#feels like a lot of people missed the start of season 3 first time around?

[steddiealltheway]

During season 3, there’s a deleted scene (because I said so) of Max and El’s first spin-the-bottle spy attempt.

The bottle slows to a stop right on Steve's name, and the two girls giggle as El puts the blindfold on.

She finds him in his Scoops Ahoy outfits, and El giggles harder as she tells Max, "He's kissing some girl."

Max gasps, "Who is it?"

El starts walking closer, trying to see who it is, but their hair is covering their face. "Some girl with curly hair."

"Nancy?" Max whispers conspiratorily.

El shakes her head. "Her hair is short. This girl's hair is longer." She starts to turn red, feeling like she's been intruding for too long. She starts to reach up for her blindfold when the person pulls back and says, “Ahoy, Captain.”

Just as Steve groans in irritation, El yanks the blindfold off and freezes. Max shakes her and asks, “What? What happened?”

El pauses, thinking back to the time Mike had to explain why he was so angry when Troy called Will a fairy. She didn’t understand why people were upset about a boy loving another boy, but she understood that it wasn’t something people talked about. Just like she wasn’t allowed to use her powers, Will wasn’t allowed to openly like boys.

So, she just lets out a deep breath and reasons with herself that it isn’t a lie when she says, “They started using tongue.”

While Max shrieks with laughter, El smiles at her, trying not to think of the boy Steve was with.

-:-:-:-:-:-

(An added extra part that is WAY longer than intended. Oops. Coming back after editing to add JSKEHDISBEHSH)

The next year, the information seems to come in handy when Dustin urges El to see if his friend Eddie is still somehow alive in the upside down.

The others are all there, trying to describe what he looks like when Nancy and Jonathan volunteer to run to the school and grab his missing poster for a photo. But the descriptions paint a clear picture in El’s head of someone she’s seen before. Briefly. But she remembers.

Curly hair. Wears lots of rings. Big brown doe eyes and full lips - Steve’s very helpful description.

And El can’t help but turn to Steve and whisper, “Ahoy, Captain?

Steve’s eyes widen and his cheeks flush red. His mouth opens and closes asking, “How-? Why-? When-?”

“Is that him?” El asks firmly.

Steve only nods. Brushing off everyone who asks What does she mean? By telling them to be quiet while El puts on her blindfold.

She finds herself somewhere dark and cold, feeling the familiarity of the place as she seeks out Eddie. She walks around, calling out his name, getting more and more desperate as time goes by.

But she suddenly feels something watching her and quickly turns around, finding Eddie as pale as a ghost staring at her from the ground. She bends down and puts a hand on his face. “We’re coming for you, okay? We’re coming.”

Eddie tilts his head and asks, “Who?”

“Steve,” El automatically says, hoping it’s the right person to name.

The name seems to give Eddie a small bit of hope.

“And Dustin,” El adds. “Dustin’s coming for you.”

Eddie gives her a weak smile and mumbles, “I knew he’d miss me.”

El smiles at the joke. She hears the other people in the room begin to ask if he’s alive, to remind him that someone named Wayne is coming.

El squeezes his cold cheek, hoping some of her warmth will bleed through the connection. “Just hang on a little longer, okay? They say Wayne’s coming too.”

Eddie weakly smiles again and murmurs, “Wayne.” His eyes get heavy, and El shakes him. “Mmm awake,” Eddie slurs. El hears footsteps behind her and turns, not seeing anything, but as she turns back she finds Eddie disappearing.

She reaches out yelling, “No! No! Hold on!”

When he’s completely gone she yanks the blindfold off, weeping as someone pulls her into their chest. She doesn’t hear any of the questions around her as she says, “Run to him. Run!”

But finally, Mike gets through to her and asks, “Did you see Steve there?”

El wipes her eyes and asks, “What?”

“Did you see Steve there?” Mike repeats.

El glances around, noticing that Steve, Dustin, Lucas, and Robin are no longer there. “Where-“

“They went to him as soon as you said we’re coming for you. Did you see them there?” Will explains quickly.

El shakes her head. “There were footsteps but… Eddie vanished before I saw anyone.”

Mike looks far off and puts his head in his hands.

They’re too late.

A tense silence passes.

“This is a code green! I repeat this is a code green!” Dustin’s staticky voice rings through the walkie.

The three kids race toward it, Mike grabs it first asking, “He’s okay?”

“He’s alive,” Dustin says, sounding choked up. “He’s alive.”

El sighs in relief and rushes off to the door.

“Where are you going?” Will asks.

“The hospital, come on.”

The trip there is fast, but no one lets them see Eddie yet as he’s still in critical condition. But they all opt to wait as long as they need to get any updates.

El sees Steve eye her for a while before she moves to sit in the chair next to him. She waits for him to talk first.

“So… how did you… know?” Steve asks.

El flushes red and ducks her head. “Max and I were playing this game where we would spin a bottle and-”

“Okay, I know where this is going. Jesus, kid,” Steve mutters.

El glares at him. “We would spin a bottle and see who it landed on to spy on them.”

“Oh,” Steve says, pausing before he suddenly realizes, “You spied on me?”

“Yes,” El replies because friends don’t lie.

Steve flushes red and asks, “So, how much of me and Eddie did you see?”

El leans in to whisper, “You were kissing a lot.”

“Christ,” Steve says, before burying his head in his hands. He slowly looks up at her and asks, “Did you… tell anyone?”

“No.”

Steve sighs and leans back in his chair, staring off.

El can’t help but press on. “Did you love him?”

Steve stops breathing for a second as he considers the question. He turns to her slowly and says, “I did.”

“Did?”

Steve runs a hand over his face. “It’s complicated.”

El pauses and says, “Well, it looked like he really loved you too.” When Steve gives her a look, she adds, “And he looked happy when I said you were coming for him.”

A conflicted look crosses over Steve’s face. “Did he really?”

El nods. “Friends don’t lie.”

Steve smiles and huffs a small laugh. “That’s right.” He hesitates before slinging an arm around El’s shoulder and pulling her into his side as much as he can with the arm of chair being between them. He plants a kiss to her head and whispers, “I’ll give you a lecture later about the spying thing. But for now… thank you.”

El leans into the hug, staying until an older man walks into the room.

“Wayne!” Dustin yells and runs to wrap his arms around him.

El watches as Steve slowly stands up and offers his hand to Wayne when Dustin pulls away. Wayne looks at Steve for a moment before pulling him into a hug.

El wants to ask and know the whole story behind Steve and Eddie and this Wayne person. But she thinks it’s time to look away as Steve breaks down in Wayne’s arms and the older man’s bottom lip quivers. “I know, son. I know.”

-:-:-:-:-:-

They wait for a long time before there’s finally news.

They all collectively hold their breath as the doctor walks into the room. He look over at them all before announcing, “He’s stable.”

A wave of relief floods through the room, but El thinks there’s an added tension when they’re informed that he isn’t allowed visitors yet.

But Wayne follows the doctor out the door and has a very stern word with him before he’s reluctantly allowed to disappear down the hall.

A few minutes later, he comes back to the room and asks, “El?”

El sits up straighter. “Yes?”

“He’s asking for you.”

El glances at all her friends before she stands up and follows (who Dustin had told her is) Eddie’s uncle. As she gets to the room, she looks at all the tubes connected to Eddie’s body, and wonders how he even asked for her.

But as she gets closer to the bed, she sees Eddie’s eyes crack slightly open.

“Lean down so he can whisper to you,” Wayne advises.

El leans closer and hears Eddie says, “I know… how… to get… to Max.”

El leans back and grabs Eddie’s hand. “Show me.”

With that, she’s taken into a vision of horrors, of Eddie dying and coming back. His heart restarted by Vecna for some unknown reason. A vision of all the bodies tied to the tree but Max’s spot is empty. But there’s something there. Something that’s trapped in the empty vines. But just as she sees it, a clock strikes in the distance, and it all begins to disappear.

She gasps as she steps away from Eddie, catching her breath as Wayne asks what the hell is happening.

But she can only run out of the room, heading toward Max’s room knowing where she needs to go to find her and bring her back.

[endearng]

About you

Pairing: Spencer Reid x ex!reader Summary: You know a place that you go to remember Spencer Reid's face. You never thought you'd get to actually see him again. WC: 4.6k Warnings: brief mentions of Spencer's trauma (childhood, addiction); hints at poor coping mechanisms/mental struggles; miscommunication; running away. A/N: This is a mix between canon events and some things are fiction (mostly when it comes to the timeline of the show) and I picture later seasons Spencer. This is based on many songs from ttpd, but this fic came to mind when I was listening to 'About You' by the 1975. I really hope you guys like it. Feedbacks are always welcome and appreciated <3 masterlist

You sat on one of the park benches. Actually, it was on the park bench, near a tree, you used to occupy with Spencer after getting your favorite treats from the coffee shop nearby.

It was your first date as boyfriend and girlfriend and he had started reading to you once the chatter had died down a little bit. He looked beautiful that day, eyes leaving the book pages every now and then so he could catch a glimpse of you. Every time he did, you smiled at him. You were so enamored by his eyes that you didn't care if you were perceived as desperate or too lovestruck when he looked at you. You felt warm inside and for a moment, you thought it could last forever.

From that day on, whenever you could, you'd always go to that park and sit on that specific bench. You even carved your initials in it.

Now, as you caressed the old indentation, dark from all the time that had passed, you were all alone. A hole in your chest.

You were living in Virginia, about to get your Master's Degree. It was the time of the semester when everything seems to be piling up and you can never get the time to take care of it as you should. As you walked home at night, you witnessed a young couple walking into a dark forest, but you didn't mind — horny kids were everywhere and you were glad they had a nice way to let off some steam, not being one to judge someone’s kinks.

The next thing you knew, the FBI wanted to see you. They sent a cute, awfully young agent to your apartment, who introduced himself as 'Doctor Spencer Reid' and waved at you once you answered the door, telling you you had been the last person to witness that young woman alive. You froze, unable to look away from him, sheer shock crossing your intriguing, mesmerizing features. Spencer Reid took more than a minute to try to calm you down to have you answer his questions. Despite your head going miles per minute, you tried to help out as much as you could and were able to describe the man as you managed to recall some of his features.

Then, you had gotten Spencer's number to keep him posted if anything happened, since that unsub was kidnapping and torturing girls from your university. When they wrapped up the case to go home, Spencer went to your building to tell you they were returning to Quantico. You had grown fond of him, his presence a warm embrace compared to the chaos around you, so when he broke the news, you did feel a little disappointed, even though you knew that he would eventually leave. He was sensitive to the matters around him, doing everything in his power and using his intelligence to help everyone around him. It made you grow a sense of hope in other people you haven’t felt in a while.

You took your study break a little earlier that night once you saw him at your doorstep, deciding you'd give him your time. A low "So, you're leaving..." escaping your mouth once he told you why he went to your place. To say goodbye. You couldn't conceal the sadness in your voice.

"Yeah. I just wanted to say goodbye. And to thank you, of course, you helped us a lot." He said, eyes never leaving yours.

"Anytime, Doctor," you joked. "I'm gonna miss you. Even if we've just met. Even if you had to be aware of something so terrible." You confessed. His eyes widened at you in surprise.

His eyes. Big, doe eyes glancing at you like you held the answers to the whole universe.

In that moment, you did. Not his education, not PhD's, plural, not anything he learned from all the books he read and certainly not his time in the bureau. You held the answers.

He chuckled, a little shy. Unable to tell you, verbally, that he would miss you, too. His eyes did the job, though. "Yeah, yeah. It was nice knowing you."

"Yeah, it was," you agreed, coming a little closer to him. You gave him a kiss on his cheek. Soft, warm skin against your lips making butterflies swarm in your belly. He smiled, widely, sincerely.

You wished he was yours.

You also wished he knew that you meant that, 'besides the bad guy and all the terrible things, it was fun meeting you because you are full of light. A masterpiece.'

"Take care, okay, doctor?" You whispered, slowly pulling away from him. “I’ll see you around.”

"Be safe,” he wished, “I hope so, in better conditions."

A few days passed and you got your first call from Spencer, which turned into a second, a third and when you noticed, you were scheduling hang outs. Those turned into dates when you started to go out more frequently to every new place you wanted the other to know. All of that and touching each other more often, more carefully, more passionately than regular friends did.

You simply sat there, your memories the only thing keeping you company, haunting you, besides the tears that pricked in the corner of your eyes. You missed him so much. You missed the time you had with him.

Two years into your relationship, things got more and more complicated. You struggled to keep up with his life and more often than not you seemed to keep much to yourselves instead of sharing things with each other. You never thought you'd share (funny wording) such a distant relationship with someone, let alone one you knew for sure there was so much love and respect. During your time together, you learned about Spencer’s past and some pieces fell into place; he was somehow explained by everything he had faced as a child, teenager and now as an adult — his mother’s condition, his dad walking away, the bullying, being abducted and its consequences. You held him through it all, when the memories and feelings of powerlessness washed over him.

Then, Spencer started to be away more often and the physical distance, enforced by the emotional one that slowly grew between you two, made you feel like you were an intruder in his life. So, you gradually started to hold yourself back from starting conversations. You rarely had his attention and you figured it was because his mind was always elsewhere.

Yours was, too. Back in a time when things were simpler.

As time went by, being around him, too quiet and far out of each other’s reach, simply floating in his orbit, felt like a heavy burden you had to carry in order to keep him in your life. He never opened up and since you didn’t either, you felt like you didn't have the right to suggest you two should fix things, so you let him be. Coexisting together in the same space, oceans apart from each other’s lives and struggles, never touching the subject. The result, of course, was that you grew apart.

It all ended, officially, when you decided to move away to get your Doctorate as an excuse to run away from the hard conversations that you knew would take place if you confronted him about where had things, where had you gone so terribly wrong. You were hell-bent on trying to turn your heartbreak and deception into something, into an achievement. Then, you both decided, albeit reluctantly, that breaking up was the best choice for you, since you’d move away. The part that there was already a huge gap between the two of you remained unspoken. You tried convincing yourself that it would be easier, since you’d never have to see him and you'd be okay being in past chapters of Spencer’s life. 

Funnily enough, it wasn't that simple.

You see, the heart is a tricky machine. The wording here is not random: it works, of course, to primarily pump the blood through your veins to make sure you are getting enough oxygen around your body and deliver waste objects, like carbon dioxide, back to the lungs, to be removed — Spencer had told you so once when you told him your heart beat for him in a corny deliver of a joke. Despite the fact that he was right, you can never anticipate how the heart will react once it has no access to the aim of its affections, after being cut off from their life. Worse: after being slowly dragged away from the one it was sure it would be able to adore for the rest of its pumping-function life. You figured that, maybe it would continue working for as long as it needs to, but not with the same devotion it once knew and now was deprived of.

That was how you passed the last few years of your life.

After Spencer, you weren't really interested in anyone. You tried to put yourself out there, made new friends, tried dating some people, traveled abroad, discovered more about yourself. Nevertheless, in the back of your hopeless mind and dejected heart, you held the memories you had created with him close to your very soul. When things got too quiet, it was him that you thought of. On a train, on the way home or to somewhere new and/or special, in the lazy mornings you spent by yourself, in the nights that got too lonely to bear by yourself, during your lunch breaks that you always seemed to remember how much he loved sharing those with you — stealing food from his plate, even if you didn't like whatever he was having, just so he could steal your dessert to make sharing equal. He got a sweet tooth after dating you.

Now, though, something felt off. You had spent years of your life pining and longing and hoping that you'd find your way back to each other in the end that now you didn't have the guts to search for him. You kept an eye on his life and could remember a thing or two of all his achievements and papers that were published in science magazines, a brief abstract ready to roll off your tongue if someone asked you about it. You tried keeping up with his professional life in order to feel closer to him, but the thing was, you didn't know if he had someone else, if he had moved on more easily than you (not that you had), if he had learned to cope a little better with the hardships of his job. You always said he needed some rest for his noisy mind.

Even the air in your hometown made you think of him. Felt like him: distant, missed and still plaguing your thoughts. It was the aftermath of running away for some time.

In hindsight, perhaps you had only shared fleeting moments with Spencer and it was a frail affair, doomed from day one, knowing how different your lifestyles were. When you got too fed up with your longing and inner romanticism over this relationship, you would try to convince yourself that you were better off without him. That being alone was better than to be by yourself in a relationship that you only kept for the sake of calling him yours.

Still, there was something missing. You didn't know what it was, but you were tired of wasting your time, waiting for a bus that never showed.

From afar, Spencer watched, dumbfounded, a figure that resembled someone he once loved so much, sitting on the bench he used to share with you. He still does love. Or maybe he doesn't. He doesn't know, really. He's been through so much, losing loved ones, losing his mother and enduring several trauma after leaving the FBI, never having the time to properly take in the happenings in his life. Could it possibly be you? He could never forget your form, no matter how many years passed and how hard he had tried to do that. His heart started slowing, oxygen lacking in his lungs. He felt dizzy. Was it a mirage?

Or maybe it did, and perhaps you had missed it.

Memories started to flood his mind and he was unable to move.

Daylight faded, announcing the beginning of the evening. Spencer listened as you read to him one of your favorite novels, The Hour of the Star, a Brazilian novel by Clarice Lispector. It definitely wasn't romantic, but you always made sure to use the correct tone whenever you were reading the characters' lines, and you paused every now and then to make comments and listened when he had one of his own. Those were precious, rare, quiet moments in his hectic life. He cherished them because of that, of course, but most importantly because you were with him.

Once you finished the chapter you were reciting, you noticed how dark it already was and that the lights of the city were already on, casting a soft glow over Spencer. He looked exceptionally, effortlessly beautiful that night. You smiled at him. "Shall we go home, Spence?"

"Yes," he accepted, helping you up. You thanked him with a kiss to his cheek, which made him flustered.

Years together and he could never get used to the effect your touch had on him, always wishing he could have more, more, more.

As you walked home together, he took your ring, a gift from him that was usually placed in your left hand, and put it on the one people put wedding rings on. Your reply was to kiss him senseless in public.

He felt like the wind had been knocked out of him when you abruptly broke the kiss, looking back with a mischievous, happy expression on your face. He trailed after you, one single thought in mind: I'll never let you go.

The woman — he didn't want to deceive himself if she wasn't you, he was staring at her back, after all, so he thought it was better to be careful with his hopes —, had longer hair, fit better into her clothes, but her movements were scarily just like yours. From the way she looked around to the slight tilt of her head when you'd contemplate the park all those years ago. Spencer felt his thoughts clouding with the need to approach her, curiosity driving him to work on this instinct, but as soon as he moved to walk, he instantly halted his movements. What would he say?

"Hello?", "Is that you?" "Are you back?" "Are you real?" "Have you forgotten about me?"

The questions swimmed around his head like he had no control over his own mind. If there was a monitor to show every single thought running through his brain, it would definitely collapse, smoke clouding the air, telling how overwhelmed he felt. He decided on approaching as a passerby, walking as if he didn't want anything by it, acting nonchalant. He made his way closer to the bench, to the woman. 

She heard footsteps behind her, not too close, but still turned to search for the source of the disturbance, out of her daydreaming. You looked at each other for a moment that felt like an eternity — time stopped, the children stopped playing and the passersby stopped breathing.

As you turned around, your eyes found Spencer. The love of your life. You took in his appearance. His hair was long, unlike how it had been when you last saw him, and he didn't care about styling it as much as he did when he was younger, his curls unruly and a little messy, a little stubble growing on his face. His expression looked harder now, more tired, ripe. You couldn't quite know how to describe him properly. For a moment, you considered that he had hardened over the years, opposite from the caring, soft man you've met and loved ardently once.

On a surface level, looking at him made you feel like you've been loving a ghost. A memory, something that could never return.

Your mind suddenly felt empty. You opened your mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

"You?" You heard the question, uncertain, leave his lips in a low voice. Was it in your head or did you sense hurt?

Again, you wanted to speak, to say something, greet him, tell him you've missed him, ask him if he was okay. Nothing came out. Everything seemed inappropriate. Again, he beat you to it, coming closer to you, voice firmer. "What are you... I thought you'd left."

"I did."

"I know."

Silence. He got closer, moving to sit beside you.

"Yeah." Silence. Still looking at each other. "I came back a couple of months ago. Started visiting exactly three weeks ago, today." You revealed to break the silence, even though the idea that everything that came out of your mouth was improper still plagued your mind.

Spencer felt baffled. You looked different, more mature, even your style had drastically changed — you once wore colorful, baggier outfits, full of life and bright shades matching your personality (you even went shopping with Penelope and you exchanged fashion tips), but now, you wore more sober, neutral tones. Instead of the usual sneakers, or the Converse you both loved to wear together to match your outfits — his black and yours blue —, you wore black boots with heels. You looked grown. And it fit you. Still, your face was the same: your eyes held the same glimmer in them from all those years ago, your lips still as inviting as it ever was for him.

He licked his own, realizing his mouth was dry. "I come here every now and then when things get too heated." He confided, eyes never leaving your figure.

You smiled. A hole in his chest, desolation invading his being. The simple act still makes his machine of a heart ache and speed to reach its full capacity. Of breaking for you. "It's peaceful."

You knew that he seeked solace from whatever was happening in your memories together in that place. At least, you hoped so. You hoped, selfishly, that he thought of you as much as you thought of him, of his ghost. That he ached for you as much as you ached for him.

"Yeah."

Awkward silence engulfed the two of you. You didn't know where to look, but you could never stop scanning his face, taking in his features with care. "I like your hair. It fits you," you said.

He got closer, less than an arm's length between the two of you. Almost itching for you to touch his hair, eyes pleading for some mercy on your end. You've been awfully quiet and if meeting him maim you, you certainly have improved your poker face skills. "You've changed," he retorted. "I never thought I'd see you so different from, you know..."

You didn’t remember Spencer at a loss of words.

Too close. "I hope for the better."

"Why didn't you call?" He asked, brows furrowing.

Come to think of it, it was an excuse you had rehearsed quite a few times when you imagined this scenario, “I was settling, still trying to contact everyone, still finding my way around…”

“And you didn’t think of me?” His tone was wounded. He certainly dreamed you’d come back and was positively sure that you’d reach out to him. Of course, he was wrong.

He didn’t know what to say. Of course he would pick up, but there was no way you could know about it nor trust him if he said so; why would you? You had left him because he built walls around him, cutting you off from his life, torturing you, slowly dragging the end of your relationship and he couldn’t explain why. Once you left, Spencer delved into his work life like never before. He flirted with women and even slept around, which he was aware was a poor coping mechanism, all to outrun the desertion of you, desperately wishing he could forget that he could feel alive in your presence. He even tried having a relationship. It was nice having someone around, now that he was grown and had made peace with some of his demons, but it was never like you and it was all that she was to him: someone around. He never felt that spark with her like he had felt with you, never again having a taste of the sensation that ran through him whenever he stumbled excitedly into your apartment when you invited him over, seizing the rare opportunities to be with you, happiness bubbling inside him. With his new girlfriend, it was quiet. He mistook it for the calmness he lacked within himself when he was with you, but it was just bland. Needless to say, he felt awful about straight up using a person to keep his mind off of you, but it was nice while it worked. He started longing for something he couldn’t even describe what it was.

“Of course I did. I just thought you wouldn't pick up,” you replied.

One day, you guys met halfway, between the two cities you were both in. It was raining and you launched yourself into his arms once you recognized him. You had kissed him like a soldier's wife, for you sure definitely missed him like one — he had been away on a case which took longer than usual. “Hi,” you greeted, shyly, after giving him the hottest kiss of his life.

“Hi,” he smiled, a little flushed.

“I couldn't wait to get to you, Spence,” you confessed, arms pulling him back to hug you once again, his own engulfing your figure. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too. I miss you all the time.” He said, burying his face into the crook of your neck, wet hair prickling on his skin. He peeled himself away from you, taking a deep breath. “Do you want to be my girlfriend?”

The squealed “Yes!” before you kissed him ardently once more was forever ingrained into his mind.

Amidst his reverie, you stood up from your seat. The wind tousled your hair slightly, so you used your left hand to tuck it behind your ear. The street lights reflected their light on a ring you had on your left hand. He recognized it instantly. “I should go,” you murmured, slightly graceless.

“You still have it.”

You looked at him, still sitting and nodded softly. You were hit with the realization that he also remembered you. It didn’t matter that it was such a small thing about you, relief flooded your veins at the very thought that he thought of you. “I do.”

You waved at him, your lips turned upwards shyly. You turned your back and started walking away from him. Again, he thought. And again, he let you, without putting up a fight, which he was aware that he should have done. The elephant in his chest was a light weight compared to the heavy truth dancing around in his throat. Said truth would become much bigger, a heavier burden for him to carry, once it made its way out of him. Speaking made it real. He knew it because every memory that he kept of you, in a sacred, untouched area of his own consciousness, was full of comfort after sharing uncomfortable truths.

It was like his heart screamed at him to keep searching, to keep trying for the person who made it beat faster. But his brain, foggy with all the logic and terrible, horrid things he had to face, decided it was best to keep himself away from you, to save himself the trouble of being the target of pity, or worse, being another person who left him.

From that day on, you’d casually visit the park, secretly wishing you could see him more. It didn't take too long until your wishes were granted, no matter how private you thought they were. Perhaps they were all over your face and he could still read you so easily. Despite the apparent capacity of reading your wants, you were positively sure that Spencer didn't know what to say, just like you. Everything, including him, felt as distant as you had left it. You weren't sure if you could go back, but running away was just as troublesome: you had to adapt in order to survive, but everyone else surrounding you was already fit to the environment. You stuck out like a sore thumb, unable to connect with anyone but the protagonist from past memories of what once was a happy relationship.

Every time you were there, you sensed someone looking at you shortly after your arrival. It was like an unspoken agreement between the two of you, to try to talk things through without rushing into anything, trying to conquer the other's forgiveness by sharing both ordinary and big moments you had during your time apart. As you sat down and talked and shared, you realized that you'd never stop loving him, not even for a second, not even if you could. You had tried and failed, and kept coming back for more to fall in love with the same person over and over.

These encounters quickly turned into the best moments of Spencer's weeks, getting to be filled in on the things he had missed in your life. You had shown him photos, your new degree, new friends, discussed details about your job and how things were in your family. All of that wrapped in intricate, subtle details on how much you'd turned into a person he was already feeling proud of. You had grown into a strong-willed woman who managed to keep your heart as pure as the day you had met him. You still had the traits that made you fall in love with him.

One day, you two were sitting on the bench and you pointed to your initials on it. “Heh, I remember that day. You kept worrying someone was going to show up and stop me from doing it.”

He smiled. “I'm glad no one did.”

“It's funny, isn't it?” You asked, eyes on the indentation, not expecting him to answer due the lack of context. He frowned. “I mean, us. Acting like we don't know each other just for the sake of spending time together.”

He thought for a moment. With your shameless comment, you were definitely daring him to say something. Daring him to make things real, but better this time. “I like that idea,” he said, getting you to look at him. “Don't you? We get to meet each other again. I get to meet you again and I get to make sure that, this time, I'll never let you go.”

“You still don't know me enough to say that with such sureness,” you said, feeling bashful all of a sudden. It was also one of your behaviors that got him so enthralled, once again. Your capacity of saying something and then act coyly, as if you didn't know what he was talking about. Almost backtracking on whatever you had said that was a little more risky than the usual chatter.

He wouldn't let you.

“I want to.”

His tone made you speechless. Your expression turned into one of sheer, pure enchantment. It told him everything he needed to know.

Everything bad was now under the bridge and you could finally have each other back after being so patient.

He now remembered what it was that he missed so dearly in his life.

You.

[danandfuckingjonlmao]

something that has bothered me about tua seasons 2-4 is the inconsistency of the relationships between the siblings.

starting with klaus, in season 1 ben and diego were his people. ben and klaus were always shown together in the flashbacks to them as kids and obviously every second of the show because klaus was the only one who could see him. but like… they were CLOSE. SO FUCKING CLOSE. they were the most SIBLINGS of all the siblings.

that continued into season 2. ben was randomly a bit colder towards klaus but they were still so fucking close.

and then ben left, and klaus for the first time was alone without his person. everyone else lost a brother when they were 17, except klaus. so he had to grieve ben for the first time. that didn’t happen, though. there were many nods to them being close, and then of course steve blackman pulled a steve blackman which means weird unnecessary incest implications, but it wasn’t clear just how close klaus and brellie ben were even though it had to be hard to be around someone who looked like ben and was kind of ben but also wasn’t ben.

and with diego, it also seemed like he and klaus were incredibly close. diego older-brothered klaus constantly s1 and they gave off the impression that they ran into each other a lot in the city during the years since leaving the academy.

then they completely disregarded it for the rest of the seasons. in s2 and s3 there a few interactions that could lend credence to this but for the most part it seemed like they threw it out the window.

allison and klaus had no clear relationship in season 1. they had some incredibly minor sibling interactions but nothing that indicated they were anywhere near as close as they imply in season 4. season 2 they were close and then season 3 not a lot of interaction. but s4 makes it seem like they have always been incredibly close which doesn’t make sense!!

five and viktor have a relatively consistent friendship, although s4 doesn’t really give viktor any relationship development with his siblings. same with five, if anything he just gets his relationships destroyed but that’s a different post!!

allison and viktor also are pretty consistently close. the implication is that they weren’t as kids but that they really try to be as adults, and i do like their relationship overall.

luther and allison nasty ew kill it with fire. like i thought we established in s2 that incest is weird actually and that we weren’t doing that and then season 3 came along and whatever whatever shut up.

diego and luther’s relationship is fun. they go from adversaries to himbo besties and it’s relatively consistent.

luther and viktor have similar growth. luther goes from piece of shit basically causing the apocalypse s1 because of how shitty he was to viktor towards really wanting to make things right and being the big brother he always should have been. they didn’t really have a relationship s4 but WHATEVER.

i feel like five and luther were together a lot the first two seasons and that very much changed. i’m not even that upset as i think five having character arcs with each sibling is good since he missed so many years with them (other than him and viktor they were always close and should have remained that way).

i think allison and diego and viktor and diego having relationship development would have been cool. in the comics viktor and diego have a band so we know they’re friends. and in the show allison and diego don’t have too many interactions but the ones they do have are SOOOO SIBLING and i adore that.

ben and viktor have some closeness s3-4 (and the end of s2) but it’s not really something we see, more so we’re just told. and then random flashback to them hanging out as kids before the mission which was confusing.

i think five and klaus were done the dirtiest with the relationship inconsistency. i understand wanting different characters to have arcs with different people, but when you sacrifice the established relationships and basically put your characters on shuffle then you also sacrifice character consistency, development, growth, etc.

i think a big problem is how many characters they brought on last season. there wasn’t time for consistent relationships among the brellies when they had to use a shit ton of time building new characters and relationships (and immediately killing them all off which was A Choice).

anyway just wanted to write out thoughts about this. would love to know other people’s thoughts (or headcanons about the siblings).

[most-normal-eccles-cake-ignorer]

Good Omens: Lockdown and Crowley not mentioning his living situation in S2*

*till S2E6 when he asks if he can have his apartment back bc he's bored of living in his car but Aziraphale doesn’t hear bc mentally he’s in Alpha Centauri.

Having read the 'Crowley doesn't tell him' Neil Gaiman ask close to when I first listened to Lockdown (I lived under a rock until recently), my initial thought was HAS HE BEEN LIVING IN HIS CAR FOR YEARS?! but I think he was still in his apartment in 2020:

as far as Hell knows, Crowley just had a pool party in holy water (the holiest) so the higher-ups are probably willing to give him some space (plus Beelzebub is busy going on pub dates w Gabriel)

while there should be ~8 months between the end of Season 1 events (The Very First Day of the Rest of Their Lives on Sunday, Aug 25, 2019) and the Lockdown phonecall (on or near the 30 year anniversary on May 1, 2020), I can't imagine that's a very long time for Hell, especially if you're understaffed and busy dealing with fallout from Almostgeddon / going on pub dates

Shax dropping off mail and asking about the boiler seems like something one does in the first few months of living somewhere, not ~3 years in (if S2 is in 2023)

That said, I think the phone call underlines why Crowley never directly tells Aziraphale that he is living in the Bentley in S2, and it's just a great conversation (all hail Gaiman) sooo I wrote about it:

***Note: This post analyzes the Lockdown phonecall from Crowley's perspective only. Our heroine is feeling quite emotionally vulnerable at this point in time so things are going to hit him harder than they normally would.

I do not think Aziraphale meant to cause him pain (!!) but Crowley can't see that yet and I've written this post in a way that reflects that missing insight. (I explain in more detail in this reblog if you are interested) I am working on a companion post for Aziraphale's side of this conversation and how I think it affects his behavior in S2 because if we know anything about these two, it's that their exactlys are different exactlys.***

Crowley’s habit of sleeping to skip time like an RPG character by a campfire amuses me to no end, but in this context it feels heavy. Crowley already worries about losing time with what he loves and he probably hoped things would be different between him and Aziraphale after the events of S1. But things don’t change much. Then lockdowns start, and Crowley is trapped in his apartment alone, transcendentally bored, and unable to make his brain shut up. Sleeping a month away starts to sound less awful.

But Crowley hasn’t given up yet; he’s still awake when Aziraphale calls, and he’s even giving it two more days. Was he waiting for Aziraphale to call? Is it even possible not to at least kind of wait for someone’s call when you are cut off from everything and the caller has been your only friend and crush for millennia?

Aziraphale asks why Crowley isn't "out and about" tempting people or setting a bad example and he responds:

C: Everyone's so miserable and cooped up right now anyway, and I just… well… don't have the heart for it. A: *glowing audibly* I'm not miserable~ C: Really?

Crowley sounds genuinely surprised at Aziraphale's happiness and quickly assumes it's because the angel has been around people. He's so lonely/depressed/in his own head that he hadn't even considered someone enjoying being 'cooped up'. *sob*

Aziraphale goes No actually I put the closed sign up in the window and I'm having the Time of My Life, never had so few customers, not in 200 years!, etc. Although, he says:

A: …There were a few young lads a couple of nights ago who broke in through the back and tried to steal the cashbox! But they soon saw the error of their ways~ C: *clearly amused* Did you smite them with your wroth? A: Well I certainly gave them a good talking to, and I sent each of them home with cake~ C: *annoyed, swooning* Cake? A: Quite a lot of cake, actually. C: *physically ill from having such a giant crush on this dumbass baker/security guard* eeeekkkgghhh I'm gonna regret asking but.. ...rrgh.. *30 seconds of Aziraphale joyfully describing his baking while Crowley probably tries very hard not to imagine the angel eating each item in sensual slow motion* I stg you can hear him struggling in the background once or twice

A: …And once I've baked them, I have to eat them all myself, which was why I was so delighted— C: To send your burglars home laden with baked goods, yes, nnyeaayeah I follow…

Crowley interrupts, finishing Aziraphale's sentence in his nervous hurry to say the next bit:

C: *loud inhale* You know, I could.. hunker down at your place. … Slither over and watch you eat cake. I could bring a bottle--a case of… something… drinkable…?

He's trying to sound so casual about it but this is someone who was rejected/abandoned by actual literal God after asking what he thought were welcome, uncontroversial questions. Asking makes him vulnerable. He's supposed to be the rescuer, not a demon in distress. He does not feel casual about asking.

Crowley knows it's unlikely but he's so miserable and desperate for company that he can't help but ask, just in case. Even the smallest chance of spending time trapped indoors with Aziraphale—with nothing to do but drink, watch him eat, and talk about things they'd normally avoid—is too tempting.

A: *panicking* Oh I— I— I— I— I'm afraid that would be Breaking All The Rules! *nervous breathing* Out of the question! I'll see you… when this is over. C: Right. gnnehh. I'm setting the alarm clock for July. Good night, angel. *dial tone*

And just like that, Crowley doesn't need two days to decide. The depression nap doubles in length. He doesn't hear how badly Aziraphale wants to say yes behind the fear, or maybe he does and it hurts worse because why isn't Crowley enough for him? You can almost hear the spiralling:

SHOCKING, asking made it worse. It always does doesn’t it? Why even bother? you just embarrass yourself.. SLITHER over? why did I say that *grumble grumble* of COURSE His Holy Holiness, your only friend in the universe, would rather eat cake by himself while everything goes to shit than ~deign~ to have you in his presence. "AsK aND yE sHaLl ReCeIvE" bugger this for a lark im going to bed

(a bit dramatic but we've all been there)

I imagine sleep doesn't come right away. Maybe his thoughts drift to when he sat beside the angel at a dark Tadfield bus stop after a rather eventful Saturday. Crowley must've felt a tiny bit hopeful when he invited Aziraphale to stay with him: Heaven had withdrawn its favor and the bookshop was gone; Aziraphale was like him now. Didn't that mean things would change?

"I don't think my side would like that." Apparently not.

In the end, Aziraphale did ride the bus back to Crowley's apartment and stayed till the next morning when he caught a cab, but only to sell the illusion. Crowley understood that as far as sides went, the angel was still on Heaven's, even if Heaven wasn't on his.

And now this: the entire world is shut down; there is nothing for Aziraphale to do but stay in and read and bake in his magically reconstituted bookshop and he still won't invite Crowley in. Burglars and un-fallen angels only—nobody who asks questions.

So... of course Crowley doesn't tell Aziraphale when he loses his apartment. He already knows what answer he would get; the angel has told him so many times. Aziraphale is a company man first, a companion to one very sad owl when convenient.

If Crowley works up the courage to say 'please take me in, I have nowhere else to go' and Aziraphale goes 'sorry, no, far too political, but I WILL risk being erased from the Book of Life to protect this nude amnesiac former coworker who always hated me,' it's going to be too much. You can't sleep long enough for that type of hurt to go away. Better not to say anything.

"Then nothing has to change, does it?"

[icallhimjoey]

Reinvent Love

♥ ♥          Joseph Quinn x Fem!Reader 

Summary: You and Joe are treading new waters. You’re no longer flatmates, but still close. More than friends, but nothing defined. Nothing labeled. Determined to not lose what you have, though. But, can you?

CW / disclaimer: rpf, fem!reader, language, adult themes, jealousy, accusations, soft fluff, season 3 of my flatmate!joe

Author’s note: the first cracks; they're here - and, again, you don’t need to have read define close or explain us, but it’ll obviously give you backstory, which might help!

Wordcount: 3.6K

part one - part two - part three - part four - part five

It was silly. Joe was being silly.

He knew it, and felt so stupid for it. Like, in hindsight, the worrying felt so dumb. The constant milling shit over didn’t change anything, there was no real point to it. Although, maybe you being on his mind in this... new manner was what summoned you last night.

You just showed up, talking about a crazy day, no sad pouts, no needy touches. Just jittery movements and a lot to tell him.

Joe kind of sat back on his sofa, spread out and leaning into his left elbow and watched you pace around his lounge. Something about something a colleague had said that then turned out to be lies and you found out something by overhearing a phone call you weren’t meant to overhear – Joe was barely following along. Didn’t really try his best to, if he was honest.

He was moreso paying attention to what you were actually doing – were you even aware that you had started grabbing random things he had left lying around on his coffee table, on the kitchen island, on the counters, and one by one, put everything away where it was meant to go?  

Joe pursed a smile as he realised you knew exactly where everything went. Why did that make his chest ache in the best of ways?

This new casual form of intimacy seemed so small, but Joe felt how it smothered that little grain of doubt that resided in his chest. That little grain that had convinced him that you were probably going to fall into a new routine with your new flatmate after he moved in and, then you would probably grow close to him and Joe knew how you... no.

No.

He couldn’t think that.

It wasn’t fair on you. He caught himself trying to finish the thought a lot, but he knew it wasn’t fair. Wasn’t true. He didn’t even fully believe it. It was this thing. Still, he also couldn’t help how it simultaneously made him grow a little more possessive and made him want to prepare for the worst.

But, she was here, he had to remind himself.

She’s here.

And she was wandering around his space, letting her train of thought flow freely from her brain into his living room and he used to witness this all the time when you lived together still. Joe realised he’d actually missed it a lot, and wasn’t that the whole point? That he got to miss you now?

God, Joe missed you a lot and you were right there and he could just burst at the seams at how fucking lucky he felt.

He was a just normal guy in a normal flat with a normal relationship– well, normalish relationship, anyway. Not that you had talked about anything yet. Of course you hadn’t. But it was pretty fucking obvious what this was. So he had started shrugging whenever someone would ask if you were actually together, which felt a lot better than the forever, “No, we’re flatmates, what are you talking about?” he used to throw at people, practically gaslighting them out of whatever they thought they’d witnessed between him and the girl that he used to live with.

It was working. The plan he had made, this vague idea of normalcy; it was working out the way he had wanted it to.

And yea, sure, you were getting a new flatmate and Joe had a difficult time not feeling some type of way about that, but, he had made the decision to move out and, look at you now.

“Do you think I can get a raise out of this? Or at least get a weird bonus, mid-term?”

Joe had a hard time not laughing at your question as he saw you had already mentally moved onto something else. You were stood in the middle of the room, both hands on your hips, eyes scanning the room. Everything tidy and organised.

“Joe, when did you last clean?”

Joe followed your gaze up into one of the corners of the ceiling.

“I cleaned today.” Joe said, knowing you’d likely not take it as an honest answer. You had lived together, remember? No fucking way was Joe ever going to feel the urge to maybe sometimes swipe a feather duster across the upper corners of his living room.

You shuddered at the thought of what resided behind his curtains there.

You sighed and tutted and turned back to Joe’s kitchen like you were going to start cleaning his fucking ceilings at half past ten at night.

“Hey, no. No, no. Stop. Will you come sit down a second? My god.” Joe huffed, feigning annoyance. When you turned on your heel and giggled as you scurried over, Joe let a laugh escape his throat just before you let yourself fall into the cushions next to him.

He hooked an arm around your neck to pull you in so he could press his nose into your cheek a second. You gladly let him, and when he held you close like that for longer than you initially thought he would, you suddenly realised you’d just been talking about yourself for twenty minutes straight.

Just barged in with unimportant thoughts on your mind that you just verbally vomited right into Joe’s space. You knew it was mostly nervous energy that was only there because your new flatmate picked up his keys earlier, which now meant there was every opportunity for someone to just... walk into your flat at any given time. That had unexpectedly brought on way more anxiety than you previously thought it would do.

Hence why you decided to just... escape it, and went over to Joe’s to spend the night there.

Joe was pressing his nose into your cheek and held you in place for a bit before he moved his head down, hiding into your neck a second.

“You okay?” you asked softly, head tilting down a bit.

“Mm, yea, fine.” Joe inhaled deeply, before pressing a few small kisses to the crook there and moving back to look at you the in eye. He unhooked his elbow from around your neck and placed two cupped hands on either side of your face, swiping bits of hair back in the process.

Joe was leant all the way back into the sofa, head squished in between two of the back cushions and you took a moment to look at each other. Joe studied your face and rubbed his thumbs across the apples of your cheeks until you grew shy.

“You look tired,” you softly said before Joe sat up a little and leant closer. It had you close your eyes just before scrunching up your nose as he kissed the very tip of it.

“I am tired.” He mused, copying your nose scrunch when you blinked your eyes open again, and Joe looked so soft. Sort of pleased with life, happy to be where he was and like he’d just had a really good productive day. He blinked slowly, eyes only half open, and looked sleepy enough to slip right into dreams the second his head would hit his pillow.

You loved him like this. His hands on you, all soft touches. Comfy and cosy and calm. Just you and him. No one else. No threat of someone randomly walking in.

This was perfect.

“Mmm, me too.” You smiled and let Joe grab one of your elbows to pull an arm across his stomach as he sat back again.

“I’m not surprised. You’ve just done a 5K as you tidied this room, I think.”

You huffed a laugh as you sank into Joe’s side, and then you sat like that in silence for a moment. No TV on. No phones in sight for some easy distraction. Just you and Joe and the view of his living room.

“Are you okay?” Joe suddenly asked, emphasis on the you, and you tried hiding the small, hitched intake of breath by quickly nodding and casually going, “Yea. Fine.”

You could feel how Joe tucked in his chin to look at you.

He waited. Wasn’t going to tell you, “No, be honest...”, but also wasn’t going to accept it and move on. It was still like that. He knew you were lying, and you knew he knew, no words shared at all.

So you sighed and took a second, and then said, “Josh picked up his key today.”

And you didn’t want to explain what that meant.

Didn’t want to tell Joe that, for a while, this existing-in-two-flats thing had just felt like a bit of a joke. Just the two of you playing and being silly about whatever you really were. You still sort of thought of him as a flatmate because he still came over all the time, and you went over to his all the time too. You existed in the same space almost just as much as before, sort of.

But now a new flatmate was actually moving in, and suddenly, it felt like reality had slapped you right across the cheek like it had done that day that Joe moved out.

You’d gotten to hide away for a lot of that.

And there was no real hiding this time around.

You couldn’t go home and pretend Joe was going to move back in eventually, because now Josh’s things were going to be all over the flat. Which was fine. Josh signed a lease. His things were allowed to be all over the place.

It was just... things were getting real now.

Shit was real.

“Which reminds me,” you suddenly piped up, pushing uncomfortable thoughts down, tucking those away for another time and place. “This is going to save you some money!”

You saw how Joe’s mouth slowly stretched into a smile as he watched how his own feet rubbed against yours. Then he caught himself and quickly furrowed his brow, saying, “No, I don’t think it works like that.”

You copied his expression, but were more confused than anything else.

“Of course it does. Josh signed the papers, he’s going to start paying rent now, you–”

“I said that I had taken care of things, didn’t I?” Joe interrupted you, fingers playing with the folds in your sleeve of the arm that rested over his stomach. “Can’t just not keep a promise like that.”

You blinked at him a second, then moved to sit up to stare at him harder. If both Joe and Josh paid rent, that basically meant that you... got to live for free for a while? That math wasn’t mathing. One plus one wasn’t equalling two here. You looked around Joe’s flat and tried to think of his own expenses, and... what the fuck was he doing?!

“Joe,”

“You’re not going to be able to talk me out of this.”

“Joe.”

Joe ignored you and faked a yawn, sped it up along with stretched out arms above his head and quickly said, “So tired. Bed?” before getting up and leaving you on his sofa as he left the room.

“You’re insane if you think I’m just going to accept that!” you called after him and heard him laugh from down the hall.

“Did you not just say you were after a weird mid-term bonus?”

And you hated how that made you smile. Made you punch one of the cushions and sink your teeth into your bottom lip begrudgingly as you forgot to breathe a second.

Joe smiled to himself too as he turned on the lights in his bathroom. It felt like he was winning a contest - there was no contest, no one to fight, not really, but, he was definitely winning.

“You coming?”

Breathe.

Calm down.

You could pretend to fight him on this once more in the morning.

Crawling into bed with Joe had its own little routine which was different from the one at yours. Different order of things, because the lay out of the flat was different.

Bathroom first. You brushed teeth together, always had to stop Joe when he washed his face too aggressively and then used your own moisturiser on him. “Just for your dry patches,” you’d always say, but would end up swiping delicate fingertips all over anyway. There’d be a snarky comment, of you using too much, of him feeling too greasy, of how he was going to stick to his pillow all night now, and then you’d always kiss him to shut him up before moving on to do your own skincare routine.

When you’d get into bed, Joe would already be in there, giving his phone a last once-over before he’d scoot down and get comfortable.

This time, however, when you walked into his bedroom, the lights were already off, and it looked like Joe was already falling asleep.

This soft man.

So sleepy.

He was all messy curls and bare arms, duvet tucked under them, curled up right in the middle of his bed. You slid in and cuddled up right behind him, hips against his bum, chest to his back.

You were right.

Joe was already falling asleep.

You pushed a leg in between his for warmth and snuck an arm around his front.

“You’re crazy,” you whispered into the skin of his shoulder which prompted Joe to grab hold of your hand and pull it into his chest so you were hugging him properly. The big spoon to his small one. Then he just hummed as you pressed a small kiss to his warm skin there.

“So crazy.” you nuzzled into his pillow, your nose rubbing his back as you did, and you felt how he ducked his head down to press a small kiss to your fingers.

You fell asleep warm, comfortable, and smiling.

You woke up in the same way.

Just on your stomach now, and with Joe’s heavy limbs slung over your body. When you turned over, it woke Joe up, and for five blissful early morning minutes, you tried crawling into each other’s skin as best you could. Breathed each other’s breath and tasted each other’s skin. Stroked hands underneath clothes and had fingers crawling into underwear, just to touch and to hold.

When you quietly asked if Joe wanted coffee, he groaned and told you to shut up. He was able to feel you giggle to that, and he could cry with how happy he felt in that moment. Why would you have to go and ruin it by getting up to go and make coffee?

“Five more minutes.”

“Mmm... it’s never just five.”

Joe sighed, “Just five.” speech slurring with early morning drowsiness and then burrowed himself into you even more.

And fine.

Joe could have five more minutes.

But then they easily turned into twenty, because they always did, and you had to eventually bribe Joe with breakfast for him to let you go so you could sit up.

“If you take a slow shower, I’ll have it ready when you finish.” You looked over your shoulder where Joe, still with his eyes closed, smiled widely. His nose was slightly red from pressing it into your skin, and his bedhead made you have to suppress a giggle that you hid by leaning down to press a kiss to his forehead before you got out.

Joe barely even felt that little grain of bad in his chest when he thought of how much he loved you.

Because he did.

Joe fucking loved you.

There was going to be a moment soon where he was just going to have to say it. It was going to spill out of him in some other way if he wouldn’t simply use the words, he just knew it.

Joe loved you as he watched through squinty eyes how you reached for a pair of white socks of his to borrow.

Loved you as he watched you pull one of his old sweaters over your head before you walked out, bare legs still on show.

Loved you when he stepped into his living room after his shower to the smell of burnt toast and scrambled eggs and coffee.

Loved you as he watched you step onto a chair in the corner of his room, wet dishcloth in hand to remove the strings of dust you had scolded him over the night before.

Loved you as he felt what the sight of your stretched body, your bare tighs, and the little peep of your bum did to him inside of his boxers.

Loved you as he groaned and let his head fall onto the counter, having to breathe through it, because you were just cleaning his living room, and not giving him a sensual striptease act or whatever.

Loved you as you looked back over your shoulder, raising your eyebrows in surprised confusion before accusingly asking, “Really, Joe? Cleaning?”

Loved you as he stutteringly defended the blood rush down south by saying, “You have no idea what you look like right now.” into his elbow where he had to hide his face for a second.

Loved you, loved you.

He was hardly able to deny any of it.

And he didn’t feel that he had to, either.

Because, you were there. In his flat. In his clothes. Cleaning his dusty ceiling corners. And wasn’t that just something he wanted to tell the whole fucking world about?

That small little green grain of doubt and worry and negativity dried out and got no sunshine to really grow into anything. Thank fuck.

He got to ignore it for a while.

Forgot about it entirely, and pretended it wasn’t even there for a bit.

It was easy.

Joe loved you.

He knew he did.

Would tell you soon.

Didn’t know how.

Or where.

But he was going to say it.

He was going to use his words because he was just a normal guy who loved a normal girl and you weren’t being weirdly secretive about what you got up to in private. At least, not how you used to be, anyway.

Joe loved you.

You brought Joe flowers and cleaned his ceiling and wore his clothes and cooked his breakfast.

Joe loved you, even though your new flatmate Josh turned out to be impossibly good-looking in addition to being incredibly kind as well, so Joe didn’t even get to have a real reason to dislike him at all, which seemed unfair, but, all right.

Joe loved you, even when suddenly two shiny black acoustic guitars appeared on your living room wall, because Josh worked in music, and wasn’t that just so cool?

Joe loved you, even though his very first thought after that was, well I know how to play guitar too, don’t I?! which you had never even mentioned before.

Joe loved you, even when he walked into your flat one evening and interrupted a dinner you were having with Josh and one of your friends and, look, Josh cooked for us, and for the first time ever, he felt uninvited and intruding.

Joe loved you, even when your friend jokingly said, “You’re over here at lot for someone that moved out.” right to his face, to which you then heartily laughed, because she was only joking, Joe, and then you didn’t say anything about how you were together, but, you were together... weren’t you?

Joe loved you, even when he stuck to the bit and handed you his flat key like he always did, expecting to find it in his coat pocket later, but then ended up finding both his pockets empty when he went home the next morning, which, yea actually, that made sense, because Josh lived there now, and it was a little weird to have a key still, wasn’t it?

Joe loved you, even when you had told him to come over on Friday evening because you’d had a shit day at work, and for the first time ever, he had to ring the doorbell to get inside.

Joe loved you, even when Josh was the one that answered the door, and Josh almost didn’t let him in, telling him, “Oh, she’s fallen asleep on the sofa, mate.” to which Joe just smiled as he stepped around him, because what the fuck did Josh even know about falling asleep on the sofa in this flat?

Joe loved you, even when he found you asleep on the sofa, curled up under a blanket he’d never seen before, with an empty pizza box bar some crusts still on the coffee table, and you never ate a whole pizza yourself, so that was obviously shared with someone else.

Joe loved you.

He knew he did.

But there was a playstation besides the TV now, and a cool record player on the side, pile of vinyl next to it, and, God.

Joe fucking hated this.

Whatever was inside of Joe’s chest, that thing he didn’t even want in there, was growing.

Was getting fed without Joe even fully realising he was feeding it.

He hated those guitars. He hated that he no longer had a key. He hated that stupid blanket. And he hated that empty pizza box.

Still, he sat down beside you and placed your socked feet onto his lap. Watched the last scenes of whatever film you’d put on as he slowly kneaded a foot and let you sleep, and he tried his best to not get bitten. To not let it sink its teeth in. To not let it hurt.

It was silly.

Joe was being silly.

Rational thought saved him.

Rational thought told him he still loved you.

And he hoped rational thought was going to be enough.

---

The Taglisted

@ali-in-w0nderland, @alwayslindie, @babybluebex, @capricornrisingsstuff, @chaoticgood-munson,

@choke-me-eddie, @demonsanddemogorgons, @did-it-work, @dirtyeddietini, @djoseph-quinn,

@dolcevit4, @eddies-puppet, @emma-munson, @emotionaldreamer, @everythinghasafacee,

@figmentofquinn, @ghost-proofbaby, @ghostinthebackofyourhead, @hanahkatexo, @harringtonfan4,

@hazelenys, @jewellethief, @joesquinns, @keikoraven, @kennedy-brooke,

@lovelyblueness, @manda-panda-monium, @mandyjo8719, @mexicanfolklore, @munsonluvrr,

@munson-mjstan, @nadixq, @nglharry, @notverywise, @pepperstories,

@phyllosilicate-s, @royale1803, @sherrylyn628, @sidthedollface2, @solzi1420,

@songforeddiemunson, @sweetberry47, @take-everything-you-can, @thebellenouvelle, @tlclick73,

@werepartnersnow, @winterwakesthewolf, @witchwolflea, @yelyahcardella, @yunirgo

taglist currently full, sorry

[mrs-starkgaryen]

Meet me at the Corner (Shop) teaser

Modern! Aegon Targaryen x Reader

Teaser 2, Teaser 3

✍️ (My other writings) ✍️

You keep meeting a certain silver-haired man at the local corner shop and whilst you only came in for a snack, you leave with a whole lot more.

Warnings: Will post more with the whole ones-shot later, but for now- Rude Aegon, British corner shop life, missing punctuation and grammar, probably

A/N: This is my first fanfic. I don't know why I wrote this, I just wanted to get me started. THERE IS MORE TO COME TO THIS ONE-SHOT IF PEOPLE LIKE IT (or even if they don't)!

I just love my man, Aegon, and you know what they say- if there isn't a fanfic you want, write it yourself so tada!

Please like, reblog and leave constructive comments (or any) :D

The bell dinged when I pushed open the heavy door, announcing my entrance to the shop’s inhabitants. I hated the thing. I’d rather slink in, grab what I want and leave, like a snake slithering in the long blades of grass, pouncing on its prey and disappearing. But now, I had to endure walking around the shop as the only cashier available had his eyes fixed on my movements.

He was an older man, probably mid-fifties, greying hair and even though he was always behind the till, he had a noticeable belly, like a balloon shoved underneath his shirt. There is nothing outwardly wrong with him but he always makes me feel uncomfortable, from how he would watch me wonder or judge me for what I buy. The latter probably wasn’t true and the former… well the former was probably him watching for shoplifters- which I don’t blame him for. Corner shops were prime targets for theft.

As the embarrassment of the bell’s acknowledgment evaporated, I make myself look up begrudgingly to him, to acknowledge my arrival with a nod or a smile. But upon looking at the man behind the till, instead of the sides of my mouth lifting upwards, they went down. For in the place of the typical man, was a much younger one. He had scruffy hair in the shade of ice dripping down his head and sported snow-sprinkled stubble which he was scratching absent-mindedly as he scrolled on his phone.

He was leaning over the counter as I made my way past the magazine section next to the door but he must have been too engrossed in whatever was on his screen for he didn’t once look up at me. I was grateful for it but it was odd, coming into a corner shop and not being watched. With this new revelation in mind, I made my way around the aisles, looking for the items that I came in for: cookies, a Cadbury bar, a bag of Doritos, a can of Monster and a milkshake. I was planning on watching the new season of my favourite TV series in its entirety tonight and I was planning on having a good time. I navigated the thin aisles, trying not to bump into the products that hung off the shelves, adding the necessary items to the growing pile in my arms.

Trying to balance the unknown brand of cookies on top, I position myself to hold the items better with this new addition. However, the packet falls to the floor with a crunch and I wince at the sound interrupting the silence of the shop. Heat blooms in my cheeks as I peer over the pile of food to the cookies on the ground before tentatively turning my eyes to the man behind the till to see if he noticed. Oh man, oh man. He is going to think I’m a pig who can’t resist all these snacks

Fortunately, the man was still flicking through his phone and not paying attention to the happenings of the shop that he oversaw. A brief idea of me just walking out with the items flashed through my mind but I banished it away, heading my way towards the cashier. I stood in front of him, waiting for him to notice that he had a customer.

But the white-haired man seemed intent on pretending he was not here, and that was something we had in common. I started to wish the creepy older man was back. At least he was aware of the people in the shop. My arms were beginning to ache, so I had to break the silence we both were unwillingly in; I let out a small cough.

His eyes flick up from the screen and land on me. He rolls his eyes and slowly puts his phone in the back pocket of his jeans. He wasn’t wearing uniform, but instead a short-sleeved checkered shirt that was open to reveal a t-shirt with a quote on, underneath. I tried to get a glimpse but after reading the top three words, ‘Sorry I’m late,’ he moved to cross his arms, blocking the rest of the words. He waited for me to put my items on the till.

Noticing his disgruntled face, I smile shyly as I empty my arms. “Hi. Just these please.”

He grabs the items and starts to scan. Beep, beep, beep. I stand there, swaying on the soles of my feet as I waited. He places the stuff in a blue-lined bag and places it in front of me. Then we go back to the silence, staring at each other. Why is he staring at me? My eyes start to look around, trying to avoid his intense gaze, especially as his eyes are a weird colour, like an amethyst cracked open, gems being disrupted from their rocky slumber.

Nervously, I flicker back to his shirt. ‘Sorry I’m late- my alarm didn’t go off. Because I didn’t turn it on. Because I didn’t want to be here.’ A puff of unwanted laughter escapes my mouth; the shirt is appropriate for the man in front of me. Who was still staring at me.

Maybe he was waiting for me to say something. I open my mouth, “So how- “

“Do you want the cookies or not?”

“Huh?”

He nods towards the pack that I dropped on the floor earlier, the ones that I forgot to pick up. “Oh,” I rush back to grab them and plonk them on the till, smiling, “Yes please, wouldn’t be a movie night without them.”

The man doesn’t say anything to attest if that was true but scanned the biscuits and shoved them into the bag with the rest. Not talkative, I see.

“£5.48.”

I nod, pulling out my purse, searching for the change. 25p, 32p, 46p. Oh for the love of- the one time you need to be drowning in copper coins-

Realising that I am delaying this man returning to his favourite pastime, I start to panic. “Sorry” I say.

Oh, he isn’t going to like me. I need 2p, where is it? I finally find one stuck in the crevices of my purse, I pull it out. Huzzah! I happily extend my clenched fist over his, “I knew I had it.”

I drop the money and wait for him to count it. He nods and hands the bag over to me, before pulling his phone back out. I take it business was done.

I shuffle on my feet, eager to patch up the bad taste I must have left in his mouth, “Thank you!”

He doesn’t respond, I fidget with the plastic straps, “Sorry about the wait,” I realise he still hasn’t moved from watching his phone. Well, okay then… I head for the door, tugging it open with my free hand. Before I exit into the cold night, I look back but he’s still not looking, I stretch out one more olive branch, “Have a good night.”

He was as stoic as ever. I huff and let the door close between us. As I trudge home, I ponder about the weird man and for once, I start to hope that I’ll see the old one the next time I go into The Hightower corner shop.

More to come (only a few thousand words left)

[metalandmagi]

A list of underrated Christmas movies for everyone who is getting tired of watching the same things every year:

This year, I wanted to make a list of a few Christmas movies that I feel are a bit underrated and under-appreciated, because I’m tired of seeing the same things all the time. If anyone has any suggestions for their own lesser known holiday movies, please feel free to include them!

Arthur Christmas: An animated movie that should be a classic, but it was unfortunately lost to time because it had a horrible marketing campaign that made it look like complete shit. Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s not complete shit. It’s actually fucking amazing.

Arthur, the clumsy son of the current Santa Claus is known for being a lovable idiot who tends to ruin everything he touches, but when a little girl’s present is accidentally left behind one Christmas, Arthur, an elf named Bryony, and his grandfather (a previous Santa…so grandsanta) embark on a chaotic mission around the world to deliver the missing present. Every character in this movie is so fucking funny and empathetic at the same time. Arthur embodies the true meaning of Christmas in everything he does. Bryony is just…on another level entirely. Arthur’s brother Steve (a strategic genius who wants to use his new technology to ensure his place as the next Santa) is a perfect antagonist that the audience still feels sympathy for. They all just have such a fun dynamic, and it’s a crime that more people haven’t seen this.

Spirited: A fairly new addition to the Christmas movie ranks, since it came out in 2022 (but it was on AppleTV+ so no one watched it). Spirited is a modern, musical version of A Christmas Carol like you’ve never seen before (starring Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds, who are an amazing combination in anything). If you’re tired of seeing endless retellings of Dickens' story, just watch this. It’s hilarious, heartfelt, and it brings a whole new perspective to the story in a way that I’m not going to spoil. And the songs go so hard it’s insane.

Happiest Season: A rom-com in which a woman named Abby desperately wants to propose to her girlfriend Harper over the holidays during Harper’s family Christmas party…only to realize that Harper’s extremely rich and conservative family doesn’t know she’s gay. Fun rom-com shenanigans ensue. Did I mention Abby is played by Kristen Stewart, and Harper is played by Mackenzie Davis? Also Aubrey Plaza, Alison Brie, and that guy from Schitt’s Creek everyone loves are in it.

This could easily have been a completely different movie if the cast wasn't so funny and didn’t have such good chemistry. It starts out as a standard holiday rom-com, but I was tearing up by the end of this the first time I watched it. If you’ve ever felt like you’ve been hiding your true self from your family or if you’ve felt like you’ve never been good enough for them, I think you’ll see a lot to relate to in this. 

Violent Night: Another new addition to the ever-expanding list of Christmas movies, this aptly named action thriller also came out in 2022, and I feel like no one has spoken about it since, which is a crime because IT WAS SO MUCH FUCKING FUN!

When a grizzled, down on the world Santa (played by David Harbour) gets stuck in a rich family’s house while it’s being overrun by mercenaries, he has to Die Hard his way out and save the hostages (or at least the ones who are worth saving) before it’s too late. This was such a fun surprise, because violent action thrillers are so hit and miss for me personally. David Harbour is great. It’s just under 2 hours of watching shitty people get their comeuppance in unique ways. I’m so offended that it only has a 6.7/10 on IMDB, because this is a great movie to watch with a group of friends and some age appropriate beverages. Yeah, it’s not a masterpiece, and maybe my standards are low, but I had a great time with this.

Tokyo Godfathers: An anime Christmas classic directed by Satoshi Kon in which 3 homeless people (a former drag queen, a runaway teen, and a grumpy alcoholic) find a baby in a dumpster and try to reunite it with its family. This was the movie that tricked me into thinking Satoshi Kon’s other works would be just as comedic and wholesome as this one. It’s got humor. It’s got heart. It’s got twists and turns that will keep you guessing in the classic Satoshi Kon fashion. And the English dub is just as good as the sub, so you can’t go wrong either way.

Neo Yokio- Pink Christmas: Speaking of anime…I’ve talked about this one before, but I have to mention it again because it’s a staple for me every year. Pink Christmas is the Christmas special for the…anime (and I use that word in the loosest way possible) Neo Yokio…aka the one starring (and possibly made by?) Jaden Smith.

For anyone who’s never heard of it, Neo Yokio is a series on Netflix that is the closest thing to a professionally made Abridged Series we’ll ever have. The “plot” of the series revolves around Kaz, a pink haired guy who fights demons and does increasingly absurd rich people things with his robot mecha butler named Charles. The Christmas special involves Charles telling Kaz a Christmas story about the city’s Secret Santa competition for all the ultra rich people.

Look, there’s no good way to describe this one, but trust me when I say you don’t have to watch Neo Yokio to understand it, since even people who do watch Neo Yokio don’t understand it. In fact, I think it will be even funnier if you don’t watch Neo Yokio at all before watching Pink Christmas (but I encourage everyone to watch the series too, just because it’s more of the same insanity.)

Every line in it is pure comedic gold, not because it’s truly funny, but because it’s absurd and ridiculous in a way only Jaden Smith can be. I quote it incessantly while eating a Toblerone every year. 

Cabin Pressure at Christmas: Molokai: Okay, it’s not a movie or even a TV special, but I love Cabin Pressure so much that I had to include this too. Cabin Pressure is a comedy radio show (not a podcast, an actual radio show) that aired on BBC Radio 4 in the early 2000s about an airline crew for the world’s shittiest airplane. 

For anyone who watched season 2 of Good Omens, you might recognize the name John Finnemore as one of the writers. Well, Cabin Pressure is made by (and stars) the same person. The Christmas episode is one of my favorites of the series, and you 100% don’t need to listen to the entire series to enjoy it. It captures the humor and despair of being stuck with your co-workers on Christmas eve, but it keeps up the spirit regardless. This is another one I quote incessantly, and the whole show has become hardwired into my personality. PLEASE FIND A WAY TO LISTEN TO CABIN PRESSURE! I’m pretty sure the whole series is available on iTunes as an audiobook.

As honorable mentions, I want to include Rise of the Guardians and Klaus, because even though they have a fair amount of popularity, I still feel like people could appreciate them more. And sure, Rise of the Guardians might be more of an Easter movie, but it still includes Santa as a character, and he’s amazing. 

That's all for now. Sorry these are all specifically Christmas themed, but if anyone has movie suggestions for other winter holidays, please throw them in!

[writtenbymisunderstoodnerds]

Secret softy (Ashley Sanchez x Reader)

Based on this request

Sorry this took a while to finish, writers block is a pain. Hopefully this is okay and is kinda what you wanted. Thanks for reading and hope you enjoy :)

Warnings: None I think

Words: 2.4k

Three months had passed since I last saw Ashley. We had been together officially for almost four years, but we had been mostly long-distance since the start. With us both being professional athletes, her soccer and me hockey, it didn't leave as much time for visits during on season. We would spend off-season with the other when possible, Ashley had been pretty busy lately, unfortunately. It didn't matter now though, my season was officially over which meant more time with her.

I was trying to enjoy time with Ashley, but I was kind of freaking out. I was going to be going to more of Ashley's camps so we could spend more time together. The only problem was her team didn't seem to like me very much. I knew I could be a bit standoffish when I met new people, but I had tried to be more friendly when I met them. I wasn't actually sure if that's why they didn't like me, it was more an assumption based on past experiences. They were her team, some of her closest friends, honestly, I wanted them to like me. Three years had passed since our first meeting and I didn't know how to change it.

Ashley wrapped her arms around my shoulders, snapping me out of my thoughts, "You okay Y/n/n?"

"I'm fine."

"No, we don't do that. You can be stoic, grumpy, tough, or whatever around everyone else, but not me. If you don't want to talk to me about it, tell me, I won't push. Just don't pretend you're fine when I know you're not."

"I'm sorry. Cuddles?"

Ashley lay down on the couch, letting me lie on top of her, head resting against her neck. It was a lot easier to deal with feelings when wrapped up in the comfort she provided. After a few minutes, all my thoughts just tumble out.

Fingers ran through my hair, making me groan. Ashley always knew what I needed, when I needed it. It's one of the reasons I loved her so much. "My love, it's not that they don't like you. I know what you're going to say, but it's true. They just find you a little bit intimidating, they don't know how to act around you, they don't know how to read you."

"You couldn't have mentioned this like 3 years ago?"

"Don't take that tone with me Y/n. I didn't know how they felt until recently when I told them you'd be around more this season. All you have to do is try to be a bit more open, talk to them, interact with them. A smile every now and then wouldn't hurt either. I know it's not easy for you, but even trying will make a difference."

I sighed, nuzzling my face further into her, "I'm sorry Ash. Okay, I can do that. At least I think. I'm sorry for being grumpy with you. Let me cuddle for a minute then I'll make dinner and we can finish packing, maybe a bath?"

She kissed my forehead, fingers running through my hair, "You weren't grumpy at me, you just let the nerves get the better of you. Don't make a habit of it though. A bath sounds fantastic. I love you grumpy."

I peppered her face with kisses before dragging myself up, "I love you."

---

A smile instantly appeared as arms wrapped around my waist, accompanied by the familiar voice of my girlfriend. "Hi baby."

I turned around, wrapping my arms around her and lifting her up, her legs wrapping around me. My head rest against her chest, enjoying the feeling of her again. Honestly, it hadn't even been that long apart, I had to spend a few weeks at home before joining her. Ashley was my place, my home, my comfort. Anytime we were apart, even for a few days, felt like forever. "I missed you."

Some of Ashley's team were in the lobby hanging back waiting for her. I sent them a quick smile and wave before turning my attention back to Ashley. She pecked my lips, arm wrapping around my shoulder, letting me cuddle against her. Despite what most would think, 90% of the time I was the little spoon and I loved it. "I missed you too. Dinner tonight? We have training this afternoon so maybe 7?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world, I'll find somewhere and sort it."

"Thank you. Also, team bonding tomorrow night if you're up for it. No pressure."

"I'll be there."

All I really wanted to do was spend alone time with Ashley. I decided on a picnic on the beach instead of a restaurant. So while Ashley was at training, I went to the store to pick up some of her favourite snacks, drinks, desserts, and of course flowers. At about 6:30, I ordered Ashley's favourite pizza then headed to the beach to set everything up, then texted her where to meet me. My original plan was to pick her up, but I also wanted everything to be set up before she got there.

Right at 7pm, Ashley came walking along the beach. Dressed in sweats and a hoodie, looking as beautiful as ever. "What's all this?"

"Well, I wanted alone time with you and this is more romantic than a restaurant I think. This is okay right?"

Ashley smiled, lips connecting with mine in a deep kiss, "Y/n/n, anything you do is amazing. I love this and I love you so much. Are those flowers?"

"I love you more. Of course, can't have a romantic dinner without flowers."

After dinner, we ended up lying on the beach watching the stars. Ashley cuddled into my side, leaving light kisses along my neck. "How did I get so lucky with you?"

"I'm the one who got lucky Ash. For some reason, you met my grumpy ass and decided yes that is who I want to be with. You are incredible my love, you fill my life with so much love and happiness. I wouldn't give you up for anything in this world. I love you."

"I love you Y/n/n. I will never get over this side of you. Your grumpy ass is stuck with me for life, just gotta make it official."

I laughed, tapping her nose. It was mostly a joke, Ashley knew that I would propose likely in the next couple of months. I just wanted it to be perfect and not that she knew, but I wanted both her team and her family there. "Soon my love."

----

It had been a few weeks since I started coming to camp with Ashley. Since she told me I was kind of intimidating, I was trying to be more friendly. It wasn't the easiest thing, I had always been more withdrawn and perceived as grumpy or tough. I wanted her team to like me so I was trying. They were important to her so I wanted to at least make an effort to get along with them.

Most of them still kept a bit of a distance from me. They were friendly and included me when I was around, but there was still some unsureness on their part. Emily on the other hand seemed to make it her mission to annoy me as much as possible. In a way, it was nice that she didn't seem to mind my so-called grumpiness. It was also incredibly annoying. Despite that, I had a soft spot for her.

Emily ran at me the moment Ashley untangled herself to go get a drink, managing to jump on me before I could stop her, "Emilyyy, get off."

My hair was messed up before Emily dropped back to the ground, tongue sticking out at me. 

"Grump."

"Irritating."

"Yeah yeah whatever, you love it. Some of the girls and I are going shopping, you wanna come?"

"That is the last thing I want to do. Shopping is my nightmare and I already do enough of it with Ash." Emily looked slightly disappointed which made me feel guilty. I also realised this could be a good opportunity to develop my relationship with at least some of them. I couldn't bring myself to go shopping so I suggested the next thing I could think of. "I could meet you for lunch or coffee instead if you guys are doing that."

"It's a date. I'll text you when we're heading for lunch."

Ashley popped up next to me, making me jump slightly at her sudden presence, "You going on a date with someone else?"

Emily wrapped her arm around my shoulder which I instantly tried to push off, but she just wrapped it around tighter. I didn't have the energy for a fight so just let it go. "Yup, I'm stealing your girl."

"You and whoever else you're dragging shopping."

Of course, Ashley got excited at the idea of shopping and decided to go along with them. It wasn't a surprise, Ashley loved shopping and it made Emily go away so I was happy. Now I just had to get her to let me stay back. "Finally. Don't even ask, don't pout, it's not going to work. I'm not coming shopping, you have your girls, I'm going to the gym. Go have fun baby, I'll be there for lunch. I love you."

"Fine, I'll carry my own bags. Just this once. I love you and thank you for trying. By the way, I think Em really likes you."

"She alright I guess. Now go."

Throughout lunch, Ashley was on one side of me and Emily was on the other. Which meant Emily annoyed me while Ashley laughed at me. I admit it helped with the nerves, and stopped me from thinking too much about everything. Emily poked my cheek over and over until I slapped her hand away, poking her cheek instead. I unsuccessfully looked at Ashley for help, her being distracted in conversation.

I groaned, leaning back, trying to be as dramatic as possible, "Why are you hellbent on annoying me? You're like the annoying little sister I never wanted."

"Because I can and you're stuck with me as long as you're with Ash."

"Dammit, that means I'm stuck with you for life."

Emily stopped her annoyance, smiling at me instead, "You going to be with our Ashley for the rest of your life?"

"That's the plan."

A hand landed on my shoulder, running down my arm as lips pressed against my cheek, "I like that plan."

My hand ran along her thigh, kissing her cheek, "I do too."

"Alright, before things get even more gross. How did you two meet? I don't think we ever heard that story."

---

I crawled up the bed, settling myself on top of Ashley, letting out an appreciative groan as her fingers ran through my hair. This trying to be nicer thing was a lot of work. It had meant being more aware of my actions or how I held myself around them. I had never had to put that much thought into myself before. It was honestly exhausting.

"You know I would give up hockey in a heartbeat for you. I miss you so much."

"I know you would, I would do the same, but we both know we would be miserable not doing what we love. What's wrong? You get like this when somethings wrong."

"Ugh, I know. I'm just looking forward to the day when distance isn't part of our relationship. I'm just tired. Putting effort into being nicer and less intimidating is exhausting."

Ashley peppered my cheek with kisses, ending with a soft peck to my lips, "Well you're doing an amazing job Y/n/n. Half the team loves you already and the rest are on the way. You know I appreciate you right? How much you're trying to get along with them."

"You mean the world to me, Ash. Even if it's exhausting or hard, I would do anything for you. This team means a lot to you so it's important to me to get along with them. I'm just sorry it took longer than it should have."

"I'm just happy all the people I love get along."

We spent a while cuddling and making out. There weren't many words spoken, we were just enjoying time together after a couple of crazy days on her end. In our jobs that was the reality, where we barely saw each other all day, only to fall asleep minutes after getting to bed. It left me missing Ashley even though I spent every night cuddled up with her. I missed the awake cuddles, the soft kisses or not-so-soft kisses, the light touches, the comfortable silence, and the random conversations. I could have stayed there all night, but there was team bonding tonight so we had to drag ourselves down to Alyssa and Alex's room.

Everyone was waiting already, fighting over what team bonding was going to be. I made myself comfortable on the floor, leaning back against the wall while Ashley went to join in on the fight. I must have zoned out watching her because I didn't notice Kristie sitting next to me until a hand waved in front of my face.

"Sorry."

"Don't be. I get like that with Sam all the time. You make her incredibly happy, you know that right?"

"All I want is for her to be happy so I will do everything in my power to make sure she is. Seeing Ashley happy, makes me happy."

Kristie pat my shoulder, "That's what I like to hear. Keep her that way."

"Yes ma'am."

Ashley had run back to our room for a deck of cards so I was left alone with her team. Since lunch the other day, I had gotten closer to some of the younger girls, but the veteran players were still a work in progress. I hadn't actually been alone with them pretty much ever. Honestly, I felt kind of awkward, like I needed to clarify that I didn't hate them or apologise for being so standoffish, "Look um I know we got off on the wrong foot-"

Alex interrupted me pretty much instantly, "Hey don't worry about it, we've seen how you are with Ash. You may seem grumpy and mean, but really you're a big softy. You treat Ashley like royalty so we like you. You also put up with Emily so you can't be that bad."

"Yeah well, she does that to me. Look I may seem grumpy or uninterested, but I don't mean to. I really like you guys. Even Emily."

"Hey!"

"Also, before you even give me any sort of talk. Ash is my forever, I plan to marry her one day soon, to spend the rest of my life with her. I would never do anything to jeopardize that. I would hurt myself before I ever dreamt of hurting her."

"Good. Welcome to the family Y/n."

Ashley came back soon after the conversation had ended, settling herself in my lap to whisper in my ear, "You okay?"

"I'm more than good my love."

[strangertheories]

I've been seeing people saying that platonic Stobin is only benefitting Steve or that Robin only exists to redeem Steve from past homophobia and I'd like to politely disagree. I don't think enough people realise just how crucial their friendship was to Robin's character development outside of Steve, so I'll just spell it out here in this long post for the four year anniversary of Robin coming out to Steve.

At the start of S3, Robin is deeply sarcastic and jokingly rude, but this is not entirely what she is actually like deep down and the true Robin doesn't emerge until her and Steve are talking to each other in the bunker. She says that she acts like she doesn't care and that she floats above it all (in reference to popularity) but deep down, she just wants to feel normal and accepted.

But Robin knows she could never be accepted fully because of her attraction to women. If she acts like she doesn't care and holds Steve at an arm's length, it keeps her safe. Robin can't be rejected if she doesn't let him in. She doesn't believe anyone could ever be friends with her if they knew her secrets, so constructs this personality around herself, however deep down she is just insecure and struggling with internalised homophobia.

A lot of people talk about Robin's coming out scene, rightfully so, but I think we need to talk more about what happened before. When Steve tells Robin he's attracted to her, she looks devastated. With her guard let down after a near death experience and drugs, she was finally able to bond with someone who she now has to reject.

At first, she tries to talk Steve out of liking her. She tells him that he doesn't know the real her and that if he did, not only would be not want to date her, but he wouldn't even want to be her friend. This is where it all becomes clear that Robin's sarcasm and refusal to let her guard down is not linked to her sexuality but rather because of it.

This is why Steve accepting her is so crucial for her character from then onwards. For the first time in her life, Robin let someone see her true self, knowing that she would be rejected and lose her only friend. And yet she wasn't. Robin let Steve in and his acceptance finally enabled her to realise that just because she is gay it doesn't mean that she's abnormal or could never be happy. Obviously, there are safety concerns that prevent her from running through the streets of Hawkins with a pride flag, but I believe this acceptance is crucial to the version of Robin we see in S4.

After S4, there were a lot of complaints that the Robin we saw in that season wasn't like S3 enough and felt like a completely different character. Firstly, Robin was shown to speed talk, be unhelpful and miss social ques when nervous in the final episode of season 3, so I disagree with that criticism. But most importantly, the reason that S4 Robin is different to the one in S3 is because S3 Robin was never real. It was a character she built in order to avoid dealing with the pain of rejection or accepting that she cares about what other people think of her. But due to Steve, Robin is able to realise that she doesn't have to be someone else, hence her personality shift.

That's also kind of why I dislike the idea that her relationships with Nancy and Vickie are better than her one with Steve because she wouldn't have had those relationships if it wasn't for him. Steve enabled her to open up and let down her cool and sarcastic persona. Robin is anxious and awkward with Nancy and Vickie from the get go unlike with Steve, which ends up enabling her to ultimately make more real bonds with them much quicker. She would not have been able to do that if it wasn't for the value his acceptance brought into her life.

I'm going to get a bit mushy and personal here, so feel free to skip to the end, but platonic Stobin isn't just meaningful to the fictional character of Robin. I'm an autistic lesbian and I have had a lot of struggles with making and maintaining friendships. For a while, I didn't have any friends at all and I was very depressed. But now my mental health is so much better because I was able to find a friend who fully accepted me, who I didn't have to mask around, who I easily came out to. Becoming friends with her has enabled me to become way more comfortable with unmasking my autism outside of that one relationship because being more vulnerable is what enabled that friendship to be so much better in the long term.

Robin is a character I relate to a lot, and I've written a lot of posts on autistic Robin in the past. I think seeing friendships portrayed on screen where a girl is able to let down her mask, learn to become herself and become much less distant to the point that she explicitly feels comfortable telling someone she has issues with social ques is great for all kids. So many people, especially autistic people, struggle with being themselves and with finding friends. Maybe Robin did just exist to redeem Steve or whatever, but I know seeing that friendship on screen meant a lot to me. It's so difficult to find someone who accepts you and to open up to someone, but I think that platonic Stobin shows that it can be worth it.

Sorry for the mushy side tangent at the end, but I hope this post explains the importance of Steve's acceptance to Robin's character development. Acting like she only exists for Steve is dismissive of the impact that friendship had on the development Robin has and will have, especially if you view Rebel Robin as being somewhat canon. Not to mention, clarifying a loveable character is no longer homophobic feels like a pretty good thing.

[the-fo0l]

Spencer Reid x gn!reader hcs

Notes: lotta spencer content has him as an asshole, pregnancy, angst, smut, insecure reader...so here's some classic fluff

Warnings: fluff!, earlier seasons reid +he's kind of a simp (and a bit subby ;))

the way his eyes just absolutely light up whenever he sees you <3

the man's a total genius, but only in the book-smart way, socially, he's a little...stunted

he's very much not used to any proper form of love, so you're gonna have to be a bit patient with him while he gets used to it

but believe me he is trying his very best cause he does not want to dissapoint you

at first he thought your love of his rambles was just a way to make fun of him

but since you seem to actually like listening to him talk, he'll take the opportunity to ramble to you about anything and everything on his mind

which the team appreciates, he has an outlet to rant to, someone to attend his geeky events with, and most importantly, someone reliable to support him

(they are still annoyed when he's constantly on the phone with you, meanwhile there's an active crime scene a few meters away)

before you two started dating he probably already considered you his best friend who he totally neverrrr had a crush on (sarcasm)

he was blushing, stuttering, jittery mess when he asked if he may be your boyfriend

and yes, that's how politely he asked

or at least he tried to, you had to cut off his blabbering with a "yes"

how could you ever say no to such a charming, lovable, polite young man

plus yk...he's cute as hell

the type to go out of his way to wake up early to make your coffee and breakfast just the way you like

wearing matching rings, either with each other's initials or some nerdy inside joke

he absorbedly teases the ring on his finger when he misses you

whenever someone mentions you he gets visibly more engaded in the conversation, and the team teases him like crazy for it

like, sometimes the crew'll pretend to be talking about you and watch how reid immediatly perks up from whatever file he was buried in and turns to look where the he heard your name be spoken. and he falls for it every. fucking. time

gushes to you about any new interesting books, reseach, interesting statistics, facts, events etc

in a similar vein, he'll get caught in gushing to the gang about how cool and smart and funny his partner is

rizzes you up w magic tricks

but can't handle you flirting with him, he's smiling like an idiot and bashfully looking away, with his face all red

a lot of people say he wouldn't like pda, and i get it, but i think if you've been together long enough and he feels comfortable around you he's not shy about expressing it, verbally or physically

i mean yeah, it's not "all up in your face" pda, it's with smaller affectionate gestures

vents all his thoughts, concerns and emotions out to you, and listens attentively and patiently when you have to vent

falls in love with you all over again listening to you get caught up talking about your interests/opinions

man's capable of easily retaining encyclopedias worth of info, so anything and everything you tell him gets commited to his database of a mind

be it the most insignificant gossip or tiniest detail about your childhood, you best belive he's never forgetting that shit

tries his best to not profile you or try to explain your emotions to you, but really he dosen't need to be told twice when it comes to learing the intricacies of realationship ettiquette

he's never dated anyone before and he's about as nervous as he is excited

deeply fears disappointing you, hates the thought of being a burden to you, so hearing affirmations of your love verbally means a lot

more than anything he needs a solid positive presence to help him deal with his emotions

so if he's had a really bad day, or a rough case, he comes to your front door and just totally breaks down and falls into your arms, crying into your shoulder

if anything traumatic were to happen to him, you're the first person he needs to be there

and if he woke up in a hospital bed he'd immediately start asking for you, rather frantically too

and if the event is traumatic enough, he may become a bit codependent, at least for a week during the recovery process

used to get jittery around you from nerves, now it's from the uncontainable happiness he feels being around you

his kisses are so shy and inexpirenced but also so, so needy and desperate

he'd die if you ever custom made a puzzle or quiz with questions about your relationship, like he'd be so overjoyed, literally would never shut up about it

(he'd nail it ofc)

reid usually isn't one for physical affection, like, not at all

but it's completely the opposite with you, he can't seem to keep himself away

and the guy is starved for touch...or really affection of any kind, so whenever he can, he clings onto any part of you he can

sits on your lap facing you, it's like you guys' favorite relaxing position, it's so intimate

follows you around like a puppy, all giddy and stupid with love

always holds your hand or onto your forearm while walking beside you

cuddles very close, tightly intertwined with you

you'll have to squirm and push while he just pulls himself closer into the crook of your neck

or yk just tickle his sides when he least expects it

reads to you, odds are whatever book it is, he's already read it, dozens of times over if it's a classic or scientific. he very well could just recite it but if there wasn't a book to look at, he'd have to look at you which would make him get distracted and trail off

which you'd, of course, playfully tease him for

in conclusion, you're never allowed to break up with him, i don't make the rules, it's the law

[yumeka-sxf]

I can't believe we've reached the season finale! 😭 First off, the key visual for this episode is too adorable and is only reminding me how much I'm going to miss my favorite (fake) family! ❤️

While the early season episode where Bond and Twilight go on a mission together hints at how much compassion Twilight has for Bond, this episode really highlights what a softie he can be when he's around someone with whom he doesn't have to put on any acts.

Not only does he risk his life to go after Bond in the fire, but when he finds out that Bond went into the burning building to save another dog, he gives that soft, sincere smile that's only reserved for when one of his family members does something that truly touches him.

Rather than be annoyed with Bond for putting both their lives in danger, he's happy that he would risk his life to protect others...because that's what he does all the time! Plus, when he thinks Bond is acting out by "attacking" random people, instead of getting mad, he puts it upon himself to try and understand Bond better, the same as he does with Anya.

It's also really adorable how much Bond wants to please Loid. Is he learning from Anya?

This guy has to be one of the dumbest arsonist to stick around the building he just burned down with a hat that says "Fire" 😂

And of course, wet Bond and "trying not to laugh" Twilight are finally animated! Twilight is lucky that Yor and Anya weren't there to catch him snickering like that...the embarrassment may have killed him.

Then we get the pinnacle of how much Twilight cares for Bond when he tells him that he should think of himself as a family member first and guard dog second, plus how heartbroken "someone" would be if anything happened to him. And that sentiment is really a driving theme in the series, not just in this case with Bond, but for Twilight and Yor too. They're always putting the happiness of others before their own, without either knowing that the other is doing it.

I didn't think they would use this story as the season finale, since it only featured Twilight and Bond, and Franky a bit in the beginning. But they made it feel more like a finale by adding new scenes of the other characters! The scenes with Anya and Yor doing origami was cute - I love how Yor went too hard with the scissors 😅

And the ending where Anya gives both Twilight and Bond stellas was a great addition (though maybe a bit canon-altering since Anya in the manga hasn't seen soaked Bond up to this point).

The montage of all the other characters at the end was nice as well.

I laughed at Fiona's target practice 🤣

And the final scene with the Forgers having dinner was the perfect last shot~

No announcement for season 3 yet, but the episode does hint that there will be more! There's a SxF event in Japan in June 2024 where they could make such an announcement. I'm hoping season 3 won't start until 2025 in order to give the manga time for new content - as of the end of season 2, 67% of the manga has been adapted into the anime (according to my story guide spreadsheet), which is a lot. We'll see! But there will definitely be more SxF anime in the future, perhaps even another movie! So for now, only SxF Sundays twice a month will have to tide us over 😄

[i-dont-wanna-be-me-anymore]

Friends? | Five H. x male!reader | Part 2!

Five Hargreeves x male reader

SPOILER WARNING FOR SEASON 4 UNDER

CUT !!!!!

Summary: After a strange night of helping Five and his family and learning about his family’s secrets, Y/n, Five’s coworker and now work partner, wakes up the next morning to a shocking discovery. Inevitably, he’ll have no choice, but be sucked into the family’s antics and problems. This one is longer….Sorry. 🌛

Warnings: fluff, cursing, blood and (gun) violence, vomit, frenemies to friends, sexual tension, SPOILERS FOR SEASON 4 ‼️

A/n: Since some people actually liked my idea for this, I’ll just continue to write more about this, and yes, a lot of this stuff will start to rear away from what happened in the canon. Steve Blackman, sleep with one eye open.

Part 1

• • • • •

When he wakes up, he’s faced with a blinding headache and sweat covering his body.

Y/n sits up slowly, the sweat dripping down his body, but he was thankful he didn’t wear a shirt when he slept. He checked the time and realized it was 3 am, making him groan.

He got up, turning the shower on as he tried whatever he could to nurse his state of dizziness and nausea for the next couple hours until he went to work.

He tried everything. He took a cold shower, he took some pain medication, he drank pepto bismol to relieve his nausea, he tried to rest more, and yet nothing helped.

He decided against calling in sick for work, a part of him wanting to talk to Five and discuss the missing person’s case, and then another part just wanted to see him.

He got to the building and tried his best not to think about the symptoms he was experiencing.

He started to become agitated. His exhaustion and headache becoming a bad mix in him, like he was mad, but he didn’t know at who.

He decided maybe an energy boost will try and relieve it. When he tried to grab some coffee, he accidentally knocked his hand into one of his coworkers, apologizing as he didn’t look in their direction.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to-“ a thud.

As he picked up the coffee pot, he looked in the direction that he heard the body drop, seeing that the person he accidentally knocked into was now on the floor, groaning.

“Oh shit, are you alright?” The man looked at him.

“Do you want me to get some help?” Y/n touched the guys uncovered arm, skin coming in contact with one another as Y/n gasps.

He feels the exhaustion leave his body, the man’s eyes roll back and he passes out on the floor.

Y/n quickly lets go, seeing that the area where he touched his hand was a light glow of yellow. He backs away from the man, looking around to see if anyone saw, and thankfully, no one did.

He got up, rushing to grab his belongings as he went up to someone, sweat still sticking to him as he was still hot and dizzy.

“Hey, can you tell Lance I’m taking a sick day? Thanks,” he rushes out to the lobby of the building, pausing as he felt a rush of pain shoot into his head.

He winced, grabbing his head as he stumbled a little, grabbing the attention of his partner.

“Y/n!” Five called out, almost tripping down the stairs as he basically ran over to him and grabbed his arm.

“Five? What the- where are we going?” Five turns to him once they’re outside the building.

It’s then that Y/n sees what Five fully looks like at the moment.

Sweat is dripping down his forehead, his eyes are twitching. Five’s shaking as he holds his partner’s arm, or maybe he was shivering. It was hard to say.

“You need to come with me,” Five states.

“What are you my boss now?”

“Something’s happening to you, and I know it, okay? You have the same symptoms as me, so I’m going to try and figure this all out before it gets any worse for you, okay?”

For the first time since they started working with each other, it felt like Five truly cared for Y/n. Which was strange and out of the ordinary for him. So, despite the voice that was yelling at him to yank his arm away and run away from him, Y/n nodded.

With that, they hurried over and got to a broken down building, that Y/n soon learned used to be their home in the other timeline.

When they got there, Y/n looked around seeing that some of Five’s siblings from yesterday were there, but not all of them. He saw Diego, Lila, and Luther there, but no Allison, Viktor, Klaus, or Ben.

“Wait, what’s he doing here, Five?” Luther asked, not bothering to cover himself up, even though was only wearing a g-string.

“He’s here because, oddly enough, he’s experiencing the same symptoms as us-“ Five glances over at Luther, “or at least us three.”

“What the fuck is happening to me?” Y/n mumbled to himself, his arms holding his body as he leaned against a nearby wall, staying away from everyone. He didn’t want to hurt anyone else.

Five looked over at him.

“Here,” Five went over and tried to grab his hand, but Y/n pulled it away.

“Watch the skin, I accidentally made Eric from human resources pass out when I accidentally touched his hand,” Luther, Diego, and Lila look over at him with wide eyes.

“Sorry, what?” Lila asked, trying not to look in his exact direction due to her own problem.

Five thought for a moment, trying to not fall over as his body swayed, becoming unsteady.

“Ok…” Five started, “okay, so, try to relax, calm your mind and focus on, you know, not…doing..that?”

Despite the poorly worded advice, Y/n did just that. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes, and tried to calm his mind as he tried to ignore the ache in his hands.

The sting slowly faded away, becoming less hurtful and more calming as he focused on letting his muscles relax and the joints in his hand crack.

He slowly opened his eyes to see Five staring down at their hands as he was able to hold it while not pasing out.

The siblings who started to come in, Allison and Klaus, saw the two at the entrance of the living room and silently reacted to it.

“Come on,” Five led him over to the couch, sitting next to him so he was now between the armrest and Five.

The siblings all argued and bickered with each other around the two, and as much as Y/n wanted to argue and yell at Five about the hell was going on, he just stayed silent, feeling Five lean into him as he fought to stay awake.

“Someone explain what the hell is going on here, quick?!” Viktor shouted over the others who were yelling.

“Well, Viktor, that’s what we’re all trying to figure out,” Luther started to yell at Diego and told everyone to not look at him, and up until this point Y/n hadn’t. But, as he did, he saw that his body was a lot hairier than a regular person, and since meeting him yesterday, he either looked like he pumped himself full of steroids or had a drastic change to his body.

“I SAID DON’T LOOK AT ME!” Y/n quickly looked away as Five shouted at him.

“Hey! Don’t yell at him, alright? You’re drawing attention to yourself by telling everyone not to look at you!” He groaned, his vision getting blurry.

He then sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Look, at least you’re back to your old self, the rest of us feel like someone injected motor oil into our veins,” that’s when Klaus perked up and admitted that he felt great, his voice only slightly muffled by the mask he was wearing.

Lila joined in on the bickering as she addressed her own problem, one that almost made most of them lose their heads.

Five dragged Y/n by the arm down to the ground, Lila’s laser just barely missing them both times she did it.

They then all tried to calm Viktor down as he started to power up, the house now shaking as Y/n fell back on the couch, head falling back against the edge.

“Relax, Kodiak Jack,” a voice emerged from the corridor as the last Hargreeves brother appeared, seemingly with a tail now.

“It was me.”

“I know you’re all too terminally emo to do what had to be done, so I made an executive decision and spiked your sake with the marigold,” Y/n scoffed, eye twitching as he wanted to rip him apart.

“Why am I not surprised?” Five shook his head.

“I know we just met—actually that’s exactly why I am mad, why the fuck did you have to go and spike mine? I’m not like you guys, I wasn’t born with this!” He gestured to his hands as he yelled at Ben.

“You had no right to do that, asshole!” Viktor shouted.

“Oh, trust me, you’ll thank me later. Even you, newbie,” Viktor grew even more mad at that comment, because it’s exactly like he said, he wasn’t like them, he didn’t want it.

“Yeah, or I’ll kick your ass right now!” He threatened.

“Oh yeah, now that I would love to see,” Ben sat down, almost on Allison, but she frantically moved away, not wanting to touch his tentacles.

Y/n couldn’t help but laugh.

“What’s with the tail?” Y/n snickered, making Ben turn to him.

“I don’t know, they won’t go back in!” They all started to touch or make fun of his tails and he started to say that he was feeling better than ever.

He started to rub some of the marigold onto his teeth, making Five walk up to him and snatch it away.

Klaus then explained how he didn’t feel sick because he didn’t drink in the first place, like the rest of them because of the fact he was sober and didn’t want to go down that path again.

“Wow, I’m both proud and jealous of you,” Y/n gave a small smile to him, making Klaus look at him.

“Thank you!” He pouted, happy that someone actually cared.

But all their heads turned to Viktor and Ben as they started to fight, and Y/n didn’t even both trying to stop them as he was enjoying seeing him get beat up. That and he just felt like it wasn’t his place.

When they stopped, Ben started to speak.

“Give me one good reason as to why we shouldn’t have our powers back?”

“Well, you gave someone powers who didn’t want or have them in the first place?”

“Yeah, and maybe because we ended the world three times?”

“I’m sorry?” Y/n sat up because of that.

“And saved it three times,” Diego butted in.

“Well, that parts highly debatable, Diego,” Y/n’s head snapped over at Five.

“I’ll explain later,” Five reassured, trying to calm his new partner down to the best of ability.

God, he hated him so much, but at the same time he felt the need to care about him just as much.

Feelings were rushing through Five that he had no idea how to feel about, and he didn’t stop thinking about them until Ben threw up on the carpet.

He offered the idea to go back to the laundry mat and grabbed his coat, still holding the marigold.

He placed it in his pocket as he hesitantly placed his hand on the other’s back.

“Come on, I’ll fix this, I promise,” Y/n looked up at him, eyes half lidded as he stood up.

“You know, this is the most I’ve seen you care about someone who wasn’t your family. And, you’re never this nice to me,” Five blinks, stunned as he doesn’t say a word, the realization of his statement hitting him.

“Just…shut up and get in the van,” Y/n grinned at him, climbing in as they all headed off.

When they arrived, they only found an address hanging from the rack as they debated their options.

Either it was all a set up, and this guy, Sy, was tricking them, or he was actually in trouble.

Either way, they ultimately knew that they would be leaving to go to the address anyway.

New Grumpson, Maine.

Diego got excited and unlocked the doors, to which Five was about to get in front, but Lila already called it, so he just decided to get in the back with Klaus, Allison, and Y/n.

Allison got in the middle row first, then Five, then Y/n, and then Klaus, causing them to be extremely close to each other.

So close, to the point where Y/n’s leg was underneath Five’s as he adjusted himself, barely making it work.

“FIRST MISSION BACK!”

“No, not right now,” Y/n mumbled, covering his ears as Lila clapped in the front.

“Why are you so loud?” Five groaned.

• • • • •

After a few minutes of driving, the “Baby Shark” song started to play.

“Can you please change the song?” Viktor groaned, covering his ears.

“Can’t, it’s stuck.” Klaus started to bob his head to the music.

They groaned, and accepted it.

• • • • •

An hour later, the same song was still playing, and Y/n tried his best to control his breathing. He was on the verge of throwing up, but he kept himself composed as he looked over at his coworker.

Five was looking at Diego with a look. A look that screamed that he was about to strangle him in his seat at any moment, while his knuckles clenched, turning white.

Y/n didn’t know what else to do, so instead he placed a hand on his knee, his thumb rubbing it ever so slightly as Five slowly looked at him. And the anger he was feeling before suddenly, and strangely, disappeared.

• • • • •

“Diego, will you change that song!”

“I can’t!” Diego shouts to Luther.

“Oh god, that smells disgusting,” Y/n grimaces, gripping Five’s leg tighter for his own sanity.

Five struggles to keep his composure as his stomach begins to churn.

“Oh, what, you don’t like my kale-kiwi-carrot-cabbage kombucha?”

“For the love of god…” Y/n mumbles, his head falling back as he shakes slightly.

“Uh, Diego..?” He glances at the rear view mirror.

“Maybe, uh, pull over?”

“Nah man, we’re making good time,” Diego glances at the mirror to look back at Five, not realizing that they were all nauseous.

“I could care less about the time and more of my need to leave this car,” Y/n speaks up, holding his stomach.

They all start to argue as Diego insists on not pulling over, throwing his pee bottle at Lila which ends up knocking off her hands and to the middle row at Y/n, who chucks it to the backseat.

Luther screams at Lila to open the window who accidentally ends up breaking it. And as Diego tries to grab the broken handle, he swerves the car, causing everyone to get even more dizzy.

Lila starts to gag, throwing up in her seat.

It triggers a chain reaction as Allison and Y/n start to throw up, Five soon joining in as Klaus freaks out.

Viktor’s bubble bursts as he yells, shattering all the windows.

Diego pulls over and shouts at them, telling them to stop yelling, puking, and using their powers.

He then begins to gag, exiting the car to hurl.

They talk about what to do, and Luther mentions something.

“It’s only another 13 hours to New Grumpson,” they all groan as Five leans his head against Y/n, whose own falls on top of Five’s.

• • • • •

They end up falling asleep as Lila and Diego talk in the front seat.

Mid conversation, Lila begins to hesitate, looking back at Five to see him fast asleep against Y/n. The same man he was complaining about just two days ago at the birthday party.

“I don’t know, what have you been up to Five?” Ben takes a swig of his beer as Luther climbs out of the ball pit, joining them in their conversation as he drinks some punch.

“I hate my partner. He’s such a dick, and sometimes I really just want to grab a number two pencil off his desk and shove up into his scrotum just to get him to shut up,” Five illustrates, annoyed.

“Wow, that’s really graphic,” Ben laughs, seeing the look in his eyes.

“Jesus, Five, you work with the guy, you just gotta suck it up, like I do. There’s some guys I don’t wanna work with, but I still do,” Luther comments.

“Yeah, well, my job’s different. I can’t get a new partner until we finally solve a case together, which if I’m being honest will most likely never happen,” Five rolls his eyes as he looks away from them, taking another sip of his beer.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Y/n is the one that Five hates, right? At his job?” Lila asks.

“Yeah, why?”

“Cause he looks like he enjoys his presence quite a lot,” Diego glances at the mirror, his eyebrows furrowing as he smiles.

“Weird,“ he shrugs, not really thinking about it.

“Do you think he likes him?” Diego laughs quietly.

“I doubt it, he hates him too much to be able to ever like one characteristic about him,” Diego says, snickering.

“You hated me when we first started to like each other,” she states.

“No, I didn’t hate you, I was annoyed by you-“ she gives him a look.

“No, no way, Uh-uh, Five is a lot of things, but I think we would know now if he’s gay by now…right?” Lila shrugs, smiling at Diego.

• • • • •

When they arrive to New Grumpson, Y/n and Five both head to the phone booth, looking at each other before shoving one another out of the way, trying to get to it first.

“Move. Over!” Y/n shoves Five away, who yelps almost falling into the snow before he catches himself with the booth’s wall.

He glares at Y/n, who starts to call the town, looking for two people; Sy Grossman and Jennifer Grossman.

Five stands behind him, listening to him speaking to the operator, hearing that there’s no listings of either.

“There’s no Sy Grossman or Jennifer Grossman listed here,” Five announces, making Y/n roll his eyes as he puts the phone back down.

They agree that they need to split up and Diego walks out from behind the van wearing, what looks like, a harness.

“Oh my god,” Y/n laughs, making Five smile at him before it quickly drops as he looks away from him.

Five couldn’t figure out what the reason was for him to be feeling like this for him, Y/n, of all people. He was stubborn, and a prick, and way too comfortable around him, even if at times he did like it, a lot.

He shook the thoughts away as he heard Diego say it fits like a glove.

“Yeah, OJ’s glove…” Five nods, smiling again as they split up.

Diego and Lila go one way as Five takes Y/n with him, heading to an area with a fair going on.

• • • • •

Y/n looks around, seeing a cart selling hats and gloves for the weather.

“Come on,” He grabs Five by the upper arm, pulling him to the cart despite his disproval.

“What are we doing?” Five asks, letting himself be taken by the other man.

“Buying me gloves,” He smiles, technically asking Five.

“We’re doing that?” Five asks, pointedly.

“Well, you.” Five scoffs.

“Need I remind you that you are the reason I have these god awful powers now?”

“How is that my fault? My idiot brother was the one who spiked the drinks, not me?”

“Who was the one who asked me to go with him to the restaurant?” Five goes silent. Y/n puts his finger behind his ear as if to listen to him better.

“You got me in a box here, you win,” Five pulls out his wallet as Y/n picks out some black leather gloves, handing to Five as he pays for them.

“Thank, Fivey.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Y/n, as an experiment, pokes Five’s cheek, making sure that he was still safe before continuing on to put to the gloves on.

“Just seeing if I can still control it right now,” he responds and that reminds Five of something.

“Um, can you just keep a look out?” Y/n looks confused as Five moves to an area with less people, but still in public and balls his hands up into fists.

He starts to take a step and then step back, repeating this motion until Y/n starts to laugh a bit.

“What are you doing?” Five rolls his eyes.

“Why do you care?”

“Cause it looks like you’re constipated, Five,” Five stops, turning to him.

“What’s your problem?”

“My problem?” Y/n repeats.

“Why do you always seem to want to piss me off every single second we’re around each other?”

“Um, because it’s funny?” Y/n looks at Five as he looks like he’s trying to read him.

“Look, I don’t know what other ways to socialize than using my humor, and it’s gotten me this far,” Five chuckles, the cold air making his breath show.

“Why are you always such a hothead all the time?”

“I am not-!” Y/n raises his eyebrows as Five had stepped closer.

He backs down, relaxing as he comes face to face with him, but this time he doesn’t look like he’s threatening him.

“I am not a hothead, I just get annoyed by people who can’t seem to mind their business,” Y/n leans closer.

“Well, your business is my business now, thanks to your brother,” their inches apart as they look at each other, Five’s eyes change as he continues to look at him, softening.

“Look, I’m-“

“What are you guys talking about?” Diego comes up with Lila, who is still wearing her sunglasses to cover up her eye bags.

“Deciding which seasonal beverage to indulge in,” Five lies, smiling up at his brother.

Y/n’s lips had shut tightly as he looks down at the spot where Five’s lips used to be, his eyebrows furrowing as he tries to shake a thought away.

“Why’d he feel the need to lie? Is he-? No, there’s no way,” he thought.

“And?”

“I’m getting some muller wine for myself, and uh, Y/n, here is getting the cider,” Diego looks at, the still dazed, Y/n as he just offers up a smile.

“Okay..” he looks over at Lila.

“Well, we were just trying to decide that as well, I was thinking…” Y/n looks away from the two, looking over at the rides as Five continues to listen to the two bicker.

In the distance, there’s an elf, staring directly at Five and his family. Y/n could tell because as the elf realized he was looking, his eyes shifted slightly towards him.

“Five?” He nudges him, who looks in the direction he was looking in.

“That elf…he’s staring right at us,” Diego and Lila look.

“Who?”

“That elf. He’s been staring at you guys,” Y/n states, watching as his hand twists on the lever.

“Actually, maybe he just likes you,” Y/n snickers as Lila high-fives him, but Five doesn’t say anything. Now this was starting to worry him even more.

The man pulls the lever up, causing the rides to stop and everybody to turn their heads towards them as they start firing.

Y/n pushes Five in front of him, who is about to look back at him before he disappears in front of him.

“FIVE?!” Y/n keeps running, wanting to look over and try and see where he went, but he knows he can’t stop as the bullets fly past him.

He runs into the town, trying to find the rest of Five’s family.

A person with a shotgun comes up in front of him, causing him to pull out his gun and shoot, shooting any other people who had a gun pointed at him.

He hears gunfire closer to the outside of the town, causing him to run towards it, finding a Santa Claus running at Luther and two other siblings with two guns in hand.

Five soon blinks into the street, not realizing he’s getting shot at, but he’s quickly pulled down.

“Fuck,” Y/n tries to shoot, but he realizes he’s out of ammo. As the man gets closer to Luther, Y/n looks down, seeing one of the guys he shot move.

He looks up, wanting to try something with this new found power he has.

He leans down, tearing off a glove with his teeth as he touches the man’s hand, speeding up his death as he absorbs the energy he had.

With that, he starts to sprint towards the Santa Claus, running faster than he ever has before.

He catches up to the Santa Claus and grabs his face, pressing his exposed hands into it as they glow.

The gunfire stops, and Five peaks around Luther to see Y/n behind him, a yellow glow emitting from him as he absorbed the man’s energy.

His skin tightened. His cheekbones began to show as his eyes rolled into the back of his head.

His suit became looser as he exhaled shakily, falling limp under Y/n’s grasp.

He looked down at his hands and then at the man in front of him, seeing him now dead.

He took his life force.

He stares at the glow in his hands, watching as it fades into his skin, energizing him.

All the muscle aches he had before from running, the nausea from his sickness, all gone.

Five practically jumps on him as he wraps his arms around his neck, holding him tightly.

He closes his eyes and inhales, his scent filling his senses before he realizes who and what he’s exactly doing this to.

Five quickly pulls away and pushes Y/n.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

“Wha-?” Y/n looks over to the three siblings, shocked that Five just said that to him, and then stunned as they’d never seen Five hug anyone since they were kids.

“I saved your life, Five! What did it look like I was doing?”

“You could have gotten killed!”

“Yeah, well I didn’t! In fact, I’ve never felt this alive in my entire life,” Y/n looks down at his hands, watching as they glow as he turns them over, and then fade.

Five’s about to say more, but they both turn their heads as soon as they hear the familiar tune that brought them to the town in the first place.

Diego was driving Wanda, running the Santa over as he stopped just in front of Y/n and Five.

“Get in! Now! Go, go, go!” Everyone crowded into the van as Klaus spit up blood in the backseat, a bullet wound in his chest.

Five looked around, trying to find a spot to quickly squeeze into.

“Oh for Christ’s sake,” Y/n pulled Five in by the waist, seating him on his lap and closing the door.

Diego started to drive away as the other van door closed, a dying Klaus in the backseat.

Y/n looked back at him, quickly shoving Five to get the marigold for him as everyone started to yell to give Klaus the marigold.

Allison hesitated, stumbling over her words as she didn’t want to give him it, but decided against it as she couldn’t let him die.

Not her best friend. Not Claire’s uncle. Not her brother.

“I’m so sorry, Klaus,” she whispered, shaking as she poured the rest of the marigold into his wound.

It took a minute, but Klaus soon gasped to life, asking what did they do, and started to cry in their arms.

Diego tossed one of the reindeers he had for his kids into the back, Klaus holding it as he grounded himself from coming back to life.

Y/n let out a deep breath, his head hitting the back of the seats as Five’s did too, reminding both of them of the position they were in.

Five didn’t dare to turn his head to the side, and neither did Y/n, now terrified if they ever hit a bump while driving.

He started taking deep breaths, slowly trying to calm his mind.

Five wanted to shift, he wanted to reposition himself so he wasn’t directly on…him, but he couldn’t. He was stuck. Afraid of what the outcome would be if he suddenly felt his-

“What?”

“We’re taking you to your father, Sy Grossman..?”

“Who?”

In an instant they were in mid-air, Five didn’t have a seat belt though.

Y/n quickly wrapped his arms around Five again, holding onto the roof of the car as they flipped, Five’s head falling back as he passes out.

Y/n starts to lift out of his seat, with Diego trying to reach over and block Five from flying around the car.

Diego’s hand touches Y/n’s and suddenly, Y/n feels a spike of energy.

His hand comes crashing down against the dashboard, quickly gripping onto it as he stabilizes both himself and Five. His nails carving into the material of the car and leaving highly noticeable marks.

Unfortunately for him, the car comes crashing down, and when it does, he gets whiplashed by the force of it and is knocked out, hand still grasping at Five’s waist.

He barely even notices when two unknown people come and take Jennifer away.

—

A/n: Okay! Hello! I did not realize the last part would get so much recognition, but it did. YIPEE! Thank you for actually liking this work. I’m going based off memory when writing these because I do NOT want to rewatch s4 cus i will scream and cry. Also I’m in between works rn, bc I have another Five fanfic called “Lost with You” and that I post on AO3 so. If you want to check it out, feel free to! Also! reader is like mid 20’s, because I felt like any older, AND DEFINETLY ANY YOUNGER, would be too weird to develop a relationship with Five. Because considering he’s mentally 63, and physically 18-19, it’s a little odd. Anyways, next part will hopefully be out soon.

[genericpuff]

Hi! I came here from your "lore olympus biggest whiff" blog about the finale... I've never read LO but I was always interested in it. However, after reading a few paragraphs of that blog (I didn't read all of it because I didn't want to get too many spoilers), it doesn't seem worth it. Would you recommend it up to a certain chapter? If yes, until which chapter should I read?

Honestly, if you want to read LO, I absolutely highly recommend reading the whole thing, or at least trying to. Not just to give context to the things we're all talking about in these communities, but also because it's about to go behind the Daily Pass wall on August 29th and it'll become even more inconvenient to do so.

I'm personally still a huge sucker for the first season myself because it just has that magic that LO used to have that a lot of us fell in love with in the first place; it still has its flaws, it's definitely the worst of the "Persephone looks like a toddler" era, but the characters feel a lot more real and a lot of the best, most iconic panels from the series come from S1. The first half of S2 also isn't awful, though the art does start to get a bit rough around the edges. It wasn't until the last half of S2 that I personally started to go , "Wait, I don't think Rachel knows what she's doing." That said, I didn't become a full-blown critic of the series until the S2 finale, which is where I firmly believe the comic should have ended (that is, if Rachel had structured the story better to allow for the S2 finale to be the overall series finale).

But you should read as much of it as you can anyways. Even if you can't get through a certain part of the story and decide to DNF, that's fine, but I personally don't want to be the one deciding for folks what they should be reading or how much. I also definitely don't want people forming their opinion of a work like LO entirely through my criticisms of it - the best way for you to form your own opinion, regardless of whether or not it aligns with my own, is to simply read it yourself. I know where I started to lose interest in the series, but you might not feel the same way when you read it yourself. It's definitely happened in the past that people have gone to read LO to "see what all the fuss is about" only to wind up loving it haha and that's great, honestly, I don't want anyone to wind up missing out on something they might like just because of my own opinions about it :' )

Honestly it seems daunting but you can easily read all of LO between today and the 29th, a lot of the earlier S1 episodes are relatively short and the actual pacing of the comic itself throughout the second and third season makes for a very quick reading experience, text bubbles usually aren't too wordy so depending on how fast of a reader you are, you can usually blitz through each episode within 2-3 minutes (that said, I'm also a bit of a faster reader so your reading time may vary). Plus the episode count on the app is also thrown off by several episodes that are purely dedicated to Q&A's, hiatus notices, etc. So it's about a 12-18 hour reading experience give or take, which sounds like a lot, but if you're able to read several chunks of episodes at a time in bursts, it can be done by the time it goes behind DP on the 29th :' )

So yeah ! I do hope you read it for yourself if you're really curious, and if you do, feel free to come back again and tell me about your experience! Did you get through all of it or did you DNF? Did it put any of my own criticisms into better context for you or did you wind up enjoying the series regardless?

Best of luck!! <3

[zkoh001]

Back to Ninjago ✨

I was drawing this. For 72 full hours (spread out trough like-3 months)

It doesn't look like I put 72 hours into this... (I swear my confidence went like a drunk rollecoaster while making this piece)

But alas, it is done, and I worked too hard not to share it. Behold the elemental alliance. (I can't draw armor. So the design changes are mostly because of that)

I totally got the Masters of Sound and Gravity the first few times, which is quite hilarious cause the Master of Gravity spends quite some of his screentime flying, but oh well.

Also, I tought they were related (for no particular reason) hence the positioning on the picture.

The guy on the left side of the picture was literally listed as "unknown elemental master" and I literally only added him so the proportions were more balanced (also so noone could argue it isn't finished)

I feel like his power was supposed to be lightning (based on the outfit) but then season 6 happened, and he was quietly retconned to make way for libber. I hesitated making it a father daughter situation, with him passing his powers on faster than Cole's grandfather to Lilly, but in the end, settled for making him a Master of Light.

Lilly and her father joined together, but neither of them are sure why it took so long for the power to pass down (probably after or at the very end of the First Serpentine War). They were both the type to understand it's war, and those rarely have a happy ending (in general, these people were kinda forced into this role because of their powers, some of them pretty young) Maybe the late heritance caused issues with Lilly's immune system leading to an early death? 👀🥺

I like to think the old Master of Earth was a mother hen of sons just as Lilly (it's genetic a this point). The above picture happened sometime after Garmadon's banishment.

Libber (or whatever they call the previous Master of Lightning) turned out really cute, I'm probably most satisfied with her (also gave her freckles to match Jay). I feel like we massively missed out on having her be the one to make/power Prime Empire. I mean, I get they wanted to save the mom storyline for MotM, but I'm sure you can write two separate stories revolving around parents. I also believe she joined really young, probably the youngest (and she was a menace. Also imagine if she was friends with the twins, the tragedy)

Wu and Garmadon pretty much have their canon designs (I like that they are dressed the most "traditional" out of everyone) except I added a bit more purple and gold respectively. Also, I'll mention it here, every active elemental masters have eye colours matching their elements, and their pupils are light (giving way to theories about them not even being human). The spinjitzu bros have "rings" around their pupils in the opposite color (purple for Wu, gold for Garmadon) showing the link between them and their powers.

When Garmadon is banished, Wu's eyes become completely gold, affected by their severed connection (and Garm has red eyes, but normally his would have become purple as well) Also, I kinda traced the text on their gi, cause I'm not drawing that from memory 😅

Master of Shadow was one of the first to join the Alliance, but is not the youngest member, she wanted a peaceful solution at the start, and like most of the earlier members, have a more nuanced view on the war, probably even had serpentine acquitances, which is why she looks so sad a lot of the time.

I see Ray and Maya as a kinda golden retriever, black cat dynamic. Maya was incredibly skilled, cold and precise, and one of the deadliest elemental masters (I was cooking up some story about a warrior clan she grew up in, but it's up for interpretation).

Ray meanwhile lives by the principle of "They can't know my next step... if I don't know my next step." Runs in, swords blazing, most people fighting him are just sort of. Perplexed at first.

And of course Maya didn't like him at first, but it's really hard to dislike Ray long term. (Which is how he also became Wu's best friend, despite him trying to hold a 'polite acquitances' type of relationship with the Ems. Ray is just like that) But she fell first.

Either this happened, or he went ahead of the trouble and asked him first.

Anyways, back to the topic at hand (working a lot on this means I had a lot of time to microwave these dudes, this post is looong)

Master of Ice is just that one kind of slightly creepy wise old man, who just... knows stuff. Everyone just sort of accepted that you don't ask him how or why he knows stuff, he just does. Wu and Garmadon have a tendency to follow him around (cause he's pretty similar to their father in a way), which kinda translates to everyone following him around like little ducks (even when he barely socialises with anyone lol).

Design for Master of Ice is inspired by @maydayissleepy, go check out their art!

And I already made a bunch of posts about Hands of Time and the time twins, but design wise, I just made a new one (to avoid the complex armor). When in battle, it's basically impossible to tell the two of them apart. Also, they have heterochromia because they both have two powers technically. The murky brown we see in the show is because they lost the power, but are still technically the Masters of Time, since it never passed on (if the blades broke somehow it would go back to them)

I feel like they joined later (even way later, which is why they clashed so much with the alliance) which is why they aren't mentioned in the early flashbacks (and also cause they didn't exist yet), and went kinda gungho on the war, not really knowing (or caring) for it's nuances.

Anyways, let me know what you think!

[vettelinyourarea]

blessed - toto wolff

genre: fluff

word count: 584 (my shortest fict LOL)

inspired by blessed by daniel caesar

warning: cursed words, age gap, english is not my first language

i’m gonna be honest i’m in my sebastian vettel feels right now and i’m thinking about starting to write for him HAHA

anyways, i hope you enjoy this short one! requests are open

--------------------

Everywhere that I go, everywhere that I be

If you were not surrounding me with your energy

I don’t wanna be there, I don’t wanna be anywhere

Anyplace that I can’t feel you, I just wanna be near you

“I miss you so much,” the voice on the other end of the line said. You are lying in your bed, calling the man you have been dating for 3 years now. You knew how difficult it would be to date someone like Toto Wolff, the Austrian Billionaire who managed to capture your heart. You have never thought that you will be dating a man like him. Having the chance to meet him for the first time when he became the guest lecturer in one of your classes for your master’s degree, turns into something unexpected yet so beautiful.

“I know, I miss you too, Toto. I wish you are here.”

And yes, I’m a mess but I’m blessed

To be stuck with you

“I hate him so fucking much, I hope he choked on his fucking ice cream.”

It wasn’t a rare occasion for you to vent about your hatred towards your boss to Toto. And each time, Toto would always listen to your nonsense, trying his best to understand you and to comfort you.

People said dating someone way older than you could be very hard, and really, you wouldn’t deny it. But you are very lucky the only man you got to date is Toto Wolff. A man who always seems so scary but truly, behind closed doors, he is the softest, most caring man you knew. You are also grateful to have someone so mature like him, hence why you would vent out your thoughts to the man beside you every single day. And Toto will always listen to you gratefully.

I know sometimes I do wrong

But hear the words of this song

When I go, I don’t stay gone for long

Don’t know what’s going on

You knew you are being selfish right now. Running away from your argument with Toto is not the best decision you’ve ever made, but still, you did it anyway. You knew that Toto is tired from all the traveling and work, but you need his attention. He is your boyfriend after all. It’s already hard being away from him for so many days during the racing season, but it’s even harder to be with him while not getting any of his attention. You knew you are being childish and stupidly selfish, but you still can’t help it.

But it’s also a well-known fact for everyone around you that both of you can’t be mad at each other for even more than 3 hours. So, here you are, standing right in front of the man who has been trying to talk to you for the past 30 minutes since you arrived back home.

“I’m sorry Toto.” You finally said with a low voice, not daring to look at him directly.

“I know, I’m sorry too for ignoring you, darling. Now, hug me, please?”

And I’m coming back home to you

I’m coming back home

Although there are a lot of arguments and fights between you and Toto, you are still each other's safest place. You are each other's home.

You and Toto knew that after every difficult day in the office, after every difficult day on the race track, you will be getting home. You will be waiting for each other to come home.

[kiteblue42]

Is Eric Kripke America’s Tolkien?

So I started Supernatural for the first time around 6 months ago for which I blame Tumblr entirely (where do I claim compensation?). In fact it’s very good and fun and I can’t believe I missed it when it was live.

Ok so bear with me I’ve been sick for a few days a combination of high temperature plus rings of power trailer drop may be making me delusional, but I got to thinking … why did this show have such a hold not just on this site, but also on so many fan artists and fan fic writers. (I mean it has a strangle hold on Ao3)?

Then the RoP trailer dropped and I got to thinking is it because it world builds from a US stand point like Tolkien world built from a European standpoint?

Then because I am sick and can’t sleep I am sharing my stream of consciousness o: Kripke as Tolkien, Sam as Sam, John Winchester as Gandalf, Castiel as Beleg and Dean as Turin Turambar - and maybe now I’ve got this out of my head I’ll feel better….:

I attempted to put this under a cut so hope it worked!

:readmore:

Source material

Most modern fantasy stands on the shoulders of JRR Tolkien who basically ingested a ton of European myths and languages (with focus on Northern Europe) and spat out the middle earth legendarium.

Eric Kripke (plus writing team) seems to have ingested a ton of US urban myths and US pop culture and spat out “Supernatural-verse”. Because it is *US myth making* it is distinct from a lot of other US writing that builds off Tolkien and / or European myth arcs (I’m looking at you Star Wars, Westeros etc).

And the themes and sensibilities therefore pulled out by Kripke are *not* the same as Tolkien’s themes and sensibilities. This makes it different to a lot of modern genre fiction (in whatever form) that either builds on or seeks to subvert the themes in Tolkien’s work.

(There’s also a lot of genre fiction that is satire or allegory for the real world, but that is another category to me and not really world building in the same way - incidentally the Boys fits into that category along with Good Omens).

Both ofc back end off the Bible but this is English literature based story telling and no one escapes the Bible or the bard.

Structure

We usually think of Tolkien in terms of:

(1) Hobbit - entry level nicely structured “there and back again” story for children, darker than expected. Main hero arc -Bilbo.

(2) Lord of the Rings - the pretty perfect fantasy master piece - very accessible clear meaningful themes and tidy /satisfactory ending. A number of hero arcs, but clearest drawn are Frodo / Sam.

(3) Silmarillion (&etc) - this is where the legendarium really gets built. It’s not neat, it’s not accessible, some of it is *not* a good read but the ideas here build the world. We have a creation myth. The “good” “wise” guys turn out to be more complex and flawed than we thought. The evil guys are extremely toxic but entertaining and bring the drama. There are epic doomed romances between immortal beings and mortal beings. Everyone messes up and makes catastrophic world destroying errors on the regular. People get cursed and can’t escape their doom. I can’t think of any real traditional hero arcs (maybe Beren or Luthien??). Note Tolkien didn’t finish this and it’s put together by someone else.

Now let’s do Supernatural

(1) seasons 1-3 - Horror procedural-

Entry level solid procedural hunting / horror story. Sam W is here in the traditional hero role. Dean is like your Thorin initiating the adventure. John Winchester is in the Gandalf role (he knows what’s going on and holds the secrets but is not available to the adventurers at all times). Maybe there something deeper and darker going on? This is your Hobbit equivalent very accessible but not particularly unique.

(2) season 4-5 - myth arc - lots of fans will say this is the perfect part of the story and a masterpiece of genre writing. It’s neat with clear meaningful themes and a tidy satisfactory ending. A number of hero arcs though Sam’s remains the most clearly drawn. Dean is more like your Aragorn or Faramir at the end of 5, Bobby in the mold of a Theoden and a Castiel in sort of Gandalf type position. Baby ofc is Shadowfax. This is your LoTR equivalent

(3) seasons 6 - 15 - the Legendarium- this gets a lot of criticism but it’s where the legendarium really gets built. It’s not neat, it’s not that accessible, some of it is not great to watch, but the ideas here build the world out. We have a creation myth (hello Chuck & Amara). We have hero doomed by the narrative (most notably Dean Winchester, though also Castiel). We have epic love stories between mortals and immortals. Yes I am comparing Dean & Cas to Beren & Luthien (!) though Turin & Beleg would perhaps be more appropriate (there’s a good case for Dean = Turin in this universe). The good guys turn out to be more complex or darker than we thought. The evil guys are extremely toxic but entertaining and bring the drama.

There aren’t really any straightforward hero arcs which is one of the reasons Sam fades out a bit and Dean comes forwards as a character. The stories are messy and tragic.

Landscape

Middle Earth - if you read the books or watch the movies or show it’s clear that Tolkien’s (sub)creation is a love letter to the mountains, lakes and woods of England and Europe. It’s also a cry of anguish for their destruction. Both the beauty and destruction are heightened (Europe doesn’t really look like this and really never did - as for the movies they were shot in anew Zealand and then digitally enhanced…) This is as important as the characters and plot - and stands out in particular in the Hobbit and LoTR where there are long descriptions of landscapes (or long shots of the same in movies / shows).

“Middle Americana” - it’s clear that as much importance was put into the look of the landscapes in Supernatural as to the characters or story. In this verse the look is long open roads, beautiful mountains and big skies that are a declaration of love for America, and the run down small towns seem to present wistful sadness. But again it’s not real it’s heightened. The cinematography in first few seasons is particularly thoughtful (and perhaps Kim Manners is to be thanked for that). The show is shot in Canada and the motels / gas stations in middle of no where needed to be built because they didn’t exist in reality. Again the landscape - the open road, the small towns, the big sky, the motels / dinners / gas stations in the middle of nowhere are as much a character as anything else.

I could go on but I suppose if anyone read this far you get the point (and more importantly it’s now out of my head and I can think about something else!).

Ultimately it will take some time to see if this could be right - in terms of genre fiction Tolkien is everywhere and you can’t escape it (even if you never read or watched any Tolkien!). Time will tell if the Kripke verse has the same impact on creatives and audiences, but I just look at the A03 archive and notice how many people know what happened on Supernatural without ever watching it (!) and think hmmm these are the readers and writers of tomorrow after all.