#notcrypticbutcoy

[ladymatt]

Chapters: 4/4 Fandom: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Alec Lightwood & Jace Herondale Additional Tags: Time Travel, Gay Panic, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, implied suicidal thoughts, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm  

Summary:

Jace froze. His parabatai rune burned white-hot, but he hardly felt it. It was easy to forget what people looked like, long ago, but the image of the boy in front of him was unmistakable, even with the emo fringe and the scowl. In fact, when combined with the defensive stance, hazel eyes, and still-healing cut through his left eyebrow, it made the whole thing more convincing.

“What the fuck.”   ***

Teenage Alec is magically poofed into the time of his forty-year-old self, and what he finds is really quite overwhelming. Especially the really hot guy he’s apparently married to.

Or: in which Teen Alec is very grumpy, Magnus thinks he’s very cute, and Adult Alec is Tired™.

Bravo @notcrypticbutcoy  🧡 👏

[shadowhuntersficrecs]

Chapters: 2/2 Fandom: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood Additional Tags: Christmas, Alternate Universe - Medical, Getting Together, Fluff Series: Part 8 of All I Want For Christmas Is You Summary:

“How can you not like Christmas?” Magnus demanded, outraged. “That’s like not liking pizza!”

Alec shrugged. “Take it or leave it.”

Magnus gaped at him. “What?”

“I don’t like Christmas,” Alec repeated, finally looking up from scrolling through notes on the computer. “Is that a problem?”

***

Alec - the hot, emotionally unavailable paediatrics attending with a jawline Magnus is frequently driven to distraction by - hates Christmas. Magnus thinks this is preposterous, and makes it his mission to prove to Alec that Christmas can be fun.

--

Fluffy Christmas goodness with Malec being absolutely adorable and hopelessly into each other while flirting via bickering. Perfect read for the holiday season!

( @notcrypticbutcoy )

[anotherlongstoryshort]

Thanks for the tag @jamiesfootball

Last song: https://open.spotify.com/track/2UCL6SpAhrvlEFvS0TbgNw?si=8bcf77544fc64c25

Currently watching: The Mentalist, most recently.

Three ships/dynamics: Roy/Jamie as per, my fave Malec writer (@notcrypticbutcoy) recently posted a new fic so very happily down that rabbit hole again, and the (platonic, familial) dynamic between Don and Charlie Eppes has been keeping me up at night.

Favourite colour: Blue, specifically Pantone 655.

Currently consuming: Chicken tikka and rice.

First ship: Also done that before so also changing it to Past Beloved Character: My Stiles Stilinski brainrot is due a resurgence. It comes around every 6-8 months.

Relationship status: Single.

Last movie: The Sound of Music

Currently working on: A gift fic for @altschmerzes centred on a hyper-specific The Mentalist/MacGyver Crossover AU.

Tagging if so inclined: @sighonaraa @catalogercas and those I've already mentioned.

[ayearofmalec]

Malec as Universe/Time Travelers 12

Today, we have a special story for you: It is "Flames to Embers" by @notcrypticbutcoy and the last chapter was uploaded today! So, it just got completed in time for us to post this!

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Summary:

Jace froze. His parabatai rune burned white-hot, but he hardly felt it. It was easy to forget what people looked like, long ago, but the image of the boy in front of him was unmistakable, even with the emo fringe and the scowl. In fact, when combined with the defensive stance, hazel eyes, and still-healing cut through his left eyebrow, it made the whole thing more convincing.

“What the fuck.”   ***

Teenage Alec is magically poofed into the time of his forty-year-old self, and what he finds is really quite overwhelming. Especially the really hot guy he’s apparently married to.

Or: in which Teen Alec is very grumpy, Magnus thinks he’s very cute, and Adult Alec is Tired™.

Link to the fic

Happy reading!

[michellemisfit]

Tag Game Tuesday: The MySpace Survey ⭐️

Thank you @suzy-queued, @gardenerian, @liamgallaghers, @energievie, @heymrspatel, and @creepkinginc for the tag. Reading all of your entries kept me occupied at work, which was much appreciated!

What’s your name? Michelle

Your sun sign: Pisces ♓️

The last song you listened to:

What are you wearing right now? I got home 3 hours ago, but I’m still in my work uniform, because I’m too tired to get changed. Woe. However I did put on fuzzy socks. And I took my bra off! Yay!!

How tall are you? 172cm (google says that’s 5 feet 7.717 inches)

Piercing? 6 (Ears & Lip. Used to have a tongue piercing but I just kinda got over it one morning, so I took it out.)

Tattoos? Yes. Many. Erm… 16 or so?

Glasses? Contacts? Had LASIK in 2012. Best money ever spent.

Last drink? Fizzy water.

Last thing you ate? Microwave lasagne. Again. I’m so tired!!

Favourite colour? Rainbow 🌈

Any pets? Two cats at home ��� 🐈‍⬛, A whole farm full of animals at work, including 13 brand new piglets as of this morning when the last squiggle was born.

Do you have a crush on anyone? Pretty much every fictional character I’ve ever met.

Favourite fictional character? Today? Arthur Pendragon.

A movie you think everyone should watch: The Last Unicorn.

A book you think everyone should read: Watership Down, Richard Adams

The last place you traveled: Cumbria

Something you’re looking forward to: SLEEEEEEEP. Also summer. Long days. Not being cold any more. Getting covered in freckles. Hell, right now even working at the farm, sweaty and covered in suncream, with straw sticking to all of me sounds appealing! I’m so done with the cold.

—

Tagging @whatthebodygraspsnot @deedala @notcrypticbutcoy @vintagelacerosette @katspace and @gallavichgeek

[malec-ao3feed]

Making Memories With Mistletoe

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/N0EBAcL by notcrypticbutcoy How was that even possible? How could Magnus’ soulmate be someone who didn’t believe in the concept? The universe had to be playing some kind of cosmic joke on him. *** When a mysterious and very attractive stranger walks into Magnus’ magic shop three weeks before Christmas, he doesn’t expect it to be his soulmate. Nor does he expect his soulmate to deny the entire concept of such a thing. Or: in which Magnus owns a magic shop, Alec doesn’t believe in soulmates, and the universe has a funny way of making things work out. Words: 5514, Chapters: 1/5, Language: English Series: Part 9 of All I Want For Christmas Is You Fandoms: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: Multi Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood Additional Tags: Background Clary Fray/Isabelle Lightwood, Christmas, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Magical Realism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Everyone is mortal, Enemies to Lovers, Sort Of read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/N0EBAcL

[notcrypticbutcoy]

“He looked like he’d swallowed his tongue and was trying very hard to recall how breathing worked. Alec could sympathise. Magnus was very pretty” ended me on the reread.

I love when you write Alec’s POV

Ahaha, that was in fact the moment that inspired the whole fic. It came from a throwaway line in the epilogue of fall without wings (yes, it does exist; no, it is not finished and is unlikely to see the light of day for a while; yes, of course it’s ridiculously long):

Magnus hums. “How would eighteen year old Alec have felt about me, do you think?”

Laughing, Alec drags his eyes slowly up Magnus’ figure and says, “I think he’d have swallowed his tongue trying to get a sentence out. I was very repressed, but not very practiced at it, back then.”

My brain immediately went !!! the second I’d written Alec’s line and decided to word-vomit 12k of fic in one go.

(For a bit of shameless self-promo, the fic being referred to is Flames to Embers)

[myulalie]

This artwork was created for the Shadowhunters Mini Bang 2021: Presented by the @malecdiscordserver.

The Road Not Taken (Looks Real Good Now) by notcrypticbutcoy.

I wouldn't know a Taylor Swift's lyric if it smacked me in the face, but maybe some of you will recognize the title @notcrypticbutcoy chose! Way too many characters for a tweet, that I know for sure :p

I was lucky to read the fic as @notcrypticbutcoy wrote it and got really inspired for the right side of this banner, so I'm glad I found the right pictures to make this visual come to life! Hopefully Lu likes it as much as I do!

Congratulations on completing this bang fic notcrypticbutcoy, and thank you. Collaborating with you was a delight! ♥

Credits

Harry Shum Jr Shirtless: Popsugar Matthew Daddario Photoshoot: Matthew Daddario Online Brown Rock Formation: Ashley Ibarra on Unsplash Swimming in the sea: @wreck on Tumblr

[bytheangell]

Hey! I hope you’re doing okay with everything! TDA question: I read book 1&2, but I found book 2 a bit long and slow going so I never got onto book 3. (Also I was most invested in Kit & Ty and I saw people saying things don’t go so well for them...) Is it worth a read, or should I just read the plot on SH wiki?! 💖

I’m doing alright, and I hope things are going well for you! <3 

Alright, so I feel that so hard. It took me longer than I want to admit to get through the first book because it took me longer to connect with the characters and get invested. But then I hit a point in book two... somewhere around/past halfway, toward the end, where I fell into a rhythm with the plot and characters and relationships and felt that drive to keep going and see how it all plays out. 

I guess it boils down to: there’s definitely more happening in the third book than the second, so it didn’t feel like it was dragging as much. But it is still very long, and there is a lot happening across all the varying characters and POVs, and I think being more invested in the whole cast than just waiting for a favorite or two to pop up definitely sways my opinion that it’s definitely worth reading! 

I was also very, very determined to get to the stuff about Thule because I knew about it vaguely and like the angst monster I am, needed to know more, and since that happens later in the book that was a nice motivator for a time as well. 

I really enjoy all the seelie and unseelie lore, and found myself heavily invested in Mark and Kieran and Cristina, so getting more of them was definitely a plus for me! I do also love Kit and Ty, and you get more of them and it’s interesting to see how their friendship develops. (Also Kit and Ty are going to have a series based around them at some point (2022?)! So while they may not have the ending you might want for them in TDA, if you’re invested in them you’ll probably want to finish it anyway so you’re ready for that when it comes out! Also I think knowing I was going to get more of them helped me be more okay with where they ended up in this series.) 

But by the third book I was properly invested in pretty much everyone to the point that even if the plot moved a bit slower at times, I cared enough about all the little branches of what was happening that it didn’t feel like I was just waiting to ‘get through’ one character’s POV just to get to one I liked more, I wanted to see them all. 

...that was more rambly than I meant for it to be. I guess the TL;DR is: I, personally, enjoyed the way it all wrapped up and think it’s worth the read, especially if it’s the only one you have left! it couldn’t hurt to give it a try and, if you can’t get into it in the end, fall back on the wiki strategy if you just want to know the main plot points! 

[ladymatt]

Chapters: 2/2 Fandom: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood Additional Tags: Christmas, Alternate Universe - Medical, Getting Together, Fluff Series: Part 8 of All I Want For Christmas Is You

Summary:

“How can you not like Christmas?” Magnus demanded, outraged. “That’s like not liking pizza!”

Alec shrugged. “Take it or leave it.”

Magnus gaped at him. “What?”

“I don’t like Christmas,” Alec repeated, finally looking up from scrolling through notes on the computer. “Is that a problem?”

***

Alec - the hot, emotionally unavailable paediatrics attending with a jawline Magnus is frequently driven to distraction by - hates Christmas. Magnus thinks this is preposterous, and makes it his mission to prove to Alec that Christmas can be fun.

@notcrypticbutcoy  This was ADORABLE - thanks for sharing! 💚

[chibi-tsukiko]

So I decided last night to start re-reading Fall Without Wings by @notcrypticbutcoy for like the 50th time cuz its just SO FREAKING GOOD!!!

& then I got to chapter 64 and got to the bottom of the page and realized that it was done....and now I’m sad. And I gotta start from the beginning all over again!

[mirrorofliterature]

Alec turns to look at him, and their eyes meet for the first time, and Magnus changes his mind. Alec Lightwood’s scars are still bleeding. Whatever wounds have been inflicted on him, they’re new, slashed open and raw and painful.

Or: here, suffer with me, in @notcrypticbutcoy‘s beautiful, tragic fic Our Forsaken Sins where Magnus succeeds in removing his memories of Alec.

[banesapothecary]

David x Patrick, 33 with the optional addition of 41 if the inspiration goes that way 💕

33. “I’d like to see you try.”

“Babe, your phone!” David called into the backroom. Patrick’s phone sat on the counter, buzzing as someone tried to call.

“Thanks,” Patrick said, resting a hand on David’s lower back as he stepped through the curtain and reached for the phone. “Hello?” he answered, slipping into the backroom again. “Oh, hey Dad,” David heard him say as a customer stepped into the shop. He smiled in greeting and stepped out from behind the counter to assist her.

David had just finished ringing up the sale when Patrick ended the call. He stepped up behind David and slid his arms around his waist. David hummed and leaned back into Patrick’s chest as his boyfriend hooked his chin over David’s shoulder.

“That was my dad,” Patrick said softly. “He invited us to go fishing with him this weekend.”

“Fishing?” David asked, not even bothering to hide the incredulity in his voice. “Does he really think I’m the fishing type?”

“Probably not,” Patrick snorted. “He just wants to get to know you better, and spend time with us. Plus, I’d like to see you try.” There wasn’t a challenge to his words, or anything remotely mocking, which surprised David. It was...genuine.

“Really?” he asked, turning to face his boyfriend. He wrapped his own arms around the back of Patrick’s neck.

“Yeah,” Patrick said, a glint in his eyes. “It would be quality entertainment, and just think of the blackmail material that would give me and Stevie.”

“Okay,” David scrunched up his nose. “So that’s a definite no on me fishing, then.”

Patrick laughed, eyes softening. “What if I told you we get to cook and eat whatever we catch?”

David hummed, closing his eyes as he thought. “What if I came but just sat in the boat and observed?”

“Deal,” Patrick said, leaning in for a kiss only to be interrupted by the chime of the door.

send me a number!

[ayearofmalec]

Malec as friends to lovers #15

Today we have the Amazing Hopelessly Devoted to You by notcrypticbutcoy.

Rating: explicit

Summary: When Magnus Bane walks into Alec’s third grade classroom, a scowl printed on his face and a permanent chip on his shoulder, Alec has no idea that, one day, this scrawny smart-ass will mean the world to him.

He has even less idea that he’ll mean just as much to Magnus.

In which Magnus and Alec are destined for each other, everyone around them can see it, and sometimes, love is found in the most unexpected places.

(Childhood best friends to lovers AU, set over fifteen years.)

Link to fic

We hope you all enjoy the story, and feel free to let us know what you think!

Happy reading!

[ninwrites]

tell me it’s love that i’m feeling

Pairing: Helen Blackthorn/Aline Penhallow

Words: 2610

Summary: helen and aline make the most of their last winter together. 

read on ao3 or below the cut xx 

  “I hate this.”

Aline wrapped the scarf that Helen had knitted her for Christmas around her neck, her fingers trailing along the smooth wool. “I had no idea. In fact, this is the first time you’ve ever mentioned it.”

Helen pouted, trying to fold her arms against her chest, only for the bulk of her winter coat to restrict her movement. “I wouldn’t have to mention it if you didn’t keep making me join you.”

“I would never make you do anything.” Aline pointed out. “I asked if you wanted to come, and you said yes. It’s not my fault that you forgot you hated the cold.”

Helen glanced down at her snow boots, despite the fact there’d barely been a flutter since the morning. “Yeah. Guess I’ll know better than to forget that, again.”

Aline frowned, tugging on her favourite gloves, a soft, rosy pink that is only a few shades off her scarf - they were a temporary stakeholder until Helen was able to figure out how to make gloves herself, her last few attempts not quite working out the way she wanted.

(Aline had tried to tell her that it didn’t matter much to her, the thought already meant the world, but Helen insisted that it had to be perfect, and Aline hadn’t been able to speak over the butterflies in her throat.)

“Hey, are you okay? We really don’t have to go through with this if you don’t want to.”

Helen quickly shook her head, though her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I made a promise. I’m not going to break that.”

“If you’re sure…”

Helen reached out, and Aline felt the touch even through the barriers their gloves made. “There’s nothing else I’d rather do, okay?”

Aline wasn’t sure that was true, but then, she didn’t really feel like doing much without Helen, and any way she could keep Helen by her side was an opportunity she wasn’t stupid enough to pass on.

“Okay.”

Aline had always loved the cold.

There was something enchanting about it all - the sky looked clearer without the sun’s intense rays bearing down; when it rained, it filled the air with beautiful petrichor, and the soothing soft patter of raindrops; when it snowed, it was like watching magic in real time, the pretty snowflakes with their own unique designs, and the way it blanketed the ground and the trees and the roofs of houses, sparkling white under the morning sun.

Helen had always hated the cold. For as long as Aline could remember - and they’d been neighbours since they were six - Helen had complained about it all, the chilly air and the raging thunderstorms and the pesky rain and the way she always got stuck in the snow whenever she tried to leave the house.

Helen adored the summer so much that she held a party as soon as it got warm enough for her to wear dresses without a jacket just in case, although they’ve evolved from fairy cakes and fruit punch to lounging on the grass on beach towels and sipping champagne with their parents sly permission, champagne that they pretended to like because it made them feel cool, especially when they slipped cut strawberries in the glasses just to make the drink fizzle; to inviting their closest friends around to laugh over cheap pizza and two litre soda bottles, pretending they weren’t trying to recapture the youth quickly running from them.

They’d all be off at different colleges soon, Helen to UCLA to study Psychology, Aline to study Political Science (perhaps by the end of it, they’ll be able to come together to figure out what really makes Jia Penhallow tick.) This was the last winter they’d probably get to share together for a long, long time, and Aline wanted to soak it up as much as she could.

Because, yeah, Aline loved the cold. But she kind of loved Helen more.

Not that she’d ever been able to tell Helen this. Somewhere between thinking that her hair looked golden under sunlight and not wanting to spend even a day apart, Aline had fallen for her best friend, and she hadn’t been able to find a way to get back up since. Nor had she been able to find the right time to admit it, because there was always something in the way; new step-siblings for Helen, a forced summer internship for Aline, exams and senior year and crippling finals and their impending future looming over the horizon threatening to split them apart-

Helen was the best thing in Aline’s life, and maybe it made her a coward to keep her feelings a secret, but that was something she was willing to do - she’d do anything, if it meant she got to keep her best friend for as long as they both had left.

Once they went to college, whether they liked it or not, everything was going to change. This was their last winter, their last chance to just be themselves, stable and unchanged and together. Aline just wanted to make the most of it.

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Helen.” Aline tugged on Helen’s hands, walking backwards despite the increasingly alarmed look in Helen’s eyes. “Trust me, okay? I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”

Helen didn’t look convinced. “I’m a little more worried about the possibility that you’ve already hit your head and hurt yourself. This is insane.”

“Snow angels are a very common winter practice-”

“Not when the snow is like, four feet deep! We’ll get stuck.”

Aline smiled. “Good thing we have each other then, huh?”

Helen shook her head, but she was smiling too, and Aline knew that she’d won. The snow wasn’t that deep, the sun had already started to melt it in patches, and besides they couldn’t do snow angels without a little bit of actual snow.

“You’re a menace,” Helen declared, letting Aline tug her towards the front lawn - better padding underneath, Aline had reasoned, in case the snow truly did melt too much.

“You love me,” Aline quipped back, not realising once the words were already out how they might have sounded.

Helen just squeezed Aline’s hand and sighed, not looking up from where her boots were sinking into the snow. “Yeah. I do.”

The air felt heavy with something Aline couldn’t name, something she wasn’t sure if she wanted to, her heart pounding against her ribs hard enough for the sound to echo in her ears.

“Are we doing this at the same time?” Helen asked, unaware of Aline’s internal struggles. “Just, flopping onto the ground and hoping it doesn’t completely shatter our bones?”

Aline rolled her eyes, impossibly fond. “You’re acting like we’ve never done this before.”

Helen looked up to the sky. “I tried to block it out, but there are some things you just never forget.”

“Oh, my god, you’re so dramatic-”

Helen tugged sharply on their joined hands, and they fell back into the snow at the same time, the oxygen rushing from their lungs, instantly replaced with bright and uncontrollable laughter. Helen didn’t let go of Aline’s hand, and Aline tried not to think too much about the contact of warmth, or how it felt like nothing else in the world existed but the two of them.

“Payback.” Helen wheezed slightly, her eyes alight with mirth. “Bet you didn’t see that coming.”

Aline gasped out a short laugh. “All I saw coming was the sky as the world tilted around me.”

Helen glanced up at the sky, a clear cloudless blue, fooling itself slightly that the sun would be able to do much, despite it’s warm glow. “It is a beautiful sky.”

“Yeah,” Aline whispered, unable to take her eyes off of Helen, the way her golden hair fanned out in loose curls above her, her cheeks pink from the cold and pulled into a smile almost bright enough to rival the one in her eyes. “Beautiful.”

Helen wiggled slightly, her legs shifting in the snow. “I don’t know if this will be an actual snow angel or just a vaguely human-sized indentation…”

Aline let her head roll to the side, so that she can watch Helen try and make a lasting form in the snow without craning her neck - in for a penny, in for a pound, or whatever the saying was. If she was going to stare - and it was unlikely that anything else was going to steal her attention away - she might as well be comfortable doing it.

“Is there some quantifiable proof that angels even exist?”

Helen frowned. “No…”

Aline quirked an eyebrow, watching as Helen finally clicked on where Aline was going with it. “Then who’s to say that your vaguely human-sized indentation isn’t an angel? I mean, anybody who tries to argue that it isn’t is just being disrespectful to actual, blob-like angels that may or may not exist. They deserve respect too.”

Helen laughed like there were champagne bubbles in her throat, gentle and warm, and it lit a fire deep in Aline that chased away any cold the snow might have been trying to creep in. It was a wonder that Aline was able to even function with the emotional rollercoaster tracking through her body each time Helen did … well, anything.

“You’re so full of it,” Helen rolled over, with only a slight amount of struggle, until she was properly facing Aline, as though they were lying on Aline’s stupidly big bed and not her front lawn, bound in so many sweaters and coats that they barely through the fairly expansive front door.

“I’m just trying to support your dreams and aspirations.” Aline protested. “Like a good friend.”

Helen smiled gently - it wasn’t her ‘that’s funny’ smile, or her trademark ‘you’re such a dork, Aline’ smile, it was softer, quirked at the corner with a hesitation that easy to read but hard to follow, because this was Helen, and she didn’t hesitate about anything. It was one of the limitless things that Aline admired about her - Helen was, strong and empowered and she went after what she wanted without a thought to anybody who might want to stop her. Helen was beautiful, and smart, caring and supportive and inspiring, she … she was the best person that Aline had ever met.

“You know how, I don’t have good timing with like, anything?” Helen asked, glancing up shyly.

Aline nodded, as best she could anyway. “Your dad banned you from baking after that time when were nine and I wanted to set the timer, but you said that you’d be able to remember and then we smoked the kitchen up so badly that the fire department were called.”

Helen huffed a nervous laugh. “Dad still won’t let me in there unsupervised.”

“Smart man.”

“He is,” Helen agreed. “Thing is, baking isn’t the only thing I’m not that good at. I get complacent really easily, and it can be hard for me sometimes to realise when time isn’t on my side.”

“Are you having a quarter-life-crisis at nineteen?” Aline wasn’t sure if she was meant to be greatly concerned or find it terribly relatable - she was hovering somewhere in a weird limbo between both. “Do we need to crack out the cookie-dough ice-cream and Golden Age Disney films?”

“I mean, that actually doesn’t sound too bad, but it’s not, what I’m trying to get at either.”

Helen pursed her lips together. Aline’s heart started doing hurdles in her chest, as though it was getting ready for a marathon that she wasn’t aware of yet.

“I know, that I should have said something ages ago, but I was scared, and now we’re both going to college soon and we’ll be so far away, and I already can’t stand the thought of being away from you but what makes it worse is the idea that I’ll leave you here without being totally, and completely honest.”

Aline’s heart tumbled over a few hurdles, but seemed quite adamant at not giving up just yet.

“Aline Penhallow,” Helen sucked in a deep breath. “I have loved you since I knew what love meant, since we were six and my father moved Mark and I into the house next to yours, and you came to the door with a plate of store-bought cookies because your mom insisted that you couldn’t say hello without a gift and you were too impatient to wait for her to bake something herself. Since were we were eleven, and you fixed my knee up with a Hello Kitty band-aid after Victor Aldertree tripped me over in the park, and then you kissed above the scratch because in your words, kisses made everything better. Since we were fourteen, and you stayed up all night making me a Valentine’s Card with smelly stickers and a whole tube of glitter covering the front, because love between best friends was just as worthy of celebrating. Since we were sixteen, and you took a whole week off from your internship to look after me while I had a summer cold, and when you drove me four hours to meet with my biological mom when we were seventeen, and spent the next four hours back letting me cry into your favourite sweater, promising me that if she didn’t want to know me, that was her loss.”

Helen exhaled a shaky breath, and it was only then that Aline realised that she was crying - that they both were.

“I can’t go to college knowing that you’re not aware how much I love you. You’re my best friend, you’re - you’re my soulmate, and even if you don’t feel the same, it’s fine, it won’t change anything, because the only thing I ever need is you. I needed you at six, and eleven, fourteen and sixteen and seventeen, and I’ll need you still when I’m thirty, and fifty, and creeping into my nineties.”

“You,” Aline shook her head, tugging Helen forward, until their heads bumped together, both of them sprawled awkwardly, half on their sides. “You beautiful, impossible dork. Those cookies tasted like chalk, the band-aid didn’t even stay on, and you were getting glitter out of your carpet for a month.”

Helen lifted her hand, cupping Aline’s cheek, the fabric of her worn gloves soft against Aline’s skin. “I don’t regret any of it. I’d eat a hundred chalky cookies and set fire to a hundred more fire alarms if it meant I got to spend time with you.”

“I love you more than snow,” Aline blurted out, eyes wide. “You know that, right? Like, I know that snow is one of my favourite things in the world, but you’re at the top of that list. You’re my favourite thing, ever, my favourite person and I - I love you too. I always have. Like, that.”

Helen’s nose scrunched adorably. “I know that, now. Glad we’re on the same page.”

“We’re so on the same page.”

Aline tipped her head down, until the edge of her nose bumped against Helen’s. Helen’s smile pressed against the corner of Aline’s mouth, her hand curling against Aline’s cheek. It wasn’t the most sensible place for a first kiss, but neither found a reason to stop; their giggles seeped into each other’s skin even as the snow threatened to do the same, their smiles matching in perfect harmony as they were pressed together, their hearts dancing in tender synchronicity.

College would be calling in the fall, pulling them apart, and there’d be new experiences and new people and new lives to embark on, but just like winter, and summer, they’d always come back.

To where they belong, with each other.

[anthony-kate]

I know this can only possibly be speculation, but do you think SH would have been better, worse, or just different if Ed and the season 1 show-runners had stayed on and not been replaced by Todd&Darren? (Or do you think it wouldn’t have made a lot of difference?)

Hm, it’s super hard to tell tbh. I think with Ed the season 2 and 3 would have been definitely very different. Both plot and character wise. Yes, it is hard to judge but I guess Ed would have stuck more to the books most likely. Which also might include not as much Malec content. Then again, we might have gotten a plot and more so a common overall thread that actually would have made sense because yes, we got the Malec content and especially in 3b it was the only thing that was good and made slightly sense but the rest was a complete mess.

And I am not saying that season 1 was perfect from A to Z and there was so much illogical nonsense, too, but the overall plot really worked most of the time. And they had character development with Alec f.e. as well as friendships and romance and the plot. Something they completely forgot from s2 on. And well, don’t even let me start on the humor.

Like I totally dig the aesthetic from s2 on and who knows how s1 could have looked with Ed having more budget and all but well... we will never know. 

Overall I think we “won” with the aesthetic and vfx and maybe on the Malec front (though we don’t know how much FF? might have pushed that since knowing they are the fan fave in a s2 with Ed on board) but when it comes to the storytelling, friendships, other characters, humor, ... Todd and co. really had no clue and there was mess after mess after mess.