#I just kinda wanna talk

[oars]

[unclewaynemunson]

Pt2 to this post

'Is something wrong?' Nancy asks, not long after the two of them have taken their familiar spots on the hood of Steve's car. They're basking in what might be the last warm sunlight of the year, looking out over the quarry, at a safe distance from the edge.

It's become a tradition the two of them share, ever since they reconnected back in March. It calms them both, to just sit here and take in the view, no one around but each other. Nancy is one of the few people Steve can share a comfortable silence with: sometimes they sit here quietly for what feels like hours, side by side, listening to music or to nothing but the birds singing around them. But they also have their best conversations here: it's the place where Nancy entrusted him she wanted to break up with Jonathan; it's the place where they talked about their shared past and decided they would always love each other as friends; it's the place where they finally talked about Barbara in a way they couldn't when they were younger. It's where Nancy talked about the ghosts still haunting her and Steve talked about how lonely he sometimes felt.

Steve huffs. 'How did you guess?'

'When you frown, you always do it with your whole face,' Nancy notes. 'So it's hard to miss, really.'

Steve glances at her side profile. There's a serenity to her features that's still relatively new. It means she's healing, slowly learning how to be happy again. It means she stopped waiting for the end of the world and started believing in a real future again. It makes Steve proud of how far they both have come.

'I had a fight with Eddie,' he confesses. 'And with Dustin, I guess.'

'What happened?'

He sighs. 'It's complicated.'

'Wanna tell me about it?'

The look in her eyes is kind and inviting. Steve hesitates. He wants to, but he doesn't know if he can. It's a risk. It's scary.

But he can't imagine Nancy Wheeler ever being careless with his secrets. He can't imagine her judging him, can't imagine her being as small-minded as most people in this town.

He was planning on telling her anyway, because things had been going so well with Eddie lately and – no, he shouldn't think about that right now. But maybe it would actually be nice to talk about it with Nancy.

'So, um...' His throat feels tight and his hands are sweaty. 'I recently discovered some things about myself. I-' The words get stuck somewhere on the way to his mouth, and he clears his throat.

Nancy doesn't push, but only gives him an encouraging nod, waiting for him to find his voice again.

'I found out I like boys,' he finally manages to confess. 'And I need you to know that – that that doesn't mean that what I felt for you wasn't real. It was. I loved you, and now I fell in love with a boy. And-'

'Steve.' Nancy's hand suddenly covers his, causing him to finally jerk his head away from the view over the quarry, to focus on her face again instead.

Her eyes are wide, and she squeezes his hand.

'You don't have to explain yourself to me,' she tells him. 'We're good. But thank you for telling me. For trusting me with this.'

Steve heaves out a relieved sigh, and Nancy smiles; it's that genuine kind of smile which reveals all kinds of dimples and soft lines across her face.

'We might be more similar than you thought,' she tells him, a faint blush spreading over her cheeks.

'Really?' Her words make his breath catch in his throat. He squints at her, trying to see her in this new light. 'Are you saying what I think you're saying?'

She shrugs. 'I don't know. I'm not sure yet,' she admits. 'Still figuring things out.'

'Take your time, there's no rush,' he tells her. 'But...' He bumps his shoulder against hers. 'When you're done figuring it out, talk to me, okay?'

She nods. 'Okay.'

For a while, it's quiet between the two of them. Some kind of raptor circles high above them in the sky. They both follow it with their eyes until it disappears among the tree tops west of the quarry.

'Is it Eddie?'

Steve blinks dumbly a couple of times.

'Wha- what?'

'The guy you were talking about. The one you fell in love with. It's Eddie, isn't it?'

'Jesus, Wheeler, what kind of sorceress are you?' Steve exclaims.

Nancy laughs again. 'You're not being as subtle as you think,' she tells him. 'The two of you have been hooking up for a while now, haven't you?'

Steve huffs dramatically. 'This is unfair. You know everything; I can't even tell you my own secrets anymore!'

'So what happened?' Nancy asks. 'You said you had a fight with him?'

'It's fucking stupid,' he sighs. 'Dustin was getting way too excited about the fact that I was gonna be hanging out with you, so I told him I was seeing someone. Next thing I knew, he was telling Eddie all about how I was seeing a girl.' He waves his hands around to make annoyed air quotations. 'I wanted to tell Eddie it was a misunderstanding, but Dustin was there, so I couldn't out us just like that, and he looked so betrayed and heartbroken... He didn't wanna listen to me.'

Steve sighs; he still can't manage to forget that look in Eddie's eyes when Dustin delivered the big news. 'I wish I would've talked about what I felt for him earlier. I should've been honest when I had the chance, y'know. But I was afraid he wouldn't wanna label what we had, that he wouldn't feel the same way – and now we're in this whole mess. God, he must hate me right now, Nance.'

To his surprise, Nancy gives him an unexpected slap against his arm.

'Ouch, what the hell was that for?!'

'What are you even doing here with me, Steve? You should've gone after him, tell him how you feel!'

'I tried, obviously, but he didn't wanna listen to me!'

'So make him listen! You're in love with him, he obviously feels the same way about you, and you let him leave to wallow in a broken heart he doesn't even need to have!' She rolls her eyes and slides off the car, adding something under her breath that sounds suspiciously like an exasperated 'Boys!' before she pulls Steve off the car as well. 'C'mon, time to get your ass over to the trailer park. Right. Now,' she says through gritted teeth. And, well, Steve knows better than to argue with a determined - and truthfully quite terrifying - Nancy Wheeler.

Read the last part here Taglist: @withacapitalp @ultimatedreamer104 @irregular-child @jcmadgirl @estrellami-1 @myguiltyartpleasure @hallucinatedjosten @jaybren @thew1ldblueyonder @melodymeddler @alycatavatar @zoeweee @lolawonsstuff @fairy-princette @saramelaniemoon @phirex22 @krazyperson @xxsky-shockxx (I only put people on this list who explicitly asked to be tagged. That's really no problem, I love to do that so dw about asking, but I got a lot of relatively vague reactions to the previous post that i'm not gonna dissect and interpret, bc I don't wanna clog anyone's notes unwanted. So just to be clear: i consider it a huge compliment if anyone asks for a tag but please do it clearly if you do!)

[numbuh424]

The unstoppable, mighty hurricane and the immovable, cold, hard truth.

[turtleblogatlast]

Leo getting hit with a truth curse but instead of forcing him to admit to super sad or worrying things it’s things like “it was me who broke the remote” “I saw Mikey prank Donnie and helped hide it because it’s way funnier if he didn’t know who it was” “I rip my clothes to look more like Raph’s because he’s really cool” “my stripes aren’t even red they’re pink!”

[misc-obeyme]

"Can you see us in every timeline?" you ask.

Barbatos smiles down at you, meeting your bright and curious gaze. Your head is in his lap, both of you stretched out on a soft blanket in the castle garden. Barbatos is leaning back against a tree, a cup of tea held in his gloved hands. The sky drips with stars.

"I see many possibilities," he says, his voice eternally gentle, forever content to answer your endless questions.

You reach up and brush your fingers through his strand of bright hair. "It's just that I wouldn't be the same person without you," you say. "And the thought of there being other mes in other timelines that aren't with you… well, it makes me sad."

You blush a little at this admission because it sounds silly when you say it out loud.

Barbatos chuckles softly, but he puts down his teacup. He takes your hand, even as your fingers are still entangled in his hair. He puts his other hand against your cheek.

"We may not find each other in every timeline," he says. "But I have found that the echoes of each timeline ripple through the others. You are inevitably linked to every other you."

"But they won't feel what I feel," you say.

"They will have impressions of your feelings," Barbatos says. "Have you ever had an inexplicable feeling of hope or despair wash over you? That is a reverberation from yourself in another timeline."

You consider what he's saying. That somehow, you in your present time and space can impact the lives of other yous, if even briefly.

"What do you think they feel from me?" you ask.

"I cannot predict it," Barbatos says. He smiles and the way it lights up his face is so entrancing, you lose yourself in it. "I can only hope they receive soft moments where they feel my love, every time I see you, every time I touch you, every time I kiss you."

Your fingers squeeze around the hand that's holding yours and you lift yourself up to kiss him. His arm moves behind your back to lend you support as he returns the kiss - soft and sweet and with the lingering taste of hellfire rose tea. In another timeline, an unexpected warmth floods through you.

masterlist | Thank you for reading!

[bluerosefox]

Of Godsons, Fruitloops, and Lois 'I will drag all secrets out into the sun' Lane

Danny loses his parents due to their own lack of safety in the lab (death? Coma? People finally putting their foot down about the Fenton's endangering their kids? Idk pick). Jazz can't take him in due to being in college and living on its campus (and he didnt want to force her into an apartment just to keep him, he saw the prices and knows she'll have to work to make rent) and Danny fears the only place he can go to is... Vlad. (Sam's parents would never let him live with her and Tucker's place doesn't have the room)

Vlad's been lording it over Danny, smug about it all, after all he IS Danny's godfather and he has the space and money to provide for the boy in his time of need.

Only, when digging into Danny's files, his social worker discovers Vlad isn't Danny's godfather, he was meant to be but the Fenton's forgot to send/sign in the final paperwork (even if those documents were the only contact they had with Vlad over the years before the reunion)

No Danny's godparent, the person to take him should anything happen to the Fenton's is....

Lois Lane.

His mom's childhood friend.

[kaitobromota]

[Blows the dust off this blog] Long time no see...

Back in the Danganronpa pits... have some silly doodles for an...AU? or like, slight canon divergence/missing scene? I got to chapter 5 in my THH replay and was thinking about the part where these four are alone in the gym dismantling Monokuma all night.

I know realistically it's supposed to be because they were paranoid and extra careful about taking it slow so nothing went wrong... but like... their alibi is from 10pm to 7am? In my heart of hearts it actually took the whole night because they kept getting distracted and chit-chatting and got into a bunch of shenanigans once the actual dismantling part was done. Like Byakuya says they went to the bathroom in pairs?? Not to mention you'd totally expect him to make a comment about how insufferable it was being stuck together for like nine hours. And Hina says they played rock paper scissors to decide who brought back breakfast???

You can't tell me they didn't bond at least a little bit. A friend pointed out it'd have the vibes of a 4am discord call and that's exactly it. Emotional confessions about personal fears and insecurities to dumb physiological debates that become inside jokes forever. Etc.

[little-devil-art]

[Your smartest catlover]💚

He almost annihilated Leviathan because you called Satan Lucifer and Levi was only there to help you. But who can truly be mad at Satan in the first place?

[puppyeared]

i like him

[sonknuxadow]

LOVE LOSES !!!!!!!!!!!!

[cringefail-clown]

you werent supposted to be here

[bamsara]

Also why did July become of the most busiest, hottest and most expensive month of my life

I need August to become boring as shit. No more shit happening to me, no more emergencies, no weddings, no birthdays, no health scares, no more heatwave, no more social obligations, no nothing I just want to stay home, make stickers for my life blood aka patreons and write fanfiction in an air-conditioned space PLEASE

[ganondoodle]

hey! hey hey!! hey lads if i did a mini "fake screenshot" series of a rewritten totk (mainly without time travel and zonau) … would you like that? (and is it worth the risk of pissing half the fandom off)

[pepperpixel]

Some inside job art! Mostly just trying to figure out how to draw these two

[cringeworms]

I'm writing an analysis of gender performativity in The Silence of the Lambs for my gender and sexuality class and in the course of my research I have encountered so many bad takes!! I can't not say anything so I've come to Tumblr to rant.

The most common criticism I see is that the ending of "Hannibal" discredits, undoes, or diminishes Clarice's feminism, autonomy, or power, or that it ruins the message of SOTL. That indicates a complete misunderstanding of Clarice and the point of the books! The point of "Hannibal" is to show that it does not matter how amazing, powerful, or how much of a feminist you are: if you are a woman in a career, especially a federal career, the system is designed to put you down and keep you quiet. I think there is nothing more she could have done and nothing she could have done differently to prevent her disgrace. When the system is set up to put men in power and keep them in power, your talent and integrity do not matter if they decide they don't want/need you anymore. There is nothing she can do to prevent the label of "female officer" from haunting her credibility. Even Crawford, who respects her and fights for her, sees her with the caveat of "woman." The one man who does not consider her gender any sort of detriment or a reason to treat her differently is Hannibal Lecter. They have genuine mutual respect. When she chose to be with him, she chose respect, love, and comfort over a life of fighting to be recognized, respected, or listened to. Just as much as it is respectable for women to fight for their right to be recognized in their careers, we must also recognize that that fight should not need to exist in the first place. So, why should there be any shame about choosing not to fight that fight anymore? She spent years in an uphill battle, and she probably never would have escaped it (to no fault of her own!). The ending of "Hannibal" is Clarice raising a middle finger to the system, the FBI, misogyny, and the patriarchy by recognizing that she deserves unconditional love and respect and that the system she fought so hard for was, in fact, completely undeserving of her talent or presence. Her decision is powerful and empowered!

"She was brainwashed!" she literally wasn't. Hannibal tried that (I believe because he was so unfamiliar with the idea of love or family that he didn't know how to understand Clarice outside of the lens of Mischa) but he was unsuccessful. If she was able to resist his efforts of brainwashing while in an altered state she certainly had the strength of mind to make her own decisions. Her decision was not impulsive. Also, I think it serves as a testament to her influence and power over him. She gained control of the situation and he didn't resist that. Ultimately, Clarice chose to spend the rest of her life with the one man who ever truly saw her as more than just a woman, who admired her intellect, and who respected her enough to challenge her. That is not weak, submissive, or misogynistic. Quite the opposite. She chose to leave behind the life she put years of effort into building (because she knew it would be fruitless) in favor of being finally honored and appreciated. That takes courage! She knew her worth, and she knew the FBI didn't deserve her.

Also, anyone who paid any attention to the books saw the romantic tension throughout the story. It didn't come out of nowhere. She really just needed an opportunity or an excuse to be with him, and she was finally presented with it.

I think reading the ending to "Hannibal" as anything other than empowering is a mischaracterization of both Clarice and Hannibal and shows a lack of understanding of the message of the books. I think it reflects a shallow understanding of not only the books, but of how feminism operates IRL (especially during the 80s/90s).

I also must give the disclaimer that I do not think these books are epitomes of feminism or representation. The transmisogyny, racism, queerphobia, etc., are obviously inexcusable. Just because I interpret their message as a story of caution about how misogyny operates, and how it is respectable to choose a path that does not work within that system, does not mean I agree with everything presented in them or any of their harmful rhetorics or stereotypes. I have a STRONG love/hate relationship with these stories and I don't ever mean to undersell the "hate" part of that lol.

[frankycowurker]

a little docufriend to get the ball rolling again