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shining armor

the fifth work in the sinclairs series.

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STOP!!! 😭😭😭😭

How many times do you think Lucas has fallen asleep, book in hand, next to Max’s hospital bed and dreamt of her smile, her laugh, her touch, her eyes rolling at a dumb joke he made, her feet planted firmly on her skateboard as she whizzes down the block, her hands skillfully pressing the right buttons at the right time on dig dug only to open his eyes and look at her still, unmoving body frozen in time? How many times do you think he’s gotten up from that chair to bike home with tears stinging his eyes wishing he’d never taken her to the arcade storeroom that day, wishing he’d never told her any of it, wishing he’d stayed away after she’d dropped that note in the bin, wishing she’d never stepped foot in Hawkins? How many times do you think he’s walked through his front door, shoulders slumped and eyes red, told his mother he’s “just tired” and gone up to his room to lie there in the dark, his mind replaying that night at the Creel house over and over and over until his head starts to spin only to fall asleep and see it once again?

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How many times do you think Lucas has fallen asleep, book in hand, next to Max’s hospital bed and dreamt of her smile, her laugh, her touch, her eyes rolling at a dumb joke he made, her feet planted firmly on her skateboard as she whizzes down the block, her hands skillfully pressing the right buttons at the right time on dig dug only to open his eyes and look at her still, unmoving body frozen in time? How many times do you think he’s gotten up from that chair to bike home with tears stinging his eyes wishing he’d never taken her to the arcade storeroom that day, wishing he’d never told her any of it, wishing he’d stayed away after she’d dropped that note in the bin, wishing she’d never stepped foot in Hawkins? How many times do you think he’s walked through his front door, shoulders slumped and eyes red, told his mother he’s “just tired” and gone up to his room to lie there in the dark, his mind replaying that night at the Creel house over and over and over until his head starts to spin only to fall asleep and see it once again?

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LUCAS AT MAX'S BEDSIDE WITH THE MOVIE NIGHT DRAWING ABOVE HER BED???

I'M FUCKING CRYING

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can any writers out there make something out of these prompts pls? Asking for a friend who's dying to read any thing max/lumax/elmax fanfics 😭😭😭

healing Max headcanons

various combinations of the kids supporting Max in pt while she gets her arms and legs strong again. the staff tries to make a rule limiting the number of visitors but it doesn't really work

Lucas stands at the end of the parallel bars and says if she can walk to the end she gets a kiss. she does make it to the end. he puckers up. she rolls her eyes and turns around to do another lap. he kisses the back of her head. he can tell from the face El makes at her that she smiled

Max takes what's almost a nasty spill but El mind-catches her an inch from the floor and then far too late, while the therapist is already looking, shoves her hands under Max to try to make it look normal. the therapist never mentions this to anyone but they do think about it later while eating dinner

Nancy buys Max a get well soon laser scope sniper rifle

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but the lady in the lake was different now

the lady in the lake was also max. and max wouldn't. Max would never.

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love the whole max getting vecna'd sequence and what it represents. max is losing to her depression. she sees the people who support and love her, who care so much about her. they can only do so much. they can't save her. they can't take away all the pain. but it's their love and support alone, the fact they're there, all the memories, that make her choose to fight and not let depression win. it's ultimately her choice in the end whether she wants to fight back or not. but the love makes all the difference in the world. the love influences her choice

this show is about the difference having a support system can make, or how certain support systems can influence somebody's actions and choices

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interlude

the third work in the sinclairs series - please enjoy!

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i ship elmax not romantically, not platonically, but a third secret way where i believe they have a bond that transcends labels and dimensions and a shared love and understanding for each other that’s so pure and strong it blurs the lines between friendship and romantic feelings

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One thing that bothered me about V2 is the lack of satisfying hugs for Max in the midst of absolutely horrifying, hug-requiring situations.

Like, this is a lovely moment, but it bothered me that she stayed backwards? If you had just narrowly escaped a gruesome death and were scared out of your mind, and you had just literally run for your life back to your loved ones, and this was your boyfriend, wouldn't you turn around and make this a full on hug?

If you had just narrowly escaped a gruesome death again and were scared out of your mind again, and this was your closest friend, who you missed terribly even before she magically appeared to rescue you from a hell dimension, wouldn't you hug her?

These are the two people Max loves the most and all she'll give them are arm-clutches that refuse to turn into actual hugs.

Maybe Max isn't a fan of hugs? In general sure maybe, but with these two she's a documented hugger. She initiated both of these -

But you know what happened in between these two and those two is this one:

which she's totally into, until

Max knows that hug feels wrong suddenly, and she pulls back to look and her mom is now Vecna.

Tell me Max isn't scared to hug anyone after this.

And that helped me realize what exactly is weird about the graveyard hug. Probably you've noticed it already but:

She never looks at Lucas. Or Steve or Dustin. Not one glance at any of them in the whole post-trance scene. She intentionally looks straight ahead or keeps her eyes closed. She's scared to see them turn into Vecna.

She doesn't continue avoiding looking at people after this scene though, it seems to just be while she's feeling vulnerable.

The next time she is vulnerable in front of Lucas, he does turn into Vecna.

So by the time El saves Max at the snowball, Max is thoroughly terrified of showing emotion to her loved ones. Now it seems pretty unlikely El is Vecna since Max just saw both of them at the same time, but hey, what does she know for sure? ("That was before I found out about alternate dimensions and monsters, so I'm just going to stop assuming I know anything.") People can seamlessly turn into Vecna mid-interaction. She's not falling for it again.

I think Max didn't hug or really show any emotion (beyond "WTF") to El not only out of fear that she too would turn into Vecna, but because if she did, it would have been the 4th time. And Max, currently on a mission to NOT become Vecna's 4th victim, is probably pretty sensitive about patterns of 4.

But she did allow herself to show vulnerability for a 4th time... and she literally died.

People spend all season trying to get her to open up but she only actually did 4 times and those 4 times killed her.

Max didn't even like to show her emotions before - now imagine her waking up from the coma after all this, surrounded by loved ones wanting to hug her and share some of the most emotional moments of her life. Also maybe she's blind and/or paralyzed and can't see/feel if they're starting to turn.. wrong.

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Max in graphite uhh I forgot to count the hours

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me too actually

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I forgot this existed, so here um yeah…

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EL x MAX: WILDFLOWER (uploaded 6/10/2024)

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EL x MAX: GREEN LIGHT (uploaded 7/13/2022)