#I have a lot of thoughts about molly in general but her relationship with her faith is one of the big things

[river-of-wine]

If it’s meant to be, then it will be

[sammygems]

Things I Have Noticed/Remembered from my MCDiaries rewatch

I will be updating this as I continue my rewatch, currently everything listed is out of order, cause I've started writing this as I am on episode 64 of season 1 and I don't feel like fixing it to be in order, so sorry!

What the fuck was Garroth's "plan" he mentions to Zenix in the first episode 😭

Zenix seems to be younger then Garroth in Diaries, considering the way that Garroth talks about him, but I think in MyStreet, Zenix is either the same age or slightly older then Garroth, so far this is like, the only obvious age difference between the series (besides Travis and everyone else of course)

I forgot how entertaining Brendan's character is, he's far less annoying then I remembered

ZANE AS AN ACTUAL BAD PERSON, I LOVE HIM

I love Vylad, but I legit forgot how much he was in Diaries season 1, I thought he was in it far less

Currently at the stage of Diaries where there is no lgbt+ people, i'm very disappointed by this (we haven't even reached the queerbaiting)

KC's character is....not as bad (racist) as I was expecting, still not great though. I'm choosing to believe that KC is from Tu'lu and Maid Cafes are a thing there, and "Kawaii~Chan" is just a stage name for her work.

Y'all know how Cadenza went missing and she was actually turned into a chicken? Yeah, the way Hayden, Castor, & Laurance talk about her to Aphmau makes it sound like Cadenza is a small child. But then it turns out she's the same age, if not older, then Laurance and Aphmau.

Aphmau should've just made Joh and Hayden lovers, I'm so serious, it would make the whole Cadenza and Laurance being "close like siblings" in season 1 to I think actually being called as siblings in season 2 and in MyStreet a lot easier to understand and make a lot more sense.

Why does Kenmur have like, some sort of romance with all the girls from Meteli??? He was engaged to Sasha and is stated to have feelings for Cadenza.

I love when the episodes open from Sasha's POV, and she goes and talks to Gene and there's just no voices. I love having to pause to read what they're saying. (this point is sarcasm)

The way literally everyone reacted to learning Laurance was blind was....icky. Like, I understand Cadenza and Aphmau reacting as like "we need to find a way to bring his sight back", but the fact that it was literally EVERYONE who decided he needed to get his sight back was so weird.

I don't mind Laurance ACTUALLY getting his sight back, but I wish it was done differently. Like, personally, I'd have him like, have to wash his face with the water of the fountain of Lady Irene.

Emma & Corey, Dale & Molly, and Logan & Donna are very sweet couples.

After Zoey and KC were able to turn Cadenza back to her human form, Zoey mentions that she "recognizes Cadenza from somewhere", but I don't think this goes anywhere???? I'm assuming it was supposed to hint at like, Cadenza's backstory.

ngl, I kinda wish we got more of Zane and Kiki's relationship, I really wanna know what side of Zane Kiki actually saw.

Anyway, Kiki is currently expecting.

Nicole (my beloved) has showed up. I've decided I won't question the logic behind her iron fists being able to break bedrock, and instead say that her referencing her iron fists just made me think of Ace from One Piece and Natsu & Gajeel from Fairy Tail.

I COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT NICOLE'S FOX, ROXY, AND ABOUT THE WYVERNS IN GENERAL 😭

I need to mention that in one episode (before Aphmau went to Scaleswind and learned about Lady Irene), Garroth says to Aphmau "by the seven", which I think she was hurt, but the use of "by the seven" is similar to how the same phase would be used in Game of Thrones or to how irl lots of people say "oh my god", so I'm really wondering if there were originally supposed to be 7 Divine Warriors instead of 6.

The way when Aphmau found Levin and decided to keep him and Garroth IMMEDIATLY decided he would be Levin's father figure.

The way when Laurance found out that Aphmau had a kid, his response was to play with Levin and say to Aphmau "you didn't tell me you had this little buddle of joy/energy".

That's all for now, I'll like, update when I have more to add.

[stevesaxetogrind]

Truly those calling it “bad writing” that Robin and Vickie share similarities doesn’t make sense. She’s not been given enough time to be more than just a love interest, but we do have some info about her:

1. Molly Ringwald inspo, giving us shorthand about being kind of a quirky gal. Hat! Visually, she’s similar to Robin, but that’s not a bad thing because literally similar interests draw people together. She is also skirts vs Robin’s trousers. Femme/Soft Butch! You’re telling me Vickie would wear a tie? Lies.

2. Likes goofy jokes, namely Steve’s joke about Muppet Tammy. Which, Robin doesn’t laugh at Steve’s jokes that much- she dismisses them, but it means Vickie has a bit of a jocular sense of humour.

3. Vickie also likes Steve’s brand of movies, not Robin’s- which is pretty fucking funny. Again, this is not making Vickie similar to Robin, but to things shared with Robin’s Platonic Soulmate. Like, bro movies? Stupid lil jokes? I predict Steve and Vickie having a dad joke competition next season & torturing Robin with how corny they are. People like to talk about the similarities to Robin, but not the similarities to Steve! That’s kind of clever drawing Vickie closer to one of Robin’s favourite people, at least superficially.

4. Talks a lot when one on one, but Vickie wasn’t nervous/flustered in the band scene, so we can infer in more crowded spaces she acts differently/subdued - as like she was in the War Zone. This is unlike Robin who does actually ramble in group scenes, like freaking out over the thing in El’s leg, the rabies bit, or generally a lot of Season 4 where she looses her “cool girl” archetype from Season 3 in favour of chaos. Vickie seems more like she would quietly panic, as opposed to Eddie, Argyle, and Steve who all loudly go WHAT THE FUCK. Which is going to be interesting to see as the whole town is now thrown into an open gate downtown Hawkins probably releasing demogorgons every other hour like it’s Pacific Rim up in this bitch.

5. Meaningful look with Robin in the War Zone- not “oh hi band friend!” A scared/caught/dismayed look that she was there. So there is a connection, and she broke up with her boyfriend after that connection. Anything more is speculation, but the way she wasn’t looking at Robin when she gave the “he doesn’t like Fast Times” reason lets the audience draw points and maybe she felt trapped? Like it was just an excuse to pursue a different interest? Obviously because music is playing indicating a romantic relationship. We don’t have much to compare Robin with on this one, but around Keith she still had more confidence and bullshittery trying to convince him to hire Steve when Keith assumed they were a thing.

6. Vickie also doesn’t seem jealous. Robin is jealous. She was livid at Steve for being the object of Tammy’s affections, but Vickie hasn’t seemed to even look twice at Steve- even as Robin looked over at him while she and Vickie had her last scene.

For such a short amount of time in the season, I think that we have a good foundation for similarities and differences to Robin. Also, once again, it’s not a crime to avoid “opposites attract” tropes. Having similarities is good! Like, the amount of couples I know that are essentially the same archetype of queer person is not even close to zero. Especially when it comes to older queer couples who got together in the 80s/90s, they kind of morph into being one granola bar of a human being. Kind of similar with straight people when they genuinely like one another.

I hope they flesh Vickie out, but like, we’ve gotten a similar amount of screen time for Mr Clarke but no one is mad he is “one dimensional” when he is just, some exposition science guy. He’s a stock and standard teacher, has a girlfriend, and kind of goes along with explaining shit without questioning why a lot. But folks love Mr Clarke. Is it because Mr Clarke isn’t getting in the way of your ship?

I never thought I would see the day there were some true blue f/f ship wars, but bruh, Robin’s love life isn’t an A Plot so give the writers some slack. They’re human, not the devil. None of you were gleeks and it shows so fucking much. None of you lived through “angry lesbians on the internet don’t want me dating you”.

Personally I’m looking forward to Robin and Vickie getting together and maybe hopefully kicking monster butt together- or at least, Robin getting a nice little badass moment defending her gal.

[bcofl0ve]

okay okay gather round sorry this is coming later than i said it would, law school brain. but. at long last, bottoms review time with mollie except this time with lots and lots of spoilers.

i think we covered my general “good movie very funny” thoughts in the spoiler free review, which you can read here so this is gonna be more me info dumping about my thoughts on the plot. and the core of those is that….

PJ IS A LITTLE BITCH!!! i wanted to like her in a “i support women's wrongs” way truly i did but she’s just. an asshole! not all annoying female characters are redeemable, and she is one! that’s not to say her character *existing* annoyed me, i think her being the anti-thesis to josie is an important facet of the movie and the whole “lie falling apart” plot line needed a bad guy so. she was a necessary evil.

that said though gahhhh. i wanted to wring her little neck and ik a satirical movie is not meant to be a realistic example of friendship. i do..but i still think josie was wayyy too forgiving. josie deserves better friends!!! and i fear in a world where these characters are real/the story continues pj needs to idk go to therapy or she’s gonna make josie miserable for being happy with isabel while she’s not in a relationship. (and that is to say she should not be with hazel either! she needs therapy not a girlfriend!)

buttttt but but all that to say i do think rachel did a great job playing her. playing unlikeable characters in a way that makes them unlikeable without a viewer wishing they weren't in the movie at all is a skill set! her being funny and me wanting to punt her across the room are very much thoughts that co-exisit!

moving semi away from pj…the reveal of brittany being straight threw me for such a loop that the next like- 5 minutes of the movie went right over my headkjfkj not to be an insane person but i was gen a little disappointed!! let kaia play a gay character in something that isn’t ahs!! i will wait!!! that said though she actually pulls off the whole “straight girl that isn’t gay just likes gay porn” stereotype very well and made me laugh. i still loved brittany to bits and pieces…heterosexual and all.

josie and isabel. josie and isabel. wahhhhh. wahhhh. my darling girls. when josie almost told her they were lying about juvie but went back on it my heart broke a little bc you could tell she felt guilty and i just ,</3..and yeah she did choose to keep up with the lie when she realized she was getting what she wanted (isabel) but i think the film did a good job of showing how her keeping up with it was different from pj keeping up with it. pj kept up with the lie bc she was on a power trip. josie kept up with it because she didn’t want to lose isabel/lose finally having a geuine connection with a girl/and felt like she had in a way gotten her away from jeff so as long as they kept the lie up she could keep looking out for her.

which is still well, manipulative. lying is bad! but idk i had much more sympathy for her than i did pj. and think when it all came out that josie was actually sorry, whereas pj was only sorry they got caught/still bitter britt was straight. 

those are my main thoughts on it all, but some side bars: lovedd hazel. ruby is great and i am not really a fantasy show person, just not my genre but now i kinda wanna check out willow just to see more of her. the plot twist with jeff actually fucking her mom was soooo early 2000s teen movie and i ate it up. as was the fact that outside of that no one seemed to have parents at all LOL your kids are coming home with black eyes and you don’t have some questions?!?! miles fowler was also really great and tbh i liked him as much as i did kaia in it. esp his flip phone. especially his flip phone. josie's monolouge about marrying a pastor and lavender marriages is what made me start choking on my shake. right up my humor ally as someone who grew up evangelical, and i imagine ayo found it funny for the same reason! was expecting the big josie/isabel hookup scene to be more vulgar less *fade to black* but this is a movie about high schoolers so actually that's a good thing i think?? i accidentally read a spoiler explaining the final killing spree scene months ago and really wish i didn’t bc it would’ve been fun to experience that going in blind.

another side bar to close this out. i *loved* this movie. 5 stars in my book i can’t wait to rewatch it over and over when it’s on prime. but i…kinda disagree with all the tweets saying it’s the next mean girls/heathers/etc cult classic. not because i don’t think it’s good! but because i think comedy film criticism is turning into everything having to be iconic or a future cult classic to be praised? a funny movie can just be a funny movie! it doesn’t have to be the next heathers for you to like it and praise it! does that make sense?

if you read this all the way through congrats! go gay people! go losers!

hello! If you’re reading this because you’re scrolling through the bottoms tag my name is mollie (-: this is primarily a gossip blog for austin butler and his girlfriend kaia gerber (brittany!), both folks i’m big fans of- with a side of elvis presley/presley family fan posting. but i’ve been ‘covering’ bottoms quite a bit so do feel free to come hang out and send anons if you wanna chat! <3 and i’m going to start posting anons containing spoilers on sunday night- so if i don’t answer something right away that’s why.

[cats-of-eden-valley]

GIVE! ME! BIOLOGY! DETAILS!

How long do the cats of Eden live? What's their average litter size (vs kitten survival rate)? At what age are they considered mature?

Are the pride-specific traits visible from birth or do they develop with time? How many generations before they dilute out of a gene pool (lookin at Illegal Babies here), or is it a magic thing?

Can they roar? Purr? How did the tool use (/partial bipedalism) evolve?

• The cats can live into their twenties, and on exceptional occasions up to around 30, but that's about the upper limit. Adulthood is at 2.5 for mollies, 3 for toms (because uh. they actually need to survive their first season away with the coalitions). 6-9 is usually the age a molly has their first litter, 10-14 their second, and a cat can retire at 18 ("9 waking years, 9 sleeping years")

• Twins are THE most common, but triplets are Known To Occur. Four kittens is quite unusual. Single is a curiosity. Most mollies lose at least 1-2 kittens before adulthood across two litters, but obvs the more kittens you lose, the more kittens you have, and the more kittens you have, the more kittens you lose.

• Pride specific traits are indeed visible from birth! They can only be inherited from the dam, but the sire can influence things around the main trait--like how Basil has scaling on her hips. For some mollies, choosing a mate means chosing a sire who might pass on a useful trait. Coldbank is big on this.

• Ever illegal relationship is different honestly. Sometimes you get caught, sometimes you don't. It's easier for the dam to pass unnoticed, and a theoretical sire would be reticent to bring outside offspring into the pride for this very reason. It's honestly kind of core to the rule, that mollies are less easily caught and punished (ie, this rule largely exists to control toms more)

• There is kind of a bit of a magic aspect to the traits, though, insofar as how they came about and why they'reso vaired. Lots of stories about falling in love outside your species and bearing unusual kittens, or pioneering mollies having kittens with some powerful creature, or toms getting a little wild while out and about. It's in that wibbly area between fact and fiction.

• They can't roar, but they can purr!

• Hhh honestly I haven't really decided on any evolutionary basis yet. u.u I have some thoughts where maybe dexterous paws adapted for climbing (with some backwards turning ankles to go with it) but that's about it. Bipedalism I think is a combination of learned behaviour (wow, if i learn to balance on two legs, i can carry things better??) and then the anatomy has to either catch up or suffer the consequences lol

[critter-genfic-events]

Parents: A Critical Role Gen-fic Rec List

Hey everyone! This week we have eighteen incredible fics that are all about parents and other parental figures. Recs under the cut, and as always, remember to comment or kudos if you liked them!

they really love their shades of gray by grayintogreen (1619,General) Warnings: Mentions of tiefling racism, brief mentions of Kashaw's traumatic relationship with Vesh, brief mention of Kashaw's forced marriage to Vesh Pairings: Percy/Vex'ahlia (background), Zahra/Kashaw (background)

When Gwendolyn is born, Kashaw reflects on being a father of a tiefling.

Reccer says: Kashaw's voice is extremely well done, and the little slices of him reflecting on what it's like to be a not-tiefling father of a tiefling in a world where that generally signifies something about him as a person is well done without being overdone.

Benediction by Sandtalon (4961,General) Warnings: None Pairings:

A deep look into Cerrit's quest to return home after the events of EXU Calamity as well as Maya's thoughts as she waits for him to come home.

Reccer says: This fic is beautifully characterized on both Cerrit and Maya's ends and takes a very complex, emotional look at the beginning of the Calamity. Cerrit's determination to reach his family even when he's pushing himself too hard is just so viscerally beautiful and the ending is a happy gutpunch on so many levels.

ridged scars bandaged with butterfly kisses by Ford_Ye_Fiji (3220,General) Warnings: None Pairings:

A look at Percy through the eyes of his youngest child.

Reccer says: This is probably my favorite Gwendolyn and Percy fic- it's a sweet look at Percy as a dad getting schooled by a precocious child.

Sing the Sky to Sleep by commoncomitatus (3105,General) Warnings: Pairings:

A character study of Marion Lavorre following the birth of her daughter.

Reccer says: This fic is absolute poetry from start to finish and handles the messy, complicated emotions of motherhood so well. Marion is beautifully characterized and it's equal parts sweet and sad.

A Fate Stitched by Angel Ascending (896,Teen) Warnings: Temporary Child Death Pairings:

A look into just how much work Nana Morri might have put into protecting Fearne.

Reccer says: This fic took an offhand line in EXU and turned it into a beautiful- if not a bit creepy- look into Nana Morri protecting Fearne, no matter how hard she makes it on her.

Bleeding Heart by steelneena (2321,Teen) Warnings: None Pairings:

Gustav Fletching adopts a stray into his circus.

Reccer says: I love stories that deal with Gustav's paternal relationship with Molly and this is one of the best of the lot. It blends Gustav's bleeding heart with his pragmatism very well.

some ever after no one could predict by QueenWithABeeThrone (15343,General) Warnings: None Pairings: Leofric Ermendrud/Una Ermendrud

Una goes on a journey to the Feywild in order to earn herself a happy ending. She gets some help from a familiar archfey.

Reccer says: This fic takes the idea of "Artagan as Caleb's fairy godfather" and runs with it. The characterization of Una is absolutely lovely and it makes you wish it was canon. It's so cute and fun.

Fearful Symmetry by seraphium (3151,Teen) Warnings: none Pairings: Keyleth & Vilya

In the aftermath of the Apogee Solstice, Keyleth is hurt and her mother waits at her bedside.

Reccer says: It seems extremely true to the complexities of their relationship and Keyleth as a character, as rough as it might be.

Storge, I Will Protect You by Professor_Rye (2135,General) Warnings: None Pairings: Percy/Vex, Vex & Syldor, Vex & Gwendolyn

Percy and Vex have a beautiful tiefling daughter and no one in Exandria is going to say anything bad about her, least of all her grandfather.

Reccer says: Really liked the big show of support from everyone

white orchids by quinn_of_aebradore (1561,Teen) Warnings: None Pairings: Essek & Marion Lavorre

Essek's crimes catch up with him, forcing him to flee his sinking ship and seek safety in the company of an old friend.

Reccer says: I adore any instance of Marion adopting Essek, and this does that wonderfully while also playing with a fun Pirate AU concept

The Ruby by Ceridawn (580,General) Warnings: None Pairings:

Marion Lavorre does not wield a blade, but she also doesn't need it to protect her daughter and her friends.

Reccer says: Always love when we get to see Marion Lavorre kick ass in her own way, and this fic captures that perfectly

Wild's Grandeur by Operafloozy (3741,Teen) Warnings: None Pairings: Caduceus Clay & Clay Family | Constance Clay & Vilya

For the first time in decades, the Clays could leave the Blooming Grove and celebrate Wild's Grandeur in the Savalirwood. Caduceus would rather stay at home. On necessary confrontations, being able to open the windows, and move on.

Reccer says: I really enjoy the more tense but still deeply meaningful depictions of family here. Of parents who mean well but still hurt their children, and of trying to pick up the pieces afterwards.

and the birds sing by celaenos (1604,General) Warnings: None Pairings: Keyleth & Vilya

Vilya returns to Zephrah.

Reccer says: It's extremely sweet and soft.

cabin fever by justlikeswitchblades (3032,General) Warnings: None Pairings: Fjord & Vandran

Fjord works, and meets Vandran

Reccer says: I liked it

and after the scripture (your mother beside me) by SaltCore (9531,Mature) Warnings: Major character death (he gets better) Pairings: Deirta Thelyss & Essek Thelyss, Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast

Essek dies. Deirta calls the Nein to Rosohna to mourn.

Reccer says: It's a very nuanced view of Deirta, and I love how the announcement at the beginning is handled.

in the times in between by jakia (8098,Teen) Warnings: miscarriage Pairings: Una Ermendrud & Caleb Widogast, Leofric Ermendrud & Caleb Widogast, background Shadowgast in the second half

Caleb Widogast travels back in time to save his parents. He runs into Una a few times when getting the timing right.

Reccer says: I love this version of Una, smart and kind and loving.

Worth It by TherapyBard (1085,Teen) Warnings: Discussion of Luc's death Pairings: Yeza Brenatto & Caleb Widogast, Yeza Brenatto & Luc Brenatto

Yeza and Caleb talk about guilt on the plane of fire

Reccer says: There's not much exploration of Yeza's feelings as a father in the fandom, it's nice to see something that gives Yeza space after Luc dies.

No One by That Name Lives Here Anymore by Operafloozy (13138,Teen) Warnings: None Pairings: None

A few years after faking his own death, Essek runs into his father in Uthodurn.

Reccer says: I liked it

If you liked this rec list, follow along for more! We'll be posting a new list with a new theme each Monday. And if you would like to make a rec yourself, feel free to reach out to @professor-rye to request access to the submission form! 

Next week, we'll be presenting gen fics focusing on Shapeshifting into Animals! Whether it be polymorph shenanigans or one of our favorite druids just having fun, we want it all!

[thegirlwhowrites642]

What are your thoughts on Ginny's relationship with her each brothers? (You can share your headcanons too)

(I know you are busy please answer this question when you have a free time no urgency here, your metas are worth the wait)

First of all, thank you <3

Now, let's get to the ask.

(Also, I found some very cool gifs so I gave an artistic twist to this analysis)

Bill starts to go to Hogwarts, and is therefore away from home nine months a year, not even a month after Ginny's birth. In a way, you could say that, just as Charlie, Bill is more of a glorified cousin than a sibling to Ginny.

Nevertheless, Ginny seems quite attached to him, and by the time she is fifteen, she has a realistic view of her brother.

In GoF, she defends his long hair against their mother, and she laughs at his antics with Charlie. In HBP, we all know how judgmental she is of Fleur because she doesn't think she really loves her brother, just like Molly, she is quite protective of him. Yet she is the only one that seems to understand clearly why Bill is attracted to the veela. Ron, a bit superficially, is simply focusing on Fleur's beauty, Molly views Bill as a down-to-earth guy and so thinks Fleur is not for him, but Ginny understands that Bill likes a bit of glamour in his life.

Also, Bill and Ginny are the two "cool" (and conventionally good-looking) siblings. I don't mean it as in my personal opinion, but for how they behave and are generally perceived by others. This is certainly a type of connection in their attitudes that makes it logical for Ginny to admire Bill. Yet, Ginny is already someone that keeps a lot of things to herself, and with what little time Bill spent at home since she was born, I have a hard time believing Bill would be someone Ginny confides in.

For my headcanons, I always imagined Ginny as Victore's godmother. A bit because I like the idea of Ginny and Fleur eventually becoming close, maybe Fleur taking the role of older sister Tonks seemed to have for her, but also because I simply liked the symmetry of Ginny being Victore's godmother while Harry was Teddy's godfather.

Also, I've always thought that despite being the oldest, he was pretty chill about Ginny dating. He just gives off those vibes, I don't really have anything to sustain it. It's just that he is in that spot where he's at home enough to not be too traumatized by Ginny growing up, but he's not around enough to have the fact that Ginny is dating constantly in front of him.

We don't really have any relevant interactions between Ginny and Charlie. Honestly, Charlie always seemed to me like a character that originally was meant to do more (the whole thing with the dragon in PS) but then just became a character JKR was forced to maintain despite having nothing for him to do.

Just like Bill, he is a bit of a glorified cousin more than a brother to Ginny. The difference between Bill and Charlie though is that Bill has a sense of responsibility towards his family that Charlie clearly doesn't have.

Ginny probably admired how unapologetic Charlie is about following his passion. She had to keep Quidditch hidden for so many years, and she probably hoped she would be able to confess her passion one day. Ginny, though, is also very family oriented, so it's not surprising that she seems to look up to Bill and not really to Charlie.

What may connect Ginny and Charlie is the fact that Ginny is an animals-lover and Charlie clearly loves dragons. It may be a direction Charlie pushed Ginny in when she was little.

I do headcanon that out of all the brothers it was Charlie the one that contributed the most to Ginny's admiration for the Boy Who Lived. He seems the one who would enjoy coming up with stories about a little hero defeating dragons and going on crazy adventures.

This one is really interesting.

Percy is Ginny's real older brother. I've talked before about how Percy is fundamentally the one with all the responsibility of the older brother but none of the glory, this happens due to his age gap of four years with Charlie.

Percy is the brother who notices there's something weird with Ginny during CoS, and at the start of PoA, we see them arriving at the station together. He definitely shows the typical approach of a significantly older brother who is used to taking care of his little sister.

Ginny, who in spirit out of all her brothers resembles the twins the most, finds Percy a bit... funny? Like when there's that scene with Penelope and Ginny shares a look with Harry, laughing together at her brother's behaviour. But, once again just like the twins, she also takes Percy's betrayal very strongly as we see from what happens at Christmas in '96. This is very telling of her personality for sure but also of how much Ginny cares about Percy. As much as they make fun of Percy, the twins are the closest in age to him and care a lot about him. Fred is the first to forgive Percy when he comes back.

This affection for her brother can be seen all the way back to the end of CoS, when Ginny asks the twins to not tease Percy after she revealed he has a girlfriend.

Ginny is not really someone who harbours resentment, especially towards the people she loves, so I have no doubt she didn't have any problem forgiving Percy after the war.

From the early books, I would have said that if there was a brother Ginny would go to for advice, it would have been Percy. But Percy does lose a lot of essential years of Ginny's life. He leaves home when she's a young teen and comes back to find a young woman. And I don't know if that's a gap that can ever be fully fixed. Harry does avoid Percy in the Epilogue, so I doubt he was often at the Potters.

Ginny's spiritual guides.

While she has far more compassion and general common sense than the twins, Ginny does resemble them a lot. We even know that when she's angry she sets her jaw in a way that highlights her physical resemblance to them.

She likes jokes like them and she uses her strong sense of humour to lighten up people just like the twins do. She also admires their determination.

Fred and George kind of take her under their wing in a way, but this is a vision created more by Ginny being younger than she actually ever acting as their helper. If you think about when she goes to them to solve Harry's problem with Sirius, it can be seen as them being her helpers. In short, there's simply more of a partnership. She definitely seems to spend a good amount of time with them. At Bill and Fleur's wedding, she even dances with their friend Lee, the implication being that they're quite familiar.

The twins are no better than Ron when it comes to Ginny dating. They do respect her strength far more than the rest of her family, though. They bring her with them at the Battle (even if I doubt there was any room for argument there) and they are the ones that tell Harry in OotP how powerful she is.

I've always imagined that after the war, it was Ginny the one who made George take the first step toward healing. After George, she was probably the one that missed Fred the most, if you can even compare that type of hurt anyway. Books in hand I would have said that Ginny became the closest sibling to George but Ron ended up working at the shop, so it was probably him eventually.

I'm really attached to Ron and Ginny's dynamic, probably because I have a brother close in age, and I think it should've had more space in the books. Honestly, someone can just give me the seven books from Ginny's pov?

With the obvious exception of the twins, Ron and Ginny are the closest Weasley siblings in age. And while Ginny is very attached to the twins, when it was only the four of them at home, it's pretty easy to imagine that Ron and Ginny ended up teaming up against the twins. Then they also spent two years alone at home. I'm pretty sure I've talked before about how Ginny going to Hogwarts and realising her brother had other friends and didn't want her around probably contributed to the insecurities that made her so vulnerable to the diary. Not that I'm saying it's Ron's fault, crazy Horcruxes aside, it's a pretty normal situation. [I'd like to specify that this is simply a deduction based on how these things work in real life]

Nevertheless, Ron is very attached to Ginny. While it's only Percy that acknowledges Ginny's weird behaviour in CoS, it's Ron that goes to save her (admittedly helped by the circumstances). We all know how protective he is of her when she starts dating and even when it comes to Harry, who is definitely Ron's chosen partner for Ginny, Ron doesn't let him get away with potentially hurting his sister. When Ron gets angry at Harry and Ginny's kiss in DH, he's not simply acting like an overprotective caveman, he's genuinely concerned for Ginny's feelings and he seems the only one in the family aware of what Ginny has gone through in the previous weeks. In the tent, when Ron and Harry have the fight, Ron throws to Harry's face that he doesn't care about Ginny. If I can give my personal interpretation, I've always thought that was mainly because, while Ron is happy with whatever keeps Ginny even a little safer, he feels deep down that if he had been in Harry's position he wouldn't have broken up with his girlfriend if he really loved her.

Ginny, while fully embodying her role as the annoying little sister (as she should), cares a lot about Ron. It's Ginny who is there for Ron when he embarrasses himself in front of Fleur. And I would argue that her making fun of Ron is actually a way to show affection (she imitates Harry too). We know that the twins' jabs at Ron don't help his self-esteem, but Ginny's ones are completely different because she is the younger one, the "power dynamic" allows Ginny to behave like that, it is expected of her. This is like: stuff you understand only if you have siblings.

Ron and Ginny seem to kind of lose each other a bit during the first books and then become close again during OotP, maybe helped by playing Quidditch together, which is actually a pretty normal progression for siblings close in age, but it might also have to do with Ginny simply being around Harry more and therefore him seeing more of Ron and Ginny together. By the end of OotP, Ron is praising his sister's hexing skills, which considering Ron's self-esteem issues is very valuable coming from him, and by suggesting that she should date Harry, he is pretty much inviting her into his group of friends, showing a lot of growth since PoA when he shoved her away.

When they fight with each other they absolutely go for the kill, there are no boundaries. And again, it's completely normal because they are siblings very close in age. Ginny and Ron's relationship is maybe the most unapologetically realistic one in the entirety of the books.

During the series, Ginny is definitely the sibling Ron is closer to. And they definitely remain close during the rest of their lives. Ginny marries Ron's best friend, Ginny is close with Hermione, and Ron is James' godfather. But Ron goes to work with George so he eventually probably becomes closer to him.

For my headcanons, well... it's actually quite supported by canon, but Ginny is canonically excellent at doing impressions, and when they are at Malfoy Manor, a super underpressure Ron imitates Wormtail's voice, so I like to imagine that there's a story there about some childhood game.

[ballonleaparadise]

A Review of Pokemon Horizons Ep. 1-12

We are (as I'm writing this) a dozen episodes into the new pokemon anime, so I thought it would be a good time to make a review. When it was first announced that Ash was being retired as the main character, I was unsure how the anime would continue. After 25 years of Ash Ketchum, it must have been a difficult decision for the writers to replace him. However, Pokemon Horizons has proven to be a breath of fresh air, and I'm loving it so far. *Major spoilers ahead for eps 1-12*

I'm going to start with Liko. Firstly, I'm glad that the writers did not make her a clone of Ash. On the contrary, she has a personality that is very distinct from Ash's daring and bold character. She is shy, and finds it difficult to approach others. It's refreshing to watch pokemon from the perspective of a more introspective character. However, the main reason why I like Liko is due to the way in which she has been handled. She fills in for the narrator, which gives us a glimpse into her inner thoughts and feelings. This makes her relatable, as it shows us as an audience what Liko thinks versus what she says out loud. Finally, Sprigatito is the perfect partner pokemon for Liko. They are both reserved, wary and a little reckless. While anipoke feels weird without Ash, I think Liko has a lot of potential, and I'm looking forward to seeing how she develops.

Moving on to Roy, I also really like his characterisation. He's more similar to Ash in terms of his enthusiasm, and his compassion for pokemon. However, he has his own unique traits, including his curiosity about the ancient explorer and his friendship with Fuecoco. Speaking of Fuecoco, I love this little guy and his comedic moments. All of the pokemon in the main cast have individual personalities, and I'm here for it. In addition, I really like Roy's relationship with his grandfather, who appears to have had a significant influence on both him and Friede. In terms of Roy's goal, I'm excited to see where his pursuit of Rayquaza goes. The latest episode gave us more information about the ancient explorer, so it'll be interesting how the story progresses.

Next, I have to touch on the other crew members of the Rising Volt Tacklers. Friede is a loveable dork who just happens to be a professor. Orla is best girl and I can't wait to see more of her. Murdock, Mollie, Ludlow and Dot are also interesting characters. Dot is slowly warming to Liko and Roy, which is nice to see. To add, I have to mention Mollie's backstory in episode 11. Although I thought there was something to the nurse Joy theory, I never expected it to be confirmed true- so this episode proved me wrong lol. I like how Mollie subverts the traditional role of working in a pokemon centre by helping injured pokemon in the wild. It shows how caring she is, and I hope her backstory is expanded on later in the series.

Another thing that Horizons has done well so far, is depicting the Paldea region. The very first episodes set up the main story, with Liko and Roy joining the RVTs and the Explorers chasing Liko's pendant. However, the last four episodes have slowly introduced Paldea. We've already had appearances from Nemona and Brassius. On top of this, we will be seeing Iono in the coming weeks. It's a relief that the new region is getting the attention that it deserves.

I don't have any huge complaints about Horizons so far. Generally, I'm really enjoying the show. One problem I will mention is that the pacing is very slow at times. However, I think that this will pay off later in the series. The writers are taking time to establish and develop all of the new characters, which will make the overall story more engaging.

On a side note, I appreciate the variety of adult characters in Pokemon Horizons. Of course, Liko and Roy are the protagonists, which makes sense for a kid's show. However, the dynamics between the older members of the cast make it more watcheable for adults, imo. For example, moments such as the convo between Friede, Orla and Murdock in episode 11 create a more mature tone, even if it's only to a small extent. Also, as an adult fan, it feels as if the anime has suddenly grown up with us. Friede resembles an older Ash, while Orla and Mollie are like grown up female companions. The show really mixes the familiar with the unfamiliar, which is a great approach to the first series without Ash.

Overall, I'm thoroughly enjoying Pokemon Horizons. Until July 14th, the pokemon anime will be on a hiatus. However, the show has done an amazing job so far of introducing the characters and plot. We're only 12 episodes in, but I have high hopes for the series going forward.

[hawthorneonarainyday]

Who We Are - Steve Harrington (1)

Prologue | Steve 2 | Eddie | Billy | Ian

The two of them had been friends for twenty-two years now. They'd grown up right next to each other, casually holding hands for all their lives. What neither of them had ever considered, though, was that their relationship could ever be anything else. They were just them, Steve and her. Right? Attention! - This is the second part of 'Grey Overalls and Rainy Days'. Please read that one first if you haven't yet! Information you might need ♥ ~ Word Count: 15.648 3rd Person (She/Her) Flashbacks will be presented in completely cursive to better distinguish between now and then, since tumblr doesn't really have the best typesetting options.

In this chapter you will find: Rain, cursing, a down in the dumps Steve, slow-burn childhood bestfriends to lovers, a lot of physical contact, canon tinkering, flashbacks and a fuck ton of spoilers for the 80s movie 'Beaches'. There will be mentions of food and eating, blood, canon level violence, loss, grief, shock, death, sex, trauma, bad parenting, sexual harrassment (specifically at dates) alcohol and reader having her period so please remain careful, my children! At one point reader will be loosely compared to Molly Ringwald, but to not alienate anyone I'll explicitly say that it is not because reader looks like her. It can be, if you want it to, but it's definitely not required. I point that out loud and clear and Steve will do so too, so please don't feel put out by that.

Enjoy ♥

The days rain still lay in the air, although the drops themselves had stopped – for now. Petrichor was still wafting all around them, now with tiny hints of cool night air. Hawkins population was slowly but surely getting home for the night. Mothers ushered their kids ahead of them, teenage girls locked their bedroom doors but unlocked their windows and most of Hawkins general stores were flipping their signs from ‘OPEN’ to ‘CLOSED’.

That was something she did as well.

Eddie held the door open and she skipped out into the night, glad she decided to not deal with the taxes for now. The metalhead himself was talking about a campaign he would love to throw for the party, but didn’t really have the time to and she was reminded of how good a story teller he was. No wonder the boys still loved to invite him around as a dungeon master whenever they got the chance.

“So, I was thinking I’d add in this really messed up dragon hybrid and he’s g- hey isn’t that Harringtons car?” Blinking at the rather rapid change of subject, she followed his pointing and damn straight. That was the red BMW she’d spent all day cleaning.

“Uh…yeah, actually. It is.” Her brows furrowed as she squinted into the night, trying to make out the familiar lines of Steve’s nose and hair.

And sure enough, there he was. Slumped behind the driver’s seat with his head down, one hand grabbing the steering wheel. “What the…Uhm, Eddie, gimme a minute.”

“Sure, go ahead. I’ll wait in the van?”

“Yeah, thanks.” With one shimmy, she shouldered her bag properly and jogged on over to Steve. He didn’t look up as she came closer, not giving her much choice but to knock at the window. Inside, Steve flinched, his hand letting go of the wheel and grabbing his chest. The shock didn’t last long though, because just a moment later he was rolling the window down.

“Jesus, don’t do that to me. You’ll give me a heart attack.”

“Your fault for not noticing me.” Chuckling, she leaned down to peer into the car, trying to see the mysterious flower shop girl. Why would she be there? Well, it wasn’t the first time Steve made a pit stop on one of his dates just to drive her home real quick. The red BMW, however, was completely empty aside from Steve. “Steve, what are you doing here? I thought you had a date.” The man in question just sighed and let his head fall back against the headrest. There was a slight pout to his face. “Steve?”

“Listen. Wanna cash in those burgers now? We could grab some and then go…I dunno, somewhere.”

“Uhm…I mean, yeah. Sure. Why not. Let me just tell Eddie, okay?”

“Eddie?”

“Yeah, he came by earlier and offered to drive me home.”

“Oh. Okay, yeah, go ahead. I’ll wait.”

“But Steve, what about…?”

“Just…forget about that, okay?” The way he said it was more than pleading. Even if she didn’t like it, she nodded and jogged on over to Eddie’s car. He was already inside, the van running and waiting. Unlike Steve, he immediately noticed her getting closer and rolled down the window.

“You’re going with him, I take?”

“Yeah, sorry Eddie. I think…I don’t know, I think he needs some company.”

“It’s fine, Princess, you go check on him. But I demand full intel tomorrow!” She chuckled.

“I’ll see what I can do ‘bout that. Thanks Eddie.”

“See ya, princess!” The van roared to life with a deep growl and she stepped away from the window. It didn’t take long for Eddie to leave the car park behind. She reached Steve’s car just as quickly. A simple pull on the door handle and she plopped into the seat with a content sigh.

Steve’s car just felt… right.

Over the years, she’d spent so much time in that passenger seat that it felt more like home than the single wide she actually called home. Steve next to her watched her buckle herself in before wordlessly putting the car into gear. She didn’t ask where they were going, he didn’t offer any intel on the matter.

They didn’t have to.

Neither of them spoke. Steve veered the car through what Hawkins called ‘evening rush’ with practiced ease while she gazed out of the window next to her. She could see Joyce Byers locking up the door to Melvald’s General Store, still in her uniform. Next door in Radio Shack, there was still light burning. Maybe some last-minute repairs or something. Or maybe the guy working there had forgotten to turn them off. Who knew?

New, fresh rain was starting to dribble down the window, obscuring her view. Within moments, the world outside was turned into a blurry mess of colours and shapes. She could still vaguely tell where they were simply because it was the town she’d lived in for all of her life, but it got harder and harder. Soon, she had to turn her eyes to the windshield, it being the only place that still offered a semi-clear view. The windshield wipers were going left and right in their own rhythm, as if something invisible spurred them on. Well, she knew how they worked. But where was the mystery in that?

Watching the wipers do their job was…hypnotic. Without actively choosing to do so, her eyes were following their path left and right and left and right and she could feel herself get drowsy. Though that was probably less the wipers and more the fact that she’d gotten up early and worked a lot more than expected. Her day was supposed to be mainly office stuff plus the cunninghams car, and yet…

“Tired?” Steve asked, his finger rhythmically tapping against the steering wheel, led by the indicators soft ‘click click click click’. She sighed and sank back further into the seat.

“Yeah.”

“You could’ve said something. I can take you home.”

“It’s fine. It’s just the drive.” Steve hummed lightly.

“Of course it is.”

The boy pulled into the car park of Rosemary’s Diner with ease. If it weren’t so dangerous and irresponsible, she would’ve challenged him to do it with his eyes closed. Honestly, he might actually pull it off. They’d been here often enough. While most people preferred Benny’s Diner, both Steve and her had always chosen Rosemary’s whenever they got a chance. Mostly when it was just the two of them.

Sure, she’d pestered Ian sometimes to go with her. And, far as she was aware, Steve had brought some dates here over the years. Both of them had dragged their little group of misfits with them more than once and while they rarely complained, they both knew that this place never clicked quite as well with the rest of them. Maybe it was the food, maybe it was the atmosphere and maybe it was just the fact that she and Steve had been coming here ever since they were old enough to go to a diner on their own.

Inside, the lights were bright and welcoming, just like always.

Steve held the door for her and she stepped inside, both manoeuvring the etablissement with well-practised ease. Down the checkered tiles to the second to last booth – second to last, never the one before or after that – where both of them dropped down into their favoured seats at the same time. Her back was facing the door, while Steve liked to be able to survey the entire room. Menus were pushed aside; they would order the usual thing anyway. Doreen, their favourite waitress, saw them from afar and nodded towards them. Not to indicate anything, just recognition.

The seats hissed familiarly with every move she made as she drew her legs under her in a position that should be uncomfortable but really wasn’t. Steve was already slouched back into the burgundy leather of his booth, his face…complicated.

That was probably the best thing to call it.

It wasn’t an expression she knew from Steve, which should be impossible after over twenty years together. But then again, one was never done learning. That probably applied to people as well.  

“Hey you guys, nice to have you back!” She raised her head to meet the dark brown eyes of Doreen with a smile. The older waitress was grinning down at them, her braided hair pulled back into a ponytail that made her seem a lot younger than she was. There were some stains on her pale-yellow uniform, likely coffee, but other than that she looked at dewy as ever.

“Hiya Doreen. How’s it going?” She offered while Steve just nodded semi-friendly. Normally, she would have kicked his shins for that, but she accepted it for today. At least he’d greeted her at all. Doreen had noticed too, apparently, because she threw him a knowing glance but kept quiet.

“Ah, you know. Same as always in this old thing. Enough guests to keep it running but never many.” She shrugged. “You’re getting the usual?”

“Sure, we are.”

“Neat-o! So that’d be two cheeseburgers – one without onions – a large basket of fries with mayonnaise and ketchup and two shakes – strawberry and vanilla. Did I miss anything?” She couldn’t help but grin at that.

“Perfect like always, Doreen. Thanks.” Doreen nodded and turned on her heels, and she remembered another thing. “Oh hey, Doreen?”

“Yeah?”

“Add a coffee to that. As strong as you can legally brew it, yeah?”

“Oooh, the order changed. Exciting!” Steve rolled his eyes and she grinned. “Consider it done, sweet thing. Won’t be long.”

“Thanks!” Doreen strolled back over to the kitchen, leaving both her and Steve to themselves. The latter was still quietly staring into the void, his mind clearly somewhere else. Worry dipped her brows as she watched him. She’d seen Steve after bad dates often enough. Sometimes he was annoyed, sometimes he was angry. Sometimes he was sad but tried to act like he wasn’t, fully knowing that she knew, and sometimes he was just plain sad. Those were the things she expected. A ranty, maybe whiny, Steve. A mopey, pouty Steve. Maybe even a sad one.

But he wasn’t any of those things.

On the contrary, behind the complicatedness of it all, he looked…defeated? Reserved? Maybe both. Like a man that had failed. Or better: A man that had given up. She’d seen that face on someone else before, and it hadn’t been a good thing. She didn’t really like seeing it on Steve.

“I’m fine.” He said and she blinked in surprise.

“What?”

“I’m fine.” Steve sighed, kicking her dangling leg softly. “Stop staring holes in my face. And unfurrow your brows, you’ll get wrinkly, old girl.” She scoffed.

“I wouldn’t need to furrow my brows if your soul stopped taking a smoke break, you know?” But her fingers rubbed over the space between her brows anyway. “’Old girl’, really? Tsk.” Steve rolled his eyes and she turned towards the large window to her left. She couldn’t see much with the outside being nearly pitch black and the inside brightly lit. So instead of seeing the car park, she saw her own sorry expression staring back at her.

“Shit.” Edging closer to the window, she surveyed her own appearance with disdain.

She looked horrendous.

Since she came here directly from work, she was still clad in her stupid overalls. She should really start packing a change of clothes…She didn’t have too many nice clothes anyway but the grey work overalls must have been amongst the worst she owned. They were built for practicality and comfort, with a whole bunch of pockets and the loose fit. But they didn’t look great. This one, the one she was wearing today, was especially bad since she hadn’t gotten around to altering it. It was an ill fit in most places and it was stained. Fine for work, not so much for anything else.

And, of course, her hair was a mess as well. It stuck up in weird places and It was extremely greasy after a days’ worth of work. She had a sweaty job, alright? And in front of her boys – and Steve – she didn’t mind. They’d seen her look worse and she’d seen them look worse. But she felt iffy sitting in a diner like that. God, she hadn’t even wiped her face, had she? It was probably greasy as well.

“You could have told me I look like crap.” She muttered, wiping her face with her sleeve before getting to work on her hair. She couldn’t salvage much but she could damn well try.

“You look like you always do.”

…Ouch.

She send the boy a glare and let go of her hair. Not better, but at least differently messy. Oh well, it was what it was. Nothing she could do about it now, was there?

Steve was back to being zoned out. So much so, that he didn’t even notice that Doreen brought their food until she kicked his shins. He flinched, blinked, and looked around confusedly. She rolled her eyes and grappled for his plate. Using just two fingers, she’d picked out the pickles Steve so seemed to detest and replaced them with one of her tomatoes. Sure, he could just have ordered the burger without pickles and with extra tomatoes, but why bother?

Happy with her fixing job, she got to the fries, each one loaded up with mayonnaise, before tackling her burger. The smell alone caused her to feel extremely ravenous, to be perfectly honest, and she nearly melted when her teeth sunk into the goodness that was this burger.

With each bite, she felt the crispy softness of the bun, the crunch of fresh salad and tomatoes as well as the greasy cheese-patty combo. And in combination with the slight tang of Rosemary’s mystery sauce? To die for. Really, in an apocalypse she would likely murder for this burger alone.

Steve didn’t seem to agree, though. At least not today. Usually, the boy inhaled his food much faster than she ever could and she always had to battle him for the fries. Otherwise, he’d eat all of them and leave her high and dry for some oily potato sticks. Likely the reason why she’d started to eat the fries first and her burger last, since Steve did it exactly the other way around.

But today, the Harrington boy picked apart his burger slowly and thoughtfully. Sauce and grease quickly covered his fingers, which he didn’t seem to notice. Only a few bites made it into his mouth each time he looked conscious before he was right back to mindlessly playing with his food. He didn’t say a thing while they ate - and sure, she was more than fine with just existing around him. The two of them were long over the need to always do something together. She couldn’t count the days they had wasted away without talking, lounging around in the same bubble but each doing their own thing. They were masters at just existing in the same space.

In combination with his current mood, however, she felt her patience start to wear thin. It wasn’t even really because of him or his mood, it was because she didn’t know what was going on and thus didn’t know what to do about it. She couldn’t really help Steve if he didn’t open his big gob.

After nearly fourty five minutes of complete silence, spent exclusively watching him pick apart the burger into goddamn atoms, she pulled out her wallet and threw some cash on the table. Enough to pay for the both of them. That, finally, got Steve out of his reverie.

“Hey, we said it’s my treat.”

“Yeah, fuck that, Harrington. You can pay me back later.” Sighing, she fished out some wet wipes from her handbag and wiped his hands. He just let it happen, watching her closely as she wiped remnants of grease and sauce of his phalanges. “Come on. Let’s go somewhere, I need to stretch my legs before I fall asleep sitting up.” He winced.

“Sorry. I can take you home now.”

“Why, trying to get rid of me now, are we?”

“You know that’s never it.”

“Yeah, I know. Come on, up with you.” Not letting go of his hand, she rose from her seat and pulled him up with her. “Bye Doreen!”

“Bye guys!” The older woman waved them goodbye from behind the counter, not even checking if they’d left money. Even if they did forget, they’d be back before it could actually be missed. Not that that ever happened before.

Outside, Steve naturally tried to head towards the car, but her hand in his stopped him. Confused, he turned towards her, keys already in hand and pointing towards his car.

“The car is over there.”

“Sure is. But we’re not going to your car just yet.”

“Huh?” She rolled her eyes.

“I told you. I need to stretch my legs. The ten steps from our booth to your car don’t really do the trick.”

“Wait, what do you mean?” Groaning, she let go of his hand only to get behind him and push him along.

“I mean: Move your arse, Harrington, we’re taking a god damn walk.”

“Ugh, but it’s raining.”

“Cry me a river!” She scoffed and pushed on. “You know, you’re no basketballer anymore. Some exercise might actually be good for you, dumbass.”

“I hate walks!”

“Move your god damn legs!” He did, reluctantly so.

At first, he was going annoyingly slow, obviously trying to not get too far away from the car in case she suddenly decided it was enough walking for a day. The more steps they took however, the more he picked up on speed. It took only a few minutes for them to reach a comfortable pace, easily falling into a rhythmic step beside each other.

The sky was still leaking above them, rain coating them in a fine spray of water that would feel incredibly wet the longer they left it there. But, in a way, it was a nice walk anyway. And what did her mum always say?

‘Light exercise is the best way to sort out a muddled mind, pumpkin. And nothing helps more than walking. Back home, I’d often walk the length of a town, just trying to get my brain in order!’

The memory had her throat tighten up for a moment.

One should really thing that four years would take care of grief, but in the end they didn’t do shit. It still felt the same, whenever she thought about her family. That couldn’t be normal, could it? Or maybe it was. Who knew.

Steve’s shoulder bumped against hers, pulling her attention back to him. Once again, he looked lost in thought. Less zoned out, but still not completely here. His brown eyes, nearly black with the absence of light, were pointedly focused on the ground below them and his hands were shoved into the pockets of his jean-jacket.

With another sigh, she looped her arm through his and looked up at him. He barely turned his face towards her, brows raised – a silent half-question. Which, she decided, wasn’t enough right now. She slightly shook his arm, pushing him to give her his full attention. Thankfully, he did.

“Okay, pretty boy. This is where I stop asking and you start talking. Because I’m slowly losing my mind here.”

“Boredom or worry?”

“Half half.” A deep sigh and he looked around for nothing in particular.

“Me saying something like ‘shitty date, is all’ is probably not going to cut it, is it?”

“Yeah, no. Try again.”

“…Shitty date is probably still true.”

“Okay? Why was the date shitty, then?” Steve scoffed.

“Probably because I have shitty taste in girls. Women.” Immediately, she felt herself bristle.

“What did that bitch do?” He rolled his eyes.

“Don’t call her that.”

“What did she do, Steven?” He sighed, using his free hand to ruffle his hair.

“Okay, so… When she asked me out, she was weirdly specific, right?” She nodded, not caring too much about the long story. But if that’s how he wanted to tell it - fine. “She was all like ‘Do you want to go to the cinema with me on Tuesday at seven fourty five?’ and I thought it was kinda weird to ask like that, but hey maybe she’s just one of those…those OCD-types, right? What do I know? Maybe she just feels the need to specify everything or her dad was a vet or whatever. Don’t know, don’t care.” She didn’t point out that seven fourty five wasn’t military time. “So, I agree, knowing I’d likely have to pester Robin into switching with me, which wasn’t easy because it was a Keith shift and who wants to do those? But who cares, it was flower shop girl, right?”

“Right.”

“Yeah. So today, after I left, I got home, got ready and picked her up exactly on time. When she got in I noticed that she was, like, really nervous for some reason.”

“What, because of you?”

“That’s what I wondered. I mean, I bought a gazillion flowers from her and she rents videos regularly, so it’s not like we’re total strangers. And I’m not weird, right? Like, creepy weird. Rapey weird.” She nodded as he threw her a glance and he carried on. “Right, otherwise she probably wouldn’t have asked me. So, I’m, like, extremely confused as to why she’s so skittish.”

“How skittish are we talking?”

“Her voice was an octave or so higher the whole time.”

“Jesus.”

“Exactly.” Steve shook his head. “Anyway, I drive up to the theatre and try to get a conversation going, you know? Drop some funny lines, talk about work, anything. But she barely answers and is all evasive and weird and I’m already like ‘Oh great, this date is going to be fun.’.” Angrily, he kicked something out of the way. A pebble? “But that isn’t even the worst thing. I mean, sure, I really…I was really amped for that date. But bad dates happen, you know? You get annoyed and then you move on or something. I don’t know.”

“I know what you mean, Steve. Carry on.”

“Dude, I’m on it.” He sighed shaking his head. “Anyway. Theatre. We get out of the car and I go to buy the tickets-“

“Why the fuck did you-“

“I don’t know, I just did.”

“She asked you out, Steve! She can pay!”

“But she didn’t okay? Let me finish talking.” She grumbled something under her breath, but let him go on. “So, I go to buy the tickets, she’s waiting by the door. And then we go in and whoosh.” He mimed an explosion with his hands. “She sticks to me like glue. It’s like someone flipped a switch and she went from ‘why am I here?’ to full on date mode. And she’s, like, pulling all the stops. She’s flirting like a mad woman, batting her eyelids super often and talking about how nice I look and how nice it was that I agreed to this date and stuff. And she’s super loud too, right?” Slowly, something dawned in her mind and she didn’t like it one bit. “So, I am like ‘Uhm…what exactly is going on here?’ but she just keeps talking. And then we get to the front of the popcorn line and some dude greets us and he keeps staring at her all wistfully and shit while she finds 87 ways to say the word ‘date’ in a non-committal context.” He stopped, kicking at nothing at she watched him with furrowed brows.

“She wanted to make that guy jealous. And she used you to do it.” He scoffed, his eyes focusing on nothing in particular.

“Yeah. And I was stupid enough to say yes.”

“Steve.”

“She probably noticed that I was literally buying her out of flowers and came to the conclusion that sure, Harrington is hare brained and will never realise what is going on. Why not use him like some sort of accessory, it’s not like he’s got much more going on!”

“Steve, stop that.” She pulled him to a stop, turning him towards her in the process. Steve’s brows were deeply furrowed, nearly touching in the middle, and there was a definite pout to his lips. “Stop trash talking yourself. None of this is because of you.” He tsked.

“Right. Sure, who if not me, then?” She stared at him, incredulously.

“Her. It is because of her, Steve. She asked you out to make another guy jealous because she noticed that you liked her. She used your feelings against you, not the other way around.”

“And why did I have feelings? That her fault too or what?”

“What are you even talking about, Steve?”

“I mean, how often have I actually talked to her? I barely knew her, right? We’re loose acquaintances at best. So why? Why like her so much that I buy a bunch of ugly fucking bouquets every other day? Those fucking things looked like shit because she’s horrible at making them, but I still spend a fortune on them simply so I could watch her talk about flowers for ten minutes. Shit, I’m not even a flower guy to begin with! Do I look like someone who cares that gardenias are considered deer resistant shrubs?” He really seemed to believe that he had any choice in the matter, which had her brows dip further.

“Steve, you can’t actually believe the bullshit you’re spewing right now.” He shrugged, pushing the moist hair from his face.

“Well, I don’t know anymore. I must be doing’ something wrong, seeing as every god damn girl I come close to liking just ends up treating me like shit.” Pinching his nose, he took a step back. “I mean, I’m not exactly a catch. Right. I know that.” He gestured around, more angry than necessary. “I know what they see, okay? Har har Harrington, high school hasbeen that couldn’t get into college and is still working a shitty job at fucking family video. Right, sure, I get it. Oh yeah, add the ugly ass scars I can’t explain – not that anyone even gets close to seeing them lately. But why can’t they just tell me? I mean, they could just tell me to fuck off and I’d be gone.” Swallowing heavily, he quieted for a moment. “I’m so…I’m so sick of growing to like people who don’t like me back. Who don’t even want to get to know me, like actually me. Not ‘Steve Harrington, the family video looser’, but me.”

Her throat felt tight as she watched him rant, rain slipping down his hair and face. Hearing what he thought about himself was always difficult, because, for some reason, Steve literally thought he was the worst person alive. No matter what she said, no matter what she did, his opinion never seemed to change.

Steve Harrington viewed himself as little more than trash.

“How is that your fault, Steve? Any of that?” Hot anger rose in her chest, not at him but for him. “You couldn’t get into college – so what! Who gives a shit? And sure, you work at family video. But at least you work!” She shrugged. “That’s miles better than anything any of them likely ever did. And liking someone is…We can’t choose who we like. You just…you just like who you like.”

“That’s a bullshit answer and you know it.”

“Yeah? Well. It’s yours.”

“What?”

“It’s what you told me. While I was crying over Ian and cursing myself over ever falling for him you said exactly that.” He scoffed, his head falling back.

“I give shit advise.”

“Yeah, but you mean well.” Sighing, she grabbed his hand. “Steve, listen to me. Properly, okay?”

“Fine.”

“That stupid cunt used you. And that is not your fault.”

“But-”

“No, it’s not. You didn’t do anything, Steve! I mean, what would you tell me? If the situation was reversed? Let’s say I…I don’t know, let’s say I’m on a date with, uh, with…Jonathan.”

“Byers?”

“Yeah.”

“Yikes.”

“Stay focused.” She rolled her eyes. “So, I’m on a date with Byers and turns out he just wanted Nancy to get angry or jealous or whatever. And obviously I’m heartbroken because wow, I’m so in love with Byers-“ Steve winced.

“I’m not in love.”

“- that I can barely contain myself. What would you tell me?” Steve looked down at her, his dark eyes raking her face as he thought.

“…Probably the same thing.”

“Which is what?”

“…It’s not your fault. He used you, not the other way around.”

“Right. And?”

“I’d probably try to hit him with my car. That’s long overdue anyway.”

“Yeah, I get it. Flower shop girl just got first place on my shit list. But that’s not what I mean.”

“Then what?”

“Is it my fault that I fell in love with Jonathan Byers?” Steve turned his face towards her, looking just as wet and sorry as he did, and sighed.

“…No.”

“But I could have known better. He’s obsessed with Nancy, so this was totally unavoidable, wasn’t it?” Steve’s brows dipped.

“Yeah, so? It’s not like you wanted to fall in love with Byers, you just did. Maybe that’s dumb, but you can’t choose who-“ he stopped short.

“Yeah?”

“…You can’t choose who you like.”

“Right. You can’t.” She sighed. “You don’t always need to hold yourself up to higher standards than everyone else, you know? You’re…you’re just human, like the rest of us.”

“I know.”

“Do you now? Because sometimes I’m not so sure you do, Steve.” She vividly remembered many times where his perfectionism hat nearly driven him insane. “You always blame yourself for things that aren’t you fault. Always did, ever since we were kids.” It wasn’t hard to guess where he’d got it from. His parents weren’t ever shy about blaming their child for everything wrong with their life. His mum did it passively, with neglect and pejorative remarks while his dad just straight up told him why he was the shittest thing in their collective lives. Steve, apparently, had internalised that knowledge far too deep.  And now it always came back to haunt him.

Like that one time.

It was a day she barely remembered. The memory was fuzzy, either with age or because her mind simply didn’t want her to remember. What was it, a day after Starcourt? Two days? She didn’t even really know. It could have been years or minutes; everything felt the same.

Hopeless.

Hopelessness was winding around her like thin wires, squeezing and pulling at the same time. Wherever the wires touched her, they would dig into her skin, painfully tearing the tender flesh of her body apart. Maybe she should just have done it, set her jaw and bear with it, just like she’d been doing every time she’d gotten hurt that day. Pain was nothing new to her, in the past three years she’d learned how to deal with it but, for some reason she just…she just couldn’t.

When she looked down at her arms, she expected to see blood. And sure, there was blood. But that was old, already drying. She didn’t see any new blood. Nothing was actually ripping her skin apart, and yet she could feel it. She could feel the lines on her skin, the places she was barely keeping together.

Every movement, every breath was painful. So, so painful that she wanted to scream. To her, moving meant pain. And a lot of pain meant that she was dying.

So, she just didn’t move.

She sat there, on the floor in Steve’s bedroom, unmoving, with her legs pulled against her chest. Why Steve’s room or how she’d even gotten there in the first place was something she couldn’t answer. She just knew that she couldn’t move away from that spot, not without falling apart completely. And in that moment, there was no one who could’ve stacked her back together again.

It was uncomfortable.

Her limbs were falling asleep in random moments and the heeled boots she’d been wearing were likely ruining her feet for good. She herself was still bloody, sweaty and disgusting and she could feel the layers of grime on her skin. But she didn’t…couldn’t care.

It was uncomfortable, but it was safe.

As long as she didn’t move, she could pretend it wasn’t real. She could pretend that her dad and brother were at the shop, like always, bickering over the right way to tune up the Hillson’s sedan. She could pretend that she hadn’t seen the giant monster that her family had somehow become part of. Because every time she thought of it, she remembered what Nancy told them. She could hear Steve saying: “But instead of, like, screws and metal, the Mind Flayer made its weapon with melted people…?”

Melted people.

Her father, the kindest man she’d ever known. The man who’d tried his hardest to raise her, to give her anything a daughter could need. The man who’d taught her how to ride a bike and how to replace a rotary arm. The man who’d cooked her favourite food whenever she felt down.

And her brother.

The big brother, who’d gone and beaten-up Tommy Hagan after he cheated on her. The brother who’d read her stories as a kid, who’d carry her around whenever she was too lazy to walk. The very brother who’d told her, just the night before, that all he wanted was for her to be happy. Wherever that might be.

Those two were part of the people Steve and Nancy were talking about. And she’d known, she’d known something was weird with her dad ever since he’d been so moody and snappy. He was never like that, never that aggressive, and both her and her brother had been extremely confused and worried. And yet, with little to no argument, she’d just packed her bag and left the minute her brother told her to.

She’d gone to stay with Steve, lounging around at Scoops Ahoy all day instead of just…just going home. Home, where she actually could’ve done something. Where she could’ve helped them.

But she didn’t. And now they were dead.

Those were the thoughts going through her mind on a loop. Every time she arrived at the conclusion it would go back to the start, like a record that spun endlessly. Nothing seemed to be able to turn it off. It just spun and spun and spun. Not even the blood that covered her shirt and skirt turning sticky and disgusting could change that. Nor could the knowledge that at least half the blood was not hers but Steve’s.

Steve…

Steve, who’d spent the past hours talking to her with endless patience. He’d tried to get her to eat, to move. To just do…something. Anything. He never pushed her too hard, but he didn’t ease up. He sat beside her, talked about anything. He turned on music whenever his voice turned weak and the silence became heavy.

He was always there, like a shadow glued to her side. Drifting along the lines of her periphery in hopes to get a rise out of her.

Looking back, she was surprised he’d kept it together that well. She didn’t know if she could’ve done it. If she could’ve acted like she was okay for his sake.

Because Steve wasn’t okay. Of course, he wasn’t. And one day, she finally noticed it.

As always, he’d left his room. Claiming to go and order some dinner. He left, went downstairs and was gone for a good long while. Too long for a phone call. Maybe she was on her way out of her trance, maybe she was already on the threshold to being fully conscious. Or maybe it was the fact that Steve had forgotten to turn on the music. She didn’t know.

But as she sat, still huddled against the dresser in Steve’s room, she heard something…weird. An odd noise she couldn’t quite place. Like…like a sob. Or something. The Harringtons weren’t home, of course, so it couldn’t have been them. But that only left Steve. Steve who was gleefully making conversation up until a moment ago, seemingly completely unaware of how one sided it actually was.

That uncertainty was what finally caused her to get up and move.

Stiff as a board and with great difficulty she peeled herself off the floor, using the wall to prop herself up. Every step she took hurt like hell, her poor, battered feet burning like embers. But she hobbled on, slow but determined. Thank god everything was carpeted, because otherwise Steve might have heard her come down the steps. And knowing him, he would’ve gone right back to acting.

But he didn’t.

And as she entered the Harringtons kitchen, she didn’t find the Steve she’d seen upstairs. Instead, she found a barely eighteen-year-old boy, who’d been tortured and drugged. A boy, who’d spent too long high on adrenaline and was now watching his best friend wither away right there, in his room. A boy who didn’t know what to do, how to help.

He was sitting below the phone, the receiver dangling carelessly somewhere next to him, and he was sobbing. Desperate, scared little noises that had her stop for a moment.

“Steve?” She’d said, her voice raw and broken by prolonged disuse. But the boy had heard her, flinching as his head snapped towards her. The moment his dark eyes landed on her, standing in the door way, he’d started to cry even harder. Violent sobs started to shake him, a sight that had her feel dizzy.

“It’s you.” Was all he managed to say between all the sobbing, his face buried in his hands. The sobs got louder too, his relieve mixing into the whole mess of emotions he was already facing. Watching that, watching as he broke down with fear, pain and relieve spurred something in her. With just two little steps she made it to his side, where she sank down to her knees. She didn’t know what to do. This Steve was not one she knew, and right then she barely knew herself. Her hands fluttered about unsurely, touching his hair and his shoulders, trying to find a place to start.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He’d muttered, repeating nothing but that again and again while sobs rattled through his body.

“Sorry…?” She didn’t understand. Sorry for what? What had he done that he needed to be sorry for? Nothing came to mind.

“I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault.” Her eyes were shaking as she watched the boy sob on. Her brain was so incredibly slow already, exhausted from little sleep and heightened adrenaline, so she still didn’t understand. She didn’t understand. “Everything is always my fault.”

Everything.

She felt her eyes tear up, sobs clawing their way up her throat as she realised what he was on about.

Steve was blaming himself for this. He was blaming himself for what had happened down in the Russian base as well as what had happened up in the mall. He was blaming himself for her pain as well as his own. The way she knew him, he’d probably been blaming himself for ever becoming her friend, for ever being born.

Because that was Steve Harrington.

Everything was always his fault, even when it wasn’t. He automatically deemed it so and no one, not a single person, ever thought to tell him he was wrong. They all called him ‘ass’ and ‘moron’, called him out for his time as stupid ‘King Steve’, but no one ever took the time to remind him how great he really was.

If her heart hadn’t already been broken, it would have been the moment she truly realised how lonely that boy was. And how scared he must’ve been of losing her, the last person to always be on his side.

“Steve…” She’d sobbed, winding her arms around him to cry into his hair while she held him. She’d just been holding onto him until both their tears ran dry for the time being.

And she did the same thing now.

With one simple movement, she’d wrapped her arms around his midriff and pressed her face into his shoulder. Steve didn’t hesitate to hug her back. He never did. His arms wound around her waist, holding her close. Somewhere above her ear, she could feel his breath fan against her skin.

“You need to stop blaming yourself so much, Steve.” Her voice was muffled by the fabric of his jacket, but she was sure he understood. She knew by the way his breath hitched, by the way is body started to shake. “It isn’t your fault, none of this.” She patted the back of his head comfortingly, carefully. “And I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for? You didn’t do anything.” His voice was weak and croaky, poorly repressed feelings seeping out of it with every word.

“No, I didn’t. But I’m still sorry.” She sighed, patting on. “I’m sorry because she isn’t. And I’m sorry because she couldn’t see you the way you did her. I’m sorry that everyone always blames you, even you yourself…” His arms tightened around her waist and she heard him exhale a shaky breath. “I’m sorry for all of that, Steve.”

And just like that night four years ago, she’d held the boy while he shed tears no one else knew about.

Because that was who Steve Harrington actually was.

***

“There! There, do you see that?” Robin hissed, pressed close to her side. “Now that isn’t normal. And at first I was all like ‘oh maybe he’s just confused’ but it’s been week and he’s just been doing that all the time. That’s weird, right? Agh, of course it’s weird!” She blinked, ignoring Robin’s rambling as she watched Steve ring up a customer upfront. The rest of the store lay deserted, the day still too early for most people to think about renting anything.

It was Sunday, a couple of long, exhausting days after Steve’s date with the horticulture-cunt.

The week had been quite the mess so far, so she was thanking every available god that it was finally Sunday and she had the day off. And sure, lounging about Family Video with Steve and Robin was an excellent pastime. ‘Spying’ on Steve from behind a shelf, though? Ugh.

“Look, he’s not flirting, nothing! He’s just-just look!” The girl hissed, her hands clasping her shoulders. She could feel Robins nails scratch her skin, causing her to shiver slightly.

Robin had been calling the repair shop nearly every day, more than once, ranting about how Steve was behaving ‘weirdly’ and how this couldn’t be ‘normal’ and ‘please please come over, okay? I’m losing my mind here!’, so here she was. Badly hidden behind the self-proclaimed chick flick shelf – ooh, was that ‘Beaches’? – staring through a small window Robin had created by removing a couple of tapes.

It was not all too interesting.

Steve just did his job like anyone else would. The whole spiel - ‘Hi there’ ‘beep beep’ ‘your total is…’. That was how this worked, right? Because, sure, she’d never worked anywhere other than the shop, but this looked pretty standard to her. Next to her, Robin was still rambling – something about possession and brainwashing – and Steve was bagging up the tapes. The girl he’d just rung up thanked him overly sweetly – gag – and turned to leave the store. The wind chime above the door announced her exit.

Steve stayed where he was, leaning forward onto the counter, before looking in their direction.

“You idiots do know that I can see you, right? You’re not, like, invisible.” Robin stiffened and cursed under her breath and she patted her back comfortingly.

“You tried, Robs.” Was all she said as she grabbed ‘Beaches’ from the shelf. Why not use this oh-so-golden opportunity to organise some Sunday night entertainment? And she’d been waiting to see this one for forever. She even told Steve, the traitor, to let her know as soon as it was available. Of course, he ‘forgot’ to do that again.

“Yeah, maybe leave some tapes next time so it’s less obvious.” Steve nodded towards the shelf and sure enough. Tapes were missing on both sides, making it pretty obvious that someone wanted to spy on him through the three- or four-inch gap the shelf offered.

“You leave me no choice! And you!” Robin pointed at her, her black-nailed finger wafting accusingly in front of her face. “I called you so you’d side with me!” She chuckled, strolling over to where Steve was still lounging about. Steve’s eyes were on her as she hopped onto the counter next to him, offering up the tape, which he took in turn for a clean picked bag of gummy bears.

“Oh, come on, ‘Beaches’? Really? Ugh.” He shook his head as he started to check it out – under his name, obviously.

“It’s Bette Midler, Steve.” The boy just winced and she started to chow down on the gummy bears. Robin was still rambling.

“Hello?! Are you listening to me!?”

“No.” The two of them said and the girl grumbled, yet still accepting the peace offering of gummy bears. The younger girl glanced at her hand, spotting the exclusively white, orange and yellow variants of the sugary sweets.

“Why do I never get any red or green ones? Those are the best.” Steve nodded while she just winced at the other girl’s statement.

“Steve is in charge of the red and green ones, so pester him about that.”

“Wait, what? ‘In charge’?”

“Yeah. Haven’t you noticed?” She cocked her head, shaking the bag. “He eats all the red and green ones. I get the yellow, orange and white ones.”

“Why would you do that?”

“She doesn’t like red and green. I don’t like white.” Steve handed her the cassette in a small bag before turning and leaning his back against the counter. “So, we eat the ones we like and then trade.”

“But there’s always more red and green, so you’re basically being ripped off!” Robin leaned against the counter next to her as she spoke, holding her hand out for more. She got them, of course.

“Hey, she gets three colours and I only get two!” She could feel Steve’s fingers at the hem of her shirt as he spoke, the boy using the proximity to cover up a sliver of skin that had been exposed since earlier. Paying him no mind, she let him pull down her shirt properly and continued to stuff her face with gummy candy. Robin, however, was watching their interaction with raised eyebrows.

“Your relationship is disgusting, has anyone ever told you that?” Both she and Steve rolled their eyes at that. Because they had, in fact, heard that before. That and anything else people would offer about their relationship. For some reason, people just loved to make unsolicited comments about other people’s business. She couldn’t even count the times, that people had asked her if she and Steve had ever had a ‘thing’ for or done ‘stuff’ with each other – big yikes.

Then there was the usual ‘oh your guys are disgusting’, ‘get a room!’ or ‘you’re like an old married couple’. When they were younger, they used to argue back every time because it wasn’t like that and they were just friends. At some point, though, both of them had gotten tired of the same reaction – eye rolls, amused chuckling and a meaningful ‘For now!’ – so they just rolled their eyes and ignored all the comments to the best of their abilities.

Well, except the ‘stuff’ one because that was a disgusting and invasive thing to ask. Steve took that one just as wordlessly, but she couldn’t. The last guy who’d dared to offer that question had earned himself a broken nose and she would happily pummel anyone who wished to follow in his footsteps.

“Only every person in this goddamn town, Robin.”

“I think I heard a Demodog say it at one point.” Steve said, closing his eyes.

“Yeah? Seems like them. They were a rather chatty bunch, weren’t they?”

“Totally. Especially- uh…wait, what was his name?” His brows furrowed in thought. “Henderson named him after that chocolate bar.”

“Ah, you mean Dart?”

“Dart! Yes, right. Especially Dart.” The two of them grinned at that. It should be all unfortunate and uncomfortable, but honestly? One can only shed so many tears about something. At some point, joking will become easier than sobbing.

“Do I even want to know what you’re talking about?” Robin asked, snagging more gummy bears.

“Just the Demodog Dart and his little herd of friends that nearly mauled us to death.”

“Come on, Dart didn’t. He let us pass, remember?”

“Not really. I was losing a ton of blood, Steve. I don’t even really remember how we got out.”

“Oh, right. You got blood all over my jacket. ”

“Sorry not sorry.” They had bled onto each other often enough, even before the whole upside down bullshit. Although there’s a significant difference between ‘shit, I cut my finger while chopping onions’ and ‘oh my god, that Demodog just rammed it’s claws into my torso’. The scars were really different, too.

“You could’ve just said no, you know?” The girl flicked her forehead before going to do…something. Work. Slack off somewhere else. That left her and Steve behind at the counter. For a moment, they did nothing else. She was fiddling around with the bag in her hands and Steve was slowly flicking through a pamphlet or something. Leaning over, she noticed that it was a pamphlet about…

“Wait, is that for college?” Steve nodded, flicking to the next page. “I thought you gave up on college?” She grabbed the pamphlet from him, ignoring his protests as she read through as quickly as she could. That was made a lot harder by Steve trying to get the thing back. Her eyes were better than his though, so she held it barely out of his reach and read on “No way, nursing? You want to become a nurse?” He scoffed and ripped the thing from her hands.

“Jesus, ever heard of privacy? You’re so nosy, do you know that?” He snapped, stuffing the pamphlet somewhere beneath the counter, effectively out of reach. Not that she cared, she knew all she needed to.

“We don’t do privacy, Steven.” Drawing her leg onto the counter, she turned towards him properly, grinning brightly. “Nurse Steve?” The boy groaned, his shoulders slumping forwards.

“I don’t know, okay? It’s just, like, an idea. Nothing more. I just thought, you know…I’m quite good with blood and all that and I’ve seen worse things than whatever the human body can produce. So why not try to make use of that?” He shrugged. “I researched a bit and heard about this nursing program and I’m…I probably won’t get in anyway, so it’s really not that big a deal, right? It’s just- it’s…Robin will eventually get her degree and then she’ll leave and teach little shit’s their ABC’s or whatever the fuck she does and I can’t…It’s…Anything is better than being stuck here for the rest of my life, rewinding sticky copies of ‘Kinky Business’ and ‘Too good to be true’ while Keith is breathing down my neck.” He finished, his formerly gesticulating arms falling down to his sides as he breathed heavily. She allowed a moment of silence to pass, giving him a second to catch his breath as she just stared at him. But eventually, she felt the corners of her mouth curl upwards.

“You know, you’re saying all that but for some reason I just hear-“ Steve raised his finger threateningly.

“I swear to god, your ass is grass if you say…”

“-Nurse Steve!” The boy groaned and let his head fall against her shoulder as she giggled and patted the back of his head.

“I hate you; you know that?”

“Sure, I do. I love you too, Harrington.” She wiggled her shoulder to get him off. When she did, she leaned forwards to stare into his face. “Nurse Steve, man. Honestly, I see it. You’ve got a nurse face.”

“What, in that hot nurse kinda way?”

“Yikes. No.” She pretend-shivered. “But you look kind and caring.” Steve rolled his eyes.

“As I said: It’s just an idea and I likely won’t get in anyway, so…”

“No, no you will.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do, Steven! I can feel it in my bones. So let me predict your future now, young padawan.” With her thumb and index she squeezed his cheeks, effectively holding him in place – and making him look like stuff-cheeked hamster. “You will apply for this course and you will get in. And within the next couple years, you’re out of this shit hole and can spend your days saving lives as ‘Nurse Steve – Hero in scrubs’.” He opened his mouth to stop her, but she talked onwards. “And who knows? Maybe you’ll meet a pretty patient and you’ll wrap her around those pretty fingers of yours in a heartbeat while helping her stay calm during a shot or whatever.” Steve’s brows drew together, enough to nearly touch in the middle.

“Did you just write fanfiction about me?” Thanks to her still squeezing his face, the words came out all squishy and muddled. He seemed to notice that too, pulling himself from her grasp to rub his cheeks. “Dude, were you trying to bruise my cheek? Jeez, your grip is like iron.”

“Those are a handyman’s fingers, Steven.” Sad but true. She always wanted to have pretty, dainty hands like Nancy or Robin or Max. Colourful long-ish nails, pretty nailbeds, soft pink skin…but that was not something she’d ever have. Thanks to her line of work, her hands and fingers were often dry and rough, even stained by oil and grease. Her nails had to be short, otherwise they’d break – they tended to do that anyway – and although she tried nail polish sometimes, it never lasted long enough to actually bother.

And sure, she took care of them. She used hand cream like a mad woman, lathering up every chance she got, and she tried to do hand masks regularly. In the end, however, her hands were a mirror of her craft. They were formed by work. And while they could get a car up and running, change a leaking pipe and a handful of other things, they would never look pretty.

It shouldn’t bother her much, but it did, sadly. Generally, she liked how she looked. She was satisfied with what the mirror showed her and she knew she looked good. Great even! But every time she saw how pretty other girls’ hands looked, she felt like a…like a grizzly. Like a giant, weathered witch in front of dainty, little fairy princesses – however untrue that comparison may be.

Everyone had their little insecurities.

Suddenly, Steve grabbed her hands, pulling her fingers away from a patch of dry skin and her out of her own thoughts.

“Stop picking your skin, idiot. You always say it hurts after you do that.” Shifting his hold a bit, both hands now clasped in one of his, he started to root around behind the counter, producing a small tube of hand cream. Without hesitation, he squeezed a good dollop of cream onto her hands and used his thumbs to spread it around. It was almost like a massage and she felt herself relax more and more with each stroke.

In lieu of anything else to do, she looked at him while he worked away all tension she’d build over the last week.

Mouth slightly pursed and brows furrowed, he looked extremely focused right then. If she hadn’t quite literally felt his hands on hers, she would’ve wondered what he was thinking about. His hair did its usual thing, flopping into his face that was, and it gave him some sort of…roguish allure.

Here’s to hoping that he’d never find out that she thought something like that. Yikes.

But it was true nonetheless. She cocked her head as she watched him, raking her eyes over the lines of his face. They all looked the same as always, absolutely not different to the Steve she’d seen yesterday and the day before that. And yet…

Steve was handsome.

Sure, right, objectively she’d known that. She’d seen the boy as a tween and damn, that couldn’t be compared, like, at all. But she’d never really thought about it much. Steve was always about as interesting as her right arm. There and definitely appreciated – in fact, she wouldn’t want to live without it – but not something one thought about much. But right then, brows furrowed in concentration as he rubbed her hands, she really noticed how good looking he actually was.

“You’re really pretty, did you know that?” Steve raised his brows and looked up at her, clearly surprised by her statement. But he caught himself rather quickly, the typical Steve reaction already kicking in.

“Twenty-two years and you only notice that now? Damn.” She rolled her eyes, pulling her hands from his grasp.

“You must’ve been ugly for twenty-one of them, then.”

“That’s still a year, which is a lot coming from you.”

“Right, whatever gets you through the night, pretty boy.” He grinned at that.

“You know what? You can just tell me that my awesome hand rub won you over, sweetheart. There’s no shame in that.”

“Oh, riiiight.” She nodded, a smile curling her lips as she leaned back onto the counter. “Totally. You just stole my heart, Harrington.”

“Don’t I know it.” He leaned against the counter next to her. She hummed under her breath, using two fingers to gently guide his hair out of his face. His eyes fluttered shut at her touch, a habit Steve had always had. In one feather light touch, she let her knuckles ghost over the lines of his cheek, causing his honeyed eyes to open up once more.

“I bet you do that to all the girls, don’t you?” He tipped his head back, eyes focused on her face, and hummed softly.

“Hmmh. Works every time.”

“Am I…interrupting something?” A voice intervened, causing both her and Steve to turn. Robin was standing next to the shelf she and the other girl had just been hiding behind. “Because I can, like, totally take my break right now. You know, if you guys want to finish whatever that was.” She popped a cheese puff into her mouth, the bag in her hands crinkling uncomfortably loud.

“Robin…” Steve sounded all annoyed, clearly ready to ‘bicker with Buckley’, so she intervened.

“Not necessary. Join us, Steve was just telling me all about how he uses roofied hand cream to drug poor, unsuspecting girls into liking him.”

“Aaah. That must be why you were gazing up at him like he was made of light, hm? Because of the hand cream. Totally, I believe you.” Robin shrugged as she hopped closer and she felt her brows dip.

“What am I, a moth?”

“I don’t know, you tell me?” She hopped behind Steve, using her hands to turn his face towards her, to which he protested loudly.

“Come on, your fingers are all cheesy!”

“Take it like a man, dingus.” Robin just said, holding on and nodding at her. “And? Do you think sparkly boy is the hottest thing in town?” She rolled her eyes and Steve ducked out of Robins hold.

“Man, you got cheese dust all over me. Disgusting, go clean your hands.” He shoved her off towards the break room while rubbing his cheeks against his uniform. “And the question is rigged, because I totally am the hottest thing in town and we all know it.”

“Right, Dingus, whatever you want to believe. You know, that scene felt oddly familiar. Did I see it in a movie before? God, what was it called again? Maybe-“

“Buckley! Sink! Now!” At his famed babysitter tone, Robin instinctively hopped on off without another word. The two who stayed behind, sighed in unison. “I hate her sometimes.”

“No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t.”

Another shared sigh and Steve was back to fiddling with the tube of hand cream and she watched him for a minute, before choosing to plunge forwards with their conversation. A normal one, duh, not the one Robin had interrupted.

“Wanna watch ‘Beaches’ with me?”

“No.” He said, tossing the hand cream aside and leaning against the counter, further away from her this time. “I’ll come ‘round after work. Chinese or Pizza?” She smiled.

“Pizza for sure.”

***

Early evening had befallen Hawkins by the time Steve made it to her house. The sky outside was quickly darkening, regretfully announcing the end of her day off. She wished she had something to turn back time. Not even a lot, just a day or so. Tiny day. Go plink plink on that little, uh, time turner, and have another Sunday right after her first one. And that one she would spend right here, on the couch, in a pad so huge it could count as diapers and simply not move. Didn’t that sound glorious? Damn. Next time, Buckley could beg all she wanted. She would spend her Sunday hermited and wrapped up like a burrito.

When his knock finally came, she was already lounging on her sofa, braless and clad in only her finest pair of sweats and a giant t-shirt that came from god knows where. The void, probably. Maybe even the upside down. Didn’t know, didn’t care.

It was comfy anyway.

 “Come it, the door is open!” She called, too lazy to move to open the door for him. Honestly, she didn’t really need to and he didn’t need to knock, he had a key anyway. The door opened and she raised her head, just enough to make sure it was actually Steve that entered and not a crazy serial killer. Well, those probably wouldn’t knock but it didn’t hurt to make sure, right?

But nope, it was Steve in all his hang-night glory.

Her head plopped back down after she analysed his choice of clothes – very similar to hers, in fact – and he tsked at the sight.

“I told you not to leave your door unlocked, idiot.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

“Not whatever. Dude, you already live in a paper fucking house. At least try to make it hard for someone to murder you, okay?” Not that again. She rolled her eyes at his usual nagging as he kicked off his shoes and hug up his jacket.

“Steve, it’s not that bad, you know? I mean, it’s a house and it’s actually quite spacious since it’s just Tut and me.” Tut was her, very bad tempered, sphinx cat. Well, bad tempered was a stretch. He wasn’t that bad. Tut, actually named Tutanchmeow, just didn’t like strangers all too much. He liked her, he tolerated Steve and that was far more than enough. Right now, for example, he was hogging her one arm chair, snoring loudly and cutely.

“Spacious. Sure. I’m kinda scared I’ll bonk my head if I flinch too hard, but you’re absolutely right.” As if to demonstrate, he stretched out his arms, not leaving too much space on either side. “It’s extremely spacious in this thing.” Steve sighed, dropping a pizza carton on the couch table. “I got us the usual stuff.”

“Perfect.” She sighed, drawing her legs up slowly and carefully. “What do you want to drink?”

“Stay, I’ll get it.” Steve sauntered over into the kitchen and she heard him open up the fridge. He came back with two beers which was fine by her. He’d already opened them and just dropped them onto the table right next to the Pizza before plunking down onto the sofa into the place she’d previously freed for him. Her legs fell right back into place on his lap, which Steve accepted wordlessly. Sighing, she covered her stomach with both hands and looked at him.

“How was the rest of your shift?” Steve just grumbled. “That bad, huh.”

“Yeah.”

“Robin?”

“Obviously.”

“Do I wanna know?”

“Definitely not.” She hummed slightly, taking her time to properly look at him. He looked tired, his eyes drooping already despite him barely sitting down. She poked his side with her foot and he grumbled again.

“People are tiring.” She sighed.

“Damn straight.” He shot back. “And you know I love Robin, I really do. But god, sometimes I wish she would just…stop talking. Just for a minute. I swear, you left the store and her mouth started flapping. I think she was still talking when I went home and it’s just…does she even breathe?” Steve deflated with a sigh, his head falling back to rest against the wall. “I’m a dick for saying, I know, but I wish Robin came with an off-button.”

“You’re not a dick for saying that.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Then I am too. Because every day I wish that my boys would just keep their damn traps shut. And I love the lot of them, but god, they’re dicks sometimes.” She shrugged. “That doesn’t make me a dick, though. That makes me…Normal. I’m just a normal person who gets annoyed by other people.” Steve just sighed, saying nothing for a moment.

“Speaking of.” He said instead, obviously trying to change the subject. “How’s Eddie first week been going?” She groaned and closed her eyes.

“God, don’t make me think about that.” It had been a whole mess. A complete and utter mess, and terrifyingly large scale. “How can one guy be so clumsy? I mean, at this point I’m surprised he can walk in a straight line without falling over. Please, remind me to never ever get in his car, no matter what. I’m telling you. On Thursday, he literally tripped over his own feet, tumbled through half the shop, bonked against one of the tire stacks and unleashed this, like, chain reaction that nearly send Riley flying into the popped hood of Hagans car. In under a minute, the whole shop was a mess and he just stood there, clenching his hands like a first grader that did something stupid and knows he’ll get in trouble. And you know my boys are really good natured – well, except Billy – but even they had really reached the end of their tether by Saturday. Riley even started to dub him Eddie ‘Stumblebum’ Munson.” She was wringing her hands, trying to calm herself down. “I hired him to replace Marvin, but at this point I’ll have to hire someone else to replace Marvin and someone tokeep Eddie in check. I feel instead of lessen he just tripled my workload, because not only do I have to do my job, no I’m doing his as well as clean up after him.” Steve sighed and patted her leg comfortingly.

And then the two of them sat up properly, she started the movie and he propped open the pizza carton. It was a thing the two of them always did. Steve couldn’t really eat when he was annoyed or upset, while she tended to overeat when she was. So, every time they got together to eat, they vented first and dined right after.

Well, unless someone asked for a delay just like Steve had done after his ‘date’. Then they just went about the meal as proficiently as they could.

“Like, what is that movie even about?” Steve asked, chowing down on the pizza and she snorted.

“Obviously you would try to keep this movie from me without even knowing what it was about. That’s just so you, Steven.”

“What the fuck is up with all that ‘Steven’ lately?” The words came out all wonky, pushed past a giant bite of pizza. “You sound like my mum, jeez.”

“Well, duh. I am your mum.” Straightening up in her seat, she did a mock-hair flip, and eyed Steve. “Oh Stevie, how wonderful to have you back home tonight, baby. But then again, you’re always here, aren’t you? Hohohoho.” She didn’t even have to concentrate to copy his mum, her strangely sing-songy intonation branded into her brain after too many sleepovers at the Harrington House. “I see you came from-“ here she scrunched her nose in distaste “-work. Or, whatever it is you call…that. Oh, Steven isn’t that your friend Raven?” Steve was even mouthing that part with her, his mum seemingly not able to remember that Robin was, in fact, called Robin. But hey, they were both birds at least. “My my, it’s a pleasure to have you back. I hope you’re staying for dinner, darling, because we just love helping the less fortunate members of our quaint town, don’t we? Richard, darling! I’m getting a headache, let’s go to the Maldives!” Steve flicked her forehead the moment she finished, shaking his head.

“I hated that. And it was scarily accurate, so don’t do that again.”

“I’m your mum, I told you.” He rolled his eyes once more, getting started on his third slice of pizza while she was only just done with her first. That, ladies and gentlemen, was how Steve usually ate - for all those that have been wondering. He was a total boy when it came to food, finishing copious amounts of it in little to no time. “Oh, and the movie is about these two friends. I’m not sure either, because - thanks to someone - I haven’t seen it yet but apparently it’s like an overview over their lives and their friendship throughout.”

“Ugh, who wants to see something like that?” He gestured towards the TV. “I mean, come on. There’s these middle-aged ladies thinking about their friendship and people go crazy over it? Because that movie has been in and out so often, I’m surprised you even managed to get your hands on it.” He shook his head. “Who cares about other people’s friendships, really?”

“Sooo, if someone wanted to make a movie about you and me and our friendship – you wouldn’t watch it?” Steve spluttered, nearly choking on his beer.

“What? About you and me?” She giggled, leaning forward to wipe some beer off his cheek with the back of her hands.

“I mean, sure. We have a lot to tell, haven’t we?”

“Yeah, but…Why would I want to watch that? I was there for all of that.”

“Hmmh, that’s true.”

“And honestly, Hollywood would fuck it up and turn it into one of those fucking rom-com bullshit movies.” He scoffed, taking another sip of his beer. “You’d be played by Molly Ringwald – don’t hit me!” He caught her hand before she could. “It’s not even because you look alike or whatever, it’s because she gets all the chicks into the theatre!” She grumbled under her breath. Molly Ringwald, fuck that. “Anyway, I would totally be played by Tom Cruise. Obviously.”

“Why do you get Tom Cruise but I have to be Molly Ringwald!”

“I don’t make the rules, dude. Molly Ringwald is in every chick flick on this god damn planet.” She scoffed and stuffed her face with more Pizza. “I mean, damn, I wouldn’t be surprised to see her play an African desert princess at this point, simply because it’s her. She would obviously go up in flames because ginger plus sun equals yikes, but you know. Let SPF50 handle that, as long as the entire female teenage population of the united states runs into the cinema because Molly Ringwald!” He rolled his eyes and she scoffed.

“Do not throw all of us into the same pot, Harrington.”

“Ah, so you didn’t drag me into ‘Sixteen Candles’ like a mad woman, huh?” She scoffed.

“Yeah, but that was- it was- Michael Schoeffling, Steve!” The boy just snorted in that annoying ‘yeah right’ kind of way. “Tsk. You know what, Steve? You keep your Tom Cruise, because you know who they would cast as Billy and Ian?”

“Why would they be in that movie?”

“Well, Ian is my ex and Billy beat the shit out of you. That seems kinda important.”

“Once again: It’s been six years. Let it rest.”

“Never.” She shrugged, sipping on her beer. “Anyway. Billy would be Rob Lowe, definitely. And Ian would one hundred percent be John Stamos.”

“Rob Lowe and John Stamos? Didn’t you have, like, posters of them in your old room?”

“Yeah, so?”

“You were obsessed with them.” How could she not? Like, General Hospital was a good show but damn. John Stamos made it so much better and he wasn’t even the main event. And Rob Lowe? Man. Those eyes? The thought alone made her want to purr happily. Truth be told, she wasn’t mad that Billy and Ian were both working for her. Not that she was superficial, but a lady was allowed to enjoy someone’s appearance just a little, right? A tiny, selfish glance every now and again should be alright, yes?

“Your point?”

“Are you trying to tell me that Billy and Ian, of all people, are better looking than me?” At that, she could only shrug.

“You said it, not me.” Not that Steve wasn’t handsome – she’d just told him he was earlier today, hadn’t she? But nothing could beat John Stamos or Rob Lowe. Oooh, wait. Maybe that guy from ’21-Jumpstreet’. What was his name again? The guy that played Tom Hanson. That guy was great too.

“Wow. You are a horrible person.”

“Am not.”

“Yes, you are…oh my god.”

“What now?”

“You didn’t date Ian because he looks like John Stamos, did you?” She grinned.

“I did not. But, let’s just say…it definitely didn’t deter me.”

“Tsk. You know, maybe I should…” On screen, Bette Midler was suddenly in quite the hurry. “Woah, what’s she going on about?”

“I think it’s because of that note she just found. See?”

“Well, what does it say?”

“I don’t know, dumbass. Someone kept distracting me by talking all over the movie.”

“Huh…” He leaned back, long done with his Pizza, and eyed the television with furrowed brows. She couldn’t help but smile.

Who would have thought. ‘Beaches’ – the chick flick Steve really didn’t want to see – actually managed to snag his attention – oh wait. She would’ve thought. That was pretty much always the case, by the way. He was all pissing and moaning until the movie actually played. Within the first ten minutes, Steve would always be absolutely invested. He’d be yelling at the screen when the guys fucked up, and get annoyed at every bout of miscommunication.

Because that was who Steve actually was.

A big softie that knew how to enjoy chick flicks.

And very vocally so, too.

“No way. No way are they fucking on the opening night of her musical thing. Like, dude, who does that!? That’s such a bullshit move.” Steve threw a balled-up handkerchief at the TV. “Like, she saw that C.C. liked him. A blind guy could see that. Isn’t there something like a… girl code or whatever? Who needs friends like that! Shit.”

Realistically, couldn’t disagree with that one. It was a shitty move, truly. Who slept with the guy his best friend was into? That was just shitty. Like, technically speaking that would be like her sleeping with Nancy back when Steve was head over heels for the Wheeler princess. God, she would’ve felt horrible. No, no she absolutely agreed with Steve here.

“Yeah, such a dick move, Hillary.” Steve nodded; eyes still trained at the TV.

A better one came later somewhere in the movie. And god, this one would totally make it into her ‘Things to tease Steve with’ treasure chest – because that one? Pure gold.

“Oh my god, why do all the guys in this movie suck?!” He’d suddenly yelled, making her flinch. “Like, one fucks the one friend and then marries the other, only to divorce her couple years later - because boohoo selfish - and the other cheats on his wife! What is the moral of the story here, guys? All men suck? Is that what they’re trying to tell me here?” He finished another beer with a noisy sip before falling back into a more comfortable position. “Shit, I hate men, really, I absolutely fucking hate men.”

That one did it. She burst out laughing, a croaky, choked up laugh that started to hurt her sides really quickly. And Steve, slapping her thigh and glaring at her, really didn’t help much. But oh my god, what the hell – Steve Harrington, recently turned advocate for the ‘anti men’ fraction because someone fake-cheated on Barbara Hershey. Fuck, she needed to tell Robin about that.

The end of the movie, however, quickly beat the laughter out of both of them.

As the credits started to roll, neither of them really said anything. Both of them hanging low in their seats, shoulder to shoulder, trying to stomach the heartbreak the movie threw at them.

“…Well that ending was shit.”

“Yupp.” She nodded, wiping at her cheeks with the back of her hand.

“I mean, why did she have to die? Bullshit.” Steve pushed back his hair, clearly not agreeing with what he just saw. “Who makes a movie about friendship just to kill one of them off?”

“Right? I mean, was that necessary? God, they could just have hinted at it, but why show it?” At the thought, new tears blurred her sight. “And, I mean, the whole thing with the ‘Hi’ at the end, why make it so casual? Fuck.”

“Yeah, man. I mean, who walks into the hospital, sees their dying friend, and just says ‘Hi’!? What the fuck.” Silence settled once again, both of them staring at the names flying by on the screen.

Honestly, maybe they were just the wrong people for that movie.

Maybe someone else could have seen beauty or love in it. And sure, there certainly was love between those two, maybe even in its purest of forms. C.C. had driven her car through the night, leaving everything behind because of a simple note and spent the entire time reminiscing about her best friend. She’d raced to another town, because her friend was dying and she wanted to be there for her. So yes, there was love, there was beauty in everything.

But it didn’t register with her.

Not with her, not with Steve.

The problem with her and Steve was likely the fact that they’d both feared for each other’s lives before - more than once. It wasn’t a feeling she ever wanted to have to face again, and it wasn’t something she liked to talk or even think about. Because to her it was neither love nor beauty – it was just pain. She could imagine how Steve had felt when that Demodog jumped her in ‘84. That fucking beast had tackled her down, burrowing it’s claws into her sides, and tried to bite her head off or whatever those shit’s do. A well-placed hit with Steve’s bat had saved her, but damn. It’d been dangerously close. And then, back in ’86, when Steve was dragged into lovers’ lake...god. She felt his hand slip out of hers, she saw the panic in his eyes as he was dragged out of sight and for a moment her mind when silent, nothing but one thought prevailing.

Steve was dying.

Needless to say, she’d short circuited and dove into the water – which she absolutely hated – to save him. A tiny part of her wished she wouldn’t have, because hearing his screams and seeing those monsters maul him was…yeah, let’s just say it was the main setting of many of her nightmares. He knew, of course, because she’d told him. Just as he told her about his dreams. How he often dreamed about running towards the trailer she, Dustin and Eddie were supposed to be hiding in only to find the scene changed. Instead of her, hurt and screaming for help while dragging a bleeding, half conscious Eddie Munson towards the trailer he came back to silence. He came to find her lying right next to Eddie, bloody and disfigured. Or maybe he came back to screams all the same, but instead of hers it was Dustin or Eddie screaming while dragging her unmoving body.

“Hey.” Steve used his elbow to snap her out of her mind. As always, he just waited for her eyes to focus on him and for her mind to come back to the here and now. He didn’t ask questions, because he knew what the answers would be.

Once she was fully present again, he nodded towards her midriff. “You keep massaging your stomach. You okay?” Confused, she looked down at her hands. And sure enough, there she was, massaging away.

“Ah, no. I mean, yeah, I’m fine. Just one of those hissy tummy days.” Steve looked less than amused.

“Period or stomach bug?” Stifling a sigh, she let herself fall sideways on the sofa.

“Oh, the woes of womanhood.” Steve winced.

“Period, alright.” Sighing he patted her thigh. “Poor girl. How about, like, a heating pad or something? That helps, right?” He didn’t even wait for her to nod, he just got up and wandered on. “Where do you keep those?”

“I’m out, but I’ve got a hot water bottle in the wardrobe.”

“Shouldn’t you, you know, stock up on that sorta stuff?” Steve wandered into her bedroom like he owned the place, rooting through her drawers without an inkling of hesitation.

“I usually do, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. This whole week’s been a mess and a half.” The boy just hummed his answer, wandering back into the kitchen to heat up some water.

“Do you need pain meds or something?” She watched him bustle around the kitchen from where she lay, frowning. “Hello?”

“What?”

“Do you need pain meds? Tylenol? Wait, do you take Tylenol for that?” She chuckled softly.

“I usually take Midol, but Tylenol works. But I don’t need any right now, it’s not that bad.” He did that cute thing he sometimes did, where he silently repeated things to himself in order to commit them to memory. She could clearly read his lips, read the word ‘Midol’ and just had to grin.

The kettle was done boiling and Steve went back into the kitchen for a few moments. It didn’t take him long to fill the hot water bottle, let some steam out, squeeze it and carry it over to her. Carefully, he dropped it onto her achy stomach, sending her an analytic glance.

“I’m fine, Steve. I do this every month, remember?” He winced again.

“Yeah, all the more reason someone should spoil you a bit.” He wandered over to the TV, rooting through her meagre collection of tapes. Picking one up, he removed ‘Beaches’ from the player with a disgusted face and changed it for something else. Then he got up, dropped himself back onto the sofa and nodded at the remote. “On with it, sweet girl. Molly Ringwald is waiting for us.”

***

‘The Breakfast Club’ kept running, both of them not really paying attention. Sometimes they’d talk but mostly, they just both got lost in their own thoughts. It was nice, though. Sitting quietly with Steve, not talking and not really doing anything was strangely comforting. The TV filled the quiet with useless chatter and provided them with light in her now entirely dark living room. Tut had at some point left the chair behind to curl himself up on Steve’s lap, where he was now purring away while the boy tiredly ran his fingers over the cat’s skin.

But not only that.

No, his other hand kept rubbing circles into her calf and she felt like purring herself. The gentle stroking was so rhythmical and comforting that she could feel herself drift in and out of sleep, barely able to focus on any coherent thought.

Until Steve started talking, that is.

“Hey, are you awake?” He suddenly asked, quietly and yet way too loudly. A non-committal hum was all she could offer. “Can I ask you something?” Steve’s voice sounded thick with exhaustion, indicating he was likely just as tired as she felt.

“…Shoot.” She mumbled back, the warm, sleepy atmosphere weighing on her heavily. Seriously, she’d probably stopped him from saying anything, had she had half a mind to. Sleepy Steve was a dangerous version of him. He was often too honest and too curious for his own good.

“So, uhm…we were talking about Ian earlier and it got me thinking.”

“…Ian?”

“Yeah.” Steve looked at her, his head tipped back against the couch. “You never really told me why you guys broke up. I mean, one day you guys were all in love and the next you’re crying in front of my door talking about how you needed a place to stay until Ian was gone.”

“Hmmh…” She sighed at the memory. She’d cried so much that night. Poor Steve was likely absolutely overwhelmed, but he’d taken it like a champ. He didn’t ask any questions, he didn’t cuss Ian out, he didn’t do anything but pat her back and let her cry. “Ian…” she started, her voice barely more than a whisper “…you know, he’s a good guy.” He really was. Ian looked like a douchebag with that pretty face of his and those broad shoulders, but he was actually one of the kindest souls she knew. He was caring, warm and soft. Loving. “And because of that, I had to tell him to leave.” Steve frowned.

“Okay, you lost me already. I’m tired, please go easy on me.” She grumbled, getting up only to plop down the other way around, her head against his shoulder. He put his arm around her, accepting her tired form into a loose embrace, while using the other to secure the hot water bottle back against her torso.

“I have nightmares. As you know.” He’d been there for many of them. “I mean, they’re not as bad now but...” Steve nodded, saving her the need of more explanation. “The worst, most frequent ones started back in ’85. And…well, Ian could deal with those. He kinda understood why they were happening, with Starcourt and my dad and brother and everything…or he thought he understood, at least.” She hugged the lukewarm water bottle closer against herself. “They got better the more time passed… which he noticed. And that would’ve been fine, I guess, had it not been for all that ’86 crap.” She focused on the TV in front where Molly Ringwald and Judd Nelson were bickering on. Blegh. “When they got worse again, he started to ask questions.” So many damn questions. “I didn’t want to lie to him… but I could obviously not tell him the truth.” If she closed her eyes, she could clearly remember the hurt on his face, the way his blue eyes turned hard whenever she shot him down. Ian…was an extremely kind man. But he was also someone who hated being shut out. She sighed. “A relationship filled with secrets and lies can’t work. I saw how he stopped trusting me every time I told him that it would be fine. That he didn’t need to know.” She bit her lips at the memory. “And every time he would ask more and more questions. He’d ask about my scars, about my dreams, my fear of dogs and tight spaces and why I wouldn’t just talk to him…And every time I could just look at him and say ‘It’s fine, Ian. It’s okay now’.” Tiredly, she wiped some stray tears from her cheeks. It was so dumb to keep crying about that – it had been a year now and both she and Ian had moved on. That didn’t make it any easier, though. “It hurt him; I know it did. And hurting him hurt me, so I just…”

“Let him go.” She nodded, closing her eyes against the new tears threatening to form. Steve sighed, stroking her arm with gentle fingers. “I know, what’s done is done. But couldn’t you just have… told him the truth?”

“Would you? If it was…I don’t know, anyone really.” Steve sighed again, placing his chin on her hair.

“…Probably not, no.”

“See?” She sighed. “He’s better off without all this. Without me.”

“Don’t say that. That’s not true. Nobody is better off without you, you’re great.” She snorted.

“Yeah…thanks, Steve.”

“You know I really mean that.”

“I do…” But believing it was another thing. Honestly, could she even rant about Steve never listening to her when she told him to stop blaming himself? She wasn’t any better. She hid away from everyone and everything, shut out anyone that wasn’t already involved simply because she feared she would make their lives worse by just existing next to them.

“Is that the reason you stopped dating too? The whole ‘questions you can’t answer’ thing?” She sighed against his neck, shrugging slightly.

“I don’t know…Maybe. Or maybe it was just…”

“Hm?” He looked down at her and she shrugged again.

“I really… really loved Ian. A lot.” If it weren’t so cheesy, she’d go as far as call him her first love. “I did try to move on. I went on dates and I tried really hard to get to know people. And sure, sometimes it was about getting laid, but others were genuine attempts at meeting someone I want to be with. But it just…it wasn’t the same.” He nodded, because that he knew. She’d told him every time, ranting about how the people she’d met were weird or rude. How they commented on her ‘workers hands’ or her body, how they tried to kiss her when she clearly said no. And even if she said yes, they somehow found a way to make her uncomfortable by getting all grabby and forward. Those were the worst kind of dates, the kind that made her feel dirty and used. The ones, where all she wanted to do was take a long, hot shower and forget about it.

Of course, not every date was like that.

There were many decent people around Hawkins if one cared to look for them. But even if it wasn’t that…they just never seemed right. Some dates were objectively nice, especially those that her friends had helped her set up. Steve and the others knew her, they knew who she might click with. Those were the dates where people would hold doors, ask questions and be friendly and polite. They wore nice clothes and the conversations flowed easily and continuously. And yet, even after those dates, the best part was the drive home.

“It just never…” she took a deep breath “…never felt right with anyone else.”

“…Yeah, I get it.” Steve said, shifting his arm to hold her a tiny bit closer. “I keep looking for something special, but it’s…it’s just never there. Maybe I should just, you know, wait and see. Give up the active hunt. Relax more…” Steve ran his fingers over her hair absentmindedly. “I don’t even know what exactly I want, what exactly I’m expecting to find. I just always know that this, whatever this may be, isn’t it.” They sighed in unison at that. “We’re a mess.”

“Fuck yeah we are.”

The two of them chuckled tiredly, huddled together on her small couch in the tiny single wide she called home, while ‘Breakfast Club’ slowly but surely reached its conclusion. Tut was happily snoring away on Steve’s lap, the sound mixing with the chatter of the TV, blending into a calming sea of noise. With every chuckle she felt Steve’s body vibrate softly against hers, a warm pressure, soft but firm at the same time. She could feel his breath against her hairline, he felt her against his neck – soft puffs of warm air that left way to soon.

The whole situation should have been uncomfortable or emotional. It would have been with anyone else. It would’ve been too much skinship, a blatant invasion of personal space. Every word would have been a dance along the lines of too honest and not honest enough, trying to toe around the dreaded overshare but keeping the whole talk genuine and open. Lies would have been told, truths would’ve been omitted in favour of not seeming too weak or too pathetic.

This conversation should’ve been so difficult, admitting their feelings and hopes should’ve been… and yet it wasn’t.

Instead, it was warm and soft, honest and quiet. A mere whisper in the dark. An ear that listened to the soft words of another, not questioning what was shared. It was the two of them, sharing everything while leaving each other room to breathe, to just be. Accepting the things that were said without judgement, without forcing the other person to act like something they weren’t.

It was comfort and ease, the routine of a long, close friendship. A friendship that had been through highs and lows, that had seen the worst parts of each person. A friendship, that persevered when one abandoned the other, when the wrong words were yelled at the wrong time, when promises were broken and forgotten. Time had tested it with girlfriends, mistakes and the supernatural.

Through that, it became a friendship that survived all the hurt thrown at it. It survived, because the two of them knew that, in the end, they would always choose each other again.

It was a friendship, that was like breathing.

Easy and thoughtless.

Because that was what the two of them truly were.

[mdhwrites]

So, any theories on what Sasha's parents are like? Like I doubt they were perfect considering Sasha's behavior (remember when she outright stated in True Colors that she was okay never going back home and having zero problem with smashing the box, plus the fact she never shows signs of missing them even after her redemption in season 3). And considering how other redemptions are with their flawed relationship with family like Pacifica on Gravity Falls, Amity and Hunter on Owl House, Andrea on Ghost & Molly McGee, Zuko on Avatar the Last Airbender, Eddy on Ed Edd n Eddy, Catra on She Ra 2018, Lena on DuckTales 2017, Ludo on Star vs the Forces of Evil, and Helga on Hey Arnold, it's hard to believe Sasha had the best relationship with her parents. Granted Sunset Shimmer from the MLP FiM spin off Equestria Girls is a redemption character who also never had her family brought up or ever had an onscreen reason for why she was an evil and mean bully in the first movie (aside from probably just being an arrogant power hungry spoiled brat) so maybe Sasha's kinda like her in a sense too.

So this is a question I actually LOVE. There's a LOT you can glean off of a parent by their kid in general, let alone with any references to them. However... Them being redeemed doesn't always say anything about their relationship. Hell, for Amity since you listed her and I can comment, the speed of her redemption versus how much of a mustache twirling villain Odalia is ACTIVELY CONTRADICT EACH OTHER. It's REALLY bad.

Sasha's redemption says literally fuck all about her parents. Mostly because they don't mean anything to Sasha. Very little means anything to Sasha besides herself and her two best friends. Arguably not even Marcy.

The rest of her context to being willing to see the box destroyed and not return is critical here because she does actually explain herself. "Why rule a school when I can rule a world?" Her priority is self aggrandizing. It's not about freedom and it's not about safety. In fact, Sasha has cared very little for other's freedoms or her own safety. What matters is that Sasha is winning. Even Battle of the Bands made it clear that she is used to doing whatever it takes to be on top and getting her way.

Which to me doesn't mean abusive parents like you want to imply just through saying a lot of other shows did the trope of blaming abusive parents for bad behavior... It just means parents who thought the best way to make their daughter happy was to never tell her no. They let her live a life that had no consequences and where she didn't have to worry because if she skipped school or needed fifty bucks for gal pal time, they'd give it to her. This fits a lot more with Sasha's arc too because her arc has nothing to do with rebelling against her parents. She CHOSE to be a bad person. To not care about others. It's only by realizing that what she does hurt people with her actions and deciding they matter that she becomes a better person.

And to me, that's MUCH more compelling than trying to scapegoat what someone does onto their parent. It's not like everyone is evil just because their parents are shit. It devalues their choices as a character and is honestly a trope I'd like to see LESS. Or, bare minimum, not have standing up to their parent be like flipping a switch and making them automatically a good person because those scars last and their parents couldn't have made them do EVERY bad thing they did. Just look at Amity who decided "I'm going to make my ex-friend's life hell for YEARS despite only having to tell her we're not friends anymore to make my parents happy." That's not her parent's fault, that's her decision to be a monster.

At some point, the blame is on you for what you do. Narratively, for me, that's also more compelling and satisfying because it means you are the only one to blame for your gains too. People always have the choice to do good. It's their decision if it's too much work or relies on caring about others too much.

That to me is what makes Sasha so compelling and why anyone who wanted to see her parents I think are just asking for a categorically weaker story.

======+++++======

I didn't mean for the two blogs to be on a theme today but I decided on this anyways since I had both typed up. For anyone curious why I thought the previous one was dumb but this one was fun, it's simple: One asked if it belonged in the narrative. This one is just nice old character analysis.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

[greenerteacups]

What do you think of Tonks and Remus? Wrong answers only 😒. No really, I mean he was older than her and he didn’t seem to love her half as much as she loved him. What are your theories, canon-fitted and otherwise, on their relationship? Do you think he used her?

Oh, they're beards! Next question.

I appreciate the prompt, because you've handed me a shiny free pass to go on a rant I've been holding in since reading Half-Blood Prince. Taking my preferences aside, I don't think he used Tonks, although I think the age gap ads a really unnecessary layer of skeeze to their relationship. To be clear: I like Remus with Sirius, but I don't need them to end up together to be happy. I just don't see why it's Tonks. We don't see their natural chemistry; there's no scenes of banter, I don't know what she likes about him or vice versa. I do know that she's desperately in love with him after Order of the Phoenix, and he... isn't, honestly. Or at least, he doesn't act like he's in love with her. I'm not saying this just to shit on Remus and Tonks; I'm saying this because if I did ship Remus and Tonks, I would be mad as hell at how hard I got short shifted in Book 6! I would not have been fed! That is not a romance arc! Which makes me think, you know, okay, then why are we here? Why is it this woman, i Ask Thee, Remus Lupin, whom you have decided to marry, even though you frankly have more chemistry with Severus Snape? Or, to reframe from an authorial perspective: the HP world is wide open, someone from childhood could walk back into his life, or someone from another school, or you can introduce another Marauders-Era character, or you can just come up with someone from whole cloth — why is it Tonks?

But then I thought: Tonks is intriguingly similar to Sirius in several ways. She's a disgraced Black, she's charming and charismatic, she's a skilled fighter, she's a jokester, she's generally kind and doesn't take herself seriously, she's a shapeshifter. There's a line in OOTP that says she never made prefect because she didn't have "the temperament," which suggests she might've been a troublemaker (not hard to believe). As someone who ships him with Sirius, and believes that their relationship is at least a little bit coded romantic, that all reads like Something to me. But even for strictly canonical purposes, those similarities are still hard to ignore, especially since Tonks begins pursuing Remus in the same year as Sirius dies. So it's a handful of months after he watches his last childhood friend get murdered that Remus is deflecting her advances, meanwhile he's in the middle of fighting a war, meanwhile everyone in his life is pushing them to get together Because Love or whatever the fuck, @ Molly, @ McGonagall for some reason, and it's not hard to imagine that he just... gives in.

He's lonely, he's scared, and here's this person who reminds him of his friend and is willing to freely give him affection and care, and like... to be real? I don't think Remus believes he's going to live that long past Sirius's death, anyway. He's talking about giving Tonks children, but that's stuff he says to her when he's trying to deter her from pursuing him; when he talks about himself, he uses a lot of words like "damaged" and "broken" and "[not] whole." Added to the fact that the First and Second Wars are both very bloody and he's an active fighter in several notable battles; added to the fact that if he's caught, his lycanthropy means he's a target for killing, since taking a werewolf prisoner is the kind of smart move that begs to lose wars; added to the fact that he's been undercover with werewolves for part of this year, which, though we don't hear about it outright, is obviously a move to isolate himself from his friends and cannot do good things for his mental health; all these things point to him being in a Very Dark Place during HBP, and puts him in a headspace where he might marry Tonks essentially to make her happy, because he can always console himself that she'll end up a widow and be free to go live her life after the war.

Is that using her? Yeah, I guess, in that he's entering the relationship on slightly less sincere terms than she is, and I think what he's getting out of it is much more basic and unsentimental than what she's getting; but in his defense, Tonks has sort of marshaled the Order of the Phoenix behind her on this, and we also don't see that she altogether... cares if he's in it for her? He rejects her like, twice at minimum, and she keeps pushing, which is— like, girl, do you honestly want to be in a relationship with someone who's rejected you twice? Who you had to badger into giving you the time of day? Why? We don't know; she just wants him. Which, again, is a very 23-year-old thing to do: it's object-oriented, it's not based in compatibility or long-term happiness or even mutual affection. She's acting like someone who hasn't been in a relationship before. Which, by the way, SHE MIGHT NOT HAVE BEEN! SHE'S 23!!

Whether or not the Age Gap implies mistreatment, I don't really think it does; I mean, it is a Not Great Situation, and if I were Tonks's friend I would be yelling at her very loudly about why she should wait until her mid- to late-twenties to date someone that much older than her, if ever, but Tonks is an adult, both in our sense of the word and the Wizarding World's. The fact that Remus was already at Hogwarts when she was born is a skin-crawler, but ultimately not one accompanied by other evidence of mistreatment or manipulation on his part. This is helped by the fact that we never (ever! at all!) see Remus pursue or flirt with Tonks, or give her any encouragement, which means their relationship feels DOA for a lot of readers, but also means that the element of older-man-seduces-younger-woman is nowhere in their relationship. (I think it's WILDLY telling whenever the creep factor of a ship increases tenfold the moment you imagine the dynamics flipped, but that's my thing, whatever.)

(That being said, while I've been trying to humanize/rationalize Remus's decision, he's still responsible for it. He's a grown ass man, and whom he dates is his choice. It doesn't matter if Molly Weasley's being annoying about it. You're 35. Act like a grownup. Don't date 23-year-olds.)

Tonks is a much less thorny case, because she's younger, and the books are more sympathetic to her. Plus, I mean, seriously: if you're a freshly-minted college-age guerrilla soldier in a horribly traumatizing war, probably haven't been on a date in a while, you've Been Busy, and this hot grizzled 30-something with a reading habit and a sensitive side comes around and hangs out a lot and laughs at your jokes, then like — yeah! Girl, I get it!! I am on board with Tonks having a puppy crush on Remus, even though I think it does bad things to her character in HBP, because it could have been a springboard for all sorts of ruminating about age, and power, and "want you" vs. "want to be you," and the social allure of older men, with all the potential for manipulation that opens up. None of that was explored, but that's a problem of execution, not concept.

In conclusion, I like Tonks a lot, and I think she's a pretty realistic rendition of a young woman in her early twenties who, like all young twenty-somethings, is exercising her inalienable right to make stupid-ass decisions and fuck up her love life. I will defend her for that seven days a week. I will not, however, defend the authorial choice to make everyone in her life complicit in that bad decision.

[polkadotart]

This is Raini. I think about her occasionally but she is Lex's ex girlfriend before he met molly. Her design is pretty generic here but she likes to wear a lot of jewelry and stuff she is a Folk/ambient indie artist that met lex because he helped her record her music. However she didn't really need much help because it almost seemed like she was using his equipment she just didn't have access to that kind of stuff she was very much stubborn and wanted to have some control over the recording and mixing process and that's ok it's honestly is why her and Lex bonded they were on the same level. Why they broke up was because Lex was going through rehab he wasn't in a good place emotionally while it was hopeful lex struggled a lot through the process and became extremely irritable he was extremely distant and Raini wasn't harsh she just thought he needed his space they broke up and honestly didn't talk much after that. There were issues in their relationship and honestly the breakup wasn't that surprising it was just they grew apart and Lex going through all that just drew them farther apart but they could still be friends they just don't talk anymore

[utilitycaster]

I like your posts because you're honest and usually have takes that differ from the mainstream and I was wondering if the Lucien Novel changed or maybe re-enforced ideas you've had before.

Hi anon,

First off, thank you for what is, for me, the highest compliment! I really appreciate it.

As for the book, for the most part it reinforced my ideas, but it also made me care more about some characters, and provided a lot of insight into Lucien that I appreciated. I did write up why I liked Brevyn, who was introduced in this book, over here.

(by the way this is not below a cut but is full of spoilers and is tagged as such)

The general thesis of the book felt, to me, that Lucien was a manipulative, selfish asshole who had a legitimately rough life, but who basically deliberately decided to be a selfish asshole at every opportunity. The one truly noble thing he did, in my opinion, is sending Aldreda off to the Empire; but also he did that because he killed their parents in cold blood before the age of 12, and then he proceeded to utterly fuck up that relationship by not writing. He could have lived a boring stable life in the Empire once she was established if he'd maintained that relationship, but he didn't even bother to write half the time. I actually hadn't totally loved how Lucien seemed to be receptive to the Nein appealing to Molly, given how far he was down the rabbit hole of Charismatic Abusive Cult Leader at that point, but the reveal that there was some shard of something - Molly, Kingsley, or some Moonweaver-approved shred of a decent person and of memory - fighting inside of him helped make that make sense. Anyway, since I openly thought Lucien absolutely sucked in every possible way I was pleasantly surprised to find that a book about him managed to make him both more understandable but also just as if not more monstrous.

I also liked that it made the other tombtakers more sympathetic and gave them somewhat more personality. Jurrell was incredibly fun; I've already said that I love Brevyn (and her death made the attitude towards Vess much more resonant)I love that Tyffial continues to embody "go girl give us nothing"; I love that Otis is kind of a huge loser actually (Lucien: Otis was tough. The book: Otis has never passed a constitution save in his life), and Zoran became something more than dumb muscle whom Otis thinks smells weird (I trust Zoran more than Otis). It also explained a lot about Cree - her relationship with Lucien dating back to childhood and her belief in "the glint" explain why she is the one who keeps the faith the longest, even two years after Lucien dies, even after Molly is clearly not the same person, even after everyone else in the tombtakers has died. It's the sort of relationship that could only come from a very long-term, almost familial friendship that the rest lacked, and it explains why she follows him to her doom. (And it makes Lucien even worse of a person).

The other two highlights are:

Vess DeRogna, because I do love evil elven women who wear a lot of green. I love that she's a bird person [note for anyone reading this who did not read the book: in the sense that her Magnificent Mansion is called the Aviary and is full of birds, not that she's secretly an eisfuura] and I love that she, a known neutral evil person who is just terrible and uncaring all around, still stops short of following the Somnovem and says 'wait a minute', underscoring that Lucien is someone who could have chosen to redeem himself and at every opportunity is like "what if I were worse though."

The choice to make this third-person limited, so that we're really experiencing this from Lucien's perspective, means we get Lucien's take on the Mighty Nein and he makes LITERALLY EVERY MISTAKE POSSIBLE. He underestimates Fjord, he really underestimates Jester and Veth, he has a dumb ego trip about outsmarting wizards and the Cobalt Soul in the past that really fucks him up about Caleb and Beau, he mostly ignores Caduceus and Essek (something something a villain cannot see the value of support casters) and the shard of Molly keeps being like "hey, Yasha is important to you, dickhead". It's GREAT.

Finally, while this was mostly about confirming my feelings from C2, two other fun notes:

love the Bolo reference. very fun.

This might be unpopular but as someone who has vocally been like "Caleb/Molly has literally zero chemistry", overlaying Lucien kissing Brevyn's forehead as she died with Molly kissing Caleb's forehead when Caleb was having an episode is the very first time in what is now almost five years since the start of Campaign 2 when I could muster up even a tiny shred of appreciation for Caleb/Molly. Like, I do not ship it, but Madeleine Roux has made me vaguely see why someone might, in a way that 141 episodes of the actual show and however much fan content could not. And that is fucking impressive of her.

[harryissuchalittleshit]

Hey girl!! I'm new here to ur blog and I'm curious Abt ur ships and headcanons for Harry Potter characters? I love ur Harry and Weasley takes but I want to know all ur ships lmao I was looking to see if u had a pinned post but I don't so I figured I'd ask 💕

Hi! Welcome to my blog and thank you for asking about my ships, I have a lot of them and I'm going to try and link some of my stories from Ao3. I put everything under the read more as it turned out to be a lot longer than anticipated!

Bill/Fleur - I ship them in a sort of toxic downfall(?), they're just the kind of couple that I see rushing in too fast and then not dealing with any of their trauma.

Victoire/SJ - they fell in love while Victoire was visiting her grandparents in Paris, he's a few years older and super sweet and doting on Victoire. They have a great relationship.

Dominique/Lorcan - more of a friends to lovers story, but involve an unplanned teen pregnancy, a family tragedy, and also lots of cousin drama, they somehow make it work.

Louis/Anamika - I really adore them, both of them are so quiet and shy despite being on the younger side of their ridiculously big families. They find a peace and love in one another that I find so refreshing and honest.

Percy/Audrey - one of my top Weasley couples! I just simply adore the pair of them, Percy is so sweet to Audrey, her shoulder to lean on while the world pushes her down. And Audrey is the complete opposite of her quiet and studious man, but that's what makes him love her more.

Molly/Artie - they're not exactly a match made in heaven, but they are a second chance romance. They loved one another at 15/16 and they come back to each other again at 20/21. Sometimes mistakes happen in life and sometimes you wake up after a night of partying married to your ex-boyfriend.

Lucy/Devon - She's a nervous wreck at her best and he loves her despite her self-doubt. They care so deeply for one another and she gets more and more confident with him at her side.

George/Angelina - They're resilient, the couple that can manage anything as long as they're together. A sweet pair of soulmates that saw each other at eleven and never looked back.

Freddie/LeeAnne - Another pair of soulmates that met each other young and who love one another so deeply and completely despite the hardships it causes.

Roxanne/Sean/Sasha - Roxanne has been through everything, she has been through so much pain and Sean helped her get through it. Sasha helped her see the light after so much pain and their love is so true and sweet after everything that has happened.

Ron/Hermione - what can I not say about this couple? I adore Romione and think that they are such an amazing couple that have gone through so much together.

Rose/Scorpius - my first OTP in the next generation, I just love the thought of their family dinners. They're definitely a couple that go through lots of ups and downs, but that never lessens their love for one another.

Hugo/Lyla - I love them so much, Hugo is so wild and Lyla is so anxious, but when they come together they manage to become something so entirely beautiful and happy together.

Harry/Ginny - I do love a couple that find each other over and over and over again. They're a couple that love one another in every moment and I love writing them.

James/Marci - coming soon, Nano2023 project

Al/Maggie - they were toxic young couple at 17 and grow into a beautiful and ridiculously loving couple at 21. They go on to become a staple at Hogwarts as DADA professor and Hospital Wing Matron.

Lily/Ryan - She's a bit of a wild child and he's able to wrangle her in, they have a mutual love of music and dancing, and they find each other in their darkest moments.

Draco/Astoria - we love couples that grow and learn from one another and they do that over and over and over again!

Padma/Theodore - a rarepair but a good pair, they come together despite their differences and they are such good parents to any child that comes through their home

Susan/Dudley - my first real rarepair, I love them so much and the story I’ve created for them means so much to me. They found each other over and over again and they found love even during a rainstorm.

[bikelock28]

Bill and Fleur?

Now you’re talking! The best couple everrrrrr. Of course I ship.

What made you ship it?

All of the reasons below. I came quite late to Bleur. It’s only in the last few years I’ve realised how awesome they are (ngl I came late to all HP couples that aren’t Romione).

What are your favourite things about the ship?

Fleur especially has a very specific characterisation. But we see little of Bleur’s relationship on-page. That’s the ideal combo- lots of characterisation to grasp, lots of missing moments to explore.

Hospital. Wing. It’s romantic AF. It’s a shock for the characters and, let’s be honest here, the reader, that Fleur is so unshallow and committed to bill. Obviously I love Molly but I also love how much of a dressing-down Fleur gives her and how accurate her assessment is of what Molly thought of her.

A wedding is always a good setpiece.

I mentioned in the Hinny answer that Hinny lack conflict. It’s possible to argue the same with Bleur, but I think the war, the Weasleys, The French Thing, and the fact that they’re not at school, create plenty of interesting situations of conflict

Their relationship throws light on other couples (Romione, Remadora, Hinny a bit, maybe Mr & Mrs W?) as it so contrasts them so much (Bleur are actually a, you know, couple- something 3 of the ships I just mentioned have trouble with), AND THEN they have a wedding- one big event where ideas/relationships can A. Feel intensified, B. Be developed and explored. E.g in Bleur’s wedding you’ve got loads of Romione stuff (he asks her to dance! He’s never done anything like that before! He tells her she “looks great”, they both meet Krum, they’re mistaken for an item), Harry thinking over his breakup with/still being possessive over Ginny, Lupin stressing about how he’s going to get through this bloody day when Tonks only recently told him she’s preggers. Imagine being any of those characters in those situations, while in the romance-filled, happy, celebration of a wedding. Especially of such a soppy, horny, demonstrative couple!

Absolute gangstas, the pair of ‘em.

Absolute lookers, the pair of ‘em.

Listeners of the Binge Mode podcast will remember Jason’s discussions of how horny Bleur were- thinking about it makes me giggle to this day. 

Nice to see a happy, long-term relationship which develops during canon era.

Yo Fleur, you see that cute guy hanging around after your peer has just DIED in the 3rd task? Go get him babe.

I love Bill being the coolest big bro who lands the hot wife. And I love that to him it probably doesn’t seem as simple at that sounds!

I just love Fleur so much, I could talk about her all day (ask if you want more of my thoughts!).

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

Well they’re not a very popular ship are they? Not unpopular, just generally quite overlooked/ambivalent. So my unpopular opinion is that they should be more loved and there should be lots more fanfic/fanart about them!

More weird than unpopular- I really struggle to realistically visualise Fleur, in my head she often ends up looking like Princess Elsa.

[sugarsnappeases]

summer holiday matchmaking please!!

AAA HI HI DARLING!!

summer holiday matchmaking is kinda rogue but so silly to me it's something i thought of aaages ago and still haven't like properly started writing but it's very fun, it's basically the whole pre-marauders gang going on holiday to zabini's villa in italy in the summer one year and she's literally going about trying to set everyone up w each other...

more below the cut bc this got long.....

zira (zabini, btw i did have a reason that i can't remember anymore but i started calling her that in my head and now i can't stop so we're sticking w it) is there... obviously. and she has this whole major matchmaking scheme that doesn't go entirely right all the time but gets the right results anyway... like she manages to get most of the couples that she wants to get together to get together

the couples in questions areeee:

bella and rita, bc this is me we're talking about and i can't live without quillkiller, and they're circling each other like prey in this one like i think they take the longest to get together bc they just kinda don't want the chase to end

cissy and alice, they're so special to me!!! lots of very nervous kinda moves being made but also like... cissy figures out what zira is doing So quickly and immediately goes into denial about liking alice lol so there's a bit of difficulty there

rodolphus and antonin, my precious angry babies, you already know my thoughts about them as enemies to enemies who fuck and i don't think this is much different like they're not enemies really but zira just manages to gets them to fuck it out rather than scream at each other and calls it a job well done

frank and rabastan, quite sweet i think but i haven't entirely figured this one out it's just general vibes and pasta dough kneading atm

ted and andromeda, this is an already established relationship and they're very sweet and happy and in love etc etc bc they deserve it

lucius and gideon (prewett), but this is more of an unexpected one night stand rather than a relationship so this is very very minor (they somehow end up worming their way into half my fics like this)

also another already established relationship, potentially molly and arthur weasley?? bc i saw this tiktok one time talking about arthur and andy being friends and i was kinda like.... yeah?? maybe??

oh and then also fabian (prewett) and the carrow twins are all gonna be there too like that's their big friend group that spans several school houses and years (although i've lessened the age gap a bit like the black sisters are all just one year apart from each other in this like cissy just finished 5th year, andy just finished 6th and bella just finished 7th, and the rest of their friends span those years like accordingly yk)

also i was thinking of writing this from zira's pov, so it's all kinda an outsiders pov of the various relationships which i just thought would be really interesting to do... but tbh i haven't properly started writing this yet, i've just mapped out the general vibes

there's gonna be a bunch of lounging by the poolside, chatting on the deckchairs, beaches, clubs, cocktails, matching tattoos, house parties, italian food, skinny dipping, drinking games, pasta making, gossiping and DRAMA!! lots of drama and zira is just sitting back and relaxing and having the absolute time of her life......

anyway that's that for now!!!