#did not intend to make an actual list but i got started and had fun with it and that's what matters.

[orcelito]

I've been discovering the joy of using my hot pad to warm my feet. I have bad circulation, so colder months mean freezing feet 24/7

But my feet r so toasty rn... this is truly the life

[burn-before-reading]

Love in the Time of Socialism

joost klein x artist!reader

art, mush, and ramblings about life

warnings: depression (ish), burnout, reader character in some vague mental health funk

word count: 2k

a/n: slight prequel to blue is the colour of your eyes but can be read as stand alone. just same artist reader. vaguely romantic but just ramblings and getting feelings out haha. started this when I was in more of a bad mental state (lol) but im fine now so it got kinda tame by the end of it. still not proofreading anything

title from the song Love in the Time of Socialism by Yellow House

Rpf below the cut—

Normally Joost has to call you because its the only way you will actually look at your phone. Its more often that not you find yourself fixated on planning out your next project, and your friends have to force you back into reality. There was that one time no one had heard from you in over a week and thought you were dead, when you were just working. You hadn’t realized how many texts you missed and apologized for scaring your friends half to death. Especially Joost.

So now you leave your ringer on, and now they call.

Tonight, however, Joost calls and you aren’t in your studio. You are in your bed, where you have been for the entire day. and also most of yesterday. There isn’t a reason in your head specifically why this has happened. you MEANT to get up. Theres a list of chores and things to do just sitting on your desk, but you woke up late, so now nothing will get done. At some point it just became too stressful to even get up and look at it. You roll over and stare at the contact picture of him, smiling with some dumb fish eye lens he thought was funny. You debate not picking up at all.

But you can’t ignore him.

“Hi Joost.” your voice came through the phone more hoarse than intended when you answered, you don’t remember the last time you talked to someone. “Whats going on?”

“the others wanted to go out for drinks tonight, you hadn’t responded so I wanted to check you were joining us.” You could imagine him rocking back and forth on his heels in the middle of his living room while he talked, it was either that or pacing around.

“uhh..” Drinks at a bar was the last thing on your mind. In any other situation you would have loved to be around your friends, but right now you just needed to avoided as much as possible. “Not a good night, tonight. Sorry, I’ll have to join you guys next time.”

Joost felt like something was off, you sounded tired. “Is everything okay?”

“I’ll be fine I just… shit brain day. bad brain thats all. It happens.” You did your best to summarize how you felt without actually admitting anything, you weren’t sure how to explain anything anyway.

“ Oh Im sorry, would it be good, if I came over? I can keep you company, if thats okay?”

“you don’t have to, I’ll be fine tomorrow. I want you to have fun. ” you insisted, but he pressed on.

“I don’t mind, the group would understand. Have you eaten today?”

“Like… a meal? yes, or well, no. I had a soda..” You glance at the half drunk soda from the night before, now flat. “and uhhh..”

“I’ll pick something up.” You could hear him on the other end gathering things together, keys, wallet, probably his ipad.

“.. thank you. I’ll see you in a bit, I guess.”

-

Joost knocked on your door about an hour later. In that time you were able to get out of bed and make your way to the bathroom to change and make yourself somewhat presentable in front of a guest, and to the kitchen to make coffee despite it being 8pm.

You opened it to see Joost with a sheepish smile as he extends his arms out for a hug. “Hi.”

“Hi Joost.” you take the step to hug him, feeling his body heat contrast with the cold nighttime. “I’m glad you’re here.” the two of you head inside to your living room where he empties his bag of take out to reveal a couple different thai dishes and egg rolls. It was hard to not admit you weren’t at least a little bit hungry.

The two of you ate in mostly silence, making small talk about different projects you two have going on, or the fact that the two of you were in between projects. He done with touring for the time being and in the process of working on a new album. You loosely avoiding talking about any current work plans but mentioned one or two paintings you finished for a private gallery commission last month.

“ Just some paintings of animals and nature-ish symbolism. Honestly my heart wasn’t really in that one, but it payed the rent so.” you shrug and shove noodles into your mouth.

“Well now you have the time to work on your own stuff, right?” he commented, leaning back into your couch and looking down at you sitting on the floor instead of any of your own furniture. “Draw whatever your heart desires.”

“I mean I guess.. Im just glad to be done with the oil paints for now. I swear i think I was gonna die in my studio from all the chemicals. I dunno, I finished that whole project last month, I haven’t really been very productive since then.” you trail off and Joost gets a concerned expression on his face.

He sinks down from his spot of the couch to join you in the floor. The fluffy rug brushing against his legs as he adjusts his new sitting position.

“Its okay to take a break, you know.”

“I know I know, I just get frustrated. I never seem to have my energy directed towards the right thing. Whenever I have all those big projects from other contractors, I can brainstorm and think of all these interesting ideas I wanna work on, but I can’t because then I would get behind on the art Im being paid to do.”

“mhm.” he nods, to indicate he’s following along.

“ And then whenever Im done with those projects, I just get… tired. and my focus is gone. and Everything just feels…” you gesture the last bit with your hands, scrambling your fingers, to imply your thoughts. You aren’t looking at him, but you can still see him nodding in your peripherals. Joost always seemed to understand your thinking and explanations to things, even if you thought they were messy.

“Do you want to try painting right now?” he asks. you just shrug your shoulders.

“I don’t know what I would paint.”

“You can paint our dinner, or, or yourself, or your plants maybe?” he suggested and stands up. “Can I paint too?”

“Oh we’re actually doing this?” Not that you didn’t want to, but this self doubt had creeped into your mind again. That failing to produce something decent would prove that you’ve lost all your talent, your skill.

“yea we can have a little painting party!” he chimed, but he hesitated walking over to your studio to grab stuff, still giving you the space to reject his idea.

you looked away and started nervously tapping your fork against the table.

tap tap tap tap

“…sure. We can use my watercolors, Ive been wanting to use them more often anyway.”

the coffee table became a little more cluttered as you set up the paints for the two of you. Joost using an old set 24 pans and you using a newer set of watercolor tubes you were gifted last year and never opened. You watched as Joost immediately dipped his brush in water and started activating the blue paints, spreading it onto his paper in big random strokes.

“what are you painting?”

“not sure yet, maybe im painting you.” he looks up and smirks. you scrunch your nose up.

“why are you using so much blue. am I a smurf?” you joke and he just shrugs and points to your own paper.

“Just mess around, can’t be any worse than what im doing.”

tap tap tap tap tap tap

you fidget with your own brush for a few seconds lo get before grabbing a big mop brush and wetting your paper with clean water. Taking your smaller brush again, you pour out a small amount of yellow and mix it up with some more water. You hesitate for a moment longer before letting the brush lightly touch the surface, creating a burst of colour on the paper as the colour seeps onto the page. You make a few more random marks before switching to another warm colour and repeating the process, now watching the colours bleeds and mix into each other. You look at Joost paper and see that he is actually now trying to paint you, the blue fortunately was able to be mostly contained to the background.

“Do you ever think about what you would do if you weren’t a musician?” you ask.

“I dunno I think after this I could have a pretty successful art career.” he teases but sees in your face the question is more serious. “I don’t know. I started off with youtube, but if I wasn’t doing that… its hard to think about what my life would be like if I didn’t follow this path.”

“I always have this feeling deep down, that I made a wrong choice somewhere along the line. I was thinking about going to school for psychology, I also wanted to work with animals at one point, be a vet. I enjoy art, don’t get me wrong, but I just worry that in making it my job Ive just drained all the passion I had for it.”

You let the paper dry before staining the page with lines of dark burgundy, creating hands and a human heart. he hums as he listens, not adding anything, but simply letting you vent. beginning to piece together your mood from earlier. “I don’t have any jobs lined up right now, which is what Ive been waiting for, to work on my own stuff, yknow? I haven’t had the time ive wanted to make something for myself for a while. But now I just feel, I feel like ive been frozen.”

“things seem to be okay right now. I like what youve made. ” you look down and see the scribbles youve made with your paint. hands clasped over a broken heart. you shrug and smile softly, signing the bottom.

“Just a scribble, you can have it if you want.” You hand the paper over to him. “thank you for coming by, its… its nice being around you. Helps a bit.”

Joost takes the paper and studies it for a second. “I really like it, maybe I should come by more often.”

“If you bring the food we can have art nights whenever you want.” he holds up his paper. The blue bleeding into your skintone and hair since he didn’t wait for anything to properly dry. “I might stick to my ipad though, I don’t know why you like this paint.” he scrunches his nose at it. you laugh and it makes him smile.

You notice for the first time how bright his eyes look when he smiles, but you brush the thought away.

-

“Feeling a bit better?” he asks as he lingers by the door on his way out.

“a bit. like I said It was just a mood, I was gonna be fine tomorrow most likely… I still appreciate you coming over.”

“Don’t ever be afraid to call or text okay? Im always here to talk if you need. or just to listen.”

“definitely. Ive been meaning to uh, talk to someone about all this stuff anyway, you’re not a professional but ill keep it in mind.”

he grins and goes in for one last hug. you feel him slightly squeeze you and linger a little longer than usual before letting go. With one last glance he waves and head off. You see him pull out a cigarette for the walk back. It takes you a second to close the door. standing there watching him walk off until he turns a corner and disappears. Closing the door you sigh and go the clean up your living room.

You notice he left the portrait he drew of you. signed at the bottom with a smiley face next to his name.

It gets hung up in your studio above your desk.

[lurkingshan]

A list of sins in the Wandee Goodday finale

Yak finally confessed that he is still having hallucinations when he steps into the ring—and Dee did NOT tell him to bow out of the fight.

Dee magically cured Yak’s years long trauma ringside and there were zero consequences for Yak lying and hiding his mental health struggles for the entire show.

Yak gave a big speech about Dee believing in him more than he believed in himself—which is not the actual story we got on our screens. Cool fanwank of your own show, though, I guess!

The show began with telling us that Yak could not be out with a man because of the effect of homophobia on his career, and now he’s doing love confessions in the ring and this is apparently fine. Add it to the list of GMMTV shows trying to have it both ways with the bubble.

They only gave us Kao’s love story via a retrospective exposition dump and an awkwardly shoehorned in asexuality PSA. They could have actually written him a plot and showed us these themes, but I guess that was too much to ask.

The money problems magically went away by Yak winning one fight, and there was no fallout for Yei hiding things from Cher.

Ter and Taem were paired up as expected—A POX ON YOUR HOUSES WRITING TEAM. Everyone who caught the signs that they intended to redeem Ter was correct; I have no idea why they chose to have him harass and assault Dee when this was their intention the entire time. Pairing him with a character who survived a different assault makes it so much worse. Just another sign of the poor judgment behind this show.

Yak’s graduation becomes a background detail handled with a two second appearance in a montage.

And instead we spend time on a very strange PSA telling us that old people have sex, too? How this is relevant to anything I could not tell you.

Continuing their bad dynamic from the entire story, Dee pretends he’s not going to thank Yak in his little beauty pageant speech (that he’s giving for receiving a professional scholarship, for some reason). Contra the writers of this show, I don’t actually think it’s funny that Yak feels so insecure and Dee is always fucking with him.

DEE SANG A GODDAMN SONG. WHY?!? This show has just gotten so embarrassing.

Dee finally asks Yak to be his “real” boyfriend, but it has no meaning because he already has been for weeks. And they already did the big public kiss moment in episode 11! It’s like they wanted the tension of not letting them get together until the end but were not willing to sacrifice the weekly ship moments so they tried to have it both ways. It just did not work. Tell a good story or make a branded pair content vehicle removed from story, you can’t do both.

They made Yei and Cher’s wedding kiss so weird by having Yak and Dee do it first whyyyyyyyyyyy

Welp! At least I got to see Oyei and Cher get married; I’ll be hanging onto that one.

This one goes down as the show that finally pushed me over the edge re: GMMTV and their tendency to start strong before completely losing the plot. I was primed to love this show and it thoroughly let me down. None of the threads they set up at the start were followed through and virtually nothing that happened in this story had real consequences or meaningfully mattered. What an absolute waste of a fantastic cast and a solid and fun premise. I will be skipping most GMMTV dramas going forward unless I hear they hold up all the way through.

[ordinaryschmuck]

What I Quickly Thought about What If...? Season Two

For those who don’t know, I’m one of the few people who actually enjoyed What If…? Season One for what it was. Did it take advantage of telling interesting tales with the MCU, giving us intense glimpses of these universes that showed us what COULD HAVE been? Not all the time. Was it still good dumb fun? To me it was. And that’s pretty much what What If…?, as a concept, was, even in the comics. Yeah, you got interesting stuff like “What if Spider-Man never became a crime fighter?” or “What if Daredevil was raised by The Kingpin?” but it also had stuff like “What if the Original Marvel Bullpen Became the Fantastic Four?” or “What if Sargent Fury Fought World War Two in Outer Space?” The comics were less about high-concepts and more about writers doing whatever the hell they wanted with the Marvel Universe and being able to have fun with it because, well, none of it was canon. The same applied to the MCU’s What If…?, as it was a chance for the writers to do a murder mystery with the Avengers or make T’Challa fix the universe as Star-Lord. They can kill characters, make dumb(er) jokes, and play around with the heroes and villains in the MCU like they were action figures. And I’m into that. Don’t get me wrong, I would love more episodes like “What if…Doctor Strange lost his heart instead of his hands?” or “What if…Ultron won?” as they DO have a lot of great moments and show off what these characters are capable of than what the movies/shows proved. But at the same time, I didn’t mind watching the big buff lady that is Captain Carter kill Nazis or watch Spider-Man and a band of heroes try to survive a zombie apocalypse. It’s a show where everyone is meant to just sit back, turn their brain off, and have some fun while occasionally getting something interesting. Again, just like the comics.

So when Season Two got announced, I was genuinely excited. I like Season One and I wanted more of it. Then when the trailer came out with an episode list, I thought, “Okay, this could be the show embracing comic book wackiness.” Now, not a lot of people were into that…In fact, the majority said that a lot of these concepts weren’t even interesting and were, instead, kind of lame. I don’t get it, maybe because I’m in the exact mindset the MCU wants me to have with this series, but I was still looking forward to Season Two. The question is, was it worth it? Well, let’s quickly go over each episode to find out.

Spoilers Ahead

What If…Nebula Joined the Nova Corps?: Ooooooooh, what a great start. Watching Nebula act as a cop/detective, but with her cold, deadpan badassery still intact was a ton of fun in this dark, gritty setting made for this new version of her. I loved watching this new version of Nebula make her way through a darkened Xandar, with her never straying from this oath and acting as it should be intended, all while teaming up with Howard the Duck of all characters. Like, I kind of enjoy seeing Howard turn out to be this sleazy casino owner who treats Nebula as a true friend despite them working on opposite ends of the law. The concept itself is funny and execution is endearing with Seth Green giving much needed charm to the character. It’s part of the fun of What If…?: Showing characters who couldn’t interact in the movies or didn’t have much screen time and allowing them another chance to shine…Unfortunately, that’s not always a good thing. Because while I love seeing a character like Howard make a surprisingly good comeback, watching Yon-Rog, one of the more boring MCU villains, show up and lack any intrigue or fun is just…no. And then there’s Nova Prime who decided to betray the entire Corp by taking down the force field…Something that was HER idea to do and, given the pull she had, could have done at any point. Why string Nebula along when Nova Prime could have just made the ruling herself that the force field needed to be taken down? A friend of mine tried explaining how it could make sense, but I don’t know. It doesn’t change this weird got while watching. But while flawed, it was pretty cool to see this new setting in the MCU, carried by Nebula as the Super Nova (Love that name, by the way. It’s perfect). The plot has a big ol’ hole, not every character return works, but it gave me a half-hour of fun so I’m not complaining (Get used to that thought process, by the way).

What If…Peter Quill Attacked Earth’s Mightiest Heroes?: And this one’s a little rough around the edges. It’s fun to see this alternate version of the Avengers form to fight a Peter Quill who has Ego’s powers, but it feels like the entire episode is on fast-forward, almost like this is what would happen if the first Avengers movie needed to be made thirty-minutes long. It’s sort of the downside of What If having a half-hour runtime, where it has to both tell a story and introduce us to this new universe in under thirty minutes. It’s the same with the comics that had less than thirty pages to do the exact same thing, only to feel longer because comic writers in the seventies and eighties don’t know how to shut the hell up. The end result is a story that’s fine ENOUGH, but it would have benefited with more time to slow down and let us appreciate this new team of old heroes. I mean, we have the original Captain Mar-Vel, T’Challa’s father, and even Goliath, which would have been AWESOME to see them play a big role. But instead, the episode focuses on Hank Pym, Bucky, and THOR, somehow, making these other heroes valued members but also a bit of an afterthought. Also, despite this being a different version of the Avengers, they somehow make MORE quips than the original team, with few of it feeling like it’s in character. It has the same problem as Age of Ultron where everyone is cracking jokes at every second as much as they can, and it HIGHLY depends on your willingness to stomach that kind of  thing if you’re willing to watch this episode. That and if you’re willing to forgive a character doing this STUPID AND RISKY thing that worked out for the better but doesn’t change how stupid and risky it is. Overall, this whole episode is a very interesting idea mixed with some very FLAWED execution that spoils the fun to be had.

What If…Happy Hogan Saved Christmas?: Now this? All kinds of fun to be had with this one. The return of Justin Hammer of all villains isn’t something I thought I needed, but I heavily enjoyed watching what’s basically the anti-Tony Stark show up and be his most despicably charming self. It was a blast to watch this scrawny little twink TRY and act intimidating as he dances all over the place. It makes him feel more and more like a cartoon villain, which is appropriate for yuletide fun. You don’t NEED a menacing presence for Christmas, you need a GOOF. And Hammer’s the goofiest with his lame catchphrases and very STUPID dancing, I couldn’t get enough of it. But the real star is Happy, who gets juiced up for an adaptation I NEVER would have expected from the MCU. The Freak is one of the sides to Happy that not many fans would know about unless they’ve immersed themselves with Iron Man lore (Or read a shit load of comics for the past two years like me), but it really is cool to see that side of him brought to life. The way Happy looks and moves like more of a manic Hulk on crack does great at setting him apart from the Jolly Green Monster we know and love, but also makes The Freak feel more unique from how he was in the comics. It was a blast of a holiday special with the only downside is that Darcy’s OCCASIONALLY annoying. Not much other than that, though, as this is the best Christmas present I could ask from Marvel.

What If…Iron Man Crashed Into the Grandmaster?: Fun fact, this was originally meant to be in Season One but was cut due to time constraints. Yeah, remember how weird it was that the Watcher plucked a version of Gamora we didn’t know? Well, now we finally know…through a story that’s primarily about Tony Stark that makes me wonder why the hell The Watcher didn’t take him.

But facts and jokes aside, I loved the shit out of this episode. There are probably going to be some cynics out there saying that the cars and the race is an excuse to sell toys or LEGO sets or some shit, but I don’t care because everything about it was AWESOME!. Not to mention that it lit up a special place in my heart and brain to watch Tony Stark be a hero again, not hesitating to save lives, putting everything on the line, and helping bring Gamora into the light, all while still being his snarky, Starky self. And huge props to Mick Wingert voicing him, who doesn’t sound like Robert Downy Jr at ALL, but still nails the energy and mannerisms. I can picture RDJ saying all of these lines and it helps make this feel like one last Iron Man story for the fans. Seeing the Grandmaster again was ALSO a plus, as he was his same goofy-self. As for the real hook of this episode, Gamora, she’s…fine. I don’t love that it’s Tony that helped her redemption arc since I always preferred how turning against Thanos was something Gamora decided for herself instead of this thing that someone brought out. It’s not a BAD idea, but it’s something that might have worked better with NEBULA, a character that could actually USE convincing, instead of Gamora, a character who would likely go to Stark to help kill Thanos. Still, I don’t HATE it, nor do I hate the episode. It was an adrenaline thrill-ride that gave us a return of Tony where he DOESN’T die in the end. I couldn’t have asked for more if I heard this episode’s title, and I’m glad it’s what we’ve got.

What If…Captain Carter Fought the Hydra Stomper?: I…KIND OF understand the reception towards Captain Carter. I don’t get why Marvel keeps pushing her more than their actual Captain America replacement, Sam Wilson. I mean, Captain Carter showed up in three projects (two seasons of television and a movie), where Sam made his official appearance as Captain America once…and hasn’t even cameoed in any other movie or show. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like the big buff lady and it’s awesome seeing her fight the giant robot. It’s cool, I love it. I also heavily enjoyed this episode, getting into the drama, action, and seeing Peggy make a surprisingly believable friendship with Black Widow. Heck, I’d go so far as to say that this is a better Black Widow story than her actual movie gave us. So I like it, I like seeing Captain Carter and some of her adventures. I especially like that this story isn’t a direct rehash of Winter Soldier like how the first episode is a rehash of First Avenger. The writers actually set out to make something more unique and it makes me like Captain Carter a little more. I just wish we could get that same love and appreciation towards Sam Wilson, whose movie got pushed back to 2025 and will count as the only time this character has been relevant since his mini-series. If this is our new leader of the Avengers and the man who will fight to save the multiverse, we’re probably going to need more than one appearance from the guy. I don’t think people would complain about more Captain Carter if Sam Wilson’s Captain America wasn’t so blatantly shoved too far to the side.

What If…Kahhori Reshaped the World?: One of the few rare times the MCU made an ORIGINAL superhero. There is no previous comic, movie, or show that Kahhori is based on. She’s a completely original character made up for this franchise, much like Miles Morales in the Ultimate universe or X-23 in X-Men Evolution (Check that show out, by the way. It’s pretty damn good). And just like those two, I REALLY hope Kahhori manages to become such a hit with audiences that she spawns more content, because Kahhori and her world is something I would love to revisit. Her personality is fun, her motivation is inspiring, and her powers are unique enough to make her stand out more to the other heroes in the MCU. As for her story, it’s your bare-bones origin story. The whole episode is about explaining her powers, the world she lives in, and the people she loves and fights for. It does all this while proving her heroics through fighting a supervillain set out to do some damage. Only, instead of some generic supervillain that matches her powers it’s this Spanish Conquistador who…honestly still looks like a supervillain, which is kind of funny. And it works for Kahhori, proving that while she’s currently the most powerful person in the world, she’s willing to fight against oppression and the monarchy, advocating for peace instead of a continuous war for who gains the most control. Like I said, that’s inspiring and it’s why I want to see more of this character and how far she can go when fighting bigger, more evil threats than the Queen of Spain. Whether it’s a spin-off TV show/movie, a comic mini-series, or even introducing Kahhori into the 616 comics (somehow), I wouldn’t mind seeing this new, wonderful hero more in the future.

What If…Hela Found the Ten Rings?: I…did not expect to like this one as much as I did. I wasn’t the BIGGEST fan of Hela, because aside from seeing her actress having a blast to go full ham, there wasn’t much to her. Yeah, she was this conqueror alongside Odin, which is an interesting backstory for HIM, but for Hela, it’s not enough. Instead of telling me WHO she is, Thor: Ragnarok kept telling me WHAT she was. Then here comes an episode of What If…? that not only gives me that answer, but a lot more. Sure, the first half is a bit wonky, but when we get to the second, we finally get an idea of who Hela is. Simply put, Hela doesn’t know who she is beyond a conqueror, and that’s because Odin never trained nor raised her to be anything more. This episode forces Hela to face that and discover answers she never knew she was seeking, having a surprisingly decent redemption, becoming a goddess of life instead of death. I…love that. I love that WAY MORE than I could have expected to love it. It makes me appreciate Hela a lot more and maybe see that there’s a tragedy to her in Thor: Ragnarok. Hela could have changed for the better if she met someone that could bring her good side out, but because she was banished into isolation by Odin, it caused Hela to be both spiteful and vengeful, making her refuse any alternative beyond being a conqueror or a goddess of death, with her final acts of life being someone who destroyed her home because destruction was all she knew. This episode has a better, more unique story to tell than Hela and Wenwu fighting over the Ten Rings to see who can cause more destruction. Speaking of, if there’s one thing to complain about the episode, it’s how underutilized Wenwu is to the story. He’s actually one of MY favorite MCU villains and it feels weird that he’s just…kind of there? Most of the meat to the story goes to Hela, and I do appreciate it, but Wenwu could have done more than wanting to bone Hela or assisting her in fighting Odin. But aside from that, I’d still say that this is a fantastic episode that surpassed my expectations.

What If…The Avengers Assembled in 1602?: Of all the episodes, this is the one I was looking forward to the most. I’m a sucker for seeing characters in a different setting. They’re very much the same in terms of personality but their differences vary from positions in life or the skills they’re capable of. It’s no different here, as so much of this feels like a period piece fanfic where the writers seemed to have so much fun making the Avengers be in 1602. And I don’t give a shit if people hate her, I LOVE that Captain Carter refuses to leave this world until she saves it from complete collapse. It would have been the same if it was Steve Rogers, I get that, but how do you expect me to hate a hero who’s willing to fight with her last breath to save the world? Those are my favorite kind of superheroes! You want me to give up what I love most about superheroes just because you don’t like that the big buff lady fights King Thor and his vibranium thunder sword? F**k you.

Also, this comes with the added benefit of watching big buff Steve and big buff Peggy constantly being on the VERGE of wanting to rip their clothes off and f**k each other whenever they’re on screen together. And, honestly, I can't blame them. They’re both gorgeous. LET THEM F**K!

Overall, I had fun, even if there are problems. Sure, the reveal that Steve is indirectly the cause of this universe’s collapse is way too predictable, no thanks in large part to the trailers SPOILING IT! And it’s pretty weird that Scott can still shrink and grow. Like…How can he do that in this setting? Also, this universe has a merry band of misfits that’s similar to Robin Hood, and there’s not even a SINGLE Hawkeye in it? Not even Kate Bishop? COME ON NOW! Come on now…

But, yeah, this episode is the perfect epitome of what makes What If…? enjoyable to me. It can offer you a fun concept of having the Avengers be in 1602 and just ask you to sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. Not everyone’s going to be into that, but I am and I could take ten more seasons of this if I could.

What If…Strange Supreme Intervened?: You want me to hate the big buff lady and new MCU character Kahhori fighting Strange Supreme and a whole gaggle of universe killers just because *checks notes* Captain Carter is a Mary Sue? F**k you. I don’t care if you feel like Captain Carter is forced upon you, she punched a demonic Doctor Strange in the face with the power of INFINITY. That is awesome no matter WHO the character is and if you can’t appreciate it, then I guess this show really isn’t for you. As for the finale, the whole thing is awesome as this big fireworks show to close out the season, added with Strange Supreme going back to the dark side for the sake of reviving his universe. I’ll admit that Strange Supreme had a bit of a forced redemption last season, so it is great for this finale to prove that he is, in fact, still twisted inside while allowing him to earn a more true redemption in making up for his actions. It makes his tragedy STILL feel like a tragedy, giving everyone but him a happy ending. And, again, he got punched in the face with the power of infinity. F**k all you haters, this show’s great.

Season Two is a definite improvement to Season One. Sure, the pacing is wonky, the jokes are trying too hard, and animation can look gorgeous at times but ugly at others. But the writing’s stronger, the concepts are bigger, the fun’s funner, and I got to see a woman punch a demon in the face with the power of infinity–I keep bringing that up because it is so damn awesome. And it’s the same with this show! It just fuels that part of my brain that wants to see cool, comic book shit happening. It’s not for everyone, I know that. It’s neither good nor bad, it’s just…subjectively fun. It’ll either light up your world or leave you wanting more substance than dumb fun. I enjoyed the hell out of this season, but others won’t for their own reasons (some of them being that they just hate Captain Carter). They can feel that way all they want. Still won’t change how I enjoyed the hell out of this season and look forward to more.

[dilatorywriting]

Reaper!Rook brainrot anon here - I'm back for a little extra >0<

(edit, as I polish this off: I think this turned out longer than the original agddjdkk I'm sorry ;v; I don't really have any fic intention behind any of this. Just pure, unfiltered brainrot that I wanted to share)

One of the things that keeps sticking in my head is how Reaper!Rook (a literal death entity/incarnation) helps you do domestic things, because he thinks it's charming and fun. But Rook is very very not normal and the dissonance it creates is something to behold.

Like for example, Rook knows, down to the approximate 10g how much flour you have left. He's also just generally memorized the exact contents of your pantry even though he's only been in there on a handful of occasions, and for a couple minutes at a time, at that. And once you explain certain recipes to him, he's able to calculate how much more you need of a certain ingredient at what seems to be a moments notice. The villagers (Ace, in particular) find this deeply unsettling, but you fail to see the problem, really. If Rook can remember your entire pantry, then that means you just have to bring him with you when you go to the market, and no longer have to keep track of a grocery list. Where is the downside, Ace? Where is it??

The villagers are watching this, watching Rook, walk behind you, with a 20 kg flour bag on one shoulder, as you smile and chat away together, with a sort of horrified fascination. This Rook and the Rook that brings dead bodies to their doorsteps at 3am does not quite compute. Until they stare a little too long and oop now Rook's looking them right in the eye and there's that supernatural, bone rattling chill deep in their spine and scenes from their life are flashing before their eyes and okay it's time to look away now-

Rook also lives with you now. From the moment you decided to "lie" to your family and Duchess Rosehearts about marrying him, Rook moved in. He was there, actually, when you read the 'proposal' letter, and when he'd asked you what you intended to do about it, it's a pity you didn't look over at him when you'd replied "I suppose I'll just tell them I'm marrying you. " If you had, you'd have seen a moment of genuine, near innocent, surprise flit over his face. It was gone the next moment, and as you'd watched your response letter disappear in a puff of magic smoke, he'd started one of his long soliloquies about the beauty of human nature and how he supposes this means he gets to study it up close now, since he should move in with you if this was to be made believable. And honestly, you couldn't really find it in you to argue with him. You did just rope him into this without really asking him and besides, it's not like you minded Rook's company.

The only thing that does take a little getting used to, is that you now apparently also sell murder at your little bakery. Rook had never had an address before, at least not one that anyone knew. He just showed up when it suited him. But now? Now that word got around that he was here (with you, his fiance, rumor had it) you occasionally got the odd, shuffling merchant who wandered in, eyes darting all over the place, with a single letter for Rook gripped in their fist. Fortunately, none of this seems to bring you any trouble. Either directly or indirectly because of Rook. No-one is going to bother your bakery; either because they dont dare to or because Rook makes it so they literally can't.

Someone from the Rosehearts family does, eventually, come down to your little bakery to ah, verify, your claim. It's Riddle, because of course Duchess Rosehearts wouldn't do something like this herself. Riddle is the more interested in your strawberry tarts than, literally anything else in the vicinity, but when he sees Rook pop out of the backroom you're immediately privy to the way his eyes widen and his face goes pale. The face of one of his servants, Cater, is the more entertaining spectacle, however, and you can't quite explain why you feel so satisfied viewing it. You send them home with tarts, nearly smirking to yourself.

There's serveral people, actually, who try to get you alone and explain that this marriage business may not be the best idea. It's amusing how they walk around saying Rook's name, and even more amusing that these are also the exact same people who'd consistently comment on your lacking marriage status before all of this. Each new person just further convinces you that you should absolutely definitely marry Rook, actually. You'd never really asked Rook to elaborate on if he had any Reaper friends (he'd just winked at you, when you'd asked if there were more like him, once), but you really hope he does so that you can invite them all to the wedding and have them sit next to these people, and you'd get to watch them all squirm in their seats. You don't really dwell on it too long though, because the thought of actually going through with it, the thought of marrying Rook, makes your heart race. You're not sure why - maybe constantly pushing down your feelings ever since you were little really was bad for you after all.

(And yeah! I don't really have anything else beyond... all of this. Just, a largely unbothered, apathetic, MC who ends up going full protective-partner-mode over Reaper!Rook, who scares everyone, but is also very charmingly odd and endering. And just. Rook.)

Holy hell in a hand basket this is so beyond glorious it’s melted my brain to goo. And aaaah of course I’m curled up in bed rn with such bad brain fog from cold meds that I can hardly write out my name legibly, let alone a story. But this is so, so amazing I want to eat it. I want to write an ethereal, reaper, Rook and I’m going to be thinking about this for days oh my goodness. I want to write all this so bad aaaaahhhhqlfbwofbeb maybe after a nap I’ll be a bit more coherent and can attempt because this is AMAZING and deserves Full Focus Brain

[fangbangerghoul]

It's *drum rolls* WIP WEDNESDAY! (I made a new banner that is Ghoul-coded...because it is Ghoul)

Where I dig out things to share that are a 'work in progress' and it has to be on a Wednesday because I was told I would be exiled if I tried this on a Friday.

I also include small updates like the fact that I got a 92 on my research paper! (which I would have cried if I got under a 90 because I gave her more than what the professor asked for and THEN SOME) Another update is I only have a week and a half left of my spring semester!

I have several WIPS in the works. Now that I don't have to constantly write academic papers for class, I actually want to write for myself. Also! My 100 Follower Celebration prompts really have helped me get back into the groove. I am doing them until tomorrow so please feel free to submit a prompt in my ask box to get a snippet in return!

My current list of WIPS: (doc names not work titles)

Great Fireballs of Faerun

Bog Witch Trials

Delghoul

GhoulxHalsinxAstarion

Thorny Feelings

Cup Runneth Over

AND NOW

to the fun part! The current snippet of wip is under the cut! (it's a continuation of the last snippet sunday)

The hissing river helped drown out some of her worries along with the symphony of sounds of the creatures that roamed the forest. It was like its own pocket of time, maybe its own dimension. She was used to the smells of leaves, mud, and pollen that floated around and it felt like home to her. Ghoul was so entranced by nature in front of her she did not notice with her vampire spawn companion sat beside her. He moved so silently that when she did notice she felt her body go on guard, ready for a battle. It took a lot of focus within her to calm her pulse and her body’s knee jerk reaction to fight.

“I didn’t come to bite, unless that’s what you want.” Astarion said with a toothy grin and his smooth voice rung with a coyness that was almost luring. His red eyes examined her with curiosity as if he was waiting for a particular reaction when she did not give it, he looked ahead to the forest across the stream.

“What did you want?” She said pointedly. Ghoul was not trying to be rude but she could tell on his face that question was not said as smoothly as she intended.

“I am just trying to enjoy the companion of my favorite companion and maybe bask in,” He paused for a moment clearly looking for the right word within his mind, “the beautiful nature.”

Ghoul gave a light huff of a laugh she was not born yesterday even if compared to the longevity of life Astarion lived made it feel that way.

“Sounds like Halsin is rubbing off on you, perhaps that’s a good thing.” She gave him a subtle smirk to tease him a bit more.

“There are others ways I’d like him to rub off on me.” His voice was low and Ghoul noticed the excitement in his eyes from the thought. She rolled her eyes at him and waved her hand to signal a whatever. “What? I know I am not the only one whose eyes catch the giant elf. Don’t act so prudish now.”

“I didn’t object, did I?”

“Not with your words, no.” Astarion was now sitting beside Ghoul on the sandy bank with her. She had slowly dipped her bare feet into the cool water and it stung at first before slowly relaxing her muscles. He had followed suit though it was clear he was not enjoying the cool water as much as her.

“Tell me,” She begun as she leaned back onto the palms of her hands to get a better look at the stars. “What are you going to do after all of this is over?”

“My, my, what a question, dear.” His index finger rested on his lip as he pondered Ghoul’s question. The silence from it was starting to make it feel like he would never answer but she remained patient.

“Live freely, revel in debauchery, continue my existence for as long as I can.” He finally answered not looking directly at her. His eyes seemed wistful, yearning perhaps. Ghoul nodded softly taking in his answer. It sounded honest enough for him and she was not going to claim he was lying to her outright. She never knew where she stood with the vampire so on occasion when he seemed to bare himself to her, she was cautious of what he was telling her. She was no saint by any means and she also never spoke the full truth. There were just some things better left in the past of unsaid.

“You?” He leaned in a little closer now, his eyes fixed on her neck and she had a feeling she knew what he was thinking.

“Assuming I don’t die.” She started bluntly and there was a spilt second where a flash of concern or maybe fear appeared on Astarion’s face but she continued. “Perhaps if enough gold were to be made on this journey I can attempt to live in the city, properly this time.”

“Properly?” His eyebrow raised at her statement and she could hear in his voice that he was both dumbfounded and skeptical of what she was saying.

“Not living on the streets again.” She answered to alleviate some of the confusion. “Maybe I’ll just travel as a sword for hire.”

“Isn’t that what you are basically doing now?” Astarion sounded unamused by her answer and a tad disappointed, which now had her raising an eyebrow.

“I suppose.” She leaned up to straighten her back in hopes it would help her think better but in a quick movement she felt Astarion’s arm pull her closer.

“Don’t you ever dream of bigger things?” His voice was smooth, and his eyes pierced hers. Astarion's free hand lightly traced the line of her jaw and for a moment he looked enamored.

“Bigger things than Halsin?” She asked with a devilish smile. Ghoul knew what he was really asking but she was not ready to admit to herself or to him that she never thinks too far ahead. There were always consequences when she did. He snorted at her after she killed the moment and released her from his grasp. She gave him a look that was not necessarily disapproving but perhaps mixed with a disappointment. Ghoul realized she had enjoyed the close contact, but her pride would not allow her to give in to reach for more.

Tagging: @bearlytolerant @ellstersmash @staticpallour @spookyspecterino @lisa-and-shadow @therealgchu @the-californicationist

[ilovecupcakesandtea]

My master list

Title: Lets bring this idiot home

Word Count: 12173

Archive Warnings: Temporary character death

Rating: M

Pairing(s): Eddie Munson/Steve Harrington Robin Buckley/OC

Character(s): Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley, The Party

Tags: Steddie, Steve Harrington. Eddie Munson. Robin Buckley. . Temporary Major Character Death

Beta Reader: Thank you so much to my awesome beta reader/cheerleader @slippy-slip I really could not have done this without you at all.

Art link and credit: Art is by the amazing @kokoshka67 as is the banner

Ao3 Link

AN: Working on this has been an absolute blast.

I wrote this for the @strangerthingsreversebigbang event and had a lot of fun doing so!!

Divider links: reblog and bats

Cold, that’s the first thing that Eddie felt when he woke up. Maybe felt wasn’t the right word, more experienced. He didn’t think he could actually feel anything. He was sure he should be feeling something. He should feel pain, he distinctly remembers being eaten alive by demobats making sure Henderson could get out of this hell pit and to help keep Steve, Robin and Nancy safe. 

He must be dead, that’s the only conclusion he could come to. Dead. Not even 20 yet and he was here, dead, in hell. People always did say he’d end up in hell.

“Jesus H Christ,” he said, sitting up and looking around. The place looked totally different now there was no lightning in the sky or thunder to be heard. The only thing that remained the same was the red sky and the ground under him. 

It was at this point he noticed that he was surrounded by bats, bats that he was sure had just been eating him, taking chunks out of his sides, arms and legs. But now they were just sitting there, looking at him. Watching him, rather unnerving really if you asked Eddie, almost as though they were waiting for him to do something, anything.

“Looks like everyone got out then,” he said out loud, for no reason other than to break the silence. He never did well with silence. 

“What the fuck,” he screamed as the bats all nodded back at him, as though they were actually replying to what he had said.

He scrambled to his feet as quickly as he could and moved off towards the trailer where the gate was. Reaching for the door with more force than he intended, he fell right through and landed back on the ground face first. 

“Christ,” Eddie exclaimed, sitting back up headfirst in the living room. 

So definitely dead, a ghost by the looks of it. First thing he had to work out was a way of interacting with the world around him, surely it was possible to do? It had to be, right?  

He took a second before standing up again to look around inside the trailer. It looked like the gate had closed. 

“Well fuck, guess I'm stuck here a ghost then,” Eddie sighed. 

Turning around he saw the bats had followed him. They were less scary when he looked at them now that they weren’t trying to eat him. 

“Well come on then, if you’re following me let's go and see what’s out there,” Eddie spoke to the bats. He was losing it already, talking to the damn bats.

Eddie started to float off in a random direction when the bats stopped in front of him, stopping him in his tracks. He started in another direction and they moved in front again. A third try had him stopped again. 

“Alright, alright you want me to go somewhere?” Eddie asked the bats flying in front of him, getting chirps in response. 

“Well I guess I’ve got nothing better to do, lead the way,” he gestured widely. 

The bats flew off slowly and looked back to make sure Eddie was following, giving what sounded like happy little chirps when he was. 

Eddie floated behind the bats all the way through Hawkins, through the woods and out the otherside where Riffer Rick’s could be seen.

Entering the house he was filled with emotions, all of the fear and the hopelessness that he felt the last time he was there all came back to him. Only hours beforehand he was in this place laying low because he was wanted for murder after watching the death of Chrissy Cunningham. 

The bats lead him further into the house and into Rick's bedroom, the last bed he lay on. On the bed lay his body, his mangled body with a torn shirt and missing flesh. 

“You really did a number on me huh?” Eddie laughed a humourless laugh. The bats gave off sad chirps in response. “Yeah I know, you had no choice, he made you. Thank you for making sure I rested comfortably though.” 

Eddie looked close at his body. He wondered if he could get his ghost back in there. Would there be a point if he did? His body has no heartbeat he was clinically dead, and even if he wasn't there didn't seem to be any way of keeping a human body alive down here long term.

As he was walking Eddie kept trying to touch different things, concentrating really hard on doing so. Wondering if the type of thing he was trying to touch made a difference or if him having any kind of connection to it helped. Everything so far had been a no. Everytime he touched something his hand went straight through it. His feet didn’t physically touch the floor and his whole body felt light. 

He wasn’t sure where to head for a while. Just wandering around Lovers Lake, seeing if there was anything that could help him at all. Nothing seemed out of place. With a heavy sigh Edidie headed into the town centre and ultimately towards Hawkins High. 

Walking across the football field Eddie headed towards the clearing that once held the picnic table he used as a meeting point for his drug deals. A place that he spent many hours sitting in, reading, drawing or listening to music. 

As he entered the clearing he noticed he wasn’t alone. Hovering by the picnic table was Chrissy. 

“Chrissy?” Eddie whispered, he hardly dared to believe he wasn’t alone in this hell. 

“Eddie?” She replied, moving towards him quickly. “Why are you here?!” 

“I died, apparently,” Eddie shrugged. “How long have you been here for?” 

“It’s hard to say, I’ve been kinda floating around the place, seeing what else and who else I can find,” she replied smiling

“Chris I need you to know I had nothing to do with your death, I tried to help. I am so sorry I left you. I’m so sorry that I couldn’t help you. Everyone misses you, they all love you so much. Jason led the whole town against me to avenge you. I promise if I could have done anything differently I would have,” Eddie cried. 

“Eddie, I know,” Chrissy whispered, placing her hand close to his face. “There was nothing you could have done, please know that.”

“But I ran away and left you there,” Eddie whispered.

“You watched me float to the ceiling and my bones snap, what could you have done?” Chrissy asked. 

“Nothing I guess,” he spoke softly in reply. “See, you did the right thing, you could have been next for all you know,” she smiled reassuringly at him. 

“Why are you here?” Eddie asked, gesturing around to the clearing. 

“This is the last place I remember thinking everything could still be ok. Like I had someone that was on my side and that I wasn’t completely losing my mind,” Chrissy replied simply. 

“Even though you saw something whilst you were here, you still felt safe?” Eddie questioned. 

“Yeah, you looked at me like you might actually believe me if I was to tell you what I’d been going through. You tried to make me laugh. Right until the end I felt safe with you Eddie,” she stated.

“I really really wish I could have saved you,” Eddie huffed, anger clear in his voice. 

They spent a while floating around the clearing and chatting, finding out more about each other. She told him about all the secrets of the basketball and cheerleading teams as they both giggled away. Eddie told her all about Hellfire and the campaign he had finished the evening he took her back to the trailer.  Chrissy told him about her family, her shitty mum and dad but also about her wonderful auntie and grandma who stood up to her mum whenever they could. Eddie told her about his own parents who skipped out on him for different reasons but also about Wayne who had taken him in and was better than a lot of dads he knew despite never wanting children of his own. 

The conversation changed to the upside down. Eddie asked Chrissy about what she could and couldn’t do down here and if she’d seen anyone else. 

“Yes actually I have, Barb Holland is around somewhere, the same with Fred and Patrick, I’ve seen them both as well. I’ve had a few good chats with Barb, she’s lovely, she was really helpful when I first ended up here. I can’t really interact with anything, my body seems to just go through it,” she replied. 

After saying their goodbyes and promising to see each other again very soon, Eddie decided to continue with his trip around Hawkins. Floating around the parts of the hospital he could, around the police station and around the arcade as well as everywhere else he could get into.

A while later, time had no concept anymore, neither light nor dark to tell night from day, no working clocks, probably for the best after Vecna, Eddie found himself back in Hawkins itself, followed by the bats who hadn’t seemed to want to leave him alone since he woke up. There was no one around at all, no cars even. Hell he wasn't really sure where he was heading, no real destination in mind. 

As Eddie floated through the centre of town he found the record store, as it looked in 1983, he walked through the door without opening it and started to look around. 

He saw posters advertising the newest Iron Maiden album at the time. The tour that Metallica were embarking on in the January of 1984. Suddenly it hit him. Surrounded by this ‘old’ music it showed him what he would be missing out on, what he would never have again. New music. He couldn't even touch things physically  so he didn't even have old music to listen to. He’d never play his sweetheart again. Never listen to the Master Of Puppets album again. The tickets for the Ozzy and Metallica show that Wayne had worked really hard to surprise Eddie with, wouldn't be used by him. Then there was the overwhelming emotional pain of missing Wayne. Did Wayne think he killed all those people? Wayne,  Eddie realised, would have come home from this shift, fully expecting to head to bed and then to go to sleep, to find the dead mutilated body of Chrissy Cunningham on the floor and Eddie gone. He couldn’t even remember what his last words to Wayne were.  

Eddie sat on the floor and screamed. Screamed for Chrissy, for Wayne, for Dustin, for Max. He beat his fists on the counter in front of him and was hit by the realisation that he was physically making contact with it, he was making noise against the front. It came as such a shock that he stopped screaming immediately, and then his hands fell right through again and back to his knee.

“Huh, that's an interesting development,” Eddie spoke. “Bet Henderson would be able to tell me what happened, I should probably go and find the little shit.” 

He headed in the direction of the Hendersons. Seeing Hawkins back in 1983 was really weird, not the weirdest thing to have ever happened to him but certainly up there. Eddie walked past shops that had long since closed down, or had moved locations. Places he had never been able to shop in he could now just walk into without the dirty looks.   

Eddie found the Henderson house, floated through the front door and saw straight away that this wasn’t the Henderson house. Someone else was very clearly living here at this point in time. Fuck.

As he floated away from the house, he had no idea where to go next. He wasn't sure how to contact the other side of the gate and he wouldn’t be able to touch anything if he could find it anyway. 

“Dustin saw me die didn’t he?” Eddie wondered out loud.

Once again the bats seemed to nod in response. That would always be weird. 

“So everyone else must think I’m dead?” He asked. 

Another nod.

“So they won't be coming back for me,” he whispered. 

He wasn’t quite sure how he knew this to be true but he was almost certain that if everyone was going to be anywhere, recovering from what they had gone through it was the Harrington Mansion. Luckily he knew they way, the parties back in the day had been very lucrative for his little side business. 

It took what felt like ages to float there. But finally, in front of him was the infamous Harrington Mansion, just as big as he remembered and with Steve's BMW sitting outside of it as well. Walking across the lawn and to the front door Eddie walked right through and into the entrance way. 

Eddie moved around the house slowly, trying to listen out for any sign of anyone on the other side of the vale. He tried shouting out for Henderson, for Steve, for Robin, for Nancy, for anyone. He tried moving things off the side but his hand just went through the items. It was then that he heard it, very faintly, but it was definitely there. Master of Puppets playing out to him from the other side. Now he was determined to make contact. 

“I’m alive!” He screamed, “Come back for me!” 

“Please,” he whispered. “Please find me” 

He finally remembered the one thing that he’d been told was always a sign of the Upside Down, lights. The kids, and older teens, had freaked out whenever any lights flickered. 

Eddie concentrated on the music he could faintly hear still and put his hand on the light switch, going through slightly but clearly making the lights in the hallway flicker. 

“What the fuck,” he heard.

It had been a very, very long 72 hours since they got out of the upside down and to the hospital. Various amounts of medical care were needed for everyone and aside from Max, Steve was kept the longest. His wounds had to be bandaged a couple of times before they would let him leave, the staff wanted him to stay for longer but suddenly being down staff members and up patient numbers meant they didn’t argue too much when Steve said he wanted to leave. Getting home was a blessing, Steve didn’t normally like the silence but a few minutes alone was needed. The dirty clothes in his bag needed to go straight into the washer so that's where he headed first. As he walked past the living room Steve caught the sight of the tape player they had all sat around before everything making mix tapes for everyone, just in case. He felt compelled to walk towards it, maybe to tidy it all up first. Sitting by the player he gathered everything together and made sure all the tapes were in the right cases. 

The last one, still sitting in the player, was Master of Puppets. Eddie had insisted on listening to it over and over again to make sure he knew it before going back into the Upside Down. 

Eddie, who was determined to graduate. Eddie who had been so full of life even at the end, wanting to be strong for Dustin. Eddie with his big brown doe eyes and his even bigger personality. Eddie, who even in the short few days Steve had really known him, had shown him a glimpse of a future. A future snuffed out with Eddie’s last breath. His first ‘round’ with the upside down and he ends up dead. Steve should never have forced Eddie and Dustin to be decoys, he should have sent them both home before they went to kill Vecna, they should have had another plan. Eddie should not have died in that horrid place. A victim like Chrissy, Patrick and Fred.

Turning the volume up on the player as loud as it could go he pressed play and let the music engulf him. He stood up and went about what he set out to do, putting his clothes in the washer. Everything was in, bar the vest. Steve stood holding the vest, just standing there looking at it. Leaving it on top of the washer Steve turned around to go about getting clean himself and then going to sleep when he saw it. The lights were flickering. He could hear that the song was coming to an end and the lights were flickering. 

“What the fuck,” he said outloud. 

This couldn’t be, the Upside own was finished. Vecna was dead and the gates all closed. Then he noticed it, the pattern, the lights were making 3 quick flickers 3 longer flashes and 3 quick flickers again. S.O.S. Could Eddie really be alive? 

The relief washed over him. If Eddie was communicating with him then he must be alive in some way. He needed to work out what to do, he couldn’t yet get everyone else involved, they were enjoying being at home with their families. No, he’d do this himself until he had to get everyone else involved with whatever rescue mission was needed. With the idea of a shower and sleep behind him now Steve grabbed a notebook and a pen and sat down at the kitchen table to write down everything he knew about the Upside Down, gates and anything else supernatural. 

It wasn’t until he heard the front door open that he looked up and noticed it was now dark outside. 

“Robbie?” Steve said into the darkness, closing the book and pushing it away from him.

“Yeah it’s me dingus, you ok? Sitting in the dark all by yourself,” Robin asked, concern obvious in her voice. 

“Yeah, I’m ok, I was just sitting here and didn’t even realise it had gone dark. What are you doing here anyway? Why aren't you with your parents?” He questioned, trying to change the subject.

“Wanted to make sure you’re ok, your parents aren’t here and I didnt want you to be on your own,” she replied, coming over and giving him a hug, “What's this?” Robin questioned poking at the notebook.

“It’s nothing,” Steve whispered, he needed her to leave this alone for now. 

“Steve, I’m not going to push, just know I'm here for you,” Robin said. 

“Thank you,” He replied. “Anyway don’t you have a date tonight?” 

“I called J and rescheduled, explained about the earthquake and everything and how I needed to help clean up and just needed to be with the family tonight,” Robin shrugged. “Want to watch a movie and judge everyone before we fall asleep on the couch and get really uncomfortable?” 

“I couldn’t think of a better way of spending the evening, shall we make some food first?” He suggested.

20 minutes later they were both sat down with Top Gun on and huge bowls of pasta.

“Kelly McGillis is so hot,” Robin sighed. 

“Not as hot as Tom Cruise,” Steve replied.

They couldn’t hear him or see him and he couldn’t see them or hear them any more but Eddie was in the room with them humming along to Master of Puppets hoping that someone had got his message earlier and that they were coming to save him.

The pair spent the rest of the evening watching films and judging everyone in them. However Steve couldn't shrug off the feeling he should tell Robin, at least she would probably know what to do. He was so grateful for her turning up to make sure he was ok though, he didn't have the heart to ruin it. He'd show her everything in the morning. 

Later that night they crawled into bed together and as per their custom Robin was the big spoon. She was tiny but they both felt better sleeping this way. They fell into a restless slumber, too exhausted to be kept awake by the horrors that they had seen but not settled enough for it to be restful. 

The next morning they woke up and made breakfast. Over an unusually quiet breakfast for the pair, Steve thought about what was written in his notebook. Having slept he felt better about letting Robin know what he had seen. Once toast had been eaten and coffee drank, Steve pushed the notebook towards Robin and stood up to do the dishes. "Steve, why does this page have Eddie's alive with a question mark at the top. And why is this followed by everything we know about the upside down and supernatural things in general?" Robin whispered. "The lights flickered," he answered simply. "Just like the S.O.S that Eddie told us about." 

"He was dead though babes, we all checked for any sign of a pulse, all over this body. There wasn't one," Robin countered. 

"Look, I know that, ok. I know the gate is closed and I know we all checked for a pulse and it wasn't there, but the lights flickered and it was S.O.S," he replied, pinching his nose to stop himself crying. 

"Okay, do we need to get everyone else involved?" Robin asked, believing him.

"Maybe later. Can we just have a think if there's anything I've forgotten before we let them know? They're all still just kids and they're with their families right now," he suggested.

"Of course we can," Robin smiled, cuddling into him from behind.

"I really hope he's alive Bobbie," Steve sniffled.

"Oh dingus, me too," she sighed.

"Steve, I know you don't want to get them involved just yet but if Eddie is down there on his own we need to help him. We both know we can't do this on our own, it wouldn't help anyone and we'd just get ourselves into danger. Would you want to tell them what happened when we both come back half dead?" Robin said after their second morning together.

"Yeah, I know. I'll radio them soon and get everyone here and see what they say," He sighed. "I just want them to be kids for once."

“Me too dingus, me too, but we need their help,” the girl responded, pulling him into a hug.

They both got showered and dressed for the day and then Steve radioed Dustin.

"Henderson, you there dude?" Steve spoke into the walkie.

"Steve? Everything okay?" came the static reply of Dustin seconds later.

"Gather everyone at yours in 30 minutes. I'm picking you all up and bringing you here," Steve said, trying not to sound as stressed as he felt. Was he really dragging them all back into this bullshit?

"Sure okay, guys check in if you heard that," Dustin responded.

Different variations of 'heard' could be overheard from the walkie as each party member said they would be there.

"Right, sit down, I need to tell you something," Steve started a little while later when all of the party were all sitting in the Harrington living room.

"Are you dying?" Dustin asked straight away.

"Did you get Robin pregnant?" Mike asked.

"Are you moving away?" Lucas questioned him.

"No, no, none of that. Especially the Robin being pregnant thing, she’s like my sister dude," Steve replied, already exasperated. 

"Well you've never had an issue fucking sisters," Mike retorted.

"Just yours Wheeler, just yours," Steve said straight faced.

"Just listen, please," Steve sighed. "A couple of nights ago when I got home from the hospital I was playing Master of Puppets at full volume and the lights flickered, like S.O.S, like Eddie showed us. I didn't hear anything but I know what I saw. I'm not clever enough to work this shit out on my own. I'm not asking anyone to come back down there if it's needed, I will do that alone. I just need help working out what's going on and how to go about fixing it."

"Oh yeah, like we're going to let you go back down there on your own," Dustin huffed, rolling his eyes. "So, which lights? Was it just the S.O.S or was it other flickering too? You said you didn't hear anything else but are you sure? Any kind of static from the radio? From the tape player? We need to see if we can contact the other side. Going to be a bit difficult if we don't know if Eddie is here or not. Like in the house still," Dustin rambled, question after question being thrown at Steve.

"Just the lights in the hallway that I saw, nothing else at all even vaguely weird. Robin did you hear anything or see anything last night or the night before?" Steve asked, turning to Robin for the last question.

"Nope," She responded, shaking her head.

Dustin's immediate reaction was to jump up and run to the light in question, clearly in the hopes to find some way of using them to communicate with Eddie.

"Okay so how do we talk to him?" Mike asked as he followed Dustin into the hallway.

"Can we even talk to him? Like if he's dead and a ghost or something will we be able to talk to him?" Dustin wondered out loud.

“Well he communicated with us so we should be able to talk back to him in some way. Like we did with the lite-brite the other day, we’ll figure this out ok. We need to. Eddie needs us again,” Steve pointed out.

“We could use the walkie talkie or a radio as a spiritbox type thing?” Robin suggested. “Kinda sweep the frequencies and see if we get anything at all from the upside down at all, it's kind of a different world like talking to a ghost would be.” 

The party spent the rest of the day going through different channels on their walkies and walking around the house trying to get something, anything. They had gone through all the channels and walked around the whole of the Harrington house getting nothing back. 

“I don’t think we’re going to get anything,” Will sighed. 

“What’s different now than when you saw the lights Steve?” Mike asked.

“Music!” Robin shouted, jumping up. “Sorry, Steve said when he saw the lights he had Master of Puppets on full blast.” 

“Yes! That’s it! Steve, where’s the tape and the tape player?” Dustin asked. 

Steve found them both and soon the opening notes were blasting from the speakers and around the house. 

They restarted their checks with the walkies, concentrating in the hallway, less than 3 minutes later and a walkie picked something up. 

" 'derson," came a crackly voice through the walkie that Lucas was holding in the hallway. 

“Holy shit Eddie! It’s Lucas, man is that really you?” the younger boy asked excitedly. 

“Older Sinclair! Man, it's good to hear your voice. Yeah it’s me,” came the staticky reply. 

“Lucas, what channel are you on?” Dustin demanded to know. 

“Eddie! Eddie, it’s me, It’s Dustin,” Dustin said into the walkie once he had tuned it right.  

“Henderson, I’m so fucking sorry,” Eddie replied quietly. 

“Dude, we’re going to fix this okay, we’re going to bring you home,” the curly haired boy said. 

“Operation Let’s Bring This Idiot Home has officially begun,” Robin laughed into her walkie. 

“Now I know I’m saved with the brain of everything helping the kids, is the brawn behind your brains helping too or is King Steve too busy?” 

“I’m here you jackass, stay close to whatever you’re using to speak to us. We could use your weird knowledge of things.” 

“Always happy to be a fountain of weird knowledge. I’ll stay where I am. Over and out for now,” Eddie replied before the music ended and the static of the radio started up again.

Eddie didn’t think anything would be able to wipe the smile off his face. Having human contact again after days of no one but bats to talk too and it being the people he went down fighting alongside felt amazing. Knowing that they wanted to help him potentially get back to the right side up gave him a feeling that he never thought he would feel again, hope. 

He wanted to go and wander around and explore more of the Upside Down, he wanted to know how far it spanned. Was it just Hawkins that was affected or was further afield having the same issues. He also wanted to be nosey in peoples houses, as much as his ghostly body would allow anyway. However he needed to stay close to the radio he had been able to communicate to them through. Unable to actually take it with him. 

He waited around for what felt like ages. He hoped someone would check in with some update or idle chit chat, but no, silence. The more the silence drew on and on the more the bad thoughts crept back in. Eddie had had time since ‘waking up’ to accept that this was his new normal but since the talk with the party he allowed himself to think about going home, about hugging Dustin again, seeing Wayne again, about 6 kids, a winnebago and a road trip.

Had they already forgotten about him? He couldn’t be sure how much time had passed with no way of gauging time of day. He also didn’t know if time worked the same down here as it did up there. Trying to convince himself that a large amount of time hadn’t actually passed was difficult but he had to try.

“Hey, guy’s, is anyone there?” He asked, touching the radio, which seemed to be the only way he could get it to work. 

Silence. 

No reply came at all, not even static. 

He sat and waited, speaking into the radio another few times, trying different things to see if that would help. He had no luck.

Eddie felt helpless again. 

The little bit of hope he had ripped away from him as quickly as it had come.

How was he going to recover from this now? He’s already come to terms with being stuck down here forever now but he’d, albeit for a brief moment, had hoped that that would change. 

“Eddie, you there man?” Steve asked later that evening, something told him he needed to check in with the other man. He couldn’t imagine how lonely it must be to be left alone down there. 

Nothing came back. 

“Munson, you there? It’s Steve,” Steve said again. “Harrington, Steve Harrington, just like in case you know another Steve.” Maybe he had been hanging out with Robin too long.

Still nothing. 

Has the connection they made been lost? Has something happened? Had Eddie just wandered away and couldn’t hear him? All kinds of thoughts ran through his head.

Steve was trying the radio over and over walking around the house. 

“Hey dingus, everything ok?” Robin asked, waking into the house and seeing him pacing. 

“I can’t get Eddie back again Robin, he’s gone,” Steve replied frantically, trying the radio one more time. 

“Okay, we can sort it,” she replied calmly. 

“What if he’s gone this time Bobs?” he whispered. 

“He isn't okay, we know this. It took us ages to get in contact last time. We can keep trying okay. You did forget the music though. I can’t say for certain that helps the link but it’s not a coincidence that the 2 times contact has been made that music was involved,” she reassured him, pulling him into a hug.

“You’re right, let’s get it playing and see if that works again,” he replied, breathing out the breath he felt like he’d been holding for ages. 

They got the tape playing and Steve tried again. 

“Hey Munson, you there man?” He asked again, hoping he sounded a lot calmer than he felt. 

“Steve Harrington as I, well, float in another worldly place,” Eddie replied, drawing out Steve’s name. “How can I help big boy?” 

“Just wanted to check in, see how you’re doing,” Steve replied, trying his best to hide his blush from Robin, the smirk on her face suggested he hadn’t been successful. “Guessed it must be pretty lonely down there, and it’s just me and Robin here right now” 

“I’ve made friends with the bats!” Eddie exclaimed, glee clear in his voice.

“The bats?!” Robin shouted after taking the walkie from Steve. 

“Yes, they’re not too bad when they’re not killing me,” he laughed, he could just imagine the look on both their faces. “Oh you’ll never guess who else is down here! I haven’t spent all that much time with her but we did spend some time together, Chrissy.” 

Steve looked at Robin straight away, he could sense the impending freakout before it happened.

“That’s great! Maybe we can errmm, talk to her sometime, I guess, like maybe. She probably doesn’t want to talk to me, or us I mean, she didn’t even know us really,” Robin rambled. 

“I get it Robin, she’s a very beautiful girl,” Eddie replied casually. Robin’s shoulders relaxed at being accepted without having to say the words. “I was always slightly more inclined towards the basketball team rather than the cheerleaders but I have been known to look their way.” 

Days passed and the group did research into all things to do with ghosts and discussed their collective knowledge of the Upside Down. Robin had made a couple of long tapes with Eddie's favourite songs once they realised that any music that Eddie connected with emotionally worked to bridge the gap between worlds. They left a tape running any time someone was awake and in the house. 

Everyone had gone home on the fifth day of brainstorming when Eddie’s voice came across the walkie that they had made sure could always be used by him. 

“Steve, you there?” he asked. 

“Yeah I’m here. Miss me already?”

“You weren't meant to figure it out,” Eddie laughed. 

“Secrets safe with me,” Steve responded with a laugh. “All jokes aside, everything ok? Need something?”

“Yeah, a huge favour actually. Can you help me keep everyone away from Riffer Rick's bedroom if you guys have to come down here. My, erm, physical body is in there. It’s not pretty and I don’t want anyone seeing that unless it can be changed.”

“Yeah, of course. If someone needs to go there it’ll be me,” Steve said, nodding as though he could be seen.

Almost two weeks later the party realised they had as much information as they could gather and the next step, they all decided, was heading down into the Upside Down. 

“I know you don’t want to but I think we’re going to need El involved in this. I’m not sure how we can open the gate without her,” Dustin declared. 

Everyone else agreed reluctantly and Mike gave her a call to fill her in on everything so far.

“I have sensed something a little different down there. I couldn’t quite work out what it was though, it didn’t feel evil. Just sad mostly, sparks of happiness but mostly sad,” El explained when she joined the group.

“Can you open the gate again so that we can go and see him?” Mike asked her. 

“Possibly yes, I can feel the one in the pool a little still so maybe I can open that one up again,” El replied.

“A gate in the pool?” Nancy whispered “Where it came and took Barb. I never thought about that.” 

“So El, you can open the gate up and we can head in, save Eddie and bring him home,” Dustin said cheerily. 

“Let’s take it one step at a time shall we?” Steve replied. 

Heading out into the back garden and over to the empty pool the group looked around to see if anything looked any different. 

“I can feel it the strongest here,” El said as she stood near the diving board. “I can open this gate up. I can’t feel anything dangerous and Eddie said that he hasn’t seen anything bad right?”

“Said he’d made friends with the bats,” Robin scoffed. 

El got ready and sat on the diving board. Taking a deep breath she closed her eyes, held her hands out and concentrated. The air suddenly felt heavier. A rip in the very fabric of the universe started to open and continued to spread. Once the gate was open fully El placed her hands by her side and opened her eyes again. 

“It’s open and I can’t feel anything bad in there,” El said as she took a tissue from Will who had rushed over to her. 

The silence was deafening. Any noise that there seemed to be before the gate was opened had disappeared. 

“Right, let’s get going then,” Dustin said, stepping forward. 

“Just me, Robin, Nancy and Jonathan are heading in ok. We can’t risk any of you but we’re all adults and have made this decision,” Steve said, one hand on his hip and the other pointing at each of the party in turn.

“Right, let's just go in and bring this idiot back,” Robin sighed, picking up her axe. 

They had spoken at length with Eddie about what creatures could be found down there. He’d said they were harmless but they couldn’t be sure what would happen when people who weren’t connected to the Upside Down entered. 

Steve went in first, trusty nailbat swinging by his side. Jonathan and Nancy followed him, Nancy with her shawnoff pointed dead ahead and Jonathan with a pistol in hand. Robin followed the group with her axe held ready to strike should it be needed. 

“Watch for the vines guys, don’t forget about the hive mind. We don’t know what connection they have now. Also we’re not sure what kind of connection they have to Eddie either so don’t hurt any of them because we don’t want to hurt him as well,” Robin rambled. 

“I hate this place, it’s no less creepy now than it was when we were last here fighting for our lives,” Nancy commented. 

“You weren’t joking when you said this place was stuck in ‘83. The Phillips still have that awful tree that always used to overhang the sidewalk,” Jonathan said looking around. 

“She was such a bitch too, always on at me and Tommy over something or other. Plus her cooking was lousy and they were always cheating on each other. Broke up 3 other marriages between them,” Steve replied off handedly. 

Walking around the Upside Down when something wasn’t trying to kill them was a whole new experience for each of them. This time the place was silent, all bar their footsteps and chatter. The sky was no longer red with lightning above them, no bats or other demo creatures were trying to kill them, just silence. They knew that Eddie had been spending a lot of his time at the Harrington residence as that was the only place they could communicate with him. So that’s where they headed too. 

“This is all suspiciously quiet down here. This has not been my experience of this place so far. Is this ok or are we walking into a trap? Oh shit. Did we ever take a second to check if this was actually Eddie? We all saw him dead, Steve you tried chest compressions and Nancy you checked for a pulse. What if we didn’t actually kill Venca and he’s bringing us down here hoping we come back down without much of a plan so he can kill us and get free?” Robin questioned. 

“Robs, it’s Eddie ok. Trust me,” Steve replied. 

The group continued to walk towards the Harrington residence without issue and finally they were there. 

“Munson, you here man?” Steve asked as he walked into the house. It felt so weird for him to be seeing the house as it was in ‘83, before everything started.

He could almost see a younger version of himself sitting on the couch watching something on TV. Or sitting with the book club he joined talking about their neighbours. 

“Yeah in your super posh living room,” Eddie said, interrupting Steve’s thoughts before they could spiral any further. 

They all walked into the living room with their weapons ready to attack if it wasn’t actually Eddie. 

“Guys, I’m a ghost. You can’t kill me any further and a nail bat or gun isn’t going to get rid of me,” Eddie laughed. 

“I brought an iron poker as well,” Robin declared, unhooking it from her belt. 

“A wise woman, Buckley, but please keep it away from me. We don’t actually want me to disappear,” Eddie said, moving further away from her.

“The weapons were for more fleshy creatures than yourself, no offence obviously,” Nancy pointed out. 

“I told you they're all harmless, nothing will hurt you. Venca is dead. I can’t feel him at all and the bats agree,” he sighed.

“Right so Eddie is officially a ghost, we don’t know where his body is, we don’t know what state that body is in, and we have no way of getting ghost Eddie back into human Eddie even if parts 1 and 2 weren’t an issue, which they are,” Robin spoke up. 

“I, erm, know where my body is. The physical one anyway but parts 2 and 3 are still an issue so,” Eddie said sadly.

“Let's go and see what we’re dealing with then,” Nancy said, turning to leave clearly having already made up her mind that they were heading to Eddie’s body next. 

“I think we should ask Eddie what he wants to do about his body. He should be given the choice as to who gets to see him like, well, that,” Steve shrugged. 

“Thank you Stevie. I just want you guys to know that bits of the flesh are missing. It’s clearly a very dead body ok. It’s not pretty. None of you need to see it if you don’t want to, I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t. I asked Steve to keep the kids away so they didn’t have to see it but I would really consider if you want to see that or not,” Eddie said before the group could move too far. 

“Thanks for the heads up Eddie but if we’re going to fix this at least one of us that can go right side up needs to see your body so we know exactly what needs to be done,” Nancy nodded at him.

“Lead the way then,” Robin said. 

The group all left the Harrington house and started their way through the woods towards Riffer Rick's place. Their surroundings stayed as quiet as it was when they entered the Upside Down a few minutes prior. The bats follow at a safe distance behind them. 

“I don’t like that they’re following us at all, it’s really creepy,” Robin pointed out. “Can they stop please?’

“They don’t like you guys being down in their territory either. Last time you were here you guys set fire to things and did a lot of harm. Plus killing their master,” Eddie shrugged. “They’re not going to hurt you though if you don’t do anything.”

“Does this pose a future issue of getting your body out of here? Is that maybe something we need to be careful of?” Jonathan questioned as they reached the house and walked inside.

“I don’t think so but maybe we need a game plan for that happening,” Eddie replied. “Right, I’m in the bedroom, I mean my body is in the bedroom. Please remember what I said earlier about what’s in there before you just walk in.”

“I’ll go and look, no one else needs to join me if they don't want to,” Nancy said, walking towards the bedroom. Steve followed behind her.

A few minutes later Nancy and Steve both walked back out. 

“The first issue would be the fact your body has no blood in it but it doesn’t actually look like it's started to decompose which is good,” Nancy declared. “We’d have to close up  the wounds. Get at least 5 pints of blood into you and restart your heart.”

“Not a lot then, we could get all of that done in an hour or so right?” Eddie deadpanned. “Let's face it guys, we can't do that. My spiritual being is outside of my body and we have no way of fixing that. I’m dead and I’m staying dead. Is there any chance someone could explain all this enough to Wayne so I can speak to him again though please?”

“Yeah of course, anything to help,'' Robin replied. “Should we have a look around? Make sure Vecna/ Henry / 001 is dead? May as well make sure the job is done.” 

“Sure, let's head over to the Creel house and check it out,” Jonathan shrugged.

The group walked back into Hawkins and through the town and passed the Memorial Hospital.

“We could burn it down?” Robin suggested, nudging Steve, as they walked past Family Video.

“We could always burn the school down instead?” Eddie countered as they went past Hawkins high.

Finally they were walking up the path towards the Creel house. 

“I know we’re all thinking it and I just want you all to know that even if we can’t get this situation fixed I appreciate you all trying. It means a lot that you all came down here to try and help, even though you had no idea what was waiting for you when you got here. So yeah, even if I’m still a ghost at the end of all this, Thank you,” Eddie said as the group made its way inside the creepy house. 

“This really is an awful place. I can still feel the vines around me,” Robin commented with a shudder. 

“There’s so much cool shit in this house that I want to explore but I can’t physically pick anything up which sucks,” Eddie said, looking around the hallway. “Buckley, can you help me explore?” 

“Don’t touch anything yet, we still need to make sure this place is safe,” Nancy spoke up.

“It’s safe,” came a voice from behind them. 

“Hey Chris, you know everyone right?” Eddie greeted Chrissy. 

“I know faces, but not everyone’s names. I know you, obviously. Steve from basketball and Robin from band, really wish I’d gotten to know you better Robin,” she spoke softly. “I’m really sorry but I don’t know either of your names,” she apologised, turning to Nancy and Jonathan. 

“I’m Jonathan Byers and this is Nancy Wheeler,” Jonathan smiled awkwardly.

“Right, now we’ve all been introduced, can we have a look around this place now. See what kind of things could be taken back to the right side up or just fun things down here,” Eddie declared. 

The group spent lots of time looking around each room in the house, after Chrissy had helped Eddie learn how to float up the stairs. The last room they looked in was an old library filled full of very old books and some handwritten texts. They spent time looking through each of them seeing if there was anything that could be useful to anything. 

“Erm guys, I think I may have found something,” Robin spoke up. “It certainly isn’t a normal book, looks super old and it’s giving me a really weird feeling.”

“Let’s have a look,” said Steve, walking up beside her and taking the book from her and looking through. 

“Open it!” Eddie insisted, a manic look on his face as he was on the other side of Robin.

“Alright, alright,” Robin sighed.

Instantly a ghostly green glow started to come from the book. 

“This is amazing,” Eddie cackled. 

“We need to close this book now and hope that it didn’t do any damage to either the Upside Down or the Right Side Up,” Robin said, trying to close the book.

“We should have a look through it to see if it can help any. If any book in here can, it's this one,” Steve pointed out.

“Have neither of you seen The Evil Dead? Nothing good can come from using this book for anything,” She sighed. 

“Can we at least look through it to see? This could be my only hope to fix all of this,” he asked, gesturing to himself. 

“Fine,” Robin sighed. “But I 100% reserve the right to say I told you so when this all goes wrong.” 

“Let’s take this back and get the party to look through it, see if those nerds can find something in it,” Steve suggested.

The group headed back out of the Creel house after finishing their look around and headed back towards the gate and the right side up. 

“We’ll keep in contact over the walkie as normal and we’ll come back and see you if we can’t get this sorted quickly,” Steve said, having to keep his hand still to stop himself from reaching out to touch Eddie. 

“Yeah ok Stevie, I’ll sit by the radio waiting for your call,” Eddie smiled shyly. “See you guys soon, yeah?”

“Bye Robin, good to see you,” Chrissy said, waving at the other girl. “Bye guys,” she finished and then floated away.

“Erm Buckley you got a sec?” Eddie spoke up as Robin just stood and looked at the space where Chrissy had been. 

“Sure, what’s up?” She asked, shaking herself and stepping towards him. 

“I’m not sure if you were being serious earlier about speaking to Uncle Wayne about all of this. But it really would mean the world to both me and him if we could talk again, even if it’s just one last time,” Eddie spoke nervously.

“I said I would and I will, ok. As soon as we know exactly what is going on with you I’ll talk to him. No need to upset him with you being dead if we can bring you back,” she smiled. 

“I owe you one, seriously. Once I’m all ok, whatever you want, just ask,” Eddie said

“Just take care of him ok, he’s not as strong as he makes out. That’s all I ask in return.” 

“What?” Eddie stammered. “I don’t know what you’re on about.”

“Yes you do. I’m not going to say a word though,” She nodded. 

Eddie nodded in response and turned to float away again. 

Back at the Harrington house the party, along with Steve, Robin, Nancy and Jonathan sat down with the book. Dustin had previously made sure that a walkie had been made so that the button didn’t have to be pushed in to talk to Eddie.

They spent the rest of the day and some of the following day having a read through the book to see if anything was useful. 

“There’s a whole section in this book dedicated to exorcisms. Eddie, you’d love that! You can shout Latin at people and they’ll think you’re cursing them but you’re really just telling demons to get away,” Dustin laughed.

“Oh dude that sounds amazing! You’ll have to show me when we get all of this fixed,” Eddie replied, clearly also very entertained by the prospect. 

“Hey, wait here a second!” Dustin exclaimed. “I actually think I’ve found something! There’s something in here called the Transmutational Resurrection Spell. The Latin incantation translates to ‘Restore the blood. Restore the flesh. Restore the bone. Bring the spirit and warm the body. After death, made whole again.’ This could be useful, it would need Eddie’s blood though which I don’t think we have.” 

“Is it a good job one of the 6 languages I speak is Latin?” Robin sighed, “Write it down for me please Steven then I can start learning it.” 

“I, erm, still have his battle vest and I was wearing it whilst I tried to do CPR, that should have some of his blood on it still,” Steve said sheeplishly. “I didn’t have time to put a wash on okay! Things happened very quickly once I got home,” he defended.

“We need to discuss what we do if this works and what we do if this doesn’t work. We can’t just go into this with no plan at all,” Nancy spoke up.  

“This is starting to sound like a DnD quest,” Eddie laughed. “If this doesn’t work then that’s okay. We tried, well you guys tried.” 

“Stop with that shit okay,” Steve huffed. “You were the only reason we know you’re down there. You did the S.O.S on the lights and got us to look around the Creel house. So stop with that self-deprecating bullshit, okay, it’s not cute.”

“Yeah, ok Stevie, just for you.” 

The group spent the rest of the afternoon talking through the best way to get Eddie’s soul back into his body and then to get his body, alive, out of the hell pit that is the Upside Down. Nancy and Jonathan took the party and Robin home and left Steve alone at the start of the evening. He made something to eat, changed the tape in the player and moved everything to be as close to the love seat so that he could curl up with some food and talk to Eddie. 

“Hey Eds you there?” he asked. 

“Yeah I’m here Stevie, everything ok?” came the reply. 

“Everythings fine. Just wanted to check in with you, seen as it's just us now,” Steve responded.

“Got me alone, have you sweetheart?” Eddie chuckled. “I’m not that kind of girl Stevie, need to wine and dine me first.” 

“It’s a date,” he responded, not really thinking and feeling his cheeks heat up as he realised what he’d said. 

“As soon as I’m fit enough we can work out the details of that date, yeah?” Eddie hummed.

“Once I’m finished with my food, do you want me to read something to you? I’m sure there’s something here I could read for you if you wanted me too?” Steve asked, trying to keep his cool when all he wanted to do was kick his legs and giggle. 

“That really would be great. Anything you have, takeaway menus included, I will happily listen too,” Eddie replied, a smile clear in his voice.

The rest of the evening consisted of talking through everything, from how they were actually dealing with everything to what Eddie's first meal would be when he could eat again. A conversation spurred on by Steve actually reading the takeaway menus to him through lots of laughter and silly voices. 

Lying in bed that night, for the first time in days, Steve felt hopeful for the future. There was no doubt that he liked Eddie as more than friends, the physical attraction to the other man had always been there. After spending time with him over the last few days though and talking to him for hours tonight there was no ignoring that the attraction ran deeper than how good Eddie looked.

A banging on his front door the following morning woke Steve up. 

“Is the world ending again?” He asked as soon as he opened the door, showing Robin to be on the other side. 

“Yes actually my world is ending ok Steven so a little sympathy would be great right now, thank you,” she replied, walking into his house and heading to the kitchen. 

“What’s happening?” He asked, following her into the kitchen and starting to make coffee. 

“I still like Chrissy but I spent the evening with J and I really like J too. It’s a mess,” she replied, helping him make coffee by getting their favourite mugs out and grabbing the sugar and creamer. 

“Ok,” he responded, clearly thinking his next words through. “Does J know about what happened? I’m assuming you weren’t silly enough to tell her everything but does she know what’s in the press?” 

“Yeah, she does. She’s mentioned it in passing a couple of times but never pressed for anything.” 

“So maybe being honest with her is the best way to go?” he shrugged. “It’s not like you’re looking to move in together next week, get married the week after and adopt 4 kids and a cat by Christmas. You could tell her that you really enjoy seeing her exactly as you are but that you really need to keep it at this pace for a little bit?”

“What if she’s not ok with it?” She whispered. 

“Then she’s no good for you anyway. You’re not telling J that you were in love with Chrissy or that you two were in a relationship. You’re telling her that you had the feelings for someone who is unfortunately now dead and that it’s caused a bit of emotional conflict within yourself and you wanted to make her aware of this,” he said, passing her a cup of coffee. 

The pair sat down at the breakfast bar and ate cereal chatting away, catching up on the gossip that Robin had heard from her mom last night. 

“I think I have feelings for Eddie,” Steve whispered as he was washing the dishes. 

“That’s ok. Thank you for telling me,” Robin replied, leaning her head into him as she was drying the dishes he was washing. “He’ll be back with us soon and you can woo him with romantic metal songs and pretty painted miniatures.”

“You really think so?” He asked.

“Yes, no doubt about it. Pull out all your best moves and he’ll be yours before you know it,” she smiled. “Anyway, I’ve spent most of the night awake learning that incantation and I think I have it nailed. Dustin said that he and the rest of the party were meeting early at the Wheeler’s house so that they can make sure they know what else is needed for this to work and Nancy said that she was going to look into ways of making sure we could bring Eddie home at least alive enough.” 

Steve got ready for the day and before 10am he had a living room filled with everyone again, all talking over each other about the plan they had concocted. 

“One at a time please,” Steve shouted loudly over them all.

Calmly Will explained the plan. They would move Eddie’s body close to the open gate, Robin would perform the incantation and then Nancy and Jonathan would perform any immediate medical intervention needed. Nancy having stocked up on supplies at the drugstore on their way over to Steves. 

Gathering everything together, weapons included, the group headed towards the gate again. 

“Good morning everyone, to what do I owe this pleasure?” Eddie asked cheerfully as the group headed into the Harrington home and found him in the living room. 

“Eddie!” Dustin shouted running towards the other man, catching himself short of trying to hug him.

“Hey Henderson, missed you too,” Eddie beamed.

“Shall we get this all started?” Nancy suggested “Not wishing to break up this reunion but we really should try and see if we can get Eddie back into his body as soon as possible.” 

“Yeah Nance is right, let’s head over to Rick’s and bring Eddie back to the gate entrance and sort this all out ok,” Robin agreed. 

Walking back over to Rick’s, Steve was trying to think of a way that they could move the body but still keep Eddie’s wish of the party not seeing him like that. 

“Erm, Nance, Jon, can I grab you both for a second? You guys carry on,” Steve shouted. “Eddie requested that I don't let the party see his body, he doesn’t want to be remembered like that. Do you have any wipes with you Nance and I can clean his face off? And Jon will you help me carry him? I thought we could cover all but his face with a sheet and carry him like that. Means that all anyone will be able to see is his face.”

“Yeah I’ve got some in the bag ready to clean any wounds but we can clean his face off first,” Nancy replied. “It’s a really good idea Steve”

“And sure, I’ll help you carry his body. Sounds like the best idea to have him wrapped in a cover anyway,” Jonathan agreed. 

“Thanks guys,” Steve smiled at the pair.

As they all reached the house Steve stopped them all.

“I want you all to stay out of the bedroom okay, no questions asked, just do as I say.” Steve said, hands on hips making eye contact with each as he spoke.

They all entered the house and Steve, Nancy and Jonathan went towards the bedroom ready to get Eddie’s body cleaned up and moved. 10 minutes later and the three walked back out into the main part of the shack with the body bundled up in a blanket and being carried between Steve and Jonathan. 

“I’ll go ahead and keep a lookout for anything trying to attack us if everyone else can kind of spread out around Jonathan, Steve and Eddie with Robin at the back?” Nancy suggested as the group filled back out of the shack. They all nodded their approval of her plan. 

All of a sudden there was an almighty screeching sound followed by the sound of the bats taking flight. Nancy raised her gun ready to shoot and the others stood around with their various weapons raised ready to fight. 

“Please don’t hurt them, can you all lower your weapons?” Eddie shouted quickly. “Hey guys, my friends are helping me okay, they’re not doing anything to hurt me.” he said more calmly, addressing the bats this time. 

The bats stopped screeching and settled back onto the fencing by Rick’s. 

They got Eddie’s body to the edge of the gate and placed it down on the sheets and blankets they had placed on the ground earlier. 

Eddie got as close as he could to his body, Robin knelt next to it and held the vest in her hands.

“Restituo sanguis. Restituo carnes. Restituo os. Afferte spiritus et calidum corpus. Post mortem, natus totum iterum.” She chanted over and over again.

At first it didn’t seem to be doing anything and then all of a sudden his soul was pulled back into his body and everything went black to him and his ghost vanished from sight for everyone else. 

Eddie lay on the ground still covered in the blanket for what felt like hours. Not moving or even awake, just laying there. 

“He’s got a pulse, it’s strong and his breathing is good too, I think he just needs some rest.” Nancy said, standing back up from checking Eddie over again. 

“Let’s get him out of here and into the house. He needs to be warm and comfortable and to be somewhere safe. Who knows what could still happen whilst we wait for him to be okay enough to move.” Steve suggested. 

Between Steve and Jonathan they picked Eddie up and carried him to the house. Getting him onto the sofa. 

“Should we bring a mattress downstairs so that when he wakes up he doesn’t need to move around so much to get everything he’ll need? You have a bathroom and everything down here plus the kitchen and access to the outside.” Robin suggested. 

“Yeah, yeah that’s a really good idea! My dad’s old office is empty, we can set a bed up in there. I’m sure my parents have an old bed frame they took apart and never got rid off and I know there’s a spare mattress as well. Some of you shitheads want to come and help me make a bedroom for Eddie?” Steve asked. 

They all agreed and everyone but Nancy, Robin and El,  went to help Steve. 

“Is Steve ok?” Nancy suddenly asked, turning to Robin. 

“Erm, yeah, I mean as well as any of us really are I guess” Robin replied. 

“Good, I worry about him is all. He seems to really like Eddie though. Not sure I’d ever say I'd describe someone looking at a ghost as longingly, but he does.” Nancy chuckled. 

“Damn, you think Harrington preferred me as a ghost?” Eddie suddenly rasped out from where the girls were sitting beside him. 

“Eddie!” Robin gasped, reaching over to touch him. “How are you feeling?” 

“Like I was a chew toy for a load of bats and my soul was thrown back into my body” he replied smiling weekly. 

“I'll grab you some pain relief and some water,” Nancy said, standing up and rushing from the room. 

“Hello Eddie, it's good to finally meet you in your physical form” El smiled, waving slightly. 

“Supergirl!” Eddie grinned as best he could. “Thank you for everything” 

“Ed’s” a whisper came from the doorway.

“Hey Stevie, “ Eddie replied sheepishly. 

“You’re okay” Steve breathed out, as though he had been holding his breath. 

“All thanks to you big boy.” the other boy smiled. 

“Erm El, shall we erm go and see if anyone is hungry or thirsty and sort some food and drink if needed” Robin said, gently taking El by the hand and leading her out the room. 

“We’re setting up a bedroom for you in the office, unless you have somewhere else you’d rather stay whilst you recover?” Steve said, stepping further into the room. 

“No, nowhere else I’d rather be” He smiled, attempting to sit up, only to fall back down again. 

“Lie back down and let's get some pain relief in you shall we.” Nancy ordered as she walked back into the room carrying a syringe. “IV morphine” she shrugged, nodding at it.

“Yeah, that sounds amazing to me. I’m not even going to question where you got it from or how much you have.” Eddie laughed before wincing in pain.

Eddie fell back asleep again within 5 minutes of having the morphine and spent the next 4 hours flat out, only waking up again because of the pain. 

Waking up with a wince and a groan he looked around the room the best he could. 

“Hey, I’m here, don't panic and don't try to move okay. Is the pain back again?” The voice of Steve came from behind him and seemed to be moving closer before it entered his vision. 

“Yeah the pain’s back again and this couch isn’t the most comfortable to have been lying on for hours.” 

“Okay, let's get you moved into your bedroom, sorry if it smells of cigar smoke and bourbon in there by the way. It was my dads office slash escape from the wife and kid room. Let me just go grab some more hands and we can get you moved okay.” Steve said as he left the room. 

He returned a couple of minutes later with Robin, Jonathan and Nancy following him. 

“We’re going to get you moved and then I’m going to give you more pain relief after we’ve got you settled. Let's start with getting you sat up shall we?” Nancy suggested.

With Steve taking the shoulders and Jonathan taking Eddie’s legs the two of them slowly and smoothly sat him up. 

“Jesus Christ that hurt so fucking much” Eddie said through gritted teeth, tears clear in his eyes. “Can we try the standing now” 

The two boys sat either side of him and placed his arms around their necks and their arms gently as they could around his waist. 

“On three, let's stand and then take a second.” Jonathan said, looking at Steve and Eddie, receiving nods from them both and then counting to three. 

With a lot of whimpering the four of them got Eddie moved and settled onto the bed and comfortable again.

“Here I’ve got some more pain relief for you.” Nancy informed as she entered the bedroom again. “We’ve been able to make you alive again and physically restore any flesh the bats took but you were still dead for over a week. Your body has not moved for almost all of that time. You’re going to be stiff and tired for a few days. Rest up and make sure you don’t push yourself. I believe Robin is on the phone to Wayne now. She’s not telling him you were dead and then alive again, she's just telling him that you’ve been found and are hurt but alive and here.”

“He’s on his way here now” Robin updated them both as she came into the room. “How you feeling now you’re in bed?” 

“Exhausted honestly. I’m so grateful to you for calling Wayne though and getting him to come over.” He replied. 

Once the morphine kicked in again Eddie fell back asleep.

Waking up again he was aware of someone sitting next to him with their hand on his arm. 

“Uncle Wayne?” Eddie rasped. 

“Yeah it’s me Ed’s. Need some water? We can help you sit up.” Wayne answered.

It was only then that Eddie noticed someone else was also sitting next to him, but on the other side of the bed. 

“Please,” Eddie smiled.

Some puffing and panting later Eddie was sitting up propped up by pillows and being helped to take a drink by Wayne. 

The rest of the evening was taken up by catching up with Wayne and the party who all filtered in inturn. Steve not leaving his side for more than 5 minutes at a time. 

The following day everyone went home to be back with their families and Eddie spent most of the day sleeping after being assisted to get into the shower and to wash and dry his hair. In the evening he was helped out into the living room. Sitting on the coffee table was Chinese takeout. Sweet and sour chicken, roast pork fried rice and prawn crackers all sat next to other containers. 

“You remembered '' Eddie whispered, sounding choked.

“What you wanted as your first meal back? Yeah of course I did. I didn’t think you would be up to it last night but figured you’d be ok with it tonight.” Steve shrugged, hoping his blush was hidden.

The boys sat and ate their take out, chatted and watched a couple episodes of The Golden Girls, naturally laughing and gossiping about their favourite characters all the way through. As the evening wore on and both boys became more and more tired they got closer and closer on the couch. 

“We should get you back into bed” Steve suggested at the end of their 5th episode. 

“Yeah ok, let's get moving” Eddie sighed. 

They got Eddie back into bed much easier than they had the evening before. A couple days of rest and pain relief having worked wonders. 

“You have more pain relief on the nightstand as well as a couple of bottles of water and a couple snacks.” Steve pointed to everything in turn. “Right, I'll leave you to it.” 

“Stay?” Eddie whispered. “It was really lonely down there on my own.”

“Yeah, sure, if you want me too,” the other boy smiled.

Eddie shuffled out of his trousers and shirt before scooching further down into the bed. He was joined by Steve after he had taken his own trousers and shirt off. 

“Good night Ed’s” 

“Night Stevie.” 

The following morning both men woke up tangled together and feeling much more rested than they had in days. Steve turned slightly so he was laying on Eddie's chest and hoped that the other man was still asleep so that he could enjoy this a little longer. He froze when arms pulled him closer and he realised that the other man was clearly not asleep. 

“Morning” Eddie rasped, sleep still in his voice. 

“Morning” came the shy reply, Steve still hoping to not break the spell.

“I don’t mind you know” 

“That’s good, because I really like it here” Steve said, ever so glad Eddie wouldn’t be able to see how red his cheeks were. 

“Get up here and look at me?” Eddie asked. 

Reluctantly Steve leaned up and looked at Eddie.

“You really are so beautiful, I’ve always thought so” Eddie mumbled, almost to himself.

“I was so fucking upset when I thought you were gone, can’t believe you’re back” Steve choked out, over come with emotion towards the man in front of him.

“I’m here and I’m yours, if you want me that is” 

“Of course I do.” Steve said, moving up Eddie’s body and leaning over him slightly.

“Then kiss me,” Eddie whispered.

Their lips met in the most tender and love filled kiss that Steve had ever felt. This was home. This was forever. 

3 Months Later:

“Ed’s come on! We need to get going or we’re going to be late” Steve shouted from the living room as he was getting his shoes on.

“Down in a second, I want to look my best for our first public outing as a couple and our first double date with Robin and J.  

“Let’s go then sweetheart” Eddie said, walking down the stairs ready to go 5 minutes later. 

“Let’s go. The first of many dates” Steve smiled, pulling his boyfriend into a kiss.

[plutonium-sky]

@ebi-skycotl OF COURSE YOU JUST GOTTA LET ME KNOW AND I'LL SHARE WITH PLEASURE

Part two to this

Gonna start of with the name list again- Cackling Cannoneer = Thane, Anxious Angler = Fern, Abyss Guide = Abby, Ceasing Commodore = Alemez, and Bumbling Boatswain = Ismael

The whole crew has a slew of different accents- Thane is scottish (as said before), Fern is English, Abby is Iris (she got it from her mom!), Alemez is Welsh, and Boatswain... Doesn't exactly have one, since they are selectively mute :)

I like to believe that Alemez is, in fact, Abby's dad based on the concept notes!

Abby, as the Guide of Abyss, has more of a leeway than most guides since she ALSO has to look after the Beast for it to not escape.

By leeway, i mean that she's more grumpy now than she was alive because she has a constant flow of telepathically transmitted information of what's approximately happening in Treasure Reef

That does make it easier for her to relax a little though, because she doesn't actually have to be on the lookout. Still means that she has a constant tiny headache. Poor child :(

She doesn't ever tell anyone this.

Alemez and Ismael are longtime friends that trust each other's back. While Alemez is the captain, Ismael is first mate

Everyone has at some point used one of Thane's guns. He always fusses over their safety with them whenever he finds out but prefers to not admit it

Alemez has emotionally adopted everyone in the crew. No he doesn't care that you're not blood related you're part of the crew and thus the family

(kudos to @doppelneer for this one!) the whole crew has at least one gem on their body, which signifies them as part of the crew. but! That's not their only function. Since the gems are actually darkstones, they're used as emergency batteries if needed!

If they would ever accept another crewmate, you'll know you're like actually part of the crew if they give you a gem. Use this for your sky ocs, because i did ;)

Ismael "makes" the gems! Just whittles them down then checks out where would be the best place to have it on the respective person to figure out what frame would be best for it

Fern is so anxious because they had bad childhood "friends" probably, who gave them lots of frights with crabs and whatanot for laughs. If they ever told anyone their story Thane would track them down and stare them down with absolute simmering rage

Fern is the medic of the ship! Though, they have no idea how to treat fatal wounds, like a krill attack. Just delay them.

They named their ship "Skirl", which means scream/call/screech, for their call for the sea (and also because Alemez and Ismael, the two who started the crew, cannot sing at all)

They tend to avoid krills, though if there's only one then they can gang up on it well enough

All leftover fish gets dried! They all have a dried fish pouch for snacks and if they go exploring for longer than intended.

Everyone on the crew knows how to sew, as a necessity. And repair the ship. Of course, some are way better than others. They just know them for emergencies.

Fern is the best at sewing. They made the snack (dried fish) pouches for everyone.

And that's it for now! A kinda badly organized list of headcannons that I could get off the top of my head that doesn't relate to any au I have with them for the least amount of confusion. Have fun!

[sydney-carton-of-sour-milk]

The Many Illustrators of A Tale of Two Cities 8: Edmund H. Garrett (1/2)

...& a small mystery that solved itself!

I've been looking forward to this one for quite a while!

1 / 2 || 2 / 2

Edmund H. Garrett created dozens of vignette illustrations for this two-volume 1894 edition of A Tale of Two Cities. What makes this edition special - besides the sheer volume of work and Garrett's attention to detail in regard to characterization - is that most of these illustrations appeared in the page with the text, much like Rafaello Busoni's!

What are even more interesting for me personally, though, are the larger rectangular illustrations which do not appear within the text-pages - because my original source for these did not contain those at all! The thing is, many months after finding my original source, I did actually come across the first of the larger illustrations (the one pictured above) in a photo of an open book on eBay or Etsy, and because it was the only illustration pictured in the listing, I assumed it was from a new mystery illustrator that I would discover at some point. Imagine my delight when, on a whim, I set out to find higher-quality versions of these vignettes on the Internet Archive, only to discover that the illustrator who made the vignettes also made that mystery illustration!

And that's not the only way I got lucky here: While I did manage to find higher-quality versions of both volumes, I actually found them separately (one uploader had apparently only scanned vol. 1, and another had only scanned vol. 2), and these, as far as I could tell, were both the only versions uploaded to the Internet Archive at all - wow! As you probably know by now, I don't get a lot of easy wins with this project, so I'm very grateful when I do😅

And without further ado, here they are: Garrett's illustrations for vol. 1!

Hope you enjoyed - vol. 2's illustrations will be up in two weeks!

& the standard endnote for all posts in this series:

This post is intended to act as the start of a forum on the given illustrator, so if anyone has anything to add - requests to see certain drawings in higher definition (since Tumblr compresses images), corrections to factual errors, sources for better-quality versions of the illustrations, further reading, fun facts, any questions, or just general commentary - simply do so on this post, be it in a comment/tags or the replies!💫

[ali-dot-txt]

yo i played persona 5 for the first time (III)

Alright, so this post (previous one here and first post in the chain here) is going to be about my general final notes and about Hina as a character.

Despite all my gripes, I did end up enjoying the game. I wouldn't have poured 230 hours into it if I'd hated it.

But most of the enjoyment I wrung from it was a result of the mod and the personal headcanon I spent the whole game developing. I really don't think this game would've been for me without that, which is why I don't intend on playing Persona 4 (well, at least until that game's female protagonist mod gets off the ground). I might play Persona 3 Portable as that game's female protagonist after a little break, though.

The final tally of Hina's Confidants:

Sorry to all the Yusuke fans.

Everyone's final stats:

In 2017, this would be about 88,000 dollars? Which is an absurd amount of money for her to just have on hand.

Favorite characters? I guess I'll list the characters:

Hina (cop-out, i know, but I like her a lot)

Futaba

Haru

Lavenza/the twins

Sojiro

Sumire

Ann

Ryuji

Akechi (he really jumped up in the last arc)

Hifumi

Sae

Morgana (he really jumped very late in the game as well)

Yusuke (sorry, Yusuke fans)

Iwai (I feel like I'd like him more if I'd got further in his Confidant)

Chihaya (same as Iwai)

Makoto (a sudden and incredible fall)

Maruki (he's the worst therapist ever, but he's pretty interesting when he's not talking way too much and his final scenes are really good)

Skilled Gamer (gonna be real, I don't remember his name)

Ohya

Takemi

Mishima (would have preferred if he was removed entirely)

Hina never met Kawakami outside of class and never spoke to that politician.

Anyway, as for Hina...

She's maybe my favorite player character in any video game ever. The slight jankiness of her implementation lent her so much charm, and characterizing her was a ton of fun, especially with how close my trans headcanon seemed to the game's reality. Does that affection transfer to Akira/Ren, or other people's genderswapped Jokers? Well, no, not really. I can't say I'm an expert on the way people view Joker as a character, but from a cursory glance, I feel like Hina's distinct enough from the popular interpretation that she's basically an entirely different person slotted into the role of protagonist. Maybe that's conceited of me.

Hina has the most common family name in Japan, and I thought Hina was the most popular given name in Japan in 1999, the year she was probably born. Turns out that wasn't the case, Hina is actually much more popular recently. The actual most popular name for 1999? Miku. So if I'd had accurate data, she may well have been called Miku Satou. Probably not though.

Hina didn't have friends in her hometown, partially because she was really quiet as a kid and partially because everyone started avoiding her after she started coming to school in a girls' uniform.

Hina's parents have been supportive from the beginning. In fact, her name is from them (she requested it). Also, they sent her to Tokyo with a maid outfit in her box of stuff, which is extremely funny. She calls them once a week, early on Sundays. She doesn't tell them about her phantom thief activities.

Hina's legal name is changed, but not her legal gender (people only ever call her Hina, even in situations where they'd have only read her name off legal forms, so her name must legally be Hina).

Hina largely doesn't react when people misgender her because she's used to it.

When Maruki mentioned that Hina might make a good counselor herself someday, the headcanon wheels started turning in my head and I realized that that's really fucking good. Hina wants to go to university to become a youth counselor, because she saw what happens when someone has the worst counselor ever. Not to mention Hina wanting to help kids like her who might not react well to an authority figure telling them how to live is really sweet.

Hina's trying to create a real version of her Phantom Thief outfit she can wear casually. She has red gloves in her winter school outfit! Why else would she have those? She's going to get white glasses frames next.

Hina isn't good at talking to people, but she comes off as confident because she also has a hard time speaking in any particular tone, so she almost always seems to be talking without reservations.

Hina is an only child. (Fairly sure this is an element of most people's imagined Jokers. No way does this person have siblings.)

I don't think most of the harsh things I put in quotes to indicate that Hina said them are things she actually would say. I think she's probably thinking them.

Hina has a gaming PC in her hometown. Her buying that laptop was because she was going stir-crazy from not having access to a desktop computer.

Hina likes Morgana much more than I do. She doesn't think of him as a big brother (lmao), but she does love him like a brother.

In contrast, I think Hina has exactly as much disdain for Mishima as I have.

Hina isn't really invested in Akechi. She thinks he's a terrible weirdo who she wishes would stop talking to her. When she learns about his actual motivations, that switches to thinking of him as kind of pathetic. She wishes he would have talked to her about his issues at all, because she probably could have helped him deal with them like she helps literally everyone else, but she's not so broken up about him not being in her life anymore. (In contrast, I actually quite like Akechi now that I get what they were going for with him.)

Hina is good at schoolwork, but she's lacking in common sense.

Takemi actually never misgendered Hina, and Maruki only did so once. It's pretty funny how the medical professionals are consistently the least transphobic people in the game. I wonder why that is? 🤔

Hina got really good at making coffee and curry in the year she spent at Leblanc.

Hina being shorter than regular Joker is especially funny because her animation speed has to be adjusted, so she walks really fast in cutscenes where she moves places. She has to move that fast to keep up with people.

Hina's relationship with Haru is going to cause an absolutely awful scandal if it ever becomes public. I have no idea how they're going to deal with that, but hopefully they'll figure it out.

Hina doesn't really find any new friends when she moves back home, but she's alright with keeping to herself and focusing on her studies while having friends she can talk to online and a cat who can talk.

Hina might be rejected from a lot of universities for her criminal record or her transness. She might've had her record expunged, but she still spent time in juvie, not to mention the heavily political implications of her actions might risk scandal for any university that she enrolls in. She might end up having to apply to universities abroad, where the Phantom Thieves and the events surrounding them weren't so much in the public consciousness.

Anyway, that's Hina Satou. I might write fic for her someday? But she requires a lot of context to really understand her. I care about her a lot, and people understanding her is important to me for some reason.

And finally: some of my favorite screenshots of Hina.

[greyias]

At long last...

baby girl has finally fell ass over tea kettle asleep

A non-comprehensive list of things Ari has accomplished on this longest of days:

Started investigating the Open Hand Temple murders in earnest including interviewing everyone, speaking with the dead, and generally doing 1000x better as a detective than a flying elephant

Located the crypt underneath the temple

Freed the soul of a cursed monk by personally breaking Shar's laughing curse by pure willpower

Found the hidden tunnels underneath the temple and fought a bunch of shapeshifters on the trail of the serial killer

Got drug into the middle of a turf war between two criminal factions

Gave herself the alias Daisy Dewdrop Fluffington to try and outwit a Steel Watchman.

Nearly got arrested and was saved by the Ironhand Gnomes

Found Barcus again! Whose boyfriend tried to rope them into some light domestic terrorism

Ran into some of Astarion's "siblings" who fucked off before we could talk to them

Found another victim of the serial killer, found out it was the serial killer's mama

Visited a brothel, where everyone came onto Ari, and the incest twins tried to convince her and Gale to have an orgy while Gale nearly expired on the spot

Talked to the most useless flying elephant ever and got a pass into the lower city

Accidentally wandered into fantasy!ao3, aka the Elminster's Sexy Library

Astarion kept rolling nat20s on locked doors in a brothel, one of which contained a nymph and a surprise!mindflayer

The nymph gave Ari a +d6 buff to all ability checks, saving throws, and attack rolls for the rest of the day

Talked to Raphael who perved out over the Crown of Karsus

Went with Jaheira to talk to some Harpers and got jumped by more shapeshifters

Did battle with an evil blob disguised as a cow

Got invited to Gortashs's coronation where Wyll had to confont some Daddy issues, Karlach had to not do a murder, and Ari learned they have a spy at camp

Talked to Counselor Florick who we're totes def going to break out of prison any day now (but surprisingly not this day)

Got ambushed by Mizora who decided she's going to just hang around our camp now just because

Went into the Lower City and was immediately beset by a newspaper lady who let them know the National Enquirer was going to to print a smear piece on us

Got banned from the National Enquirer

The one man vampire elf wrecking crew snuck into the National Enquirer to sabotage the presses, and in a fit of petty pique, stole everything not nailed down in the basement.

And then the editor's office for further measure. We're running dangerously low on spell slots at this point.

Talked to the thus far only non-useless member of the Flaming Fists who deputized us to find the serial killer

Talked to a bunch of murdered corpses (some quite sassy) all around the city, investigate some really sketchy ritualistic murders in some basements, and warned several still living potential victims to watch the fuck out.

After all that hard work went to a wine festival to unwind (and warn another murder victim) but PSYCH -- the wine of the intended victim was poisoned and we found our serial killer who dimension doored out leaving us to fight a bunch of his shapeshifting duplicates. Astarion is nearly one hit killed with a sneak attack (now he knows how it feels). The group survives by the skin of their teeth (and burning through scrolls and potions because we REALLY should fucking sleep now), but successfully save all the civilians at the wine festival

But now they have to run across town to a very sassy tailor who we already warned to close up shop but apparently he didn't listen. We arrive literally just in time to stop him from getting his throat slit (and save our Flaming Fist partner) from the serial killer and this seemingly endless well of shapeshifting accomplices

After a long and harrowing fight where every last spell slot is burned, and Ari has to actually use that extra Tasha's Hideous Laughter I was making fun of earlier for crowd control, the serial killer and accomplices are finally defeated and it seems the victims are safe

Ari & co stumble back to the Elfsong Tavern and rent a room, ready to collapse. Ari finally hits the button to long rest

EXCEPT SURPRISE -- Mizora says it's still plot time and tries to get Wyll to sell his soul forever and ever amen in order to have a shortcut to find his dad. Ari's like "we can do this without her" and encourages Wyll to break his pact.

Everyone acts like this is somehow the absolute worst thing and that Wyll has done the absolutely unthinkable and resigned the city to flames and death, and how could you do that to your father Wyll??? Your father would totes want you banished to the hells for eternity my god where is your moral center Wyll??? -- except for fucking Jaheira who was like "I'm pretty sure Wyll's dad wouldn't want his son to sell his soul in exchange for his safety"

Ari falls face first on a pillow in an actual bed for the first time in the game, and sleeps for an eternity. Who knows what the next day will bring

[lurkingshan]

BL/QL Ask game : The Ugly, the Bad and the Worst

Tagged by @clara-maybe-ontheroad to start some trouble. There are a lot of these, so I'm mostly going to do quick hits and maybe expand on a few that really get me going.

The categories are:

Worst soundtrack / weirdest song choice in a BL

It would be easier to list the BL soundtracks that are not horrible (offense intended).

Most cringe-inducing line (cute)/Most cringe-inducing line (actually bad)

I'm so bad at remembering specific lines of dialogue unless I think they're beautiful/heart-wrenching, so I got nothing.

Most stupid decision made by a character

In a BL?? Baby, I do not have all day.

Worst plot line

Hmmm I'm gonna give in to recency bias and say faking amnesia to get your fiancé to love you again after you iced him out and denied him sex for four years because of your tiger attack-related PTSD (no I am not making that up, never change actually Naughty Babe).

The most problematic show you've watched

Problematic is in the eye of the beholder, so honestly who can say.

A show people love but you find bad

LOLOLOL. There are. So many. Probably the one with the wildest fandom fervor :: Shan personal enjoyment ratio is KinnPorsche.

A show people find bad but you will defend

Theory of Love and y'all stay wrong about this. It is easily one of the best early Thai bls and the writing, character development, and narrative structure are all excellent, but people hate slutty characters so they can't deal with it.

A show that is just objectively bad but you enjoyed it/were horny/because of that one character

Why r u? What can I say, I'm a Fighter/Tutor girlie.

A bad show that you kept watching because you were intrigued/fascinated

Hmmm I usually just drop it if I'm truly not having fun. I guess you could count me finishing Minato's Laundromat 2 despite knowing any hope for it was over at the end of episode 9. I just needed to see how mad I was going to be in the end (pretty damn mad).

A bad show that you would still recommend

There is too much BL nowadays to be trifling with the bad shit.

The character that ruined a show the most/most awful character that you hated

PLERN PLENG (Together With Me). cc: @bengiyo the co-president of the Plern Pleng antis.

Most awful character that you loved

Boston, a beautiful chaos demon (Only Friends).

A character that wasn't awful but that you just don't like

Anyone played by Podd or Jimmy (it's their faces I can't stand them sorry to those men).

A hero that should have been a villain

This is an interesting one! I’m not sure this counts, but I’ll just say I did not love the way The Untamed white washed Wei Wuxian and removed his culpability for all his worst choices (I recognize this was largely due to censorship). I much prefer the more morally complex and deeply flawed version of him we got in MDZS.

A morally bad character you're into/you're not into and you wish people would stop being into

I don't believe in holding fictional characters to real life moral standards. Bad behavior makes for good stories.

The show that disappointed you the most

Let me take this opportunity to drag Plus & Minus again, a show that had all the right ingredients to be a top tier friends to lovers narrative and absolutely blew it to do some beyond clichéd noble idiocy and breakup bs that violated character and undercut the relationship to such a degree that I can never rewatch or enjoy anything about it again.

The Worst Show of Them All Because of Your Own Reasons

Hmm I do not have one. It's rare for me to not be able to find something of value in any media I consume.

Tagging @chickenstrangers @sorry-bonebag @kayatoasted @blmpff @twig-tea in case you want to play!

[team-heavenly]

Drumroll‚ please! 🥁

It’s been some time, and I managed to slip on my promised deadline once again (thank you for your patience)... But finally‚ we return to the story of Teresa and Andrea in our Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky Randomizer!

A few items of note before we get started (and yeah sorry this is overly detailed and lengthy because idk what it means to be concise, just scroll down if you're not interested):

Please be aware: updates to Team Heavenly’s story will not be as frequent as they were during main. I now work a full-time job in a field where my schedule is somewhat contingent on unanticipated emergencies. And in general‚ I’m just a very busy adult! So I unfortunately can’t give you an exact (or even rough) timeline of when posts will be released— It basically comes down to whenever I have the time to do it. But rest assured‚ the entirety of this tale will be told… eventually!

I’ve gotten my hands on a newer tablet since last year, so my camera quality is much better now! …However. While snapping pics for this post‚ a seemingly unavoidable digital blue glare persisted‚ no matter how I adjusted my screen brightness. When I subsequently ran these photos through the auto function‚ they didn’t really… improve? So I had to do a lot of manual tweaking… Anyway‚ all of that to say if one shot doesn’t look visually consistent with another, it’s because each image got edited a little bit differently.

I will link multiple posts for a single "chapter" (see last bullet) in the same manner as before, with preceding and succeeding parts linked at the beginning and end, respectively. I’ll also update the table of contents in the pinned post for continued ease of navigation.

Also, please note... last year, my older iPad somehow managed to circumvent any sort of (consistent) image limit. But that is not the case this time! There is a strict hard limit of 30 images per post. It's therefore likely that post-game chapters will have more parts than the main-story chapters ever did. (Though whether that actually equates to a "lengthier" chapter is up for debate.)

As the post-game content does not get separated into official chapters‚ I will be partitioning the story based on subject matter! For example, this first act will focus on the guild’s graduation exam, the next will include Sky Peak, and so on. I also intend to use a random number generator to select chapter names from this list. (I mean, c’mon, that's part of the fun of a randomizer!) But for the sake of clarity, I will be including the actual subject matter after the chosen title in (parentheses). Thus‚ this first unofficial post-game chapter is known as…

Chapter 21: Would you like to eat moss?

(AKA: The Guild’s Graduation Exam)

As a result of Teresa and Andrea’s heroic actions… The destruction of time was stopped and peace returned to the world of Pokémon. They went back to Totodile’s Guild and fell back into their daily routine of vigorous training.

One morning‚ several months later…

Pineco: “:/ Hey hey, why can Teresa and Andrea take the graduation exam before we do? We’ve been around a lot longer…”

Tropius: “…They literally saved the world and have proven themselves to be worthy many times over. Also skill issue lol.”

Don’t feel bad for Pineco though; he’s not the only one getting roasted.

Lol rip.

Anyway‚ Andrea asks the very sensible question of what exactly this exam entails…

Dark Chasm? Evil MANSION?!

Are you— are you sending us back to the future‚ Totodile?! WTF??

Oh! That’s easy enough though. I mean‚ compared to scaling a collapsing tower while Time itself crumbled at our feet? Pshaw! This will be a cakewalk!

...You know, this is really the first thing that should have tipped me off as a kid 🤦‍♀️

🤨 How convenient.

Okay, so he's not gonna be any help, unfortunately. Looks like we're going in blind. (Haha unintentional pun...unless?)

But for real, anything that makes Mewtwo cry out in fear and run away is a force to be reckoned with indeed.

As we enter Nautical Cottage to begin our preparations, we run into our stand-ins for Teddiursa and Ursaring! After a quick chat, Horsea reveals they are also headed to the Dark Chasm...

*seen (sorry).

Also, at the risk of beating a dead Horsea (aHA! TWO FOR TWO ON THE PUNS!), y'all go play WHERE? *gets hit immediately by a Snipe Shot*

Andrea immediately suspects something is sus. Unfortunately, this is the smartest she's ever gonna get about it.

Anyway, it's been a hot minute, so I go to check my storage and evaluate what I have to work with...

BRUH?? I do NOT remember picking this up omg 😳

So my plan is to equip this for the exam, right? But then I totally forgot to do that 😅

Also I don't have a picture for this but I was able to buy 3 Poké from the Finnkecleon shop for free lol

✅Mission: set ✅Destination: arrived ✅Chance of success: 💯😎🎆

Oh my god, this really is the future of darkness!! I guess our efforts to save the world weren't enough, damn 😓

🎶I'm starting with the man in the mirror I'm asking him to change his ways🎶

A couple of Gummis later, Teresa learns the Lava Evader IQ Skill! Neat!

Me when Ivysaur used Fly:

Believe it or not, this actually almost killed Andrea at 96 damage. But the stairs were nearby and I wasn't too worried about it until...

Go figure, amirite?

Then Andrea reminded me of the awesome power of Blizzard and we knocked out everyone except Combusken and the Kabuto on the first turn <3 And she got right back up again in no time with the Fast Healer skill!

Does anyone remember that one time when I had the foolish idea to forget Quick Attack in favor of Helping Hand? Yeah, not one of my smartest moves. But I managed to find a TM in this dungeon that does the same thing as Quick Attack but better!

Here's the info for Quick Attack:

And here's the info for Mach Punch:

Higher power and hit ratio? Yes please! (Yes, I'm aware both are only one star stronger. But hey, every bit counts.)

I teeechnically have enough room for three more images, but this feels like a natural transition point so click here to advance to Part 2!

[summercourtship]

Damn…. favorite scene???? That’s such a hard question! Honestly… I love all scenes with each individual character, there were definitely some more iconic than others but an all time favorite is SO hard to pick (bcs you write them so well is hard to “pick” one ““better”” then other) but here are some off my “favorites”:

Edward: Chess scene, when he said: “I noticed you” and the reader “hugs” him and he is like: “Omg i can’t believe this is happening!! a woman is touching me”, when he gets sad when she didn’t want a cigarette bcs he wanted to indirectly kiss her lol, and the breakout in arkham that was a fun chapter!

Jonathan: This is underrated but… I loved their first kiss! Her continuing to talk while they kiss and him just telling her to shut up is so funny, THE GALA OMG!!!! I am going to say that this hole chapter was TOP TIER!!! them making out in the corridor (btw what did she hear that night?) HIS HAND ON HER THIGH????!!! Omg!!! all of those were SO GOOD!!! And when she came back from the halloween party and he was in her apartment. (we all know what i mean from that, the smut, i’m talking about the smut) ALSO!!!! When he confronted her in the basement!!! that scene was SO SCARY!!

Bruce/Batman: They dancing in the gala, specifically when Bruce says: “enjoying the scenery” (GOD! i could SEE his “Bruce Wayne” smirk creeping up his face), literally any time that they rode a motorcycle, i’m not even joking, i live for things like that, when they are at the beach just enjoying the view, Him letting the reader look at his childhood photos, their first “real” kiss at the bat signal!!!! aaaaaanddd every time Bruce said a variation of: “we’re in this together” (you got me giggling and kicking my feet, no joke)

Thanks for reading kyra! so sorry if some frases seem hard to read or just wrong! english isn’t my first language!!! Keep uo the good work girl!!! you can don this!!!

thank you!! and don't worry about your english, it's good!

Edward: I have to say- I think that Edward's scenes are some of my favorite in the fic, just in general. Which is crazy because I certainly hadn't intended on that being the case when I started writing. I just ended up really liking writing him. All of his part in Ch. 12 is probably near the top of my list for my favorite scenes....

Jonathan: I LOVE THEIR FIRST KISS SCENE!!!!! I remember being kinda sad when I first uploaded that chapter because NO ONE commented on that scene (and even a year after it was originally uploaded, it's a scene I'm very surprised people haven't talked to me about more- but then again, a lot of the earlier Jonathan scenes don't get brought up as much) and I was so scared I had disappointed people somehow.... glad to hear it stuck around in someone's mind!!

Bruce: To the anon who sent me the original biker bruce message: thank you so much for your contribution to STBOTDI canon. also I love their first (real) kiss scene so much (I think I'm just a sucker for dramatic first kisses..... hmm.) Kissing in the rain >>>

ALSO OKAY, this was gonna be revealed in an alternate POV but I have no idea when I'll get started on those again SOOO during the Sponsorship Gala, what the reader heard was actually Bruce. I imagine he was kinda keeping tabs on her (and Jonathan) the entire night because the only reason he attended at all was to scope out Jonathan in the first place. How much he saw.... well, you can decide for yourselves that.

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

Metaru, i'm not sure if you're into Fnaf even remotely, but! i would like to tell you about one of my favorite guys from the thing:

Michael Afton.

so, let me just set the scene for you.

this guy, our good buddy Mike here, has (in no particular order):

- accidentally killed his younger brother in a prank gone horribly wrong (stuck said younger brother's head into an animatronic's mouth to scare him) when he was teenager (age during this incident has never been confirmed, but the best guess we have is that he was a teen), and has likely been living with the guilt ever since.

- lost his little sister to one of his father's creations, and perhaps never learned the truth of what actually happened to her until he was an adult.

- learned at some point that his father is a serial child murderer, and at some point chose to make it his mission to help free their souls and put them to rest.

- was at some point instructed, by his father, to go find his sister in this underground location and to free her somehow.

- got his insides scooped out (literally, the machine that was used for this is called "The Scooper") by the robot that his sister's soul possesses so that she and three other robots (well. their endoskeletons) can crawl into his body and puppet it around to escape.

- was forced to sit back as these animatronics puppeted him around while his body rotted.

- had the robots eject themselves from his corpse, only to be told that he wouldn't die, and then miraculously come back to life.

- was likely outcasted by his neighbors after his body started visibly decaying, enough to where he started "living in shadows" (his words).

- had nightmares that (i personally believe) were caused by guilt after what happened to his brother.

- (if you believe that Mike Schmidt and Michael Afton are the same guy) got targeted by his father's victims because, unfortunately, he looks like his father (Michael implies in a speech he did to his father that the Sister Location animatronics confused Michael for his father because they look similar - "They didn't recognize me at first, but then...they thought I was you.") and also because the ghosts target the nightguards.

- (if you believe the Fnaf 3 nightguard was Michael) had his own father attempt to kill him twice. (Fnaf 3 and Pizzeria Simulator)

- promised to hunt down his father after finding out everything ("There is only one thing left for me to do now. I'm going to come find you. I'm going to come find you.").

and, last but not least,

- died in a fire that was started to set all of the souls free, including his father's (although he was burnt to keep him from harming anyone else, and also did not really get peace like anyone else - "Although for one of you, the darkest pit of hell has opened to swallow you whole, so don't keep the devil waiting, old friend."), and it's stated that he didn't get trapped in there accidentally, but that he stayed there on purpose, likely to die with the rest of his family ("And to you, my brave volunteer, who somehow found this job listing not intended for you. Although there was a way out planned for you, I have a feeling that's not what you want. I have a feeling that you are right where you want to be.").

so...yeah, he's an interesting little guy.

also, he's British. and in Utah. (because, fun fact, the books confirm that Fnaf takes place in Utah, specifically a small town in Utah).

how. how the fuck did this happen twice. what is it with fictional British men and Fucking Utah. Metaru i have two nickels. How.

(anyway, enjoy my ramblings!)

utah is cursed

[ryosei-hime]

I got tagged by @ernmark​

RULES: post the names of the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! tag as many people as you have WIPs.

(yeah I’m not doing that. I don’t even know that many people on tumblr. see it, feel free to consider yourself tagged.)

Strap yourselves in. I have so many wips because I keep starting things and not finishing them because of writer’s block. All Helluva Boss unless stated otherwise. 

Fics I stopped after their last chapters first then individual documents.

Love and Loathing - Fizz learns self love through a Robo Fizz (Fizz x Ozzie x Robo Fizz)

Raising Hell - Loona x Sallie May

Murder of Mirth - a Stolitz AU I did a lot of research for to set it in the 1700s-ish but then never followed up on.

Stolitz AU - Hellhound Discussion - a short bit from Murder of Mirth

Crim x Reader - Pretty self explanatory.

Epilogue Chapter 13 - The second to last chapter to my longfic Sex and Therapy. I don’t tend to name them til they’re done.

Body Language of Abuse - A script for a video I had intended to make on the last episode but got too scared to post because I’m not a youtuber lol.

Epilogue Scraps - scraps from or for various chapters in Sex and Therapy. I actually have four or five of these, numbered appropriately.

Wedding Episode Scraps - bits and pieces of the final chapter of Sex and Therapy not yet put into a cohesive whole.

Road Trip - Lannah and Cog’s road trip to Greed to get a replacement part for Fizz in Sex and Therapy.

Robo Fizz x Everyone - a list of ships and synopses for a one shot project I’d like to do where I ship Robo Fizz with everyone.

Robo x Woobly - the first in that series.

Striker x Robo Fizz - the second in that series

Robo Fizz vs Wally Wackford - a fun idea for a pitch that didn’t end up happening when working on One Helluva Zine

Blitz and Loona Anniversary - Blitz trying too hard to celebrate the anniversary of adopting Loona

Untitled - started after episode 7, Loona finding Blitz when she comes home from her party at Tex’s

Striker x Stella: Cleans Up Good - Stella needs Striker to act as a body guard at a fancy event

Prompts - Angel x Blitz - a request from twitter that I started but didn’t finish.

Prompts - Lilith x Stella - Same

Fitzo Purring - posted what I had during Fitzo week but never finished it

Real or Not, People Love Me - was supposed to be a look at Robo Fizz and real Fizz experiencing what it’s like to be fake in two very different ways

Fizz Dating Sim - A Robo Fizz dating sim I started writing a million years ago that I’ve been thinking of going back to and adding a real Fizz option for.

Fizzarolli x Reader x Robo Fizz - this one’s been sitting undone a loooong time

Stage Sex - another Fizz x Reader that I started and never finished.

Biggest Fan - A degradation smut piece involving Fizz’s creepy fan from episode 7 that I had legitimately forgotten about

Fizzmodeus: Robo Fizz Origins - an idea I had for a fizzmodeus fic set during the time the Robo Fizzes were being conceived and built.

Fizzmodeus Museum Date - Fizz takes Ozzie to a children’s interactive science museum for a date, shenanigans ensue.

Baking - Fizz bakes Ozzie a Valentine’s surprise but it gets ruined

Fizz x Ozzie - Beauty and the Beast - An AU I started working on but stopped, inspired by art by pyronormal on twitter.

Krem - Fizzarozzie - Something I was writing for @/kremlin_art on twitter :P

Laugh, Laugh, Cry Chapter 3 - Continuation of a short chapter fic I had planned with Robo Fizz x Angel Dust

Unhealthy Obsession Chapter 12 - My Robo Fizz OC Ransom spending some time infiltrating Ozzie’s and Fizz’s

Ozzie and DumDum - a very short late birthday present for @/the_ratbus on twitter featuring DumDum (a robo fizz oc) being genuinely nice to Ozzie when he’s usually a rat bastard.

Mansplaining - Ransom asking Mammon lots of questions that he totally knows the answers to

Ransom vs Robo Con - Ransom is a guest speaker at a Robo Fizz convention. It all goes terribly wrong.

Greed - Angsty look at Mammon in Unhealthy Obsession, set soon after Fizz breaks up with him.

Hickies - Ransom learns what hickies are and wants them despite it being impossible for him to get them.

Dancing Lessons - Mammon teaches Ransom to dance

Kisses Experiment 2 - Ransom x Mammon. Ransom getting kisses all over

First Time - Ransom x Mammon. Not the first time they have sex but the first time Ransom has a certain reaction during lol.

Stolen Kiss - Ransom steals a kiss and Mammon “punishes” him for such impudence.

Sword and Shield Scraps - bits and pieces of writing ahead with my Hazbin OC story.

Scavenger and Val - A specific encounter between Valentino and my OC Scavenger in Sword and Shield.

Jo vs Scavenger - a fun fight scene I needed to practice because of some interesting mechanics between these two OCs.