#lenora worth

[doodlesink]

The Widow’s Unexpected Suitor by Lenora Worth -- A Book Review

Happy Wednesday!  The Widow’s Unexpected Suitor by Lenora Worth is a sweet story.  Stop by to learn more about the 2nd book in the Pinecraft Seasons series.  Happy Reading!

https://bibliophileandavidreader.blogspot.com/2024/05/the-widows-unexpected-suitor-by-lenora.html

[love-byers]

(warning: long)

we should talk more about mikes choice of words in the rink o mania fight, or rather the writers choice of words

"You basically sabotaged the whole day!!"

sabotage

in case you need a reminder of what sabotage means

deliberately destroy, damage, or obstruct

mike is not just saying will was being a douche for moping, rolling his eyes, and barely talking. he's saying wills a douche because he's doing it on purpose. not even just on purpose either, he's saying will planned this. will wanted to ruin the day. mike thinks will was out to get him by withholding his friendship. obviously will wasn't doing any of this, he just moped because he felt brushed off by mike and was ignored (or so he thought).

that kind of behavior, thinking the consequences of his own actions are a planned attack against him, is very consistent with the way he acted in s3 when el dumped him and he blamed it on max.

we can connect this directly to mike's apology where he calls himself a self-pitying idiot. the self-pity is mike allowing himself to believe it's not his fault that his day sucked, that it's not his fault will is acting this way. deep down he knows it's his own fault by purposefully brushing will off at the airport, but he was being so self-absorbed and self-pitying that he convinced himself it wasn't.

"why is this on me?? why am i the bad guy??"

so lets go through this again, inferring from mike's own words.

when will left hawkins, he felt weird. he'd just spent the whole summer trying to be grown up and acting like he didn't care about dnd anymore, shutting will down and really hurting him in the process, so he probably feels embarrassed that he now feels the exact opposite. he enjoyed spending time with max, lucas, and dustin but it just wasn't the same without will. he missed will so badly that the fact that will was barely reaching out got to his head, and he felt too insecure to find out for himself. he didn't know if will felt the same way or if he was doing fine without mike, making lots of new friends and enjoying life. he was afraid he'd lost will. then here comes el with her letters saying how life is awesome and they have lots of friends. mike probably thought, oh now i'm DEFINITELY not telling him how i feel. the letter about will potentially liking a girl was the final straw. wow. so he's occupied with some girl and thats why he won't talk to me. so now mikes determined to not give will an inkling of an idea that he's bothered or that he cares. psh, mike could care less. maybe when will sees that mike totally doesn't care he'll feel like he screwed up and he'll be super nice to compensate and win mike back.

so mike gets to lenora and hey, will, i totally don't care about seeing you, see how i dodged your hug? i don't care. then he sees the painting. maybe it's not for someone he likes, maybe it's for me. here you go will, opportunity one to win back my affection.

"Uh, what's that?"

"Um, it's nothing, it's just this painting I've been working on."

"Cool."

operation-act like i don't care: EEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR FAILED.

LOOK at his face bro. he looks heartbroken.

from here on mike just got more and more annoyed. will isn't trying to win him back, he isn't compensating for the months of silence. he's acting sad. he's acting sad? he has the audacity to act sad after he made all these friends and left me behind?? no, this is not my fault, this is not on me. it gets under his skin in a way he can't ignore. those feelings of guilt and annoyance that will is causing mixed with his months worth of self pity and convincing himself he's not the problem leads him to another thought. he's doing this on purpose. he's punishing me. this was his plan all along. he's trying to ruin my day for no reason, because i clearly didn't do anything to deserve this.

then angela shows up and humiliates el and mike, for some insane reason, uses this as an excuse to express his anger to will, even though it had literally nothing to do with will.

"You should've told me she was having trouble."

"Well, I didn't know they were gonna be here, Mike."

"Yeah, but you knew she was having trouble for like a year and didn't tell me."

in WHAT world is this will's fault?? he had absolutely no idea el was lying until that day. and mike is blaming him? no, he's really not, he just wants a reason to express his anger without having to admit why he's angry.

"Well, I didn't know she was lying to you."

"Is that why you decided to be a douche to her all day?"

her. he's hiding behind el's name. psh, what? i don't care that you weren't talking to me, it's because of el.

el just got publicly humiliated and mike thinks now is the time to get on will and act like el's biggest problem was will not talking to her?? no way. he just doesn't want will to know that these are his feelings.

"I wasn't being a douche!"

this completely sets mike off. how dare will act all innocent after what he did to me all day? any part of him that was trying to hide that will's behavior is bothering him has been completely overridden. will purposefully withholding his attention from mike has pissed him off soooooo badly that he can't keep it to himself anymore or hide behind el.

"You were! You were! You were rolling your eyes, you were moping, you were barely talking you basically sabotaged the whole day!"

yup, thats right will. i know exactly what you're doing and i'm calling you out on it.

"Well she was lying to you, Mike! Straight to your face ever since you got here! And...and I've been a total third wheel all day it's been miserable. So sorry if I wasn't...if i wasn't smiling."

third wheel? really?

"Yeah, whatever man."

"Well what about us?"

"What?"

i imagine this is where mike shits himself. i mean he literally stops in his tracks. will is directly addressing what he'd been trying to hide his care for the whole time, them. all of a sudden after all these months, he cares about us? and it's poking at that weird feeling he had, like he missed will too much. like he was feeling too much.

"What, you're mad that I didn't talk to you? Seems like you've made it super clear you're not interested in anything I have to say."

"That's just not true."

mike says that so fast it's like a knee-jerk reaction. of course he cares what will has to say. all he's wanted all day, and all this time for that matter, was for will to talk to him. and will is blaming him?

"You called maybe a couple times. It's been a year, Mike. Meanwhile El has like a book of letters from you."

now mike's defense is kicking in. he feels like will is directly picking at that feeling. the weirdness. the fact that he feels differently for will than the rest of his friends, even his girlfriend.

"That's because she's my girlfriend, Will!"

"And us?"

now the alarms are going off. he knows something. "us" for will in this moment is just their friendship. "us" for mike is something more, because that's what's been brewing in him the whole time they've been apart. internalized homophobia in 3..2..

"We're friends! We're. Friends."

"Well, we used to be best friends!"

oh. he was just talking about our friendship. i was tweaking a little bit. and...ouch. will just officially said they aren't best friends anymore. and he's blaming it on mike. but mikes defenses are still up high.

"Well...well maybe you should've reached out more, I don't know! But why is this on me? Why am I the bad guy?!"

then will is lost for words, and he just look sad. and as mad as mike is, he hates seeing will that way.

i imagine the day or two between this and his apology, mike went over this fight in his mind multiple times. and the more he thought about it, the more he realizes, ah shit. i was way too in my head and this was completely one sided. will wasn't plotting against me, i just felt so bad for myself i convinced myself i did nothing wrong. all this because i thought he found new friends and i felt bad for myself. and now i've lost my best friend and made him feel like all of it is his fault. i have to let him know it's all on me.

tldr: mike is weird and gay.

[lenoraslament]

Masterlist

Hello! Welcome to the Masterlist!

My name doesn’t matter. Insatiable Slytherin gal. Pisces ENFJ. Morally ambiguous characters are ✨

I am now taking requests. I write for Slytherin boys mainly but I can also write for Bridgerton and Gilmore Girls.

One shots are at the bottom

First are posts related to my three part Tom Riddle Fanfiction. All three parts are on my Wattpad

* indicates smut

^ indicates romance

+ indicates dark themes/angst

Lenora was cold, smart and cunning. Until. Until that night. Two mudbloods stole something from her, a piece of her she couldn't get back. She finds solace and healing in the unlikely ally of her longtime acquaintance Tom Riddle.

Wattpad Link

Chapter 9 Excerpt: Insolence +

Chapter 12 excerpt: Moment in the Library ^

Chapter 16 excerpt: Apparating ^

Chapter 20: Pleasure *^

Chapter 23 Excerpt: Malfoy Ball ^

Chapter 28 Excerpt: Good Girl ^ (*in the Wattpad chapter)

Chapters 33&34: Revenge and Satisfaction *^+

Chapter 35: Aftermath ^*

Chapter 36: Make Me Forget *

Chapter 38: Punish Me *+

Book 2 Lenora’s Love:

Lenora was Tom Riddles everything. Until he had to Obliviate her memory. Now they are brought together for the summer, as he continues to build his dark legacy the death eaters. Their love is inevitable; even with Cygnus Black trying to intervene. Will the truth out?

This book whole chapters cross posted to Tumblr but if you want to read on Wattpad

Part 1 Summary / Say Yes to Heaven ^

Lenora arrives at the Malfoy Lakehouse and leaves Tom breathless

The Rose Garden ^

Tom watches Lenora from afar much to the chagrin of Abraxas

Why Not Tom Riddle

Lenora wonders about the change in Tom Riddle not realizing she was obliviated

Hard to Resist^

Cygnus grows closer to Lenora

Firestarter +

Lenora accidentally reminds everyone just how powerful she is

Worth It +

Tom and Cygnus duel, Abraxas confronts Lenora

Flawless ^

Tom continues to confuse Lenora, Delia appears for the first time since the Malfoy Christmas Ball

Strumpets *^

Lenora catches Tom doing something unsavory, she pushes to be a deatheater

Overprotective

Lenora tries her best to be respectful and discovers something useful

Lust Potion *^

Delia gets revenge on Lenora, Tom tries his best to resist Lenora

Despair +

After being humiliated by Delia, Lenora wants to prove herself as a deatheater no matter the cost

I Love You ^+

Tom nearly loses Lenora for good.

Pain is a Price +

The long term repercussions of Lenora’s potion are discovered

High and Mighty

Tom proves his leadership while being absolutely faded.

Flowers for a Lady ^

Lenora is made a deatheater but isn’t sure what to make of this new side of Tom.

Dowries and Dark Marks +^

Tom tries to figure out how to get Cygnus Black out of his hair as they both chase after Lenora

Pillow Fight +^

Cygnus Black wishes Lenora goodbye, making her lash out at Tom Riddle

Tawdry ^

Lenora forgives Tom and then is forced to play the temptress

Make Me ^

Tension finally comes to a head between Tom and Lenora at the lake

Cozy^

They simply can’t stay away from eachother.

Crash Into Me^

Tom and Lenora continue to push and pull, Abraxas catches them

Tom Riddle the Romantic ^

Tom Riddle goes way out of comfort zone

A Proper Date ^

Tom and Lenora finally have a real date

Anchored*

Lenora wants more from Tom than his horcrux

How it Always Should Have Been*^

Tom and Lenora make love

Time Doesn’t Bow^

A snapshot into 6 months of bliss as Tom and Lenora stay together

Lying *

Cygnus Black returns, Lenora catches Tom in a lie

Disillusionment +

Lenora learns the truth of everything that happened before Tom obliviated her

I Lost You+

Tom’s proposal goes awry, Lenora gets revenge

I Hate You+

Lenora broke Tom’s heart but he gets the last word.

One shots

Tom Riddle

Hot Mess Part 1

Hot Mess Part 2 *

Infatuated

Careful What You Wish For *

Mattheo Riddle

Careful What You Wish For *

Theo Nott

Some Plumber ^*

Lorenzo Berkshire

Finally Requited pt 1

Slytherin Boys React

Perfume Preferences

How they would Overstimulate You*

Edging Orgasm Denial *

You took Lust Potion *

Romantic Moments ^

Free Use *

Dance with Me ^

[eveomo]

bounties and blessings - arthur morgan x f!reader

chapter 1 (SFW, will probably be edited in the future)

next chapter -> 2

⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚ synopsis : after meeting a seemingly dangerous yet kind outlaw during a bounty, your world seems to get turned upside down after you can't seem to stop running into each other. could this be the beginning of something you've both been longing for?

⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚ warnings/tags : MINORS MAY INTERACT WITH SFW CHAPTERS (NSFW WILL BE TAGGED), depictions of violence, arguments, angst, eventual smut, unprotected piv sex, guns, gun violence, swearing, mutual pining, strangers to lovers, soft arthur, animal death, PTSD, mentions/depictions of abuse, attempted SA (very brief and for plot purposes only), NO PREGNANCY, NO BABIES, MC isnt a frail weak girl who constantly needs saving, often grammatically incorrect (probably)

⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚ contains : arthur morgan x f!reader, no use of y/n, reader changes the plot for the better

⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚ wc : 1.9k

posted to AO3 here

It was a blazing summer day, sweat collecting along the brim of your hat as you rode your palomino arabian into Valentine, slowly making your way to the sheriff's office. As you approach the front of the decrepit building, you swing your foot over the saddle and dismount, grabbing the reins to hitch your horse. 

You pulled your bandana up a touch higher and pulled your hat down to cover your eyes before entering the building. Approaching the board, you scan for any bounties that would truly be worth your while. Then, your eyes caught a poster. 

$75 for some idiot that decided to shoot a rancher's son and a lawman for one cow? Easy money. Was it the biggest bounty you’d ever done? Absolutely not, but it offered more money than anything else pinned to the board. You tore it down and folded it before shoving it into your pocket and nodding at the guard seated at the front of the office. Turning on your heel, you exited the building and mounted your horse. 

          “You ready for some fun girl?” Patting her golden coat, you clicked your tongue and tapped your heels to get her moving. As you rode, you reached back to grab your canteen, guzzling down at least half of it with your horse huffing underneath you. 

          “It’s hot ain’t it, Lenora?” You soothed, petting her mane as you kicked your heels once again to get her into a gallop, welcoming the breeze on your face as you rode. Turning off the path, you began to wind and turn throughout the forest, seeking the abandoned cabin the man you were after was hiding in. Your heart skipped a beat as you spotted it in the distance, excited to have some income once again after having to run from the law after a bar fight gone wrong in another town. Having finally arrived at your destination just north of the Dakota River, you dismount and leave Lenora in the brush, sighing as you pull your bandana over your face and retrieve the lasso attached to your black leather saddle. 

Taking effortlessly light steps, you approach the back end of the cabin before hearing two other voices just west of your location. You crouch behind a broken down wagon sitting in the field surrounding the home as you take a deep breath and tune into the words drifting towards you through the wind. 

          “John, if you’re messin’ with me after last time I’ll give you a real reason to run from camp.” One gruff voice huffs out, while another insists that he saw something duck behind a wagon. Your eyes narrow and you peek your head around the wheel, deciding the coast was clear before darting out and crouching down below a window next to the back entrance. Confident that you were going to secure this bounty before unwanted competition appeared, you darted up to peek into the window, seeing your target shine his gun. Quietly, you edge the door open before taking light steps towards the balding man. With an incredible speed, you grab your revolver from your holster and knock the man unconscious with the grip. 

Letting out a pleased hum, you put your gun back in its holster and grab the lasso from your side and begin to secure him tightly. Before you can truly process the creaking of floorboards, you whip out your gun and turn around, pulling back the safety and pointing the barrel at the intruder's head. Unsurprisingly, the sight of a barrel pointing in between your eyes greeted you. 

         “‘Scuse me Miss, I don’t mean to be a bother but I think you’ve got some’n that belongs to me and my friend out there.” The man speaks first, a deep gruff voice with a clear southern drawl. You sized him up quickly, he was tall and broad, a blue button up with a brown leather jacket, a clearly very old hat concealing his head of hair, and a black bandana covering the rest of his face. Obviously another bounty hunter or an outlaw. 

Scoffing, you reply, “Clearly, Mister, this dope here is comin’ back with me. I knocked him out, I tied him up.” you emphasized, pointing behind you. Taking a step closer, you point the end of your gun closer to his head. “I’ve killed men much bigger than you for much less than this.” You watch his eyes narrow as he sizes you up, making you shudder. Admittedly, you were nervous. Somehow you had forgotten that there were others nearby, focusing on being quiet and quick rather than paying attention to your surroundings, and in front of you was a very large, clearly much stronger than you, man. 

          “Look, darlin’. You hand ‘em over, and the three of us can split it. Whatddya say?” One of his eyes squints while the other remains the same, revealing his hidden smirk. 

          “If you think you’re gonna intimidate me into splitting a $15 bounty, you’ve got me mistaken, sir.” Before he can think to answer, his friend calls out. 

         “Arthur! What’s taking so damn long in there? Thought’chu said it’d be empty!” As he looks to the side, you take his momentary distraction as an opportunity to pull a throwing knife from your thigh and dart around him, wrapping your arm around his throat and pulling him to the ground, disarming him and knocking his hat off in the process. He grunted with surprise as you pressed the blade to his jugular and leaned down to whisper in his ear. 

          “Here’s what’s gonna happen, Arthur. Unless you want to bleed out right here, yer gonna get up, walk out, and tell yer little friend that my friend over here-“ you nod your head to the direction of the still unconscious man laying tied up on the floor “-wasn’t here and y’all need to search for some other bounty. Whaddya say?” You drawl, mocking him for his earlier offer. He chuckles lightly before removing his instinctive grip from your arms and raising his in front of him in defeat. 

          “Alright, girl. You got me, okay? We’ll be outta yer hair now.” He grunts as you remove your vice grip from his throat and sheath your knife back into its strap, allowing him to stand. He picked his hat back up and placed it on his head, and then retrieved his revolver from across the room. As he did so, you heaved the large, unconscious man over your shoulder with a grunt and gestured for the outlaw to leave first. 

         “Damn girl, you are one strong lady.” Arthur comments with a laugh, shaking his head as he walks out with his hands up in an attempt to make you trust him. You roll your eyes and watch as he takes a step to leave before stopping. You raise a brow and sigh frustratedly. This wasn’t your first time fighting over a bounty, but the result of this particular conflict left your hands clean and your mind confused. 

          “What are ya doin? Git!” Your free hand falls down to your side, hovering over your gun holster, shooting a heated look in the outlaws direction. 

He scoffed before answering, “Would you relax? Was gonna ask if you was all alone out here.” 

You laughed and shook your head.

“Why on earth would I tell you that?” You’re not stupid, you know he could’ve killed you if he had wanted to, but he didn't. It’s not that you aren’t strong, in fact you were very strong,  but when you had him on the ground it wasn't hard to tell how abnormally strong he was. It would’ve taken nothing to pull your arm away and either stab or shoot you, but he didn’t. Why?

          “I dunno, maybe you’re lonely out here. You’re clearly strong,” he chuckles when he says this, gesturing to the man on the floor behind you, “but it ain’t very safe for a lady out in these parts.” He shrugged, seemingly trying to figure out why he even asked in the first place. He didn’t seem the type to care all that much about the going ons in other people’s lives, in fact he seemed like he would otherwise be guarded and closed off. 

        “I ain’t no lady, sir. I’ve done a lot of very bad things to a lot of people. Good and bad.” You shook your head, and continued. “It ain’t very safe for anyone out in these parts. Everyone robbin’, killin’, shootin’, I ain’t the only one that has to look out for myself.” With a sigh, you place your gun back in your holster. ‘Is this guy leaving soon or what?’ you think to yourself. He seems to think about what you’re saying for a minute, pulling down his bandana to scratch at his stubble. And oh, oh god. He’s hot. So hot you swear the colour drained from your face and immediately came back as a bright red. Your breath hitches in your throat and you clear your throat.

         “Well, I s’pose that’s true. Bye now, ma’am.” He speaks, snapping you out of your brief trance. You watch as he leaves, nodding at you as the door shuts behind him. You wait about 2 minutes to see if ‘Arthur’ and his friend ‘John’ would re-enter the small cabin, guns drawn. However, they didn’t, and so you secure the unconscious man onto the back of your Arabian, and leave.

𐂂

Truthfully, Arthur didn’t want to hurt a woman, whether she was pointing a gun at him or not. He could tell that she was bluffing the moment he unholstered his gun and pointed it right back at her, too clear that she wouldn’t have shot him unless he tried to hurt her. This worried him, why isn’t her first instinct to kill an intruder, especially a male intruder? Besides this, the gang could use someone who was strong, capable, and actually stealthy. You would be perfect for late-night stagecoach robberies, silently slinking into barns while someone else distracted the homeowner. Even if this was true, he knew Mrs. Grimshaw would be quick to make you clean laundry and chop vegetables. 

“Arthur! Are you even listening to me?” John speaks, interrupting his thoughts. 

“No.” Arthur replies cheekily, looking at John under the brim of his hat. He wasn’t listening, how could he? He had just missed an incredible opportunity to bring someone useful to the camp, and he didn’t. 

“I was asking what happened with that bounty, asshole.” John scoffed, riding alongside Arthur on their way back to camp, $50 sitting in each of their pockets from a couple street robberies. 

Arthur sighed before speaking, “There was a girl, she got to him first.”

“And you just left? Let her take him?” Astounded, John shakes his head and picks up his pace. “What is happenin’ to you, Arthur Morgan? Lettin’ some girl take our bounty?” 

“What’d you want me to do John, shoot ‘er? Dutch told us to keep a low profile, not to go around killin’ young girls for a $75 bounty.” He scoffed, hearing voices appear in the distance and the rather unappetizing scent of Pearson's stew. Whatever John said next, he didn’t hear.   Arthur hitched his horse and strode over to the collection box, giving $30 and keeping $20 before retreating to his tent and bedroll for the night. He kicked off his boots and sat down, retrieving his journal from his messenger bag to write about his day. He pondered what to write about, but he already knew. 

He wanted to write about you. 

PLEEEEASE LET ME KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS!!! i really struggle w accurately writing characters to how they are !!! if anything is corny/needs changes LET ME KNOW!! ok love u all hope u enjoyed!! chapter 2 should hopefully be out by next week<3

(also pls like + reblog ok thanks BAIIIII)

[strange-anni]

Mike, Henry, Will and how it fits together

This is an answer to question I received from @greenfiend as to why I think Mike Wheeler and Vecna/ Henry Creel may be comparable to each other.

It's in regards to this post.

Can we assume that Will Byers is a good observer?

BC I think that may very well may be the case. I've been rewatching the scene where Henry tells Nancy and Eleven his backstory and while I do think some of it relates to Will (fresh start in Hawkins ↔ fresh start in Lenora), other parts relate way better to Mike. Like the whole situation Henry's describing about normalcy and how he doesn't fit in describes Mike just as well if not better than Will.

Like these words from Henry:

Not a single person in the entire show embodies Henrys words here better than Ted Wheeler does. In S1 when Will is missing Ted is assuring Mike that they do care while actually doing nothing and eating his chicken. That's when Mike explodes and leaves the table. Ted's response to everything is passiveness and inaction and Mike can't stand it. He's not like that and doesn't want to be like that. He's different too.

Which brings me to the fact that Henry also says time and time again that he's different. He is different from his family and I also think he sees himself as different from Dr. Brenner and what he stands for. They are both part of the DID system but their approaches to protect it are not the same.

For the Creels it all started when dead animals were found around the house and when Henry found out about their secrets. This is bad bc now he knows and what were they to do if he tells someone? I don't think it really matters in this case what their secrets actually were. What mattered was that Henry knew them and while Victor didn't pick up on it (Teds passiveness) Virgina actually did (Karen does try to reach out to her kids and sometimes senses something is up like the fact that Mike may be queer; Ted actually also knows but he treats it like he treats everything else. Not really worth doing anything about other than making small snide remarks. Him caring and not caring is basically the same thing)

So Henry knows secrets he isn't supposed to know (much like irl Mike knows secrets he isn't supposed to know either "It's a seven") which is dangerous as it can cause damage to the entire system. It's important to keep the secret be otherwise bad things can happen. So Virgina calls Dr. Brenner for help. How does she know Dr. Brenner? That doesn't really matter either I think. What's important is the role he has in making sure secrets stay hidden.

So Henry kills his whole family (or does he?), falls unconscious and later wakes up in Brenners lab where he is kept under control. Wouldn't it be so good if they could enlist him to help keep the secrets hidden? He's got so much special power after all. But that doesn't work bc Henry is not to be controlled, so Brenner decides to "clone" Henry instead. He creates all these children in order protect the system either through keeping the secret (of the a*use) hidden or by building a defense force against the lion. (the backstories of these kids don't really matter either)

Henry however notices Eleven among all the others, partly because she is special as well. She's the weakest and this may or may not be a subconscious desire for Will to get noticed. Either way, he singles her out and tries to encourage her while at the same time he is abused by Brenner himself. Henry's also telling El about the master of them all, the who controls the chessboard (Will; although El thinks it's Brenner) and how the other children want to murder El and she is willing to believe him. They plan to escape and everything is fine and dandy until Henry tricks El to remove the Soteria.

That's when he makes a fatal mistake. He kills all the other children in the lab, therefore loosing Els's trust and getting send into the UD by El. Literally the place where all the a*use is held. A place he cannot escape and place that transforms him until much later. (Like why? Literally why? Why are they all such idiots? Henry was so effing close and then he has to go and eff everything up by using violence again. That is not and will never be the solution here. You cannot kill the alters, you can only absorb them and even then it's not guaranteed that they won't show up again. Arrrgh why are you so stupid Henry?)

Why do i believe that Henry will spill the secret of Lonnies a*use? Because that's basically all he ever does. He opens his mouth and a secret spills out. Like he's hiding his desire in plain sight. He tells El, he tells Nancy and it's almost like he's crying for help because that's exactly what he's doing. I think he also represents Wills subconscious desire to open up. It's why the wound spreads and cannot be contained any longer. A band aid is no longer enough. Will wants to open up and the key to that is Mike bc Mike is kinda Schrödingers Mike: He both knows and doesn't know at the same time.

That is basically what I believe right now and theoretically I could even add a part 2 to all of this as I don't think that's all that happened either but that'll be even weirder and I'm even less sure of it so I'll leave it to another day.

A few things though.

I do believe the Creels work as a negative (as in photography) to the actual Wheelers. Like they are the Wheelers but Upside Down. The corrupted version of them. Therefore the corrupted version of Mike is Henry and the corrupted version of Karen is Virgina (at least in this case). And the Upside Down version of an uncaring Ted? An actual caring Victor.

I also do not think Will holds any grudge at all to the actual Wheelers. In fact I think he actually likes them a lot. Mike of cause first and foremost but I also think he's fond of Karen as well. He likes staying at the Wheelers and being in Mikes basement. It's a safe space for him in a way his own house never was (Lonnie) and maybe the fact that this backstory showed up at this time also means that Will is now slowly realizing that his believed truth about the Wheeler household is not shared by Mike in the same way. (Them being a perfect happy family)

On the topic of the Black Widow spiders I think it's noticeable how Henry not only says he's fond of them but calls them the actual true predators. It's very well known fact that Black Widow females tend to eat their male partners after mating but probably not so well known is the fact that this helps their offspring to survive. (Rings a bell, doesn't it?)

However this behavior was also mostly observed in lab environments where the male spider had nowhere else to run and is less often observed in the wild. In fact male Black widow spiders can sense through the females web if she has already eaten and is therefore safe to mate with. If she's not hungry, she will not eat him. (according to the wiki page)

[erikiara80]

Will, the Forever Clock and Cerebro

The writers used Dustin’s inventions to tell us A LOT about Will and his powers. 

The Forever Clock, very useful in the apocalypse is probably about time powers, timelines and time loop... Maybe only Vecna has time powers, we don’t know, but it’s not a coincidence that in S3 Dustin gives the Forever Clock to Will, and that the name Williams is engraved on the grandfather clock.

But let’s talk about Cerebro! 

Cerebro, an unassembled, one-of-a-kind battery powered radio tower

Will: So it’s like a HAM radio.

Dustin: The Cadillac of HAM radios. This baby carries a crystal clear connection over vast distances. I’m talking North Pole to South.

Note: Dustin uses Cerebro to communicate with Suzie, who lives in Salt Lake City. Water and salt. Two things that are constantly mentioned on the show. @will80sbyers made a masterpost about it )

Why is Cerebro connected to Will?

1.  One-of-a-kind It’s also the title of the book behind Will in Lenora. That could mean that his powers or his very existence are important.

2.  Battery.  Will has always been associated with lights, and in S4 Nancy even says that ‘When Will was in the Upside Down lights came to life’.

So it is possible that his powers give the UD and the hive-mind energy, and Vecna needs them to build a new world. 

3.  Battery powered radio tower 

The number twelve represents Will since S1. When Hopper talks with Joyce after looking for Will, she says: Six hours. It’s been six hours! And when she’s at the lab with Brenner, he says:Six. Six people (have disappeared) And there are many other examples

And what does Twelve do in the Rainbow Room? He builds a red tower.

So it really seems that Will can build. Creation powers? The shed scene is the first time they mention that, when Jonathan tells him that they built Castle Byers just the way Will drew it (and Vecna/Mind Flayer is also there, listening)

Or maybe, like a battery, Will can give the UD the energy to grow and spread.

In S3 the Flayed had to eat fertilizers for the Mind Flayer to build its body. Maybe Will’s powers/energy are like “fertilizers” too, but for the whole Upside Down. 

He’s like the water that plants need to grow.

I’m still analyzing the many Billy-Will parallels but it’s in this season that the writers started to show AND tell what Vecna wants from Will. 

Vecna/Mind Flayer tells someone named William, in a scene that has many parallels with Will’s vanishing, that he wants him to build.

In the Rainbow Roow Twelve builds a red tower, and there’s a red buiding on the poster in Will’s room. 

It’s also note worthing that some of Michael Maher JR’s concept arts for Vecna’s Mind Lair looked like a tower.

So maybe the red tower and the rose glass of Creel House are a reference to Stephen King’s Rose Red and The Dark Tower series (always love to mention SK! @lilitblaukatz​  )

It’s also interesting that Will has the poster of The Cure. Owens said that he thinks El is the cure, but she lost. It’s like the game in 4x01. They were losing with an 11, but won with a 20. 

I’m sure it’s not a coincidence that the dnd game and the game at school were won by the Sinclairs. Brother and sister. Only together Will and El can win. Only together they can fix it.

Ok, they focus on Will’s skates, but let’s not forget Mike

More about Cerebro, X-Men and The Lord of the Rings

Dustin’s radio tower is called after the device Professor X uses to locate other mutants and humans in The X-Men. Reminds me of the hive-mind.

And the kids assemble it on Weathertop, a reference to The Lord of the Rings. The ancient watch-tower where Frodo gets stabbed by a Nazgul with a Morgul-knife. That weapon remains in the wound of the victim and turns them into a wraith under the rule of Sauron. Hmm, sounds familiar.

Weathertop = Will’s possession and connection to the UD and Vecna.

Will and Max

Before S4 we couldn’t know that Vecna would target Max, but the two Venkmans in S2, was foreshadowing of this Lumax and Byler parallel. Venkman’s love interest, Dana, is possessed by a creature similar to a demodog. Will gets possessed in S2 and is still haunted by Vecna/UD, and Max was targeted in S4.

In 3x01, more foreshadowing of Will and Max being connected to Vecna while they’re assembling Cerebro. And if “Will is Cerebro”, it is possible that he will try to communicate with Max.

But this could be very dangerous for him. I read a very interesting theory, by @freetobeeyouandme​ about the episode of My Little Pony Dustin and Erica talk about in S3 and that could be foreshadowing of Max and Will’s storyline in S5.

Here the post  

There is so much in that scene that is foreshadowing of S4 and I think S5 too. Brilliant!

[theoriginalbylergod]

What do you think about the whole Mike was only so protective of Will in S2 because El was gone thing? Do you think he’s going to ignore Will again in S5 and be super focused on El? I’ve seen recent discourse about this and it’s making me sad.

Anon, full disclosure I haven't seen this discourse recently. But I'm gonna take your word for it and tell you what I think. This is gonna be kinda long because I am incapable of being normal.

I think anyone who thinks that this is the case has a very very poor understanding of Mike. And also a poor understanding of literally the entirety of s2 and s4.

Mike cares about Will, and he cares about El. It's possible for him to care about both of them at the same time. The only reason he has a hard time balancing his relationship with both of them is because he's denying the true nature of his feelings for both of them. With El, he's trying to convince himself that his platonic feelings are romantic. With Will, he's trying to convince himself that his romantic feelings are platonic. It is my belief that he is fully aware of his romantic feelings for Will, and his lack thereof for El. But being aware of something and accepting something are two different things. However, by the end of s4 I think it's clear he's headed in the direction of acceptance.

So, about s2:

Mike is protective of Will because he's protective of Will. Simple as that. His fierce protectiveness of Will is established in s1.

We see it when Hopper is first questioning the boys about the last time they saw Will. Mike is insistent that he wants to be there. He doesn't just wanna help by answering questions, he wants to be out there actively searching.

We see it when he defends Will against the comments Nancy and Ted make about him at the dinner table. "All because Mike's friend got lost in the woods" "oh so this is Will's fault?" // "See what happens?" "What happens when what?"

We see it when he is the one to plan to go out to where Will's bike was found and search the woods.

We see it when he confronts Troy after the assembly and pushes him down

Mike being protective of Will in s2 is just a continuation of an already established trait. We just didn't see it in the same way in s1 because Will wasn't there. In s1 it was almost like Mike was being protective of an idea, but in s2 he's being protective of a real and tangible thing. He's not just protecting the belief and hope that Will is still out there, he's protecting WILL.

And that isn't because El is gone, his protectiveness of Will persisted throughout s1. El was there and he was still protective of Will. So El's absence cannot be a cause of his protectiveness of Will. However, the intensity of it was likely influenced by the events of the previous year, which would include watching El "die". But his behavior regarding Will definitely has more to do with what happened to Will than with what happened to El.

I think that if El was present in s2, he still would've been just as protective of Will. Because that's just who he is.

Now, about s5:

He's not going to ignore Will in favor of El. Anyone who thinks that definitely just blatantly ignored his entire s4 arc.

I mean, Mike and Will's s4 arcs were almost entirely dedicated to fixing the damage that s3 did to their relationship. Mike apologizes to Will for how he acted since he got to Lenora, but there's also a sense that he's apologizing for more than that. He says "this last year". He's not mentioning anything specific, but we know what happened. Will knows what happened. And although it still should be, and likely will be, explicitly addressed, this is a start.

I kinda think that the "cool" "cool" scene is when Mike starts to prove to the audience that he's worth Will's love. Because if s3 didn't happen, I don't think there would be doubts. If s2 Mike was also s3 Mike, I don't think anyone would be saying "Will deserves better". But s3 did happen. I love Mike, but he did mess up. He did treat Will like shit. And that should be acknowledged by the characters and by the plot. So when Mike apologizes for his behavior, and subtly addresses s3, and then Will decides that it's worth it to bring his painting - which is a declaration of love - it's a confirmation that this was a turning point for Mike. This isn't a fluke. Mike wants to be better, and he's trying to be better, and that's going to continue for the rest of the season, and it will carry into s5. This conversation, which marks a real change for Mike, includes the line "I have no idea what's gonna happen next. But whatever it is, I think it'll be easier if we're together. A team. Friends. Best friends." And then Will makes the decision to bring what is a plot device for byler's development specifically. Like it's pretty clear what behavior the plot is rewarding.

"I think maybe I was worrying too much about El... And I don't know maybe I feel like I lost you or something" is worth mentioning here because not only is this Mike explicitly stating that his s3 behavior was a deviation from the norm for him, but also the plot rewards this confession. It rewards Mike's vulnerability (although tentative) in this moment. Mike's vulnerability is returned tenfold in the van scene. And since we know Mike's vulnerability was rewarded, it only makes sense for the same to be true for Will's. The painting is the catalyst, Will's vulnerability (although veiled) has to be rewarded by the plot.

And then again, in their last scene together, Mike reaffirms that they're a team. Yeah, you can say that when he says "we will" he's referring to everyone involved. But he says this while firmly grasping Will's shoulder. He wants Will to know he's here, and he's not going anywhere. Yes, it's about everyone, but underneath that there's a sort of desperation for Will to believe him. He's determined to live up to what he said in Dear Billy. He wants them to be a team. So when he says "we" he means everyone involved, but there's an unspoken "you and me".

AND THEN AGAIN, in the final shot, they're together. But more than that, Mike makes a CHOICE to stay by Will's side. He's there because he wants to be with Will. Nothing is stopping him from walking to stand by El's side. But he doesn't do that. He stays with Will because he told Will they were a team and he meant it. I could go on and on about what this means from a storytelling perspective. About how there is obvious thought put into using this to tell the audience what to expect. But from a character perspective, thinking of Mike as a real human with his own thoughts and motivations, it's clear what he's thinking in this moment. They're facing something terrifying, and he knows exactly where he wants to be while he faces it, and that's by Will's side. This scene is undoubtedly foreshadowing for s5, and it's very reasonable to conclude that it means his priority will be Will.

TL;DR Mike was protective of Will in s2 because that's just what is natural for him. And his priority in s5 is going to be Will, because that's what s4 very deliberately set up.

[quixoticall]

This Could Get Ugly 5. Recording Studio 3B

Summary: It's 1983 and The Downsides need another lead singer and you just happen to need a band--it's a perfect match. The only issue? You have to pretend to be in a relationship with your bandmate, Steve Harrington, but you can't help but be drawn to the band's broody guitar player.

pairing: s.h. x fem!reader, e.m. x fem!reader, j.b. x n.w., r.b x n.w.

warnings: Brief mention of pregnancy, Steve in his King!Steve era briefly, again with the misogyny

A/N: Happy Stranger Things Day! I want to say thank you to everyone who's reading this old and new readers alike! Every notification makes me so excited and I'm just happy to be here, ya know?Listen, I know we're really Steve-centric right now but you got to trust me on this, we are laying a FOUNDATION here right? Remember we're covering six years' worth of drama and we are just getting started, trust me!

wc: 4.8k

MASTERLIST🎸

Previous Chapter 🎹🎺

***

STEVE: Yeah, I know I had fucked up. Like, as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. I don’t know why I did it, I think I felt threatened or something. Listen, I think about what happened all the time and there isn’t one singular moment that we can pinpoint where everything went south, really, we all made mistakes, a lot of them. But sometimes, I can’t help thinking to myself that if I had just handled that day at the restaurant better, our whole lives would’ve been different. Or… who knows? Maybe not, maybe we were always meant to end as bad as we did.

***

June 7th, 1983–Los Angeles, California

A few days after your lunch with the Downsides, you see your own face peaking at you from the cover of a Subrosa magazine on a grocery store newsstand. 

You glance around before surreptitiously crouching down for a closer look.

It was a grainy picture of you and Steve, sitting across from one another at lunch, clearly in conversation. The picture had been taken from outside the restaurant and framed in such a way that it looked like it was only the two of you dining together. You can tell by the looks on your faces that it was before everything had blown up—the two of you looked like you were enjoying yourselves.

Sultry Songstress Sees Upside with the Downsides’ Flirty Frontman reads across the top of the page, and you gag. They sure do love their alliteration over at the Sub.

You briefly wonder to yourself what Steve and the others will think of this once they see it. Shrugging that thought off, you toss the magazine into your cart.

***

You actually find out pretty quickly what Steve and the others think about the cover later that evening when you receive a call from an unknown number.

“Hi, it’s Robin,” you hear from the other line as soon as you pick up.

“Hi Ro—”

“Robin Buckley, from the Downsides? I don’t know if you remember me, but we met at lunch the other day when my friend made a huge ass of himself and— ow, Steve that hurt, God.”

Sounds of some sort of physical struggle echo through the telephone line until you decide to interrupt.

“Hi Robin, of course I remember you and your ass of a friend, what can I do for the two of you? Also, how did you get my number?”

You’re more curious than bothered when you ask the latter question.

“Four.”

“Pardon?”

“Four. There are four of us. See, you asked what you could do for the two of us but it’s not just me and Steve. Nancy and Argyle are here too—” At this point, you hear a faint ‘hello’ and ‘what’s up’ from the background—"For the sake of full disclosure I felt that I should mention that. Jonathan is visiting his family in Lenora Hills, otherwise, I’m sure he’d be here too. Oh, and to answer your question I got your number from Murray.”

“Uh-huh.” 

You glance at your wristwatch; there’s a party in the Hills that you were planning on going to and you were going to have to leave soon if you didn’t want to be stuck in traffic all night.

As if she had read your mind, you hear some shuffling on the line before Nancy decidedly takes over the conversation with a much more serious tone.

“Hi, sorry to bother you this late but we wanted to ask if perhaps you had seen the latest issue of Subrosa? It seems like you and Steve are on the cover.”

Exhaling a laugh, you answer, “Yes, actually, saw it at the grocery store today, sorry you guys didn’t make the front page, I’m sure you’ll get them next time.”

“What? No, I mean, have you read the article? They’re printing lies about you both,” Nancy stutters out, indignantly.

“They’re saying that you and Steve had a private lunch and that he’s been seen sneaking out of the Hotel Mormont for weeks and that you might be pregnant? They’re even alluding to a fight breaking out between him and Jason Carver of all people.”

 This causes you to fully chortle.

“I wish, that guy deserves a few punches to the face. I wouldn’t worry too much about it, though, everything they say about me is a lie.”

“What do you mean? Aren’t they supposed to have some journalistic integrity? Don’t they get in trouble for printing lies like this? Have you tried to contact their editors about this?”

The confusion you feel about this conversation is outweighed by how weirdly touched you feel that these girls who had only met you once seem so offended on your behalf.

“No, I mean, it’s a gossip rag, not like The New York Times or anything,” you placate, “and after all the terrible things they’ve said about in the past, I’m kinda just glad they got a half-decent picture of me.  I appreciate you all calling about it though.”

And then, after a beat, you address the band’s lead singer, who has been oddly quiet throughout the whole exchange.

“I hope being pictured with me didn’t sully your reputation, Flirty Frontman.”

Really, you didn’t care if Steve was bothered by the whole thing, you just hoped that he wasn’t making his bandmates call you on his behalf. You didn’t know what to make of the guy quite yet. On one hand, he was completely sweet to you most of the lunch, he spent the meal asking you questions about yourself and refilling your drink without you having to ask. But the tantrum he had thrown reminded you a little too much of the dangerously self-absorbed musicians that had grown sick of these last few years.

“Me? No, I’m fine. Did you see how great my hair looked?”

You laugh silently at his answer. His hair did look great in the photo, but you were not about to give him the satisfaction of letting him hear that from you.

He continues, “Plus, they never really said anything terrible about me. They’re like, totally after you which is why Nance and Rob have been so worried, I guess. Are you good?”

His question comes out more hushed than everything else he’s said, and you are once again reminded of the earnest smiles you exchanged across the table a few days ago.

“I’m fine, Harrington, this is a regular Tuesday for me.”

With that, you bid goodbye to the band, citing your lateness, but not before expressing a very sincere thanks for their naïve concern.

The unexpected phone call makes you hit traffic, as you had predicted. You spend nearly an hour and a half in the back of a cab, the whole time, you can’t stop replaying the conversation you just had in your head.

Maybe there was more to the Downsides than met the eye?

***

This theory is proven, in part, after Hopper sends you a demo recording of some of their songs the following week.  

The Downsides, you quickly find out, are good, like very good. Their music is like nothing you’d ever heard before: experimental and fun but polished and very technically sound. Steve’s vocals are annoyingly impressive—his growly timbre grounding the lighter sound and keeping it from sounding too saccharine. You can see them dominating the charts and blowing The Letterman’s and every other one-trick band out of the water.

The track they wanted you to jump on was part of the demos Hopper had sent out. It was called “Feel It”, a romantic song, tinged with melancholy but paired with an upbeat synth sound.

You had been sent a copy of the lyrics that included a cue for you to come in.

You practiced your part for days, agonizing over how you wanted to deliver the lyrics, and eventually, you came up with exactly what you wanted to do after making some minor adjustments.

You were actually excited to record the song until you remembered that you would have to come face-to-face with the band’s two asshole guitarists again.

On the day of the recording, you tried your best to be early, but you had been up tossing all night which caused you to oversleep then you lost your keys, and you were moving at the time, so your things were all over the place. You also had to turn around and come back when you realized you had forgotten the gift basket of cookies you were planning on bringing for the band—something left over from a package Charles Riva's team sent you as an apology for him blowing you off. All in all, you were about thirty minutes late.

You pulled into the Starcourt parking lot a harried mess and as you rounded the corner into the studio, you could hear the booming voice of Eddie Munson.

“She’s probably stuck circling the parking lot trying to find some working-class sucker to park her car. Harrington, why don’t you go check out there? Maybe you’ll get papped again and get another 5 minutes of fame.”

You hear Steve respond and while you can’t make out the words, you can tell he’s annoyed, embarrassed, or possibly both.

You can see the faces of every other band member fall like dominos as they each caught sight of you rounding the corner to stand directly behind Eddie.

Eddie though doesn’t seem to pick up on what’s clearly written on all their faces and persists through his tirade, “She’s only coming for the photo opp anyway—she doesn’t care about any of this.”

It’s Argyle who finds his voice first, “Eddie, man, isn’t that her?”

Eddie whips around and with comically wide eyes, looks down at you, grimacing.

You consider telling the guy off but decide against it.

If there is one thing you have learned these years it’s that while the male artists can throw fits, yell, scream, and even damage equipment without anyone as much as blinking an eye, one emotional misstep from you and you would be branded a diva. They would say you were difficult, rude, and find any excuse to toss you aside like they had so many women before you and you refused to let them have that satisfaction.

So, instead, you smile at the band, eyes lingering on Eddie for just a moment longer than on anybody else, to let him know that you had heard him, and then say brightly, “Sorry I’m late everybody. I brought some cookies.”

***

EDDIE: Yeah, it was a dick thing to say, and I regretted it immediately and not just because she brought us cookies.

I wasn’t—that wasn’t me.

I was just so angry about everything that I had lost, and I didn’t know where to put it all and then she shows up: this rich, spoiled girl who just seemed to float through life without a single fucking care or struggle, and suddenly I had an easy target.

I felt bad about it until she changed my fucking lyrics.

***

Unlike their guitarists, most of the band seemed pleased to see you and you spent a few minutes greeting everyone and handing around cookies while Eddie and Steve kept their respective distances—Eddie, sulking in a corner and Steve doing a poor job at pretending to tune his guitar.

“Okay kids let’s give the voices some space to do their thing,” Hopper says waving them through the door sounding more like a disgruntled parent than a manager.

In the end, it’s just you, Steve, Murray, and the sound booth tech. The latter two are busy prepping the sound and mic, leaving you and Steve standing in the back.

“Hey, I wanted to apologize about what I said the other day at lunch,” he leans in close to your ear, his eyes transfixed on his shoes.

“I didn’t mean it—not really. I guess I was just lashing out because, well, they keep changing things about the band without even talking to us. First, they made us go pop, then they made me give up lead guitar to Eddie because his previous band didn’t want him anymore, and then it seemed like they wanted to replace me with you and like, it’s not that I wouldn’t want you it’s just that—well they never even asked what we wanted, you know? I was frustrated about that, and I took it out on you and I’m sorry about that.”

You watch him as he digs the toe of his sneaker into the carpet, eyes downcast, clearly waiting for you to respond. You’re too busy contemplating his words, however, because an apology was the last thing you were expecting from him, much less such a sincere one.

Out of all the difficult men you had dealt with in your life—producers, musicians, lawyers, managers, former flings, hell, even your own father—you had never received an apology from any of them regardless of how poorly they’d treated you.

Steve’s eyes finally trail up to meet yours, searching your face for signs that he didn’t say the wrong thing yet again.

Seeing no trace of dishonesty on Steve’s face, you decide to trust the apology for what it is and nod in acceptance.

“I get it,” you say, and truly, you did, “I’ve had most of my career decisions made for me, and a lot of times, they weren’t really what I wanted. It makes the whole thing feel kind of…empty, doesn’t it?”

His face floods with relief as he nods along in understanding.

“Yeah, like does success matter if we can’t do things our way? Me and Rob, we’ve been best friends since we were little and this has always been our dream and now that it may be coming true, it doesn’t feel like we imagined. I guess that’s kinda stupid though, expecting things to be like you imagined them as a kid,” he laughs at himself nervously.

“No, it’s not,” you counter, “that’s not stupid at all.”

You understand Steve’s disillusionment completely because it mirrors your own.

“Listen, I get how you feel, trust me, but you got to keep going. You guys are good, and I think you could all be big one day and then it’ll be you who’s calling the shots and then you can kick me and Eddie to the curb,” you clearly say the last part in jest but that doesn’t stop the shame that rolls across Steve’s face.

“Hey, don’t say that. You’re really talented and we’re lucky that you’re doing us this favor. We’d be even luckier if we could get you to stick around. Munson I could give or take, though.”

His joke makes you laugh so loud that Murray turns around and glares.

***

Steve was sent into the booth first to record his final vocals for the song, leaving you to observe.

As they set Steve up, your eyes kept bouncing over to the newly appeared Eddie, trying to figure out what exactly he was doing there.

“I wrote the song,” Eddie explains, after catching your eye.

“Oh,” you say, not bothering enough to hide your surprise, “well, congratulations, it’s a good song.”

You catch him eyeing the plate of cookies at your side. You open your mouth to offer him a cookie, but the echo of his words rings fresh in your mind, so instead, you reach for one and make a big show of savoring it.

Steve records his part of the vocals in five takes. He appears a bit nervous at first but eases into his groove rather quickly.

As the audio engineer is setting up the booth for you, you feel your own nerves rise. You wanted this to go well. You wanted to impress Steve and Hopper and even Eddie.

They signal you into the booth and the first two times, you record the song exactly how it’s written. Then, on the third one, you switch up the final chorus.

The original lyrics were: Fear in your heart, can’t conceal it/ But baby, my loves your cure, can’t you feel it? / Lay your hope bare next to mine/ and even if the world caves in, we’ll be fine

You changed the lyrics to: Fear in your heart, can’t conceal it/ But baby, my loves your cure, can’t you feel it? / Lay your flaws bare next to mine/ because when the world caves in, I’ll leave you cryin’

The change was slight, you thought, but meaningful.

The original version—Eddie’s version—was too hopeful. It was a boring portrayal of lovers staying with each other through thick and thin.

Your change added some conflict and dimension to the narrative. You made it better.

“What the hell was that?” Eddie pushed past Murray to yell into the mic that fed into the booth.

You roll your eyes at him dramatically interrupting your take, “I was just trying something out.”

Hopper pulled Eddie back by the shoulder while Murray wrestled the mic from him.

“Woah, sweetheart, pump the breaks. That was good. Better than the original. Can we run that one more time but with your lyrics instead? Harrington, we’ll re-record some of your parts too.”

Hopper has to all but carry Eddie out the door after he hears that.

***

EDDIE: The thing that pissed me off the most was that her version of the song was better. I just didn’t want to admit it because I wrote that song about Chrissy, about how even though I was so scared I was going to fuck up our relationship, she understood that and was willing to work through that with me. Her version was much closer to what actually happened and that hit a little too close to home.

***

“Woah, what did you two do to Eddie?” Robin demands as soon as you and Steve are dismissed into the hallway. “Hopper pretty much had to drag him out in tears!”

You worry at your bottom lip, caught in the wondering eyes of the group. At the time, you felt like you were doing the right thing, but now you wonder if you had forgone the common courtesy of at least letting him know you had changed the song. You didn’t want to come across as unprofessional as he accused you of being.

“I should probably go talk to him,” you say in response.

“Geez, Robin. Was the third degree really necessary there? This is just like last week’s DMV visit all over again,” Steve chastises as they all watch you walk away.

***

You find Eddie in the smoking area, cigarette in hand. “Hey, listen can we talk—"

Eddie turns dangerously to face you, cutting you off.

“You know what your fucking problem is? No one’s ever said no to you so you think you can do whatever the hell you want and that everyone else just rolls over and gives it to you because you’re so pretty and charming and rich.

“Well, you may have the rest of those assholes fooled but I see right through you, okay?”

Your eyes narrowed in response before you snap back.

"First of all, you don't know anything about me, so stop pretending that you do. I have worked hard to be here, just like the rest of you, and as far as this song goes, my name is going to be attached to it too, so I have just as much of a right to give input as you or Steve. It was wrong that I didn't say anything to you beforehand, sure, and I apologize for that, but let's not pretend that you've been the epitome of professionalism here either because you've been an ass to me since we've met, and I don't know why but I won't stand for it again. Fuck you, Eddie Munson,” you spit out before turning on your heel and stomping away.

***

EDDIE: That was hot, not gonna lie.

***

“Are you really going to let some mangy metalhead from Bumfuck, Nowhere keep you from finally doing what you want?” Murray asks exasperatedly when you call him to complain about the exchange later that night.

“Listen, I’ve recorded a lot of songs in that studio, some of them great, most of them mediocre, but today blew all of them out of the water. The band’s never sounded better and neither have you, frankly. If you gave up the chance to finally write your own songs and sound this good while doing it, that would be flat-out idiotic. You know that, right?”

The line goes still.

“Yes,” you finally say.

“Great, now that that’s settled, why don’t you get some rest, huh? Ruining Muson’s day must have tired you right out.”

You exhale a laugh before saying goodbye.

Although you would never say it to his face, you were grateful for Murray. It was nice having someone looking out for you.

***

MURRAY:  Brenner loved the track. After that, we had a very short time to make a lot of big things happen. The Downside’s debut album was already 70% recorded, but now that we had a whole other person on vocals, we had to scrap a good portion of the work they had already done and rerecord with our new vocalist. We couldn’t even celebrate our victory because we were just getting started.

Those poor kids had no clue what was coming.

***

When your phone rings a few mornings later, you suspect it’s Murray again with an update on the song, and while you’re right about the message, you’re wrong about the messenger. 

“Hi, it’s Steve, uh, Harrington. Obviously,” you hear a familiar voice crackle over the line.

“Oh? And to what do I owe the honor Mr. Obviously?” you respond.

“Oh, very funny. Listen, I wanted to call and let you know that we just heard from Hopper that Brenner and his guys liked our song, and they want us to continue, you know… recording together and stuff. So, yeah, would that be something you’re interested in… being a part of, you know, the band?” his voice wavers a bit as he asks.

“Is that even a choice?” you fire back, “I was under the impression that once Brenner gave the go-ahead, it was pretty much a done deal.”

He clears his throat in response, “I think you deserve to have a choice. I talked to the rest of the band, and they agree and if you don’t want in, we’ll back you… even if that means breaking our Starcourt contract.”

The line goes silent as you contemplate the gravity of what Steve has just said. The Downsides would be willing to put their own career at risk just to assure you the luxury of choice.

The answer was easy after that.

“I’m in,” you say after a few moments of terse silence. “I want to be a part of the band.”

You can all but see Steve pumping his fist on the other side of the line.

“That’s great! That’s great news. I’m glad my asshole tendencies didn’t put you off,” he laughs, relieved.

“I mean, it was a tough sell,” you tease back, “but I think we can be good together. The band, I mean.”

You wonder if you’ve said the wrong thing when his joyous peals of laughter stop suddenly at your words.

“Actually, um, about that,” he begins, once again nervously, “I’m really grateful that you’re giving us—the band—a chance and that you were nice enough to record the single with us in the first place. And, I mean, I know I’m already pushing my luck with the universe and you but maybe—uh, maybe today it’s my turn to be the luckiest guy in the world? Who knows?”

You have absolutely no clue what he’s getting at, and you let him know as much.

“Right, hm, I was wondering if I could take you out, on a date, to celebrate us becoming a band but also like, you know, a date. I know I made a total ass of myself, but I really like you, and I think you're gorgeous and talented and smart. I know I may not deserve another shot, but I would love it if you gave me one.”

You’re at a loss for words. First, you’re not even sure if you want to trust Steve fully, not quite yet. Sure, he apologized, but a part of you wonders if he only did it to get on your good side once he had seen how your pre-established infamy could serve him after that Subrosa article ran. Murray mentioned how radio runtime for the few EP songs The Downsides had in the rotation tripled since the publication. It definitely wouldn’t have been the first time you were being used like this.

Even if you could find it in yourself to look past that (and who knows, maybe you could?) there was still the matter of what Murray and Hopper had so delicately mentioned that day at lunch.

“I’m sorry, Steve, I don’t think that would be very professional. Especially on account of our…  front-facing, romantic narrative.”

“Our what?”

***

MURRAY: I thought that Hopper had gotten his team on the same page about the more personal aspects of the band’s arrangement, but apparently, I was wrong. None of them had any clue what was going on and the thing about running a ruse is that people that are in on it kind of have to know that they’re in on it.

A few days before we began re-recording, the girl called me all in a tizzy because she accidentally spilled the beans, not knowing that Harrington had no clue at all about the plan.

I then call Hopper; it turns into this whole thing. We had to arrange an emergency meeting with the two of them and the entire legal team.

A bit slow on the uptake, that Harrington kid, but he got there. Eventually.

He was harder to convince than the girl, though. At least she didn’t have a problem with lying to the public. But Harrington was all about that Midwestern “integrity” and “letting the music speak for itself”. Hop eventually had to spell it out real simple for him: either they do this, or the entire band was cooked.

STEVE: I guess after like 15 years the ruse is finally up, huh? Yeah, the relationship was fake. Or, at least, it started out that way. Listen, it was complicated and we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

But, if you’re asking about what I was thinking when they finally told me their plan, well, I wasn’t happy or on board at all. It felt like we had already given up so much of ourselves for this—like, where do you draw the line, you know?

But then Hopper reminded me that it wasn’t all about me: Nancy had dropped out of college to be in the band, Jonathan…he had his sick little brother to take care of, and even Munson was going to be in trouble if he didn’t fulfill his contract with Starcourt.

It was selfish to say no, in my opinion. And really, what was I losing? I got to make music for a living and parade around, pretending to date a total hottie while doing it. I mean, the only way it could’ve gotten better was if the relationship had been real.

***

After what feels like days—but is most likely hours—with the Starcourt legal team, you and Steve are finally released with a very long grocery list of instructions that include a minimum number of required public appearances; a very specific list of acceptable PDA; and interestingly, enough, a sample NDA in case either of you wanted to “be involved” with anyone on the side.

“Nothing says romance like NDA, right?” you weakly joke in an attempt to break the ice.

“How are you so okay with this?” Steve shoots back, seemingly stunned.

“Well, it’s not like this is my first rodeo, or my fourth, or my sixth.”

And before he can question further, you tell him everything, starting with Jason fucking Carver.

***

STEVE: I couldn’t believe it. They had been forcing her to pretend to be involved with all these guys for years. It was super fucked up, but she stuck with it. That’s how much she wanted it. How could I possibly let her down after that? Especially with my own selfish, dumb feelings? She was right, we needed to keep it professional, no matter how hard that was going to be for me.

NEXT CHAPTER 🎤

Taglist: @rexorangecouny , @persophonekarter

[henrysglock]

"El is a manifestation of Will, and she's going to die in st5 because of it." Lets put the breaks on this misogyny train, baby. Let me get this right.

Local girl has an arc about gaining her independence from men, finding out who she is as a woman outside of the wants and needs of the men in her life, and securing her freedom from the men who have controlled her her entire life. Her arc is about learning that she doesn't have to die for men/for their love/her worth as a person, learning that she isn't just the superhero, that she's so much more than that as a person...and we're saying she is the projection of a man and is going to sacrifice her life for a group of men?

Tell me we see how that sounds bad, right?

Also, El's femininity isn't something she's "free" to express unless she's with other women. In ST1 her femininity was a disguise Mike put on her to make her seem more "normal". El plays up her femininity around Mike later on, and it becomes clear that Mike wants El less the more feminine she becomes. He begins to pull away. El's femininity is celebrated by Max, and unless we want to discuss her being a projection of Mike (hello reducing another woman to a projection of a man)...El as projection of Will doesn't bode well for byler and Mike's acceptance of Will's feminine characteristics.

Additionally, El was bullied more than Will in Lenora because she wasn't socialized like Will was. Will can camouflage because he's had a life outside the lab. El is bullied because she doesn't have the socialization to even start camouflaging. Will wasn't bullied because he has the skills to fade into the background now that his history in Hawkins isn't plaguing him. El's history shapes her behavior in ways she cannot hide. That is why she is bullied in Lenora when Will is not.

On top of that, El doesn't "stand up for herself". She has anger issues. She initially rolled over in class when she was being picked on, she initially tried to suck up to Angela at Rink-O-Mania, and it wasn't until she was pushed to violence that she lashed out once the situation was already over. El lashed out at Lucas when she was afraid and overwhelmed. She lashed out in anger and distress when Hopper punished her. El doesn't "stand up for herself", she lashes out with violence because of Brenner's expectations in the lab, her lack of coping mechanisms due to that childhood setting, and the ways that setting is incongruous with society at large. Again, she wasn't socialized. El's anger and violent behaviors are a trauma response and an unhealthy coping mechanism. It's not a desirable girlboss trait that Will would want to see in himself. Will was horrified by El's behavior at Rink O Mania. El is wracked with shame and embarrassment about her behavior. Mike picked on El for her behavior as soon as he felt the people involved didn't "deserve" it (re: Troy). What would that say for byler re: Mike supporting Will standing up for himself?

anyway that's my piece on that for the moment. happy hunting.

[lucreziasredwyne]

who: @omerflorent where: brightwater, following the reach's departure from the west what: lulu is curious about some things following her conversation with lady lenora lefford...so she asks omer, ofc.

a shade of dark dusty rose swept over her thighs as the bottom skirts of her caftan traced the wooden floorboards beneath the forest green armchair, patterned with what appeared to be small emblems upon it, as well as a deep wooden polish she knew her husband would quietly appreciate the finish of. she liked this new armchair; she liked it very much. there was a cracking hearth which warmed her draped figure upon the armchair, and caused the sheen of the pomegranate seeds to reflect and glisten in the glow of the warm embers.

"i'm in here!" she leaned her head backward to let her voice carry through the arched wooden doorframe into the other main room, where there came the noises of a door shutting and a sword being unsheathed.

she remained in her chair, happily allowing the tips of her fingers to become stained red with the small pieces of pomegranate which she popped into her mouth; yet she ensured to turn her head toward the open arch, waiting. and when a very familiar figure appeared in the doorway, a smile seemed to cross naturally over her features as she leaned forward to take another bite of the pomegranate, before silently offering him some of the bowl she suspected he most likely would refuse. but the work had been done in unpeeling it.

and when omer florent trailed around the armchair, it would have been then he realised that his wife was adorned in what appeared to be the fuzziest of robes atop her dusty pink silk nightgown.

"you like it?" she asked, a laugh ready slipping from her mouth; perhaps he were expecting her to be wearing something slightly more appealing. but it were strangely cold this windy night in brightwater keep, and she had been ignoring every sound of creaking lest she look to the left and see the granny who had long since been dead.

"i think it well worth engaging in." she extended her hand to him as she pulled her knees up in the armchair, appearing akin to a fluffy ball, especially with her hair left to dry naturally after bathing. and when he closed the distance between them, she leaned forward in the armchair to bring her lips against his own, a hand going to softly cup his cheek before she pulled away, quietly tracing her thumb against his jaw and keeping her forehead against his own.

"how was your day? i meant to try and at least see you at lunch, but things overran and by the time i got there you had left to meet with the scouts."

[doodlesink]

A Louisiana Christmas to Remember by Betsy St. Amant, Morgan Tarpley Smith, and Lenora Worth -- Book Review

Happy Thursday!  A Louisiana Christmas to Remember by Betsy St. Amant, Morgan Tarpley Smith, and Lenora Worth will be out September 1.  Stop by to learn more about these heartwarming Christmas tales.  Happy Reading!

https://bibliophileandavidreader.blogspot.com/2023/08/a-louisiana-christmas-to-remember-by.html

[jonathanbyersphd]

WIP Wednesday

Dear Nancy,  Whoever said it never rains in southern California is a fucking liar.  After four days straight, Jonathan’s starting to think that it’s never going to stop raining. He’s supposed to be paying attention to a lecture about coastal wetlands but he’s staring out the window. He’s somehow stuck taking Earth Science again. When he planned his senior year last May, he picked Physics 2. He had sandwiched it right between U.S. Government and Lunch A. Nancy was adamant that they needed to take Lunch A  in order to have their Independent Study period after so they could work on The Weekly Streak. But Lenora High doesn’t have Physics 2. They don’t have Independent Study. And they certainly don’t have Nancy.  So, here he sits bored out of his mind in ninth grade Earth Science, because it’s a requirement to graduate. And Lenora High doesn’t care about his transcripts which he thinks is bullshit but it’s not worth arguing over anymore. This is his lot in life, he’s forced to sit in a classroom full of fifteen year olds sandwiched between Will and El. Jane, she’s Jane now, his step-sister. Not that he deserves to be called a brother lately.  Will clears his throat, turns around and passes him a worksheet. Jonathan in turn silently passes one to Jane and then gets to work. The only halfway decent part about taking a class he took in eighth grade is that he knows all the answers already. Five minutes later, he’s staring out the window again with The Smiths stuck in his head, wondering what Nancy had for lunch and if it’s raining in Hawkins too without having to worry about failing.  It’s early December so it’s more likely that it’s snowing in Hawkins. Jonathan misses the snow, he misses making elaborate snowmen with Will, he misses not having to go to school and above all he misses Nancy crawling into his bed and cuddling together for warmth. He tries not to think about how cold she must be without him there. Maybe he can send one of his sweaters to her. It’s not like he’s getting much use out of them. Jonathan’s mind betrays him with visions of Nancy in his sweater and little else. Just as he’s attempting to drown out imaginary Nancy’s begging with the water cycle, something hits him in the back of the head breaking his concentration.  Jonathan cautiously leans over to pick up the neatly folded triangle. He waits until the teacher's back is turned to open it. Someone has invited him to a party. He fights the urge to laugh. According to the invite, some girl named Daisy is celebrating her Sweet Sixteen. He glances around the class trying to find a face to the name. But, he’s almost positive that there’s no named Daisy in here. However, there is the tall blonde girl named Amy or maybe Annie staring at him and blushing furiously.  He slouches in his seat, folds the note and slips it into his binder without a fuss. Hoping that if he just ignores it it’ll go away. He refocuses on the rain hitting the window and tries to brainstorm how to get out of this mess while Imaginary Nancy rages at poor Amy-Annie. Like the kid even has a chance. He should just tell her that he's taken. That he's got a girl he's madly in love with. That they're going off to college together. That when he dies he wants to be reincarnated just to fall in love with her again.

[allaboardsubmas]

Bound by Choice - Chapter 5

A/N: Been a hot second, but as always I hope you enjoy!

Fandom: Pokemon (Black & White, All Media Types, Legends: Arceus)

Characters: Original Character, Kudari | Emmet, Nobori | Ingo

Rating: Teen Audiences

Summary: Andy has always been afraid of pokemon and what it is that they’re able to do, which makes their life rather hard considering they’re twenty-two, live in Unova, and work in Nimbasa City; which is known as the battle capital of their region. Their closest friend and semi-adopted mother being a former gym battle leader also didn’t tend to help matters.

A panic attack on a subway car they thought was empty, however, leads to them meeting the infamous Subway Bosses and learning that pokemon, while terrifying, weren’t the monsters they had grown up believing them to be. Getting sucked up into the lives of the two Subway Bosses and their best friend Gym Leader Elesa might be even more terrifying than the pokemon, however.

AO3 Link: Bound by Choice

Chapters 6 and 7 Immediately Available on Patreon

—

If you enjoy this story then check out my Writing Commissions.

…or, if you prefer, you can just buy me a ko-fi! ☕ …or, if you have a nice allowance, support me on Patreon! 🪶

—

Chapter 5 - Andy

“You are very, very lucky that I never throw anything out,” Andy said, arms crossed and wearing nothing but a tank top and some boxers as he stared down at his pokemon. The two of them were seated on the floor of his kitchenette with the little bug munching on some generic poke-pellets on a paper plate that Andy had once bought in order to feed Lenora’s Watchog when she had shadowed him for a week when he was sick. The food was luckily still in date, but there was only about a cup’s worth left. He would need to go shopping. Fuck. He would need to do a lot of things.

Andy took a breath and rubbed at his face, knocking his glasses off before he fumbled to catch them, wipe them off, and re-affix them to his face. The Joltik was chirping and Andy narrowed his eyes before he could help himself, “If that’s you laughing at me, then you’re going straight back to that crazy train conductor.”

The Joltik looked up at him, silent before his eyes did a little squint that made it look like he was smiling, little fang-like things doing a little wiggle and waving in the air and okay- Okay. That was actually really cute. “That’s not fair,” Andy muttered, shifting to lay on his stomach and stare at the small bug pokemon as it — he — began eating again. “That’s super not fair.”

Twenty-two years of being terrified to death of pokemon, but all it took was a fuzzy yellow bug smiling at him to make him feel even stupider than he ever had before. Thankfully, he was alone in his little studio, so the only one that could really judge him was the Joltik currently stuffing his face with almost out-of-date poke-pellets. 

“Alright,” Andy said, sitting back up and clapping his hands together. “Research. If I’m going to take care of you I can at least look up what I need to buy- And hey, lucky for you that’s kind of my job!” The Joltik squeaked — squeaked! — and Andy nodded as if answering a question. “Yeah, my job is data entry for the National Pokedex, so my whole job involves learning about pokemon. You know, one of those whole ‘try to work past my fear’ type things- Hm.” Ten minutes.

One night of sleep and ten minutes with his new pokemon and already he had become one of those crazy old lady type people who did nothing but talk to their pokemon like they were a person. Looking around his studio, and reassuring himself that he was alone, Andy looked back to the bug. The Joltik squeaked at him again. “You know what? At least I’m not talking to my stuffed pokebuddies again.”

Andy looked to where a dozen pokemon stuffed toys were scattered around his bed and couch. His sister and Lenora’s attempts to ‘make him less scared’ of pokemon had only ended up giving him an addiction to buying anything that was cute and soft. Damn them both. 

“Alright, little guy,” Andy sighed, standing up and heading for the couch and his laptop. “Let’s see what my top-notch researcher skills can do before I get hungry enough to go out and order something.”

Crashing onto the couch, Andy started by searching up Joltik in general, quickly looking up the most pressing matters and making mental notes as he discovered what he needed to. 

“Alright, so your arm-fang things are called pedipalps, and they’ll grow into something that looks more like arms when you get bigger or evolve,” Andy ‘explained’ as he watched his new Joltik scuttle around the couch, seeming to sniff things out- Could Joltik smell? A quick look showed yes, they did smell- And through the pedipalps! The more you know, Andy mused. “Also, apparently it is safe to give you batteries to suck on, but you’re not allowed to eat them. Sound good?”

Andy looked down to see the Joltik was now crawling up the couch- Nope, on his back, crawling on his back- Ah. Creepy. Creepy, creepy- Rubbing up against his cheek. The Joltk was rubbing against his cheek and making a cute little rumbling noise that had Andy melting. “Fuck. You’re hard to be scared of for more than a minute or two at a time, you know.” He got a chirp of acknowledgement, Andy unable to stop himself from mimicking the sound back as best he could. That earned him even more excited squeaking and chirping. “You’re so cute, dammit, I’m going to have to actually be thankful to that bastard train man if I ever see him again.” Huh.

He wondered if he ever would see those two again- Ingo and Emmet, if he was remembering the names right. The Subway Bosses. Dragons, how many people fought to reach them every day and Andy had just stumbled across them- Actually, they had stumbled across him while he was crying and having a panic attack. Not his best moment. Maybe he should thank those two with a gift card or something? He would at least thank Ingo. Ingo seemed nice. Maybe- Hm.

Squinting at the images of Joltiks on the screen, Andy looked to the one resting on his shoulder. In the pictures the bug pokemon was an electric yellow with blue eyes and leg tips — claw tips? Either way, his had purple eyes and claws and was a slightly different shade of yellow. Andy looked between his new pokemon and the pictures on his screen before blurting out a startled, “Fuck.”

His Joltik was shiny. Emmet had given him a shiny pokemon. Louder, with more emphasis, he repeated his, “Fuck.” 

He would need to bake a cake, now.

⁂

“I’ve learned something about myself today,” Andy said seriously, waiting for Lenora to give him a speck of attention so he could continue his dramatics. He took the quick glance over at him as permission to continue. “I’m really bad when it comes to spoiling pokemon.” His Joltik, now resting in his hoodie pocket, let off sparks from where he was sucking on a rechargeable battery Andy had bought earlier in the day.

Lenora, for all her kindness and motherly affection, could be a cruel creature — as proven when she laughed in his face. “I take it you two are getting along well, then?”

“He’s so cute,” Andy complained, collapsing into the armchair in Lenora’s office at the museum and taking a moment to breathe when her Herdier gave a little bark of greeting from under the desk. Lenora’s pokemon were really good about greeting him quietly, which helped. It helped a lot. “And I’m finding it’s kind of hard to be afraid of a pokemon that’s smaller than the size of my hand.”

“Maybe we should have gotten you a Joltik years ago,” Lenora joked, Andy sensing the undercurrent of guilt there, as if she had anything to be guilty about.

“Definitely not,” Andy settled on, carefully petting Watchog when she came over to check on him. “I was even worse back then. It’s only ‘cause of you and these two that I’ve gotten as good as I am.” Watchog gave a soft croon under his touch, Andy feeling a little more of his fear chipped away. 

When he looked back up he saw Lenora’s look had gone softer, a smile on her face, “It did use to be worse, didn’t it?” Mm. Three years ago Lenora’s Herdier had run up to greet him and Andy had started crying. It definitely hadn’t been good. “Have I mentioned how proud I am of how far you’ve come?”

“Not today,” Andy snorted, shuddering as Joltik crawled out of his pocket and started scaling his arm. “Yep- Okay. Yeah, just- Getting used to that, still.” Lenora’s laughter made it a little amusing, at least. 

“You said you were spoiling him, then?” Oh! Oh, yeah! Andy sat up better to nod vigorously, even as he searched in one of the bags at his feet. 

“Yes. It’s awful, Lenora. I’ve spent way more than I thought I would because I wanted to get him some good food, you know? Joltiks don’t eat much in a day, so I wanted to get him something good quality, and then I picked up a few potions, because, you know. What if a wild pokemon attacks him? He’s so small- and then there was this cute little pokemon bed that had a train on it-” Alright. Lenora was laughing. That was fair.

“You sound like Emmet! That boy spoils all of his Joltiks, not to mention he’s even worse with his Galvantulas.” Emmet. That was right. Lenora knew them. “I still can’t believe those two… they have no sense of slowing down.”

“Full steam ahead?” Andy joked, laughing at Lenora’s dry look. “Sorry, it was right there. But you… know them. How long have you known them?” As he asked, he finally found what he was looking for, pulling out a few fresh berries that his little Joltik should like. Going by how he was scarfing them down, it seemed he did. 

“Oh, let’s see… I first met them when they were challengers on their journey, and that was when they were around twelve.” Twelve? Andy shot his head up, eyes wide. Lenora just laughed. “Those two didn’t know the meaning of staying still even back then. They probably would have started out sooner if their Uncle hadn’t tied them down.”

“So you were still running the gym, then?” The two had looked to be a little older than Andy, but not much. That meant they had challenged Lenora when she was still running the museum as a gym, too. Maybe Andy had seen their match since he had visited the museum a lot back in the day… although, he had avoided watching any gym battles. 

“I was! The gyms have changed a lot from the old days, and this was before those three triplets were running their own gym, so I ended up being first in the circuit a lot since I use normal types as well.” As Lenora explained, attention back on whatever she had been writing, Andy carefully snuck a few berries to her Watchog. When Lenora’s Herdier looked at him with wide eyes, Andy dug out more berries. “I’ve told you how gym battles work?”

“Yep,” Andy responded as normally as he could, freezing and feeling a bolt of fear as he held out berries to her Herdier. All of them were frozen, not moving until it was clear Lenora wasn’t going to look over. Yet. “Challengers don’t always need to win against a leader to get a badge, they just need to show that they understand their pokemon and have a good understanding of strategy. Winning is the quickest way to get one, though.”

“That’s right,” Lenora nodded, her Herdier scarfing the three berries down and then running to hide under the desk again. “It’s not often I faced challengers so young, back then, but those two… Ingo beat me in three rounds and Emmet in two with one pokemon a piece.” 

Andy snapped his head up at that, eyes wide because that was… impressive. That was impressive because Lenora wasn’t a pushover, and for that to be their first gym? And that was when they were twelve. No wonder they ran the Battle Facility at Gear Station- “Wait, so they’re really good at battles, okay, got that. How’d the whole train thing start?”

“If you ask me, pokemon battles come in second compared to their love of trains,” Lenora snorted, sharp and extremely amused. “Even back then they dressed like little conductors. They were so cute! All train lingo and gestures and matching outfits…” Lenora’s nostalgic smile dropped for something a little more tense. “And then they wiped the floor with us.” Ah. The look of a trainer’s destroyed ego. 

A few seconds passed before Lenora shook her head, looking back to him and his berry-stained hands. She raised an eyebrow, but decided to show some mercy. “Have you taken that little fella to the Pokemon Center to register him?” Ah. “Andy-”

“It was on the to-do list!” Andy defended himself, gathering his things together quickly as he stood up, his Joltik scuttling from shoulder to shoulder depending on how he moved. “C’mon, little guy, pick a shoulder and stick there, I know you can.” A few seconds passed, the Joltik staying still on his right shoulder. “Thank you.” 

“Make sure you get a full health report when you go in,” Lenora lectured, Andy nodding as he made sure he had everything, Lenora’s Watchog getting the door for him. “And get a Trainer ID while you’re there, that way he’s registered to legally use his moves in battle or in case something happens while you’re in the city. And don’t forget to see if he has all his shots! And-!”

“Goodbye, Lenora,” Andy cut in with a laugh he couldn’t stop. “I’ll see you for my shift tomorrow!” Rushing out of the library, and shouting a quick greeting to Hawes, Andy glanced at his Joltik at his little chirp. “I work in Nimbasa during the week, but on Sundays I volunteer at the museum and help Lenora, mostly with tours and the de-extinction program she runs.” Andy had made his peace with the fact that apparently he was the type to converse with his pokemon like they were a fully fledged person asking him what he did for work.

“Okay, we’ll drop these off, grab a bite to eat, and then I’ll take you straight to the Pokecenter!” Thankfully, since Nacrene City was a decent size and had at one point been home to a gym, there was a Pokecenter right in the middle of town. It was a building Andy had never gone in except maybe once or twice and it took more effort than it should have to force himself into the building once he was finally in front of it. 

“Welcome!” The Nurse Joy at the counter called out in greeting, Andy staring at her before attempting his own greeting.

“Does your name have to be Joy to work here or do you change it once you get the job?” Andy slapped a hand to his face, so beyond grateful that he seemed to be the only one in the main lobby at the moment and that the only ones to witness his shame was the Nurse Joy and his new Joltik. 

Luckily, blessedly, Nurse Joy laughed, Andy peeking through his hand to see she was smiling, “Actually, the ‘Joy’ is a part of the title. It’s easier for younger kids to remember when they’re on their journeys and makes each Pokecenter feel safe and familiar!” Oh. That was… kind of sweet and even a little cute, actually. “Speaking of, do your pokemon need healing today?” Okay. He could do this.

“Sort of. I’m, uh, not really a trainer, but I just got this little guy and he needs to be registered,” Andy explained, walking up to the counter and gently prying Joltik off his shoulder and setting him on the counter. 

“Of course, I can help you with that no problem,” Nurse Joy smiled, looking down at her computer as she began to type. “Can you give me your name and date of birth?” Andy did so, glancing down to cut the little bug off when he started trying to scuttle off the counter and back onto him. “Hm, I don’t see you in our system… Have you ever registered a pokemon before?”

Ah, and here came the embarrassment. “Not, uh- Not really.” Nurse Joy looked up at him, Andy ready to grab his Joltik and flee out the door to never be seen again due to his shame when she simply smiled. 

“That’s alright, I can get you set up right now. Would you like to register for a full Trainer ID?” There was no way it was that easy, right? Some part of what he was thinking must have shown on his face, Nurse Joy smiling. “In the Kanto region children go on their journeys at ten. The usual age here is around fifteen and sixteen, but the minimum requirement is twelve. We try to make it simple.”

“Oh,” Andy said softly, thinking back for a moment to old, familiar words from his mother, lecturing him because, You can’t trust anyone who helps with that Gym Challenge. Not the leaders, not the trainers, and not even those nurses. They’re all eager to rush children like you into danger! They make it so complicated and hard to understand and then kids get hurt!

Andy swallowed, shaking the thoughts off and aiming for a smile, “Yeah, actually, a full Trainer ID would, uh, that’d be good.” 

“Alright, while I get started on that, if you could return your Joltik to their pokeball then I’ll get them checked out and registered.” 

Overall, it wasn’t as complicated and hard to understand as he thought it’d be. It took about half an hour to get through everything, but soon enough Andy was looking at a printed out version of his ID and a quick page summary of his Joltik and what he could do. Even Nurse Joy seemed surprised. 

“Wow! Still on his first level and already he knows so many moves as well as Cross Poison. Someone must have worked very hard to breed this little one!” Cross Poison. Andy knew that move after having registered it at work one day. It was not a move a Joltik naturally knew, as far as he was aware. “Have you decided on a name for him?”

“A name?” Andy blinked because that- He should not have just realized he had not yet named his Joltik. Then again, he had been a little caught up on ruminating on just how many cakes he now owed Ingo and Emmet for giving him a shiny Joltik with Cross Poison. “I, uh- Can I think on it a while longer?”

“Of course! You can register his name from your personal device, as well, whenever you’re ready to decide. Until then, is there anything else you need help with?” 

“No,” Andy said after a moment of thought. “I think we’ll be good.” The Joltik gave a sudden jump, sparking a little as if in agreement before settling back down. It was as startling as it was adorable. “Alright, little guy, we’re going, we’re going. Thanks for all your help, Nurse Joy!”

“Of course! Have a good day and we hope to see you again!” Waving goodbye, Andy quickly left the Pokecenter, glad he was able to get out before any traveling trainers had emerged with their pokemon. Andy was just fine dealing with his Joltik. He’d rather not look over and see a giant Onix in his face anytime soon, as far as he was concerned. 

“Okay. Okay, that wasn’t so bad,” Andy mumbled to himself, looking back down to the sheet of paper in his hand. “I really should have tried to give you back, I think,” Andy said softly, reading over the moves of Cross Poison, String Shot, Spider Web, and Leech Life. “This is the type of set up battlers use, isn’t it?”

The Joltik gave off a few sparks, nuzzling at the spot between Andy’s shoulder and neck and sending him laughing before he could stop himself. When he managed to hold the little guy still after shoving away the paper and his Trainer ID into his bag, he was still giggling even as he pouted, “Okay, okay! You made your point. I’m stuck with you and you’re stuck with me.”

Andy stared at the pokemon in his hands, hardly more than five inches long and not even two pounds and yet already knowing a powerful poison move. “Jeez… a bug type with a poison move. You’re everything she told me to be afraid of.” The Joltik twitched his little fangs — pedipalps — and Andy tried for a smile. “My mom was… complicated.” Silent, he shook his head. “I should be scared of you. You’re a bug type with a poison move. You’re supposed to be terrifying, and dangerous, and everything else she told me.”

Instead he was warm. He was warm and soft and when Andy looked at him he remembered a steady voice asking if he was alright and a lively voice telling him a stupid pun. “You know you won’t ever be doing any battling with me, right? I can’t even handle a stray Purrloin walking by me without getting scared, so if you’re here to battle… It’s like I told you last night. It won’t work.”

The Joltik nuzzled at his thumb, eyes squinting up as he made more of those rumbling little chirrups that were almost like purrs. Andy blew a puff of air down at him. “Alright, no need to be so smug, you made your point. On to more important matters, we should really think of a name for you-”

Barking. Loud barking was cracking through the air and Andy shot his head up to see a Herdier running straight for him, not slowing down and Andy had seen what Herdiers could do and Lenora’s had the power to take out fully grown pokemon bigger than humans so what could one do to him- 

Tripping. The Herdier was tripping over the sudden appearance of white string around its legs before it was falling to the ground and coming to a stop. Andy couldn’t do anything but stare because he realized that wasn’t white string. That was webbing. That was the move String Shot. 

Andy looked down to his hands, still cupped and held in front of him, to see his Joltik was puffed up and giving off sparks as it squeaked down at the Herdier, who started whining softly. It looked like the little guy was lecturing the other pokemon. 

“Okay,” Andy said when the lecturing seemed to stop. “No battling, but maybe it wouldn’t hurt to see just what all it is you can do.” Starting to walk again, heart pounding and racing in some mix of terror and relief, Andy took a breath. “You’re also getting a lot of batteries when we get home.”

The squeaking was adorable. The uncontrolled sparks that had him fighting to not drop the little guy were less so.

[totheidiot]

intro post :)))

hm okay so most basic information about meee. the name is arian, my pronouns are strictly he/him. i am a sex-averse asexual (not sex-repulsed. keep that in mind because i do interact with suggestive content like a sex joke or a smut fanfiction sometimes. so be wary of that please !!). also on the arospec, specifically panromantic. i like to write A Lot and you will know from my posts. i am regrettably not a funny person either. hmm i think that's all !!

fandoms !

stranger things - all posts tagged under #the monster show that got really popular - don't exactly post so much about it? you might see this tag only when i might be engaging with my st mutuals or when i post a fanfiction update

the magnus archives - all posts tagged under #rusty quill presents: this man has too many eyes. - a tag you shall see very often !! have not begun s5 (will touch that probably, next month?) but got hugely spoilered for it.

the magnus protocol - all posts tagged under #rusty quill presents: the lack of eyes is causing me unease. - i am in the place with most of the fandom ! waiting for the next episode that is.

the goldfinch - all posts tagged under #the gay bird book - you will probably never see it now, still worth checking out my old posts? i don't even remember if they were good or not.

the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy - all posts tagged under #crash into the 42nd answer - live laugh love 80s sci-fi comedy series that forever changed my style of humor.

death note - all posts tagged under #something about death and a notebook. or whatever. she dies of diarrhea in three minutes. - enjoy the lawlight brainrot.

tags !

#🍂 arian's shit : all text post that i wrote myself ! every post i didn't reblog, all of that !! even some reblogs are tagged with this if i add a lot of my own thoughts to another post.

#🪐 arian's asks : my replies to asks i get :) anons are tagged with #those who have no name and the hate anons are tagged with #those who deserve no name i only got one hate anon even that was in my old blog but it's best to be prepared ! if it's not an anon ask, i will tag it with the asker's username or if they are mutual, they get a special tag !

#📷 arian's friends <33 : all the interaction with my mutuals and friends <3

#📝 arian writes fanfiction : pretty self explanatory !! all the times i mention my fanfiction !

☁ arian's very complicated and strange dreams : a very miscellaneous tag ! basically talking about my dreams

#🌌 arian contemplates his universe : textposts written by me that are not really connected to a specific fandom. posts might get a bit personal/random/vent-y

fanfiction !

the goldfinch

things we don't talk about . : xandra hears strange, loud and suspicious noises from theo’s bedroom. upon closer inspection, she discovers that boris is staying the night. the next morning, she confronts them about it. 1/1 , tw references to alcohol, implications of underage sex, internalized homophobia. not my best work at all, but you can read this one !!

six of crows

a fool's game : modern era hs au where the crows are hired by their principal van eck to steal the rival school fjerda high's mascot before the games. 6/? abandoned. tws of six of crows really. don't read this one, abandoned and i don't know how to even feel about this.

stranger things

i got your letter (hope you feel better than i do) : will gets sent a series of anonymous love letters in his locker. mike's been awfully quiet about this. 2/2, tw internalized homophobia. i don't really like this one but it's been very well-received so you can give this shot if you !

your apparition passes through me : that's the masterpost, everything you need to know :)) DO read this one, this is still very much ongoing <3

we both matter (don't we?) : mike asks max if she could go to California with him on spring break. that sounds like a bad idea, but she goes for it. el is unhappy in lenora; she is not in love with one of her first friends, but she is painfully in love with the certain red-haired skateboarder girl, who makes her laugh. 1/2 i have no idea if there will be a continuation? this was really good in my opinion, kind of sucks that it didn't get any love :((

upcoming !

stranger things

two byler fanfiction, both coincidentally i'll be co-writing with mutuals :). one of them is a eeaao au, written with @qulizalfos and the other is very longfic, slightly crack fic written with @iamtheoneandonlyever that documents mike and will's life from college, all the way to their fifties.

the magnus archives

আমি তো চক্ষুর বস্ত্র ধরে / দেখতে পাই অতীত, ভবিষ্যত, পৃথিবীর অধ্যাত্ম। : a character study of jonathan sims, before being the Archivist. all written entirely in bangla, bangladeshi!jon obviously, a focus on his language, his grandmother and his culture. only like two people in the fandom probably can read this.

here are my side-blogs :)) : @incaseimakeit-daily and @16-04-16-daily . also, credits for the dividers goes to @//saradika-graphics :))

[subwaytostardew]

Ingo and Emmet are technically celebrities back in Unova, or at least Nimbasa, it would make sense if a paparazzi or journalist or someone from the news came from Nimbasa to see and report back to the city what the twins are doing. They're nosy and you know what sells? Whether or not the celebrity is dating, it could be the husband protecting the farmer from bad publicity or them being super proud of their spouse! It's not a date per say but it'd be an interesting event give or take.

Kade and I were talking about this, but anything to do with paparazzi and publicity will probably have more to do with Elesa. We don't want to stray too far from canon, so most celebrity antics will be more to do with being associated with her.

They're technically celebrities... but not quite! They don't exactly have much star-power of their own in canon. When you disembark on the Battle Subway and talk to the other random NPCs, pretty much everyone hates them; they all say stuff about how Ingo and Emmet are suspicious or weird (I remember that vividly because it honestly made me feel a little sick and I had to put down the game for a couple of days ;;;>.>). Few can appreciate their autism. 😔

The competitive battling scene isn't particularly big in Unova (outside of Blueberry Academy but... that's pretty contained). Dedicated battlebrains like Hilda and Hilbert don't make up a significant amount of their passengers. Most passengers are just average people on their commute to work. Most people challenge the Battle Subway for the sake of it (a bit of a tourist attraction like the carnival area nearby), lose really badly, get discouraged, and never come back unless if they need to use the subway to get somewhere.

In the railfan scene, they usually aren't even special guests at train conventions! They're regular attendees who had time to befriend Cilan at their leisure. He's probably the only person who does their stamp rally!

Being a Battle Facility Head doesn't necessarily constitute celebrity status. Lenora has a perfectly normal husband and marriage with no drama whatsoever! All the Unovan Gym Leaders have other jobs and lives of their own; similarily, submas are just conductors first and foremost. It wouldn't be so absurd for a middle aged train conductor to settle down with some farmer.

They're just some guys. They're even worse in Stardew as regular old train conductors; there's no battling scene to draw in challengers and the scenery itself doesn't even have much worth visiting! It's a sad truth, but most people wouldn't notice if they went missing *cough* they will. The "main plot" for them is how their relocation cough bringing that to the spotlight had a bit of a toll on them mentally.

On a sillier note, I do like the thought that most people were interested in them (superficially). Ingo did end up winning first place in a Unova sexyman poll for being tall, dark, and handsome. Emmet's still bitter about being voted third place despite being his identical twin. The Battle Subway got busy when people were under the impression that Ingo was a edgy, brooding, gentleman but that perception was quickly turned around the second he opened his mouth. The hype died down for them after a year so now they're back to being just some guys.

Anyways... Probably the closest thing we have to a "paparazzi" event on our itinerary so far is just Cilan being submas' number one fan (one and only fan?) as usual.

▷ Station Steward Thylak

[markthekng]

I'm still terrible at advertising my writing, but I'm going to try to do better this time.

Hi, I'm Mark, and I'm a writer, but you probably already know this. Well, you know I'm a fanfiction writer, but I also write original content. While most of my stories are things I plan to turn into books, there is one story that I never want to touch a physical page. And that's because I want to share it here.

I don't have an exact date, but in the coming future, I'm going to start writing a series of works on my second blog that fall under a series I'm calling "The Last Demon and his Soulmate" It follows a demon named Ambrose, a demon devoted to curing the world and a human named Corbin, a hunter dedicated to exterminating the demon race and all other blasphemous creatures. Through each other, the two realize they have a lot to learn about the world, and about themselves. The words, the world, it's all in disarray, and it's in the details they find within each other that they figure things out.

I don't have much to show for it except this unfinished drawing of secondary characters Lenora and Jack, hopefully it will be worth reading. I'll announce a date when I start working on it.