#and then to turn around in s4 and just say ‘actually the problem is you. inherently. you’re unfixable and you have to die’ is such a kick

[thedarklinkfell]

Moral of Umbrella Academy s1:

What happened to us isn’t our fault but we were involved, so we’re going to do everything in our power to fix things and make our second attempt more loving

Moral of Umbrella Academy s4:

It’s all our fault and the situation is hopeless so we need to die about it

[thisapplepielife]

Written for @steddieholidaydrabbles.

Playing Chicken

Prompt Day 6: Chill | Word Count: 1000 | Rating: M | CW: Sexual Content | Tags: Post S4, Eddie Munson Lives, Dry Humping, Making a Move, Getting Together, Eddie Just Needed to Borrow a Jacket

"It's chilly, wear one of mine," Steve says, and Eddie pauses at the front door.

Steve opens the hall closet and starts digging around. Pulling out jacket after jacket, more jackets than Eddie's probably owned in his entire lifetime.

"How many jackets do you think I'll need to wear at once?" Eddie asks, as Steve dumps at least twenty jackets over his arms. It's a heavy pile and he can barely see Steve over it.

"Two, usually. Just. I know you're picky. I don't know what is cool enough for you to wear," Steve says.

"Cool?" Eddie asks, laughing at the mere idea of Steve Harrington thinking he's cool. Eddie is not cool. Eddie's a freak. Eddie was wanted for a satanic murder spree he didn't commit. But cool? No way. 

Steve waves his hands around Eddie's torso, as if that's all the explanation needed.

"King Steve, the most popular guy to ever grace the halls of Hawkins High, thinks I'm cool?"

"Shut up, you're definitely cool."

Eddie isn't convinced of that, but he dumps the jackets on the staircase before he dislocates his elbows. He's not cool, but he is double-jointed.

He looks at the options available.

A brightly colored windbreaker, in teal and purple. Hard pass. An acid wash jean jacket that looks like it might belong to Steve's mother.

"Oh, that's Robin's," Steve says, picking it up and throwing it over his shoulder.

Three Members Only jackets in various neutral shades. Maybe. The bomber jacket from The War Zone. No fucking thanks. A bright blue satiny number that has a horseshoe on the front and Colts emblazoned across the back. Sports. Definitely not.

Oh, leather. And Eddie pulls on the black shoulder, only to discover it's got striped sleeves and bull on the chest. More sports. No. A down jacket. Ugly.

And then, buried in the mix, is Steve's letterman jacket. Green and white. Harrington stitched onto the back.

Eddie picks it up and holds it out between them.

Steve laughs, and moves to take it.

"Now, now, Harrington. I haven't made my decision yet."

Steve rolls his eyes, "Like you're gonna wear my letterman jacket in public."

"I might. It was offered."

"I also offered you my mom's windbreaker. You gonna wear that, too?"

"Maybe," Eddie says, picking up the offending windbreaker, shrugging it over his shoulders. It's tight, and Eddie's sure it looks ridiculous.

"Oh, that's the one," Steve says sarcastically, arms crossed over his chest.

It isn't and he has to wrestle himself back out of it, and afterwards, he snags the letterman jacket and slides it on. 

Eddie starts to laugh, but it dies in throat, as he sees the change in mood cross Steve's eyes. Eddie's freezes, a little scared. Then, he realizes what he's actually seeing. It's not anger.

It's arousal.

Holy shit.

Eddie turns, flaunting the back of the jacket towards Steve again. For science. 

Steve has squeezed both his hands into balled up fists.

"Problem?" Eddie asks, and Steve looks rigid. Uncomfortable. 

"No," Steve snaps, "That what you're wearing?"

"Maybe," Eddie says with a teasing lilt.

"Great, fantastic," Steve says, grabbing a handful of the other jackets, and starts hanging them back up.

There's tension in his body, and Eddie reaches forward and squeezes his shoulder. 

"Eddie," Steve warns, not turning around, "don't."

"What if I want to?" Eddie asks and Steve is even more still than he was before.

Steve ignores him.

Eddie pushes over the remaining jackets, sits on the stairs, lounging back, legs spread. He's teasing Steve. Getting his goat. 

But Steve's not laughing.

Steve leans down over Eddie, hands on either side of his shoulders, trapping him. Face close. Too close. They're playing chicken.

"Then I'm gonna enjoy it," Steve says, making a predatory move towards Eddie, brushing some of the jackets to the floor. Eddie instinctively scoots back, but knows he has nowhere to go. He's stuck.

Even if he wants to flee.

He keeps leaning backwards, but that just makes him more horizontal against the steps and Steve keeps closing the distance. 

Eddie feels too warm. From the letterman jacket he's now acutely aware he's wearing, from Steve being so fucking close, his body heat radiating. Eddie's caught between a rock and a hard place.

Hot, bothered and bewildered. 

"Do you really want to?" Steve asks, and Eddie isn't totally sure what Steve's asking. 

Wear the jacket? Run away? Fuck?

He thinks it's the latter.

He hopes it's the latter.

So, Eddie nods.

"Good," Steve says, pushing all the way into Eddie's personal space. Pressing his lips to Eddie's. 

Holy fucking shit.

Eddie's stunned, flabbergasted.

Steve slides his hand under the jacket, running his hand firmly along Eddie's ribs, before splaying his palm in the middle of Eddie's back, right where the embroidered Harrington was pressed between Eddie's shoulders. 

Steve's hovering over him, which is a good, because if he pressed any closer he'd find out just how much Eddie's appreciating this turn of events.

Of course, it's as if Steve can read his mind, because he presses down then, and Eddie's embarrassed for the two seconds it takes him to realize Steve's just as hard as he is.

Steve's kissing him, rutting against him in a slow, steady roll. Eddie moans into the kiss, unbelieving that this is happening. Steve breaks free, immediately burying his face in Eddie's neck. 

"It's fucking hot," he whispers, lips grazing skin, "knowing my name's on your back."

And Eddie wants him to see it.

He wiggles, shimmying, until he can roll onto his front. It's uncomfortable, his dick pressed against the staircase, face in the carpet. He's gonna get rug burn across his face like this, so he grabs the closest jacket and balls it up under his head.

Steve presses down, his hard cock rocking against Eddie's ass. Hand braced between Eddie's shoulder blades on top of the Harrington patch, and he says, "You're mine now, Munson."

For once, Eddie has no desire to argue.

If you want to write your own, or see more entries for this challenge, pop on over to @steddieholidaydrabbles and follow along with the fun! 🐔

[flowercrowngods]

who did this to you. part 2

🤍🌷 read part 1 here pre-s4, steve whump, protective (but scared) eddie

This is not happening. None of this is happening, he’s… He’s dreaming. He’s high. High as a kite somewhere where reality doesn’t matter, where it can’t fucking reach him and he’s— He’s not panicking behind the wheel with Steve Fucking Harrington bleeding against the passenger side window. 

It’s not happening. 

Because if it were happening, Eddie would simply throw up. He’d leave his van on the side of the road and run the fuck away. Away from Harrington and his trouble, away from his rattling breath that’s so loud and unsteady, Eddie doesn’t even dare to turn on any sort of music, even though he’s itching for it, his hands clenching and unclenching around the wheel until his knuckles go white. 

“Shit, shit, shit,” he mumbles under his breath, barely aware of his surroundings at all, his eyes flitting from Harrington to the red stain against the window, back to the road and then down to the white-knuckled grip and the speckles of dried blood that is decidedly not his. 

Lost in his panic and disbelief, Eddie almost runs a red light. 

It’s harsh, the way he hits the brakes, and the sound Harrington makes is pathetic enough that Eddie feels like maybe this might actually be happening. 

“Sorry,” he breathes, his voice no better than Steve’s — and he’s not the one with a concussion, a broken rib, and that… fucking fear. Of something. Or someone. 

Who’s hurting you, Steve? 

Jus’ everyone, sometimes. God you don’t… You don’t even know.

He doesn’t even know. He doesn’t wanna know. All he wants is for Harrington to stop fucking bleeding, to keep his eyes wide open and— 

“Ed,” the boy says, wheezes, and it sounds like he wanted to say his full name, but had to swallow first. Blood, Eddie thinks. Don’t let it be blood. “Think I’m… ‘M gonna throw up.” 

“Please don’t throw up,” Eddie says before he can stop himself, hating how small his voice sounds, how urgent — like that’s the thing to be urgent about. God, he’s such an ass, but he… If Harrington throws up, Eddie will lose it. He knows he will. 

He chances a glance over at Steve, who has somehow managed to get his right arm tangled with the handle at the door, keeping himself upright and safe from Eddie’s rather frantic driving style. His head is drooping, moving this way and that against the red-stained glass, and he blinks unseeingly as blood begins to trickle down from his nose and temple again. 

He’s making himself small, and Eddie wants to pull him upright and tell him to stay like that, tell him to stop looking so terrible, so horrible, so… 

So much like Eddie’s fucking problem. 

He hates it. Hates everything about that vision. Boys like Harrington shouldn’t look like this, shouldn’t hold themselves like this, shouldn’t… Shouldn’t have no one but Eddie to take them somewhere safe. 

It’s just not tight. 

“Don’ wanna throw up,” Steve says at last, the pause too long for Eddie’s liking, and he sounds so solemn about it, yet so helpless, and Eddie kinda wants to scream. Wants Harrington to scream. Anything to stay awake and maybe not ruin his car. Anything to not fucking die in it. 

“Tell me something,” he says then, because he knows he has to keep Harrington awake and speaking. Just for another ten, fifteen minutes, he tells himself. “Anything, yeah? Tell me anything. Gotta keep you awake there, you hear me? Sounds great, right, staying awake?” 

He’s rambling and he knows it, desperation shining through his words and the god-awful way his voice breaks a little. This is not about him, he knows it isn’t, but still he wants to punch himself, wants to pinch himself and stay fucking calm. 

But who could stay calm in a situation like this? The silence is filled with the horrible wheezing and rattling of Harrington’s breath barely audible over the engine, and Eddie has to look over several times to make sure he’s still there, still with him, still alive. His panic spikes each time. 

He’s just about to reach over and shake him a little, snap in front of his face to get him back, when—

“I don’t know what.” 

It’s quiet, that voice, breathy and tiny and almost invisible, and Eddie wants to scream again. 

Tell me why you’re so scared. Tell me why your old buddy did this to you. Hagan would never touch you, so why did he now? Tell me what happened to Hargrove. Tell me why you sound so fucking small. 

“Tell me about your…” He fumbles for a moment, taking a sharp left and pretending not to hear the choked-off whimper. Focusing on good things. On normal things. “Your favourite person.” 

Eddie cringes at himself the moment the words leave his mouth. Your favourite person? Really, Munson? He scrambles to find something better, something cooler, or maybe something easier like asking his favourite fucking colour, but the overthinking really doesn’t mix well with the already panicked state of his mind. And Eddie just blanks. 

Beside him, though, Harrington sits up a little straighter, smearing more blood against his window in the process that Eddie pretends not to feel nauseous about. 

God, he never did like blood. 

“You wan’ me to tell you ‘bout Rob?” 

“Sure, yeah,” Eddie says, a little too loud, a little too shrill, actually running a red light this time because he doesn’t want to brake again and hurt the boy some more. There’s no one around anyway. This is Hawkins. Fucking dead-end of a town. It doesn’t need red lights, or boys who look like Harrington. “Rob. Tell me ‘bout him, what’s he like? Favourite colour, all that shit.” 

“Her.” 

Eddie blinks, looking over to find Harrington looking at him — or trying to, his eyes still drooping and empty. But it’s a good sign. People don’t die when they look at you, right? 

“What?” 

“Her,” Harrington says again. “An’ blue. Deep ‘n’ dark blue. She’ll say something corny when, when you ask her, jus’ to fuck with you. Sunset gold or rose, jus’ to mess with… But is blue.”

Eddie doesn’t really listen, doesn’t really process what Steve is saying, already thinking of the next question just to keep him talking. But then he continues on his own. 

“Mornin’ blue dep— de… makes her sad, though. So only dark blue. Says it’s why we’re friends. You’re so blue, Stevie. Got half’a my clothes, still, she does. All the blues.” 

That's... really fucking endearing, actually. 

And he says it with a half-smile, too, bloody and pathetic as it is. Like it’s a secret that only the two of them are in on, only Steve and Robin. It’s kind of sweet. 

Not for the first time today does Eddie find himself wondering, Who the hell are you, Steve Harrington?

He exhales through his nose, ignoring the way he’s started to shake with all that panic that’s been sitting inside him for a little too long now with no way to let it out. 

“Not much longer,” he mumbles under his breath again, or maybe he just thinks very hard. Maybe he doesn’t know where he is at all. It’s like he blanks every few seconds, too busy thinking and trying not to.

Before he can tell Harrington to talk some more about that girlfriend of his, there’s a pained, confused little whine that forcefully tears Eddie’s eyes from the street for a moment only to meet hazel eyes widened in confusion. 

“Wh— Where… Where’re we going?” 

Oh no. 

“Why’m I in y—“ 

“You’re safe,” Eddie interrupts him, speaking slowly because suddenly his tongue is too big for his mouth, and not entirely sure if he’s reassuring Harrington or himself. “You’re hurt, okay? It’s bad, but it wasn’t me. I’m taking you to… to someone. My uncle Wayne, he’s— He knows about that kinda stuff. You were telling me about Rob. Remember her, Blue? How about you tell me some more, hm?” 

Eddie’s voice is unsteady with worry and fear and panic, and he’s doing a piss-poor job at hiding it. The thing is, he’s going to cry. He’s actually, absolutely, no-doubt-about-it going to scream and cry and punch a fucking hole into something when this day is over, when his van is no longer bloody, and when Steve Harrington won’t have reason to look at him any longer. 

Oh, how he wants to skip forward. Past the nausea, past the fear, past everything that’s happening right now. Maybe past the insomnia that will come with a day like this, too. 

Past all of it. 

Or better yet, travel back in time and never get to that fucking boat house. 

But he can’t. So he breathes. 

At first, through the ringing in his ears and the racing of his own heart so loud and so forceful he’s shaking with it, he worries that Steve’s gone silent again, that he’s gonna ask again, ask what happened, ask where he is, ask all the questions that make Eddie feel like he’s been doused in ice water because they’re questions that only get asked in stupid movies where terrible things happen to people. 

But then he hears him mumbling something. Numbers. 

“What’cha mumbling there, Blue?” 

“‘S her number,” Steve says, his voice slurring again, worse than before, and Eddie hits the gas a little harder. “‘S jus’ her number. Robbie’s number.” 

And he mumbles again. Over and over and over, until Eddie couldn’t forget it if he wanted to, ingrained into the frayed edges of his mind now. 

He lets him ramble, lets him repeat the number until the words slur together and he can’t separate a four from a nine anymore. Each time Harrington hesitates, each time he stumbles over the words or forgets a digit, Eddie wants to punch the wheel. 

He doesn’t. He only grips it tighter and counts down the turns he takes, the streets he passes, the fucking trees that are familiar, before, finally, the trailer park comes into view. 

The sob Eddie lets out when, with shaking, trembling hands he pulls up to his home to find his uncle having a smoke outside is deafening to his ears after the quiet weakness of Harrington’s voice. 

It startles him, makes him stop his rambles and sit up straighter when Eddie finally kills the engine. For a moment, without the steady, rolling hum, the car is filled with the small, tiny whines Steve makes on each exhale. Like it hurts to even breathe. 

“Wha’s wrong?” He asks, but Eddie can’t really hear him. Can’t turn to him, can’t— “Eddie?” 

He’s out of the car before he can take hold of another thought, stumbling out of his open door on legs that feel numb and heavy. The urge to cry is back again, the burning in his eyes only getting worse when Wayne takes in the dried blood on his clothes and hands with careful, calculated worry.

“Ed?” 

“I didn’t know what— where—- I’m… Wayne, I’m sorry.” 

“Slow down, kid,” Wayne says, raising his hands as if to calm a spooked deer. Like Eddie is the one who needs his help. And he is. He really, really is, and he shouldn’t be, because this isn’t about him, but—

Wayne grabs him by the shoulders to keep him still, and only now does Eddie realise he’s shaking again, restlessly moving his weight from one leg to the other. His uncle steadies him, gently pressing down on his shoulders to ground him, and Eddie nearly sobs again. 

“Ed. Are you in trouble?” 

“No,” Eddie scrambles to say, becoming aware of what this looks like, hiding his hands behind his back on instinct, like that’ll make Harrington’s blood disappear. “‘S not my blood, I didn’t do anything, I swear! I swear. It’s, uh. I just found him. In the boathouse, I found him, and he was… God, he looked so bad, okay, but he didn’t want the hospital, and he was, like, so scared of something, and we don’t even talk, we don’t even look at each other, but I just… I didn’t know what to do, and you know something about concussions and people who were beat to shit and, again, I’m—“ 

“Eddie,” Wayne says, his voice so calm but so assertive that Eddie shuts up immediately, gladly handing over to controls to his uncle now. “Who’s the kid?” 

He nods towards Eddie’s van, where Harrington looks to be halfway unbuckled, but his eyes are closed and his face smushed against the door again, like he just gave up.  

“Shit,” Eddie says, adrenaline and panic slowly falling from him with Wayne’s hand on his shoulder. He sags into his uncle and rubs at his face. “It’s Steve. Uh, Steve Harrington, I mean.” 

“Okay,” Wayne says, and he’s so calm. So calm. Eddie feels like he’s about to fall apart, and Wayne is the only one keeping him together, with that’d steady, warm hand on his shoulder. “And you promise me he didn’t give you trouble? Or anyone else who’ll come finish what they started?” 

Eddie shakes his head profusely, getting a little dizzy with it. “I promise I’m not in trouble. He said Hagan did this to him, was alone when I found him. No trouble, Wayne, I swear, I’m not like that, you know I’m not.”

“Okay,” Wayne says again, and Eddie wants to weep. “I know you’re not like that, but some people are, y’know? You did good, son. You did good. Now help me get him out of that car.” 

It takes his uncle tugging him towards the van for Eddie to kick back into motion, nearly falling over his feet turning back around. It’s only Wayne’s “Easy” murmured under his breath that keeps the ground from opening up and swallowing him whole. 

He climbs in on the driver’s side while Wayne rounds the car and gets to Harrington’s side. 

“Hey there, Blue,” Eddie says, his voice shaking and the nickname slipping again — but it’s easier to call him that than his real name, it’s easier to pretend it’s literally anyone else in here with him, bleeding against his door. 

It’s easier to pretend it’s not Harrington’s breath rattling the way it does, easier to pretend those pained groans so high in their cadence they can only count as whines don’t come from Hawkins High’s Golden Boy who graduated a few months ago and was supposed to be done with bullshit like this. 

“Come on, up you get,” he tells him, not daring to raise his voice too much. 

He looks so frail. Like he’s already broken. Or like he’s trying not to. Like he’s holding on. 

Eddie pretends not to think that the hand he places on Steve’s cheek to gently pry him from the window is not the only thing keeping that boy together right now. 

Harrington groans, whines, wheezes, but opens his eyes to meet Eddie’s. Jesus, we’re they this blown before? Or this swollen?

“Hey,” Eddie says, just to say something. Just so he won’t have to hold the boy’s face in silence, just so he won’t have to focus on all the blood. Just so he won’t have to hear more questions that people aren’t supposed to ask. 

Steve opens his mouth, his breath coming out a little sharper, like he wants to say Hi rather than Where am I? or When will it stop hurting? Like he wants to say How can I help you help me? 

Somehow, Eddie manages a smile. 

Wayne chooses that moment to open the door — just unclicking it, not pulling yet; giving Eddie enough time to support Harrington, make sure he doesn’t fall.

“Careful,” he whispers, though whether it’s for Wayne, for Steve, or for himself, he can’t quite tell. Maybe it’s a plea to the rest of the world, and to anyone else who will listen. 

Steve is still staring at him. That’s probably not a good sign. He leans back a little, turning Steve’s head to make him follow him. Slowly, of course. Gently. Eddie can’t remember ever having touched something like it was going to break if only he looked at it wrong, but somehow he’s hyper-aware of it now. 

Because Harrington is staring at him. Entirely too still, like he has no strength, no coordination to do anything but stare. And yet Eddie is the one who, now that the adrenaline has fallen from him, now that he can let someone else take over, now that Harrington doesn’t need him anymore, finds himself unable to look away. 

Because Steve is just a boy. And so is Eddie, who can feel Steve’s breath against his wrist. And maybe, out of the two of them, Eddie is the fragile one. The one about to break. 

“Blue, you with me?”

Steve nods. Doesn’t speak again. Doesn’t move. Eddie swallows, briefly looking back down at Wayne to see if he’s ready. His uncle nods, ready to catch Harrington should he go down, and Eddie turns back to the boy who’s smeared with his own blood.

“I’m gonna take off your seatbelt now, yeah?” he tells him, not entirely recognising his voice anymore. “That man out there, that is Wayne. My uncle. He’s safe. He’ll take care of you, okay?” 

“Safe,” Steve breathes, and that shouldn’t be the one thing he focuses on. It shouldn’t sound so unsure. So insecure. So hopeful, so relieved, so— Fucking earnest. 

Swallowing all these thoughts, all this desperation and all those questions, Eddie reaches over Steve, one hand still supporting his head and feeling the overheated skin of Harrington’s cheek against his palm, the hint of stubble and the crust of dried blood. As if in slow motion, not daring to make a wrong move and hurt him more than he already does, Eddie frees him the rest of the way, letting the seatbelt slide into its hold behind his shoulder. 

“Careful,” he says again, just to say anything, but he is careful, and his hold on Steve is steady. 

“‘M careful. Not gonna break, Eddie.” 

“I know.” But maybe I will. 

“Good. ‘Cause… Don’ wanna break.” 

Eddie smiles, despite everything. “You’re not gonna break, Blue. Wayne’ll catch you.” 

Harrington loses his focus then, his eyes glazing over, but the small smile on his lips widens. “Blue. ‘S nice.” 

Yeah, Eddie thinks. He kinda is. 

Somehow, miraculously, they get Harrington out of the van and into the trailer. He throws up halfway to the doorstep, and Eddie curses under his breath while Wayne talks quietly, asking him yes and no questions that Eddie can’t really hear through the ringing in his ears — a strange mix of fear and relief, a panic not quite over, but soothed by his uncle’s familiar voice; even if it’s not directed at him.

“Don’t worry about it, kid, the next rain’ll take care of that. Stop apologising.” 

It throws him then, rather suddenly and violently, watching Wayne supporting Harrington, watching the blood smeared boy with the swelling, angry red bruises in his face. Somehow it’s different, seeing him in his home. 

This was always a safe space. Always void of everything terrible. 

And now there’s a broken boy on his doorstep who’s not Eddie. 

He remembers the fear, the panic, the plea for no hospital, Eddie. Can’t go there.

Why not? You need a doctor—

Monsters. Only monsters there.

It paralyses him and he stays where he is, holding the door with an arm that’s heavy like lead, standing on legs that begin to go numb again. He watches, but not really, as Wayne sits Harrington down on the living room couch, between magazines and brochures and some of Eddie’s calculus notes from last night that he was searching for a sketch of a monster he was so certain he’d drawn in the margins a few weeks back. 

Now there’s blood on his calculus notes. And Eddie is helplessly keeping the door open as though he’s going to run away any second now. Letting in more trouble to join Harrington on his couch. 

He should… He should close the door. Help. Run. Disappear. 

“Ed,” Wayne calls, snapping him out of his stupor. “The first aid kit, please. A bottle of water. A clean, wet cloth. A blanket, too.” 

Wayne talks him through it, takes it one step at a time, has Eddie bring him one after the other like he knows how much he’s keeping his nephew together by keeping him on the brink of usefulness.

Soon, Wayne has everything he needs, taking care of Harrington and his wounds, keeping him awake and talking so much better than Eddie did, even making him smile here and there, hiding his wince when the motion pulls on his split lip or the huffed breath sends a jolt of pain through his rib that Eddie is absolutely certain must be broken with the way he holds himself — with the way he lets Wayne hold him up. 

Wayne is doing his thing and Eddie is hiding, gripping the kitchen counter like a vice, staring both unseeingly and hyper-vigilantly as exhaustion washes over him, dragging him under and draining him of more than adrenaline. He slumps against the cupboard behind him, rubbing at his face like that’ll make it all go away. 

It’s not right. It’s not. This is Eddie’s home, it’s supposed to be safe, it’s not… 

He breaks away, ripping his hands from the counter and all but stumbling outside, heaving a deep breath and giving in to the urge to cry. Tears spring to his eyes and he wipes them away angrily, because it’s dumb, it’s so stupid, it’s absolutely fucking insane that he should be so worked up when Harrington talked about dying earlier. 

These things don’t happen. They don’t! 

“Stop fucking crying,” Eddie grumbles, sniffling and wiping away more tears as he closes his eyes against the afternoon sun. “Get a grip, Munson, Jesus Christ, there’s no reason to cry you big fuckin’ baby.” 

Nobody’s there to contradict him. Nobody’s there to make it worse. So he lets his eyes sting for a while, lets his lips wobble, his jaw clenched shut, the balls of his hands pressing into his eyes, breathing deliberately. 

In. Hold. Out. Hold. 

He doesn’t even scream. Doesn’t punch the still bloody side of his van, doesn’t run into the woods and disappear into the void. 

He simply breathes. Tries not to think about boys dying in mall fires, and even less so about boys beaten and abandoned in boat houses.

Doesn’t think about fucking Hawkins in Bumfuck-Indiana and the cursed way it has, driving its people mad. 

Doesn’t think about, They said my brain is hurt, Eddie. Doesn’t think about the Monsters Harrington mentioned. Doesn’t think about Blue, doesn’t think about I’m tired, Eddie. Don’t wanna hurt anymore. 

Doesn’t think about blue, blue, blue. 

He’s shaking when he comes back inside. He’s shaking when Harrington meets his eyes, looking a little clearer now, the blood washed away and everything bandaged a lot better than Eddie managed. He’a bundled in Eddie’s blanket. It’s wrong. It’s so, so wrong. 

Eddie can’t move, and neither does Steve. 

“Steve,” Wayne says, waiting until those eyes tear themselves away from Eddie and back to him, though Eddie sees them fill with such trepidation, he almost asks what’s wrong. “I won’t hear a no on this, and I won’t let you go home. I’m taking you to the hospital. Especially if you tell me your head was hurt like this before, more times than one.” 

“Three,” Blue breathes, a little dazed still. Not magically healed, not even from Wayne. Another thing that doesn’t feel right. 

“Three times,” Wayne says, nodding, like he’s encouraging Steve to continue. 

“But I don’t want a hospital.” Again with that tiny fucking voice. Like the Monsters are hiding under hospital beds. 

“I know, son,” Wayne sighs, tugging the blanket a little tighter around Steve, and Eddie’s eyes begin to sting again when he notices the tone Wayne uses. When he realises. When he remembers. 

”I want my mom.“ 

”I know, son. But she’s not coming. Your mama is gone, Ed, and this is your home now. Think we can make that work, hm? You and I?” 

Eddie had never felt so lost as he did then, clutching his blanket to his chest, burying his face in the wet fabric even as this man — his uncle — tugs it tighter around him. Like he is fine with Eddie wanting to hide as long as he doesn’t run away. 

He had shrugged, then, even though we wanted to shake his head, tell him no, tell him he wanted his mama. 

”I’m scared, uncle Wayne.” 

And Wayne had smiled a little, and nodded. “Then we do it scared, Eddie.”

Actually, Eddie feels like he never stopped doing it scared. 

And now there is Steve, who Eddie never believed knew what being scared felt like. It’s dumb, of course, because even Harrington is just a boy, but he was always untouchable to Eddie. They never talked. They never existed in the same space together, not in a good way and not in a bad way. Their worlds just never aligned, never collided, never coexisted. 

And now… 

“I’ll tell you what’s going to happen, okay? There’s a doctor, Doctor Clarke. Like— Yeah, like your science teacher, remember him? ‘S got a brother who’s just as much of a genius, and just as kind. He’ll take a look at you, yeah? Make sure your brain isn’t too hurt, clean your wounds, give you something for the pain. He won’t, uh. He won’t hurt you, kid. Whatever’s got you so scared, Dr Clarke will be nice to you. Especially when I’m there with ya, I’m an old pal of his. And I will be. Won’t let you outta my sight until you’re well enough to run away from me, you hear me, kid?” 

Eddie’s hands are hurting, his fingertips raw from where he’s been biting his nails while Wayne talks Blue through what’s going to happen — and he wonders, with the way Steve’s eyes are glued to Wayne, if he ever had anyone talking him through shit like this. 

“Okay,” Harrington breathes at last, still sounding way too small. “But. I’m…” 

“Scared anyway?” Wayne offers. Steve nods. You’re so blue, Stevie. “Then we do it scared anyway.”

And they do. Wayne goes to get the car so Steve won’t have to walk too far, leaving Eddie alone with him for a brief moment. 

He watches, from his place in the kitchen, how Steve’s face falls into a look of utter exhaustion and tiredness; the adrenaline washing from him just the same. Eddie wants to reach out. Wants to say something, break the spell of tension and silence and I know we don’t talk, but I’m glad you’re doing a little better. I’m glad you’ll go see a doctor. I’m glad you haven’t died, I guess. Do you really think you will? Are you really so scared of that? 

But Eddie keeps biting his nails, and Steve keeps his eyes closed, blanket around his shoulders. And they don’t talk. 

“Thank you.” 

Eddie perks up, not entirely sure he didn’t imagine the words — but Harrington moved slightly, his eyes still closed but his face now turned towards Eddie. 

“For, uh. This.” 

“I didn’t do shit, Blue,” Eddie says. “That was all Wayne. All I did was freak out, I promise.” 

Harrington shakes his head, though, slowly. “Mh-mm.” 

Eddie’s mouth snaps shut, because there is no room for discussion here. They don’t talk. And he doesn’t want the bubble to burst with insecurity and sourness. 

“Thank you,” he says again, and he sounds final about it. It makes Eddie wonder what he’s like, really like, when he doesn’t consist of pain and nausea and disorientation. 

He has a feeling that, despite everything, despite Monsters under hospital beds and torture in boathouses and mall fires that kill teenagers, Blue Harrington might be someone good to talk to. Compassionate as shit, even when all he wants to do is pass out. 

“You’re welcome,” Eddie rasps, pretending that his eyes don’t sting.

He wraps his arms around his chest like he’s hugging himself, or like he’s holding himself back. From reaching out, from asking, from telling, from talking. 

Unwittingly, even with his eyes closed, Steve mirrors him, and Eddie wonders if he, too, it holding himself back, or just curling in on himself some more even though it must hurt, feeling so small. 

Maybe that’s what fear of death does to a nineteen year-old. It’s so fucked up. Eddie wants to scream again. 

Outside, he hears a car door fall shut just before Wayne reappears in the door, giving Eddie some kind of meaningful look that he wouldn’t mind deciphering on any other day, but today he fears he needs words. 

“I don’t know how long this’ll take. Will you be okay, Ed?” 

“Will I be— Yes! I’m not the one with the concussion, man, of course I’ll be—“ 

It’s a bluff, comes too fast, and Wayne sees right through it before Eddie even realises it, and he steps closer. A warm hand on his shoulder. His eyes stinging again. 

“You did good, kid. Everything will be fine. But it might take a while. It’s fine if you need to go somewhere, just… Don’t drive. Call Jeff if you need someone, just. Don’t do anything stupid. And don’t get behind the wheel. Deal?” 

Eddie swallows hard, hit by another desperate, aching wave of I wanna go back in time and skip this day. A wave of tired exhaustion and wondering, aimlessly, just who the fuck Steve Harrington really is. 

“Deal,” he says, and Wayne pulls him into a hug. 

Eddie follows them outside then, trailing behind them like a lost little puppy, helping Harrington into Wayne’s car. His movements are still slugged and a little disoriented, so Eddie decides to lean in again and fasten his seatbelt. 

“Careful,” he mumbles, allowing the boy a moment’s warning, a moment to adjust before the weight settles on his chest. 

Dejá-vù hits him and makes him pause, with Harrington staring at him again. 

“I’m careful,” he says, the corners of his mouth tugging into a little smile.

More lucid than earlier, and Eddie thinks it that which takes his breath away for a moment. 

“Not gonna break, Eddie.” 

“I know,” he says, still not moving back, instead reaching up to tighten the blanket around his shoulders even though the seatbelt is already there to hold it in place. “You’re not gonna break, Blue.” 

The smile on those lips is genuine now, gentle enough to not be ruined by the blood crusting them. 

“Thanks. Again.” And then, when Eddie finally pulls away to close the door and tell Wayne to drive safely, “I really do like that name.”

It soothes the urge to scream.

Eddie closes the door as gently as he can — which isn’t much, because the car is old and not exactly smooth. 

“I’ll see you later,” he tells Wayne. Promises. To stay out of trouble, to stick around, to not run away for a while again, to stay out of his car. 

Wayne nods, a faint smile on his lips. 

“Later, Ed.” 

And then they’re gone, and Eddie is untethered again. Wonders, for a few seconds every now and then if it really happened, if this is real. 

But it did. And it is. 

And after sitting on the steps for a while, having a smoke and staring at where Wayne’s car disappeared ten, twenty, forty minutes ago, Eddie heads inside. 

He has a phone call to make.

🤍🌷 tagging: @theshippirate22 @mentallyundone @ledleaf @imfinereallyy @itsall-taken @simply-shin @romanticdestruction @temptingfatetakingnames @stevesbipanic @steddie-island @estrellami-1 @jackiemonroe5512 @emofratboy @writing-kiki @steviesummer @devondespresso @swimmingbirdrunningrock @dodger-chan @tellatoast @inkjette @weirdandabsurd42 (a thousand percent sure i missed some but oh well such is the 3am disease)

addendum 22 jan 24: onwards to part 3

[fangirl-writes]

Need A Hero To Save Me (Just In Time)

JJ Maybank x Fem!Routledge!Reader

Warning(s): mild swearing. that's all.

Request: could you do a fic with jj where y/n is a routledge and after john b is presumed dead, shoupe shows up and ends up taking her to a foster camp (the one kie was actually taken to) and then jj comes to save her while kie and pope go to charlotte?

Notes: This one took a while. It's the first obx fic I've finished since s4 and...yeah. S4 wasn't exactly motivating.

You wanted to die.

You'd already lost your dad, and now you've lost your brother. You refused to go back to the Cameron's so you holed yourself up in the chateau, crying.

Kie and Pope were pretty much on house arrest, but JJ came by often.

He was the only thing holding you together at that point.

Which was why it hurt all the much more when Shoupe came to take you away.

"The...Camerons have decided to send you to Kitty Hawk," Shoupe said. "They are still technically your legal guardians, so they have a say, since you're not eighteen yet."

Your stomach sinks. The behavorial camp? You'd only heard bad things about the place, the wilderness cookoos nest, and weren't excited to have your adventure ripped out of you.

Tears swelled in your eyes. "I- I don't have a choice do I?"

Shoupe sighed, shaking his head. "No. I'm sorry, you don't."

You nodded, choking up. "Okay. Let me just...pack some stuff."

Shoupe turned away, heading back outside where the Kitty Hawk car was waiting to take you away from the only home you'd ever known.

It was empty now, though. Void of the brother and father that gave it life. A shell of a happy home.

You contemplated texting Kie. Or Pope. Tell someone where you were going.

You also considered running, but where would you go? You didn't have a car, the twinkie was still impounded, and you didn't have anywhere to go where you wouldn't be turned in.

The Carreras and Heywards were lovely, but they'd think it would be best for you to obey, to go to the reformitory camp.

"Okay, JJ," you mumbled, quickly sharing your location with him along with an explanation text. "Be my hero."

With that, you threw a few pairs of clothes and other neccessities into a bag and went to meet Shoupe outside.

So, this was it.

No more chateau. No more Kildaire High. No more boneyard parties or late night bonfires. No more pogues.

You gave your home on last look, trying to keep the tears from falling as you went.

Shoupe was talking with one of the workers, dressed in boring beige that matched the car behind him.

"Ready to go?" Shoupe asked, brightly.

"No," you replied. "But I don't have a choice, remember?"

Shoupe frowned, a flash of guilt crossing his face before he turned away.

"Can I check your bag?" The worker asked, shifting his stance to face you.

"Why? Think I'm bringing a weapon or something?"

"From what I hear about you and your friends, it wouldn't be a surprise."

You glared, shoving your bag into the man's arms. "Don't go rooting around in my underwear, would you?"

He didn't dignify your jab with a response, simply rumaged through your few belongings before zipping it back up and handing it to you.

"Everything a-okay, boss?" you snap.

The worker grunts, opening the back door for you to get in.

You send Shoupe one last glare before getting in and having the door slammed behind you.

Meanwhile, JJ's phone dinged with a text that wasn't from the recently resurrected John B.

"Guys, we have a problem," JJ said, looking up from his phone.

"Yeah, obviously, clearing John B.'s name is gonna be-"

"No. I mean a new problem," JJ interrupted. "The Camerons sent Y/N to Kitty Hawk."

Kiara's head snapped up. "The wilderness camp?"

"Yeah," JJ slammed his hand against the lockers. "God damn it! Every time we catch a break it's something else."

"I hate to say this, JJ, but we have bigger fish to fry right now," Pope said. "Y/N will be fine at Kitty Hawk but John B. could be snagged at any moment."

JJ looked scandalized. "Pope they're gonna rip her personality out of her, haven't you heard the stories?"

"Yes, JJ, I have and I know that they don't shoot them on sight, okay?" Pope replied. "Right now, we gotta try to get some evidence against Rafe before the Camerons destory any trace of it, okay?"

JJ looked like he wanted to protest, but kept his mouth shut. "Fine. But we get something, I'm going for her, alright? I'm not gonna let her rot in there. Not when her brother's alive."

You were curled in on yourself, knees hugged to your chest as you watched the trees pass by, depression and hopelessness setting in. You hadn't heard back from JJ or anyone.

You felt well and truly alone.

The car pulled up to the gate where a guard was stood.

"I have Y/N Routledge," the driver said.

The guard waved them through and the gates closed behind you.

There were girls all around, gardening, mowing, digging. Manual labor type things.

Your stomach sank.

The worker and driver that picked you up led you passed all the girls (who looked about as excited to be there as you did) into an building where you were handed a uniform and sent into an office to speak with a woman you guessed was the leader of this...lovely establishment.

"Welcome to our camp, Y/N," she said with a smile that was a bit too kind for the soulless nature of the place. "How are you finding it so far."

You shrugged. "Not finding it inviting, if that's what you were hoping for."

The woman ignored you, jotting something down in the notebook before her.

"I understand you recently lost your brother," she said.

You glared at her. "Yeah. Someone was trying to frame him for murder and he died in a thunderstorm. Thanks for bringing that up, it only happened a few days ago, so it's still raw and all that."

She smiled at you. "You know, we can help you process it. Here we give girls like you the opportunity to rebuild."

"Girls like me?"

"Girls from...rough homes."

"I am not from a rough home."

She flipped a page she had. "Stop me if I'm wrong, but for the last several months you were living in your childhood home without a guardian, and with your brother, until Ward Cameron took you in."

"Yeah, and then Ward Cameron's psycho son shot our sheriff and they framed my brother for it, so forgive me if I wasn't too eager to go back," you snapped.

She closed the file. "Y/N. I understand that you are greiving. But this is a new opportunity for you. A good opportunity."

You snorted. "Yeah. I'm sure."

JJ was going insane. He couldn't stop think about you, about John B. It was like the Routledges had moved into his brain.

He tried texting you, no answer. John B. was also MIA, probably ditched the phone he was using.

And now Pope wanted to go to Charleston.

"Charleston?" JJ asked.

"I know," Pope replied. "It's like an eight hour drive plus the ferry, how are we going to get there tonight?"

"Yeah, we'd have to leave like right now."

"I have a free period," Kiara said.

"Material evidence," JJ whispered. "What's that even mean 'material evidence'?"

"It means he can clear John B.," Kiara explained.

"Oh, shit, then we're going to Charleston," JJ said, louder than the cranky librarian cared for.

"I need to tell my mom," Kiara said. "If we get it this time, we are not giving it to Shoupe."

JJ agreed.

Clear John B. This could be huge.

"Guys," JJ said suddenly. "If, uh, if we're clearing John B...I really think Y/N outta be there."

They both groaned. "Not this again, JJ."

"What? Doesn't she deserve to know he's alive? That he can maybe come home?" JJ said.

"Yes, of course she does, but we have to go to Charleston, we can't take a detour-"

"Then I'll go get her!" he whisper-shouted. "You guys go to Charleston and I'll go get Y/N."

Kiara huffed at him. "Do you even have a plan?"

JJ shrugged. "You know me, I make it up as I go."

"JJ, you don't have a car, how are you even going to get there?" Pope said.

JJ frowned. "I'll- I'll go break the twinkie out of lockup and use it."

"What?"

"JJ, what if you get caught?"

JJ groaned. "All right, how about y'all focus on Charleston and I'll focus on Y/N."

In the end, they agreed and let him go off to break out the twinkie and try to break out Y/N.

All the while, you were stuck hanging laundry and gardening. Nothing you'd never done before, but something about being forced to do it made it worse.

Plus, you'd never been a morning person and waking up before 6 a.m. was proving to be a nightmare.

And going to bed at 9 p.m. only made you dream about John B. About how he must've drowned in that thunderstorm. About him calling your name before being swallowed by the ocean.

You woke up crying.

JJ drove up to the Kitty Hawk gate, trying to appear as casually as he could in the beat-up, cracked windshield, hippie van that was the twinkie. It was a miracle that he was able to get it out and get it running without ending up with a flat halfway there.

"How y'all doing?" JJ greeted, giving the gate guard his brightest, most casual smile.

"Can I help you?" The guard said.

"Hey, there, uh, sir, I-" He gestured to the gate. "Camp couselor Laura, I'm- I'm her brother. I was gonna drop off one of these packages back here for her, if that's okay."

One of JJ's strengths was lying out of his ass.

He could only hope that a) there was a couselor named Laura or b) that these guy's didn't know the counselor's names.

"It's real quick, I promise, just in and out," he said. "That all right?"

JJ's heart was pounding, but his exterior remained calm.

"Yeah, go ahead," the guard said, gesturing to the other guard to wave him through.

Fuck. Yes.

"Thank you so much, all right," JJ said. "Y'all have a good day."

He drove the twinkie into Kitty Hawk on a hope and a prayer, easing it into a parking space and getting out.

"Okay, Y/N, if I were you, where would I be hiding out in this shit hole?" he mumbled.

It was an eerie place. Girls walked in formal lines and were watched like hawks at they did so.

JJ waved to one of the watchers. "Hi there, sir, uh, I'm looking for... I'm looking for the office."

The man seemed nice enough, seeming to trust JJ's nice demeanor (and the fact he was let in at all).

"Is there a main lodge or something?"

The man pointed him in the right direction and JJ followed without argument, sauntering right up to the office.

"Hi there, ma'am," JJ said to the woman at the front desk.

"Can I help you son?" she asked.

"I, uh, I have a message for one of your campers," he said. "Uh, Y/N. Y/N Routledge, she's here, right?"

"Unfortunately we're not allowed to do that," the woman responded, looking at him in the way the woman in the high school office always did when he got called into the principal's office. "You're not even supposed to be here on campus."

JJ licked his lips. "Okay. It's...It's just that's it's a very important- May I sit?"

The woman allowed him and he settled into the chair.

"A very important matter, ma'am," He continued.

"Oh, I'm sure it is, sweetie, but we have a policy. No contact from the outside world for the first six weeks."

JJ considered. He had to pull on this woman's heart strings to get anywhere. She was nice enough, had a picture of her cat on her desk...which sadly meant he could manipulate her pretty easily.

"Right...ma'am, it's actually a family matter, and uh," he said. "I'm...I'm related to her, I'm her cousin. So, I know you got a policy and all, but there's just been something that happened recently that..."

JJ was getting choked up.

Fakely, of course, but he was still doing it.

"You know what? I'm getting a little emotional, right now, so I think I should go," he stood up. "I shouldn't even be here, like you said, so I'll leave you alone. But before I leave-"

Here goes nothing.

"Could you just let her know, um...could you let her know that they found her brother?"

The woman seemed taken aback.

"I- uh, I'm sure you've heard that he drowned in a boating accident a few days ago and, uh, they've been looking for him since and...and they finally found him this morning, so."

The woman seemed striken, her eyes even getting a little misty.

"I'll- I'll go now, sorry to bother you..."

Then he was out.

But he wasn't done.

He snuck around the side of the building, watching as the front desk woman and an attendant went up to a building and unlocked it.

"Y/N? Sweetie? Can you come out here?"

You perked up from your space on the bed at the voice and headed to the door.

"I'm sorry, Sweetie, but at Kitty Hawk, we feel you have the strength to hear all the news," she said when you were in front of her. "Including bad news."

Your stomach sank. "What happened?"

"Well, your cousin was here a minute ago."

Your face flashed with confusion.

As far as you knew, you didn't have any cousins.

"What cousin?"

"A young man, blond."

Your eyes widened.

JJ?

"He asked me to tell you that...that they found your brother."

"Wh- what?"

"He said they found him this morning...that he didn't make it."

Your legs felt like they were going to give out.

No. No, no, no no.

"They- He-" Tears were swelling up in your eyes.

"Oh, oh, honey, why don't you go sit down," she said.

JJ, who was pressed against the building as tightly as he could, felt guilty for using John B. (who wasn't dead) as a way to get to you. But it was the only thing he could think of.

"Take all the time you need."

You went back inside the cabin and dropped on the bed.

JJ. He was there.

And he wouldn't leave you there, would he?

You needed him now more than ever.

That night, two attendants came by the reflection cabin, where they'd placed you for that afternoon.

"Y/N." the woman said. "We know your greiving and feel you're best supported by your peers. So, we're going to relocate you."

Your heart started pounding.

"I- I really feel like I need some more time to reflect," you said.

"No stalling," the man snapped. "Come on, we're putting you in a dorm. Cabin six. Let's go."

You could only hope that if JJ was still there, he was watching closely.

You followed them into Cabin Six, where girls of all kinds turned to look at you as you walked in. Like they were eyeing up the new meat.

"Girls. This is Y/N." the woman said. "She's had some tough family news. Let's show her some empathy and love, okay? Can we do that?"

The way they were looking at you, you guessed the real answer would be no.

They whispered and smirked as one of the male attendants walked you to your bed. It was a top bunk, near the middle of the room.

Not at all like your cosy, window side bed back home.

It made you feel like a trapped animal. And the girls didn't help.

It seemed like love and empathy were the last things these girls wanted to offer you.

At least they didn't taunt or bully, like the Kooks. At least they gave you the peace of being left alone.

You rumaged through your bag as the sun had nearly set and all the girls were getting ready for bed.

You pulled out the photobooth strip of photos you had with the pogues that you'd take on your birthday last year, before everything went to shit. One with each of them and one all together.

You heart ached as you looked at the picture of you and John B. and you felt the tears start to swell in your eyes.

You quickly wiped them away, not wanting to be caught crying around everyone.

Then, your eyes landed on the one of you and JJ.

God. JJ.

If he was there, if he was really going to save you, god, you'd kiss him.

You wanted to go home.

The night settled in and you closed your eyes, but didn't sleep. Waiting and hoping with all your might, that he was going to find you.

And JJ was hoping with all his might that none of these guys with flashlights stumbled upon him.

He carefully made his way to the building labeled "Cabin Group #6" and quietly tried popping the door unlocked with an old card he had in his bag.

It worked, but it also made a loud noise as it opened, causing him to swear under his breath as he eased it open, slipped inside, and eased it closed again.

There were rows of beds there and he had no way of knowing which one Y/N was in.

So, he started asking "Y/N?" as quietly as he could.

Unfortunately, in the otherwise pin-drop silence of the cabin, it was still loud.

One girl clicked on the light and he froze.

"What are you doing in here?" she asked.

Fuck.

"Uh, evening, miss," he tried. "Sorry- Sorry to bother y'all."

Other girls started sitting up and looking at him, none of them so far Y/N.

"Shit. I know this looks bad, but I come in peace," he insisted. "I'm just looking for someone, I'm looking for-"

"JJ?"

He turned at your voice, his heart jumping in his chest as his eyes finally landed on you.

Your eyes were puffy and your hair was messy but you were the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

"Y/N." he breathed.

You moved, leg swinging over the bed and climbing down to see him. You rushed into his awaiting arms, hugging him tightly.

"JJ, what're you- how did you- did they really find-"

"No!" JJ assured, a little louder than he meant. "No. No, he's alive, Y/N. Him and Sarah, they both made it. They're hiding out in the Bahamas and Pope and Kie are in Charleston getting something to clear his name so he can come home."

The information hit you like a train. "Are- are you serious? JJ, I-"

"Look, we gotta go, okay? Before someone catches me- or us. Okay, we just gotta," he started moving towards the door.

You quickly grabbed your bag from the side of the bed and rushed after him.

"Ladies," JJ said. "Thank you for your cooperation."

And then you were gone, leaving the other girls with an unlocked door.

You and JJ rushed through the trees, hand in hand.

"I can't believe you did this!" you cried, absolutely elated.

"You thought I was just going to let you rot in there? When John B.'s alive? No way, man. Never."

"JJ," you stopped him in the middle of the trees. "Thank you. Really, thank you. Thank you so much."

He grinned. "You can thank me later, let's just get out of here before they send someone after us."

You both continued running, bags bouncing and hearts pumping, towards the place he'd stashed the twinkie before sneaking back in.

You saw the old van and felt your heart swell. It was just as much home as the chateau.

JJ jumped in the driver's seat and you in the passenger.

"Hey," you said, getting his attention.

When he turned his head, you kissed him.

He sucked in a breath, surprised at your action, so the kiss lasted only a short moment.

"Thank you, again," you said, smiling.

He blinked a moment, trying to get his brain back on line, and cleared his throat. "Yeah, you're- uh. You're welcome. Let's get out of here, yeah?"

His face had flushed, though you couldn't see it in the dark, and he drove off, back towards the Kildaire.

You and JJ were definitely going to need a moment to talk about your feelings later, but for now you were out of Kitty Hawk, your brother was alive, and he was going to be coming home.

You felt more alive on that drive back than you had since your dad went missing.

[justcameheretobyler]

I think there’s something I missed in the transition of s3 and s4 (probably it’s been already talked enough but I came late to the party so I’m doing it anyway)

There are moments like, when a couple that is supposed to happen has a turning point (like Jancy in s1) but then, the person that sets the boundary in that relationship has to make a choice and ends up choosing “safe path”

In Nancy’s case it was just at the end of s1, we see her being together with Steve again, even when it was clear she had feelings for Jonathan.

I think that’s the case with Byler ending s3

Mike and El weren’t together anymore (just as Steve and Nancy) and Mike and Will had their moments in s3 (the theater scene, the rain fight showing how good is Mike reacting when he knows he hurt Will)

And this scene when Mike is still single

But then we have THE scene

These both are, part of the turning point about byler, and the moment Mike, the one setting the boundary with Will, makes a choice. A safe choice.

Let’s remember that Steve called out Nancy cuz she was drunk when she told him she didn’t love him. But sorber Nancy was still holding the lie, if it wasn’t for Murray’s speech I don’t know how more it would take Jancy to be a thing btw.

Same happened with Mike, he was holding the lie, even when he couldn’t say it.

I do have a doubt here do’

Was the last scene in s3 actually ElMike getting back together? Or it was later on?

Cuz we had Nancy and Jonathan talking about their relationship not going anywhere later in s2

“I waited”

“Just like a month” (lmao 😭)

And then, we have the fact Mike called Will a couple of times, but Will didn’t call him back.

I’m not sure if it was stablished that Mike and El just continued their relationship as nothing happened before, and also, I think obviously Mike’s feelings for Will are more complicated cuz Mike doesn’t know Will is gay and in love with him. So part of the problem can be him gaslighting himself.

The point is,

Byler had being building up since s1, having the “turning point” in s3 and elaborating one side more in s4

If we see it clearly:

In s1, we have the focus of how much Will means to Mike.

In s2, we have the focus of how much Mike loves Will and how much Will needs Mike without openly expressing it (him calling his name in his worst moments was supposed to be a thing)

In s3, we see their relationship struggling and their fights becoming more serious while growing up.

In s4, we have the focus of how much Will loves Mike, and Mike being weird around El and Will.

But then, the turning point comes again.

Mike says “I love you” to El finally, with a pity speech cuz even the way Finn delivers the lines are kind of (?).

But his last scene is with Will. Reassuring him and walking beside him down the hill.

So… I think that’s supposed to be a new moment for Mike to make a choice.

And common, we know, at this point we already know.

[irrealisms]

hi! yr probably not lookin for asks anymore, but. what's your lifesteal elevator pitch? i know absolutely nothing abt it or any of the folks on the server except the vague things i've absorbed frm reading yr analysis as it crosses my dash, but it compels me, etc.+ also merry christmas! <33 🎄🌟

good news: i am always looking for asks

bad news: my parents DID go to sleep and i was able to wrap presents and put them beneath the tree and so on, so i wasn't going to do more asks tonight

good news again: i actually already have a lifesteal pitch. in a google doc. bc i'm normal

the pitch does assume you're basically already into mcrp and just curious about lifesteal in specific BUT we went to dsmp together so this works out

I really love shitty little tryhards causing problems via impressive feats of minecraft, and lifesteal is full of those. if you like people being good at minecraft, I really recommend lifesteal--in s2, clownpierce was top 50 worldwide at crystal pvp, and now he's washed and in s6 there are 2-3 (depending on who you ask) lifestealers who are better than him at pvp (admittedly maybe not at crystal); in s4, there's some stuff that's impressive in ~vanilla (eg parrot wins a 1v1 while on one heart) and some stuff that's impressive through exploits/social stuff (eg a group of people use a glitch + social engineering to get /op and prove to mojang that the glitch is a security issue that needs patched). every season is like this! lifestealers have backdoored the server 3 seasons in a row (s3-5). for a more recent weird Lifestealer Behavior, rekrap and jumper filled in every end portal room and built new fake ones to make it look like the world glitched and generated without them. lifesteal is weird and constantly coming up with new weird yet impressive things to do. a lot of stuff that's currently banned on lifesteal (F3+A, pie ray) are things i only learned were possible from lifesteal. (on the flip side i'd say: if you are not into shitty little tryhards making weird impressive clickbait, you probably won't like lifesteal, although you may still like hearing about it from time to time.)

related to them being shitty little tryhards causing problems: the rules are...more of a suggestion. getting around the rules, and hiding from the server owner and/or other players that you're doing so, is often part of the fun of lifesteal! (see also the thing where i mentioned that it's been backdoored three seasons in a row.) if that's intriguing: check it out. if not: once again, you have been warned.

lifesteal absolutely has lore and some people roleplay on it, there is nonzero c/cc divide, but it's more like traffic life than, say, late dsmp--it's fully improv, not scripted, and even more than traffic life it is genuinely adversarial. you can sometimes be confident that someone is in character but you can never be sure if someone is out of character, on lifesteal-- things like "going to someone's house irl to turn off their computer" or "lying about your homework/school/sleep schedule" or "changing your entire discord layout so that when you DM someone they think you're someone else" or "claiming you need their footage of an event for your video when actually you just want to see where their spawn point is" are all things that have been done on lifesteal that are considered fair game! everything on lifesteal is real; sometimes this goes well, sometimes it doesn't, but both are interesting to see imo because they are real

partially for this reason and partially for other reasons, lifesteal is fascinating to me as a piece of unique storytelling? a lot of mcyt is doing interesting things with its medium and being improv, lifesteal's not fully unique in that, but definitely if you like that you might like lifesteal. along with the improv, there's the fact that many lifestealers lie about what actually happened in their videos (comparing different videos with the vods, or in some cases with "what people say in various vods" when events weren't streamed, gives some fascinating insights imo--how do people frame their stories? how honest are they? what do they blatantly lie about, what do they gloss over or omit, what do they include in full? who, if anyone, do they see as the heroes or villains? whose videos agree with each other, and whose present a totally different story?), and the fact that conflict about "where do we want the story to go next, what do we think would be an interesting video/the best ending" is often the driving motive for in-character wars and conflicts! if you're interested at all in lifesteal and storytelling, check out barrier blocks part 2 by @mering/@myrmica, which is a deep dive on eclipse federation and the end of lifesteal s4 (those are my special guys); it dips into some academic game studies and it's really, really good. i genuinely cannot recommend it highly enough. (part one is also real good for non-lifesteal-specific discussion of mcrp!)

if you want a more specific plot summary (esp of s4) and/or "how do i actually, like, watch this" (of any seasons): hmu! but that's my pitch. also, read barrier blocks

[coffeegnomee]

have you seen the conversation between kab & zam from yesterday yet :? i'd be so curious to hear your take on the whole thing. i like that kab is someone who will have a conversation like that in the first place, and i'm really interested in the potential of her interacting with zam in ways that might force her to confront the assumptions she's made about lifesteal (both in a roleplay-style way and an understanding the people on the server way, but admittedly i mostly want meta-conflict...) so i was kinda delighted by it. and her revealing so much about said assumptions, her own thought processes, her blind spots, in an attempt to reveal very little actual information. bacon's "training" as a little microcosm of how she reacts to problems she can't predict or control. all in all she frustrates me but in a fun way here, i like being frustrated.

I got so invested and stayed up so late taking notes. I'm writing this before watching the rest of Zam's stream and Kab's stream from yesterday, basically just looking at the conversation itself. Because oh boy that was fascinating. What a creature. 

Overall, what I’ve gathered from Kab, is a massive tendency to radically prioritize her own personal experiences with a person (one on one, face to face) over observing them through other people’s eyes and seeing how they act to other people (like through watching streams s4 and 5 or just through yt videos) and especially over what other people’s opinions are of other people. 

So it was super fascinating for her to get so excited about Zam being a wealth of information, because she observed with her own eyes that he understands people. So she now can categorize Zam in this way.  

But idk how much of what Zam said about like Mapicc and Spoke will matter in her future interactions with them, given how she accepted it, but then minutes later would not take correction when she had her own opinions on Bacon that differed from Zam’s observations. 

So like, she only, practically, gained insight on Zam. That is the only flask she is filling rn. 

I saw a bunch of people wonder what Kab exactly learned from that conversation and idk how much any of yall have been keeping up with her streams, but Kab learned A LOT from that conversation. (I might pull everything she learned in a different post. It’s not super relevant here)

Like you don't understand how little she knows about Lifestealers. I know, it’s shocking given we all saw her in chat all of s4 and most of s5.

She went on Bacon’s stream (and her’s ig) a bit ago the day they turned the field purple and said she only followed Eclipse, it was the only arc she actually followed as it came out, and then she kind of stopped paying attention. Which is why she would not realize how wild it was to say “princezam! You could create world peace on lifesteal!” as if she didn’t understand the Joker arc was PrinceZam objecting to pb&j trying to bring world peace to lifesteal. No Clowpierce needed.

And like if she ONLY saw Zam in the Eclipse arc, lowkey she could conclude that he is spineless. She just never saw the shift we’ve been watching since Eclipse.

Now I have another theory, but I might be totally wrong in this, but in a potentially 2% chance universe Kab is playing around with the concept of player knowledge vs character knowledge. Like everything she knew from before Lifesteal is off limits and she can only use knowledge she gains since being in the discord and on the server itself. 

And in this case she would be embracing the purity of rp content to the max. 

In which case she would need Zam to spell out how the Joker arc influenced his pacifism arc or she can’t use that info. 

It is a completely overly charitable concept I think, but nonetheless interesting. I could go into a full on Kenadian joking that Omziscool has dementia arc. But instead of dementia she is secretly incredible at acting. Or I could conclude that it is what it looks like, and Kab simply doesn’t remember anything she learned before Lifesteal/never bothered to pay attention bc she was never going to get on this server anyway.

And anyway, she clearly is using previous knowledge about Clown, Ash, and Squiddo, and she uses OOC knowledge all the time, getting in discord vcs and asking questions about server plans and using that knowledge for herself (mane in her video, red and woogie being teamed in this convo, etc). So I don’t think it can be concluded to be character knowledge vs player. But I find the thought interesting. 

But that brings me back to my point about prioritizing the knowledge she gains through person to person interactions: she only can analyze Clown, Ash and Squiddo so well because she knows them in person so well. 

And she doesn’t have that with literally anyone else on the server. Not even Zam or Red. I can’t remember if she talked to anyone else for any meaningful period of time other than them before joining. But clearly, CAS are only the three she knows well enough to have a good take on their personalities. 

And it is a good take, she does analyze CAS in ways I would approve of. She does genuinely have a good understanding of their motivations and personalities. So she is capable of having good takes.

But as we saw in the convo, it doesn’t yet extend past them. 

So what this means is (rn imo) I think more conversations with Zam will prove extremely interesting, but unfortunately only realistically in terms of her understanding of him and not in her learning and growing in understanding of how lifesteal works and how other members work.

Like I would love to see a Spoke and Kab conversation. I have soo many theories on how Spoke would react. But she would not learn (and therefore agree with Zam's take) that he is the master manipulator until the arc was well past and done. He does nawt spill his secrets at all. Zam spills that. So (imo rn) even if she did have a convo with Spoke, that would give her one-on-one info but she would conclude that he is a bumbling moron who has no motivations and doesn't think past the present moment. Because that’s who he pretends to be. And she takes people for their literal words until they say otherwise.

BUT! Interestingly enough she does learn well. Something I noticed through her pov of the Bacon jumpings is that she was super caught up in how unfair it was and getting pissed off at Bacon because he didn't explain why he was jumping her randomly. Because she needs someone to say word for word why they are doing something in order for her to understand.

And I think we saw this in this convo, the more Zam told her word-for-word his mentality, the more she noted it and she asked follow up questions and clarifying questions and I think noted them down rightly (maybe not tho I haven’t watched yesterday’s stream) 

And earlier, if you watched her/bacon streams that day, that was the first time Bacon said word for word the difference between practicing on pvp legacy and why it differs from fights on lifesteal and why that matters. And so therefore why him jumping her is helpful, not pointless, as she kept saying over and over. And she acquiesced to his analysis. And could only reiterate that she asks he doesn't do it when she’s lagging. 

She didn’t sound like that to Zam in the convo, but that’s bc she was trying to hide that for manipulation purposes. Even if... Whatever. It doesn't matter that it was silly and didn’t do anything meaningful, that was her using manipulation and secrecy. 

Anyway, her main sticking point the first day Bacon jumped her was (9/21 ~1:00:00)  “This feels like the most inefficient way of training though. Cause he didn't tell me what to do he just started attacking me” She wants to be told what to do first so she can internalize it. She doesn't logic out a reason based on input, she needs to be told. 

This is why I think she will ultimately be okay, she just needs a shit load of conversations like this one with Zam. Though we will need to wait and see what she actually learns (like after the season is over), but in the meantime interesting conversations for sure. 

What she will hopefully learn is that Zam freely gives out general server information all the damn time, and is always willing to talk about people’s past seasons mentalities. He loves yapping analysis.

So if she ever tries to go into a conversation withOUT obvious sus and pointed questions like she keeps doing with Zam, maybe she'll lean that she doesn't need them for him. It’s like she’s trying so hard to sound so casual about asking questions but that is just NOT necessary with Zam. He will just tell you shit, that's who he is. 

But, she did pick up on that if she asks too much about Zam’s inner mentality about current arcs he clams right up. (even though, again, if she watched his streams in the past she should understand him.) But that doesn't stop her from pushing to learn

But he is sooo uncomfortable about talking about why he does stuff in the moment. Like Planet had to work so hard s4 to get Zam’s trust and he almost got to know Zam’s wormhole day motivations about making everyone hate him, and in hating him the server members would bond together which was a good thing. But Spoke interrupted and Planet never got to know. It is a workout to get Zam to actually leak his mentality, and his mentality is the only thing he really truly cares about. Everything else is just whatever. 

But she incorrectly thinks that flattery and apology will be the way to get him to open up.

But either way it is great bc Zam, and Bacon too tbh, freely give out advice about other server members and how lifesteal works. Because they understand that it is in everyone’s best interests if they learn how this server does work and how the players think because that can only help smooth things over and get good interactions. She just doesn’t realize how /genuine they are being in that moment and takes it more as them leaking super secret information. When they’re just like, 'please learn, i beg.'

In terms of confronting role-play style and how the server lives and exists. Kab made HUGE progress.

If you didn't watch until the end of her stream, Kab had initially planned to murder Zam at the end of that convo but changed her mind bc of what happened. 

Like she said in the flower field that she wanted to “do lore” with Zam to do before session and make him not trust her anymore. And in the end she reveals that "lore" was just murdering him.

She tends, like she did with the consequences arc, to plan shit out and then execute that plan. Bc she’s a scripted lore server girl. 

But in this conversation she, in real time, adjusted her plan based on the unscripted conversation that flowed from it. Which is huge news for lifesteal enjoyers. If she can learn to embrace this we will be eating well. And that can only come through practice.

From a PrinceZam analysis, we got to see him go to work and try to get information from Kab. She leaked a lot, but he really does need the practice on extracting info, he's been talking about it a lot, and she’s a great subject to practice on. 

So I am very excited for him to get that practice in future conversations. 

And Zam does try several different approaches, feigned indifference, just asking, comforting lie that he wont tell anyone the secret is safe with him, pretending to only be interested in one thing instead of everything, asking direct questions that she must confirm or deny which should give him info either way, asking for the favor out of friendship, asking for the favor out of the continued exchange of information, asking for the favor out of her not having given as much as he had given, playing for the ego that if it’s so bad you can’t tell me it must be really bad so you want to tell me, asking over and over.

She for her part only knows flattery, apology, and the placation of emotions to make you think you don’t want to know the information anyway or because you react too strongly and it wouldn't be healthy for you to know. 

The most interesting analysis is how at the very very end of her stream she said “I’ve giving him a warning that I’m going to fuck with some stuff so he shouldn’t.. He shouldn’t label that as me betraying him” 

Whichhhhhhh is hilarious because we all know ends only in one way. But that is shocking bc this was his fundamental reason for betraying Eclipse was bc they thought this way?? Like Vi and Subz thought if they were subtle and slow and give him warning about the wormhole, that he wouldn’t take that as a betrayal. But he did. So he betrayed outright. To like, oversimplify it. But basically, warning Zam does absolutely nothing to protect yourself from him ending the relationship when you do something new that is not aligned with his morals/thoughts/desires. 

So so so interesting how she has that viewpoint if she did watch Eclipse.

Oh! Final thought that might go more into the meta-conflict side of things. I think we don’t get that much meta-conflict in a similar way to how it was with Vi or Minute and Jumper and Pentar last season. Idk hot to describe it exactly.

It might not be quite what meta-conflict means, but like how Kab stops all lore to cause conflict based on what conflict was presented to her.

Kab has a massive tendency to use embarrassment and shame as an attack when she feels unsafe or embarrassed. Like she will instantaneously go for causing you embarrassment and making you feel bad for your choices whenever she feels threatened in order to make you back off. 

Like when she said: “and zam, this is the person you’re friends with?”

But she goes for the throat like this a ton, like with Bacon this stream going towards a consent argument to make him feel incredibly awkward and that he will back off from jumping her instead of risking saying 'no does not mean no'.  

There were other times in earlier streams that idk if I can remember them, but it’s happened a lot with Woogie and Bacon whenever they imply that they have doubts that her plan will work, she takes it almost as them saying they think she’s stupid. And she reacts very aggressively and makes it about meta stuff instead of on the server stuff.

What I do find fascinating is how Bacon, in three streams or so, has already learned how to give her critiques on her plans so that she doesn’t get offended and that she instead learns his thought process and is the one to back down. He is learning quickly.

Also I just realized JUST how much analyzing lifestealers feels like completing those logic puzzels where you have to figure out who has what item and what location or whatever and you get like five clues. No wonder I love this shit so much.

[all-pacas]

i got a request to talk about retcon sister headcanons it's like you guys know me

so first of all, i don't think retcon sister (danielle) has been in much contact with chase. they live a long way apart, this is the pre-smartphone era so they're not on discord, etc. they're both busy: chase is busy with house and probably lowkey avoiding her because he's ashamed of abandoning her; danielle is like… 17 in s1 and doing drugs hard and lowkey failing out of school and in her peak rebellious phase, you know?

rowan's death did not bring them together. chase thought she hid the cancer from him on purpose; danielle did know (but only because she was still living at home as a minor), but she assumed chase knew, and then was really hurt when he didn't come to the funeral. she was tentatively sober; she had a huge backslide after rowan died: she's barely 18, she's an orphan, her brother doesn't care: he started sending her money, but chase wasn't talking to her, because he was angry and hurt and felt shut out. they're both unfairly blaming one another.

i think he cuts her off around s4. he finds out she's spending his money on drugs, he has a panic spiral about having to take her in (does he arrange for her to move to new jersey? does he have to move back to australia? she's not even in university, what happens now?) and just - does the chase thing and ignores the problem. shoves her away. and then they don't talk for a good long while: maybe he invites her to the wedding, but maybe not, and if he doesn't, it hurts her more.

from danielle's perspective: she adored her brother. he was so cool, he was so put-together, he was kind of weird with religion but we all have our faults. she remembers him playing with her, taking care of her. in a sort of jealous way, she'd brag about him, you know what i mean? she has this cool brother in america. he's a famous doctor (he really isn't). like being associated with him made her special in turn. if she does make it to the camchase wedding, i think she's immediately super attached to cameron. she wants -- well, parents. in much the same way chase is desperate for approval, so is danielle, except she still has her brother to attach to.

and at the same time, she resents him. he left her. she wasn't good enough for him (but also: she was an alcoholic at sixteen, she knows she's a messed up person). he left her alone when she was still a kid. he's so great and cool so maybe she's the problem, right?

i don't think danielle would really see chase as a screw up; it's too counter to her definition of herself and himself. that isn't to say she doesn't see chase's flaws, or doesn't have a pretty astute view of him -- she knows he runs and shuts people out pretty keenly. but he's still the closest thing to a loving parent she had, and he still does, obviously, care about her, and that… makes up for a lot. he frustrates her, she feels his abandonment keenly, she thinks he's high and mighty and bossy and dramatic, but -- whenever she's asked him for help, he's sent her money. he dropped everything to fly to australia once when she was really in trouble. she sees his guilt as love. that isn't super healthy, but.

and because he is someone she loves and resents in equal measure, i think she'd do a lot to erase his mistakes: she can't see him as a total fuckup, because he's the only loving family she has. she can see him as annoying and a coward, but sleeping around? that's fine. unable to emotionally connect with people? he played with her and gives her money, so clearly he's fine. he got failmarried? probably cameron's fault. i think she'd get really riled up if he ever developed a drinking problem or made the mistakes she's made, though; the only things that danielle would really struggle to deal with would be things that directly reflect on her or their relationship. i think she'd actually get weirdly jealous if chase had kids -- babytrap or otherwise -- in a resentful "you abandoned me" way, even though of course he was fifteen and never supposed to be her parent. where he's kind of excited to be uncle to her son, i don't think it would be reciprocal with his kids, you know?

i'm making her sound immature! she is! i think she's probably decently emotionally stunted! by the end of the series she's in her late twenties, but also only a couple years sober, so mentally she's more in her late teens. she's self-centered in the literal definition of the word. idealizing her brother is her way of coping: she doesn't like herself at all, she can't like or forgive her actual parents, but if she has this perfect big brother and he loves her, then maybe she's alright after all.

[pepstarvanmoon]

Stranger Things & Bully Storylines (Part 1)

Now, this isn’t to criticize Mike (I do that often enough, out of love fyi), there are other things to get him for while he was having his day ‘sabotaged’. This is just to discuss why the writers made the S4 situation so hopeless in comparison to S1.

I’ve already thought about how El was the one in trouble in S4, and as the ‘protector’, there was no one to help her in that scene (she also has no powers) compared to her stopping Troy from attacking Mike in S1.

We know Stranger Things likes its parallels, and even if it turns out these two scenes have nothing to do with each other, I still want to talk about it! (sorry if people have talked about this before, my memory is shit)

In S1, it’s a scene that’s built up. Mike, Dustin and Lucas have been dealing with Troy and James since the start of the show. The two appear out of nowhere the second they get to school just to harass them (fan behavior, if you ask me). They make fun of their appearances, joke about Will’s disappearance (and his sexuality bc of course they won’t leave that out, even if he isn’t there) and have no problem hurting them.

They’re insufferable, one-dimensional characters for us to get mad at (and to hint at the insecurities of our main characters), so by the time we get to the gym fight, everyone’s more than happy to watch El humiliate Troy.

Before Will’s memorial service in the gym, Mike just received confirmation that Will is actually alive, so maybe he’s feeling a little empowered. When they would insult the party before, he would usually just take it (I will say that it’s different here since they’re poking fun at Will’s (not actually) confirmed death, which is actually crazy like can I talk to your parents bc they did something wrong).

Mike decides to call them out even though he’s afraid. He could just leave, they know Will is alive, and they never planned on staying for the service anyway, but after seeing Will’s ‘body’, feeling hopeless, and maybe just genuinely being sick of the shit Troy and Jake have always put them through, he decides not to let them get away with it anymore.

He tries being civil about it at first, likely out of fear. They already hurt him in an earlier episode, and even though his superhero is right behind him, he clearly didn’t expect her to protect him. Civility doesn’t work, of course, and they double down on what they said about Will.

It makes me think about how long this has gone on for. How long they’ve targeted the party and how often they’ve said horrible things about Will. I would say Will isn’t very confrontational until he gets upset enough. He’s more likely to speak his mind around family and friends, but he definitely shrinks around strangers.

I’ll bet it was different for Mike then, because at least Will was there. He could make him feel better about it if he was here and not trapped somewhere they can’t find him, like he would with the rest of the party.

Mike knows Will is alive. They don’t, and still have it in them to talk about him in that way (not to mention they’ve been playing up Will’s death like a joke since the start of the series), so it’s no surprise that Mike chooses to respond physically this time. 

(And if I say part of the anger comes from not being able to protect Will? If I say that Mike, imagining Will were there, likely wouldn’t have spoken up to them and tried to console Will later? If I say he’s always felt defenseless, and believed he should play a bigger role in protecting his friends? He’s their paladin, after all (and a kid that’s way too hard on himself))

Troy is obviously pissed and Mike (still afraid, btw) holds his ground, but he’s stopped by El, and because my girl is as powerful as she is petty (and frighteningly vengeful at times which is just what happens when you raise someone to be a weapon, but I digress), she forces him to wet himself.

The party has clearly never seen Troy so defenseless (see: pathetic) before, and of course everyone laughs because bro looks goofy just shaking in piss. Then they’re free to go because not even James wants to deal with that.

(Also I live for El’s little “I’ve got you” smile ELMIKE YOU’RE MORE THAN WHAT ANYONE THINKS)

Personally, I was hoping it would just end there and I wouldn’t have to see them again, but I have to remember that bully characters are there to be plot devices (unless they’re a main character set to be redeemed or smth) so you just know Troy isn’t going to take being humiliated like that very well.

I’m not going to get into what happens in episode 6 for my own sanity, and also because this post is about the ‘fights’ and the build-up to them.

The main takeaway is that this ‘fight’ is prompted BECAUSE the characters are happy to know Will is actually alive, even though hearing him cry over the radio like that was distressing. Knowing Will is alive and finding him are two different things. El is Mike’s only connection to him at this point, and it’s interesting that they always have El save him.

Outside of a ‘she’s literally the only member of the party with considerable strength’ perspective, whenever Mike is in trouble (counting his fight with Lucas), they always wrote El saving him.

It’s El’s strength and Mike’s weakness. It’s El’s connection to Will and Mike’s belief in her.

Never anything substantial on Mike’s end (no offense pookie, but your heart is what drew El and Will to you, so no problem! Brain over brawn, angel), and they wonder where the codependent accusations come from.

Mike is 12 here, y’know? Developmental stages and all that. He goes through one of the worst weeks of his life, but El’s a shining light at the end of every tunnel.

But the thing is, even without the fight with Lucas and the cliff scene, Mike already knew El was powerful. He chose to fight for Will without looking to her for help because it was never about finally getting a one-up on Troy, it was about defending Will.

Part 2

[ridiasfangirlings]

Poor Yata is hit with the CherryMagic! Strain (that no one knows the powers of) and he decides to try and ask his friend that he definitely doesn’t have a crush on for help. Chaos ensues as Yata is now able to hear every deranged though Fushimi has of him. Did I mention the only way to lose the effect is to pop the cherry? :3

Imagine this post-ROK, Yata and Fushimi have become friends again and Yata thinks everything is going great, like cool we’re such good friends so platonic. Homra has been helping S4 out with catching Strains and Yata ends up going after one on his own one day. The particular Strain he’s after has been trying to avoid registering with S4 and no one knows what their power is, Kusanagi sends Yata in the hopes that Yata can maybe like befriend this Strain a little and convince him without needing to chase him down. Yata does his best but the Strain is all on edge and ends up hitting him with their power, Yata’s knocked down and yelling at the guy to come back while the Strain makes a run for it. Yata swears, looking down at himself expecting to see like a tail or a child’s body or something. 

There’s nothing though, he seems totally fine, and Yata wonders if maybe this Strain’s power is a bust. He goes back to report to Kusanagi and Kusanagi says just to keep an eye on his health from now on. He mixes Yata a drink and hands it to him, their hands touch slightly and Yata hears Kusanagi say ‘I just hope it’s nothing dangerous.’ Yata says he doesn’t think that guy looked very dangerous and Kusanagi looks at him all I didn’t say I thought that Strain was dangerous. Yata looks confused and then Kamamoto walks in, he heard Yata was going after a Strain on his own. Yata says he did get hit by a Strain power but nothing happened, he just must be too sturdy to be affected by that kind of thing. Kamamoto agrees that Yata’s super strong, putting a hand on his shoulder, and Yata looks up as he hears Kamamoto’s voice saying ‘but you still need to be careful of this kind of stuff,’ except Kamamoto’s mouth isn’t moving. Yata’s eyes get wide as he’s like wait, Kusanagi asks if anything’s wrong and Yata says he thinks he knows what the Strain power is. At the same time he gets a text from Fushimi all ‘did you manage to do your job idiot’ and Yata rolls his eyes like just say if you’re worried. He decides he’ll go tell Fushimi in person about the Strain power, maybe even thinking that this is kinda fun because Fushimi never says what he’s thinking and for once Yata can read him anyway.

Yata doesn’t even get around to telling the Homra guys about his power, heading right to S4 and texting Fushimi that he thinks he figured out the Strain’s power. When he gets to S4 Fushimi is waiting, looking as if he wasn’t waiting for Yata at all, grumbling that he’s on a break. He notes that Yata didn’t catch the Strain and Yata’s like it’s no problem, I’ll get him next time, anyway I bet you can’t guess what the power is. Fushimi eyes him like you didn’t get hit did you idiot and Yata’s quickly like of course not, I’m not that easy to catch, and Fushimi rolls his eyes. He says if Yata’s wasting his time he’s leaving and Yata grabs his arm to stop him. Fushimi turns to look at him and clicks his tongue, but Yata hears it in his head clear as day ‘stop touching me, how can I control myself when he does that.’ Yata’s not sure what that means and his face furrows as he asks if Fushimi’s okay, like hey you’re not mad at me right. Fushimi grumbles that he’s just annoyed at Yata bothering him when he’s busy but at the same time Yata hears Fushimi’s thoughts perfectly: ‘It’s me that’s the problem, not you. Why do I have to love you?’

Yata immediately lets go of Fushimi, just boggling, and Fushimi is noticeably tense as he asks Yata if something’s wrong. Yata’s quickly like no no never mind, Fushimi remembers that Yata was going to tell him about the Strain power and Yata says actually he thinks he was wrong anyway so never mind. Fushimi rolls his eyes like why did you come all the way out here then, Yata thinks fast and before he can stop himself suggests they go out for drinks later. Fushimi pauses and then says ‘fine’ as he turns to go back to work. He does pause for a second though and says that Strain is really annoying, a couple of the S4 boys got hit by the power and had no side effects whatsoever. Yata’s like wait who and Fushimi says Hidaka got attacked the other day. Yata decides to go ‘compare notes’ and ends up talking to Hidaka afterward, Hidaka says that yeah nothing happened at all. Yata leans against him and is like really nothing, and he hears Hidaka’s confused thoughts wondering what why ‘Fushimi-san’s boyfriend’ is asking him this, worried that Homra discovered some side effects that S4 didn’t.

Yata’s really confused now because it’s clear that only he can read thoughts, other people who were attacked aren’t able to. As he’s skating around the city thinking he spots the Strain again and goes after him, cornering the guy and demanding to know what the Strain’s power is. The Strain claims he doesn’t know and Yata grabs the guy’s arm where he hears the Strain thinking about what a useless power they have and why are all these people after them when the only thing their power does is give virgins mind-reading powers. Yata’s immediately like who are you calling a virgin and the Strain just stares at him open-mouthed. Yata coughs and is like okay but if someone hypothetically was affected by your power how would they get rid of it, the Strain carefully says obviously you just have to not be a virgin anymore. Yata starts sputtering and the guy manages to escape while Yata’s trying to recover. Yata’s about to go after the guy when he gets a text, Fushimi asking if they’re still on for drinks. Yata responds sure, figuring he must have read Fushimi’s thoughts wrong and Fushimi definitely meant friendly love, they’ll go out for drinks and maybe he’ll see if Fushimi can help him find other ways to get rid of this power (and as he’s thinking this his brain suddenly conjures up an image of Fushimi, naked and red-faced saying Yata’s name, and Yata quickly shakes his head like no way no way it’s just this power affecting me).

Yata meets Fushimi at the bar, deciding not to tell him about the power for now because that guy will just tease him for being a virgin. He decides to go back to his original plan, learn more about Fushimi’s thoughts and why Fushimi left by reading his mind. Except the moment he touches Fushimi he finds Fushimi looking down at him with a flat expression while Fushimi’s mind is going a mile a minute: ‘we’re so close. I could kiss him…if I wanted him to hate me. Misaki wouldn’t ever want someone like me.’ Yata is kinda upset that Fushimi is having all these down thoughts about himself while at the same time Yata can’t believe that Fushimi actually likes him, still trying to convince himself that he must be overreacting. Yata’s so flustered that imagine he doesn’t notice how many drinks Fushimi is having and soon Fushimi is a little drunk, leaning against Yata and complaining about the lights. Yata can barely hear Fushimi’s words because Fushimi’s thoughts are screaming in his ears: ‘I love Misaki so much. I just want to be with Misaki forever. What can I do so he stays with me forever?’. 

Yata decides to help Fushimi back to S4 and imagine the whole way Fushimi is leaning on him, grumbling about drinking too much and feeling sick, and all Yata can hear is this ongoing mental monologue about how much Fushimi loves Yata and how Misaki makes everything so much better. When Yata finally gets to S4 imagine he hands Fushimi over to Akiyama and overhears Akiyama’s thoughts too, about how it’s so obvious Fushimi only has interest in Yata and it’s too bad Yata can’t see it, they all feel bad for Fushimi. Yata goes back to to his apartment just in turmoil, because he didn’t know Saruhiko felt this way and what is Yata going to do. His immediate thought is how can I let him down gently but then he realizes that doesn’t feel right either, like does he even want to let Fushimi down. Yata shakes his head like no I can’t ruin our friendship but then he starts thinking about Fushimi helping him get rid of the Strain power again and Yata’s like screaming into his pillow trying to control himself. Yata lies there staring up at the ceiling trying to decide what to do, realizing that the only thing more unexpected than learning Fushimi loves him is discovering that maybe he loves Fushimi too. 

[itsjustbyler]

I've read your Mike post and even if I ship mileven I agree with most of it expect ofc the internalized homophobia part. So I will ask what would change for you if Mike is confirmed straight and doesn't have internalized homophobia? Would you dislike Mike?

Hi!!

Well if he truly doesn't have internalized homophobia and is in fact straight, then Mike is still smart, compassionate, brave and someone that would fight for the people they love. However, I would say the writers messed up his character/storyline.

First, sidelining him as El's boyfriend and nothing more since season 3. He doesn't have an storyline for himself in this scenario. He is just a boy who can't say ily to his girlfriend. Even if they wanted to go for only that rote, they haven't even gone deep into that. They could have Mike actually explaining how their parents relationship messed up his head, his trauma and all, witch is what most people speculate. But they decided for "Mike can't say ily because he is scared that it's gonna hurt when El dumps him" (?).

Second, his storyline in S3 and S4 are basically the same. "Mike is only 14", you would say. However, characters need to have a grown even if they are young. A character need to go from point A to point B. Look at the other kids who are also 14 yo. A character can be young and immature but they need to show how this is changing throughout the seasons with their actions and behavior. Look at the difference between Will in S3 and Will in S4 for example. He was also sidelined but even with him having the same struggles as in S3, he behaves completely different about it in S4 and it shows that he has grown.

Mike and Els relationship also is the same as S3. Mike lies to her, she gets mad and dumps him in S3 and they separate, then El lies to Mike (fact that is completely forgotten btw) but since he can't say ily she gets mad, fight with him and they separate again.

They ad unnecessary drama into Will and Mike's relationship too. There are so many ways to portray Will's sexuality without Mike involved or without Mike behaving the way he did in S3. Mike completely ignoring Will in favor of his relationship.

Why? Will could have been jealous and he was, but that was not what leads to their rain fight or their fight at Rink o Mania, is the fact that Mike ignores Will to focus on El and they were suppose to be best friends. Some people gets mad with Will for call him out on it as if he should have just accept this treatment and is acting based only in jealous.

So, if this doesn't have a deep meaning, out of nowhere Mike started acting as a bad friend. And that's the opinion of the GA. Search Mike Wheeler on Google and you will see for yourself. Even on reddit, the most mleven place you can find, there are people saying the same thing.

And that's really sad, as I said in my other post, people tends to hate on him without trying to understand the meaning of his actions. Could this behavior be because of depression and trauma? Of course but then they fail to show it. Again, we can only speculate. I know you probably will disagree, but there is more evidence for Mike to have internalized homophobia than to just be depressed, witch we already knew he was.

And that would not explain why his behavior is directed especificaly towards Will, the boy who is in love with him and that he had a deep relationship with in s1 and even more in S2, such a coincidence... Again, Mike is oblivious, he doesn't know, he doesn't suspects that Will is gay and even if he did, he would not treat Will like that only bc of it. Mike is not a homophobe.

And that is on the writers. There are Mike and El shippers that thinks that we will hate Mike if he turns out to be straight, however Mike is not the problem. Is the writers and how they decided to portray him and the relationships around him. Mike will still have the same qualities he had before, I will still like him, however I would just ad bad friend sometimes into his flaws.

ty for the ask!

[moistvonlipwig]

Top 10 Favorite Final Seasons of a TV Show

For @loisfreakinglane's enjoyment.

...This was actually so hard. I'm limiting myself to TV shows with multiple seasons that have officially for-real ended, as well as to final seasons that I've watched in full (so there are some seasons of shows I watch that maybe should make the cut that won't because I haven't gotten around to them yet). In the order that I thought of them:

Breaking Bad Season 5: A really strong & exciting final season with some great new characters (Lydia Rodarte-Quayle I love you Lydia Rodarte-Quayle!!!) and some of the show's best episodes.

Once Upon a Time Season 7: My favorite season of the show, and one that weirdly addressed a lot of the problems I had with the first six seasons. The new characters were great and they did some cool & unexpected things with the old characters. Hardly perfect, and it somehow made the show's already-convoluted timeline worse, but it was a very strong note to end the show on & it helped me look on the show as a whole in a much fonder light, which was no small feat after some of the bullshit the show had previously pulled.

Amphibia Season 3: A great final season. I loved seeing the Boonchuys on Earth in 3A, and I loved the story arc of Anne & Sasha co-commanding the resistance in 3B. IMO a lot of the complaints about this season come from people who didn't really understand what the show was about. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Steven Universe Future/Steven Universe Season 5: I kind of consider Future to be the proper 'final season' of Steven Universe and not its own show, but I know some people disagree and consider it a separate limited series and would say that Season 5 is the real final season of the show. Either way, both seasons are quite good. I think Future is consistently stronger -- Season 5 has a stretch of 6 or so episodes that are kind of weak -- but Season 5 has higher highs. But again, both are very good final seasons, whichever one you consider to be the 'true' final season.

Person of Interest Season 5: Honestly, this is not the best final season -- I think being limited to 13 episodes really hamstrung the writers, and not all the episodes are good -- but it does end on a really strong note, and also I ran out of final seasons I consider legitimately great, so, uh, good for you PoI, you arguably don't deserve to be here but you're here anyway!

Better Call Saul Season 6: I'm not gonna lie, I had problems with the way 6B unfolded -- I thought the pacing wasn't the best and some of the character/plot beats didn't quite land -- but both 6A and the finale were very strong, and I'm not opposed to most of the events of 6B in theory. Plus, BCS is just well-made TV in general, so even when I didn't love it, I was still appreciative of the artistry that went into the show.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Season 9: I remember really liking the first half of this season and thinking it was some of the best stuff the show had put out in years. The second half was more par for the course but not bad. The actual season-long plot was pretty whatever but it produced some good episodes, and Daniel Ingram, as always, delivered with the music.

Battlestar Galactica Season 4: Look, anyone who's taken a cursory glance at my BSG tag knows how I feel about what BSG S3 & 4 did to Boomer, and S4 additionally committed the sin of killing off Anastasia Dualla, but I don't actually think S4 is overall a bad season. I think it could've been better, sure, but I honestly was fine with it aside from the stuff I hated. Lol. Also, Kara Thrace turns into a pigeon, and that's hilarious.

Infinity Train Season 4: Technically this is a better season of television than some of the seasons listed above, but it was not intended as a final season and you can tell; nothing about it makes for a particularly effective ending to the show. I will forever mourn the remaining 4 planned seasons of this show that we never got. But, hey, it's still a good season, even though it's probably the show's weakest outing.

...Revolutionary Girl Utena's Apocalypse Arc: LOOK I KNOW IT'S NOT A "SEASON" I RAN OUT OF FINAL SEASONS I LIKE OKAY. It's better than pretty much everything else on this list though because it's RGU, how could it not be.

Tagging @jioinfocommlimited, @02511213942, @occidentaltourist, @cassphos, @nocticola, and anyone else who wants to tackle this challenge. Be warned, it's harder than it looks!!!

[lover-of-mine]

I think purposely bad. And made worst. Because Tim didn't expect between episode 4 and 5 that those shippers would create a whole new character that never existed. Or that on the side Lou would financially gain and feed them head canons. So now he's like look... Don't you see he sucks.

I actually truly believe the medal ceremony was supposed to be his last scene of the season, then come back for an Ana style break-up. If you look at it organically, there was no reason for the daddy joke scene, and we know he wasn't supposed to be there. I think it was to create an off-putting scene where if he chooses, he could do an off-screen break up and avoid queer baiting accusations.

Lou has already created too much tension. He could still do a break up within a few episodes, but I'm not sure if Tim wants to have the head aches Lou brings... Closing down his cameo is the only reason I think he could be back for a bit. But if that's the case, then he definitely had a meeting, you know.

Okay, first of all, this may sound mean and not trying to and this isn't targeted to you I just keep seeing queerbaiting allegations and you used the word, but Buck is queer, the queerbaiting ship has sailed, a queer storyline not going the way we expected is not queerbaiting. Whatever they do with Buck's love life, there is no queerbaiting just because it feels unsatisfying to us. They marketed Buck as queer and Buck is bi. Not liking the way it was done doesn't change that.

But on the Lou thing, I agree that they didn't plan on having Lou stick around for the whole season, but the relationship was better accepted than anticipated and they are capitalizing on it. Full conspiracy theory, but I think that with how Oliver refuses to talk about bt, and how Ryan changed his tune after 706, something happened behind the scenes that went against what they were told the beginning of the season, because again, a tv show is a living organism that needs to adapt to the circumstances in which is airing, bt brought audience, keep him around a bit longer. The kink scene was there to remind us of how bad Gerrard is, but we could've had that reminder happen with Chim or Hen, so yeah, he didn't have to be there, but keeping bt alive during the hiatus keeps the numbers up while giving shippers time to cool off. And considering the publicity that came with Buck being bi, if they are planning on eventually getting to buddie, they are probably anticipating a similar level of publicity to come from queer Eddie, so they spaced it out to get the most out of both arcs. Especially because queer Eddie has to mean canon buddie and that would break the internet. I don't blame Lou for trying to capitalize from the ship, it keeps him on the role longer and it is exposure, but obviously, there's controlled chaos brought on by the high of a confirmation that a character is queer and there's *gestures vaguely* whatever is going on. There is a chance T will get the Ali treatment, there's a chance he will get the Ana treatment, but there is also the chance he will get the Taylor treatment and stick around while being a bad match for Buck, we don't know the plan and we don't know if Lou created enough problems for them to want to write him off. T is being shown to us in a very specific way, but they can still turn it around if they chose to, because we don't know enough. He is in the same spot Taylor was during s4 so it will all depend on how he will be handled during s8. Sure fanon T is not the character that exists on the show and Lou's cameos probably were shut down because it was creating a level of expectation they didn't plan on delivering, but at this point it could still go in any direction, we can't say anything for sure.

[lesblizzard-ultradyke]

JENNIFER SCHECTER APOLOGIST #1 UNDER THE CUT (YOU WERE WARNED) (it also probably unreadable because I can't put my thoughts to words without it becoming a word salad because my head is a thought salad)

i can't believe people are actually saying that jenny becoming so awful was weird and unexpected when in season 1 she starts questioning her sexuality and have an affair with marina and she starts lying all the time and then it ruins the "stable" life she had before and in the worst way possible

and in season 2 she tries her best to find her way and fix her life but at the same time this teacher of hers is really making her go into the backs of her mind and she starts reliving her past, then Carmen starts dating her just to make Shane jealous and leaves her heartbroken AND then she founds out that this fucking dude, who she trusted, had cameras all over their house, including bedrooms and bathroom, which brings her back to the past in which she was sexually assaulted, so then she starts stripping herself infront of men because, from her words, it makes her feel better when she's the one who controls when and how men sexualise her, and she tells shane that she knows something fucked her up when she was a child but she's not sure if her memories are real and in the end of a season she cuts herself and is sent to the clinic back in Illinois.

then in season 3 she comes back and although she doesn't cut herself anymore, it's obvious that being back home and in the clinic didn't help her at all. we find out that she was actually raped when she was a child and her family chose to ignore it and didn't acknowledge her being raped, that this fact lead her to lying all the time and that her family is very traditional and women are treated as housemaids. then she writes this Lez Girls story and being a successful author becomes her whole personality and I think maybe in some way it was her way to hide from others and from herself the fact that she is still not alright.

and then in S4 jenny she meets the columnist and end up trusting her and opens up to her about her past a little and then finds out that this columnist wrote a negative review on her story using things she told her, and she wants to prove her point she starts lying to the girlfriend of a columnist, who's a veterinarian, creates a fake personality and pretends to be a sad owner of an old dying dog, to get closer to this veterinarian gf BUT she ends up actually catching feelings for her and she realises how awful she is and that she is in fact a liar how everyone made her feel in childhood. and instead of trying to do something about it she just accept it and becomes more and more manipulative

then in season 5 Adele steals her movie, her whole personality AND her and Niki's private sex tape and threatens that she will send it to media if she's not promoted to director. jenny ends up losing everything she had in her life again and she doesn't have this "successful author" or "successful director" title anymore and when she's trying to do something about it the only one who stands by her side is shane. then she realises that she's in love with shane and just when she did, shane and niki fuck and she feels like even the last person she had turned her back on her.

in season six she makes up with shane and they start this relationship which I think were never about love from neither of them but like. their mental problems. jenny hides molly's letter to shane and tries to control her because she's just afraid to lose the only one who doesn't hate her.

I think she lost it in season six completely after she stole Alice's idea just so she can make herself the successful author again but instead of admitting it to Alice she lies again and it makes Alice hate her and her friends become annoyed by the way their conflict devided their friend group, and she just doesn't stop lying and making people around her hate her. I think she was self aware all the time and even before Tina and Bette decided to move out, she already knew she wants to end it all and she knew that the film she made with all of their friends on it, was her last gift not only to Bette and Tina but to all of them, this is why she tried SO hard to make it. and then she kills herself.

I think it all make sense, her whole childhood people around her call her a liar for trying to get help after sexual assault, then as an adult she just can't stop lying and it leads her to insanity that actually they were right about her and she's a liar and she's no longer a likeable person so she commits suicide. I wonder if there were ways for her to actually get better. jennifer schecter my beloved :(

[aardvaark]

WELL I meant like. the writers could have just said he was good at playing violin but gets stage fright about it, like they just say Eliot is good at guitar and singing but gets stage fright about it. it seems mean to give Eliot that but not Hardison. the man is already getting dragged around every heist by his ear they could have let him have this one thing.

Anonymous asked: Also there's the tea-making scene from the Reunion Job where they demonstrate that Eliot is actually pretty weak to Sophie's brain-manipulation tactics and when Parker points it out, both of them react like Sophie keeps doing this to HIM in particular before, like buddy... hardcore enough not to crack under torture... touchstarved enough to get fully brainhacked by just a couple of affectionate arm-sqeueezes

Anonymous asked: Also NLP in particular is absolutely a pseudoscience lmao but I can always forgive a bit of fun hokum in my daytime tv. for the bit. it just seems so mean to cheapen one of Hardison's few non-computer skill W's yknow. ok thank you and sorry for one million anons

omg def don't apologise for sending asks, im so happy to get them!! hi again i hope your day is going well!!

YES re: stage fright being a better option. thats is a much better idea anon!! makes more sense that he simply DOES play violin. he has a LOT of skills. i mean, hardison is a genius, full stop. he can do what he puts his mind to, plus he's shown to be incredibly talented at a lot of things which aren't directly related to his job, like painting. i don't think he gets enough credit as being seriously extremely gifted AND seriously extremely dedicated to honing some of those skills... he has a lot of talents that he's very causal about, but then the ones like hacking that he focuses on? those are mentioned to take so much effort, sleepless nights, etc etc. there's a reason that he's the best hacker on a team of people who are the best in their fields.

and this is all while he's still half-learning. leverage is crime university for him, as episode commentaries tend to say lol. he's... i forgot, 21-22? when leverage starts (ik aldis hodge had just turned 21 when he was hired for the role. looking back on s1 especially, he is soooo young. ik im 20 but like. 21 is so young. it really is). and he's been learning & teaching himself for years already, but it's still early days in his crime career & he seems to already be better than anyone else at what he does. and is somehow fairly well-adjusted unlike anyone else on the team lol. but he does have his own trauma, and his own problems he encounters. eg he hasn't really had a long-term relationship (according to commentary on... im gonna say girls night out/boys night out jobs? idk. s4 somewhere), so while we get a lot of parker dealing with a relationship that she finds kinda overwhelming due to the total lack of safe connections she's had in her life etc etc, we also gotta remember that the parker/hardison (*cough* /eliot too, *cough*) relationship is a pretty new and intimidating thing for him too. and. oh i just realised how off topic i am. wow. if going on tangents was a sport i'd be an olympic athlete.

(and aldis hodge btw is also so multi-talented, he designs watches and paints and, of course, acts. i remember some commentary from the bank shot job saying how they were gonna have hardison be fairly awkward on the grifting, but aldis hodge is just ridiculously good at doing those scenes where he totally stumps the mark/lackeys/cops/etc, and a lot of it is improv. irrelevant ik but i just think it's cool just how good he is at those quick grifting scenes).

anyway. eliot is so touchstarved :((( and he loves his family even when they annoy him or brainhack him lol. he's kinda immune to threats and pain and stuff for sad reasons but the smallest affection, he responds to. which is upsetting to think about, how much pain you have to have to no longer acknowledge it, and how little love you have to experience/accept for any amount to be disarming. but yeah thats true, idk why sophie says hardison was a particularly good target then... i guess her NLP stuff is supposedly easier to do subtly than hypnotism? maybe. regardless, the NLP stuff is absolutelyyyy pseudoscience, but as you said, i just allow for sophie to be able to magically do that stuff lol. its not real but sophie can do the impossible so i just go with it for 42 mins lmao.

[0zeeraa0]

A little Fnaf Movie rant (don't kill me, I also want this movie to be good)

(this post is pretty big, i understand if you don't have the patience for it)

(if you see any typos: no, you did not.)

Am I the only one who thinks that the fnaf movie isn't gonna live up to the hype...? Like I don't think it's gonna be bad, but I doubt it's gonna be as spectacular as we hope it will be.

One of the reasons that I'm a bit worried is the little girl. Michael's sister. Like in the trailer she's shown wondering around the pizzaria, and than in a TAXI with GOLDEN FREDDY, like????? HUH???? I have a feeling that the movie is gonna make her befriend the animatronics and like prove to Mike and Vanessa that "they just misunderstood🥺" Which like... THEY ARE, but that would be a horrible way to go about that plot line. And I kinda feel like they shouldn't be intelligent enough, or self aware enough to make friends y'know?

Also Vanessa. This one's gonna be shorter. I hope to god they're not gonna have a romantic plot line between her and Michael. One thing I really like about the fnaf games (haven't read the books yet, sorry) that there's absolutely no romance. And I feel like it should stay that way.

Now the "horror". I KNOW that the original games didn't have any gore. And I'm not saying the movie has to have it. I just want it to be SCARY. Or creepy at the very least. The games didn't have gore, but they were still HORROR GAMES, y'know. They're 16+. I remember that the movie makers tweeted something like "we're not gonna hold back on the gore" or "I'm not sure if we can even show this". But... The movie is going to be 13+... So that was a fuckin lie. Because what the hell is a pg13 HORROR movie supposed to be??? Like IT 2017 is rated R, but theres a surprisingly little amount of actual gore. And despite the R rating, sooo many teens and preteens love the move. So who is the Fnaf movie's target audience with it's pg13 rating. The same kids who ONLY played/watched Security Breach? Be so FR.

I feel like (based on the trailers) that the movie is going to take a more comedic approach, wich wouldn't be a problem, but it seems that it's going to be more significant then the horror aspect.

You know how Stranger Things stared out in s1 as a mystery/horror, and by s4 it got derailed into... that. I'm just worried that the same will happen to fnaf... Like it ALMOST happened with SB, but that's a game. It's a lot harder to access, so it still mostly stayed within the fnaf community. Like, 'normal' allistic Jessica (this isn't an actual person, just an example) is a lot less likely to watch a SB gameplay, or more so, play the game. But she might watch the movie because it's popular. And I REALLY don't want Michael to get "Eddie Munson-ified", okay??? I don't want the thing that shaped my entire childhood to get the TikTok treatment.

Sorry this post got really out of hand by the end. I just had to get this out of myself, otherwise I just might explode.

If the movie turns out to be a Masterpiece of fiction, that makes all original fnaf fans weep at how absolutely perfect it is, than y'all can come back here and laugh at me in the comments all you want. I will admit that I was wrong, and I'll do so with pure happiness, for having my expectations subverted in a positive way

And if I'm right.... well.... I will not be happy about it, or proud. I will not say "I told you so". I will keep my mouth shut, and I'll wallow in my misery in silence. Mourning what it could've been.

(theres so much more that i could say about this movie that hasn't even come out yet, but i think this is more than enough)