#on the whole love triangle thing

[metalhoops]

Nancy Wheeler always wanted something. That was her secret. It was the one thing that no one knew about her because she hardly knew how to explain it to herself. It was like being hungry for something other than food. It was illogical, incomprehensible and all the things Nancy had never let herself be. 

She prided herself in being capable and competent. This manifested in different ways across the years. In the days before her best friend’s death, she had prided herself in her grades, her appearance, and her capability to somehow charm the once acclaimed ‘ladies' man’ Steve Harrington. 

After that, things got messy, and her world changed. Her friend died, and she hadn’t been able to stop it. She’d learnt how to use a gun to keep herself and those she loved safe. She redefined capability, using it to encompass roles like ‘fighter’ and ‘protector’.  

She realised she’d never loved Steve, not really, not in the way she should. Steve was funny. He knew how to make her laugh, sweep her off her feet, and make her feel special. No one had done that for her before. She’d lived in a crowded house that always felt empty. Steve understood that. Her mother and father had been dancing around each other since she was born. Even as the eldest child, she’d never felt special, not until Steve. 

Then there was something about Jonathan. He’d been kind and compassionate. He’d been something Steve wasn’t. She didn’t want to be with Jonathan because of any external forces. Dating Jonathan wouldn’t turn heads or make the other girls in school look her way with something akin to envy. But it might fill that gaping hole of want.  Jonathan understood her. He saw her for who she was and he’d loved her for it. No one had ever done that before. Steve had come close, but he hadn’t seen her. He’d seen the possibility of a white picket fence and a family. 

Nancy knew if she went for that life, she’d be just like her mother. A woman filled with ambitions and dead dreams. A woman who got glassy-eyed when gazing out of her bedroom window, as though envisioning herself opening the glass and soaring free or falling to her death, impaled on the same white picket fence that’d sprung up like a field of daisies the day Nancy Wheeler was born. 

For a while, Jonathan had been enough. Until he wasn’t. She didn’t know who owned the blame for the demise of their relationship. It happened slowly, maybe when he moved to California, possibly before that. They were two continents drifting apart. He left in his wake the same old familiar aching hole of want. 

She applied for colleges, worked on her journalism, and freelanced for a couple of local papers outside of Hawkins, ones where women were allowed a seat at the table. It helped. She was done trying to impress others. She wanted to impress herself. 

She felt more at home in her body while she was moving, but when she came home, either to her estranged family house in Hawkins or to her silent student dorm room, she felt the hole once again. That was when Steve asked her to move in with him. 

She wanted to say no. She wasn’t going to do it to herself or Steve again. She didn’t want to give him hope. He was always in love with her. It waxed, waned and morphed like the moon, but the love was always there. Yet, to her surprise, he shook his head, showing her he’d also changed in their time apart. 

“Not just with me, Nance. Robin and Eddie are coming too. There’s enough room. It’s gotta be lonely sometimes hauling up all by yourself.” 

Nancy couldn’t think of a good enough reason to say no. So she didn’t.  

What she hadn’t expected was how much she would enjoy having someone to come home to. The house was never quiet. Eddie would play his guitar at all hours of the night and morning. Ever since the group had made the mistake of getting Steve a record player for his birthday, he’d blast his music while cooking or cleaning. She couldn’t go a week without waking up to Toto’s Africa. A prospect that’d once petrified her, had somehow managed to bring her such comfort. Then there was Robin. Robin was never quiet. She was always talking to Nancy. 

Nancy had gotten used to her childhood home, where they ate together at mealtimes but remained silent. The place where, when she asked about someone’s day, she’d get a one-word response and a thousand-yard stare. When she asked Robin about her day, the girl told a novel-length, detailed account, filled with wild hand gestures and, more than once, illustrations. 

Nancy had come home late after spending the day at the library trying to complete a paper for her Intro to Communication and Journalism course. She was surprised to find Robin home alone, sprawled out in front of the T.V. watching what appeared to be a French Film. 

“Where’s everyone?” Nancy asked, letting her bag thud to the floor as she positioned herself on the armrest of the couch. 

“Watching a movie at the drive-in. I said I couldn’t go since I’m sick, real bummer.”  Robin faked a cough, then winked at her, sitting up and making room for Nancy. When she didn’t move quickly enough, Robin pulled her closer.  

The girl was clearly faking it. For what end, Nancy could guess. She knew Steve and how he acted when he was in love. He and Eddie had been mooning over one another for months. At first, it’d surprised her. She’d tried to deny her intuition, unsure why the concept of Steve liking Eddie made her feel naked. Nancy had always been progressive. It didn’t bother her that Steve or Eddie liked men, but it made the old, odd ache within her burn. 

“Do you think they’ll finally work it out?” Nancy questioned, watching as a flicker of surprise, followed by an air of mischief fell over Robin.

“Oh, Steve knows he’s got it bad for Eddie,” Robin confided, a cheeky grin spreading over her lips. Their faces were very close. Her eyes were blue, flecked with greys and greens, perfect in their imperfection. 

“He’s been waxing poetic to me for the past month. You thought listening to him talk about girls was bad? At least I can relate to that. Listening to him gush about Eddie kinda makes me want to puke. I mean Steve’s all ‘his hair looks so soft and curly, Robby.’ what am I meant to do with that? To me, Eddie’s just... I don’t know, our gremlin roommate that lives in our walls. I like the guy, but I don’t know what Steve sees in him,” Robin admitted with a laugh. 

She slung a hand around the back of the couch and absentmindedly tangled one of Nancy’s curls around her finger. Oh. Nancy liked that more than she should. Robin smelled like green apple shampoo, pen ink and poor decisions. 

Nancy was good at noticing things. She wanted to be an investigative journalist, and it came with the territory. She’d heard Steve mention how Robin had the habit of talking too much when she liked a girl. 

Nancy also noticed how Robin looked at her, the way her eyes lingered when she came out of her bedroom in her nightdress. Her eyes had scraped over Nancy’s shins, calves and the hollow space beneath her clavicle. All the new exposed flesh she usually kept hidden. It shouldn’t feel intimate, but it did. She’d seen drawings of her likeness amongst the clutter on the kitchen table and knew who they’d belonged to. Robin was good at drawing. She wondered if the girl would ever consider doing comics for the papers. It’d be nice to work with her around.

Nancy knew Robin was talking, but she didn’t hear a word of it, distracted by the stray strand of sandy hair, caught in Robin’s lip gloss. Nancy was smart, smart enough to know nothing good could come of acting on what she was feeling. She leaned forward anyway, brushing the hair back behind Robin’s ear, watching her go still. 

“How’d you get that?” Robin asked, capturing Nancy’s hand, trailing her finger over the scar cut across her palm. It was too close to another night, another possibility of love, another stupid decision by Nancy Wheeler.

“It doesn’t matter,” Nancy breathed, pulling back from Robin’s hand. 

“Robin, can you do me a favour?” Nancy asked, but before she had time to reply, Nancy pushed forward.

“Don’t fall in love with me,” she warned, her voice small but deathly serious. 

Robin pulled back as though slapped, looking at the woman before her with wide eyes, seeming like a creature ensnared in a trap. It’d come out all wrong. Nancy was never good with this kind of thing. 

“I hurt everyone that loves me,” she amended. 

“So please don’t fall in love with me, because I don’t want to hurt you.” 

Robin blinked owlishly at the girl before leaping to her feet and pacing before Nancy and the TV. 

“Holy shit,” she breathed as she paced. Robin’s body never felt at home staying still either. Nancy opened her mouth to say something, but it was drowned out by another bout of ‘holy shit’. 

“You like me, Nance,” Robin exclaimed, gesturing an upturned palm between the two of them. 

“You have to like me. Otherwise, you wouldn’t say that. And I mean, why the hell would you say that?” Robin ran a hand through her hair before huffing and sitting back down across from Nancy, taking her hands into her lap. They were both shaking. To her credit, Robin didn’t touch the scar again. 

“It’s not your fault. What happened between you and Steve. You know that right?” Nancy hadn’t expected that. Robin was always on Steve’s side for everything, they were best friends. 

“I broke his heart, too. He’s told you that, right?” He had. 

“That’s different,” Nancy reasoned. 

“Just because a relationship doesn’t work out doesn’t mean it was pointless. It’s like... I don’t know, having a crush on Tom Cruise,” Robin reasoned, instantly losing Nancy.  

“Alright, bad example. What I mean is back in high school, I had a major crush on Tammy Thompson. Don’t give me that face. Steve has said everything you could say. The point is, looking back at it now we never would’ve worked. She was a total flake. She was pretty but I’d drive her up the damn wall, like, could you imagine Tammy Thompson letting me talk about Italian Neorealism for two hours? No. But you did.” Robin nudged Nancy’s shoulder as though to prove a point.

“Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked. The point is, I realised I liked girls because of Tammy Thompson, so liking her wasn’t a waste of time. You changed Steve and Steve changed you, same with Jonathan. It’s made you who you are, Nance and who you are is a total badass, that I really, really like. So please don’t tell me not to fall in love with you. It’s not fair. You won’t hurt me, but even if you do, I think it’d be worth it for us to try.” 

Nancy never had learned to shut Robin up, but she suddenly had an idea. 

She leaned forward, placing a shaking hand on Robin’s cheek and crashing their lips together, sleek, sticky, glossed lips smacking together, tasting of strawberry, feeling like home. 

Maybe the third time was the charm. 

[mrsoharaa]

Gojo Satoru, who has you sat upon the medical table of Shoko's lab while heavily making out with you. Squeezes his way in between the open space in between your legs, caresses the curves of your waist with one hand as the other clasp gently yet, intently, along the juncture of your jaw. Literally, stealing every hefty breath from you. Grumbled and muffled moans sputter against the softness of his perfectly glossed lips from your own, your own hands finally finding refuge through the snowy locks that settled upon his head.

So lost in the spiraling torrid sensation of your entangled tongues and lapping lips, you haven't even recognized the familiar presence shadowing just right outside of the door. Arms crossing over one another, within the sleeves of his robes, and a tiny, wicked grin spreading across his cheeks.

Who would've thought, that after these long, pretentious ten years of no contact...he would find his two (former) best friends, his ex lover (you), indulging shamelessly with one another.

[stompandhollar]

don’t let my billford posting distract you. he’s holding me at gunpoint. i don’t even like the guy. ford divorced his ass a long time ago. i keep trying to draw anyone else but i go like this then i go like that and i end up at the liquor store. let my family go

[dariusaurs]

i think dinostar is such an interesting ship right now even if i've kind of turned away from it after this season. the problem is that it's complicated, and fandoms historically don't like nuanced situations or takes. i don't think it's fair to say darius is putting brooklynn on a pedestal, since from his perspective, she hasn't done anything wrong, and kenji has been framed as this unfair partner to her. it does feel like his feelings are very immature and more of an infatuation right now ("if he loved you half as much.."/"unless?"), especially when you compare them to kenji's own feelings for brooklynn - his girlfriend who he's loved for 6 years - but that isn't a horrible thing, it's just different. i do completely understand if people dislike the ship right now, and even criticize darius' way of handling the accidental confession, but i just think people have been way too harsh on all three of them without being willing to see that all of their perspectives are different

[nyaskitten]

it's like tumblr WANTS me to leave the fandom... whyd i see another wharin (white arin) and a post that called nya a fucking dumb bitch . its So hard being The Ignorerrrr when you have dumbasses in the tag you spend all your tumblr time on ...

(NOTE: please dont send hate to either of the people im talking about or harrass them or whatever, just because some people are dumb, doesn't mean you gotta act that way too!!!)

[baphometsss]

if i see one more post about how solas/mythal/elgar'nan had a weird love triangle thing going on i'm gonna scream

[youwearlavenderwell]

David Jenkins liking this tweet about the resurrection of Izzy. I cannot trust this man

[mirensiart]

Youve got MY brain churning now >:D

With regards to the lu x kiznaiver au, if someone is in so much pain that they pass out, do the remaining Links get an instant reprieve? The panic that would seep thru the chain if so- especially the first time it happenssss oohohoho

Im also watching the anime with a friend next week, ty for the unintentional recommendation 😂

It's such a fun concept, the brainrot is real lol!

And ooh, I would think so! Like when u pass out cause of pain, it's because the brain wants to shield u of it, so I would assume that if one of them passes out the rest would stop feeling that link's pain 🤔

The potential hurt/comfort though... you're cooking!

I actually want to rewatch the anime now too! I've watched it twice, but the last time I did was in 2017 so it's been A While lol

It's a short but fun watch, i liked the concept a lot, and I believe there's so many ways to explore it outside of what the anime did !!

I hope u enjoy it! I do remember the cast being very lovable hehe

[bayetea]

just all of this from moa regarding frank/hazel/leo. the most uncomfortable romantic tension ever because nobody understands it and nobody involved wants it to be there

especially "Hazel's eyes glittered like gold. 'Gold is easy,' she said. It didn't seem that way to Leo--not when he looked at her." like we can interpret this in a few ways. what an interesting thing to think about a girl you just met

and the whole "if this is a private special thing that she's only done with her boyfriend then I either really don't want to try it or I really really do want to try it" like STOP cut the cameras

[mcwexlie]

why is there not enough discussion on saul and skyler’s relationship… they should’ve interacted more in canon but like. think abt it

skyler is this competent blonde woman who’s extremely smart and good at scamming (and pretty! and associated with blue!) and she has the biggest dipshit husband ever.

saul who is oh so desperately trying to keep his unloving sleazeball act up is failing bc. my God does this woman remind him of kim in the saddest way possible (ntm they start interacting more post gale death, when shit i’d argue really starts falling apart… Hmmm). he still acts like a dick to her but… in a protective way i feel. like he doesn’t want her to be nice to him or get close to him but still showing he has her back in his own fucked up way

and saul being soooo pissed that walt bagged this perfect woman and he’s still being a disrespectful shit like saul might be misogyny queen but even he was weirded tf out w walt…

[a-lost-time-traveler]

I like that the universal agreement of the umbrella academy's fandom seems to be "season 4 sucked and therefore it's not canon"

(spoilers for S4 in the tags)

[trashbag-usa]

how do i say that i think the humor in the BoB is justified and that it doesn't throw off the insidious tone of the abuse narrative (in fact it enhanced it in some cases) but also that i think the humor may be what is leading yall with less than great media literacy to throw the horrific abuse that makes up 99% of billford out of the window and boil everything down to "lol silly old men got divorced #toxicyaoi"

[crimeronan]

finished iwtv! it was good. the ending mildly annoyed me but thankfully there's another season coming that will immediately undo everything that annoyed me about the ending. i hope daniel and armand play psychosexual and overtly sexual evil torture games together forever. amen 🙏

[aroaceleovaldez]

Romantic in nature or not, I always just looked at that scene in MoA with the notion: Annabeth is convinced that Nico, a gay man, has a crush on her in this exact scene (or you know, a different scene in MoA, I don't remember), and since we know that Annabeth isn't the best on the emotional front, she read Luke's intentions incorrectly, and Percy did, as well, due to his jealousy of the guy.

(Now, I know that neither of these are the case, especially since I doubt Nico was thought to be gay until HoH, and this is around the time that Annabeth was starting to be characterized as Never Wrong About Anything Ever, but it's always been my go-to regarding the whole Luke-Annabeth debacle. What I mean to say is that I like your interpretation of the scenes, too)

Oh i actually believe Nico was fully intended to be gay starting around MOA at least (though I do believe Rick claiming he had figured that out about Nico earlier than that), because Rick was absolutely acknowledging queer topics in his writing at that time. Jason's arc particularly in the latter half of HoO is extremely bi-coded and there's just straight up a canonical polyamorous relationship in Serpent's Shadow, which came out several months before HoH.

Which does make Annabeth's line about that in MOA funnier, especially considering by that point Nico has held maybe one full conversation with her in the entire franchise thus far, maybe two or three if you wanna push it. I cannot emphasize enough how little they had spoken to each other - and tbh, continued to not speak to each other. Just in general. Like the most notable interactions the two of them have prior to the high-five scene in BoO are literally both in BoTL and it's one line and then one off-screen scene of Nico breaking up a fight between Rachel and Annabeth (where they were fighting over Percy) entirely for the purposes of going to save Percy. They barely interact in HoO. Nico and Annabeth have a chronic case of their plot lines being in different locations because only one of them is allowed to be active at a time due to their narrative roles. Annabeth is kidnapped for most of the TTC Nico scenes and Nico is at camp when they get to Annabeth, and then in TLO Nico's busy with all the Underworld stuff and flirting with Percy so he never interacts with Annabeth. Then Nico is off at Camp Jupiter when Annabeth's at CHB and then busy being kidnapped for the first stretch of the Argo II mission and only shows up when Annabeth is busy on her Arachne quest. And then Annabeth FALLS INTO TARTARUS when Nico gets there (and proceeds to pine at Percy) and then IMMEDIATELY after Annabeth gets out of Tartarus, Nico skips away with Reyna and Coach to drag the Athena Parthenos to camp. And then FINALLY they interact and it's not even Nico speaking directly to Annabeth really, just high-fiving her after insulting Percy to his face. He literally only says one word directly to her.

Like. I cannot overemphasize the absolute comical degree to which these two avoid interacting. They're like magnets repelling each other. And yet Annabeth is like "I think he has a crush on me - he spoke to me once, allegedly." Like ah yes, sure, HoO. Next you're gonna tell me you retconned them into having a FOURTH conversation! Don't get too wild!

[wakeupthemembersofbylernation]

All the explicit love triangle imagery on the show (this isn’t even all of the examples):

Bonus: Kaypeace’s brilliant video from 4 years ago

Am I a joke to you?

[korixsonder]

Hawkgirl

hawkgirl is the next in line for my fan designs ^_^! hehe, i really love her personality in justice league, i aint crazy about the whole romance love triangle thing but i love how she isn't a super 'digestible' woman. i WILL say, her being a reincarnation? or alien? with Egyptian mythology theming and bases? makes me really want her to be actually Egyptian. Granted, I've not read her comics and maybe they have in some but i digress.