#you know. in case i ever need to find this post again in the future lol

[so-i-did-this-thing]

How do I stop being anxious all the time in relation to being trans? I have an appointment to go on T in 2 weeks. I'm anxious about coming out. I'm anxious about someone figuring it out before I come out. Ahhhh. I have a therapist for anxiety but I don't think it's helping.

Hoping I don't make you even more anxious, but the bottom line is some folks *will* find out and you just gotta learn to roll with it.

What has helped me:

Getting good at identifying red and green flags in cis people

It's become a habit of mine to scope out people when I join a new community. I look at profiles, what people post, etc. It's a little tiring, but I try to find the allies and other trans asap in a new fandom or whatever.

Planning for the worst

To be trans is to always have a plan to Get Out of Dodge.

A lot of times, The Worst is really only temporary embarassment. I deal with this by keeping my head held high and leaning into the more "don't fuck with me, I am tired" part of my personality.

Fake it 'til you make it -- I used to have a paralyzing fear of public mortification, and over time have ripped that apart. Sticking to my boundaries helps a lot, and I am not afraid to say, "I will not answer that question."

Here's the thing, though -- people tend to be impressed when you weather the Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, and you'll likely find yourself as someone to be looked up to. Cis folks routinely ask for my advice about their own Big Life Changes, because they have been impressed to see me go through mine. I've also helped crack a few eggs.

Sometimes The Worst is truly bad, and you should always be vigilant here. Again, I know it is exhausting, but always plan for your personal, emotional, and financial safety. Build an emergency cash fund. Cultivate friends who have your back. Always be looking for new job opportunities. Lots of stuff you can workshop with people.

Cultivating a very matter-of-fact relationship with Coming Out.

I focus on any relevant logistics and keep out my emotional backstory. Most people do not need to know how much of a mess I used to be. And I firmly state what I am doing with my future, rather than ask for permission.

My last HRT-related Coming Out email (to one of my orchestras, which is a very gendered biz) was essentially: "FYI, I am medically and legally transitioning from female to male. Just a heads up, as I'll look and sound a bit different at rehearsal -- I have a tux already for the concert. See you Friday!"

That's it. At a company, you can work with HR on your announcement, assuming one will even be necessary in your case based on your transition timeline.

When I changed my name years later, I was also direct:

"I am legally changing my name to Nicholas. It may take a while to update all my clients, so you're welcome to tell them, "Oh, [deadname] goes by Nicholas now. Thanks!"

And when I came out to my spouse in tumblr chat before our first date, it was literally: "Hey, jsyk, I am 35 and a trans man, in case that changes anything."

It takes a lot of practice to get to this point, and is something you can roleplay with your therapist.

Don't be afraid of your past

I am at a place where I will sometimes casually out myself to make a point ("No one ever needs to change the gender field for this form? I recently needed to.") or a stupid joke ("Ever since I was a little girl, I always wanted to be...").

There is a lot of value in the trans experience. You can decide how much of it you want to casually share, but it does get easier each time.

I hope this helps. Being trans means you will be coming out for the rest of your life (obviously, there are times where stealth = safety), so cultivating a no-nonsense, and even humorous, approach will go a long way for your mental health.

[ultrakart]

Music store lady from Bocchi the Rock! is that you??

[sketchtastrophee]

old art again!! this time a rough animation of sawyer and yarnaby 😎 (looks better if u click to view 😭)

im working on a short ppt animation rn. im thinking i should post it to my youtube channel, though im not sure if people here would see it. i think i can link videos on here?? idk

okay I'm gonna talk abt more chapter 4 stuff.. this time about prototype's previous identity.. ch4 spoilers and also a theory below..

hiding the solo yarnaby under here LOL

people theorized 1006 was elliot, which was recently disproven in the chapter 4 tape where poppy refers to elliot as her dad and wishes he were there. in the same tape she addresses prototype as a completely different person. also recall that elliot died in the 90s, meanwhile prototype met theo in 1989. so yeah, they aren't the same person

I've also seen people say rich is prototype, which cannot be true either. in a ch4 tape he speaks to one of the employees under his supervision. the kid mentions his coworkers joking about him going missing. before the bbi, it would not make sense for this to be a common rumor at the company, which means this tape had to happen after harley was hired in 1990; at a time when the company would have a reason to silence people

prototype existed in 1989 at the minimum, but considering he says "it's always been about you and me" to poppy, he's likely the prototype of HER. she's elliots daughter, she died in the 60s, meaning prototype was probably created around that time as well.

this means that rich can't be the prototype because he was human long after prototype was made

if you want my take on who prototype truly is, i'd say his identity doesn't necessarily matter. i don't mean to say his origins aren't important, just that his name and specific role in the past probably doesn't mean anything in the long run. i've never believed he was elliot or rich, and maybe in the future i'll be proven wrong but for now i'll tell you the theory i've had since june of last year

elliot's daughter dies in the 60s. he divorced his wife in 1930, so his daughter is probably in her 30s when she dies. she gets sick or injured, maybe she's actively dying or already dead by the time elliot begins his research. he looks for ways to bring her back, but it doesn't work on the rats (as he mentioned a note in the 2nd chapter)

so what does he do? he tries it on something bigger as he said he would: a human. of course he's not going to try this experimental method on his own daughter, even if she's already dead, so he finds someone else to use it on. we know that elliot wasn't evil or anything, so it's unlikely he killed anybody to use for the experiment. considering the orphanage isn't open yet (it opened in the 70s, not the 60s), prototype probably wasn't an orphan child either. if i run with my simple version of the theory, elliot may have dug up a body in a graveyard and used that. maybe a fresh one, who knows. he tried it, it worked, then he revived his daughter with the same method.

this is likely what harley wanted to know about in the chapter 3 tape (the "i learn something new about you every day" one), and also what prototype is asking harley to figure out in the ch4 tape they're both in. in that case, sawyer never actually figured out how to revive people with the poppy substance. sure, he can transfer people into the toys, but he can't bring anybody back to life

more reason to believe prototype and poppy are of the same "batch" is because it seems they are the only two who don't need food. it's outright stated about him in the ch1 trailer, and insinuated with her saying the "toys will starve otherwise" when she's talking about how nasty them eating humans is. she refers to them, not herself. her and prototype are probably the only 2 who were ever brought back from the dead, which circles back around to his monologue and gives meaning to the "it's always been about you and me, poppy. what we are". when i heard him say that i felt like my theory was lowk confirmed 😭😭

no guarantee this is right, but it's been my guess for a long time

[certaimromance]

𝜗𝜚 Cradle Song.

Spencer Reid x Pregnant!reader

main masterlist

Summary: The situation is complicated when Spencer is trapped in a lab with anthrax and worried about communicating with you and his future child one last time.

Words: 2,4k.

Warnings & Tags: mentions of death, therapy. spoilers for s4 e24 ("amplification"). anthrax. established relationship. angst with a open ending. implication that the baby is a girl. english isn't my first language (sorry for my mistakes, be kind please).

Note: I wrote this after posting my first two one shots here (several months ago), and now I just found the uncorrected text and decided to improve it for posting lol for you to mentally decide if it's a happy or sad ending, because I could never write one that I really liked.

Your phone rang somewhere in the room, but you had no idea where. In the distance, you could hear the classical symphony by Johannes Brahms that your boyfriend had chosen especially for you, with the excuse that it would calm you and the baby every time it played.

Unfortunately, this time it wasn't helping to calm you down.

After tossing and turning around the room several times, you sat up in bed, completely exhausted and hopeless. That's when you felt the noise nearby and realized that the phone under your pillow was vibrating nonstop. You were about to snort with stress from being so distracted lately, but an automatic smile appeared on your face when you saw that it was a call from Spencer. You hadn't heard from him in several hours, the last being his usual call to wish you a good morning every time he was away on a case.

“I think I'd lose my head if I didn't have it attached to my neck.” Was the first thing you said as you tried to tuck your pillow behind your neck to make yourself more comfortable.

“You've lost your phone again.” You heard him let out a small, weak laugh, followed by a cough that caught your attention and made you frown. “Sorry, I got stuck.” He quickly excused himself.

“Are you okay?”

In response to your question, he looked around the lab where he was confined, focusing on the broken vial of anthrax on the floor that had caused all his problems so far. Reid didn't know how to explain that an ordinary case had turned into a national problem that was taking over his life and future moments with you with every passing second.

And he certainly knew even less how to tell you that this would probably be the last time you would hear from him if the team didn't find a cure soon.

“I'm fine.” He lied immediately, feeling his breathing getting harder and harder. “Really, love.” He tried to reassure you, but he lost his balance and leaned heavily on the counter, his free hand gripping it hard enough to turn his knuckles white.

All you had to do was hear him call you that and your whole world would light up, you could even feel the baby in your belly kicking at the sound of his voice. You smiled as you realized that you were both happy to hear from Spencer after not seeing him for most of the day due to the demands of his job.

Although you've never said it out loud for fear of making him feel guilty, you miss him excessively, and you're always trying to multitask and be productive, so you don't think as much about how much you need him by your side. Especially when dinner time comes and his seat next to you is empty, or when night comes and his side of the bed is cold.

Perhaps it was the pregnancy hormones, but you seemed to have a stronger need for him than ever.

“And how did you feel today? How are my girls? Did she kick a lot today?” The usual questions he asked you every time he was on a long case began to appear. “I need to hear everything.”

“She just kicks a lot when she listens to you and you know it.” You replied, stroking your belly out of laziness. “She’s definitely a daddy's little princess.”

The lump in his throat and all of his fears became more intense and uncontrollable. The tears he had tried to keep from escaping to stay strong and focused began to flow unchecked down his cheeks. Hearing you talk like that, knowing it might be the last time, was killing him much faster than the anthrax itself.

“And what are you doing? All your agent stuff?” You spoke again at his silence, trying to ignore the bad feeling something was giving you. “Are you coming home soon?”

“I don't think that's possible, love.” He replied quickly, his voice hoarse and raspy, the lie slipping from his lips almost too easily. “I'm doing some paperwork, it'll take some time.”

It was the second time he had called you by that nickname in just a few minutes. Something seemed a little off, as he only used it when he wanted to calm you down. You knew him too well to miss it.

“Oh, okay.” You said it in a way that showed you were a little disappointed.

Spencer was about to try to comfort you when he suddenly felt the cough return to his throat and he put a hand over his mouth to stop it. It was no use, the cough shook his whole body, spinning him around and making him pant in between. He tried to cover the phone with his hand so that the sounds coming out of his mouth would not be heard, but it was useless. The hacking cough seemed to tear at his lungs, leaving him breathless, tears stinging at the corners of his eyes, and he could only hope you didn't hear it, because the last thing he wanted to do was worry you. He knew it would hurt you and the baby.

“Are you sure you're okay? Maybe you should drink some water. It sounds pretty bad.”

He tried to answer you right away, but the cough took over and prevented him from speaking. He gripped the phone tightly, struggling to breathe, trying to force his lungs to stop spasming. And when he finally stopped coughing, he managed to speak, his voice cracking and rather hoarse.

“Yes, I'm fine. It's probably just a cold.” He lied again, breathing shakily. “But it’s nothing so bad.”

“Take care of yourself, don't let it get worse.”

If only you knew that there was no way to make it worse, that it was already at its worst point and unlikely to improve.

“I will, don't worry.” He tries to sound convincing, but his voice comes out rough and raw, and he has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from coughing again. “Just focus on you and the baby, okay? I'll be fine.”

He spoke again so quickly that it was difficult to think of an appropriate response.

“Could you do something for me, love?”

“Of course, I'll do whatever you need.” You reply, feeling a little perplexed by the urgency in his voice.

There was a long, awkward silence after you answered, and you could feel your mind racing with worst-case scenarios. You had a feeling that Spencer was holding something back from you, and the thought of what it could be made your left leg start to twitch nervously. You didn't even bother trying to make yourself more comfortable in bed.

“Go to my part of the closet, to the top drawer. Open it and take out a box next to the socks.” Finally he spoke and began to give you instructions, which you followed as best you could. “Let me know when you have it, carefully. Don't rush or-”

“I've already got it.” You interjected.

“That was quick.” You heard the surprise in his voice as you looked at the box, curious to know what was inside, after having seen it several times and thinking it was just more socks.

You smiled before speaking again. “What should I do with this, love?”

The mere word coming out of your mouth made him tremble.

Love. Love. Love.

He was your love and you were his. He refused to accept that this would be completely shattered in a matter of minutes if he could not find a way to keep his eyes open and his heart still pumping blood.

“I need you to open it, but be careful. Take your time and don't rush. Don't make any sudden movements.” He said, trying to relax so that when he spoke again his voice would be calmer, softer. “And once you open it, I want you to imagine that I'm there with you, okay?”

You couldn't help but open the box quickly, even though you were careful. You were surprised to find a bunch of envelopes and papers inside. You left them on the bed, wondering what they were about. It had been five months since you knew you were pregnant, and all the envelopes and papers were the same age according to the dates in the top corner.

“Have you seen it yet?” Spencer asked.

“I'm sorry, I don't understand, could you explain what this is?” You asked, carefully running your hand through the neatly organized papers on the bed.

“Could you close your eyes and imagine I'm with you, like I told you before?” He asked, trying to keep a neutral tone as you complied with his request.

He needed you to see him there with you, he needed to say goodbye and at least touch you one last time.

“That's what I'm doing. I'm holding your hand right now.” You said with a small smile, feeling the warmth.

It was like feeling an automatic medicine with your name on it flow through his system and relieve a few aches and pains. His hands stopped shaking automatically as he imagined himself holding yours again.

“Okay…they are notes and letters.” His voice was soft, the intensity of his heartbeat gradually increasing as he remembered each time he wrote those words to you. “I started writing them when we found out you were pregnant. They're for our baby.”

He still remembered the day he found out you were expecting a baby, his baby. He recalled how he felt his whole world stop and turn a different color, his hand sliding down to your stomach, and his breath hitching in his chest as he held your face in his hands and kissed you lovingly, overwhelmed with joy and so in love that he hadn't known what to do with his own feelings.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “I...I found myself writing frequently and my therapist said it was fine…I was inspired to write about my feelings for you and our baby."

From the moment he revealed to you that he had resumed therapy with the goal of healing the wounds of childhood and becoming the father he never had, it was clear that his dedication surpassed any commitment. Now you just added to the list of reasons why he was already an exemplary father, one that any child would be lucky to have.

“Spencer, this is so sweet.” You said, completely moved and on the verge of tears, as you noticed all the dedication I had put into each and every piece of paper. “Why didn't you tell me this before?”

He felt like a bucket of cold water had been thrown on him at that moment. It was so hard to explain, to tell you that every thought and every dream he'd ever had included you and the baby now growing in your belly, and his great fear of not being able to be there for you someday.

“I-” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, feeling a bit overwhelmed. “I just wanted you to know now how much you mean to me and how blessed I am that you gave this to me. I've spent the last few months trying to even talk to some kind of God, and I don't even know if exist...” He swallowed hard and closed his eyes, the words lost somewhere in his throat, making it burn and hurt. “I just...I need the baby to know what you and her mean to me, how I see you, how I feel when I wake up next to you. What I want, what I dream for her, what...”

I want to marry you.

The thought almost escaped his lips, his aching heart pounding hard against his aching chest. He felt as if a pair of strong hands were strangling him.

“I don't understand...Tell me what's going on.” You interrupted him with a shaking voice, knowing that there was definitely something more to all of this.

Oh, how you know him and his big, messy, troubled brain.

He closed his eyes and shook his head, though you couldn't see it, knowing that you already read him like an open book.

“Nothing...Nothing's wrong, love, just...” He tried to breathe deeply through the phone, his heart pounding in his chest and his mind racing too fast. “I love you so much. Don't forget that, okay?”

“Spencer—”

He always loved your voice calling his name, and now, in his weak, tired, fearful state, he couldn't stop the words from pouring out of his mouth.

“I want you to know that you'll be okay, that she'll be okay, that everything will be okay, and that I love you. I love you both very much. Please, please...” He kept going. He knew he was babbling, but he couldn't stop. His mind was racing, and his words came out like a confession.

He was an expert profiler, a genius with an eidetic memory and a sharp mind, but at that moment, with his body weakened and his head spinning, he found himself unable to contain himself. He was exposed, open, and experiencing discomfort. All of the things he wanted to tell you, all of the questions he wanted to ask, and all of the concerns, worries, and thoughts in his mind came pouring out, like a dam breaking. He sensed that you could feel it through the line, and he realized that he could no longer deny it any longer.

“I love you. I have to go now.”

“Wait.”

You had a feeling something wasn't quite right, and those letters seemed to confirm your suspicions. They were a precautionary measure, a way of ensuring that everything would be taken care of in case something happened to him.

“I have to go, I'm...I'm busy, love.” He tried to sound convincing, and he knew he was failing miserably, but if he stayed a moment longer, he would continue to talk and confess more. “I love you both.”

“We love you too.”

If he wasn't already weak and trembling, hearing your voice telling him that you loved him, in that soft tone, would have made him fall to the floor again. He closed his eyes again and leaned against the wall, his own trembling hand going to cover his mouth so he wouldn't say more, because he would tell you everything if you kept talking in that sweet tone.

He wasn't ready to say goodbye.

So it was that he thought of you and your kind way of loving him before he felt his head hit the floor and his eyes close.

[annadiplosis]

A few months ago I posted a couple photos of my index cards, saying I still didn’t know how and where I’d keep them, and I’ve since developed an Archiving System that combines the cards with a digital spreadsheet and has taken more hours than I will ever admit.

So, since I don’t have a “notebook system” to speak of, I'd like to share the way I archive my journals / sketchbooks / whatever you wanna call them, because I’m very proud of it, and who knows, someone might find it helpful :)

WHY I NEED AN ARCHIVING SYSTEM

The reason I don’t have a notebook system is because I use my books for absolutely everything, from sketches to grocery lists and journaling. It is crucial to me to not have any restrictions or expectations when it comes to my books, and that’s how I’ve managed to fill 43 of them over the years.

But of course, when you’ve been using notebooks without a system for most of your life and you want to read a specific entry, you can easily spend a full hour flipping through a sea of paper until you stumble upon those notes on the Bubonic Plague you took in 2011 or whatever you were trying to find.

SO HERE’S WHAT I DO

When I finish a notebook, I try to determine what its most important contents are: stuff I might want to reference in the future (project ideas, meeting notes) or is very characteristic of a period in my life (friends' drawings, travel logs). Every single page contributes to making the notebook what it is and gives it a unique personality, but not all of them are gonna be keepers, and that's fine (I'd even say fundamental, at least in my case).

These are the extremely generic categories I sort my Chosen Entries into. It's similar to the dot system so many people use, just applied retroactively:

🟣 Study notes 🔵 Work 🟢 Personal 🟡 Projects 🔴 Misc

And here's where the real archiving begins. This info goes into:

1. THE INDEX CARDS

(I always write them in Catalan; this one's a mockup and most of these are not real entries)

A little piece of cardboard with the notebook number, its start and end dates, and most important contents. I keep each index card inside its corresponding notebook, either in its own backpocket or an adhesive one I stick there myself.

This way, whenever I want to take a quick look through the book, I get a general idea of its contents at first glance. Sometimes, just holding it in my hand and reading the index card brings me back to the time when I was keeping it, and that time-travel feeling gives me a rush like no other. I don't know if you can tell, but I'm crazy about my notebooks.

2. THE SPREADSHEET

Same as before, just a couple more pieces of info (number of months, physical description) added to a file with the rest of my notebooks' data. Again, these are not real entries for privacy and language reasons, but they're very similar to the kind of stuff I do keep. The spreadsheet helps me find specific entries with a simple ctrl+f, and it's also a bird's-eye view of my progress through the years as a notebook keeper. I can see when my interests shift, how long some of my most important projects took to come to fruition, and even similar types of entries that repeat every few years which I wasn't even aware of before putting it all together. Absolutely fascinating stuff.

I hope this was useful, or interesting at the very least! If you’re a notebook keeper trying to find their own archiving system, my main advice would be to start early so you don’t have to deal with almost two decades of material like I did :’)

If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask.

Good luck 🖤

[flamingpudding]

Fictober23 Prompt: 21 - "Just in case this doesn't work."

Fandom: DPxDC

Rating: T

Warnings: -

A/N: Inspired by this Post about Danny bullshiting his way by saying he is Tims future kid. Also once again posting this early, cause I need to destress tomorrow and not worry about writing or work or anything.

Edit: Thanks to @kisatamao in the comments I found the post again that inspired this and linked it!

"Chronus"

"Nowadays I go by Clockwork."

"Fine, Clockwork then."

"John Constantine."

The Ancient of Time and Justice League Dark members stared at each other blankly. Until the ruler of time smiled and Constantine sighed. "How is the time baby doing?"

"Very well. Your timeline is safe. There was an incident that could have possibly splittend the timeline again and in a way it did but the destruction timeline was once more prevented, by the child himself like I hoped for. Three times now."

Constantine grunted, lighting a cigarette and taking a long drag. "You know if Bats or any of his kids ever learn about this I will be the one to take the burn right?"

Clockwork only smiled a knowing smile and Constantine paled. "When?"

"Where is the fun if you knew. The little Drake has been quite unpredictable and entertaining." The Ancient mused floating around the room and Constantine's eyes narrowed.

"There won't be a paradox?"

Clockworks tilted his head with a mischievous smile on his face. "Well the timeline in which he was born no longer exists and his father of this time line has ceased his efforts in cloning. He never even got to the point of trying to combine his own DNA with the one he so desperately wanted to clone."

"I feel like I am hearing secrets I definitely do not want to know. Just tell me if this timeline is safe or not now."

"It is safe. Your timeline has now a true Ancient of Balance in the making and just in case this doesn't work, I have anchored Daniel's existence in this timeline with several means one of which was his own time clone created from a split of destruction line."

Constantine's eyes twitched. "For all of our sakes I hope Bats never finds out about this. If he ever learns that I replaced a still born with a grandson of his from a different destruction timeline… You know what, I am not nearly drunk enough for any of this mate!"

Clockwork chuckled, his eyes glinting with unhidden amusement. "Well John Constantine, would you like a word of advice?"

The JLD member took another long drag of his cigarette before flicking the butt of it somewhere to the side. "No riddle."

"When 17 turns to 4 it is not the grandfathers, you should fear."

"I said no riddles!" Constantine huffed as clockwork disappeared from his side. He brushed his hair with one hand, glaring at the spot where the Ancient of Time had been. He should have never agreed to help that damned being 15 years ago, having been somewhat of a beginner then John did not realize what kind of deal he had agreed on.

Now he wasn't sure if he should be relieved or fearful of the consequences. Especially now that he had worked with the Bat Family a couple of times already.

Exactly one year later Constantine decided he was fucking fearful!

Unknown to the Brite a lot of things can happen in three years. Like Parents turning on their child after accidentally learning about a truth. A teenager that was already hurt trying to salvage whatever peace he could.

—--

"Mom! Dad! I swear it's still me, Danny!"

"Give me back my baby boy you monster!"

—--

A governmental organisation committing mass genocide on an interdimensional species.

—--

"Ember, get out of here! Now!"

"Baby Pop! What about the others?!"

"Dan already released them! Get out of here! I will hold them off and keep them busy!"

—----

The interdimensional species try to convince said teenager fighting for them to forgo humanity.

—--

"Welp, this can't go on. No hunt is worth this much."

"Give it up already. The humans made their decision."

"They broke too many rules, it is time they suffer the consequences."

—--

A heavy conflicted ending with the teenager receding into its core and getting picked up by one of his papa from a different timeline.

—--

"What kind of crystal is that? It radiates a pretty strange but familiar energy."

"I wanna see! I wanna see!"

"If it's not dangerous, why not keep it?"

"It looks like there are snowflakes in it."

—--

The kid then reformed out of his core in his ghost age instead of human age with a green note appearing on his forehead. Said note confusing the kids papa making him contact the kids dad.

—--

"Tim you won't believe this…"

"Kon you sound weird, what is going on?"

"Remember that shiny crystal I picked up at the end of our last case?"

"The one with the snowflakes in it, yes."

"I think I just became a dad."

"WHAT?!"

—--

Which then led to the dad overanalyzing the note while the kid insisted that a certain ghost was involved. The child's grandparents then getting tipped off through the grandchild of the Ancient Constantine still curses in his mind.

—--

"So Pandora mentioned something to me."

"Hn."

"Have you tried asking Constantine about it? He is apparently in contact with a being that likes to write cryptic messages on green notes, or that's what Pandora told me at least."

"..."

"And your new grandchild came with such a note right?"

—--

And now John Constantine was fearing for his life, because Batman had tried to contact him several times now. Several times Constantine had found reasons to ignore. Only for the Bat to come knocking on his door -well more like rudely kicking it down- with fucking Super too! He was cursing up a storm internally and thinking of how best he could get out of whatever had crawled up the two hero's asses when right behind the two hero's stood another set of hero's he did not want to face especially when he noticed one of them holding a four years old toddler in his arms.

"Chronus you fucking asshole!" The Brite muttered to himself as the four hero's plus time baby stood before him demanding answers.

That was when the toddler piped up, eyes glowing a bright green. "So Clockwork does have something to do with this! I knew it!"

"Danny, sweetheart not now. You can tell us you were right after we figured out what timeline you are from and if we need to send you back or can keep you." Red Robin calmed the now pouting toddler Super Boy was holding and petting with a small chuckle. While Batman and Superman turned on Constantine.

[wirewitchviolet]

Sudokuvania: Digits of Despair is one of the most impressive works of pure game design I have ever seen.

Before I say anything else, I am going to be talking about a game that is VERY new and has pretty terrible search optimization, so in case this blog post somehow came up near the top of results for someone, here is the as-of-this-writing-current 1.02 release, and for good measure, here is the official FAQ page with the full version history, any future patches, and an FAQ for some of the more confusingly worded stuff that crops up later into the game. Now on with the praise-heaping!

So... Sudokuvania pretty much exactly what the name implies. It's a -vania, that is, a Metroidvania, and specifically one styled after one of the ones that's actually in the latter Castlevania series so that naming convention actually makes sense. Exploring a big castle, fighting bosses, getting various items letting you explore more areas, maybe breaking out of the borders of the map to find cool secrets here and there.

Also, it's a variant of sudoku. And I don't mean someone sat down with some videogame designing toolkit and made a videogame where some of the gameplay is solving logic puzzles on a grid you fill with numbers (I mean, I guess technically I do). I mean that link to the game I posted takes you to a website with a little built in standard app for solving sudoku puzzles and weird variations thereof, and the particular puzzle it's pointing to, somehow, manages to have a big map to explore, boss fights, special items that give you new powers, NPCs, and for good measure, fog of war. It is, again, an absolutely amazing hacky thing and I'm flabbergasted at how well executed it is. Now you're probably wondering how that even works, and that's why I'm writing this big gushy blog post. Here's what you see when you first load it up:

You're going to notice there is some absurdly small and kind of important text you can't possibly read, and that's because again, this is kind of a hacky thing this site so was not designed for. So it's kind of annoying but if you access this through the proper introduction page, it'll explain that the first thing you need to do is click the little gear icon in the floating tool palette, toggle on Visuals: Draw arrows above lines and Disable emoji replacement, then scroll all the way down to Experimental and turn on Test Large Puzzle UI. That enables you to zoom in and out with the scroll wheel, and right-click drag to pan around. It's... a little clunky because again, this website was NOT built for this, but tada, now you can zoom in, read the text, and start solving at a reasonable size. Then there's a couple gameplay concepts it does its best to explain, but... most people I've shown it to myself included needed extra explanation of a couple important early concepts. So let me just do a little color coding here to make this easier to get...

The map is not, in fact, one great big grid. It's 9 squares (and one rectangle that's not quite square over on the east side). Each of these is its own 9x9 Sudoku grid (well, the starting one is 6x6 and has those mutant 2x3 cells instead of the usual 3x3, and there's that weird eastern mutant). If you're solving stuff in one square, you completely ignore everything outside that square, except for where they overlap, in which case the numbers you're placing have to fit for both puzzles. So if we look at the light grey/green intersection on the left, those three overlap cells respectively can't be 4 6 or 5 (and whatever use you deduce in the grey box, but the pure green cells completely ignore all that, you're just focusing on the green 9x9 (which is going to have the overlap as a starting point, naturally).

The next bit that through me off a ton is the way fog of war works. Let me reasonably zoom in and do a little solving here. One second...

Here's the whole starting area all marked up to hell like you do when you're kinda bad at Sudoku and don't know how to spot a starting point. Penciling in little numbers in the corners. You'll also notice a that... most of the map is covered in this dark grey fog of war. A lot of in-game stuff mentions that you shouldn't go clicking out into the fog of war, because it'll show you names of later areas and preview certain special rules and all, but that's talking about clicking WAY off from what you can see. You are 100% allowed to solve stuff out in the fog of war, and it's pretty stingy about de-fogging. Don't go blindly guessing because then you can maybe end up sequence breaking but... yeah. Sorry I'm spoiling the Front Gate, it's basically the tutorial though. Anyway, first move is obvious, only one place we can put that 6, and suddenly...

Tada, important space so it rewarded us with a little fog clearing. You can also see that this will handily point out stuff in your pencil notes that can't be true, but only if A- it's untrue for standard sudoku reasons not special stuff, and B- it's not in the fog of war (or on the other side of some. You also maybe noticed that weird green thing under that first hint 6? That's something we need a tool for, you don't worry about it until you have that tool. Solving this out some more...

Little more de-fogging, both of the puzzle area and the margins where we're getting new information on playing the game in general. Now right here if you're observant, you'll see that bottom right corner has to be a 6. It's out in the fog of war, but you can mark it if you know what it is. And...

I was cropping it out before but the big purple number pad is always floating off to the side there, and the green text box over it, which among other things has an area name and flavor text for whatever grid you're in. This won't ALWAYS happen when you place numbers in fog of war, but there was a trigger on this 6 to load in a little piece of the first real area, and oh hey, we unlocked "Guide THERMO!" That's our first tool, and it's described up in the upper left.

So tada, from here out in addition to standard sudoku stuff, you've got these "bronze Guide THERMOs" that show up here and there and have this extra rule. You basically never get free numbers in the grid past the Front Gate, it's all slow-marching into new areas using what you're bringing in plus some easy starting examples of how your new tools work, plowing on from there. The fog of war is pretty stingy but it keeps you focused. You'll also notice the rules here mention bosses, all the 9x9 ones have one. It's clearly marked, and you should PROBABLY expose it from the fog first, but any time you're in the area really you, if you scroll around in that green text box or hit the rules button when in a grid, there's a link you can click to go fight it. The boss fights are all separate puzzles (site's good about auto-saving so don't freak out if it takes over your tab and you have to hit back after). These are very themey, sometimes VERY evil (especially boss #1, feels a bit overtuned) self-contained 9x9 puzzles, probably using the same tools their area is themed around, and I don't think there's a single pre-placed number in any of them. Beat the boss puzzle, it gives you some flavor text and a number to place in its cell back in the main castle puzzle, plug that in and you're always going to unlock something cool. Usually a new item, sometimes other weird stuff, and it just goes on like that.

Don't expect to be able to fully solve a given grid in one go. It's a Metroidvania, backtracking is expected. Even if you've fully de-fogged a grid, later stuff might reward you by straight up adding new symbols you couldn't see before or doing weird stuff with fog. It IS all solvable with pure logic... but there ARE a few places that do that thing I hate in tougher sudokus where you just kinda have to pencil in in a different faction and explore 2 possible futures for a bit to see which eventually contradicts itself. And of course the last couple of grids do some really evil mind-bendy stuff.

But yeah aside from a couple gripes where the way a tool works could maybe be a lot more grammatically clear, that first boss being a lot to deal with as you're first getting your feet wet, and a particularly cruel twist later on, I don't really have any complaints. Well, it might need a cool soundtrack. Maybe play some Castlevania music. Maybe switch it up for some real proper boss music when you're nearing victory.

Again I am just completely blown away that someone made something so meaty in a standard sudoku site's normal UI, and really managed to make it feel so much like playing a DS Castlevania. Some real proof of game design being an art form here. And now you too can just completely lose a day or two to it!

[kiyo-cant-write]

hi hi! jade req again, kinda toxic this time

can we get jade with a reader who’s really easy to manipulate and they know it? idk if it makes sense but like jade realizing reader isn’t oblivious to his manipulation, just kinda self-destructive and hopelessly into him

jade thought he was being slick because reader wasn’t calling him out on anything, but he overhears their conversation and finds out that they’re fully aware jade is a ton of red flags but is still staying anyway, and his reaction to that

i really hope this makes sense! idk how to word it

jade w/ an easily manipulated reader ✧･ﾟ

.

Aw! Thank you for another request! I love Jade and Octavinelle so much! I hope that I did your idea justice. Please let me know if you'd like another request in the future! Onwards to the story! ^^

.

.

Summary: Jade Leech has been stringing [Name] along for fun and due to the instruction of Octavinelle's Housewarden. He thought he was doing well... but it seems [Name] may have had ulterior motives.

TW/CW: Toxicity but the standard Fish Mafia kind

Notes: established "relationship", they/them pronouns for the reader, the reader is Yuu/Ramshackle Prefect, the reader is described as human and younger than Jade/frosh, ADeuce if you squint, implied to be post-Azul OB

Guest Stars: Deuce Spade, Ace Trappola, Grim, Azul Ashengrotto & Floyd Leech (referenced)

.

.

.

✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:

Jade Leech

As much of a sadist as Jade can be, he's not exceptionally cruel outside of what he deems as the necessity for his purposes.

He is a bit smug when he thinks he has [Name] under control.

Jade is pretending to be "honor student Jade Leech."

He acts as their friend and support albeit for the Lounge.

He pretends to care, to do everything to help them.

He smiles at them, speaks politely, and even "affectionately."

They trust him and they tell him things they shouldn't.

He will use those bits of information when the time comes.

Every time they have an inkling of doubt, he squashes it.

His surprise is evident when Floyd points out that it might not be the case this time, but Floyd is Floyd and doesn't explain.

Wanting to make sense of this discovery, Jade observes [Name].

He watches to see if [Name] really has caught onto him.

Jade is intrigued and what he finds does not disappoint.

He is surprised to find that they caught on long ago.

But they stayed? Why?

Because they "love" him?

Why would they love the guy trying to string them along?

It didn't make sense to him. He felt a tug at his heartstrings.

Did he feel bad about this?

He didn't know what to do.

Jade starts to avoid [Name] after realizing their feelings.

He retracts further into his honor student persona.

[Name] will not win this fight. He will not be bested by a freshman.

The battle has just begun and Jade needs to bury this sinking feeling in his chest. What does it mean anyway?

Floyd serves as a live studio audience to Jade's struggles.

Jade is an observer. That had been his role for so long, that he wasn't sure when it began. Ever since he was young, he would watch and calculate while Floyd was the type to rush into things, be impulsive, and just a tad stupid at times, at least when they were young. Jade never intended to make his observations a skill, but sooner or later, everything becomes an asset.

That's what his father had always said.

His mother worried about the sadistic streak in her son, but she couldn't do anything to prevent its development. Jade was, after all, a member of the Leech family. He and Floyd would join the family business sooner or later unless they wholly refused its offer.

"[Full Name]," Jade mused to himself, "How interesting."

Azul had been the one to ask him to pay extra close attention to Ramshackle's Prefect in case they strayed too far from things, or got into any trouble. The magicless human that had saved others from themselves, they interested the owner of Mostro Lounge. Jade had simply agreed with Azul's request, observation was his skill, after all.

It had never been meant to evolve, and certainly not into this.

Jade watched as this person fell for his polite words hook, line, and sinker. It was almost too easy. They were shockingly trusting, telling him all sorts of things he could use to be downright evil if he wanted to be. It wasn't time for that, not yet, but one should always guard their secrets (perhaps not as much as Azul, but at least a bit).

He didn't need to do anything unless the moment called for it.

At the time, it had not been necessary.

That was weeks ago.

Azul hadn't given further instructions and, to be fair about it, Jade didn't want to earn that octomer's ire. Not today, anyway. He and Floyd were troublesome, yes, but not stupid.

So, as Azul had instructed, he was trailing the Prefect until told otherwise (or until it became boring, whichever arose first). Though their reactions had been predictable, he could argue that things were getting boring now.

Floyd would have given up ages ago, he was sure of it.

[Full Name] was currently spending their time with their classmates, Ace Trappola (easily swayed by competition and bets) and Deuce Spade (note: gullible as a child). Jade had kept an eye on the three of them (and Grim) because of their closeness. It was rather irritating how buddy-buddy they were. He had worked a bit to get [Name] alone those few times they had spoken privately.

Standing away from the trio, Jade listened in on their conversation.

"[Name], I don't think that this is good," Deuce told them, clearly worried for their friend's mental state, "You need to be more careful. Don't you remember what happened to me and Ace?"

"I fucking remember!" Ace chimed in, "It sucked. Don't trust fish."

"Nya! Fish are food, not friends," Grim told them, "Especially eels!"

"Ah... You guys..."

Jade almost wanted to chuckle at Grim's words of "wisdom" but he withheld it, knowing that he mustn't give away his position. Not yet.

"You shouldn't trust Leech-senpai," Deuce continued, "Do you not remember how he and his twin brother acted before?"

"THEY TRIED TO KILL US, [NICKNAME]!!" Ace interrupted Deuce, earning him a glare from the navy-haired boy, "Sorry, Deuce-chan."

"Don't call me that."

What Deuce was doing could only be described as glowering.

"Lighten up and help me convince [Nickname] not to get themselves murdered by a shady eel and a shadier octopus!" Ace told him, slapping Deuce on the shoulder, "Just because they're better doesn't mean they're changed fish! Fish are suspicious!"

"Ace, do you have some fish-related trauma outside of campus that I should know about?" Deuce asked him, "It's starting to seem—"

"FOCUS ON [NICKNAME], DEUCE."

Ace's reddened face was a sign that Deuce was on to something with that fishy nonsense. Jade Leech would remember that fact.

Fish trauma. Noted.

"....Okay," Deuce agreed, turning back to [Name], "Do you want to tell us what you've been doing with Leech-senpai? We're worried..."

Deuce trailed off for a moment before he added a Deuce-typical offer.

"I can fight him if you want me to. They're messing with my friend."

"N-no thanks, Deuce... I don't think I need that," [Name] said, laughing at the antics of her friends and roommate, "Honestly, I know he's not being honest with me... But I don't really... care?"

The words surprised Jade but he refused to give himself away. There was more information to be gathered, for his own needs and Azul's.

They don't mind my dishonesty? Heh...

"I have never been more concerned for you than I am right now," Ace said, tone lacking its usual goofy undertone, "Do you want me to tell Mom and Dad about anything? They would help..."

Ace wasn't sure what to do but this was a worry. So frantic to say his sentence Ace neglected to register his misnomer for Vice Housewarden Trey Clover and everyone's favorite senpai Cater Diamond. He could lay awake and think about that later.

Deuce clearly felt similarly as he reached out to put a hand on [Name]'s. He wasn't good at solving problems of the emotional variety but he could be a support. Or, he would try to be one.

"Even if we can't say anything helpful... We can be here to listen."

"I appreciate it, but I'm fine," [Name] tried to assure them (but it wasn't working), "I just... I like Jade-senpai... and if this is how... he will talk to me... then I am okay with it. I've just been going along with all... that."

Jade felt time stop for a millisecond as he processed the words. They had been "playing along"? They didn't fall for every trick? Perhaps this was more interesting than he had thought. Still. He didn't like being bested, perhaps he needed to up his game...

"[Name], that's not good... I don't think..." Deuce managed.

"I wish Mom and Dad were here..." Ace mumbled.

"[Name], don't leave me for a fish! It's not even tuna!"

Grim clung to his human with small paws, tail swishing.

Jade was baffled not by those that Azul had previously controlled but by [Name] themself. They were something odd amongst the students of Night Raven College. They didn't shy away from his... methods.

But they said they liked him. He wondered if that made him feel something. He wasn't one to like other people, stay around them long... especially these landfolk.

It was a foreign concept.

Oh dear. [Full Name], you've managed to intrigue me now.

To the concern of Deuce, Ace, and Grim, Jade Leech wouldn't be letting his human prey go any time soon. Not for Azul, or his brother... This was something he was pursuing now. For better or worse.

I hope they're prepared to best me once more.

What would they say if I said I "loved" them? ♪

.

Imagine the rest for yourself~

.

.

✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:

Thank you for reading! Likes and reblogs are appreciated! Do NOT repost my writing/headcanons as your own >:c Check the top of my blog for the inbox status and read the rules before requesting. This is not a twst-only blog! ^^

[yourheart-inmyhands]

Hello again! I'm just here to send u another request :P

Could I get Raiden, Focalors, Venti, and the Abyss Princess Lumine for the same request I had for critically injured reader?

Thank you!!

🍌anon

hi tysm for the request! i don't write for lumine unfortunately, she's marked as discontinued on my list since i felt it was difficult to write for someone who is meant to be diverse for each player. so sorry and i hope it doesn't stop you from requesting in the future :D <3

Warning: this post contains yandere-themes, including obsessive behaviors, self blaming behaviors, mentions of falling from great heights, lots of talk of reader being injured/in hospital, and other potential topics. Please read at your own risk!

Raiden:

Raiden was always a little cold, a little distant and standoffish. She didn’t mean any harm by it, she was simply busy and didn’t have a lot of free time for you, even if she wished she had. Staring at you now, her trembling hands holding you tight as she tries to find the source of the bleeding, trying to stop it, trying to do anything. In this moment, Raiden feels the crushing weight of her actions, feels the suffocating pressure of not having loved you enough.

If you died in this moment, protecting her from some daring individuals in Inazuma despite the fact she could easily have protected herself, Raiden would never forgive herself. She’s grateful that you don’t die, nearly bleeding out and being in a medically induced coma aren’t great, but you aren’t dead. It’s in this moment that Raiden is grateful for her immortality, for she can sit eternally by your bedside, waiting for you to wake up.

It nearly makes Raiden sick to see you laid out on a bed like that, far too many machines making noises, more bandages than skin visible. It’s enough to have her flinching, unsure that this was even you anymore. But her heart knows it’s you, and it aches at the sight of the damage it has caused. Raiden finds herself thankful that she isn’t required to sleep, eat, or do any other basic necessities, it gives her more time to sit at your bedside, talking to you and waiting for you to wake up, if you ever do that is. She knows it isn’t enough to make up for all the time she’s thrown away, but as she sits there, staring at her hands in her lap, too nervous to touch you in case she causes more damage, she can’t help but feel like it’s at least a step in the right direction.

Furina:

Furina wasn’t a neglectful lover by any means, and after losing her divinity, she had even more time to spend with you. Except she didn’t, why she did her best to put on a brave, happy face, she was depressed. She needed time to heal and found herself accidentally shutting you out of that healing process. Furina was grateful for your loyalty though, staying around and making sure she continued to care for herself.

That was exactly what led to the accident though. While cooking food for the two of you in her kitchen, something went wrong with the stove, causing a small explosion in the kitchen and setting fire to everything in sight it could reach. Furina was able to get you both out of there, but she hadn’t been able to stop the explosion, leaving you in a critical state.

Standing just outside your room, watching as the Melusines change your bandages and mutter amongst themselves about your condition, Furina can only blame herself. If she hadn’t been so depressed, if she had done the cooking for once, if she- if she just- her thoughts become muddled with more self-loathing and blame, her gaze unfocused until a Melusine approaches. The small creatures had tried to coax her into the room numerous times, telling her that it was ok to sit beside your bed and that you couldn’t feel any pain right now. Furina politely refused every time. She didn’t feel she deserved to sit or even stand near you. She didn’t think she even deserved to stand outside your room, but she couldn’t stand to be apart from you until she knew you were ok. 

Venti: 

Gliding from the mountaintop was supposed to be a fun little date between the two of you. The gentle breeze coaxing you from the cliffside down to the sprawling fields below, it was supposed to be fun. Venti even went out and bought you both new gliders, ones that matched. It was cute and fun, up until yours broke. He wasn’t sure how, but one of the wings managed to disconnect from the other, leaving you wobbling before the winds turned against you, tipping you over and sending you plummeting.

He could only react so fast, hastily trying to unclip his own glider so that he could go after you. Venti hadn’t even thought about using the power of the wind, he was panicking, wasn’t thinking straight. He couldn’t wrap his brain around the fact that you were actually falling. The sickening crunch was enough to snap him out of his panic, allowing him to finally unsecure his own wings and drop down. He didn’t take any damage though, landing safely thanks to the wind.

Rushing you to Mondstat felt longer than it took, it really had only been a few minutes, but it felt like hours. You were laid on a cot in the Cathedral, all the sisters rushing about trying to help you. Several of your bones had been broken and Sister Barbara was doing her best to heal them. Grand Master Jean even came to help, taking shifts with her sister to give the younger girl some rest. It seemed as though all of Mondstat came to your aid, with the Librarian and Alchemist of the Knights working together to find some sort of healing potion. Everyone was doing something, except Venti. He sat on the roof of the building, crying and cursing his own name. He prayed that Celestia would take his remaining divinity, that they would cut him off and grant him humanity, grant him death. Venti was to blame for this, it had been his idea, he hadn’t reacted fast enough to catch you with the wind. He was sure you were going to hate him after this. 

[pastorfutureletthembe]

I actually started this blog for one post only. The theory is that the story we are following is currently the 5th timeline.

I would need to watch the donghua again to find hints in the show itself but for now this post is exclusively about the content we keep getting served as fanservice. Now, people nowadays see this word as negative but in this particular case, we are evidently caught in an ARG (Alternative Reality Game), which is AWESOME.

For those who aren't familiar with the concept, it is basically a treasure hunt outside of the original media. For example, if you gather enough clues during your playthroughs of OXENFREE, you'll find the coordinates of an actual place where a real object, a gift FOR FANS was hidden. In the context of Link Click, I believe the rules and answers regarding the worldbuilding are hidden in plainsight for us to discover!

I will make different posts on the clues in lyrics, but for now we're gonna have a talk about VISUALS only. And boy, do we have THINGS to talk about

First things first, let's start with

>>>>> Promotional posters.

I'm opening this analysis with this particular one because it is the most relevant to current events. Black circles are V and white ones are IV. The huge clock is the background isn't supposed to be oriented this way for starters. One V is where XII should be, which could mean our journey starts here. The other V is between Cheng Xiaoshi and Li Tianxi, on the light side, while both VI are on the dark side. Every other VI on this artwork is a broken piece taken out of a quadrant except for the one on the right near Qiao Ling which is still part of the biggest piece.

It is interesting that we don't see any clockhands here, only the quadrant, and the only whole number is 5, ONLY on CXS's introduction.

Not so subtil, the mirror or "painting" is labeled 'V'. Lu Guang is also looking directly at US, viewers.

Probably five lines of five x but we only see 3, of which only the first one got 5x. Four diformed shapes can be seen at LG's left, under V/VI, which could be the four previous failed timelines. You might notice that LINK CLICK is written 5times. The clock says 00:05. Oh, familiar, isnt it?

As you can see, the V is a light in the darkess at Lu Guang's feet. it is a broken piece, though. The fact it is the enlighted one could mean two things. 1) It marks the spot, where we're currently at. 2) Hope. I would argue that until then Cheng Xiaoshi always died and now, at the end of season 2, Lu Guang is in the dark because he never went that far.

VI is there too, in complete darkness, blocked from view by a ring. There is something to say about VII being completely obliterated but I honeslty don't know how meaningful that could be.

>>> It is my understanding that if a character change the past, it breaks the timeline. Past changed, present and future cannot be the same ever again. It doesn't create a new timeline like in MARVEL, there is actually no going back from a changing node, it unravels this world. Either it already happened, allegedly because of Lu Guang, or will happen in the next season, we can suppose that Timeline VI is the actual doomed one. The fact Cheng Xiaoshi is trapped is relevant too. Destroying Present and Future would trapped him in the Past, hence Come back from the dive back in time.

>>>>> Dive Back in Time

There are many things to say about this one, but I'll keep it simple since it's already a long post. Let's start with something a bit out of topic: colors. Why? It actually indicates that LG isn't from the same timeline than CXS and QL. And I swear it would be useful at the end of this post.

Blue and Red are on the same plan, no matter if we're talking about RGB or CMYK, but Green and Magenta are not. It's like CXS and QL are anchoring LG in this reality, but Magenta is not supposed to be part of the mix. Primary colors in photography are Red, Blue and Green; not Magenta. Since we're talking about photography and this is not the original timeline, I think it is intended.

I'll leave the count of squares to you (spoiler: either 5 or 3 (I'll explain this one in another post) :D).

>>>>> Overthink

I recommend you read this glorious meta about this ending. I'll just "correct" mimicha on one point:

The way the hands are "cutting a piece" of the clock; just like in the promotional poster for Train Trail. It indicates 5. I'll also add this one:

If you look carefully, you'll see two words: TIME PARADOX. As said above, a paradox should NOT be possible with the rules LC gave us so far, but it could be related to the possible 6th doomed timeline. The "dark side" could try and make it happen. Just food for thoughts.

If you want more meta on OPs/ENDs, I recommend you also watch this glorious analysis. That's all I have to say for this one regarding the number 5.

>>>>> VORTEX

Not much to say, except for this "blink and you'll miss it" screenshot. If I missed anything, feel free to share with the class!

THE TIDES has, sadly, nothing to offer on this current topic!

>>>>> 3rd Anniversary: Surprising Click

Oh boy, do I have THINGS to say. Don't be surprised when I'll make another post about this Link Click monument haha. Note: 5 PVs were prepared for this anniversary. Coincidence? (I think not).

N O W A N D F O R E V E R

The only 5 clue I found is what looks like a clock with one hand going backwards, from X to IV, it appears while the chorus is playing. That might be a bit farfetched but I'd mention it for archives purpose anyway.

B R E A K

I won't be a smartass by pointing out BREAK is a five letters word but- okay that's infuriating of them if it is on purpose.

Most of it is obvious, the same logic applies, except for the cogs and hourglasses, we see four of each falling. Since LG's shadow/light goes from IV to V, it's safe to assume that those symbolize the four failed/achieved timelines. The ones left behind. I'll probably post something about cogs and hourglasses one day.

A last one, for the road:

S U R P R I S I N G C L I C K

You should take a look at this fan's brain! They did a wonderful work. I already had this part prepared so I'm still gonna share the obvious. Five mics ("time is like music"), and five letters (with photographs inside I'm guessing). Magenta and Green are very flashy in this one.

Oh, here are LG's five magenta squares from Dive Back in Time ;D

Four failed timelines/tasks, and... loading the first out of three chances. (Again, I can't address everything in one post, this one will have a long meta on his own, don't worry :D)

T R A I N T R I A L

Two occurances worth mentionning. Once again, V is the only timeline enlighted.

B U R N I N G P A L A C E

Many things are happening in this one but only one regarding our current meta. If you pay attention, you'll see it several times, while the chorus is playing:

x x x x x

Now, if you remember correctly, green is the exact chromatic opposite, the complementary color of magenta. They aren't on the same plan (primary vs secondary)/from the same timeline. Usually, they color Lu Guang but here, there is no magenta and no Lu Guang. With this in mind, could it be the paradox OVERTHINK warned us about? We can only assume Vein is from the same original timeline as LG. Red and Green are primary colors so yeah, we'll see.

That's all for today folks!

I had this brainworm eating at my life for weeks so I'm very happy that it is finally out there.

| Part 2 |

[nikkento-writes]

Seashell

Author's Note: I know it’s been way too long since I’ve posted or written anything, but I do have a small life update: I’m engaged! And I’m happy to say that this little piece is inspired by true events. 💗 Enjoy! Divider credits to the lovely @/cafekitsune.

“Let’s watch the sunrise when we’re in Hawaii.”

It’s an unexpected suggestion coming from your boyfriend, who values sleep more than anyone else you know and is rarely ever willing to get up earlier than he really needs to. But Nanami insists, even when you raise a brow at him with a smirk, doubting him with an unconvinced, “Are you serious?”

The two of you are tucked under the covers in bed, about ready to sleep. He turns on his side to face you, a small smile on his face. “I’ve been wanting to do that ever since our trip last year. I hear the sunrises in Hawaii are beautiful.” 

You study his expression carefully. For some reason, you’re suspicious. You’re not sure of what exactly, but there’s a small part of you that thinks he’s up to something. Though, you don’t want to get your hopes up in case that small part of you is wrong.

You’ve been together for over a decade now. While some may see that as way too long without marriage, the both of you have been happy and unbothered to go at your own pace. Nanami’s career as a sorcerer was always unpredictable, making it complicated to plan for the future. Now that he’s retired, it seems you’re both finally ready to take the next step. Right before the new year started, the two of you casually went ring shopping together, trying on different stones and settings until you found one that you fell in love with. Nanami made sure to take various pictures from all angles, memorizing the exact style that made your eyes sparkle. Even after that, you haven’t been convinced that it will happen anytime soon. The last thing you want to do is to put pressure on him. And the last thing you want to feel after a nice vacation in Hawaii is disppointed if it doesn’t happen. 

So, you keep your expectations non-existent, excited to just spend a few days in paradise with the love of your life. Without pressing further, you agree to his idea, snuggling up against his chest. “Okay, sweetie. That sounds good.”

You continue not to speculate his newfound motivation for the next week, even when he shows the location of a random beach fifteen minutes from where you’re staying, telling you that’s where he wants to watch the sunrise and asking if you could find a good restaurant to eat nearby afterwards. Or when he comes home from work with a bag of new clothes and shoes, claiming he wants to look especially nice on this trip. Or when he keeps on mentioning how everyone from Gojo to his mother keep on pestering him about proposing, to which he rolls his eyes and vehemently maintains that it’s not going to happen yet. Sure, maybe there’s an inkling of hope deep down, but again, you remind yourself not to expect anything. It’ll be another lovely vacation, that is all. 

It's only when you’re literally walking on the beach in the golden glow of the Hawaiian sunrise, Nanami leading you along the shore, that your little hunch becomes palpable. 

���What’s that?” he asks, pointing at a pristine seashell laid purposely on the rocks. 

“A seashell!” you respond, giving him the obvious answer, smiling at him. 

He grins, guiding you towards it. “Flip it over.”

Once again, you don’t question him, heart beating rapidly in your chest, bending down to reach for the shell. Tiny waves splash over your sandals, the bottom of your skirt getting soaked with ocean water. When you turn it over, your breath catches as you read the short message written in bold ink, unmistakable. Marry me?

You stare at it, blinking to make sure it isn’t in your imagination. This time, you do question him. “Are you serious? Are you serious?!”

And when you turn to look at him, he’s on one knee, sinking into the wet sand beneath him, holding the ring out to you. “Well, will you?”

It takes you a moment to process it all, but eventually, through tears, you nod emphatically at him, watching him slide the band onto your finger. “Yes!” you say, as he stands up, wrapping his arms tightly around you. You sob into his chest, repeating your answer over and over. 

“I love you so much, so so much,” he whispers, kissing you on the forehead, holding your face in his hands to wipe away the tears streaming down your cheeks.

Your fiancé was totally right; sunrises in Hawaii are truly the most beautiful. 

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

compos mentis 4

No tag lists. Do not send asks or DMs about updates. Review my pinned post for guidelines, masterlist, etc.

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as noncon/dubcon, age gap, chronic health issues, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: After a long court case, your mother stays attached to her lawyer, bringing even more contention into your life.

Characters: Andy Barber

Note: this decrepit pervert is back.

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Please do not just put ‘more’. I will block you.

I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖

You’re restless. What’s worse, is you have no energy. You never really do. Living is the most exhausting thing you’ve ever done. 

You lean in the window sill, half hunched as you stare out at the suburban street. It’s a nice neighbourhood. Your mother lives in a condo, on one of the highest floors. You hate it. This place isn’t so bad. It’d be nice if it was just you. 

That last thought makes you sad. You don’t know that you’ll ever be able to be alone. You hate being such a burden. What you hate most, is feeling like you’re on a leash. Sometimes literally as your oxygen tube keeps you bound to the tank. 

All your existence, there’s been something wrong with you. In high school, it got so much worse. You didn’t even realise until your mother pointed it out. Then the appointments doubled, the tests too, and it never stopped. Will it ever? 

You’re trapped in a holding pattern. If living is so difficult, should you even try? That’s a bad thought but you can’t help it. You see your mom, you see Andy, and they don’t need all these medicines or this thing to breathe for them. They have lived full lives, they have jobs and a home. You have nothing. 

You turn away from the window. The tall trees and peaked rooftops are no longer so beautiful. They’re just another reminder of everything you don’t and will never have. 

A knock at the door startles you. You cross the room and inch it open. You peer out, disappointed to find Andy again. How long is your mom going to sleep? 

“Hey, sweetheart, I was thinking you might want to come with me. It's pretty quiet around here,” he says. 

“Come with... where?” You rasp. 

“I was going to go to the pharmacy and get your script filled, like your mom said,” he explains and holds up the doctor’s paper. “Found it in her purse.” 

“Oh, uh...” you hesitate. You don’t know what to do. That he’s even asking makes you feel obligated. “Sure, I... okay.” 

“Take your time, I’ll warm the car up,” he assures you. “Anything I can help with?” 

“No, sir, I’ll grab my bag.” 

You shut the door before he can respond. You pause and feel bad. You hope that didn’t seem intentional. You go and grab your belt bag. You check that everything is in it, then drag your tank back to the door. 

You come out and the hall is empty. You go around to the bathroom and rinse off your face. You don’t have a toothbrush so you use your finger to spread some paste around your teeth and rinse your mouth. You’re overly aware of your day-old outfit. You do what you can for your hair then resign yourself to being the same mess you always are. 

You take the stairs slowly. One at a time as you prevent the wheels of the tank from thumping. Andy’s house is so nice, you don’t want to ruin it. You get to the front door and pull on your jacket. You put on your sneakers and awkwardly angle out the front door. 

The SUV whirs in the driveway. Before you can get to the first step, Andy is there. He helps with the tank and sets it on the flat ground. You quickly take the handle and thank him. 

“You alright?” He asks. You wish he wouldn’t be so worried. Your mother doesn’t ever ask, only if it’s for show. 

“Fine,” you assure him. 

You roll the tank past him and he calls after you as you get to the SUV. “Hey, you don’t gotta sit in the back.” 

“Uh, right,” you say. 

You go around to the passenger door and he opens it for you. Once again, he lifts the tank. Before you can react, he does the same to you. You lurch up into the seat and wriggle until he lets you go. He doesn’t seem to notice your discomfort. 

You sit straight and steady the tank between your knees. He shuts the door and you get the seatbelt clicked in. As he climbs in the other side, you take out your vaseline and smear it under your nose. It’s particularly raw this morning. 

“Shoot, is that from the AC? I can turn it down.” 

“No, it’s... okay,” you stare through the windshield. You want to get this done and over with. Your brows furrow at the thought of your mom waking up to the empty house. 

“What’s the matter?” He asks. 

“Nothing,” you insist. 

“You look worried,” he says. 

“I... my mom. She’s in rough shape.” 

“Hungover,” he clucks, “it’s a good thing you don’t take after her with that.” 

You nod, not sure what to say. He does up his seatbelt and checks the mirrors. He shifts and backs out of the driveway. 

“Feel free to put on some music. I don’t think you want to listen to my oldies,” he chuckles. 

“It’s okay,” you hug yourself with one arm, your other hand on the tank. 

The silence buzzes in your ears. It’s too late now to change your mind. Besides, you’re so indecisive about your music. You wouldn’t exactly brag about your taste either. 

The drive stretches on as you huddle into the door, distracting yourself with the passing light poles, houses, and so on. You don’t know this area. It’s not anywhere near your usual pharmacy. You often wait in the car when you do go with your mom. 

He pulls up along the curb and park. It’s a nice quaint street in the neighbourhood. There’s a park on the corner and an organic store on the opposite side. You peek out at the local pharmacy’s moniker, hand-painted unlike glowing banner of the department store where your mom usually goes. 

“Should be able to get this filled,” he says as he shuts off the engine. 

You just nod and hum. He gets out quickly, easily. You envy that. You can’t do anything easily. He comes around as you push the door open. He once more brings down your tank but you’re certain to climb out on your own. You nearly stagger as you do. 

You wheel out of the way as he closes the door. You look around at the other pedestrians. A woman with a stroller, a family just across the way babbling in glee. You turn away before the scene can make you morose. 

Andy leads you to the pharmacy door and pulls it open with a chime. He lets you in first. There’s only a few aisles inside, the pharmacist’s counter is at the back, another till near the front where they sell chocolates and candy. 

You linger until Andy points you down the center row. You go ahead of him and stop before the long counter. He unfolds the prescription as he greats the man behind it boldly. Good mornings and niceties you struggle to get right. 

“Hm, we have these on hand but it’ll be a wait. Been a busy morning,” the pharmacist explains. 

“That’s fine, we can keep ourselves busy.” Andy says. You squirm. You can? Waiting that long will only add to the tension that makes your chest even tighter. 

You back up as he turns around. He looks around for a moment, as if he thinks you wondered off, then smiles at you. “There’s a cafe across the street, how about it?” 

“I don’t... drink coffee,” you say. 

“I know, sweetheart, I remember,” he gently strokes your shoulder, “they have tea, too. Or smoothies. You must be hungry too.” 

“I... if you want to, I guess...” you shrug. 

“You know, I’m not your mom. I won’t say no,” he intones. “You don’t have to be so nervous.” 

“I know, I... I’m sorry.” 

“And you don’t need to be sorry,” he counters. 

You almost apologise again, only to fill your cheeks with air and nod. You feel like you should be though. Like everything you do is a disappointment. 

You go back down the middle aisle. Andy reaches past you to hold the door again. You come out and narrowly avoid a collision. You wait for the family of three to pass by before Andy nudges you to the curb. He takes your free hand as he tugs you with him, jaywalking through the lazy traffic. 

The effort is enough to make your head spin. You get your wheels over the other curb and sway. Andy doesn’t let go. He takes you past the patio area of the cafe and swings back the door before he releases you, pointing you within. 

The smell of coffee, the grind of a machine, and the chatter of diners greets you. You wait behind the two teenage girls at the counter as Andy comes up next to you. He stands close but you assume it’s because it’s such a tight space. 

“Do you want to find somewhere to sit?” He wonders. 

“No, I’m okay,” you say. 

“Sure, uh, so what do you want?” 

You look up at the hand-written menu. You might get a tea after all. 

“The brioche egg sandwich is one of my favourites,” he says. 

“You come here... a lot?” You wonder. 

“Sure. I like to run in the mornings. I’ll grab a coffee on my cool down. And weekends I’ll have breakfast. Your mom’s usually still asleep if she’s around,” he tuts. 

“Right, uh... that sounds fine. Brioche.” 

The girls go to the further end of the counter and Andy waves you forward. The barista greets him by name. She’s very pretty. She has amber coloured braids with a zigzag pattern and cute freckles over her cheeks. You want to ask how she did her hair like that but you don’t want to be rude. 

“Andy, how are you?” She chirps in recognition. 

“Good, we were just walking through the neighbourhood,” he says,  You adjust the tube under your nose self-consciously. The barista is gorgeous and reminds you of everything you’re not. 

“Oh, is this your fiancee?” She asks. “She’s finally come around.” 

Andy chuckles and you blanch. He doesn’t offer a protest and neither do you. You wait for him to correct her. He doesn’t. 

“Sweetheart, what did you want to drink?” He looks at you and you nearly choke. 

“Can I have the pomegranate tea, please?” Even your voice sounds ugly. 

“Sure, what size, hon?” 

“Small,” you croak out. 

“Small pomegrante, and your usual?” She asks Andy. 

“Yep, and two of the brioche breakfast sandwiches. Oh, and something sweet for dessert. Those cherry tarts look delicious,” he points to the display.” 

“Got it, anything else?” She taps the till screen. 

“That’s it,” he slips out his card and waits. He selects a tip amount before he taps, the machine beeping in acceptance. You spy the total right before it disappears. Oh, that’s expensive. 

“I’ll bring it to you, Andy,” she smiles brightly, “you two enjoy.” 

Andy takes your hand again before you can react. He brings you to the table and you sit across from him, right by the window. You feel like you’re on display. You hate it. 

You push the tube into your nose as you think then trail your hand down the length. You stare off into the distance. You don’t know, it feels weird. It feels like he’s doing too much. Like maybe he feels bad for you. 

“Whatcha thinking about?” He interrupts your trance. 

You flinch and look at him, then avert your gaze to the table. 

“You didn’t...” you begin then shake your head. 

“What?” He prompts. 

“Nothing.” 

“Go on, sweetie, you don’t have to be shy with me. You can say whatever you need,” he leans forward as he crosses his arms over the table, “you know, your mom told me you’ve never really had a father figure. I’m here to help, to support you.” 

You nod and pick at your dry lip then stop yourself, hiding your hands under the table. “You-- that woman... she thought I—that we—you didn’t say no.” 

“Oh, I didn’t want to embarrass her,” he laughs. “It’s funny, don’t you think?” 

“Yeah...” you nod at your lap. “It is really... funny. No one would really want to marry me.” 

You cover your mouth as the thought slips out. You shake your head. Why did you say it? 

“Huh? Sweetheart?” He leans in even closer, “you don’t think that’s true, do you?” 

You shrug and peel your hand away, chewing on your sleeve as you slump low in your seat. 

“You’re a nice girl. Pretty too.” 

“I’m not,” you murmur into your cuff. “You don’t have to lie.” 

“Well who says you’re not?” He urges. You shake your head again. 

“Your mother?” He suggests. You shake your head harder. She would be livid if you told him that she did. He clicks his tongue, “well, however it is, don’t listen to them.” He reaches across to you, “hey, sweetheart, look at me.” You obey, trembling in humiliation, “you are very pretty.” 

[worth-the-chaos]

Adventures in Babysitting - Steve Harrington x female!reader - Chapter 18

Chapter Summary: You venture into the Upside Down once again in an attempt to find Vecna and stop him in his tracks before he can bring about the end of the world as you know it. With Steve and your friends by your side, you fight against time to get to Vecna before he can get to you.

Content Warning: ANGST, swearing, scary Upside Down nonsense, violence

Word Count: 7.2k

Author’s Note: Sorry this took a while for me to post! This is the last chapter of season 4 and at the time of writing, we unfortunately do not have season 5 content yet, so this story will be put on a slight pause while we wait (semi) patiently for season 5 to come out! Don’t worry though! Feel free to send in requests and I will do my best to write as many of them as possible (you can send requests set in the Adventures in Babysitting universe or requests that are unrelated!)

Message me to be added to the taglist and get updated when the next chapter is posted! I highly recommend this if you want to keep up with the story since I don’t do regular updates!

Series Masterlist | Part 17 | Next Part

***

There you stood, back at the entrance to the Upside Down in the ceiling of Eddie’s trailer. You wiped your sweaty palms on the front of your pants, trying to psych yourself up for the hell that you were undoubtedly about to endure.

You were in the middle of trying to take a deep breath to calm down when Steve gently grabbed your elbow, pulling you away from the rest of your friends who were putting the finishing touches on their packed gear.

“What?” You asked Steve, your voice hushed to preserve the obvious secrecy he was trying to maintain by moving somewhere a little more private.

A million thoughts were racing through his head. He wasn’t sure what you were all about to face or just how dangerous it might be. His heart raced as he felt fear creep up his throat. He pushed it down as he tried to get the words out that desperately needed to be spoken.

“Look, we don’t know what’s going to happen in there, and I don’t want to leave anything left unsaid,” Steve began, and you felt a lump forming in your throat at the implications of his words. “So I’m laying it all out there…just in case. Y/n, I love you and you’re really one of the only things in my life that ever feels like it’s going right. I…I-I’d like to think that I’d have found my way if I had never gotten to know you, but I know I’m only better because of you. I don’t know what the future has in store for us, but I want there to be an us when all of this is said and done, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it, don’t do anything rash…I know,” you agreed, but he just shook his head.

“That’s not what I mean…I mean, obviously, I mean that too—don’t you fucking dare do anything stupid in there—but….but I mean….I guess I just don’t want to lose you in a different way when all of this is over, you know?”

“What do you mean?” You asked, your voice barely a whisper, your eyes searching his wide and wild ones as you tried to make out what he could possibly mean by that.

“Y/n, don’t make me say it,” his words sounded strangled as tears began to pool in his beautiful brown eyes.

“Baby, you’re scaring me,” you put a hand on the nape of his neck, pulling him towards you. “I…I-I just don’t understand.”

“I just don’t want you to fall out of love with me,” he finally spit the words out and you just stared at him dumbfounded, speechless yourself by his total misread of your relationship. Without your voice to fill the silence, he continued on. “Come on, y/n. I saw that way that you reacted when I talked about my six little Harringtons…I’m just worried that you’re realizing that we don’t want the same things.”

“Steve,” a watery chuckle escaped your lips and hurt flashed across his face before you continued, “you couldn’t possibly be more wrong, baby. I want that. I want that future with you more than anything else in the fucking world, but I…I-I’m just afraid that I’m not going to make it out of this one alive.”

Your voice dropped to a pained whisper as you explained your sadness from before, a tear slipping down your cheek as you thought about what seemed like your inevitable fate.

“There’s no way in hell I’m letting anything happen to you, you know that right?”

“But, Steve, if something does happen, I want to know that you can be happy without me…I-I want to know that you’ll be okay.”

“You’re fucking crazy if you think I’ll be okay without you. Y/n, you’re my whole fucking world,” Steve argued, taking your hands in his. This just caused you to cry harder, a small sob escaping your lips.

“Steve, please, just promise me,” you begged, tears falling delicately down your face. “Promise me you’ll be okay without me.”

You pulled a hand away from his, sticking out your pinky finger as your hand trembled. The sight was enough to break Steve’s heart. The fact that your last wish for the world was for him to be happy reminded him of how selfless you were, and even though he wanted nothing more than to respect your wishes, he knew that there was no way he’d ever find happiness without you.

So instead of taking your pinky in his, he reached his arms around your waist, pulling you in for a hug that felt a goodbye…just in case.

He swayed side to side as you buried your face in his chest, placing a gentle kiss on his neck and basking in the feeling of being loved. He placed a kiss to your temple before pulling away and placing the sweetest of kisses to your lips. It was a kiss that said more than words would ever have the capacity to, and you thanked your lucky stars that out of all the women in the world, Steve picked you to love.

When you finally pulled away, Steve wrapped his large hand around your small one, and led you back to the room with the rest of your friends. You stared at the rope from before, still dangling precariously and precisely around a point that defied physics…or at least what you knew of physics from tutoring Eddie.

“You lovebirds ready to go fucking kill this guy?” Eddie asked, a smile that didn’t quite touch his eyes plastered across his face.

“I suppose it’s now or never,” you spoke up, nodding at Nancy who nodded back and then quickly began ascending the rope.

And just like that, there you all were, making your way back to the hell you’d just escaped.

***

Eddie and Dustin stayed back at the Upside Down version of Eddie’s trailer while you, Steve, Robin, and Nancy made your way to Vecna’s lair. You tried to keep your nerves at bay while you walked alongside your friends, but it was hard to when you had to constantly pay attention to make sure you weren’t stepping on any vines. It would really suck if you alerted Vecna to your presence before you could try to end him once and for all.

“Robin! Remember the hive mind!” Nancy yelled out to your clumsy friend as she hurried ahead to make sure she was paying close enough attention, which left you and Steve with a moment to yourselves.

“So…” Steve spoke up, glancing at you with a timid smirk stretched across his face.

“So…” You replied with a smile. The air between you was a bit awkward, but it was the kind of awkward you basked in. It felt like a normal, teenage sort of awkward that made you feel like your life could maybe be blissfully ordinary once you made it to the other side of this.

Steve chuckled before picking up the conversation again. “Okay, so I told you about my idea for the future, so now it’s your turn. What do you want?”

You hadn’t really thought much of it, and you didn’t like the pressure the question put on you. Your mind flashed to the acceptance letter you’d been waiting on so that you could stay close to Steve. Beyond college, though, you hadn’t really thought about it. You constantly were just fighting to survive, but after hearing Steve’s wishes for your future together, maybe you should be fighting to live. Even though it was all just semantics, it meant something to him and you wanted to give him the world.

“I mean…I’m still waiting on my acceptance letter from Purdue,” was all you ended up saying.

“Is that where you really want to go? Or is it because it’s closer to Hawkins than the other places you’ve applied to? Y/n, I don’t want you holding yourself back from what you really want for me,” Steve sighed. It was an argument you’d had before and the reason why you didn’t really talk about college. The conversation always became stilted and tense.

“Steve, how can I even care about college right now with everything that’s going on? What difference does it make if that piece of paper says Purdue or something else? Besides, Purdue is a good school; it’s not like I’d be throwing my future away,” your voice grew angry and you hated yourself for it. You didn’t want to be this person. You didn’t want to fight with him, but you were under so much stress it was hard to hold back your frustration.

“I just don’t want you to resent me for it,” Steve’s voice was small, and you felt a pang in your chest at the way he said it.

“Baby, all I want is you. I would never resent you for a decision that I made, so please stop thinking that way,” you assured him, but he still had a far off look in his eyes, so you decided to double back to his question that started this whole conversation. “Okay. I see us having a few kids—maybe not the six that you are crazy enough to want, but still a few nonetheless.”

He whipped his head around to look at you. He was in awe of how perfect you were. He thought it was kind of a shot in the dark, talking about kids the way that he had. You were both still so young, and he had spent all this time worrying that you didn’t want the same things. He stared at you, mouth agape as you continued.

“And…and we have a dog. Like a big dog that we can take on hikes and walks. The kind of dog that makes us the boring stereotypical suburban couple, but we don’t care…and I finally have my drivers license.”

Steve couldn’t help but laugh at your last small hope for the future. “Well, maybe when this is all said and done, I can take you out for a driving lesson, how about that?”

“Sounds like a date,” you replied, smiling up at him. You both were beaming the way that young people in love can only beam and everything would have been perfect if it wasn’t for the fact that you were traversing through the absolute worst place on earth.

“Holy shit!” You heard Robin exclaim, and the two of you hurried to meet your other friends. Robin’s words didn’t even do the sight justice. You felt your stomach drop half way to hell at the sight of the Creel house. None of it felt real.

“Okay, we’re there,” you breathed into your walkie talkie.

“Initiating phase three,” Dustin’s voice crackled through the static and you thanked the universe that the damn thing worked in the Upside Down. The bats that were swarming the house suddenly darted off into the distance.

“Dustin, please be safe,” you begged, holding your breath while you waited for his reply.

“You’re the boss,” his voice rang out again and you shook your head at the fact that he was way too nonchalant about all of this shit.

You all walked up to the door of the Creel house and you sucked in a deep breath. You hated the way the vines writhed and slithered against the frame of the door, the stained glass rose much dimmer and duller in the permanent storm of the Upside Down. You went to grab the handle, but Steve pressed an arm across your shoulders, holding you back as he took a step forward. You rolled your eyes at the way he was always protective to a fault.

You gasped as the door creaked open on its rotting and rusting hinges. If you had been nervous about stepping on a vine before, that anxiety increased ten fold as you saw that the interior of the house was filled nearly wall to wall and floor to ceiling with the trip wire that was Vecna’s vines.

“Holy shit,” Steve whispered as you all stopped to take it all in. “That’s not good.”

“No shit,” you breathed out, your dry remark losing some of its edge at the sheer shock of how fortified Vecna’s not-so-secret hiding place was. The thought of it kind of pissed you off in a way. “So he just gets to hide in here with basically a state of the art security system, meanwhile we’re out there with a bum lightbulb thinking the world is gonna fucking end? Two words: Bull. Shit.”

“Well, I mean I guess when you’re essentially a ruler of the underworld you get to make the decisions. Why fight fair when you don’t have to?” Robin spoke up and you grumbled in response.

Steve took a cautious step forward, before quickly jumping from bare patch to bare patch of the floor.

“What the fuck, Steve?!” You whisper shouted across the foyer. “This isn’t mother fucking hopscotch! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Steve just shrugged in response and waved at you to follow. You rolled your eyes, seething at how careless your boyfriend could be, before you took a careful step forward. You continued to carefully navigate with Robin and Nancy following close behind. Your eyes had been glued to the floor, but as you got closer to the stairs that Steve was standing at, you looked up, noticing the nervous look plastered across his features as he watched you navigate your way through the room.

“Absolutely not. Wipe that look off your face,” you pointed a finger at him as you took a final step towards him. However, you had spoken too soon, slightly losing balance as your ankle rolled and you began to topple towards your side. Steve was quick to snake an arm around your waist, righting you before pulling you in to his chest.

Anything else you were going to say died on your tongue as you looked up into Steve’s eyes. You suddenly felt like you did before you were dating, when you were just some silly girl with a crush on a boy that was way out of your league.

“You were saying?” Steve smirked at you, which made it really easy to snap out of your momentary blast to the past. You rolled your eyes and hit him gently with the back of your hand in the chest in a dismissive gesture.

Moving up the stairs wasn’t too difficult, and you were actually feeling optimistic for a change. The hope in your chest faltered when the ground began to shake, and the four of you huddled together to brace yourselves. Dust and ash fell from the ceiling, and you coughed a dry cough as you inhaled it, trying desperately to regulate your breathing despite the anxiety coursing through your veins.

The walkie talkie in your pocket suddenly roared to life, static spilling through the speaker before Dustin’s frantic voice rang out.

“Y/n! We don’t know how much longer we can hold them off, the bats got inside Eddie’s trailer and we think—“

Your heart dropped as his voice cut off. “Dustin!” You screamed into the transmitter, “talk to me! Say anything, just let me know you guys are okay!”

You let go of the button and listen as static crackled through the receiver. You felt the blood drain from your face when a different voice filled the airwaves.

“Y/n,” a raspy voice echoed through the walkie talkie. You gasped, instinctively dropping the device to the floor as if it had burned you.

“We need to get out of here,” you whispered, staring wide eyed as your gaze darted back and forth between the petrified expressions of each of your friends.

You barely had time to register the subtle squelch beneath your feet before you realized it was too late. A vine wrapped itself around Robin’s ankle pulling her to the wall before several other vines wrapped around her limbs and torso.

Steve darted forward, swinging his axe as hard as he could in a futile attempt to free Robin from the vines. Nancy grabbed the sawed off shotgun from your back, using the butt of the gun to hit the vines around her arm. You sprung into action to, unholstering the knife at your hip jabbing and stabbing wherever you could, but the vines wouldn’t relent.

Steve swung his arm back to hack at the vines once more when something wrapped around his axe, pulling him to the other side of the room, before you knew it, Steve was being pulled up on the wall by his neck, and your heart stopped as you watched his legs kick and flail while he wrestled with the vine around his throat.

You didn’t even have time to react before Nancy was pulled up against the wall as well, struggling as she attempted to fight against her restraints.

“Y/n! Go!” Steve screamed with all his might, his voice straining against the vines that were slowly constricting around his neck. “Please.”

The word came out in a whisper, but you froze, hyperventilating as you spun between all of your friends, helpless and bound to the walls around you. You willed your legs to move as you ran a hand through your hair, trying to breathe through the obvious panic attack that had you in its clutches. You felt a sickening feeling settle in your chest as a creak rang out on the stairs above you.

A slow and solid step sounded as your tear filled gaze slowly ascended to take in the form in front of you.

There Vecna was. No mind tricks. No gimmicks. Just him in the flesh standing right before you.

“What do you want?!” The words came out as a guttural shriek as you fell to your knees, him taking another sure and resounding step towards you.

Steve felt the vines around his neck relent slightly, realizing in horror that Vecna wanted him to be alive enough to watch. Seeing his clawed hand and ragged, decrepit skin, Steve felt nausea settle in a pit in his stomach as he realized the constant terrors you had been facing in the confines of your own mind. This was the monster that you had already met face to face countless times before. This was the man who was using your own mind—your own memories—against you.

This was the man who had taken you from him, over and over and over again.

Vecna didn’t answer your question, simply taking another step towards you.

“I said, what do you want?” You cried out again, the words dissolving into sobs as he grew ever closer to your shaking and dejected form. Ever since that day in the Byers’ living room, you always seemed larger than life to Steve. Seeing you look so small and defeated and terrified on the ash covered landing of the Creel house broke something in him.

“Leave her alone,” the words came out much more confident than Steve felt. The vines tightened, and Steve gasped, wincing and struggling at the sudden tension.

“Please!” You begged, horrified at the danger your boyfriend and friends were in. “I’ll do anything….anything.”

The promise spilled from your lips in a whisper and Steve wished he had the strength to yell at you, to tell you to fight, to flee, to do anything but that. But he couldn’t.

“Stand up,” Vecna’s voice rang out, and you quickly rose to your feet. Steve’s heart broke as he watched the way your legs shook, your knee giving out momentarily as you stumbled and righted yourself.

You swallowed the lump in your throat as Vecna approached you, putting his clawed hand around your throat. You gasped, tears spilling relentlessly from your eyes. Your hands wrapped around his wrist, as you forced yourself to meet his gaze.

“Please. I-I…I don’t wanna die,” you whispered, your face contorted in fear of what the ending would feel like and regret for all the things you’d never get the chance to do.

Vines wrapped slowly around your ankles, snaking up to grab your wrists as well, binding them behind your back to minimize your struggle.

“Try and stay very still,” his deep voice shook your heart inside your chest. Steve wanted to scream, but he couldn’t, silenced by the vines around his throat as he thrashed to no avail. Tears streamed down his face as he watched, helpless to stop the cruel fate in which you would meet your end. “It will all be over soon.”

“Please don’t hurt them,” your voice was small, and sobs wracked your frame as your words came out through hiccuped pauses. “Let them go.”

When Vecna didn’t respond, you turned your head towards Steve, meeting his big, beautiful, brown eyes for the last time. “I love you, Steve.”

With that, Vecna’s large clawed hand reached up, opening in front of your face and Steve watched as your eyes rolled back in your head.

“No!” Robin shouted, her strained, guttural cry something that would haunt Steve for the rest of his days. They all watched as your body twitched and small whimpers escaped your lips. Blood began to drip from your nose, and you breathed out one last shaky breath, and then the world went still.

Just like that, Vecna’s hand dropped and your head lolled to the side. He stepped away from your lifeless form and the vines holding you up released, and you dropped like a rag doll to the floor. Vecna turned and made his way back up the stairs, leaving you all behind. The vines released their grip on your friends as they each collapsed to the floor in a coughing fit. Steve scrambled to the heap on the floor that was your body and scooped you up in his arms.

He cried out as he cradled your head in his hands, the weight of it something so familiar as he thought back to all the times he’d cradled the nape of your neck and watched as your mouth turned into a small smile before he would kiss you. All the life, all the loveliness, everything that made you you was gone, disappearing on dust and ash as Steve could swear the room grew ten times colder. He gently wiped the blood away from your nose with his jacket sleeve, trying desperately to fix the carnage in front of him.

“No….no, no, no, no, no! Robin, I didn’t get to say it!” Steve sobbed as he pulled you into his chest to shield you. “I-I…I didn’t get to tell her I love her.”

Robin didn’t know what to say. There was nothing she could say to make any of this better. She choked back her own sob while she tried to piece together the right words. “She knew, Steve.” Tears streamed down her face as she dropped to her knees next to him.

“You don’t understand,” his words came out in a strained whisper. How could he ever find the words to explain how he failed to even be there for you? How he couldn’t even comfort you as you cried out? “It’s all my fault.”

He buried his face in your neck, his wet tears mixing with the not quite dry ones staining your face. “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you,” he whispered into your skin, his hands running over you hair, delicately holding onto you the way he wished he could have. The way he’d never be able to again. As soon as you started having visions he should’ve put you in the passenger seat of his car and drove off as far away from Hawkins as he could get. He thought about the way you would’ve looked with the pale light of the moon filtering into the car as he watched you smile and laugh and sing while the radio played songs that neither of you really liked but you both inexplicably always seemed to know the words too. He thought about the way you could’ve started over, the way he could have made something of himself instead of being the posh, depressed, and mediocre man his parents always wanted him to be.

He thought about the love that filled his chest that would never have anywhere to go, instead just sitting there like a weight he had to carry, a fire that would spread and fester and consume.

Nothing would ever be okay again.

Nancy stood back, her jaw set with an anger that could burn the world to ashes. Hot angry tears streamed down her face as tension set across her entire body.

Steve laid his head down on your chest, and his tears flowed faster at the complete sound of silence. He tried to lose himself in a memory, but it became tainted with the pain of losing you as soon as he had conjured it in his mind.

“I can’t believe you would do that! What the hell were you thinking, y/n?!” Steve yelled as he slammed the door to his bedroom.

“Steve, please, just calm down. I’m okay! I promise! Can you please just let it go?” You begged. You tried to gently grab his wrist in an attempt to make him turn to face you, but he shook your hand off and roughly ran his hands through his hair.

“You could have died.”

He wasn’t wrong. The two of you hadn’t been working at Family Video that long and it was one of the days that Robin had band practice so it was just the two of you running the store.

You were working the register and Steve was getting a box of movies to restock in the back when a man walked up to the counter.

“Welcome to Family Video, my name is y/n if you need anything at all!” Your customer service voice dripped like honey.

“How about you open the register?” The man had asked. Something in his eyes didn’t look right and you had felt your heart rate pick up as you opened your mouth to speak.

“Excuse me?” You asked with a chuckle, hoping that keeping a light demeanor would keep the situation calm.

“I said, open the register,” he repeated himself, slowly lifting his arm, a pistol nestled between his fingers and pointed shakily right at your chest.

“You don’t have to do this,” your words sounded even and confident, even though inside you were falling apart. Dealing with the supernatural on a semi regular basis had prepared you for the unpredictable, and you slowly raised your hands up to show compliance.

“I said open the register, bitch!” The man shouted, and your heart stopped as you heard Steve’s footsteps bounding towards the front of the store. The man quickly turned to his right, training the pistol on Steve.

Without thinking, your arms had darted out and you grabbed the gun out of the man’s hand, quickly pointing it square in the middle of the robber’s chest. Your hands didn’t shake, confidence radiating from your stoic form as the man’s hands slowly raised as he backed away.

“Get the fuck out of my store,” you shouted as the criminal in front of you quickly turned heel and ran. Steve quickly locked the door behind him, and you calmly set the gun down on the counter. Steve looked at you like you were insane, but you just quietly picked up the phone and dialed the police.

After an entire evening of showing the police security camera footage, explaining what happened, and still trying to manage customers, needless to say, Steve was understandably a bit pissed off. So standing in the middle of his bedroom, you tried to calm him down once he was finally able to release all of the anger and fear he’d been bottling up all day.

“You could have died too! What was I supposed to do?” You argued.

Steve sat down on his bed, sighing as he held his head in his hands. You felt guilty. You knew he’d been stressed ever since all the shit at Starcourt happened and his parents were on his ass about having a job. This little incident didn’t do anything to help his mood.

Quietly, you sat down next to him, pulling his hands away from his face as you beckoned him to lay down next to you. He complied, and you pulled his head against your chest, laying his ear down right over your heart.

He closed his eyes as he listened to the gentle and rhythmic reminder that you were okay.

“See. I’m fine, baby,” you whispered as you ran your hands through his hair. “My heart’s still in there, still beating. All for you, baby.”

Yet here Steve was now and your heart that was always supposed to be beating strong was still. He cried as he stayed there trying to listen for something, anything. Placing a gentle kiss to your chest, he continued to fall apart. “Please, y/n, please just come back to me. I’ll get you your dog and your white picket fence—I promise—just please don’t leave me here alone,” he begged.

Suddenly, though very faint, he swore he heard the familiar thump of your heart. His eyes shot open and he held his breath as he listened closer.

“Steve, we have to get out of here,” Robin spoke up, tears still falling down her face as she pulled gently at Steve’s sleeve, doing all that she could to avoid looking at your lifeless form in his lap.

Steve quickly shushed her, listening closely, as he heard another beat of your heart against your ribcage. It was weak and it was slow but it was there and it was you.

He sat up abruptly, and began to shake your shoulders. “Y/n! Y/n wake up! Please y/n!”

“Steve she’s gone,” Robin tried to explain, looking at Steve with pity and sorrow.

“She has a pulse, Robin!” Steve exclaimed, a watery laugh escaping his lips as he wiped at his tears and placed a kiss to your forehead. He quickly grabbed Robin’s hand, placing her fingers on your neck. She felt like she could drop to her knees and just cry at the rhythmic tapping of your heartbeat.

Nancy quickly dropped to the floor next to the three of you, pulling a water bottle out of her backpack. She quickly poured the cool liquid onto the sleeve of her shirt, pressing it to your forehead. After a pause that felt like an eternity, you began to stir as you groaned, your face contorting into a pained expression.

Relieved laughter surrounded you as Steve pulled you into a sitting position, pulling you into the tightest hug you thought you would ever receive. The reality of what just happened began to sink in and you started to cry with the relief that Vecna had respected your wishes and left your friends alone.

“I can’t believe he didn’t crack me like a glow stick,” you croaked as soon as you could speak.

“This is a miracle,” Robin breathed as she pulled you into a hug as everyone helped you to your feet.

“Then we better not waste it,” you replied, your voice even and steady. You took the shotgun from Nancy and cocked it. You had escaped the worst fate imaginable. You were not messing around.

“Phase four,” Steve breathed, his hand snaking around your waist. He didn’t think he’d ever let you go after what just happened. His voice was about as shaky as his hands, and he took a deep breath to try to calm his nerves to lock in for the next part of the plan.

“Flambé,” Nancy chimed in, you looked at her stern expression and nodded, taking a step forward towards the attic.

When you silently entered the room, you watched as Vecna hovered in the center of the room, vines attached to him from all angles. You shuddered at the sight of it as Robin placed her bag down on the floor, each of you grabbing a Molotov cocktail from the bag. You heard the click of the lighter and watched as the flame began crawling up the rag in the bottle in your hand. You thought back to the same click of the lighter in Jonathan Byers’ living room the first time you encountered creations of Henry Creel’s design. You thought about the chaos that followed you since, the people you’d lost, the pain you’d felt. You thought about the life and future you’d almost just lost at his hands.

“Fuck you,” you whispered, hurling the bottle towards Vecna, watching it erupt into a spray of flames as it hit Vecna square in the chest.

He bellowed, vines retreating, as he fell from his perch in the middle of the attic. As he so roughly drew you into visions against your will, you just as abruptly pulled him out of his.

His burning body dropped to the floor, and you wished that would be the end of it. Your heart jumped to your throat when he stood up, his piercing blue eyes meeting yours as he stared at you with a focused contempt that sent a chill down your spine. He took a steady step towards you but was quickly knocked off kilter when Robin threw a second bottle at him.

You felt all the anger and resentment you’d been harboring since the Upside Down entered your life. You felt the rage of watching your friends suffer, of watching the kids grow up too fast, stuck in a battle that was not theirs to fight. Vecna had spent all this time making you feel shame and guilt, festering and spreading like a disease that wouldn’t die until it took you with it. You didn’t feel that shame anymore. Instead it was replaced with red hot hate at the man—no, the monster—that had spun this twisted web of suffering and carnage and destruction.

You aimed the shotgun square at his chest, firing the first shot. It hit him in the shoulder, knocking him backwards. You wasted no time as you cocked the gun again, firing off another shot that tore through his abdomen. You continued firing without mercy, knocking him back and back again until he stumbled through the boarded up window of the attic, falling with a sickeningly satisfying thud to the ground below.

You turned back towards your friends, a look of shock on everyone’s faces, including your own. In your assessment, you had just defeated evil itself. The four of you raced down the stairs towards the front door. You felt your stomach turn however, when you noticed that Vecna was gone, nothing left but charred patches of grass and a few sputtering flames.

He had escaped.

***

The news was saying it was an earthquake, but you knew better than that. You felt guilt settle in your chest when you heard about the fissures ripping through Hawkins.

It was exactly what Vecna had shown you.

Four kills. He had done it. You had been dead—albeit not that long, but dead nonetheless.

When you had made it back to Dustin and Eddie, Eddie was pretty banged up, but nothing some bandages and a few very not professionally done stitches wouldn’t fix. He’d have to hide out; there was no way the town was going to let go of the cult leader who was picking off high school students one by one. Luckily, it was petty easy to go off the grid and disappear in small town rural Indiana.

To your complete non-surprise, Jonathan, Will, Mike, Eleven, and Jonathan’s new friend Argyle had been dealing with similarly supernatural shit in California and were no strangers to the messed up load of shit that was going on in Hawkins, so it was pretty easy to get each other up to speed. Besides, at this point, exchanging stories didn’t result in incredulous disbelief; you pretty much believed that anything was possible at this point, much to your collective dismay.

But presently, you tried to shove all of that aside, as you, Steve, Robin, and Dustin carried in boxes of stuff to donate. Hawkins High had been turned into a makeshift clinic, resource center, reunification center, etc. So many people had been displaced and injured in the “earthquake” that normal day to day activity ceased, instead everyone put all of their focus on rallying around those who needed support after the recent events that had quite literally shook the town.

Almost as soon as the four of you had arrived, you had volunteer name tags adorning your shirts as you went off to help with various aspects of disaster relief.

Robin joined Vickie at the meal prep station and you couldn’t help but smile as they chatted away.

Your smile quickly vanished when you saw Dustin talking to Eddie’s uncle. It was easier for Eddie if everyone assumed that he didn’t survive the earthquake. You had questioned him multiple times to make sure it was what he really wanted, and though you were sure the answer would never be a whole hearted “yes,” he was convinced it was easier than his uncle having to deal with the emotional turmoil of watching his nephew face multiple counts of murder that the townspeople of Hawkins were more than eager to lock him up for.

Steve nudged you slightly and you tuned back into the kind woman who was explaining how the two of you were to sort clothing donations. Steve watched the soft and polite smile on your face as you asked a couple of clarifying questions, and he felt luckier than he ever had before.

You had been gone. It was the hardest thing he’d ever had to experience, and he knew one thing was certain: he would never, ever take you for granted.

He watched as you folded clothes, carefully folding up a children’s pajama set. It felt so inexplicably domestic and he took a breath as he thought about how his hope to have a future with you was still intact.

“Hey, uh, y/n?” Steve spoke up, his voice quiet.

“Yeah?” You replied, staring up at him sweetly. He was too nervous for you to be staring at him like that because he was sure if you smiled at him like that for much longer, he would melt right then and there.

“Well, when you were…when you were gone…I-I-I promised you something,” Steve whispered.

You saw how much he was struggling with talking about it and you quickly began to spiral. “Steve,” you replied softly, taking his hand in yours, “I’m sure you were under a lot of stress, and-and I’m so sorry that I put you through all of that—believe me, I wish it hadn’t have happened that way—but I don’t even remember it, on account of the fact that I was…well, you know…dead, so please if your worried about keeping your promise, don’t because it’s not like—“

Steve quickly cut you off, softly grabbing your face and tilting your head to look up at him. “Y/n, no it’s not that—and never apologize for what you went through. That was in no way, shape, or form your fault and if you worry about that one more time I’m going to lose my mind just a little bit.”

“Hey!” You mocked offense, crossing your arms and Steve just chuckled at your antics.

He took a deep breath before he continued. “When you were gone, I promised that if you came back I would get us the white picket fence and the dog and the future that we never get to talk about because we’re always so confident that we’re not going to have it. When you came back it felt like a second chance to…to just really go for it, you know? And I kept thinking before all of this shit that we were just too young, but after almost losing you, I realized that it’s pretty fucking stupid to wait when you know you’ve met the love of your life.”

Steve reached a hand behind his back into his back pocket and pulled out a ring box. Your eyes immediately started welling with tears. You were glad that everyone was caught up in doing their part to help the people of Hawkins because, even with what felt like half the town in your high school gymnasium with you, it felt like you and Steve were the only two on earth.

“Y/n, I know it’s not much, and I really planned on doing this in a way that was a little more special, but you know me and I really just couldn’t fucking wait…will you make my life complete and be mine, til death do us part?”

You didn’t respond verbally, instead you took a step forward and threw your arms around him and buried your face in his neck. You held him so incredibly close and breathed in the scent of his cologne. This moment, it was sweet, it was simple, and it was all yours; perfectly imperfect and lovely all the same.

“Absolutely,” you responded in a whisper. He gently placed the ring on your finger and you admired it. It wasn’t anything flashy, a simple stone set into a plain band, but it was probably the nicest piece of jewelry you had ever owned. “When did you have time to get this between ‘the earthquake’ and now?” You asked incredulously. You’d spent nearly every minute together since then, so how had he been able to get that ring after having his “why wait?” epiphany.

Steve’s face flushed and he chuckled awkwardly as his hand when to the back of his neck. “Well, the thing is, I’ve had it…for a while,” he admitted. You stared up at him in disbelief and he continued. “I actually had finally saved up enough to get it shortly before everything went to shit. I-I was gonna ask you after graduation, just because that felt right at the time, you know? I-I’m sorry it’s not super fancy or anything…my parents offered to help so I could get something a little nicer, but I wanted it to be something I got on my own.”

“It’s perfect,” you stared up at him like he hung the stars in the sky.

“Are you sure?” Gosh it was cute when he doubted himself.

“I promise,” you reached your hand towards his and he smiled, hooking his pinky finger around yours. He pulled you towards him and placed a sweet kiss to your lips and you smiled into it.

Everything was just so perfect.

You continued folding clothes, not wanting your proposal to get in the way of helping out your community, and you felt like nothing could take away the warmth that was radiating through your body. That was until the room darkened suddenly, and you felt a pit in your stomach. You quickly turned to Steve and you could see the worry painted across his face.

You followed the crowd that was making its way towards the windows of the gymnasium.

A chill ran down your spine as you watched white ash swirl through an overcast sky.

Steve’s hand slipped into yours, and that was when your perfect moment shattered into a million pieces before your very eyes.

***
a/n: AHHHHHHHH! It’s so crazy that we’re at (kind of) an end to this story! I wish we had season 5 out so that I could continue to write alongside the plot, but unfortunately we don’t! Keep on the look out for more stuff I write though! I have a couple of ideas that I’ve been brainstorming that I think could be good.

If you enjoyed this chapter, consider reblogging! It really helps inspire me to write more seeing the engagement and how much people are liking the story!

Thank you all for sticking with me! I love you guys!

taglist:

@season4steve @sassyheroneckgiant @tangledinthegreatxscape @palachannie @keeryverse @usaguisenpaisblog @emilieluckwood @sabrinadelreyy @mochminnie @xprloki @kitdjarin1 @kissmxcheek @daemonskitty @bethsvrse @aheadfullofsteverogers @quinnsadilla @chervbs @sheisjoeschateau @goosy-goose @frtfvthg @criesinlies @cycat4077 @kachelleee @killerqueenfan @newyorkangelbaby @spaghetittied @anxfl @huffledor-able541 @mikariell95 @nothergoaway @angie2274

[scoops-aboy86]

wc: 647 | Rating: T | CW: mentions of infidelity, technically hurt no comfort because I haven’t written the part where they make up | Additional Tags: future fic, famous Eddie Munson, past Steddie

Okay, look. The tv was on in the background, and Ross and Rachel were breaking up, and this happened in my head. I’m posting it for Fuck It Friday because fuck it. The only thing getting me through life right now is cough drops.

part 2

Hell of a Time at the Wake

“Yeah, haven’t had a drink or touched any drugs in five years, as of last month.”

“Oh wow, so that’s from before Corroded Coffin made it big.” The interviewer chuckles. “Usually it’s the fame and rehab that come first.”

“I prefer to think of myself more as regionally notorious, but sure. Never did the rehab thing, though.”

“Well, what’s the story there?”

Behind their frontman, the rest of the band shares a look. “Oh, we don't need to—” 

“Nah, Jeff, it’s okay man.” Eddie waves them off, then turns back to the interviewer. “Back before we hit the road to make a name for ourselves, I was seeing someone back home. I mean, the someone. The one. But we kept having this same… not really a fight, just this thing: I wanted to leave town, they didn’t. And then finally we had this huge blowout about it that started as something else and somehow turned into that again, which turned into both of us storming off. They went home, and I went out and got completely shitfaced, and in the morning I woke up with someone whose name I didn’t even know in bed with me.”

The interviewer winces. 

“Yeah. And when you do something shitty like that, it’s going to come out sooner or later. Or pretty much immediately, in this case, which.” Eddie grimaces and shrugs. “Well, it gave us something else to fight about, that’s for sure. I knew I’d fucked up bad, but it took hours of back and forth before I realized that we were done done. Trust completely obliterated, no way to come back or move on from that, just… over.”

There’s a pause where he stares off into space for a moment, stuck on a memory. Then he shakes himself and refocuses. 

“Anyway, at some point during my doomed attempt to salvage things, I swore I’d never have another drink ever again. Which, the being drunk of it all wasn’t really the problem, so saying that didn’t buy me anything, but… even after it ended, I didn’t. I’d been so fucked up that night, and it wasn’t the booze so much as the fear of it being over that made me a one man self-fulfilling prophecy—but I hurt someone I loved more than anything, and I never wanted let myself get that fucking stupid again, so. I haven’t. And honestly, I sleep better knowing that.”

“Wow.” The interviewer is staring at him, stunned. Probably doesn’t get a lot of this sort of thing, not just because of all the wild rockstars and other celebrities that come on the show with stories about trashed hotel rooms and wild parties, but because Eddie is being honest. 

It’s not something he talks about… ever, really. Not even with the guys. But, after five years, it doesn’t hurt the same. It’s not even for St—

It’s not for his ex anymore, if it ever was. 

“Why would it be weird?” Gareth is saying. “We have a built in DD, that’s always great. And Eddie doesn’t give us shit for anything, he’s just honest when we ask if anything was too out of hand. It’s a good reality check.”

“And like,” Doug adds, “he’ll still come out with us to clubs and shit to hang out. But if he says he doesn’t want to drive us to a bar it’s not some passive aggressive or superiority thing because we drink and he doesn’t; he’d really just rather fuck off and do something else.”

“Gee, thanks,” Eddie says dryly, but he’s smirking. 

Doug flashes him finger guns, the fucking dork. “You’re welcome, asshole.”

And the interview moves on. These guys have been Eddie’s friends even longer than they’ve been his bandmates, and the four of them are solid. If the gossip vultures out there want something to pick at, they’ll have to find a different target. 

part 2

Permanent tag list (ask to be added/removed):

@hotluncheddie @hiei-harringtonmunson @sofadofax @hickeysgodcomplex @oatmilk-vampire

@wheneverfeasible @hamiltonswiftie @grtwdsmwhr @yesdangerpls @theseaofdespair

And then someone shows Steve the interview and he asks Robin for Eddie’s number, and they talk for the first time in years and end up falling back in love, but that’s the hard to write part so this is what you get. Xoxo

[neptunes-sol-angel]

This!

It's irritating seeing this trend with readers building their platforms by doing love readings, gaining followers for it, profiting off off of it, and then suddenly pulling the rug from their feet to instruct people (not guide!) that they're "lacking" in something but not even giving them closure on what, how, or where to start. Whether you actually care or you just want to find a reason to shit on other readers, people have the absolute wrong idea over and over again about what readings are meant to be.

It is a luxury. Not and should not ever be advertised as a need. If people need help through these services, then they have to want it for themselves instead of you trying to instill in them that they need to be reliant on occultic practices to make good decisions in their lives. That is a dangerous way to make someone codependent on readings because constantly trying to look for things to fix in your life in the name of "self improvement" is equally harmful as what an obsession with future spouse or other love readings will do to you. There is not a single topic that is superior or inferior to another when it comes to divination because they all have the potential to trigger someone into spiritual psychosis and I really need people to understand this.

You want readings to be about counseling others? Go towards other closed divination practices that are solely designed for giving spiritual insight OR just simply keep posting the topics that you want, in your own way and call it a day instead of worrying about what the next person is doing. Why does it always have to be a dick measuring contest in these communities when really we should be supporting each other? Not everyone is equipped to channel self-help readings and it's perfectly fine to just be a reader that caters to love topics or anything else that is unique.

It's like saying "Books are for learning. You should only read educational topics because I think you're not doing enough for your intellectual responsibilities". You'd be mad as hell if someone told you that you needed to put down that science fiction book because they feel like you need to learn more about neuroscience.

I'm a reader, and I personally take the breaks that I do here for my mental health because indulging in spiritual practices with no boundaries will drive you into insanity. Respectfully, if I just finished having a mental breakdown over recollecting the various cases of childhood trauma that I've experienced...I do not want to log on here and read pick a cards about shadow work. I wouldn't even want to touch my cards or speak to my spirit guides for the next couple of days.

Any other time, I LIVE for a good reading no matter the topic. Future spouse readings are not my favorite but I don't hate them. Sometimes I'll be drawn to just one specific topic depending on the day because that's life. One day I want to know more about my love life in the present, the next day maybe my love life in the future, some days I do want to read more into the shadow work that I need to do, next week I could really want to read pick a cards with messy topics or themes that are meant to boost your confidence, and when I'm in that mood, I might just only want to read 18+ themed pick a card readings 💀

The point is that I don't think people understand how precious this platform actually is. A lot of the material here, you can't really get in any of the other divination communities. People are talented here and should stick with what they feel that they should make and it's pointless to try to get them to do it any other way because IT'S SO DIVERSE here, just simply find another reader who makes the messages that you need at the moment. It's not that hard or rare to find that people are making it ought to be.

And just focus on what you can do as a reader. Are you being true to your practices and beliefs? Are you creating a space that's healthy for readers up here? If not, then think and respond accordingly to what you feel like you should do. If you're concerned about the consumption of love readings, don't be quick to point fingers at other people, especially if you know you're part of the problem. People learn on their own timing and through their own choices and you can't control that. What you can control is the content that you choose to distribute to others.

Do topics that match with your truth. Love readings are not your thing or not what you believe in? Don't make them. Are you tired? Don't feel pressured to post. You feel concerned with how your audience is consuming your content? Post less. Etc.

[the-100-days-of-junkan]

Day 84 

Oh what a wonderful day! Why? BECAUSE I FINALLY GET TO SAY THE LAST OF MY STUPID ARBITRARY RULES! The Final Arbitrary Rule is: No Crossing Over with Other Franchises! Which I very clearly fuckin’ broke here!

I wanted to do my best to only make pieces working with just the base of Junkan itself, and AU’s I made had to be original and not just “What if Junkan but it’s in X series.” That way when I finished the project a bunch of new doors would open up for me to have fun with! I know last time we had Alice in Wonderland, but given the public domain nature of that story I don’t find it to be an infraction of the rule. There’s a future day coming up that also kiiiind of breaks it? But also i feel like it’s a slightly different case, not sure how to explain it while you can’t see it. None of that matters because today we have a blunt, no fucking around breaking of that rule, and why?

Listen I’ve seen some of ya’ll draw/write Junko and Mikan as Pokemon Trainers while waiting for this day to get posted, surely you understand. I’ve been wanting to draw a pic of these two with full teams for months at this point in the projects making, I couldn’t wait any longer, it was a moment of weakness!!!

Designing the outfits for these two was super fun. Once again I’ve fucking put Mikan in a Sweater, and this time it doubles as a dress! Will I ever be stopped? 

That does generally bring me to the thoughts I’m having in hindsight months after this pic, I think Junko’s side is on the weaker side. I like her fit though I might make small edits to it whenever the next time I draw her is. But the main thing is I think the team I put together is kind of lacking??

Mikan’s? I’m perfectly happy with, Frillish is just there because she vibes aesthetically with Mikan, Blissey is obvious, Lampent because it’s associated with hospitals due to floatin around them to steal life energy, Clefable I can explain in a second but it’s probably obvious, Spinda because she needs a cute buddy to be clumsy with, but my favorite was giving her an Applin.

Like the whole thing with Applin is that giving one to someone as a gift is a declaration of Love. So of course Junko would do that, she’s all about that shit (in my brain at least). I think it’s cute!

Junko’s half of things though, if I’m gonna be real a few months later I’d probably only keep two of them and just try to remake the rest of the team. Gengar (who is also the reason Mikan has a Clefable, I love that old fan theory), because he’s my favorite pokemon and I think he just vibes really well with Junko. And Hydreigon, because Junko deserves a giant nightmare dragon. 

This is another instance of me concocting something for this project and then not being able to draw any more of it because I have to wait for it to be posted. So now, assuming I have time, I can finally draw the Pokemon AU!~ Like I said i’ll probably do some minor reworks, and then some major reworks on Junko’s end. No idea when it’ll be but look forward to it I suppose!~ 

As always, Reblogs, Comments, and Little Notes in the Tags are appreciated!~ They always make my day!~