#guarding him and keeping him safe

[doyou000me]

"He's hurt, you know. Let him rest a bit."

"The pain was killing him, so I came to help."

[justaz]

thinking about arthur who has crazy quick reflexes and is a relatively light sleeper who woke up to the sound of someone in his room and saw merlin crouched down messing with his keys before softly asking “whatre you doing?…before breakfast?”

[sunderingstars]

⟡ hsr 2.1 spoilers ⟡

if anyone asks why i’m crying just tell them this frame broke into my house, stole all my earthly possessions, and left me sobbing on the floor

[laesas]

Do you guys ever think about Ken's devastated expression when he sees Kinn alone in the parking lot? When Big, who would have followed Kinn to the ends of the earth, isn't with him?

[theshadowrealmitself]

Thinking of reasons why Nick Fury would want Spidey to join SHIELD so badly, and there’s probably a ton of canon reasons, but my headcanon is that he knows he won’t ever have to worry about Spiderman secretly being a Hydra agent and he wants that kind of character in SHIELD (he’s just. so fucking tired of agents secretly being hydra agents. what the fuck. how many can there possibly be??)

[cherrydreamer]

(Warning: Contains rookie!cop Steve which I know is very much not to everyone's tastes. Also some description of Neil Hargrove inflicted abuse. Nothing overly graphic but just be aware.)

🎃 Harringrove Harvest Day 2- Gone Feral 🎃

Steve's at a loss.

It had been easy enough for him when he was right in the thick of it. Easy to know what to do. To trust his gut. Because, really, all it boiled down to was that fact that there'd been a bunch of monsters he needed to fight and a bunch of kids he needed to protect. 

But now it's all over. Monsters fought. Kids protected. Everything squared away, neat and tidy.

And Steve isn't quite sure where he fits anymore. He hovers in doorways, on the edge of the groups, drifting from the kitchen with a mug of Joyce's hot cocoa in hand- loaded with extra marshmallows because, "you look like you need the sugar, honey," over to the table where Dustin is restating his theories about d'Art and the potential domestication of Demodogs, sneaking a look back towards the couch where Nancy and Jon are huddled, heads together, in a world of their own.

So when Hopper beckons him over, it's easiest for Steve just to follow him, to step out onto the porch and accept the cigarette held out in front of him and wait for whatever favour it was that Hopper needed him to do next. Drive the kids home, probably, or maybe run out for some more food. Something useful. Helpful.

But instead of asking for anything, Hopper rests a firm hand on Steve's shoulder. It feels good. Grounding. Reassuring in a way that Steve didn't even know he needed. 

"You did good out there, kid," Hopper says, quiet but serious in a way that has Steve's gut squirming, "I know it can't've been easy, keeping those brats safe, but y'did it. And I heard the whole thing, about what you did in those tunnels. Trust me, Dustin won't stop yapping on about it, and I gotta say it was damn brave of you, son"

It's a lot. Too much praise for something that anyone would've done, most likely, so Steve tries to dismiss it, to shake it off, not feeling like he really deserves the warm glow of pride blooming in his chest. He manage to mumble something about how it'd been dangerous, really, dangerous and stupid, and Hopper laughs, a proper, deep in the gut rumble of laughter that ends in a cough.

"Dangerous, stupid and brave, huh? Not the worst combination in the world, hell, it may as well be the damn motto of the Hawkins Police Department. Might get Flo to make one of her cross stitch pictures. Have it framed for the office."

Hopper laughs again, and then he pauses, and Steve swears he can almost see the cartoon bulb lighting up above his head.

"Look, kid, I don't know what you've got lined up for after graduation. College? Or a job? Something with your dad's place, maybe?"

Steve can only shake his head, already waiting for Hopper's look of disappointment, only it never comes. Instead he nods, satisfied, like a plan is coming together.

"Well, it'd be good to have another person down at the station who knows what we're actually up against," and then he snorts, amused, "And someone like you? Someone with a bit of common sense? Well that would make a hell of a difference too. I can't say it's always this exciting," he shrugs, "But it ain't a bad job. And you've got more potential than a hell of a lot of the rookies I've seen. You think on it, son," 

And that, seemingly, is that. Hopper gives Steve's shoulder another one of those warm, firm pats, and then he stubs his cigarette out on Joyce Byers' porch railing and heads back inside.

But Steve stays put for a while longer. 

Just thinking.

—

He goes back to Hopper the very next day, asking if he was serious, surprised when Hopper doesn't even blink before he's sliding Steve an application form and a pen. And so, within a week, Steve is sitting in the break room of the Hawkins Police Station in a brand new blue shirt and a tie that Hopper had taken one look at and re-tied for him, his eyes growing wider and wider as Flo hands over a thick, official looking book.

"Just a little light reading, dear," she says, "Make sure you know exactly what you're signing up for."

Steve's regretting it all already. A regret that only grows as he scans through the first page of his new training handbook.

As expected, he starts right at the bottom of the heap, with no more responsibility than fetching coffees, washing the cars and helping Flo with the filing. But Steve doesn't mind that. That sounds doable. Achievable. 

What's worrying him is what happens next, if he proves that he can manage not to fuck up those simple tasks. Because then it gets tough. There's a whole program of training, months and months of it covering all the procedures and codes and policies that Steve is expected to learn before he can even begin to shadow an officer. 

There's reading. Studying. Questions he needs to be able to answer. Tons of shit to remember. 

Just the thought of it has him feeling sick. 

"Hey, uh, Chief?" he's standing up the moment that Hopper enters the room, tripping over his own feet in his haste to try and shove the training manual back into Hopper's hands, "Look, I think, uh, I think I made a mistake, I can't…I can't do this," Steve thumbs through the book, his face growing paler with every new page, "And there's a test? Like a proper, pen and paper- yeah, no, no, I'm not, I'm not gonna be able to do that."

He shakes his head, already feeling like a failure before he's even been here half an hour, but Hopper only smiles,

"We got Callahan through it and that guy locks himself out of his car at least twice a month."

"Locked himself in it last week," Flo calls out cheerily.

"There you go." Hopper grins, "And let me tell you this. None of this crap-" he tugs the book from Steve's hands, flinging it down onto an already overflowing desk, -actually matters." His hand is back on Steve's shoulder. Heavy but reassuring, just like before. "Look kid, far as I can see? You've done more than enough to prove that you've got what it takes. And I'm in charge here, so you pay attention to me and not that book, and you'll be just fine. Now c'mon, we've got our first case of the day and I reckon you're just the person to help solve it."

From the way Hopper's smirking, Steve knows it's a trap, but he can't help keep the eagerness from his voice when he answers, "Yeah?"

"Oh yeah, big mystery alright. There's an empty space in my cup, right where my coffee oughta be. Reckon you can figure that one out, rookie?" 

And, with a sigh, Steve starts his first day.

—-

Slowly but surely, Steve finds his feet.

There is a lot of coffee fetching and filing with Flo and car washing, but he doesn't mind that. He likes chatting with Flo, hearing her talk proudly about her grandsons and their important jobs in the city and her husband, Harold and the rowboat he's been fixing up so he can go out fishing; and he likes the hum of appreciation that Powell lets out whenever Steve's spent a good couple of hours shining up his car. And it's really not long at all before Hopper is inviting Steve along with him when he goes out on a job. It's routine stuff at first, of course, dealing with shaken up drivers that misjudged the sharp corner of Cartersville and Cornwallis, or helping to calm down arguments about a few inches of encroaching ivy between otherwise civilised neighbours and, of course, there's the memorable times when Hopper gets Steve to dress up as McGruff the Crime Dog and accompany him along on his visits to Hawkins Elementary to talk to a gaggle of over excited little kids, and the even more memorable time when Hopper owed him one and ended up being the one donning the dog costume.

It's fun. And Steve finds that he's not too bad at it. In fact, he's pretty good. He learns how to approach situations. How to calm angry guys and comfort hysterical women or- more often than he'd expect- vice versa. He learns when to talk, to take control of a situation, and when to hold back and just listen. He learns what to look for, how to read rooms and faces and body language and situations.

And he learns, most of all, that usually people just want to know that someone is there and sees them and understands them. People just want someone to help. 

—

It's sometime around mid December when things ramp up. A lot. It's an evening shift, the two of them parked up in the Blazer, coffee in hand as they keep an eye out for teens speeding their way down to the Quarry, when their peace is interrupted by a crackle on the radio. 

"Here we go then, kid," Hopper says, unhooking the receiver, "First call of the night. Bet you dollars to doughnuts it'll be Beth Landingham calling to complain about her neighbours' Christmas lights being too damn bright again." 

But it isn't. Flo's crackly voice informs them both that Hopper's presence is required immediately at a domestic disturbance over at Cherry Lane, and Hopper fills Steve in on the most important detail.

"Hargrove place," he clarifies with a groan, "Not the first time, probably won't be the last." 

"It'll be Billy being an asshole," Steve says confidently. "Probably came home drunk or something. Or maybe he's finally snapped, gone feral. Wouldn't surprise me."

"Maybe," Hopper muses, his jaw set grimly, and Steve can't deny the thrill he's feeling at the thought of being there to see Billy get put in his place. He wonders if Hopper will yell. If he'll need to restrain Billy or hit him. He bets Billy will resist and put up a fight, and maybe Steve will need to step in and-

"Hey, Hop, you think I can be the one to, y'know, give him a warning or whatever?"

And Steve's already imagining it, how he'd have the upper hand. How he could flash his ID badge and stand right in front of Billy, maybe even order him to sit down, make him listen and obey. A small part of him is hoping that Billy doesn't listen, so that Hopper has no choice but to cuff him, and maybe he'sd even let Steve do that but too and Steve already knows he cinch those cuffs just a little bit too tight, enough to be really uncomfortable. Enough to pinch. 

He can't wait to make Billy squirm. Make him pay.

But Hopper's face is blank, "Let's see what we're dealing with first, Harrington."

"I'm gonna call him William," Steve says, thinking out loud, "Bet he'll hate that." 

—

But when he gets there, Steve doesn't call Billy 'William'. He doesn't flash his ID badge or order Billy to sit down or slap the cold, metal cuffs around Billy's thrashing wrists. He doesn't do any of the things he'd imagined.

Instead, Steve stands in the middle of it all, staring round. He doesn't know where to look first, where to even start. He's still coming to terms with the very real, very visceral shock of what his job could actually entrail. He knows he's been naive, and he's seeing now that it's not just going to be school visits and speeding fines and even the occasional infestation of supernatural monsters, but that some of it is going to be this kind of fucked up shit too.

Fucked up shit like Billy Hargrove being on the kitchen floor, curled up in the middle of a whole table-worth of broken crockery, his face a mess of blood and tears. The more Steve looks, the worse it gets. He takes it in, in that way he can now, picking up on the details: like how Billy's shirt is hanging open, some buttons torn and others hanging from threads, and how he has one arm twisted against his chest, bent at a sickeningly wrong angle, while the other one is raised above his head in a desperate attempt to protect himself from the man standing over him. Steve manages to pull his gaze away, checking in on everyone else: Susan, standing off to the side, her arms tight around Max who sports a scarlet red handprint on her cheek.

And then Steve turns his attention to Mr. Hargrove, Max's stepdad. Steve only really knows him by sight, but even then he'd always seemed… off, a little too calm, too controlled. Stiffly polite, but with a flicker of something cold and mean behind his eyes. 

He had known he could be a hardass though. Steve had picked that up just from overhearing Max's grumblings about him, how Neil was always more concerned with Max seeming respectable and being a 'good girl' for Susan than having any real interest in her as a person, and how he was even harder on Billy. 

Good, Steve had thought at the time. If anyone needs a firm hand, it's Billy.

Steve feels sick to think about it now. Because this man here, this Mr. Hargrove, is more than just a hardass. He's a whole different beast, and whatever facade of 'respectful family man' he once tried to project is gone entirely. His face is red, his eyes are bulging, and flecks of saliva are falling from his mouth as he spits insults after insult in Billy's face, before turning to Hopper and telling him, in no uncertain terms, exactly 'what kind of filth that son of mine really is'.

He lets fly with a whole host of slurs and accusations, each one more graphic than the last, and Steve winces at Neil Hargrove's particular choice of words, a sick feeling churning in his gut when he thinks about how often he's said some of them himself, back before. Back when he needed to prove how much better he was than the kids who didn't fit, the weird kids, the quiet ones, the ones with the wrong clothes or haircut or who lived in the wrong part of town. Back when certain insults, certain implications, were enough to have rumours flying quickly enough to turn a socially awkward kid into a social pariah by the end of the school day. 

But Neil Hargrove isn't just throwing them out as casual insults. Steve can tell, from the utter disgust dripping from his voice, that Neil means them. And that, worst of all, Neil thinks that those words, those accusations, are more than enough to excuse what he's done to Billy. The mess he's made of his own son. 

And maybe they had been before, Steve thinks with a dawning horror, wondering just how long Billy's been living with this. Maybe this isn't the first time something like this had happened, and maybe Neil got away with it then, maybe he even had the police on his side because what Billy was and what he was accused of doing, was seen as so much worse than whatever punishment Neil had doled out.

Because Billy isn't fighting back. Even now Hopper's shoved Neil away, Billy isn't showing any of the spark that Steve associates with him. He isn't even standing up. Instead he's huddling right down, curled away as much from Hopper as he was from Neil, trying to make himself smaller, trembling but not making a sound. Neil is shouting and Max is yelling and Susan's crying but Billy is eerily silent.

Like he's given up. 

Like he knows there's no point asking for help.

Like he's resigned to this.

Like it might only get worse, now that the police are here.

And that's what shakes Steve out of his stupor. Because he got into this job to help people and that's what he's always wanted to do. All he can do. All he's been good at. And even though he has absolutely no idea how to help with this, no idea how to even start with Billy, he needs to try.

So he does.

He lets his instinct take over, and he steps carefully over broken glass, kneeling down just a few steps away from Billy. And when Billy turns to face him, his eyes clouded with fear and his lashes clumped together with a mix of tears and the blood that runs from a still bleeding gash on his brow, Steve says the first thing that comes into his head, 

"So, uh, guess your Dad's kind of a huge asshole then, Hargrove?"

And god it's dumb. So dumb. Steve knows it's dumb even as he's saying it. He's following absolutely none of what little sensitivity training he's had, and he's probably made a terrible situation even worse. 

But it gets a snorty, watery huff out of Billy. And there's even a flicker of a smile, despite everything. 

And Steve thinks that maybe he is helping here, after all. 

[ionlylikemycat]

tell me i’m wrong

[the-fairy-prince]

reunions.

[nerosdayinanime]

Nezuko centric au where Tanjiro's killed during the Mugen Train mission- Giyuu becomes her caretaker and trains her Inosuke & Zenitsu instead of letting them fumble along

[dailyeca]

at what point could you fall asleep to hushed giggles and quiet conversations instead of the usual silence?

(was it when you began to trust them?)

[galedekarios]

to cheer myself up bc that last post was hard to compile for&write up, i took some screens of alton with his ilmater pendant 🖤

[dutybcrne]

Thinkings thinkings of Fatui!Kaeya have been reawakened in reviewing Arle's teasers/animations

[magnusmodig]

||. thor misunderstanding earthen housing norms in the modern day is SO funny to me to think about. He's doing his best, but between being from another planet with far more advanced technology (and much more "archaic" culture customs) on top of also being a PRINCE, I would imagine some normal practices and understandings of things simply don't click with him more than others.... Not because he's not smart. Thor is incredibly intelligent. ONLY because of the huge culture divide. But... that said: the concept of having neighbors who own their own land right next to yours, but the plots of land are TINY ??? absolutely crazy to him. Why aren't the plots of land BIGGER? why don't more people utilize it to farm crops???

Also don't get him STARTED on the idea - or nature of - apartments.

[simoni-999]

I'm gonna end up saying this really sloppily but something that surprised me (in a good way) in ptutu was how autonomy is so heavily respected and usually considered to be the strongest factor when making decisions regarding Mytho. Duck and Fakir both knew that returning his heart in full would lead to the raven returning. Fakir, in an effort to protect Mytho, essentially took away any autonomy from him. He controlled what he did, where he went, who he was with, and didn't hesitate to restrict Mytho's access to the outside world entirely. When Tutu first attempts to return the prince's heart shards, Fakir fights back, believing that since it will lead to the raven being unleashed, it's up to him to keep Mytho safe. But as time goes on, Fakir and Duck start to work more closely, and Mytho regains a lot of control over himself, through both the return of his emotions and Fakir realizing that Mytho can and should make decisions for himself.

Once Fakir stops trying to control Mytho, Mytho becomes very verbal about his wishes. He can't return the heart shards himself, so to that extent he has to rely of Princess Tutu, but he can be clear and direct with the people around him about what he wants. Mytho's decision is rarely doubted by Fakir or Duck, despite the known consequences. It's more important to Duck and Fakir that Mytho's wishes are respected and upheld than what they and others might believe is best for him. Even when the raven is released and Mytho is in potential danger, his want for the heart shards doesn't waver, so Duck and Fakir's conviction to return them doesn't either.

This is pretty poorly written but I just felt like I needed to say something about this because I feel like this is something overlooked in a lot of media. "The greater good" is usually prioritized in situations, as well as the idea that, even though it's not what this character wants, it's what we know is best for them so really their say doesn't matter. But it does. It's the say that matters the most. And tutu held strong on that. Mytho's autonomy was what was protected and fought for in the end, and I thought that was pretty cool.

[arukea-owo]

Fred has protection quq

[eqan]

took dewey out again tonight for more socialization — some soft boofs were had but by the end of the ~30 minutes he was quietly watching instead (:

he of course did suuuuuper well with everyone who asked to meet him! young kids, parents, some all at the same time. not fazed even a little (and someone even guessed that his name is deputy dewey because of scream — finally!!!!!!)

we worked on “focus” and “off”/“leave it” while there too. a good evening