#AU Ryders with *issues*

[vorchagirl]

This new Reyes x Sage Ryder fic is eating my brain alive, but I've planned it all out now and I'm super happy with it. It should stay below 10 chapters, aaand hopefully it'll be a good mix of action, horror, drama, and some romance.

I really like that I'm writing something with a Ryder who isn't the Pathfinder, and that I get to explore a very twisted sibling relationship between Sage and her brother - I'm still deciding whether his name will be Sebastian or Seth.

I do know that the twins won't look or act anything alike. Sage looks like her mother and is petite, pale, with white blonde hair and pale lavender eyes, and she is fairly quiet by fun-loving. Her brother looks like Alec and is tall, with dark blue eyes, tanned skin and black hair, and is very intense and over emotional. He and Sage have an identical tattoo - Azalea flowers. She got it first and he copied her.

Character art is by Beemot and AlexCogginArt.

[obliviouskara]

tell me its not just me who wants a tangled supercorp au for 2024? kara’s handsome face as flynn ryder, the charming thief who just wants one final steal to change her fate forever and to finally accomplish her and her sister Alex dream to travel the world meets a beautiful long-lost princess stuck in a tower who leaves her somewhat speechless (also slightly unconscious) with her beauty even though she’s a little weird and has major mommy issues but the princess rapunzel aka lena just wants nothing more than just to experience the world and have at least one day of freedom to see the floating lights that she’s been dreaming of ever since she has seen them from her tower. so she strikes a deal with this thief because really, what was Lena going to lose? Except for maybe her golden crown that she really has no use for and also kara’s satchel filled with stolen jewels that she so happily took from her after banging the thief unconscious with her mighty frying pan (in her defense, what else was she suppose to do?) so she agrees and they both embark in the most exciting (for lena), excruciatingly long (for kara) journey with some singing, so much singing they try to survive their adventure making sure both of them make it with thugs chasing after Kara’s head for reward and with Lena’s mother on their tail bent of making sure to retrieve her daughter and imprison her back to her tower where she belongs while juggling Lena’s inexperience with how the real world actually works. Did I mention she has ridiculously long hair that sometimes glows when Lena sings and heals injuries? And try as she might she can’t seem to shake the princess off, Kara tried to scare Lena off and pretends she’s annoyed with how much even the littlest of things excites her but then kara kind of sort of actually finds it a little endearing? And she finds herself smiling as she watches Lena play with the town children and they braid her hair and wow she’s actually really beautiful and sweet and kara finds herself opening up to her on how she’s an orphan and sharing her real name now Kara has this sudden urge of wanting to kiss her. Dun dun dun.

[mercywashere]

first of all i just wanna say, i LOVE your fanarts 🫶

and i wanna ask you something, in your au are rocky and chase frenemies?

they used to be friends and now they're not?

can you explain to me? it's really interesting

TYY! And yes, they're something like that. I'll start posting my fanfiction in english soon but what I can say rn is: Yes, they used to be best friends, just like on the show. They were really close but as they were growing up, their differences became bigger and bigger, to the point they would fight in the middle of a mission. Something important here is that Rocky started to feel left behind, and Chase took this as Rocky being "over-dramatic".

This is worst having in mind the fact that on my AU Rocky has anger issues so every single "you're being dramatic" of his friend would make him angrier. Chase, on the other side, was someone who hid his emotions since kid (and Ryder wasn't the best father figure, so he didn't thaught Chase how to deal w emotions) so he didn't know how to deal with them, neither with other people's feelings, and thats what mainly caused conflicts between them.

Its something that honestly they could've solved just by talking things, but the way they were raised, and the fact they both are a liiiittle arrogant (they won't apologize to each other bc they both think they're in the right) turned the "simple fights" into them js hating each other to death.

[heygerald]

Falling Without A Harness - Chapter 3

AU where Tom Ryder is still an asshole, just not a psychotic asshole. After their moment at the wrap party, Tom shows up at Parker's bookstore. How is it possible someone can be such an asshole when asking for a favor?

read the story here: prev / next

Two weeks later finds the weather outside shifting with the first hint of autumn; cooler temperatures in the morning greet Parker when she walks to work, and the coffee shop next door has started advertising their new fall drinks of pumpkin spice and cinnamon tea. She's seen her brother every day since the wrap party—partly because he always makes a point of taking some down time after finishing a movie to recover from his stunts, and partly because her and Jody have become fast friends—but she hasn't seen Tom since their moment in the bathroom.

She suspects that's for the best. The internet is flooded with paparazzi photos of him flouncing around town with models every other day, and she's still trying to forget how natural it felt to laugh with him.

But despite her brother's newly open schedule, and Jody's constant pestering to go spend a day at the beach, Parker finds her bookstore just as empty as always.

There are a few stragglers here and there throughout the day. Sometimes she gets lucky when a tour bus stops for gas and snacks, allowing an ensemble of tacky dressed tourists to flood her street for twenty minutes. On unlucky days, Mr. Chamberlain will stop in to peruse her historical section; but he doesn't have any sort of schedule or income, and those visits consist entirely of him describing last night's CSI episode to Parker before trying to set her up with his grandson. Once he bought a book from her dollar bin. He attempted to return it three days later.

On days like today, Parker is visited by a sixteen-year-old named Melissa who hangs out every so often while her mom attends overpriced Pilates in the studio down the block.

"...and then Peter was all 'no, sorry Mandy, I'm not interested". Like, hello! My name is Melissa and we've lived in the same neighborhood since we were four," said teenager was droning on from her spot atop the upcycled reading chair in the corner. She never failed to impress Parker with how much she could talk—the stories quite literally never stopped coming—while at the same time she managed to read about four books a week. Parker suspected that Melissa's brain represented something like the Rainbow Road in Mario Kart, when the music got a little too fast and the turns were a little too hard to keep up with. "Now, I have no idea what I'm going to do. There's no one else for me to ask since it's three weeks away."

Parker, only half-listening to the story, hummed from her spot two rows back. She had won several boxes of books at a local auction about a month ago and had done a pretty good job at pretending they didn't exist.

Ignoring the problem only lasted so long, however, and this morning she had ended up spilling coffee all over herself when her sneaker caught the edge of the box. Pride—and knees—damaged, she decided to tackle the issue first thing in the morning.

It was now four in the afternoon, and the books were mocking her.

"Can't you just go alone?" she asked.

"Go alone? Are you crazy! That's, like, really sad, Park," Melissa explained. She couldn't see her, but Parker could feel the judgmental look the teen girl was giving her. "Only losers go alone to dances."

"Baby did it."

"Who?"

"Baby. You know? You don't put Baby in a corner? That one."

A tut. "You should really update your references."

"Jesus. Since when did Dirty Dancing become an outdated reference?" she muttered while inspecting the spine of a mystery novel from the 70s. It had definitely seen better days, and when she shifted it, three pages fell out. Parker tossed it into the TRASH box with a sigh. "Is going to a dance with your friends considered outdated too?"

"That's the same thing as going alone," Melissa groaned.

"How? You're literally not alone."

"Because if I go with my friends, that means that I couldn't get anyone that wasn't a friend to agree to go with me. I don't need the whole school thinking that I'm a total loser."

"I went with my friends and had a blast. And I'm not a loser."

There was no response other than silence, and after a few moments Parker realized that if Melissa had nothing to say about the subject, she likely had nothing nice to say.

She cleared her throat before moving onto the next, and final, box hoping that there would be better books in it. So far, her KEEP pile was looking pathetically small compared to what was about to be binned. With a forced change of conversation, she asked, "hey, you grew up here, right?"

"Sure."

"Did you know the Sawyers?"

"Like, Miss Sawyer? Down on Oakcrest?"

"The fancy old house with the bushes shaped like dogs. I bought a bunch of books at her estate sale, and so far, they all suck. I thought she was supposed to be a big collector or something."

The sound of Melissa humming echoed throughout the empty store, and Parker peeked around the bookshelves to spot the girl lying upside down on the chair; Doc Martens stuck up in the air, long ponytail hanging to the ground as she played on her phone.

Parker rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, totally. But she collected those kid's books. Original copies or whatever. Mom said she paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for some rabbit book."

"...Peter Rabbit?"

"I guess," Melissa shrugged. There was a loud smack of gum popping before her voice rang out, "she did a bunch of donations to local art musuems and galleries and stuff. A phila-something—"

"Philanthropist?"

"—and there was some big deal about her donating everything to some charity. Mom was talking about it. Which, like, good for them or whatever but I don't understand how donating an old book is helping solve world hunger."

Parker let her head drop against the beat-up cardboard box in front of her, something despondent and miserable sitting on her chest at the realization that she had wasted time and money on nothing but crap. "Well, I wish I knew that before I went into a bidding war over this garbage. Are the Hardy Boys still cool or is that dated too?"

A judgmental laugh floated back. "Um, their name is pronounced Hemsworth, Park."

"I meant—" she started, before realizing that this was a battle she was never going to win, and even if she wanted to try the musty smell resonating from these boxes of crap had burned through her daily allowance of braincells. Something Melissa didn't seem to worry about as she puffed from her vape pen. "Forget it."

Not so shockingly, Melissa did not, in fact, forget it. Instead, she spent the next ten minutes describing in scary detail each Hemsworth brother, their looks on a scale of one to ten, their best movies, and why Chris was the dreamiest of them all. His hair and eyes were a big selling point, apparently, and as Parker listened to the teenager drone on, she couldn't help but wonder if Chris Hemsworth used box dye too.

So wrapped up in her own world of book sorting, Parker didn't notice when the front door opened with a tinkle of the bell until the shop went eerily quiet. Melissa, it seemed, had finally found a reason to shut up.

"I never liked Chris all that much," Parker said as she slowly gathered the KEEP bin and hefted it off the floor. Her lower back ached at the strain. Jesus, maybe I am old. Moving towards the front counter, she continued musing, "There's something about him in the first Thor movie, when his eyebrows were all bleached, that kind of turned me off. I think there's a word for that, right? The ew or something...."

She spots Melissa first.

The girl is sitting upright in the chair now, face flushed a deep scarlet red with a book held tightly in her lap as she pretends to read through it. Her phone and vape are nowhere to be seen, and she doesn't so much as glance up when Parker strides by.

"What happened to you?" she asks with an amused quirk of the brow. Melissa doesn't respond, and Parker turns to set the heavy box of books on the front counter when she spots the other person in the room. "Oh, sorry. I was in the back. Can I help—?"

It shouldn't surprise her as much as it does, but Parker blinks to find Tom Ryder standing on the other side of the counter staring at her with raised brows.

Tom fucking Ryder.

He looks better than the last time she ran into him. He has a nice tan going underneath a funky pair of yellow sunglasses that are, in her opinion, too big for his face. They look a little absurd with the whitewashed denim jacket he's wearing, but the yellow matches the bedazzled t-shirt he has on underneath, so she suspects it's some sort of fashion statement. Paired with an expensive pair of well-polished boots, it all looks quite absurd standing in the middle of her dilapidated bookstore.

Even more so when Parker realizes she's wearing nothing but a pair of cheap cargo shorts and an oversized Twilight sweatshirt that was covering the coffee-stained shirt underneath. (Team Jacob, always).

"Tom. Um... are you looking for Colt or something?"

In typical Ryder fashion, he ignores her question entirely to do a slow spin; blue eyes tinted by his glasses trailing over everything in sight. She can feel the judgement from across the counter, and when he finally fixes his sights back on her, his smirk is rage inducing. "This is your store. Seriously?"

Parker promptly plants her hands onto her hips with a scathing glare.

"Ok, what do you want?"

"Jesus, no wonder this place is empty," he drawls, a pointed smile tossed towards Melissa's prone form as he leans an elbow onto the counter. At being noticed, the teenager ducks her head behind the spine of her book as if she had just been caught doing something she wasn't supposed to. "Do you talk to all your customers like that?"

"Just the assholes," she retorts. Over Tom's shoulder she catches Melissa's book dropping down two inches, and the girl's face is completely aghast.

What are you doing! she mouths, that's Tom Ryder!

Parker rolls her eyes. As if she didn't know who the blinged-out asshole standing in her store was. Speaking of—he's still standing there smirking at her. "That's you, if I wasn't clear. Don't let the door hit you on the way out."

Tom snorts. "I think I got that after the fifth time you said it."

"And yet..." she gestures vaguely to him, then to her store.

Because he's never behaved like a normal person, however, Tom doesn't seem to mind the insult or the offhand comment that she didn't want to deal with him. Instead, he smiles while his gaze drifts from judging the bookstore to judging Parker. He gives her a glance over—up, down, lingering on her oversized sweatshirt, before going back up—and finishes with a snort. "If the door hits me, I'm suing for damages, and I doubt you could afford the lawsuit. Let alone a lawyer."

God! What. a. fucking. asshole!

Parker bites back the insult knowing that it won't do any good. They've played this game before, and clearly being called an asshole seemed to have lost some of its bite over the weeks. So instead, she forcefully returns her attention to the cardboard box and slowly starts sorting the books into categories. "Fine. Can you just tell me what you want so I can get back to my life?"

He shifts against the counter and over the mustiness she catches a waft of his cologne when he grabs a book at random from her pile. "Why else do people come to a bookstore? I want a book."

Parker snorts. "Yeah, sure. Whatever. Seriously, what do you want?"

There's a moment of silence. She glances up to find him pointedly ignoring her as he flips through the book at random.

"You're... serious?"

He shrugs. "You said you have a bunch of sci-fi books."

"I'm surprised you even remember that given the whole," she sticks a finger into her mouth and mimes throwing up. He doesn't find it funny or cute and responds with a disgusted glare. Parker rolls her eyes with a shake of the head. "It was a—never mind. Why not order off of Amazon? I thought you said you've never even been to a bookstore before?"

This time, it's his turn to roll his eyes. He drops the book with a thwack before turning his attention to the overstuffed bookshelves at her left. At random, he starts ambling towards one. "You should be flattered that I picked your little store to start. Most people would kill to say that you know. Tom Ryder explores rundown bookstore in the shitty side of LA. If you had a picture, the paps would run it in every paper by tomorrow morning," he huffs.

"Yeah, I'll be sure to document this monumental occasion forever," she snarks, but follows after him anyway. His pattern is half-hearted; poking books here and there, glancing for hardly a second, before moving on. "And my store isn't rundown. It just has some... character."

He snorts over his shoulder. "That's what a Mom says when her daughter is ugly."

"Don't you go through PR training or something?" she scoffs as he diverts to a different aisle. "I can't imagine Gail would like to hear that particular opinion if I sold it to TMZ."

"Gail would sue you for everything you own," he laughed while flipping through an old copy of Gone with the Wind. Parker crosses her arms at him with a glare, and in response Tom flashes a too-white smile at her. "She freaked out about the mink rug, by the way. Was screaming and everything. It was hilarious."

Parker's heart stopped in her chest, but when there was no continuation of the joke—haha I can't wait to see you served with papers!—she furrowed her brows at him. "You didn't tell her it was my fault?"

A shrug as he shoved the book against her chest.

She huffed, turning the book over to check for damages, but when he turned his back... well, a part of her did wonder why he would keep that a secret if it was such a big deal. Was it to be nice? Or so he could hold it over her head indefinitely? Then again, if this was his attempt at blackmail, letting it go for two weeks seemed like the wrong way to go about it.

Deciding not to linger on unsolvable riddles, Parker returned the book to the end cap he had found it on and asked, "so, does this mean you've decided to audition for that sci-fi part after all?"

Her question went unanswered as Tom paused in front of the SEX & SEXUALITY section. He pulled a wrinkled copy of Fifty Shades of Grey off the shelf and waggled his brows at her pointedly. "Keeping the good stuff for yourself, huh?"

Parker responded by snagging the book out of his hand and stuffing it back into place. "You break it, you buy it applies here too, Ryder."

"Half this place is broken," he said with a pointed glance at the flickering overhead light. "I still can't believe you own this shithole."

"I happen to love this bookstore—"

"Oh, trust me, I can believe that you would own a bookstore," he said, and while there was nothing insulting about owning a bookstore on its own, the way that Tom spoke made it clear that owning a bookstore was not something he held in high regard. Then again, he spent all his time reading shitty scripts, so what would he know? "I just can't believe that you would own this bookstore. Like, you actually paid money for this place?"

"If you have to know, I used to be friends with the owner, and got a good deal on the property," she started to explain. He raised his brows at her while slowly perusing the RELIGION section, and Parker shook herself. She didn't need to explain anything to him of all people. The reminder helped her find some confidence, and she fluttered her hands at him irritably. "You know what—I don't need to explain myself to you. You've never even been to a bookstore before. What would you know about making sacrifices for something you believed in?"

Tom paused in his search. She saw his jaw clench, and eyes droop towards the creaky wooden floor beneath his shiny boots, and his comment from the other day drifted back to mind.

"You can be a real asshole sometimes, too, he had said.

And while guilt did block her throat up a bit—fucking asshole couldn't even let her defend herself without feeling bad about it—this time he didn't make any such reprimands. Instead, he just shrugged, before diving deeper into the store.

He cleared his throat. "I just expected it be nicer coming from you."

"Does something about me secretly scream rich girl to you?"

Tom harrumphed. "Trust me, no one is mistaking you for rich. Uptight, however..."

"Oh, ha, hilarious, Tom. God! You're such an asshole," she laughed, but it was a mean sound, paired with a mean insult. It failed to have the desired effect, however. In fact, Tom seemed to have shifted from hating the insult to owning it and looked far too amused for her liking. Frustrated, Parker decided the best plan of extermination was a straightforward shot. Through gritted teeth, she asked, "...what kind of sci-fi book do you want?"

The rhinestones on his shoulders sparkled as he shrugged. "I don't know. I need to understand what gets nerds so fucking excited about this shit. Not too nerdy, though. Alright? I'm not trying to be a Trekkie or whatever."

There were so many things wrong with that statement that Parker wasn't sure what to pick first. So, she pinched the bridge of her nose to point out, "I have a feeling the so-called nerds making up your potential fanbase aren't going to appreciate being talked about like that."

"Who's gonna tell them—you?" he asked with a derisive glance over.

It was definitely true what they said about Tom Ryder; his effect on women was instantaneous. Parker just doubted the tabloids were talking about migraines.

"The sci-fi section is on the right," she sighed while pushing past him. It was one of the larger sections she had; it hadn't been a lie to say the books weren't selling all that well despite being her favorite. "What have you read before?"

The blank look he gave her was response enough.

"Ah, right, maybe... Altered Carbon?"

"Isn't that a tv show?"

"Well, yeah, but it was a book first."

He glanced at the book in her hand, but clearly wasn't impressed. Leaning on the shelf, he said, "why the hell would I read that if I could just watch it?"

"Sound logic," she tutted with a narrow eyed look. Parker returned the book with an eyeroll. "Fahrenheit 451?"

"Read it in high school. Not impressed."

She trailed the shelf while muttering, listing books in her head before subconsciously crossing them off the list of something he was likely to read and enjoy. "I guess that means you wouldn't like The Illustrated Man or The Martian Chronicles," she said to herself.

His arm brushed her aside to pluck out a familiar novel. "Nerds love this," he said while already flipping through the pages. She was surprised the size didn't scare him off immediately.

"Nu-uh. No way," she shook her head.

"What?"

"Dune is not a starter book."

He furrowed his brows crossly. "You don't think I'm smart enough to read this shit or something?"

You shouldn't ask questions you don't want the answers to, her mother's voice echoed in the back of her head.

"Reading Dune as your first sci-fi book is like jumping straight into the deep end," she told him in a much more diplomatic approach. "If a sixteen year old wants to start drinking, you don't give him scotch, you give him a fruity cocktail."

Tom huffed; first through his nose and then through his mouth but stuffed the book back onto the shelf anyway. To which Parker then had to put it back on the correct shelf with a huff of her own.

"Don't be a baby and just trust me that Dune isn't a starter book. Okay?"

"Well—what is? You're supposed to be the expert here."

"If you weren't so picky it would be a lot easier..." she deadpanned but returned to her search anyway. Tom didn't seem to like waiting, and scowled at her as she shifted past him. She ignored him as best she could while squatting down to the lower shelves. "Arthur C. Clarke is one of the best sci-fi writers. He established a lot of rules that still exist in writing today. And films."

Parker pulled one of his novels, before moving towards Asimov, and then finally to Sagan. They were all slimmer novels than Dune, but no less complicated.

"Contact is my favorite," she said, shoving the books into Tom's arms. His denim was rough on her hands, and she tried not to think about how feverishly warm his skin had been the last time she had been this close to him. Swallowing, Parker remained on task. "But any of these should be good starter books for you to get into sci-fi with."

He glanced at the choices warily. "My audition is next week."

"Then I'm sure you'll have plenty of time to finish these if you're really serious about wanting to get that role," she chirped.

Together, they wound back towards the front counter. The TRASH boxes sat in the middle of the aisle, and she carefully toed them to the side before trailing past. While she was pretty sure he had been joking about suing her, a workplace hazard was the last thing she needed.

"How do you remember all of this?"

"Where stuff is? I spend almost all of my time arranging books. I'm uptight, remember?"

She felt more than saw his eyeroll. "These books, the authors. You, like, know everything about them."

Parker paused. It definitely wasn't a compliment, but it definitely felt like it could have been. Then again, this was Tom Ryder. When she glanced up from the counter, she found that he already has his nose back in his phone, and the conundrum of compliment versus not was thrown out the window. Parker shot him an unimpressed look to say, "please tell me that you're not on SparkNotes right now."

It was his turn to pause. "I'm just... reading the descriptions."

"Maybe that's why you can't understand why nerds like these books," she argued, hands planted firmly on her hips now. "Why would I go to watch one of your movies if I already looked the plot up on Wikipedia?"

He ignored her point entirely to smirk. "So, you do see my movies?"

"Goodbye, Tom."

"Relax. I'm not going to spoil them, alright? What's the fun in that when I could read them instead, and then leave you a bad review when the books end up being awful?"

"You mean have your assistants leave me a bad review."

He didn't seem impressed at the jab but didn't defend himself either. Most likely because they both knew she was right. Parker shot him a smug smile that he promptly rolled his eyes at. "Hilarious. Just tell me how much the books cost so I can leave before stepping on a rusty nail or something."

"Didn't you see the sign out front? Can't come in without a tetanus shot due to liability reasons."

There was a noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh, but when she glanced up at him, Tom was wiping a hand down his face. "How much for the books, smartass?"

Parker was pretty sure she could upsell him. There was no way that he knew those three books, decades old with ripped pages, were only worth fifteen bucks together. And with all the Gucci name brand bullshit that he wore, she was pretty sure she could get away with telling him the price was a hundred dollars and he wouldn't even blink an eye.

But he was also a customer, a somewhat work acquaintance, and someone she really didn't want to hang around any longer than necessary. Not to mention her brother's pseudo boss, and someone that knew she was guilty of wrecking a far more expensive rug than she could ever pay to fix.

"Just consider them a loan," she said before she could second guess herself. When Tom raised his eyebrows so high they disappeared into his hairline, she waved a hand at him while half-heartedly returning to her job of book sorting. "If you're that put-off by it you can always pay me an agent's fee if you get the part."

He stared at her for a long moment, not necessarily computing, definitely hearing static, before Tom spared her an over-the-top eyeroll that surely had to have hurt to perform.

From his pocket he pulled out a couple of crumpled bills and slapped them onto the counter. He didn't even look at how much money it was. Just shook his head at her, glasses bobbing on his nose, before he was on his way out the door.

"Hey! Don't you want your change—?"

The door shut with a ting.

On the counter sat seventy-three dollars. Parker wasn't sure if she should be offended or complimented.

From outside there was the sound of an obnoxiously loud car engine revving, alongside the thrum of music, before it tore off down the street.

"What a fucking asshole," she grumbled with the shake of her head.

But it wasn't exactly an asshole thing to do, when she thought about it. And she would know; every exchange they had since being introduced had Tom acting like an asshole to her.

Or, well, not every exchange. Not when he had been, almost, nice to her at Gail's party, if only for a few moments when no one else was around.

"OH. MY. GOD!" a shrill voice shrieked across the store, bouncing off of bookshelves, as two boots went crashing towards the window. Parker was reminded in no gentle terms that they had not, in fact, been alone when Melissa smudged her face against the glass to peer out onto the street. "Holy shit! That was Tom Ryder! Tom Ryder! Are you kidding me right now? TOM. RYDER."

"Yeah, Jesus, I know who that was," she winced, pinching her ear when she thought the girl's high pitch yelp may have burst an eardrum. There was definitely a ringing as Melissa tromped around.

"You—he—I can't believe after all of this time you never once mentioned that you're friends with Tom freaking Ryder!" she squeaked.

"Well, hang on, we're not—"

"How long have you known him? How do you know him? Do you have his phone number? Ohmygod everyone is going to flip when I tell them that you know him. Tom Ryder!" Melissa shouted, phone already in hand as she started typing. "My friend, my dear friend and favorite bookstore owner, is best friends with Tom Ryder! Did you see his latest movie, Good Cop, Bad Dog? Ugh! He's so hot!"

"We're not friends," she said immediately, not even bothering to dispute the fact that Good Cop, Bad Dog was a puff piece in an attempt to market him for younger fans. "He's actually kind of an asshole."

The teenager shot Parker a scandalized look, mouth popped open into an O as her brows lifted to her hairline. "What? Are you kidding me right now? He just drove all the way out here to ask for your recommendation for a sci-fi book! His house is, like, fifty minutes from here with traffic. Don't call him that when you just became so cool."

Parker frowned. "How do you know where he lives?" she asked, before adding with much more intensity, "hang on a second, am I not cool?"

But Melissa was already moving on, the sound of facetime dialing on her phone as she darted back outside in hopes of catching another glimpse of the celebrity. Parker, in response, caught her head between her hands with a low groan.

And yet, she couldn't help but think about what Melissa said.

Tom Ryder was a total, grade-A asshole... right?

She cast a despondant glance towards the crumpled bills on the counter, then the box of books at her side, before fishing her phone out of her back pocket, and pressing the second number on speed dial.

"Hey," she said, "do you want to get, like, really drunk tonight?"

Colt didn't bother to ask why before he was checking what ingredients he had in his fridge and offering to invite Jody and Dan over for dinner. Sometimes, she really loved her brother.

[bitterrobin]

tired: Damian having trauma hallucinations on Scarecrow gas (read many scenarios around this, sometimes they tend to blend together, good scenario for angst and fluff, but still too repetitive for me)

wired: Damian having a hysterical breakdown on old Joker Venom (new, different, terrifying imagining the laughter, gets the heart of his issues in the au by literally forcing emotion from his mouth, the "joke" that he thinks his life has become, point of connection for Jack Ryder, allows for terrifying vulnerability in the sense that Damisn is actively dying for a moment, prelude of things to come)

see also: my current wip of scenes for CHIROPTERA. I like drama 😃

[ashyswoyaus]

About the Lord Wander AU, are there any episodes that would not exist? The characters being shuffled around change the dynamics so drastically, there's no way a canon episode would take place?

Or, are there episodes that do happen, but occur with such different context or with very different events, to the point of being borderline unrecognizable?

Much love!

ooooo yes!!! this is something i've thought quite a bit about—there'd have to be loads of changes like that. most episodes i think, even, would have to be changed significantly. for episodes not existing, there's a Lot that definitely seem like it at first, and i even made a list, but after thinking on it a little more...they might fit more into the second category, where they're pretty majorly reworked. for episodes i haven't really been able to come up with anything for, there's the box, the lonely planet, the tourist, the helper, the boy wander, the heebie jeebies, and the sick day. the good deed, maybe? (but i think it might work, if you replace wander's stubbornness in his beliefs with dee's struggle to be a good person. you could perhaps even insert wander in there, since he's meant to be a bit of a recurring character in s1) perhaps the epic quest of unfathomable difficulty. those episodes are really wander-specific, and putting dominator in those positions renders them kinda pointless (like with the nice guy, how she just buys the thunder blazz without any trouble). and i can't think of any work-arounds to keep the basic premise of each, unlike with some other wander-specific episodes.

oh, but also, you'd have to get rid of like. the Entire hater crush arc in s2. so that would get rid of the matchmaker & the rival...but that arc would likely be replaced with something else. i don't know what that would be yet, but maybe something where you could keep the new toy, the show stopper, the cartoon, and my fair hatey, while getting rid of the "impressing dominator" part. have to brainstorm a few ideas for that but i'd like to believe it's possible

and onto some episodes that would instead be majorly reworked: the hat, of course, and by extension the bad hatter. and together with them i'd put the bot. since i feel like the position of the dombots and wander's hat would be switched in these cases! sylvia has to learn to work with the bots, bot 13 accidentally gets onto the skullship (and gets his name), wander's hat somehow falls onto the beach...real question is whether beep boop or the hat dies...i don't know if the hat can die. maybe it gets stranded in space. that'd be a pretty major change for wander, though, so i'm not really sure. then again it is supposed to be a bit of a darker tone than the show so...it might work. i think i'll probably do more on this topic at a later time!

there's also stuff like the bad guy, the big job, and the rider, revolving around wander's lack of toughness compared to sylvia—dee's pretty tough, moreso than sylvia even, so she wouldn't have these issues, but you could probably keep the settings of these episodes and just change the main conflict. for the bad guy, dee and syl use a ship to get around rather than orbble juice, but you could easily have them needing fuel instead. and dee would fit in pretty well with ryder's attitude, so separating her and syl would be difficult...i'll keep trying to figure those ones out though!

this is getting long so i'll skip over most of them for now since i feel like i'd be repeating myself...i think the big day would be one of them, but dee wouldn't suggest a wedding-like ceremony. some other big event, like a funeral. and for the night out i actually have something Very specific for it: it moves placement in the season to the first arc, before lord wander is revealed as the wandering weirdo, and is titled The Day Off. while the night out was about letting loose and wild, it's a girls' night, brawling being something syl doesn't get to do so often—she gets plenty of that in the AU, and instead, the day off is all about relaxing, taking it easy and getting some rest, which is what this syl doesn't get as much of. oh! and something to do with wander's doing good deeds to stave off bad karma—while dom started the episode bored, and decided to go out to have fun, wander i think would start off somewhat Stressed and anxious because of how much Evilling he's been doing lately and take this day off to go help people, to keep in the universe's good graces. this is another one i'd like to do more on later when i get the chance!!!

there's tons of episodes i think would change (like...all of them) so if you (or anyone else) ever want to hear about a specific one or more about one i mentioned here just ask :)

[maelihi]

Morbid Headcanons.

please please PLEASE do not read if you are sensitive to the following topics: sexual assault, drinking, pill abuse, hypersexuality, violence or graphic depictions of wounds and others- thank you. and stay safe <3

number one: (drug addiction and violence) balto has a pain pill addiction due to breaking his back in military school, and he gets addicted to them around his senior year of highschool. he doesn’t think much of it, until he injures his friend, and sends them to the hospital. this was a wake up call, and he went to a rehabilitation program.

number two: (sexual topics and child exposure) daniel is very cautious when it comes to sexual activity and encounters, since he was exposed to p*rn*graphy at a young age. this is related to a close story of mine, just to clarify. he often uses this soft mental state to cope with the fact that a lot of his earlier childhood memories are sometimes riddled with memories of the XXX tapes. like a more secretive way to age regress, and kind of feel calmer to a point.

number three: (child abuse and favoritism) further in life, garte ends up being an alcoholic and verbally and physically abused both vylad and zane. he would be pressuring garroth, but because of how garroth stood out, he was nervous that he would be caught as an abuser if garroth came out, since he would most likely be believed.

number four: (anger issues, abuse and discrimination) katelyn has severe, untreated anger issues, that harm both her and the people around her. she punches things, which injure her hands, and she kicks things, which caused her to permanently damage her foot. she also sometimes hurts people, such as travis, dante, and kawaii~chan. she’s also kind of ‘speciest’ towards werewolves, and would do many things offensive- (barking, saying ‘furry’ out loud, which i believe is the equivalent to a slur in aphs universe.)

number five: (stalking and implied assault) ein is incredibly stalker-ish. and he develops his whole personality around other people. he’s incredibly touchy, and back in his earlier days he wouldn’t take no for an answer. ever. this caused him to be outcasted. this kind of goes hand in hand with the idea that dottie, rylan, and daniel are also a bit clingy, and almost unaware of personal space and they are friends. (though in my au werewolves are very touchy, just in general.)

number six: (grooming and satanic themes) zenix. zenix was most likely in a way groomed by gene. in my au, gene was 18, and zenix was 14 when they met, and zenix was extremely religious, and was afraid of drugs and alcohol. gene came along and wanted a posse, a defense- and so zenix was one of who he chose, and he coerced him into a more satanic way of life and encouraged him to do substances, to be ‘cool’. (let it be known i have no problem with any religion, and everyone should be accepted <3)

number seven: (toxic relationships) in my au, ivan is transgender. his family was very against this, and were very horrible people. ivan then adopted a more stoic, masculine edge and personality, wanting to be threatening, and wanting people to fear him, respect him. he tried to be too controlling over lucinda, wanting to make her a kind of stay at home ‘lady’. and was very screamy when she was against it. ivan is a virgin, and very pissy about it.

number eight: (this one involves wounds and some limited gore) when aaron was very young, and because he was the ultima- he would have random bursts of anger, and aggression. and he would sometimes kill animals and tear them open, for the smell of blood, because he was unable to control himself. this caused him a great deal of pain, and caused him to be more desensitized to death later in life.

number nine: (desperation, homelessness and possessiveness) ein, jax and ryder are very possessive of one another, since ein took them in when ryder got kicked out for his behavior, and jax ran away from home. they are very toxic towards one another, and cannot be away from each other long, as it causes them distress.

number ten: (drug usage, juvie, and violence + gore) blaze was framed when someone put marijuana in his bag, causing him to go to juvie. while in there, not only did he end up actually smoking weed, he also got addicted to cigarettes. also while in prison is where he got the scar across his nose, where a kid ended up slicing his face over a pack of cigars. blaze is very shaky when in dangerous situations, since he has witnessed many injuries happen in juvie.

reminder: all of these are in some connection to me or my experiences. thank you and stay safe <3

[spookyvalentine]

I’m Commander Shepard,

L to R: Mercy, Stellan and Truce

they/them pronouns only please

‼️ 🔥 ART BY @pyxchta 🔥‼️

stellan: talking a million miles a minute about water pumps, shiala, their turtle, zhu’s hope, shiala’s flowers, keeping sourdough starter alive through all these years, aquaculture (oysters in particular), shiala’s biceps, regenerative agriculture, their cousins tilly and scott, and also their wife, shiala…

mercy n truce, making eye contact over Stellan’s head, clearly both thinking the same thing: tiny

MERCY SHEPARD

earthborn / sole survivor / sentinel / renegon

romance: kasumi

likes: music, anything physical like dance and sports, racing cars. fresh fruit. a good heist. getting to know people

wears: usually issued pants and boots, simple sweatshirt. occasional leather jacket, rare suit. big fan of fuzzy socks they’d normally only wear a tank like this on on the ship, but as @acrylicsalts-inspo pointed out… the gun show 🙈

dies at the end

fun fact: even though anderson won mercy a plea deal (alliance enlistment rather than a prison sentence), hackett takes it a step farther and threatens kasumi’s safety for mercy’s compliance

fun fact: mercy and kasumi met on earth as teens n were very close. until just before mercy’s eighteenth birthday they did a lot of hits together. they reunite in me2, over a decade later, and fall in love. my brain is currently rotting over them right now,, we in the pits fam

au’s!! 🙈: crimelord, sports coach, white collar

STELLAN SHEPARD

colonist / war hero / engineer / paragon

romance: shiala

likes: kepesh yakshi, fixing things, aquatic plants, kayaking

wears: like a walking carhartt duluth catalogue, but also likes jeans and shiala’s old sports teams jackets that are big and comfy on them (like rn)

joined the alliance to be a science officer/part of the engineer corps, not to be a military commander

fun fact: stellan lost their arm in an accident w farming equipment at age ten—tinkers over their prosthetic with their cousins tilly and scott (ryder)

fun fact: gets soft and a lil chubby with retirement—farm strong, but also really well fed on fresh bread and jam and butter and honey wine and thick yogurt and hearty stews and fruit beers, grilled veggies and smoked cheeses…

TRUCE SHEPARD

spacer / ruthless / infiltrator / paragade

romance: EDI

likes: really really good oil pastels and colored pencils. making the impossible shot. getting to check out local galleries and museums

wears: very muted neutrals, the occasional pastel. even if they’re wearing something casual it’s a monochrome outfit, which makes them always look a little formal. at minimum, put together.

wanted to run away to become a portraitist. when they wake up in me2, truce discovers their parents sold and published all of their private sketchbooks

fun fact: clone of their dead older brother, john. he died in the first contact wars, in the middle of a meteoric rise

fun fact: their baby sister Ruth, is also a clone of their dead brother John. Born on Truce’s sixteenth birthday. Truce dotes upon her

THANK YOU AGAIN @pyxchta seriously yall go check out her work, go commission her, it was an amazing experience and my heart is still bursting at how damn well she translated my word salad into ART

[ladylooch]

I feel like we’ve talk about experiences with the active player AUs getting hurt or scary situations (like the Hischier break in). Do the kid AUs experience anything like that? I could see Mack getting into some scary stuff with how much she travels or Sav while she working for the team at games. Or do any of the boys have scary injurys? How does this look for them? Love ya 💝

Lucie & Connor: Cap has some injury issues towards the end of his career that make it really hard for him to play full seasons, but also affects his quality of life. He wants to continue to try and push through, but Lucie is against it. She has valid concerns that by him continuing to play, he won't be able to show up in their post-hockey life the way his family needs him too.

Liv & Luca: It's their angst.... coming soon hehehe. But it does involve New York Islander, Ryder Hughes.

Lio & Savannah: Her infertility struggles and flare ups from endometriosis are very scary for both of them. She goes through a lot in the year after her and Lio get back together. Debilitating cramping, heavy bleeding, and frustrations of not being heard or listened to by her doctors. It's a trying time for them, especially because she can barely do her job at times.

Mack & David: have a few run ins with his drug addict brother both the summer after they get engaged and then the next summer after they get married. David used to sleep with his gun in his bedside table, but Mack was uncomfortable with that when she came to Iowa, so he put it away while she was in town. But after the confrontations with his brother, David starts keeping it there again along with a gun in his truck.

[jellyfitzjelly]

What’s one of your more obscure ships in DC ?

One of mine is Tiger x Dick!

mhmmm good question!

My "canon" one would be Katana/Geoforce/Owlman (aka Roy Raymond Jr). That run of the Outsiders was trash but GOD the OT3 possibilities... I have a few bits and pieces of a sex pollen/first time fic for them in my folders.

My other obscure ship would be Jason Blood/Bruce Wayne in the BTAS universe. There is one BTAS comic issue where they team up and GOD. I want them to fuck. I want Bruce to wreck Jason. Fun fact, Jason Blood ALSO has a tuff of white hair!

Okay, my "non-canon" ship would be Jack Ryder/Jeremiah Arkham in my PI Riddler AU. They were in a long-term relationship and Jack brutally disappeared when he became the Creeper, as he was unable to control his newfound powers. Jerry (as he only ever allowed Jack to call him) NEVER recovered from it. For years he didn't know what happened to Jack, if he was still alive, if something happened to him. He later found out that Jack left him voluntarily and that left a huge wound on his heart. They would end up reconnecting and coming back together though. ;)

[awkwardgtace]

Hehe more questions

What is Kyrie's favorite way(s) to cuddle with Melody?

Do the other gods in Seer au hang out with Luna as well? And does he make friends with humans?

ahh I love your questions <3

What is Kyrie's favorite way(s) to cuddle with Melody?

Kyrie has a few ways he loves to cuddle with Melody. One is just over his heart, she curls up and presses herself into him. It makes his heart race which just makes her relax more! Then he likes keeping her cupped in his hand and held right in front of his eyes with his nose pressed against her. Just holding her close and getting to watch her. She usually winds up using some of his fingers as a pillow and playing on her phone or with whatever she got to grab first. He also loves when she curls up near his neck. Usually she does it if he's lying on the ground and he'll turn his head just enough to kind of press her against him. When she's super super tired he usually takes a bit of advantage and curls up holding her in his hands just far enough he can still see her clearly. He presses his finger on her chest and just feels her breathe. It relaxes him, seeing how calm she is in his hands. As soon as she starts to move he moves his finger off her chest and tries to act like he wasn't watching her.

Do the other gods in Seer au hang out with Luna as well?

Over time all the gods spend more time together! Luna winds up getting to tell the others the stories of the stars and see more that they do in their free time. Ryder will invite him to play chess and other strategy games. Felix encourages Luna to stay with him while he works. Rhys, Vitus, and Dabria frequently ask about the stars and things Luna's shown interest in. Sola tries to play in the garden with Luna like she's seen mortals play. Alessia tells Luna things she remembers from when she was human. Ash teaches Luna about the flowers in the garden and they help him grow his own.

And does he make friends with humans? (This became so much longer than intended cause i have no chill)

The answer here is sort of. He meets all kinds of mortals and does make friends at times, but it's hard on him for a while. Luna stays more childish and innocent, but those he meets age. Sola faces the same issue. They're gods so the time it would take them to stop being the equivalent of children is a lot longer than any mortal life time. The friends both Luna and Sola make age and the two struggle with that a lot.

Luna struggles more because of his quieter nature. When he makes friends and they start to seem more like Delphia or Vincent he is reluctant to stay close to them. He had once overheard a conversation about how the sky gods appear as children and the fear of upsetting a child and causing a tantrum. Shockingly Vincent is who pushed him to make friends again. He noticed the change in the young god and got even more worried when Rhys mentioned it.

So short answer yes he makes friends with humans, giants, fae, elves, mortals of all kinds. He just has to learn to deal with the fact they age significantly faster than he does and that their life spans are so much shorter.

[semi-sketchy]

What is Tara's relationship with the rest of the Paw Patrol cast like? Who does she get along with the least?

This is a good question!

I could brush it off with "she hates everyone" but I'll try and write something about each pup, minus my OCs since I've written about her relationships with them enough. We'll go in order for the heck of it.

Chase

Tara really only likes taking orders from Ryder and Chase's inexperience as a leader would cause her to disobey him. If she thinks there's a better way, she's just gonna do her own thing. Eventually as they get older, she'd trust his judgement more, but I see it being an issue on missions. Also Chase appears to be the one with the most health issues and Tara being blunt, would be one to frequently call him out any time he tried to work when sick. Aside from that, he's a good soccer buddy.

Marshall

Marshall being a klutz and making bad puns would get on her nerves, prompting plenty of eye-rolls. She enjoys a good joke, but puts emphasis on the "good" part. Though she does recognize how hard he's trying to be liked, so she doesn't go further than expressing mild annoyance.

Skye

Skye is small, coordinated and athletic, basically everything Tara isn't. Although, Skye loves making new friends and would be one to invite Tara to play often in the beginning. She's also one to show new things to Tara and teach her games. Skye's actually the one that got her into musicals. Although she doesn't really care for the heavy romance ones like Skye does, they still enjoy them together. While Tara isn't really into dancing like Skye, lacking the graceful coordination, she likes watching her perform.

Rocky

Obviously one of her closest friends. There have been cases where she's carried him across some shallow water, but not without a few remarks. It's helpful to have someone to talk to when everyone else goes swimming, but they also share quiet activities together. Tara loves falling asleep to him planting a tree. His hoarding resourcefulness comes in handy sometimes when she needs something and he, along with Byte, are the only ones she allows to help tinker with her equipment.

Rubble

I think she'd be good friends with Rubble. I imagine she'd rope him into late light snack heists, like that would be THEIR THING. But they also both like digging and I imagine Rubble would be quite reciprocal to her love of rocks. Plus, Rubble's really sporty, so he'd be a great soccer companion for her.

Zuma

Zuma's a chill guy, so the two of them would be chill. Zuma also is such a god at Pup Pup Boogie, he'd probably be the one to teach Tara the game and introduce her to corn dogs. They don't really share many activities because, being a water pup, Zuma likes water sports. She's try volleyball with him, though.

Everest

Everest is just so cheery all the time, Tara would mostly keep quiet and not comment around her since she's the exact opposite. Secretly, she wishes she was able to share Everest's optimism and skill in comforting others, like it just comes so naturally to Everest. Meanwhile, she's the one always grumbling and often can't offer much in terms of comfort. I imagine if a situation got really stressful, Tara would snap like "YOU AND YOUR SICKENING SWEETNESS. DON'T YOU EVER GET MAD?!" hello I Love Lucy line Though while Everest isn't her closest friend, it's nice to have someone who is as resistant to cold as she is and with how competitive Tara is, they can really get into snowboarding matches.

Tracker

Easily someone that gets on her nerves because she doesn't understand Spanish so she has no idea what he's saying half the time. Tracker would probably use this to joke with some of the other pups that understand Spanish while Tara stands on the side like "what are you two FUCKING TALKING ABOUT" At this point, it's like their thing.

Rex

This is the one she has the most strained relationship with. It's not because of him personally, after all him doing archeology (at least in my AU, sorry I don't subscribe to him being a dino zookeeper) means they'd be able to work together and share some common interests. What gets in the way is them eventually becoming in-laws. Actually I wrote some drabble about that.

Rex: “Hi, Terra...” Tara: “Oh, hello.” Rex: “...You, uhh… You’re looking good.” Tara: “You too. Um...how’s Pyro?” Rex: “He’s doing good. H-how’s Telsa?” Tara: “She’s still Telsa.” Rex: “Heh, yeah... Terra, you don’t have to avoid me, you know.” Tara: “Who says I’m avoiding you?!” Rex: “Well I mean, you’re all the way back here while everyone else is up front.” Tara: “I just have to some things to prepare on my rig.” Rex: “Like…?” Tara: “Look just because we’re ‘technically family’ doesn’t mean we’re close.” Rex: “Ouch. Do I make you that uncomfortable?” Tara: “...Not you, just the memories.”

Can you tell which one of these relations I put the most thought into

Granted, when he joins, they're still kids and I scribbled that as if they were already married, but it conveys the feelings the relationship started with. They'd eventually become decent co-workers, but Rex having ties to her family always keeps things a little awkward between them.

Wild

Unlike everyone else, she doesn't really get what the big deal is about this cat on a motorbike. He does some tricks, sure, but she doesn't really get the whole "celebrity" thing. Outside of that, she's fine with him. Not really a big automotive buff, but even she has to admit he does some cool moves.

Liberty

I think her and Liberty would get along. Liberty's kinda this back-alley spunky and I think they'd share a similar sense of humor and looking out for the little guys shtick. Liberty is probably someone she'd feel more comfortable being sarcastic with.

I can't comment on Al or the Cat Pack because I haven't seen any of their episodes.

Truthfully, while she's quite cold, she does care about everyone. They are her friends and eventually become her family. If someone did something to hurt one, they'd be on her shit list and she holds grudges.

[lire-casander]

forever in a second too short (home is a heartbeat)

here it is! my contribution to @911lsbb! i hope you're ready for a ride! chapters will be posted once a day for twelve days. are you ready?

on ao3

chapters:

chapter #1: intro — on tumblr

chapter #2: first verse — on tumblr

chapter #3: first pre-chorus — on tumblr

chapter #4: first chorus — on tumblr

chapter #5: second verse — on tumblr

chapter #6: second pre-chorus — on tumblr

chapter #7: second chorus — on tumblr

chapter #8: solo — on tumblr

chapter #9: bridge — on tumblr

chapter #10: third pre-chorus — on tumblr

chapter #11: third chorus — on tumblr

chapter #12: outro — on tumblr

pairings: tk strand/carlos reyes, judd ryder/grace ryder, nancy gillian/mateo chavez, paul strickland/marjan marwani

characters: tk strand, carlos reyes, jonah, owen strand, enzo, judd ryder, grace ryder, nancy gillian, tommy vega, mateo chavez, paul strickland, marjan marwani, izzie vega, evie vega, gabriel reyes, andrea reyes, mitchell, alex, original child characters, original characters

warnings: alternate universe — au, alternate universe — with kids, alternate universe — future fic, alternate universe — school teacher, alternate universe — celebrity, alternate universe — movie, alternate universe — marry me (2022), vaguely inspired by the movie, angst, fluff, cheating (not between tarlos), past/reference drug addiction, grief, references to sister act 2, mentions of death, mentions of accidents, breakup, emotional hurt/comfort, fake dating, more tags to be added

disclaimer: the opinions expressed by certain characters in this work of fiction are not shared by the author.  

rating: teen and up audiences

summary: tk strand is a famous singer who’s about to marry his beau alex fletcher onstage in front of around twenty million fans. carlos reyes is a teacher whose whole live revolves around his twelve-year-old daughter and his classes. when tk’s wedding ceremony goes south because of a video of alex cheating on tk with his assistant, their lives become a tangled mess. as they wade through life together by a whim of fate, carlos and tk learn to move forward from a past that haunts them both and into a future that could be everything they wanted it to be, if they just allowed themselves to be happy.

fun facts about writing this fic!

i’ve used transcripts for both the movie and some episodes of the show. here you have the links!

* marry me

* 911 lone star s01e01

* 911 lone star s01e03

* 911 lone star s01e10

* 911 lone star s02e04

* 911 lone star s02e14

* 911 lone star s03e02

* 911 lone star s03e04

* 911 lone star s03e07

* 911 lone star s03e08

* 911 lone star s03e18

the duet song tk dedicates to carlos is an english adaptation of ricky martin and reik’s a veces bien y a veces mal. official video and lyrics can be found here. translation/adaptation made by yours truly.

the time difference between nyc and tokyo is 14 hours, meaning that it’s almost always tomorrow in japan, just like jonah says.

some of this was inspired by @dangermagnetstrand’s post  

marriages don’t need to be registered in nyc unless the marriage license has been issued by one of their offices.  

the monastery of leyre exists, and it’s located in navarra (spain). you can visit its webpage here. 

there is a playlist that i kept adding to while writing this fic. if you want to, you can listen to it here.

thank you end notes: this wouldn’t have been possible without the help and support and hand-holding of some amazing people in my life. please take a seat and grab some tissues, because the emotional fest begins right here!

vicky (@tarlos-spain) → ¿qué puedo decir? si no hubiera sido por tu idea de montar un big bang esta historia nunca habría nacido. sin ti, la última parte de esta historia sería muy diferente, y lo sabes; necesitaba una idea para acabar la historia de la mejor manera posible, y tú estabas ahí cuando yo buscaba a alguien que me quitara la idea de la cabeza… aunque lo que pasó fue que no solo no me la quitaste de la cabeza: ¡la hiciste crecer! muchas gracias por tu apoyo, por escucharme cuando necesitaba desahogarme y por estar siempre ahí.

martina → non so cosa dire, davvero. incontrarti quest'anno è stata una di quelle cose che non mi aspettavo ma che mi hanno piacevolmente sorpreso, e sono così grata a vicki per essere entrata nella mia vita e averti portata con sé. lavorare con te alla grafica di questa fic è stato un piacere; poter contare su di te al di là del fandom è una benedizione. grazie mille per essere ciò che sei e per aver condiviso il tuo talento con me!

noxy (@noxsoulmate) → you’re a beautiful soul, my dear friend. you offering to help me with this monster was a nice surprise, because i for once wasn’t planning on asking for help. you know i love to try things without help, and sometimes that’s not good. you were there when this fic hit a low point halfway through writing it, and you helped me back on my feet and encouraged me to keep writing it. without you, without your help and your support and your strength, this wouldn’t be what it is today, and for that (and for you) i am forever grateful.

holly (@morganaspendragonss) -> you truly are the pain to my angst. i love how much you love angst and pain in fiction, and i love how you always encourage me to write angstier fics. you also demand a fix-it from me, which is always good because then you have the full experience. i wouldn’t have finished this without your support and your help during the last stretch. you are a wonderful soul and i am so happy to have had the privilege of meeting you 

ll (@doublel27) → thanks for the cheering and the enthusiasm when you learned what this was! your support through all the wip wednesdays and six sentence sundays has been epic! but also epic was your hand-holding when i wanted to give up and leave this project aside because of a rocky middle… you’re an amazing friend.

brit (@moviegeek03) → thank you so much for your endless support, for your words of encouragement and for your editing when it seemed like i was translating straight from spanish into english. and special thanks for your hand-holding during the worst part of writing this, when halfway through it and with 20k+ written i was faced with whether to keep writing it or leave it. i wouldn’t have made this without you.

melo (@meloingly) → there are no words, my dear friend. you’ve always been by my side, ready to cheer me on and call me on my bluff whenever i said i couldn’t do something. you’ve always got an unwavering faith in me, and it’s thanks to you that i keep writing. i would have stopped if i hadn’t had you right at the other side of the screen, telling me that my writing was worth it. that i was worth it. thank you for always being your amazing self.

jillian (@marjansmarwani) → thank you so much for your input on schools in ny and how jonah and leyre could attend the same school while keeping carlos as jonah’s teacher and the advisor for the math team. i’m so glad you could help me and guide me through this particular issue within the fic.

ashley (@alilypea) → i don’t know what to say. you’re just this amazing human being who i am lucky enough to call soulmate. i hope you know that your support means a lot to me, and that your hand-holding while i wrote this (or, more accurately, word-vomited this story into a gdoc) has saved me from scraping the whole story more than once. you saying that my words are good is the highest praise of them all.

antania (@dangermagnetstrand) → thank you very much for the post that started it all! without it, i would have never even thought about writing a story about a singer-songwriter and his lovely boyfriend.

dani (@daniela-bella), jenny (@alidravana), ej (@ravens-words), alice (@aliceschuyler), jenny (@laelipoo) & ac (@breannacasey) → thank you so much for helping me with little details such as news stations and names of songwriters and for listening to me when i ranted about writing a monster, and also for the sprints! half of this wouldn’t have been done without those sprints! you’re definitely the best cheerleaders i could have ever asked for!

jesco0307, didou180386 and the rest of my faithful readers → thank you so much for reading, leaving kudos, commenting and subscribing to this monster! it fills my heart with so much love and amazement. you’re the best!

[tuiyla]

Glee analysis/meta masterpost

I haven’t shut up about Glee in months so I thought it was high time for a proper masterpost. I’ll be linking to all asks and most posts written unprompted but I also tried to do categories and subcategories of what ended up as my niche topics. There are overlaps but here are the main ones I narrowed it down to and categorized as. Will be an ever-updating post, hopefully. Highlighted in bold are the meatier, longer posts.

Santanalysis:

A case study in compulsory heterosexuality

Part 1, season 1

Part 2, season 2

The Outing and IKAG

Santana shouldn’t have been outed

All IKAG posts

Anger and other flaws

Why being outed didn’t magically solve all her issues

Anger issues

Kind, not nice

Doubling down on worst expectations and the Lopez cycle

Where anger stems from

Harmful ways of coping (anger and spite)

I’m glad she’s a bitch

Quinntana and anger

Other

“The male Santana”: the unholy trinity of gay bullies (no, not that one)

Pride Month feature 2021

Best Santana episodes

Santana in season 4

Mental health // ED

Other comphet posts

Glee-ver, education and fame

On law vs PR

Sancedes

Brittana:

Mashups that could have been

“Rules don’t apply to us” - Brittana and shifting the narrative

Brettiago aka genderbent Glee

All or Nothing aka believing in each other

Brittana’s PDA

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face smile

Familial dynamics

Post-breakup Brittana

Seasons ranking

Resolving the season 2 angst

Compatibility

Why they fell in love

Why they’re OTP

placeholder for when I find and tag posts about the sunshine and grump dynamic

Song analyses:

Ranking Pezberry duets by how Gay they are

Mine and Mr. Lopez

At the Ballet and Mr. Lopez

Glee covers that recontextualized the original song

10 years of Rumour Has It/Someone Like You: Glee’s musical storytelling

“Alfie” and Santana’s vulnerability

Glee sing-offs winners

Ranking Santana’s solos based on importance to her character, part I & part II

Other:

Pezberry thought of the week

Quinn headcanons/AUs

Quinntana midgame HCs

Kitty and Ryder in 4x20

Accidental Bartie analysis

Glee restructure

How to divide a Glee season

Found family - case study: where What the World Needs Now falls short

Favourite things about X

Gleewrites (rewrites and could have beens)

Scene analyses

Silly rankings

The Glee girls cast as the Six Queens

Finn sucks

Glee asks links:

All

Santana

Brittana

Pezberry

Quinntana

Quinn

Kitty

Brittany

Headcanons

Friendships

ND girls

[lesbianrobin]

What do you think are the good and bad aspects of each season of ST?

ok 1. thank u for this question omg and 2. this answer may or may not be a mess, but either way it’s long (almost 7k words lmao) bc i’m insane, which is why it’s under a cut. it’s still by no means an exhaustive list but these are the things that just kinda came to mind.

also i realize you asked “good and bad” and i wrote this whole post as “strengths and weaknesses” which um. is not Exactly what you asked. but close enough <3 i also ended up including a lot of au ideas ksjdckmn bc like i personally hate when people say a certain plot or whatever was bad without suggesting anything that could have improved it yknow so whenever possible i tried to provide Some idea for fixing the issues i had with the show!!

season 1

strengths (this is probably gonna be the longest section but that’s because a lot of these strengths also apply to s2/s3 by default)

nostalgia and authenticity

this one’s pretty simple, but i think that season one did a good job of blending classic eighties media homages (such as the many many e.t./el parallels) with explicit pop culture references (such as mike’s yoda impression, mentions of the x-men, etc) to create a show that’s essentially dripping in early eighties nostalgia without it feeling too forced. before st, i think the most popular depiction of the eighties in mainstream media was that overly exaggerated neon scrunchie aesthetic from the mid to late eighties, and it was usually done in a comedic sense first and foremost. st took a different approach, instead focusing on the early eighties, a time that’s often ignored in favor of going either Full Seventies or Full Eighties, and i think that this choice likely resonated with adults who lived through the eighties and hadn’t yet seen something that felt quite so accurate to their own adolescence. a lot of young people who watched st were totally unfamiliar with this period of time, unfamiliar with books/movies like “stand by me” that st borrows from heavily, and i think st lent more seriousness to the eighties than most young people had experienced so far, and this was refreshing and interesting!

the use of dnd in the show is also quite genius in a way i’m not sure i can articulate?? it isn’t something Everyone would have played at the time, but it’s something that existed within a different context back in the eighties than it does today, and it really lent a sort of authenticity to the naming of the show’s sci-fi elements. like, of course these kids would name parallel dimensions and monsters and superpowers after these similar things in their favorite game! it just feels so real and it grounds st in our reality moreso than you might expect from the typical sci-fi or horror universe.

utilization of existing tropes

almost every single character in st clearly originates from some popular trope. the plot itself is riddled with classic eighties movie tropes. almost every single element of stranger things can be clearly traced back to some iconic eighties film or just to, like, overused horror/sci-fi/mystery/coming-of-age movie tropes in general. this might sound like a bad thing, but it really works in st’s favor! starting off with familiar tropes gives st the ability to easily create a lot of complexity and make a big impact by selectively deviating from those familiar, comfortable tropes!! while el’s whole plot, hopper’s character, etc, are all examples of this in action, i think the steve/nancy/jonathan plot is the greatest example. even from the start, the fact that good girl barb dies while nancy is off having sex with her asshole boyfriend is an incredibly thorough inversion of the most well-known horror movie trope in the book. how often do girls in horror movies have sex for the first time, walk home alone in the dark of night, and live to tell the tale? nancy and jonathan’s dynamic at first glance is a sort of classic “good girl meets boy from the wrong side of the tracks, discovers he’s actually got a heart of gold” thing, but instead of following this well-trodden path, st diverged. nancy is brash, impulsive, and at times downright insensitive. jonathan is angry, bitter, and actually a bit of a creep at first. while they have the capacity to emotionally connect and support one another, they can also bring out each other’s darker side, which is not what we’ve come to expect from that initial tropey dynamic.

in addition, steve, the popular rich asshole boyfriend, is actually... a human being! unlike the cartoonishly evil jocks that we’ve come to expect (especially from eighties movies), steve has complexity. despite his initial immaturity and selfishness, he’s also kind to barb, he backs off when nancy says no, he’s gentle and sweet when they sleep together, his first big Dick Move of the season is in defense of nancy, he realizes the error of his ways after the fight and does what he can to fix it, he’s worried about nancy when he sees that she’s hurt at jonathan’s house, and to top it all off, he ends up saving both nancy and jonathan’s lives when he could have just walked away, and the three of them all work together to fight the demogorgon. like... steve began as the most stereotypical character of all time, and by the end of the season, he had one of the most compelling and unique arcs among the whole cast!

finally, at the very end of the season, instead of dumping steve for jonathan as expected, nancy ends up getting back together with steve, and they’re both on friendly terms with jonathan. i realize that i just kinda. summarized s1. but my POINT is that i don’t think the dynamics between the monster hunting trio would be nearly as fun and interesting had the characters of nancy, steve, and jonathan not been set up to follow certain paths that we already had charted in our own heads. like, within the first couple episodes of s1, it’s pretty obvious that nancy and steve are gonna break up, nancy will get with jonathan, and steve will either die or go full evil or just never be seen again. like, duh! you’ve seen this story a million times! you know that’s how it’s gonna go! so, when the story DOESN’T go that way, the impact of each character’s arc and the relationship dynamics become stronger due to their unexpected complexity and authenticity. 

distinct plotlines separated by age group

this one’s rather obvious, but the way that the adults in s1 were essentially in a conspiracy thriller while the teens were in a horror flick and the kids were in a sci fi power-of-friendship story and all three converged at the end... wow. brilliant showstopping etc. not only was it just really well done and unique, it also gave stranger things near-universal appeal. like, there’s genuinely something for pretty much everyone in season one!

casting

obviously this applies to every season sorta by default, but when i think about what made season one So successful, i always think about the cast, and not just winona ryder. yes, she’s absolutely amazing in the show and it’s very doubtful that st would be as big as it is today without her name being attached to it from the start!! however, i think the greatest determining factor in st’s success is the casting of the kids, particularly millie bobby brown. like... el is just absolutely incredible. she’s amazing. this has all been said many times before so i won’t harp on it, but millie and the other kids are all So talented and charismatic and i think their casting has been instrumental to the show’s success.

strong visuals

the way that multicolored christmas lights which have been around for decades are now kinda like. a Stranger Things thing. jesus christ. those lights are probably the biggest stroke of stylistic genius on the show.

atmosphere and setting

this is probably like. the least important one here for me sdjncdsc because i think s2 and s3 both had like Even Better atmospheres and shit but s1 was good too and it laid the groundwork!! i know a lot of people would have preferred st be set somewhere more Spooky with lots of fog or giant forests or whatnot, and while i do enjoy thinking about alternate st settings and how they might alter the vibe, i think hawkins indiana was a good choice. as the duffers have said, placing stranger things in a fictional town allows them more flexibility than if they’d gone with their original plan of using montauk, new york. besides that, i think the plainness and like... flatness... of small-town indiana just Works. like, the fact that hawkins is never really scary on the surface is a big part of the horror in the lab’s actions and their impact. hawkins isn’t somewhere that people just disappear all the time. it isn’t somewhere known for strange occurrences (prior to s1, that is). it isn’t somewhere shrouded in mist and secrecy. hawkins on its surface seems like the sort of place with no secrets and nothing to fear, and that’s the point! the lab is out in the open! it’s right there! everything is so close to the surface, yet so far out of the public eye, and i think that really works.

the byers family’s whole deal (specifically the joyce/jonathan dynamic)

this is going here bc i miss it so bad in s2 and s3. i’m not one of those people who believe The Byers Are The Whole Point of the show, because st is and always has been an ensemble, and el, hopper, and the wheelers are just as instrumental to the plot as the byers, but ANYWAY, i do think the byers were one of the most interesting aspects of s1. joyce’s difficulties with supporting her sons as a poor and (implied mentally ill) single mother, jonathan’s stress as a result of having to earn money, care for his brother, and keep the house in order when his mother is unable to do so, and the resulting tension between them when will’s disappearance and supposed “death” brings the situation to a tipping point? holy shit! it’s so good! that argument after they see will’s “body” is just incredible and gut-wrenching. their relationship feels so real and messy and i think it’s just... good. also winona ryder REALLY acted her heart out and she carried a lot of s1 which i think people often forget to mention so i’m saying it here.

weaknesses

pacing/timing

ok so pacing is probably going to go in each season’s weaknesses, to be honest, because i think they all had a blend of some good and some bad pacing. good pacing is invisible pacing, though, so i probably won’t be putting it in any of the strengths sections and will only be focusing on it in the weaknesses. i’m also probably not going to talk about weird day/night cycle things, just because i don’t want to get nitpicky on timelines because that would require going back and rewatching things to double check timing which i don’t wanna do at the moment lmao. anyway, when i think of bad pacing in season one, i primarily think of two things: nancy’s little trip into the upside down and subsequent sleepover with jonathan, and the sort of staggered nature of the climax in the final episode. the latter is simple so i’ll explain it first: while i understand that each group’s respective climax is like part of a chain reaction and that’s why each big moment happens separately and at different times, i think that st is strongest when the whole group is together, and i think that makes the stakes feel higher too, so i’m not In Love with the way s1 separated everyone and gave each group their own climax. 

okay, now on to the nancy/upside down thing! idk if i’ve ever talked about it before, but i think the worst decision made in s1 by far is the inclusion of nancy’s brief trip into the upside down, wherein she dives headfirst into another dimension with absolutely no backup, watches the demogorgon chow down, freaks out and runs around for a minute, and then leaves. like... what the fuck? even putting aside what an idiotic decision this was (because i do think nancy’s tendency to rush into things headfirst is an intentional and consistent character trait), it just kind of destroys any remaining suspense surrounding the demogorgon and the upside down, and it accomplishes basically nothing besides scaring nancy enough to have jonathan sleep over, which is lame. i will break it down.

like, first of all, nancy just getting to waltz in and out of the upside down and get a good, long look at the demogorgon makes the entire thing far less mysterious, and by extension far less scary. like... before this scene, we the audience haven’t got a good look at the demogorgon. we’ve seen its silhouette briefly and we’ve seen a blurry picture of it, but nothing more, and i think that is far more effective at building fear than this jaunt nancy goes on which gives us a full view of the thing and makes it into less of a horrifying nightmare and into more of a humanoid animal. like, maybe this is just me, but i found the demogorgon far less intimidating after that scene than before. it also lets nancy and jonathan know For Sure that they’re right without providing any crucial information that they need to fight the demogorgon (aka it’s unnecessary to the plot), which removes a very compelling story element (the faith nancy and jonathan need to have in order to keep going against a vague and poorly understood enemy, the doubt they might have about each other and their own sanity, the possibility that they might be wrong, the trust they need to have in each other) a bit earlier in the plot than i believe is ideal. at the end of episode 5, nancy goes into the upside down and jonathan doesn’t know where she is and it’s intense!!! you’re thinking like, oh fuck, not only is nancy missing and fighting for her life now too, jonathan might be implicated in her disappearance!! some people already think he’s the one who killed will and people know that he took creepy pictures of barb and nancy before they both disappeared, maybe this is gonna cause some serious problems for him!! maybe nancy will find will in the upside down and she’ll help him survive!! fuck, maybe she’ll actually die!! this is huge!! and then episode 6 starts and they’re immediately like oh nevermind jonathan found the tree and got nancy out and she’s fine. my point with all of this is that nancy entering the upside down could have done A Lot in the grand scheme of the plot, but all it did was just... get jonathan to sleep over so he and nancy could have some awkward romance moments and steve could see them together and pick a fight. which could have honestly happened at Any point while nancy and jonathan were working together to hunt down the demogorgon, without ruining the demogorgon’s and the upside down’s mystique. so yeah <3

weird behavior and dumbass decisions that make no sense (aka the whole camera thing)

gonna go off about the teen plot again sorry but: why was nancy so unbothered and quick to forgive jonathan for taking those pictures? girl what the fuck are you doing? why wasn’t that a bigger deal? why was jonathan’s motivation for doing it so weak and why did they just kind of forget about the whole thing? why did nancy TRACK HIM DOWN AT THE FUNERAL HOME while he was PICKING OUT HIS BABY BROTHER’S CASKET to be like hey can you tell me what’s in this creepshot you took? it’s insane. it’s so insane. i mean i think the funeral home thing is hilarious and i don’t mind it being in the show necessarily but like my point here is that i think a lot of character decisions in s1 just kind of.. happened because they Needed to happen for the plot. like, they wrote this plot that required jonathan to be secretly taking pictures of the party and required him and nancy to work together after seeing something odd in the pictures, but they didn’t like... really consider what that event would mean for their characterization and relationship. the whole thing was sort of just dropped with minimal discussion and i think it did both nancy and jonathan’s characters a disservice and was really mishandled.

lighting and saturation/color grading

i am literally begging horror/sci-fi shows to let me see shit. i GET IT okay i understand that when you’re doing cgi effects it helps to keep the lights down and i’m not mad at any of the lighting in the demogorgon/upside down scenes!! i’m really not i think the demogorgon scenes in s1 all look sick!! but like... dude. the colors. where are they. why does everyone look like a vampire. i know blah blah this was probably an intentional stylistic choice intended to mimic film at the time blah blah but dude a lot of old movies are very colorful!! please just let people have color in their faces so everyone doesn’t look like a sheet of paper!!! also i’m white and not a professional lighting designer so yknow grain of salt but i think lucas was kinda poorly served by the lighting sometimes in s1. not Hugely so, not to the degree that i’ve seen poc be poorly served by lighting in other shows, but there were some times where it felt kinda like the lighting setup was just not designed with darker skin in mind. 

horror

i just personally don’t find s1 very scary like... ever. i don’t think they were really Trying to be extremely scary yknow so i’m not counting this as a big deal, but i do think that each season has improved on the horror aspects. i think s1′s horror lies more in the mystery and the unknown than in what’s seen onscreen, and as i’ve said already, i think s1 kind of fumbled that suspense ball.

season 2

strengths

the possession plot

i’ll warn u rn this whole s2 strengths section is probably gonna be really short bc idk like. how much there is to really say i feel like it’s all so self-explanatory skjncmn. anyway yeah the possession plot!! eerie as fuck, and noah OWNED. so did winona tbh and finn and sean etc but like. noah. wow! i think the possession plot helped the show maintain a good amount of tension and suspense throughout the season, and a lot of scenes with possessed!will are flatout disturbing to watch. in a good way. i think the mindflayer and will’s possession were far more genuinely frightening than s1′s demogorgon, and it provided a new layer of depth and intrigue to the antagonist besides just “bad monster want eat people.”

tone and aesthetics

halloween season... literally halloween season. halloween season. that is all.

actually i will elaborate a bit and just say that i think s2 did a good job of having the sort of foreboding vibe that s1 was often going for, but without the annoying darkness and desaturation. so points for that.

also st2 is like one of the best Autumn pieces of media ever like it just. like steve and dustin on those train tracks with the fallen leaves all around them.... god. god the vibes are unparalleled. all of the halloween stuff also really contributes to the nostalgia st runs on yknow it makes you think about childhood and trick-or-treating and you kind of get transported like damn... i remember going to the rich neighborhoods to score the good candy..... idk i just think the whole thing is incredibly effective. 

“babysitter” steve

by sending nancy and jonathan off together, the show created a problem: what to do with steve? this problem pushed them to create the unconventional and unexpected duo of steve and dustin, and the world is so much brighter for it. seriously though we all know steve and dustin are great i don’t need to argue that point. all i’ll add is that i think allowing steve to grow in this way, serving as a mentor figure and becoming genuine friends with someone so unexpected, really took the originality of his character to the next level. no longer content just to defy his archetype, in s2 steve begins branching out in ways that never would have been considered in s1, creating an incredibly complex and interesting person from the sort of character that most shows would have simply written out or killed off for convenience’s sake. and it works and steve and dustin are such a joy to watch and i love them. <3

the lucas/max plot

so first of all max mayfield is the most perfect baby girl on god’s green earth and idk what i would do without her but anyway. i think lumax is the best romantic relationship in the show and not just because they’re the only ones with like an age-appropriate approach to the whole thing. it’s also because their relationship accomplishes more than just putting the two of them in a relationship!! lucas and max spending time together motivates billy to do his evil shit, providing more conflict in the narrative, and it also helps establish max as part of the group in a relatively natural way while giving both her and lucas a great subplot. lucas (and dustin) has a crush on the new girl, they start spending some time together, and lucas ends up needing to decide whether he’ll keep the secret of the upside down and lose her, or risk both of their lives by telling her the truth. that’s a pretty big, character-defining decision that he gets to make!! max has to choose whether to trust this boy she barely knows and endanger herself, or to walk away and stay safe, yet another great character-defining choice that also contributes to the sense we get as an audience of max as somebody who’s incredibly lonely and desperate for love and connection. this post is way too long already and i have a ton more to say so i’ll stop now but yeah i think lumax really Works in the show without ever distracting or detracting from the overall plot and narrative in the way that some other ships (coughjancycough) often do.

balance between the normal and abnormal

s2 i think did a pretty solid job of melding daily life with more fantastical sci-fi horror elements. i enjoyed seeing so much of the kids at school in the first few episodes!! you really get a strong sense of where they’re at in life, what their daily lives are like, and you get a sort of gradual shift into madness that makes everything feel more grounded than i think it would if they had just leapt straight into the horror shit, yknow? 

the el and hopper dynamic

go back and rewatch s2 and tell me that’s not one of the most moving portrayals of parenthood and trauma and growing up that you’ve ever seen. you can’t. or well you can but i won’t listen. i really can’t imagine stranger things without el and hopper’s relationship, and it’s my absolute favorite part of s2. their whole dynamic is so beautiful and complex, and gives them each amazing personal arcs in addition! the black hole scene is literally one of the show’s greatest moments of all time. any given scene between the two of them in s2 is just guaranteed to be heartwarming as well as heartbreaking, and i think that makes for an incredible show.

weaknesses

flashbacks

okay this applies to Every season they All have too many flashbacks but in s2 specifically... please stop showing me shit from season one. i watched it. i know what happened. you don’t need to spoon feed everything to me!! flashbacks can be a really helpful way of delivering information to an audience, but st has a bad habit of not only being kinda demeaning in how often they flash back to shit that the audience already knows, but they also have a bad habit of using flashbacks almost as a crutch to avoid having to deliver information subtly and naturally. 

you know i gotta say it... the lost sister

this is so sad. the lost sister really is like a great concept for an st episode, and i’m not mad about the idea of st taking a break from the normal action to focus on one story for a full episode, but the execution of it was just dreadful. kali and her crew feel very over-the-top and stereotypical, and its placement in the season totally kills the tension and excitement that was built in “the spy.” 

i think the lost sister honestly could have gone over far better, even with the stereotypical fake-feeling gang kali has, if they had just swapped it with “the spy” like... ok, the end of episode five has el setting off to find kali and will collapsing on the ground seizing. right? imagine if, instead of immediately following will to the lab, we’d followed el. we don’t know what’s happening with will, but it’s a very simple cliffhanger that leaves us on edge without making us feel cheated by the show cutting away. we follow el on her little journey, everything happens much the same as canon, and then at the end, el sees hopper in scrubs. she sees mike, screaming, sees that they’re both in danger. holy shit!!! what the fuck!!! what’s happened since we left will seizing on the ground??? we feel el’s fear and confusion. she decides to go home. and then... boom. “the lost sister” is over. now, we rewind, right back to will seizing on the ground, and “the spy” commences. we learn how they got into the danger that el saw in the end of “the lost sister,” and we sit on the edge of our seats all through “the spy” and “the mind flayer,” KNOWING that el is on her way back to save them but not knowing when she’ll arrive!! idk i don’t think that would have necessarily saved lost sister but i think it may have alleviated some of the issues that i and many others have with it, timing-wise.

the nancy/jonathan sidequest

once again, the idea of nancy going off on her own little mission to find justice for barb after s1 is like. amazing. genuinely i love that plot for her and i can’t imagine anything better for her to have focused on in s2. unfortunately though i think her and jonathan’s little trip to see murray was just kind of... lame. the whole thing just felt like an excuse to get the two of them alone together, yknow? which is fine i guess people contrive all sorts of situations to get characters alone together for romance reasons but in this case i think it just really doesn’t work for me because of what it’s juxtaposed with. like, will is POSSESSED, and jonathan is just off on a mini road trip and sleeping with his bestie, and jonathan never seems to communicate to joyce/will that he left town, and joyce never like... thinks to tell him that will is like sick and fucked up and they’re looking at him in the lab??? like it’s so weird i know joyce always forgets about jonathan when shit’s happening with will but jfc you’d think at some point in that like... 72-ish-hour period where jonathan was out of town she would have thought about him. like at least once. maybe i’m forgetting something and she mentioned him sometime and i missed it but even still, i hate the juxtaposition of nancy and jonathan just like cheers-ing at murray’s place and sleeping together and whatnot while everyone else is dealing with possession or trying to hunt down dart yknow? it feels really boring in comparison and i think it could have been done far better. like it was SO insanely easy for them to get into the lab and get an admission of guilt and escape with it!! i think it might have been a lot more engaging if maybe someone from the lab tailed them to murray’s place and they had to like lose the tail and race to get the recording out to as many news outlets as possible before they got caught, or something like that. the tension in their plotline is completely resolved in episode four!! episodes five and six are just them screwing around and addressing envelopes. while there were a lot of strong ideas in this plotline (i really enjoy nancy going out of her way to get justice, and the fact that they have to water down the story to make it believable), i just think the focus on nancy and jonathan getting together hindered it a lot without adding a ton to the plot or their individual characters.

season 3

strengths

starcourt mall as a setting

while i don’t think the mall was utilized quite to its full potential (something i could make a separate post about if anyone’s interested), i do think that starcourt was a genius addition to the series. i’ve said this before, but building a new mall is a literal Perfect in-universe justification for a significant leap forward in fashion and aesthetics, and it provides a great location for characters to just... be characters. idk how else to articulate this i just think that the mall is a great setting to let people interact with each other and to bring people together who may not have been otherwise (i.e. scoops troop). not to mention how sick it was to see the mall get wrecked toward the end kdjncdkm like they were able to do so much more with the mall in terms of like The Finale than they could with just the byers house or the cabin or the school or even the lab. i love all the back tunnels they run through it’s such a fun like acknowledgement of how this glitzy eighties mall is just a real place where employees get shipments and take out the trash and shit idk it’s all about the perfect facade and what’s hidden what’s underneath what’s hiding in plain sight etc etc i’m just saying words now. anyway. 

willingness to experiment and go against expectations

gay robin. neon aesthetics. giant fucking meat monster. i know some people hate both the neon and the meat monster but i personally think they were kind of amazing and like. yknow regardless of personal tastes i think it’s impossible to deny that s3 had a lot of incredible visuals, and they’re all visuals that just wouldn’t have been possible if the show were too afraid to stray from its s1 aesthetic. robin being canonically gay (and her resulting friendship with steve) and the season’s striking visuals are two things that most everyone (besides like homophobes skjncdknm) can agree were great, right? and they were both departures from where the show began and what we all expected!! so yeah i think while some of the experimentation in s3 wasn’t ideal it was also that experimentation that allowed for some of the season’s strongest elements to come about.

the hospital sequence (and the season’s action/horror scenes in general)

this one is fairly self-explanatory. while they may have underutilized the “body snatching” element of the season, the hospital sequence with nancy and jonathan fighting off their possessed bosses did an amazing job of building tension and creating a genuine sense of really intense and personal danger.

in general i think that s3 melded action and horror rather well, particularly in the sauna test, the hospital, and when the mindflayer busts through the roof of hop’s cabin. horror can come from many things, and in this case, st elicited horror largely from the feeling of helplessness, and it was really effective for me personally. i think it worked better for me than s1′s brand of horror because it doesn’t rely so much on a lack of knowledge or a sense of suspense that inevitable disappears upon a second viewing.

the body horror we got in s3 was also really fun! that’s it i just think all the blood and guts and slime were fun and i would like more of them. once again, the impacts of body horror are less dependent upon the viewer being in the dark or unsure as to what’s happening, and as such i think it tends to be a little more effective at eliciting reaction in the long term.

timing and mechanics of the battle of starcourt/finale

i think the battle of starcourt is just fucking awesome, and beyond that personal opinion, i think it’s the most high-stakes and intense finale of all three seasons, and this is for two main reasons! 1. el is out of commission, and 2. (almost) everyone is in the same cental location. this means that (almost) everyone is in danger all at once, and they are all working together at the same time to fight the same threat. s1/s2 have their groups more fragmented for the finales, and while i understand why in each case and i wouldn’t call either season’s finale necessarily weak, i do think the centralized nature of the s3 finale just Works on another level. in s1 and s2, large segments of the cast are already perfectly safe by the time el dispatches the primary threat. in s3, however, everybody save for dustin and erica is still in danger up until the last moment, and el is seemingly (you can def debate how much power she still had in her when she peeked into billy’s mind and whether the memory broke the mindflayer’s hold on him or if she was actually controlling him to some degree) completely vulnerable. this increases the tension and raises the stakes, making the finale a real crescendo to fortissimo as opposed to a series of little mezzo forte moments. i hope everyone reading this knows music idk how else to phrase that my brain is stupid.

emphasis on friendship and adolescence (but in a different way than s1/2)

this is definitely a controversial one but i think that s3 really did like... show a side of friendship that had been more or less unexplored thus far in the show. el and max were amazing, and i think it’s really nice that we got an opportunity to see the kids have some growing pains as well as see them support each other through Normal Adolescent Stuff like boyfriends and breakups instead of just like. death and trauma. this is maybe just a personal preference, but i think it can be really enlightening and provide a lot of depth when you get to see how characters respond to normal everyday conflict and not just how they respond to giant world-ending conflict!! letting el use her powers for goofy teenage shit like spying on boys and messing with mean girls at the mall is not only fun for her and the audience, but it also really emphasizes just how much those powers are a part of el, making it that much more devastating when she loses them at the end of the season. 

weaknesses

tonal dissonance

so this is like. obvious. but it must still be said! i won’t go on and on about it since we all know this so i’ll try to like talk about it from an angle people don’t usually? anyway. it seems to me like they were maybe a little worried about s3 being too dark. while the choice to really lean into humor was definitely driven by the sorts of eighties teen films from which s3 drew inspiration (like fast times at ridgemont high), i think it was also done in an attempt to alleviate the more troubling implications of some events in the season, particularly the russian bunker plot. like, yeah, st can be incredibly dark, but if they’d played the whole “children being stuck inside of a foreign military base, tied up, tortured, and drugged” thing completely straight without the humorous elements that exist in canon, it had the potential to be like... disturbing on a new level. steve and robin don’t have powers like el yknow their kidnapping/torture doesn’t have any sci-fi elements to sorta soften the blow. they’re just innocent teenagers being brutalized and traumatized by grown men. so anyway yeah i think maybe the writers were concerned about this storyline coming off as too dark and they wanted it to be a little more whimsical but they ended up pushing way too hard in that direction and creating extreme dissonance at times. this goes for joyce/hopper/murray/alexei too, but to a lesser extent. i think the ridiculousness in that group felt a lot more like... realistic. but still. 

newspaper plot

once again i feel like i don’t even need to say this skjdncmn we all know it was insane how the show basically ended up delivering the message “while misogyny is a serious problem poverty and classism are not” and i’ve said it on this blog a million times so i don’t need to repeat myself. i’ll focus on another weak point of this plot: the fact that it completely separates nancy and jonathan from everyone else. once again, the show’s preoccupation with j/ancy held them back! like... can you imagine a version of s3 where nancy and jonathan both worked in the mall? i have a lot of ideas about this possible au and like how the plot could play out differently if they worked in the mall but first of all it’s just more realistic, second of all it further utilizes the mall as a central setting, and third of all, it would bring everyone together. as it is in canon, nancy and jonathan were unnecessarily isolated from the rest of the group, and this isolation was detrimental to both of their characters. like, they only ever get to interact with each other! if they’d gotten summer jobs in the mall, they could have had more interactions with the kids/steve/robin, and they absolutely still could have had a similar argument! maybe in this case, nancy notices the rat thing (or something else odd) herself when taking out the trash behind the mall, and she wants jonathan to ditch work with her to check it out bc she thinks it may be related to the lab. jonathan doesn’t want to ditch work because he needs his job, nancy argues that they’re working shitty mall jobs anyway and who cares if they get fired, and we get more or less the same thing as s3 without the cartoonishly over-the-top misogyny. i mean honestly i think the rat shit could have been cut entirely it didn’t rly... accomplish much of anything. in my opinion. like imagine s3 without the rat plot you literally would not be missing anything except it would be more surprising when the dudes melted into goo at the hospital. so yeah i think it would have been better if nancy and jonathan had jobs at the mall, weren’t isolated from everybody else, and were maybe absorbed into the party’s plot or the scoops troop’s plot from very early on, allowing them to interact with more characters and have a less... dumb.... plot. like god splitting up nancy and jonathan between the party/scoops troop would have been So Much better i just. sdkjcnksdmn anyway yeah.

briefness of group reunion/separation of groups

remember in s2 at the beginning of “the gate,” where mike and hopper had a confrontation and max and el met for the first time and el hugged everyone and steve and nancy had their sad little moment together outside... where’s that energy? obviously the s2 reunion wasn’t that long either, but it made space for some significant emotional moments to take place. s3′s reunion had some hopper/el/mike resolution, but besides that... there was nothing, really. i just think that the whole group getting together in s3 was SO exciting and powerful the way they did it (with both the scoops troop and the adults having their own Big Moment reconnecting with team griswold family), but the emotional potential was more or less squandered. 

i also think in s3 at times they were really stretching to keep everybody separated even though it made no sense. and like... in s1 the separation worked bc nobody else knew that (x group) was experiencing weird shit too, and beyond that, each group (as i mentioned in the s1 section) was sort of operating within their own genre and bringing something unique to the season. they’ve stopped doing that though! now, the groups aren’t separate bc each plot is tonally/structurally different, the groups are just separate bc... they need to be, because it’s a big ensemble cast and you can’t just have them all be together for a whole season or it would be way too difficult to coordinate things and keep the show dynamic. all this is to say that i’m excited for s4 because the location differences make it so there’s a Reason for each plot to be separate at the beginning, and i think that’ll work better.

general ridiculousness

i dont mean like i think it’s bad that they made jokes this is just me lumping in all the dumb shit like hopper not worrying about el and not wanting to check on the kids, him and joyce bickering long after they both know they and their children are in danger, max seemingly forgetting that billy is a racist abuser, etc etc. i think many of these are just a symptom of the show 1. trying desperately to keep the groups split up a certain way even though it may not make any sense, and 2. trying to fit into a certain genre/trope mold when their actual characters are more complex than the tropes they’re imitating. this is so fucking long already i am not gonna elaborate further rn but i trust u all know what i mean.

soooo... yeah, that’s about all! i mean it’s not all there are definitely many more things i could talk about and i know i focused sorta disproportionately on the teens which is my bad :/ but i’m done for now. thank you for asking, and apologies for the delay in responding!! i’m sure some people reading (if anyone read this far) will disagree with some of what i’ve said and that’s alright like i’m not The Authority on st or anything i’m just trying to talk about like my own thoughts yknow? so yeah luv u all i hope someone enjoyed reading this!!

[doublel27]

WIP Tag Game  RULES: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have WIPS. I was tagged by some very lovely people who I’m a big fan of today. Expect some asks in your box now that I’m done with work: @sunshinestrand  @reyescarlos  @reyesstrand @ravens-words and @tailoredshirt  Strand Reyes Family Dinner 3x13 Coda

Future Kid Fic - Teen Party Bodyguard AU Canon Divergence Judd/Grace 5+1 Loft Madney AU Judd Ryder: Girl Dad” Bullies Annuit Carlos and the PTA  Coffee Shop AU Bookshop AU Marry You TK Supports Carlos Carlos and Katie Flash Fics 1 Flash Fics 2 Judd Mateo Carlos Hospital Apraxia Issue Chris and Bobby Cook 5 Stages of Grief + Relief Nancy TK Thing 

Tagging (As always with zero pressure to do any of this, especially if you’re not writing): @maxbegone @petalwritesx @djdangerlove @marjansmarwani @morganaspendragonss @detective-giggles @lire-casander @beautifulhigh @strandnreyes @lilythesilly @blackandwhiteandrose @kiras-sunshine @howtosingit @tkstrrand @alidravana @breannacasey @futurestense @noxsoulmate and literally any one else who wants to play because this is 22 WIPs for 911verse and technically the flash fics have a bunch of little things in them...so, if you write and you follow me consider yourself tagged.