#which is probably a good thing all things considered bc we were in a bit of a pickle mentally there for a hot minute

[heymacy]

okay fINE i'll just say it!! i miss fandom!!

[lususnatura]

🎤 🎤 🎤

a song that i associate with my muse meme!

AHH, hey, ramone!! thank you for sending in this prompt :D since you sent in three of the mic's, i shall now be treating you to three songs that make me think of blamore when i hear them / that i associate with it. an explanation of why i chose them will be in the tags <3

hozier - who we are.

icehouse - crazy.

depeche mode - personal jesus.

[nereidprinc3ss]

make me late

in which spencer finds a few minutes to spare with fem!reader in the morning

18+ (smut) warnings/tags: softdom!spence, sub reader, technically dubcon bc he doesn’t ask and she jokingly says stop but it’s not like that I promise, fingering (here we go again), 'slutty' is used to describe an action but not by spencer, spencer slaps r's ass one (1) time, (hot), mild overstimulation a/n: apparently need to post at least one fingering fic per week or i'll fucking die. very short and sweet but as always let me know if you like it, i have a crush on all of you!

You’re used to Spencer’s alarm going off early in the morning—typically you tune it out or sleep right through it. Today, however, it rouses you more than usual. You roll over, blinking your eyes open. 

“Sorry,” Spencer mutters, finally turning it off and leaning over to kiss your head. “Go back to sleep, angel.”

You wrap your arms around his torso, pulling him down again when he tries to get out of bed.

“Don’t go,” you beg into his shirt, slinging a leg over him. His hand slips under your (also his) shirt, rubbing the bare skin of your back.

“I have to. You know that.” 

“I just want you to stay for a little bit,” you insist. 

“No you don’t,” he drawls, voice still gravelly with sleep, “You want to make me late.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say innocently, burying your face further into his shirt as if you could extinguish the heat in your cheeks. 

His hand drops from your back to reach under your thigh, pushing your underwear to the side. You gasp when his fingers make contact with your soaked core, involuntarily pressing your hips closer. 

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“Stop it! That’s not fair!” You squeal, attempting to wriggle away once you regain your senses. But the bastard wraps his arm around your waist like a vice, forcing you to stay in place as he sinks a finger into you with no preamble. Instead of satisfying him with a vocal response, you keep your face hidden in the crook of his shoulder and remain obstinately silent. When he begins to slowly pump his finger, you’re forced to bite the fabric of his shirt to shut yourself up. 

“If you’re not enjoying yourself, I’ll stop,” he says plainly, but obviously he knows that’s the last thing you want. His ring finger joins the other and your mouth falls open, a tiny, choked breath against his skin. “Do you want me to stop?”

Don’t give in, you say to yourself. Wait. What are you not giving in to? Fuck, that feels good. You hum quietly—an excellent display of self-control considering the noises you’re actively holding back. 

“Are we already getting whiny?”

“‘m not whining,” you bite. 

“You’re always whining.” There’s nothing to do but prove him right when he begins massaging that spot inside you with a practiced stroke of his fingers—the one that makes you arch your back further and spread your legs a little wider—makes you oh-so compliant and all together, a bit slutty. But Spencer has told you that by definition, you’re not a slut if it’s just him who you lose all self-respect around. “My pretty girl feels so good, huh?”

You agree with a mindless mumble, forgetting that you were ever going to try and fight the pleasure. 

“It feels so good.”

“I can tell, baby. Listen to the mess you're making.”

Soft, wet sounds emanate from where you’re probably dripping around his fingers. A moan is muffled by his shoulder as your own fingers twist in the fabric of his shirt and sink into the flesh of his waist—though you doubt he minds. 

“Please don’t stop, please please please—" It’s quiet, almost demure as you plead. 

“You’re so sweet when you get like this,” Spencer coos. “I wish you were always so well-behaved.”

No, he doesn’t. Both of you know he loves fucking the attitude out of you, and at times, back into you. But you’re not in any place to correct him right now, as his fingers slip in and out of you so quickly, exactly where you want to be touched. 

“Oh, right—right there, that’s—oh, god,” you squeak. 

Your face is still nuzzled in his shirt, your voice is still so delicate and weak with sleep, rising in pitch with your pleasure until it breaks. 

“Right here? This is where you need it?”

“Yes,” you practically cry, “I’m gonna come, Spence—” your hips rock back and forth to meet each stroke of his fingers inside you, vision going white with with pleasure. 

“Yeah? My pretty girl is gonna come all over my fingers?”

“Mhm!” You speed up the motion of your hips. He chuckles, which might offend you if you were in your right mind, but it’s early, and you’re tired, and your soul is trying to untether itself from your body. 

“Let me feel it, baby. I wanna feel you coming, can you do that for me?”

A breathy keen rushes from your throat as your orgasm begins to suck you out to sea like a riptide, flooding your lungs and blood and everything with so much easy pleasure you’re barely awake and you don’t care one bit. 

“Uh-huh, good girl,” Spencer murmurs, not letting up with his fingers as you fall through your orgasm. Another choked moan takes you by surprise when his free hand falls with a heavy clap to your ass, before rubbing the stinging flesh. “Let go a little bit longer, baby, I’m right here.”

You’re barely breathing, still seeing stars as he continues to fuck you leisurely with his fingers, more out of pure affection than anything else. Eventually he slips them out, teasing gently over your clit as your stomach tenses. But you let him keep going. You’ll do anything to keep him in bed for a few minutes longer. To that end, you gather enough breath to speak. 

“Can you please fuck me?” 

He hums pityingly, moving his hand from between your legs to lovingly soothe the tender skin he’d slapped just a moment ago. 

“You know I can’t, baby. I shouldn’t have even done this. I really have to get a move on.”

“But you did do this,” you say, eager to point out the fallacies in his argument, “which means you could also have sex with me and we could be really fast and you could just take less time getting ready for work.”

Your chin is now resting on his shoulder as you look up at him with wide, imploring eyes, and he leans down to kiss your nose. 

“The answer is going to stay no, sweet thing. I don’t care how much you beg.”

He’s already gently sliding you off of him and getting out of bed as you pout. A few moments pass, and you can’t think of a good retort as he moves about the room, gathering a towel for his shower and digging through the dresser. 

“You’re mean.”

“Aw, poor baby. You only got to come once. Nobody has ever had a harder life than you.” Spencer dodges the pillow you throw and laughs, coming back to lean over the bed as you glower at him. “I’m sorry I woke you up. If you can’t fall back asleep in the time it takes me to shower, I’ll make you fancy coffee.”

“Fine.”

“And I’ll be extra nice to you when I get home.” He kisses your head and then your lips, and then disappears into the bathroom. 

In a completely predictable turn of events, you’re dead to the world by the time he gets out of the shower. He makes you the fancy coffee anyway, leaving it in a thermos on your nightstand. 

He’s late to work. He can't pretend to be sorry.

[notsodailycake]

Part 3 for the fitclet I did for @keferon 's mecha pilot jazz au! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

For those who missed it:

Part 1 || Part 2

This is probably the longest out of all the 3 parts, dear god, I went all in. It came out bigger than I ever expected it to be. I was not expecting it to go this far honestly, but the parasites in me, they begged for more. So here we are! :D

Again tho, idk how in character they will be here, but I tried my best ＼(*T▽T*)／. Also, kinda bullshitted my way through in worldbuilding bc idk how things work exactly- and I had to come up with stuff on my own, even tho I'm not that good in mecha world stuff, so I'm sorry for any inaccuracies ^^;;

Now, to give credit to those who so desperately deserve it:

My sister @saltynsassy31 for helping me when I couldn't write out some of my ideas and doing it herself (so consider this as a bit of a frankenstein monster of both our writing styles, mainly during intense scenes. If there is any fancy words in this, it's cuz of her) and being my beta reader for this part. Seriously yall, this wouldn't have been as coherent and well written without her help!

Also huge thanks to my online sister @yayadrawsthingz for helping out when I hit a few road blocks during this!

And finally, a huge huge thanks to my honorary online uncle @hexyz09 for helping me finish off the final fight scene when I got stuck during some plot holes and road blocks, or generally just writing myself into a corner and having to help me leave it, despite not knowing jackshit about the au, let alone the ship and characters themselves, but was still willing to help me through in working on the plot, in this crazy obsession of mine XD

Yall have no idea how much help these guys were. Probably wouldn't be able to finish without either of their help ᕦ(òωóˇ)ᕤ

Oh and an honourable shoutout to the song "Headlock" by Imogen Heap! Kept listening to this on loop as it kept my drive up to write this.

Now onto the fic!

---

Prowl ignored Jazz's various attemps to push out his servo from the cockpit. Despite the mech being weak himself, the human was still no match against thousands of pounds of metal, especially in his own weakened state.

Which was a matter of its own at the moment. Prowl knew he had very little time to be able to run ahead before the other humans caught on to them, having noticed the alarm bells ringing through the facility.

So he ran towards the exit Jazz had initially pointed out, the only plan they had at the moment.

...

"Prowl! Prowler, hey! I know you can hear me! Prowl!" Jazz shouted as he slammed yet another fist in a failed attempt to nudge the bot's servo out of the way. He hasn't said a word since picking Jazz up, and he wasn't sure how long that was, maybe not that much, but it felt too long yet too little at the same time (what a headache).

Sliding down, he gently hit his forehead over the protective servo and let out a sigh of defeat. No way he could get him to move like this.

Why was he trying to anyways? Didn't he want to be with Prowl? He certainly did, but somehow, something in him made him feel like he shouldn't just be accepting this.

And maybe Prowl also knew this, which is why he took off and hasn’t said a word since. Both held conflicted feelings about the whole thing. If only things didn't feel so blurry right now!

Suddenly, a hard shift made Jazz stumble a bit, grasping at whatever he could so he didn't fall back, loud noises of metal scrapping metal could be heard as something got kicked open on the outside. Jazz scrambled over to the small crevice that opened between Prowl's digits, not enough for him to fit anything over other than his hand, but enough to get a glimpse of what was happening outside.

Prowl had kicked down the exit door to the lab ('not like he had the hands available to properly open the damn thing anyways' Jazz thought to himself). It was meant for mechas to exit the room after they finish off whatever it is they do in here, that Jazz knew, and if he was right, just down the hall there will be another exit leading to the backroom where they stockpiled the mech suits. No one but the technicians were usually supposed be there, it would be an easy fight to get to the big gate that lead to the outside training grounds, which is why Jazz had pointed for the mech to go down there in the first place.

There shouldn't have been a problem besides giving him time to leave unscathed. Which Jazz assumed would not be the case as he was currently inside Prowl and not buying him time to escape. But, to Jazz's surprise, nothing had come close to attacking them, yet.

The pilot did not have much time to contemplate it as suddenly he heard Prowl rumble an annoyed grunt.

"Don't move."

In shock, Jazz stumbled back as Prowl removed his hand and reached for the end of the overhead gate, seemingly alot harder to kick down than a two way door. The only thing it would really do would be to bend the metal a bit but it wouldn't give an open entrance. Jazz didn't dare leave, not like he could from this hight, but even if he could, Prowl would probably just pick him up again; it be a waste of energy really (just admit it, you don't want to leave him). But something about this felt wrong, so far they haven't had a single guard come down the hall, just this small pause would give them enough time to catch up to the two runaways, Jazz was sure that guards had been on his tail when he was under his rampage.

Unless...

Wait.

"Prowl! Wait don't open that gate!" But he was too late, the moment he uttered those words the mech had already been in motion and pushed the gate up with all his might and as quickly as he opened it a gun shot came through the otherside. They had been waiting for them, they knew where they were heading. The bastard he kicked down prior to this probably saw them and reported it, dammit.

Prowl let out a strangled cry of pain as the shot landed right on his left shoulder (like it wasn't damaged enough by the lack of arm), Jazz fell backwards with the harsh motions, hitting the back of the pilot's seat, the impact leaving his vision to go dark for a few seconds before he collected himself as quickly as he could. In an instant though, just as he tried to get back up to see what was outside, Prowl had put his hand back over the open cockpit.

No...he wouldn't be able to fight like this, protecting him as he is would only hinder the bot to more damage. And that's exactly what Jazz intended to express to the other. "Prowl! You won't be able to fight with your hand over me! Forget about holding me inside, I won't leave, I promise!"

"That's not the point!" Prowl growled, letting out another hiss of pain as more shots were loaded, someone shouting out for them to stand down.

Prowl couldn't risk leaving Jazz exposed. Unlike the human, Prowl could take a few shots, their weapons not being strong enough to inflict any serious damage to his plating (though perhaps a bit to his exposed protoform, though he could handle it for a little while longer). But it would take one lucky shot on Jazz to have him dead in an instant, and Prowl couldn't take that chance.

It seemed like Jazz got the message, not spitting back any sort of remark about Prowl's lack of explanation.

But the mech couldn't linger too much on those thoughts, he had to get out, and fast. He was losing too much energon, and his vision was starting to get blurry, which wasn't a good sign. It didn't help that his thoughts were a hazy mess, his usual ability to think logically overthrown by the panic of needing to get out of this place while ensuring Jazz's survival.

It's not like he had much to do, though. Any possible escape hindered by the fact he couldn't use his weapons unless he risks Jazz's life to one lucky shot. Perhaps he could make a run for it, knock through the mechas in front of him and let them tumble over as he reached the final exit; it wasn’t the best plan perhaps, with at least a 19% rate of success, given he isn't in the best physical state at the moment, he probably wouldn't be strong enough to knock them over. Added to the fact the exit wasn't shut by a gate he could simply knock over easily either, like the previous one. He'd have to push it open from the bottom, and there wasn’t enough time for him to act on it.

But he'd have his back turned to the shots, reassuring Jazz's own safety, so he could perhaps risk removing his servo to push the gate open once more.

With a quick warning from his HUD telling him his energon levels were getting dangerously low, Prowl decided to take the risk, with little time left, he took a step forward making a run for it.

The mechas seemed to ready themselves for his attack, quickly positioning their weapons to target him, closing any narrow space they had between each other.

What they didn't expect was for the mech to charge his whole body weight onto them. Despite not feeling any pain, they certainly could not fight against gravity itself. They all stumbled against each other as Prowl made a mad dash to the gate. He slid on his knees and made a quick reach for the bottom of the gate, anxiously removing his hand from over the cockpit, bending over protectively as to not have anything be able to aim inside.

He could feel his spark beating fast from anxiety, they were so close, they'll be able to leave soon enough. Jazz was most certainly having a good feel to Prowl's anxious beat, the loud thruming reaching the bot's own audials was most certainly deafening to the human sitting near it.

Then, a shot.

A pop.

A blinding light.

And the beat stops.

Jazz was curling in on himself as an instinct to protect himself from the sudden burst behind him. It only took a few seconds for him to realise what that was once he couldn't hear a single beat of a spark, or the burning sensation it left, feeling his own heart stop and drop to his gut.

It felt like the world around him suddenly stopped, everything going into slow motion, with no sounds to accompany the dread. Feeling as Prowl's body leaned foward to crash on the ground.

But just as quickly as the silance came, it left. Prowl catching himself from hitting the ground with a grunt, a slam could be heard as his arm and elbow made contact with the concrete floor. His spark beating, weakly, but beating nonetheless. What felt like hours of silance was only a quick few seconds of deafening dread.

"Prowl!" Jazz called out in desperation, reaching out to hold the edges of the cockpit, so not to fall out, but to also try and comfort his anxiousness as he tried to look up at the mech's face. The mech made a sound of acknowledgement, which came out more like broken static, but didn't make much effort to move, his face scrunched up in pain, optics shut. They shot him on his back, too close to where his spark would be, causing him to skip a beat, and busting a bit of his left doorwing, but it still seemed to function somewhat.

Suddenly, both of them picked up on the sound of something opening, giving no time for either to fully process what had just occurred. Prowl made a quick move to get his hand over the cockpit once more (with slight struggle as he stumbled and fell on his aft) as a thick metal slab emerged from above and beneath, right in front of the gate, shutting it close with a protective layer of metal. Guessing by the red alarm ringing around them, an emergency protocol to keep anyone from leaving. Slag.

The mechas surrounded them, guns all aimed to shoot at the alien mech if he didn't comply.

It was silent for a brief moment, in exception to Prowl's anxious beating spark (which wasn't a problem for Jazz at the moment, the burning warmth being somewhat comforting) and Jazz's own heart beating over his ears. Both catching their breaths.

"There's no point in fighting. So make this easy for all of us and surrender yourselves." A nobody pilot finally spoke out, weapon leaning a tad closer than the others.

The atmosphere felt heavy, they were pinned down. Really, the only thing they could do was surrender, but Jazz would sure as hell be reprimanded for his actions and Prowl.....he didn’t want to think about that. No, he wouldn't even allow that thought to become any sort of reality.

"Prowl" he whispered, knowing only the mech would hear him, leaning a gentle souch to his servo as if to beg, "I know you might not have alot of trust 'n me, but this might be our best shot." There was a tense shift, not too noticeble unless you could see the mechanisms from the inside, Prowl knew what he was about to suggest. "You need to let me pilot you." He cringed as he felt the other's servo stiffen, he wasn't pleased with the idea, and neither was Jazz, but he knew this place alot better than Prowl did, and knew how to properly defeat the mechas, knowing their weak spots. And Prowl was all too aware of that too, Jazz knew it. They both were very aware of it all.

"Please," he begged, leaning his forehead on the mech's servo yet again, "I can't lose you again." There was slight shift, Jazz looked up, though he obviously couldn't see the mech's face, the sigh he let out was loud and clear. The controls on the pilot's seat shifted, Jazz got the message:

'Alright'

He couldn't help but let a small smirk creep over his face, making way to sit down and start piloting.

"Under one condition though," Prowl suddenly whispered to him, though it was alot louder to Jazz on the inside.

"And what would that be, partner?" The title flew out too fast for Jazz to stop himself, feeling so natural to call Prowl partner once more. The mech didn't seem against it though.

"No removing my hand."

Jazz was left stunned for a quick second, though it felt like a minute for Prowl as he waited for a reply eagerly.

"I can work with that." Prowl let out a sigh of relief at that, allowing the human, his partner, to take control of him again.

It took a moment for Jazz to adjust himself, in the meantime, the people waited outside anxiously for the other to make a move. When Prowl finally started to shift around to stand up with a small grunt, everyone raised their guns and loaded them up, but didn't shoot just yet. The mech looked up at them with a deadly glare, but made no move to attack, his remaining arm not leaving the open cockpit for a second, he simply stood up with a slight slump to his posture, doorwings drooping down slightly. In all possible ways, he looked weak and defeated, no signs of fighting back.

One of the mechas walked closer, gun still aiming at Prowl, but it was lowered slightly. They reached a hand out expectantly.

"The pilot, hand him over." They demanded, no sympathy whatsoever.

Prowl clutched his chasis, anger pooling over in his spark, doorwings twitching up slightly, but he made no move to attack. Not yet. He heard Jazz speak to him in a low tone so only he could hear it, with a sigh, he relaxed. He slowly, very slowly, drew out his hand from the cockpit, the action in itself having the other mecha have their body relax slightly as they approached the mech, weapon being put down slightly enough, and so did the others around them. Jackpot.

Before he fully removed his servo, the mech made move to crouch down and in a swift motion swung a peed over to the mechas own, catching them off balance and knocking them down. Jazz let out a small hiss to the action, forgetting his own injured leg, but pushed on regardless.

Using the thrusters of his doorwings, they were able to balance themselves back up, Prowl's servo going back into fully protecting it's pilot once more. With most weapons being aimed up and not down, it took a delayed second to aim correctly, but it was enough time for the human and cybertronian duo to twist themselves out of harms way.

Before the fallen pilot could attempt to get up, Jazz made move to aim over the weak spot of their mecha's knee and stepped hard enough to break its mechanisms so they couldn't stand back up easily. But the glory was short lived as more shots were fired their way.

Jazz's hand twitched to move and use its weapons, but he resisted the urge with a slight huff, "Man, 's hard to fight without an arm!"

"This is none negotiable, Jazz." Prowl hissed as they made move to avoid more shots.

"I know, I know! Don't mean it makes it easier!" Jazz tried to analyse their surroundings, though it was made difficult with the many HUD warnings from all the injuries (the pilot couldn't help but mutter a broken "I'm so sorry" to his partner, whether the mech heard him or not he wasn't sure), but pushing through it, he took note of a few key details. There was a metal catwalk grate near above the mechas' heads, running with a few on ground troops, the bastard of a boss being one of the few amongst them. Near a corner stood an elevator to go up and down the area.

How that could help, Jazz wasn't sure yet.

A shot hit Prowl's arm, pain flowed through the mech as he moved out of the way once more. Jazz looked around in a frenzy to find a place to shield themselves....the mechas! Making a run for to the lifeless husks, he swivelled around between them and hid behind the many rows of mechas knowing full well that they would not risk such precious resource and money just to reach them. At least he hoped not, because he just needed a little bit of time to figure something out.

Hearing the big man call out to hold their fire was good enough indication that his idea worked.

"Ok, now we just need somethin' to distract them long enough for us to make a jump to the ceiling." Jazz explained

"The ceiling?" Prowl inquired, not so certain about his partner's ability to properly think at the moment.

Jazz rolled his eyes, but didn't make mention of the mech's tone. "It's the weakest point here, plus" he made way for Prowl to look up to where he remembered the area to be at, "there's a trap door for flying mechas and emergencies. One quick press of a button will open it up, even under "safety protocols."" Prowl let out a hum in thought, seeming to analyse the situation.

"Possible, but where is this said button?"

"Behind the elevator, by the catwalk grating on top. There's a control panel, and one big red button, can't miss it."

"Would smashing it still get it to work?"

"Yes."

"Then I don't have any complaints."

"Good, now," Jazz went back to scanning the area, "how to cause a distraction?"

"Would that broken pipe be of any use?" Prowl made an effort to twitch his head over to the direction of what he wanted Jazz to see. And just as the mech stated, there, by the first floor of the elevator, stood a broken pipe, steam coming out of it.

Jazz smirked "it would actually. If we can get somethin' to shoot at it, we might cause an explosion, giving us time to jump up without being the target anymore."

"Sounds like a plan." Prowl shrugged.

"Don't have anything to add?" Jazz asked a bit surprised.

"No, I don't." The pilot didn't push.

"Okay. Well, let's get these bastards shootin." In quick motion, they made way to the elevator, already hearing the commands to shoot fire, 'but watch for the machines!' Weapons were loaded from above as well, shooting down at the two runaways once again.

Jazz made sure to move swiftly behind the mechas, making sure they were shielded properly. Any gaps they had to cross was a small risk they needed to take, scrapes and scratches being left in its wake, but tried not to do it too often, just enough that they could follow them. They eventually reached where the pipes were, Jazz took a deep breath.

"Ready, big guy?"

"Ready."

They stepped foward, making sure to call the attention towards where they were, but quickly retrieting back behind the mechas suits as they shot directly where they wanted to hit. "Bingo."

Quickly, activating Prowl's thrusters, they leaped over to the metal grates that stood above them as the pipes behind them burst, causing a huge commotion as empty mechas fell down and whatever machine near the crossfire tumbled down. Prowl let out a gasp as he felt the world around him spin, the grating beneath them not being of any help as it shook with his weight. Jazz was quick to hold on, helping the mech stablise himself before aiming with his left foot to kick the big red button with their ticket out of here, the motion causing his vision to flash in pain, but he bit his toung until he could taste iron and pushed forward.

Hearing the metal door above them open up, Jazz readied himself, but hesitated with the warning he'd received from Prowl's HUD from his low energon levels. He didn’t even get the chance to fully check on it though, Prowl quickly pushing them out of the way himself.

"I'll live, just one more push." The mech hastily reassured the human. Jazz wasn't inclined to belive it though, feeling the other's spark beat anxiously (and for some reason that made him feel slightly dizzy. Though he chalked it up to it being his possible concussion).

It took one shot to slip an inch away from Prowl's face for them to finally snap out of it and jump. One more push from his thrusters as they flew up through the trap door and landed on top of the roof with a grunt, the mech's left wing finally giving out.

But they weren’t in the clear yet. Looking out, a wasteland of a forest awaited them, with dense trees at the bottom.

"We'll have to make a jump for it. If we're lucky enough the trees will be big enough to hide us." Jazz supplied.

"45% of that happening. But we don't have much of another option at the moment." Prowl added

With all that being said, Jazz moved into action. With so much at stake, he had to, he couldn't waste another second in debating. Hefting Prowl up, he used all remaining strength to jump where they needed to go, but as the training grounds began to get closer than anticipated, Prowl knew they didn’t make the jump and that made the mech almost freeze.

Though Jazz had other plans, because as their impending flat doom approached in rapid speed, Prowl's remaining thruster burst to life and gave that final impusle they needed to reach the slope. They both braced themselves as they were thrown up and over to their intended destination, Prowl having half a mind to tighten his hold over his chest so none of the debris and impact could reach the fragile human still in his care.

They rolled down the slope, Prowl just barely being able to shift himself so that he was sliding on his back instead. The aggresive motion of going down a not so smooth path causing bigger cuts and slashes against his already damaged frame. But the only thing he could think of at the moment was that they made it.

Jazz was quick to let go of his control over Prowl, who in turn made an effort to sit properly. Though the sudden slamming to his servo made him look down worriedly, moving it slightly to see Jazz leaning on it desperately.

"Prowl-" he heaved, "Prowl put me down I'm feeling sick."

The mech panicked and quickly made move to help the human down, gently placing him on the grass below. Jazz made no effort in being graceful as he hurled over and puked his guts out, luckily avoiding Prowl in all of this.

Clutching his stomach in pain, his heaving and coughs agitating the injuries on his abdomen. Everything around him felt blurry and muffled as his body made sure to get everything he had eaten in the past day out of him.

What made him panic was the sudden taste of iron in his mouth as he coughed up whatever he had left inside. That's not good. And that definitely didn't escape the giant mech's notice, who kept a hovering servo near him.

"Jazz! Is that blood?!" His voice sounded so broken, static lacing over his words.

"Uh- Yeah. Yeah it is." He wasn't sure how to deny that really, and he felt too light-headed to try. But his attention diverted to the sudden pink glow that landed at the side of his vision.

Energon.

Quickly looking up, he finally got a glance at his partner's battered condition. Energon leaked from many different parts of his body, but the main source being from his missing arm. Jazz couldn't help but cringe at that.

But what hurt him the most to see was the weak light from the mech's optics, which still held visible concern on them. Despite being close to going into offline, he still looked at Jazz as if he's about the crumble into dust and leave him. Which he honestly, maybe, felt like. But seeing Prowl's optics flicker as they fought to stay online, Jazz panicked

"What 'bout you?!" He called back, catching the bot off guard. "You're losing too much energon! You look like you're about to go offline!"

Prowl cringed a little, not having anything to counter that. "Well that's because I-"

"No! I'm only a little bit dizzy, but I'll live. We need to patch you up right now!"

"I can help with that."

The new voice catches the duo off guard, Prowl immediately reaching out to Jazz, hand shielding the human from whoever that might be. Jazz looked down from where he was looking at Prowl and turned to see who it was that the voice came from.

There standing in front of them was a human carrying a simple tool box and a huge backpack strapped over one shoulder, filled with questionable things.

---

BEFORE YOU LEAVE, a little something I would like to point out for the fic, that some of yall with either like or not, during the process of writing this, I've seen a few posts keferon made about the spark being radioactive and such, and it sorta made me think a bit while developing Jazz's condition. So well, take Jazz's health in this as you will with this info :)

But anyways, yippie!! That's all for today folks! I hope yall enjoyed this one bc I definitely had a heck of a time writing this one XD

It got alot bigger than I anticipated and took much longer to finish than I originally planned (was supposed to be done 2 days ago).

Now, I know I keep saying "not sure if I'll make another part to this" but then proceed to do so anyways. But I mainly do so because everytime I shared it someone said something that added to the story somehow and gave me ideas to continue foward.

So like, if yall liked this and wanna see more, don't be shy to suggest/add anything to this as it may help inspire me to add more onto this, cuz honestly idk what the fuck I'm doing rn, I'm just going with the flow ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

Also, a bit of note for the doodle, holy shit I did not expect it to look this good!! Tho I suffered with Jazz's suit, plz ignore any inaccuracies tee-hee. Prowl's knee and hands were hell too, especially his knee, but i could like, hide most of it lmao. Actually mainly struggled to not have his hand cover Jazz too much bc it kept covering the parts I actually wanted to show off lmao.

Oh and the guy at the end? Yall can take a good guess as to who it is :)

But since he doesn't have any official design, I kinda went with whatever felt right lol.

I also really wanted to draw out more scenes to add to the fic, but then it would take me a lot more time to actually post the fic as I figure out how to draw robots :'). But maybe I can try and doodle them out another time if I can, no promises tho-

[xerith-42]

Some things we may have forgotten

I've been rewatching MCD and taking extensive notes on it in hopes that I'll never have to watch it again and this is just a list of things that I don't see mentioned or brought up very often/ever that we should talk about and think about more

In the first episode Garroth tries to attack Vylad (angst potential) and Vylad literally just combat locks him by logging out of the game. This is objectively funny and should not be rewritten in any capacity. This should be canon as it is in every universe.

Aphmau's cat Meowki gets randomly killed in Episode 12 by a skeleton while Kiki is right upstairs. Just saying, there's some angst potential there.

In episode 11 Garroth reveals that he knows some medicine. Pretty sure this is never brought up again, but we could always bring it up.

Logan is apparently good with a bow while Zenix is trash at it despite being a self proclaimed "expert archer" which I think is very funny (I know this is part of Zenix's cover but what if we took it seriously it would be so funny)

Zoey is originally from the river village, as is Donna. Pretty sure they retcon that for Zoey, but I like to think the two of them could have been friends before Phoenix Drop.

Garroth actually almost dies in episode 15. Like Dr. Doctor says he will probably die soon at the start of the episode. And he doesn't get healed until episode 20. He literally spends 5 episodes laid up in bed dying.

Brendan's at his side probably angsting the entire time I'm just saying if you want sad gay fanfics, it's sitting right there!

Azura and Garroth were friends as kids??? Hello???? I think this is just a massive plot hole considering what Garroth's actual backstory ends up being asjfgshjdfgjk

Okay but if we twist it a little bit, they were friends as kids as in like at the guard academy??? Bc they're like vaguely teenage/young adult so maybe that's what she means? In which case I wanna think about that more because childhood friends to lovers is one of my favorite romance arcs ever. But is it really childhood friends if you met when you were like... 18?? And you're in your like mid to late twenties probably, I wouldn't really classify that as childhood friends.

WAIT IT GETS WORSE!

I don't... I don't even have a joke here, this is just a massive plot hole. Like all of this is just not true to Garroth's backstory as we know it. Grew up in the same village? You mean O'Khasis?? Where Garroth also FAKED HIS DEATH????

I literally don't know what to say to this I was just trying to find silly little facts to try and incorporate into my rewrite and instead I found a massive gaping plot hole

Moving on, in episode 19 when Aphmau confronts Zenix and they fight, he actually apologizes to her. As if he regrets having to hurt her for the sake of his/the Shadow King's goals.

The Lord of Brightport says the Shadow King "used to be a lord". Which like... Okay, I can bend backwards a few ways to say that he could be referring to how Shad started Falcon Claw, but how the fuck does this dude know that??? I feel like Laurance constantly just stumbling into plot holes by complete accident

Dale is apparently a Garmau shipper, going as far as to ask Aphmau if she plans on hooking up with Garroth. I like to think that he and Molly have a bet going for how long it takes for one of the two of them to finally fess up.

Raven's mom tried to eat him??

Okay then.

[amenalyme]

So I went to Desucon Frostbite!!

So long story short I’d heard good things about artist alleys in Finland and had been trying and failing to get into one for some time. But then by some miracle Desucon finally let me in! so me and my dear friend @kotikaleo went there. It was both of ours first con in Finland and my first time selling outside the Baltics.

This was our table. And ohh did people not lie about the Finnish artist alleys - it was insanely busy I’ve never seen masses like this in front of my table before. I think since the first people came up until the very end of the selling period there was MAXIMUM 5 minutes when there was nobody in front of the table and it took like an hour before we could even get a proper picture

needless to say it was my best sales yet at any event, which is especially insane considering we only had one day for selling. I definitely hope to come back here in the future

Additionally this was all of the stuff I bought

I was really bad at taking usernames this time so alas I don’t have names for most of them (but i can probably find if needed)

But I especially wanna draw attention to the slugcat print and Hunter charm - by @ javicterry on instagram. From what they said they were seen as The Rain World artist at finnish cons and I LOOVEd the initial interaction when they came to our table like “I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE !!!”. We also got to hang out a bit on the second day of the event and after the con and it was really nice. It was my first time seeing someone I didn’t already know selling rw art at a con and I’d been looking forward to that happening. I really hope we can interact more in the future

Speaking of cool finnish rain world artists-

I already showed this before but of course I have to mention it again for this summary post. But I got to meet @excessive-moisture as well!! Since I first did the Moon in a suit cosplay we’d been floating around the idea of meeting at a con at some point since neighboring countries and all so I’m so so happy we actually got to make it happen. I was a bit nervous that the interactions would not go smoothly and it’d just turn into slightly awkward onesided fan behavior on my end but noooo it actually went really really well and it was a nice egoboost to see someone I semi-look-up-to see me as a cool person as well. Holding out hope we can make something happen again in the future

As mentioned I was cosplaying Moon again. I actuallyyyy didn’t get more than a couple pictures and none of them even from myself. The first day I was busy sitting at my artist table and the second day I was busy sitting at various other artist and not artist tables and fighting stomach problems

but here’s the little bit that I do have. Saturday in a suit and Sunday with the regular white cloak Moon

(I forgot to put on the gloves in that one but shhhh)

I wish Id had the energy to walk around more but its fine i still had a good time for the most part

Also no smooth transition for this one but here’s also a collection of art exchanges between some people, including myself!

I just thought it was cool :) theres a few more things that arent visible bc they were either on other sketchbook pages or the person wasn’t there at that moment

ANYWAY the event was really great im so glad i went. Probably going to stay as one of my top favorite con experiences for a long time. I hope to be back someday, at least at other cons in Finland! As for general cons I currently have no confirmed ones for the future but I applied to and hope to be at J-Tsoon 6 in Tallinn 🇪🇪 and Comic Con Baltics in Vilnius 🇱🇹 in spring!

[purpledisastertwin900]

For all of the “Raph raised himself AND his brothers” fans out there I bring this train wreck of a thought (I’m a lil sleepy so sorry if it doesn’t make sense or if I repeat myself a lot-)

We do not in fact have any actual evidence that splinter was neglectful to the boys when they were little. In fact, we have the opposite.

All of these flashbacks indicate that Splinter acc spent a LOT of time with his boys-

With Mikey, he was obviously coached in his art, a smol child can’t paint like that no matter how talented they are so we can see that splinter put in the time/effort to get Mikey the supplies and teach him how to do it well. Which probably means he researched and learned it himself first, idk I just can’t really see Yoshi knowing how to paint/draw that well but that’s just a theory.

With raph and Leo, their lemonade stand is structurally sound: obviously not put together by an 8 year old, and there’s a lotta lemons lyin around that were probably a bit difficult to find, and just LOOK at their faces here they are definitely familiar with this kind of father/son shenaniganizing-also just LOOK at raph. That’s a happy child, one full of excitement and happiness, not a kid who had to grow up too fast. Also his dad is literally right there in the picture

And then with Donnie, I can’t really tell what he’s doing in the background (it’s a bomb) but what i take from that screenshot is that Donnie feels safe/loved enough to come to Splinter when he gets hurt. And Splinters taking care of him!! And, Donnie is wearing clothes, which shows that he went out and got clothes for them but also didn’t force the boys to wear them if they didn’t want to (see other screenshots lol) which also goes to show that he lets his boys choose who they wanna be and what they wanna do. At any point he could’ve forced all of them to train as ninja, at any point he could’ve made clothes mandatory, and at any point he could’ve forced them to drop things that made them happy like skating or science or art but nah. He was supportive every step of the way.

Now am I saying he was perfect? No. Am I saying he couldn’t have done anything better? No. What I’m saying is that Raph acc did not have to raise himself and his brothers. Splinter acc gave them a pretty good childhood, all things considered and it kinda makes me sad when ppl bash Rise Splinter or continue the neglectful parent trope. Again, I’m not saying he did everything right, he def could have spent more time with his kids on an individual basis and he should’ve been more present, but let’s cut him some slack bc he did a really good job at raising the boys. And he got so much better as the show progressed! But that’s another post lol. I’m also not trying to take away Raphs oldest sibling syndrome, he still def has that from being the leader and watching his bros while splinter was away-I’m just saying he didn’t have to do it ALL alone.

Look in the end he’s doing his best and his best was really good for what they had. He’s a good dad, he’s not neglectful.

[prozacwhorehouse]

snl!gf being matthews hairdresser…a silly little blurb i had to get out of my mind

I’m going to sound so stupid if I’m wrong but I’m prettyyy sure Matthew got a haircut because it looks more tame in recent pics I’ve seen…so here are my thoughts on his comedian girlfriend forcing him into chopping it

You probably bring it up like “dude your hair is a MESS please do something about it��� and he’s like “whats wrong with it :( “ and youre like king look how wispy and dead your ends are

He doesn’t give in until you threaten not to play with his DEAD hair. He wants you to do it because no matter how silly he is, getting a public haircut where people can gawk in the windows is a little TOO silly. Youre like “bad idea man it’s prob going to look worse than it does now” and he’s like “please 🙂” and thats all it takes! He’s sat in front of you and youre lightly tugging at pieces of his hair to snip away and boy is eating it upppp. He’s literally in heaven, he’s never having anyone else cut his hair ever again. the final product being perfect is a small bonus to the intimate moment he gets to share with you

I’m picturing him out by himself (as he always is, he’s so nonchalant) and some fans stop him in the street and they do the typical omg love your show such a big fan routine and then they mention his haircut and he’s like “thank you! my girlfriend did it for me! :)” and he’d like do a dramatic hair flip like the diva he is.

Honestly I don’t think he’ll ever be like y/n this y/n that..I think you guys like to keep the fans semi on their toes and not specifically name drop each other…and he just loves being able to say “my girlfriend” in sentences. What can I say he hasn’t gotten to say it often in the past! Considering how increasingly reliant we’ve become on the media since his dating era, he gets more chances to say it and get it out thereeee

Anyways the fans are like “what made you cut it” and hes like “she said I looked like a prehistoric wooly mammoth, which i was completely flattered by until she clarified that she meant in a not good way - so I let her go to town with some like, kids crafting safety scissors, and I think it came out really nice!” he beams, so proud to show off his new haircut from his girl!!

Soon enough the media gets their hands on MULTIPLE clips of him explaining how you were the one who cut his hair, (because every time someone asks he gives them the entire story and doesn’t fail to mention your involvement) and comments on those videos are all like:

The way he lit up when he got to talk about her omg 🥹🥹

Why am I crying over a haircut this is so intimate

He is so in love with her it makes me sick 💔

Neither of you quite understand why this thing is going so viral bc it’s just a haircut?? But tbh it makes sense because being a famous comedian in this day and dating a famous 2000s actor who had stepped out of the spotlight for a bit gives something the young people and the adults so like yeah

Then low-key I can see it becoming a bit. Like Marcello posts a selfie in a bald cap he had to wear for a sketch with the caption “she did mine too, want a refund…@y/nforreal” and then your other coworkers catch on…John ben and Martin all post up with the most insane wigs and caption “we asked @y/nforreal for low taper fades…this is what we got ” and you’re commenting on all them like ENOUGH this is MISINFORMATION

[fanfics-and-love]

Reclaiming a Legacy

Ghostface!Amber Freeman x reader

Not my gif

Warning(s): canon typical violence, mentions of death, mentions of blood

Word count: 4k words

Summary: You knew someone was behind the new ghostface kills, but you could have never guessed it was your girlfriend, and that the reason behind everything was you, and your past

Request: Can you write something with ghost face amber x reader. ask

A/N: I wanted to give my girl Amber a better motive bc she deserves it✨

masterlist

You knew your girlfriend was a bit of a bitch sometimes, but never a murderer. Sure, she was rude and probably lacked common decency, but when you two were alone, she was kind and sweet.

There was no way she could be ghostface.

And that was what you told Mindy, after the third time that day in which she had questioned you about Amber.

“Mindy,” you said, exasperated. “I love you. I really do, but if you keep insinuating my girlfriend is a killer I’m going to kick your ass.”

“I’m not,” Mindy said, in a tone that told you she was actually aiming at that, toeing the question but not saying it out loud. “I’m just saying, out of all of us…”

“It can also be the nerd obsessed with horror movies who’s related to one of the legacies,” you shot back. “Or the big sister that has suddenly come back after years of no contact. It can be anyone.”

“Sure thing,” Mindy said, rolling her eyes. “But if anyone would want to kill Wes…”

“No one would want to kill Wes,” you said, slamming shut your locker. “He was a good kid. No one held grudges against him. He was chosen because life isn’t fucking fair.”

You cleared your throat when you noticed kids around the hall staring at you. Great, you were going around school screaming about the unfairness of life; as if you needed people to suspect you and your group of friends more.

“Okay. Sorry,” Mindy said, putting a hand on your shoulder. You almost shook it off, still pissed off at her, but with everything that was going on you weren’t sure who could be the next victim, so instead you hugged her.

“I’m sorry too,” you said, pulling away. “It’s just— everything is too stressful. I can’t stand it.”

“I get it,” she said. “I’m sorry. I just want to discover who the fucker is so we can all be safe.”

“It’s okay,” you said. “I’m gonna hang out with Amber and help her with the party, so I’ll see you later. ‘Kay?”

“Okay,” she kissed your cheek. “Be safe.”

“You too.”

━━━ • 𖥸 • ━━━

“Stop fucking in my couch, horny fuckers,” Amber said, pushing two kids away from said couch.

The party was in full swing, almost everyone from school within Amber’s house walls. You thought of Wes, and how he’d take people remembering him with a party. He would have probably hated it, but it had been Amber’s idea, and it was hard to convince her not to do something once she had put her mind to it.

“Hey,” you said, glad you had finally found your girlfriend. It was hard to miss her, considering her attitude filled every room she was in, but parties like the ones she threw were so overwhelming even she could easily disappear in the crowd.

“There you are,” Amber smiled, shortening the distance between the two of you. She rested the red cup in her hand on the coffee table and wrapped her arms around you, nose caressing your neck. “Mm… I’ve missed you,” she said, pulling away to give you a kiss.

“You just saw me,” you giggled, standing on your tiptoes to give her another kiss. She smiled, pulling you even closer to kiss your cheek.

“What? Can’t I miss my girlfriend?” She raised an eyebrow, looking deeply into your eyes.

“Of course you can,” you said, wrapping your arms around her neck. She rested her head on your neck, kissing it softly. “What got you so happy?”

“I’m throwing a party and I have you in my arms,” Amber said, pulling away. There was a glee in her eyes that made your bones chill. “What else could I want?”

“A lot, actually,” you said. Despite how close you two were, it was still somewhat hard to hear her over the music coming from the kitchen. “A million dollars, three hundred puppies, world peace…”

“Nah,” she said, smirking. “I still prefer you.”

You blushed at that, kissing her again. “You dork.”

“A dork you love making out with.”

“That I do,” you smiled, tangling your hands into Amber’s hair as she put her lips on yours.

“You’re so hot,” she said, kissing your jaw. You moaned, tilting your head to the side to give her more space. “Fuck. I love you, baby,” she said. Her voice was sweet and velvety, just like how it was when she talked with you on the phone. You loved these moments where she was vulnerable; it made your heart skip a beat.

“I love you too,” you said. Amber was kissing your neck again, and you tightened your hold on her hair when she began to suck on your neck.

“You do?” She asked, pulling away. You were a little taken back by the sudden movement. “You love me?”

“Wha— of course I do,” you said, looking into her eyes. There was something there, swimming with the glee in the brown waves of her irises, something that made you want to run away from her arms. Instead, you pulled her closer. “I love you.”

“Even if I was the killer?” You tensed, trying to step away from her. She shook her head, dragging your body into hers. “Would you?”

“What the fuck, Amber?” You asked. Mindy’s voice came into the front of your mind; Do you think your girlfriend is capable of killing someone? “Are you for real?”

“Of course not,” Amber said, kissing your forehead. She sighed in anger when she noticed you were still tense. “Relax, babe. I’m just fucking with you.”

“Don’t joke about things like that, Am,” you said, resting your head on her shoulder. “It’s not funny.”

“Jesus,” she said, stroking your back. “Don’t be such a bitch. I was just playing.”

“Let’s just drop the subject, alright?”

“You haven’t answered my question,” Amber said. She was swaying you softly, and the motion was helping lower your frantic heartbeat. “Would you?”

“Uh?” You raised your head.

“Would you still love me if I was the killer?”

“Fucking hell, Amber.”

“Would you?” She repeated. You remembered those random questions she would sometimes ask, out of the blue— would you still love me if I was a worm? Would you still love me if I took shits the size of cars? Would you stay with me if I lost all my teeth?

But that question… it felt different somehow. Like a test you weren’t even aware you were taking.

Would you still love her if she was ghostface?

“Of course I would still love you,” you said, hoping it was all just one of those times she would ask stupid questions.

She smiled, all perfectly lined white teeth popping out in glee. You were taken aback by her happiness, and even more when she pulled you into a passionate kiss. It left you breathless. When she moved away, you could still see the happiness dancing in her face. She looked like a kid that had gotten away with stealing a cookie from the kitchen while their parents weren’t watching.

“Oh, look,” she said, moving away from you. You were momentarily confused at the loss of her warmth. “Tara is here.”

━━━ • 𖥸 • ━━━

The phrase “Welcome to act three” changed your life. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, you thought as you hid from your girlfriend, Liv’s blood still fresh in your face. You had plans for the future, in which you moved into the city with Amber, and graduated college, and then got a nice job and got married. You couldn’t have planned for this. Who would?

Amber was ghostface. And you had been too blind to see the truth. If you made it out alive, you knew Mindy would never shut up about it.

How could you have been so goddamn stupid?

“Y/N.”

You turned to your side, seeing Sam kneeling beside the sofa, hiding away from Amber as she dragged someone into the kitchen. Sam raised her hand and gestured for you to go with her, and you did without even thinking. When you reached the older girl, you grabbed her arm, looking into her eyes.

“Fucking hell,” you said. You couldn’t even blink; it felt like your eyelashes had been glued to your face.

“Sh,” Sam whispered, moving closer. You could see her hands were shaking as she looked around. A gunshot was heard, followed by a ringing so deafening you closed your eyes as you covered your ears, cradling your face in your hands. “Fuck.”

“She killed someone else,” you said, still trying to wrap your mind around how she meant ghostface and also Amber.

“Ri—” Sam took a deep breath. “Richie. I— I heard his voice right before— before she—”

“Fuck,” you said. “Sam…”

“Y/N,” Amber called from the kitchen in a singsong voice. “Baby, where are you?”

Sam put her hand over your lips, pulling you closer into the sofa, as if it would magically cover the two of you. You saw Amber enter the living room, wearing the infamous ghostface robe. A chill went down your body at the sight of the blood on her face.

“Baby—”

Tara appeared then, hitting Amber with one of her crutches. Sam went quick into action, getting up and kicking away the gun that had fallen on the ground.

“Bitch,” Amber said, grabbing a handful of Tara’s jacket and pushing her away. You ran towards the girl, helping her sit up. Tara had fallen face first, and it looked like she had broken her nose, judging by the blood running down her chin.

“Fuck you,” Sam said, grabbing Amber and throwing her to the ground. She eyed the gun the same time Amber did, but you knew Sam was cursed; she had pushed Amber right into where the gun was.

“Not so fast, bitch,” Amber said, gun in hand. Sam moved to stand in front of Tara, and all you could do was stare at your girlfriend. “Baby,” she said, turning to look at you. “Come here.”

“Am—”

“Come here,” she repeated, voice sweet. You could see her finger, pressing harder onto the gun’s trigger. If you didn’t move fast, she was going to shoot Sam.

“Okay,” you said, raising your hands. You walked towards Amber, allowing her to grab your arm and turn you around, pushing you into her body.

“Ah. Much better,” she smiled, kissing your cheek. “Now we just have to wait for the bitch to show up. I’m guessing she’s close, right, Samantha?”

You saw Sam’s hand hold tighter on her phone. “How do you know about Sidney?”

“Oh, honey,” she laughed. “If Sidney is anything, it is predictable. I’m guessing she has already figured out whose house is this, and is coming with Gale to save the day, as always.”

“You’re sick in the head,” Tara said. Blood was still dripping from her face, and you were thankful when Sam held her; she looked like she was going to pass out.

“Haven’t you heard, Tara?” Amber asked. She was pushing you away from them and towards the stairs, her grip on your shoulders so hard you knew it would bruise. “We all go a little mad sometimes.”

“Fuck you,” Tara said. You admired her— she could barely stand still yet she was facing off a killer with a gun in hand; you, instead, did nothing as she manhandled you around the house. If only you could do something to stop her…

“Fuck me?” Amber laughed. “You little shit. I kept you alive and this is how you repay me?”

“Should’ve killed me,” Tara said. The girl looked terrifying, with a bloody mouth and eyes opened wide.

“Okay,” Amber said, aiming the gun towards Tara. You watched as her finger pulled the trigger, and didn’t think twice before slamming your body against her, pushing her into the ground. The bullet hit the ceiling instead of Tara’s forehead. “What the fuck?”

“Run!” Sam said, rushing towards your side to pull you up. With your help, she carried Tara upstairs, where you hid in one of the guest rooms.

“Holy shit,” you whispered. You were leaning against the door, breathing fast. “I can’t believe— fuck.”

“How are you?” Sam asked, always the protector.

“How am I? Look at Tara. I think she’s got a concussion.” Sam turned around to see her sister lying on the bed. She was resting on the side, and even though her nose had stopped bleeding, she still looked too out of it. “We should hide her,” you said.

“What?”

“We can’t stay here,” you said. You could hear the front door opening, and Amber screaming. What the hell was she doing? “She’s going to come looking for us. Tara can barely move. She needs to stay somewhere hidden.”

“She needs a fucking hospital,” Sam said, harshly.

“Yeah, but she can’t really get help until we stop Amber. She might kill the people in the ambulance.”

“Okay,” Sam nodded, swallowing hard as she looked at her sister. Running a hand through her hair, she looked around. Soon enough, your eyes met. “The closet,” you said at the same time.

You heard gunshots, followed by a door being slammed shut. You looked at Sam, and took a deep breath. “Take care of Tara.” You ran downstairs, closing the guest room’s door behind you. You hoped Sidney and Gale were okay, and that everything was over. Instead, someone dressed in a ghostface costume greeted you on the last step, making you almost fall.

“Hello, Y/N,” ghostface said. He was using a voice changer. “Fancy seeing you here.” Ghostface pushed at your legs, making you trip. When the person grabbed you by the waist and pushed into their chest, you knew immediately who it was.

“Amber,” you said. You felt tears in your eyes as you walked into the kitchen. Richie —holy shit, Richie was the other ghostface— was holding down Sidney. When he saw her, he threw her another piece of rope.

“Tie her up and go find Samantha,” Amber said. Without even looking at you, she tied your hands together.

“I’m fucking trying,” Richie said. The rope in his hand was being wrapped around Sidney’s hands. What the fuck were they doing?

“Jesus, you’re useless,” Amber said, taking off her mask. “I’ll fucking do it. Go find that bitch before she ruins everything.” Richie nodded, but still stayed until Sidney’s hands were tied. Only then did he leave, pushing the woman into Gale’s body. You followed shortly after, falling into the two injured girls.

“You won’t win,” Sidney said. You were momentarily surprised by her calmness, but of course, she was Sidney Prescott; she had probably gone through worse at the hands of ghostface and survived to tell the tale; this was probably a normal Tuesday night for her.

“Shut the fuck up,” Amber said, raising her gun.

“You never win,” she went on. “You think you do, then you make some mistake and it all goes to shit. I’ve seen it happen before, four times. It’s better if you just untie us and let us call the police.”

“I’m gonna win,” Amber said, moving closer to her. “I’m going to fucking win, okay?”

“Don’t do this to yourself,” Gale spoke. It petrified you how scared she sounded. Was this really the way you died? “You could be the first ghostface that doesn’t die. I could write about you.”

“And what? Call me the bitch that killed your ex-husband while I rot in prison?” Amber laughed. “No, I don’t think so.”

“You really want your girlfriend to see you die?” Gale asked. You were taken aback by her words. Of course she would go for manipulation, she was a writer after all. It surprised you when you saw Amber hesitate, lowering her gun slightly as she looked at you with dark brown eyes.

“I’m doing this for her,” she smiled then, all doubt cleared from her face.

“Ah, so that’s your motive,” Sidney said, sounding annoyed. “Love. I think that’s a new one.”

“You shut your fucking mouth,” Amber said, aiming the gun back at Sidney.

“Here she is,” Richie said in a singing voice. You heard struggles, and then he entered the kitchen, dragging Sam with him.

“Perfect,” Amber said. “What about Tara?”

“Passed out in the bed,” Richie said. Sam groaned in pain as she was pushed to the floor in front of you. “Tied her up and locked the door. Caught this one,” he kicked Sam on the stomach “trying to hide her.”

“Aw,” Amber said, in a mocking soft voice. “Aren’t you the perfect sister?” Richie laughed at her words, stepping away from Sam.

“Time for the big finale,” Richie said.

“Tara is tied up, then, right?” Amber asked. Richie nodded, a gleeful look on his face. “And Chad is gone too?”

“A bullet between the eyes,” Richie laughed gleefully.

“Good,” Amber said. The next second, she shot Richie in the head. All four of you stared in shock. Your ears ringed, and you weren’t sure if it was because of the loud gunshot or the sight in front of you. Richie fell to the ground, blood seeping out of his head and mouth. You almost threw up at the sight of his gray matter laying on the ground. “Now, the real finale,” Amber smiled, turning back to you. “Who wants to die first? Uh?”

“Me,” you said, sitting up straighter. It was about time you were the brave one.

“Oh, baby,” Amber said, chuckling softly. “No. No, you’re not going to die. You and I are going to survive, and we’re gonna be the final girls.”

“Jesus,” Gale said. “Are you out of your mind? All of this for… for what? To be the new Romeo and Juliet?”

“Romeo and Juliet die at the end, you dumb bitch,” Amber said. “No. This is about Samantha.”

“My father,” Sam said. Even though you couldn’t fully see her, the sadness was clear in her eyes. It wasn’t fair, all the guilt she would carry with her if she made it out alive.

“Yes,” Amber nodded. “Your father, your grandma… you have a pretty crazy family, Samantha. Once this is over, all we have to tell the cops is that you wanted to live up your father’s legacy. Once they took a look at your pills and therapist notes, there’ll be no questions about who’s the killer.”

“There’s always two ghostfaces,” Gale said.

“And the other one is right there,” Amber pointed at Richie’s body. “You convinced your boyfriend to kill those people as an act of love, and he did. Good thing I was there to stop you before you killed Y/N.”

Sidney laughed, looking at Amber with almost pity in her face. “And why would Y/N be Sam’s target? Just because? For this to work, it’d have to be Tara.”

“No, no,” Amber said, shaking her head. “You’re not taking everything into consideration.”

“We’ve been through this before,” Gale said. “You think you can outsmart us?”

“I’ve already done it,” Amber said. “Because I know something you don’t. Something that explains everything,” she shook her head, smiling. She looked crazed.

“Jesus,” Sidney said. “You’re even worse than Jill. Stop with the dramatics.”

“Y/N is Stu Macher’s daughter.”

“What?” Gale asked, looking at you. You felt as confused as she did.

“Amber, what the fuck are you talking about?” You asked.

“Stu is—”

“In an asylum,” Amber said. Something shifted in Sidney’s face, something that told you she already knew. “Locked up for years. I know what you’re gonna say,” she chuckled. “How could he have a daughter?” Amber kneeled down beside Sidney. “That’s what I told myself for months when I saw the papers. I thought, “but how? It’s not possible”, until I realized that it could be pretty easy to explain since Y/N’s mom is a psychologist.”

“What is with people in this town and leaving important documents just laying around?” You murmured.

“You can’t be serious,” Sidney said, interrupting you. “How…?”

“Why do you think she got fired?” Amber looked at you. “For sleeping with a patient. With Stu. C’mon, Sidney, I thought by now you were used to secret family members appearing out of nowhere.”

“So that’s it?” Gale asked. “You find some papers and you decide to start killing people?”

“No!” Amber said. You flinched at the scream. “No. Of course not. I had to check everything. This was too big to just say unless I knew for sure. So I investigated, and once I was sure, I searched for a partner online. Someone who would appreciate this plot. Someone who would know how important Stu Macher being alive truly was,” she eyed Richie, on the ground with blood slowly escaping his body.

“Plot? This isn’t a fucking movie!” Gale said.

“It will be, one day. The two daughters of the first Woodsboro massacre killers, facing off each other. Isn’t it perfect?” Amber turned to look at Sam. “Spoiler alert, you lose.”

“You’re sick in the head,” Sidney said. “You know the danger you’re putting her in? People are going to chase her like they will with Sam.”

“But Sam doesn’t have me,” Amber said. “I’m always going to be there to protect Y/N. Always.”

“Not if I kill you,” Gale said. Within a second, she was up, taking advantage of the surprise movement to throw Amber to the ground. Sidney got up next, grabbing a knife to cut the rope, and Sam, to your surprise, ran out of the kitchen and upstairs. You watched everything unfold before your eyes landed on the gun that had once again fallen.

“Stop!” You screamed, gun in hand as you pointed it at the three women. 

Amber had Gale by the hair and Sidney had the knife in her hand, raised to stab Amber in the chest.

“Baby,” Amber said, pushing Gale into Sidney’s body. “Lower the gun.”

“Y/N,” it was Sidney this time, looking at you hesitantly. As if you were going to shoot her. Were you? “Don’t listen to Amber. You can’t be sure.”

“I would never lie to her,” Amber said. She turned her face to look at you. “You know I wouldn’t. You know it, baby. I’ve told you nothing but the truth.”

Your hands shook, but you didn’t lower the gun.

“I love you,” Amber said, in that soft voice you only heard late at night, head pressed on her neck while she ran her hands through your hair. “I’ve done this for you, so you could be the new Sidney— so you wouldn’t have to live under the shadow of Samantha.”

“Am…”

“She’s lying,” Gale said. “Once this is over, the moment you do something she doesn’t like you’ll be next.”

“I’d never hurt her,” Amber said through gritted teeth, grabbing Gale by the shirt. “I’ve done nothing but take care of her.”

You knew your time was running out. Sam had probably opened the guest room upstairs already, and once she was done checking in on Tara, she would come back, more than likely with a weapon. She would be ready to kill Amber, and Sidney and Gale will help her.

Did you want them to kill her? Was it an honor reserved just for you?

Were you going to kill everyone but Amber, and save her?

You weren’t sure, not as you closed your eyes and took a deep breath, getting ready for your next move. Still, you pulled the trigger and hoped to god you had made the right choice.

[ginho001]

hiiii bestiieee *pretend we're at a sleepover* tell me ur inhun headcanons ur currently obsessed with <3333

sleepover bestie I’m so sorry this took me days to reply to HORRID of me truly HORRID

in-ho’s nervous habit is biting on the inside of his cheek.

despite appearances, in-ho was actually the one who smoked pot in college. the hardest thing gi-hun is touched is liquor

sidenote to above but when in-ho finds this out they have a very sexually charged shotgunning session. (green courtesy of Thanos probably)

I like to think that like LJJ does irl, gi-hun constantly wrings his hands and fingers. However I think he does it while he’s idle. when he’s stressed he’s pretty still, we know from s1 he has the freeze response so boom evidence for ya

ok hear me out for this one chat but I think in-ho would have a tattoo. just a little one from an idiot time in college or like his late wife’s favorite flower or something, something he just slaps a bandage over in a bathhouse and is good. Maybe on his obliques or smth

as in-ho is a fan of reading, I think he is secretly a very big fan of heavily rehearsed and role-played sex things. for example like meeting gi-hun in a bar and acting like strangers and having a “one night stand” despite being married for like 3 yrs lmao.

alr gi-hun back to u hunny no u ain’t escaping me. I think gi-hun has a really sensitive nose. Like not hannibal lecter nose but like leftovers in the fridge that smell fine to in-ho gi-hun will throw away based on smell. Just a lil quirk he has 🤭 bc of this I think he has a lil bit of in-ho sweat kink he will take to the grave

gi-hun wears flowy shorts sometimes when he’s like mopping or cleaning shit and it looks like a skirt and short circuits in-ho’s brain

despite the show in s2 showing in-ho with virtually no fallout from the shoulder gunshot wound, I think realistically he would have some fallout from it considering his age. it’s not debilitating or anything for him, but when the weather changes or he grabs something a tad too heavy it flares up and hurts him. most the time he keeps it to himself but occasionally gi-hun catches it and treats him for the night w/ a hot bath and massage. in-ho is rlly not a big fan of this at first bc he’s so used to being the caretaker for his partners, but eventually he gets over it and when probed will just tell gi-hun if his shoulder is bugging him.

AND SLEEPOVER BESTIE. NOT THAT YOU ASKED BUT I HAVE SOME ABO ONES TO SHARE. these r a little more nsfw so if that’s not your thing dw about it and scroll! I’ll leave it under a cut ❤️

alpha or beta in-ho is valid to me. in my psycho abo head im a proponent of any bitch can get an omega pregnant idc.

gi-hun has fertility issues, i like to think because of overusing suppressants at some point in his life. all the more surprising for his geriatric ass when in-ho knocks him up 💀

gi-hun wasn’t really aware nests were supposed to take up as much space as he needed, so when in-ho walks into the bedroom one day when gi-hun’s in preheat, he like busts a gut laughing because gi-hun has built his nest on his side of the bed with like a very distinct pillow boundary. They figure it out after tho dw

In my world omega gi-hun has the gihussy and therefore he is a squirter. I said what I said. In-ho loves it idc what y’all say about NONE OF IT

after the 2nd games gi-hun doesn’t cut his hair again, and bc of that gihun baby always gets a hold of it and tugs. It drives him nuts but he can’t bear to cut it because the baby always laughs their head off abt it, which makes in-ho smile too.

in-ho, especially in the case that he’s an alpha, is a hovering nervous parent. Gi-hun has the experience of ga-yeong, but he doesn’t. He got so close to it but never quite got the opportunity, and for the first three months he can hardly let go of baby, he’s so scared something is going to take them away from him. he doesn’t express it verbally ever because he KNOWS he’s irrational, but gi-hun can always get a sense of when he walks in the room, sees gi-hun and baby and gets uneasy. at those times gi-hun always offers to let him hold, or if baby is eating to let him come and watch and support the hold. my precious fuckin babies all of em SOB.

anyways thank u pookies that is all for now ✌️ AGAIN IM SO SORRY FOR THE DELAY IN REPLY

[lynn-tged-posting]

tged webtoon ep 171 spoilers and thoughts but i'm mostly just going "YAY I LIKED THIS MOMENT" and more below the cut

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DEMON KING LLOYD HELLO. HELLO?? WHAT. WHY?? BUT WOW. HOLY SHIT. I REALLY REALLY LIKE THIS

I LOVE WHEN CHARACTERS GAIN WINGS AND HORNS AND . GHGHHGHGHHG AAAHHH ITS MY FAVORITE THING if you didn't already know dragon lloyd was like one of my favorite all-time panels so this is VERY AWESOME FOR ME YAYYY YAAAAYYY HAHAHA

LIKE SERIOUSLY LOOK HE GOT FANGS N SHIT AND. OH MY GODD THE SMOKE SLIPPING PAST HIS LIPS IM SO??? THAT'S SO COOL. I LOVE WHEN THEY DO THAT WITH SMOKE AND MONSTROUS FORMS OF CHARACTERS

genuinely i need to draw this asap. pacing issues aside i am obsessed with how sick this is. i love this a LOT

ok ok back to the top bc theres some stuff i wanna touch on from before demon king lloyd got revealed! because...

"master lloyd taught us". "master lloyd taught us". "master lloyd taught us". "master lloyd taught us".

EXCUSE ME WHAT

YOU'RE TELLING ME THAT OFF SCREEN, LLOYD TOOK TIME OUT OF HIS BUSY ASS DAY. TO TEACH THE KIDS HOW TO PLAY SOCCER. AND THEY HAVE PLAYED ENOUGH TO BE FAMILIAR ENOUGH TO PLAY ON THEIR OWN. WHICH MEANS THAT LLOYD . PLAYED SOCCER WITH THEM . AND WE FIND THIS OUT. NOW?? I. GGHH. THATS SO. CUTE. IM GOING TO BITE HIM. THE FUCKER. WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME

the fact that they go up to ask him im going to EXPLODE?!?!?

he looks so nonchalant abt it here im cryinf

AND LOOK AT THEM GO THIS IS SO SO SWEET IM VERY GLAD LYRA GOT TO PLAY WITH THEM I LIKE THIS A LOT

this scene, and the beginning scene where the adults were just so casual with her and treating her as a living person with feelings and someone that they can talk to was so so heartwarming i oooghhh my heart

AND THEN THERE HE IS. SMILING IN THE BACK. YOU ASS.

I SEE YOU BEING KIND AND EMPATHETIC AND SELFLESS LLOYD. YOU LOST THE NONCHALANT WAR. YOU CAN'T ESCAPE

christ. i fucking HATE him /j /aff

it is also VERY silly that they're so casual abt. destruction like that HELPPP they got it from someone sob sob, though i imagine since most of the estate consists of people who have done construction it probably isnt that big of a deal when things get destroyed every now n then

and lyra looks so damn happy,,, god im so glad she had a good experience, she really needed one :')

also i completely LOST it when the kid got mad at lyra for not responding with a yes or no HELPPP JESUS CHRIST

again they,,, got it from someone HAHA though honestly i think it tracks. kids can be straightforwardly brutal in their language, especially when they don't really have biases or cares for who they are speaking to. as crazy as this instance looks (LMFAO) i think this fits well with the context of the straightforwardness of children and considering the person who they look up to at the estate. i think it was good for lyra to meet a human child her age who can speak straightforwardly and not skirt past things, if that makes sense? i hope it does!

AND THE DEMON KING TRANSFORMATION i already talked abt it above but i wanna point out this blue system box here

a power outside of the system?!?? what does this mean for the protagonist of the new prequel bk_moon is writing?? is the weather forecasting included in this???

my first assumption right now is that the demon king power is just an in-world power system while everything else (ie the weather forecasting) is external, blue-textbox system. maybe? so lloyd got the demon king power which comes with skills separate from the ones that the system can provide? that would explain why there's no indication of lloyd trying to use the weather forecasting, he probably can't use it,,,? except i dont know why artanis can use it in that case. most likely i am overthinking it LMFAO

semi-related, i am a little confused as to why artanis did this? i guess she really, really trusted him w this power? or maybe her weather forecasting noted that this would be something good to do i have no idea,,, it Does feel a bit sudden i won't lie, i'm not sure how earned this is

also javier and everyone else not reacting that much to the demon king status. SENT ME HAHA "... nothing's changed." LOL

deadpan humor never fails to make me giggle ily javier

also loved the moment where the two of them were bein serious for a sec,,, they've got a job to do they've got people to protect. lloyd will stop fate and javier will be right besides him...

i think showing them at emily's wedding really cements how much they really, REALLY need to fight fate now. the novel events happening is very very bad, but it feels like now that so many people, emily especially, have found THIS much happiness in their lives,,, failing to stop fate will hit even harder. i really like the analogy of a taut bow that the dragon king used when he first described it, bc it's really REALLY showing how much the repercussions will hit if they fail. im praying they succeed,,, please,,, i need a happy ending or i will curl up and turn into an actual shrimp irl.

and now the demons have to build the pantara railroad,,, artanis's expression omfg

she really didn't,,, know,,, she trusted him that much,,,, girl,,,

but it's ok. it'll be a net positive trust! that's how lloyd does things!!! and then soon we'll get the happy ending where we can get the eye of summer and beat up fate and then silly fun times YAYY <- probably copium

some other thoughts of note that i had with a dear mutual (hi sprout :3) about this ep:

we were talking about how the plot seems to be paced right now, and honestly i'm of the opinion that while yes its Technically moving, the way they're ending each ep in this current arc makes it feel like it's going both very slow and very fast, that is to say it feels like it's not moving at all

bc they're like "okay NOW we're gonna do the build project" and it's been like that for several episodes now. pieces are moving but we're going past the point of it all too fast (especially the whole demon king thing. mentioned this before but while cool, doesn't feel as earned simply bc we're both tackling each point and yet blowing past all the points, so it's a lot less satisfying than it should be (despite how awesome it is,,, oh lloyd you give me so much internal conflict </3))

it does make me a lil worried that they're gonna timeskip the hell out of the pantara railroad build. however this episode, although it still has a weird pacing/movement issue, does feel a little bit better than the last two imo, so i have hope that it'll turn out okay, that it'll start heading up! i'm actually really excited to see where they go with this and i'm sure that even if the pacing is still goofy i'll have some kind of fun with it (seriously the panels this ep were wonderful HAHA)

anyway that's all for this week! extremely excited for the next ep,,, ill see yall then,,, lets go pantara railroad arc!!!

[wherebettertoescape]

Thoughts on The Outsiders Album

Okay, as I said yesterday, I have a LOT of thoughts on the album and I decided to revive this page so I stop bothering everyone IRL with my thoughts about it 😂 I figure there must be a good amount of people on tumblr who are down to listen to my rants about the album, so here goes.

I'll put it under a cut so there aren't any spoilers for anyone who hasn't listened yet, and I know there's one or two things which I've heard about the prouction via other posts and such. But I will stress that I haven't actually seen it, I've only listened to the album and obsessed over it 😂

It's also below the cut because it's fucking LOOOOONG

Please reply to this or send in your own thoughts - I have so much I want to talk about to do with this album and I'm like... shaking with the need to talk about it with people who actually want to listen 😂

(sad times living in the UK 🥲)

I'm gonna go through the album sequentially, like track by track, because that feels like the thing to do, even though I will say right off that I definitely have more thoughts about some tracks than others. And I will also give my favourite line from each song. But for a just, like, general overview to begin with - I love the album so much?

I will fully admit that I was kinda preparing myself for it to be bad - it's a book that I love and I wasn't the biggest fan of the movie adaptation for a few key reasons, but I was so pleasantly surprised by the musical soundtrack.

I'm in love with the style of music, I love the entire cast (all of them have such different singing voices and styles and I think that they merge together so beautifully), and it has most of the things that I love in a musical - for me, it's got the right balance of the talking sections included with the singing, as well, which I know some people aren't huge fans of, but I might be biased because Soda is and always has been my favourite character and most of the talking is by him 😂 (I love Jason Schmidt, but we'll talk about that later), and as well as that the style of music and singing like gives me a good picture of what the actual choreography might look like, which I'm obsessed with, since I probably won't get to see it unless it somehow gets to the West End (🤞🏻)

Tulsa '67

Okay so this song is just like ✨exposition ✨ but it's done in a fun way, and I've decided it's worth it just for the finale reprise

I was also like stupidly emotional the first time I heard it and it opened with the opening line of the book

I was wary because of the immediate characterisation of Sodapop as being the brother "with a broken heart" (side note - does this mean Sandy broke his heart before the show rather than after it? I've goes QUESTIONS) - I'll go into it again when we get into Grease Got a Hold for obvious reasons, but I was worried that Soda was gonna be reduced into just being a womaniser again, which is something that bothered me about the movie adaptation

Favourite line: "all the girls are pretty there, and all the guys are mean"

Grease Got a Hold

right so it has no right to be as much of a bop as it is, it's been stuck in my head for the past week since it came out and I can't even be mad about it 😂

It's essentially just a typical "gang" song to introduce and characterise all the different members

Dally always saying "Little brother" got me so emotional like immediately

And I know I just said that I was upset with Soda's characterisation as a womaniser, but considering later songs, I will say I do find it really funny that he basically just goes "yeah I'm a greaser bc I love women 😊"

I LOVE TWO-BIT MATTHEWS - I would die for Daryl Tofa, just something soooooo good about the line he gives after Soda's verse

I have to admit, I was a little worried that they were gonna be pushing some anti-Darry propaganda, but I had no cause to worry, as he's an actual angel. Also it's so funny how fucking Done he is the moment he starts speaking

Something really funny about Steve not getting a verse, but something really sad about Johnny not getting one, but I don't have fully fleshed out thoughts yet so I'm gonna leave that there

But also there's just something about all of them trying to act tough, but all of them just have the voices of angels

Favourite line: "I'm a latch-key kid but they keep changing the locks" and also "you wanna be a fighter? then know just what you're fighting for"

Runs in the Family

I'm upset because this song has been such an ear-worm for me, but it's actually just so sad? There are a couple of these, but this is one of the main ones for me

It immediately makes Darry just such a sympathetic character - it's well documented that Ponyboy doesn't feel like he's enough of a greaser, but I don't think we talk enough about Darry is a reluctant greaser

Side note: but I'm really glad that they included Darry having dropped out of school to look after Soda and Pony, because that was kinda glossed over in the movie, which I felt did Darry a disservice

I just want to hug Brent Comer and tell Darry that he's doing a good job and everything will be okay 🥲

Favourite line: "I don't know what them boys would ever do without me - and what would I do on my own?"

Great Expectations

honestly this song deserves a post all of it's own, and maybe one day I'll do a full analysis of it

but in the meantime, it's fucking GORGEOUS, like Brody Grant has NO RIGHT to sound like this I'm so mad

THE FUCKING HARMONIES I WANNA SCREAM THEY'RE SO GOOD

One of the things I've loved about the soundtrack in general is how Pony in particular draws parallels and comparrisons between Johnny and the other greasers - here it's between Darry and Johnny, and I love it because Pony references in the book that he feels like he and Johnny are the outsiders in the greasers, he feels like neither of them really belong there, and they convey that so well in the musical with these constant comparisons in the songs and music

The continual return back to this idea of a self-fulfilling prophechy - trying to prove that they're not all the same just because they're greasers (like with the different verses in Grease Got a Hold), and this striving for individuality despite the overarching label they've been given

Favourite line: "It's hard to write this story, when this story's writing me"

Friday at the Drive-in

they all just sound so young - that's my main take-away from this song

I love songs in musicals like this where you're forced to be reminded how young the characters are and you have to humanise them a bit more - a bit like with "Drink with Me" in Les Mis

Also anytime that a soundtrack includes the dance-break it makes me so happy 🥲

Favourite Line: "Got no more stress, nothing to worry me - no more teacher's pet or trigonometry"

I Could Talk to You All Night

I need to say that I love this song, but the opening from Cherry is so fucking savage - like fucking hell there's no need to do that to Pony 😂

Again obsessed with Pony not feeling like enough of a Greaser

I'm a sucker for two people who feel lost in their own worlds finding each other and bonding because they can be themselves in a way that they can never be around their other friends

It's just such a pretty duet, and I want more of Brody Grant and Emma Pittman singing - we could have a million songs of the two of them and it wouldn't be enough

Favourite line: "I'd rather read then fight a rumble, but Greasers have to go along"

Runs in the Family (Reprise)

Dude it's such a serious song, and I'm obsessed that despite that there's just Soda being a little shit in the background

"I'll fold your laundry - I'LL FOLD ALL OF IT"

I love that even in this song it's like you can tell he's just so worried about Pony but it's coming out so angry and frustrated

So full of grief for the life he almost had

He's just so angry at Pony for still being able to dream, and it's like he feels like he needs to prepare Pony for real life, because he feels like he can't dream or wish for things anymore

And then just the screeching violin at the end of the song followed by DEAD FUCKING SILENCE, and then it switches to the next song where Pony starts singing acapella it's just herugighadlsiughukdhjsak, y'know?

Favourite line: "Whats the use in dreaming, about a life I'll never know? That ship sailed long ago"

Far Away from Tulsa

okay so I've already said that I'm obsessed with it beginning with Brody Grant acapella, and I know that the songs probably don't flow straight from one to the other in the actual production, but for the sake of the cast recording the effect is incredible

But also, there was absolutely no need to make this song so gay 😂 - Ponyboy, the bisexual icon we all need

It's very reminiscent of Santa Fe, with just kids dreaming for a life that they could have outside of their big city. Especially with the line "this place is real, it's not just in my head", which is VERY similar to "just be real is all I'm asking, not some painting in my head", but I'm okay with it because Brody Grant is incredible

But that line, as well as the one "'Ponyboy you're just a dreamer', that's what both my brothers say" are also really great links back to the previous song with the references of him being a dreamer, and that being what sets him apart from the other Greasers

I also just wanna say that I think it's criminal that there weren't more Pony/Johnny duets. Sky Lakota-Lynch and Brody Grant own my soul

Also catch me being emotional over Johnny's dream being wanting a family - he doesn't realise that he's already got one in the gang 🥺 (I could write an essay about this and Dally's continued use of 'little brother')

OKAY ALSO OBSESSED WITH THE CIRCLE BACK TO GREAT EXPECTATIONS, AND WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT HOW THE LYRICS CHANGE FROM

"Torn between what is and what could be. It's hard to write this story when this story's writing me"

TO

"It's all becoming clear, there's no way we're gonna find that here"

GOTTA ESCAPE TULSA TO ESCAPE THEIR FATE, SOMETHING AGAIN ABOUT SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECIES, I JUST CAN'T

Favourite line: "I'm tired of blindly watching as we're inching towards the ground"

Run Run Brother

There's so much to say about this song, but I literally can't formulate the words, so it's probably gonna be one that I come back to and properly analyse later. so in the meantime, here are my key take-aways

right from the beginning, it gives just an "oh-shit" feeling, just so much urgency and desperation

All three of them have such different singing voices and styles and the combination of the three just makes me so happy and I don't even know how to like express what I'm feeling

Back to the thing about Dally always calling Johnny (and Pony, but we're emotional about Johnny here) "brother"

the music is just so fitting - I feel like I need to be up and moving every time I hear it, like if I ran ever this would be on the playlist 😂

And I'm going insane over the echoes of what has been previously been said - the "grease isn't given it's something you earn", and "let's leave this behind, let's just get up and go" like you're FORCED to face that they are being given what they want but in a really terrible way

Favourite line: "I hate to make you go, but there ain't no other way"

Justice for Tulsa

okay so I know that this is a really important song and everything, but I will admit this is the one I tend to skip most

I will say I think this song would hit harder if they kept with the themes of police brutality that there are in the novel and movie with regards to Dally's death (going off what I've heard about the script changes from people who have seen it, I can't verify myself)

The song feels very claustrophobic, with everyone just trying to blame everyone else, which I think is really well done. Especially with the multiple voices coming in with "you know just what you did"

And it does show the bias of the world trying to blame the Greasers just by reputation alone, which is thematically nice

and also just the kinda mob mentality of the whole thing, especially at the end, with a declaration of war

Favourite line: "or we could send them back a message, take an eye for an eye"

Death's at My Door

I think I've seen somewhere that this is the opening song for the second act and I just - fucking hell, what an opener 😂 they really just wanna destroy all of us, huh?

EDIT: I've been corrected, and it's Justice for Tulsa that starts act 2 - my bad guys, I don't know where I saw otherwise. JfT starting act 2 makes soo much more sense 😂

I wanted to like reach through my headphones somehow and hug Brody Grant, like holy shit

The first time I heard it all I could think about was how much he's going to blame himself when Johnny (and Dally) do die - especially with Johnny having comforted Pony about it

And I'm just emotional about the exploration of Pony thinking of himself as a burden on everyone he loves, especially going back to what Darry says to him in Runs in the Family reprise, just confirming everything that Pony already worries about himself

Favourite line: "I don't believe in the death that you're bringing - the reason I'm living is you"

Throwing in the Towel

I just love brothers okay? This song made me want to like message all my siblings and tell them I love them

I loved that we see Pony's inner thoughts and fears about being a burden on his brothers, immediately followed by seeing Darry's own thoughts and feelings - the two of them being so similar in how they blame themselves for everything

All three of the Curtis brothers being terrified of losing anyone else

AND THIS IS THE SODA CHARACTER REDEPTION I NEEDED - he becomes more than just the womaniser, you can see him having like actual thought and feelings, and the amount of emotion in Jason Schmidt's voice as he's trying to reassure Darry, like this song and Soda's letter gets across everything that makes Soda my favourite character

And there's something to be said about how they're finally like communicating their emotions 😂

Favourite line: "I know your head is full of doubt, but brother that's what love is all about"

Soda's Letter

Musical letters my beloved ❤️

I love songs like these - they're always just so vulnerable

It links to Tulsa '67 Reprise with the reference to how Soda kinda keeps the family all together. This song you can like see the strain that it has on him, trying to keep the brothers who he loves so much together, by trying to tell Pony that Darry does love him even though he shows it in a very different way

also anyone who has seen it and made it this far in the post can you tell me whether they keep in the bit about Pony reading this really heartfelt letter only to go "Soda's so dumb he can't fucking spell" because it's all I could think about when I listened to it for the first time

Favourite line: "Your brother needs you just as much as you need him, and brother we ain't doing to good alone"

Hoods Turned Heroes

The triumphant return of my beloved Two-Bit, and he's doing some king shit

I love him, okay?

This is another song where I know it's really important, but I actually don't have much to say about it, other than I do really enjoy it

Favourite line: "It's time to celebrate Greasers, take pride in the Greaser name"

Hopeless War

I love that it's just Cherry begging Pony not to change, and hoping that he's still an outsider of the Greasers like she is for the Socs, a hope that the two of them are still kindred spirits even after everything that happened

She knows that the rumble is gonna be where Pony loses that last bit of dreamer in him because he's holding just so much anger at the world - I dunno, there's something there I'm sure 😂

it's such a smooth transition into "Trouble" and I wanna SCREAM it's so good

Favourite line: "even if you win, it doesn't change a thing"

Trouble

It feels like a war chant or something

The music is just so agitated

It's like Run Run Brother where I feel the need to be up and moving

Favourite line: "Do it for Johnny, even the scores, time to rally the crew"

Little Brother

I get chills every time I listen to it

Something about Joshua Boone's voice guys, I don't even know like how someone goes about beginning to talk about it, but whoever takes over as Dally has got some big shoes to fill

It's a lament to Johnny, and I feel like I listen to it and I feel the same anger and indignation that Dally feels

It's a song where I listen to it and I know, even without having seen the production, how I'd stage it and that always makes me excited

The longer the song goes on, the more uneasy you feel listening to it

It links him and Darry together again, with how he blames himself for everything that happened to his little brother, he feels like he should have been able to protect Johnny, the way that Darry always tries to protect Ponyboy

The final tempo increase and the discordant violin at the end, and it feels like even just listening to it you're watching him fall into a grief-led madness, and his certainty that there's only one way that his story can end

Favourite line: "They can't take anymore from me - if I ain't got you, then I ain't got nothing else"

Stay Gold

It feels somehow criminal to put these songs next to each other, but I mean obviously they have to be - that's how they want you to feel, but it doesn't mean that I'm not mad about it

I've listened to it like a million times and it still brings me to tears every now and then

There's something about having the hopelessness of "Little Brother", with Dally bring so apologetic at having failed Johny, followed by Johnny asking Pony to tell him that there's still good in the world

Just how much everyone in this story needs each other and they don't realise that the others need them too, yknow?

Johnny being Dally's "gold" - a lot to say about that but yknow, this is already long as fuck

The simplicity of the music itself (same as with Soda's letter - makes them thematically the same blah blah blah with them both being letters and all that), but it makes the song much more vulnerable than some of the others - nothing for Sky Lakota-Lynch to hide behind

Also that line: "I have looked into a thankful father's eyes, telling me I've saved his daughters life", and how that links to what Johnny says in the book about the little girl's life being worth more than his - I dunno, it just got me emotional, okay?

Favourite line: "I hold on to the good 'cause I've made my peace with all the bad" and also "It's easy to forget when you're trying just to make it through"

Tulsa '67 Reprise

WE MADE IT BOYS (seriously though, for real, if you made it this far, thanks for reading through my descent into madness 😂 and please send your own thoughts and such, bc I'm desperate to hear other people's thoughts)

I said it at the beginning, but I think the reprise of this song makes the exposition at the beginning worth it

At the beginning we hear Ponyboy as a dreamer, and at the end he still has that, but rather than idolising and making everything spectacular, he sees beauty in the mundane - he sees it in his brothers, his friends, all of that

The call backs to the original song as well, which allow us to go back to the theme of looking at individuality - the Greasers wanting to be seen as more than just characatures, and by the end they are like fully-fleshed out people rather than just the basic stock figures we initially get them introduced as in Grease Got a Hold

The clearest examples are, of course, Darry and Soda

Darry goes from being "could have been a football star, people say he had a ticket out" to instead being "the toughest guy I've ever known"

Soda goes from "suffers from a broken heart" to "this family's life and soul"

and then it goes from "got no parents, we fend for ourselves" to "can you imagine how proud mum and dad would be"

just something so beautiful about that, I dunno

There's more I could say about the themes of brotherhood and individuality ("grease as their disguise", for example), but I'll spare it for now

Favourite line: "Just too damn good for growing old, and in his memory I stay gold"

(finally - if you've stuck around to the end, I've also recently set up an instagram account, just for me, so please also check that out if you wanna hear more about my thoughts about random musicals and stuff!)

Freddie 🐸 (Instagram)

[buckevantommy]

did you dislike the ep in general, or just the lack of tommy and bucktommy?

i have a headache and i should probably rewatch the ep again once I'm feeling physically better before i answer this but having an achy head means my inhibitions are lowered and my brain to mouth filter is taking a nap, so i'ma let loose..

on the one hand: yes of course i'm annoyed there was no hot pilot in the planemergency. i honestly wasn't even expecting any bucktommy scenes, but i thought tommy would be at the airport staging area, or giving updates from his chopper in the air, etc. i am baffled that tim didn't include their resident pilot in this emergency at all; the repelling into the cockpit might be a little bit too insane even for this show, but i really think they could've utilised him in the air traffic control tower from the start - can you imagine tommy telling jem over the radio that he's doing a good job? i can, and my heart melts. 🫠

on the other hand: i get it. it sucks, but i get it. lou is a guest star, this emergency was centred around bathena, there was barely any room in the plot for the 118 let alone other characters. tommy could have been included more easily in the plot imho, but i have to remind myself it probably all comes down to budget and call lists and not wanting to split focus. this is the downside of tv shows unfortunately - it all comes down to money and time limits and star power; were this a book series there would be no excuse not to include tommy, and thus i will henceforth bury myself in fics that do just that. 📚

as for the whole of the ep: ...eh? here's the thing: i really love bathena in the cruise ship disaster so i think having them be the focus of the next disaster is difficult because they can't measure up to that epic chaos and emotional weight in my eyes. i also find it strange that they got the focus of two disasters two seasons in a row, but again: the star power of angela bassett is totally understandable, she really brings it in those disaster scenes and i would love to see her in more roles that balance heavy action and strong emotion bc she is a powerhouse in that dynamic. 💥

BUT - and maybe this comes down to the direction and editing in part - to me, there was a lack of urgency in the plane stuff this ep, which was strange considering all that was going on. i think they ended it too soon and the addition of the fire on the ground didn't really add anything except a fun little scene where buck tried to use a prop hose. it felt kind of.. anticlimactic? i loved the insane shot of bobby standing on the engine meeting the plane nose, but.. *sigh* yeah, i just wasn't on the edge of my seat. i actually prefer the tension and plane plot happenings in 8x02, and when i watched 8x02 live i was a little disappointed, but now i prefer it to this ep. 🛬

i really would've liked to see more of the 118 lending a hand in this emergency. i'm so glad we got as much of buck as we did, and seeing maddie and josh was good too, but.. yeah. that staging video we saw weeks ago of all the engines leaving the hanger just ending up feeling pointless? i was so looking forward to more of the ensemble cast and other firefighter extras helping on the scene, and it seems those potential scenes were traded in for more bathena focus and to me it just wasn't worth the trade. i love their love, but i think tim could've included more characters in the entirety of the planemergency. 🚒

as for athena's ending: returning to the aiport to get a real little black book was odd imho; they could've gone anywhere, and honestly i was kinda hoping for location change, but they were sticking with the theme so i get it. but i really liked the return to the mystery and the impending danger of the case, and the way they tied things up for athena's past was really nicely done, she deserves to have peace and closure and to know it wasn't all for naught. ��

as for the gerrard stuff: unexpected! wonderful! distrubing af! many of us called it, that gerrard would take buck under his wing (re: golf date) and he'd be faced with this new dilemma of no longer being gerrard's target but of being his chosen one; i foresee angst and conflict in buck's future, specifically in his relationship with tommy - who will likely try to warn him against letting gerrard get too close and worrying over him - but also with the rest of the 118 as he reaps rewards he didn't want while they have to continue bearing the weight of gerrard's captaincy and even moreso now that buck is no longer his main target. 🫂

the gerrard stuff is the only real setup we got for upcoming episodes, but i'm curious to see how the planemergency affects brad and moreover his friendship(?)/dynamic with bobby and the hotshots job. we obviously are going to get more henren drama with ortiz and the kids, which will be interesting - i'm really looking forward to getting more ortiz in the plot. eddie and his moustache will feature, looking forward to seeing how he's coping with chris' absence and how that changes. 👀 lots of good stuff to come and i'm looking forward to all of it and to putting this planemergency behind me (however: the beenado will live on in my heart forever 🐝🌪️).

[biconickyoshi]

Okay y’all… I was very critical of eps 3 & 4 (especially 4) of NAtLA. Then all of a sudden eps 5 & 6 kinda slapped me in the face with how much better the show suddenly got.

Spoiler-free thoughts first:

Zuko, Iroh, and Aang have cemented themselves as the best parts about this adaptation - which is really funny considering I’m currently writing a longfic AU where Zuko and Iroh discover Aang in the iceberg right after Zuko is banished at age 13 and end up becoming the first members of the Gaang (albeit reluctantly at first lol). Episode 6: “Masks” (the Blue Spirit adaptation) was so good, I’d venture to say that it actually improved and fleshed out some things from the original series.

Episode 5: “Spirited Away”, while not as good as E6, was not as bad as I heard people say it was going to be. I think that the changes they did make didn’t bother me nearly as much as the changes they made in the last episode, and it was actually entertaining.

There were several scenes that made me cry in both of these episodes (moreso in episode 6, which I’ll get into further down in the spoiler section). These are the scenes that I feel like really tapped into the heart of the original show rather than feeling like a soulless remake.

Now for my in-depth thoughts (INCLUDES SPOILERS):

EP 5: “Spirited Away”

- Staring out, I was bummed because I had just rewatched the first two eps of the original animated series lol.

- It was an interesting choice to have all three members of the Gaang get stuck in the Spirit World, but I think it worked.

- Wan Shi Tong just showing up randomly was a bit unnecessary, but I suppose it will be kinda interesting to see him again in S2 since he’s already met the Gaang

- Hei Bai plays a much smaller role in these eps, but I strangely didn’t mind that either?

- Seeing Katara’s last memory with her mom was devastating, especially the fact that she had to witness her death and hide in the igloo with Kya’s charred body :(( she definitely has severe PTSD.

- Even Sokka’s memory made me tear up a bit

- Koh being the villain and a soul-eater or whatever was a bit of an odd choice, but I guess I can see why they did it. I do prefer him just being an asshole who steals ppl’s faces lol

- Appreciated the Fog of Lost Souls reference from the LoK lore

- Aang reuniting with Gyatso made me cry. I know some people didn’t like him being in the Spirit World, but I really liked it. Also, the fact that Gyatso was the first person to tell Aang that it wasn’t his fault the Air Nomads died, and that if he had been there he would have died too? THANK YOU! My poor boy has been berated enough for “abandoning” the world.

- We got some interesting lore about the afterlife for humans from Gyatso and Aang’s convo, which we’ve never gotten in AtLA media before. Idk if it’s just for Air Nomads, but Aang mentions that Gyatso stayed behind instead of “seeking enlightenment”. I know that the end goal in Buddhism is to reincarnate until you eventually achieve nirvana, so I wonder if that’s what they were alluding to (I’m not an expert on religions so pls correct me if I’m wrong)

- Oh yeah, I forgot June is here lmao. As a queer person I loved her (bc beautiful goth woman) but I didn’t like the weird choice to make her hit on Iroh - I guess to contrast the Iroh being creepy towards her thing in the OG series. I wish they would have just had them interact normally tbh, no weird “flirting”

EP 6: “Masks”

- Here we go y’all. The best episode in the show so far and probably the best the show is gonna get this season. I’m still pretty shocked at how good this one was.

- I think the decision to include flashbacks to Zuko’s Agni Kai was a good decision here. It felt like an appropriate episode for them and the flashbacks were very well done.

- In general, Dallas is doing a phenomenal job at portraying a Zuko who is angry and aggressive, yes, but also so very sweet and compassionate at his core. I love when little inklings of his true self shine through.

- Roku was… not what I expected. He was very much more of a lighthearted and jokey person… I didn’t hate it, it was just unexpected lol. I wonder if they did that to contrast him with Kyoshi. Which, speaking of, I’m glad Roku clarified that Aang doesn’t just need to be a merciless warrior (and that he didn’t berate Aang for “abandoning” the world like she did). But I still am annoyed about the mischaracterization of Kyoshi in general.

- RIP Shyu :/

- Thought it was kind of strange how June captures Aang at Roku’s temple lol. Like how did she get on and off the island??

- Zhao continues to feel like a completely different character to me lmao. I think this version is pretty funny, but it’s so weird to see Zhao being portrayed as so goofy and incompetent when he was such an intimidating force and the main villain of Book 1 in the OG series. Just a weird direction they went with his character.

- The Yuyan archers look cool as fuck. 10/10 no notes

- Still not sure how I feel about Azula already being this insecure and jealous of Zuko. I think it makes her feel a bit more realistically like a child, but the whole point of Azula’s character is that she is really good at maintaining this cool and calm persona on the surface, which she uses to scare and manipulate people. I can see her maybe getting to a point later on to where she hardens herself into that though. We’ll see.

- Baby Zuko asking Iroh how he looks and his little smile 😭😭😭😭 I had a physical “aww” reaction to that. THAT’S MY SON (me and Iroh shouting in unison)

- War Room scene was handled very well. No complaints. I like how Ozai tried to test Zuko with battle strategies.

- Blue Spirit break out scene was extremely close to the original, and it was really good. They adapted it almost shot for shot with all the important parts.

- Here’s probably my favorite part of the episode: Zuko and Aang’s talk inside the abandoned house after they escape from Pohuai!!!!!! Gahhhh I could gush about this scene all day. I love how they expanded it to be an actual friendly conversation between Aang and Zuko. Like we get to see Zuko’s true self coming through - the sweet, kind boy we know he is. Zuko and Aang just have such great chemistry as well, wayyy more than Aang has with either Sokka or Katara. Like I adored them bonding over painting and caligraphy!!! I think this is the best acting we’ve seen from Gordon so far, and Dallas did a phenomenal job switching back to that hurt, angry version of himself (of course a trauma response). And the fact that Aang said “sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you” when he blocked Zuko’s firebending attack??? My sweet boy 😭

- The final flashback to the Agni Kai was really well done too. I’d already heard Zuko fights back, which I wasn’t sure I’d like, but I actually didn’t mind it. I really liked that they showed Zuko’s hesitation whenever he did actually have an opening, and that was what angered Ozai the most - Zuko showing compassion, “weakness”. Daniel Dae Kim is of course doing a phenomenal job (no surprises there), and I really liked that Iroh actually attempted to stop Ozai at one point. It also looked like young Azula had tears in her eyes, which I again actually liked because it humanizes her.

- I loved that Aang was still there when Zuko woke up on the boat 😭 he wanted to make sure he was okay!! I full on started crying when we got the “do you think we could have been friends too?” lines from him. Again, Gordon killed it. I love how you can tell that Aang knows Zuko has been hurt and that’s why he acts the way he does. He doesn’t blame him for any of it. 10/10

- the last flashback to Zuko in his bed recovering from the burn… god the tears just kept flowing. I really liked the choice to have Ozai almost give Zuko a chance to like… idk understand why he did what he did, and how compassion is “weak”?? And then Zuko’s response to give people a chance 😭😭😭 as if I couldn’t love him any more!!! And then of course Ozai gets pissed. But seeing baby Zuko just cry in his bed UGH I’m dehydrated at this point

- Of course I can’t finish this review without mentioning the 41st division. What an incredible way to expand upon the source material by making them Zuko’s crew!!! It shows just how much Zuko truly cares about others and it moved me so much (once again to tears).

I don’t have high hopes for the last two episodes, but honestly, if this is what the live action can be, it gives me a bit of hope (at least for future seasons). I really think that Dallas, Gordon, Paul, and Daniel were the stars of this ep and are a big part of what made it so good.

[pagodazz]

ehtan i need to know ur thoughts about the fairmount mt4 right now..... im mainly thinkin abt fairmount evan/habit but im curious if u have anythoughts about them

Okay so... my thoughts... if you want specific hcs for specific scenarios plz tell me bc this is just a big rant I'm sorry 😭😭😭

alot of people seem to have the idea that fairmount Evan/habit don't like Vinnie/ would bully him or be mean to him and I need to say that's literally so far from being close to canon. The only person that it's even slightly hinted at him being unkind to is steph (IF you wanna take maryanns word for it for awhile I thought this was James but rereading it again I was like ohh it's his wife. I genuinely don't think ev/habit was this malicious)

also if you're curious on why Fairmount Ev/habit are put together it's bc habit is something that Evans mom called him and was considered a "nick name"

As seen here aswell Vinnie takes Evan to go play which immediately gets him pinned as some sort of "deflector" like he doesn't care about Steph but in reality we know that Vinnie DOES care, this is just his form of coping.

Ev/Habit are best friends with Vinnie and even in his worst moments he only has good things to say about habit which just shows how close they are and how much Vinnie loves him. Vinnie is the only one in the letters besides Evans mother to call him habit. corenthal refuses to do it but Vinnie always refers to Evan as habit.

Habit and Vinnie are almost always playing together. they adore each other. I don't think you could separate them from each other honestly. I think Evan/habit would probably do something violent or snap and get a aggressive but never towards Vinnie it'd be towards the other kids and Vinnie would have to be the one to calm him down seeing that Vinnie is always the one trying to help people feel better.

I do think he could maybe accidentally do something mean to Vinnie but if Vinnie were to cry he'd panic and try and do anything he can to make him feel better.

I think Fairmount Evan/habit still have their massive sweet tooth and is basically a giant fiend for any type of candy. He just LOVES sugar. Give it to him NOW. don't even TRY to eat any candy near him he's gonna ask for some and you WILL have to give it to him or he WILL stab you.

Evan was given a camera in the letters and he goes around taking a bunch of pictures of everything and I think he probably sleeps with that camera near him at ALL TIMES and if one of the others were to break it or take it he would have a total meltdown.

He is just a big lovable goofball of a kid, he definitely is super affectionate and wants hugs all the time. Even though he is portrayed to be "cruel" to Steph, they're still best friends. Evan loves all of them so fucking much. That's his family and it'll always be his family since he was practically stolen from his other one. He probably misses his mom so much, he just wants to be with his mom and hug his mom and tell her he loves her and that he's never gonna do anything wrong again and he promises to be good, just please don't send him back to the home. But he's stuck with the corenthals who almost view him as this wicked boy. Yes they love him, but they're so quick to judge him.

Now onto Fairmont Vinnie I feel like I kinda need to give a bit of a tw? for talk of CSA? I promise to do it tastefully tho since I myself am a victim of it.

Alot of people almost view Vinnie as so prescious and innocent but they don't seem to understand he has his innocence stolen from him, he's simply just still a child. He was able to ignore his emotions and push them aside in order to be there for everyone else in his life. What happened to Vinnie was not a one time thing. It lasted over a year. Vinnie's parents kept dropping him off there and left him alone with the reverend and didn't care about it at all until the reverend was found DEAD. and instead of trying to take care of Vinnie themselves they sent him to a home where they had no doctors who specialized in his specific trauma. He must've felt so isolated and his only solace was the few friends, especially Evan/Habit and man. Always Man. Man is a protector to him, man doesn't want to share him and Vinnie KNEW this. Man TOLD him this. Vinnie was not "saved" by him however. What Slenderman did was not an act of kindness it was an act of jealousy.

Vinnie is said that he draws to get out his emotions and I feel like he definitely has drawn pictures of him and Captain habit and also slenderman together, his only true friends.

Vinnie is unfortunately a unsettling little boy, he doesn't interact as normally as he should and he just can't help it. It's probably alot easier for him to try and isolate himself than it is to ask for help or support. But he always perks up when he gets to talk about playing pirates, even after the trauma his love for it never went away. I like to think he got to keep his toy ship. I think alot of people would think he wouldn't wanna keep something from such a traumatic day but I think otherwise. The reverend was eviscerated, it must've been such a relief for him. It's said that he was calm and happy when he was found and I can only imagine that he was probably told to go into the next room and play or maybe habit was able to come over and he played with Vinnie for a bit until right before Vinnie's parents show up. That toy probably brings Vinnie so much comfort and a sense of safety.

I think both him and Steph are mute, but Vinnie is a selective mute. He talks when he wants to but if he doesn't feel like it. Steph however is completely mute. she doesn't talk at all maybe unless she really has to.

She would probably only ever talk to the other 3 of the group. This group functions together completely. They are almost like a hive mind sometimes. They're so deeply connected and so intertwined.

They act out together, and it drains them so much they can't help but just need to be alone. These are just babies who are suffering so much and they're unfortunately in a home that doesn't really know how to help them, and of course James wants to help but he can't help but judge them too.

When all the kids get killed, Vinnie is the only body not found. He was not there, he was taken away. It was probably so painful for him because he loved them so much, but he knows deep down his loyalties lie with habit and Slenderman..

these are my babies... I love them so much and they deserved to be taken care of and given the help they deserved and not just to be like a couple of lab rats to make a perfect family just bc James corenthal couldn't have his own children with his wife.... it's so UGH. I love James but man is he way too harsh on these kids. I think maybe if he were to love evan/habit more... if he was able to accept habit despite the violence he's committed... things could've been different... maybe if habit got shown love sooner.... idk.... maybe he wouldn't be as irredeemable as he is now. Habit just unfortunately has the biggest case of mommy and adoptive daddy issues he can't help that he's so evil 😔😔💔💔💔💔💔

The fact James only ever acknowledged Evan instead of Habit is probably another reason that habit hates James so much...

oh and I almost forgot... Jeff is definitely just as mopey and sad as he was on the series but when he's playing with the group he's got more energy than Evan. And by GOD!!! IS THIS BOY A SWEETHEART 😭😭😭😭 he is so fucking traumatized but he tries his best to be so sweet. He's honestly probably stuck feeling younger than he is because of what happened to him and it was the only way he could really cope. and he definitely adored his little army soldier... like Evan loves his camera.. like Vinnie loves his ship... and i think like Steph would love her art. She's always gonna be an artist and I love that for her. She expresses herself so beautifully.

ANYWAYS uh post over I'm so sorry this probably makes 0 sense.

have some songs for them tho

Evan:

Vinnie:

Steph:

Jeff:

okay bye

[steddieas-shegoes]

For the requests: traumatized steve & eddie going to a wolf sanctuary and eddie watching steve basically live with the wolves in their area. And the one wolf,the one that hated everyone, the one who meaner and didn't get along with anyone to its cruel abusive situation (perhaps it was raised from puppyhood and onwards by people who used it in dogfighting, before it was rescued, that wolf, goes right up to Steve and sits by him. Giving him comfort. When Steve has bad nightmares he goes to that wolf's pen and they sleep cuddled together bc that wolf also has nightmares. (It can also be a wolfdog)

AS ALWAYS YOU COME THROUGH WITH SOMETHING FUN AND CREATIVE AND AS ALWAYS I MAKE IT EMOTIONAL AS SHIT!!! I was feelin' some type of way yesterday and started on this at peak emotional upheaval, which is really something I don't recommend. As many things tend to do, this got away from me and I think I could've still let it keep going, but I had to cut it off. Hope you love it!!! - Mickala ❤️

-----------------------------------------------

It was Robin’s idea.

She knew therapy wasn’t working. She knew firsthand that the nightmares, especially Steve’s, were impossible to handle some nights.

She stayed with him enough after the Russians to know he was averaging four hours of restless sleep on a good night.

And now that he’d seen the horrors of the Upside Down, and Eddie almost dying, and Max almost dying, and the guilt of just existing, they were worse.

Eddie had them, but he was usually able to calm down relatively quickly, usually even fall back into a dreamless sleep after.

His problem was just seeing the bats everywhere, even when he was awake. A large bird would fly by and he was ducking for cover like a bomb would be dropped on him. He’d hear screeching, sometimes even just kids yelling at the park, and he’d have a panic attack.

Drastically different problems, but Robin said this could help with both of them.

So Steve and Eddie stood outside the wolf sanctuary, staring at the front office entrance where they were told to check in.

They glanced at each other, waiting for the other to make the first move.

It’s not that they were scared. They’d been told about the process on the phone in great detail, the sanctuary director answering all of their questions in a friendly tone.

She’d said that the wolf sanctuary had been used as a form of therapy for people for years now, though many psychiatrists didn’t consider it an appropriate treatment.

Considering Steve and Eddie had been seeing a professional psychiatrist for months now with no progress and serious weight loss and migraines from their prescriptions, they were willing to give this a fair shot.

But their fear that it wouldn’t work kept circling through their minds.

If this didn’t work, they weren’t sure what else they could possibly try.

That was terrifying.

They were supposed to stay for a month, with the option of extending the stay if they felt they needed it.

It was expensive.

But this was on the US government, and Eddie was always quick to spend their money for his benefit.

Steve was just along for the ride.

They walked in together, both nervously looking around at the chairs and desks, bookshelves, pictures of wolves and mountains on the walls, and one small, gray-haired woman at the front desk.

“Oh, aren’t you two precious! Which one’s Steve and which one’s Eddie?”

“I’m Steve,” Eddie smirked as he held out his hand.

Steve smacked his arm.

“He’s Eddie, and he’s probably gonna be this way the whole time. Sorry in advance,” Steve told the woman.

“This is wonderful! You’ll be fun to have around. I’m Fran, I run the front office. I spoke to you the other day on the phone a bit about the check in. Are you boys ready?”

They both nodded.

She clapped her hands together in excitement.

Steve could tell Eddie loved her. She was full of theatrics like he was, every word punctuated by an exaggerated movement.

“First, the boring part. We did some of the first part over the phone, but these packets need to be filled out completely and given back to me. You can have a seat anywhere to do those. When that’s done, I’ll show you where to bring your bags so you can unpack and get comfortable. We can do a tour before dinner.”

She placed the packets on the desk in front of her, then took two pens out of a mug and placed them down too.

“If you have any questions, let me know. You two are just the cutest!”

She walked through a small doorway a few feet behind her desk and they grabbed the packets to start filling them out.

The first page was basic personal information, which had been filled out already. The second page was emergency contact information and how they were referred. But the third page is where it got difficult.

It has questions like “What is your worst memory?” and “Who is the person you would most expect to protect you in a life or death situation? Why?”

And while Eddie and Steve could probably answer those easily from terrible experiences, there was a lot they weren’t allowed to say.

So they just stuck with the official government stories for any and all Upside Down related parts, which was most of them.

Fran bustled back in, two steaming mugs in her hands. She set them on her desk carefully and then walked over to where Eddie was sitting.

“How’s it going?”

“Good. Almost done,” he smiled up at her.

“And you, dear?” She asked Steve.

“Good. I’m sorry I write kind of slow.”

Steve’s face was red, like he was embarrassed. Eddie watched as he focused on the paper in front of him, his hand moving slowly across the paper.

Steve’s concussions had a lot of lasting effects; migraines and one ear that was barely working, the occasional speech delay, and an inconvenient struggle with writing, especially if it was answering questions about himself like this.

Eddie distracted Fran as he wrote his last answer, talking to her about her favorite part of the sanctuary and how long she’s been working here.

He handed the packet to her when he was done, glancing over at Steve to see he was just starting on the last page.

“Hey, Fran, would it be okay if you helped me get our bags from the car while Steve finishes up?”

Steve sent him a grateful smile as he continued answering the questions on the paper.

As he walked with Fran to the car, she touched his arm.

“He’s got a lot going on, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah. He’s been dealing with this a lot longer than I have,” Eddie smiled sadly at her, touching her hand to accept the comfort she was giving and give some in return. “I hope this works for both of us, but I’d be happy as long as it works for him.”

“You care a lot about him.”

It wasn’t a question, and her tone wasn’t judging, but Eddie could just tell. He should panic, he should tell her it wasn’t like that. And it wasn’t for Steve.

But he’d been hiding it for so long, and somehow successfully, he couldn’t lie to her.

“I love him. He doesn’t know how much. I did this for him, mostly. I mean I want it to help me too, but I know he wouldn’t have tried this if I didn’t come and he,” Eddie sighed. “He needs this. He can’t keep going like he has been.”

Fran pulled him into a hug and he did all he could not to start crying.

“He’s lucky to have you on his side no matter what, darling. And I’d bet anything he thinks the same of you,” she said softly.

“I don’t think it’s quite the same. He loves me like a friend, but he’s not…not like me.”

Gay. He wasn’t gay. Or even a little into men. Eddie was sure of that.

Fran pulled away and just smiled at him.

“Okay, then. Let’s get these bags inside.”

They managed to bring everything in in one trip, and by the time they made it back inside, Steve was done with his packet.

“Alright!” Fran clapped her hands together in excitement. “To your room!”

Eddie’s eyes widened.

“Room? Like, just one?”

“Yep! The other room we have for long-term residents is already taken for the next few weeks. Will that be okay?”

She was smiling innocently at Eddie, who knew she knew why he was suddenly panicking.

“That’s fine. We end up sharing a room all the time, right, Eds?” Steve asked as he grabbed his own bags from the floor.

“Uh. Yep. Totally fine.”

“Great!”

She led them out the back of the front office, down the sidewalk that led to a row of small buildings.

“This first building is storage. The next one is the short-term stays, usually people who donate frequently to keep us running, staying for a night or two to see where their money goes. This next building is for long-term stays. That’s you two. It’s split into a duplex, so you’ll have basically a studio apartment in there. Kitchen, bathroom, living area with a sectioned off area as the bedroom. You each will have a key, but keep in mind that the director also has a key for emergencies. The janitorial staff only goes if requested, so let me know if you feel it needs a sprucing up or you need new sheets or anything. Fridge is stocked and gets restocked every two weeks.” She paused as they made it to the steps to the building. “Oh! We don’t technically have a curfew for the guests. You’re adults and we trust you on your journey here. But we do ask that you try to be back no later than 11, as we often shut off many of the trail lights by midnight to ensure the animals have the closest replica of the wild as possible.”

Steve and Eddie nodded, eyes wide at all the information being thrown at them so quickly.

“Your room has a phone of course. You’re free to use as often as you’d like. Pressing 1 gets you in touch with the front office, 2 is for security, 3 is for the director’s office. I recommend calling the front office unless it’s an emergency so we can get in touch with the right people for you. After your tour, you’ll have free reign over the entire sanctuary except for anywhere marked employees and volunteers only. That’s for your safety, of course. We encourage you to be a part of some of the educational tours and seminars that we offer to the general public as well as enjoy time on your own with the wolves. Volunteers are here every day from 9 to 5, and the employees who help care for the wolves stay until 11. We have security here 24/7, but the director usually has a couple people on staff remain after regular hours in case of an animal emergency.”

This felt a little overwhelming, but he could already tell Steve was more relaxed here than he’d been anywhere else since he met him.

“I work when they need me, but my home number is by the phone in there for you just in case you need a chat. I retired a couple years ago so I spend a lot of my time at home with my dog. You’re never a bother, okay?”

They both nodded.

She hugged them both, handed them their keys, and started to walk away.

“Your tour will be in about an hour. James is running it today. You’ll love him!”

She was gone before they could even respond, so they looked back to each other and shrugged before heading inside.

The main door was unlocked, but the door inside marked with a “2” was locked. Steve unlocked it and pushed the door open.

The apartment was nice, but small, smaller than either of them had expected.

“Guess we’ll be getting pretty close for the next month, huh?” Steve joked.

Eddie’s heart was in his throat.

He could see the “bedroom” from where he stood. It was one queen sized bed. One.

“Um. Yep. Guess so. I can take the couch,” Eddie rushed out.

Steve clearly hadn’t seen the sleeping arrangement yet or he would have probably offered. He’s a self-sacrificing idiot, so Eddie had to rush to offer before he could.

“What? Why?”

Eddie gestured towards the bed.

“There’s plenty of room for both of us, dude. A month on the couch isn’t exactly gonna help with the nightmares.”

“It looks pretty cozy.”

Steve just stared at him, brows raised like Eddie was an idiot.

He was an idiot, but he didn’t need Steve thinking it.

“Eddie. Seriously. We can share a bed.”

Steve wouldn’t let him win, it’s just not who Steve was.

“Okay, okay! Let’s just unpack so we can go see some wolves or whatever.”

They unpacked in silence, Steve taking the spot closest to the door without Eddie having a choice.

Self-sacrificing idiot.

—--------------

James knocked on their door at exactly 4:00, like he’d been standing there waiting for the clock to change over from 3:59.

“Hello! I’m James. You’re Steve and Eddie?”

They all shook hands and James started explaining things quickly.

James was only a bit older than them, wearing a volunteer shirt that had seen better days, and had the energy of Dustin.

“So! I’m gonna show you the lay of the land, you can ask me questions, I can try to answer them, and then I can drop you off back here so you can eat. The first night can be a bit of an adjustment, so feel free to give me a call if you have trouble. My number is under Fran’s,” James spoke rapid-fire, but not so fast they couldn’t keep up. They were used to that, anyway.

“So to start, everything you guys really need is along this main trail.” He pointed the way they came earlier and then the other direction. “That way leads to our nutrition area for the wolves, which you are welcome to visit anytime during the day to help or feed some of the rehabilitated wolves in the building nextdoor which is the hospital. The hospital is only open to the guests staying here and employees from 12-5, just because much of the mornings are spent performing surgeries or checkups. You’re encouraged to spend time with any of the wolves there in recovery as it helps their spirits much like a person. But if you take the left at the fork in this trail, you’ll be led to other trails. The first one is the wolf enclosures, which I’m taking you to now.” He kept walking as he spoke, moving his hands constantly, big smile keeping Eddie and Steve enthralled.

“We have one specifically for the ones we’ve rescued who are still healing from injuries, and that one is off limits to everyone between dusk and dawn. Many of these wolves are relearning how to be wild and part of that is using the night to hunt. Being in their cage during those times could be dangerous. They wouldn’t necessarily eat you,” he paused to laugh. “But they may take a bite. Now! The second enclosure is where we keep Herald. You can laugh at his name.” Eddie let out a small laugh.

“Herald had a rough upbringing. He was rescued about six months ago from a traveling circus that had abused him for at least a few years. We think he’s about 5 years old, but can’t be 100% certain. He’s hesitant around all people, even the director. He can be very unpredictable, so only the director, vet, and head nutritionist are allowed in there. You’re welcome to visit from the outside anytime you’d like though! He’s shy, but it can’t hurt having people talk to him.”

James was walking pretty quickly, and if Steve wasn’t so in shape, he’d be struggling. He looked over at Eddie. Eddie was struggling a little, but didn’t want to stop or slow down.

“And the last enclosure is for the rest of the wolves. These are ones that may be reintroduced to the wild soon or who may have been rescued without injuries, but just aren’t ready to go yet. This enclosure has a few areas for public access. The first being the feeding area, the second being the petting area. The petting area is only able to be accessed when employees or volunteers are present. The third area is only for guests staying long term such as yourselves.”

James walked them through a gate off to the side of the enclosure.

“This area is my favorite in the whole sanctuary. It’s their den area. It’s not recommended to come alone, and you should always go to the petting area to meet them first, but this area is nice for anyone who wants to feel like a part of the pack.”

“We can go in there?”

“Again, it’s definitely recommended to meet the wolves in the petting area first, maybe feed them a few times to show them you’re a friend, but yes.”

“Huh.”

Eddie watched Steve’s reaction.

This was much more involved than they expected to be.

“So that’s the enclosures! The next part of this trail leads to a walking and biking trail that is a great way to see some nature without having to leave the area. It’s snake season, though, so make sure you know your snake safety beforehand and bring the provided whistle with you in case of an emergency. Volunteers and employees are always within hearing distance during normal hours and can usually respond within 3-4 minutes.”

“Could we go back to Herald?”

Eddie’s head snapped to Steve, who was looking at James with a kind smile.

“Oh. Well, sure. The only other thing I needed to show you was the trail leading to the lake, but we can go back after.”

So James backtracked, Steve and Eddie close on his heels.

They got to the enclosure with Herald, but didn’t see him.

“He likes to hide. Especially if it isn’t close to meal time, he doesn’t usually come close to the fence. His den is hidden away.”

Steve kept walking up to the fence as James spoke, Eddie watching and trying to figure out what was going on.

“Herald? You there?” Steve called gently into the fence. Wolves had excellent hearing, and he’d probably already heard them approach. “You can come say hi if you want to.”

Eddie stood next to Steve, looking out at the area in the enclosure. There was a good mix of forest and empty area, with plenty of things that were probably used as toys scattered around. He watched for any sign of movement, listened for any trotting over.

Nothing.

Steve looked incredibly disappointed, but James walked closer and gave them both a smile.

“Like I said, Herald isn’t very social and it’s nothing personal. He doesn’t even seem to like the director and all the wolves love her.”

But Eddie knew Steve. He knew that he wasn’t gonna let that shit go.

“Alright! Shall we head to the trail by the lake?”

Eddie watched as Steve sighed, but nodded.

—--------------

Steve cooked them dinner that evening, said it helped him relax and that he would feel more at home if he got into a routine.

Eddie wouldn’t complain; He loved Steve’s cooking.

He made a basic spaghetti dish, even toasted some bread and sprinkled some garlic powder on it to make garlic bread.

They sat at the small table by the front door and ate in silence.

“It’s really quiet here.”

Eddie looked up to see Steve staring down at his plate, biting his lip nervously.

“It’s kind of nice though. Peaceful.”

“Yeah.”

Eddie knew what he was worried about.

He was worried the silence would make him have more nightmares instead of less, that he’d be left with nothing to help him if this failed.

“Hey,” Eddie reached over and patted Steve’s hand that rested on the table. “I’m here, alright? You won’t be alone.”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed, only slightly relaxing back into his seat.

—--------------

The next day was relaxed.

They walked along the main trail after breakfast, happy to see Fran again and meet some new people.

They stopped at Herald’s enclosure, but still didn’t see or hear him.

Steve was disappointed, but it was hidden away when they were able to feed and pet some of the other wolves before lunch.

The wolves were all beautiful, clearly well taken care of, and even the ones still in recovery were cleaned, well-fed, and cared for by the team.

Eddie quickly had a favorite: Mabel. She was an “old woman” as the employee at the feeding area said. She was 12 years old, had been brought in from the side of the road after being hit. She had had a broken leg and many broken ribs, along with cuts that needed stitches. Not the worst they’d seen, but due to her being nearly 11 at the time, they didn’t expect her to pull through. She did though, and had quickly become known as the leader of the group. All the wolves respected her, it was clear even to Eddie and Steve. She was the first to the feeding area, the first to the petting area, and would often stand guard over the others as they went into the shared spaces.

She was light brown with gray speckled throughout, her scars visible, but mostly covered with hair.

Steve loved Mabel, too, but he still had his heart set on Herald.

Eddie wasn’t stupid. He knew why Steve was so fixated on him.

Someone who was abused and hidden away and expected to perform every day for crowds of people? Yeah, Steve and Herald had quite a bit in common.

He just didn’t want him to get his hopes up for nothing.

After lunch, they decided to walk over to the nutrition center, maybe learn something new.

It was educational, and fun, and Eddie said multiple times how much he wished actual school had been like this.

The nutritionists let them help set up all the wolves’ dinners, showing them portion sizes for each of the wolves, telling them what the wolves’ favorites were. How they celebrated birthdays for them.

It was fun. Steve even cracked some smiles throughout.

—--------------

That night was rough.

Steve had fallen asleep quickly, much to Eddie’s delight, but it didn’t last long.

Eddie was woken up not long after he fell asleep by whimpering. He glanced at the alarm clock by the bed. 10:38. Barely an hour.

He knew from experience that waking Steve up would just make things worse for him, so he gently set his hand on Steve’s side, the best support he could give right now.

It physically pained Eddie to watch Steve’s face tighten in fear and sadness, whatever his nightmare was this time painting a horrifying picture he couldn’t escape.

Steve had mentioned once that his worst nightmares weren’t even about reliving anything that happened. They weren’t anyone dying, though he had those too. They weren’t even him dying.

They were everyone turning on him, finally seeing he wasn’t worth their time or effort, leaving him alone in that big empty house just like his parents did. He said the worst part was when Robin and Eddie left in the nightmare. When they looked at him with disgust and said he wasn’t good enough for the kids, and he damn sure wasn’t good enough for them.

No matter how many times they told him that would never be true, he still had them.

Ten minutes went by, agonizingly slowly, tears falling down Steve’s face. Eddie was whispering words of comfort, hoping that somehow Steve could hear him, but knowing he probably couldn’t.

But finally, Steve’s eyes opened, the whimpering stopped, and he was no longer hearing and seeing what hurt him the most.

He sat up and wiped his eyes, but the tears kept coming and his breathing was still labored.

Eddie sat up with him, hand on his arm, thumb rubbing back and forth to keep him present.

“I think I need to walk it off,” Steve said, voice wet with tears still to come.

“Okay. Do you want me to come with you?”

Steve shook his head.

“No, go back to sleep. I’ll only be out for a few minutes.”

And as much as Eddie knew that was a lie, and knew he should probably go with Steve, he had to trust him.

He’d be safe. He had to be.

—--------------

Steve walked aimlessly up and down the main trail for 10 minutes, trying to breathe in the fresh air, focus on his surroundings.

It wasn’t working as well as he’d hoped, but it was better than staying in bed and letting Eddie see him like this.

Eddie was too kind, always. He was bright, like the sun and the stars and the moon on a clear night. He was everything. And if Steve let himself be too vulnerable, too much, Eddie would take that light.

He lost track of where he was going, his breaths coming in sharper pants now as he let more tears fall.

A noise made him freeze.

Leaves rustling.

He looked up to see Herald’s enclosure in front of him. And…

Herald.

Herald was huge, much bigger than any of the other wolves they’d seen so far. He was beautiful. Scars along his legs showing that he had been abused awfully before coming here, but the rest of him glowed with health. He was standing about eight feet from the fence, trying to hide some of his body still behind the bushes along the forest line.

Steve slowly made his way to the fence, his hands up to show he wasn’t going to cause any harm.

Herald didn’t come closer, but he didn’t back or run away either.

Steve counted that as a win.

He instantly slumped to the ground at the fence, his hands and head resting against the chain links like they were the only thing keeping him upright. Maybe they were.

Steve closed his eyes.

He was so focused on staying calm, he couldn’t hear Herald approach. But he suddenly felt a cold, wet nose against his head.

He didn’t panic, he didn’t want to scare Herald, but he realized suddenly that his fingers were very much easily accessed by sharp teeth.

He let Herald sniff him, then slowly looked up.

Herald was tilting his head at him, almost as if he was asking if he was okay.

That made Steve sob.

Herald jumped slightly, but then moved so he was completely against the fence, laying down so his warm body could be against Steve’s.

Steve slowly let his hands fall, reaching through the fence slowly to let them rest in Herald’s fur.

He felt the wolf sigh, and he couldn’t help but laugh.

“Yeah, I get it. Sometimes it’s nice to have someone care, huh? You’re so soft,” Steve whispered, knowing Herald was still not completely relaxed around him.

“You tired?”

Steve felt a little silly for asking a wolf a question, but he felt even sillier when he realized Herald had just moved his head up and down. It was probably a coincidence, but the timing was crazy.

“Me too. We should get some sleep.”

Herald huffed and rolled his head back against the fence.

“Want me to stay?”

Herald huffed again.

“Okay.”

So Steve stayed.

He sat down on the ground, back against the fence, and listened to the crickets and the steady breaths of Herald.

He was woken up by Eddie shaking him and a growl coming from behind him.

“Steve! Jesus, I thought you’d got lost or died or something.”

“How long have I been out here?”

“It’s nearly two in the morning!”

Herald was growling behind him, protectively pacing behind Steve like he would find a way to get through the fence if Eddie tried to hurt him.

“Hey, Herald, it’s okay. This is Eddie. He’s here with me. He’s my friend,” Steve said calmly, holding his hand through the fence so Herald could sniff him and see he was okay.

“Steve! Get your hand out of there. He isn’t friendly, remember?”

“Oh, please. He just slept by me for hours and let me hold his fur like he was a stuffed animal. He’s plenty friendly.”

Eddie just stared, jaw slack, as he realized Steve was right.

Herald was licking Steve’s hand, leaving his scent on him like he was trying to provide as much protection as possible.

“You made friends with the only wolf here who hates people. Unbelievable.”

“Hey, be nice. He just needs some love is all.”

Eddie nodded. Yeah, him and another person with a name that started with S and rhymed with sleeve.

Eddie’s heart had been racing for the last 15 minutes since he woke up and realized Steve wasn’t in bed next to him or anywhere in the apartment.

He finally took a deep breath, balling his shaking hands into fists and stuffing them into the pocket of his hoodie.

“We should head back inside, Stevie.”

Steve seemed to notice Eddie wasn’t doing so great.

“I’m alright, Eds. Hey, look at me.” Eddie looked at Steve’s face, the way he seemed more relaxed than when he first left after his nightmare. “I’m okay. I must have fallen asleep.”

Eddie took a deep breath, resting his head against Steve’s shoulder as he let it out.

“I thought you were gone.”

“Nah, you can’t get rid of me now.”

“No?”

“Nope. Herald and I are just good friends, but you’re still-” Steve cut himself off, but Eddie wasn’t going to let that pass.

“What?”

“Nothing. Not important.”

“Yeah it is. Tell me.”

Steve seemed nervous, and Herald must have sensed it because he let out a low growl.

“It’s just that you mean a lot to me. Kind of everything, actually.”

Eddie couldn’t breathe.

What did that even mean?

Steve’s hand was suddenly in his hair, playing with the ends the way Eddie did when he was nervous.

“You’re just. I mean, how could you not mean the world to me? You dropped everything to come here with me because you knew I wouldn’t do it alone, Eds. You bring me candy at work even though I literally have access to all the candy I want at the counter. You let me find reasons not to watch the scary movies on movie nights when Dustin picks because you know I can’t handle them. You swim in the pool with me alone so no one knows how much I still hate it. I…you’re just…”

Eddie didn’t let him stutter any more, knowing what he was saying without actually saying it.

He knew what Steve was afraid of, and he wasn’t going to let him be scared anymore.

“Steve. I love you. That’s why I do all that. I love you. I’m in love with you. You deserve more than what I can give, but I can keep giving you all of the love I have, and hopefully that will be enough.”

Steve’s lips were on his before he finished speaking, teeth clacking together at the force of it.

Herald huffed, but they didn’t stop. Eddie didn’t know how he was supposed to now that he had Steve’s lips on his.

He never wanted them gone.

His hands reached up to Steve’s neck, cradling his jaw between them as if he was holding something precious. He was.

“I love you so much,” Steve said against his lips, melting against Eddie.

“I love you, Stevie,” Eddie said back. He planted another soft kiss to his lips before resting their foreheads together. “Let’s go back to bed, okay? We can come see Herald after breakfast.”

Steve nodded and turned to Herald.

“I’ll be back. Don’t hide from me, okay?”

He reached in to give Herald’s head a scratch, and Eddie shook his head in disbelief.

It took less than 48 hours for Steve to have the one wolf in this sanctuary who didn’t like people completely wrapped around his finger.

But Eddie could relate.

Steve’s charm was damn near impossible to resist and now he didn’t have to try.