#this entire season really has been building towards this

[lingeringscars]

layla was going to say no. she had it all planned. she was going to tell him she loves him so much and that she sees it in their future but not right now. they're too young. but then he addresses all of her concerns without her needing to say anything and proves to her that he knows her. he knows her better than anyone. he listens to her! everything clicked and then she couldn't imagine saying anything but yes. she wasn't thinking about anything but how adorable he was rambling and how well he knew her and she knows that he's going to be there.

later she'll think about how deeply she is certain that jordan will always show up for her. and how much that influences things because they both watched their parents fall apart after losing the person they thought would be with them for the rest of their life. they both have parents who lost the love of their life, their soulmate, and now layla has hers. laura and jp lost their soulmates too soon and layla doesn't want to waste another minute without hers.

[stacy-fakename]

Rat Grinders:Don’t do anything to the Bad Kids until antagonized, and it’s later revealed that their bad actions were a result of being groomed by one of their teachers for years and then murdered and possessed.

Intrepid Heroes:Fuck you, sending you to hell and you can’t be revived.

[stevie-petey]

episode seven: the massacre at hawkins lab

Steve coughs, swatting at the particles in the air. “Just inhaled a bunch of that crap.” “I’ve been trying not to think about how much of the Upside Down we’ve ingested since being here.” “It’s stuck in my throat, Y/N.” “Again, I’m trying not to think about that.

Summary: bats are really fucking annoying to fight, you always somehow end up critically injured, nancy carries the group on her back as always, eddie gives steve relationship advice (embarassing, tbh), interdimensional bike riding is lowkey fun, and you take a trip down memory lane.

Rating: general, some swearing, violence

Warnings: fem!reader, use of y/n, cursing, blood and gore, critical injuries, mentions of fainting, mentions of death and violence, description of corpses

Words: 11.9k

Before you swing in: ive never been more excited to write a chapter tbh. this episode touches on so many things ive been building up for seasons now !!!! insane !!! im so so so excited to see how yall react. this chapter has my favorite sequence of scenes yet ;) enjoy !

–

His name rips from your mouth. “Steve!” 

The bats sink their fangs into his stomach. His legs kick out, he gasps for breath, choking on his pain. Your legs threaten to give out as you stumble towards Steve. Quickly your fingers find the knives you always carry with you just as a bat lunges towards you.

Barely having time to dodge its quick attack, you swat at the creature, but your knives slide off its skin easily. Your heart drops; their flesh is too thick to cut through. The bat screeches at you, its teeth bared, and you throw your body weight against it onto the ground. Angling your knife, you pierce the inside of its mouth, killing it. 

“Shit!” Another bat crawls towards you. Your elbow scrapes the ground as you roll out of its path, slicing into the creature’s maw. 

Steve screams again, this time even louder as even more bats surround him. Frantic, you jump to your feet. Without thinking, you grab the tail of one of the bats, its face buried in Steve’s stomach. When you start to pull, Steve shakes his head violently and throws his arm out at you. “Go!”

You don’t bother answering; you’re not leaving him. 

The bat’s tail cuts your palms as you pry it off of Steve’s flesh, but as soon as it’s removed, it latches onto your upper thigh. “Fuck!”

Razor sharp pain shoots through your entire body. The bat loosens its jaw to only tighten it more; you can feel its teeth hit your bone. Screaming, the white-hot pain blinds you. Your knees give out and you fall before you can catch yourself.

“Y/N!” Steve chokes out, desperate. He clenches his jaw, tries to get up. More bats screech overhead, circling you, and Steve knows you only have seconds before you’re dead. But the vines around his neck constrict even more. His airway closes, another bat takes the other one’s place on his stomach. 

“Motherfucker!” You stab at the bat, but then a second one slams against your body and your shoulder explodes with pain. “Fuck-no,” you try to twist around, to use the last of your strength to remove it from your own skin, but it’s no use. The bats tear at your skin, ripping through muscle and ligaments. 

Lightning flashes, its light red mars the endless dark blue sky. Above you, a bat screeches, signaling its descent, before it dives towards you at full speed. Your eyes close, you hope death will be quick. 

“Get fucked!” Someone screams, a sickening thud following. Opening your eyes, you see the creature’s body get thrown into the air. Eddie stands above you, smiling wickedly, but as soon as he sees the two other bats gnawing on you, he brings his oar over his head and swings. 

You look away, scared he’ll miss, and see Nancy and Robin a few feet away. Nancy holds the other oar, working with Robin to kill the swarm of bats that encase Steve’s body. Seeing them makes you want to cry in sweet relief. 

The sound of the bats’ pained cries echo in your ears. It takes several attempts before Eddie manages to get them off of you. The bat’s teeth cut deeply with every attack, causing you to cry out in pain. It’s fucking agonizing. Warm blood follows a sickening tearing sensation in your leg.

When Eddie has killed both bats, he helps you stand up. “Jesus, you alright?”

“Talk later,” you grunt, already rushing to go help Nancy and Robin. “Fight now.”

Eddie doesn’t stop you. He swings his oar again and Robin begs you to help. She has a bat pinned down while Nancy pounds her oar into its face, but it won’t fucking die. Its tail has wrapped itself around Steve’s neck and he’s paler than you’ve ever seen him. 

But before you can gut the piece of shit creature, another bat pounces on Nancy. Its claws tear her skin and she yelps. You scream her name and catch her before she falls. “I got you.”

Nancy’s hands clutch your body as you stab the bat. “Get it off me!”

“I’m trying!” The bat won’t let go, screeching with every pull. Biting down, you ignore the searing pain as your palms get cut up even more. Robin tries to help, but you scream at her. “No! Help Steve!”

She nods quickly and it’s a mess of fighting and screeches and blood. Steve bites down on the bat’s tail, its jaw opens as it squeals, giving him just enough time to escape. As he rolls to the side, Robin throws the bat’s body onto the ground. 

Seeing Steve safe reinvigorates you, and with one final scream, you use everything within you to pull the bat off of Nancy’s back. It releases her skin with a squelching pop. You force your knife down its throat and pin the creature to the ground. It writhes beneath you. “Now, Nancy!”

She doesn’t hesitate. “Go to hell!” Her oar slams down, killing it.

Behind you Eddie kills the remaining few bats that circle overhead. Steve stands next to you, slamming the final bat into the ground. The body lands with a loud smack against the concrete and Steve rips the carcass in half. 

Blood drips from his mouth and he messily spits it away. He’s panting, his stomach is on fire, he’s stuck in some alternate dimension with no way out, but all he can focus on is you. 

Flesh hangs from your shoulder, leaving behind a gaping wound of exposed muscle. Your thigh is torn clean through. There’s blood everywhere. The white of your tanktop is now soaked in red. But you’re here, you’re alive. He hasn’t lost you. Not yet, at least.

“Y/N–” Steve practically falls against you, and you’re no better yourself. You’re crying, snot runs down your face as you grab desperately at him. His hands are all over you as he tries to stop the bleeding, but there’s so much blood. 

“I-I’m here.” Your hands are all over Steve’s body, too. They cup his waist, there are so many bite marks on him, but at least his flesh is warm under your skin. He’s still here, he’s still yours, and now all you want to do is calm him down. Steve is panicking, holding you as if he’s afraid you’ll die in his arms any second, and the fear on his face makes your chest ache. 

“Are you guys okay?” Nancy asks, tentatively touching your shoulder. A wince slips from her lips when she sees the flesh that is no longer there. “Jesus, Y/N.”

Steve wraps his hands around your thigh, it’s bleeding the most and you can barely put any weight on it. “I’m fine, but they took a fucking pound of flesh from her.”

“You’re no better,” you’ve placed your own hands over his stomach, his blood warm against your fingers. “I think you lost your appendix.”

Steve laughs, but almost immediately his laugh turns into a groan. “God, don’t make me laugh. It hurts.”

You apologize, kissing his shoulder. Light catches your attention and you see Robin crouched down next to one of the bat carcasses. She looks up at everyone. “Uh, do you guys think these bats have, like, rabies?”

“Robin, if we have rabies, please promise me you’ll shoot me.” You tell her, dead serious. Rabies has always terrified you. When you were younger, a rabid fox made its way onto your grandparents' farm. It had killed all the chickens, attacked the herding dog they had, and you remember how distraught your father had been when he had to kill both the fox and the hound. 

“I’m sure you and Steve don’t have rabies.” Nancy says, sensing your growing fear. But before she can say anything else a small group of bats descend from the sky.

Steve pushes you behind him. They land near the gate you fell through, screeching at the five of you. They’re a small enough group, Steve voices what you’re all thinking: you can handle them. Flicking your knives out, you prepare for what’s about to come. 

Until a swarm grows larger in the distance. There’s easily hundreds of them, they cast a shadow below where they fly. There’s too many to fight. 

“You were saying?” Robin breathes out, eyes never leaving the sky.

Steve is speechless, he doesn’t know what to do. His hand tightens around you, protective, but thankfully Nancy has a plan. She tells everyone to run towards the woods and none of you hesitate to follow. Steve swings your legs over his arms, picking you up with ease despite the bite wounds that litter his skin. Like hell he’s letting you run right now; you’re too torn up, you can hardly even walk. 

As Steve runs with you in his arms, he’s careful to avoid the vines that creep over the ground. It’s a dizzying rush. All you can do is hold tightly onto him, trusting that Nancy knows where she’s taking you. 

Deep into the woods, Nancy calls over her shoulder, “Over here!”

Lifting your head from Steve’s chest, you realize, as you always do, that Nancy Wheeler is a goddamn genius. She’s taken you all to Skull Rock.

The giant boulders form a small alcove, just big enough to hide under as the bats fly overhead. She instructs everyone to crawl under and Steve sets you down gently, positioning you so that you’re sitting with your back against the rock. As soon as you’re secure, Steve’s hand goes back to your thigh.

The sound of the bats is almost deafening. No one dares to speak. They fly over at such a gruesome speed, their screeches echoing off the trees. You lose count of how many there are. All you can do is wait for the last of them to leave.

More lightning strikes above. It shakes the ground, the sound reverberates in your skull. You can’t believe you’re here. You’re in the Upside Down. The place you’ve only ever spoken about, the entity that haunted your nightmares and took the ones you loved from you.

It’s so much colder than you imagined it to be. Everything is darker, more twisted. The dimension is exactly as Will once described to you: this is Hawkins, it’s your home, but different. Colder, scarier. These woods are the woods you walked through, the woods where you fell in love, and yet the trees loom over you in a threatening way. Their branches form spikes, the dirt recoils against your feet. 

Nothing here feels warm. The darkness is never ending. 

This is where Will was, all by himself, for a week. 

He had only been twelve. 

When the nightmare swarm of bats is finally over, Robin carefully pokes her head out from the alcove. “Okay, that was close.”

Eddie agrees, kicking at a rock. Steve offers you his hand to stand, but the moment your skin touches his, you feel sick. All the adrenaline from earlier leaves you. All the blood you’ve lost catches up, leaving your body weak. Stumbling, your vision tunnels and your eyes roll back. 

“Woah, hey.” Steve breaks your fall, snapping his fingers in your face to bring your attention back to him. He’s weak as well, he has to lean heavily against the rock to steady himself. “Y/N-shit!”

“Steve?” Nancy turns around, finding you and him moments away from collapsing. She curses, rushing over. When she sees all the blood that still pours from your thigh, she gags. “Oh, fuck.”

“Keep… keep talking. Please.” Your breathing is labored, you can hardly form any words. “Keep talking to me. If-if I faint… embarrassing.”

“I think she’s losing it.” Eddie whispers rather loudly to Robin. 

Nancy grazes Steve’s chest, silently asking him to move your body aside. She wants to get a closer look at his wounds as well, she can’t help you if he’s bleeding out himself, but he refuses. “No, no we need to help Y/N.”

“Steve, you’re also losing blood–”

“I don’t care.” Steve pulls you even closer to his chest, he needs to feel your rib cage rising and falling. He needs to feel you breathe. “Help her, Nancy.”

His outburst startles Nancy. She takes a step back, alarmed, but clenches her jaw. There’s no getting through to Steve; she knows she’s lost the fight. “At least sit her down.”

Steve collapses, sliding back against the rock with you tucked to his chest. With shaking hands, he forces you to sit next to him. You wince with every movement, it’s getting harder and harder to stay awake.

“Stay with me, angel.” Steve murmurs to you, motioning to Nancy to look down at your thigh. The wound is bleeding the most, the teeth sunk in the deepest. 

“Don’t wanna faint,” your head sags to the side, exhausted. “So embarrassing.”

Nancy places her hands unsurely to your thigh. The blood squelches, soaking through your jeans. She exhales shakily. “You’re not-you’re not going to faint, okay? Just keep talking, Y/N.”

“Hate bats.” It’s the first thing that comes to mind, but it seems to settle Nancy’s unease and Steve’s worry. “Little fuckers hurt.”

Nancy tears the end of her shirt, her nimble fingers gently lift your injured leg. She ties the piece of fabric tight around your thigh, quelling the bleeding. Steve helps with the knot, though really he just needs something to do. 

“If you want some good news, I’m pretty sure wooziness is not a symptom of rabies.” Robin crouches next to you, smiling despite how terrified she is. “So that’s something, right?”

You yelp when Nancy tightens the tourniquet. Biting your tongue, you force a smile to Robin. “Hooray.”

“There,” Nancy wipes her hands of your blood. The tourniquet isn’t much, but already the bleeding has subsided. “But I think you’re going to need stitches.”

“I’m tired of hospitals,” you whine, but you’re already feeling a bit better. You’re weak, sure, but at least your body isn’t slowly draining itself out. “Thanks, though.”

Nancy nods, smiling softly, before her eyes land on Steve’s stomach. “Can I finally patch you up?”

Steve doesn’t even look at her, instead cups your face. Even though you’re covered in blood and sweat and tears, even though your cheek is scabbed and your lip is split, he doesn’t think he’s ever found you more beautiful. “You alright?”

“Been better,” you admit, squeezing his arm. “But let’s worry about you now.” Turning to Nancy, you extend your arm. “Got any more torn pieces of clothing?”

She bites her lip. The only thing covering your body is your tank top. She’s seen the cuts all over your palms. She doesn’t think you’ll be able to wrap the cloth around Steve, if she’s being honest. But she also knows Steve and how fiercely he loves you. He won’t let anyone near him but you. 

Finally, she sighs. Tearing off more of her shirt, she hands it to you. “Yeah, here.”

You thank Nancy again, and she gives you a curt nod before backing away, giving you and Steve some space. Once she’s gone, you tend to Steve’s injuries. When he moves his hand away and reveals raised, angry flesh, you inhale sharply. “Steve…”

“Just a flesh wound.” He jokes, but you can hear the pain in his voice. 

Though you’re still dizzy and weak, you manage to lift Steve’s body enough to wrap the makeshift bandage around him. Luckily he isn’t bleeding as badly as you are, but the sight of him injured still leaves you nauseous. 

Tying the fabric around his torso, you’re careful not to hurt him any more. The moment is familiar, reminiscent of the years before. Back in the junkyard when a Demodog nearly tore open your rib cage, Steve had been the one to take care of you. He had so carefully wrapped your cardigan around your chest, been so delicate with you, and now it’s your turn to do the same for him. 

“We always end up here, don’t we?” You say softly, it still takes a lot of energy for you to speak. You finish tying a knot to secure the bandage and Steve looks at you oddly. He doesn’t understand, and you shrug. “You and me, patching each other’s wounds up.”

Steve’s eyes soften. It doesn’t matter where he could be, in what situation he could be stuck in, you always somehow remind him of how loved he is. “Kinda wish the bats had eaten my ribs instead. We could’ve had matching scars.”

You laugh, eyes shining with tears. Fresh pain explodes all over your body, but you laugh anyways. You don’t know why you’re laughing or why tears run down your face. The exhaustion and pain from today must finally be catching up to you. “How romantic.”

Steve laughs as well, the pain of it bearable when he hears your laughter mixing with his. “I love you, angel.”

“I love you, too, honey.” It’s so cold in the Upside Down, but the warmth of Steve’s love feels like sunshine kissing your skin. 

Robin clears her throat. “Uh, not to ruin this cute moment, but I just wanted to say that if either of you start feeling aggressive, please let me know. Because, ya know. The threat of rabies still.”

“I kinda wanna punch you.” Steve looks at her pointedly, annoyed. 

You poke his cheek and smile apologetically at Robin. “He didn’t mean that.”

“Sense of humor is still intact, that’s a good sign!” She cheers, then, as an afterthought, she takes off her flannel and hands it to you. “Also, figured you’d want this. Not that you aren’t totally hot right now in only a tiny tank top and blood all over you, it’s just freakishly cold down here and you technically have an exposed wound on your shoulder and who knows what sorts of awful flesh eating diseases there are here.” 

You accept the flannel gratefully and thank her. Then, together, you and Steve stand up. The process is difficult, you only have one functional top and bottom, and you walk in a slow manner together as you lean against the other. 

Up ahead, Eddie is standing on one of the boulders, staring out into the vast dimension. “So, uh. This place is like Hawkins, but with monsters and nasty shit?”

“Basically.” You respond, grunting as you support Steve’s upper body. 

Eddie nods, defeated, and before he can step down, Nancy tells him to be careful of the vines. “It’s all a hive mind.”

When Eddie doesn’t understand, Steve tries to explain it to him. “All the creepy crawlies here, dude. They’re like, one or something.”

“They’re all interconnected. They can feel each other’s pain, feelings, whatever.” You say, remembering how Jonathan had described Will’s agonizing screams when the vines had been burned in the tunnels.

“Step on a vine, you’re stepping on a bat, you’re stepping on Vecna.” Steve finishes grimly. 

Eddie smiles sarcastically, obviously displeased with this information, but he’s careful not to step on any vines on his way down. 

“But everything from our world is still here, right? Except people?” Robin asks.

You nod. “According to Will, yeah.”

This pleases Robin, and she starts explaining her plan. If everything's the same in the Upside Down, then you should be able to use the guns stored away at Hawkins’ police station. With the ammunition stored there, it’d be more than enough to kill the bats that guard the gate back to Hawkins. 

“I highly doubt the Hawkins PD has grenades, Robin.” Steve says skeptically. “But guns? Sure.”

You shake your head. While Robin’s idea is good, there’s still the issue of going all the way downtown from Skull Rock. The five of you barely made it half a mile without getting killed. There’s no way you’d survive three. “But the police station is downtown. That’s too far from here.”

Robin deflates, but Nancy furrows her brows. After thinking for a moment, her eyes light up. “We don’t have to go all the way downtown. I have guns. In my bedroom.”

God you love her.

Eddie scoffs in disbelief. “You, Nancy Wheeler, have guns… plural? In your bedroom?”

“Full of surprises, isn’t she?” Robin says with pride.

“And this is why we always listen to her.” You sing along, high fiving Robin. 

Nancy doesn’t acknowledge you or Robin, but her cheeks flush with slight embarrassment. “A Russian Makarov and a revolver.”

“Yeah, you almost shot me with that one.” Steve reminds her, though his tone is gentle, almost teasing.

You laugh, remembering how terrified he had been when Nancy pointed the gun at him. You all had been so much younger, more naive. All he wanted to do was apologize to Jonathan for their fight earlier. Steve had just wanted to make things right, and that’s why you stepped in front of him that night. “Luckily for you, I was there to save your life.” 

Steve looks down at you fondly. He pulls you close, his eyes are full of so much love. He remembers everything. The night that started it all. “And then I saved yours.”

To think that a sprained ankle and a bat full of nails would lead you to here: Steve’s warm chest against you, so full of love.

Lost in your warm memories, neither you nor Steve see Eddie throwing his vest at Steve’s face until it’s too late. The material smacks against him, cruelly bringing the two of you back to reality. 

“What the fuck, Eddie?” You sneer at him, deeply annoyed. 

He waves at you flirtatiously, a devilish glint in his eyes. “I’m protecting your boyfriend’s modesty for you.”

Before you can retaliate, the ground beneath you starts to shake. The force of it is so sudden, so strong, that it sends you and everyone else falling. Steve catches himself on a rock, holding you tightly to his chest, and you manage to catch Nancy before she falls as well. Eddie grabs onto Robin, stuck on the ground together.

The tremors are violent. There’s a cracking sound, branches fall behind you as the earthquake destroys whatever it can. Steve holds you through it, he whispers reassurances to try and calm you. When it’s over everything is quiet for a moment, before a loud, heart stopping shriek cuts into the night.

It doesn’t sound like any creature you’ve faced before. Far too loud to be a Demodog’s, far too large to be a bat’s. The thought of what it could be almost paralyzes you; it could’ve been the Mind Flayer. 

“Guns seem like a pretty good idea to me.” Eddie finally says, panting. 

Robin quickly agrees, and you swallow down the bile that rises in your throat. “Yeah, okay. I can be okay with guns.”

“So what are we waiting for?” Steve puts Eddie’s vest on, twirling a flashlight in his hand. He nods to himself, tries to convince himself that he’s as confident as he sounds. He extends his other arm towards you, helping you steady your balance. “Let’s go.”

And you follow. 

– 

It’s a long walk from Skull Rock to Nancy’s house; it’s an even longer walk when you’re in the Upside Down, hiding from demonic bats. With every branch that snaps beneath someone’s foot, you all jump. The croak of whatever creature nearby sets everyone on edge. 

“Couldn’t we have tried a road or something just slightly less creepy?” Robin complains, jumping over a vine. 

Leaning against Steve, you groan. “Anything would be less creepy than this.”

“I think we’re getting close,” Nancy tries to sound convincing, but even she’s uneasy. “We’re almost out of here. Don’t worry.”

Robin nods at the reassurance, but you can’t help but wonder what could possibly come next after you find Nancy’s guns. It’d be two guns, two critically injured members of the group, two oars, and one switchblade against an army of bats.

Not the best odds. 

Nancy and Robin wander further ahead, leaving you behind with Steve and Eddie. None of you talk, more so because you’re putting all your energy into not falling on your face and Steve is busy helping you stay upright.

Walking is difficult and painful and you’re so frustrated by it all, especially after you trip over your fourth tree root. If it weren’t for Steve’s quick reflexes, you’d be long dead by now.

Eddie must recognize this, too.

“Here, let me just–” He comes next to you and throws your arm over his shoulders before either you or Steve can protest. Immediately the pressure on your injured leg lessens. You sigh in content, and Eddie smirks. “There ya go, princess.”

“Don’t call her that.” Steve snaps, but even he has to admit that Eddie’s help is needed. With him carrying half your weight, Steve is able to breathe a little easier. You’re better balanced this way. He’s no longer straining his injuries to support you. 

Eddie winces. “I’m sorry, just… trying to lighten the mood, I guess.”

Steve doesn’t say anything, but the silence stretches on and you feel bad for Eddie. He really is trying. Despite the fact that he’s Hawkins’ most wanted, he still tries to make everyone else laugh. He has to know that he’s never getting out of this alive, and you admire the strength it must take to continue laughing anyways. 

So you try to for him as well. “Thank you, by the way. You saved our lives back there.”

Eddie looks at you funny, he hadn’t expected you to acknowledge it. “Shit, Steve saved his own ass, man.”

“That’s true,” you laugh. By the time the fight finished, Steve had somehow managed to fight his way out by himself. “It was impressive.”

“No it wasn’t.” 

Eddie scoffs at Steve’s dismissal. “Please, that was a real Ozzy move you pulled back there.”

“Ozzy?” Steve looks at you, silently asking for some type of explanation, but you shrug. 

“All I know is that he’s in Black Sabbath.” Jonathan occasionally listened to the band whenever he was particularly angry, but not enough for you to understand Eddie’s obscure reference. 

Eddie makes a surprised, but pleased, sound. “Honestly surprised you even know Black Sabbath, but c’mon. Ozzy Osbourne, he bit a bat’s head off onstage. You seriously haven’t heard about that?”

You and Steve stare at him blankly, and he sighs. “Well, it was very metal. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

Steve scoffs again, but deep down you know he’s preening. It’s not everyday someone commends his strength or recognizes how well he can hold his own. Steve has come a long way since his first fight with Jonathan back at the alley. 

“I think I finally get why my brother likes you so much,” you tell Eddie, looking up at him curiously. “You know a lot of weird facts. He goes crazy for them.”

That, and you’re finding that Eddie isn’t so bad when he isn’t surrounded by his goonies. He’s actually… decent when he isn’t putting on a show for everyone. It’s almost reminiscent of how Steve had once been, back when he was the King. 

But if you ever pointed out that similarity to the boys, you know they’d be deeply offended. 

The corners of Eddie’s mouth tilt up. “Yeah, well. The kid adores you and practically worships Steve.”

“He does?” Steve almost sounds bashful at the idea of Dustin worshiping him. It makes your heart constrict. You both miss your brother terribly. 

Eddie nods. “Oh yeah, it’s kinda annoying, to be honest. Especially when all he talks about is Y/N. If he isn’t talking about you, he’s talking about her.”

“I doubt that’s true,” you shake your head. “He doesn’t need me anymore, he’s practically counting down the days until I leave.”

“Nah, man. Dustin tells me all the time how much he’ll miss you when you leave.” Eddie tells you, voice firm. “Kid always talks about how much you look out for him, that he doesn’t know what he’ll do when you’re gone. In a way, it’s annoyingly endearing. He frets over you just as much as you fret over him. I can see the Henderson charm in him that made you Hawkins’ sweetheart.” 

Everything that Eddie tells you leaves your throat sticky with tears. You didn’t know, you couldn’t know all Dustin said about you. For the longest time you thought he’d grown to hate you, to resent you the way kids often do with their family. You would’ve never blamed him; sometimes people just grow up, grow apart, but here Eddie is, telling you that your brother will miss you when you’re gone. 

Unable to say anything in fear that you’ll cry, the only response you give Eddie is a curt, short nod.

Steve rubs your side tenderly, understanding all you’re unable to say. Eddie feels the touch against his own side and he clears his throat. He knows you want him to change the subject. “Admittedly, I got a little jealous. Hearing the little shrimp talk about you as if you hung the goddamn stars yourself.” 

The irony of it all crashes upon you. While you had been jealous of Eddie, he had been jealous of you. The two of you spent months quarreling over Dustin, you’d been uncharacteristically mean to Eddie, and yet the entire time you envied the other. 

Abandonment can make people cruel. 

“I was jealous of you, too.” You finally reveal to Eddie, meeting his eyes for the first time tonight. 

Eddie stares back at you, his expression softens with understanding. He seems to have pieced together what you have: your anger had never been cruel, only defensive. Protective of your brother the way only a sister would in fear of losing him. 

“Guess that makes us both idiots, huh?” Eddie teases gently, accepting the offering of truce that you present to him. 

You laugh, looking away. The moment of truce is nice, pleasant almost, until the beat of silence becomes too unbearable for you. You’ve revealed enough of yourself tonight. Awkwardly clearing your throat, you lift your arm from Eddie’s shoulder and pull away. “Robin is probably missing me right now. She hates the dark, these woods are her worst nightmare.”

Steve catches your arm before you leave. You’re still unsteady on your feet, but he understands what you’re trying to do. He’s come to learn that you shut away when you’re vulnerable. While you wear your heart on your sleeve, Steve knows that it can be exhausting for you. 

“Need me to call her over?” He asks you quietly.

“No, I can manage.” You kiss Steve’s cheek, thanking him without having to say it. Eddie smiles at you as you leave, tight lipped, but kind nonetheless. 

The two teens watch you slowly make your way over to Robin, who happily welcomes your presence. She wraps her arms around you and holds you tightly, giggling slightly, before holding you close and helping you walk. 

“I’ll bring her back in one piece!” Robin calls to Steve, giggling under her breath. Steve waves his hand sarcastically, but doesn’t argue. Turning to you, Robin’s face shines in the blue moonlight. “You here to save me from this totally creepy, absolutely horrid woods?”

“Duh,” your laughter reflects hers. “I’m your knight in shining armor, babe.”

Robin squeezes your hand, resting her head against yours as you walk together. It’s been a long time since you’ve held each other like this. The realization makes you guilty. “How’ve you been holding up?”

Robin shrugs, the motion jostles your head, but you don’t mind. “We’re in the Upside Down, some guy named Vecna wants you and Max dead, and you refuse to admit that you’re scared.”

You bite your lip. Robin is just as worried for you as Steve is, she’s just hidden it better, and you wish that you could spare her the worry. She’s put up such a strong front for you. Between Steve, Dustin, Lucas, and Max, Robin knew you didn’t want yet another person coddling you.

So she stepped back, gave you the space you wanted, but you’re still her best friend. Robin won’t let you forget that.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper to her, holding onto her as tightly as she holds onto you. 

Robin shrugs again. “Nothing to forgive, pretty girl.”

And it’s as simple as that.

Though Steve can’t hear your conversation, he watches you and Robin fondly. The two of you sway together, laughing occasionally. Eddie notices the way Steve looks at you and laughs to himself. 

“You know, I was jealous of you, too.”

Steve raises his eyebrow. “What?”

“I was jealous of you and Henderson, the little one, I mean. Guess I couldn’t accept the fact that Steve Harrington was actually a good dude. I mean, rich parents, popular, chicks love him, not a douche? No way dude. That like, flies in the face of all laws in the universe and my own personal Munson doctrine.”

Then Eddie motions towards you. “And when you started dating Y/N? C’mon, man. Everyone knows Y/N Henderson is like, God’s gift to selflessness. I watched her tutor kids in the library like goddamn Gandhi, and suddenly she’s dating you? There isn’t any law in the universe to explain that. Fucking unfair.”

Though he knows he should be offended, Steve finds himself laughing. If he’s being honest, he’s relieved that someone else is questioning whether Steve deserves you. From the moment he met you, you’ve tried convincing him that he’s always deserved you. But Steve knows better, and he can’t believe it’s Eddie Munson who sees this, too. 

“If it makes you feel any better, I also don’t know why Y/N chose me.” Steve confesses, catching Eddie’s attention. “Honestly, I don’t think I ever would’ve been someone she even liked had we not been dragged into the Upside Down together. I was a douchebag. She hated me for years, but I guess saving her life a few times earned me some brownie points.” 

Eddie snorts. “Surprised you’re not claiming it was your ‘stunningly good looks’ that made Y/N fall for you. Oh how humble you’ve become.”

“Y/N changed me.” Steve’s eyes find your body again. They will always draw towards you no matter where you are.

The sincerity in Steve’s voice surprises Eddie. Licking his lips, he sighs. “Well whatever she did, I never would’ve jumped in that lake to save your ass, not under any normal circumstances.” A branch snaps, Steve and Eddie turn to its source, but there’s nothing there. Sighing again, Eddie continues to walk. “Outside of DnD, I’m no hero. I see danger and I just turn heel and run… at least, that’s what I’ve learned about myself this week.”

Steve doesn’t know where Eddie is going with this. “Hey, give yourself a break, man.”

Eddie points to you, Robin, and Nancy walking up ahead. “No, you see. The only reason I came in here was ‘cause those ladies came in straight after you. I was too ashamed to be the one who stayed behind. But Y/N? She dove in the second your head went under. Nearly tore Robin’s arm off trying to get to you.”

Something heavy settles in Steve’s chest. There’s a shift, there’s something that simmers deep into his rib cage. 

Eddie forces Steve to look at him. “I don’t know how you did it, but she loves you. The way she was screaming your name, it was an unambiguous sign of true love that these cynical eyes have ever seen. And if someone like Y/N Henderson loves you… then I figured you must be worth saving.”

Steve’s breath stutters. He looks up at you again, the warmth that cascades his veins whenever he sees you overwhelms him. Steve loves you more than anything. To be told how deeply you love him by someone else is almost too much. 

You and Steve have been fighting so much recently. He’s said awful things to you, you’ve hurt him in ways he hadn’t known he could hurt. All the unspoken words, all the uncertainty and fear, and yet you dove in to save Steve without hesitating. 

And isn’t that all that love is? To love without expectations, without hesitancy. Love is the inability to separate your breath from the person’s lungs; you took all the air out of Steve’s chest the moment you smiled at him. 

You’re the best goddamn thing that has ever happened to Steve. He’s always known this, he’s always known that what the two of you have is special. It’s something more than just young love. 

So what if the future you envision doesn’t align with Steve’s? How could something so small, so miniscule as compared to forever with you, be what Steve allows to drive you away? You deserve more than just his insecurities. You’ve already decided that Steve deserves your love, what more can he want from you?

He already has you; Steve won’t let you walk away from him. Not this time, not when what you have is rare and real and raw. 

Steve almost wants to laugh at how funny it is. He’d been so worried about losing you, that he almost lost you in the process. What’s even worse: it took a five minute conversation with fucking Eddie Munson to even realize it. 

“Y/N, she’s–” Steve begins, but the ground starts to shake again and he’s falling. Eddie curses, sick of these earthquakes, and Steve braces himself as the rumbling continues. 

Robin struggles to hold onto you as you cower together under the earth’s violent shaking. Instinctively your head turns toward Steve to make sure he’s okay. You find him on the ground next to Eddie. Sensing your eyes on him, Steve looks up and nods reassuringly at you. Relieved, you breathe against Robin. 

“Second on my list of least favorite things,” she says, voice shaking. “Earthquakes. Seriously, I’m unsteady enough as it is.”

“At least you have two working legs.” You quip.

Robin shushes you, but her voice raises when she sees Nancy stand and take off. “Nancy!”

Squinting at the darkness, you see the girl’s figure disappearing into the treeline. She’s running alarmingly fast, way too fast for anyone to catch up in time, and your heart lurches. None of you should be splitting up right now. It isn’t safe. “Fuck! Someone stop her!”

Robin quickly throws you onto your feet and you call after Steve and Eddie to follow. If running was difficult with a bleeding out leg, it’s almost impossible with the ground shaking beneath you. But if Nancy’s in trouble, you need to get to her as soon as you can. Leg be damned.

Breaking through the treeline, you find her standing at the edge of a clearing. There are fallen trees everywhere. Red lightning illuminates the Wheeler house before you. By some miracle, you’ve made it.

“Come on.” Nancy breaks the silence, chin held high. She isn’t giving up now, not when you’re all so close. 

She starts to walk, never looking back, and you look at Steve. He grabs your hand. You take a deep breath. You fucking hope Nancy’s plan works. 

This is your only chance of going home.

– 

The Wheeler house is exactly how you remember it, only vines and debris maims its usually pristine appearance. Nancy walks through the door first while Steve shines a flashlight. Particles float everywhere. You try not to think about the fact that you’re inhaling them.

Your foot catches on a stray vine, its tendrils flail angrily at you. Stomping your foot away, you look wearily at Nancy. “Love the decor.”

She rolls her eyes while Robin echoes you. “Might be time to get a maid, Wheeler.”

Ignoring the two of you, Nancy ushers everyone upstairs. While her voice is level, the unease in her body is apparent. She doesn’t like seeing her home this way. Sympathetic, you start to follow Nancy, but for a split second you think you hear Dustin’s voice.

It’s faint, mostly incoherent, and you think you’ve finally gone crazy. That’s it. Vecna has won, you’ve lost the remaining sanity you had left. 

But then Steve suddenly freezes next to you. His bewilderment tells you that he hears Dustin, too. That’s your brother. You’d know his nasally voice anywhere.

Sharing a look with Steve, you simultaneously begin running around the house, trying to follow the sound of Dustin’s voice. You remember Will telling you how he could hear Joyce’s cries for him while he’d been trapped in the Upside Down. It had been the only way Joyce could communicate with him. What if this is the same?

“Start screaming,” you command Steve, limping over to one of the walls. 

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s what Will did, he-he screamed for his mom and Joyce was able to hear him.” You press our mouth close to the wall and shout, “Dustin!” 

He has to hear you. You don’t know what you’ll do if he doesn’t.

Steve wastes no time following along, screaming Dustin’s name at the top of his lungs as well. You know the two of you must look like complete idiots, but you’re desperate.

“Dustin! Dustin Henderson you have five seconds to answer me!” You yell, throat burning.

“Hello? Answer us!” Steve stands in the center of the kitchen, crouched down as if getting ready to bolt. 

This is how Nancy, Robin, and Eddie find you. The three of them stare at you and Steve in concern, though none of them want to get any closer. Robin ducks her head down, whispers, “Maybe they really do have rabies.”

“What are you guys doing?” Nancy demands, fed up. 

“He’s here,” Steve whips his flashlight around, facing them. “Henderson. That little shit, he’s here. He’s like-he’s in the walls or something. Just listen.”

Dustin, predictably, is quiet the moment Steve tells everyone to listen. 

You pound on the wall. “Oh, now you’re quiet?” Everyone looks at you skeptically and you rub your face tiredly. “Look, I know this all sounds crazy, but I can hear Dustin, alright? It’s him.”

“Dustin!” Steve continues to screech, not helping your whole “we aren’t crazy” argument. 

Only Dustin’s voice returns, and thankfully Nancy and everyone else hears it. Together you all search the house, calling your brother’s name out. Yet now matter how loud you scream, he doesn’t respond.

“Alright, either this kid can’t hear us or he’s being a total douchebag.” Steve drops his flashlight.

You blow hair out of your face. “Normally he’s a douchebag, but not nearly to this extent.”

Nancy stands next to you. “But Will found a way to make Joyce listen.”

“When Joyce couldn’t hear him anymore, she used the Christmas lights.” You look at her. “Do you think…?”

She’s already running to the nearest lamp in the kitchen. Flicking the switch, nothing happens. You suggest trying a different light, though you know it won’t make a difference. When the lights remain unlit, you slam your palm against the table in frustration. 

“Guys?” Steve gets your attention. He’s shining his flashlight at the chandelier that hangs over the Wheeler’s dining table. “You seeing this?”

Where Steve points his flashlight, a warm, evanescent glow emits from the chandelier. You gasp at its beauty, you’ve never seen anything like it. Nancy steps towards the light and slowly puts her hand into the loose waves that flow between the lights. It’s encased in small orbs that float gently into the air. 

Nancy’s fingers dance in the light. A path of gold leaves a trail where her fingers have been. The particles in the light surround her hand, pulled in by her presence. Breathless, you reach out as well. The light kisses your hand, and the sensation is soft, almost ticklish. 

“This is insane,” you murmur in awe, face illuminated. You never thought you’d encounter beauty in such a place as the Upside Down. But at least Will found the beauty, too. “This must be how Will did it.”

Robin, Steve, and Eddie copy you and Nancy, putting their hands into the light as well. The five of you twirl your fingers around, causing the light to flicker with every movement. 

Steve’s pinky reaches for yours. “It… tickles?” 

“It kinda feels good.” Mumbles Robin, making figure 8’s with her finger. 

Nancy then lowers her hand and asks if anyone knows morse code. She mostly looks at you when you ask, and you bitterly tell her no. You’d think after everything you and the party have been through, you’d at least learn morse code by now. 

“Wait, does SOS count?” 

Eddie’s stupid question makes you hit his chest. “Of course it counts!”

“Ow!” He shoves you away from him, straightening his leather jacket. “A ‘yes” would’ve sufficed.”

Nancy shushes the two of you and instructs Eddie to start typing out the code. With a huff, he listens, and soon he begins the pattern for SOS. A soft buzz accompanies every flicker of the light. With each letter combination, you can practically feel Dustin getting closer and closer to you. 

It’s almost an indescribable feeling. Somewhere, in another universe, Dustin is standing right where you are. You aren’t sure how you know, maybe you’ll never be able to find the right words, but your brother’s presence settles over your own. 

This must be how Jonathan felt when Joyce was in the Upside Down. He whispered her name so softly when he followed her with the lights. Their love for one another tethered them; now it’s your love for Dustin that tethers him to you. 

“Dustin,” his name comes out whispered, relieved. He’s okay, you can feel that he’s safe. 

“Y/N?” Dustin’s muffled shouting fills everyone with relief. Steve and Eddie high five, Nancy lets out the breath she’d been holding, and Robin cheers while you hastily wipe your eyes. The SOS worked. “Is that-is that you?”

“Yes!” Steve screams into the chandelier, though you know your brother won’t be able to hear.

Anxious to get to Dustin as fast as you can, you shove your hands into the chandelier’s light and send a long, bright beam of light. More muffled screaming can be heard on the other side, only this time laughter accompanies it.

“Holy shit!” Dustin exclaims in awe. The amazement in his voice makes you miss him even more. There’s a murmur of other voices, you can only assume one of them is Lucas’, before Dustin shouts even louder, “We’re gonna find you a better light source. Don’t move.”

You roll your eyes. “Like we can go anywhere else.”

Dustin leaves again, but he’s back within minutes. Through loud screaming, he tells you to find Holly’s Lite Brite and go to Nancy’s room. Him and Lucas will meet the rest of you there. 

The moment Dustin leaves again, Nancy shoves everyone upstairs. “I’ll find the light pad, the rest of you go. Now.” 

And that’s how you find yourself restlessly staring at a child’s light up toy on Nancy Wheeler’s bed with Steve’s chest pressed against your back. He leans close to the toy, mumbling under his breath, “Come on, little Henderson.”

The Lite Brite suddenly comes to life. You throw your hands up triumphantly, giddy. “Yes!”

“You guys seeing this?” Dustin asks, to which Nancy responds by putting her hand into the light. Dustin squeals in excitement. This must be a scientific dream for him. “Okay, we’re not moving it, but we’re gonna unplug it. Stand by.”

The light fades away and Dustin prompts someone to spell something. Everyone turns to you. He’s your brother, you should be the one to make first contact. 

Carefully, you use your pointer finger to spell out D.U.S.T.

Eddie cocks his head. “‘Dust’?”

“He’ll understand.” 

When your mom first brought Dustin home from the hospital, he’d been so small. Immediately you fell in love with the small baby, but his size had confused you. You’d never seen anything so tiny before. 

“He’s small,” you informed your father, making a face at the yawning baby before you. “Like dust.”

You were only three, but you can still remember the way your dad had laughed. For years afterwards you never referred to Dustin by his actual name. He was only ever “Dust” to you. Your father joined, the nickname stuck, though your mother came to prefer “Dusty.”

It was only after your father left that you stopped calling your brother Dust. 

“Dust!” Dustin laughs excitedly. “I’m Dust! Yes!” He raises his voice louder, he can’t believe you remembered the old childhood nickname. “That worked, guys!”

Everyone cheers, Eddie even throws in his own enthusiastic “hi” to the Lite Brite. Your face aches from how hard you smile. Turning the toy over to Nancy, you nod at her. “All yours, Wheeler.”

Her eyebrows knit together as she thinks for a moment. There’s so much to tell Dustin and the others, but the Lite Brite is small and too many words to keep track of. “What should I write?”

“‘Help’ would be a pretty good place to start.” You suggest to her. 

Instead, Nancy ends up spelling “stuck”. Which is pretty fitting, all things considered. Gets the message across well. 

“You can’t get back through Watergate?”

Steve questions whatever the hell watergate is and Robin has to explain the wordplay. While she does so, pride swells deep within your chest. “Dustin’s a little genius that I love so much.”

“It was pretty clever.” Eddie admits. 

Nancy tells Dustin that the gate you all came through is guarded. However, never missing a beat, Dustin tells you that he thinks they have a theory that can help. “We think Watergate isn’t the only gate, that there’s one at every murder site.”

You jerk your head up, eyes widening. It all makes sense now. “Wait, I think he’s–”

“Does anyone have any idea what he’s talking about?” Nancy asks tiredly. Everyone gives her equally tired no’s, but you nod viciously.

“Yes! We already know there’s multiple gates, we just didn’t know how, but Dustin might’ve figured it out. It’s all connected to the murders.”

Nancy looks skeptical. “I don’t know…” Before you can argue with her, she sends a “?” back to Dustin. 

Who, predictably, doesn’t take it well. “Seriously? How many times do I have to be right on the money before you guys just trust me?”

Steve grimaces. “Jesus Christ. This kid’s gotta get his ego checked out.” 

“It’s his tone, right?” Eddie butts in.

You shove them both. “Shut up. Both of you. Dustin can be annoying and frustrating, but he’s right. He’s always been right. Now if you guys would actually listen, he’ll get us out of here.”

Looking pointedly at everyone, you start to explain. “There was a gate in Lover’s Lake, which we obviously found,” your arms wave behind you. “The same lake where Patrick died. Now, where else has a dead body been found?”

“Eddie’s trailer,” Nancy straightens, understanding where you’re going with this. Looking at Eddie, she asks him how far it is. 

“Seven miles.” 

Your head drops. “Why couldn’t you have lived closer?”

“I’m sorry I’m… poor?” Eddie looks at you incredulously. 

You flick a dismissive hand at him, but Robin cuts in between you two. “Nancy, I know your house here is, like, weirdly, creepily frozen in time and shit–”

“It’s what?” Obviously you missed some important details. 

Robin holds her hand up. “I’ll explain later. Anyways, haven’t you always had bikes?”

You and Nancy share a look, both thinking the same thing: the bikes would be perfect. That, and they’re kinda your only option at the moment. 

– 

Since you’re in no condition to bike (your thigh has only just stopped bleeding) and there’s only four bikes anyways, Steve has you wrap your arms around his chest and stand on his pegs. He claims it’s so that you can avoid putting any weight on your leg, but you honestly think he just wants you to hold him. Pressing your body close to his, you look around at the houses you pass.

In a strange, twisted way, it’s exhilarating biking through an Upside Down Hawkins. Everything, and yet nothing, is the same. The houses you pass are frozen in time, empty, ghostly. Robin, Nancy, and Eddie bike alongside you and Steve. The scene is almost reminiscent of the night you biked Will home, wind in your hair and the night sky before you. 

Everything has changed since then.

Somewhere along the route to Eddie’s, you bike past the Creel house. Your arms tighten instinctively around Steve. A chill runs through you, the house is just as haunting in the Upside Down as it is back in your universe. Your head throbs being so close to it, as if warning you, but Steve is turning into Eddie’s neighborhood before you can think much else of it. 

“That’s gotta be a Guinness World Record.” Robin throws her bike down, breathless. “Most miles traveled interdimensionally.”

Steve coughs, swatting at the particles in the air. “Just inhaled a bunch of that crap.”

“I’ve been trying not to think about how much of the Upside Down we’ve ingested since being here.”

“It’s stuck in my throat, Y/N.”

“Again, I’m trying not to think about that.”

Eddie opens his trailer door and, just as Dustin predicted, there’s a gate. It’s just like the one in Lover’s lake had been: illuminating red light, vines all around its edges. An open wound. 

“This is where Chrissy died.” Eddie stares up at the gate, which resides in the ceiling. He swallows heavily. “Like, right where she died.”

“I’m sorry.” Your hand finds Eddie’s arm. You don’t know much about what their relationship had been, but he seems to have cared about the girl a lot. 

Eddie gives you a tight lipped smile, his eyes shining slightly. As he looks at you, Robin sees something moving in the gate. “I think there’s something in there.”

Something starts to protrude from it, causing the gate to swell rapidly. The vines almost seem to snarl at the intrusion. An ominous, unsteady croak emits from the gate. The sound sets your nerves on edge and Steve shoves you behind him protectively. Hand on your knives, you raise them, bracing. 

The gate explodes, spewing liquid and vines everywhere. You all scream, jumping back, as something rips through the membrane-like material. Unable to tell what’s just happened, you squint up at the ceiling.

Nothing jumps out at you, no bats come to feast on your flesh. Finding Steve’s eye, you silently ask him if you should walk closer. Nodding, he grabs your hand, and together you creep towards the remains of the gate.

When you look up, you find Dustin’s smug, joyous face staring back at you. Only he’s upside down with Max, Lucas, and Erica, all just as in shock as you are.

You’ve never been more relieved to see them in your life. Dropping your hands to your knees, you bend over and finally breathe. “Oh, thank God.”

“No way…” Steve waves at them, and they wave right back. “Hi.”

“Dustin!” If your leg wasn’t hanging by a thread, you’d be jumping up and down right now. Instead, you opt for waving like a madman at your brother. The entire situation is so fucking bizarre, but you don’t even care anymore. “You did it!”

“I did it!” Dustin giggles. “Bada bada boom!”

After some heated discussions and a few arguments, Dustin and the others come up with a way to get the five of you out of the Upside Down. Using Eddie’s bed sheets as a makeshift rope had been the easy part. What caused nearly a fist fight between Max and Dustin had been figuring out a soft landing pad for you guys. 

“I, uh. Have a mattress?” Eddie finally suggested when he noticed Max’s fist clenching. 

She glared at him. “Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

“Well, I mean. It’s-uh. Minor details?”

But none of them had time to question Eddie’s sudden shyness regarding his mattress. Dustin got straight to work tying the bed sheets together while Max and Lucas worked on dragging the mattress out of Eddie’s room. 

However, the moment it landed on the ground, all eyes went to the giant stains on the bed. Cringing in disgust, you eye Eddie.

Seeing your disapproving look, he swallows. “Those stains are, uh…” He tries to come up with an excuse, but eventually he realizes it’s better to just accept defeat. “I don’t know what those stains are.”

“Would we want to know even if you knew?” You ask him, already knowing the answer.

“... Probably not.”

Dustin tosses the bed sheet rope up, or rather down, through the gate. “Not quite sure how these physics are gonna work, but here goes nothing.”

Miraculously, it lands perfectly in front of you. Dustin tugs at the rope before letting go of it completely. You gasp. The rope stands on its own, stiff but secure, and Dustin lets out a pleased laugh. “Abracadabra.”

“I’ve never understood physics.” You say, pulling at the rope. It doesn’t move. “But even I can admit that this is cool.”

Dustin high fives Erica and Robin steps up first. “Guess I’m the guinea pig.”

“Please be careful.” You tell her, already dreading your own ascent. Your shoulder still aches and you were never the best at climbing the rope for gym. You preferred soccer, track, anything that involved leg coordination. Not upper body. 

Robin slowly climbs up, and when her body hits the disgusting mattress back in your dimension, you let out a breath of relief. “That was kinda fun,” Robin giggles slightly.

Then Eddie stares at you, Steve, and Nancy. He waits for someone to move, obviously not wanting to be next. But when no one does, he shakes his head. “Alright, I guess I’ll go.”

Steve holds the rope steady and Eddie falls onto his mattress safely. He sits up, exhilarated. “That was fun.” He echoes Robin. 

Steve gestures for Nancy to go next. “I’ll help Y/N up after you’re done.”

She gives him an uncertain look, eyeing your injuries, and you try to smile at her reassuringly. “Go, I’ll be fine. Promise.”

Knowing it’s as good of an answer she’ll get from you, Nancy takes a deep breath. “See you on the other side.”

You grab her waist and help hoist her up alongside Steve. She’s swift, her strength impresses you. She’s almost reached the top before you hear the first chime. 

It’s loud, deafening. The chime of a grandfather clock.

Another chime follows, then a third, a fourth. It wracks your skull with its force. 

You turn, gasping, expecting to find the grandfather clock that Max had seen in her vision. Only you’re met with darkness. You can’t see anything, you can’t find a way out. You can’t feel Steve next to you, your hands try to find his in the dark, but all they’re met with is air. 

“What–” Panic chokes you. None of this is right, you don’t know where you are, you don’t know what’s happening and you can’t feel Steve and–

The sensation of sunlight kissing your face stops you. 

Your eyes open. You’re no longer in Eddie’s trailer. 

You’re outside, there’s sunshine all around you. In front of you is a field of dandelions, their sweet yellow reflects the gold of the sun above. The grass beneath your feet is soft, lush and green. A bee flies past your head and someone calls your name.

You’ve been here before. In the distance resides a small house on a hill. The blue door and white frames of your childhood home welcomes you. You’re back in Virginia. Someone calls your name again.

The voice is familiar. 

It’s your father, calling you home. 

The realization knocks all the air out of your lungs. None of this is real. You know it isn’t real, but to hear your father’s voice, so sweet and saccharine again, it makes you weak. But it isn’t real. Your legs begin to move, you’re running before you can think of anything else. 

This is a vision. The scent of oak trees and strawberries isn’t real. The wheat that skims your thighs as you run doesn’t exist. “This is a vision,” you try to talk to yourself, your fingers dig into your pockets for your walkman. 

You know you’re supposed to always have it on you, that’s what Dustin told you, but there’s nothing there. Panic swells within your chest once more. “No, please–”

Distracted as you look for your walkman, you don’t see the body in front of you.

Colliding into your father, he steadies you. “Woah, there.”

His calloused hands are rough and familiar. He’s laughing, his voice is the same gruff voice that used to sing you to sleep. Your father looks down at you and your entire body freezes when your eyes meet his. 

You haven’t seen him ever since you were twelve. He looks the same as the day he left. His smile is the same, the crooked teeth charming. Your father’s nose still points up ever so slightly. The only indication that he’s aged are the wrinkles that line his face, years of sunlight etching them. 

But it’s his eyes that hurt you the most. They’re still kind. 

“What are ya runnin’ from, ladybug?” Your father asks you, his southern drawl liquid honey to your ears. 

Tears build within you hearing the childhood nickname. You were his ladybug for as long as you could remember. When he used to call, he’d whisper the name over the phone as an apology for everything he’d done to you. 

Because you can’t help it, because you’ll never be able to do this again, you hug your father. He lets out a soft chuckle at the impact, his arms hold you as they’ve always done. Your face buries itself into his rough t-shirt.

You’re a little girl who needs her daddy right now. 

“I.. I missed you, daddy.” Voice breaking, you begin to cry. 

Your father’s palm rests against your hand. He hums, soothing the ache in your bones. “You know you can never outrun it.”

The words unsettle you, there’s something about them that causes you to pull away. “Outrun what–?” “The guilt, ladybug. It will always find you.” Your father’s smile twists into a sickening grimace. The muscles in his face conjoin, his eyes darken as his voice becomes gravel. Deeper. Until it isn’t your father’s voice anymore, but someone else's. “I will always find you.”

Too late do you realize that it’s Vecna who now has you. You start to scream, thrashing in your father’s arms to escape, but he only grips you harder. He’s laughing, but it’s no longer your father’s laughter. 

Suddenly you’re thrown into the lake behind you. You fall, screaming, as you descend deep into a pitch black void. Your arms reach out, you try to find anything to grab onto, but there’s nothing. It’s just endless emptiness. 

You land harshly on your back, all the air gone. You gasp, choke on whatever air remains in your body. The impact leaves you coughing, clawing at the ground beneath you to breathe. Soil scrapes under your nails, your palm gets cut on a root.

You’re in the woods. 

Scrambling to sit up, you realize you’re in the same part of the woods that Will went missing in. Fear cuts through your veins. Why would Vecna take you here?

“Will?” You’re on your feet now, cupping your hands over your mouth as you shout his name. Does Vecna have him? Have you lost him again? “Will!”

“He needed you that night.” Vecna’s voice taunts you, the sound like rocks grinding together. “Where were you?”

You’re running now. Branches cut your face as you break through them. You have to find Will. You can’t lose him again. You can’t do that to Jonathan, to Joyce and El and Dustin and Mike and everyone else. You’re the one who lost Will that night.

He had needed you. Isn’t that what Vecna said?

“Nancy!” Sobbing, you call for someone, anyone. But no one answers. Your vision blurs with tears, there’s someone running behind you. Chasing you. Terrified, you scream for the person you need the most. “Steve!”

Saying his name must trigger something, because suddenly the scene changes. You’re no longer in the woods. You’re on the ledge of someone’s roof, overlooking a window sill. A large, bay window that you’ve spent countless slow mornings residing on. 

Steve’s house. 

He’s standing in front of his bed, facing the window, facing you, but he doesn’t look at you. Not how he always does; his gaze lacks warmth. 

“Steve!” You pound on the glass, you try desperately to get him to acknowledge you, but he doesn’t. His eyes are on Nancy, who sits on the bed before him. He leans down, brushes her hair out of her face, before bridging the distance between them.

You watch as Steve kisses Nancy. He cups her chin the way he cups yours. Bile rises in your throat; you can’t turn away. Their kisses become heated, Steve is tugging at Nancy’s hair and her clothes. She tugs at him as well, he helps her remove his shirt.

Nancy’s lips trace the expanse of Steve’s neck and his eyes, once closed in bliss, now open. He looks right at you. 

“Did you really think I’d forget her, Y/N?” His voice digs into your ears. Nancy nips at his neck and he moans. He throws his head back, looks at you again. “I can’t. At least, not as easily as your dad forgot you.”

You stumble back, crying so hard you can barely breathe. Steve laughs seeing your heartbroken reaction. It’s cruel and awful. He’s cold. You’ve never known his voice to hold so much malice. Not towards you. Not towards anyone. 

He’s wrong. Steve doesn’t love Nancy, not anymore. Vecna is the one saying this, you know it isn’t Steve. He would never say any of this to you, he could never be so cruel to you. He loves you. You know he does. 

“N-no! This isn’t-this isn’t real–”

But the hatred in Steve’s eyes causes your foot to catch on the edge of the roof. You don’t have time to catch yourself; your body is weightless again, only this time it’s a much shorter fall. You land on concrete. Ripping your eyes open, there are domed walls around you. 

Nancy stands above you. 

Hyperventilating, you crawl away from her. You’re in Steve’s pool, only it’s empty, infested with vines, and your fingers stain the ground with blood. Everything in your body is screaming at you to run.

“Y/N–” Nancy tries to stop you, but you scream at her, kicking. She only barely avoids your fury. Holding her hands up, she lowers her voice, softens it. She’s crying, her terror the same as yours. “Y/N, it’s me, okay?”

Your body trembles with exhaustion. You close your eyes, tired of fighting. “Please be real.”

“I’m real.” Nancy swears to you, carefully reaching for you. When you allow her touch, she helps you stand up. 

The memory of her having sex with Steve is burned into your mind. You can’t look Nancy in the eye. She breathes heavily next to, looking around for a way out, when she sees something. A strangled cry leaves Nancy’s lips.

Barbara Holland’s corpse sits on the other side of the pool.

You cover your mouth with a gasp, choking slightly at the sight. Nancy cries out in pain, in grief, seeing her best friend’s body dismembered by vines. You stumble towards Nancy and hold her as she sobs. 

“Do you remember what you did, Nancy? Or have you already forgotten?” Vecna’s voice shakes the pool. “Don’t worry, I showed Y/N. When I kill someone… I never forget.”

A sob collapses in your chest. Barb’s death hadn’t been Nancy’s fault. Yet to place her in the same pool Barb was killed in, to show Nancy her corpse, is unrelenting cruelty. 

All around you, blood pours from the vents of the pool. It comes out quick, thick, at a dizzying speed. Nancy tugs at your hand and practically throws you up the ladder to escape. But when you reach the top, you’re met with a red hell.

It’s exactly how Max drew it.

Fragments of stairs, jagged pieces of wood, a grandfather clock, they all drift through the air painted with blood-red. Somewhere there’s screaming, the sound only drowned out by lightning. A clock ticks over and over again. Its metronome is maddening.

Nancy holds your hand and neither one of you lets go. Having nowhere else to go, you’re forced to walk down the stairs you arrived at. The clock chimes again and your heart stops.

“I see you’ve been looking for me, Nancy. And Y/N…” Vecna pauses, preying on you. “I’ve been watching you for quite some time.”

Everything stops.

“All the guilt, all the pain.” 

It comes to you in flashes. 

How Will used to smile at you, before his childhood was taken from him. Max’s blue eyes, shining with youth and happiness, before grief killed her. Billy, how he would be kind to your mother at the pool. Hopper, the way you’d bicker with him just to get him to smile.

It’s all gone because of you; you can’t remember how to breathe. 

Vecna feeds on your fear. “How fragile you’ve become… like a dandelion.” 

The wording, it’s too specific to not mean anything. Dandelions were once one of your favorite flowers. Before a nightmare from last summer changed everything. The dandelions had filled your mouth with razors and choked you. Someone called your name in the distance, they’d been too late to save you.

The dream had felt so real. You’d woken up with tears in your eyes.

And now you know it had been Vecna all along. Even back then. He’s been watching you for far longer than you realized. The realization chokes you, the fear overwhelms you. He’s been here all along.

Nancy yanks at your arm, you can barely hear her over the roaring in your head. “Y/N, listen to my voice.” 

She’s shaking you, trying to bring you back to her, but you’re lost. Hyperventilating, you struggle to catch your breath. You feel too vulnerable. Raw. Exposed. There are corpses strung up by vines in front of you. Fred’s broken jaw. Chrissy’s snapped neck. Patrick’s empty eye sockets. 

The same will happen to you. 

You’ve spent so long trying to be strong, trying to keep everyone safe. You’ve devoted your entire life to protecting others, helping them. But Vecna has been watching you for almost an entire year, maybe even longer, and you hadn’t noticed.

It’s why he’s targeted Max. He watched you take care of everyone you loved. Vecna watched you raise the girl. He knew it’d hurt you the most to lose her. It hadn’t been a coincidence. It’s all your fault. It’s always your fault. Will went missing because of you. Billy died because you hadn’t said anything. Max will die because you hadn’t seen the signs sooner. 

Nancy’s screams fall deaf on your ears. She shakes you, begs you to come back, but why should you?

This is all your fault. 

It’s always your fault. 

It’s always your fault. It’s always your fault. It’s always your fault. It’s always–

You feel your body lift. 

Everything fades to black.

-

⌑ series masterlist

⌑ i am no longer doing a taglist, my apologies ! however, please feel free to like, reblog, and comment instead :)

[pastryfication]

it’s hard … and i hate this part

pairing: logan sargeant x reader note: i really hope he has someone to lean on for comfort right now.

you got the call on the way home from work. you were in a good mood, skipping along as you listened to music while slowly nearing the building in which your apartment was located.

or well, you were in a good mood until you heard his voice.

logan was a calm person. so incredibly calm and controlled, good at keeping his feelings at bay, burrowing them behind a thick protective wall. but in that moment, as he told you the news, his voice was shaking with sobs. terrible, soul wrecking sobs, that crushed your heart in an indescribable way.

as you almost ran the last meters towards your home. your head was pounding, your heart was beating away at an unusually fast pace, and your entire body tingled as a lump formed in your throat, almost breaking down your calm exterior.

it took you a full minute to get the key to fit in the door, your hands shaking as you pushed the phone against your ear. you refused to hang up before he was within your reach.

you pushed open the door with a never before seen enthusiasm, completely neglecting to put away your things as you practically ran towards where you knew he would be.

and there, nestled in your cozy sofa, was your boyfriend. your boyfriend who had just received the news he had been fearing for so long. the news he knew were inevitable. the news he thought he would be able to avoid for at least a few months.

his eyes were red and puffy. there were no tears falling, but it was clear that a waterfall was close to brimming over again soon. he took one look at you and immediately held out his arms. you didn’t hesitate for even a moment.

taking the last step towards him and taking him into your arms was all you longed to do. so you did exactly that, wrapping your arms around his frame as good as you could while he burrowed his face into your chest, inhaling the comforting scent of you.

you stood there for a moment, relishing in the feeling of each others company before logan broke the silence.

“i’m sorry,” he mumbled, almost inaudible, but you picked it up immediately.

“what?!” you pulled back to look at him, capturing his face between your hands when he wouln’t meet your eyes. “baby, why are you sorry? you have nothing to be sorry for.”

he didn’t answer immediately, instead taking his bottom lip between his teeth as his teary eyes met yours in an eye contact so intimate that it was almost too much.

“logan, my love.” your thump gently caressed his cheek as you started talking, your voice a soft, soothing balm to his inner turmoil. “i hope you know that you have absolutely nothing to be sorry for. you’re allowed to be upset. what the team has done to you is absolutely not fair. the race you drove in zandvoort was amazing—just like so many of your other performances this season has been.

“they gave you nothing to work with, and still, they expected you to achieve the unachievable. that’s not fair. you have been so loyal to the team—more than they deserve—and still, they treat you like this. you’re not the one who should be sorry. williams are. please tell me you understand that.”

his eyes glazed over even further at your short speech, the emotions clear on his face as tears gathered in the corners of his eyes.

a lump was quickly forming in his throat, but this time, it didn’t feel as all-consuming as when he was alone. his voice failed him when he tried to answer you, so instead, you only got a nod. but that was fine. that was enough.

and as he cuddled even closer to you, pulling you down on the couch with him so he could be completely wrapped up in your arms, you felt the weight on your chest lifting slightly too.

this whole ordeal would definitely leave some scars on logan—and on you as well—and they might never heal completely, but you had each other. and you’ll always have each other.

[mortal-song]

the problem with tua's ending is that it was IMPOSSIBLE to do without retconning and defacing the themes and characterizations that have been central to the story since the very first episode. if you had to end it that way, if it really was "the plan all along," then fine. there ARE good ways to do that -- so the execution should have been much different here if that was the case. take a look at "the good place," for example. everyone ceased to exist at the end of that story as well, but it was beautifully done because it ADDED to the show's core themes rather than take away from them. tua's ending was hollow and unavailing. at some point i have to commend the precision with which someone can desecrate an entire series and certain characters (looking at five, diego and lila especially) like this.

it made no sense. diego and lila formed a beautiful (albeit chaotic) relationship built upon mutual trust and authentic love that neither of them had ever experienced before. it was something they were teaching each other and learning together. that was a new beginning to them, and it was painted as such by the narrative. at no point were there hints that things would go sideways, no build up. every time they stumbled in the past it was still right back into each other's arms. at no point did their chaos look like an ending until it was shoved in our faces for... shock value? to shake things up? i fail to understand where it came from. they were relentlessly devoted to each other and the only two people who could stand each other for long. and so what became of them was very jarring. very messy.

five's ENTIRE character has been focused on and motivated by one thing: saving the people he loves. to the point that he was willing to let his own humanity become a forgone ideal, a renounced concept, as many times as it took. to the point that he essentially INVENTED TIME TRAVEL and INVENTED THE COMMISSION TO REGULATE IT. five's stoic exterior only barely concealed the claw-grip he had on every single family member, so why forget it now? why choose to go back on that? and in what world would five hargreeves willingly wait MONTHS to return to his family? because he was SUDDENLY in love with lila, no less? forgetting the very apparent fact that his age and body are not in alignment, five had never shown any interest in romance. especially not towards lila. but they do have very similar backgrounds, and so this was a chance to enrich the mutual understanding five and lila have with each other, expand the familial connections they have, especially seeing as how both of them -- in their own ways -- spent most of their life without that sort of connection.

ben's entire arc felt so, so out of place. completely and very ironically isolated from the entire rest of the series. nothing about it was fulfilling, nothing about it offered any sense of closure or even development. jennifer made no sense even as a plot device, much less as her own character. these two brought out nothing in each other.

klaus had the foundations of a good arc, but too much was introduced in too small an amount of time and none of it really went anywhere. i can say roughly the same for allison and viktor. THAT being said, of most of the scenes i did find myself genuinely enjoying this season, THOSE three were usually at the center! in fact, i really did love the scenes with klaus, allison, and claire. so that's cool. i guess. luther? he was just kind of... there?

and ray just fucked off with no explanation? okay. and reginald? until this point he had all the qualities of a potentially VERY GOOD and nuanced villain. his arc fell flat. and let's not forget all the other loose ends, but, you know, we've been here long enough. so. onto the next point.

none of these characters got to heal. none of them ever got to revel in anything meaningful, or, rather, the things that WERE meaningful across the whole series were rendered worthless because... none of it exists anymore! none of it ever existed! this is like an "it was all a dream" ending but much worse. and these characters are so, so incredible. i can only name a few other stories that have had characters i've connected to this deeply. and despite everything i could never really stop loving them. that makes it hurt more though tbh

anyways. i know i'm about to sound incredibly dramatic but the ending made me sob my lungs out. this show was really important to me. it led me to incredible people, other incredible stories, helped me live, etc. but i honestly found myself wishing i'd just never watched this series at all. the ending was eviscerating and Just Fucking Pointless. i don't think i'm ever going to be able to rewatch it. it's still hard for me to conceptualize that it was even real, that this is all we get. there's a lot more i could say about everything, but again, i've said a lot already and i'm not trying to write a fucking novel. i'll say more of what i want to in sporadic bursts i guess.

[nohaijiachi]

Why I Think The Fandom Has Been Doing Aziraphale Dirty Ever Since Season 1 And It's Only Gotten Worse With Season 2 And It's Killing Me Inside

Before we get into the subject matter of the title let me preface a couple of things:

1- All that will follow is, big surprise, my opinion and my interpretation of this character. Do I think I am The One And Only Who Gets The Blorbo Right and that my ideas are 100% the way the author(s) intended to convey the character? No.

More likely than not the way I see Aziraphale could be intensely different from the way Authorman sees him, or Actorman sees him, and I don't think that my interpretation is necessarily any more correct than anybody's else.

That said, if I also did not think that I am, in fact, correct on a certain level, I wouldn't have bothered forming such a thought out opinion of Aziraphale in the first place, nor would be sitting here, writing this post that I can already tell is going to be entirely too long and might probably ruffle some feathers.

So I'll be writing the rest of this post with the caveat that I while I do think my interpretation correct, I'm also not trying to change anybody's mind nor to discredit anybody's else interpretation of Aziraphale. We can sit here in the sandpit and hold different opinions and still be able to build sandcastles together, it really isn't that deep at the end of the day; I can assure you, I'm not here to fight nor cause fights with this one.

2- With the above point, comes also the fact that I won't bother continuously saying "In my opinion" for the rest of this post. You already know that. So, if something will come across as a bit caustic, do know that it is very much tongue in cheek and I am poking a bit of fun at general fannish habits that I am also very much quote-unquoute 'guilty' of having partaken into, and will partake into again plenty of times in the future, I'm sure.

So, with that: Here's Why I Think The Fandom Has Been Doing Aziraphale Dirty Ever Since Season 1 And It's Only Gotten Worse With Season 2 And It's Killing Me Inside

A large part of the people comprising this fandom prefers Crowley. There, I said it.

This fandom's preference blatantly skews toward Crowley. Can we admit that openly? Let's admit that openly.

To be clear, this isn't meant to be an accusation or recrimination or any other -ation you can think of, I am merely stating matter-of-factly a phenomena I've observed in the last four years.

It is also not a wrong nor bad thing in any way, shape or form. I adore Crowley myself. I love them both so much it's unreal.

But I started with that because I think it is very much a symptom of the fact that a lot of people don't get Aziraphale.

I remember back with S1 there had been plenty of times when I found myself reading discussions and opinion exchanges about Aziraphale and Crowley, their dynamics, all the things that went unsaid behind the things that were said, and found myself genuinely surprised by seeing how some people interpreted certain moments wildly different from how I personally saw them.

I look back at that and I think "Oh, sweet summer child". Nothing could have prepared me from the onslaught of takes about Aziraphale that make me go "Good lord, what???" in the wake of S2, and the infamous Last Fifteen.

Now because I don't want to be pointing fingers at specific things and risk upsetting somebody more than I already am by being open in admitting that, guys, yes, some of the takes y'all have been sharing make me go "Yikes(tm)", I'll move on the interesting part and what I would actually love to discuss, aka cracking Aziraphale's head open and see what that actual fuck is going on in there.

Another preface: Because this duo is intrinsically linked and woven together it is downright impossible to only focus on Aziraphale without also mentioning Crowley, so... Let me circle back to our fav demon bae for a sec, here.

I think the reason why it seems that a larger part of the fandom favors Crowley is because I feel like Crowley is a much easier character to grasp. He is very open in his thoughts and feelings, at any given moment us, the audience, have a much easier time watching a scene and sort of ruminating in the back of our heads about Crowley's motivations for saying the things he says and doing the things he does.

That isn't to say Crowley is a less complex character than Aziraphale. They are very much equally complex and multifaceted individuals with their strengths and weaknesses, their issues and the way they each cope with them, how differently they approach their existence and so on and so forth.

But whereas Crowley as a character presents itself with a certain dynamism and a far more outward openness about his complexity, Aziraphale does the exact opposite; we can say Aziraphale is downright hermetic about it.

For us, the audience, he presents a challenge that requires a good deal of thought being put into him to see over the facade he presents at a more superficial level; he requires time and effort to fully dismantle him in our minds to try and see what makes him thick (other than his thighs), and thus I think it is entirely natural that more people latch on the far easier to identify-with, and relate-to, Crowley.

And that is the inevitable consequence of everything that makes Aziraphale... Well, Aziraphale.

So, where to start? Let's try and jot down what Aziraphale truly is at his core.

He is a contradiction.

This man-shaped being is a walking contradiction, constantly existing in a state of being coated in three thousand layers of misdirection and obfuscation and double thinking.

Why is that? Well. He's an angel.

Aziraphale loves being an angel. It is a tenet of his entire existence and something he cherishes. He wants, so very much, to be his ideal of what a good angel is: An entity who is kind and loving and understanding and forgiving.

Of course us, the audience, know that is utter bullshit, because we know angels can be individuals just as complex as the humans Aziraphale loves so much, with all their inherent flaws and capability for cruelty. And, on a certain level, Aziraphale knows that too.

So there we have it, one element of contradiction: Aziraphale wants to think that angels are always Good and Righteous and Never Wrong; Aziraphale knows that angels aren't, in fact, always Good and Righteous and, by god, can they make plenty of mistakes, too.

What else? How about Aziraphale sitting there, being in love with a demon, fully knowing that at the end of the day demons really ain't that different from angels, and also desperately hanging onto the concept of Good vs Bad.

And he sits there, existing with these two contrasting idea equally taking space in his mind, neither side ever capable of taking over the other.

What else do we have? Aziraphale loves God and wants so hard to believe in Her love for humanity and Her ineffable plan, and Aziraphale also time and again does things that very blatantly go against Her will, lies to Her face, and Doubts. He Doubts, a lot, and that requires the capital letter because those Doubts are what spur him in going against everything he's ever told to believe in order to do the right thing.

Aziraphale's very existence is a constant push-and-pull of things he wants to believe and things he knows are real; things he's told to do and things he wants to do. That's how we get "My side" and "there's a bit of good in you" and "you are the bad guys".

And nothing he's lived through has managed to break him out of this unhealthy way of existing quite yet; that's why he acts the way we see him act in the Edinburgh flashback in S2, or at the start of S1 when Crowley has to ease Aziraphale into the idea of trying to stop Armageddon with the usual song and dance of "temptation" and "plausible deniability" and "you'd be thwarting me", even though from the start we can tell there's a little part of Aziraphale who is clearly not at ease with the idea of the end of the world, and once he's been given 'permission' by Crowley nudging him, he is all the way in with the whole saving the world business, not take-backsies.

Both the moments I mentioned here are very important for different reasons, but of the two is very much the Edinburgh flashback that gets a lot more flack by the fandom and is blatantly misunderstood, which I think is the inevitable consequence of that minisode immediately following the glorious, beautiful, heartbreaking piece of art that is the "A companion to owls" minisode.

I've seen a lot of people lamenting that Aziraphale acts obnoxiously in the Edinburgh flashback and, yeah. He does. But I feel like the fact that we are seeing this after watching Aziraphale struggle his way through saving Job's children, even being willing to go to Hell for it, is a though act to follow and probably soured Edinburgh-Aziraphale for a lot of people, made them think that the character had regressed instead of progressing.

But, see, the way he acts is wholly congruous with who Aziraphale is and has always been and keeps being up to the very end of S2. Yes, even after what he does for Job's children.

If you get down to it, Aziraphale had been ready to give up and let the children die, in episode 2. For a brief moment, after Crowley told him he 'longed to destroy the blameless children', Aziraphale was walking away, having tried all he thought he could try to do to stop this senseless act. That was until Crowley tested him by making the crows bleat, cuing Aziraphale to the fact that his impression of Crowley wasn't wrong, and the he could count on him to do the right thing.

To be clear, I don't want to undermine Aziraphale's action by only giving the credit to Crowley but... It is, also, only thanks to Crowley cajoling him and giving him the right excuses, that Aziraphale feels safe in doing what he's always wanted to do all along.

He'd wanted to save Job's children, and thought he couldn't until Crowley threw him that hell of a lifesaver. He wanted to save the world and thought he couldn't until Crowley nudged him on the path of plausible deniability.

He wanted to save Elspeth's eternal soul, blinding himself to the hardships she'd have to endure in her not-eternal life, and was smacked right in the face by the reality of human suffering multiple times.

The way Aziraphale acts in that flashback can't be a regression, because there never was a progression in the first place: He'd always walked the line between Heaven's and God's will and his own, personal morality and sense of justice.

By all means, if we look at Uz-Aziraphale and modern-day-Aziraphale at the start of S1, his reticence about the whole saving the world business should, by all means, appear as a regression as well. You mean to tell me that he'd been ready to become a demon for the sake of three mortal children, and then suddenly a handful of thousands years later when faced with the prospect of the whole world going up in flames he'd just be all like "Heaven will triumph over Hell and it will be all rather lovely"? Like, fuck off, Aziraphale, you lying double-thinker, you (/pos)

Aziraphale constantly exist while being at war with himself. Circumstances have allowed him to rebel the will of Heaven and God more or less safely time and again, but he never quite managed to break free entirely. He'd always ended up being reeled back in, being fed the party lines, being made to feel shame for his independent thinking, until it all becomes too much and he is forced to step back from that freedom he'd been inches away from grasping.

Back and forth, back and forth, never stopping.

And all of this, all of what he is, makes it so hard for us, the audience, to truly see him. To truly grasp him. To truly watch any given scene with him and figure out what he might be thinking or feeling.

To understand Aziraphale is to understand what he is not saying when he says something, which is a good deal harder to do than it is to understand and relate to a character like Crowley, who very much revel in saying exactly whatever the heck he thinks whenever he damn well pleases.

All those layers of obfuscation and misdirection and double thinking that Aziraphale coats himself in are as much an armor that makes it harder for the audience to understand him as they are his very own downfall because, good lord, if you exist like that, if you exist forced to keep things hidden from yourself, well... It's inevitable that at some point you are going to stumble into pitfalls of your own making.

And I love him for it.

So, there? I hope I managed to explain something with this post, and that it wasn't just the rambling of someone who spends way too much time thinking about her blorbos. To be clear, I don't think people who haven't spent as much time as me trying to dissect and better understand Aziraphale's character are like, dumber than me or anything. It's just that this pair of angelic-demonic blorbos take too much real estate in my mind, lol.

Feel free to let me know your opinion and if you think I am wildly off mark and my Take Is Bad. I might answer, I might not, it all depends on time and my mood ◝(ᵔᵕᵔ)◜

[armageddon-generation]

Empire of Death was bad and cemented several fundemental flaws in this season.

I watched this in the theatre, and the contrast between everyone's excitement before Empire, and their universal disappointment leaving the theatre was super disheartening. I'm gonna try to articulate my problems with episode, and how they're linked to fundenental structural issues of this season.

SPOILERS BELOW:

Sutekh

The moment the UNIT characters died the story was robbed of any stakes. (Also? Kate and Ibrahim?? During Pride month?? Disgusting)

Sutekh was pointless, big CGI spectacle who was barely there. Saying he's been latched onto the TARDIS since Pyramids of Mars was such an asspull. Why couldn't he have latched on during Wild Blue Yonder? wouldn't that make much more sense??

You're telling me the guy who holds all life in contempt is invested enough in learning the identity of Ruby's mum he willingly reveals himself??

And then they defeat him by dragging him through the Vortex just like before, which it's been explicitly stated *didn't work* last time? He just *lets* Ruby leash him??

The 'death of death is life' bit, and the idea of the Doctor representing life as a Ying to Sutekh's Yang, is a cool concept just jammed in there with no real buildup or depth.

The issue is bringing Sutekh back takes so much effort- a literal, clunky clipshow of Pyramids of Mars, a whole episode spent building up to the reveal of a silly anagram entirely unrekated to Sutekh's previous appearance. And it just... amounts to nothing. What a silly way to cap off a season meant to be jumping-on point for brand-new viewers.

Mel was just takingup space. Pointless.

Ruby's Mother

I don't have a problem with the *concept* of Ruby's mum being normal. I really like the idea thematically. The execution was terrible.

First of all it leaves so many unanswered questions (why the snow? Why was time changing? Why was she shadowed? Literally just for the sake of the mystery-box?) and represents the worst thing about this new era- RTD using fantasy logic to handwave any logic at all, and just do whatever he wants without properly justifying it.

Second, I *hate* how easy and simple and neat the reunion is. Ruby seems incapable of getting angry with anyone. She has never once argued with 15, or Carla, or anyone besides that one moment in 73 Yards. She has never expressed any kind of negative feeling towards her mother for abandoning her. And it's fine for her to reach that conclusion! It's just bizzare we never see Ruby struggle with her feelings beyond the shallow goal of wanting to find her.

(Also Carla? Has nothing to say?? Just welcomes that woman in with basically no comment? Carla is a 2D cutout of a person, used as a plot device and otherwise relegated to the single character trait of I Love My Daughter. The children yearn for the ilk of Jackie Tyler, Sylvia Noble, even Francine Jones.)

15 & Ruby

The emotion behind 15 & Ruby's split felt entirely unearned because we've never seen their bond develop. They never argue, never disagree, Ruby hasn't learned anything about herself or grown or changed. The closest we got to that is 73 Yards, which was undone. She was already brave and kind and musical and sure she loved her adoptive family when we met her in Church on Ruby Road.

Similarly, 15 tells us Ruby encouraged him to talk about family in a way he never has, but that was in what, two moments across the season? And they seemed random, unrelated to Ruby being with him. New viewers will assume 15 is just that open anyway- he was discussing fatherhood with a dead man's hologram- and old viewers assumed trauma-dumping was just a new trait of 15's personality, not Ruby-specific.

The problem is we're told Ruby & 15 are best friends but it isn't earned. I liked 15 crying initially but both he and Ruby do it so much (15 cries about 5 times in this one episode) it loses its impact and I'm becoming numb to it. There is no contrast, no downtime.

Season Structural Issues

I think the biggest problem is Season 1's storytelling priorities. It's much more interested in selling *the show* (look at our big budget! And guest stars! And how flexible our format is! Musical episode! The Beatles as props! Bottle episode! Indie folk-horror! Black Mirror! Gay Bridgerton!) it forgot to put effort into developing and investing us in its characters. I liked a lot of the individual stories this year but in retrospect a lot of them feel like they're wasting space that needed to go to essential character and theme setup.

These skewed priorities, combined with the cut down episode count, really impact the pacing of the season. Ruby and 15 were barely together! Even in Rogue they were seperated for most of the story!! We only loop back to a flashback of 15 meeting Carla in Rogue!

This is made worse by the baffling insistence on a 45-minute runtime. We know key sequences were cut from almost every episode, with highlights including:

The Gobin King invading Ruby's flat and her banishing him with scratchcards in The Church on Ruby Road: Her missing 'companion saves the day' moment!

Refrence to the Toymaker in The Church on Ruby Road, which was itself referenced in The Devil's Chord. 'I told you about the Toymaker when we first met' sir, objectively you did not.

The TARDIS jukebox playing the Sugarbabes' Push The Button in the opening scene of Space Babies, hastily cut around in the final edit. This is the setup of a running joke still in the episode, and part of the story's climax. The first encounter with the Bogeyman was also longer, with 15 taking particular interest in its skin

Extended scenes in Abbey Road from The Devil's Chord, including an apparently significant speaking role for Cilla Black, according to her annoyed actress.

Cut dialogue from The Devil's Chord explaining the musoical number was caused by Maestro's power lingering, and that banishing them undid everything they'd done. Fans inferred thos based on the rules established in The Giggle, but again, new fans haven't seen The Giggle and were left clueless.

An opening sequence for The Legend of Ruby Sunday where 15 & Ruby meet Susan as a nanny in 1947 America, a blue-skinned waitress, and an astronaut meeting a colony of giant, sentient ants. At the end of this we actually see 15 decide to go to UNIT for help. In the broadcast version he just sorta shows up.

Really what Empire of Death exposed to me is how emotionally hollow the season was. I enjoy the exoperimentalism, but not at the cost of character. And then in the finale Russell reverts to almost a parody of his RTD1 finales, with the nonsense logic and lack of consequences. All the worst bits of Last of the Time Lords and The Giggle put in a blender.

[lovelettersforthedamned]

all hail the hockey peter queeeeeen 👑👑 seriously your stuff is so good and has been cheering me up these days :)) maybe peter and bug go to an NHL game or something like that? or hanging out at home watching a game? whatever you’re feeling :) ily and appreciate you!!

Score!

✰ college!hockey!peter parker x f!reader

✰ word count: 1.2k

✰ summary: treating peter with hockey tickets for his birthday makes him very grateful for you, and he'd love to show you.

✰ warnings: language, mentions of alcohol, kisses, some tension that's sexual, mention of a boner LOL.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

main m.list ⋆ peter parker m.list ⋆ college!hockey!peter parker m.list

gif by @dailytvfilmgifs

Entering a building and it being colder than the temperature outside was something you found yourself getting used to. Especially when you had the pleasure of walking into a professional stadium with Peter by your side. 

You were able to score two really good tickets for the last game before playoff season, just in time for Peter’s birthday. It was easy to persuade him to miss a practice. All it took was you waving the tickets in his face before he tackled you for them and pressed a sloppy kiss to your lips.

The atmosphere at Peter’s games was always exciting. The fan’s cheers echoed through the building, even carrying out towards the front doors. But this? This was on an entirely new level. 

Taking your seats, the lights began to dim before the ice lit up with colorful lights. An uproar of cheers and commotion flood your senses as a video showcasing the players appears on the screen above. 

Looking over to your right at the brunette next to you, a big wide smile appears on his face as the light reflects off of his irises. You can’t help but stare at him. He must’ve noticed after the main lights came back on, “What are you staring at?”

“Your big ugly face,” you chuckle. 

He kisses his teeth as he tries to cover up his smile, his arm coming around you to pull you closer to his side. 

Before you both realize it, the game begins. Players meet at center ice to wait for the puck drop, and as soon as it does, fans clap and sit back down. Your seats gave you an optimal view of the ice. You were still on the first level at the corner of the rink, a row away from the glass. 

Of course, you’ve watched games with Peter before, but that was all on the couch at your apartment. Seeing him immersed in the game that was directly in front of him was a whole new experience. His eyes are darting back and forth as he watches the players skate. If there was a special move he noticed, he made sure to lean over and whisper the technique and training they used to learn how to do it. He was geeking out, and you loved it. 

After a scoreless first period, you could tell Peter was getting antsy in his seat. All it took was a goal to happen right in front of him for the both of you to jump up in excitement and get his confidence back. He started to hi-five the people around him before sitting back down as the game continued. 

A few power plays later, and the second period has come to an end. Standing up, he fixes his jersey and asks, “Wanna get something to eat? I know you haven’t eaten since your granola bar this morning, and I wouldn’t even consider that a meal.” 

You nod before standing up and climbing the stairs back to the concessions. The moment you stepped out, you noticed how rowdy the crowd had become. Since it was the last game of the regular season, tensions were high, and the postseason always carried that energy. 

Weaving in and out of crowds was becoming more difficult and Peter noticed as he decided to move you to the front of him instead of you dragging behind him. When you finally decided on a place, you grabbed your food and drinks before carefully returning to your section. 

The sense of relief that washed over you felt nice as you made it back to the seats, five minutes remaining before the start of the third and final period. Taking a sip of his beer, Peter sighs. You notice and immediately turn your attention to him, “What’s wrong?” 

“I’m just happy,” he smiles again before taking another sip, “thank you for this. It means a lot.” 

You wipe the foam mustache he gave himself before pecking him on the lips, “Happy birthday, Petey.” 

He doesn’t say anything in return, he just holds your hand; and to you, that’s enough. 

The third period flew by, as the final score was two to zero. It's the perfect way to end the regular season. Everyone stood and cheered as the clock counted down to zero and the buzzer signaled the end of the game. Maybe it was because Peter was a beer and half deep, but he wasted no time in pulling you in for the biggest bear hug of your life. 

He fully pulled you off your feet and pressed a kiss into the top of your head. He held you there for quite some time, and it made you wonder where all this strength came from.

You had no time to waste as he led you up the stairs and out the doors before starting your walk to the car. Peter’s hand was on your lower back the entire ten-minute speed walk back to the parking lot. 

Once you’ve made it to the door, you throw your bag in the back and sit in the driver's seat, buckling in and ready to go before Peter grabs your face and pulls you in for a kiss. He’s needy tonight. 

The kiss is passionate and probably a bit much for being out in public still, but you don’t mind. You remember a time when Peter never gave you any type of affection outside of closed doors, so experiencing this isn’t the worst thing in the world. 

His hands move down to your waist, his fingers making their way under your shirt, his touch giving you goosebumps. He feels you shiver, causing a light moan to leave his lips. That only made you deepen the kiss, sparks shooting up your body. 

Peter’s kiss starts to move towards your chin and neck before a loud horn makes you jump. You look around, realizing that you’re still very much in the stadium’s parking lot before laughing. “We should probably go home,” you sigh as you reach for your seatbelt next to you and buckle yourself in. 

A sigh is heard from beside you as he also buckles up, his eyes never leaving your frame even as you begin to drive off. Maneuvering out of the busy streets, you finally make it to the highway, allowing you to relax. It wasn’t long before you felt a hand make its way to your thigh. Peter starts to move his hand up and down your leg, occasionally giving the muscle there a squeeze. 

He runs a hand through his hair as he speaks for the first time since the game, “For God's sake, will you please go faster.” 

“No, I am not going to speed–,” you look over at him, and more importantly, his jeans that are now painfully tight.  Your mouth falls open before you bite your lip to keep you from saying anything snarky because you know Peter was not in the mood for any of your bitchy teasing. 

“I’ll try,” you smirk as you press a little harder on the gas. 

✰ author's note: HIII!!! thank you so much anon. i'm so happy you love my writing!! don't forget to like, comment, and reblog if you enjoyed! if you want to send in an ask like this, you can! my requests are open!! ok, ily bye !!!!

[stayinlimbo]

Hoodie Season

pairing: lee minho x reader genre/warnings: friends to friends with feelings(?), fluff, subtle realization of feelings(?), or maybe they've been there all along, pitiful attempts at me trying to be funny, mc has hair long enough to be blown in their face, mc's gender not specified word count: 1.13k note: this has been torturing me for months. i really tried my best here, so go easy on me ♡

“Yes.”

“No.”

"We have this conversation every time. Yes.”

“No, and that’s because you won’t admit that you’re wrong,” you huff, biting back the urge to stick your tongue out at your best friend. You refuse to stoop down to his level.

“Because I’m not? Just accept it, zip-ups are better,” Minho shrugs, lightly bumping his shoulder into yours. Or at least what he thinks is lightly before he watches you stumble onto the strip of grass next to the sidewalk and almost hit a tree. 

Catching yourself, you whip your head back towards public energy #1 and glare at the sheepish smile he gives in return as the two of you continue walking past a row of quaint shops lining the vacant street. To where, you have no clue. You don’t even think he knows. Minho just texted you to be ready in ten minutes and wear something warm for another Saturday afternoon of following wherever your best friend’s feet decide to take you. 

But let’s not forget the very important topic at hand. 

“Hoodies are superior and I will not entertain any other viewpoint,” you declare, fiddling with your warm and comfortable and warm, and, oh, did you already mention warm hoodie’s drawstrings.

“What happened to your goal of being a more open-minded person this year?”

“That’s besides the point. This is entirely different,” you dismiss with a wave of your hand. The chilled wind nips at your fingers before you bury them deep into the front pocket of your hoodie. 

“Sure it is,” Minho drawls with a quirk of his lips, ignoring the not-so-subtle side eye you throw at him. “Okay, I’ll humor you this time then. Why are hoodies, in your misguided judgment, so much better?” 

“Hey— okay you know what, I’m going to let that slide this time to save your from further embarrassment while I destroy your—”

“Boo, get on with it already.”

“Don’t rush me,” you scold as Minho raises his hands in a playful surrender. “Thank you. Now, as I was saying —look at me, this is serious— hoodies are an easily available and affordable luxury item; pull them over your head and bam, instant warmth.”

“How is that any different from zipping up a jacket?” Minho deapans. “You’re not very convincing, you know that right? And what if I don’t want to look disheveled with messy hair?”

“Is that supposed to be directed at me?” you ask with a laugh, hair blowing into your face. 

Minho’s smile returns. “You said it, I didn’t.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” you continue. “I’m strong enough to admit that hoodies may be a cause for bad hair days but they’re so soft and comfortable that it’s worth it. Not to mention they’re more flattering too. Just look at me.”

“You look like you got swallowed by a fabric monster that decided you weren’t tasty enough to finish eating,” Minho teases, eyes twinkling with amusement as they scan over your heavily clothed figure. 

Okay, he’s got you there with…whatever that comparison means, but it’s not your fault you just so happened to grab the baggiest hoodie you own before rushing out the door. You can’t even think of a comeback before he’s already moving on to his next question.

“What’s wrong with how zip-ups fit anyway? I think I look fine,” he pouts, crossing his arms over his chest. 

You can’t argue with that one either. Fine is an understatement. The black zip-up he’s wearing compliments his physique perfectly, the not too tight or loose fabric accentuating the strong-build of his upper body. Ugh, he’s really not helping you make your case here. 

“You’re an exception,” you admit with a slight shrug of your shoulders, averting your gaze upwards as the rustling leaves above begin to fall on you both. 

Minho’s hand suddenly grabs your shoulder, halting your footsteps and causing you to look back at him, eyebrows knit together in confusion. Heat rushes to your cheeks as he steps closer to you, wordlessly lifting his hand from your shoulder in favor of gently plucking out a couple of stray leaves stuck in your hair and lifting your hood over your head, shielding you further from the crisp air. 

“There, now what were you saying about me being so good-looking that I defy your zip-up expectations?” Minho chuckles, letting his hand drop back to his side. 

Your face flushes even harder. At this point, you’re not even going to need a hoodie anymore with how hot your body feels. 

“Uh, calm down, I never said that.” you defend hurriedly. ”You’re lucky I have my hands in my pocket or else you’d be the one falling on the grass.”

“Leaves you vulnerable, though.”

“Huh? What do you mea— MINHO!”

Your vision becomes blocked when Minho swiftly tugs your drawstrings, leaving only a small oval of skin exposed to the biting wind. His uncontrollable laughter dances through the air around you as you attempt to pry the hood back open, increasing in intensity when it takes you an embarrassingly longer time than it should to reveal your eyes to the world again. 

“Oh, you think that was so funny, huh?” you interrogate, glaring at his hunched over figure.

Minho stands back upright, wiping at an invisible tear. “Yeah.” 

The cheeky grin he wears slightly falters as you stalk a couple of steps forward, bringing your face closer than you ever have to his. Softer pinks hues begin to color his ears and cheeks, likely from the cold wind or his laughter, you think. 

His gaze softens as it trails down to where your hand is carefully lifting up towards his chest, finally resting flat right above the opening of his zip-up hoodie, the proximity causing a flutter in your chest. The wind begins to pick up slightly, blowing your hair into your face again. There’s an unreadable expression on his face as he lifts his hand to brush your hair out of your face and tuck behind your ear, fingers delicately lingering as he opens his mouth.

“I–” he starts.

Zippppp. 

The polar breeze hits his undershirt as an involuntary shiver runs throughout his body. Your laughter rings happily in his ears, the bright sound floating in the air as it is carried by the wind. 

You pull yourself away from him, backpedaling when he sends you a faux frown threatening to break as his lips try to fight the smile blooming across his features and already residing in his eyes. Giggles escape the both of you when he takes a step forward, rezipping his jacket, before breaking into a run as your shrieking laughter and his lighthearted swears fill the empty street, footsteps echoing on the pavement.

Looks like this time, he’ll be following you. 

liked this work? want to let me know how i did? please like, comment, and/or reblog; they are greatly appreciated my asks are always open ♡

taglist:  @linospuddin @linocz @spicyhyunn @inlovewithstraykids @stayyyyyyyyyyyy21

@feelikecinderella

[sevensoulmates]

Buddie 7x07 "Ghost of a Second Chance" Meta

So sorry for the delay! This one took me a minute due to life/work stuff happening, but here it is! A doozy! This episode had a lot of parallels with the other characters storylines happening so bear with me here! This is mostly going to be about Eddie.

This episode deals a lot with past trauma, specifically bringing up stuff that some of the characters haven't dealt with in a while or seemingly had already dealt with in the past. Maddie with Doug's abduction, Bobby and the apartment fire, Eddie and Shannon. All of these are re-introduced in this episode, but it's important to note that they are NOT resolved, mostly Bobby and Eddie, and will likely continue into the rest of the season. Maddie reacts the most noticeably to her trauma being triggered, and of the three, she's the only one who has actually managed to work through that trauma from the past, so while it does affect her, it does not cause her to self-destruct like Eddie and most likely Bobby will.

As many of us predicted, we theorized that it was going to get much worse for Eddie before it would get better. And this episode has put Eddie on that path that will likely take him towards rock bottom if Ryan and Tim's interviews and teasers for his 7b arc are to be believed.

The first big parallel to Eddie's storyline is the woman and her baby being abducted by a man with mental health problems who allowed a past trauma with his ex-wife/child to reach a dangerous point. While Eddie's actions in this episode are not placing a woman's life in danger, it does parallel how in pursuit of soothing his own pain, Eddie and this man, are prioritizing their own feelings, over the feelings of a woman stranger (Kim) and an innocent kid.

I was already anticipating many many Shannon call-backs in this episode, but the writers dive in immediately by having Chimney intubate Catherine. This is the same heavy choice Chimeny had to make when Shannon was hit by a car, and Chimney was interim Captain. He had to make a choice to either intubate Shannon, effectively taking away her last chance to say dying words or to not intubate and allow Eddie and Shannon to exchange final words. With Shannon, Chimney does not intubate, but with Catherine, he does. This could possibly indicate the need for Eddie to make different decisions this time around if he wants to survive this new catastrophic plotline.

This was an interesting way for the writers to give us a kind of "speedrun" of introducing us to Marisol a bit more. I know that the ENTIRE fandom has been bugging over the fact that we "hardly know anything about Marisol other than DIY and Nunnery", and now they're giving us more information, but notably it's all very surface-level information. It makes the scene feel like Eddie's trying to get to know her for the first time instead of this being a woman he's been seeing for about six months at this point.

While 7x05 did indicate to us that Eddie is trying to get to know her all over again, it really does drive home how little effort Eddie has put into trying to build a relationship with her, which is then further proved by the rest of the episode. All of this demonstrated very clearly just how little investment Eddie has had in ANY of his relationships after Shannon's death. It's probably supposed to make us think "Oh, that's because he only ever truly loved Shannon!" but in reality, the Eddie-Shannon onscreen relationship was very tumultuous, and they spent most of their relationship (even during their time pre-military) away from each other. All in all, the topic of how well Eddie knows the women he's with, and how much effort/investment he puts into his relationships (including Shannon) are being pulled into question here. And I think it's being done to show the audience that Eddie has only ever dated and married women as a duty and not something he actually does because he wants to be with the women as people. Once again, this includes Shannon.

Before Marisol can even finish her two truths and a lie, Eddie interrupts, starting to dictate the conversation again, and Chris is the one who has to step in, reminding Eddie that this moment is about Marisol. Eddie has been the one to lead his relationships with both Ana and Marisol, almost to the point of steamrolling over them. A similar thing happened in his relationship with Shannon, where Shannon notes that Eddie is always making decisions for them without consulting her, including going to the military, or moving Chris to a new school, etc. and how that was always a giant issue in their relationship. While this moment is not Eddie purposely steamrolling over Marisol, it does show that again, Eddie has a myopic view of relationships with women, where he's constantly trying to steer them towards something that he wants without really letting the woman have any agency. Shannon had to physically leave him in order to get any agency of her own.

Additionally, the choice to have the get to know you game be "two truths and a lie", inherently implies dishonesty, or at least makes us think of lying. And considering that becomes a theme for Eddie this episode and likely in upcoming episodes, it's also indicative of the general theme of not knowing someone and not being honest with them. It could've been "twenty questions" or something not involving purposely lying, but instead it's two truths and lie, and Eddie is now about to be involved in a whole bunch of lies.

I've seen others point out that this line is clearly meant to compare Marisol and Shannon. Shannon, Chris and Eddie had a tradition involving smores, one that Chris and Eddie were trying to keep alive only last season when they visited Shannon's grave. This line is meant to show us that Marisol is not Shannon, and as Eddie actually gets to know her, this is more and more evident. It's no fault of Marisol's, but it's likely what is sticking in Eddie's head, right before he ends up meeting Kim. Eddie, once again dictating what he wants Marisol to be rather than accepting the truth of who Marisol is, exclaims that obviously Marisol has had smores because Shannon loved smores. But Marisol is not Shannon, and Eddie is always comparing his partners to Shannon in unhealthy ways.

While this line is clearly a joke, nothing is done without purpose in TVland, and this is another one of those times where even though Eddie's joking, it's actually telling of how he actually feels. He's already had one foot out the door with Marisol for the last 3-4 episodes, and now it's the smores that makes him say "we can still leave her" because who Marisol is, does not align with who Shannon was. But the thing is, I have a hard time believing that Shannon was even who Eddie truly wanted, at least not without expectation or pressure. Shannon is an Ideal, and no one, not even Shannon herself, can live up to it. No woman is supposed to or can reach this Ideal, because (in my opinion) a woman is not really what Eddie wants deep down in his most hidden of unconscious desires.

"You two aren't going anywhere". Oh, the dramatic irony is killing me here. Because not even a couple of minutes later, Marisol has lost Eddie for good when he sees Kim. The death bells have already been ringing from the very beginning, but this is the final death knell that has been rung. Even if Eddie stays with Marisol through most of this arc, their relationship will end, as will his relationship with Kim.

Eddie and Kim lock eyes and he's reminded of Shannon instantly. Because of that, this relationship is dead before it even begins. A moment later, Christopher calls out "Dad!" just like he did when Shannon and Eddie were on the beach, interrupting Eddie's thoughts.

Marisol notices Eddie acting weird, asks if he's alright, he says he's fine, and she calls him out, asking "is that the truth or a lie?" He promises he's fine, but we as an audience know that's a big ole lie. This has been the case for years, and it's interesting that it's coming at this point in the season. The early half of the season we saw Eddie the "happiest" he's ever been. And I can't help but wonder how much of that was true happiness, and how much of that was just putting off thinking about it. It's easier to lie and say he's fine, that his relationships are fine, that his relationship with Shannon was fine. It's harder to admit the truth, that he's not okay, that his relationships with Marisol and Ana were unhealthy and his relationship with Shannon was the unhealthiest of all. It's easier to place the blame on his unhappiness on missing Shannon, instead of admitting that it's his own choices that are making him unhappy.

Another theme of this episode is internalized biases and misunderstanding the current situation due to being blinded by the past. Maddie misses crucial details of her call with Catherine because she was looking at it with too much bias about her own situation with Doug. Eddie also misremembers his past with Shannon, but instead of recognizing his mistake like Maddie, and trying to look at it objectively, Eddie lets that bias from the past effect his current decisions, which is already resulting in a mistake by cheating with Kim and will likely result in more mistakes the rest of this season.

Maddie heard what she expected to hear. Eddie is seeing in Kim what he expects to see from Shannon. Both lead to really bad outcomes.

Eddie goes back to find Kim/Shannon, and they meet. She looks similar but not really the same (btw, kudos to the makeup team, wow). She has similar facial expressions (nose scrunches, giggles, etc.) and she asks him if he's looking for something specific. And the answer is yes, he's looking for Shannon in Kim, just as he was looking for Shannon in Marisol and Ana.

This is very obviously a sexual innuendo, which is interesting because their first real interaction is showing more of a "sexual" chemistry, than anything really romantic, or soul-connecting. It's a clear harkening back to how Eddie would use sex as a way to stop fights between himself and Shannon. It's also one of Eddie's biggest distancing tools. He used sex to distance himself from Shannon and from Marisol, as an excuse to not address problems, or just simply to not get to know them. And given that Eddie was having sexual dysfunction issues in his last major episode, this is meant to provide a juxtaposition to that. Sort of a "Hey look Eddie couldn't get it up for Marisol the Nun but he can get it up for the Shannon look-alike". On the surface, this might be to show us that Eddie really only has sexual chemistry with Shannon, but if you look below the surface even a little bit, you'll realize that his sexual relationship with Shannon was also deeply dysfunctional, but in its own way.

The answer is no. Eddie does not trust Kim because she's a stranger, but this line is meant to remind us that Eddie very much DID NOT trust Shannon for most of her arc in season 2 and even up until her death. It's a callback to the line in season 2 Merry Ex-Mas where Eddie says he "forgives Shannon but doesn't trust her" and Shannon says something along the lines of "Eddie trusting her enough to have sex with her, but not enough to let her see her own son". Kim is hitting all the lines that are meant to remind Eddie of rose colored "Good times" but are meant to remind us, the audience, of all the issues he had with Shannon.

This moment of Eddie and Shannon on the beach is meant to represent Eddie's "happiest" moment on-screen with Shannon when she was alive. Eddie remembers it that way, as kissing Shannon and finally having his family back together. But in actuality, it was the start of the end for them. Shannon thought she was pregnant, paralleling the time when they accidentally got pregnant as teens and both of them had to put their lives on hold and commit to a marriage that might not have been the ultimate right choice for them. If any of you remember, this is also the moment where Eddie and "signs" and the "universe" are connected for the first time. Eddie asks for a sign, and Shannon says she's pregnant. In my personal opinion, this was supposed to be a sign for Eddie to not get back together with her, given how traumatic it was the first time around, but he ignores it and tries to push down his feelings. "Life is like a vat of chocolate, it pulls you down but it's comfortable". And when Shannon very clearly stated she wanted a divorce, Eddie did not really seem to accept it...and the universe took Shannon away permanently. (Again, I want to reiterate this is all about fiction I'm talking about here not irl, okay? This does not apply to real life) The universe tried to warn Eddie, to bring him a sign, and when he ignored it, as he always does, the universe decided it needed to take Shannon away permanently.

And now here we are again, 6 years later, with Eddie ignoring ALL the signs over and over and over, and setting about down this path with Marisol that literally everyone knows will not make Eddie happy, and what does the universe do? It throws him the biggest wrench it could by bringing someone who looks/acts like Shannon back into his life. Kim was brought in by the universe (the writers) to show Eddie that his relationship with Shannon was not as wonderful and amazing as he remembers it....and he ignores all of the signs yet a-fucking-gain. I get the feeling that this arc with Kim is going to end VERY. VERY. badly for Eddie. I think we should all be preparing ourselves for that.

Eddie is making active duplicitous choices here. He's lying about being in a relationship with someone else, lying about being a single dad. And it's not the first time he's said something like this (see the "taken for now" line in 7x04), further demonstrating how he's always had one foot out the door with Marisol.

I also want to point out that Eddie lying and deceiving Kim and cheating on Marisol is not meant to be the show saying "this is good! this is who Eddie's supposed to end up with!" The writers know how most people feel about cheating. Most people are 100% aware that cheating is morally wrong, and by Eddie making these decisions, they're not supposed to show that Eddie is inherently a cheater or a bad guy. He's acting OOC on purpose. The writers want us to see Eddie lying and cheating and want us to clock that Something is Very Very Very Wrong and that has to do with Eddie's romantic relationships, Shannon, his perception of Shannon, his perception of his past marriage, and his expectations of himself.

We, as an audience, are not supposed to be enjoying this. We're meant to be uncomfortable.

911 is doing something really interesting lately with their pointed use of Full First Names vs. Nicknames. When I heard this my first thought was actually of Ana and how cringe it was to hear her calling Eddie Edmundo all the time. Shannon actually never once called Eddie by his full name. If anything, Eddie calling himself Edmundo here, introducing himself by it, is once again supposed to trigger the audience's "Something Is Wrong Here" mode. I was also going to mention how this is also something a lot of people have felt with Tommy's constant use of "Evan" instead of Buck. Some people like it, some people don't, but everyone can acknowledge that it's odd and unusual.

Even as he's flirting with Kim, talking more about "stimulation", Eddie is holding an "S" for Shannon. I think when Kim told Eddie her name, a sharp K, very far away from the soft S of Shannon, it was a slight shock to him. If her name was something similar like Sherri or Sheila or something, Eddie could've lived in the fantasy more. Her name being Kim momentarily broke the illusion, hence him looking down at the S for Shannon.

Eddie is remembering the first time he slept with Shannon after she came back into his life while he's sitting at the table with Marisol, completely ignoring her. But not only that, as many people have pointed out, he's misremembering. The walls in the background are recent, with the new teal color and his new bed. Shannon's hair is a cross between dark and light, almost like a mix of Kim and Shannon, and--and this one rocked my world--they had sex right side up.

Many have pointed out how it's odd that Eddie and Marisol's sex scene harkened so similarly back to his one sex scene with Shannon, where they both ended up at the tail end of the bed, upside down. People have often discussed Eddie and his upside-down sex as a metaphor for unhealthy sexual connection, for misconnection, and right side up sex to be healthy sex. To find that he is thinking of him and Shannon in his memory of being right side up has been pointed out by others to be yet another example of Eddie's rose-colored memories of his past with Shannon. In his memory, he views his relationship and sexual relationship with Shannon as this Amazing and One of a Kind thing, hence the right-side-up sex, but in reality, it was upside down, it wasn't healthy.

He's looking at his relationship with Shannon through a veil of the present, chock full of regrets, would've/could've/should've's, and two almost-failed relationships. Not to mention that he literally was just having extreme sexual dysfunction with Marisol not even two episodes ago it's very likely that his remembering this passionate, voracious, unquenchable thirst for Shannon is also brought on by the fact that he's having sexual issues with Marisol. It might also be him wanting to remember that he does and did have desire for sex with women...as long as they're Shannon or reminding him of Shannon. This is not at all supposed to be something that is represented as healthy for Eddie, and I don't believe the show is trying to put across that message.

Eddie remembers his sex with Shannon, and when he decided to "bring Shannon home for Christmas". Even in this scene, the focus is not on the two of them as a couple. He doesn't talk about how much he missed her, or how it feels good to be close to her again. He talks about how he wants to reunite her and Christopher. "Santa" in this present day and age is bringing "Shannon" home for Christmas, by bringing Kim into Eddie's life.

Bringing it back to Maddie's storyline, with the Big Bad Kidnapper of this episode. He was encouraged by his sister to move across the country for a fresh start after his wife and baby left him due to his own abusive actions (assumed, but the sister did say they were "afraid of him"). We don't know too much of the details of this man's story, but it does show a clear parallel to Eddie too, with his wife leaving him to move across the country too (though she left their son with Eddie because obviously, Eddie's not abusive like this man). But the man's sister was hoping that this move would mean he would "stop looking for them". Eddie ends up doing the same thing with Shannon metaphorically. He never stops looking for her in all of his romantic relationships, hurting other women like Ana and Marisol, in the process.

The man is so clearly a parallel to Eddie but in the worst most devolved way. Eddie has been seeking out a Mom for Chris for years, even when Shannon was alive. It was never about Shannon, wanting her, loving her, needing her because he's so deeply in love with her. No, it was, and still is, always about the mother she could be for Chris. It's the same thing he did with Ana, and with Marisol. I'm not sure if this thing he's doing with Kim will eventually lead there too, or if it won't make it that far before it gets blown up in his face. But Kim cannot be a new mother for Chris, even if she wants to be. Christopher would clock that she looks like Shannon, and might feel betrayed, like Eddie is actively trying to replace Shannon, which I doubt Christopher would take well. So what is Eddie's endgame here? In my honest opinion, I don't think he has one. I think he's acting on pure emotional hurt, and desperately seeking out a balm, and not considering the consequences of his actions.

Just like that man was hit dead on with the literal consequences with the police, I think Eddie's gonna be hit HARD as a result of these mistakes. I feel like it might be something really bad, possibly involving Christopher. If "isolation" is going to become the thing he might have to contend with Christopher being really really angry with him in whatever way that takes form, and the rest of the firefam not being happy with him either. I think Eddie's going to be going through another arc similar to where he was emotionally in season 3a with the streetfighting arc.

Just how like the man who abducted her was a parallel to Eddie, Catherine herself is also a parallel to Eddie. She's clearly in pain, but she refuses drugs that will make her feel better. She feels she has to stay awake and endure the pain as a comeuppance, similar to how Eddie felt he had to endure his pain like a man because he deserved it. She feels her husband will hate her, just like how Eddie feared Shannon would hate him for what he did. He fears Shannon would never forgive him, but just like Catherine, even worse is the fact that Eddie has yet to ever forgive himself. No matter how many times people tell her it's not her fault, no matter how many times people tell Eddie he's a good father or a good person, they will never believe it. That guilt still rocks them, and for Eddie, it's been the monkey on his back every day LOONNGGG before Shannon even passed. Likely he's been dealing with it from the second he found out he got her pregnant. Even though Catherine's daughter was returned to her, she will still likely feel guilty, just as Eddie's guilt has lingered and festered and turned to rot the longer it's gone unchecked.

It'll only be once Eddie can let go of that guilt, let go of Shannon, and forgive himself, will he ever be able to actually start healing, and making the right choices for himself.

Many people have pointed out how this parallels the scene in 3x03 with Christopher and Eddie coming to Buck's house after the tsunami. That was a moment where Buck was feeling "lost at sea" and Eddie and Chris came in to be his "life raft that gets you home." And now Eddie's the one lost at sea. He thinks he has to find Shannon when really all he really needs is here with Buck and Chris. Eddie and Chris are "late", but eventually, they will find their way home to Buck.

Have y'all ever heard the phrase "where there's smoke, there's fire"? It means that if there's a rumor or something being said about a topic, there must be some back story/truth in it. It's what I point out every time the show "jokes" about Eddie's sexuality or lack thereof to women, Eddie ready to leave Marisol, etc. They're in the script because there's a kernel of truth to them, even if it's still nebulous (or smoky) at the moment.

Additionally, Buck is making a new lasagna recipe (a metaphor for his new found bisexuality and MM relationship with Tommy) and something about it is not working. In the same way that I've been theorizing that there is misalingment in his relationship with Tommy, we're now seeing that lasagna (like in 6x01 where the couch theory was introduced) is yet another metaphor for Buck's relationships. He had 3 at that point in time (as well as 3 failed attempts at lasagna) and now he's here in a new relationship, and something about it isn't working, he just doesn't know what. I'll reiterate, it's not the bisexuality, but rather the person he's in a relationship with. This being told once again to Eddie, in Buck's kitchen, with Chris present, is driving home the point once again.

Eddie, on the other hand, is aligned with Buck. He knew ahead of time to order a pizza for them. This isn't usual, given that Buck's a good cook, and has cooked for Chris and Eddie many times. Eddie being attuned to Buck right now is meant to show that he can sense these things about Buck, even when it's not conscious.

"To be seen… to be found… isn't that what we're all searching for?"

Buck assumes Eddie's meeting with Marisol, and Eddie does not correct him. I've seen other people mention how this feels like Eddie is cheating on Buck, and not really on Marisol, and in my opinion, that all comes down to who is Eddie more emotionally intimate with. He already feels super disconnected to Marisol, even more so in this episode, but we've spent the first half of this season establishing how Buck and Eddie are closer than ever. So Eddie lying to Buck feels like the real cheating here, because Eddie has only ever given himself fully to Buck, in all his messed up glory. He's never given that to Marisol, or Ana. And he most definitely never gave that to Shannon.

Side note, I loved the cologne line because it implies that Buck knows how Eddie smells, and that smelling him now is something Buck is enjoying. Him saying they won't wait up for Eddie further cements the domesticity of the scene. Buck has a full relationship with Chris outside of Eddie, but they also have a strongly established bond all three of them. In an episode where Eddie assumes Marisol must love smores despite her never having tried one, Eddie inherently knows that Buck's struggling with lasagna and needs to order a pizza.

Eddie and Buck's flirting--because that's what it is-- feels natural. More so than the flirting with Marisol in the beginning of the episode, and more so than with Kim-Not-Shannon that was moored down by the reality that Eddie is severely projecting all of his major issues onto her. Buck and Eddie have an easy rapport filled with mutual support, inside jokes, gentle ribbing, synchronicity and above all, friendship and trust. THAT is why the betrayal of Eddie with Kim only a few moments later feels so stark and like a huge blow to the audience.

Eddie sees Kim, and all he sees is Shannon's face, but I have to give MASSIVE kudos to the hair, costume, and makeup department here because they couldn't make Kim look ANY more starkly different from Shannon. In the scenes at the store, Kim is dressed more professionally, in lighter more inviting colors. And then here, when Kim can take off the customer service mask, and be fully herself, we see that she dresses in darker clothing, pants, and jackets with her hair up in almost an alternative-punk style. It's a MASSIVE contrast to Shannon who was almost always dressed in lighter, warmer colors, in shades of orange, yellow, and warm pinks, with minimal makeup and long flowy dresses or soft sweaters. Shannon's hair was almost always down and flowing around her face with her bangs. Kim's hair is completely up, totally out of her face in a severe bun look, without any bangs. She could not look father from Shannon if she tried. And yet, Eddie is not seeing Kim, he's not seeing the individual woman who's probably really lovely, the woman he's inherently hurting by using her to be reminded of his dead wife. No, all he sees is Shannon, and he's 100% willing to tank his whole life just to get a bit of that feeling back.

Eddie is on his way towards rock bottom, and this episode is only getting started. The glass is going to shatter extremely hard, and I worry for what the consequences will be for Eddie for all this, because there's no way he's escaping this without deep cuts. He will likely lose Marisol and Kim in one fell swoop. As for Buck, Chris and the rest of the 118, that's yet to be seen. But we know Eddie's parents show back up later on, so they could be coming in with the steel chair, likely to hit Eddie harder when he's already down. After all, the originator of "Don't drag him down with you, Eddie" is none other than Helena Diaz. This season is giving very strong season 3/4 vibes, and if that's the case, it's possible Helena and Ramon are going to pose a problem by the end of the season like they might've done in season 4 if things had gone as originally planned.

I'm worried, scared and excited to see how this ends up for Eddie. But I'm also hopeful. I see a light at the end of this tunnel. After all, it's always darkest just before dawn.

Thanks for reading my meta!

[brain-of-rain]

Kaiju no. 8 x Godaigo Daigo

Ya'll I'm going to be honest, I really hate writing. However, I am so obsessed with this concept I can't stop myself from trying. Here's an attempt to slap some ideas together into something comprehensible.

Overcast skies shade the city. It's been cold today, the first undisputable sign of changing seasons. Most citizens groan about the chilly air, not ready to let go of summer yet. Some welcome it, and others have been waiting for this moment all year. The lack of sun and cool breeze do wonders for reducing the rotten stench of a stagnant kaiju corpse.

It's noon, and the Monster Sweeper Inc. crew is breaking for lunch. No one wanders off to buy food as the surrounding stores are abandoned. Buildings were left empty during the kaiju clean-up efforts. Co-workers find seating on grassy hills and benches in a nearby park, unboxing packed lunches and chatting aimlessly as their hour rest ticks by. “Man, It’s been a while since the big guy has dropped in. Guess the defense force is keeping him busy” “Sir?” Reno Ichikawa pauses, looking up from his vitamin pouch, too curious to ignore the comment. “Someone from the defense force works for the company?” “Well…” Kafka peters off, gesturing incomprehensibly. “His situation is a bit… complicated.” Glancing at Reno he's met with a deadpan look. “Ok ok, so Big Guy doesn't exactly work for Monster Sweeper Inc., it's more of a volunteer contract. He comes and lends a hand with cleanup when the defense force lets him go out at least, I swear he probably begs to clean up Kaiju, they barely let him out nowadays.” “So what you're saying is the defense force has a prisoner who prefers digging around in kaiju guts over whatever solitary confinement they have him trapped in at the base. You can’t be serious. How could you see the Force with such high favor if that were true.” “No no, you've got it all wrong! He's not a prisoner… well I guess prisoner isn't entirely inaccurate, but his situation isn’t so simple! He's a prisoner of circumstance, not the defense force! UGH, why is this so hard to describe.” “Jesus Kafka, you could not be any worse at explaining things” Mitsuike grins from his bench, scoffing good-naturedly, sympathetic to Ichikawas’ position. “You're beating around the bush too much. What Kafka is trying to say is that Big Guy is the unfortunate product of human experimentation and is required to stay on base unless deployed by the higher-ups due to his terrifying appearance… Ok, I see why you’re having trouble.” Kafka leaps up, dancing around like he won some important bet “HAHA! See! I-” Thud - a familiar sound interrupts the celebration. Thud - There it is again, followed by another at a regular cadence, getting closer with each repetition. The cold, empty streets echoed with the noise. Ichikawa leaps to his feet eyes locked onto his mentor, vitamin lunch forgotten entirely. “Why aren't the kaiju alerts sounding?” His tone was sharp yet controlled. “Why isn't anyone moving? We need to evacuate.” “Ahhh speak of the devil.” Kafka is looking elsewhere, towards the resounding footsteps. “Looks like we don’t have to explain after all.” His nearsighted squint breaks into a smile as he begins waving. Ichikawa stares blankly at him before another footfall breaks his confusion. He looks up, and up and up until he meets the subject of Kafka’s attention. It’s a man, an unnaturally, tall man, dwarfing nearby buildings and interrupting the cityscape. It stops and raises a hand to return Kafka’s gesture. The figure softens, suddenly familiar, friendly, and human. “Oh.” That is all Ichikawa can muster. “That…” Kafka smiles, “Is Big Guy.”

[spork-supremacy]

probably not that unpopular of an opinion, but I really believe that the love triange in season 3 could have worked if it had something to say about the characters and had proper care and attention put into it. Like it could've actually been somewhat beneficial to getting to know them.

Cole probably wouldn't really have needed much in terms of character study, considering it feels like he was more a victim to an impending break up. Honestly I would be fine if his entire thing was just about him being petty towards Jay because it woud be mostly justified considering Jay immediately puts the blame on him for Nya's change of heart. However, it could also focus on someone wanting Cole for himself, no matter who it was that took interest because, hear me out, while his Dad did love him, he never felt he could really be loved for himself growing up (especially after his mother's death) Because he was always hiding who he was and what he wanted. And now someone has taken an interest in him and who is he to pass up on the feeling of being truely accepted?

For Nya it could touch on her wanting to try new things as she finds her identity, even if that means wanting to try being with different people. Maybe instead of just blindly following the machine it could help her realise that she should consider other options. She is the type of person that needs to be absolutely sure she is making the right descision when it comes to who she wants to be with for life, so in order to do so she needs to branch out beyond the first boy she dated. Then she is no longer the bitch, or the helpless fool that came between a good friendship for no reason other than a machine said so. Instead just a girl trying to figure out if her current relationship was right for her in the first place. Sure Jay made her laugh, but there has to be more to a good partner than that, and how can she grow if she doesn't learn outside of what she knew?

Jay would definetly go into his boundary issues when he was in a relationship probably with some proper build up to better justify Nya wantig a break from him, the extreme jealousy that he displays to an unhealthily over the top degree, the insecurities and probably abandoment issues that I don't know the origin of...

wait, I feel like this one has been done already, just in a not so great way...

*scratches head* I can't seem to quite put my finger on it...

Hehe... all jokes aside...

For the love of all that is sacred someone please direct me towards something someone else has doen that does a deep dive into Jay's unhealthiness in relationships despite how much he really just wants to do it right.

Also by all means though, if anyone wants my own very long "Jay when he's in a relationship." analysis and properly expand on the points I made here...

[sapphic-agent]

Let's Talk About the Bakugou Problem

I've been enjoying the Bakugou slander here on Tumblr, but I haven't come across anyone that gets to the root of the problem with Bakugou's character yet. I think it goes further than him having anger issues, being annoying, or even how violent and abusive he is. Why I think Bakugou is a bad character is due to the effect he has on the plot, world-building, and the rest of the characters. There's a lot of layers here, so I'd like to take the time to talk as in-detail as I can while typing on mobile.

*Note: I'll be following the anime as it's easier for me to follow and pick specific examples. Manga readers if you have anything to add I'd love to hear it, even if it's against what I've listed here*

*Note: Bakugou fans you're more than welcome to read, though I warn you might not like what you see. I tried to keep this as constructive as I could without letting my own biases seep in (whether I succeeded is up for debate) so that everyone could read it whether you like Bakugou or not. I'm fine with criticism towards my points, I only ask that you remain respectful. I won't engage with anyone who disrespects me or other users*

1. Consequences

This is a big one among Bakugou critics, so I think it's a pretty good place to start. Bakugou has almost never faced actual consequences to his actions (there's a difference between something bad that happens to happen to him and the world around him not accepting his behavior). There are two instances that I can think of that there was a direct ramification to something Bakugou has done. The first was during the Deku vs Kacchan fight where Bakugou does get suspended for four days while Izuku gets suspended for three days. The other is when he and Todoroki fail the provisional licensing exam. However, there's a problem with these two instances I mentioned.

With the D vs K fight, Bakugou was the one who goaded Izuku out of the dorms and instigated a fight. Izuku was trying to get him to go back to the dorms so they could settle their "issue" under adult supervision. He was trying to do the responsible thing. For Izuku to only receive a day less of punishment seems unfair. Though, you could make the case that he should have ignored Bakugou, it's still very clear that one was way more at fault than the other and there was barely a difference in their punishment.

The provisional licensing exam actually did well with failing Bakugou. It was almost a great lesson; that he can't say and do whatever he wants and expect the world to roll over for him. Unfortunately, it's undermined by Todoroki failing as well. Yes, Todoroki failed because of Inasa. But a) Inasa attacked him first which should have resulted in disqualification (what was Todoroki supposed to do, not fight back when he was being assaulted?) and b) Inasa's entire character seems shoehorned into the story. He doesn't really add anything to Todoroki's character as most of his problems with Todoroki were already resolved back in season 2. He also contributes nothing to the overall story. Shindou, for example, has a hand in testing 1A and forces them to work together congruently. Inasa seems like he was put in the story simply to make Todoroki fail. Why does Todoroki have to fail? Because Bakugou does.

It seems like Horikoshi always softens the blow for Bakugou in a way, if he's dealt any blow at all. By not allowing Bakugou to face consequences on his own, he might as well not be facing them at all.

Why are consequences so important? Because Bakugou's privilege is a problem.

I don't think I've seen anyone address this. The root of Bakugou's behavior comes from the fact that he was allowed to do all those terrible things because the world around him was tolerant of it. Teachers turned a blind eyes when he bullied Izuku because he had a great quirk and Izuku was quirkless. He's allowed to do and say whatever he wants because he has a great quirk. While people seem to be harder on Izuku because of either having no quirk or not being able to fully control his quirk. This is a huge part of the story that was set up in the beginning, but was almost never addressed despite being persistent throughout. And it's the most present with Aizawa.

Bakugou attempts to attack a fellow student the first day of class? Simply restrained, no repercussions. Bakugou uses excessive force against a classmate despite his teacher telling him to stop? Nothing more than a few not-so-nice words. Bakugou assaults his partner and refuses to cooperate? No words at all.

Now look at Izuku. Doesn't have full control of his quirk? His teacher attempts to humiliate and expel him in front of his classmates on the first day of class. Saves a classmate in an admittedly risky rescue mission? Said teacher proclaims he lost his trust and labels him a problem child (despite the orchestrator of said mission- Kirishima- being in the same room and not getting spoken to at all).

(I don't know if Aizawa's projecting, but pandering to the kid with the strong quirk while simultaneously disliking All Might isn't a great look.)

Even before UA, Bakugou is praised by the heroes for his strong quirk against the sludge villain despite the fact that his quirk made everything worse while Izuku is scolded even though they were the ones who did nothing while he did what he could to save someone.

"All men aren't created equal." That's one of Izuku's very first lines and a central point of the story. It's something you expect it to address multiple times, especially in regards to Izuku and Bakugou. But Bakugou being spared from consequences every single time he does something terrible means that the statement is validated, but the problem still persists and is never rectified or solved. Even if you think Bakugou "changed," that doesn't make his privilege go away.

2. Plot Compensation

The story goes out of its way to make Bakugou seem like a better person than he is.

My first example is the Sports Festival, specifically his fight with Uraraka. In this fight, Bakugou is met with booing from the audience for not going easy on her. And right off the bat, this is weird. Because not only have we never seen this attitude toward women heroes before or after this, the show is trying to tell us something when Aizawa tears the crowd down. Almost as if saying, "The crowd is dumb and wrong and if you think like the crowd, you're dumb and wrong." Aizawa claims that Bakugou is treating Uraraka like a real opponent by not going easy on her.

...is he though?

Because we never see Bakugou stand still in a fight like he does with her. Bakugou's fighting style relies a lot on mobility. During his fight with Tokoyami, who he knew he had an advantage over because of the light from his quirk, he isn't standing still. During his fight with Todoroki he isn't standing still. He only does this with Uraraka. Because this isn't Bakugou showing respect, it's him still looking down on her. He doesn't see her as a serious opponent, just an obstacle in his way.

And I know this sounds like a bold claim. But if you recall, Bakugou immediately confronts Izuku after the fight and accuses him of giving Uraraka the idea she used during their match. He assumes it was a ploy from Izuku, implying that he didn't think Uraraka capable of coming up with a plan with the potential to work against him. This isn't respect for an opponent.

(Note: the only thing in Bakugou's favor is it's probably not because she's a girl. He just naturally looks down on everyone who doesn't immediately stand out to him with a show of power like Todoroki)

Then we have the revered scene with the League or Villains.

This scene is praised because it "subverts expectations." That the violent, angry kid doesn't want to be a villain. He wants to be a noble hero. Aizawa- again- silences claims against Bakugou, citing that he wants to win and he knows he can't do that if he's a villain.

My thing is, however, the League targeting him in the first place. Why would they do this? Bakugou clearly has a heroic quirk. He scored first on the entrance exam. If they did any research at all beforehand, they would know that Bakugou was at the top of his class before UA and is in the top five currently. And they'd know he has wealthy parents.

(You would think Dabi especially would draw parallels to Endeavor and would be aware that Bakugou's ambition and heroic quirk don't make him similar to the League who have been discriminated against, shunned, and abused for most of their lives. Even with his behavior at the Sports Festival, Endeavor isn't the noble and kind type like All Might and most other heroes. So I'm not sure why Bakugou's behavior immediately screamed villain potential)

Nothing about him suggests he's had a hard life like most of the League. Nothing about him suggests he'd want to leave his comfortable life and secured future to become a villain.

This scene sets up Bakugou's redemption, right? It leads us to the Deku vs Kacchan fight and All Might's advice is what makes him take on his "save to win" mentality.

But not only does this seem like a convenient plot device, it decidedly ignores the uglier part of Bakugou's decision.

Bakugou rejected the LOV because he saw them as losers. But what if they hadn't been losers? What if they had been doing as well as they were at the end of season 5? Merging and becoming the MLA front, organized teams, wealthy, successfully recruiting members right under the heroes' noses.

Maybe Bakugou wouldn't have outright joined them. But at this point before shifting his perspective, his answer might have been very different.

But the story goes out of its way to hammer in Bakugou's scarce good traits to take your focus away from his overwhelming bad ones.

3. Bakugou's Character Shift "Development"

The way Horikoshi wrote Bakugou in the beginning is very different to how he is portrayed later in the show. No, I don't mean his development. I mean the major shift in his character between seasons 1/2 and season 3/4.

Bakugou in the beginning of the show is cruel, meanspirited, and violent. And he's still all of those things throughout the show. The one difference is that it's played for laughs in later seasons.

Bakugou's actions and words in seasons 1 and 2 are portrayed a lot more serious than in later seasons. He's an antagonistic force, one that Izuku has to strive to overcome not just to be a good hero, but for himself as Bakugou has been one of the most prominent obstacles in his strive to become a hero.

Look at his behavior during the battle trials. It's something serious, something that has even All Might worried. Bakugou knew he could have very well killed Midoriya and didn't care. It's brutal and almost hard to watch because at this point in the show Midoriya is weak and tiny (visually, we know he's never really been weak) compared to Bakugou and can really only outsmart him to win.

We never see Bakugou display anything close to this level of violence in later seasons. Not in the Sports Festival or 1A vs 1B or D vs K or the licensing exam or even against literal villains. Season 1 went out of its way to show Bakugou's cruel behavior even using it as something Izuku has to learn how to overcome even if he has to risk everything.

By season 3, the perspective has changed. Bakugou name calling people, belittling people, yelling, and his acts of violence are now exaggerated for comedy. None of his actions are taken as seriously as they were before, despite some being almost or just as bad.

(It's worth mentioning that this was also around the time Bakugou began to get popular among fans)

A great example of this is in season 5 when he throws his headpiece at Izuku and makes him bleed. His casual act of his aggression towards his lifelong victim is present to make the audience laugh, despite the fact that Izuku was bleeding and the 1A boys are (rightfully) horrified.

(I'd like to add that there was no real reason to do this. Nothing he was saying would have exposed OFA and even if it had, he was done talking by the time Bakugou threw it)

If Bakugou had really changed at this point, this would have never happened in the first place. I can't call this changing or development, I call this his actions shifting into comedic relief and away from the serious connotations they previously held. By taking that away, it allows Bakugou to continue to do the same things he has all his life while under the guise of development. It undermines what's supposed to be his redemption arc.

4. Other Characters

Bakugou isn't the only one who gets a character shift. It's approximately the moment that Bakugou begins to get more attention that the other characters lose the substance they had at the beginning of the show.

The ones hit most notably by this are obviously Uraraka and Iida. They were Izuku's first friends, his original trio. More than that, they are set up as interesting characters with their own arcs and paths for becoming great heroes.

Even though I did have my complaints about her fight with Bakugou in the Sports Festival, it does turn Uraraka onto improving past her goal of becoming a rescue hero. She wants to become better in other aspects of being a hero so that she can succeed and keep up with her stronger classmates. She proved herself capable of this during her fight with Bakugou and it was the catalyst of her character development.

Iida was not only resolving himself with caring for Midoriya as a friend as well as being his rival and wanting to surpass him. There's also this darker side to him that no one expects from goody two shoes, straight-laced Iida that had so much potential for exploration.

Both of them are tossed to the side in favor of Bakugou. I would even go as far as to say that after season 2, they're almost irrelevant until season 6 and even then they're limited (before season 6 Uraraka's only character trait is that she ignores he feelings for Midoriya to become a better hero, which came out of nowhere and does nothing for her character). And they barley ever get moments with Izuku during time despite being his first friends.

Todoroki is a similar yet very different case. At the beginning of the show, he was intense and has strong feelings. (An interesting parallel is that if Iida was his friend becoming his rival, Todoroki was his rival becoming his friend and both relationships speak to Izuku as a character) Even if he didn't express them, we as the audience knew they were there. But as times passes he becomes flat and dull. Even though he's supposed to be part of the new trio, he's barley present (the dynamic between the three of them is uninteresting all around as it's basically Bakugou yelling at Izuku with Todoroki in the background. They never have any deep or heartfelt moments nor do they have good chemistry) and barely gets any one-on-one interaction with Izuku despite them being very good friends.

(I can't blame this all on Bakugou as the show also shifts from focusing to Todoroki to focusing on his own abuser which is part of the issue with his lack of character, but Bakugou's character does contribute to this problem of making the abusers more sympathetic than the victims)

Most if not the rest of 1A fade into the background after this, save for a few who have notable moments sprinkled in throughout the show. You can take this as a Bakugou prevalence problem, or it can be seen as Horikoshi just not knowing how to balance characters.

However, the character that suffers the most because of this is Izuku himself.

I don't think it's a bad thing that Izuku admires or looks up to Bakugou. I don't think it's a problem that he doesn't see anything wrong with Bakugou's behavior against him. Izuku grew up in an environment where that was normalized. That he's worthless because of his lack of quirk and Bakugou deserves to be on top because of his great quirk. Of course he internalized that, even though he knows that a quirk doesn't determine someone's worth. He was never given the tools or the means to beat that mindset.

What I despise is the fact that everyone around him enables it.

As I stated above, Aizawa is definitely the worst when it comes to this. Not only shoving Bakugou and Izuku together and making it Izuku's job to get Bakugou to cooperate, but hardly if ever condemning Bakugou when he lashes out against Izuku. Even without their history, what Bakugou does is wrong and should be treated as such.

Unfortunately and even though I love All Might, he's also guilty of this. It's true that he might not know the full extent of their toxic relationship, but All Might sees Bakugou instigate a fight with Izuku and decides it's okay to tell Bakugou about One For All. Bakugou did nothing to earn this honor: he hasn't shown Izuku support and hasn't been a reliable ally he could depend on. But even disregarding that, Bakugou had just been captured by villains who work for All For One. He was the last person on Earth who should have been entrusted with this secret.

The adults in Izuku's life enable and reward Bakugou's bad behavior and urge them into forming a relationship and partnership that frankly shouldn't exist (and only does to make Bakugou a better person and hero, it does nothing for Izuku). It's to the point where almost Izuku's entire character revolves around his relationship with Bakugou and how he improves because of it and how he helps Bakugou improve. And he further projects this when he "subtly" implies that Todoroki should forgive Endeavor, which feels like a justification towards the audience of his own feelings towards Bakugou.

5. Accountability

I mentioned consequences as my first point. But what many who want this miss, it goes hand-in-hand with accountability.

Unlike consequences, Bakugou more or less does take accountability in the form of his apology. But the apology was lackluster for a couple of reasons. The main thing is that it feels like a list of excuses rather than simply owning up to the fact that he was shitty and there's really no good reason for it. But simply explaining why you hurt the person you hurt isn't giving them the apology they deserve. It's making it about you.

Another thing, though, is that the apology is very scarce. It skips over the worst of Bakugou's actions. Nothing he said was anything 1A didn't already know. They don't know about the s*icide baiting which is one of the worst things he's done to Izuku (and that's only what we saw, who knows what Bakugou's been saying for years?). It also ignores everything he did in UA, which was a very big part of the problem. He treated Izuku poorly months prior to the apology and that shouldn't be ignored.

As far as accountability goes this apology isn't that great. But it's something. No, what's worse is that the other characters don't hold Bakugou accountable.

The other characters more often than not turn a blind eye to Bakugou's behavior. We've already covered Aizawa, but the rest of 1A is guilty of this too. No one says anything about the Battle Trials. Hardly anyone condemns Bakugou when he attacks or insults Izuku. Sometimes they'll chime in like Uraraka or Kirishima, but other than that no one outright tells him off. This is out of character for Iida in particular because he's such a stickler about rules and courtesy for others (he literally told off a six year old when he punched Izuku and tried to stop Mineta from perving on the girls, why wouldn't he do the same when it comes to Bakugou?). It's almost like the characters are blind to Bakugou's behavior.

What's weirder is that Mina and Kirishima- who were both stated to hate bullying- are friends with him. Why would the show go out of its way to tell us this only to saddle them into the "BakuSquad?" It doesn't make sense.

It's hypocritical that everyone in 1A is so tolerant of Bakugou but get annoyed with others; like Monoma for example. Or even Mineta because as much as I dislike him he's constantly being called out by 1A. It means that they know certain behavior is wrong and/or shouldn't be entertained, so we know they aren't completely unaware. But the fact that they largely ignore Bakugou's behavior and condemn Monoma's is so weird. You can't excuse one and not the other.

Conclusion

There's certainly more than this to my dislike of Bakugou. But I think I've mostly covered his negative impact on the story. Doing a deep dive into his awful personality is something I wouldn't wish on anyway. Many others have done that anyway, so I'm content to leave it out. But I hope you liked my little breakdown!

[comfortless]

Outside they say you’re alright (chapter 1 of ?)

🌱 PAIRING: König x fem!reader 🌾 CONTENT: 18+ MINORS DO NOT INTERACT. fae au. blanket warning for death, violence, very light horror elements <— comes with the territory; all of this being said it’s still cozy and sweet here!!, not even remotely canon compliant, slow burn, eventual smut. chapter specific warnings: animal death (bird), implied ghoap, minor character death (but not really, hold tight!), non-consensual cuddling. 🍃 NOTES: this is my first time writing in a long stretch, but after finishing Meeting the Other Crowd i had to write this lest i wound up chewing thru my own fist. later chapters may have additional warnings added. not proofread. wc: 7.9k

next ->

The season of turning leaves, of the harvest moon, of a waning veil; it feels as though the entire world calls for change. Packing to move feels less arduous when the very earth is moving along with you, shifting her shape to bring in the autumn, the winter. Autumn feels less intense in the city. Concrete and vehicles don’t naturally shed their skins, hibernate, bed down and cozy up by a warm hearth. There’s a significant lack of trees and wildlife, all uprooted and shed away to make room for more human comforts. It’s never felt like home to you.

It’s almost funny how in your desperation to be untethered from an unwelcoming, pristine and metallic skyline, you’ve managed to neatly pack away your entire life into a mere two bags. Everything that wasn’t utterly necessary or sentimental donated or tossed into the garbage behind your former apartment. You know it’s a silly thing to believe a new roof over your head in an unfamiliar town a few hours venture away will change your entire life, but just as the leaves turn you feel it’s your moment to follow suit.

Kate hadn’t made you pay anything in advance. No deposits, no frivolous faxing of paperwork, Kate had requested nothing but email correspondence, and perhaps that should have set off some instinctual alarm bell in your head. Yet, you had been in contact with this woman for weeks, and you hadn’t picked up on anything odd in the eloquent responses Kate had given. The woman answered all of your questions with ease, and even had the decency to ask if there was anything she could do to make the move more bearable.

You found Kate’s listing on craigslist of all places— a humble little ad showing off a barren room in a small cottage located in the middle of nowhere, some mountainside town down south that you had never heard the name of prior. It was impulse that led you to reach out, typing out a sloppily worded email in the midst of another sleepless night expressing your interest in the room and a few words about yourself. Kate didn’t waste any time with her response, declaring that she felt you would fit in well in the home and things progressed naturally. You had decided that you liked Kate already.

But nothing could have prepared you for actually meeting Kate Laswell.

As you park your little, beaten down sedan in the forested driveway, you takes a moment to calm your nerves. A six hour drive has left you feeling as though you’re in an entirely different world— around the midway point in your journey was the last time you had actually seen a town. There’s a sense of apprehension building, and yet it does little to fully snuff out the excitement.

The cottage laid out before you is off-white in color with a grayish-brown roof, blanketed by tendrils of hedera helix curling up each corner of the home and meeting in a cluster on the roof. The fence surrounding the property, wooden and worn seemed more decorative than any protection against anything getting in or out. ‘Quaint’ was the only word that seemed to come to mind as you step out of the vehicle and move to the trunk to collect your meager belongings.

And as the trunk of the vehicle slams shut, you’re met with the sight of a gentle-looking woman sprinting toward you from the cottage, a bright, welcoming smile on her face and an oversized yellow cardigan draped ‘round her shoulders. “So glad you made it,” Kate greets warmly. “Need help with your bags?”

“Oh, I’m fine. Didn’t bring much.” You reply, and for the first time in months, you feel your heart begin to settle in your chest. This was good. The stress of the city seemed to retract its claws from your shoulders the moment you take a good look at Kate and the cottage behind her. The woman is older, soft lines visible on her face. She was fragile looking like a twittering little bird, but there was something in her eyes that suggested she was much more than her stature. Maybe not a robin at all, but a red-tailed hawk instead. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun, and the clothing she wore looked comfortable, a loose fitting white blouse, jeans, and the cardigan you wonder if she may have even knitted herself.

“Well, come in then. We’ll get you settled and have tea, or whiskey if you would prefer it.” Kate says with a wink, taking you by the hand and pulling you up the gravel-laden trail towards the door. Sparrows are nesting in the trees above, clover, sourgrass and wildflowers springing up in a viridian and brown blanket beneath your feet, and the dirt feels far more forgiving against the soles of your boots than the pavement of the city ever did. This already feels like home. “Just tea would be fine.”

Kate shows you around the cottage with pride, and you find that it’s entirely deserved. The home is immaculately tidy, albeit a tad cluttered. The woman had all sorts of strange baubles and crafts lining walls and shelves, books of all nature (even an extensive romance section you had found yourself drawn to, Kate had laughed at the sight of your eyes lingering on the spines as you read the suggestive titles), her furniture was all clean and patterned. Your room nearly brings you to tears. It was still rather empty, just as the pictures in the listing had suggested, with only a bed, dresser and vanity furnishing it. However, in the windowsill sits a blue planter with your name delicately painted on the front of it.

“A lily,” Kate informs you, smiling soft as you gaze down at the little green bulb in the pot. You ghost your fingertips over the rim of it as you tilt your head to look back at Kate, both confusion and gratefulness painting your expression. Kate’s smile doesn’t waver as she steps to your side and gives your shoulder a comforting squeeze. Her kindness has already made you trusting, and it seems with every action she takes you feel more at peace, as though Kate were merely an estranged aunt rather than a complete stranger. “I thought a lily might suit you. It might still be early enough for her to bloom.” You whisper a thanks, returning her smile with one of your own. The thoughtfulness of such a simple gesture warms your heart in a way that you hadn’t felt in some time. You make a mental note to read up on plant care to ensure Kate’s gift doesn’t go neglected.

She waits to lead you into the kitchen and dining area until after you had put away your things and have properly seen your room. The rooms are just as well cared for as the rest of the cottage, every item in its proper place, the sink cleared and a knitted doily placed in the center of the range. The table is what catches your eye most of all though— a fat loaf of fresh baked bread placed carefully on a platter next to small serving dishes filled with honey and jam, a tea kettle and two floral painted mugs set neatly just beside the display. It looks more like a painting than any meal you’ve seen before, far too accustomed to quick snacks and dull fast food bags. In the city, working so much just to ensure that you still had your apartment to come back to, the time it would take to prepare something even as simple as this was never something you could expend.

“This looks… it’s lovely, Miss Laswell,” You breathe out shyly, taking a seat at the table, your fingers flexing slightly. This kind of welcoming felt so foreign, not that you minded it. Not at all.

“Please just call me Kate.” She says with a laugh, pouring out a generous mug of tea for you and sliding it across the table as she takes place on the opposite end. Her smile is infectious, warming your heart and causing the corners of your mouth to tug upward, too.

“Kate.” You say aloud, committing it to memory. You wanted to be respectful. This was her home, you were just a temporary guest after all. You accept the mug of tea with a thankful nod of acknowledgement before taking a small sip. Warm. Everything about Kate’s home and her demeanor is so warm. Even in the midst of autumn, there’s no chill here, only tenderness and warmth as though some invisible hearth roars in the corner of every room. “I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me.”

Kate hesitates for a moment, and had you blinked you would have missed the way her thin shoulders seemed to tense and the lines at the corners of her mouth visibly tightened. She parts her lips to speak, eying you carefully before… she merely reaches across the table to slice you off a plump helping of the bread, scooting the bowls of jam and honey in your direction.

You wonder if somehow your words had offended her, and you wished you could retract them, snatch the fluttering of your voice from thin air, but as quickly as that thought comes, Kate sighs.

“Well, I haven’t been entirely upfront with you, dear,” Kate begins in a soft voice, tilting her head as she sips her own tea. Your eyes widen in surprise at her words, uncertain as to what weight they carry. Your thoughts immediately veer in the worst direction— perhaps she wasn’t offering the room as long as the listing stated, and you had no where else to go. Perhaps someone else lived here too, someone dangerous.

“What do you mean?”

“The neighbors come around sometimes.” She says, and it almost pulls a giggle from you. Neighbors? You hadn’t seen any other homes on the way up here, and having lived in an apartment complex you were used to all manner of folks, from the loud, the strange, the elderly and standoffish. You give her a little shrug in response, unsure of what to say to such a silly thing.

“You’ve just got to understand how to deal with them if you see them,” Kate continues, her mouth pressed to a thin line as she regards you. There’s that sharp look in her eye that suggests she really isn’t kidding around, that there may even be a threat if you didn’t hold what she says next with the highest regard. You feel a swell of unease, but give the woman your rapt attention, not even bothering with the bread on your plate despite the way your stomach grumbles, quiet but demanding. “Don’t eat their food, never give them your name. Don’t thank them either, even if you break your ankle on a hike and one stops to help. No thanking them.”

You laugh. This had to be some silly joke, harmless hazing for the new roomie. Your mirthful giggles die in your throat when you meet Kate’s gaze again and her expression is entirely grave— gone was the soft smile and the twinkle in her eyes, and you’re quickly reminded as to why you thought of a hawk when you first saw that look in her eye.

“Kate… I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

She toys with the handle of her mug for a moment, watching as if to ensure your amusement has entirely died out before she graces you with another word. “Dear, I know I sound like I have bats in the belfry, but I need you to listen to me.” A heavy sigh leaves her lips after her words and her brow pinches as if she’s trying to consider the best possible way to explain this farfetched idea of her neighbors to you in a way that’s easy enough to digest without giving too much away. “Perhaps meeting one of them would be the best way to show you.” She mumbles as she sets her mug aside and stands from her chair. You remain dumbstruck in your seat, watching as she pulls her yellow cardigan tighter around herself before fumbling around in the kitchen to retrieve a small woven basket. Kate places two thick slices of bread inside and the little dish of honey too as you watch on.

“Sure.” You say with a quizzical tilt of your head. You didn’t want to insult your new roommate further, and she seemed deadly serious about this strange concept. Maybe it was best to appease her, and meeting other folks that lived out here didn’t seem like too arduous a task. Kate flashes you that smile again as you agree and offers the basket out to you. Your fingers curl around the stiff handle as you stand and bring it closer to your person.

“There’s a little walking trail out back that leads straight up the hill to the cemetery. Ghost should be there.”

“Ghost?” A ghost in the cemetery. How fitting.

Kate breathes a laugh and shakes her head. You’re pleased to see the tension has left her, she seemed at ease and just as sweet as she had when she rushed to greet you earlier. “Not really a ghost,” she explains with a dismissive wave of her hand. “You’ll see. He’s a bit… prickly at times, but he’s harmless enough. Just take him the bread and you’ll see.” Harmless, you want to tell her, is what most people should be expected to be without graceful description. ‘Are the others harmful, then?’, your mind supplies, as if trying to make you feel closer to a side character in some low budget horror film. Something was certainly off here, but you don’t find yourself questioning it further.

Kate leads you to the back door, unlatching a chain lock before unlocking the deadbolt and pushing the door open. The hinges whine as she directs you toward the trail with a pointed finger. And, with an encouraging pat on the shoulder, she pushes you out of the door. You can hear the tinkling of the chain and the thump of the deadbolt as she locks it behind her. You don’t know whether to side more with the anxiety building in your chest or the frustration burning at your stomach after finding yourself in this situation. So maybe Kate did have ‘bats in the belfry’ as she had called it. What woman would have invited a complete stranger to come live with her in the middle of no where, after all. But this was only your first day here, and you knew you had to make the most of it. Where else could you possibly go?

At least she was nice. The tea had been perfect, too. With a sigh, you decide to overlook her eccentricities for now as you start walking towards the trail. Your pace is brisk, orange and red fallen leaves crunching with each step as you meander up the thin, forested trail. The chill of an autumn breeze pushes through the trees with ease, shaking a flurry of dead leaves from dark branches to whirl around you, one landing gently on the shoulder of your coat. You pluck it off, twirling the stem between the fingers of your free hand as you walk.

The cemetery comes into view about half an hour later. The peaks of moss covered tombstones rise up over the hill, and you’re surprised to find that the old graveyard isn’t entirely overgrown. Some thorn bushes border the backside of the small clearing, trees towering so high to either side it almost roofs the area in entirely apart from a center circle where sunlight beams in. It’s quiet apart from the splintering of leaves beneath your soles and it dawns on you that you haven’t heard a sound not pulled from your own being since you started your short journey here.

You look around for this supposed ‘Ghost’ for a few moments, scanning both behind and above the tombstones. There’s nothing and no one to be seen, just a heavy silence and carpeting moss over stone that hasn’t been touched in what looked like centuries. You didn’t want to return too soon for fear of Kate not taking too kindly to it, you couldn’t run the risk of being cast out, even if the thought of her doing such a thing already felt uncharacteristic and outlandish.

So, you kneel in front of a larger headstone, fishing out a slice of bread from the basket and smoothing honey over it with the butter knife Kate had placed inside. The engraving was entirely illegible, worn away by the elements, and with so much moss encompassing it you doubt you could have read it anyway even if it hadn’t been so neglected. The bread, still warm and soft is nibbled at as you inspect some of the other graves, all in the same state of disrepair. A part of you wishes you had plucked some wildflowers on the walk, perhaps you could have given some restless spirit the satisfaction of not being forgotten.

A clipped ‘woof’ pries you from your thoughts, a deep and breathy sound that sends a chill down each bony knob of your spine as you whip around to face whatever had made the noise. You’re met with the view of a massive dog standing a mere three meters away. The animal’s fur was a coarse, wiry black, it’s eyes just as dark. It regards you with its ears flattened back against its skull, dark lips pulled back in a snarl, though it doesn’t growl. In fact, the creatures tail betrays this display of intimidation as it wags lazily behind it.

You break a corner of the bread off and extend your hand out to the dog, cooing softly to it and encouraging it to approach. The dog huffs, ears flicking forward. It watches you for several long moments before stiffly walking towards you, accepting the bread into its large mouth and swallowing it down without so much as a courtesy chew. Up close, you can’t discern what breed of dog this is at all. His ears were long and floppy, descending down past his maw, his hair looked stiff and rough almost like a wolfhound’s but it was much shaggier, longer.

“Good boy.” You chirp, reaching up to lightly ghost your fingers over the crown of the dog’s skull. The dog recoils with another huff, and for a moment you almost think you see his eyes narrow as if he were glaring at you— a silent ‘do not touch’. Your hand retreats and you mutter an apology out to the creature. The dog doesn’t move, standing still as a statue as it watches you fiddle with the handle of the basket and rise to your feet.

So, no Ghost, but you did meet a dog. That would have to do for now. You were exhausted from the drive, and more than anything you wanted to be in the warmth of a building, away from the volatile breeze and the eerie silence of the graveyard.

“Wait.” A voice rasps as you turn back to the trail. Everywhere and no where at once it comes and the feeling that arrives with it, so peaceful yet uncanny. Just like before, you don’t hear the dog approach, but you feel the cold of a wet nose press against your palm. His mouth opens, grazing your fingertips with his teeth as you whip your head around to look down at the creature, eyes wide and brows raised in shock. What?

You wrench your hand away from the dog, uncertainty sending a violent shiver down your spine. Surely the animal couldn’t’ve …

“F’me, wasn’t it?”

It’s not your mind playing tricks from the emptiness of the graveyard.

The dog spoke, rough and deep and accented.

The creature’s tail wags languidly behind him as he stares up at you expectantly, big paws placed firmly in a moss bed below with long, black claws curved into it.

“P-pardon?” You manage to breathe out, voice tight as your chest rises and falls rapidly with shallow, panicked breaths. This was impossible, you knew it. As a child you had spent countless hours trying to get your childhood pet to utter a single ‘I love you’ to no avail, and yet this dog before you seemed to find human speech as simple as inhaling or flicking his ears. The dog huffs, his dark eyes rolling, and you realize the animal does not simply speak, it finds you amusing too.

He noses at the basket, sniffling deeply at the food within before peering up at you in silent demand. You part your lips in a small ‘o’, lowering the basket to the mossy floor. The dog doesn’t spare you another glance as his tongue lolls out to lap at the dish of honey and draw the bread between rows of hungry teeth. He eats quickly and with all the grace of any normal canine, crumbs dotting the fur surrounding his mouth as he raises his head to regard you.

“You just… you spoke to me?” You question, your knees wobbling in surprise. Perhaps if he didn’t have the look of a cute dog, you would have been more fearful. “You talk?”

The dog tilts his head before sniffing at your boot for a moment only to raise his head back as he settles onto his haunches. The animals ears perk up, still flopping at the ends, almost covering his dark eyes.

“You smell like Kate.” He speaks, but his mouth doesn’t move. In fact, his entire body remains rigid and still, a graveyard statue blessed with the breath of life.

Something clicks as his words register. This isn’t just some extraordinary talking dog, this was the Ghost Kate had mentioned. Your eyes finally relax, there’s no more look of surprise, there’s no more unease. Having a talking dog for a neighbor seemed so much better than dealing with Mr. Thomson, stumbling back into the apartment complex after a long night drinking, singing his curses to the city, to the world itself.

Ghost was just fine.

Emboldened by this sudden realization, you reach out to the dog again. “Ghost,” you say with a hint of a smile. “You’re awful cute, aren’t you?” A giggle escapes you as you see he’s not moving away this time, but diligently sniffing at your hand. The dog pauses after a moment, flashing a hint of teeth at you. It’s not aggressive, you realize. Perhaps, he’s not the best with people.

“An’ you’re awful chummy, girl.” The dog snorts, turning his head away indignantly. So this one had a bit of an attitude, you let it roll off the shoulder. Surely he would warm up, talking or not, most stray dogs had a tendency to. You retract your hand and collect the empty basket and the dog gives you a slight nod in approval.

“I’ll walk ya back.”

— — —

The walk back to Kate’s cottage felt longer than the hike up to the graveyard. Ghost didn’t seem very keen on talking to you, despite his offer to escort you home. He padded in front of you with hurried steps, only circling back to nip at your heels every now and then if he felt you were trailing too far behind him. You didn’t yet know that there were other eyes in the forest observing the two of you. Each time a branch snapped behind or to either side of you, or when footsteps or laughter could be heard some distance away, Ghost would dart behind you to mouth at the leather of your boot with a low growl to keep you from looking at anything apart from the roof of the cottage as you approached.

After the third bite, with the cottage in full view you finally stop in your tracks, reaching down to ruffle his ears. “Why do you keep doing that?” You ask, an air of annoyance to your tone as you note the indents of fangs in your boots— the only pair of shoes you had even brought with you, already covered in drool and bite marks by some magical dog you hardly knew.

Ghost snorts, dark eyes locked on your face as he circles back around you. “You’ve got lead in your head or your shoes girl, which is it?”

You puff your cheeks in a slight pout, half a mind to knock his fuzzy head with the basket in your hands. “Neither,” you mutter, carrying on towards the cottage. “Stop biting me.”

Ghost shakes his shaggy head, opting to press his mouth to your hand in a silent order to get you moving again. You oblige, leaving the dog behind as you make it to the back door of the small house. You knock once, and already hear the sounds of the locks unlatching just beyond the wooden door. The door swings open, and Kate stands there in silence. face paled.

Ghost lets out a low bark somewhere behind you as you wave him off. Kate smiles broadly at the dog before turning to look at you just as he scampers back up the trail, no doubt back to the graveyard he had appeared in.

“I apologize, dear,” she breathes out, ushering you back inside. She looks incredibly apologetic as she takes your shoulders and turns you around to face her. Her tone remains a cross between stern and reassuring, and you feel a swell of guilt, almost like you should be comforting her rather than the opposite.

You explain to her that Ghost didn’t frighten you, and she settles immediately, a sigh of relief leaving her lips. You return the basket to its proper place, stored on a shelf high up in the pantry as you tell Kate about your interaction with the strange, talking graveyard dog.

“Sounds like he likes you.” Kate responds followed with a soft laugh. You notice she’s cleared the table of breakfast, only neatly crocheted doilies in place of where the two of you had sat earlier that morning. “He wouldn’t speak to me the first day we met.”

You shake your head in protest, gesturing towards the marks from his teeth in your boot. “He bit me!” You whine, earning another laugh from Kate. You crouch down to untie your boots, pulling them off of your feet, the woman kneels next to you and pries the boots from your hands with gentle, aged hands. She runs her thumb over the indentations with a hum.

“I should be able to fix them.”

“Really?”

Kate nods, standing to her feet and offering you her free hand. You take it, straightening yourself out. The room smells of lemongrass and lavender, the flickering glow of a large candle placed neatly on a side table housing a few choice pieces of fine china.

You watch as Kate takes your boots to her room, no doubt where whatever supplies she deemed useful enough to fix them lay in wait. She returns roughly a half hour later with them graciously repaired, and you’re uncertain of how she’s managed such a feat to the extent she has— no more indentations, no scuffs on the leather. They look new, something you haven’t seen since the day you purchased them.

You thank her graciously with a little bow of your head and you and Kate fall into a comfortable conversation. She tells you that there are many others like Ghost, that some of them look human but aren’t, that some are no more than groaning shadows or looming abysses of fur and sharp claws. Kate diligently reiterates her rules from earlier, and though you weren’t quite sure you believed her entirely about the dangers of these ‘neighbors’, you nod along enthusiastically.

“So, if Ghost is just a dog, why doesn’t he live here? With you? Winter gets cold in places like this,” you breathe out, seated on the opposite end of the floral patterned loveseat next to Kate.

“Oh? He didn’t show you then.” Kate laughs. She’s brewed another kettle of tea and she dispenses the amber fluid between two mugs. “I suppose he didn’t want to frighten you off, but he’s no dog.”

Your eyes widen, and you’re uncertain as to why Kate��s words fill you with dread, a cold spike through the chest that sends a shiver down each ridge of your spine. Ghost hadn’t hurt you, of course. He didn’t even seem to be entertaining any idea other than eating and walking you home. Maybe a bit pushy, but otherwise a proper gentle…dog. Your head tilts, wordlessly asking Kate to fully explain what Ghost may have been hiding.

“He’s a big guy,” is all she says as she takes a long sip from her tea. You open your mouth to speak again, but all of a sudden the scent of tobacco fills your lungs, swirls around the entire room as though it was emanating from the walls itself. You stifle a cough with your palm pressed flat against your lips and Kate laughs. Yet, as you glance about the den, you see no one else. Paranoia? But Kate seemed to have smelled it too. “Not me, dear.” She says quietly.

“… what are they?” You question, voice wavering. The scent of tobacco seems to grow stronger then dissipate after a few moments only to return.

“The good folk,” comes Kate’s immediate reply as she stands, clapping her palms against her thighs with an exasperated sigh. She tilts her head to look down at you with a small smile. “This one’s nice enough, too. Don’t worry.” Despite the waves of scent that drift in and out of the room, nothing else seems to appear. With everything that’s happened today, a part of you expects to meet with a sentient cigarette at Kate’s words, but… nothing.

— — —

As the days pass, you and Kate fall into a sort of routine. The woman will tell you the most unbelievable things with a smile on her face, and you find almost too quickly that everything she says is true. This place feels holy in a sense. It’s no church, but things of myth seem to embedded themselves into the walls, singing like a choir in the dead of night. You swear you hear Kate talking to someone some nights, a man’s voice booming through the cottage. They share laughs and the scent of a cigar ebbs and flows, but every time you’ve tried to steal a peek at this visitor, he seems to vanish the moment you step out of your room. Maybe you would think him rude if you knew for certain he existed at all.

Your mind tends to play tricks after the stress of leaving behind everything you knew, uprooting your entire life to come here. On the second day, you lose your car keys. You had placed them on your nightstand and you knew it, but the following morning they were no where to be found. On the third night, you wake up on your side in bed, the sound of someone breathing deeply behind you sending a swell of dread from the base of your neck down to the heels of your feet. Sleep paralysis, you tell yourself, but you knew you had pulled the blanket a bit tighter around yourself when it happened, stealthily tried to move your foot to see if you could feel anyone. You could move, it had been real.

It’s on the fourth day that your heart sinks in your chest. You wake to morning light flooding through the curtains, the chirping of birds in the willow just outside of your window. As you sit yourself up and wipe at your eyes with the meat of your palms, you realize the potted lily Kate had gifted to you is gone. Plants don’t just get up and walk, using their leaves to tug up their pots as if it were trousers as they saunter away on thin, wiry root legs. You feel like your sanity is slipping when you check the window and realize it’s still locked. Even though the lily was just a plant, you feel a sense of grief at the fact you couldn’t find it anywhere— not beneath the bed, in any drawer, the closet or… anywhere in the cottage.

You finally give in and decide to ask Kate, to which she explains that this event isn’t uncommon. You expected her to be upset (with what you believed to be your own irresponsibility), but she remains kind as always, tells you it will turn back up when you least expect it and ushers you to the kitchen to prepare breakfast with you, coffee, omelettes and bowls filled with blackberries.

“You could try asking Ghost,” Kate offers, “He seems fond of you, perhaps he took it.”

You bite back the urge to ask her how a dog could have possibly broken into your room and stolen a potted plant. The very image of it seemed silly, a beast like him biting down on the clay pot to, what? Haul it off to rest it atop some long-forgotten soul’s grave? Instead, you toy with the eggs on your plate, still feeling a bit strange about the entire ordeal.

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Don’t be afraid,” the woman speaks up again. The expression on her face, oddly sheepish, doesn’t suit her well. A silent ‘don’t leave’ buried beneath her words, written clear as day in the sullen look in her eyes.

The trek to the graveyard feels heavier this time around. The dog isn’t what has your skin crawling, it’s the ever-present feeling that something just beyond your field of view is lying in wait, eyes trained solely on your form. You swear you can feel a puff of breath on the back of your neck a time or two, almost causing you to trip over a cluster of fallen pine cones and other forest debris. It’s silent, as always, and as much as your eyes scan through fallen leaves and bent branches, you can’t make out the sight of anything scampering about, not so much as a squirrel or a proud cardinal. It’s strange how empty a place teeming with life can feel at times when something lurks coaxing the other creatures to silence lest they fall victim to sharp fangs. Even you, you find, have taken to subconsciously adjusting your strides as to not step on too many fallen leaves, avoiding twigs as though making a peep at all would be a death sentence.

Making your way to the hill littered in graves only makes it feel more certain, that steady drip of dread telling you that death was nipping at your heels. Though, a part of you considers that’s just Ghost’s presence. Black shulk, a keeper of fairy mounds, a harbinger of death.

You’re not met with the presence of a wiry-haired dog this time though, but a man clad in black, face concealed by the frontal bones of a human skull with all but the jaw mostly there. Tall and bulky, the thin fabric of a tunic barely concealing the rigid musculature beneath. There’s a moment of panic, so brief the swell and fall leaves you breathless, before you realize looking into those eyes that this was still the dog you had met before. Different, but still just as haunted and weary. There’s a misplaced sense of peace with Ghost; a wolf taking to shepherding a lamb rather than devouring it.

“Ghost?” You call to him, and he tilts his head ever so slightly, attention pulled from whatever duty he feels that he owes to this cemetery. Some instinctual guardianship, perhaps, rooted just as deeply in his fae blood as the pride and fear in your humanity.

“Yes?”

The dog, man, whatever he may be doesn’t seem to have a care that you see him as he is now, his focus returning to the same tombstone you had kneeled beside the day you met him, thick fingers roving over the mossy stone. He’s not clearing it away, you notice, merely looking it over and it dawns on you that perhaps, in some distant past that this was someone he once knew. Had he waited at their side during their end? Pressed his muzzle to their palm in a kiss of death? Your fingers twitch at your side as your feet move on auto-pilot, arriving at his side before you seat yourself next to him.

Ghost smells of sulfur, of pine and morning dew. Not death as you had expected. He smells of spring mornings and hazy summer afternoons, scorched earth and vibrant meadows all in one. Purgatory made flesh, a passerby between heaven and hell.

“Did you steal my lily?” The words seem entirely outlandish as they spill from your mouth, and you realize how stupid you sound the second he cocks his head to look you over beneath the skull concealing the majority of his face from you. He doesn’t have to give you an answer, really, because you know he didn’t take it, but he still gives you the courtesy of a slow shake of his head. “Well, it’s gone.” You say quietly, drawing your gaze away from him as you look to the tombstone before the both of you. You can see it now, the name. Johnny MacTavish.

“Don’t know anything about it,” Ghost utters, his dark eyes remaining trained on you, but his hand moves to the soil beneath his feet. There’s a certain reverence to his touch as he splays his hand across the earth. This ‘Johnny’ must have been important to him in some capacity. Not a kiss of death at all, you realize then. Whatever Ghost was, he had the propensity to love, to grieve.

“Oh.” You breathe soft, pulling your lower lip between your teeth. A heavy silence hangs in the air for a moment. You hadn’t meant to interrupt him during such a sensitive time, but there’s some flicker in his eyes when you look up at him that suggests a semblance of gratitude that you’re here. “… you knew him?” Your force the question from your tongue, and Ghost merely turns his head to look at the stone before him, eyes somber as they trace over the engraved name as though he were reading poetry.

“That I did.”

You both sit in silence for a time. There’s a part of you that doesn’t want to leave him to haunt this place alone anymore, and a more rational part that tells you that he belongs here, tethered to this Johnny’s side for the rest of his days. Ghost seems less tense in your presence, almost soothed by the silence it seemed as his broad shoulders go slack and he pays his silent respects to this buried man by way of gentle touch and a barely contained softness in his eyes. The silence feels neither awkward nor unfamiliar, it’s as gentle as a breeze passing through. You picture what this man must have been like, to steal the heart of someone like Ghost, even in death. You don’t ask, despite the questions burning in your throat. In due time, perhaps.

An hour passes before you force up the will to leave him, and just like the last time, Ghost walks you home. There’s no more pushing, no ushering you to look forward or walk faster. The man would never voice it, but something about the way he looks at you now tells you there’s some newfound respect budding up in his chest like a wildflower.

The silence is only broken as you reach the door to Kate’s home.

“Somethin’s got its eye on you, lovie.” You whip your head around to question him, but find the man has already gone.

— — —

You return empty handed, noting that Kate’s car was no longer parked in the gravel driveway. A note on the refrigerator door reads ‘Out. Be back soon!’. It’s the first time that you’ve found yourself alone in the cottage, but you have the sense to tell you that you’re not entirely alone. Even the mottled white and blue wallpaper, some faux marble pattern, makes you feel as though you’re being watched, as though something you’re just not seeing is tucked away beneath those colors observing you with the eyes of a starved wolf.

And it’s quiet, it’s so quiet that it makes that unease grow. You’re repeating Ghost’s words in your head like a strange mantra.

Somethin’s got its eye on you, lovie.

Why didn’t he elaborate? Did he even know? Could he know?

The house settles, a floorboard creaks loudly and that’s enough to spur you to hide away in your room, at least until Kate returns.

Your room feels like small sanctuary as you shut the door behind you and let out a shaky breath. The calm is only interrupted when you notice the dead sparrow lying neatly atop your bedsheets, it’s wings spread out, feet tucked against its tiny body and it’s eyes closed. It looked peaceful, not brutally marred and yet the sight alone pulls a gasp from your throat as your eyes grow wide.

Something had been in your room. Someone had been in your room.

Was the dead bird a threat? A gift? You couldn’t be certain, but you glove your hands and bury it in the backyard, eyes carefully scanning the tree line every so often as a chill runs down each knob of your spine. You’ve heard mentions of the fair folk your entire life, in books and film, but those stories all felt so nonsensical and sweet compared to the here and now. Were they not supposed to simply be little people donning butterfly’s wings? Fluttering about thick oak trees and being birthed from flower bulbs? Kate’s ‘neighbors’ looked and felt the part of demons by comparison.

If not for Ghost’s existence, you would think this all was her doing, that perhaps she was more eccentric than you had realized. You’re scared, you’re alone here in the country, and it seemed as though these strange occurrences would just be your new day-to-day. As normal as a walk to the subway, as ordering your coffee from a local cafe. You pat the small grave with the spade once as you rise to your feet to head inside to wash your sheets.

— — —

You don’t remember falling asleep, memory only supplying you placing your sheets in the washer with a slight grimace on your face. But you wake, you wake to the dim light of the moon basking your room in a hazy, milky glow. You can feel the presence of a blanket covering your lower half, but you’ve hardly time to question how it got there at all.

A long, muscular arm curls around your middle, inviting in a cold, billowing wave of fear to wash over your bones. Ghost?, you wonder in silence, but the thought immediately dissipates as you feel the figure shift closer behind you, tucking you further against himself. Ghost was big, but this person was somehow larger. Impossibly so. You part your lips to scream, but not a sound comes out. You feel as though your voice itself has been snatched away from your throat. “Shh,” a voice hisses into your ear, the feeling of fabric moving over your face as the man behind you tilts his head to look you over.

You squeeze your eyes shut.

“I won’t hurt you,” the voice continues, somehow both gravely and light as he speaks. It’s unfamiliar, entirely unfamiliar. He sounds unhinged in a way your fretful mind can’t even begin to voice, and surely, he must be. Climbing into bed with a stranger, pulling someone you’ve never met so closely to you… why would anyone in their right mind do that?!

You manage to find your voice when the man lowers his head to the crown of yours, deeply inhaling as his grip around you tightens. “What the hell are you doing?” You try to sound assertive, truly, but it comes out as a small squeak, anxiously wavering with each syllable uttered.

“You smell like honeysuckle.”

Was Kate back yet? If you screamed would she come sprinting through to door to rid this beast of a man from your bed? Your thoughts are like a roaring storm in your head just before you feel the gentle brush of lips, hidden beneath some veil, against your cheek and the figure pulls away to settle against your pillow with a soft huff of breath.

“Your heart is racing like a little hase. Calm down.”

“Stop. Please.” Your voice cracks again. Through the dim light of the moon seeping through your window you make out the sight of a clawed hand resting over your tummy. Thick, black keratin gently splayed over the fabric of your shirt, grip firm but not tight enough to cause injury. Your breath catches, the stranger let’s out an airy laugh, tries to pull you closer once again. You’re so entwined that it’s for naught, you’re only grateful he was gentle. The thought of those claws splitting you open surfaces just before he shushes you again.

“I won’t hurt you,” he repeats as if sensing your unease. You can almost detect the dejection in his voice, as though he knows, knows that you’re catching glimpses of a monster, a sight he couldn’t change. It’s gone so quickly you think you’ve imagined it. His thumb moves languidly to trace a circle along your sternum, trying to soothe.

“What do you want?” Your voice was a low hiss, eyes darting from his hand to the wall in front of you. The courage to twist in his grip and face him wasn’t there, your imagination running wild with possibilities of the rest of him like stills from a horror film.

“To hold you.” Simple sentences do nothing to make his voice sound calm, the man is practically trembling as his hand moves to your hip to trace a pattern there, clawed fingertips dancing over a hint of exposed flesh. His other arm shifts to fit beneath your neck, you can see the taut muscle, the veins there as he moves it to curl over your chest, his breathing uneven and deep. The sound was familiar, the same sound you had heard when you felt the dip in your mattress a few nights prior. “Just to hold you.”

And this, despite how horrific and strange, is oddly comforting. Your mind has been plagued with anxieties caused by the unseen for days on end, and you can’t even recall the last time you’ve been held like this, if ever. So tender, so warm. The man behind you quietly hums the tune of a song that isn’t familiar, but feels as though it were just behind you. His fingers continue to delicately trace small shapes against you, warm paths of connecting points, some angular, some smooth. Despite yourself, you find you’re lulled into a deep sleep filled with dreams of fall forests, of unknowns with sharp teeth and fierce eyes. A song, dancing naked in groves, a man with eyes like an ice covered stream.

When you wake, you find your bed empty apart from your own person, and a fully bloomed lily in your windowsill. 

[highfantasy-soul]

So my friend saw a meme about Osha's saber turning red so quickly despite Anakin's remaining blue all through killing the younglings, choking Padme, and fighting Obi-Wan and as I talked through it with him, the more I realized why the prequels never showed Anakin with a red saber.

To keep with canon, Luke gets Anakin's old saber and the kyber is BLUE not red. The writers probably didn't want to open another canon of worms by then having to retroactively explain 'so Vader's red saber isn't his original red saber and Obi-Wan somehow purified the kyber and made it blue again for Luke' rather than just....not doing that and having the saber remain blue

A red lightsaber on Mustafar? Visiually would have been a terrible choice for that battle, so blue it remained

Vader bleeding his crystal deserves its own story - just like Osha bleeding hers had it's own story. I really liked the comic where Vader bleeds his crystal [not giving more detail as spoilers in case everyone hasn't read the comics - and if you haven't, I really recommend Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith, it's only a 4 volume run and I thought it was great]

Anakin had a LOT going on through that entire movie - it wasn't a situation where he'd been repressing his emotions for so long and then was able to point to a singular cause of so much of his pain - his trauma was spread out so it makes sense that one singular act wouldn't be focused enough to bleed his crystal right then and there - Osha, on the other hand, had the singular cause of so many of her emotions right there in that courtyard, and the one who fostered her unjust hate toward her sister is standing right there revealing the truth.

Maybe there is a whole thing where the kyber has to be exposed, not fully in a lightsaber, in order to properly bleed it - in Jedi: Survivor [spoilers] Dagan pulled his crystal out with the force and bled it right in front of us (just as quickly as Osha, I might add), in the comics, Vader holds the crystal and bleeds it, and in The Acolyte, the saber is busted to the point where the crystal was literally touching Osha's hand - as Anakin is a little busy at the moment, he didn't really take the time to take apart his saber to bleed the crystal in the moment.

So idk, people complaining that 'so sabers are like mood rings now and just change that quickly? Guess Anakin wasn't actually all that upset at the end of episode 3!!' just seem so silly to me.

The entirety of The Acolyte's story was Osha dealing with her emotions she had been repressing for 16 years - and the reveal that what she thought was true (which led to the emotions she was told she needed to repress) had always been a lie. The bleeding of her crystal wasn't a quick, easy thing, it took literally the whole season to build up to that point.

And the aftermath when she's collapsed on the ground shaking - holy hell, I love when intense emotions are shown in 'unconventional' ways. Not all of us feel intense emotions and show it through huge, loud, and expansive displays. Some of us collapse in on ourselves and experience it in 'quieter' ways that are still just as intense as screaming.

Anyways, The Acolyte is really good.

[tizeline]

May I ask, what is Leo and Draxum's relationship like? Is it good? Neutral? Or bad?

Uhhhhh well it's not exactly perfect, but I would say it leans more towards good, Draxum and Leo do both genuinely care for each other. I know that in the most recent comics their relationship appears a bit... strained to say the least. Because it is. BUT you should know that this is the most strained their relationsip has ever been up to this point. The reason for that is that this is the first time Leo has really openly and completely gone against Draxum's orders, Leo has never been as much of a rule-follower as Raph or as dedicated to the cause as Mikey, but he generally tends to go along with whatever his father wants. So Leo actively working against his family is new territory for all of them, that paired with Draxum's stubborness and self-rightousness (which makes him quite bad at being diplomatic in this situation) just causes even more cracks in their relationship.

That being said, things weren't all sunshine and rainbows before this, there has been an underlying tension building between the two of them for years which also acts as fuel to the fire in their most recent disagreement. I've brought it up before (and I'm gonna keep bringing it up whenever it's relevant) but one of the biggest dilemmas Draxum is dealing with is his duties as a father clashing with his duties as the warrior alchemist who has tasked himself with saving all of yōkai-kind. He created the turtles to aid him in that task, because of that he puts a lot of time and effort into finding their unique strengths, their "use" for a lack of a better term, to focus on improving and perfecting. It's similar to in canon, Leo feels insecure about role on the team because he doesn't feel like he has a Specific Thing™ like his brothers do. Only this time, it's kinda reinforced by the way Draxum acts.

And listen, Draxum doesn't actually love any of his sons more or less based on their "use" to the team, he views them as his children first and his soldiers second. But regardless of whatever his internal feelings are, because he's so dedicated to the plan he ends up spending more time with helping Mikey and Raph perfect their specific skillsets while Leo has a tendency to get a little overlooked. So from Leo's point of view, he's convinced he's the least favorite child! Oopsie! So again, like in canon, he acts like a show-off in an effort to get attention and praise, which a lot of the time just ends up backfiring on him cuz it makes him appear impulsive and immature.

This is something that starts off as a relatively small problem that just keeps getting more and more serious the longer it goes unadressed. By the time of season 1 Leo has more or less accidentally cemented himself as the "class-clown" of the family, so when he tries to argue about Draxum's plan neither his dad or his brothers really take him seriously. It's just Leo being Leo again, no biggie, he'll get proven wrong like he always does and they can all have a laugh about it later! But verbally disagreeing with Draxum is one thing, the fact that Leo actually goes and takes direct action against his family in such an extreme way is completely new, and it definitely throws them off. So Leo's hurt that his family refuses to listen to him and his family is hurt because they feel like Leo betrayed them.

So overall... yeah things are pretty dire in the entire Draxum family right now, especially between Leo and Draxum. They ARE gonna reconcile though! Leo's insecure role in the family has been a problem that's been going ignored for years now and the situation boiling over is gonna force everyone to actually adress it. It'll take some time, but Leo and Draxum are gonna talk things out, despite everything they do love each other, they both want to get along, they just need time to figure out how to actually accomplish that lol.