this episode?" The animation and design are sooooooo good that it made up for the occasionally baffling writing. Please go watch it so a second season can get greenlit.

Bridgerton (Episode 3.05 to 3.08) I missed a few eps there in the middle but it all worked. That final party, and all that went with it (the speech, the bugs, the reveal of who paid for it) was 10/10. Good stuff.

……….YOUTUBE……….

Yoko and The Beatles by Lindsay Ellis Yoko Ono didn't break up the Beatles. And while this video essay expands on the factors that DID split up the band, it's also a really great dive into the weight of fame and the weight of fame on women. VIDEO

Was starting a product business a mistake? by Simone Giertz An honest and detailed insight into the dream vs. reality of small business and internet fame. Looks like it's going to be a full series and I'm looking forward to more. VIDEO

……….READING……….

N or M by Agatha Christie (Complete) Spy Thriller set during the Second World War? With a husband/wife spy duo? Oh heck yeah. Sometimes I find the clues to be a little convoluted/unnecessarily obscure but this one struck a great balance of visible but easily forgettable.

The Knight of the Swords by Michael Moorcock (Complete) Having first read the comic adaptation (penciled by Mike Mignola!) I now realize some of my issues (pacing, understanding the abstract) work better in novel form. An elevated pulp adventure that has some great ironic twists.

Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula or The Adventure of the Sanguinary Count by Loren D. Estleman (Complete) Thrift find purchased based on the premise alone. Exactly what you'd expect but not much beyond that. It's at its best when you get Dracula directly interacting with Holmes and/or Watson.

Spider-Verse by Dan Slott, Christos N. Gage, Mike Costa, Dennis Hopeless, and many many more (Complete) Really enjoyed reading this but am baffled by its production. Why the issues aren't collected in chronological order, I'll never know. I know the book is over ten years old now but the writing (especially all of the Spider-Women) really stands out as...not great. All but the Superior Spider-Man essentially sound the same (perhaps the point?) but Gwen and Jess and Cindy mostly talk about things like body image and pheromones and it's glaring. I'm curious what I'll think upon a second readthrough (reading in order, and after the first wave of nostalgia has completely rinsed off) but I definitely think this story walked so the movies could break the speed of sound.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Beats Up the Marvel Universe! by Ryan North and Erica Henderson (Complete) North's writing and Henderson's artwork are the perfect blend for such a bright and enthusiastic character. Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is such a great series (which I gotta go back and finish) and this is an equally great introduction to the character.

Superior Foes of Spider-Man Vol 1 by by Nick Spencer, Marcos Martin, and Steve Leiber (Complete) I was really excited for this series (the premise! the cover art!) but the pacing, humour, and art just didn't connect. Honestly really bummed that I didn't like this more.

……….AUDIO……….

3D6 Down the Line (Podcast) A nice change of pace from the modern D&D games I play in. They use Old School Essentials for their system (more akin to 2nd Edition D&D) and play with a mindset similar to the 70s style of play (treasure for experience, everything is lethal). I'm still having trouble distinguishing some of the voices from each other, but it's a great listen.

……….GAMING……….

Oz: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) Tuesday crew watched a peaceful inauguration and gained notoriety for saving a neighbourhood from roaming monsters (you can read all about it here!) and the Mof1 crew is dabbling in dangerous contracts with dangerous people (all for a cap that controls the winged monkeys).

And that's it. See you in August!

[mike-haters-dni]

Scalding, unnecessary take that I'm going to use as an excuse to yap about my hyperfixation characters more than anything, but El's character is actually impossible to stick into coffee shop fanfiction No Supernatural Shit AUs. That's Jane you're writing about. Jane and El are not the same person. At all. And like, Jane is interesting to think about, don't get me wrong. I have thought about Jane. I love Jane. She's adorable and vaguely autistic. But Jane != Eleven.

Eleven is the way she is almost entirely because of her experience/trauma of growing up in the lab and having supernatural murder powers. Her main characters traits are being a self-sacrificing hero and not being sure who she is due to the fact she grew up in an isolated sterile inhuman environment. Unless you're directly translating those things into something unsupernatural (like growing up in a fucked up cult or something and like fighting her way out and now she'll fight to protect other people from similar experiences or something idk) you're writing about Jane the normal gorl who got to grow up with a normal personality in a normal world. And like, you can do that. It's fine it's fandom do whatever u want. But personally, the first thing I come up with when I birth an AU is what crazy powers and fucked up backstory we give Eleven here. Also how do we make her and everyone else really fucking cool but that...might be beside the point idk.

The powers have to basically ruin or have had ruined her life at one point. They have to be a curse that she either reclaims or gets rid of at the end. If she isn't tortured she isn't Eleven Stranger Things lmao

And then yeah yeah my next step is to figure out how Mike AND THE OTHERS OK but mostly Mike get involved in this. Which brings me to my next point: Jane and Mike have no real reason to talk to each other. Mike x Jane is just Normal Gorl x Normal Boy which is like, fine sure if that's what you want, but also you kinda just erased everything interesting about their dynamic. You wanna know what makes El and Mike's relationship so compelling? Objectively? I'm objectively right about everything I'm about to say here? Ok their dynamic is this: Eleven is the most important person in the world, and Mike is the only boy who will ever love her. And yeah that second one sounds really sad but 1. yeah it kinda is :) 2. its not really true that's just what El thinks which is like a major theme for her character TO ME, her underestimating how 'normal' she is esp in her later years 3. it also is kinda true because he's the only boy romantically interested in her who actually understands and experienced all the supernatural/lab trauma bullshit and is actively fighting beside her through the plot of the show, and 4. he's literally perfect and also the only boy she'll ever love and need so it all works out.

And to explain the first one, I mean, you know she's saved the world twice right? She kinda literally is the most important person in the world considering its up to her to stop the apocalypse probably in the end? But its not the being important exactly that makes Mike love her ok, that's more of a meta character thing. Like she doesn't have to literally be the key to saving the world and the most powerful being in the universe. Its more that she has to have something really special about her that draws Mike specifically to her and binds him to her permanently and inseparably and he belongs to her forever and ever and they die in each other's arms. Like she deserves. In canon I imagine objectively and correctly that it went like this: Mike is a natural outcast collector and protector due to his pervasive unconscious need to be needed and his fear of losing the few people who like him, who meets the ultimate outcast girl who literally has nothing and needs him in a very real way, and this gives him an excuse to just pour his entire self into her, fulfilling one of his deepest interpersonal needs. The best part is that she's super selfless and amazing and she loves him the same right back so its actually a beautiful thing they get going. Basically the idea of being anything less than perfect for her is so sad and horrible due to how fucked her life was that it drives the already caretaking Mike into overdrive to make her happy. Not at the cost of him still being an individual person, mind you. But that's the vibe. Also let me just say, all the self-sacrificing vibes and obsession and desperation can become toxic under certain circumstances and that is absolutely a feature not a bug. Sorry you don't like watching your faves yell at each other but we are not the same.

Anyway what the fuck was I talking about? AUs? Yeah ok so when translating Mike (AND THE OTHERS...and the others) into other stories there's more flexibility u kno because he's mostly just Some Guy. He really just needs (TO ME) an excuse to be fighting with Eleven (she has to be fighting something with the powers I know you gave her). He shouldn't be directly involved with whatever gave her the powers but he should generally know of and be somewhat affected by it. Or become aware of it/involved with it over time. Like in the show. You get it. Honestly his only real consistent character traits are being kinda moody and being the leader of the party in whatever vague or not way. And being intelligent. Like he has to be leader for a reason. I guess that's a decent base for a character right there.

oh right side note: you have to do something fun with her name. like she was basically branded Eleven by the freak that gave her the powers so u gotta take that energy and translate it into another branded name that has el in it because she needs to get the nickname ofc. unless its a cyberpunk au in which case Eleven is a pretty normal name and she can just go by that lmao.

So the point ig is Jane and Mike break up when they go away to different colleges and don't talk to each other again until their next high school reunion, while Mike and Eleven are...well you should know by now.

[twentiethcenturyboyy]

"Confrontation": Marrissey

A/N:

- It's been a while, good lord.

- This is another one of those things which i wrote purely for my own and my friends' enjoyment, but here you go.

CW: This is an angst involving Morrissey and Johnny Marr of The Smiths. Nothing really to warn you about other than swearing.

WC: 828

It was the autumn of 1986, a few months after the first anniversary of Johnny and Angie's wedding. The studio was quiet, and only the sound of a pencil scribbling roughly on paper could be heard. Morrissey was sat at a piano, one leg draped over the other, and a notepad on his lap. Of course, he was writing lyrics for The Smiths' next album.

Mike and Andy went out to get lunch while Morrissey was occupied, which left him and Johnny alone together in the small recording space; a situation Morrissey couldn't decide if he liked or not. Morrissey had taken a liking to Johnny when they met back in 1978, something which never seemed to fade. No, it grew over time and blossomed into a shameful yearning for romance towards his bandmate. But due to obvious reasons, he could never let Johnny know about these feelings.

He couldn't care less about what society would say about him or what would be written on the headlines of all the top magazines. It was Angie. Angie was always in the way. Ever since Johnny was 14, he knew Angie was the one, and he was right. Those two stuck to each other like magnets, and Morrissey hated that Johnny's magnet just didn't want to let go of her.

He sighed and scribbled some more ideas down, until the page he was working on had reached its end.

"Johnny?"

"Yeah, Moz?" He said, looking up from changing the strings of his guitar.

"Would you kindly pass me my pencil tin from my bag? I need to sharpen this pencil I'm using and I'm sure my sharpener is in there." Morrissey wiggled his pencil in the air as a gesture.

"Yeah, yeah, of course."

Johnny got up and headed outside of the recording room to the corridor where all of the band's belongings are.

×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

It was a solid 5 minutes before Johnny came back. Morrissey didn't notice his entrance until he heard a thud on top of the piano.

"Care to explain yourself?" Johnny said in a way in which you could tell he was trying to be nice, but was failing rather miserably.

Morrissey looked up from his notepad to see his leather journal on the lid of the piano. It was open, and he knew exactly what Johnny had seen. He used that journal as a diary mostly, but sometime he'd write love letters dedicated towards his songwriting partner; the journal was open on one of those pages. He gulped.

"Steven. Answer my question." Johnny said, more bluntly this time.

"Have you been snooping?" Morrissey questioned, evidently a little distressed.

"No, actually." He crossed his arms. "Your journal fell out of your bag while I was searching for your sharpener. The bookmark came out too, so I tried to put it back in the right place. The things I came across in that book, Steven..."

"Are you mad?" Morrissey's eyebrows furrowed.

"No- I... I don't know, just... what the fuck, Steven!"

"I-I'm sorry!" He exclaimed, almost a yelp.

"I'm married, Steven! I have a wife!"

"I know! I know! I'm sorry! You weren't supposed to find out this way!" He began to pace, hands on his head, whispering  exasperated "oh christ"s and "oh goodness"s to himself.

"Then how was I supposed to find out, Steven?"

"You- you weren't!" He spluttered.

"You can't just do this!"

"But I still love you. I always have!" Tears ran down the man's face.

"Then stop! Because you know I can't be with you!"

The room falls silent for a moment. Morrissey leans against a wall, sobbing into his hands. The two stay quiet until Morrissey wipes his tears and sniffs.

"Why? Because of Angie?" He scoffed sardonically.

"Leave Angie out of this..."

"That's the reason isn't it?! If Angie wasn't in the way we could be happy!" He spat.

"No, Steven-"

"Then what is it?! If it's not her, then what is it?!"

"Forget about Angie. I don't like you in that way, Steven." He said sharply.

"What do you mean?" Morrissey's shoulders drooped.

"I don't like men." He sighed.

"But... but what about all those times we went out together? When you were close to me. When you clung to me while you were drunk. What about that time when- when you kissed me?" He began to cry again.

"It was friendly banter, Steven. And besides, it was only a quick kiss on the cheek. You're borderline delusional to think we could've ever been a thing."

Johnny grabbed his jacket and quickly walked out of the studio, (presumably to go and find Mike and Andy, wherever they may be) leaving Morrissey stood there, tears endlessly welling in his eyes, feeling like he'd just been shot.

Those words stung Morrissey harder than anything he'd ever experienced or heard before.

"Listen." Johnny continued. "I don't have an issue with you being gay. I don't care about that. Just... just forget about this."