#low effort but soooooo good

[herlittlebunnyboy]

It's not all hot nasty sex stuff around here. Today's low effort brunch is an Avocado, pepper turkey and smoked Gouda sandwhich on a toasted Asiago bagel and a hot cocoa because I like hot cocoa and it's only 40 degrees out right now

Hope everyone is staying warm and had a good breakfast!

[collectorcookie]

Hhhnnghg thinking about anzu again

She started from absolutely nothing. Not the slightest clue about idols or celebs or the entertainment industry or anything. She wanted to grow stronger so that she could protect the people she loves and cares for. And she works soooooo hard for it. All in the background, all in the shadows, she puts in whatever effort she can so that everything runs smoothly and so that everyone can be happy.

And she succeeds! Time and time again, every live she plans and budgets for is very successful. The idols she nurtured all this time are getting happier. Most of the time she doesn't even understand why she gets praised so much (because low self-esteem) and still thinks it's not enough, it's never enough. But never did her doubts even stop her from showing up everytime for her idols.

And she ends up building a strong reputation as a very capable producer. This should be a good thing but it isn't. Now she has a name in the industry, she can no longer just work in the shadows like before. If she puts in too much effort, she (and the idols she's producing for) might get punished for favoritism. So now she has to distance herself from the beloved idols she spent all this time making memories with and getting closer to and it's just aakdhfhsjajdhfhej

Like i think this is most obvious in her switch of "please call me by my name" to "please never call me by my name". In yumenosaki, she was a transfer student at first and most people called her tenkousei-chan. After a while this starts offending her because c'mon, she's been here a while, she has been through a lot with many of these people together and it's kinda distancing of the others to still call her by tenkousei instead of anzu. But in ES? She literally has to beg them to stop calling her by her name and start calling her "Producer" instead. She has to build this artificial distance between her and all the idols she loves so that ES doesn't hurt them. So that she can protect them.

It's such a dilemma, honestly. You want to grow stronger to protect the people you're close to. Once you're strong, you can't be close to them anymore.

[dustorange]

Getting told to wear sunscreen is the contemporary thoughtless low-effort saccharine pushy equally cringe cousin of the past’s “make sure ur drinking enough water!!!!!” where it IS technically very true/good advice but it’s relayed soooooo intolerably thru cringe fake girliepop BlueSky Instagram #MentalHealth #SelfCare #AdvicateforYourself energy by mediocre like brain upload social media graphic people. but wearing sunscreen is literally TRUE AND GOOD ADVICE but its like omg stop telling it to meeeeee in ur condescending npr tote bag TikTok creator overly serious voice

[elkkiel]

ELKKIE MY LOVE

imagine dad iv is a volunteer coach for flora's soccer team and all the other moms are down so horrendously bad for him. he's so kind, supportive of the girls, and not to mention ATHLETIC and GOOD LOOKING. they know he's divorced, but none of them can possibly imagine why any woman would leave that perfect man, especially seeing how good he is with his daughter. they all assume he's single (no ring, they only see him and flora together, etc.) and a couple of them try to seduce him on more than one occassion. then one game III shows up dressed in full team colors to obnoxiously cheer for this youth soccer game (i'm thinking flora's like. 10-12), walking straight up to him and planting the sloppiest kiss on his lips (he had to let these ladies know that he is not available 👍)

anyways lunch break is over i must pretend to be normal🫡

Sure, the moms show up to practice for their kids, but that's not what has their attention most of the time. They'll sit together with their little camp chairs and totally-not-travel-wine-tumblers to... observe and discuss how well the coach is doing with their kids. It drives them absolutely wild to watch him lift up the hem of his shirt to wipe sweat off his forehead, or to see how gentle he is with the kids when they fall and scuff up their knees.

I'm all for a hot mom feeling herself lol, so I love the visual of these older women fawning all over Ivy during breaks and after practice. They'll show up in low-cut shirts in the team colours, find every excuse to talk about their "kid's performance" with the coach, and make sure they get in a little squeeze on his bicep or forearm.

Occasionally, some of the married moms will have their husbands tag along, but this means the dads catch onto what exactly has the ladies so enraptured on the field. Poor Ivy has had to deal with a dad or two puffing up their chests at him, jealous that their wives seemed a little toooo interested in meeting with the coach. He's able to shut them down politely, but they always leave with their tail tucked between their legs and a wife who's somehow even redder in the face than before.

Despite their efforts, Ivy never fails to be anything but friendly and professional with the moms. It's soooooo frustrating when none of their tactics seem to stick, and they'll scheme with each other on the best way to get a piece of that hot dad ass. He's single(?) and they're practically throwing themselves at him, so why isn't anything working?

And that's where our lovely III comes in. He easily worms his way into the mom group when he shows up to watch practice one day (he gives me vibes that he would be oddly good with that type of crowd. the pink whitney shooters he sneaks in with him also help to endear him to the ladies). They're all too eager to include him in their antics, if a tad confused as to why/who he's here for. After an hour and juuuust a bit of liquid confidence, the ladies "manage" to egg him on to make a move on the coach.

He goes along with their nudges and "wanna do something ~baaad~? 🤭🤭" attitude, finally getting up and approaching the coach while the moms watch and giggle in the background. III's such a little tease and they can smell the fruit salad on him from a mile away; while they're certain he won't make it any further than they've gotten, at least it'll be fun to watch their new friend strut his stuff.

IV is turning around to grab some water after chatting with a couple of the kiddos, and he looks up to see III sauntering over. III's got cheesiest, most mischievous little grin plastered all over his face, but it melts into something so fond and happy when he makes eye contact with his boy. IV visibly lights up and jogs over to close the distance, lightly holding III by his waist as IV smiles up at him. Subtly (not so subtly) turning them a bit so the moms get a clear view, III makes a show of gently grabbing IV's face with both hands, leaning down, and planting the fattest smooch on those pretty lips of his.

IV pulls away after a couple seconds, blushing and looking over his shoulder to make sure none of the kids saw (they totally did, and are currently making exaggerated gagging noises and shrieking in the background). He has to get back on the field after their water break is over, so he gives III a quick kiss on the cheek before turning around to resume practice. Before IV has the chance to jog off, III gives him a light smack on the butt and blows him a kiss when IV briefly whips around to give him a scolding (playfully) look.

III makes sure to throw a smug glance and wink over his shoulder to the moms, heading off to IV's minivan to grab snacks and water for Flora after practice. The ladies can't help but stare at him in awe as he walks away with a proud little swing in his hips, their jaws practically hitting the ground at both this new development and III's shameless audacity.

They're jealous, don't get me wrong. But, while he's away, the moms are scheming on how to get just one or twl more shooters in him. You know, so he can gossip on aaaallll those juicy details about their pretty little coach

[fan-a-tink]

Young Royals S3 thoughts

EP2

I’m so glad their phone conversation was interrupted when it was, because that is not something I want to see. 

Simon, please don’t open twitter. Please don’t. Fuck them all, they know nothing!

That discussion about the initiations makes me feel like Alexander has something to say, something to do with it all. No no no no no!

Oh for fucks sake Vincent, no one cares about your fucking privileges, and you don’t get to blame Wille for it! 

I hate to admit it, but August suggestion might actually be very smart. He really was a good a prefect, and no one hates that fact more than I do.

Why is Wille meeting Farima outside, they are so conspicuous like that. Also what the fuck is going on with the queen? 

The music room is giving me PTSD. Like they’re not even fighting at all, but all I can think is ‚GET OUT OF THERE!!!!‘

Oh my god, is Wille going to join the choir? That would be soooooo cool!!!!!

That cut from Felice with the headmistress to her punching something is amazing. No notes. 

I want that shot of Simon leaning over Wille’s shoulder in the gym tattooed. Smiling at each other. So soft. I love it.

I think Sara would be a great professional horse carer or whatever that job is called. And I love that Micke makes an effort with her, tries to help and understand her. I love that scene of them driving. Everything about it. 

OH MY GOD YES WILLE IS ACTUALLY JOINING THE CHOIR!!!!! AAAAAHHHHH!!!!

„I don’t like to sing. I like to listen to you while you’re singing.“ - hihihiiiiiiiiiiii

I love that scene. 

Lol the girls not being able to function without phones :)))

Oh no. Nils and August talking about their initiation. Can’t believe they had to actually go through that. And also, that means Erik went through it! And Erik made them go through it. Fuck. August is actually becoming better and better, making sure that that fucked up tradition is not passed on to the younger years. 

Also August, what is going on with your stomach? You maybe need to eat a little more? Talk to someone? Please? 

The tears in his eyes when he hears Sara’s voice - help!!!

I get that you miss her, buddy, but asking Simon about is literally the worst idea. They hate you so much - really not the way to go. And you also look like you have never before considered how Sara might be feeling right now. Like, dude!!!

Wille calm down. Wille, nooo!!!!! 

Again, that cut between the fight and them sitting in Boris’ office is incredible :) 

„Not him, he didn’t know Erik.“ - „As if you did.“ -> Kind of agree with both of them there. But it will break Wille’s heart to find out about Erik being involved in the initiations. And that Erik was perhaps not the ideal role model he remembers him as. But also, he’s his brother, he needs to know!

„I can be your revolution“ - I see what you did there :)))

I love that Simon continues to channel his feelings into music. And such beautiful music, too. Why is that song not on Spotify? 

But nooooo, don’t post it?! Whhooo, at least the response is positive. But still, this could be bad, you said you guys wanted to keep a low profile. 

The first I love you is after an ‚argument‘ between them? That just brushes over so much. No, I’m going to try and pretend that phone call never happened. I don’t like it. I don’t want the drama. Pleeeeaaase.

Why does Sara not even want to talk to Linda? Please, can we have more Sara screen time? I need you to be alright. 

The girls not being able to handle casual racism at all. Like, just absolute silence. Oh Felice�� can I give you a hug? 

This is the fanciest camping trip ever! Like, all the lights and stuff? 

Madison: „And what about the non-binary ones?“ PREACH!

Felice, Wille and Simon. Love that they are now friends as a group of three. 

Them in the hammock is just as beautiful as it looked in the trailer. And them smiling at each other across the campfire. This is all I’ve ever wanted.

Ayub and Rosh just happened to camp nearby? Is that something they are known to do? This feels random. But also, I don’t care, let them all party :) 

Stella and Rosh, yes! And Frederika is NOT HAPPY. Can’t wait to see what will be next in that storyline. 

Oh boy. Wille I know you were trying to help out here by saying you’re going to work over summer, but that is not helping. Read the room!

And I DON’T approve of you shushing Simon just like that! 

„So Rosh and Ayub know how much money August gave you?“ - Wille, that is a fucked up thing to say. That is money he got as a settlement because August published a child pornography video of him. You cannot hold that money against him in any way! 

Brooding Wille by the lake. Very aesthetically pleasing. But he needs to talk to Simon. 

When it was his dad on his phone I was really really worried the queen was going to be dead. Like when she called him about Erik. But no, she’s just really ill and out of action. Fuck fuck fuck, that added pressure is not needed right now! 

„Is it .. my fault?“ Noooooooo, Wille!

And end of episode. Fuck. I already can’t handle it. And that’s only the first two episodes. (And also only four left now - aaaahhhhhh!)

[jichanxo]

and now i can ask about the difference between animation and writing for you :D aside the obvious things, and since it's a sequence of events/actions/a story and going back to senseific: are there any parts there that you feel you'd have an easier time drawing/animating vs expressing it with words? and is there anything particular you were/are tempted to visualise in an artform (but haven't)?

more long answers below!

animation is certainly a special medium because you not only have way more control over how your audience experiences it (audio, pacing, etc) but you have to pay the cost of it being way more time and effort. so the most distinctive part of making my last project was that i had to stretch my resources as hard as i could. in other words, you can do a lot more! (/pos) but oh god, you HAVE TO DO A LOT MORE (/neg).

you kind of have to compromise somewhere -- your time, the quality of your work, your vision, your motivation. i know i'm inexperienced and that my motivation would give out, so my plan had to be practical. 30 seconds is a long span of time to fill.

i used colour to set the mood -- quick and low effort i used only lines, didn't colour anything in -- saving me time the movement is minimal -- i knew i couldn't do a lot at once, so i had to focus my efforts --

the shot of the eyes moving and of the kiss have the most movement, but are also the most sparse shots, allowing me to focus on getting the movement of this one thing right, without distraction

i create interest in other sections through contrasting shots, rather than using movement -- kuwana and yagami in bed together, then him alone -- the meaning is conveyed through the sequence, rather than any movement, and the music helps make the progression feel natural. following the beat, yknow

i also had to accept that the quality of my work was going to vary, and some of the illustrations would look good and others would just have to be serviceable, or it would never get done

and of course, my own experience -- i know the basics of csp's animation tools, but i don't know enough to make my life easy, you know? i was fighting the program, doing things inefficiently.

i had to think about how i was organising my layers/folders, i had to grab the audio and trim it and make sure it sounded right and... blah blah blah. you see what i mean, right? the format itself has so much potential, being able to create meaning through movement and contrasting shots and audio is great, but it's so strenuous (and i am not used to it) (not to gloat about how wow i did this and it was soooooo hard, nah, but this is what it was like for me at the novice level so like. for more involved work, just imagine... just imagine...) (or better yet, imagine with an example. you'd probably get more interesting answers about animation from @/phantasy14 than me)

by contrast, one of the best things about writing is that, at its core, you can just... open a document and type. not to downplay the effort that writers take, and yeah part of it is that my fanfic writing is Not That Complicated, but in the end... words are free, you know? i don't have to worry about straining my wrist, or if this would look better with an extra frame here or over here, what function i should be using in my program... i can kind of just get to the heart of the matter. i guess i kind of said something similar in the last post as well -- that writing makes it easier to dig into details and context, and the same applies here. since Words Are Free, you can really dig into the meat as much as you'd like. in a process like animation, any decision could add hours or days to your workload, so you have to be absolutely certain that the decision is worth it. this conflict between the artist's idea and the effort is a very defining difference in the mediums, i think.

so, aside from Fighting The Art Process, i suppose i should talk about why this idea ended up being an animatic instead of say, writing. first of all, the song, ofc -- it was the whole inspo, and it's nice to work with it directly. secondly, i think, is because i was trying to convey an emotion more than anything. this is where that ambiguity/detail difference between mediums comes in. i'm portraying yagami missing kuwana, and just that alone. i'm not trying to explain what he's thinking specifically, or why, or even the exact nature of their relationship before all this. what i'm conveying is i miss you. and the most direct, most blunt way to express this is to contrast being together with being apart. to fixate on the features of the other person so to depict a yearning for them. the ending contrasts a remembered(/imagined? you decide) smiling kuwana against kuwana walking away, of him leaving.

you were here (smiling, with me) + you left = i miss you

it just makes sense. writing this would have necessitated detail, would have necessitated more context, and muddied the feeling which is conveyed so concisely through the video instead. look at how i've written yagami missing kuwana so many goddamn times. it takes so many more words, it forces you to hold onto something more concrete like thoughts and events in order to convey the emotion, instead of depicting it on its own. so yeah, the ambiguity of illustration combined with the contrast achieved via sequence, these were necessary to convey this feeling as directly as possible. i also just think it feels more elegant. there's room for the audience to breathe and really feel the difference between kuwana being there and kuwana being gone. the imagery is blunt but the feeling itself surprisingly isn't... at least imo. it just wouldn't feel the same written, would it? i hope that answers your question.

anyway onto the next part... senseific <3

it's good that you named that as a specific example because i never thought about it, but now that you mention it there are absolutely some parts i would probably have an easier time drawing than writing

your honour..... (with a massive sigh) THE FIRST KISS SCENE. HAS BEEN BOTHERING ME. FOR MONTHSSSSSS. it's. sigh. well where do i start with this one... the thing that makes this difficult for me is that it's very much a "wow this is a bad idea but we're doing it anyway" kind of kiss, right? and like. because they shouldn't be doing it, it's been troubling me all this time if their trains of thoughts even make sense. i don't want to force it, but it's difficult to direct things into that direction when i know that they know they probably shouldn't be doing it... i have revised it and i think it reads kind of alright now? but i'm still worried about it...

and this. would be great. for illustration. i wouldn't have to explain shit, i just have to make sure i convey an atmosphere that lends itself for them to make this dumb decision. that's not to say that i wouldn't care if it didn't make sense, of course not, but if it was a visual format, i could just let the atmosphere speak for itself, you know... they're alone together, they'd both been drinking a few hours ago, kitakata comes close, and though yagami sees it coming he doesn't seem to stop him... and it just. there it is. it's happened. no need to say anything, just let the atmosphere and the audience's imagination do the work. the lack of detail in the medium would work in my favour. no issue.

the other one that comes to mind is a scene where kitakata and yagami smoke on the roof together. it's a similar situation where ambiguity would play better for the scene. there comes a point where the conversation stops between them and it just kind of sits. it feels really clumsy having to explain in words that this is one of the first few peaceful moments between them, that yagami doesn't mind being around him for once. this would be better expressed with just visual space. letting the audience feel that peace, that quiet moment between them. i'd draw them apart, so you can see the visual distance between them, and yet they're together, and they're quiet and maybe just maybe they could become closer, could choose to spend time around each other without getting on each other's nerves... or at least that would be the implication. it's much cleaner than having to spell it out in writing.

oh! and i remember i was tempted to draw kitakata's messy desk at some point. that one's easier depicted with words but i just think it could be fun.

AND IF I MAY BE SELF INDULGENT AND BRING UP "are you seeing anyone?" AGAIN..... that gag. just that gag and nothing else around it. i mean. now that i think about it, it's kind of joke-comic-y.... but the joke itself relies on a bunch of stuff beforehand... perhaps not...

a group photo would be nice too... a club photo perhaps... get everyone in there. just some mundane snapshots of everyone in their daily lives... hell, i could even throw sawa in there! i definitely should do that!

and something sexy... i should draw something sexy with kitakata and yagami...

i ought to add some of these to my mental list of things to draw...

[delirious-blue]

gmmtv 2024 part 2 roster, in approximate order of how excited i am about them:

The Heart Killers: YES. soooooo good for me. silly romcom mafia shakespeare plot! dressing everyone up in little outfits! enemies-to-lovers standoff to makeout! love that it's 90s teen movie shakespeare but with more murder. love that this time first and dunk are the ones pursuing khao and joong. delighted p'jojo is directing, he knows exactly what he's doing and he's right for it.

The Ex-Morning: being halfway through watching SOTUS for the first time is an extremely funny time to watch the kristsingto rpf-lite comeback special trailer. it looks good! i love the concept of exes-to-collaborators-to-lovers even before you add in the rpf parallels of it all. p'aof generally does really solid shows and i have no reason to think this won't live up to expectations.

Friendshit Forever: title so stupid it wraps back around into being genius. looks toxic and fun. i will say that if gmmtv wants to yuribait me this hard in the trailer i hope they at least have the decency to yuribait me in the show as well. (real story: when i downloaded the trailers to rewatch i initially ended up with the subtitles from 'Us' playing over the scene where mook and pat meet and for a beautiful moment i lived in a world where there were two gl shows on the 2025 roster.)

Us: the trailer doesn’t give me a great sense for what the actual, uh, plot is. i do appreciate that they found an excuse to have them kiss shirtless in the trailer. the nominal cyrano-esque plot (plus the trite “can two women love one another”) doesn’t feel that interesting but i presume the actual show will have more to it than just that. please i just need a gl that’s well-executed and not about high schoolers (patiently waiting for Pluto….)

Ossan's Love: looks extremely cringe, but….in a charming way? maybe? going to watch regardless because it's earthmix, may go watch the original to get a better idea of what the hell the vibe is supposed to be.

Hide & Sis: feels like it could be campy and fun or could be just bad, but optimistic that it’s the former.

The Dark Dice: okay, so it’s…..jumanji crossed with an escape room crossed with squid game for teenagers? sure i can get behind that. the trailer looked pretty good for being (i assume) relatively low-budget and low-effort.

Revamp: The Undead Story: looks a little silly but very likely in a fun way. (why are there so many vampire shows this year? was there something in the water?)

Thame-Po: okay, so this is a show about a boyband…..where the members are played by gmmtv’s actual boyband? this feels like another instance of rpf lite but less in a fun way and more in a way where i’m a little concerned for these teenagers about fan engagement bleedover. but it did look cute and there are opportunities to go a little meta about the whole thing.

Leap Day: intrigued to watch gun in a role where he actually has things to do

Sweet Tooth, Good Dentist: i think ohm and mark have really fun energy and i badly wanted to like their show, but it looks. SO bad. will watch at least an episode and hope it's better than the trailer made it look but good god.

Break-Up Service: another one that....could be fun or bad, but probably just bad.

Scarlet Heart: was that a trailer or a perfume ad? i guess this is an adaptation and we're supposed to be familiar with the original, slash they didn't have time to film an actual trailer before the event? isekai time travel could be fun in theory but the reverse harem thing does not entice me. pass.

Perfect 10 Liners: you know the bit in Lovely Writer where the show-within-a-show is Bad Engineer, and it's funny because it could literally be any BL that takes place in a university engineering faculty? Lovely Writer is three years old now and we're just still doing this apparently. why are there thirty episodes? did they just decide to toss all the pairs they didn't have a better idea for into the most generic setting possible and cross their fingers? hard pass.

[saga-project]

It was time.

They'd been walking for what felt like hours, tracking Rakshan's location. Saga, in spite of his best efforts, felt his breath hitching in his chest the closer they drew, the brighter that the tiny dot that signified his former "Papa" became. It didn't feel like they were going to kill some great beast within his lair, suddenly. It felt like they were walking straight into the jaws of a bear trap, primed and ready to snap shut around all of them and drag them down to an early grave. Rakshan had magic, after all. Powerful magic. If he could force Saga to do his bidding for so many years, that meant he could easily do the same or worse to their family. And that wasn't even getting into the fact that the Syndicate, and Rakshan by extension, had access to a variety of explosive devices--

(--he'll use them he'll use them on us and there'll be heat heat heat noise noise noise pain pain PAIN--)

They shook it off a moment later, exhaling, startling slightly as Leo came up on their blind side. "Soooooo how far away are we, hermano?"

"We're getting close." Saga pointed to the display on his wrist pad as all three of his brothers leaned in closer, letting out another quiet huff of an exhale. "I've managed to triangulate his position, and I believe we're drawing into the center of it. If we just keep walk--"

"No need. I'm quite capable of finding my disobedient son myself."

Saga had to fight to keep from instinctively making his posture ramrod straight as Rakshan slunk out of the shadows, that same haughty sneer pinned to his beak even as Saga's family drew in close around him and hissed in unison. "So. You've finally decided to come crawling back to me, after spending so long rejecting my teachings. Rejecting my mercy and compassion. How disappointing, Cain. How very disappointing indeed."

"You call what you gave me compassion?" A feral snarl sprang to his lips before he could help it. He stepped forward, letting the scythe attachment spring from his bo with the wicked hiss that he had grown so accustomed to before leveling it towards Rakshan. "I came here to settle things. To tell you that I will never go back with you."

"Is that so." Rakshan leveled a coolly indifferent gaze towards the three brothers. "Always settling for the easy way out, Cain. Even now, you refuse to fight your own battles. You bring your pathetic excuses for brothers along with you, to try and shield you."

"They're here to watch as I put an end to you," Saga snapped, slamming the hilt of his bo into the ground as if to add import to his words. "Don't put words into my mouth. You don't know anything about me. You never did."

"It is of little consequence. If I have to drag you back in pieces, then so be it. This transgression of yours will be solved one way or another."

"Yes, well. I think you'll find I'm not a sniveling child anymore, Rakshan. I don't intend on making it easy for you."

And then Rakshan darted towards him like a bat out of hell, and Saga brought his bo up to counter--

--and the fight was on.

He'd instructed his brothers to give a wide berth unless it seemed like the fight wasn't going in his favor, and thankfully they appeared to be sticking to that. Good. Treat it like another fight in the Nexus, as much as Saga now loathed to think of the place. Break it down into simple steps. Sidestep sidestep jab feint SLASH--

--raise the staff part to block a blow from Rakshan, who now had a borderline murderous look on his face as he pushed back against Saga. "You insolent brat. After everything I did for you, this is how you repay me? By taking my teachings and throwing them back in my face?"

"You didn't teach me anything but how to live in fear," he snapped, pushing Rakshan away and swiping low. "You taught me how to stifle myself and study people for signs of anger and never trust anyone--"

"I taught you to be self-reliant. I taught you to be strong. The perfect soldier. Your family held you back, kept you weak. Have you forgotten how they abandoned you? You were nothing before I found you."

"I haven't forgotten how you made me believe that. Believe that I didn't have worth outside of being a perfect little tin soldier. But you're wrong. I have a family now. I have friends now. And you will not take them away from me."

"What exactly are these imbeciles teaching you that I cannot?" Saga ducked away from a wicked slash from Rakshan's talons, then, gritting his teeth.

"They taught me to be compassionate. To be forgiving towards myself. To laugh more, smile more, take more things in stride. To have fun. To know that I'm good enough as I am." Crack went their respective staffs together, then. "But most importantly, they taught me how to stop people like you."

Uh oh. He knew that cold, calculating look that was spreading across Rakshan's beak, then. He knew it could only lead to trouble. He'd been on the receiving end of it so many times that it curdled his blood to see it, making him freeze slightly even as the secretary bird spoke again. "Really. Stop me, you say. Well. Someone should tell your precious brothers how to do that. Or tell them to not stand within striking distance."

Rakshan was whirling, then, sending a fire spell out towards Mikey, and Leo was trying to fumble with his swords to make a portal but he wasn't going to make one in time, and Saga was racing forward with their breath caught in their throat because that was their baby brother, Mikey was everything to them and they weren't going to make it in time and they'd have to watch as Rakshan tore their family apart all over again--

No. NO.

PROTECT THEM. PROTECT MY FAMILY. YOU WILL NOT TAKE THEM.

There was an electric feeling coursing through their veins, and blinding purple light, and then--

--they'd formed a shield around Mikey. All of their family. And the shield was glimmering with mystic energy, and their markings were pulsing with purple light as they turned to look at Rakshan again, an absolutely murderous hiss escaping from their mouth as their eyes narrowed. "It's strange how you lecture me about not fighting my own battles, and then you choose to involve someone on the sidelines."

"Cain, you will stop this nonsense and listen to--"

"No. It's your turn to listen to me now." He pushed the shield back against Rakshan's magic, even as the secretary bird screeched in anger, even as the spells became more and more sporadic. "You are not my father. You never were. Fathers are kind. Fathers protect you. Fathers don't lock you in a cell and beat you and make you fight in a death arena. Fathers take into account what you want. And you know what I want, Papa?" He sneered the term out with all the vitriol he could muster, then, still striding froward resolutely. "I want to get better. I want to sit outside and watch the sunrises and sunsets. I want to know that there is more to me than being a weapon. I want to learn hobbies, and hang out in the pocketverse with my friends. I want to be with my brothers. I never want to set foot anywhere near the Syndicate's stronghold ever again."

He was slowly warping the shield into something, then. Something larger. Something that promised pain as he leveled it towards Rakshan. "I am so much more than what you thought I was. What you made of me. I am not First Kill. I am not Cain."

KA-CHUNK. The giant missile launcher primed itself, whining in the background as he sneered, as his voice reached a new, strong, furious octave. "I am Donatello Hamato, and this is my family. And you are NEVER GOING TO HURT THEM AGAIN."

There was a rapid-fire burst of mystic energy, then, so bright that Saga had to turn his face away from it. There was a terrible screech, and the nauseating smell of burning flesh, and then--

--then the huddled, burnt form of Rakshan was left huddling as Saga approached with death in his eyes, its breath rattling in its throat as it turned its gaze towards him. "Please. Cain, my child, have mercy--"

"You never gave me any mercy when I asked for it. Why should I give any to you."

"If you kill me, then you're no better than me."

"I am ten times better than you," he snarled, lifting the scythe blade high. "Go tell your lies to whoever's waiting for you in hell."

He struck down. Again, and again, and again, even as Rakshan screeched, even as the blood splattered up against his chest and face. Saga couldn't bring themselves to stop. They brought the scythe blade down over and over and over, a vicious scream rising in their throat until it finally escaped out into the air, ringing out and echoing. Even when it was clear that all signs of life had faded from Rakshan, even when their brothers approached, Saga kept wildly slashing, screeching and screaming with their good eye blown frighteningly wide.

The scream--a sound borne of all the pain he had gone through in the last nine years, all of the anger and sadness and hatred--finally petered off as he collapsed, as Raph and Leo and Mikey approached to gently close in around him, as he turned his gaze up towards the sky and sobbed and let the tears fall.

Free.

At long last, he was finally free.

[radiandromeda]

althea what ARE your hobbies and interests that you don't hide from everyone

ALTHEA: (‹|3 OMG YUO AGAIN HI ≈:D)

[His voice is moderately muffled.]

ALTHEA: (‹|3 ONE SEC!!!)

[For several seconds, some kind of audible physical efforts are made. There is a horrible suction noise, like something being rapidly displaced from within deep mud, followed by a series of gloopy-sounding blows connecting with a rubbery surface. Whatever recording equipment may be in use only partially registers the low, reverberant tone that responds; somewhere between a groan and a rattle.]

ALTHEA: ‹|3 THERE we go!!!!!

ALTHEA: ‹|3 Phew!!!

[Momentarily, Althea’s voice goes quiet again, like he’s far away from the mic.]

ALTHEA: ‹|3 THANK YOU!!!!!!!!

[The audio quality is much clearer now.]

ALTHEA: ‹|3 WELL!!!!!!!

ALTHEA: ‹|3 I like frog hunting!!!!

ALTHEA: ‹|3 Generaltly speaking I love hodling little guys ≈:) Im in a swmap righ tnow and theres SO MANY GUYS you would not BELEIVE

ALTHEA: ‹|3 And gheyre not all little!!! Theresd soooooo many bugs an dspiders and forgs and really cool birds and turbles ans snakes and cute litl fishies and crocogators

ALTHEA: ‹|3 They dont all like beifn held but thats ok!!! I can appreixtae them from a ditsance!!

ALTHEA: ‹|3 But sometimes i think they woukd love to be held but they are too big ≈:( But that usuallt means theyre pettable!!!

ALTHEA: ‹|3 Pattable?? Petpat.......

[The mud suction noises pick back up, in a steady rhythm.]

ALTHEA: ‹|3 Ans sometimes they dotn like being held or peatted but theyr MORE than happy to try snd shove u in their chomphole

ALTHEA: ‹|3 Like that guy just now ≈:) He was very nice ans helpful when I asked!!! A real hop-up gentlemn

ALTHEA: ‹|3 Other hobbies n interestes uhhhh

ALTHEA: ‹|3 I like goin really fast ridinf on my lususz back!!! Anddd climbign things and participatifj in weather and cooking wirh whatever i have around

ALTHEA: ‹|3 I like umm drawing sometines but im not very good andd also swimmifn sometiimes and OH

ALTHEA: ‹|3 I like visiting my best friends!!!!!!!

ALTHEA: ‹|3 Re— wait can I say thier names

ALTHEA: ‹|3 Uhhmmm

ALTHEA: ‹|3 Best friend 1 adn best friend A!! Theyrbe both the best

ALTHEA: ‹|3 I like visitjng them and hanfing out and talking in oerson or over text and sometimes they even let me show fhem cool stuff !! Well Aesi— bestfriend A goes with me a lot when im with her but I hsve a harder time convincing best frend 1

ALTHEA: ‹|3 I like dxploring a lot ≈:) The world is so cool!! Andbthe parts of it that trolsl dont usually go to are so full of the most interestijg creachers and old ruins and environemnts and ahhhhh mannnn itsjust so cool

ALTHEA: ‹|3 Can you see anyvof this??

[The sound of rushing air being processed through a cheap mic. A short pause.]

ALTHEA: ‹|3 ..I wish I coukd show u ≈:( its the prettiest things

ALTHEA: ‹|3 .....

ALTHEA: ‹|3 Augkjh I hsould go my husk is dying ≈:[

ALTHEA: ‹|3 But rhsnk u for asking me!! Stay warm!! And have a good mornign!!!

[-— Manual disconnection 00:00 —-]

[eddie-rifff]

ill respond to asks n tags eventually sorry i havent yet im just in such a bad mood lol rn all i can do it deliver a low effort text post:

i really like the chorus to now what by ant phillips its beautiful n he sounds so good but the rest of the song is soooooo sad i cant listen to it lol

[caxde]

Im aware it might sound stupid, but when you've been feeling low and have the thoughts that reader has on this lovely fic, a simple act of kindness becomes so much more... this was lovely to read and uplifting. Thank you so much for putting in the effort and for sharing it with the world <3

(also, sidenote, the dialogue was soooooo good!! I could hear them in my head!!)

radio cure | steve harrington

an unhappy you meets steve harrington and his merry band of dorks. he shows you that some things are worth sticking around for.

5k words, fem!reader she/her used, tw mentioned/implied suicidal ideation please don’t read if that’s going to have a negative impact on you (no graphic imagery. but reader is passively suicidal and dealing with the other factors of that), robin steve + eddie chaotic trio, friends to lovers, multipart, swearing, friendly teasing, sarcasm, artist!steve, 90s au

.•° ✿ °•.

You're twenty two when you decide to kill yourself.

It's a warm day. The sun shines like a flower bud unfurling, a faint hint of golden yellow masked by cloud cover. You're savouring the brief moment of blessed cool as you walk around Lover's Lake, your ipod in one hand, headphones around your neck.

The flowing pants you're wearing help mitigate the heat around your legs, an itching, slick thing. Warmth feels like oil on your skin. You tip your head back and smell the grass, the lake water, the dry mud under your feet. You're thinking it's as nice a day as you're going to get this week, and you're forlorn, because it doesn't make one drop of difference.

You look up at the blue sky, squinting against the light, and you think it to yourself resolutely. This is going to be my last year. When your savings run out you're giving up.

It doesn't feel conclusive. It doesn't feel scary. It's just a decision.

You walk over dry grass until you reach the short pier on the leftmost side of the lake and sit down. You pull your headphones over your ears and bite your lip when the music isn't loud enough. The dock is rough. You're uncomfortable immediately. You want to go home, but you pull out your little craft sketchbook made of yellow paper and a pencil you've sharpened with a pen knife, staring out across the lake for something to strike you. A duck. A goose. Anything at all.

The thing is, you don't want to draw. You aren't some master, though you try, and you aren't a natural talent… You try sometimes. Nothing seems right. Most people have a style, charm, but you could draw a picture perfect copy of the day in front of you and still feel the lack; you have no idea what it is that makes other people's art beautiful, and that's the problem.

It doesn't matter. You put the sketchbook away. You have nobody to impress but yourself, and besides — you're not the first person in the world to feel uninspired. Thousands of people must feel it everyday, and they aren't throwing any pity parties. You peel off your cardigan, ball it up, and lay down with the fabric behind your head. You can hear the soft pant of a dog across the way, the happy chattering of a Frisbee game. Under the dock, little bodies thwack the planks, tiny green frogs that occasionally hop in the grass nearby.

You press your arm against your stomach and you fall asleep not long after that, your ipod playing music a few feet away.

—

Steve Harrington doesn't know why he stops to look at you. You're just a girl enjoying the summer sun, and he doesn't mean to be a creep. But you've left your stuff laying in small hills around you and your body's lax. You're asleep.

He kneels down next to you. Enough room to swing away if you try to stab him for perving. He isn't perving, he reasons. He wants to check if you're okay.

He tilts his ear toward you and holds his breath.

You're snoring.

Good, he thinks, crawling back to the far side of the dock, at least two feet between you. You're sleeping.

He sits down, knees up, hands between his thighs, and looks out across the lake. The sun shines high as the clouds shift to reveal it in full force, a burning yolk. It kisses every bit of green foliage it can find, dappled sunlight everywhere he looks. Steve is out today to draw whatever beauty he can find, and the light across the water riding the rippled waves of ducklings and brave human swimmers seems nice enough. He peers out of the corner of his eye at you, deems you still sleeping, and takes the pocket sized sketchbook out of his denim jeans.

His pencil is a stub folded between the pages. He lays down graphite in big sweeping lines, more focused on the impressions of shape than the specifics. It's hard to see a coloured world in black and white values. Steve isn't great — he's been drawing for two years now, and that feels like both a lifetime and a flicker. Every day he learns something new about making art, and every day he looks back and feels embarrassed at what he made before. The start of his sketchbooks make him cringe. This one is a mixture of pride and tepid reluctance.

Being bad at something is a stepping stone at getting better. Not every drawing he makes is good, but hopefully it's teaching his brain to be better. He doesn't know what he believes about art but he likes to draw, and he has gotten better.

The point isn't in being good, he'd told Robin. I just need something to do. Before I go crazy doing nothing. 

He draws the lake. He loves the way it comes into being. Ten minutes can turn grey splotches into trees, and bluegrass, and the heat rising off of the water. He draws a duck when it swims really close, though he has to abandon it when it swims away, leaving a half formed lovecraftian creature to haunt the page. He draws the dock, and his shoes, and your shoes, and your hand curled weakly next to your ipod. He draws your wrist, though he stops quickly.

He looks at your sleeping face.

Steve thinks you don't look like anyone he's ever seen before. He notes your lashes, your brows, and your nose. The sun emphasises the fine hairs across your cheek, and the texture beneath them.

He wants to draw your face, but he thinks drawing your hand and your shoes might have been too much without permission. He lets you sleep for a while, and then when he realises the heat is making him dizzy, he can't leave you there to bake.

He rips a sheet of paper out of his sketchbook and shoves the small book back into his pocket. The dock groans as he stands, and he casts a shadow over your face and upper torso.

"Hey," he says.

You flinch awake.

"Don't panic," he says, which is something a pervert might say, so he amends, "don't freak out, I'm just worried you're gonna cook your brains. I didn't want you to get sick."

You sit up. You look kinda cooked already, blinking and disoriented.

"You okay?"

You don't look up. "Yeah, I'm okay. Thank you for waking me up."

"Yeah, sure. Here."

He holds out the drawing of your hand. He doesn't think it's good, doesn't want you to see it, but he already did it. Giving it to you will ease his guilty conscience.

It's unlike Steve to bail, but he bails. Your fingers are barely brushing the paper when he's wiping his palms on his thighs and stepping away.

"Bye," he says, uncertain. "Try not to fall asleep again!"

—

It's not so weird. Sure, he'd made your fingers skinnier than they really are, and he made your shoelaces look like spaghetti, but they're good drawings.

You're trying to read a book in the corner of Benny's when he finds you a second time. He hovers, and you're not cool, you aren't, you're working with what you've got. Not many people skills.

“Hi,” he says.

"They were good drawings," you say, in lieu of your own hello, thumbing at the pages of your book all full of jumpy nerves.

"Thank you, I'm… new to it. My best friend, she's– she's actually nicer than she should be about them, I can't lie. I was going to say she thinks I should be banned from picking up a pencil, because I wanted to make you laugh, but. She's nice when it matters."

You can't keep looking down, it wouldn't be polite. You dog ear your paperback and let it lie against the tabletop, greasy to touch but you doubt it'll make a difference. The book is old and had cost you 50 cents at Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler's yard sale.

He's tall. Hair falls around his face and curls gently against his cheeks, a sandy brown. He's wearing a hat. He hadn't been wearing one the day he'd given you his drawings, but you can understand why he needs it. The sun is an inescapable force: sun stroke has half the town down for the count. The whole reason that you're in Benny's is because it's air-conditioned and shady.

"Do you want to come and eat with me and my friends?"

You say no automatically. "No, that's okay. I don't wanna," —you don't know what to say, so your voice hikes up awkwardly— "impose."

"You don't have to, but if you want to, you're not imposing." He twists at the waist and nods to a booth across the room, where a boy and girl sit. When they see you seeing them they look away. "Sorry, they're dorks. There's usually more of us, but Jon's in work and Nancy's in Emerson, so…" He seizes up.

You wonder why people are so afraid of being awkward. It terrifies you, to think one day you'll fuck up and be awkward and the other person will remember it and laugh, but looking at him now, you can't see why it matters. It actually makes you feel better, knowing he's worried too.

"I only brought enough for the milkshake," you say.

"I'll get you something."

"That's– no, that's okay."

He hesitates. "You'd be doing me a favour. I love them, really, but I can't stand it when they're together, they bully me."

It would probably be worse to reject his offer and sit here lonely while they laugh and talk. You'll worry they're talking about you.

"Okay," you mumble, picking up your book and your milkshake.

He grins at you and you follow him through the diner. It's not busy today, but there's still feet to fall over and backpack straps to tread on, so you watch the floor.

"My name is Steve, by the way."

You tell him your own name, which brings another quick smile to his face. He slows as he approaches the booth of his friends and beckons for you to slide into the empty side before following you in.

"Guys, this is– Eddie, what the fuck is that? We said no gross shit at the table."

"This, my friend," Eddie says, words rolling around his mouth grandly, "is a monster."

It's a little man made of coffee stirrers, sporks, and chewing gum seams. It's kind of gross, but it's cute. Grossly cute and cutely gross.

"We're about to eat."

"You're stepping on his artistic licence," says the girl, her voice distinctly pretty and a tiny bit hoarse.

"Disgusting," Steve says.

You shift on the leather chair underneath you and anxiety pulses in the bottom of your stomach. They're ignoring you, but not really. Both have lifted their eyes to look at you, and, in sync, they smile. The girl's smile is startling, lip gloss lips and white teeth. Eddie's is softer, less happy and more reassuring.

"I'm Eddie," Eddie says, though you'd figured it out. "That's Robin. Do you think my monster is gross in the gross way or gross in the sick way?"

"He's cute," you admit to thinking. "But the gum…"

"I didn't have any glue."

"Steve told us about his drawings. If he's holding you hostage right now, blink three times, okay?" Robin jokes.

Eddie and Robin lean their shoulders together and start a bit where they count your blinks. There's murmurings about shelters and how they can definitely throat punch Steve hard enough to make him mute. You're stunned at being the object of a joke and don't know how to react, feeling like you've been whacked and now there's cartoon birds flying around your head and they can all see them.

Steve grabs the menus out of the rack and slaps one down in front of everybody. "Alright, team. You know the drill. Last person to choose what they want has to buy drinks." He spares you a glance. "Except you. She's on me because hostages don't pay for themselves."

"I would make such a pretty hostage," Eddie says.

He is pretty, in fairness. Dark curls thick with baby hairs frizzed up in the summer heat frame a pale face. He has big brown eyes.

“And talented,” Robin adds, poking the gum man until he falls flat on his face. The head pops off and Eddie shrieks, not loudly but with a passionate upset about him that makes you laugh.

Steve leans over. “Please choose quickly so I don’t have to pay for Robin's lemonade addiction. No pressure.”

“I’ll just have what you have.”

“With a coke?”

“Sure.”

“Robin?” he asks.

“I want a cheeseburger with a lemonade and then, if you will, another lemonade.”

She dumps her menu in Eddie’s lap, who looks up from his decapitated figure with a look of defeat.

“Wh- hey, she cheated. She hurt my dude.”

“Rules are rules.”

Eddie sulks and accepts everybody’s money. He slinks up to the window like an annoyed cat. After he’s placed the order, he looks back to the table and flips the bird covertly.

“So, how old are you?” Robin asks.

“Twenty two.”

“How’s that?” she asks sympathetically.

“Robin.” Steve chides. “She’s twenty so she thinks she’s a baby.”

“I am a baby. This is my first year not being a teen, which means it’s my first year as an adult. I’m one.”

“We have this argument a lot,” Steve says, though not with any bravado. Simple explanation, his voice soft and warm. “When being an adult actually begins. It’s not the adult part that even matters, it’s the not having rules that fucks people up. Look at Eddie. He’s been out of school for a year and he’s been arrested three times.”

You frown, not because his getting arrested would bother you (depending on the charge), but because you’re surprised, and surprise is quick to appear as anger on your face. His shirt and rockstar rings, his nice smile, his gum man — you’d assumed he was a huge nerd. His arrests are a surprise.

“What for?” you ask, before you can remind yourself that invasive questions are rude.

“Once for indecent exposure– completely accidental. Once for trespassing, and the last time was because he chained himself to a tree outside of Tawny’s bar. They weren’t cutting the tree down,” Steve says. “He, and I quote, wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”

“Don’t give away my RAP sheet when I’m not here,” Eddie says, placing a tray of drinks on the table carefully. Three cokes and two lemonades.

“It’s not a RAP sheet if you don’t actually get in trouble. They let him off ‘cause they know his uncle. And also ‘cause it’s Hawkins.” Robin slides her slice of lemon between her teeth, shepherding her two lemonades as far away from everybody as she can, looking extremely hedgy. “I’s a bitch sheet.”

Eddie feigns for her second lemon slice and snickers when Robin defends it, elbowing him hard in the ribs.

“I paid for it!” he says through laughs.

Your hands start to shake. You hide them under the lip of the table but it’s no use. Soon your legs are shaking, your arms, all of you. They’re minute tremors, both invisible and impossible to ignore. You glue a smile to your face and try to calm down. You’re overwhelmed and you don’t know why — this isn’t a new feeling. You are not the first person to feel this feeling.

Then why does it feel like it?

Sometimes, everything gets so scary so quickly, and you sit there wondering why it isn’t scary for everybody else, and you wonder why they can’t see it on your face how scared you are, and they must see it? They must know you’re fucked.

You’re shot with thoughts. These people, you could be friends. All you have to do is make a good impression. But how should you go about that? How do you talk? What do you say?

“I draw too,” you say, hands clamped between your knees.

Steve’s eyebrows do this little dance. It’s adorable, and it makes you want to be his friend most of all.

“You do?”

“I do. I’m not good, I mean. I used to be better. I’m out of practice.”

“I draw,” Eddie says.

“Yeah?”

He nods. “Jonathan, too. God, you should see his shit. And he’s an even better photographer. But I draw shitty zine comics. And Robin does the typesetting for me.”

“Oh, wow,” you say genuinely.

“Nancy writes,” Robin says. “So we’re, like, a jerk circle of artists. She’s good, too.”

“She’s good,” Eddie imitates fondly. “I bet she is. Robin’s gonna be a great writer as well, once she gets all these private Nancy lessons.”

Steve puts a hand up and Eddie promptly shuts up. He takes a big, sheepish slurp of coke and you feel like you’ve said something wrong though you barely said anything at all, sipping at your own coke.

“What are you reading?” Robin asks.

You slide the book toward her so she can see for herself. “The Sea, The Sea,” you tell her. “It’s about, uh,” —you’ve only managed to read the first thirty pages, and that’s after reading the first ten five times straight— “this guy named Charles, he’s unique. He’s uh, annoying.”

“You know, Nancy used to have a book that looked just like that,” Steve says.

You laugh weakly. “It must be popular. I got it at a yard sale.”

“Can I open it?” Robin asks.

“Of course. It’s already pretty beat up, I don’t think there’s anything you could do—“

Robin opens the book with one hand, thumb and pinky fingertip pressed to either side, and tries to take a sip of her drink without looking, tipping her glass of lemonade straight into the pages of The Sea, The Sea. What doesn’t get soaked up by your book rushes down the length of the table and into her lap.

Steve reaches across the table to grab up the glass, but the damage is already done. Your lips part. Eddie gawps, throwing a hand over his slack-jawed face.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” she says, looking at you with wide eyes. “I have the worst case of butterfingers ever, I’m sorry.”

It’s as if she can’t believe she did it. You fluster when you realise they’re all waiting for your reaction.

“It’s okay!” you say, as loud as you’ve ever spoken in public.

“You can be mad,” Steve assures you.

“No, it was an accident. I’m not mad, it cost fifty cents, and it was totally garbage anyway. I’m really not mad.”

Eddie stuffs napkins under the table and Robin shivers uncontrollably, dishing ice cubes from her lap and the seat. Steve, laughing now, says, “God dammit, Robs,” sounding like she might be the most golden person on the planet.

—

Steve works his hat over your hair the best that he can. “There. Now you won’t die from heat stroke.”

You bring both hands to the hat to encourage it down onto your head. “Steve,” you say, sounding unsure on how to continue.

“It’s on loan.”

You nod and look out over the lake, where Eddie stands at the edge of the dock. "It's getting way too fucking cold for this," he complains, in swim shorts and a shirt, gazing in distrust at the lake’s shimmering surface.

Lake is kind. It is technically a lake, but also technically a really, very pathetic lake that feeds from a pathetic tributary. If you stationed Steve on one side and you the other, he would strain to hear you talking. Likely infected with brain eating amoeba or tadpoles or leeches. Slimy things. It’s less disgusting than Lover’s Lake, a condom cesspit, so that’s a plus.

You aren’t looking any more eager about jumping in than you had been, thighs naked and kissed by the hem of an oversized, black t-shirt. It’s wrinkled. Steve kind of loves it.

"Just jump in, you big babies," Robin says.

She'd already jumped in, screamed at the cold, and now languishes in the chest height water in front of the small fishing dock with a smug smile on her face. "Not you," she says to you. Steve rolls his eyes.

You shake your head, hair slipping out of the hat. You sigh as you pull it off and readjust the sizing band.

"I guess I am being a baby,” you say to him quietly. “The sun’s been out all day, how cold can it be?” You’re not feeling confident. It seeps into your voice, to which Steve lends a placating smile.

"Really fucking cold."

"Eddie, shut up. Y/N, it's fine. You'll like it."

“I really don’t think she’ll like it.”

Steve doesn’t either, but he wants you to feel included, and less tense. Distract you from whatever it is that’s giving you such a big case of the frownies, and prove he and his friends aren’t just book-ruining hooligans.

Eddie finally jumps in over Robin’s head, disappearing into the not quite blue water with a cut-off curse. He appears again a few seconds later, black hair slicked to his face, neck and shoulders, wiping the water from his eyes as he splutters and giggles boyishly.

“Shit, Stevie,” he says. “Not that cold after all.”

“You don’t have to jump in, you can just ease off the dock, if that’s better,” Steve says.

“Frogspawn,” you murmur.

Steve does a bunch of flexing, throws in a jumping jack for good measure. “Alright,” he says, holding out his hand. “Let’s go.”

You shake your head gently.

Steve doesn’t wanna embarrass you further, or insist when you really don’t want to, so he nods and smiles and takes a running jump into the lake. Robin and Eddie both swear and dart away as his body collides with the surface of the water, and he sinks like a well-practised stone to near enough the lake bed, feet gracing slippery pond weed and things he’d rather not think about. The air shatters out of his lungs and the water, despite the summer sun, is cold. It feels amazing — he hadn’t realised how warm he was until the temperature abruptly shifted.

He rushes back up to the surface and shakes his hair out like a dog, water running down his face and shoulders in fast thick rivulets. He peels his eyes open and turns to find you still hesitating on the dock. Robin splashes at Steve in retaliation for his hair splatters and Eddie laughs evilly as he joins in.

“Come on!” he begs you. “I told you, they bully me! I need back up!”

You toss his hat on the dock. The jump you take into the lake is timid but enough to miss the frogspawn and not break your legs, a cold splash of water and you’re there. Luckily, your presence has Robin and Eddie both stopping in their cruel tracks, and you don’t have to save Steve after all.

Your happy laughter is stunning.

"It's so cold!" you squeal, water in your eyelashes.

Eddie takes one of your hands and together the four of your tread into deeper water.

"Now that all who can be present are present," he says, falling into his dungeon master drawl, "it's time we commence the The Tournament. Swimmers, take your stations."

Everyone falls into line. You don't know what you're falling into line for, raising your timid voice to ask, "What's the game?"

"The game is me and you dunk the ever-loving out of dumb and dumber," he says.

"Hey, what?" Robin asks. "How come you get her? She's a total wild card, she might win the game all by herself."

"Or she might really suck. We don't know, and so in the interest of fairness, I propose she swims with me." Eddie's wet sleeve sticks to your skin as he nudges you. "But you don't suck, do you?"

"Um…"

"Attagirl. On your marks, get set, go!"

You spend an hour like that. Steve and Co, they're stupid, but they aren't stupid stupid. The Tournament is a series of chasing and dunking (stupid but fun) wherein you get to throw yourself on the shoulders of the person you're chasing and submerge them (stupid again). You can't hold them down, though, they aren't trying to drown one another. Much.

The sun regretfully starts to set. If it's anything like the last few days, that means it's likely near 10PM, and they're all working tomorrow.

"Do you have work tomorrow?" Steve asks in concern, after he's heaved himself up onto one of the huge stones on the opposite side of the lake.

Cattails obscure you from view on your own stone. Across the lake, your possessions lay thankfully unscathed on the dock. Robin sits as close as she can to Steve on his rock, kicking water at Eddie every time he tries to approach.

"You fucking rat," he fumes, mouth full of lake water.

"I'm not really working right now,” you say.

"Do you need a job?" Eddie asks. "They're hiring— Harrington, restrain your creature! They're hiring at the Palace Arcade, aren't they?"

Steve nods voraciously. "Yeah! Hey, we can get you an interview no problem, they probably won't even ask you that many questions. I mean, Keith worked there."

"Don't be mean about Keith," Robin says, though she doesn't really like him. He thinks it's akin to defending your deadbeat older brother.

"I don't know, I think even a couple of questions might be too many," you worry.

"How come?"

You pull the fluff off of a cat tail, and it explodes in your hands. Steve yanks one down to do the same, watching the fibres float across the lake's disturbed surface with a cool breeze. Robin shivers beside him, sensitive to the cold in her wet clothes, the adrenaline of swimming and almost but not really dying wearing off.

"I'm bad at stuff like that."

"I don't think anyone's good at interviews at our age," Eddie says, nose wrinkled as cat tail floats toward him. "We're, like, babies."

"I always feel like I'm really old," you confess. You look down at your naked knees. "Like I wasted all the good years already."

"What, school?"

"And the four years since," you say.

Steve gets it, in a way. His high school years sucked, and he'd maybe thought he'd get out of Hawkins on a track or swim scholarship, basketball — anything. But he's here still, and at first that hadn't been what he wanted. Sure, he'd expected it, but in different ways.

Steve pushes back the cattails to see you clearly. "I didn't even get any real good years until just now," he says, as kindly as he can.

"I failed senior year twice," Eddie speaks up, "I kinda thought I was wasting my life too, but if I didn't, I wouldn't even know Robin, and she's, like, my best friend."

He throws his hands over his face before Steve can kick a huge wave of lake water into his eyes. "Get your own," Steve fumes. He's not really mad.

"Yeah, these are the good years," Robin says, "probably. I never had guys fighting over me in high school." She laughs and tucks her wet hair behind her ears, her freckled cheeks pale in the oranging light of the sunset.

You hold your hands out for Eddie and he finally climbs onto one of the rocks. From this side of the lake, you can watch the sun set behind the silhouettes of Hawkins town a half mile away. It dips slowly down, meandering almost, a pearl sinking through layers of raspberry pink and orange and, as Steve holds his breath, that sudden flash of electric green.

"I'm blind," Eddie mumbles, falling back into the rocks and grass.

"Shit, that was cool." Robin stands up and stretches. "I'm so cold I'm gonna die right here. Steve, do you still have a blanket in your car?"

Steve looks over at you again. You look shell-shocked, not quite awed. He doesn't know what emotion you're feeling, only that you're feeling it, eyes wide and set across the lake at the darkened sky, lights from the buildings like stars shimmering in your pupils.

He stands up and offers his hand to you. When you take it, he pulls you up without hesitation, not a flicker of doubt or an ounce of struggle.

"I'll get you that interview," he says, questioning, soft. If you want it. 

Your fingers linger in his palm.

"Yeah, okay. Thank you."

"Come on!" Robin says, taking your other hand and tugging without apology, barefoot over the asphalt path surrounding the lake. "Before the gnats come out."

"We might see fireflies if we stick around," Eddie says.

They bicker. Steve lets go of your hand and you and Robin walk just ahead, your head bobbing between his two arguing friends like you're watching a quickfire tennis match.

You turn to the side and hide a smile. Steve sees it, and he figures it's a start.

"Munson," he hollers, "how about you stay and watch the fireflies and you tell us all about it? Me and the girls aren't gonna freeze out here so you can get back in touch with nature."

It's a bad joke, but it works. "Fuck you, Harrington. The ladies wanna see the lightning bugs, don't you?"

"I can't remember the last time I saw them," you say.

"Then we have to stay," Eddie says smugly.

You all crowd the back of Steve's car, the heaters on but not doing a lot, the blanket stretched over Robin's shoulders. She tucks it behind your back, and you all look out to the night and scout for bugs.

"There," you whisper, pointing.

Green dots of light rise from the dry grass like tiny lanterns, a handful at a time.

"Jonathan's gonna be sad he missed this," Robin murmurs.

You try to count them all. Four voices whispering bets into the night air, though the real number isn't possible to calculate. "Winner gets a new paperback on Robin," Eddie jokes, swiftly quietened by a barrage of elbows to his side.

They let you win.

[chappell-roans]

what's your favorite streaming platform by original content kyra?

okay i've been sitting on this one for like days because i've been trying to decide lol it's hard because i think it's fantastic that apple tv+ does theatrical runs and from all accounts i've heard, has amazing originals! but i'm eliminating that because i haven't meaningfully used the platform before, but it gets a little gold star from afar.

i've watched a decent amount of netflix originals and god. some things i've loved but there's such a vast abyss between high and low quality stuff it's wild. i also hate The Netflix Look (do you know what i mean?) so that makes it hard lol. but they have so much there's always something to watch, even though it's often trashy.

hulu has some very good originals actually and puts effort and quality in and some of their movies and shows both have been v good but nothing i absolutely Love.

i think i have to say prime video. i like a lot of their shows and especially movies, they tend to distribute content and not produce it though, so that's part of it.

(hbo) max is hard too bc some of it is soooooo quality but it isn't necessarily their streaming originals but their hbo series. which technically isn't the same thing.

see this is why i have so many streamers infldakmd

but to be quite honest i watch mostly just shows that aired on networks or premium cable, or limited series. but mostly movies and usually not streaming originals. i tend to like watching anything from idk 1905-2024 so isdkml

[veritymysticmagic]

Squeeenix vent post thingy

Ok this is just a ah let me complain sorta post about how bad Square Enix is. I'm sure this will just piss of all the Square Enix fanboys lol

Now I will say every game dev has problems. Some more than others (I'm looking at you Atlus) but seriously Square Enix has soooooo many and it feels that alot of people, news outlets included, bend over backwards and do back flips to defend the studio.

They don't need your money and honestly they are the AAA game you're complaining about.

This list may change as I gather more info or hear more bs

Enix has stated several times that NFT gaming is the future, like you have to purchase your game as an NFT?? Like in an era where cloud services are trying to not let you own the game (DRM free discussion is a whole other thing) Square Enix is literally going full into it.

GOD AWFUL PORTS. For every one good port they have there are like four god awful ones. Remember the FF mobile ports? They were literally the best ports until the more recent remake ones. Secret of Mana? Awful port. Oh can we get a remaster of Chrono Trigger? Nah. (aside but Nintendo spearheading the remaster of Mario RPG was a very wise decision because Nintendo has a much better track record with remasters)

Pandering to "fanboys" by adding and CHANGING Cloud and Sephiroth in EVERYTHING. I get it FF7 is a very magical game. It was one of the first jrpgs I ever played back on the original PC (a story for another time) but the changes they did to Cloud to make him more edgy and appealing is just gross. Now they are making a Sephiroth game which ok but... it really weakens him as the main villain idk. Also the lack of anything for their other games really sucks. Which leads to the next point...

An immediate reversal of an old studio decision that coincides with what I think is the steady decline of the FF series. (my source here is Final Fantasy Union on youtube - great vids btw) Originally the rule was that no game story should be reused in another product ie. no side games. The reasoning was to ensure each game was its own product and not riding on what the fans want. This was until that developer left after the development of FFX. Once he left they immediately made X-2 a side game. Literally pandering to the fans. Yes this led to a better Final Fantasy movie in Advent Children (as opposed to The Spirits Within) but I honestly think this is the turning point of the FF games going into decline. Yes while 14 is considered incredibly amazing and yes it is good, the rest I feel have departed further and further from the original 10 FF games. This goes on to my next point

(eh may not be a negative) The change in Final Fantasy going from turn based JRPG to action based JRPG to just trashing that style and going straight into the DMC studio's style of game - ie Final Fantasy 16. I am of the opinion that the action based JRPG is not great as it tries to be two different systems at once. Yes Xenoblade does a great job of this but it may just be one of the few outliers. This has not been a JRPG style that has led to a lot of great games - if anything it feels like a one or two series and done sorta mechanic. And to the FF team's credit they immediately jumped away from it for FF16. What I don't like is that it kinda removes FF from its identity. Though this may be seen as a positive instead of a negative

Cloud Save PC ports. I am so sorry Kingdom Hearts 3 you don't deserve it. Speaking of Kingdom Hearts

Purposefully confusing story so that you buy more low effort media related to said story. Kingdom Hearts, FF 15, FF13, etc. etc. All of these games have purposefully confusing lore so that you want to buy more media to get more info. And usually this media is in the form of quick games, web books, dlc, and so on. Whether or not this extra media means anything or is any good is questionable and are usually only purchased by the die hards.

RELEASING AN INCOMPLETE GAME. Ok seriously this is the meat and potatoes and it all revolves around Final Fantasy 7 Remake/Rebirth. Yes that game. Yes the game that we have waited DECADES for. And I being a fan of the original Final Fantasy 7, I who went through the streets of Midgar and saw Jenova for the first time - was utterly disappointed. A game with that much anticipation and yet it was split into a TRILOGY to milk it for all its worth. As of right now what we have in FF7 Remake is just the first half of DISC 1 OF 3 from the original game. And yet this is ok? Its ok to remaster a game and not release the whole thing?? And it hasn't been a short wait. It has been 4 YEARS FOR THE SECOND TRILOGY GAME. Based on this that means we will need to wait 8 YEARS TO GET A GAME THAT IS ESENTIALLY A SUPER REMAKE. And honestly it did not get all things right. My greatest disappointment in the game is the change in how Jenova was presented to us. It is a shocking scene in the original game and to be honest it influences me as a writer to this day - it is completely stripped from FF7 Remake. Now you could say oh but Remake is a complete game, and Rebirth is a full other game. Its long enough to be considered a full game. But just the fact that it is a known and anticipated remake but not the full game disappoints me - and the fans who are waiting for the full game to just come out at a discounted price (btw this is exactly what happened when Kingdom Hearts came out as a pack deal). Meanwhile the fans who want the game at release are paying at least $60 x3 to get this game. That's a $180 game split into three. I bet the instant the whole game is released it will be in a pack deal for $80 and get even lower due to Steam sales. Also hilarious that they had to remaster a remaster by adding an interlude (FF 7 Remake Intergrade)

Now not everything at Square Enix is bad. Actually they did make some decent decisions such as

Leaving Dragon Quest TF ALONE. Unlike Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest does not have the issue of too many pander-y side games. Infact they have a great legacy of side games that are just solid (DQ Monsters, etc.)

Decent support but also not enough advertisement of their other IPs - They have alot of IPs that just fade into obscurity despite being good (Octopath Traveler, SaGa, the latter Life is Strange games) However these IPs suffer from poor ports or poor optimization (mentioned above under ports)

[minuitfeu]

Have some high(er) fantasy birds, horrible faves, a very, very lovely boy and the best spider boy that are for an au of mine

[udunie]

Mmmm, rapid pregnancies are quite something! Now that I think about it, wolf pregnancies are rather short AND they have multiples. Cue Stiles with a huge squirming belly with horrendous stretchmarks, unable to stand up because of his rapidly spreading pelvis. Luckily for him, he's going to be bred again and again with no breaks between pregnancies, so once his body is up to the task it is never going to get the chance to change back. Not until the pack gets all the pups they want out of him... And once they do, they might lend him out to other packs. It would be a waste to not use such an excellent breeder to his full potential! Why, he can give birth to four litters a year and has a good twenty years of non-stop breeding in him. Though once in a while they actually try to give him a break... but it never lasts long before he starts presenting and begging to be bred again. After a few litters he simply can't bear being alone in his body.

Ooooh you know what? Maybe there's actually a really low percentage of born wolves? Like, even if both parents are werewolves, if they have a kid, there's only a 20% chance that the baby will be a werewolf.

So! To counterweight this, they can create these 'breeders' who have the opposite, 80% chance to carry werebabies. (Lets say breeders are made from humans with some horrible magic 😈)

So, whenever Stiles is fucked, he has 20% chance that it's a regular, human pregnancy that will last the regular 9 months etc, and he has an 80% chance that he is carrying multiple wolf pups (let's say werewolves are born in wolf form) with a two month pregnancy that ends up just as large as a human one eheheheh

And, let's say the magical creation/upkeep of breeders is pretty hard, which means that

a) the Hales are making damn sure that they get the most for their efforts and use Stiles as much as possible

b) only large, established packs are able to keep a breeder, and smaller packs have to pay them to surrogate

Stiles has soooooo many babies, he is almost constantly fucked up from it, and he is also torn, cause a human pregnancy? Much more manageable up until birth, but the birth? So much easier with the pups...

[porschekittisawasds]

do you by chance have any 911 fic recs? :)

okay so i actually don't read a ton of 911 fic and im reaaaally bad about bookmarking the ones i do, so you can definitely find rec lists that are way better but here are the ones i do have bookmarked

Leading with the Left

When Buck said he was a "bartender" in "South America" what he actually meant was "stripper" in "Mexico."

And when Eddie said, "What's your problem?" what he actually meant was, "Is this about the time you gave me a lap dance?"

In other words, there's a few things the 118 doesn't know about Buck. Or Eddie. Or Buck and Eddie's relationship.

note: buck and eddie meet a few years pre canon and spend a week hooking up and falling for each other. then they don't see each other again until eddie joins the 118. soooooo good.

I Hit the Accelerator (But the Car was in Reverse)

When Buck is forced to confront the truth about his breakup with Abby, having casual sex with his hot new coworker seems like the best rebound idea.

Unfortunately, that hot new coworker turns into his best friend. But best friends can keep having sex with each other, right?

There's no way this could possibly go wrong.

note: basically everything's the same except buck and eddie start hooking up on day one. it's by the same authors as above and it's also amazing.

Leave the Light on (I'll Be Coming Home)

An accident on a call leaves Buck with custody of Chris after Eddie is... missing presumed. While they navigate their new family circumstances -- and fight to stay together, despite Eddie's parents' best efforts -- a John Doe wakes up in a coma ward with no memory of his own life beyond the knowledge he has a son named Christopher and, somehow, he needs to get home.

note: hoooooly shit okay. i read this for the first time a few weeks ago and it quickly became one of my favorites. eddie goes missing during an accident on a call and is presumed dead, so buck gets custody of christopher. while they're struggling to adjust to their new normal, eddie wakes up from a coma in a hospital hours away with no memory of who he is. cue the insane levels of angst as buck adjusts to his new role as a parent while simultaneously grieving for eddie and trying to prevent eddie's parents from taking chris and as eddie spends months desperately trying to figure out who he is because he knows by the literal physical ache in his chest that he has people who need him waiting for him back home even if he doesn't know who they are. i stayed up until like 5 am reading this because i couldn't not finish it all in one sitting.

Frequent Flyer

In his entire time being a firefighter, Eddie has never met anyone as accident-prone as Evan Buckley. And Buck - well, he's quickly becoming the 118's best customer.

(Or - the one where Eddie is a firefighter, Buck isn't, and Eddie finds himself rescuing Buck from increasingly sticky situations. Sometimes literally.)

note: buck isn't a firefighter, but he is the most accident prone person on the planet so he meets the 118 anyway. simultaneously hilarious and very, very sweet. i've only read this first one, but i'm pretty sure there are three or four more fics in the series.

the distance to the stars

“Didn’t know you were seeing someone.”

Buck just laughs. Like, honest to god giggles. Eddie is stuck fighting off doubly massive waves of butterflies and confusion, all while Buck just gazes down at him.

“That’s cute,” he hears Buck mumble, just before climbing into the truck, calling Eddie after him.

or, everyone knows eddie is dating buck except for eddie, literally.

note: buck asks eddie out when eddie isn't fully paying attention to the convo so they start dating but eddie just... doesn't really notice LMAO.

texan love song

In which Buck, Eddie and Hen road trip to Texas to fight a wildfire, and big feelings are revealed.

note: eddie and buck start dating pre-season 4 but they're keeping it way on the down low. then they go to texas. i absolutely love this fic. they're both so in character you can almost forget this isn't how the ep actually went down.

fire on fire

"You’re sleeping with him.”

“I’m not—” Eddie rolls his eyes and corrects himself halfway through. “I’m not sleeping with him like that, okay?”

Sophia looks at him for a long moment as her gaze turns from teasing to thoughtful.

“But you want to be. Right?”

[Or: Buck and Eddie get in the habit of sharing a bed while living together during quarantine. It's platonic until it isn't.]

note: not-actually-platonic platonic bed sharing is my bread and butter. it haunts me that we don't know exactly how quarantine went down in the show.

anyway i've definitely read more fics than this but like i said im bad about bookmarking so i recommend going into my /ficrec tag because i know there are more there. most of the authors of the above fics have written a lot for the fandom so read their other works as well.

also i've written a few 911 fics myself and i'm gonna shamelessly link them right here