#what do you do when your entire family has been defined by a grief you dont feel. by the death of a sister and friend you dont remember

[acaciapines]

rotating noelle around in my brain. i need the dess raises kris au to be real RIGHT NOW.

please talk to me about the dess raises kris au i think im gonna explode. also start writing it this summer maybe :3333

[deansbeer]

where the waves rest easy ⎯⎯ DEAN WINCHESTER.

⎯⎯ you and dean take the kids to the beach, where he opens up about his past, his love for you, and the life you've built together after leaving hunting behind.

♡ KARI YAPS! @deanswidow also contributed a tiny lil idea 4 this so dedicating this 2 her <3 ur dean's babygirl bc it felt right 🤍 love u pooks !!!!!

♡ WARNING(S) fluff | angst | family bonding | mentions of past violence | major character death (pls dont hate me I’ll cry) | grief. mdni ♱ 18 plus. adult content.

📖 JACKLES library.

IT'S BEEN TWO YEARS SINCE DEAN QUIT HUNTING.

two years since he put the colt and his sawed-off shotgun away for good. since he walked away from the life that had defined him for so long. since he said goodbye to the monsters, the blood, and the constant weight of death hanging over him.

two years since sam died.

god, you still catch him looking at the horizon sometimes, his jaw tight, his hands clenched into fists like he's bracing himself for something—like he's expecting the next apocalypse to come knocking at your front door. but it never does.

because dean walked away.

he walked away for you. for your family. for SAMMY, the little boy with his brother's name and his father's stubbornness. for JEMMA, the baby girl who's only been on this earth eight months and already has DEAN WINCHESTER wrapped around her tiny fingers. he walked away because he couldn't do it anymore—because burying his brother nearly killed him, and he knew if he didn't stop, he'd be burying you next. or the kids. or himself.

and you know sam would've wanted this for him. he would've wanted dean to have what they'd always dreamed about when they were kids: a home, a family, a life that wasn't overshadowed by death and duty.

so dean quit.

he got a job as a firefighter, of all things—because of course he did. being a firefighter lets him save people without the baggage of what came with hunting. it's hard work, but it's honest work, and it keeps his hands busy. it keeps his mind busy, too, most of the time. and you? you're a kindergarten teacher, which means your days are filled with crayons, storytime, and glue-sticked chaos.

it's not the life he ever thought he'd have—hell, it's not the life he ever thought he deserved—but he loves it. he loves you. he loves his kids. and even on the hard days, when the itch to hunt creeps up on him, or when he sees something on the news that makes his instincts scream at him to grab his gun, he reminds himself why he stopped. why he has to stay.

because this is worth it.

you and the kids are worth it.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

it's a friday when DEAN suggests going to the beach.

you both decided to take a day off—something rare, since your lives are usually so busy between work and the kids. but today, the sun is shining, the weather's perfect, and dean woke up with that lopsided grin you love so much, the one that makes him look ten years younger.

"whaddya think?" he asks as he pours you a cup of coffee, jemma balanced on his hip like she's always belonged there. "a beach day? sammy's been talking about it all week, and i think the squirt here could use her first dip in the ocean, don't you?"

you laugh, taking the coffee from him and leaning up to kiss his cheek. "sounds perfect."

so you pack up BABY with towels, sunscreen, a cooler full of snacks, and all the other million things you need when you have two kids under three. sammy's bouncing with excitement the entire drive, and jemma babbles happily from her car seat, her chubby hands reaching for DEAN every time he glances back to check on her. what a daddy's girl.

when you finally get to the beach, the first thing you notice is how peaceful it is. it's not too crowded—just a few families scattered along the sand, kids building castles and couples lounging under umbrellas.

and you can tell the moment DEAN steps onto the sand that this place means something to him.

you've been here before, of course—this is where he proposed to you. but there's something about the way he looks at the water, the way he takes a deep breath like he's letting go of something heavy, that makes you realize just how much this spot actually means to him.

"you okay, baby?" you ask softly, slipping your hand into his.

he turns to you, and for a moment, the smile he gives you is so FULL of love it makes your chest ache. "yeah, sweetheart," he says. "just… this place. it kinda reminds me why i'm here, y'know?"

you nod, squeezing his hand. and then sammy tugs on his leg, demanding to go play in the water, and DEAN laughs, scooping him up and spinning him around before setting him down and chasing after him.

you watch them run toward the waves, and your heart feels so full it might burst.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

a little while later, you're walking along the shore with him, jemma cradled in his arms. sammy's still splashing in the water, his laughter carried on the breeze, and you can't help but smile as you watch him. he really is a miniature version of DEAN—same green eyes, same freckles, same mischievous grin.

"he's got your stubbornness, too," you say, nudging DEAN with your shoulder.

he chuckles. "yeah, well, he gets that from both of us, sweetheart. don't kid yourself."

you laugh, leaning your head against his bicep as you walk. the sand is warm beneath your feet, the waves lapping gently at the shore, and for a moment, everything feels perfect.

"you remember why i proposed to you here?" he asks suddenly, his voice soft.

you look up at him, surprised. "of course i do. but i wouldn't mind hearing it again."

he smiles, his eyes distant for a moment as he looks out at the water. "it was right after we found out sammy was on the way," he says. "i was scared out of my fucking mind, if i'm being honest. not about you—about being a dad. about screwing it all up. but then we came here, and you were sitting right there"—he nods toward a spot near the water—"and you just looked so… happy. like you weren't worried about anything. and i realized that if i was gonna do this—if i was gonna have a family, a real life—it had to be with you. because you make everything better, y'know? even when it's scary. especially when it's scary."

his voice cracks a little at the end, and you blink back tears, reaching up to cup his face. "baby…"

"i mean it," he says, his voice rough. "you saved me, sweetheart. you and the kids—you're the reason i'm still here. the reason i didn't just… give up after sam."

you kiss him then, pouring everything you feel into it. he kisses you back, jemma squirming a little between you but not enough to break the moment.

when you finally pull away, you're both smiling, and for the first time in a long time, you see nothing but peace in his eyes.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

the rest of the day is spent soaking up the sun, building sandcastles, and chasing sammy around the beach. DEAN lets him bury him in the sand at one point, laughing as both SAMMY and JEMMA work together to pile sand on top of him.

"i think they're plotting against me," he says, grinning up at you from his sandy grave.

"probably," you reply, laughing as jemma pats a handful of sand onto his chest.

as the sun starts to set, dean takes both kids down to the water to look for crabs. sammy's eyes light up every time he spots one, and jemma claps her hands excitedly, even though you're pretty sure she doesn't know what's going on.

you watch them from a distance, your hand resting on your stomach. it's still early—you haven't told DEAN yet—but you know he'll be just as thrilled as you are when he finds out you're expecting again.

watching him with SAMMY and JEMMA, seeing the way he lights up around them, there's no doubt in your mind that he was meant to be a dad.

and as you sit there, watching the man you love with the family you've built together, you realize that this is what happiness looks like.

it's not perfect—it's messy and chaotic and sometimes downright exhausting—but it's yours.

and you wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

later that night, after the kids are asleep and the house is quiet, DEAN pulls you into his arms.

"thank you," he whispers, his voice barely audible in the darkness.

"for what?" you ask, resting your head against his chest.

"for this," he says, his hand moving to rest over your stomach. "for giving me a reason to keep going. for giving me a family."

you smile, tears pricking at your eyes again. "you don't have to thank me for that, my love. you've given me just as much."

he presses a kiss to your forehead, holding you close. and as you drift off to sleep, you can't help but think about how far you've both come—how far he's come.

because DEAN WINCHESTER may have walked away from hunting, but he's still a hero.

he's YOUR hero.

and he always will be.

♡ SPECIAL TAGS. @beausling @a1ecmcdowell @jasvtsc @titsout4nicholas @aileenunfiltered @frosttbitessam @bluestrd @archiveofvirtue @ultravi0lence14 @rubyvhs @ohsc . . . ૮ ․ ․ ྀིა

[fumifooms]

Laios Touden and autism; admiring the non-human

Do you think people exaggerate when they scream about Laios being autistic? Do you feel like it’s weird that so many people including autistics are so set on Laios, the problematic (but incredible and kind) king TM, being the most autistic that has ever autisticed? Why do we cheer on autistic people wanting to be monsters?? Isn’t that weird?

Well, of course it depends on the way it’s done, it can be done quite offensively, but long story short Kui blew it out of the park. The thing is, autistic people really do like monsters and animals and robots. Nonhuman does not mean subhuman, it just means Other. Feeling a connection with them has been shown to be an extremely common autistic experience for that very reason.

Because some people don’t understand why we autistic Tumblr Laios stans cheer “autism! Autism!” whenever he talks about monsters and feeling alienated to humans so! Here’s a post about how yes even research papers are analyzing the special connection we form with animals. I’m not even joking but Laios Touden & the mass cries of relatability with autistic people he gets and all the love for him could be used as study material and evidence for future papers because the link is that strong. Oh also I think it’s notable that being autistic and undiagnosed vs diagnosed makes a huge difference. In my experience as someone who was undiagnosed up until 18, it’s even more alienating to not know that there’s a reason why you’re different, being gaslit that you’re ‘normal’ and you just need to try harder and get with the program, etc. Personally when getting diagnosed I went through the 5 stages of grief because the thought of having been fundamentally different all your life (a difference which you will never be able to change) and mistreated for it when you weren’t “wrong” all along makes you unload all the anger and sadness and loneliness and sheer trauma you’ve built up over time. Like it’s world shattering.

So! Back to seeing dogs as family. Also I implore you to value experiential evidence when it comes to autism and other neurodivergences because brains are complicated and neurotypicals not being able to understand us well even with scientific research is like, a whole thing even though we’re right there speaking about how we feel and being right every time because the topic is literally us and how we experience the world. 

Disclaimer for this whole post that, of course, no group is a monolith and everyone has different experiences or can diverge from the norm of the group, and that doesn’t diminish the validity of either side! Like, I know autistic people who have trauma with dogs and hate them. But, trends do happen, and in this case... Autism is very “My experiences with humans make me feel dehumanized in a bad and lonely way so instead I’ll dehumanize myself in a good and inspiring way”.

“I was treated like a failed human my entire life and you’re surprised that my response was to become a dog.” -Patricia Taxxon

It’s literally well recorded that autistic people relate to animals more than humans globally. With this post, besides spreading autistic Laios truthism and explaining why the portrayal hits so deep for so many,  I want to show in what way this is a very specific experience and not looking at his character through an autistic lense really misses a lot of why he’s everything that he is. (Tacking allegedly onto here for legal reasons, different interpretations are valid etc etc /gen). This honestly isn’t super long though.

To define an important term, anthropomorphism in the studies and in this post means to attribute human traits to the nonhuman, which not only includes anthro furry designs but also animals irl, inanimate objects, and animated media as opposed to live action, to humanize them and empathize with them.

Paper: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/aut.2019.0027 

“Dogs taught me how to hunt and socialize and work in groups”, Laios having internalized body language... So real so real. I, too, make a great dog impression. And I want to emphase the part that it helps greatly develop a sense of emotions and relationships! For Laios, he didn’t get along with kids his age, it was him, Falin and the dogs against the world. Since it’s a group of dogs too, it taught him group dynamics and social hierarchies (like with Falin being considered as being below the dogs in authority according to the dogs rip), and the importance of group coordination when hunting.

For me, I cannot like, concisely explain just how much animals were important to me developmentally. I also grew up with dogs, but like I vividly remember encounters with like hamsters as well just radically shaping my understanding of boundaries, the importance of giving something space and the way you interact with them and respect their side of it. Unlike humans they don’t really mask how they feel, it’s direct cause-effect reaction and data gathering. There are no words involved, so the focus on having a perfect phrasing and tone is gone, leaving just pure interactions. 

There’s also no reason to mask how you feel either, and you don’t have to feel silly over wanting to form a connection and it showing, what, is the dog gonna laugh at you because you obviously want to make friends with it? Toshiro or Kabru might, but dogs and cats will just tell you to fuck off and leave it there worst case scenario. I often say that I think one reason Marcille is special to Laios and he feels comfortable around her is because she emotes INTENSELY, she gestures, she puts her whole body into it, her facial expressions are pretty exaggerated and her ears even emote too- like with a dog’s ears!

I think there’s def also things to be said about how he gravitated towards Izutsumi at first, all excited, was eager to sleep in the same bed as her, but in the Izutsumi sleep rating chart we see they really just casual and chill so it’s not a Laios talking to Shuro deep into the night situation just a “I like sleeping besides animals” situation and that is enough to hype him up. I love how he pet her in the extra about why Chil let her sleep with him too. He’s just so transparently eager to befriend her, even if in the end they weren’t all that compatible and he accepted that.

There are honestly so many examples I could give for this. Like Grandin the famous cow lady.

More about autism & empathy:

https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/double-empathy-explained/ (Also mentions a study in which groups of autistic, allistic then a mixed group played a game of telephone and both singular groups had similar levels of information retention, but the mixed group was significantly worse. As an autistic person yeah duh, obviously autistic people are different from one another and can have plenty of interpersonal issues, but communicating with other neurodivergent people feels pretty intuitive and straightforward and comfortable. One of the reasons why neurodivergent people tend to naturally gravitate towards each other I suppose.) 

^ Paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5932358/  For good, extensive summary of why we relate to animals so much you can go to the “anthromorphizing and asd” section of the paper. This paper extends to our widespread liking of cartoons and robots as well. Ok so this is a whole thing I won’t get into here but this is a big reason why a lot of autistic people are agender leaning as well. Genders and queerness in general is a lot about social constructs, and being queer is being marginal to these, not fitting into boxes or challenging those social norms and conventions. Queerplatonic relationships are a great example of this, where the framework of the relationship is platonic but the intangible nature of what it is exactly is the point, not familial not anything but everything at once too, just adoration, I like to say having pets is a bit like it as well, bc obvi it’s not romantic and often not fully familial, very platonic but also sooo much cuddling and adoration and kissing and whatnot that you wouldn’t typically do with a friend or family member. I’ll talk about qpr and labels another day though.

I got carried away but queerness in Dunmeshi is something I 100% want to make a big post on one day. Experiencing the world with different guidelines and not registering things to have the same boxes, sigh. Personally I also relate to Laios on a gender level, “cis by default because I don’t care all that much but if I were to dig deeper I’m probably otherkin and I want to be socially associated with traits of monsters and animalistic rather than man/woman” sighh hard to be a cryptid in this day and age. I wish we had a term like furry but for monsters, I want to be in the fantasy or folk tale genre ty, like changelings. Goshh changelings... You know, the irl myth where people said their neurodivergent kids were fairies’ children instead of human. Diminished physical sense of self means I see myself as some unknowable black  void aesthetic wise, but like in a way that simultaneously makes me feel seen. Like becoming a monster, losing your sense of self but also somehow just being simplified and seen for what you are, it’s weird to try and explain. This post is more about relating to the nonhuman than about seeing yourself as such, but like connect the dots right, that IS an important point of Laios’ character. It’s because our brains literally work different than allistics which makes us feel as other, but also because of social ostracization and functioning in a different way than society at large, living in the margin of society, being weird and non-conforming.

Meanwhile, animals and social norms... Like ok, showing your neck and rolling on the ground to show that you’re friendly and harmless and play biting might not be proper. But have you considered that it’s also fun and feels very intuitive. Play with a dog in the dog’s way I promise it is so nice and freeing. Play tug of war and growl back when they growl. Hiss at your cat to tell them they do something wrong, engage with them on their level.

Autism made social life hard, but it made animals easy. Do you have anyyy idea how good it feels to mask all day every day and feel constantly misunderstood or like you’re doing a performance but then you can just, drop all of that in the company of animals and they understand you. They understand you. You form an understanding and rapport so easily.

And this whole thing with Laios is so explicit too, with the Winged Lion saying “You’re sick and tired of the human world”. Notice the choice of words. Sick and tired of the human world. Exhausted from the constraints, sick of the mind games. It really isn’t as much about loving monsters as it is about loving the nonhuman. Relating to them because you feel that you can actually understand how they work and think, and feeling like they could understand you back as well. Animals are safe.

Like I could go on about how Laios admiring even just demi-humans like orcs is because they’re socially seen as non-humans more than any true physical thing, that they’re not bound by human society and its rules and live with their own lifestyle. But it would deal myself 1000 points of psychic damage and I am not ready to cry today. It’s idealization 100%, and like, Laios DOES want to be treated as human, to be valued, but it feels like an unreachable thing meanwhile becoming a monster is instant gratification and freedom and a sense that now no one will be able to hurt you in a way that reaches you, never again shall you be defenseless, and then if people dehumanize you then that only strengthens your sense of identity as a monster and UGHH ugh ugh.

And like. This post is a mess at this point but if you want to kinda delve into the more “why” then I recommend this Patricia Taxxon video essay. It starts out on a very different topic, but it’s all about autism and finding comfort in the inhuman. Long story short is othering made us like this also animals are just simpler to intuitively get along with.

So when I post this

I mean it. I really mean it when I say he’s me. I have never felt so seen. So many conflicting emotions all wrapped so concisely yet so intangibly woven into the whole storyline so subtly. 

Not being depicted as a monster of an human being for feeling/having felt that way?? The manga understands you. The world can understand you. Other humans can understand you. You can bond with them. You can. And I think that’s a big part of Dungeon Meshi too- Laios opening up to others about how he really is and his interests, and all the bumps on the way but how it was the only way to truly get to know each other and bond. With the climax being Laios confronting head on his complex with monsters and humans, and his monster-loving side and animalistic side being exactly what saves the whole world, what saves humanity. Because Laios does value his friends, does think humanity has beautiful sides to it, he wants to help it thrive and eat and become more accepting, carving out a kingdom for misfits and demi-humans. At the end of it, transforming into a monster and being free is a daydream fantasy, and the reality of it is that Laios does belong in the world as he is, and does receive and give out love.

If you enjoyed this you’ll probably like some of my other Laios analysis!  Here’s an analysis of his succubus and what it says about his relationships with other humans. And here’s an analysis about his relationship with Shuro from his perspective.

[damianbugs]

What you mean by" willis todds love for jason is the reason bruce failed him" ?

Sorry ive seen your post and I agree with everything but this just kinda suprise me, not hating, just curiuos

HELLO! so this is a take that is based on pre-new 52 todds, before they were simplified to the one dimensional (and classist) personalities they're known for now. neither of them were shown to be abusive or willfully negligent, but rather found themselves in bad situations out of their control and died, leaving jason to fend for himself.

in the most simplest way what i mean is willis todds self sacrificing actions of turning to crime in order to provide for jason and catherine is the key defining part of jasons life and why he views bruce's love for him as 'not enough'.

(of course, the actual proof of this is like. one single panel and its not even said by jason. however i think it is something that can be found in jasons character through other, less obvious situations.)

in jasons initial (public) return to gotham and that long and convoluted plan to mess around with batman psychology to get the two of them and the joker in the same place, it all seems like a well planned out revenge story until the final conversation:

Batman: Under the Red Hood

it always stood out to me, not just because of how absolutely heart wrenching the entire moment is (definitely read utrh if you haven't, at least once), but because it really gives you an insight into what love and loving someone means to jason.

to him it's an all encompassing responsibility. this idea that love is something that you need to be able to prove by the quantitive value of what you'll sacrifice for it. in this case, jason is saying i love you" in the way he truly believes gets across how much he means it; i would kill the person who hurt you.

whenever i read this part of utrh, another situation immediately pops into my mind. and that's when jason found out two-face had killed willis todd.

Batman #411

upon finding out two-face had killed willis, jason goes on a brief grief filled rampage, swearing he'll kill him for what he did. it's important to note that up until now, jason had assumed willis was still in prison, only to find out he was actually murdered.

again, it's this idea that love is the extremes you'll go to for family. jason was well aware of willis' less than legal means to make money, and even bruce makes a mention of it in.

Batman: A death in the family

i imagine, like a lot of what fuels jason to fight crime now, guilt is a major deciding factor in a lot of his choices. it's this guilt that he feels upon hearing about willis' death that makes him take it out on two-face. it's even guilt that plays a huge factor even in new 52 stories (such as Cheer).

so when he returns to gotham, or even before that, just hearing about what bruce had done following his death (locking the joker up instead of killing him, taking in tim as his robin) were, to him, clear evidence that he did not love jason in any way that mattered. that bruce did not love jason as much as jason loved him.

because loving him means giving up your morals. loving him means sacrificing your health and your time and your safety.

but bruce didn't do any of that in a way jason could see.

i imagine to someone like jason, who lost every parental figure in some capacity, whether it be to illness or crime or something else entirely, the evident disregard for him was as painful as any rejection could have been.

a lot of how jason feels and acts can be seen in much more interesting ways if we all look at him for he is; an unreliable narrator. he is missing huge chunks of story, especially when it comes to bruce, and has no choice but to act irrationally on the little truth he does know.

of course we the readers, and some other characters, know just how hard jasons death was for bruce. how destructively he mourned for his son.

but again, the surface level proof of it is not enough for jason, who's entire life has been love through sacrifice. but now, it's a sacrifice bruce can not ever give him.

Batman: Under the Red Hood

[brightstar2000]

"Your past doesn't define you"

I think some people need to take this to heart. This applies to, not just Moon, but Nexus too.

Yes, Moon did horrible things in the past, i will not try to sugarcoat or gloss over that, but he is and has been making a genuine effort to be better than he used to be, and he is better than he used to be. He even acknowledged how he dislikes being so short tempered when Goliath made that poke at Sun. He's aware of what he's done and wants to improve.

Nexus, on the other hand is the opposite. He started good, that is undeniable and he kept it up for a while until he began to deteriorate after Solar died. He's made it very clear now that he intends to harm Sun's family. If infecting Moon a little bit with the negative star power first didn't make that clear, him nearly killing him the other day made it abundantly clear. He refused Solar's help as well. He doesn't want to change back to how he used to be, but people continue to defend him and hate on Moon.

I'm not saying to ignore the abuse that Moon put Sun through, but at least look at him now, making an actual effort to change and be better. Look, if an ex abuser is making real genuine efforts to become better as a person, and even acknowledges their slip ups when they happen and takes the steps to prevent them from happening again, i see that as a redeemable person. Moon is redeemable in this sense and i am willing to give him a chance.

Nexus? I do not see any redeemable qualities about him anymore except the very vague hope that he may still come back. That New Moon is still possibly in there somewhere. Yet with each encounter so far, that small hope i have dies more and more and is genuinely almost entirely gone by this point. For me, as of right now, where the lore stands, Nexus is irredeemable. His past does not define him. Same with Moon. The differences between them are that they both are going in opposite directions from eachother. Moon getting better, Nexus getting worse.

Moon had a kill code that influenced his actions. It is clear that he did not want to do the things he did himself. He expresses extreme guilt and regret, going so far as to say he would trade his life so the victims he killed could live again.

Nexus did not have a kill code. He still doesn't. He chose to start doing all of the things he is doing himself. I know Dark Sun helped it along, but i seriously doubt Dark Sun pitched the idea for Nexus to start injecting himself with negative star power. And i said it so many times before, but grief did not give Nexus the right to do what he did to his ex family. Not even when he had his psychosis snap. His ex family still are not to blame for that. They also had their own grief to get through at the time. Nexus didn't let them try to help him. Nexus had no outside influence before Dark Sun got him to make him become like he was when he nearly killed Earth. It was all himself and that is why i have such a hard time believing he is still good inside.

[petrified-aspen]

there is a common misconception that our marginalized identities act as a sort of Shield of Principle™ or whatever, that prevents us from having fascist or racist leanings. but there are inconceivably (and subliminally) powerful forces that do the exact opposite, systems of white supremacy, cisheteronormavity, and class that galvanize us and our identities against one another.

There are examples of this everywhere; entire tomes have been written on it. But lately, I am noticing a particularly worsening problem among a lot of people in my Jewish communities. Aimless, usually incomprehensible vitriol sprayed at nebulously-defined "pro-palestine leftists", trying to paint them all as jihadists, religious fundamentalists, anti-Semitic.

It seems almost deliberate, scrolling through some of these tags, and watching the rhetoric evolve. First, someone finds an incredibly-specific, cherry-picked representation of something indefensible, either on the grounds of it being unproductive, or on the grounds of it being actual violent bigotry. It's usually the same 4 or 5 things, re-posted across thousands of blogs. What was once a shitty cardboard sign that, often times, was at a protest for all of 30 minutes before it was destroyed, or before the protest organizers removed it and denounced it at teach-ins and meetings, is now permanently saved on thousands of Tumblr blogs. What was once an easily-identifiable and fixable problem becomes a gut-punch that steels thousands of anxious, scared groups in preparation for violence.

These 4 or 5 gut-punches then get surrounded by the more on-the-fence statements. They are statements that, in my experiences having worked with pro-Palestinian demonstrators at 2 universities, are well-intentioned, but filled with pain, grief, and sometimes, anger. These statements challenge the validity of Israel as a state, or attempt to appeal to a mutual sorrow and grief by imploring people to learn from the Holocaust.

But chances are, as you came across that post, you're recovering from the violent, inflammatory post from earlier. And so your eyes see the same green, red and black colors, and you feel the upwell of emotion behind it, and by pattern-recognition alone, you're more likely to take it in bad faith. To assume that this person wants the safety of all Jews to disappear along with the Israeli state, rather than understand their ideological opposition to any state that thrives at the expense of the colonized. To conclude that they are co-opting your family's tragedy rather than recognizing that the same rhetoric, the same tactics, are being used to justify more death, according to actual Holocaust scholars.

Then it devolves even further, with completely benign statements, like "From the River to the Sea", a slogan that has been used to represent Palestinian-Jewish solidarity since before Hamas even existed, being received as though it's the 14 Words or some shit.

This is how communities manufacture outrage that only hurts us in the long run. Yes, the person who held up a sign saying "carpet bomb Tel Aviv" is wrong and they should be removed immediately. But when someone shows you that sign, then shows you a sign calling for solidarity between ethnic groups, and they try to tell you that those two are the same, that person is lying to you.

There's a very specific reason why a nebulously-defined "left-wing" is so often the first target of this manufactured outrage; because leftists have been historically united by ideals of solidarity, mutual aid, and community support and defense. To a regime built on imperial power--be that the U.S. regime, the Third Reich, whatever--nothing is scarier than that. By attacking the solidarity between the people you want to keep in line, you ensure that you will have fewer enemies should some of them have doubts about keeping in lock-step with their own oppression. This was the reason behind the Red Scare, and it was a key step in fascist Italy and Germany as well.

Our identities alone are not a bulwark against fascism. Our best tool to lead our communities forward is solidarity, and with that comes communicating, listening, and reflecting.

[starsofatlantis]

nurse she’s out again

I’ve been thinking a lot about who Treech and Lamina are and their relationship to each other and mostly the downfall of it. I wanted to put all those thoughts down into one place and I always enjoy reading character analyses so I thought I’d share!

To preface, this is my own personal take on them and an insight to the way I write them in fics. This is entirely the movie side of them. I enjoy their book versions, but the movie created a very compelling relationship that I have yet to move on from. I would love to hear other thoughts and opinions so please don’t hesitate to share if you feel the need to!

To start, I view them as childhood friends. There are a few options of how I think their relationship could have gone (that is to say developing into a romantic relationship or staying friends) pre-hunger games, but I know that in all of them, they care deeply about the other.

Individually, this is how I write them:

Treech:

To me, Treech is the oldest of two younger sisters and the burden of that is a defining part of his character. His entire family is still intact and that also weighs heavy on him. I think he lives in fear of what could happen to him, his family, and everything he cares about. This leads to an attempt at trying to care about as few people as possible. He tries to keep his head down and mind his own. He keeps everyone at arms-length. He has friends but they are shallow relationships and only viewed as people to spend time with. He will not do anything to put his life and his family’s life at risk. They get by and in that world, have a good life. He is not going to be the one to ruin that. He has not lost anything of value in his life and in turn, that makes him terrified.

Treech has never lost anyone. He doesn’t know how he would react to grief. It terrifies him because he’s never done it. As much as he tries not to he loves deeply, but he is so afraid of loving more than necessary because he has never lost, and when you live in the world they do, losing is inevitable and simply a matter of waiting.

I view him as a slave to self-imposed duty, someone who would sacrifice anything for the few people he loves (*cough cough* his own innocence), as well as someone with an unhealthy dose of self-hatred.

I think Treech is constantly fighting with himself. His dislike for himself, his inability to allow himself to be close to people and his unwavering kindness and sense of duty are in direct opposition of each other at all times. Everything in him is always fighting to gain the power and it really is just a matter of what day it is as to which trait is the strongest.

He is not consistent with his thoughts and feelings and switches up very easily. He’s hard to get a read on because you think you understand him and you do but only for that moment because the next minute he feels the opposite way.

I think Treech views himself as uninfluential and not really someone of any consequence, which to me is why he becomes so infatuated with Lamina.

Lamina:

Lamina lost a mother during the war, and later two older twin brothers who were rebels and died because of that. It is just her and her father (which in my head also meets the headcanon of why she is better dressed than Treech; family of two vs. family of five). Where Treech has never lost anyone he’s loved, Lamina has lost nearly everyone. While a lot of times this would make someone cold, it makes Lamina even more determined to relish in the things she values. She loves, and she refuses to lessen that love just because she may lose it.

I think when you lose someone, it forces you to face not only your own mortality but also everyone else’s. Lamina takes that mortality and instead of being scared of it promises to make the most of it. Not only that but I think it makes you even more confident in your own strength. If you can get through the loss of someone you love, I think there are very few things you can’t get through. Lamina knows this and she knows how she reacts to grief. She trusts that she has the strength to love and lose because she has done it— multiple times— and she has survived.

I think Lamina is wickedly smart and enjoys learning. I view her as someone who is extremely emotionally intelligent and mature, but for all her confidence in her strength, I think she is also insecure. Typically, I find that people with that kind of maturity at such a young age are ostracized because their peers simply aren’t at that level yet and most of the time what kids don’t understand they label as weird. I think Lamina became very used to the feeling of being alone and at times fed into the notion that her differences were bad. I imagine Treech was the first person to ever treat her intelligence as something that is simply “cool” and not something that makes her incapable of being a kid.

I picture Lamina as someone who is cohesive and a flowing picture of all of her different traits. She accepts each one for what it is and allows it to do its job in her life. She tries to always be better but she doesn’t drown in her faults.

Notice how above I say often “this is what they think about themselves”. They think certain ways about themselves when the opposite is true. Perspective!

In actuality, Treech is strong in his devotions and uneasily swayed from them. He views himself as weak-minded when really he is so stuck in his views he cannot change. He believes that keeping everyone at arms length will keep his heart safe when in reality it does more harm than good. He thinks he is of no consequence to anyone, tries so hard to not cause any trouble, yet makes an impact on every person he’s come into contact with. I believe Treech’s number one character trait is that he is kind. It’s in his nature to help and I think he physically cannot stop himself. It’s just something that happens. It’ll be one instance that he thinks means nothing but means everything to someone else (i.e. being kind to Lamina as children is something he doesn’t even think of because “anyone would do this” yet none of their peers had ever done it before). He thinks he’s inconsequential but he impacts people without even knowing it.

Lamina believes she is unnerving to others when in reality she has that kind of spark that makes it hard to look away. Think about those people who are inexplicably infatuating. So yeah, in a way she is unnerving, but only because you can’t help but notice her. She’s an enigma who’s been labeled as weird.

However, I don’t think they are that different from each other. Instead, I think it is the way they go about those similarities that make them different.

For example:

Treech is kind and he wants so badly not to be. Lamina is kind and wishes she were more so. Where she sees her kindness and empathy as a strength, Treech views his as a weakness.

I think they both are intense about their love, but where one runs from the strength of his love, the other does everything she can to make it stronger.

They both are fiercely loyal. Treech tries to limit that loyalty to his family, but Lamina wishes to give it to everyone.

The ironic part about this is that the traits Treech sees as faults in himself he sees as otherworldly in Lamina. (Perspective 😍)

I picture Treech to have almost in a sense placed Lamina atop a pedestal. She is everything he wishes he were; open, free, and believing in good. Lamina in his eyes is something he is unworthy of, but also something he thinks would ruin him should he ever lose it. She is something to be protected but never touched.

This is so unhealthy though, because it’s impossible to be in a relationship with someone you don’t view as an equal.

Lamina, however, grounded sweetheart that she is, views Treech as human. She adores him for all that he is— good and bad. She adores him for his kindness and for his fearfulness. Lamina values Treech because she values every living being. But she loves him because he is Treech.

However, the downside of this is that I imagine she lets him get away with many things because he was the first person outside of her family to be kind for the sake of being kind. I think Treech would reject a lot of her attempts at getting closer and refuse to admit how much he cares about her. I think Lamina, who is so declarative with her love and wants the same back, is only able to look past this because she convinces herself that the only thing that matters about him is his kindness. Kindness she has been a firsthand witness to and kindness that impacted her at a young age. She’s seen the good in him and refuses to let that good be outshined by all his bad, even if that means becoming a bit of a doormat for his bad habits.

Lamina grows to love Treech over a period of time as she forces herself to push past all his flaws. Treech loves her in an instant because he can’t help himself.

This plays into the part above where I talked about how Treech thinks he doesn’t impact anyone when in reality it’s impossible for him not to and how Lamina has that quality about her that forces everyone to at least look at her.

When Treech shows Lamina that first act of kindness as kids, he impacts her life in a way that makes it impossible for her to not want to know him. Lamina inherently has that quality about her, the quality that makes people want to know her, and Treech, guarded, closed-off Treech, is unable to escape her pull.

In my head, there is literally no world where they don’t immediately mean something to each other, because it is literally engraved into who they are. Treech impacts everyone, Lamina forces everyone to impact her.

In a perfect world, Treech goes to therapy for his self-hatred and Lamina gains a little bit of self-worth (i.e. tells Treech to figure his shit out instead of taking it out on her) however they live in Panem and that is not possible.

Thus their downfall.

[lizzylucky]

Thoughts and Observations From the Movie, Part 4/4

Back again one last time for whatever this nonsense compilation is!

If it isn’t immediately recognizable, this is the scene when Leo goes “what you fail to understand is that I missed on purpose”, and he stabs the leg of the mech suit Krang one is in to ensure it goes with him when he teleports to the blade he threw to the other side of the portal. 

And I REALLY wanted to point out this particular shot because of the splatter. It’s kinda gory, but it further implies that the technology used by the Krang is not entirely inanimate; it’s got a biological nature entwined with the technological structure of everything. This is especially interesting to me for another sort-of theory I’ll explain later in the post.

Further content below the cut!

More angst! Delicious. Prepare yourselves, because I have a lot to say about this part of the movie.

Watching the way each brother reacts to what they believe to be Leo’s death sentence, effectively his death, really, given they don’t think he’ll ever exist within their reality again, is… so hard, but it shows a lot about their individual thought processes.

Mikey had his hands clasped over his mouth, fear, anxiety, and disbelief radiating off him. He’s watching that portal shut down in slow motion, already teary eyed and subconsciously trying to will away what just happened. As the portal blinks out of existence, his arms drop to his side and his posture drops and stiffens in tandem with his forefront emotions mixing and making him go numb. Now, he’s just trying to process it, pushing against the reality as it trudges through the gears of his mind, still in fight or flight mode. He’s frozen between his disbelief and the latent need to do something while grief takes the place of all that anxiety he was feeling before.

I think this actually leads pretty seamlessly into his attempts to rescue Leo. It’s established right near the beginning of the movie that Mikey holds so much faith in his family and in himself, believing that your own determination can be stronger than anything that gets in your way. It’s one of his defining character traits; such a fundamental part of who he is that they use it to help introduce him in the movie.

“According to my calculations, as long as you believe in yourself, you can do anything!”

While Mikey is stuck processing what just happened to Leo, stuck in disbelief, his emotions are warring with who he is at heart, and it’s why he goes numb until that desperation to change reality by sheer force of will comes in. Until that point, he seems to struggle a little with differentiating between what he believed should have been the outcome, and what reality was telling him.

Raph, similarly to Mikey, watched the moments before the portal closed with fear and anxiety gripping his heart. He knew and understood what Leo was doing probably better than any of them because that’s what he does. You have to consider that only ten minutes prior to this, Raph had been fighting Leo with intent to kill and no control over that. 

Raph has been fighting for the entire movie, first against some low level villains, then the Foot Clan, then the Krang, then the take over of that horrible Krang biogrowth and against its mind control, and all of it, all of it, was for his brothers. This horrible thing the Krang did to him happened because he chose to protect Leo, and we all know he wouldn’t take it back for anything because his family comes first. He knows that, and he only just overcame all of it only to watch his little brother do something necessary but heartbreaking. 

I think Raph felt it was his job to protect Leo. Forget who’s leader, Raph is Leo’s older brother, and none of them, being kids, should have had to do any of this, so, naturally, it’s Raph’s job to lighten the load for them as much as possible. He thinks it should have been him up there, making sure his siblings never had to bear this particular burden again. Watching someone else do what was normally his job probably leaves him feeling out of place, leaves it all feeling utterly surreal, and when it’s done and their connection to his younger brother is cut off forever, he breaks.

Everything about this is unreal, but watching Leo make a concrete decision and watching the portal close were real, and with all those thoughts about being a protector floating around suddenly having been shut down, it’s all Raph can do to fall to his knees and grieve. Beat the earth for making the worst things a reality, slam his fists for having failed to do their job, curling in on himself because his sense of self, his sense of purpose, is crumbling and he has no other way to hold the pieces together.

He will never even have the opportunity to protect Leo again.

Then, there’s Donnie. I’ve seen a lot of really good interpretations of his reaction to Leo’s sacrifice, and though it isn’t a common one I should admit I disagree with the one where the reason he’s apparently shocked by his own tears is that he doesn’t really cry. He maybe doesn’t cry super often, but Donnie is, despite appearances and behavior, actually a very emotional person, more sentimental than all his family, in some ways. 

Notice that Donnie, at first, is facing the portal, and, for me at least, the expression on his face seems to convey a stream of thought composed entirely of the word “no”, over and over again. Like he’s mentally demanding “what are you doing?” and refusing to acknowledge that he knows exactly what Leo is doing, exactly what’s about to happen, and exactly what it means the rest of life is going to look like for him. 

Donnie, with his highly observational and overworked thought process is analyzing every part of this situation, following the logic of Leo’s decision, looking for any other possible outcome and ruling all ideas out, one by one, as every one of Leo’s words and every element of their circumstances converge on the same result. He’s so busy focusing on the analytical perspective of all the emotion that he doesn’t realize he’s panicking, doesn’t realize it isn’t an effective method against having to feel those emotions.

So, when the portal implodes and destroys every possible future with Leo in it, changes everything about how Donnie thinks and perceives his own reality, it forces every train of thought to a stop and Donnie to confront these emotions with no logical anchor to his new reality. I think that’s why he turns around, because the longer he looks at the last remaining remnants of what took his brother, the more real that all becomes, and it’s overwhelming.

It also seems to be why he’s so shocked by his own tears. He went from being engaged with countless logical trails to follow to overwhelmingly empty in several ways-- none of which he could put words to. Finding the tears on his face and realizing that the emptiness and grief and pain were all he had in that moment, and that they were getting past every failsafe he had to keep them under control, seemed to go against the nature of his own mind and further confirmed that even looking away from what happened made it no less real. 

If he was grieving already, then he couldn’t have imagined what he saw, and that’s just one more piece of logic that clears from his mind and leaves him emotionally stunned.

Okay, that was a little intense, so. Let’s change tracks 😅

Supposedly even the shape of Raph’s and Donnie’s eyes here is a nod to the shape of Leo’s, and this is such a cool thought. Leo and Raph, earlier in the series, briefly had each other’s eyes when Ninja Mind Melding, which symbolized their intense connection to one another.

So the idea that something similar is happening here has me almost giddy. It was Mikey’s desperate attempt to save Leo that triggered the formation of the portal he creates, and Raph and Donnie are just as desperate once they realize all hope is not lost. What you see with their eyes here implies that the reason making this portal was possible is not just Mikey’s mystical prowess or his desire to open a portal to the prison dimension, but the brothers’ intense and deeply emotional attatchment to Leo. The portal worked because Mikey was looking for Leo, NOT the prison dimension. And I just think that’s neat

That little red-ish spot in the center of this screenshot is Krang One, still in his mech suit, which is huge in comparison to the boys. Now look at the figure behind him, and think about how massive and mech-suit-like that thing is.

I don’t have screenshots from the last episodes of the show, but remember that they found the skeleton of a Krang inside the head of the crying titan? Who happens to be ENORMOUS? Yeah, I have some thoughts and concerns alike.

And! A final, much fluffier note to end on! Subtitles don’t show it, and it was quiet enough that I missed it the first few times I watched the movie, but here on this ending scene, actually in the moment before it shows this particular image, you can hear Donnie shout, “all right, big Raphie, let’s do it!” and I just think that’s utterly adorable.

As I’m writing this I have no idea if anyone will read any of these four posts, but if you did, thank you! I like feeling heard :3 If you have any thoughts or add ons, or if you know, like, some super obscure, unknown cool/silly detail from the movie, I’d love to hear it! Additionally, if anyone wants me to expand on any of the things I said, or if you’re curious about my perspective on other theories around these things, my ask box is always open!

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

[eosofspades]

no bc you’re SO right that kai is WAY weaker as a villain than tai lung or shen (shen especially, bc imo he’s the best villain of the trilogy) and i’d love to hear your thoughts on why <3

100% agree shen is my FAVORITE villain of the trilogy and possibly one of my favorite villains of all time. and tai lung is an incredibly close second! however, i really didn't care for kai.

the biggest thing about kai for me is that, as a villain, he is way weaker than the other two because he is extremely lacking in a personal connection to po, and also much weaker when considering how his character reflects the themes and narrative of the movie as a whole.

tai lung, as a villain, worked so well because he was obsessed with the concept of being the dragon warrior, and the supposed "power" that would come with that. the lesson of kfp1, though, was that there WAS no real magical power given by the scroll - there is no secret ingredient! it's just you! it was never about the scroll; it was about choosing to be good and do good for the sake of being good, not because you wanted power for it. tai lung couldn't accept this, which is why he made a fantastic villain for this one, thematically. (and ALSO a fantastic foil to po, who is so humble and doesn't NEED power, he's just passionate about kung fu and wants to have a good time with his friends.)

lord shen as a villain who reflects the themes of the story, though, takes this to the absolute HIGHEST level. the entire story of kfp2 pivots around po's struggle to reconcile his origins with who he is now, and both of those things are directly related to shen - he leads the massacre that ends up getting po sent away, which sets him on the journey to BECOME the dragon warrior, and po's destiny was always going to be to defeat him. both then and now, the course of po's life is being shaped by shen. shen is also a fantastic foil to po in the same way that tai lung was - shen cannot let go of the past, he clings to his anger and his fear; while po is able to accept what happened, accept that it is part of who he is but not what defines him, and is able to find healing and peace.

kai, by comparison........ has almost nothing to do with po. kai actually has NO personal connection to po! his evil scheme is related to the pandas, but absolutely nothing to do with po, specifically. tai lung had no shared past with po the way lord shen did, but he still had personal and specific reasons to hate po because po was getting the title and role that he so desperately wanted. but kai's only beef is with oogway! he didn't even seem to know that po existed until oogway says "it was never my destiny to stop you - i have set another on that path." and kai just says "then i will find him, and take his chi as well." his motives are also much weaker than the other two's - who both wanted power, yes, but tai lung was also deeply desperate to make shifu proud, to live up to the legend that he had been raised to believe he would become, and part of this was shifu's fault! that's extremely interesting and tragic!! and shen was motivated by fear - fear of his prophecized defeat, of the inescapability of his fate - and by grief over his (perceived) inability to make his parents proud, or get them to love him. kai, by contrast, was..... mad that oogway wasn't okay with letting him become a magical chi-stealing warlord??

kai also doesn't tie in with the themes or po's arc in this movie. in terms of other characters, po's arc in this one revolves way more around his fathers - trying to handle his new responsibilities of being the teacher to the five, trying to figure out how to balance the two different identities he has as the son of these two different fathers, but the only connection he has to kai is that he needs to be a master of chi to defeat him, which he can only learn how to be from the pandas, which incidentally happen to be his family. (and the fact that at the end, everyone is doing chi makes it seem like him being a panda or not might not have even been that relevant to begin with!) and kai's defeat is also sort of weak - he's defeated by the "too much power" trope, but nothing else in this story was about being power-hungry or the dangers of it. it wasn't something any of the pandas struggled with, hunger for power was NEVER a part of po's journey, and at least in kfp1 tai lung's desire for the dragon scroll was about more than just power (he wanted to make shifu proud), but also, because the entire theme of that story was that you didn't NEED power to be the dragon warrior. kfp3's narrative isn't ABOUT power; it's about identity and culture and balancing different aspects of your life to find your truest self. kai's character has nothing to say about ANY of this, he doesn't struggle with or care about any of these things - he is JUST power-hungry.

he also lacks that character foil aspect the other two had. the ability to take chi is never even presented as an option to po. what MIGHT have been interesting would have been if the only way to defeat kai was to take HIS chi - something a master of it would be able to do! - and po was forced into the dilemma of having to choose between risking going down the same path as kai for the sake of protecting his loved ones, or the risk of endangering them even more by refusing to. if the conflict had been about the good vs evil uses of chi powers, then that would have made kai a foil to po as well. but as it is now, kai has nothing to do with po, personally.

basically what it boils down to is that kai, as a villain, is serviceable, but when held up in contrast to the previous two, it becomes very obvious how much weaker he is narratively. his motivations are much shallower than the others', his connection to po is tangential at best, and as an antagonist, he doesn't have anything to say about the themes or messaging of the story OR the protagonist's arc.

[mdhwrites]

Do you find it rather funny that some (not all) of the people who wanted Amphibia's third season to be filled with angst, panic attacks, tears, grief and parental drama, also wanted a perfectly happy ending to the story rather than the bittersweet one we got? Like, ironic much?

There's a reason why I frame fandom desires for angst to be about shipping and prestige. That they want the high emotions and the claims they can make because of those elements but not what actually comes from it. In other words: Fandoms want Yesterday's Lie's ending from The Owl House.

For those unfamiliar, this is EXACTLY at the half series mark for TOH. Luz's, the main character, mom has just found out that her daughter ran away for the Summer to a different world and when she had to choose between going home or staying there, she chose to stay there. She immediately starts blaming herself and pleading with her daughter that she'll do better but next time, she promises to return, please!

And, Luz, to her credit, is a good daughter and says yes. The sequence is powerful, real, human and tragic. A real acknowledgement of how awful Luz's original choice was while keeping Camila in character of being as caring as she is. A moment that will theoretically solidify the two's bond but to undo will take a LOT of work as Camila will now be forced to stew with this pain as in the moment of the promise, her daughter is ripped away from her again.

It was also a moment I knew COULDN'T matter.

The show simply didn't allow for it. This isn't Amphibia where the girls had to adapt to their surroundings and still had elements about the human realm they liked. Luz isn't surrounded by creatures who are entirely unlike her and thus will always have to deal with some slight element of isolation. The Boiling of Isles of TOH is Luz's home. The show CONSTANTLY reinforces that this is where she belongs. That this isn't just where she can be happy but potentially the ONLY place she can be happy. Her social anxiety vanishes. She can find like minded people. She can live out the fantasies that she always chooses over reality. By the time of Yesterday's Lie, she has not just a found family but also the first friends she's implied to have had in a long time and her first girlfriend. Her life is on the Isles.

So you have literally spent HALF of your runtime reinforcing this. That maybe Luz needs to learn some lessons but her life is with the weirdos. On the Isles. You can't just pivot from that thematically. Not without shifting the show HARD. You have to take a show where Luz's every action has either been shown as positive or able to be fixed and now acknowledge this very real act of monstrousness on her part and the lengths one has to go to fix such a break in trust, let alone when the very next episode wants to portray it as something that is actually really messing with Luz's head.

Of course... That episode also includes Luz lying. And not just that episode. In fact, she will CONSTANTLY lie and break the trust of her girlfriend, and her friends, for literally the rest of the series. This cardinal sin of Luz's, lying to her mother, suddenly becomes a defining trait of hers to an extent never present beforehand. And mind you, it's not universal. To Luz and Eda, she is willing to tell them literally ANYTHING. Her girlfriend though? Fuck her.

It does make the show darker to constantly have your main character be a fucking asshole who whines about the consequences of their actions more than they actually learn from them but does it make it better? Does it make it more mature? Does it make enjoyable? No. Because it's a thematic and tonal betrayal of EVERYTHING that came before. Not that Luz ever managed to really learn anything before but they weren't nearly so blatant about her REFUSING to learn. Worse yet, this isn't a character flaw thing. Lying is one of those things we can all agree is bad but there are NEVER consequences for it because, well, the show still commits to Luz not just being the protagonist but also the hero.

And so this big moment, Yesterday's Lie's ending, is eventually just dropped. Something I could have told you was going to happen the day after the episode came out. It couldn't fit what the show had said about its main character so far and NO ONE would be happy with an ending where she actually keeps to the promise. Undoing the promise also would have cheated the moment, which dropping it does too, not without truly proper build up and reasoning, something the show struggled with in general.

So like many a fanfic, it does this big, super angsty moment... And then never continues it. Those most affected never actually show growth or change from it. It's almost episodic levels of bad how much people just keep forgiving Luz's actions and seem to forget about these really important statements, or how Luz blatantly keeps ignoring everyone around her, and eventually her own words in S3, to keep angsting about this but not actually dealing with it.

And Amphibia, to finally loop back around, did this itself. It took Marcy out of the story in order to have its big break in tone but not have to really deal with the fact that that moment should have had a big impact... On Marcy. Yes, it's brutal for Anne and Sasha but for them, it's just a complicated friend getting potentially killed. For Marcy, it is a betrayal, near death AND she has been pushed away by her friends for her actions. She as a character just isn't compatible with the show, not without the tone of a finale or her being effectively high/drunk to keep her from actually properly acknowledging anything.

It is a narrative tightrope, let alone for kid's media, but Marcy IS a much more expendable character than your main character. Even then, S3 of Amphibia is genuinely about many of the things that the fandom wanted. Her parents are TERRIFIED about what might happen to Anne. Anne can barely keep it together for the first few episodes and makes mistakes she might know better about if not for how she is trying to make her life any less complicated and scary than it already is. The Plantars are really the only ones who don't follow this stuff but even then, episodes like Spider-Sprig still let us see that being outsiders here, when Anne is accepted back in their home, digs at their brains. They also help even out things and keep the tone consistent with the rest of the work, even while it does deal with some of the ramifications of its choices.

It's not perfect but it is what AMPHIBIA can do. Without a future series, it was never going to go as far as these fans wanted.

Though... If you are looking for an Amphibia that might even be tiptoeing up to the line of being for Adult Swim rather than a main kid's programming block, definitely more teen rated with the amount of damage it has, while keeping spot on with the tone of the original and genuinely trying to be mature with its storytelling, I recommend checking out Dr. Neque's Amphibia vol. 2. I jumped in once the trio got back to Amphibia and have been loving it so far.

Even that version of Amphibia knows that it can't be doom and gloom all the time though. That the charm of Amphibia is partially from how absurd and fun it is. How over the top it can be with its silliness and fun. We admittedly just had a fight that was... ROUGH but for similar reasons as to why True Colors was so brutal in its ending but in a state that I think is better narratively by not quite going so far. That's all I will spoil though.

All of this to say that fandom likes the emotions of angst but not its consequences or how it can damage a narrative overall. How you do need to actually be ready to tackle that properly if you want to tackle it at all or else a small trickle of angst can quickly spoil the pot, let alone an entire, rancid apple like what would happen if most fandoms even got a single episode of what they wanted.

After all, TOH fans got what they wanted from the end of Yesterday's Lie and that is the episode that turned my heart on the show. I am SO happy that there is no equivalent for Amphibia.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[incandescent-creativity]

i know you've probably talked about this but can you wax poetic about their sun/moon dynamic again

Oh, god, these two. So, so defined by their upbringings.

Ash, an only kid with two loving parents and a devoted grandmother in the City of Vanithea. Doted on and encouraged and supported, delighted when she wanted to become an Auxiliary like her parents. And then having two thirds of that ripped away the day she got the job she had been chasing under their tutelage. The Auxiliary life, now soured by grief after her parents were lost on a voyage that the Auxiliaries sent them on. Ash’s entire world shattered. The silver constellation necklace, a tie to her mother’s sun necklace and father’s moon pendant, remains a physical reminder of it all that she never takes off.

Zach, part of a large family that had the space (both literally, on their farmland, and emotionally, making time for all of their children). Interests were indulged in just as heavily as the lessons on manners, teamwork, and practical knowledge were taught. There was hard work to be done, all the time, but there were just as many nights of laughter, song, and games. Life in Hillgate produced a young man quick with a sunny smile, optimistic to a fault, and almost completely unprepared for the gut punches that can come your way. His girlfriend breaks up with him, and he wakes up from his night of drinking with the sun shining down on him in a new city, across the ocean from his hometown.

At first, Ash helps him because of a sense of duty. He walked into her Help Center, she is going to help him. Then, curiosity—he came from where? And how? She forgives his irritating habits, his strangeness. He’s a new mystery to figure out, and that is more alluring than any irritation is.

And then they go further. They end up the only two humans in a foreign nation, trying to figure out what is going on and why everybody is refusing to tell them things. Then, further, they become the only two humans who look the way they do, the only two humans who have taken on the physical prices of spells. The are the first two humans who have golden scars from teleportations; Ash has horns and is taller than they remember; Zach has pointed ears and eyes that reflect the light.

Altered by a powerful magic ritual that revealed their fears to themselves and to each other, they have no choice but to understand the other.

And separately, they each decide to stick together. Ash can’t help but be reminded of the way she was, and Zach is a taste of that positivity back in her life that she would have denied that she was missing, and would have rejected if circumstances had not forced her to rely on him and speed run the insight that creates friendship.

And Zach is prone to making friends with people already, especially when he sees someone hurting like she is. But, more emotionally intelligent than Ash, he also recognizes that she is a kind of no-nonsense, harsher personality that he has only encountered in curmudgeonly elders around town. She is driven, and maybe a little bit mean, but she gets stuff done in a way that he admires and lacks in his own life.

And then together, they accomplish some wild stuff.

[ultfreakme]

Can I ask your top 10 fav fics ever (from any fandom, if you don't mind)?

Also, just curious, is there a story behind your name "ultfreakme"?

*stares at my 100 bookmarks* *stares at my fandom heap which is somehow messier than my laundry heap*

I shall try my best:

1. Upon Our Silver Bridge by TheWanderingHeart : It's a XiCheng fic and it is, so good. It's a long fic where the character Lan Xichen secludes himself out of grief from being fooled by his best friend for decades and being unknowingly complicit in killing his other best friend, slowly succumbing to an unknown illness that weakens him daily. In this time, Jiang Cheng contacts Lan Xichen through letters and the two slowly fall in love through brief meetings, while learning that Lan Xichen doesn't have much time left and that there is no explanation or cure for his sickness......or is there? (huge spoilers if I say the answer for what the illness is but it's WORTH IT when the final reveal happens. I fucking lost my mind).

2. Picture of the Turning Sphere by omphalos: Another XiCheng fic! So Jiang Cheng and Lan Xichen had fought in this battle that led to the destruction of one among five great sects, which causes a great unbalance, resulting in a lot of natural disasters and internal discord across the country. There's a comet that the astrologers everywhere consider inauspicious and to prevent further disaster, Jiang Cheng and Lan Xichen are identified to be the most perfect, balanced match to accomplish a bunch of divinely-assigned duties to bring balance back before the comet either hits or passes by the earth. Thing is; Lan Xichen and Jiang Cheng are barely friends and they are both depressed as fuck and stressed. But they're forced into these trials and slowly fall in love!

3. The Fast Train to Kyoto by courtingstars (FallingSilver): Oh this series. It is the defining AkaFuri fic series. It basically solidified all the tropes in the ship fandom for me. Furihata is an average student and basketball player and Akashi takes an interest in befirending because of a past incident where he absolutely fucking wrecked the dude's self-confidence and energy mid-match and threatened his bestie with scissors to his eyes. With that eventful first impression, these two slowly begin to meet in the middle. It's about learning to trust and open up, basketball, and there's a touch of magic and mystery to it that's slowly interwoven. It's very atmospheric. Akashi's a rich af dude and his mansion is described in an eerie, distant way that makes it seem like its haunted. Their entire relationship has this undertone of Beauty & The Beast but the castle is weird and Belle has secret unidentifiable and undefined powers that you question if it's even real magic or just, human understanding. Idk it's wild if you like the ship it's a fun read.

4. Into the Sinking Horizon by Silver_Porch: My best friend irl wrote this and it's not complete but I KNOW how this fic goes down we talked about it for months. In my heart, this is complete, I know all the story elements and how it ends and it lives rent free in my head. It's about the Kuroko No Basuke cast but Pirate AU. It's extremely well-researched and well-written. The story start with Akashi, a disillusioned prince who wants to escape his father's control and decides to run away with the captain of their guard, Nijimura. Turns out, Nijimura and his family have been cursed to follow the command of Akashi's family so these two go on a quest across the seven seas to find a way to break the curse with their very own plucky pirate crew! It's awesome, do check it out(and perhaps bully my bestie into continuing it mwahahaha)

5. A Soul's Shape by WingsofaBird: I recently finished this and it is amazing! An ItaJun Junpei loves rewrite that's been done up until Shibuya arc. It is heart-wrenching and a really unique take on what would have happened if Junpei got to go to Jujutsu Tech. It gives a lot of time to Junpei's grief and exemplifies exactly why Junpei had a tough time in school and why Jujutsu Tech and being sorcerer isn't going to be a solution to that. He's grieving, alone, and has no one to rely on. Junpei's character is tragic because he's so unreachable in his loneliness despite not wanting to be because of the systems around him and the loathing the systems have created in himself towards himself.

6. The Silver Answer by enemyofrome: It's a Stucky fic! Anyone here from my stucky days? So the Captain America story is about how Steve got super powers through a serum right? What if he didn't? What if 'Captain America' was an illusion created by a special division which uses stage props and other techniques to make it look like there's a superhuman leading a large division? I love this fic because this is based on a real life division called the Ghost Army who used deception techniques like inflatable tanks, recorded sounds etc to make it look like they had a large division.

I love this because Steve in-canon is always the tank, the strong guy. But he was an artist before that and even without the superhuman abilities, he would have fought tooth and nail against Nazis and this fic shows exactly that.

7. despite the threatening sky and shuddering earth (they remained) by praximeter (Zimario): This is also Stucky and it is depressing but also good. Lots of warnings apply, author listed them. But basically it's about how The Winter Soldier's mask is driven into his face and a fixture. He has a lot of other body modifications that are extremely dangerous forced upon him. The fic is about how Steve and the rest of the Avengers help him gain back his autonomy and identity. Though it's a stucky fic I really enjoyed the Sam and Bucky interactions best. It's good if you want Stucky ANGST, it's one of the famous fics in the fandom.

8. Wanting by ac_123: Another Junpei lives fic!!! This one is also about Junpei struggling but a whole new take. We get to see him be somewhat at peace and learning to befriend and interact with the rest of the cast. The plot is building up to be something really cool and I love the story where it's at. I love myself some solid character interactions and world-building, and this one gave a lot of depth into how Junpei's powers can work. Every character interaction and dynamic with Junpei is fun to watch.

That's all I can remember for now, sorry I couldn't muster up 10 ;_;I've read hundreds of fics so it's hard for me to pick. It's like, when you have too many options, it feels like you become less able to choose.

As for my username, ah how embarassing for me. So when I made this I was in high school and taking coding classes and really enjoyed it, also I was way too into anime and studied too much(to noa vail like I always got 80% averages) so people called me a nerd. Now, I was the kinda loser that went "correction, I am not a nerd, I'm not smart eough for that, I'm a geek, i.e., someone who's passionate about certain subject". And I was the 'Ult'imate geek.

"But Riki, 'geek' isn't even in your name!"

I hear you. I tried to get 'ultgeekme' as a username but it was already taken. So the only synonym for geek that WASN'T taken was 'freak'. So. ultfreakme.

Bonus: But then literally no one here calls me 'Ult' afaik and I use Riki to refer to myself. 'Riki' is just 'Kiri' from Kirishima from BNHA but I jumbled the order. He was my favorite character and it sounded gender neutral so I liked it.

Hope that covered everything and the fics, if you take interest, are fun to read!

[meggtheegg]

🔥 I think it was for whole medias but I want your take on Bucky Barnes specifically pls

Ohhhh man the can of worms you have just opened (I adore you)

So I have a few that I’d like to share…

I’m not sure if this is a super hot take, but I love the direction the current comic run is taking him. Both in a joking “he’s in his villain era lol” way but also legitimately in a “he’s finally turning the tables and taking control of his destiny, rather than sitting and wallowing in guilt and grief over things outside of his control” way. He was given a direct, specific, singular cause of pretty much all his trauma, and instead of being made to take the high road, he just…killed the guy and took his place to dismantle his entire corrupt system, so it would never happen to anyone else, again. And I know they’ve been having Bucky say and do some pretty dark stuff, but I also trust that the writers know what they’re doing, and I can’t help but notice that his behavior when he’s alone is vastly different than what it is when he’s around other people, so I can say with near 100% certainty that he is bullshitting everyone, and I’m having a damn good time watching him do it.

As for MCU Bucky, I’ve got a prediction that his story will go in one of three ways: either he’ll settle down with Sarah and kind of disappear from the story, he’ll die some stupid shock-value death, or (and I think this is the one it’s gonna be) the new Nomad series that’s pretty much an open secret? That’ll be Bucky. Because they’ve spent the last several years setting him up as someone who 1: is largely defined and driven by his loyalty, 2: is deeply loyal to Wakanda, but now also Captain America’s partner/found family for a second time around, and 3: is about to be thrown onto a team where the woman in charge is actively trying to start a war between the US and Wakanda. His loyalties are going to be tested and split more than ever, and honestly, I think him becoming sort of a vigilante that operates without a strictly defined allegiance to either makes a lot of sense, and, similarly to the comics, breaks him out of the rut he’s currently in. And, on a meta level, it does feel relevant that the comics are suddenly giving him that same sort of vigilante angle and tying him really closely in with their Nomad and White Wolf, despite having little to no prior connection with them. Not to mention that Sebastian Stan is becoming an increasingly famous actor whose name actually has some pull, so Marvel writing him off now just seems like a poor choice, considering he’s shown no signs of wanting to leave. I think he’s had the longevity, at this point, that Bucky will only get a real, final ending once he decides he wants to move onto other things.

Also, this might age like milk, but I don’t think they’re dumb enough to substitute Yelena into the comic BuckyNat storyline. If anything, I could see her being somehow related to him, whether that be literally or metaphorically, and having more of a family dynamic that maybe causes some turmoil with Alexei and the rest of the Thunderbolts. Because not only has she shown zero interest in romance (as she shouldn’t, being aroace in the comics) but I really think he and Sarah are ultimately going to be endgame (assuming, again, that he doesn’t die horribly).

[haleigh-sloth]

Hi! I was curious why you flipped toward tenko being born with his quirk? And why you’ve flip flopped before? Like what are the pros and cons for the AFO giving him a quirk theory? Thank you shigaraki expert!

Shigaraki expert a;kshg;kasng you're very kind lolol

OKAY SO

This theory I was always 50/50 on since I got into the manga.

Because:

It doesn't change a whole lot either way, AFO is still big bad and Tomura is still the one who needs saving--regardless of whichever option ended up being canon

However, after we got Touya's backstory and saw the panel of AFO in the hat and shit, everybody (myself included) jumped on the bandwagon that it's the same guy we saw dropping Tenko off at home at the beginning of his backstory (this is probably still the case but I'll get to that)--and then it led to believing he gave Tenko decay. Honestly, it's not a bad theory--it's super believable and makes sense. The parallels with the MC work, the devastation behind it works.

But there's a thematic issue with it.

The whole thing about Tomura is that he hates himself because:

He's been told he was only born to destroy

He's been told by multiple people that his quirk is proof of this

He's been told that because he was only born to destroy, he "obviously" killed his family on purpose

Now, there are clearly some issues with those statements. Tomura believes every single one of them. The entire reason he can't break free from AFO is because his hatred (for himself) keeps his willpower/agency/independence to take back his identity (an identity that he hates, just gonna keep reminding ppl of that) at an all time low.

Now I had a discussion the other night with some moots about this and this is when I officially flip flopped, and I intend to stay on this side of the fence until the end or until canon says otherwise.

The closer we get to the end, the more prevalent it is that Tomura has to be shown that he wasn't born to destroy, he didn't want his family to die, and his quirk isn't proof of those things---while having his quirk be naturally his. This is necessary in order to fight the "your quirk defines your purpose" allegations AFO and ReDestro and everyone else in the manga imposes. If the quirk wasn't his to begin with, it kinda starts picking away at the whole "your quirk doesn't define you" message, because it's like an easy way out of the guilt Tomura feels for his family dying.

Tomura has to really fight to reconcile that he did NOT want his family to die, which is going to be accompanied by a lot of pain and grief all over again, because it goes from being a reason to hate himself, BACK to being a major, devastating loss--which is what it always was, but he believed the lies that he wanted it all to happen. And realizing that is going to fuck him up, bad. (I'm so excited, I love when my favs have emotional breakdowns)

Having it to where AFO gave him decay would really only add devastation to the situation, but not anything thematically.

I do think there are good reasons for believing the theory that AFO gave him decay. Seriously. But my moots pointed out that it could be a red herring of sorts. And I'll be honest, if it ends up being one, it's a fucking fantastically done one.

I'm also on board with it because tbh, I've written on it before but Izuku and Tomura aren't super solid parallels or even foils. At times they are, in ways they definitely are, but their arcs are more about filling in gaps in each other's worlds than anything.

All that to say, I'm okay with letting go of the quirkless Tenko parallel. I don't think the idea came out of nowhere either. Tenko being quirkless isn't like, a bad theory at all. But I feel more strongly about him being born with decay than without.

[mariacallous]

The Queen is Britain’s last living link with our former greatness – the nation’s id, its problematic self-regard – which is still defined by our victory in the second world war. One leading historian, who like most people I interviewed for this article declined to be named, stressed that the farewell for this country’s longest-serving monarch will be magnificent. “Oh, she will get everything,” he said. “We were all told that the funeral of Churchill was the requiem for Britain as a great power. But actually it will really be over when she goes.”

Unlike the US presidency, say, monarchies allow huge passages of time – a century, in some cases – to become entwined with an individual. The second Elizabethan age is likely to be remembered as a reign of uninterrupted national decline, and even, if she lives long enough and Scotland departs the union, as one of disintegration. Life and politics at the end of her rule will be unrecognisable from their grandeur and innocence at its beginning. “We don’t blame her for it,” Philip Ziegler, the historian and royal biographer, told me. “We have declined with her, so to speak.”

The obituary films will remind us what a different country she inherited. One piece of footage will be played again and again: from her 21st birthday, in 1947, when Princess Elizabeth was on holiday with her parents in Cape Town. She was 6,000 miles from home and comfortably within the pale of the British Empire. The princess sits at a table with a microphone. The shadow of a tree plays on her shoulder. The camera adjusts three or four times as she talks, and on each occasion, she twitches momentarily, betraying tiny flashes of aristocratic irritation. “I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service, and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong,” she says, enunciating vowels and a conception of the world that have both vanished.

It is not unusual for a country to succumb to a state of denial as a long chapter in its history is about to end. When it became public that Queen Victoria was dying, at the age of 82, a widow for half her life, “astonished grief … swept the country”, wrote her biographer, Lytton Strachey. In the minds of her subjects, the queen’s mortality had become unimaginable; and with her demise, everything was suddenly at risk, placed in the hands of an elderly and untrusted heir, Edward VII. “The wild waters are upon us now,” wrote the American Henry James, who had moved to London 30 years before.

The parallels with the unease that we will feel at the death of Elizabeth II are obvious, but without the consolation of Britain’s status in 1901 as the world’s most successful country. “We have to have narratives for royal events,” the historian told me. “In the Victorian reign, everything got better and better, and bigger and bigger. We certainly can’t tell that story today.”

The result is an enormous objection to even thinking about – let alone talking or writing about – what will happen when the Queen dies. We avoid the subject as we avoid it in our own families. It seems like good manners, but it is also fear. The reporting for this article involved dozens of interviews with broadcasters, government officials, and departed palace staff, several of whom have worked on London Bridge directly. Almost all insisted on complete secrecy. “This meeting never happened,” I was told after one conversation in a gentleman’s club on Pall Mall. Buckingham Palace, meanwhile, has a policy of not commenting on funeral arrangements for members of the royal family.

And yet this taboo, like much to do with the monarchy, is not entirely rational, and masks a parallel reality. The next great rupture in Britain’s national life has, in fact, been planned to the minute. It involves matters of major public importance, will be paid for by us, and is definitely going to happen. According to the Office of National Statistics, a British woman who reaches the age of 91 – as the Queen will in April – has an average life expectancy of four years and three months. The Queen is approaching the end of her reign at a time of maximum disquiet about Britain’s place in the world, at a moment when internal political tensions are close to breaking her kingdom apart. Her death will also release its own destabilising forces: in the accession of Queen Camilla; in the optics of a new king who is already an old man; and in the future of the Commonwealth, an invention largely of her making. (The Queen’s title of “Head of the Commonwealth” is not hereditary.) Australia’s prime minister and leader of the opposition both want the country to become a republic.

Coping with the way these events fall is the next great challenge of the House of Windsor, the last European royal family to practise coronations and to persist – with the complicity of a willing public – in the magic of the whole enterprise. That is why the planning for the Queen’s death and its ceremonial aftermath is so extensive. Succession is part of the job. It is an opportunity for order to be affirmed. Queen Victoria had written down the contents of her coffin by 1875. The Queen Mother’s funeral was rehearsed for 22 years. Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, prepared a winter and a summer menu for his funeral lunch. London Bridge is the Queen’s exit plan. “It’s history,” as one of her courtiers said. It will be 10 days of sorrow and spectacle in which, rather like the dazzling mirror of the monarchy itself, we will revel in who we were and avoid the question of what we have become.

'London Bridge is down': the secret plan for the days after the Queen’s death

[storiumemporium]

Once More, With Desperation

Eddie Munson/Fem!Hargrove!Reader

Chapter 1

Series Summary — Spoilers for Vol 2 of Stranger Things! The world has become a numb abyss since the loss of every single person you ever loved, who ever loved you. Purpose has slipped away like smoke pluming from a burning building, and you simply drift, clinging to the hope that your sister will wake up someday, and that you can be there for her when it happens. But in the midst of your rising depression, a new light shines in the darkness- a simple memory, the Upside Down does not obey the laws of time. You'll save them all, no matter what, no cost is too high.

IT'S OUT, IT'S FINALLY OUT! Chapter one of the relentless agony that is my S4-VOL 2 Didn't Happen fix-it-fic.

Enjoy!

Series Tags — Angst oh my God so much angst, no seriously this fic is really painful do Not read this for immediate fluff, happy (bittersweet?) ending, some tooth rotting fluff sprinkled throughout, violence

Chapter Word Count — 10.5k (jesus fuck) Chapter Tags — This is literally nothing but angst, there's nothing happy here really, mentions of depression and suicidal thoughts, shitty parents and the such, I repeat, SPOILERS, Major Character Death

The world is made and broken by the people within it, from the smallest town to the largest city- it’s the contents within that define it.

Because people don’t survive without people. Families, friends, coworkers, acquaintances, even rivals and enemies. Ones’ entire life is defined by those that surround them, their joys made brighter by the people who celebrate with them, and their sorrows felt deeper by those that share their grief.

So, what does one become when they have no one?

All alone in the world, unmoored and unknown. Are you still a person?

Would you ever be a person again, after this?

Once upon a time you were whole, an innocent with a concept of nothing but sunlight and ocean lapping at your youthful ankles. Of learning to surf for the first time. Blonde hair and sundresses, seven foot waves.

You lost the first piece of yourself to the back of a hand- a father too brutal, whose cruelty knew few bounds, even fewer still when it came to your brother.

The second piece left with your mother, who spared you nothing more than a phone call and a half-assed apology.

The third went with your brothers’ innocence. Poor sweet Billy, how the rage had claimed him the way it did your father- Neil. Your twin had gone so far from you, had been warped by his need to survive. You knew somewhere deep inside, that sweet boy still lived- but sometimes it was so very hard to see. Clouded by recklessness and aggression- push everyone else before they could push you.

Whittled to the bone, worn down like stone to sand, you had learned complacence and quietness, the art of being meek and quiet and obedient. If you never said anything, if you never disagreed- even when it hurt- then you wouldn’t be the target. You would be safe.

But… then something wonderful and all at once horrifying happened.

Neil re-married.

And you met Maxine.

Young and stubborn and bright- your new baby sister. You knew from the moment you’d laid eyes on her- you’d do everything to protect that, to protect her. She would be different, she would not become another Hargrove, another beaten broken battered thing filled with hate and fear.

Max gave you a new sense of purpose, a reason to struggle again- because for every mile you fought was another inch you could give to her. An argument that left you with a black eye- but earned you a drivers license so that you could take Max out to the skatepark, watch her learn a new trick while you nursed your cuts and covered your bruises in makeup.

Life began to change so fast after that- a whole new town and a whole new identity to build. Hawkins Indiana. What a quaint little place after only ever knowing the starlit scream of California.

But… it was wonderful. Mostly.

Billy hated it, Billy hated change- unpredictability, it meant Neil was unpredictable. For a similar reason, Billy ‘hated’ Max. She was a new variable that he couldn’t control- and the tighter he tried to squeeze, the more Max thrashed.

But in the quiet, when it was just you and your twin, he would admit the things to you he couldn’t anybody else, even himself. He liked Max, loved her even, and Hawkins wasn’t all bad, the forests were nice at night.

If only he’d gotten to tell her that.

You met Eddie Munson the very first week you’d stepped into Hawkins High, California was always churning new personalities and Eddie Munson dressed like he’d been cut from the same silken cloth. But Eddie didn’t like being put into a box, and his personality certainly held testament to that.

Some girl by the name of Pamela Maisey had forcibly taken to chauffeuring you around school, stringy pencil like fingers finding permanent purchase against your denim-clad arm. She was a decently pretty girl with a beauty mark right above the left corner of her lip, entrancing you as it wiggled with her animated conversation. Her dark black hair was done up in a ponytail with three separate scrunchies in a green-orange-green pattern that practically vomited Hawkins’ pride, skirt clad and wearing a coveted varsity jacket with the name of what you assumed was one of the basketball players of the school.

You knew what this was, of course- she couldn’t have given less of a shit about you, which is why she didn’t even stop to let you speak those few days you’d known each other. She was a vulture, and the moment she’d smelled easy popularity oozing out of the pores of the ‘new girl from California,’ she’d clung to you like flies on shit. You had known it with every girly flick of her head, perfume and hair products assaulting your nostrils each pass. She’d have tossed you aside the moment she’d cleaned your bones.

And by that, you meant the moment she got to jump Billy’s bones.

Billy had already taken up crown in Hawkins’ High, effortlessly displacing Steve whom you hadn’t known at the time. With that came attention, all of the attention, just the way Billy liked it. You hated it, if only because it meant things like Pamela kept happening to you.

You remember being ushered into the cafeteria by Pamela, she was spinning you around every which way to point out all the best cliques and popular tables to be at, weaving you around so fast you could barely even wave at the tables you were passing by.

By the end of it, she’d just… left you there in the middle of the cafeteria, with no real idea where you were, feeling very lost and very alone. Billy wouldn’t want his baby sister hanging around him at school after all, and Max would be no more eager at that intrusion.

And then… Eddie happened.

You supposed that “lost little sheepies” sense he’d always had came to light, his fingers coming to awkwardly and gently tap you on the shoulder, and when you turned he was already smiling with his hands clasped behind his back.

“Hi there, uh…” That hair, shorter then than it would come to be, danced around his face airy and light as a feather. His head twitched around from side to side, pleasant brown eyes flitted across faces and groups, as if he were trying to sort you into a category before he’d even heard your voice. He’d looked back to you out of the corner of his eye. “You seem like you need a humble assistant.”

“Just lookin’ for a place to sit, I guess.”

His smile grew, and it had felt at the time like you’d just signed away your soul to the devil. A decision you’d never once come to regret, even when you lost him.

Eddie became your person almost immediately following that day. When he’d learned that you were the sister of the most popular guy in school but still wanted to hang out with him, when you clenched your jaw at the jeers of others, and even partook in his interests just because he was interested in them, he’d known in that moment you were too special to give up and he’d clung on as tightly as he could. He’d irrevocably tied himself to you in a way you’d never let anyone or anything take away. You ate at the same table, took the same classes. Eddie’s midnight haunts became yours, Eddie’s secrets became yours, and vice versa, the two of you were a matched set.

Even when Billy had tried to take control, tried to scare him away from you when you wouldn’t scare away from him, all it’d done is draw the two of you forever closer.

“Why the hell does he feel the need to control you so much?” Eddie’s sitting on the couch, legs kicked up and worn converse smearing against Wayne’s coffee table with a cigarette in his hand, you two were close, and you knew of his less-than-legal hobbies, but Eddie had gotten a perception of purity about you and felt dirty smoking pot or dealing drugs with you anywhere nearby.

You’d sighed and sagged further into the cushions, wiggling in your war to get the broken springs to fuck off as you tried to relax with your head in Eddie’s lap. “It’s not…”

You chewed your lip. “It’s complicated, Eddie.”

That blank, incredulous face made your cheeks heat up. “Really! It is.”

“Well I’ve got nothing but time, Highness.”

He could see you wanting to back out, but the actual distress he could see present on your face had him gently jostling your head in his lap. “No- no thinking about it, just tell me.”

You stare into his eyes, pretty and sweet, and consider that you haven’t actually known Eddie that long- he could do anything with the information you’re about to give him.

But Eddie Munson wasn’t like that, despite having every reason to be bitter and cruel he was the sweetest man you’d met, inside Hawkins and out, and did everything he could to earn your trust and comfort.

You take a heavy breath. “Billy’s just…

Trying to look out for me, Eddie. I don’t think he could give, like, less of a shit about you if I’m honest, and that’s not necessarily a compliment. You’re just- nothing to him.” You shrug, and look away from Eddie as his brows furrow, partially insulted but mostly confused.

“Neil isn’t-” you swallow a thick lump in your throat, and it doesn’t go unnoticed by Eddie whose hands twitch where they rest, he’s a tactile person, but he knows you’re not and he’s afraid of trying to break down that boundary so soon. He’s just gotten you to a place where you were comfortable putting your hands on him, let alone if he abruptly tried the other way around. “Neil… is not a nice man, Eddie. He uh- look- basically, Billy makes himself scary so I don’t have to deal with the one that’s actually scary, which is our old man. Billy doesn’t hate you, but Neil would, and Billy knows I wouldn’t cut ties with you just because my dad says it, so…”

“So he’s trying to fix it before it becomes a problem?” You look at Eddie, and there’s a gravity to his gaze that is utterly unbecoming of his sweet and boyish face. You decide you hate Eddie when he’s serious, you want him to never have to stress about anything in his life- if only so that beautiful smile never leaves its place.

“Yeah… something like that. I’m sorry he keeps giving you such shit, though. You’ve not done anything wrong.”

“You either, Highness.”

Salt and pepper, Batman and Robin as Dustin would come to say.

(Eddie wouldn’t admit it, but everyone knew he was Robin.)

And when Billy died, Eddie was the one that kept you together.

A hell of a strain for a fledgling relationship, but if Eddie was ever upset at how you’d changed- never once did he show it, never once did he let you feel it.

Calling you every day, every night, never hesitating to pull you inside and hold you close when you’d show up at his trailer at 3am, exhausted and weepy with the memory of what you’d lost.

The one to visit you in the hospital after you stood up to Neil for the first and last time. To take care of your bandages and kiss your bruises after you got out. Who practically harassed the poor hospital staff with questions about your care- you suspect they didn’t mind, if the endeared smiles upon their lips were anything to go by.

It hurt to love someone so much and not be able to tell him the truth. Tell him what you’d seen.

But it didn’t matter- because it came for Eddie too in the end.

It came for Max in the end.

Everyone… it took everyone.

The only person left with any tie to who you once were was Susan. Who’d sunk so deeply into the bottle when you lost your sister that you couldn’t even call her a human being anymore. More like a husk living on the couch. You were the one paying the bills now, working the jobs, keeping things going just in case- just in case.

Why? You didn’t know why.

“Heya, Punkin’.”

The nickname tastes like ashes in this sterile hospital room, overhead a fluorescent light is flickering and it makes you grip the bars of her hospital bed tight enough to groan beneath your fists, the whole room is like that, pale and transient, people always coming and going- one way or another, coming and going. In a way, hospitals have reminded you of the Upside Down ever since you’d first tasted the frozen horror of that dimension. You’d tried to liven up the place a little, brought in some flowers and a few of Max’s things from back home, her skateboard sits in a corner and you’ve taped up some new posters she didn’t get to see, hoping she’d be excited about them when she opened her eyes again.

As it stands, Max has been in the same spot unmoving for days, marked only by the rise and fall of the unrelenting light of a Hawkins’ morning, disorienting against the frozen silhouette of your baby sisters body.

Casts on every limb and a brace that hugs her neck, so pale, even the pink flush of life that used to touch her cheekbones has gone, leaving her colorless and void aside the fiery mane of hair that always brought you joy to see, no matter what she’d decided to do with it on that given day.

It was hard to witness this, knowing Max Mayfield was a brilliant, driven, passionate girl. Stubborn and blunt and so damn clever. Always had something to say, something to feel, never could a comment get passed her without a retort that could light a fire under a grown mans’ ass. She was a powerhouse and destined for nothing but greatness at whatever she wanted in life.

She may not have been blood, but you were so damn proud of her.

Your baby sister.

The guilt of your unrelenting failure came to haunt you every time you were left alone- which was quite often these days.

It should have been me.

“M’gonna be graduating here in a couple days.” You force yourself into a tone that’s something like casual. Hands folding over themselves again and again in your lap, the dying refuse of your attempt at self-soothing. “I have… no idea what I’m going to do with myself, afterward.

I honestly— I spent so much time thinking of graduating with-” you start to sound whiny as you try to force through, “with Eddie that I- didn’t consider what was next. Y’know? Plus- plus I’d have you, y’know? I’d still be taking care of you. I’d never leave you.”

Sniffles, and fat wet tears that collect on your still-bruised hands. “You’d call me stupid for that, huh? Getting all caught up on boys and being a big sister instead of finding out what I want.”

The room is so fucking quiet.

“I want you to know-” voice reaching higher, breaking. “You saved us, you did- you did it.”

You’re nodding even though she wasn’t there to see it, not really, not anymore. “I’m so sorry- I should have been there, I was supposed to keep you safe. That’s what us big sisters do, right? We keep you little shits alive.

I’m sorry, I really take the gold for being the worst Goddamn sister in the world.”

Even more, still-sterile silence.

“Wish I could hear you call me Spice again, Punk.”

She never did get that stupid rhyme right, and by the time she was old enough to know, it just felt wrong to say it any other way.

“Wake up, Max. Please. I can’t— I’m not strong enough to do this alone. Eddie’s gone and- and- and Billy and everyone- everyone’s moving on and it’s just me, here, burning alive and so alone and I need you.

You’re so strong, spitfire. I know you can make it- please make it.”

But of course, there was no answer- there would be no answer. She was gone.

She was gone.

You nod once more to yourself, turning at an angle in your chair as you begin to rise, to leave for the day to wander as a phantom through the last standing vestiges of your own life.

“You uh… Tell Eddie hey for me when you see him again, sweetheart.”

When you leave her bedside, you leave the last piece of yourself behind.

Dusk in Hawkins was always beautiful, not in the sunny beaches-and-palm-trees way of your childhood, but in the glittering stars and the smell of pine. The trailer park loses a little of that, but the chill that rustles your jacket and whips up your hair drags some awareness back into your bones, brushing a bit of pink into the tops of your ears and against your nose. Wayne Munson’s trailer sits just across from your home, and every time you see it you remember the sight of that door swinging wide open, spread out arms and legs and theatrical proclamations of the arrival of royalty.

You remember arms that were strong, and leather and smoke, and cheap shampoo and conditioner. He always gave the best hugs, lifting you clean off the ground to dance you in a circle on his tiny front porch, squeezing you so tight that it’d stretch out the ache in your spine from hunching over a table all day. “Hello, my Lady of Lórien.”

You whisper into the damp air. “Hey, Teddy.”

The steps to your home creak forebodingly when you stomp on them, sending bits of dust and detritus puffing around your ankles and to the ground, storm door swings open, and after a moment of fumbling with your keys, warmth and the acrid smell of alcohol greets you. The trailer is dim, cozy even, but it provides no comfort when the only other person here was someone you could barely tolerate anymore- whom barely tolerated you herself.

Susan was unconscious again on the couch, half empty bottle laying on it’s side on the carpeted floor- that was going to stain. You didn’t even look at it when you picked it up, taking a hearty swig as you doused still-lit cigarettes and pulled the blinds. It was warm and tasted like shit, and you could guess it was likely some cheap gin she bought for the same reason you were stealing it off of her- anything to get drunk and forget.

You’re aware you’re making a great deal of noise as you go about unwinding the house for the night, stomping around on the squishy floor and slamming cabinets as you went scrounging for more of Susan’s ‘stash.’ You didn’t particularly care though, she was so piss-drunk she wouldn’t be waking up for awhile, and she’d be so hungover she’d just look for another bottle to fix it.

Besides, who was she to stop you? You were the reason she had a couch to waste away on, after all.

The door to your bedroom is scratched up and abused, a single hole about chest height has been patched over with pieces of paper and tape, and you hear those papers rustle slightly as you toss the door shut with a lingering agitation.

Your room is a warzone these days. The carpeted brown floor hasn’t been seen in a long time, instead you’ve elected to decorate it with dirty laundry and underwear, beer cans and takeout boxes and the scraps of homework you’d somehow managed to convince yourself to give a shit about between jobs. Once upon a time you were a neat freak with a level of organization Eddie had called neurotic. He’d even let you go through his things and organize all of it, splayed out on his bed with his guitar in hand, chatting animatedly about whatever campaign he was planning and how he was going to totally dick over his friends with this boss he has coming up.

You always noticed he’d intentionally muss it up later- just so you’d go back through and fix it for him again. Maybe he just wanted the extra time with you, maybe he liked the reminder that you cared.

There’s a few pairs of discarded jeans that made it onto your bed, they were technically dirty, but didn’t smell bad enough for you to be guilty about donning them a few more times before you forced yourself to actually be civil. You only even pay attention to the fact they exist at the moment because they start to dig uncomfortably into your back as you post yourself up against your bedroom wall, swirling the contents of Susan’s cheap gin around in it’s bottle. It’s disgustingly warm.

You plug your nose and go for it- not even stopping for the nausea that builds as you flood yourself with a cheap fix-it for your life.

It doesn’t take long, maybe fifteen or twenty minutes- shot-gunning half a bottle of hard liquor will get you pretty fucked up in record time after all, the world is starting to fuzz out blissfully in a way you wished you could carry around in your pocket. Take a big breath of it every time you had to remember that everyone was gone and you were existing just because you couldn’t muster up the energy to put an end to it yet.

Your legs bounce and wiggle, your hands swing about idly, you hum to yourself- catching up sharply when a tune is too familiar, too painful and flipping it to something more mainstream, less Eddie. Another swig, burning and harsh, and drunken exhaustion mixes with regular exhaustion. You don’t even put the bottle down, don’t crawl under the covers, don’t even turn off the light, slumping away right where you sat.

Gray.

Flashing violent red, malicious and true.

Not again.

“I think it’s my year, babe. I think it’s finally my year.” His smile is crimson, and his tears are crystal. “M’gonna graduate.”

He’s splayed out on the concrete and in your lap, voice straining to rise above the ambient noise of hundreds of demented bats writhing and screeching as they die, but he isn’t being framed by the world, no, the world is being framed by him, by the blood smearing all over your hand as you cup and cradle his face, by the deep gurgling choke he makes as he struggles through his last minutes.

“Yeah- yeah honey…” Your lips press taut in the futile attempt to quell their trembling, Eddie is limp and heavy where he rests in your arms, and the heat that’s steadily pouring out of him still manages to be scalding against the unrelenting cold of the Upside Down. His life is ebbing away, soaking your denim wet and thick, and you know he doesn’t have long. “Tell you what… tell you what Eddie-bear… When we graduate I’m takin’ you to California, okay? You’re gonna hate it.”

You laugh, wet and warbling and choking at the edges. “Everyone is so Goddamn preppy there, chasing the newest trends all the time. They’re going to think you’re fuckin’ crazy, babe.

But the sea..? And the sand? And when you go north and see the redwood forests..? It’s magical. You have to see it, just once, just for me, okay?”

“Okay… S’long as you let me take you to a Black Sabbath concert.”

You nod your head aggressively, ignoring the painful throb from getting your head slammed into the pavement, and Dustin whimpers beside you. Though it feels impossible at this moment, in this nightmare, your heart manages to hurt even more at the soul-wrenching sound.

“I love you guys, so much…”

Dustin’s heartfelt response is a hoarse whisper beside you, and it takes everything you can to work your voice just one more time. “I love you too, Eddie Munson. I’ll see you in Cali.”

You press your mouth to his and suffocated within the pervasive tang of salt and metal, you feel more than hear the rattle of Eddie’s last breath.

You wake, and immediately throw up all over your dirty laundry on the floor.

You want to say that it’s just a result of drinking so much on an empty stomach after working all day- but Eddie’s lifeless eyes are still burnt into the backs of your eyelids, and you get queasy every time you let yourself still for even a second too long. It takes you longer than it probably should to regain your bearings, scooping up the even-more-soiled contents of your closet to finally put it in the washer.

Your door is slightly more ajar than you’d left it, and the bottle that was once in your hand is now gone. Something like anger but crooked stews in the pit of your gut, and you take your clean enough laundry to the shower, you could at least rinse off if nothing else.

You had to look like you weren’t giving up- like you hadn’t already given up. You were graduating tomorrow.

The whole room is a quiet drum of excitement and anticipation. For dozens this was the next stage of life, they were finally moving on into that big wide world- they would be adults, free and eager to pursue their dreams, to flee Hawkins, to finally write their own stories.

Eddie would have been one of those people. Billy would have too.

It was surreal and sort of numbing to be here, sort of just drifting through the crowd and allowing their motions to push and pull you across the floor. Everyone was dressed up in green and orange, smiles plastered wide, families tearing up and giving hugs, squeezing shoulders and cupping faces. So proud of you was a cacophony that ached in your soul.

Robin was easy enough to pick out from the rest, her gown and cap situated somewhat awkwardly on her frame as if she’d forgotten what she was doing halfway through, entirely likely considering who she was. You swallowed around the knot in your throat, willed the numbness to creep even higher as you slid in beside her. She was rambling wildly, her mother fussing at her.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed this but I cannot walk mom, I am severely locomotively challenged- is that a word?- Okay that’s besides the point, what happens when I fall on stage, though? My last memory in this school will be ‘Robin Buckley, the girl who couldn’t walk across a wooden floor’ and I’m not sure I can survive that kind of humiliation.”

Robin’s hands are shaking around wildly, thumbs rubbing repetitively over the skin of her knuckles as she rants about the impending disaster she’s so certain will come. You feel a fondness rise for your friend, managing to crack a tired smile as you grow close enough for her to actually notice you.

“Hargrove! Listen, you have to get my diploma for me, I cannot-”

“Robin, I’m not doing that.”

Immediate disappointment, you know she’s about to utilize the puppy eyes. But before she gets her chance, you cut her off. “Hold my arm.”

“What?”

“Hold my arm. I’ll help you keep steady when we go up there.”

“And what happens in the very likely event that I fall over and just drag you with me?”

You link your arm with hers and squeeze. “Then we’ll be ‘the girls that couldn’t walk across a wooden floor.”

Everything is beginning to ramp up, and gently you start to tug her toward the stage. You wanted to help her, but in truth she was helping you too. You were terrified to take this step, because it was the first real step to saying goodbye to Eddie.

The first milestone you wouldn’t be moving across with him, the first time you wouldn’t get to celebrate together.

You squeeze Robin’s arm and she squeezes back, still muttering something nervously underneath her breath as you file in. You can feel her tense up, the stairs are right there. “C’mon, we got this Buckley. One step at a time.”

“That was a terrible joke and you should feel ashamed.”

“Who says I was joking?” You muster up a quiet laugh, and then the two of you are ascending the steps. Robin has your arm gripped so tightly you’re sure to find bruises in the morning, muttering all the while about losing all of her social credit if she screws up now.

You finally make it to flat ground, and are about to lean into Robin to whisper about how you knew she could do it, but the sight of someone among the graduates on stage saps all of the life and warmth and blood out of you. Your ability to see straight immediately impaired, your logic a candle blown out by the wind.

Jason Carver.

It turns the whole world sideways to see him standing there, mostly recovered, that stupid plastic smile on his face. Fuck you, fuck you fuck you fuck you—

Robin tugs at you gently, and when you turn to look at her you can see the concern and perhaps alarm in her eyes, you’d seized up like an ambush predator about to rip into something wildly, and she’d followed your gaze to the man that witch-hunted your wonderful Eddie until the day he died.

“C’mon, let’s get into line okay?” You didn’t miss the way Robin’s voice dipped down at the end of her sentence, softening with the intent to placate you- whether it was to keep you from attacking Jason, or from breaking down, you didn’t know. She smiled supportively, and when that hand squeezed your arm again it was comforting rather than afraid.

You kept your focus squarely on Robin and the Principle, but even with that and the sea of eyes staring out at all of you it was nauseating to be within his presence again- to know that he got to live on, to move on and be happy and get a bunch of cheap fucking accolades after what he’s done to Eddie, what he’s done to Max. You squeeze Robin back, working your jaw as you study the unique shapes of her face, her nose, the flattering cut of her hair. You’re trying hard to remember to be happy, and you’re happy for her, but it’s impossible to completely quell the white out rage at how unfair this all was.

Eddie should be here, he should fucking be here.

Names are called and diplomas received, cheers and tears and all the merriment of a celebratory day. It’s drawing closer and closer to you, and there’s a ringing in your ears that makes you breathe hard. Robin goes before you, and you can see the anxious tension wrapping around her- but it’s not for herself, it’s for you and the overwhelming likelihood you were about to do something drastic.

You can do this, be calm, be reasonable, don’t screw this up.

But it’s being passed into your hands, papery smooth and cheap for all it was meant to represent, and the ghost of Eddie is stepping in time with you.

You turn, smile bright into the lights, and give your principle and teachers a single, shining finger.

The gasps have just barely begun to sound at your blatant insult and you’re already taking off as fast as you can, tearing your cap and gown away with such enthusiasm that they don’t touch the floor before you’ve slammed through the doors that lead into the rest of the empty school. You’re running, running and with each press of your foot into the ground it reverberates up you body, springs you forward just a little bit faster.

You’re laughing, laughing, hysterical and you can hear Eddie’s woops and hollers and ‘You actually did it! You madwoman! I knew you had it in ya!’

You’re almost out of the school, never bothering to look back, and with each step Eddie’s grows fainter, more ephemeral. By the time you burst out of the front doors, laughter has turned to full, choking, breath stealing sobs- and now you’re no longer running with Eddie, but away from every memory turned sour.

You don’t know where you’re going, can’t really see through the tears, so you just go. Straight across the street and directly into the forest, going and going until your lungs burn and you’re far enough away from the school you no longer can hear the sounds of life. You’re aching from the hips down but it’s a good sort of pain, it’s the kind that makes the pain in your head and heart feel a little less overwhelming.

You don’t know when you stop running away and start walking just to walk, letting the beautiful placidity of nature flit up around you. Even when you were falling apart, trees would continue to sway in the wind, birds would keep chirping, and deer would still graze.

In the distance you can see a breakage in the tree line, and after a good ten minutes of staggered walking you find yourself at the edge of a familiar cliff- a quarry that had been used in the ultimately futile attempt to keep Joyce Byers from finding her son.

It’s so… distant, out here. Like there wouldn’t be consequences for a single thing you did. Like a world didn’t exist outside of that watery abyss below.

You scream.

It’s bloodcurdling, and so harsh that it rips up your throat, your chest burns. You suck in a breath as sharply as you can, choking on a cough- and scream once more.

You can’t hear anything anymore, deafened by your own heartbeat and the ringing in your ears. Your hand rests over your mouth after the second time, and you double over like you need to vomit the rest of the sounds out. Nothing comes, so you just pant into your skin and allow the chills to pass.

When you right yourself, all you feel is a bone deep exhaustion, you want to go home. You didn’t even know if the prior desire to drink yourself into a stupor remained, seemingly cleared out by everything else that had run through you for the past half hour. Instead you just wanted to put on one of Eddie’s old shirts and rest. Not just sleep, but to actually be rid of the weariness for once. What you’d give for that is indescribable.

You want to be rid of this stupid diploma as well, the meaning of it bleak and shallow when you’d already experienced more in your short life than most ever would their entire lives. The only thing that kept it stuck to your hand was the weight it held for Eddie when he was still alive.

You wonder if he’d visit your dreams again tonight, you hoped that they would be pleasant for once- please- but you held no hope for that, really. If anything it would be sharper than it had in many days, brought to a head by your emotional and literal fatigue.

You’re already on your way home, following the roads instead of the dense forest, and a bit of frustration peaks at your own dramatics. Really had to run away instead of driving the car huh?

The velvet darkness of night is in full swing by the time you reach the trailer park from the quarry, your legs burning and sore from the sudden bouts of exertion you’d decided upon- not at all aided by the jog you’d taken up about halfway home when you realized just how fucked you’d actually made yourself by not driving like a reasonable person.

It has you limping slightly, and when you finally see your home you plant your sweaty hands on your knees. You resent the thought of what you’ll find inside, knowing Susan was probably stealing your original plan for the night and that the moment you stepped inside the beautiful apathy that had found its way to you would be shot down by recurring anger. Was it fair, to be angry? Perhaps not, no. But it didn’t prevent it from lingering there like a plague.

However, to your benefit and unrelenting agony, Wayne Munson was sitting at the table outside his trailer fixing you with the full and unbridled weight of his heavy eyes. When you straighten up it’s with a little more stiffness than should be there, a breath caged at the bottoms of your lungs.

You brace yourself for the conversation coming.

You’d stopped crying a long time ago, but the bright puffy red around your eyes and the wetness in your chest had not vanished and likely wouldn’t until you’d let exhaustion claim you. It was apparent that Wayne himself had not missed your state of distress, his unkempt brows drawing in concern as you approached.

“Hi there, sweetheart.”

“Hello, Mr. Munson.”

Once upon a time he’d told you to call him Wayne, once upon a time you had. But now it brought a sharp pain to your chest to speak with such familiarity, and so you’d separated yourself as you bled from your heart. You take your seat at the bench timidly, knees drawn together and diploma discarded. You refrain from a relieved sigh when the strain finally leaves your legs for the first time in hours.

There’s a certain degree of formality and conduct you inflict upon yourself the few rare times Wayne drifts into your life. Because yes, you loved Eddie, and losing him had destroyed you- but Wayne Munson had, for all intents and purposes raised Eddie and loved him as his own, and that was a type of pain you doubted you’d ever be able to fully comprehend. It felt wrong to act like some downtrodden tragedy in his presence, especially when the blame for his death fell squarely on your own shoulders.

Despite this, Wayne never looks at you with anything more than fondness and shared sorrow.

The quiet is a bit comforting, content to let it linger as Wayne takes his time gathering his thoughts. You’ve none to give yourself, the fibers of your mind whittled away by everything that had happened, today and not. Another cigarette finds it’s way into Wayne’s hands even though you can smell the lingering burn of the one he’d likely just finished as you stepped into the threshold of the trailer park.

The lighter flickers, and you recognize the skull pattern on it’s silver facade, smoke begins to curl into the twinkling stars. You nervously tug at your unkempt clothes, feeble gaze studying with reinforced interest the splintered surface of the table.

“I meant to call… congratulate ya,” he finally finds his voice to say. “Big day, whole world ahead of you.”

You smile a little bashfully, and with a slew of other emotions that turn your face into a grimace as you shoot your eyes back down to your fidgeting hands. “Thank you… I uh- I almost didn’t go.”

Wayne didn’t need to ask, and didn’t. He knew what would stop you, even if it was a blatant case of self-sabotage. “It’s good that you went. It’s what he would have wanted.”

Wayne makes a little gesture of the brow. “Speaking of, I have some… things of Eddie’s I want you to take.”

His voice is a little raw on Eddie’s name, and your eyes shoot up belatedly when it registers just what he’s saying. “Mr. Munson- I-I- can’t do that, his stuff belongs with you, Eddie was your nephew.”

“And I genuinely believe,” he begins to shift in his seat, throwing one leg over the bench. “That one day you would’ve been his wife. So I’m giving it to you, ‘cause it’s also what he would’ve wanted.”

Wayne stands before you can protest and crosses into forbidden territory, an invisible threshold you know you could physically never dare to cross ever again. The trailer. It was funny, you’d spent more days and weekends there than you could count anymore, and now the very thought of touching even that front door is enough to have you unwinding at the edges. It catches you helplessly and keeps you rooted to the bench.

He’s speaking as he steps back through the door, and the objects clasped in his hands are so familiar you want to moan with agony. You feel shot.

“I know you’ll take care of ‘em, and that’s all I ask.”

Set in front of you is a box of thick, chunky silver rings, and an immaculate electric guitar.

“You know well as I that these were his pride n’joy, nothing else on this I can think of Earth he’d fight tooth and nail for. So it’s only fitting it goes with the girl he’d do the same for.”

Wayne can hear your rattling exhale as your fingertips trace the very outline of the guitar, watches the haggard way you pull it close and tuck it into your lap, curl around it like it’s a child you need to protect from the elements. He’s been watching you for some time, since that Henderson boy informed him of Eddie’s passing, knowing full well the two of you were virtually never apart from the moment you met.

He hoped above all else that someone else was noticing how unwell you clearly still were.

Wayne would not be ashamed to say he had been taken in by your charm fast when you first met. The polite Mr. Munson and the soft, warm way you’d talk about his nephew anytime the two of you were alone. Usually when you were waiting for Eddie to come back from whatever he’d been getting himself into. Wayne had watched the two of you knit yourselves together, and the way you’d suffused your personalities.

He watched leather and metal creep into your style with fond amusement, and he’d watched Eddie come crawling out of the hole he’d hid himself in for years with absolute joy. Wayne didn’t need to see the future to know he’d be calling you Niece someday likely soon, and had been fully anticipating the happy conclusion of your stories.

So the way the life had bled out of you was obvious, the dullness to the hair and eyes, the loss of weight, of will. You were clinging on by tatters and Wayne feared that you wouldn’t find a way back up.

Maybe there was a bit of selfishness in him wanting to give you Eddie’s prized belongings- just so that he wouldn’t have to look at them anymore, but never worry about what state they were in. But… perhaps it would be the last thing to keep you alive when all else failed.

“Thank you,” you whispered, and when your fingertips traced the silver chords you could picture Eddie right there with you, his gentle encouragements and genuine excitement when you’d get something right. “I- I don’t know what to say…”

Wayne as always takes his time to respond, tired eyes stare off into the trees, but you know it’s not what he’s seeing.

“Eddie… Eddie was strugglin’ when he first came to me, all those years ago. Yknow that?”

He’d mentioned it briefly, but Eddie had always been prone to changing the subject, dismissing his own struggles with ‘my old man was hardly a Neil Hargrove, just a snake.’ You nod, though there’s a lingering guilt at being so eager to find out more. Perhaps you just wanted something new- because if you had something new, it was a tiny fraction of a moment that he was alive again.

“His father didn’t just treat him poorly, he used Eddie. Kid was learnin’ to pick locks before he ever understood his father was settin’ him up to take the fall. Kid couldn’t ride a bike but he could hotwire a car.” Wayne’s head shook, disappointment and anger written in the way his jaw worked aggressively. “His mother didn’t give a shit about him, he was an alcohol induced mistake as far as she was concerned. So in the end, Eddie was alone.

When I finally got my hands on him- and that wasn’t easy- he was beyond lost. He didn’t know who to be, or how to be. I was terrified I’d lose him to his fathers ways, if only because that was all Eddie knew. So when that boy took a shine for guitar? For- for that board game and whatever music he liked to listen to? It was a blessin’. He was becoming someone, himself, and I knew he’d be okay.”

The heavy weight of Wayne’s gaze returns to you. “I’d been so excited for him to just be alright, I never considered how it’d be to see him thrive. And when he was with you? He was. Eddie talked about you every chance he got, anythin’ that reminded him of you and to anyone who would listen- mostly me.

Eddie never dreamed of the future- of becomin’ a rockstar or meetin’ his heroes, sure. But I’d never heard him talk about pursuin’ jobs or lookin’ at houses to buy until you gave him the time of day. So thank you, sweet girl, for makin’ him so happy that he actually wanted to meet his future. I just wish he’d have gotten the chance to see it for himself.”

The tears are heavy down your face, you’d stopped looking at Wayne and were gripping the box of his rings tight enough to make your knuckles and the ends of your fingers turn white. You’d grabbed it in the fear of damaging his guitar, but it only hurt worse when you could feel the rattle of the rings that hadn’t been left behind.

You two sit there in silence for a long time, cradled in the gentle sounds of life continuing on.

You don’t know how long you stand outside Dustin Henderson’s front door. Probably only minutes, but it feels closer to hours. You’ve had Eddie’s rings and guitar for a handful of days now, his prized instrument the first and last thing you see every day, and much like the metalhead himself you tell it good morning and goodnight. In your case however, it’s meant for someone else, someone you hope is listening.

In the end, you couldn’t bear to keep all of his jewelry, you loved his rings but could hardly wear any of them, and something about them sitting unused in your room had felt disrespectful- so you did the only thing you could. You gave them to the one person in the whole world you could think of that would deserve them.

The first time you knock on the door is quiet, hesitant as you will yourself to go through with this. It had been enough time since… since, but that didn’t mean much. You yourself were still bound to the crushing depths of grief, and with that came sore spots and sensitivities you couldn’t so easily relinquish just because another had good intentions with whatever was said or done. Would it be cruel of you, to do this to Dustin?

The second time you knock is harder, and that time you get a polite “just a minute!” from who you can only assume is Dustin’s mother, the door swinging open to reveal the pleasant woman in question. She has a cat dancing around her ankles, and she greets you cheerily as she ushers you inside, fond familiarity after so many times picking up and dropping off her son. “He’s in his room, dear.”

You can hear the chattering and activity of Dustin within his room as you amble toward his door, muttering madly to himself- or perhaps Suzie- and throwing things about, there are errant words about grades and upcoming tests, and you suspect he’s cheating again. Or at least, that’s the best you could discern without seeing him. You’re standing close enough to hear him clearly, hand lowering and raising a few times, before you stretch your index finger, tapping your nail against the sliding door.

“Hold on! I’m—”

“Dustin.”

With a single word he’s gone deafeningly silent.

The door slides open and Dustin is staring at you with something like guilt and burning severity. You two haven’t talked the way you used to since… since everything went wrong. It was usually reserved for quiet nights of white hot shame and anguish, needing the only other person in the entire world that could understand the exact brand of pain bubbling and blistering on your heart.

It was hard- in daylight- to even look at each other without the feelings crawling back up. A frog in your throat choking out all pretense of being okay and normal and, perhaps most heinously, that either of you were ready to try and move on.

“Uh… Hey, didn’t- didn’t expect to see you…at all.” His hand comes up behind his head, scratching at the curled nape of his neck nervously as he takes you in. You’re faring no better at the moment than he is, fidgeting here and there and looking everywhere but in Dustin’s eyes. He’s not surprised by it, he remembers watching you the moment Eddie’s struggle had ended. You weren’t exactly liable to be a social butterfly anymore. “Are you okay? Needing to talk?”

“Yeah, yeah… M’okay, sorry for dropping by uninvited, I just-”

Your chin dropped to your chest with coiling frustration, talking to Dustin didn’t used to be so hard- he was one of those kids that you could pull up any hypothetical in the world, and he’d call you an idiot but never once make you feel stupid. Mostly because he’d explain the obvious right way, rather than dismissing you outright.

Now it seemed like the only time you could speak without struggle was when all the horrors wanted to come spilling out without relent.

“Wayne talked to me… a few days ago. He gave me some stuff…”

You fish in your pockets with trembling fingers, and when you present your open palms to Dustin, the remainder of Eddie’s rings sit there glittering at him.

“I want you to have these. Most of them are too big, but it feels wrong to just have them sitting there, so…”

You can see Dustin’s chin wobbling as you gently settle the sterling fragments of Eddie’s life into his hands. He rolls them around in his hands for a moment, and with a shaking breath he puts on as many as he can- some of them are a bit too big still, but he’d grow into them, Eddie had given him the chance to do so after all. Those are immediately put on Dustin’s desk, right beneath a light where they could be on display, a show of his great pride in having known and been brothers with the Freak of Hawkins’ High.

“We shouldn’t have left him,” Dustin’s voice is a tragic whisper in his lively bedroom. “We should’ve found a way.”

“I know.”

“All I can see is his face just… Staring at us. And him just- laying there while we ran.”

You and Dustin both have gone ‘round this in circles more times than you could care to count anymore, this unrelenting tide of guilt that usually ended in tears over the phone- or perhaps even in each others arms. You didn’t talk very often anymore, but you didn’t need to talk to pick him up at two in the morning and sit together in the silence. A ratty red booth seat with a head laying on a shoulder, and a sweet milkshake that tastes like vinegar when laced with sorrow.

“Dustin, there was nothing we could do. It- it was hard enough for us to haul ourselves up that rope, we never would have been able to get Eddie through.”

Dustin makes a little micro-expression that stinks of denial, but you don’t hold it against him even as you cross your arms, you’d been in his position enough times to know he wasn’t blaming you, just himself. Eddie’s best friend and he couldn’t even save him when it counted most.

“Y’know…” you begin slowly, a little smile curling at the edges of your face. “Eddie would be so excited to see you wearing his rings.”

Dustin’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “You think?”

“Ohhhh yeah…” You nod, puckering your lips as you step a little closer. “Eddie was… God he adored you, Dustin. He loved all you kids- his sheepies- but you were something special to him. I think he thought of you as a brother, really. Anytime he’d talk about Hellfire it’d always circle back around to you, something you’d said or done- what you were wearing, what you’d said about what someone else was wearing.

He was over the moon every time you liked something he liked, or took his side on… anything really. I think he’d have lost his mind if he ever got to see you wearing his stuff.”

It dragged a little lightness into Dustin, his smile widening as he toyed with the accessories encircling his fingers. He’d always looked up to Eddie a little bit, not that he’d given a shit about how cool Eddie was or wasn’t, Dustin had already broken into secret Russian labs to fight off sapient flesh monsters made out of hundreds of dead people. But Eddie had turned himself into an impenetrable shield for the rest of the weirdos in Highschool that weren’t so impervious to the opinions of their peers.

“I think he’d be scared.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah… At this rate I’m gonna dress better than he did.”

You laughed gently, and after an affectionate pause you reached out to grab Dustin’s shoulder with a quiet ‘c’mere’ and crushing him into a hug. It was hard to let go.

With a final squeeze however, you forced yourself apart and rubbed at your face with the palms of your hands. “Okay… Okay. I’ve gotta go, work is in an hour and I really don’t need to survive the Upside Down just to be eaten by a fifty-three year old woman with a draconian understanding of how coffee works.”

“Alright,” Dustin’s hand shot up to point at you, brows raising playfully. “If you need a rescue, you know how to contact me. I’ll stage a coup and everything.”

When you stepped out the door of Dustin Henderson’s house, you felt just a touch lighter than you had going in. Like those rings had been weighing you down- but more. Like they’d been snares, trapping up some of the inky black that stirred in the waters of your soul, and when you’d gifted them it’d taken all that ink with.

There was a guilt in it, but reprieve as well- you knew Eddie would be happy to see that tiny smile that touched your lips for the first time in weeks, and that it was sincere for once.

“Are you… fucking kidding me.”

How did you manage to lose something that you really shouldn’t be losing in a place as small as this.

A Smith & Wesson that apparently she’d brandished on Steve once upon a time, gifted to you by none other than Nancy Wheeler after the second time everything went to hell and Billy died. It was still loaded, and now you couldn’t fucking find the thing. Nervousness was beginning to turn to panic, knowing full well that Susan wasn’t faring the best these days.

Some stupid argument you’d had the weekend prior. You couldn’t even remember what for- just that you’d been angry enough to storm out, and when you’d come back the car had been gone. The sourness only worsening at the sight of empty cans of beer where there hadn’t been when you took off.

You’d already checked through your whole disastrous bedroom half a dozen times by now, each pass carrying you from bargaining, ‘I probably am just not seeing it.’ To outright panic. It had to be here, you couldn’t afford any other option. Eventually your hunt bled out into the rest of the small space, checking cabinets and drawers for where you might have accidentally misplaced it.

You eventually found yourself even in Max’s room, kept pristine like some sacred space that could be contaminated by the slightest disturbance. You tried your best to keep things immaculate, but it was hard when your hands were trembling. It was bad enough you hadn’t been there for your sister, you really didn’t need to be the one to accidentally give her mom an easy way to check out.

“C’mon shithead, show yourself.” You’re looking in nooks and crannies now, places neither you nor any rational human would ever have put the weapon, either side of the fridge, in the hampers, beneath the sink- maybe Susan had found it and just moved it elsewhere one day for… whatever reason she’d do that. It didn’t matter why, it just needed to not be with Susan.

You’ve exhausted all your other unusual options, so now you’re on your knees in the living room and have your fingers jammed up underneath the couch, wishing you’d brought a flashlight to just look. Your fingers suddenly come into contact with a heavy and familiar hilt and relief is like soothing warm water on your hair. It’s a struggle to get a grip on it with so little leeway beneath the piece of furniture, but you manage to hook it on your pinkie and drag it into the blessed light.

The thing was meant for self defense, but had become more of a memento.

“Hawkins is dangerous, but… I’m sure you got that memo already.” You’d be lying if you said you weren’t captivated by Nancy Wheeler’s beautiful coy smile. She’d always had that about her, the ability to look so sweet even as she did things like lay a revolver in your hands and tell you that you were in constant peril.

“Yeah, you could say that.” Your own smile is bashful. “Thank you, Nancy. I appreciate this. I know Max likes to act like she’s invincible but—”

“They’re not, I know.” Nancy rolls her eyes playfully as she leans up against the exterior wall of her two story home, a pretty thing that oozes suburban charm you wish you could wrap yourself up in. “Mike thinks he could singlehandedly take down the US Government sometimes.”

“I mean…” you nudge her with your hip. “You kinda did exactly that, Miss Wheeler.”

You’d loved the way she’d laughed, the sound sticking with you for days.

You stare at the gun, turning it over as it glints gray against your fingers in the low light of the trailer. You remember wishing you’d brought it with you when you’d all gone to Lovers’ Lake, though Nancy had helpfully pointed out that it would’ve been rendered useless by the water anyway, much to your chagrin.

That aching wish had come back with a vengeance when you’d gone to the parallel house in suburbia, looking for Nancy’s guns in the pursuit of self-defense. It only figured that cruel bastard had the power to stop time… or… whatever the fuck it was he did.

You don’t know what it is about this night, this moment sitting on the floor with this weapon on your hand. Maybe it was the rare sobriety, or the perfect circumstances, or pure luck, or fate. Maybe it was as simple as bestowing a little piece of Eddie to wonderful, brilliant Dustin Henderson and knowing- no matter what happened to you- some part of him would survive on in that boy.

But suddenly, an epiphany struck you hard enough to have chills falling down your skin.

Time was frozen in the Upside Down.

Before Eddie, before Max, before Billy and Bob and- before everything.

You realize in a detached way that you’re shaking so hard the gun is rattling in your grip, that you threaten to drop it and so it’s placed with all the carefulness you can muster onto the table. You feel fragile like glass.

What if you could save them all?