#jesse's character was so bland

[helianthus21]

watched the queen of the damned movie. y'all werent lying. it is that bad sksk

[elliesbelle]

nobody compares to you

chapter 13

pairing: ellie x reader

synopsis: you're in your junior year of college and at a party, you run into the girl who broke your heart: ellie williams. despite the time it took to reset your life, will you risk a broken heart again for her?

content warnings: modern college au, cursing, angst, dealer!ellie, mentions of marijuana and descriptions of its usage, descriptions of anaphylactic shock, brief mention of needles, descriptions of anxiety, mentions of death, descriptions of jealousy, mentions of breakups, several flashback scenes, mentions of LSD and its usage, descriptions of acid tripping, ellie's POV, minors do not interact

word count: 9k

chapters: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen

series masterlist

my masterlist

i have a ko-if if you like my work so much that you feel compelled to tip me ♡︎

the "nobody compares to you" spotify playlist

songs featured in this chapter (including a surprise audio AND drawing commission in the middle of the fic):

the aaron taylor song “i think i love you again”

the carpenters song “merry christmas darling”

palestine will be free

“Where the fuck even are you?” 

“Not home.” 

“Well, no shit. I’m literally sitting on your living room couch, dumbass.” 

“Get out of my apartment, weirdo.” 

“Stop procrastinating, asshole.” 

Ellie rolls her eyes as a couple of bright yellow leaves slowly dance down on the pavement from the nearby trees on her path home. One hand holds her phone up in front of her with Dina’s face front and center on the screen through FaceTime. 

Having just dropped off a rather large order to a couple of stoner sophomores living on campus, Ellie’d decided to take the longer, more scenic route home instead of the usual way she’d go every day. She had a “date” lined up with Daniela in about an hour or so, a meeting she wasn’t particularly looking forward to being present for. Having no real enthusiasm to actually be on time to meet up with her, Ellie was purposely and leisurely delaying her return home to get ready. 

Dina, busy lounging on the couch in Jesse and Ellie’s living room, busies herself by finishing a bland, microwaveable box of mac and cheese she’d found shoved in the back of the duo’s full freezer. She was casually killing time talking to Ellie through video chat while she waited for Jesse to finish getting ready for their movie date night. 

Jesse enjoyed dragging Dina along to a movie theater in the neighbouring downtown area that showed old and foreign films. Back home in Jackson throughout their childhood, he and Ellie would make Dina sit through old sci-fi pictures, cult horror films, martial arts movies in a completely different language and with no subtitles. Dina would sit in the middle of the two in complete boredom as she listened to them psychoanalyzing background characters who had two lines and spending hours explaining their personal interpretations of a single camera angle in some inconsequential scene. 

When they all began attending university, Jesse was over the moon upon discovering the nearby theater and the kind of films they would show. Dina complained every single time, but she secretly enjoyed these date nights regardless, always arguing with Jesse on the way home with her own analyses of the movie they’d just seen. She was a little less enthusiastic this time, however, upon hearing that the film they were about to go see was an early 2000s Bollywood movie that had a running time of nearly four hours. 

Jesse had just gotten home from working out at the gym and was busy showering, and Dina decided to preoccupy herself in the meantime by thoroughly berating Ellie for her disinterest and voluntary tardiness for her “date” later that evening. 

“El, I really don’t understand why you’re even bothering with her,” Dina says after a huge, wet slurp of her mac and cheese. “Leave that poor freshman girl alone. You really don’t even seem to like her that much.” 

“She’s still got Joel’s jacket and I want it back.” Ellie shrugs nonchalantly. 

“Maybe if you didn’t pass that shabby old thing around to every new girl you see for a month…” Dina replies, not bothering to mutter under her breath. 

“Oh, leave me the fuck alone, Woodward,” Ellie says, chuckling. “Slutshamer.” 

Jesse jaunts into the living room, jet black hair damp from the shower and fully dressed, and spots Ellie’s face on Dina’s tiny screen. He waltzes towards the couch and, without any warning, stealthily snatches Dina’s phone right out of her hand. 

“Hey!” Dina protests indignantly, trying to reach for it back. 

Jesse ignores her as Ellie laughs. 

“Yo, what the fuck, Williams.” Jesse scolds the auburn-haired girl. 

“Wassup, Chang.” 

“What the hell did you ditch me and the gym for earlier? Today’s our cardio day.” 

“Had a huge delivery I needed to make,” Ellie shrugs. “Wanted two 40 bags on top of a few lavender pre-rolls. And they lived on the opposite side of campus.” 

“A likely excuse,” Jesse scoffs. “I think you’ve been harbouring a secret, years-long grudge against me and actually hate me for some reason.” 

“Oh, it’s not a secret. I do hate you.” 

“Dickhead.” Jesse chuckles as Dina heartily laughs behind him with a mouthful of mac and cheese. 

Before Jesse can continue to berate his best friend, his own phone rings noisily from the inside of one of his jeans pockets. 

“Oh, look. Someone who actually loves and appreciates me.” He says indignantly, handing small-scale Ellie back to Dina. 

Ellie playfully rolls her eyes, trying to ignore the fact that Jesse’s phone is currently buzzing and blaring with the personalized ringtone he’d set for your contact years ago shortly after you’d all met for the first time. 

Dina, recognizing the familiar sound as well and noticing Ellie’s tight lips and rigid expression, quickly attempts to change the subject. 

“So where exactly are you gonna be meeting up with the Daniela girl?” Dina quickly asks Ellie at the same time that Jesse booms, “Good evening once again to my absolute favourite person in the whole world!” 

Ellie hesitantly begins to reply to Dina but cuts off almost immediately when she hears Jesse’s tone turn serious and mutter a name she’d come to despise. 

“Oh. Hey, Anderson. What’s up?” Jesse says blankly. “Where’s—” 

“Oh, shit.” Dina inadvertently murmurs as Ellie’s face immediately goes red with fury. 

“Why the fuck is Anderson calling Jesse on her phone?” Ellie demands quietly of Dina. 

“I mean… she is on a date with her tonight…” Dina reluctantly admits, knowing that lying to Ellie about your current whereabouts is pointless after figuring Jesse would eventually blab it to her anyway. 

“Are you fucking serious?” Ellie seethes. 

“I don’t really know why she’d be calling Jesse, though. That doesn’t make any sense...” Dina says, setting down her fork and turning her head back towards her boyfriend as Ellie watches intently him from the corner of Dina’s phone screen. 

Both girls stare Jesse down as he intently listens to the other end of the line, the two getting more and more nervous as his face gets stonier as each second passes. When he finally speaks, his voice is grave and urgent. 

“Is she breathing?” 

“What?” Both Dina and Ellie simultaneously say in distress, which Jesse ignores. 

“What did she eat?” He asks Abby. 

“What’s going on?” Dina implores of him fearfully, sitting up straighter in her seat and completely abandoning her partially eaten mac and cheese on the coffee table. 

Jesse holds up a pointer finger as an indication that he needs to keep listening as Ellie hushes her sternly, fiercely trying to eavesdrop on Jesse’s conversation. 

“Okay. What did you eat?” Jesse questions. 

The way Jesse’s face falls elicits a sharply drawn breath from Dina and drains all the colour from Ellie’s face. 

“Did she have any?” He asks. 

While Jesse listens for Abby’s lengthy response, Ellie quickly averts her eyes back to Dina. 

“Dina.” She says hastily. “Where did Anderson take her tonight?” 

“Orchards. It’s that fancy restaurant that’s like, right by here.” 

“I know. They serve a lot of seafood there, right?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Do you think Anderson ordered any?” 

“El, how am I supposed to know that?” 

“Well, does Anderson know that she’s deadly fucking allergic to shellfish? That she can’t even fucking touch that shit?” 

Dina’s terrified face suddenly goes completely pale before she responds. 

“I-I don’t know...” 

“Does she have any pockets or some kind of bag with her?” They hear Jesse say. “See if she has her EpiPen in there.” 

“E-El… I don’t think she does.” Dina stammers.” I helped her get dressed tonight and I saw her before she left, and I-I don’t think—” 

Ellie nearly drops her phone on the pavement from how clammy her hands have become from complete fear. When she hears Jesse fiercely mutter a furious “fuck,” she immediately breaks into a sprint. 

“Dina!” Ellie demands. “Give me back to Jesse! Now!” Dina hastily hands her phone to her petrified boyfriend without question as he quickly asks Abby to stay calm and give him a quick second. 

“Jess!” Ellie breathlessly yells, not bothering to keep her voice down and without any concern for the fellow students she was alarming as she ran by. “Go to my room right now and search in the bottom drawer of my desk!!!” 

Promptly and silently, Jesse darts in the direction of Ellie’s bedroom with Dina following closely behind him. 

“There’s an old EpiPen of hers somewhere in there! I think it’s probably a couple of months expired now, but grab it anyway!” 

Jesse and Dina unceremoniously bust into Ellie’s bedroom and follow her instructions precisely. After forcibly yanking open the bottom-most drawer of her computer desk, they begin to desperately rifle through it. After a few seconds of frantic ransacking through its miscellaneous contents, Jesse pulls out a thick, plastic cylindrical object with tiny lettering embellished all over the translucent plastic. 

“Look for the little slot on the side of it that shows you some liquid-y shit inside!” Ellie presses him. “Is it still completely clear and clean, or is it all brown and murky?” 

“It’s clear.” Jesse replies after quickly inspecting the EpiPen. 

“Okay, go!” Ellie orders. “Dina’s gonna call 911 right now! Orchards is right around the corner from our place, so run! Inject the needle on the outside of her thigh! And check her pulse and see if she’s breathing, ‘cause you’ll need to do CPR if she isn’t! Paramedics probably won’t get there for another five minutes or so, so you just gotta keep doing chest compressions until they can get there!” 

Jesse nods and immediately sprints out of the room after handing Dina her phone, placing his own back to his ear and quickly informing Abby that he’d be there shortly, firmly asking her to check your pulse. 

Dina sets her eyes on Ellie, pure terror engraved on her face. 

“Ellie, s-shouldn’t we grab the EpiPen she has now in her apartment? I think I know where it is, probably. Isn’t that safer than—”

“Her apartment is fifteen minutes away from that restaurant and Jesse can get there in two! We can’t waste any more time!” Ellie clarifies quickly. “Now, I need you to hang up right away and call 911 and explain everything that’s just happened! Go!” 

Ellie doesn’t bother waiting for Dina to end the call and roughly taps on the red button herself. 

She shoves her phone into the pocket of her hoodie and quickens her pace. 

Her lungs winded and her heart threatening to beat out of her chest, she couldn't seem to care any less about her own breathing at that very moment. She trusts nothing else but her own feet to get her exactly where she desperately needs to be. She sees nothing and no one else but the pavement directly in front of her, cutting across the university’s campus through the fastest route she can think of in the moment. 

Despite never having been a religious person in any way, Ellie begins to plead a desperate prayer in her mind to whatever god or deity that could possibly exist that you were still breathing somehow and that Jesse had found you and gotten there in time. 

She takes a moment to pull her phone out and check how long it’s been since she ended the FaceTime call with Dina, seeing that a little less than five minutes had just passed. She considers calling her once more for any updates; but not wanting to risk being a possible distraction in case Dina is needed in the moment, she ultimately decides against doing so and instead wills her feet to move faster. 

Unwelcome thoughts begin to involuntarily flood Ellie’s mind as she sprints. 

She thinks of the last time you’d seen each other: that night of your heart-to-heart dinner with Jesse at Sterling’s. It felt almost fated for her and Dina to walk into the same restaurant at the same time that the two of you had been meeting. Ellie recalls the identical look of dismay on both of your faces, equally overwhelmed at the sight of one another. She can still feel the angry yet doleful tears that fell down her red cheeks as she stormed away from the diner, threatening to expose endless repressed feelings of remorse and heartache. 

She remembers the day she saw your sudden reunion with Abby Anderson, you dressed in that beautiful floral sundress and very obviously flirting with the tall, muscular blonde. Her nails were so angrily digging into her palms at the sight of you two that she can still feel the phantom marks that had nearly drawn blood. She’d nearly frightened Dina, who was lounging on the living room couch with a joint in hand, when she busted into her and Jesse’s apartment with immediate choice words that were aroused by her unbridled anger. 

She recalls the last time you’d actually spoken to one other directly after that miserable, unfortunate night of the Sigma Eta party, how taken aback she was at how you were still so undeniably beautiful underneath the pale moonlight. Having been sitting on the hood of her Jeep while she watched in amusement at your futile attempts to keep yourself warm, she thinks of the way your eyes were furiously and desperately trying to avoid her piercing ocean green gaze. The memory of the angry, fleeting look you’d given Daniela when you’d obviously noticed Joel’s old motorcycle jacket resting on her shoulders is one she can never forget; nor could she the air of raw, bitter indignation that radiated off you at the sight of one of your signature lavender joints nestled in between Daniela’s lips. 

She can still feel the visceral rage that sparked inside her from Frat Guy Adam’s casual cruelty towards you, followed by feelings of heartbreak at watching the way your face had fallen at his words. The sheer remorse from pathetically having done nothing right when it happened still weighs on her. Ellie can never forget the simultaneous feelings of shame and comfort she’d felt after your heated encounter with her in the bathroom of Sterling’s: shame from being forcibly confronted with a reminder of the deepest regret of her whole life; and comfort at finally being able to see with her own ocean green eyes, after so long, the face of a person she once adored more than she did anyone else in the world. 

Maybe even still. 

Ellie eventually finds herself at the intersection right where her shared apartment with Jesse is located. Her hasty pursuit is frustratingly impeded when she’s stopped by the angry, glowing red hand at the crosswalk she needs to get past to reach Orchards, cars endlessly coming one after the other. For a few moments, she’s at least able to catch a much-needed, painful breath.

While she bounces up and down on her feet in impatience, very seriously contemplating running across anyway and risking being hit by a speeding car, Ellie thinks of one thing and one thing only: the first moment her eyes met yours all those years ago. The moment when she knew, deep down and instinctively, that everything had changed. 

She’s brutally broken out of her brief reverie by the blaring of sirens booming from around the corner. Her head immediately shoots towards the sound and she watches as two ambulances with flashing red and white lights speed down the road and towards what she believes is the direction of the nearest emergency room. 

Ellie wastes no time bolting down the crosswalk the millisecond that the orange pedestrian signal finally blinks to white, sprinting down the street of Orchards. She’s somehow able to spot Dina’s figure in the middle of a small crowd of people gathered next to the restaurant and immediately sprints towards her. By the time Ellie is able to reach her, most of the unfamiliar bystanders have dispersed with whispers. Her heart races as she sees Dina’s cheeks wet and dripping endlessly with tears. 

“Dina!” Ellie huffs, using the last of her breath and energy to dash to her side. 

“Ellie!” Dina sighs in relief upon spotting her friend. 

They envelop each other in a tight embrace, Dina hiccuping slightly into Ellie’s shoulder. 

“What happened? Did you guys make it in time? Is she okay? Where is she? Where’s Jesse?” Ellie rambles. 

“Sh-she’s okay, I think,” Dina stammers. “She was breathing when Jesse got here, but her pulse was really slow. The paramedics got here a few minutes after Jesse did.” 

She sloppily wipes her eyes with the back of her hands before continuing. 

“They said that the EpiPen probably saved her life, said that she would have had a lot less of a chance if we had just waited for them to arrive. Expired EpiPen was apparently better than nothing, as long as it wasn’t too far off from when it did expire.” 

Ellie takes a relieved breath in at hearing this. 

“Thank god. Thank fucking god. That’s what I thought, but I-I honestly wasn’t sure. I couldn’t remember clearly in the moment.” 

“How did you even know that?” Dina asks her in genuine curiosity. 

“I-I… wh-when we were, you know, t-together…” Ellie mutters awkwardly. “I made sure to know, j-just in case.” 

“Oh, Ellie…” 

Ellie wrings her hands together and clears her throat in embarrassment. 

“So where’s Jess? Where’s Anderson?” She asks, changing the subject and voice dripping in disdain at the last word. 

“Jesse rode in the ambulance with her and the paramedics, and Abby said that she’d follow behind in her car,” Dina replies. “I stayed behind ‘cause I figured you were on your way and I wanted to be able to tell you what happened in person.” 

“Thank you, D, seriously.” 

Dina stares at Ellie earnestly for a moment. 

“You really do still love her.” Dina says, not as a question but as a statement. 

Ellie doesn’t respond to this remark, her lips tight and her ocean green eyes unreadable. 

“Come on. Let’s go see her.” 

You had been brought to St. Peter’s Hospital, the closest one located to your university. When Ellie and Dina had gotten there, they found Jesse sitting alone in the mostly empty waiting room. He was staring up at the dreary off-white ceiling, his left leg nervously bouncing up and down as one of his hands gripped his right knee. When he spots the two girls enter the room, he immediately jumps out of his seat to meet them. He pulls his girlfriend into a tight embrace and gives her a tender kiss on the forehead, and then he places a firm and reassuring hand on his best friend’s shoulder. 

“How is she?” Ellie asks nervously. 

“Unconcious still, but she’s alive,” Jesse replies somberly. “The paramedics in the ambulance told me that they were pumping her full of adrenaline; and so now, they’re either still doing that or they’re just trying to get her heart rate back to normal. Apparently, her tongue was so swollen and her throat closed up completely, so they’ve got to reopen her airways ‘cause she’s having a hard time breathing.” 

“Oh, god…” Dina chokes out. 

“Don’t worry, D.” Jesse consoles. “She’s gonna be fine. She’s strong, and we know that. They’re taking care of her, and she’ll hopefully be awake soon.” 

“I know, I know…” Dina sniffles. “It’s really not like me to fall apart like this. But she’s like a sister to me, you know. I mean, she basically is.” 

“Me too, babe. Don’t worry. We all love her too. No need to explain.” Jesse says. 

Dina gives him a soft smile as he gives her another tender forehead kiss. Watching such a small but affectionate scene between the two makes Ellie feel as if she’s intruding on a private moment she shouldn’t be witnessing. Jealousy in the form of a knife in the stomach twists inside her while her heart aches to feel that kind of intimacy. 

“Oh, shit, I should call her uncle,” Dina suddenly realizes, pulling away from Jesse slightly. “I think I still have his number from freshman year. He should know what’s going on.” 

“Good idea.” Jesse agrees. “He’s one of her emergency contacts, but I’m not sure if he knows just yet.” 

“I’ll call the girls too,” She continues, referring to the other girls who lived in the Wilson Valley building with you and Dina during your freshman year. “I know that they’ll also want to know.” 

She pulls her phone out of her pocket before muttering a quick “be right back” and exiting the waiting room. 

Jesse and Ellie watch her walk out silently. After a moment or two, Jesse speaks up. 

“Are you okay, El?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Come on, man. Don’t do that. You know what I mean.” 

“I’m fine, Jess.” 

“Dude.” 

“What?” 

Jesse turns his whole body to face Ellie straight on, crossing his arms against his chest and frowning. 

“You’re completely red in the face, you look the most stressed out than I’ve ever seen you, and you’re here.” 

“So?” Ellie replies stubbornly. 

“Williams.” Jesse stresses sternly. “You know Dina and I saw everything you had in that desk drawer.” 

Ellie says nothing in reply and Jesse continues. 

“You literally still had her old EpiPen from like, two years ago. That entire drawer was full of her shit.” 

Ellie clenches her jaw and balls up her fists. 

“You still have all those old letters she used to write you all the time, all these mementos and knickknacks from when you two were together. You even have Barbie Bear.” Jesse points out. “Do you know that she’s been chewing Dina out nonstop about her for years because she thinks Dina stole her?” 

“Look, she and I just stopped talking to each other all of a sudden before sophomore year. I never had an actual chance to give her all of her shit back—” 

“You literally could have given them to me or Dina or even any of the Wilson girls so we could return them.” 

“Look—” 

“And what about the rest of it? Shit that you didn’t have to actually give back to her? It’s been years. You could have easily thrown it all out.” 

“You don’t understa—” 

“You didn’t even bother leaving all that shit back home in Jackson. You brought it all here with you to keep in our apartment.” 

“I… I—” 

“She could have fucking died tonight, El. And you’re still bullshitting me.” 

“Jesse.” Ellie croaks out through quivering lips and watery eyes. 

“You saved her life. She could have very well been in a worse state right now if it weren’t for you. You told me and Dina what to do. Nobody told you to do any of that. And by the sorry state of you, it looks like you just ran three marathons in a row just to get here and make sure she was okay in person.” 

Tears threaten to flow down from Ellie’s ocean green eyes, and it takes every ounce of strength that she has left in her to will them not to fall. 

“She means so, so much to me and Dina. And to a whole bunch of other people too. When she gets hurt, we feel that shit too.” Jesse says. “I need you to get your motherfucking shit together, Williams. Now.” 

Before Ellie can even form some kind of thought in response to his declaration, Dina suddenly reenters the waiting room. 

“Called her uncle and told him everything I know. He’s currently looking up the first flight out and he’ll hopefully be here sometime tomorrow.” Dina informs the pair as she walks over. “Just got off the phone with Astrid too. Most of the girls are either busy or asleep by now, but she said she’ll let them know too as soon as possible. If she’s awake tomorrow, they’ll try to come by to pay her a visit.” 

“Okay, good.” Jesse nods in response. “Thanks for doing that, D. I was so focused on what’s been going on, and none of that even crossed my mind.” 

“They deserved to know.” Dina smiles sadly before suddenly frowning. “But why did she even go into anaphylactic shock in the first place? They both asked me, but I realized that you never actually told either of us and I didn’t really know what to tell them.” 

“She and Anderson were making out, and Anderson had eaten some seafood bouillabaisse for dinner. Apparently, it had a bunch of chopped-up shrimp in it that she couldn’t see.” Jesse says plainly. 

Dina inadvertently glances at Ellie in slight sympathy, but Jesse looks at her with zero remorse on his face. 

“She didn’t tell Abby that she was really allergic?” Dina asks. 

“Anderson apparently had no idea, said that she wouldn’t have ordered it if she knew in the first place.” Jesse clarified. 

“Anderson should have fucking double-checked re-fucking-gardless.” Ellie angrily interjects. 

“It’s not Abby’s fault, Ellie. There’s no way she could have just known instinctively.” Dina reasons. 

“Doesn’t matter. Isn’t she studying to be a fucking doctor? Isn’t that some basic shit that they teach at med school or whatever? She should have known better.” Ellie seethes. “Where the fuck is she, anyway? I thought she came along.” 

“She went down to the food court for a breather.” Jesse says. 

“Oh, she needs a breather?” Ellie sneers. “Yeah, go ahead and catch your breath when the person you almost killed tonight can’t even fucking breathe—” 

“Ellie!” Dina scolds. 

“Whatever.” Ellie scoffs. 

“El,” Dina suddenly brings up. “Have you talked to Daniela yet?” 

“What about her?” Ellie asks. 

“Weren’t you supposed to meet up with her…” Dina checks the time on her phone. “... almost an hour ago?” 

“So?” 

“Ellie.” 

Ellie clicks her tongue. 

“Fine, let me text her right now that I won’t make it—” She begins to say begrudgingly, but she cuts herself off as someone else enters the waiting room. 

Abby Anderson quietly walks through the door, sipping a plain black coffee from a styrofoam cup. She looks up from her drink and gives Jesse an awkward but polite smile which he respectfully returns along with a nod. 

Ellie’s entire body goes cold with frigid, icy hatred, exacerbated when her furious ocean green eyes suddenly meet with Abby Anderson’s tired sky blue ones. 

“Actually,” Ellie suddenly says. “I’m gonna give her a call and see if she’s still free to meet up tonight. I still want my jacket back.” 

Both Dina and Jesse look as if they’re each about to interject with a response, but Ellie is too quick for either of them to say a word. 

Ellie storms out of the waiting room, not giving a second look at Abby Anderson. 

Ellie throws Joel’s old leather jacket onto her bed, sighing softly. She sheds her sweaty grey hoodie and throws it down next to the jacket before pulling her phone out. She proceeds to call Jesse, but she’s greeted with ten, empty-sounding buzzes before being redirected to his voicemail. She then attempts to call Dina but is greeted with an immediate automated message stating that the call could not be completed. 

Groaning in exasperation, Ellie collapses into her desk chair and roughly kicks off her Converse. After a moment or two, she notices the bottom-most drawer of her desk and the way it’s hanging off the frame precariously. Sighing, she crouches down on the floor and begins to rearrange its previous contents. 

At first, she shoves items back into the drawer at random, but she immediately pauses once her hand grazes across the fur of a pink stuffed animal. 

Barbie Bear. 

She picks up the stuffed animal and stares sadly into its plastic eyes. Noticing that the light pink ribbon around its neck has gotten loose, Ellie delicately attempts to retie it back into a bow. After a couple of lopsided tries, she’s eventually satisfied once she’s able to center the ribbon correctly. She carefully places Barbie Bear back into the drawer before returning to restore its contents with more consideration. 

After replacing a few pairs of old earrings of yours into a small box, she picks up a stack of old letters that she’d tied together with a piece of brown twine. Ellie resists the urge to go through each of them, but when she notices that one had fallen out of the stack and is now lying on the floor, her willpower dwindles almost instantly. 

Ellie picks up the envelope gingerly, almost as if she’s afraid that her touch will cause it to burst into flames. She reads her name on the front written with green ink and flips it over to where the flap of the envelope is torn open. She runs her fingers over the wax seal that had secured the letter inside: the design of Saturn amongst several stars. Nervously, she slips the card out from inside and unfolds it to reveal your handwriting. 

Dear Ellie, 

It is currently 4:27 A.M. and I can’t sleep, and for some reason, I can’t stop watching that story you posted on Instagram earlier over and over. The one of you singing and playing your electric guitar to that Aaron Taylor song. Not to be gay as fuck, but it is so easy to get lost in the sound of your voice. Also, I really like your lips. And your hands. 

I know I said this yesterday already, but you’ve been overworking yourself way too much lately. I’m glad that you’ve been putting a lot of effort into your schoolwork, but have you eaten? When was the last time you had a full meal (microwaveable ramen does not count)? Have you been taking any time for yourself? It’s really sweet that you still make time to come hang out with me most days, but you need some you time too, you know. 

Not that I don’t love seeing your goofy face all the time. I don’t know, I think me writing all that out is me casually acknowledging that I have attachment issues and attempting to work on it. Oh, well. I’m pretty attached to you, fucking dork. 

Okay, heading to bed now. Hopefully, I’ll actually be able to fall asleep this time. But hopefully I’ll see you tomorrow (I know I just said that you need to take more time for yourself, but shut up). You’re always the best part of my day. 

Ellie can’t seem to let herself read the final piece of the letter, the part where you’d signed your name. 

She delicately folds the card once more and places it back into its envelope. Turning it over in her hand and tenderly running her fingers over where you’d addressed her name, she wonders if your handwriting is still the same as it was all those years ago. 

Reluctantly, Ellie tucks the letter back into the stack before tying them all securely together once more. 

Earlier That Evening 

Ellie was fifty-two minutes late to her supposed “date” with Daniela. This was Ellie’s third failed attempt at reacquiring Joel’s old motorcycle jacket, and they had previously decided to meet up outside the coffee shop on campus where Daniela recently started working after the end of her shift. 

But after Ellie’s unexplained absence from their meeting, Daniela bitterly stormed back home to her dorm. She had half a mind to say no when Ellie called her with a half-assed explanation and asked if she could come over to retrieve her jacket. But after giving in, Ellie arrived at her dorm room within half an hour. 

It wasn’t a total shock to Ellie when she was greeted with a look of annoyance when Daniela opened the door for her. Ellie attempted to feign a guilty expression, but all that she could muster was an indifferent grimace. Daniela said nothing as she silently beckoned Ellie to follow her and come in, an AirPod playing music loudly in one ear. 

Ellie took a quick glance around the place, never having actually been inside Daniela’s room before. The twin-size beds, old wooden dressers, and scuffed-up desks were an all-too-familiar sight for Ellie, having gone through the same torturous experience herself only a couple of years back in her freshman year. But a few things were different as Daniela and her roommate had attempted to really personalize their living area. Ellie tried not to make a face of repulsion when spotting a few Taylor Swift concert posters above one of the desks. 

Daniela plopped onto, what Ellie had assumed was, her bed but made no gesture that welcomed Ellie to do the same. She merely stared at her passively as Ellie tried to avoid looking her directly in the eye. 

“You’re an hour late.” Daniela pointed out. 

“Only fifty-two minutes late.” Ellie attempted to joke. 

Daniela only hummed in response, unsmiling. She picked up a faded brown jacket that was sitting on top of her pillow by the collar and handed it over to Ellie. 

“Thanks,” Ellie muttered, tucking the jacket under her arm. “Uh, thanks a lot for looking after it. Needed it back ‘cause it’s really my dad’s old jacket.” 

“Oh, sorry. I would have given it back sooner if I knew that.” Daniela replied, not sounding the least bit sorry. 

“It’s okay.” Ellie mumbled awkwardly. 

There was an uncomfortable moment or two of complete silence where Daniela continued to merely gaze at Ellie, unwavering and unapologetic, while Ellie focused her eyes on her Converse as she wrung her hands together. 

“Hey, look…” Ellie eventually spoke up. “I really am sorry about being late. I just had a really important emergency that I had to deal with.” 

“It’s fine,” Daniela replied remorselessly. “Tara told me that you suddenly had to deal with some shit.” 

“Wait, what?” 

“Tara. Tara Maclay. She works with me at Ruston.” 

“Oh, right.” 

Another awkward moment of silence. 

“Your ex-girlfriend, right?” Daniela asks unexpectedly. 

“What?” 

“Your ex-girlfriend. The shit you had to deal with tonight.” 

“Oh, uh…” 

“No point in lying, Ellie.” Daniela shrugged. “Tara already told me the gist.” 

“Oh. What did she say exactly?” 

“Not much. Said that you needed to help deal with something for someone you both know. She didn’t tell me exactly that it was your ex-girlfriend, but it was pretty obvious. I read between the lines.” 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah.” 

“She really shouldn’t have told you all that.” 

“She was ranting to another co-worker and I overheard your name and I was curious.” Daniela shrugged again, unabashed. 

Another awkward moment of silence. 

“So you still into your ex or something, Ellie?” Daniela spoke up again. 

“She’s not really my ex-girlfriend.” 

“Whatever.” 

Another awkward moment of silence. 

“Well?” Daniela asked. 

“It’s kind of complicated.” 

“That’s just the bullshit way of saying yes,” Daniela rolled her eyes. “Doesn’t matter if she’s your ‘ex’ or whatever.” 

“Look, Daniela—” 

“I know we aren’t serious or whatever, but I don’t really feel like dealing with someone else’s ex drama.” 

“There’s no drama. I don’t even speak to her anymore.” 

“And yet you ditched me to go and help her out with something earlier.” 

“It’s not like that. And it was also an emergency.” 

“So you said.” 

Ellie wasn’t sure why she felt the need to explain herself to a girl she barely knew. Part of her felt compelled to do so as if she could continue to actively ignore her feelings by saying these things out loud. 

Another awkward moment of silence. 

“God, you’re such an asshole fuckboy, Ellie.” 

“Hey, what the fuck—” 

“You know that you can get girls and do, but you just like to fuck around with them and play with their feelings.” 

“Alright, first of all, you said yourself that we’re nothing serious. We’ve barely even done anything.” Ellie said defensively. “Second, I literally just said that I don’t even talk to her anymore! Not even tonight!” 

Ellie scoffed as Daniela rolled her eyes once more. 

“Look,” Ellie continued through gritted teeth. “I’m sorry that I was late tonight. And I get it if your feelings are hurt. But nothing’s happening between me and my ex.” 

“You just said that she wasn’t your ex.” 

“Sh-she’s— she’s not, she’s—” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Daniela muttered as stood up from her bed. “At this point, I’m over it, and I really don’t give a fuck anymore. You’re hot and all, Ellie. But this is not worth it.” 

She popped an AirPod in her ear once more and sauntered over to the door. 

“Word of advice. Figure out your feelings for this ‘ex’ of yours and decide if you actually wanna be with her or not before getting involved with anyone else. Nobody deserves that hanging over their head, especially when you’re so clearly still in love with her.” 

And with that, Daniela opened the door and peered at her expectantly. Ellie took the hint and walked towards her direction and through the doorway. Before Ellie could fully turn around and give any parting words, Daniela shut the door in her face. 

Present 

Ellie collapses onto her bed next to Joel’s old motorcycle jacket. She pulls her phone out again, contemplating calling Jesse and Dina once more. But realizing they’ll probably call her if they have anything important that they feel she needs to know, she drops the phone down to her side in defeat. 

She continues to lay in her bed for a while, stewing in her unresolved feelings with nobody to confide in. Closing her eyes, her mind begins to race against her will with reminders of the path life led her down after you. 

First was Marisol. Less than two months into sophomore year of college, Jesse and Dina were completely aghast to see Ellie walking around campus with a girl they’d never seen her with before. She was in Ellie’s Aerospace Engineering class, and Ellie had claimed to have had an eye on her since last year. Jesse and Dina watched helplessly as their friend flaunted her new girlfriend around everywhere for the next couple of months. 

Ellie wasn’t initially sure what it was that attracted her to Marisol in the first place. She was naturally beautiful with her long, black hair and slender figure, and she was the textbook definition of a perfect girlfriend. It took two and a half months of overly extravagant dates and bouquets of Marisol’s favourite flowers and late nights spent at her dorm room for Ellie to understand what it was about Marisol that she was drawn to: it was her eyes. Down to the specks in her irises and how her eyelids curved, Marisol’s eyes resembled yours far too well. After coming to this harrowing realization, Ellie quickly broke things off with her tactlessly and with a half-assed, mostly untrue justification. 

The next was Luz who she had met during her near-daily workouts at the gym with Jesse. Ellie spent several autumn weeks with them, allowing Luz to whisk her about to different parties with different groups of friends every weekend. But one fateful night when they had dragged Ellie to a party at the same Sigma Eta frat house where you’d both first met, a bad acid trip cemented the end of her time with Luz. 

As Ellie’s dilated pupils focused intensely on Luz’s black boots, a pair very similar to your favourites, she felt a sensation begin to roughly tug at something inside her. From her spot on the living room couch, her eyes darted up to a spot by the wall where a small group of partygoers were congregating. She zeroed in on a random girl she’d never seen before whose multi-coloured features, as a result of LSD brain fog, began to morph into those of someone she was desperately trying to forget.

Once the last parts of the stranger’s face had fully formed to impersonate yours, she abruptly stood up from her slouched position on the couch, muttered an excuse to Luz about using the bathroom, and desperately begged Jesse to come pick her up immediately. After Jesse helped her click on her seatbelt in the passenger seat with a tight-lipped expression where he fought the urge to remind her of the significance of this house, Ellie never looked back and swore never to trip on acid again, subsequently ghosting Luz after that night. 

A couple of weeks before winter break, she met a sweet and quiet girl named Simi. They met through a dating app during one of Ellie’s crossfaded swiping sprees at 2 in the morning. Ellie’s affair with her was extremely short-lived, ending things with her a day before everyone left campus to head home for the holidays. While spending the day hanging out at Simi’s dorm room as her new girlfriend packed for her trip home, Ellie suddenly and unfairly started a fight with her after Simi had begun to mindlessly sing the song “Merry Christmas Darling” under her breath. 

Ellie had unkindly demanded for her to “shut up” immediately, understandably hurting Simi’s feelings. The fight was short and confusing, as Ellie had refused to elaborate on her sudden explosion. As she unceremoniously marched out of the dorm room, Ellie aggressively tried to suppress memories of you singing that same Carpenters song on a loop all of December of the previous year. You’d claimed you couldn’t get it out of your head and needed to sing it out loud at least fifty times a day so you could stop thinking about it. Though Ellie had playfully cussed you out and thrown several pillows at you on multiple occasions, that song now belonged to you forever and nobody else. 

After Simi were strings of countless others, some who had used Ellie as their brief college lesbian experience and many whose names Ellie would never be able to recall. She never hooked up with the same person more than twice, never actually took another one out for an actual date until Daniela. 

Ellie had found Daniela incredibly pretty when she’d first laid eyes on her on a warm September afternoon earlier in the year. She was lounging on the quad as Dina did her homework and Jesse lazily strummed his guitar when a group of freshmen walked by. Ellie hadn’t spared them a glance until one of the girls approached her, all shy and giggly, and said that one of her friends found Ellie very cute. After pointing Daniela out and asking for her number, Ellie shrugged and relented. She ignored Dina and Jesse’s identical judgmental looks and eye-rolls in her peripheral vision. 

Ellie enjoyed the undivided attention of someone completely enamoured by her. Daniela was constantly responsive, did whatever Ellie wanted to do, and was always so eager to please her. Ellie’d bring her to the movies, go on long drives with her in her Jeep, take her to whatever restaurants she’d want to eat at. 

To anyone who keenly observed when they were together, it was quite obvious who was far more invested between the two. Despite spending an ample amount of time with her in the past month or so, Ellie continued to keep Daniela at arm’s length. On multiple occasions when Ellie’d convinced Jesse and Dina to allow Daniela to accompany them, the long-time couple would watch how disconnected their friend was from this new girl she’d been seeing.

Dina would constantly give Jesse a raised eyebrow look that silently would ask, “Is she really serious?” to which Jesse would give her a tight-lipped, wordless grimace that replied with “We both know she’s a fucking dumbass.” They both placed bets on when exactly Ellie would eventually ditch this new girlfriend. 

Unbeknownst to them, it’s Ellie who was so easily discarded this time around. Feeling so unmoved and unaffected about the split with Daniela, Ellie tries to feel some kind of guilt over her lack of reciprocation. It’s her own actions, after all, that landed her dumped in the first place. She’s never fully seen Daniela as an actual girlfriend, and she knows full well that she shouldn’t have strung her along. 

But as she continues to lay in her bed, ocean green eyes shut and a hand woven through her auburn locks, she thinks of only you. 

Ellie can’t remember a single moment in her life when she’s felt more in need of another person’s company than she does at this very moment. Unable to trouble Dina to be her listening ear as she always is or bother Jesse to bluntly set her straight as usual, she feels the loneliness of the gloomy, dark room creep into her guilty conscience. 

Her fingers begin to mindlessly search her bedsheets as she continues to stare at her decrepit bedroom ceiling, seeking for her silver joint box that had fallen out of her pocket when she’d collapsed on her bed. Instead of the feel of cold metal, her hand comes across something smooth and warm. Pulling the brown leather jacket up to her face, Ellie’s mind murmurs a single word. 

Joel. 

She pulls her phone out to search for her father’s face within her favourite contacts. She hesitates for a moment but pushes herself to call. 

Joel picks up after only two rings. 

“Ellie? Jesus, kiddo, what the hell time is it?” 

“Hello to you too, old man.” Ellie chuckles. 

“Everythin’ alright?” Joel’s voice asks, tired but urgent. 

“Y-yeah. Yeah, I guess.” 

Ellie can almost hear her father sitting up straight in bed. 

“What’s wrong, Ellie?” 

“I-I…” She stutters. “Joel…” 

With a whimpering tone, she suddenly recounts the night’s events in complete detail. Joel listens attentively, only ever interrupting with sharp intakes of breath and hushed, imperceptible asides. After listening to his daughter’s sorrowful spiel, he finally speaks. 

“Oh, baby girl…” Joel utters. “I truly am sorry. It’s been a real rough night for all of y’all.” 

“Yeah…” 

“That poor kid… I’m glad she had you three lookin’ out for her tonight.” 

Ellie says nothing to this, pursing her lips. 

“How about you, Ellie?” Joel continues. “How are you feelin’ after everythin’ that’s happened?” 

“I-I’m not really sure. I’m not sure I know how to feel.” 

“That’s okay. You don’t have to just yet. It just happened and all.” 

“All I feel is so much fucking guilt, Joel. It feels like my mind is empty but overflowing all at the same time. I feel so motherfucking powerless and I don’t know what to do.” 

There’s a moment of silence before her father speaks again. 

“You given any thought to the conversation we had before you left for school, kiddo?” 

Last August: Jackson 

Ellie’s bedroom was full of boxes and bags packed with everything she planned to bring to college for her junior year. The space was slightly more barren, closet mostly empty and trinkets missing from her shelves. It was only a couple more days before she, Dina, and Jesse would be making their journey back to their university, and she was uncharacteristically ahead of schedule. 

Leaning against her desk with a box full of comic books on the floor next to her, she was casually perusing an old graphic novel when Joel appeared in her open doorway. 

“Knock, knock.” 

“The door’s open, old man. Also, you can literally just walk in, you know.” 

“Who raised you to have so much cheek against your elders, kid?” 

“You, dude.” 

The pair smirked at each other’s smart-mouthed retorts. 

“Need any help packin’ up?” 

“Nah. It’s pretty much done except for a handful of essentials.” 

“Including that book you’re holdin’ right now?” 

“Like I said: essentials.” 

Joel chuckled. 

“Well, the Changs sent over some dinner for us, if you want some. Wisa made K-kaw… Khao Tom Pa… no, Plah…” Joel stuttered, making an effort to pronounce the Thai dish correctly. “Khao Tom Plah, that’s it. She brought some over earlier, thought we might want some. She even made it without the prawns, just the way you like it.” 

“Sick. She’s the best. I’ll text Jesse later to thank her.” 

“Good.” 

Joel lingered as Ellie went back to reading her comic, wistfully looking around his daughter’s nearly vacated bedroom. His eyes fell on a small box sitting at the foot of Ellie’s bed. It was an ordinary, cardboard box just as the others were, except it was heavily sealed with multiple layers of silver duct tape. He frowned. 

“Still plannin’ on bringin’ that box?” 

“What do you mean?” Ellie asked, knowing exactly what her father was referring to without looking up. 

“You know you can just leave it here at home, right? It ain’t like I go through your doohickeys when you ain’t here.” 

“So you do go through my shit when I am here?” 

“Ellie.” 

“What?” 

“Why the hell are you doing this to yourself, kid?” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“We’ve been having this same conversation for the past year now.” 

Ellie finally peeled her eyes away from her graphic novel, tossing it on the desk behind her and crossing her arms. 

“You’re the one who keeps bringing it up, Joel.” 

“I bring it up because I know that you ain’t been talkin’ about these feelings with anyone. Not me or Jesse or Dina. It’s been a year since you ditched that poor girl, and you’re still sulkin’ over it.” 

“She ditched me.” 

“Hold your horses; we both know that ain’t true.” 

“What do you want from me, old man?” 

“I want you to be happy, kiddo.” 

“What makes you think I’m not happy?” 

“Now, don’t try to bullshit me. You can grumble and deny it ‘til the cows come home, but even after all this time, all you ever do is brood and pine after that girl. Plain as day to anyone. You ain’t been the same since y’all broke up.” 

“We weren’t together.” 

“Yes, you were.” 

Joel ignored his daughter’s subsequent eye-roll before continuing. 

“You still have the box, Ellie.” 

“I just forgot I even had it.” 

“And yet, you’re bringin’ it to school with you, just like you did last year. Why?” 

“It was just in my closet stuffed in with all this other shit I don’t touch. Had to take it out while I was packing.” 

“That ain’t amount to a hill o’ beans. And you still ain’t answer my question.” 

“Sorry, dude.” 

“Ellie. You and I would down to Beacon Run all the damn time back when you were growin’ up. You used to beg me to go for dinner whenever you had a hankerin’ to order that cheesy crab dip with all those chips and jalapeños and such.” 

Ellie raised her eyebrow, unsure where her father was going with this. 

“Then all of a sudden, a few years ago, you seemed to hate the place. You’ll maybe get a plate of fries and nothin’ else. Matter of fact, I can’t, for the life of me, recall the last time I’ve seen you eat a plate of seafood with any kind of shellfish in it.” 

Joel’s greying eyes pierced Ellie’s ocean green. 

“Two years.” He continued. “It’s been two years. You almost never eat any kind of seafood no more, and even the Changs never cook us anythin’ that has shrimps or scallops or anythin’ of the like.”

Joel watched as his daughter stubbornly struggled to justify herself. He sighed sadly. 

“I wish you’d let yourself be happy, Ellie. You could be.” 

“That so? How do you figure that?” 

“First step is admitting exactly what is clear as day to everyone around you.” 

“Oh, yeah? And what is that?” 

Present Day 

“J-Joel… I-I…” Ellie sobs. “I love her.” 

“I know, baby girl.” 

Joel helplessly listens to his daughter’s desperate weeping from the other end of the line. 

“So,” He eventually asks in between her snivels. “What now?” 

“It doesn’t matter.” She sniffs. 

“Kiddo, why do you think your feelings don’t matter?” 

“Because relationships do not work for me. Love doesn’t work for me.” 

“Your relationship with her didn’t work. Past tense. It’s been years. It was a tough situation. You’re a different person now.” Joel clarifies. “And there’s plenty love ‘round you, kiddo. You got a lotta love in your life. I need you t’realize that.” 

“Except I-I’m not a different person, Joel. I-I am just an older, slightly more experienced version of myself. I-I…” Ellie stutters. “I’m afraid.” 

“Of course you are, kid. It’s only natural.” Joel replies. “But you can’t live your whole life closed off from the rest of the world. You need and deserve love, Ellie.” 

“Except I don’t, Joel! I fucking don’t!” She cries. “God, y-you just, you just don’t understand!” 

“What don’t I understand?” 

“She almost fucking died!” Ellie nearly screams. 

A silence falls between the two, only broken by Ellie’s hot and angry tears noisily dropping onto the old leather jacket. She grips it tightly in one hand before continuing. 

“I-if… if none of it happened… if I d-didn’t do all that to h-her all those years ago…” She stutters between shaky lips. “M-maybe she wouldn’t be where she is now. She wouldn’t have gone on a date w-with someone who didn’t know about…” 

Ellie chokes back a sob. 

“I-I… I would have known. I would have t-taken care of her. I would never have—” 

“Ellie.” 

“She needed me, and I… I let her down. Not just tonight. All those years ago. I couldn’t be what she needed. I fucking failed her.” 

“It’s not that simple, kid.” 

“Yes, it is! Her cousin fucking died! He was her whole fucking world, and she loved him more than anything, and he fucking died and I… I ran. I abandoned her.” 

The blurry memory of your sleeping figure in the passenger seat of Ellie’s Jeep appears in front of her, wrapped up cozily in her flannel as she drives you home from Jackson and naive to what lies ahead. 

“I know… I know what I’m capable of, Joel. I loved her so much all those years ago and… I still hurt her. I hurt her so fucking badly.” 

Your image transforms to one of you awake and livid, Ellie’s flannel torn off and tears streaming down your face. Anger and betrayal are etched all over your face, just like they were all those years ago. The shame she’d felt back then is incomparable to what she feels now. 

“I don’t ever want to do that to her again, ever. I just can’t. I won’t.” 

Joel sighs deeply before finally speaking. 

“Ellie. That fear is always gonna be there. But you’re young, and we make plenty of mistakes in our youth. God knows how much of my past I used to regret.” 

Ellie takes deep breaths as her father continues to speak. 

“Everythin’ that happened tonight? None of it was your fault. In fact, I reckon you’re the reason she’s still livin’ and breathin’ right now. I’m proud of you for that.” 

“All I did was—” 

“All you did was save her life.” 

Ellie sniffles but doesn’t respond. 

“Look, kiddo,” Joel continues. “As someone who has known you for a very long time, I know how much of a good heart you got. You’re a lovin’ person who deserves love. I wish you could believe that.” 

The sound of people entering through the front door echoes all around the empty apartment, but Ellie hears nothing else but the sound of her own agonized sobs. 

author’s notes:

belle posting TWO chapters of ncty within less than two weeks of each other??? what is this, may 2023???

saury for not posting this right away like promised yesterday, like i said, going thru some shit rn! but i hope y'all enjoyed regardless ♥︎

i'll give you a kiss on the mouth if you guess the bollywood movie i vaguely reference at the beginning of the chapter :)

the idea of reader being allergic to shellfish and going into anaphylactic shock came to me one day a while back when i was eating something with shrimp and randomly remembered that i am very allergic to shellfish and instead of being like, "i should go take some medicine immediately", i thought, "hmm this would be a wild plot point for ncty" LMFAOOOO

anyway, this is your reminder that if you have an epipen, don't be stupid, bring that shit with you wherever you go sldkfjsdl

the more of jesse that i include in this series, the more i enjoy writing him. he's such a fun character to write hehe

i thought having abby sipping on some hot, black coffee when ellie fucking canonically hates coffee was so hilarious, i pat myself on the fucking back for that one

yes i also pat myself on the back for the line regarding ellie's ocean green eyes and abby's sky blue ones. i fucking love parallels and symbolism. i'm a whore for them, in fact.

btw dina doesn't respond to ellie's phone call bc her phone died (prob from facetiming ellie for that long earlier in the night) and idk, jesse's either not paying attention or being petty LMFAO

the reappearance of barbie bearrrrr, my babyyyy. idk if y'all remember, but yes, barbie bear is a reference to the actual stuffed pink bear i sleep with every night named barbie. i had planned since chapter 4 (which is the chapter barbie bear is first mentioned) for ellie to have had her this whole time because i'm a fucking lunatic LOL

i mentioned in the author's notes section of the last chapter how reader's letterwriting hobby is inspired by me irl cause i do that all the time for friends, but reader's letter in this chapter is actually loosely based on a letter that soulmate ex wrote me, it's not word for word exactly, i altered it a bit to fit the story better, but it's very close because i'm INSANE, anyway

yes "i think i love you again" is on my playlist about my ex-girlfriend and "merry christmas darling" is on his playlist for me, go away

ellie's clear aversion to taylor swift is both a reference to a previous chapter where jesse subtly mentions her dislike for her and also to my personal belief that ellie really would not like her as a person or an artist at all irl lmfao

the names of all of ellie's ex gfs or whatever are inspired by something very specific but that's another heehee secret trivia that nobody else but me will ever know about (let's be real, i'll prob tell star later LOL)

i named jesse's mom after one of my fave co-workers hehe (and the dish she makes for them is thai bc my co-worker is from thailand)

ellie's declaration of love about reader that she makes to joel has also been a long time planned now, idk why i knew it was gonna be chapter 13 when i did it, but i just knew it was. it was always the plan for her to confess it out loud to joel first, above anyone else

the final conversation between ellie and joel is heavily inspired by a scene from one of my fave tv shows, crazy ex-girlfriend. the scene makes me bawl every time i watch it. please watch crazy ex-girlfriend. so good.

we really are thirteen chapters into this series, huh? crazy. anyway, love y'all. <3

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[vexulii]

Can mcsm fans PLEASE learn how to draw different body types.. I'm so tired of seeing Axel fanart just be a wider version of how their "normal" proportions look like.. Or like only the body having fat on it and nowhere else 😔😔 There are amazing tutorials all over tumblr, YouTube, literally everywhere!!

I really wish more people didn't just draw the same bland boring body and face types for mcsm characters (ESPECIALLY with Jesse....)

[austenhowe]

jess madsen as cressida cowper

I would just like to extend my love and appreciation for jessica madsen's performance as cressida this season. Initially, I didn't care much for her character—tbh I didn't care much for the show outside of kate, anthony, and benedict—but what was a controversial choice for the writers, pairing her up with eloise, ended up as such an interesting and promising plot point and it got me hooked.

She gave such a layered performance and committed fully to her character knowing what would happen at the end. She portrayed aching vulnerability, fear, desperation, adoration, hurt, and many more with just her eyes and micro expressions (jaw clench, furrow of an eyebrow, subtle shaking in her shoulders to show her fear and nerves). Her acting felt natural and her chemistry with her screen partners (particularly, eloise and her mom) was organic and always rooted in the present.

It would've probably gone better for the show imo (in terms of audience response to cressida's ultimate fate) if she played it less sympathetically—bitchier, meaner, whatever other adjective people use to justify laughing at her terrible prospects. Alas, her kicked puppy and, somehow at the same time, grumpy cat expression always won me over.

I didn't even know that she had this range. They always wrote her as a one-dimensional character. I guess given a storyline with some meat in it, it was no surprise that she was gonna eat it up. I was really rooting for her and I have to credit it to her very sympathetic portrayal.

Shout-out to claudia jessie too for her performance! Not your fault the writers don't care about your character beyond being penelope's bestie, as if your last name isn't the one in the title of the show. Lots of collateral damage in terms of other characters' development in this season when I think about it (god I really was so close to stanning eloise, then they took her from me *sigh*).

I know it was her job to act so I shouldn't really be so impressed but there were some performances this season that I found to be absolutely charmless and devoid of any natural feeling (robotic, monotonous, bland, rehearsed, stiff) that I felt bad for the people they were performing with. If I'm being honest, it really was just one person. Pissed me tf off too, but I digress.

Anyway, thank you jessica madsen and keep up the good work!

[blackbatcass]

If it’s okay could you recommend comics for the flash fam? I really want to start reading them but I have no idea where to start 😅

YES I ABSOLUTELY CAN ANON!! reading flashfam comics can change your life for the better fr, unlike batman comics which usually change your life for the worse. Flash comics are honestly very simple to get into? for the most part you can just pick which era you want to start with, hop on that mainline ongoing and read from there.

this got kind of ridiculously long (i ramble about flash sorry)

i am not by any means a well-read silver age fan so I'll just skip right over those LMAO. if you want to read barry's run i assume you can just read flash v1 up until crisis. if you're interested in reading wally as kid flash he's featured in backups throughout a lot of v1 iirc!

unsurprisingly, my number one rec for the flashfam would be the flash volume 2 (1987). it's got pretty much everything you need. it introduced the speed force, basically created what we think of as the flashfamily, reintroduced & created beloved characters, and built up wally into the loser we know and love today<3 at its core it's the story of wally's journey from the very start of his career as the flash, learning how to fill barry's shoes and be a grown-up. it starts when he's this insane cringe 20 year old loser and ends with him as a full adult who's married with two kids LOL. it does soooo much work for wally as a character it's unreal.

but to keep it real flash v2 is......very long. like Incredibly long. it is 200+ issues and ran for over 20 years. so i can break it down into some smaller pieces & try to provide a roadmap so it's maybe a little less intimidating

the bad news is that the first guy to start out on the run fucking HATED wally for some reason lmfao and it shows. it's painful to read. the good news is he only stayed for the first 14 issues lol so honestly you can just skip those and start at #15 where william messner-loebs took over. now......the messner-loebs era is also not perfect and can be a bit of a slog. I love it in the fond 'wow wtf was all that' kind of way but it is definitely not a masterpiece. there are a lot of unmemorable, bland (occasionally batshit & ridiculous) arcs and he introduces a whole army of mostly forgettable side characters. credit where credit is due there is a lot of good stuff in there, he set up some stuff that is foundational to flash lore (like LINDA!! and hartley!) but it's not for everyone. if you want you can jump in at #31, where wally moves to keystone, or if you read some of it and it's not for you it's honestly fine to just skip to #62 where waid's run begins. #62-65 are a flashback retelling of wally's origin story (basically flash year one) and it's sooo good. essential wally reading.

the waid run is definitely the best section of the comic. it's classic it's iconic it builds the flashfamily it creates the speedforce it introduces bart allen. it's phenomenal. if you are interested in characters like bart, the garricks, johnny & jesse quick, and max mercury they are all integrated into the flashfam over this run. if nothing else i would recommend reading this part. oh and SPEAKING of bart allen, he gets introduced in issue #92! he hangs out in flash for a bit, zero hour happens, and pretty soon after his impulse series starts in 1995.

this is my #2 flashfam rec! if you have been in these tumblr circles at all then you've heard us rave about impulse 1995. it's simply Thee comic of all time. everyone on earth needs to read it im not kidding. it follows bart's life living with max mercury and his daughter helen, trying to adjust to normal life in the past. it's just. it's the best. it's 89 issues long, but honestly it goes by SUPER fast. i would recommend doing what i did and reading impulse and flash in parallel, just to get that organic experience & context. they cross over several times until impulse eventually ends.

ok back to flash v2. once geoff johns takes over..... i mean i won't say it ruins the comic and there is definitely stuff worth reading but i love waid infinitely better. it's really up to you. waid also comes back now and then to write a few chunks.

the flash series doesn't end until 2008. the next big thing after would be flash: rebirth, which. i am not a fan of for obvious reasons (get back in that coffin barry) but it's essential to understanding the plot so i have to include it lol.

i honest to god have no idea wtf was going on during flashpoint & new52. I will not pretend to understand that era. however if you are interested in the modern flashfam & the introduction of characters like ace west and avery ho, there are a couple good places to start! if you want to read williamson's run, you can start at the rebirth flash run (flash v5 #1). wally is eventually reintroduced (thank god) during this run.

if you want to start at the jeremy adams run (which features lots of members of the flashfamily) you can start at flash #768, which runs all the way to #800.

I would personally recommend the current flash ongoing written by si spurrier! it is kind of a lot and I'm in the minority in my love for it but it's interesting, thoughtful, has a role for pretty much every character, and has a lot of really cool cosmic horror elements. i will concede that it is VERY complicated and technical but you can tell spurrier has things to say and honestly it's so rare that a comic makes me think these days that i'm eating it up.

there were also two recent flashfam miniseries that just finished, speed force and jay garrick: the flash! i enjoyed both. they're short and fun.

aaaand that's my list! it is by no means comprehensive and it is very possible i got some things wrong so I apologize in advance. if you have any more questions I will be happy to try and answer them. I hope this was at least a little bit helpful and not even more confusing lol!

[camerawhoisalsocam]

Okay time to rip this crossover trailer to shreds. First the Grimm are no threat to the Justice League.

You cannot convince me that Superman will have any difficulty dealing with a Grim army. Add in Wonder Woman, Flash, and Jessica Cruz and it is basically over. Grimm arent even on Parademon level and those things are Apokolips cannon fodder that Batman can beat with ease. I know they see the Grimm are evolving to their weaknesses, but Kryptonite only works on Superman?

Wonder Woman is almost as strong as him and has almost no weaknesses, besides in her early days when you could beat her by tying up her hands but I dont think these grimm can consider that a great deal of strength. In Batman's contingenies for the JL, he needs to give Wonder Woman a "Phantom Opponent" aka fake construct of some sort like a hologram or a simulation to keep her locked in battle. No way any of these Grimm are doing that.

And as for Flash? Again, no Weaknesses besides plot stopping him! Unless those Grimm tap into the speed force no Grimm should be able to touch him.

I didnt see any yellow Grimm either so unless these things can somehow make Jess lose her will power they stand no chance. She has taken on way stronger armies, these glorified hell hounds dont stand a chance

I didnt mention them above so I'll speed run them cuz I still think the Grimm stand no chance. Cyborgs tech is way too immense and can adapt and upgrade constantly, so if the Grimm evolve so can he. Vixen and Black Canary are meta humans and can easily take on the Grimm cannon fodder, both hero's are around building level and are amazing at hand to hand combat. And as much as I hate how OP he is for being a rich guy with good tech

Batman can clear out these grimm. Not only does Batman have contingencies for every league member up above who can easily stomp these Grimm into black mist, Batmans no kill rule only applies to humanoids. Grimm are just animals on steroids, Batman is gonna be mercing them.

Like does the Leauge REALLY need team RWBY? Just call up the other members like Martian Manhunter, the 3-4 other Lanterns, Aquaman, Dr Fate, Shazam, the Hawks, Zatana, Constantine, the Teen Titans, or literally so many other people? If they say in the movie that the other members are across the world also dealing with this then thats fair. Not really cuz so many of these characters can wipe out these Grimm with ease! Grimm are weak! They aren't like something that can give the Teen Titans a run for their money!

My power scaling complaints really popped off huh? Okay whats next?

So they hype up Kilgores partner in crime who's supposed to be stronger and smarter. We get this shot which makes me think this is another simulation

But oh jeez I dunno who this potential secret villian is! Really it could be any RWBY villian who's a genius and has the color yellow as one of this primary colors. Oh! I know! Hazel! (pst its Watts)

Okay so Team RWBY got new powers to show off. Except Weiss. Yang shoots fire, Blake has staffs and shadow energy, and Ruby with her wooden Cresent Rose teleports.

And Weiss...

Yeah in both of her actions shots to show off her new abilities she's in her shitty V7 outfit and not using that stupid gun she's supposed to have in the cover.

One noticeable thing is that JNPR is just gone. They haven't been seen, mentioned, there's been no leaks on them, so I dont think they gonna appear. Im thankful that Renora Cyborg love triangle isnt gonna happen, but im also disappointed that the one good part of the first crossover, that being the Jess and Jaune duo, will not happen. You know I actually feel bad when I wanted to see Jaune on screen.

And im sorry but this is just choppy work when it comes to editing

This scene of the sea dragon comes out of the water and scares Blake, Ruby narrates and says fearfully "What is that?" And Blake as bland as she can says "They made a new Grimm". Im sorry but, if they made a new Grimm, why not show it when they say its new? Why show a Grimm from Volume 4? Just show the new Grimm!

Thank you! It actually looks cool! Except it shouldn't even be that scary! It looks like nothing out of the ordinary for team RWBY minus the Kryptonite, which shouldn't be an issue when you have WW, Flash, Jess, Cyborg, and everybody else who isnt weak to it.

And I hate that Jess just flies and shoot fire. I can tell this is as creative as its gonna get for her, the girl who's powers allow her to make ANYTHING!

All in all it's nonsensical. Its like putting Goku into My Hero Academia and expecting something to actually hurt him. The RWBY verse is not that strong, its just not. The JL who are arguable the strongest super hero team in all of comics, are not supposed to have trouble with these things. Now if it was the Teen Titans I'd believe it. But with the JL this is like Tuesday to them. They've fought the Legion of Doom, the forces of Apokolips, Gods new and old, whole Lantern Corps, demons and monsters, Meta Humans out the ass, and so much more. Hellhounds that can replicate their powers and weaknesses should be a cake walk. But somehow they're gonna nerf the hero's and make team RWBY the greatest hero's of all time! They're gonna save the Justice Leauge and the earth! They did everyone now clap! Clap and forget how those incompetent idiots doomed their own world!

I hate this. I hope this is the last RWBY project released. I feel bad for the animators who got forced to make this, I dont want it to flop so they dont suffer but FUCK do I hate this and want it to flop so bad it finally kills Rwby so I can stop seeing greenlight volume 10. The only hashtag more annoying is the restore the Snyderverse.

So yeah those are my thoughts. Cant wait to pirate this in October.

AND IF I SEE ANY SHIPPING WITH TEAM RWBY AND THE JL IM CALLING THE FEDS

[ladyhindsight]

On "Chain of Thorns"

@daisymylove replies to this post.

I think my (at least then) perception of Lucie is overshadowed by a lot of the other things that I found worth critizing in Chain of Thorns. I wasn't as bothered by her, maybe her naivete a bit, but your points are true. I don't think I had the capacity to think about Lucie more in depth since she, with Jesse, was a pretty bland character that was so inoffensive to me in ways that most of the other characters or their treatment by the narrative were not. 😂

As to Will, I didn't mean to insinuate that it was on him or solely on him that Tatiana became insane. What I took notice of is this "let me wash my hands out of this mess" type of thing, because Clare found it enough to note that Will has humiliated and bullied Tatiana in the past, but also to sort of brush past it and claim Will had no part in the development of Tatiana's emotional life (at that time anyway). As I noted that, in the end, it was such a minor thing compared to all else Tatiana went through in her life (though she still held resentment towards Will), so it was mainly the wording I had problem with.

Will's wording belittles his own actions and the fact that Enclave was on her side and Will was punished sort of tries to erase the impact and consequence of the humiliation of Tatiana and bullying he still did and caused. There is still no accountability on Will's end in ChoT, which by changing the wording could be otherwise. That I sort of tried to fix with whatever I came up with to satisfy myself on that aspect.

It also ties to the similar theme surrounding Will in TID where, to borrow your words, the narrative goes above and beyond to permit his awful behavior and still coddle him despite how horrible he is. Which I felt was an extension of that in this instance.

[footprintsinthesxnd]

Young Love and Old Money

Summary: this series follows the story of Lewis Nixon and Josephine Wills and their trials, tribulation and love throughout WW2, including stories of their friends in between. Warnings: character death, graphic mentions of wounds, swearing, grief.

Masterlist

When The Heart Calls - France, January 1945

Led in the hospital bed with her arm encased in a cast, her ribs bound and her head bandaged, Josie had never felt so suffocated in her life. Even the dinner parties her parents had hosted weren’t this bad. Josie was just thankful she had her own scheduled room, although the screams from the soldiers in the other buildings were more than she could bear sometimes and at night they seemed even worse.

She was unsure where she was. Was she still in Belgium or had she been evacuated to a field hospital in France. She knew she wasn’t in England, that was for sure. Josie groaned, pulling herself into a sitting position with her head propped at an angle against the wall. The room was bare, no curtains hung at the misted windows, the walls a pale cream and in desperate need of a lick of paint. It certainly didn’t look like any kind of hospital Josie had been too before.

“Finally, you’re awake,” the all too familiar, chirpy voice called and Josie watched in amusement as the figure skipped around the bed, her white apron following in front of her. “I wondered how long it would take before the three J’s would be reunited,” Jess grinned at Josie and for the first time in a long time Josie felt truly safe.

“Jess? I can’t believe it’s you,” Josie tried to reach forward but Jess stopped her.

“You need to rest, Josie. Five broken ribs, a broken arm and a concussion isn’t something you recover from overnight,” Jess announced light-heartedly, seeming to take great pleasure in her friend’s impatience.

“Hang on, did you say the three J’s? Is Julian here?” Josie gasped, relieved that both her friends truly were safe.

“He most certainly is. He’s definitely on the mend now. He’s just down the hall from you actually, I can see if I can get you a visit?”

Josie’s face fell. Would he even want to see her after she betrayed him with her big mouth? Jess seemed to sense her anxiousness and smiled. “I’m sure he will forgive you. Just give him some time.”

Josie nodded, glad to know that despite everything he didn’t completely loathe her.

“I should be getting back to my rounds but it’s good to see you Josie,” Jess smiled at her one last time before disappearing down the corridor. Josie leaned back again with a sigh. She already had the feeling that these bland, boring walls would be the death of her.

“Well look what the cat dragged in,” Julian gave a small laugh, waving half hearted from his spot in his bed. Josie grinned at him, thanking the nurse from pushing her wheelchair through.

“You don't look so good yourself,” Josie taunted jokingly, taking her spot by Julian’s bed. His face was a deathly grey colour and his red hair was smeared back away from his face. Josie didn’t dare look under the covers but from the wound Jess had described he wouldn’t be leaving the hospital anytime soon.

“Well that’s what Kraut artillery does for you,” Julian smiled weakly and Josie nodded.

“Jules, there is something I need to say and I should have said it when you first came to the aid station,” Josie began, glancing down at her hands nervously. “Jules I’m so sorry I told Lewis about you and George. I never realised the implications of it. I trust Lew and I thought it would be okay but it was never my secret to tell. I’m so sorry,” she sniffled between her words, her shoulders sagging under the weight of her guilt.

“It’s okay Josie. Thank you for understanding. I never wanted to be mad at you but you need to realise how much of a risk this is. If anyone found out I…”

“I know,” Josie interrupted. “I know and I could never forgive myself. I love you Jules.” Josie threw her uninvited arm around Julian’s neck and he hugged at the impact.

“I love you too, Josie,” he giggled, shimmying over so she could lay next to him on the bed. “I’ve missed this.”

“Me too. It’s been far too long since we’ve all properly been together.”

Five weeks later Josie was finally feeling like her old self again, her concussion was long gone and her broken bones were healing nicely. She had been moving around a lot more, visiting Julian’s ward often and updating him on the hospital gossip. She’d also written several letters to a her very worried husband who had been immensely relieved to know that she was alive and well. Julian joked that any day now Lewis would turn up out of the blue for a visit.

Jess found Josie one morning on her way down the hall. A worried smile etched on her face, “Josie there is no easy way to tell you this…” she trailed off, trying to find the right words.

“Well, Will was bought in the other night. He was wounded but he is conscious now. I just wanted to let you know.”

“Will is here?” Josie asked, her heart pounding in her chest. How was he here? After all this time Will was just down the hall.

“Yes, he’s in the room two along from Julian…” Jess’ voice trailed off behind her as Josie hurried in the direction Jess had pointed.

“Will?” Josie spun into the room, her hand resting apprehensively on the door frame. She didn’t even know if he’d want to see her after everything that happened.

“Hey Josie, long time no see,” Will gave her a small smile from beneath the thin covers of his hospital bed.

“What are you doing here? What happened?” Josie hurried towards Will’s bed, taking his hand in hers, as if she had been for years.

“My plane was shot down over France, I made it out the rest of my crew didn’t. A British unit found me on patrol, brought me here where your friend Jess patched me up. Didn’t expect to see you here though,” William admitted, watching Josie curiously, his blue eyes sparkling.

“Well I was in Bastogne but the aid station was hit and I was wounded so was evacuated to here,” Josie smiled sadly, remembering all those that didn’t make it out of Bastogne.

Will seemed to sense this and gave her hand a gentle squeeze, “Well it’s good to see you again Jess.”

“It’s good to see you too, Will. How bad is the wound?” Josie asked, lifting the blankets to peak under but Will stopped her, shaking his head.

“Well they’ve removed some shrapnel from my left calf and my right leg was badly burned or so they say, haven’t seen it under all these bandages. They weren’t sure if I’d be able to walk on it but I can shuffle around so that’s something.”

“Well I’m glad it’s nothing too serious. I should be getting on but I’ll come by and visit,” Josie patted his shoulder, standing up and straightening her skirt.

“I’d like that,” Will smiled up at her, giving her a toothy grinned that caused Josie to laugh.

“I’ll see you later.”

Jess was hovering by the doorway as Josie left the room, she grabbed a tray quickly and made herself look busy but it was clear she had been listening in. “Oh Josie. How did it go?” She asked calmly with a smile.

“Fine. Why?” Josie replied flatly, not appreciating her friends nosiness.

“Well you know since the last time you saw him,” Jess spoke softly, as she always did but she could hear the concern in her voice which agitated Josie.

“It’s fine Jess honestly,” Josie all but snapped, feeling that she was too harsh but still annoyed enough to not apologise.

“Alright,” Jess replied, as if the situation was water off a duck's back. “Well I’ve spoken to the matron as you requested and we always need more hands around here so she said if you’d like to stay on then your more than welcome.”

“Really?” Josie wasn’t sure why she was so excited, she had enjoyed all the hospitals she had worked at, but it had been nice to be near Lew most of the time. Now he was in a completely different country.

“Of course. It will be nice to have you around again,” Jed beamed, placing the swabs back on the tray, as Josie reached to embrace her

“Oh, thank you so much Jess,” Josie flung her arms around her friend's neck, giving her a tight squeeze before letting her go again.

“Have you heard from Lew since your last letter?” Jess probed, clearly asking because she hadn’t heard from Eugene but also not wanting to sound like she was too concerned.

“No I haven’t. I’m getting worried,” she admitted, having sent multiple letters with no replies.

“I’ve not heard from Gene either,” Jess smiled sadly. They both knew that no news was probably good news but no one could blame a girl for worrying.

“I’m sure they are okay. Maybe they just moved to a new town or something,” Jess tried to stay positive but Josie knew she was just putting on a brave face. “Come on, these bandages won’t change themselves.

“Good afternoon Will, how are you?” Josie’s chirpy voice filled the quiet hospital room, her bubbly personality seeming to brighten the dingy, death filled building.

“I’m well thank you, Josie. Apparently the wound on my leg is healing well,” William guestured to his leg, still under the covers.

“Good.”

“What’s this uniform all about then?” Will motioned to the white apron and Red Cross armband that Josie was now sporting.

“They hired me. I’m working here as a VAD again,” Josie beamed, proud to be back in uniform and serving a greater cause. She understood what it meant now, to truly be apart of something.

“That’s very impressive. Well done. I can tell that you love this job,” Will’s voice trailed off slightly

“How can you tell?” Josie cocked her head, looking at him quizzically. She’d never considered herself an open book but somehow Will always knew what she was thinking.

“Well you always have a sparkle in your eye when you're doing something you love. You have this look. You used to look at…” Will fell silent, his blue eyes boring into Josie in a silent plea. “Well you know what I mean.”

Josie sighed, “You know I never stopped loving you Will, just because I met Lewis. I’ll always love you. We grew up together. We were best friends.” Josie knew she shouldn’t admit this to him, she was married after all but she would always care for Will, it wasn’t a lie really.

“I guess it just wasn’t enough,” Will turned away from her the best he could while bed bound, his eyes following the border around the edge of the wall.

“That’s not your fault though Will, that’s mine. I should never have treated you like I did. I’m so sorry,” she reached forward but Will just raised her hand with a small smile.

“It’s alright Josie it’s water under the bridge.”

Josie gave him a sympathetic smile and a nod,” Good because I’ve come to read to you.” She plonked herself down in the chair beside his bed.

“Oh what are we reading?” Will shuffled himself up into a sitting position, intrigued by the book under Josie’s arm.

“Nothing but the good Lords book.”

William laughed, knowing that Josie’s family hadn’t exactly been the avid Christian types.

“Well it’s all I could find.”

Josie had been spending more and more time with Will and day by day their relationship grew stronger. Jess and Julian noticed this and they had been less than impressed with her when confronting her that morning.

“Josie, I know he was your first love but you’re a married woman now. You know how he acted last time. Don’t let him hurt you again,” Jess pleaded, grasping at Josie’s hand desperately to stop her from leaving.

“Josie, we are thinking of your best interest. We care about you,” Julian added, standing tall beside Jess.

“And I care for you both too but he is my friend as well and I’m here to comfort him. It’s my job,” Josie pulled her hand free, moving away from her friends.

“Just be careful Josie,” Jess pleaded as Josie turned and left the room, her heels clicking against the floor as she hurried towards Will’s room.

“Morning, Josie,” Will smiled at her from the chair next to his bed.

“You’re up,” Josie sounded surprised, she knew he had been doing better but she didn’t realise he had improved so much

“Surprise,” he laughed, watching as she knelt down, removing the dressing and revealing the burnt flesh beneath. She let out a small gasp she hadn’t meant for Will to hear, her fingers grazing gently against the skin around the edge of the burn.

“That bad then?” Will’s eyes were glazed over and he avoided her gaze, watching out of the window as another deuce and a half rumbled by.

“No. No it's… it’s umm, well Will. Let me get a nurse,” Josie went to stand but Will grabbed her hand, pulling her back down to kneel in front of him.

“How bad is it?” Will asked, waiting Josie intensely as she fumbled over her words.

“It’s not your fault, Josie,” Will looked away again, blinking as the tears poured down his cheeks. “This wound was never going to heal. You know that right…”

Will took a deep breath, “at night I still hear their screams. They screamed for me to get them out but I… but I couldn’t, I couldn’t get them out,” Will’s voice cracked and the sob escaped from his lips.

“Oh Will,” Josie gripped ahold of him tightly, pulling his shaking form into her.

“I could save them, Josie,” Will cried, his fingers gripping painfully into her waist but Josie didn’t flinched, she let him pull her impossible close, an anchor in the storm of his emotions.

“It’s okay, Will. It wasn’t your fault.”

“It was my fault,”

“Will? Will look at me. It wasn’t your fault. If you had tried to get them out you would all be dead and I don’t think I could deal with receiving that news,” Josie admitted, brushing the stray blond hairs from his eyes.

“It’s not my fault?” Will mumbled, whipping the dribble and tears from his chin.

“No it’s not your fault.”

“Josie?” Will’s hand rested against her cheek and he gave her a week smile. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, Will. I’m going to go get a nurse now,” William nodded and Josie hastily exited the room, unable to get the image of Will’s leg out of her mind. The puss leaking from the raw, gray- poured flesh. She found the nearest nurse, who happened to be talking to one of the hospital's surgeons. Josie spoke quickly, her mouth moving faster than her brain could think of the words. The nurse and surgeon hurried off in the direction of Will’s room but Josie couldn’t bring herself to follow them, unable to bear the burden of having let her friend down. She should have noticed the infection sooner, she should have noticed the symptoms, but Will was so bright and the wound had been healing so well.

Josie kept herself busy for the rest of the afternoon, even finding a few minutes to visit Julian who was once again in good spirits. His leg was improving by the day and he was walking further each day.

“Don’t you think about going AWOL now, Jules. Just because you want to get back to Easy. Don’t do anything stupid,” Josie quipped, causing Julian to laugh.

“Sure thing Josie. Promise I won’t do anything stupid,” Julian began trying to itch at his wound and Josie smacked his hand away.

“Stop it. You’ll disrupt the healing process.”

Julian groaned, “but it’s so God damn itchy.”

“Leave it alone. I need to finish my rounds but if I find you’ve been itching it you’ll have hell to pay Owens.”

Julian raised his hand in a mock salute, “yes ma’am.”

Josie made her way back towards William’s room, following the dimly lit, winding corridor. The bed was empty, clean sheets pulled over the bed and neatly tucked in. Will was nowhere to be seen and his uniform was no longer draped over the back of the chair. Josie turned to see Jess hurrying towards her, blood smeared down the front of her white apron and around the cuffs of her sleeves.

“Jess, where’s Will?” Josie watched as Jess’ lip quivered, her blue eyes tearful as she approached her friend.

“Josie, I’m so sorry,” Jess whispered, she reached forward to hold Josie’s hand but she resisted, stepping away.

“Jess, what happened?”

“William’s leg was too badly infected, the surgeon said we had to remove it immediately. But Will… he lost so much blood Josie… h-he’s gone,” Jess confirmed Josie’s fear. “I’m so sorry, Josie.”

“No. No, that can’t be true. You’re lying. Please tell me you’re lying,” Josie pleaded, shuffling so her back was against the wall.

“Josie, please,” Jess reached forward, her own hand shaking as her tears fell but Josie pulled away.

“No. No, don't touch me. I want to be alone,” Josie pushed her friend away, sprinting up the corridor as the tears blurred her vision. She could hear Jess calling her name, knowing that she only wanted to help, but Josie couldn’t stop. She couldn’t face the reality that her childhood friend was gone. Alone, in an empty office Josie cried her heart out for the boy she had once loved who had turned into the man she’d greatly admired.

Tags: @georgieluz @iceman-kazansky @yeahcurrahhe-e @msmercury84 @blvestxr @dustyjumpwjngs @theflyingfin @jump-wings @kafka-ohdear @kmc1989 @mads-weasley @docroesmorphine @liptonsbabe @sweetxvanixlla @hesbuckcompton-baby @ronsparky @allthingsimagines @whollyjoly @bucky32557038ww2 @malarkgirlypop @hanniewinnix @inglourious-imagines @l13bg0tt @samwinchesterslostshoe

[littlealeta]

Why the cheesy pre 2010s stuff were much better than the stuff after

So lately, I've been kinda peeping in on old black shows from the 90s and 2000s like The Parkers and One-on-One and I was wondering, "Okay, I don't usually like normal slice of life type of stuff so what is pulling me into these shows?" And I've also been thinking about a lot of my guilty pleasures from when I was a child that I used to watch over and over again that people aren't too fond of, wondering why I still like them now, even with some of their flaws, is it because of nostalgia?

Well, I just saw the film IF and it made me think of many of the family films I watched in the 2010s and 2020s that were just bland and generic. But, they're kids films, so is it the films or are we just too old for them? I mean Sharkboy and Lavagirl and Ralph Breaks the Internet are good films for kids but not so much for adults.

And how the hell is a slice of life like Full House more entertaining than IF an imaginative fantasy?

Well, thinking deeply into my review for IF and the film Wish and many of the recent Disney films, the Pixar movies from the 2010s and whether or not kids would enjoy them, I think I'm starting to see a pattern. The thing that differentiates kids movies today from the kids movies from yesterday (I'm talking like the Rugrats films, All Dogs go to Heaven, Zathura, even a few of the Disney films) are the appeal.

Sure maybe some of us think that they're cheesy and corny and probably even more so back then but here's the thing you can't deny. They were actually entertaining. The characters had lots of personality, they were actually funny, and the most important thing, they had an engaging story. They didn't take like 30 minutes to get going, they put you into the plot either immediately or on the right beat like 15-20 minutes. And before they start, they actually introduce those characters as actually interesting characters, with personality and humor.

The stuff we have now compared to that? I personally find much worse. And I don't see how kids could enjoy them. I mean, none of the kids in my theater for Wish seemed to care for it. The humor is cringy, either it's dumbed down or full of potty humor. The characters lack charm. The actors don't seem like they're putting much effort. The writing is just straight-up generic with like little-to-no twist or personality to make it engaging. Like sure, Full House might've been generic (even the Nostalgia Critic points that out) but every character had their own personality. Danny was a neat freak, Joey was a cartoon fanatic, Jesse was edgy, DJ was rational, Stephanie was sassy, and Michelle was a spoiled brat. And they all played off of each other humorously while also contributing to some zany and sometimes relatable conflict. And say what you want about Mary-Kate and Ashley as actors, but they always seemed like they were having fun with the movies they were making.

Another thing that interests us when we watch these older stuff is that they are a product of their time. A reflection of what the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s were like. A different and simpler time without technology, when there was no mental health crisis, and the children respected their parents more. Nowadays, we want to watch and escape into something new that's not too close to our lives and while that may have also been the case for audiences back then (and maybe future audiences will look back on 2010s/2020s stuff and write reviews on how they're not that bad either), since we didn't have as much to do as we do now, I think audiences were a bit more forgiving of something slower and unoriginal and especially wholesome. There were a lot of wholesome shows that taught good things back then. And I understand that maybe some people don't want messages shoved into their face nowadays, but I personally believe there is a good place for that, especially in media aimed toward those in their formative years. And not just for them, but we adults can learn from those too. After all, none of us are all-knowing Gods.

Kids aren't going to watch and read meandering crap. Especially not nowadays I'm pretty sure. Life isn't like when I was a kid and all we had were TV, DVDs, and non-online video games. Like if you don't engage a kid in like 5 minutes, they're going to go back to playing Fortnite and Candy Crush.

When I'm watching a movie or reading a book, especially for children, this is just me, but I want to watch something with a decent pace, creativity and personality and humor.

I'm glad we're starting to see a new growing appreciation for those older corny, cheesy stuff, maybe partly due to nostalgia but also looking at them myself, they're really not that bad and there was a reason we watched them over and over again as kids.

[atrashbearthattrashes]

Setup and Payoff

Dear Rookie writers: <clenches fist, looks out longingly onto a field of continuity> Look. I get it. You had to execute the ship. You were moved to an earlier time slot, so less risqué content. You tonally shifted to a comedy. Covid fucked your timeline, etc etc etc. FINE. I give you all of that.

But for the love of all that is good and holy can you PLEASE WRITE NORMAL FUCKING STORYLINES THAT MAKE SENSE.

Screenwriting is simple. Setup. Payoff. Like, for example:

— setup: show actively sets up friend ribbing friend about a coworker crush/romance. The PAYOFF would be said friend loses their shit when the coworkers actually get together (examples: Boyle in B99, Jacob in Abbott Elementary, Michael Scott in the Office, Schmidt for Nick and Jess in New Girl).

— setup: show actively sets up consequences to office / coworkers finding out about secret romance. PAYOFF: actual work consequences happen (ie, Ben and Lesley break up in parks and rec).

— setup: characters CONFESS THEIR FEELINGS to OTHER CHARACTERS in an ensemble cast so that the audience knows there are actual emotional stakes. PAYOFF: we get emotional insights and CLEAR emotional STAKES. (Ie, B99, Parks & Rec, New Girl, The Mindy Project).

— setup: you have two characters who want to be together but can’t due to [insert obstacles]. Unresolved tension continues to rise until characters can be together. (Ie, Castle, X Files, Alias, ER, Buffy, Once Upon a Time).

Every single move the Rookie has made this year has deflated each setup like a fucking pin in a balloon. — Lopez ribs Bradford about Lucy and in the end neither supposed bff brings up the romance again, save Lopez over some dumb radio message? (And we never get some confessional from Lucy to Nyla or anyone about how she pined for Tim in UC school, and all we get is some throwaway “*That* Bradford” one-liner?)

— Season One of Talia warning Lucy re: Nolan so they break up, to Seasons 2-4 of Lucy being a subordinate to Tim so nothing can happen, to Grey warning them about office romances, and in the end, we get ZERO reactions from any characters that they’re together and ZERO consequences to the relationship other than some mild Post-It wrangling?

— The unresolved tension that starts off with a bang in S1, ratchets up in S2 and complicates itself S3 and S4, never ACTUALLY gets addressed by Tim or Lucy confessing their actual feelings to each other? Just suddenly “if we do this” to “our kids will be xyz” in a few episodes?

I JUST DONT GET IT. I DONT UNDERSTAND setting up a storyline that could be SO FULL of juicy confessions, angst, longing, pining and just maybe ONE LITTLE SEXY SCENE FFS only to turn it into the MOST bland and milquetoast ship. I KNOW these characters can do hot and sassy and argumentative because we’ve seen it. They can definitely to angsty. But this whole we’re-going-to-dial -down-every-emotional-payoff-to-a-mild-5….like….to what end, writers? TO WHAT END?

[marcovaleyeah]

07.10.24

#Marco-Marathon | The Crow

Film Name: The Crow (2024); Production Studios: Lionsgate Films, FilmNation Entertainment, Davis-Films, Pressman Film 30WEST, Ashland Hill Media Finance, The Electric Shadow Company, Media Capital Technologies, Hassell Free Productions, Edward R. Pressman Film, Czech Anglo Pictures; Director by: Rupert Sanders; Screenwriter: Kevin Cornish, Cliff Dorfman, Zach Baylin, Alex Tse, Jesse Wigutow, William Josef Schneider; Starring: Bill Skarsgård, FKA Twigs, Danny Huston, Josette Simon, Laura Birn; Genres: Fantasy, Action, Criminal, Melodrama; Running Time: 1 hour 51 minutes;

"The Crow" (2024) is a failed attempt to revive a cult classic. Despite a promising cast, including Bill Skarsgård and FKA Twigs, the film lacks the depth and style that made the original so iconic. The plot, which focuses heavily on the backstory of Eric and Shelly's love, feels generic and lifeless, failing to create any real emotional connection between the characters. The villain is equally forgettable, and the film’s overall aesthetic is disappointingly bland.

Directed by Rupert Sanders, known for his mediocre remakes, the movie lacks the dark, gothic atmosphere and stylish flair that defined the original. Even its action scenes, save for one gory sequence near the end, are unremarkable. Ultimately, this reboot feels unnecessary, offering little more than a pale imitation of what made the 1994 version memorable.

One Star is a weak attempt to reboot an iconic franchise that falls short of expectations.

My rating:

⭐

[nettleshuttle]

so, welcome to my ted talk! today’s topic: an attempt to put together all my thoughts on chazz in an at least slightly coherent manner

honestly, there’s a lot of these — as of now, he’s one of my favorite characters from the whole ygo series and definitely among the ones i find most interesting, although gx itself does him pretty dirty most od the time (more on that later). when i encountered him first in the show, i was actually kinda surprised/disappointed to see him established as the main rival figure — i mean, really, he was supposed to take over after kaiba? that bland, stuck-up, good-for-nothing guy? but then his later arcs really captivated me, up to the point where i was crying during his society of light duel against jaden and i begun to really appreciate him, so i guess here we are; as i’m still not over much of his character, i’m going to try to break down my favorite/the most important parts of it and see what comes out of it. if you’re still reading that, feel warned that you’re up for a long-ass post

first of all: a definite cornerstone of everything that chazz has going on, so the “talented, successful, arrogant, popular dueling ace” to “ridiculed drop-out underachieving ojama user” pipeline. needless to say, i really love this whole idea, as it’s frankly a take on gifted kid burnout, not handling expectations, not handling not handling stuff and a meaningful self-restoration after all that. it may be difficult to trace, because chazz remains arrogant throughout, but he’s going through a lot of personal growth — and quite realistic at that. the “hitting rock bottom” which he talks about (or bottom of the barrel, as it’s for some reason also being translated) seems ridiculous for a guy who’s, like, on the second most privileged place in life possible. yet, he really feels like he’s lost everything after the downfall he’d taken — and that’s exactly how such stuff works. the even better part that comes from it? as he plainly says, what osiris red really taught him is how little he knew about life. he never hit “rock bottom”, even though it felt like it — but he learned to scramble up and pull himself together after whatever fall it was, which, alone, makes him (and the other osiris reds, i infer) more broad-minded, more aware and stronger than all the obelisk blue elites which have never tasted defeat. that’s a very epic take and a very needed one, if you ask me — just like using a zero-atk hopeless ojama deck rather than some powerhouse of a card set as some blue eyes 2.0 doesn’t make him weaker than any duelist playing the latter, because he knows both and still chose the former. because that’s what suits him, that’s who he is — and although he lost all the pride he once had, he found much more of it on his own later. actually, the pathetic-dignified dichotomy works really well for him — he uses the ojamas, which elicit little more than a snicker from any respectable duelist, but he’s proud because he plays using them and nothing else, like when he deliberately nerfed his deck to sole 0-atks before dueling his older brother. he’s definitely struggling a lot; losing, falling back to his old self, fixating on the need to get revenge on jaden, losing again, scrambling up somehow, getting brainwashed, losing some more, but in all that, he’s getting somewhere — painstakingly and, at times, without any recognition of what he’s doing, but he’s improving in his own way and he is so much stronger and prouder than all who look down on him, all who are what he once had been, before all the losing and the struggling and the pathetic stuff. and i think that’s just great. besides, all of this — the desperation, jealousy, fear, weakness, confusion — make him come off as so much more human than characters like (with all due respect) jaden or jesse and make his development feel so realistic and rewarding.

some more on the decks he uses; i like the way he is shown to juggle multiple archetypes, ranging from armed dragon, to VWXZ dragon catapult, to ojamas — i talked about it a bit already, but i also think him not sticking to a single deck is a good way of showing how he’s in the process of developing all the time. trying out different things, mixing them, getting ridiculous combinations, going for them anyway, going back to some previous stuff, mixing that in too — that’s a real nice metaphor for how finding out stuff about yourself works, developing the optimal ways of doing things that suit you, your own ways of combating your own problems. of course, the three ojamas are a laughingstock next to kaiba’s three blue eyes (or tbh pretty much any other ace monster), but they’re the best representation of what i had laid out in the previous paragraph — i often think about his promotion duel, where the obelisk blue guy chazz faced was so disappointed seeing the ojamas, kept saying how they were a disgrace and how he had looked up to chazz in earlier times, but now considers him just an underachiever and a loser. the way how chazz almost spitefully uses the ojamas to win never ceases to make me happy because he’s making a statement of doing things his own damn way. even if they’re less efficient, weaker, anything, even if he actually loses the duel as a result (like the society of light one against jaden) because, ultimately, there are so much more important things — like when ed said that chazz needs to defeat a certain monster rather than win the game, which was a perfectly accurate summing up. losing with the ojamas is better than winning with anything else because the ojamas are his — and i find it really heartwarming, somehow.

then what does it all actually lead to? character growth is nice when it’s conclusive. what do we actually get for chazz? i mentioned that gx does him dirty and i will stick to it to my dying breath — his development could have been handled so much better (especially his relationship with jaden; even asuka got a more satisfying ending in that aspect) if the show didn’t use him as a scapegoat each time some shit needed to be stirred up or a duel needed to be lost. still, there are some really rewarding scenes to his character — most have to do with the popularity and renown he had enjoyed, then lost, then got back tenfold. “manjoume thunder!” being chanted and yelled and cheered comes off as a rolling joke more than anything else, especially along with the 1-10-100-1000 countdown (count-up?), but it’s actually much needed too — they really should let him have some of the recognition and applause. he deserves it. the empowerment coming from those scenes is great and the cringer it is, the greater it gets, because, come on, that’s chazz we’re talking about, right? his career as a pro duelist has much to do with it and i’m so glad each time i see it developed in post-canon fanfics — with his ojama deck, weird attitude and drop-out reputation, he’s not cut out to be a pro. not talent, not any gift, definitely not destiny — but, in a strange way, there’s nothing that would suit him more. he’s made for the dueling arena, for the spectators and the publicity, but he’s choosing to enter the pro world in his own way, with his own ojama deck, his own ojama yellow ace and the rest of his own identity — and that’s good enough to best ed phoenix, the guy who beat kaiser’s ass into the dirt, because that’s precisely where chazz’s strength comes from. and even if he used a more optimal deck, if he stayed in obelisk blue or god-knows-what, i like to think (and am quite certain) that he never would have gotten that far. so yeah, that would be a great ending for chazz, all in all, if his relationship with jaden wasn’t left practically unaddressed, which was definitely not the way it should have been treated — but even though i love this ship with all my heart and could ramble on it literally without end, maybe it’s best to leave that for some other (indefinite) time. the whole thing is, of course, a very crucial part of chazz’s character, but i think there a limit to amount of gx rambling anyone can feasibly process and i’ve surpassed it some time ago already. also i’m not even mentioning the whole thing with asuka because, try as i might, i fail to see any real reason or purpose for it, apart from some cheap comic relief stunt pulled by the creators. so no.

long story short — chazz is a great character, realistic and relatable (i should stop calling myself out), with a development that is really uplifting when you really consider it, made even better by some very epic scenes that he wholly deserves. arguably, i’d also call him the best ygo rival figure, but since that’s easily debatable, i’m not going into that too much. and, of course, thanks for coming to my ted talk (sorry, i’ve always wanted to finish an essay post that way <33)

[maya-matlin]

What is your OTP, BROTP(s), and NOTP(s) for each (main) Degrassi character in TNG and Next Class?

Emma Nelson:

OTP: Sean/Emma (seasons 1-4)

BROTP(s): Manny, JT, Liberty (season 6+), Craig

NOTP(s): Peter

Jimmy Brooks:

OTP: Jimmy/Hazel

BROTP(s): Spinner, Craig, Marco, Ellie (even though I also ship them)

NOTP(s): Jimmy/Ashley, especially when they got back together in season 5 because it always came across as so bland and like they were both settling

Terri MacGregor:

OTP: Spinner/Terri

BROTP(s): Hazel, Paige, Spinner, Jimmy

NOTP(s): Terri/Rick

Ashley Kerwin:

OTP: Craig/Ashley

BROTP(s): Ellie, Paige, Liberty (but I'd consider that more of a mentor/mentee thing than an actual friendship)

NOTP(s): Jimmy/Ashley & Ashley/Alistair because I'm petty

Liberty Van Zandt:

OTP: JT/Liberty

BROTP(s): Manny, Toby (I have mixed feelings but overall I like their friendship in later seasons), Emma (season 6+), Ashley

NOTP(s): romantic Toby/Liberty

Manny Santos:

OTP: Jay/Manny

BROTP(s): Emma, Darcy, Liberty, JT, Marco, Toby, Alex (it's not real but I desperately want it to be)

NOTP(s): Manny/anyone but Jay honestly. Mick and Sully obviously, but also Craig after season 3

Toby Isaacs:

OTP: Toby/Kendra

BROTP(s): JT, Liberty, Manny, Emma, Jimmy

NOTP(s): romantic Toby/Liberty

JT Yorke:

OTP: JT/Liberty

BROTP(s): Toby, Paige, Manny, Emma, Danny (sometimes)

NOTP(s): JT/anyone but Liberty but it's not that serious for me

Spinner Mason:

OTP: Spinner/Paige & Spinner/Darcy

BROTP(s): Jimmy, Jay, Marco, Craig, Holly J, Paige (when they're not involved), Terri, Danny

NOTP(s): Spinner/Manny

Paige Michalchuk:

OTP: Spinner/Paige

BROTP(s): Hazel, Marco, Ashley, Terri, Spinner (when they aren't involved), Alex (I hate saying this, but I preferred them as friends and didn't think Paige was the best girlfriend to Alex), JT

NOTP(s): Paige/anyone except Spinner or Alex because they were all terrible. Matt was a predator. Jesse seemed to exclusively date barely legal freshmen. Griffin essentially re-raped her.

Sean Cameron:

OTP: Sean/Ellie

BROTP(s): Craig, Jay, Alex (even though practically nothing was done with it), JT, Snake, low key the Take on Me detention bunch even though it was never followed up on

NOTP(s): Sean/Amy

Snake Simpson:

OTP: Snake/Spike

BROTP(s): Joey, Wheels, Sean

NOTP(s): Snake/Ms. Hatzilakos

Craig Manning:

OTP: Craig/Ashley

BROTP(s): Marco, Sean, Jimmy, Emma, Spinner

NOTP(s): Craig/Ellie & Craig/Manny after season 3

Joey Jeremiah:

OTP: Joey/Caitlin

BROTP(s): Snake, Wheels, Dwayne, Spike

NOTP(s): Joey/anyone but Caitlin

Ellie Nash:

OTP: Sean/Ellie

BROTP(s): Marco, Ashley, Alex, Jimmy, Paige, Take on Me detention bunch.. justice for Ellie/Hazel because they didn't have to be rivals

NOTP(s): Craig/Ellie & Ellie/Jesse

Hazel Aden:

OTP: Jimmy/Hazel

BROTP(s): Paige, Terri, Take on Me detention bunch, Spinner, Alex

NOTP(s): Hazel/Marco, I guess

Marco Del Rossi:

OTP: Marco/Dylan

BROTP(s): Ellie, Paige, Spinner, Craig, Jimmy, Alex, Manny

NOTP(s): I don't care enough about Marco's other canon pairings to be against them, but Marco/Eric because it just seemed like Marco was desperate not to be alone in that relationship and only got with Eric because they were both gay

Caitlin Ryan:

OTP: Joey/Caitlin

BROTP(s): Spike, Lucy, Susie, Maya, Snake, Ellie until the writers ruined it for fucking Jesse

NOTP(s): Caitlin/Kevin Smith 🤮 & Caitlin/her old fiance

Spike Nelson:

OTP: Snake/Spike

BROTP(s): Caitlin, Joey, Erica, Heather, Lucy, Liz (even though I mostly dislike her)

NOTP(s): N/A

Jay Hogart:

OTP: Jay/Manny

BROTP(s): Spinner, Alex, Sean, Emma, JT (I can't explain it)

NOTP(s): romantic Jay/Alex

Alex Nunez:

OTP: Alex/Ellie

BROTP(s): Jay, Paige, Ellie, Marco, Hazel, Sean, Craig a little bit

NOTP(s): romantic Jay/Alex

Peter Stone:

OTP: N/A, because he deserves no one

BROTP(s): Riley, if I have to pick one but his actual BFF is his mother who keeps getting him out of legal trouble

NOTP(s): Peter/anyone with a pulse, but Peter/Emma was the worst by a mile. I also feel personally slighted that Maya's rebound crush after Zig broke her heart had to be on Peter.

Darcy Edwards:

OTP: Spinner/Darcy

BROTP(s): Manny, Jane, Spinner (post-breakup)

NOTP(s): Peter/Darcy

Mia Jones:

OTP: Danny/Mia

BROTP(s): Anya, Jane, Manny, Liberty, Sav

NOTP(s): Mia/all of her other boyfriends, but especially Peter and Lucas

Holly J Sinclair:

OTP: Sav/Holly J

BROTP(s): Fiona, Anya, Spinner

NOTP(s): Declan/Holly J

Jane Vaughn:

OTP: Jane/Darcy

BROTP(s): Darcy, Danny, Holly J, Sav

NOTP(s): Declan/Jane

Danny Van Zandt:

OTP: Danny/Chantay

BROTP(s): Sav, JT, Spinner, Jane

NOTP(s): Danny/Leia, but I don't really care

Derek Haig:

OTP: N/A

BROTP(s): N/A; I'd say Bruce, but they weren't even fun together.

NOTP(s): Derek/any girl he expressed interest in

Damian Hayes:

OTP: Damian/Liberty if the show had bothered to develop them and hadn't paired Damian with Emma first as if all three of his love interests were interchangeable

BROTP(s): N/A because he didn't have any friends and wasn't interesting enough for me to come up with any suggestions

NOTP(s): Damian/Emma

Clare Edwards:

OTP: Clare/Drew

BROTP(s): Alli, Adam, Jenna, Drew, Connor, Jack

NOTP(s): Eli/Clare

Alli Bhandari:

OTP: Dave/Alli

BROTP(s): Jenna, Clare, Anya

NOTP(s): Johnny/Alli & Leo/Alli

KC Guthrie:

OTP: KC/Clare

BROTP(s): Bianca, Connor, Dave, Drew (when they aren't bringing out the worst in each other)

NOTP(s): KC/Jenna

Connor DeLaurier:

OTP: Connor/Jenna

BROTP(s): KC, Dave, Wesley, Clare, Dallas

NOTP(s): Connor/LoveQueen16

Sav Bhandari:

OTP: Sav/Holly J

BROTP(s): Danny, Mo (but I wish they'd talked about anything besides Sav hooking up with his teacher), Adam, Eli (mainly because the episode where they hung out was one of the rare times I liked him), Jane, Spinner, Chantay

NOTP(s): Sav/Anya & Sav/Ms. Oh

Anya MacPherson:

OTP: N/A, but Anya/Wesley or Anya/Fiona if they happened

BROTP(s): Holly J, Riley, Fiona, Wesley, Chantay, Leia, Alli, Mia

NOTP(s): Anya/all of her canon love interests, but Anya and Owen was somehow her worst pairing

Riley Stavros:

OTP: Riley/Zane

BROTP(s): Anya, Peter, anyone else because the writers rarely let him talk to anyone besides Anya or Zane

NOTP(s): Riley/any woman

Chantay Black:

OTP: Danny/Chantay

BROTP(s): Anya, Jenna, Sav

NOTP(s): N/A, but Chantay/Bruce if we were supposed to think they were a thing

Leia Chang:

OTP: N/A

BROTP(s): Anya

NOTP(s): Danny/Leia but again, I don't really care

Johnny DiMarco:

OTP: N/A, but I guess his college girlfriend

BROTP(s): Bruce only because of season 9

NOTP(s): Johnny/Alli

Bruce the Moose:

OTP: N/A

BROTP(s): Johnny because of season 9

NOTP(s): N/A or Bruce/Chantay

Kelly Ashoona:

OTP: Kelly/Liberty

BROTP(s): Liberty, Manny

NOTP(s): Kelly/Emma

Blue Chessex:

OTP: N/A

BROTP(s): Riley, I guess. God, so many of the characters introduced in season 8 were flops.

NOTP(s): Blue/Holly J

Dave Turner:

OTP: Dave/Alli

BROTP(s): Adam, Drew, KC, Jenna, Connor, Wesley, Tristan, Tori, Eli (sometimes), Fiona

NOTP(s): Dave/Jacinta

Jenna Middleton:

OTP: Connor/Jenna

BROTP(s): Alli, Becky, Clare, Dave, Jake, Chantay, Adam

NOTP(s): Jenna/Luke Baker

Declan Coyne:

OTP: N/A

BROTP(s): Fiona, but even that I have mixed feelings about after Love Lockdown where he essentially made her an accessory to rape

NOTP(s): Declan/Holly J, but really Declan/anyone

Fiona Coyne:

OTP: N/A, but Fiona/Anya if they happened & Fiona/Imogen is a ship I'm fine with

BROTP(s): Holly J, Eli, Drew, Imogen, Dallas, Anya, Marisol, Bianca, Dave

NOTP(s): Fiona/all of her male love interests

Wesley Betenkamp:

OTP: Wesley/Hannah

BROTP(s): Connor, Dave, Anya

NOTP(s): N/A

Zane Park:

OTP: Riley/Zane

BROTP(s): Anya & the same answer as Riley - anyone, because Zane does not exist when Riley isn't in an episode

NOTP(s): N/A

Eli Goldsworthy:

OTP: N/A, but Eli/Lenore was probably his most tolerable relationship

BROTP(s): Fiona, Imogen, Adam, Sav, Dave

NOTP(s): Eli/Clare

Drew Torres:

OTP: Drew/Bianca

BROTP(s): Dallas, Adam, Fiona, Dave, Clare, Imogen, Becky (before it was ruined), KC

NOTP(s): In canon, Drew/anyone but Bianca or Clare

Bianca DeSousa:

OTP: Drew/Bianca

BROTP(s): KC, Imogen, Fiona, Clare (I have to assume the show was at least thinking about making them friends), Adam

NOTP(s): Bianca/her abusive exes

Adam Torres:

OTP: Adam/Becky

BROTP(s): Dave, Drew, Clare, Whisperhug, Connor, Bianca, Jenna, Dallas

NOTP(s): Adam/Fiona

Marisol Lewis:

OTP: Mo/Marisol

BROTP(s): Fiona, Jake, Bianca (Katie losing both Drew and Marisol to Bianca would have made me happy)

NOTP(s): KC/Marisol, but I don't actually care

Owen Milligan:

OTP: N/A because he's a disgusting creep with zero respect for women

BROTP(s): Fitz, because that least makes sense even though they probably wouldn't realistically run in the same circle

NOTP(s): Owen/Anya, but Owen/anyone

Jake Martin:

OTP: Jake/Clare

BROTP(s): Mo, Jenna, Marisol, Zig because they'll probably be related by marriage someday which is sad for Jake, Imogen

NOTP(s): Jake/Katie

Katie Matlin:

OTP: N/A because I don't trust her in relationships

BROTP(s): The Katie/Marisol friendship had its moments

NOTP(s): Drew/Katie & Jake/Katie

Imogen Moreno:

OTP: Imogen/Jack, but I'm barely invested

BROTP(s): Eli, Fiona, Becky, Drew, Whisperhug, Bianca

NOTP(s): Eli/Imogen

Mo Mashkour:

OTP: Mo/Marisol

BROTP(s): Jake, Whisperhug, Sav

NOTP(s): N/A

Zig Novak:

OTP: Zig/Maya

BROTP(s): Tiny, Grace, Maya during the times where they weren't dating, Damon (at least in season 12), Miles if the show had let them be friends, Zoe if they'd been allowed to be platonic, Frankie, Shay, Whisperhug

NOTP(s): Zig/Zoe & romantic Zig/Grace

Maya Matlin:

OTP: Zig/Maya

BROTP(s): Grace, Tori, Tiny, Zig when they're not dating, Goldi, Tristan (NC season 4), Zoe if only because of the potential, Shay, Saad, Jonah, Whisperhug

NOTP(s): Miles/Maya & Cam/Maya when the fandom overhypes them

Tristan Milligan:

OTP: Tristan/Miles

BROTP(s): Zoe, Tori, Maya (NC season 4), Miles (pre-relationship), Oliver, Grace

NOTP(s): Tristan/Yates

Tori Santamaria:

OTP: Tori/Miles, honestly

BROTP(s): Maya, Tristan, Dave, Cam

NOTP(s): Zig/Tori

Campbell Saunders:

OTP: N/A

BROTP(s): Dallas, Maya in theory, Tori, Tristan, Bianca, Alli

NOTP(s): Cam/Maya

Becky Baker:

OTP: Adam/Becky

BROTP(s): Imogen, Jenna, Jack, Dallas, Drew (pre-relationship)

NOTP(s): Drew/Becky

Luke Baker:

OTP: N/A

BROTP(s): N/A, but his friendship with Dallas was interesting

NOTP(s): Luke/anyone

Miles Hollingsworth:

OTP: Tristan/Miles

BROTP(s): Zoe, Tristan (pre-relationship), Zig, Grace, Jonah, Frankie (sometimes)

NOTP(s): Miles/Maya & Miles/Lola

Zoe Rivas:

OTP: Zoe/Grace

BROTP(s): Grace, Tristan, Miles, Goldi, Maya, Zig, Winston

NOTP(s): Zoe/men

Winston Chu:

OTP: N/A

BROTP(s): Zoe

NOTP(s): romantic Winston/Zoe

Frankie Hollingsworth:

OTP: Frankie/Esme

BROTP(s): Shay, Lola, Esme, Zig, Tiny, Miles, Hunter (she's the only one that almost makes him tolerable)

NOTP(s): Frankie/Jonah

Grace Cardinal:

OTP: Grace/Zoe

BROTP(s): Zoe, Maya, Tiny, Zig, Miles, Jonah, Goldi, Rasha, Tristan

NOTP(s): Grace/men, but overall Zig/Grace

Tiny Bell:

OTP: Tiny/Shay

BROTP(s): Zig, Maya, Grace, Frankie, honestly I could probably friendship Tiny with anyone in his class

NOTP(s): Tiny/Lola

Hunter Hollingsworth:

OTP: N/A

BROTP(s): Frankie

NOTP(s): Hunter/Yael, but Hunter/anyone

Jack Jones:

OTP: Imogen/Jack

BROTP(s): Becky, Clare

NOTP(s): N/A

Shay Powers:

OTP: Tiny/Shay

BROTP(s): Frankie, Lola (NC season 4), Yael, Esme (it's dumb, but it makes sense in my head), Maya, Zig

NOTP(s): N/A, but I hope Shay wouldn't have been paired with Hunter or Baaz in seasons 5 and 6

Lola Pacini:

OTP: Lola/Saad

BROTP(s): Yael, Frankie, Shay (NC season 4), Rasha, Grace

NOTP(s): Miles/Lola & Tiny/Lola

Jonah Haak:

OTP: Jonah/Goldi

BROTP(s): Maya, Grace, Miles

NOTP(s): Frankie/Jonah, but I don't think any of his relationships worked

Esme Song:

OTP: Frankie/Esme

BROTP(s): Frankie, Shay, Rasha, honestly anyone barring Zig or Miles because Esme desperately needs friends since she either alienates people or they pre-judge her for unfair reasons

NOTP(s): Miles/Esme & Zig/Esme, but both were interesting as things all three characters needed to experience

Goldi Nahir:

OTP: Jonah/Goldi

BROTP(s): Rasha, Zoe, Maya, Grace, Shay

NOTP(s): N/A

Yael Baron:

OTP: Lola/Yael

BROTP(s): Lola, Shay, Baaz for reasons I don't understand, potentially Saad

NOTP(s): Hunter/Yael

Vijay Maraj:

OTP: Vijay/a likable personality, but seriously N/A

BROTP(s): Yael because he supported their coming out

NOTP(s): Tristan/Vijay

Baaz Nahir:

OTP: Baaz/Yael even though Baaz is a disaster

BROTP(s): Yael, Saad (another in my head this would be good friendship)

NOTP(s): Baaz/Grace

Rasha Zuabi:

OTP: Zoe/Rasha

BROTP(s): Goldi, Grace, Lola (I'm so pissed these two couldn't even form a friendship during Miles's three actor play because everything revolved around Mola), Winston

NOTP(s): Rasha/her ex

Saad Al'Maliki:

OTP: Lola/Saad

BROTP(s): Maya, Yael, Baaz

NOTP(s): N/A

[jjaynze]

I really love your art and I especially love the Borderlands stuff. In particular the Hyperion Rebirth AU. I would love to see more or even just explore the idea. Like just how Athena took over, how she did it with Janey and Fiona, they're relationship, Janey's hand, their status in the Borderlands and much more.

If your open to it I do have certain ideas for it.

Like Hyperion falling into what amounts to a civil war with Jack's death, how badly he ran it, and all the money and resources he sunk into Pandora on top of Helios crashing Planetside. Athena and Janey are dragged into one side and Fiona by a another on the company planet of Theia. (The wife of Hyperion and Goddess of sight and brilliance along with gold, silver and gems with their brilliance and value). All three meet once again and start to work together to win control over Hyperion themselves.

oh my god hi!!!! tysm for the ask i never expected anyone to ask me about this old au <3

side note btw that i apparently decided to exclude Fiona from this au 🥲 she’ll likely have an appearance other places but won’t have any direct connections to Hyperion

under the cut is a very unorganized set of pictures + explanations of what i had in mind for Hyperion’s Rebirth:

—-—-—

ORIGINS

to start, i just want to mention how this au came to be.

it was mostly fun and games tbh, where i was in an era between playing BL3 and BLTPS constantly. although i never used them, i found it ironic that in BL3, the Hyperion weapons had shields extremely similar to Athena’s shield.

since i was SUPER disappointed that Athena didn’t even at least have a mention in an ECHO, and i was SUPER deprived of content of her, i decided to make a FUN, NON-CANON ALTHOUGH HEAVILY LORE-BASED, COMPLETELY SELF-INDULGENT AU where Athena had taken over Hyperion just bc she wanted to 😇 starting this project in 2021, i would work on this on and off for my own enjoyment

flashforward only one year later—

………..hashtag goals 🤟🏼. never worked on it for a while even before ntftbl was announced unfortunately 💔

HYPERION ITSELF

you were very spot on with the concept of Hyperion being on the planet Theia, i was super confused seeing it bc i never remembered sharing anything about this 😭😭

i wanted Hyperion to be SUPER heavily reinforced, because of how widely loathed the company is, its history, and because of the overall environment of Theia. every few hours, the surface shifts from entire slabs of the floor, taken from the idea of plate tectonics.

i was also gonna work on the unique fauna, just like how Pandora has skags and Eden-6 has jabbers !! i had only given it caracals since they’re my favorite animal :,3

blands LOVES their greek myth motifs so i wanted to apply that here also

a common trend with the corporations was that each tend to have some kind of second base. i used Selene and Eos, since they were also the children of Theia and Hyperion (Helios isn’t present since it crashed obv).

i never had any ideas for Selene, but an idea i had for EOS was that it was an underwater ship.

CHARACTERS

THIS I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE MOST!!!

a very specific headcanon i have for Athena is that it isn’t her real name. she was very young at the time she was taken into Atlas, where they had actually given the assassins different names. her real name is Gayle Alvarez, to which she rejects as symbolism to how she’s letting go over her past after all these years, accepting who she is now. (she gave herself that last name “Hoplite” tho LMAO)

^^ this all comes from that fact that i was VERY petty over the fact that her sister, Jess, should’ve been named Minerva. it makes more sense to me idk

ANYWAYS this just describes Athena and Janey’s positions in Hyperion just a little bit. Athena is obviously the CEO and Janey has taken position to where she had designed almost everything.

in terms of the third point, i had actually wanted to make the Voice of Hyperion to be a prominent character in here also!! i didn’t get too far with her unfortunately 💔

FUN FACT i was actually also gonna bring HoloJack as a character concept, although he’s just stuck in an ECHO device. i was thinking that in order to run Hyperion, Athena would need the advice of an ex-CEO. they both only agree to an exchange of management tips for a new body. Athena obviously flanks out after getting Hyperion into a suitable condition, then stuffing the ai into a submachine gun and launching it towards the furthest planet 🤔 it was a funny concept but i dropped it after a while

—

on to something more specific, i do wanna mention this art piece, which ties into another one of my headcanons.

Janey was born on Elpis, being present before and after the Crackening. as it occurred, she had been exposed to whatever unstable eridium had managed to leak through, all without her knowledge—she barely remembers anything of the sort happening

TO SUMMARIZE, Janey is like the Lost Legion Eternals, specifically, a Phasewalker!!!! from the game, the LLEs only ascend once reaching a near-death situation, which explains why Janey never figured it out. the closest she did was when she and her ex gf were mauled by Flamey, where her Phasewalking activated and she managed to get away.

STORY

there is no story, sorry. 😓🤕

the closest i have are unofficial concepts, since i had literally almost zero experience and knowledge in world building.

the main idea i had focused on was something to do with Athena’s old Atlas squad, the Omega Assassins. from some, currently undecided decision, Vulcana, Hera, Minerva, Ceresia, and Helicon found themselves alive, even after supposed elimination from the BL1 Vault Hunters. despite her betrayal, they wanted Athena back, and would do anything to prevent her from settling away.

ALSO, another idea was that after the Omega Assassins found out that Athena was married/engaged, they had cut off her ring finger. this explains why i drew her wearing her rings on a chain near her chest.

below is an extra character development attempt which i had named “scene where janey plays the guitar”

this takes place moments after the assassins kidnap Athena and destroy their home for, again, some undecided reason 😭 i wanted to study Janey’s devotion towards a happy life, since i would also think of her having extreme attachment issues. she’s typically the optimistic character that sees the good through any situation, so i wanted to try to see how she would face against her everything being taken away from her again.

i also gave Janey a resentment of anything that resembles a kraggon, no matter how friendly☝🏼

—-—-—

i wish i had worked on this au so much more than what i shared. i was extremely passionate about it and i kinda still am!! even with how half-assed most of the lore is with blands, i still absolutely DEVOUR any little bit of canon Athena content available.

a COMPLETE story of Hyperion’s Rebirth is unfortunately unlikely now, especially with how it’s heavily implied to be. CANON now 😰😰. i would love to work on it again, but i just don’t really see a reason to 💔

tysmm for the ask again, i appreciate it a lot!! i rambled a bit too much but i wouldn’t mind talking much more about the little ideas i have ^_^ 💐

[semper-legens]

186. The Night Ship, by Jess Kidd

Owned: No, library Page count: 371 My summary: 1628. Mayken sails to a new world on board a ship named for her destination, a child seeking her new existence. But tragedy befalls the Batavia before too long, and Mayken is cast into a world of conspiracy that she doesn't quite understand. Three hundred and sixty one years later, a boy called Gil is trying to move past the death of his mother when he comes across the graveyard of the Batavia. But how and why are their lives interlinked? My rating: 4/5 My commentary:

I should probably have heard of this incident before now. Long-time readers of this blog will know that I am particularly interested in Bad Things Happening On Boats, from the Franklin expedition to the mutiny on the Bounty to the Belgica. So I should probably have come across the Batavia before now, right? Apparently not. Yeah, we're back in historical fiction territory, with a split narrative between a girl who sails on the Batavia's doomed voyage in the 1620s, and a boy in the 1980s who finds himself washed up on that same shore. It was mystical, it was haunting, it was lyrical, and it was a very good, if tragic, read. I'd highly recommend it.

Let's start in 1628 with young Mayken, a newly motherless girl being sent to live with her estranged father in Batavia, a Dutch colony in Indonesia. The only person she has is her nursemaid, Imke, who dies in the crossing after a bite on her foot is infected. Mayken is curious and imaginative, but that imagination can be used against her. When a sailor she thinks of as a friend helps her obtain access belowdecks, she thinks that's a great thing despite the area belowdecks being full of perils for a lone child. She is taught a story of an eel-like creature called the Bullebak, and comes to believe that this monster is responsible for anything that goes wrong on the ship. This serves, to the mind of the adult reader, as something of a metaphor for the true rot at the heart of the Batavia, including the mutinous Jeronimus Cornelisz who takes advantage of the wreck to take some of the surviving women as his own and orders the murder of survivors when supplies get low. Mayken was a really engaging protagonist; Kidd strikes a fine balance between her childish naivety and a real sense of character and personality. She's not a bland Dickensian urchin, she has her own thoughts and feelings, and the narrative doesn't spell out exactly why she does half the things she does, while still leaving the truth plain for anyone to see if they are looking. Mayken believes in the Bullebak because she needs a sense of control in her life while Imke is sick and the ship wrecks and everything is falling apart. She is protective of the people in her life because they are all she has. She finds routines and patterns in her daily existence because they help keep her grounded in a sense of reality. It's a mature, nuanced worldview that still keeps the childish outlook and that has to be commended.

Meanwhile in 1989, we have Gil, a newly motherless boy being sent to live with his estranged grandfather on an island off the coast of Australia. There's something familiar between Gil and Mayken - shared by the mirroring the narrative does between them. The first two chapters are mirror images of each other, sharing the same beats and progression, highlighting these two children as important. Gil's mother, who reading between the lines was severely mentally ill and/or a drug user, died not too long ago. She may or may not have killed herself. Gil found her, and lived with her corpse for a couple of weeks before eventually being found and shipped off first to a children's home, then his only living relative, his grandfather Joss who lives on Beacon Island. Gil has the same naivety of Mayken, but his worldview is a bit more cynical; while Mayken makes connections among the crew and passengers of the Batavia, Gil keeps to himself and trusts nobody, even though he's young enough that this independence is more sad than admirable. He has a hot temper and does not react well to bullies, not helped by the fact that he's 'weird', liking to dress in his grandmother's clothes and put on fashion shows because that's what he used to do with his mum. He also exhibits some distressing behaviours, such as drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes, something he also seems to have learned from his mother. As events unfold, we get to understand him and what he has done better, as well as the complex guilt he carries with him over his mother's death.

This is a book about trauma, and this is a book about tragedy, and it doesn't have any easy answers to either. Bad things still happen. Mayken is one of the people massacred by Cornelisz' men, and is believed to haunt the island long after her death. Gil's tortoise Enkidu dies after being dropkicked by Gil's bullies, and ends up being stalked and harrassed by an adult who hates his guts. Mayken lost everything. Gil's mother's death might be his fault. Most of the characters are messed up by some trauma or other, not just the kids, and very few of them have the language to express it or the wherewithal to understand it. Some of their stories we only catch glimpses of, and ultimately cannot know why they are the way they are, just seeing the end result. It's a melancholy tale, but not a grim one. There's light there. Despite the monstrous actions of a few people, there are still others who take Mayken under their wing or look out for Gil. People are complicated, and most of us are just doing the best we can under the circumstances. And that's such a hopeful message, even in the midst of all this pain. You can heal. There is a light. Even if you don't reach it, that light is there.

Next, dark magic and a strange boy in a rural town.

[capsarcastica]

Civil War Review

Like Alex Garland's Annihilation, it has a lot of lofty ideas that it doesn't pull off.

The movie follows a group of war journalists and barely covers an actual war. Their goal of seeing the president before he's killed hardly makes for compelling drama. There's little reason this story needs to be set during a fictional conflict. And there's far better movies about war journalists like Oliver Stone's Salvador or The Killing Fields.

Those hoping for a movie saying something about modern America or how Americans would handle being in a war zone will be disappointed. The conflict itself barely makes sense. There's no explanation for what started it, only making vague references to previous events.

What split the nation? What sparked the war? What does each side represent? Why are California and Texas the only ones fighting against the USA? The movie doesn't answer anything, instead settling on a generic "War is bad no matter who fights" message. It's like Garland didn't want to offend anyone's beliefs so he made a movie so bland it doesn't please anyone. If he wanted people to have a discussion, he would've made a statement of any kind.

The movie barely touches on what American life is like during the first conflict on our soil since the actual Civil War. Most of the time, it's like no one really cares that Americans are killing Americans. Recently, we've seen life interrupted by war in Ukraine, Israel, and Gaza, so it's odd that the most interruption to American life is a crashed helicopter in a JC Penny parking lot. Alien and superhero movies handle this idea a lot better.

It isn't until the third act that the film delivers on the premise. That's what the movie should've been all along. It's an intense battle throughout DC, with landmarks and icons destroyed in the fog of war.

It doesn't help that the main four characters are dull and lifeless. They each have little motivation beyond just being journalists. That's why Jesse Plemons steals the movie with just a few minutes. His ultranationalist racist character is the only one who feels real, someone who would take advantage of a war just to be his worst self.

Technically, the movie is well done. It's shot well and looks good. The music is effective. The few bits of action are really engaging.

In this hyper-politicized time, a movie about a second American Civil War seemed inevitable. Unfortunately, this isn't the movie we need.