#I’m so used to having a fuckton of people around

[chibelial]

Not me reminiscing on lost relationships again this is so old, damn near all my friends are gone. Few who aren’t are feeling more and more distant. My ex says she still feels just as strongly for me but with how things ended idk. History is just repeating itself yet again. Every time I reach a breaking point and people see how much of a mess I am, it’s awful. They just bail. I’ve basically just surrounded myself with fake people unintentionally, either that or I’m really just that overwhelming. It’s all happening again, for like the fourth time. She left me, and most of my friends did to. Got fucking Bakeracted and since then, fucking nobody is talking to me. Why am I so easy to throw away

[wh1msic4lwasab1]

𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡 𝐑𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐬' 𝐇𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧 🂱

synopsis: you meet an especially annoying gambler at your table and as the game master, it’s your job to shut him up.

tags: dom!reader, sub!aventurine, semi-public, bickering, explicit, vulgar

wrd cnt: 800+

art cred: yue_chan077 (insta)

“Hey-! What are you doing?”

“Games over?” You reply to the blonde man.

“But I was gonna win….” He pouts.

You click the buzzing timer off and collect all the chips off the table, scooping up stacks of cards in the process.

“Everyone says they’ll win until they don’t” You taunt, yanking the cards out of his hand with a smile.

He scoffs, crossing his arms and leaning back on the chair as people come and go, some collecting their winnings and others digging an even deeper hole with their debts.

As the dealer, it was up to you when to kick people out, and it seemed like the man to your left should be heading out now.

“Excuse me-? I don’t think your judgment is exactly expert. I’ll be playing a few more rounds”

You look at him with furrowed brows. “Sir, I have-“

He cuts you off, “Aventurine.”

“What?”

“I have a name darling. Use it.”

“You’re keeping up everyone waiting to play, Aventurine. I’d appreciate if you complied.”

You say with a raised eyebrow, waiting for an answer.

“You’re not my boss, darling. And I’ll play for as long as I want, understood?” He challenges, eyes locked in a heated stare. You narrow your eyes and stand your ground, not backing down. “Actually, I am the boss here. Now get out of here before I call security.”

He lets out a laugh, standing up from his chair and walking towards you. “I’d like to see you try.”

You stare at him, not backing down but not stepping away either. You can feel the tension between you both, but you refuse to back down.

You whisper to him quietly, everyone at the table now focusing on the quarrel between the two of you, “I’m not some toy for you to play with, Aventurine.

“Well of course not, you wouldn’t be able to handle it.” He says, trailing a hand down your back.

You try to push him away but he only grabs your arm. “Wanna bet?.”

Without hesitation, you lead him to a nearby storage closet, where you push him inside and lock the door. He raises an eyebrow in surprise, but the smirk on his face shows that he’s up for it.

You turn him around, and aggressively push him against the wall, pressing your body against his. “Do you know why I can handle it? Because I’m in control, and you’ll do whatever I say.”

He chuckles, “Is that so? How about we really make a bet then?”

You smirk back at him, “Sure, but you’re going to regret it.” Without another word, you grab his belt and start undoing it, watching as his expression changes to shock and excitement, mixed with a fuckton of arousal.

As you pull down his pants, his erection springs free, hard and ready for you.

“Oh- Well this isn’t exactly what I was-“

“Shut up. This is exactly what you were thinking about. I saw the way you kept staring at me during each game.”

“Well yeah but- Fuck…be a little gentle will you?…”

You began to stroke him, gripping his dick harder and slowly moving your hand up and down his shaft, watching his head falls back against the door in pleasure.

He lets out a low moan, and you can feel him getting closer and closer to his release.

“That’s it…you’re so close aren’t you? Cum in my hand.” You whisper in his ear, cupping his face and giving him one deep, tongue filled kiss.

But you stop, leaving him gasping for air and begging for more.

“Oh no, darling. You haven’t earned it yet.” He looks at you with pleading eyes, but you only smirk and continue to tease him. You stroke him again, this time faster and harder, making sure to give him just enough pleasure to make him desperate for release. He bites his lip, trying to hold back his moans, but it only makes you go faster.

“Don’t do that. Let me hear your pathetic little voice.”

You can feel him getting closer and closer, and you know he won’t be able to hold on much longer.

With one final stroke, he lets out a loud moan as he reaches his climax, his body shaking against yours.

“Fuck- Please! I’m sorry…I apologize for earlier- just please make me cum..”.

You smirk in satisfaction, knowing you’ve won the bet and made him truly submit to you.

He stands there, panting and trying to catch his breath, as you pull away and fix your clothes.

He slowly falls to the floor with his back still against the wall, sleeking down with legs still wide open and his cock still sprung up and spurting cum all over his thigh and stomach.

With a victorious smirk, you squate down to wipe away one side of his face covered in tears before you unlock the door and exit it, leaving him a mess in the closet and shutting the door behind you without a single word.

whimsic4alwasab1 ™ - do not copy, translate, modify, or claim any of my work as your own.

[ghost-bxrd]

Been mulling over Titans Tower and it's really interesting to me how it's treated in Fanon as compared to how the events transpired in canon. it's a really fun topic! Honestly, the original writing in canon is DOGSHITE but not for the usual reasons people cite.

Here's what does make sense in canon but is largely ignored (this is using canon characterisations at the time): First, it's all about the whole Titans team, not just Tim. They really downplay his death a lot, did not put up his statue or honour him whatsoever. Plus the hero community tends to victim-blame him a fuckton. Jason is showing that his death could've happened to anyone. Second, Tim and Jason are just two yearish apart—Jay died at 15, Tim becomes Robin at 13—so those Titans are more like his colleagues than anything else; he's not some older guy beating the shit outta them. Third, Tim’s indifference to Jason's comments and his cockiness about being a better Robin are pretty on-brand for his early portrayal as Robin. (I think fanon Tim derives a lot of his characteristics from his Red Robin run, which is valid as well! But here in particular we have Robin Tim... who... was... uh... a bit of an asshole when he was written back then and the HUBRIS on that man? Immaculate.)

What still makes this absolutely dog shit is the dialogue and how Jason is pouring his heart out to someone who he doesn't really care about. Jason... just doesn't operate this way... Why's he trauma dumping on... tim... ???? It makes no sense whatsoever because Jason really is someone who'd keep those vulnerabilities to himself. Why would he open up to... CANON TIM??? He makes scathing remarks when faced with Bruce and Dick because he knows the knife twists then and at he cares about their reaction. But not tim ????? Canon UTRH doesn't even mention Tim ????? ???? So in the end it's still shit imo.

I also find the use of Pit Madness in fanon super interesting, despite it not being canon. It's used to propel the Titan's Tower incident, which fascinates me because it shows how people are willing to work around its flaws to maintain consistent characterization in their works (which is !!! cool !!)

It's so interesting how many other incidents that do occur in canon aren't as well known as this one aren't given much thought. But this one is and it's interesting how people try to work with it regardless of it's flaws originally!

I'd really love to hear your opinions about it and how flexible you are with the Titans tower incident! :) How do you work with your Jason and your Tim? because it's cool to hear your analysis etc etc

Hooo boi okay i was planning on replying to this earlier but this deserves a proper, thought out response (which I’m shite at but I’m trying here. Words are hard.)

For one, I wholeheartedly agree with the whole trauma dumping thing.

Obviously we all have different tastes in media and I know there are quite a few people who enjoyed the confrontation with Tim, which is totally fine, but personally… yeah, not my thing.

I got into the Batman/batfam fandom via fanfic, so my first introduction was some version of Titans Tower I believe. I was super intrigued by the characters and the tidbits of lore sprinkled throughout that I immediately began reading up on them and digging through the internet for more info and background story on them. Which then quickly evolved into the part where my adoration for Jason’s character began and a short phase where I absolutely despised early canon Tim.

Like— all the victim blaming. He seriously couldn’t mention Jason without adding something derogatory about getting himself killed, which sat so, so wrong with me. Not to mention the Titans just accepting a new Robin right off the bat and joining in blaming Jason for his own death. I’m pretty sure that was the point where I swore off comics for a long while and decided to live off fanon 🤣

And then Jason’s part in the Titans Tower incident. I think part of how weird the canon event was is due in part to how the writers fumbled to depict trauma? Or maybe they just outright hated him because I know a lot of people back then despised Jason and his run as Robin.

Whatever the reason, I think I genuinely cringed when he revealed the Walmart Robin costume he was wearing. And then the trauma dumping.

Jason is smart enough to know Tim wouldn’t care about his grievances. I mean- dude just broke into his hideout to attack him, I think Tim’s about as done with Jason as with any other criminals, regardless of his past. And all that is proven by Tim fighting back tooth and nail without pause. He doesn’t even react to the accusation of the missing statue in Jason’s honor. Like, he genuinely doesn’t seem to care. And why would he? They don’t know each other.

And yeah maybe he was trying to beat some sense into Tim (which is still wrong but— vigilantes I guess? Idk) and make him quit Robin, but Jason’s also smart enough to know that Robins don’t quit easily. And then, as soon as Tim is down for the count and can’t keep fighting, Jason leaves. Just like that. No actual murder attempt, no kicking-while-he’s-down (at least as far as I remember).

It makes no sense. What would Jason be gaining from that encounter? Why would he blame the kid that replaced him and not the guy that did the replacing? Hell, it would make more sense for him to go after the Titans than Tim. Not the mention him casually doubting Tim’s talents when he must have done some background checks on him.

It’s why I like the idea of Pit Madness I guess, and that Jason actually went to the tower with the intent to kill. Because that way the entire thing wouldn’t seem so… pointless.

As for how flexible I am with the Titans Tower storyline, it really depends on the route people choose to explore. But I’m a huge sucker for the “Jason was Tim’s Robin” trope where there’s at least a mild amount of hero worship going on. 👁️ Oh, and happy endings. I can’t deal with tragedies.

But yeah these are my thoughts on it. Obviously no hate to whoever enjoyed the comic mentioned above 💚 we’ve all got different things we resonate with after all~

[cultofdixon]

A peaceful moment

Daryl Dixon • She/Her Pronouns • When the chaos settled, the two finally got to as well…preparing to bring a little one into the new world • ANGST/SFW/NSFW - Nudity • TW: Pregnancy / Anxiety

Requested by: Anon

The archer quietly enters the house expecting no one and nothing going on, and for the most part that was true. He placed his crossbow by the door before making his way to the bedroom. To his surprise his partner was awake and he immediately brought himself up behind her wrapping his arms around her.

“Why are you awake?”

“Why did you come home late?”

“Don’t turn this on me, woman.” Daryl scoffs, pressing a kiss to her shoulder before pulling away about to lay in the bed when he noticed everything scattered on the mattress. “What’s all this?”

“The maps are of the communities. A few books on farming, composting,…uh. Infrastructure…”

“Why yea taking on all this stress when we’ve got somethin’ coming in two months?” The archer pointed to the belly on his now annoyed partner as she tosses the books she was holding onto the mattress, the baby books that Maggie has found/given to her. “Yeah Carol gave me one, but should’ve gone to yea if you had so many”

“Why are they all different! They all have the same scary things that could happen to me or the baby—-LIKE THE APOCALYPSE WASN’T ENOUGH” She snaps only for Daryl to push aside everything on the bed and making her sit down.

“Y/N, everything is different cuz of the apocalypse. But everything right now is fine” Daryl frowns sitting beside her trying to soothe her anxiety by rubbing up and down her leg. “Shouldn’t take on any extra stress, there’s a fuckton of people to take care of everythin’ else”

“I’m usually the one preaching that to you” Y/N giggles for a short lived moment as she looks down at her belly resting her hands on the bump. “…I just..”

“Hm?” Daryl gently nudges her, not receiving the rest of that sentence for a while as he brought himself closer. “Sunshine?”

“It’s just hard…having all this control back when he’s still around” She frowns feeling her hormones get the best of her, making the tears fall on the matter.

“He’s not gonna come anywhere near yea, unless he wants a death wish. You’re safe, we’re safe…he’s locked up and we gotta enjoy these moments”

“Before your attention is only on our son or daughter?”

That made her partner glare for a split second before bringing his arm around her shoulders pulling her in.

“If they’re anythin’ like you, it might be difficult to give yea both my undying love” Daryl jokes listening to her giggle as she smacks his chest.

The next morning came and the static from the radio picked up the voice from the other line. Daryl groans slightly when he heard it go from nothing to a clear voice.

“Daryl? You copy?”

“What” He sighs holding the radio up to his face as he returned to his laying position.

“You helping us today on the runs or the farming plans—-“

“Nope” Daryl cuts him off tossing the radio back on the nightstand before turning away wrapping his arm around Y/N who was half awake for that short lived conversation.

Then the static from another radio made both groan to the sound.

“Y/N, you around? Daryl cut me off. Was it poor connection?” Rick voices came through Y/N’s radio that she only had for emergencies or when she was a bit more involved in the rebuild since the Savior’s war ended. “I could really use him today. So please chime in. He’s most likely—-“ Y/N took her radio, turning her channel off before tossing the radio into her nightstand then returning back on her side already uncomfortable.

“He’s going to come to our door”

“I’ll punch him if he does” Daryl mumbles into her shoulder once he brought himself back against her.

The two slept in for a little while longer until Daryl got up to go make breakfast for his partner. He approaches the front door looking through the peep hole seeing the retired sheriff approaching, only for him to lock the door and continue on with his day.

Once Y/N eventually made her way to the kitchen after smelling something good, even if it took her a few minutes just to get out of bed. She noticed the front door was forcefully opened that when she rounded the corner to see Rick’s apologetic expression along with a red blotch getting worse on his face. She debated turning around and leaving.

“I thought y’all got hurt for ignoring and cutting my channel off”

“So…you broke in…with known residents that have PTSD?”

“When yea put it like that, then I don’t gotta have Daryl apologize for punching me in the face” Rick scoffs as Daryl came into view with a plate of food for Y/N noticing her debating expression.

“I’ll apologize when he fixes the door—-and yea ain’t eating this in bed” Daryl states setting the plate down and smacking Rick’s hand when he tried taking a piece of toast as Y/N quickly (in her own way) swiped the plate and eating her food in the kitchen.

“If y’all wanted a day off. Yea couldve—-“

“I’m seven months pregnant I shouldn’t have to ask”

“And I’m her husband”

“So you don’t have to ask because you’re the baby daddy?” Rick asks as he watches both of them turn toward him with an immediate glare. “Alright. I’ll fix the door tomorrow, give y’all the day” he got up from the table and went on his way, not knowing how he’ll explain the growing bruise on his face to Michonne.

Y/N started to laugh at the situation while eating the breakfast of toast, eggs, and fresh vegetables, Daryl prepared for her. “You should’ve asked, he would’ve said yes”

“I asked Michonne, she should’ve told Rick”

“She was most likely watching Judith, and forgot. I wonder how she’s going to react to the wound on her man”

“Like yea when I’d come back hurt”

“…I do hope Michonne doesn’t kill you, because that’s what I did last time” Y/N reminds Daryl as she brought herself back into the dining room taking a seat.

“She better be as feisty as you are” Daryl sat beside her resting his hand on her belly while she continued to eat.

“Think it’s gonna be a girl?”

“Mmm. I’d like a girl”

“Not a boy?”

“Well, do yea want me to tell yea I’d like one of each with yea when we haven’t even experienced one yet?” Daryl smirks with a bit of a head tilt as Y/N thought about it before smacking his forehead gently with her empty hand. “Yeah. We’ll see if she’s a monster and that’ll determine—-“

“He will not be a monster! May have your attitude but—-“

“Oh I’ve got an attitude?” Daryl leaned back crossing his arms as Y/N gave him a look that made him fold. “Alright. Sometimes. But she’s gonna come out more like yea”

Y/N snickered a bit, setting down the fork as she gestured for him to give her his hand which he did. She immediately places it on the part of her bump that is feeling a lot of the baby’s kicking.

“She is kicking the shit out of me—-and you are a feisty over-protective beast of a man, she’s turning out like you and I’d prefer it”

“So…we are agreeing on she?”

“If you agree on her personality being more like you” Y/N smiles taking another bite out of the tomato.

“She will have my strength, our feistiness, and if she’s over-protective with whatever it may be when she’s around? It could be either you or me” Daryl kept his attention on the baby as they continued to talk.

Once breakfast was done, Y/N made her way to the nursery while Daryl filled her canteen up again before meeting up with her.

“Should we get started on this?”

“Nah, no ‘we’”

“Seriously?” Y/N laughs, taking the offered canteen as she watches her husband push the rocking chair that Ezekiel gifted them into a clear corner. He then gestured her to come sit which she’ll happily do at this stage of the pregnancy.

“You direct and I’ll do. But I gotta get my tools for half of this” Daryl states taking a quick note of everything he’d have to hang up and as he did so, Y/N went through the basket of toys gifted and what Daryl has found on runs. “Alright I’m gonna—-“ he stopped when he noticed Y/N start sobbing while holding a plush bunny.

“Look how cute it is”

“Y/N…”

“It’s gonna be our baby’s! She’s gonna snuggle it at night and cry to you to check for monsters in the closet, reassure her and her bunny.” She continued to sob as she played with the bunny ears on the plush, feeling Daryl’s presence over her as he leans down just enough to wipe away her tears and give her reassuring kisses. “Oh my god we better have a girl”

“And why is that?” He says softly, brushing the hair away from her face and the stray tears.

“Daddy’s little girl…I can just picture it” Y/N smiles through the joyful tears. “This sweet little girl just attaching herself to you…always being held protectively by her daddy…you reading her bedtime stories, checking for monsters under the bed, always making sure she has her favorite plushie with her…you’d even cave when she has nightmares and wants to sleep with us. Her just fast asleep on your chest while you rub soothing circles on her back…”

Daryl can definitely picture it now, and this baby better be a girl. He’ll always make sure both his girls are perfect.

“You’re gonna make me cry if yea keep going”

“Okay…okay, go get your tools and let’s get some of this room done so we don’t stress later”

“Mhm. Not like she won’t be in a crib in our room for the first few months of her life”

“Oh I know she’s going to be on your side. You’re going to hog our baby” She laughs wiping away the dried tears as Daryl kisses the top of her head.

“Only seems fair cuz you’re carryin’ the little pumpkin for nine months”

“Oh I know my love. But unlike you? My breasts are useful” Y/N adds only to laugh after when he scoffs to that comment.

“Instead of us fightin’ for the baby, it’s gonna be me and the baby fightin’ over yea” Daryl made one last comment before going to get what he needs while Y/N continues to laugh and think about their little girl.

The archer worked on the nursery for a couple hours while listening to his girl talk about their baby and following her occasional instruction. She continued to talk about how this little girl will be his little princess that he wouldn’t dare let anything happen to her and a few moments he would have to stop to console his wife when she would start crying all over again at the thought. He even started to go on about how overwhelmingly in love he’ll be at the sight of both his girls together. Even in the apocalypse, he will try to get both his girls to match because he always thought that was a cute idea.

For someone whose exterior is mean and scary, he’s a total softie inside and that will only ever be shown to his girls.

“Think we should stop here”

“Yeah, thinkin’ I’ll shower before making yea dinner”

“Or…we could take a bath together and make dinner together after”

Daryl pondered the thought for a moment before ultimately agreeing, even if it’ll be a bit of a squeeze getting both in the tub.

Once they eventually got in and relaxed, Y/N leans back into Daryl after a moment in the bath looking up at him comfortably as he presses a kiss to her temple.

“You think…I’ll be a good mom?”

“Of course I do” He frowns wondering where that came from. “Everyone’s seen how you were with Judith…and Carl…even Sophia back then…”

“Yeah…but this is our baby, it’s going to be different”

“Yeah, it is…but just like the others, we have a village in case we need anybody. You’ve got me first though. Not like you’d need my help anyway”

“I’ll always need you, D” Y/N shifted slightly feeling Daryl’s arms wrap around her and continuing to leave occasional kisses to her temple. “It’s just scary. You’re a natural with kids, and you’re saying I am too…but this is going to be our first baby. I’m just scared of messing it up”

“Y’know messing up comes with the parenting job right?” Daryl chuckles lightly resting his cheek against her head. “It’s okay to fumble. We’ve got each other and we’ll be great in our own way. Baby ain’t even here and we love her to pieces”

“She’s going to be perfect”

“Yes she is…”

She’s going to be perfect because of you Daryl thought as the two were now back in their bed hours later, Y/N fast asleep facing her partner as he had his hand on her belly keeping an eye on her for a little while.

Before falling asleep himself and keeping close to the both of them. He really enjoyed these peaceful moments…

And can’t wait to spend it with both of them.

[renthony]

Hi! Could you talk about what it’s like being an independent media researcher and how you became one? Did you go to school for communications or media studies? How do you make money?

I’m about to graduate college and I really want to go into the media studies field but I haven’t really figured out what the best way for me to do that is. I have a lot of similar research interests as you (animation, censorship, media analysis, queer media) and I’m disabled so I’ve been worried about not having the energy for a traditional 9 to 5 sort of job, so I’d love to hear more about how you’re able to do the research you’re passionate about!

Honestly, I got here by accident, and I'm still figuring things out as I go. I don't make much money and right now I feel like my work is in a period of transition. I have plans, but some days it feels like I'm barely making baby steps.

I started writing when I was pretty young, and I read every single "how to write" guide I could get my hands on via the library or bookstore. I wrote constantly. Short stories, various false starts at baby's first novel, even newsletters for school activities and community clubs. I was most focused on fiction at first, but I learned a lot about nonfiction as well.

I got involved in online writing communities back when forums were still a big deal, and I joined Twitter back in 2009 when it was still new and there was a massive author and freelancer community. (Anyone else remember before retweets were a thing? We had to copy, paste, and manually type out "RT @[user]" like barbarians.) I learned an absolute fuckton about the craft and the industry by talking directly with other writers, literary agents, editors, and various other people in the field. From the time I was like 14, I was interacting with professional writers, sharing my work for feedback, and racking up rejection letters from magazines and literary agents (which was a badge of honor in the communities I was hanging out in, because it meant you were working hard and refusing to quit). When I was 17, my best friend even scraped together money from their shitty fast food job to pay for us to attend a major writing conference in Denver, where we participated in all kinds of classes and panels with industry professionals.

My mother was also writing at the time, and I got a lot of support from her. She had a blog that got a decent amount of interaction, because this was right around the rise of the Mommy Blogger and my mom wrote from the perspective of a socially-isolated tattooed punk mom who never planned to have kids (which was unusual in a landscape of perfect housewives with perfect photogenic babies with weirdly-spelled Mormon names they chose when they were kids). Eventually my mom started writing for a website owned by Yahoo, to supplement the household income while staying home to care for my little siblings. When I decided I wanted to take a whack at freelancing, she gave me a lot of advice on how to get started. I also had a writing class at school taught by a teacher who made it a class project to submit to magazines, so I basically got a head-start on freelance life. I wrote a lot of random articles for a website that's since gone defunct, and I submitted a lot of short stories to contests and magazines. Didn't really make a lot of money, but I learned a ton and got a lot of experience.

When I made it to college, I studied anthropology and French. I'd planned to study history, but switched my track after a single semester because anthropology suited me better. I took a lot of AP classes in high school and did well on all the standardized testing, so I managed to get a full academic scholarship and skip right past a few of my gen eds. Unfortunately for me, I had a lot of difficult life experiences during that time period, and I started to struggle in pretty much everything that wasn't directly related to my degree. I failed Latin so bad I didn't bother to go to the final exam, because even a perfect grade wouldn't have saved me. I fucked up my algebra grade beyond salvation. Those two classes alone tanked my GPA enough that I lost my academic scholarship, and I wound up dropping out entirely. Grades in my required courses were solid, but the scholarship requirements meant I had to do well across the board or lose my funding.

My mother still has debt from getting loans to pursue a master's degree, and I knew damn well I didn't want that kind of student debt piling up on me, so I opted for dropping out. Sometimes I regret it a little, but I honestly think it was the best option. I was having so much emotional upheaval on top of the academic stress that I needed time away to figure myself out. I graduated high school early, so I was like two years younger than everyone around me, and I didn't have many friends. I lived at home and came to campus just long enough to go to class, so I had nothing in common with my classmates who lived in dorms and participated in campus activities. I missed orientation because I registered late, the administration sent me to the transfer student registration day instead of the new student registration day, and I didn't get any "here's how you navigate university life" support. I didn't know I was supposed to have a one-on-one academic advisor for a year and a half, and when I finally met him, his only comment on the matter was, "wow, I wondered why you hadn't come to see me yet!" without any sort of inquiry into how a fuckup on that scale was allowed to happen in the first place. I wasn't set up for success by university administration, and I burnt out hard. I dropped out.

My wife encouraged me to do what was going to be best for me mentally instead of letting finances dictate my next step. She had a steady job, and even though we were still pretty broke, her support let me drop out of college and focus on recovery. A lot of people gave me shit because their perception was that I was dropping out of college to become "just a housewife," and they couldn't fathom why. From my perspective, I'd been given a lifeline.

I took care of our shitty little one-bedroom apartment. I read a lot of books and played a lot of Minecraft. When I felt up to it, I did some more freelancing. My wife was working unholy hours in a factory and we didn't get to spend much time together. I started doing tarot reading as a side hustle, and we started making vague plans to move somewhere better for us, but saving up was hard.

Things felt stagnant for a long time. I didn't write very much, I wasn't really doing anything related to my studies. I wrote when I had energy, and I kept scraping together extra cash doing tarot readings while my wife started working a new job in a lumber yard. Her support is the only reason I was able to recover and figure myself out, so big shout-out to my beloved working woman wifey. God, I love her.

Eventually we packed up and moved to a different state so we could be closer to my family. I got a job baking for a coffee shop. I wrote whenever I could. When I got laid off from the coffee shop, I realized there was no way in hell I could keep working a regular job without sacrificing my health, so I went back to writing full-time. (The Queen of Cups was written during this period.)

At some point I started getting back into anthropology and history research, just for fun. I didn't have money to finish my degree, but I had enough academic experience to know how to track down and evaluate good sources. I wasn't really trying to do anything for career purposes, I was just incredibly bored and wanted to study something again, so I got really, really into studying local history. Once I read everything I could about that, I jumped to another topic I was interested in, and then another. Media studies became my biggest focus as a natural outgrowth of my interests in speculative fiction, animation, and the history of the entertainment industry. I studied anthropology in school because I loved learning how and why humans do the things we do, and media studies always felt like an obvious facet of that. It's part of why I was always obsessed with cave paintings and paleolithic sculptures--people make art! It's what we do! It's what we've always done!

Anyway, I now live in a university town that has resources available to the public, and I have friends who work in various university libraries or as professors. I started making use of whatever I could get access to. I read a lot of nonfiction books from independent researchers pursuing their own passion projects, I got really into video essays on YouTube, and I had the epiphany that you don't actually have to finish college to study and write about things as long as you put in the quality research and source all your information. At some point I started calling it my "DIY academia," which my university-employed friends found utterly delightful.

Honestly, I credit my formal-academia friends with a lot. They've all been an incredible source of support and reassurance, and have helped me track down quite a few sources I was having trouble getting my hands on. Everyone do yourself a favor and make friends with someone who works in a university library.

I started a Patreon several years ago (in like 2017 I think?), primarily for my fiction writing, but there's plenty of other things that have shown up there over the years (art, cosplay, essays, etc.). As I started getting more into my DIY academia, folks started expressing interest in seeing me write about it. My tumblr posts about media generated a decent amount of attention, I'd managed to build up a platform, and it wasn't hard to say, "okay, screw it: I have freelance experience and I know how to write a paper, does anyone want to pay me for it?"

I haven't been submitting to existing publications like I used to, mostly because I don't have a decent portfolio assembled. My old freelance work in high school and college was for a platform that closed down a decade ago, and no matter how popular they get I can't bring myself to include tumblr posts alongside professional credits. My current plan is to build a portfolio on my website showing off the commissions I've been taking, and then start submitting to magazines and newspapers again between my other work. I'd love to eventually write for something like Polygon or IGN.

It's hard. I love research, I love writing, and I love sharing information with people, but having to DIY everything is really, really hard. I often feel like I'm just throwing nonsense into the void in the hope someone will like it and leave a tip in my Ko-Fi. I don't have formal academic credentials beyond "I was planning my senior thesis about the ethics of investigating ancient burial sites, but then I dropped out." I just have a neurodivergent brain, a handful of special interests, a wife who works the graveyard shift in a lab to pay our bills, and the ability to hyperfixate on research for absurd lengths of time.

The most common advice I used to get about freelancing is that you just have to keep throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. It's been years since then, but I think the advice still applies. Read a lot, learn a lot, and write about the things you're most interested in. Search around and look for magazines and newspapers and websites that accept unsolicited freelance submissions. Read the other articles they publish to see how your work stacks up. Submit, submit, submit. Rake in rejection letters and keep them as a reminder of how hard you're working. If you're up for it, start a Patreon to post the things you don't submit elsewhere. The worst thing that can happen is that people don't give you money, but maintaining it still helps you lay the groundwork for a portfolio and a reader base.

I deal with a lot of hellacious impostor syndrome. I worry a lot that I'm just a hack who doesn't actually know what they're talking about. Like I said, I got here totally by accident, but whatever I'm doing seems to be working for me. I'm broke, but my work is being read, and opportunities for more work show up when I least expect them. I'm not sure what's next for me, but I'm excited to figure it out. Money's tight, but I keep enduring despite the chaos. I throw things at the wall, I see what sticks, I clean up whatever flops and then try it again later. Wash, rinse, repeat.

It's hard, but so is everything else. I like it better than a lot of other things I could be doing.

[voxofthevoid]

Hello, it's WIP Wednesday! Specifically, Double Noncon Wednesday. It's exactly as wholesome and sweet as it sounds—a whole 0%.

The sex parts in this comprise both sukuita and goyuu, but the emotional centers are itafushi and goyuu. And goyuu is the "endgame," for a certain definition of the word. There's some Kenjaku too, showcasing their special brand of maternal trauma, but that may not make it into the snippets.

The first chapter/part, and thus this snippet, is sukuita with referenced mutually requited but unacted-on itafushi. Yuuji's going through the horrors, again.

CW: Rape, as the title suggests. A fuckton of emotional trauma. Some blood and gore, plus plenty of physical violence. Also, all unedited.

“What the hell are you doing?” he yells.

“Don’t act shy now. I know just how much you liked looking at this body. I was there—watching, feeling. A fucking joke, playing voyeur to teenage fools.” Sukuna makes a show of stretching his body, and Yuuji looks, can’t help it, and that’s nothing new, but the horror is. Everything is wrong. “And I do mean fools. You’re not subtle, brat. This boy knew full well how and where you were looking and what exactly you wanted to do. He liked the attention.”

“Shut the fuck up!”

A thin strip of heat opens along Yuuji’s throat, too shallow to do more than burn and bleed uselessly.

“I’m speaking. Know your place.”

“Fuck you.”

Sukuna’s expression grows thunderous, anger that looks nothing like Fushiguro’s fury, and Yuuji’s sure for a moment that that’s it, he’ll be cut to shards that won’t leave behind anything but a wet red smear—like that girl in the station, all those people and buildings and people in Shibuya—but then Sukuna sneers and the threat dissipates, and Yuuji doesn’t feel an ounce of relief.

“No matter,” Sukuna says, his voice so gentle that every hair on Yuuji’s half-limp body stands up. “I have better ways to show you.”

He climbs on the bed.

On Yuuji.

And Yuuji should be bracing for pain because this bastard has never once touched him except to hurt him, but he finds himself staring dumbly instead at the way Sukuna moves. There’s something eerie about it—a liquid grace that’s indescribably different from how he fights. It looks strange on Fushiguro’s body, even worse than the fighting prowess did earlier.

It’s when Sukuna straddles him that Yuuji realizes what he’s really seeing.

Seductive.

Fushiguro’s body—no, Sukuna in Fushiguro’s body—is moving seductively.

It’s creepy.

“Hey,” Yuuji hears himself say, his lips numb and his words distant, “what the hell are you doing, Sukuna?”

“You’re repeating yourself,” Sukuna answers disinterestedly, and it’s not Yuuji’s face he’s looking at but his— “This might be the only part of you that’s not a disappointment. It’s not much to look at now, but you showed it off often enough. Perverted brat.”

It’s nonsense.

All of it, every word.

They ring in Yuuji’s ears, and it feels like they’re crawling in, burrowing into his brain to bite into parts of it. It hurts. His whole body feels cold.

But that just makes him realize how warm Sukuna is, perched on his thighs and leering at his cock.

It’s limp, a few inches curled quietly against his thigh. But he knows what Sukuna meant. He’s wrong too. Yuuji wasn’t showing off. He didn’t care the bastard was in him, and after the first few times he tried to be a pest while Yuuji was touching himself, he got into the habit of suppressing him preemptively, but he knows that doesn’t stop Sukuna from watching, seeing—

“What are you doing?” Yuuji repeats.

Annoyance flits through Sukuna’s face before it settles into a sneer again. “Didn’t I tell you? I have use for you yet.”

He touches Yuuji.

Sheer revulsion burns through him.

His body doesn’t move.

But he can feel everything, from the calluses on Fushiguro’s fingers to the human warmth of his skin, and for a moment, all he can think is that this is the first time someone else is touching him there.

Sukuna’s hand goes from cupping Yuuji’s cock to curling around it, the whole soft length swallowed in his fist. More heat, more calloused skin. Yuuji heaves with his whole body, but his arms and legs and torso don’t budge even a millimeter. His face and neck grow hot with exertion, but it’s useless, leaving him panting for air around a closed-up throat.

Sukuna doesn’t even seem to notice the struggle, hand still curled around Yuuji’s dick. It grips it tighter.

Moves.

Yuuji’s eyes catch on the narrow line of his knuckles—pale and bony, the skin so delicate that Yuuji can see the green of the veins underneath. Familiar veins, carved into his memory from all the times he watched Fushiguro’s hands.

Heat builds in his cock, and bile surges to his throat.

Yuuji chokes it down.

“Stop it,” he snarls. “You sick fucking bastard, let go.”

“Already?” Sukuna asks in fake, exaggerated surprise. He seems to be on the verge of pouting. “But we’ve only begun. Haven’t you dreamed of this, brat? This body on you, under you.”

Every word is punctuated with a stroke of Yuuji’s cock, and he can’t ignore it, the sensations strange and overwhelming despite being just another hand, different from his own only in shape and size, and even as Yuuji chokes down the tight, trembling noises trying to crawl up his throat, the rest of his body betrays him, growing warm and plump in Sukuna’s hand.

Sukuna’s hand, not—

“You’re not him,” Yuuji grits out.

“It’s his body.” Sukuna leans forward, that damned hand still flexing around Yuuji’s cock, to leer down at Yuuji with all four of his red, red eyes. “And your body doesn’t care who’s running the show.”

“No. No, you’re—”

Sukuna squeezes his cock hard, and Yuuji clenches his jaw shut before a shout can escape. His whole gut is pulsing, a different kind of writhing than the one under the seal there.

“Humans are all the same—greedy for the flesh.” It’s a low, lazy drawl, a corner of Sukuna’s mouth curling into a mocking grin. His hand stills but doesn’t leave Yuuji’s cock, staying wrapped around the base. It’s only half hard, Yuuji’s horror just barely beating out the unwanted bite of that touch. “This one’s no different. Do you want to know what Fushiguro Megumi dreamed of, brat?”

Yuuji’s breath hitches, something wet in it.

“No,” he says, and it comes out too quiet, too weak. “Shut up. Stop. Don’t—”

“He wanted you to pin him down and take him. All the power in your body pouring into him. Hurting him. He wouldn’t even have struggled. And he felt so guilty, the fool—because you never would, would you? You and your mewling soul, always too weak to take what you want.”

All Yuuji can do is shake his head, trying to kill the images in his head.

Sukuna’s eyes grow heavy, the two main ones now as narrow as the ones on his cheeks.

“His mind was even filthier than yours,” he practically purrs. “The perversions he wanted out of you. It was more faithful too. You wanted more, you greedy fool—this boy and your whore of a teacher. You just couldn’t choose.”

“Shut up.” Another full-body leave, another surge of nothing. “Shut you fucking mouth, Sukuna!”

He slaps Yuuji again, nails scoring red-hot lines from the edge of his mouth to the underside of his left ear. “Mind your dirty mouth. Where was I? Ah, yes—Fushiguro Megumi’s desires. He touched himself every night thinking of you—your mouth, your hands, your cock. He crammed half a hand into his body and pretended it was you. He choked out your name and hoped you’d hear anyway—that you’d barge into his room and put him to good use.”

Every word lashes through Yuuji, full of heat.

He pictures it—Fushiguro in the dorms, legs spread and cock hard and ass stuffed. His mind is too used to picturing it.

And his cock answers, fattening to its full size in Sukuna’s grip.

“Why are you doing this?” Yuuji asks, choking on desperation.

“Fushiguro Megumi is stubborn,” Sukuna says simply. “I want him broken. And you? You’re just a tool.”

[princess-of-the-corner]

ML Plot Points: Fu and S3 Finale

After the Ladybug Replacement arc, Hawkmoth is recovering while Viceroy takes over the akuma business. They quickly realise that quantity over quality is no longer a viable strategy since they have to deal with 4 to 7 heroes in any given attack. As such, they take a break for a couple of days while waiting for an emotion they can get something useful out of.

The akuma in question is Sandboy. Which would be used to flesh out all the heroes and give Fu a more serious nightmare about his failures.

After that comes Feast. Starts the same, but Fu goes with Ladybug and Chat Noir into Feast and is the one to break the amokised object. Also, This ep is the one when Hawkmoth and MAyura figure out where Fu lives.

I’m not sure If I’d add any more akuma attacks in the time period between the Ladybug Replacement and Feast. Those two are the only really necessary ones, with Feast happening directly before the finale.

And thus, Love Eater happens. (Sidenote, instead of the floating head ballon, I’d have them be a gold and blue two headed snake with the get along shirt wrapped around them. Think a King Taijitu from RWBY). Hawkmoth tries to convince Chloe to get akumatised and it doesn’t work, she just tells him off and sneaks off to fight the akuma. Instead of that, Hawkmoth just gives Lila a butterfly and tells her to stay on standby until he says the word. Hawkmoth has purposefully has Love Eater be more difficult so that all seven heroes will have to be involved. Once all of them are there, he de-akumatises the Bourgeois coupled and akumatises Lila into Hoaxer with the goal of having her distract them for as long as possible.

As soon as Lila is akumatised, Mayura makes a tiny butterfly Sentimonster, has it go into the massage parlour and she changes it so it’s the size of the building. Horse!Fu makes it out with the miracle box, but barely and is immediately confronted by Hawkmoth, Mayura and the Sentimonster.

Fu has had it rough these past few episodes. The Ladybug replacement arc forced him to admit that he’s still making mistakes and that he’s clearly making things worse for the girl who he saw as a granddaughter. Sandboy forced him to accept that the Order was messed up from the beginning and that even if what happened was his fault, he can’t afford to keep punishing himself and everyone he chooses to isolation. Lastly, Feast forced him to face the literal embodiment of his mistake and the Order’s sins.

He can’t keep going the way he’s been going. Even if it’s what the Order would have had him do, it’s wrong.

So Fu just looks at them and apologises. He tells them that, truthfully, he doesn’t know how to help their loved one and that it was wrong of him to lead them on just to get their miraculi. They deserved better. Since Hawkmoth has literal telepathic powers, so they know he’s not lying. It’s a nice moment between a traumatised old man who is finally trying to do better and the two people he screwed over.

Alas, it’s too late for reconciliation. Fu waited too long and the two of them have done too much. Letting them have the miraculi is simply not an option, so Fu does the only thing he can:

He breaks the miracle box and makes portals beneath every miraculous, sending them to a location where he thinks the heroes will find them.

Thus begins the second most interesting fight I’ve foreshadowed in the posts about world building and powers.

-Hawkmoth has telepathy powers and can communicate his intentions to Mayura. This means he can predict what Fu will do and that his teamwork with Mayura and the Sentimonster near perfect.

-Mayura, since she has both the Amok and the peacock miraculous, can control and change the Sentimonster at will. Want to give it a snake head from it’s back that lunges at Fu? A bunch of insect limbs as sharp as swords? Wings? A fuckton of limbs/tentacles? Make it bigger or smaller depending on the situation? She can do so.

-Lastly, Fu with the horse can make portals. Since he had the miraculi since he was 8 and is now almost 200 he is the strongest current holder and he has absolutely no limits. He’ll feel awful afterwards, but it’s for the best. Favourite ideas include:

Launching himself through moving portals to pick up speed and lunge at them them from weird angles,

Throwing the horseshoe and when they parry it, sending it through a portal so it still hits them.

Portal-Cutting a building, making it go through a set of vertical portals so it builds up speed and sending it through a third portal to launch it right at them.

Portal-cutting the Eiffel Tower in specific parts so it collapses on top of them.

Canon had Fu go out like a bitch. HC had Fu go out like a bitch offscreen. I may not like the character, but I can let him go feral in his last moments. The man should have one cool fight scene.

Eventually, the heroes manage to beat Hoaxer and join the fight, at which point, Mayura just makes the Sentimonster really big and violent so they can flee. They at least got the grimoire, that’s. more than they had before.

Fu gives up guardianship and tells Ladybug where he sent the miraculi, since he can’t be sure they’ll find them. His last words to her are: “Don’t repeat my mistakes. Don’t be a Guardian, be a leader.”

-

OOF BUT THIS IS DOPE

[marsssbarrrr]

Abandoned Buildings

Koro Sensei [Ryushi Korogane] x Assassin!Experimented!Reader

Had this idea for a while, just rewatched Ass.Class and thought I’d write it. 100% SFW don’t worry lol (I don’t write a lot of NSFW)

Synopsis: You met the infamous Reaper on an assassination job. Things…happened from there.

—

This was his apartment. The infamous “Reaper”.

He’d taken out your client’s son, and his grandson had since gone missing.

Personally, you didn’t care much. So what? The snot-nosed kid probably saw his dad get taken out. He was either running and hiding or the Reaper had taken him out too.

What the Reaper did wasn’t really your business. He was an assassin. A professional. Your were the same. Money is Money, though. And with the amount this guy was paying you, there wasn’t really room to refuse.

No one really knew anything about the Reaper. But to you, that only made this job more exciting.

You were a pretty techy girl. A city’s security cameras and a few quick firewalls broken through and his info was yours. He wasn’t very tech savvy, not the way you were.

You were now the only individual in all of Japan who knew where he holed up between jobs. The place was rundown. People in the other rooms dealing and doing drugs had no effect on you. You’d seen worse, seen much more sketchy.

His apartment was on the 3rd floor. You were perched up on the building adjacent, across the street. His black out curtains were drawn, but that did little to hide the small boy peeking through. Probably the grandson, you thought. Your client had paid a decent amount of money, and had an extra couple thousand waiting if you brought him back safe and sound.

Something clicked behind you. The roof access door. Shit.

You swing around, reaching for the knife in your thigh holster. But he was quicker. In seconds your front side was pinned against the wall near your spot, your sniper was abandoned and your knife clattered against the floor. The right side of your face burned against the rough material of the wall, and your neck was tense from the harshness of the impact. You could see his face.

He held your hands behind your back, knee between your legs and his right hand holding a gun to your back.

“And who might you be, sweet cheeks?”

You gritted your teeth. Damn it.

The man chuckled.

“Y/N.” You responded. “And who in the hell are you?”

He smiled. “I have a feeling you know exactly who I am.”

…fuck. The Reaper.

“Listen, hon. You’re good. Nobody’s ever been able to find me out the way you did. Place is under an old targets name and… well, you probably know the rest.”

You did. His money was dirty, and he likely was using the boy inside as either a decoy. He was good.

“Who sent you?”

He dug the gun harder into your back, his index finger firm against the trigger.

You stayed silent.

“Fine, then.” He smile turned to a dark smirk. “I have no trouble turning to torture tactics. This area is pretty sketchy, so no one will question this.”

He moved the gun down, shooting you through the thigh. You groaned, stifling a scream. The gun was moved up to your back again.

“Tell me who sent you, and I won’t have to waste your pretty face.”

You sighed. “You killed my targets son. Took his grandkid. He didn’t tell me his name, paid me a fuckton to bring him your body.”

“Huh. Shoulda figured.”

He stepped back, letting go of you and scratching his head with the barrel of his gun. You moved quickly, snatching up your knife and shoving him to the ground. His gun clattered to the right and you held the knife against his throat.

“Listen. Personally, I don’t give a crap what you do or who your targets do. Honestly, you did some pretty good work with that guy. But this is a lot of money, and I need it.”

He didn’t even struggle. Just laughed.

“Oh, I like you, sweet cheeks. Listen, how’s about you come work for me instead? I’m no good with all that technology crap and I can do a whole lot more for you than that old rich guy can. Just fine me his info.”

You clenched your teeth again. “What’s in it for me?”

“Warm food on the table. Companionship. Better compensation from clients when word gets out you’re workin’ with the Reaper.”

You pulled the knife away after a moment. Fine. You’d play his game.

“L/N. Y/N L/N.”

You helped him up.

“Ryushi Korogane.”

—

You banged your fist against the glass. Damn it. This was supposed to be a quick job. In and out. You should’ve known. The compensation was suspiciously high, the target to insignificant. Ryushi knew it was fishy but you’d insisted. And now here you were. Rooms away from him and stuck in some glass holding space. An Experiment, you’d been told.

That’s all you were now. A test subject.

From what you could find out, Ryushi was undergoing the same “treatments” you were. Tentacle Serum injected into the back of your neck. It had been months now. Assholes.

You hadn’t seen him. After months you’d learned to love the goofy pervert, and you’d gotten engaged shortly before the little shit you’d learned to love betrayed you. They’d taken your ring, the necklace Ryushi had stood for you, and all your clothes. A white sweater and sweatpants adorned your now frail body. They gave you the bare minimum in the form of nutrients, and it did little to keep you steady these days.

Yukimura walked through the door.

“Y/N. Good to see you.” You didn’t quite trust her. The way she talked about Ryushi rubbed you the wrong way. You’d lived your whole life reading people and you could tell. She liked him.

“Yukimura. My food, please?”

“Listen.” She started, pushing the button to get you your stale food and bottled water. “They’re transferring you. A new facility. They need to separate you and the Korogane. The two of you are due to combust March 13.”

You dropped the water, head spinning. Spiked.

When you collapsed, alarms started ringing. A message came over the over-com. Ryushi was out.

That’s all you heard before the world went black.

—

You fast as you could up the mountain. He was here, you knew it. You’d found him. Class 3-E, Yukimura’s old class.

You’d escaped your facility days after the one you’d formerly been held captive was destroyed by Ryushi. After months, eight to be exact, you’d finally found him. The government officials weren’t hard to beat answers out of.

Your tentacles sprouted from your neck, pulling you faster.

All the color had been sucked from your body. You were an ugly gray color, your hair a lighter color of pale white. Your body hadn’t changed much physically, other than color and tentacles. You briefly wondered what had happened to him.

You stopped short. The class building.

It was Wednesday. Almost 10pm. Abandoned, except for him.

You panted. You didn’t have supersonic speed like he apparently had. You couldn’t smell like he could or see. But that was hardly an issue for you.

Something snapped behind you.

“Hey there, sweet cheeks.”

You spun around. It was him

“Ryushi.”

—

Might make a part two is someone asks for it. But for now, this is all :)

[daydreamingfuel]

Freak Like Me

Chapter 7

Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

AO3 // previous

Y/N has just moved to Hawkins from England with her parents and is starting at the high school in the final term of her senior year. Eddie immediately takes a liking to her and they become fast friends, deciding to take her under his wing and falling to her charms. This is Hawkins however and things are never quite as they seem...

WHOLE FIC TAGS & WARNINGS: gratuitous use of Y/N (I'm not sorry), friends to lovers, slow burn, mutual pining, eventual smut, semi-fix-it-fic, angst, injury, canon dialogue and events used, canon graphic violence, no main character death :)

Chapter Tags & Warnings: Arguing, bickering, banter, mentions of readers dad's job...cause that's not important at all..., the whole gang is in this one so that's fun, platonic Stobin, hints at Stancy, Eddie gets jealous of Steve, slight possessive Eddie, a fuckton of swearing, Dustin is a little shit, as per usual, Steve gets sucked into the Upside Down,

Chapter Word Count - 6.5k

A/N - so this one is up only a week following the last one cause I had a burst of inspiration and confidence in my writing so go me! this is, however, the only good thing to come of this week - my front door lock to my house completely fell apart so I've been dealing with that, and my girlfriend moved back to uni so I'm sad af. But my favourite Dungeon Master always helps.

She was paralysed by fear, déjà vu washing over her as flashes of the argument following Chrissy’s death flickered in her mind. The world blurred around her as she swam after Eddie, who had immediately started to swim back to the boat as soon as Jason dived down to get Patrick's body. Her entire body ached as she moved, catching up with Eddie, who paused momentarily upon hearing her come after him.

“Y/N we need to go, right now, come on!” He called out to her, the panic strong in his shaking voice as he pulled himself back onto the boat.

Still willing her arms to move and her legs to kick as hard as they could, her thoughts spiralled, going through every possible outcome and what she should have done differently before. She had a chance to do it right this time and, whatever the outcome, she would stay by Eddie’s side. Once she was back at back at the boat, and clambered back into it with Eddie’s help, the pair each picked up a paddle to get themselves away.

“We could still plead our case! Jason has seen that you didn’t lay a hand on Patrick - they have no evidence!” She pleaded, in a last-ditch effort as they rowed for their lives towards the shore, but Eddie was practically vibrating in frustration as they pulled themselves and the boat up onto the bank, covered the boat in the tarp and disappeared into the tree line. Eddie tried desperately to call Dustin on the walkie, but the water had seeped into the electrics of the radio and completely broken it.

“Jesus Christ!” Eddie exclaimed, the rage spilling over, “Y/N, come on, it doesn’t matter if there’s no evidence, they’re still going to pin this on me!”

“On us.” She corrected, making him stop in his tracks ahead of her, “I’ve been caught red-handed at the scene of the crime, just like you. If I wasn’t a suspect before, I definitely am now.”

He shook out some of the water from his hair and clothes as he processed how much trouble they were in. Stood between the trees with sirens echoing in the distance, but growing louder with each second, he stared at her in bewilderment, unable to conceal his worsening aggravation, “So what are we supposed to do, huh? Got any bright ideas?”

“Hey!” She snapped, “No need to get all pissy at me, it’s not like I’m the one killing people.”

“No! It’s not you or me - it’s a homicidal wizard from an alternate dimension. Let’s go tell that to the police, and get ourselves thrown in the loony bin in the process!” He snapped back, which made her pause to take a breath.

Y/N closed their eyes in thought, calming herself down somewhat. It was a meaningless fight; she knew that she couldn’t go to the police now or she’d be arrested on sight. They both would. She took a few deep breaths and rubbed at her clothes in a futile attempt to get warm, shaking out her hands afterwards in agitation. “Fine. Fine! You win.” Y/N said sharply, letting the ire seep into her words, “But if we are Bonnie-and-Clyde-ing this shit, I need to get a message to my mum.”

As they walked through the forest, night creeping into the early morning hours, they bickered about how exactly they were to get Y/N’s mum a message. At one point they considered finding their way to the house and leaving her a physical message, or talking to her in person, but quickly decided that it would be too risky for everyone involved. She didn’t want her mum to get in any more trouble. Ultimately, as they found a spot to rest for the night, they agreed that they would find a way to contact the others and ask that they deliver the message to her themselves in the morning. Shaking, Y/N slumped against the giant rock formation that Eddie had led her to and passed out, right as the birds started to sing.

Sunlight splintered through the trees, hitting her face in the morning glow, and soon the light was too much to bear, her eyes fluttering open. She woke to discover that she had been covered in Eddie’s battle vest for warmth at some point during the night and the man himself was nowhere to be seen. Panic settled in the pit of her stomach, twisting horribly as thoughts of her abandonment ran wild in her head. She clutched the vest tightly in her hands as she paced the clearing for any signs of his disappearance. The embellished denim was in desperate need of a was, much like everything they were wearing, but she cradled it to herself nonetheless. Subconsciously, she knew that he would never just abandon it or her, but her mind was too clouded with fear to think straight. A snapping twig alerted her to someone's arrival. She spun on her heels to see Eddie emerging through the trees, a new walkie in his hands.

Receiving his vest to his face as it was thrown at him, Eddie was greeted hostilely by Y/N, “Where the fuck did you go?”

“Good morning to you too, sweetheart. The walkie was drowned, I found us a new one,” He held it up as though it wasn’t already obvious in his hands, “I wasn’t gone that long, I was gonna wake you when I got back.”

“Next time, wake me up before you go.” She mumbled as he settled on the floor next to her, in the shade of the giant boulder formation. Finally cognitive, the fear that fogged her mind subsided somewhat, she was able to take in her surroundings and see where it was Eddie had brought her in the early hours of the day “Where are we, anyway?”

He fiddled with the buttons on the walkie as he spoke, eyes laser-focused on tuning into the right channel, “Skull Rock. It’ll do as a hiding spot for the moment, but it’s kinda infamous as a hook-up spot.”

“Oh really?” She questioned and he hummed in confirmation, tongue poking out of his mouth in concentration, not looking away from the walkie in his hands, “Don’t get me wrong, I’m flattered, but it’s kinda bad timing.” She teased, though her body did heat up at the thought, from both the exhilaration at the wild thoughts running through her head and the jealousy that plagued her at the possibility that he had been here with other people. She quickly pushed away both feelings, it was neither the time nor place to deal with either of those thoughts.

He snorted and allowed a small smirk to grace his lips, but it fell as fast as it appeared, as he finally found the right channel and pressed the call button on the walkie, “Dustin, can you hear me? Wheeler?”

“Eddie. Holy shit. Are you okay?” Dustin's voice immediately answered through the radio, the worry coming through strong, and Y/N sighed in deep relief.

“Nah, man,” Eddie confessed easily, his nerves still rattling him, Dustin's voice after so long causing the man to crack beside her. He ran a stressed hand over his face as he talked, “Pretty… Pretty goddamn far from okay.”

There was a pause on the line briefly before Dustin asked, “Where are you? Is Y/N with you?”

“Yeah, I’m here,” Y/N answered, huddled up to Eddie’s side, and leaning on his shoulder to talk, “we’re at Skull Rock. Do you know it?”

“Uh, yeah. That's near Cornwallis and-” Dustin started but was cut off by Steve.

“Garrett, yeah. I know where that is.” His voice was hushed like he wasn’t right next to the speaker, but standing near Dustin. Knowing he was there, and presumably would be driving, she called out to him, grabbing the walkie.

“Steve wait!”

There was silence for a moment before his voice came back through, “Y/N? What’s up, we don’t have much time.” His voice was dripping with concern and confusion, almost familial in tone – like a stressed dad, so she spoke as concisely as possible.

“Before you come to us, I need you to get a message to my mum.” Before she could be cut off, she continued, “And yes, I know that’s reckless, but I need you to do this for me, please, Steve – tell her to call my dad and his lawyers. And that I’m sorry.”

“Y/N, I’m not sure that’s the best-”

She cut him off, desperate, squeezing the walkie, “Steve, please!”

Her voice echoed slightly, as Eddie pulled the walkie from her hands to grip them tightly, until Dustin’s voice finally responded, “Hold tight. We're coming.” Y/N took a shaking breath, “We're coming.”

The static that followed echoed in the small space beneath the towering rock formation, they would be alone again for a while. Still very much shaken from the previous night, Eddie placed the walkie in the leaves at their feet and re-laced his fingers with Y/N’s. She immediately squeezed back, letting her body melt into his side, head nestled in the crook of his neck, arms wrapping around each other protectively. Eventually, she muttered, “My dad’s gonna kill me before Vecna gets a chance to.”

“Do you think his lawyers will be able to help?” Eddie fretted and Y/N nodded softly, “What does your dad even do anyway? You never talk about him.”

She sighed and sat upright, picking at her clothes that had half dried and were fitting uncomfortably, “He’s not really allowed to talk about his job, I know the project he was working on was pretty big though, had him staying late and stressed all the time. He had barely any patience or attention left for me or mum, but she got to see him more than I did at least. I know it’s something technical and sciencey, for a subsect of the Government - all very secretive.” She flourished her hands dramatically, before letting them fall back into her lap, “I know he’s good at his job, whatever it is. We were told when he was recruited by this Doctor, that they might need to transfer him temporarily without notice and it wouldn’t be negotiable, which put a strain on my parents' relationship - they’ve barely been apart in 20 years.” Finally, she turned her head to look at him, crossing her legs and resting her cheek on her hand propped up on her knee, “But the security incentive helped. Not just financially but the insurance and the lawyers should anything happen, in case of an emergency.”

“And this counts as an emergency?” Eddie asked her, not quite believing in his own importance. He didn’t need to say what he was really asking, as their eyes locked Y/N could see every emotion swimming in the dark chocolate irises – the distress, the anger, the exhaustion, the anguish. But also, the desperate relief, that she cared about him enough to take his side and stay there. To call in reinforcements on his behalf.

She gazed at him, hoping that he would understand, “Of course it does.”

An hour, then two, crawled by. Hungry, tired, and scared, Y/N and Eddie huddled together under the shade of Skull Rock. They barely talked, too preoccupied with listening out for any signs of life nearby. Steve wouldn’t be able to drive his car into the clearing itself, so their rescuers would be coming to them on foot. But the pair were acutely aware that foes as well as friends were on the hunt for them too. At the sounds of bushes rustling and twigs snapping close by, they tensed and scrambled to their feet, hiding behind the rocks and in the trees. However, their instinct to take cover was quickly deemed unnecessary as familiar voices were soon relieving their fear.

“Oh, boom! Bada bing, bada boom.” Steve, confidently strolled into the clearing, Dustin following close behind, “There she is, Henderson. Skull Rock. In your face, man. In your stupid, cocky little face.”

Dustin checked something in his hand, and looked up at the rock formation in bewilderment, “Doesn't make sense.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Steve rolled his eyes and started lecturing the young teen, “Even with it staring you in the face, you can't admit it. Can't admit you're wrong, you butthead.”

“I concur.” Feeling safer amongst friends, Eddie made his presence known, jumping down from the rock he was hiding behind, “You, Dustin Henderson, are a… total butthead.”

Dustin smiled in relief and immediately went to hug Eddie, “Jesus, we thought you were a goner.”

“Yeah, me too, man.” Eddie hugged back, avoiding his backpack, and looking over his capped head past Steve, to where Y/N was emerging from the trees behind Steve, “Me too.”

Scurrying over, Y/N poked Steve in the side, the yellow fabric of his jumper soft under her hands, “Hey stranger.”

“Hey,” Steve wrapped an arm around her and pulled her into a warm hug, “I knew you staying was a bad idea, but I’m glad you’re safe. You are okay, right?”

“As okay as I can be, Harrington.” She assured him with a half smile.

As Steve and Eddie gave each other a cursory nod and smile, Dustin pulled Y/N away for an embrace themselves, and she squeezed him tightly, rocking from foot to foot gently. They laughed lightly, as they expressed their relief at each other’s safety. Robin, Nancy, Lucas, and Max all wandered into the clearing, making Y/N smile more. Calling Lucas over, she gave him a quick squeeze before greeting the others, checking to see if they too were okay. Max had her headphones hanging around her neck, leading to the Walkman clipped tightly to her jeans, just as it had been the last time she had seen her, a look in her eye telling Y/N that she was too deeply aware of the danger they were all in. Robin in her endearing awkwardness, gave Y/N a wave and Nancy stood next to her, gave a polite ‘hello’ before she handed Y/N a grocery bag.

“Thank you, so much, I’m starving- Ed’s!” Y/N interrupted herself, and Eddie perked up at her call, scampering over to her, “Food.”

Eagerly, Eddie reached out and took some of the stuff that the group had brought for them, quickly taking the six-pack of beer that Nancy had, in fact, bought. As Y/N sat to eat, Steve rummaged through a large backpack, pulled out a Tupperware box and wandered over to sit by her. He handed her the tub with a folded-up piece of paper reading ‘For Y/N’ taped to the lid, “Your mom gave me this to give to you. I haven’t read it, swear, but she was shaking a little when she was writing it so I don’t think you should read it just yet. You know, with everyone around?”

“Yeah…thanks, Steve,” Y/N carefully pulled the note from the box and pocketed it, “How was she? Just, like…generally?”

“She definitely believes in you. She was terrified, of course, but, yeah she, uh…she didn’t really question it when we said what you asked, just thanked us, wrote the note, gave us the food and told us to be safe.” Steve seemed baffled by the interaction, standing up to leave her in peace, but Y/N just nodded and laughed lightly to herself.

Lost in thought, she could only reply, “Classic mum.” Eddie plonked himself hip to hip with Y/N as she opened the tub, finding disposable cutlery inside along with Y/N’s favourite family recipe, which she happily shared with him.

The group at Skull Rock gathered to debrief on the events of the past few days as Eddie and Y/N devoured Mrs Y/L/N’s cooking. Steadily, they told their fugitive friends that they had figured out that Vecna was linked to the infamous Creel murders in the 1950s, all the victims killed in the same manner by a mysterious force that was ultimately pinned on an innocent man, Victor Creel, who had been locked up for decades, driven mad by the memories. The previous night while Eddie and Y/N were hiding and running from Jason, they had been exploring the abandoned Creel house. In turn, Eddie and Y/N explained as best as they could what had happened and what they saw, the friends around them hanging on to every detail trying to piece it together with what they had been up to.

“When we got to the shore, I tried calling you guys, but, uh…my walkie was busted, man. Drenched. So, uh, I did the thing that I do now, apparently.” Eddie gave a cynical smile, “I ran.”

Y/N chuckled dryly, “And I followed. Though we kinda figured, it was that or be arrested for murder.”

Eddie hummed in acknowledgement of their brief spat the night before, before taking a huge gulp of the beer that Nancy had ultimately brought him before passing it to Y/N who too, took a swig.

“Do you know what time this was? The attack?” Nancy asked deep in thought, going over all the details. Y/N had heard about her particular proclivity for the details and piecing things together by Dustin, talking about how good his older friends would be at Dungeons & Dragons if they just gave it a chance.

Eddie nodded, “Yeah, no, I… I know exactly what time it was.” He fiddled with the strap of his busted watch, “My walkie wasn't the only thing that got soaked.” He threw it to her once it was off and she caught it easily.

“9:27,” Nancy confirmed her thoughts to the group.

Robin immediately got the hint and added, “Same time our flashlights went kablooey.”

“Which means what, exactly?” Steve, much like Y/N and Eddie, was still rather confused about the perceived link between the events.

Nancy, putting the pieces together, explained, “That that surge of energy, was Vecna attacking Patrick.” She threw Eddie back his watch, and despite it being broken he put it back on, the feeling of it not being there having weirdly unsettled him. It seemed as though a lightbulb turned on in Y/N’s mind as their combined events of the past few days clicked into place.

“Well, we're one step closer.” Robin said, seeing the silver lining to the situation at hand, “We know how Vecna attacks.”

“And where he attacks from,” Lucus added. A small ray of hope started to shine through the cracks, but wasn’t quite bright enough to wash away all of Y/N’s fear.

Max, having been cursed by Vecna herself, and already had an attack attempted on her, finished the thought, “So now we just need to sneak into his lair in the Upside Down and drive a stake through his heart.”

“If he even has a heart,” Robin added, doubtful, as though she could read Y/N’s mind.

Steve, who was standing by the rock where Y/N was sat, with arms folded across his chest, thought out loud, vaguely confused, “Stake? Is he like a vamp- Is he a vampire?”

Y/N could tell that his question was somewhat genuine, and also felt vague amounts of frustration from the others, so not wanting to add to that, answered, “I think it was a metaphor, but at this point who knows, he could be.” She reached up and squeezed his elbow softly, as she spoke without condescension, which Steve appreciated greatly.

Eddie tried not to pay any mind to how gentle Y/N was with Steve - refusing to let it bruise his ego as he recalled the frequent vulnerable moments she chose to share with him over the recent days - as he suggested, “A bullet should work on him, right?”

“I say we chop his head off.” Lucas offered bluntly, making Y/N nod in agreement.

“I’d say all of the above,” Nancy interjected, trying to stay logical, “but we can't do any of that 'til we find a way into the Upside Down.”

Max, aggravated at how complex the problem they needed to solve was, wished, “We need El to get her powers back.”

“Everything was way easier,” Steve emphasised, then looked down to Y/N and Eddie, “We had this girl. She had superpowers-”

“Superpowers. Yeah, you mentioned her.” Eddie replied, slightly cutting him off as he was distracted, watching Dustin – who had been pacing back and forth behind the little circle the group had formed as they talked, barely paying attention to what had been said. Deeply confused by the young teens' behaviour, Eddie asked, “Hey, uh, Henderson's not, uh, cursed, is he?”

And Steve answered, with an annoyance only known to that of older siblings, at their wit's end with their younger relation, “Cursed? No, no. He's fine. Mental? Absolutely.”

“Boom!” the teen in question finally shouted, turning to the rest of the group at long last, his voice echoing in the trees startling everyone except Steve. As he spoke, he stalked towards his surrogate brother, pointing a knowing finger at him, “Bada… bada… boom. I was right. Skull Rock was north.”

Steve was incredulous, “Seriously? You're serious?” and Dustin hummed in response, nodding with a smug little smirk, so Steve continued, “This is Skull Rock. Okay? You're totally, absolutely, 100% wrong. Right now.”

“Yes. And no.”

“Oh my God,” Steve ran his hands over his face, having to walk away from the boy.

Y/N, holding back a laugh at the brotherly rapport between the two boys, asked in confusion at the sudden outburst, “Dustin, what’s the point of this?”

Immediately, Dustin launched into an almost patronising but still endearing explanation of why he wasn’t wrong, “This compass worked correctly when we left the Wheelers'. Correct when we got in the car on Kerley. But it started to slip the further east we went. Now, it's way off. When I was leading us here, I wasn't wrong. The compass was.”

“So, you're using faulty equipment. You're still wrong.” Steve rebuked.

“Except it isn't faulty.” Dustin insisted before asking, “Lucas, remember what can affect a compass?”

Lucas seemingly understood exactly what his friend was trying to tell them, in a roundabout way, “An electromagnetic field.”

Dustin smiled and confirmed, but Robin asked, needing more explanation, “Sorry. I must've skipped that class.”

“Compasses work through magnetism, they’re built to point towards the magnetic north pole,” Y/N answered, her childhood days of performing little science experiments with her father coming in clutch, and receiving a few surprised looks from her peers as she continued, “But, in the presence of a stronger electromagnetic field, as Lucas said, the needle will deflect towards that power source instead, meaning the compass is technically ‘wrong’.”

“Exactly.” Dustin was practically beaming, “So either there's some super big magnet around here, or…”

“There's a gate.” Lucas realised, and Dustin nodded. A heavy weight settled in the air around them, Y/N feeling as though she should know what that meant with more certainty than she did. As the group theorised how and why this gate may have come to fruition, Eddie nudged Y/N in the side to get her attention. They shared a look that asked if the other was understanding the conversation, only to be met with equal confusion, which made them feel more at ease with their lack of inter-dimensional knowledge. They were broken out of this exchange however by Steve.

“Where are you going?” The question snapped them back to the group, seeing Dustin walking away from everyone, “Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!” He paused at Steve's protests, “Eddie's still a wanted man. And now Y/N is a suspect too. We can't just go for a hike in the woods.”

Dustin, clearly agitated made one final plea, “This little steel capsule might be the key to saving Max, Eddie and Y/N.” He turned to the pair on the ground, gesturing to them as he propositioned them, “What say you, Eddie the Banished? Y/N the Exiled?”

“I say you're asking me to follow you into Mordor, which, if I'm totally straight with you, I think is a really bad idea.” Eddie paused, thought for a moment, before looking over at Y/N, “But, uh, the Shire…the Shire is burning.” As Eddie took Y/N's hand and helped her to stand, Dustin jumped in place excitedly, happy that they were going to test his theory. “So, Mordor it is.”

Steve, bewildered by the exchange and still peeved about Dustin's instance to be right, asked nobody in particular, with only Y/N picking up on it, “What is Mordor?”

“It’s the dark land from The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings- incredibly nerdy, don’t worry about it,” Y/N reassured him with a smile.

Once again, and growing fonder, Steve was grateful for Y/N’s patience after the constant teasing from his younger compatriots. “Thanks.” He whispered, before gesturing to the remainder of the food by her feet, “Get your stuff. Let's go.”

Trekking through the woods, playing follow the leader with Dustin - Eddie right behind him with a torch - Y/N found herself hanging back to talk to Steve, who was bringing up the rear of the party to make sure none got lost or left behind. Steve was familiar in some ways, a reminder of her past, with his previous ‘kingly’ reputation for being a bit of a teenage asshole, but Y/N was more deeply fascinated by his seemingly innate desire to protect the group – particularly the younger teens. Listening intently as he explained as briefly as he could, Y/N quickly learned that, much like herself, he had been caught up in the supernatural by accident, time and time again. He had only been trying to apologise to Jonathan when the Demogorgon attacked the Byers house, he didn’t intend to fight it off with a nailed baseball bat. And win. He had only been bringing Nancy flowers when he was roped into hunting a baby Demogorgon with Dustin, not knowing he would have to fight off an army of them to protect Dustin, Max, and Lucas. Of which he was successful. And he had just been working with Robin, “slinging ice cream”, when Dustin came to him with a weird message he had picked up – it definitely wasn’t the plan to be trapped in a secret Russian base and tortured, whilst still in uniform. Then live to tell the tale. Every time, he fought and tried to protect those around him, regardless of his own safety and how insane the situation was. Y/N decided that not only did she like Steve, but she deeply respected him.

In turn, she reminisced about her family and life back in England, glossing over the trauma quickly before circling back to the past few months since the move. Just as she was starting to gush about how Eddie and Hellfire had made her feel so welcomed, and why the stigma was so frustrating, they came to a standstill. Taking in their surroundings, Y/N felt a cold chill run down her spine.

“Oh, man. You gotta be shitting me.” Steve huffed and Y/N reciprocated the feeling.

“Yeah.” Y/N scoffed humourlessly, “I thought these woods were familiar.”

The sun had set whilst they were walking, and the moon high in the sky was once again reflecting on the soft waves of water in Lovers Lake. Y/N, glared at the water, trying silently to control her breathing so as to not alert the others of her rising panic, though it seemed her nerves were felt as Eddie moved to stand beside her, wrapping an arm around her waist, and pulling her into his side.

Tuning back into the conversation, she heard Nancy offer up a theory, “Whenever the Demogorgon attacked, it always left an opening. Maybe Vecna's the same way.”

“Yeah, only one way to find out,” Steve said conclusively, then turned to Y/N and Eddie where they were huddled together and asked where they had stashed the boat. With Y/N leading the way, they traipsed along the bank until they found the boat, haphazardly covered in the tree line. Pulling it off, they looked at the available seating, then at each other in confirmation of shared ideas. The older teens and young adults of the group quickly realised it would be up to them to test Dustin’s theory.

Steve and Eddie bickered slightly as they got the boat half in the water before each offering a hand to Robin to help her into the boat. Instead, she elected to use their heads for support as she stepped into the small vessel, thanking them as she passed. Eddie then stood up as Steve kept the boat grounded, both again offering their hands to Nancy as she too stepped in, though she did not notice Steve's offer, only taking Eddie’s hand.

“Sweetheart,” Eddie then gave a saccharine smile as he flourished his hand out to Y/N, trying to ease her obvious panic with theatricality.

She took his hand graciously and winked as she passed him, “Thanks, honey.”

Dustin, who had been watching, gagged, “You two make me sick,” he muttered to himself as he tried to gain access to the boat, but was very quickly stopped by Eddie.

“Hey, hey, hey, you trying to sink us?” He pushed Dustin back to land with a hand on the forehead, “This thing holds four people tops, okay?” Eddie didn’t want to upset Dustin or patronise him, but he also wanted him safe.

Seeing Eddie’s tactic to keep the children on land, Nancy assured him, “It's better this way, okay? You guys stay here with Max. Keep an eye out for trouble.”

“You keep an eye out.” Dustin snapped back at her, “It's my goddamn theory.”

Robin piped up, trying to establish some form of authority, “You heard Nance.”

“Who put her in charge?”

“I did.”

Nancy held her hand out to Dustin, “Compass.” He huffs in a small tantrum for a moment before handing it to her, with Nancy passing it to Eddie to hold as she got resettled on the bench. Once the four on the boat were sat somewhat comfortably, Steve stood up, threw Dustin's backpack at him, and pushed off from the bank, taking his seat next to Nancy as Robin and Eddie started to row.

“You said four!” Dustin called out, annoyed.

Steve whisper-shouts “Sorry,” back at him as they drifted further from the bank.

“Bedtime at nine, kiddos,” Robin shouted, baiting those still on land. Dustin flipped her off as Max rolled her eyes, Lucas just watched in vague amusement, “Miss you already!”

The row out to the middle of the lake was slow but steady, as Nancy watched the compass to make sure they were still heading in the right direction. Once they were far away enough from the shore that the young teens who stood on the bank looked like toddlers, Nancy called out for them to slow down. Stopping their rowing, the group turned to look at Nancy and the compass in her hands, which was flicking back and forth crazily.

Their stunned silence was interrupted by Dustin over the walkie, “Guys, what's going on? Come on, talk to me. What's going on?”

“Uh, Dustin, your compass has gone from kinda wonky to wonky with a capital ‘aah!’” Robin, hesitantly answered, awestruck.

Y/N emphasised, “It’s like the needle doesn’t know where to point - like it’s overwhelmed with electromagnetic energy. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

As Y/N talked, Steve started taking off his shoes and socks, confounding his friends in the boat. When questioned by a concerned Nancy, he replied, with a certain authority, “Somebody's gotta go down and check this out. Unless one of you four can top being a Hawkins High swim co-captain and a certified lifeguard for three years, then… it's gotta be me. No complaints, all right?”

“Hey, I'm not complaining,” Eddie reassured him, “I do not wanna go down there.”

Y/N nodded in agreement, peeking over the edge of the boat to stare at the water and shuddering, “Yeah, I’ve already been in this lake once in the last 24 hours, I’m not exactly desperate to do it again.”

Eddie reached into his pocket and pulled out a shopping bag with only a carton of cigarettes and a lighter in it, and emptied it into his lap as Steve stood up and took off his jumper, revealing his toned and hairy chest. Y/N glanced up at him from the movement, looking away before registering the sight. Once she did, her eyes widened slightly as she did a small double-take, and slowly blinked to fully process it. Having clocked the cogs turning in Y/N’s head, Eddie cleared his throat to snap her out of it, possessiveness bubbling up under his skin. He raised an eyebrow at her in question, which she vehemently ignored, not wanting to give him the satisfaction, and just shrugged in response. Nancy, however, was outright staring in awe at Steve’s body, despite having a boyfriend herself, which only Robin noticed, though she said nothing, smiling to herself instead.

Eddie, slightly aggravated, wrapped the now empty shopping bag around the torch he had been carrying through the woods and handed it to Steve, “Hey. Good luck.”

Steve took the not mostly waterproofed torch, looking over his shoulder at him, the light hitting his handsome features just right, eyes intense and focused, “Thanks.”

‘Damn.’

‘Wait, are you attracted to Steve?’

‘No…surely not.’

Slightly hating how the moonlight making Steve look ethereal made her feel, her heartbeat picking up somewhat, she looked over at Eddie as a welcome distraction. And though she should have expected it, Y/N shocked herself with how it didn’t help much with her heart rate, but instead increased it. Eddie had a cigarette hanging from his lips, the light reflecting on the water casting a beautiful shadow over his cheekbones and jawline. Y/N reached for the lighter in his hand and ignited the flame, reaching up slightly so he’d have to lean down to her if he wanted his cigarette lit. The glow of the fire shone in his eyes as he stared at her through it.

“Gross.” The moment was broken by Robin as she took the cigarette from Eddie's lips and threw it into the lake. In sync, Eddie and Y/N turned their heads to stare at her, mystified. As her eyes locked onto Robins, she tried to send a telepathic ‘what the fuck dude?’ her way and knew she had succeeded when Robin rolled her eyes with a small, victorious smirk.

Steve stood at the edge of the boat, breathing steadily and mentally preparing himself to dive down to the lakebed.

“Steve?” Nancy called softly, making him turn his head to look down at her, “Be careful.”

An apprehensive look flashed in his eyes, almost like guilt, as their eyes locked, but he nodded nonetheless and dove gracefully into the dark water. They sat in tense silence as Steve swam further and further down, with Nancy counting the seconds on her watch to make sure that he wasn’t submerged for too long.

Robin, growing more and more agitated, asked, “Where we at, Wheeler?”

“Closing in on a minute.” She replied, not taking her eyes off the watch.

Robin nodded, “Okay.” She made a noise of discomfort feigning ambivalence, obviously very worried about her friend. Y/N offered a hand for Robin to squeeze, which she grasped tightly.

Just as Eddie cleared his throat, uncomfortable in the silence, it was broken completely when the water gushed loudly as Steve resurfaced, making everyone on the boat exclaim in surprise, even more surprised when Steve said, “I found it.” He panted through his confirmation when Robin asked for it, leaning on the side of the boat as Nancy pulled wet strands of hair from his forehead with deep care.

“Dustin, you are a goddamn Einstein.” Robin said excitedly into the walkie, “Steve found the gate, we have a way to Vecna.”

“It's pretty wild.” Steve said through pants, still trying to catch his breath, arms holding him up on the edge of the boat, “It's more a snack-size gate than the mama gate, but still, it's pretty damn big.”

Right as he stopped speaking, he dropped off the side of the boat momentarily, like something was pulling him down. Everyone lurched forward in shock, but they all regained composure quickly and waited with bated breath to ensure he was okay and wouldn’t happen again. For a moment all was calm as they scanned the water before Steve was fully dragged under without a second to react. The group dissolved into chaos, all shouting after Steve, but it was pointless. He was unreachable.

“No! No!” Eddie protested, deeply stressed, “What the hell was that man?”

Robin was intensely distressed, staring back and forth between the dark water and Nancy beside her, leaning over the edge of the boat “Nancy, really, what happened?”

Nancy, however, ignored all questions and stood up, determined to go in after Steve, much to everyone else's panic. At the sounds of protests, Nancy could only tell them to wait where they were before diving in and swimming down to find Steve.

“Fucking hell!” Y/N cursed loudly, shaking, and running her hands up and down her temples as Eddie loudly swore to himself. Unbeknownst to them both, Robin quietly and carefully sat backwards on the edge of the boat, preparing herself to search the lake herself.

“No, no, no, no, no, no.” Eddie faced her, hands held out to stop her if he had to, “What are you doing? She said wait.”

Robin stared back at him, dismissively, her mind already made up, “Yeah, I heard her.”

“She's in charge,” Eddie tried, grasping at flimsy straws.

Robin scoffed and shook her head, “Are you kidding me?”

Y/N placed a hand on Eddie’s shoulder, “Eds she was bullshitting, and you know it. Nobody’s in charge.” Her voice was trembling slightly, barely more than a frustrated whimper.

“Don't you go. Don't you—” Despite his thinly veiled threats, Robin fully ignored Eddie and fell backwards off the edge of the boat and into the water.

Eddie immediately stood up in anger and fear, “Goddamn it! Son of a bitch!” he paced the small space of the boat as much as he could, staring at the water and contemplating what fate was worse, “Oh, this is so stupid.”

“This is really fucking stupid,” Y/N could only agree.

‘Don’t be a pussy.’

‘I’m definitely gonna regret this.’

In his blind panic, Eddie didn’t notice the cogs turning in Y/N’s mind until it was too late. She was standing, prepared to dive. “Y/N! No, not you too. Sweetheart, please!” But she was gone with a loud splash, “Shit!”

Swearing profusely as he questioned his own existence, Eddie’s mind was filled with paralysing fear. Thoughts of her drowning, being pulled apart, sucked into an alternate hellish dimension, tortured, and broken, flashed through his raging mind. Before he could register his own actions, Eddie dove beneath the water, his only tether to reality being the hope that she was still alive.

previous

[guppygiggles]

((Oh shoot I was mid-ask and pushed the wrong thing and I’m not sure it sent so starting over 😅))

Anywho hello hi there I really hope you don’t mind the like spamming (and interactions in general from nsfw blogs); I just really couldn’t help myself bc I’m resonating so much with your content and tags and you seem like a genuinely lovely human with absolutely adorable artwork so I wanted to show you some appreciation 🥺💗 It immediately comes across how much you love and care for your OCs via the lore you’ve created and the utmost tender way you talk about them and the way they interact with each other ?? 😭 it’s impossible not to fall in love with them too. I also hope you’ve heard copious amount of feedback about how brilliant your writing is - so detailed, so warm, so intimate…it’s extremely flustering and endlessly endearing and I’m so grateful you share your gift with all of us on here! In particular, I’m positively fascinated with Avery’s backstory and anatomy and am loving discovering the depth of the layers of thought that you put into composing him. Excited to learn more 🥰

((((I’m also approaching my third decade of life next year and it’s always nice seeing rep for folks my age in the community who are still enjoying and exploring their relationship with this “kink”(using this term lightly bc I know everyone may not consider themselves to fall under that umbrella). I too met my partner on here, and it’s beautiful to hear that things can work out in the long run so thank you for that tidbit of reassurance 💗 sending wishes of happiness for you both!!))))

Sorry again for this long winded ramble I was just inspired and wanted to send the warm vibes I received while perusing your awesome blog back your way!!! Hope you have a lovely day 💕

-🐰

Anon... my god! 😭💙 /very positive

Crying into my tea on a Sunday morning... god, I am so touched by this, I'm just falling apart...

Let me respond to this sequentially, so I don't just get flooded with emotion (and if you've been watching how I post, you already know this is going to be long as fuck... Sorry! 🥲)

1. I am absolutely okay with NSFW blogs interacting with me, and spam interactions don't bother me at all! The only interactions I don't want are from minors and dickheads, haha. No worries on this, peach.

2. Fewer people interact with my fic than with my art, but when I tell you I treasure every single thing people say about my fic... god, there's just nothing like it. My fic is so, so close to my heart. I've been a writer much longer than I've been an artist, so I feel like I can really express myself through writing in a way I can't with art... I'm trying, but I'm not quite there yet! God, thank you so much for your kind words... I am so grateful that the warmth and love I feel when I'm writing is felt by others, too. I really try to capture the very essence of how these characters and their emotions feel in my mind and heart.

And you like the lore, too? 🥺 My long-winded rambling? My wordy expositions? God, my heart! 😭💙

3. I am so happy to know you met your partner in this community, too! I am really wishing the best for you, and yes, it absolutely can work out! My spouse and I are very different from each other, but we are still best friends after six years, and I don't see that changing any time soon.

4. I feel like this community tends to be younger, especially here on Tumblr, so it's kind of refreshing to hear from someone in the same phase of life as me. If there's anything I didn't expect, it's that I would still be exploring my feelings about tickling (and, well, intimacy as a whole) well into adulthood. It's funny how things come back around, though... I was making tickling doodles in my diary when I was just a kid, but I stopped (and, stopped drawing altogether, really) after high school. Had to work through a ton of shame, religious trauma, and just a metric fuckton of other shit, all to come right back around to doing tickling doodles again, haha! I was delighted to find that, at 30 (and with a whole lot of new experiences and context), it still makes me just as giddy now as it did then.

All of this is to say... There may be common threads throughout one's life, but we aren't really set in stone the way people think. You can absolutely discover, and rediscover, yourself and what brings you joy over and over again as you grow and have new experiences. If I can give any advice on this, it's this: Don't close yourself off. You only have this one life, so use it to experience all you can. Even if you're shy, like me... do your best to lend a kind word, an ear, or a hand as often as possible. You never know who, or what, is gonna set your soul on fire.

Anon, thank you so much for this ask... And if you ever want to chat, I'd be more than delighted. 💙

[greenokapi]

So… what do y’all do when you wanna do a bajillion things but you can’t settle on which thing to do so you just kind of end up doing nothing?

… lissen I’m still only recently diagnosed with adhd so I still don’t know how to work with it… I wanna draw so many things, wanna make merch, comics, I wanna write a fuckton of silly cringe fanfics… I wanna make videos? Like maybe youtube videos rambling abt stuff while drawing but then I don’t know if anyone would even be interested in that, and besides I haven’t done video editing in…. Probably close to 20years? What program should I use? Anyone got any tips on that?

I also wanna make stuff, lil bead things like these guys I made a while ago for example

I also wanna try doll customization cause it’s kinda only been the last decade or so where I’ve allowed myself to like dolls… reasons for that being … uh… gender stuff… it’s like only now in my life, around 30 have I finally gotten somewhat close to getting a grasp on my gender and sexuality, and I never even really realized before that this was something I had a problem with? Which probably makes no sense tbh…

I also wanna do sculpting and even paint, after art school teachers made me feel like I should never paint again bcs idk man I wasn’t up to their standards 🤷

And… I wanna do all this stuff but not only does brain say ‘adhd my guy’ but there’s also my increasing health issues that… I mean I’ve always had them but I guess getting older makes it harder and harder to constantly deal with them… and that’s another thing I never really realized was so bad until back when I was in Japan in 2015-2016 as an exchange student and would have to go to the hospital increasingly often bcs of pain nobody could diagnose… aand then I was shamed for it bcs having to go to the hospital in the middle of the night sometimes was a huge hassle to the dorm staff, idk I was a problem…

Since then I’ve had two operations and will probably need to have more in the future. Also, amusingly, when I finally got diagnosed I was looking at the list of symptoms, all of which I could relate to in at least some way, but the ones that stood out, for some reason, were ‘constant exhaustion’ and then below it was ‘insomnia’ and… maybe I’m not actually lazy when I’m tired all the time? But y’know, I don’t really wanna use a chronic condition as an excuse to just do nothing, plenty of ppl have chronic problems but still do stuff with their life… but when I think like that I also remember this isn’t a ‘pain competition’ or something like that and different people just have different capabilities to deal with chronic pain and such… idk, I honestly think I’m still trying to come to terms with the realization that being exhausted and in pain all the time probably counts as some kind of disability….. but I don’t feel like I’m allowed to say I’m disabled bcs I do also have good days, you know? I should probably try harder to just DO things?

Ahem, it’s like 9AM and I haven’t been able to sleep and stuff hurts… I just wanna go do something productive but instead I’m whining on here which I probably shouldn’t do bcs this is the internet and strangers can see what you post and maybe use it against you but also sometimes you just really wanna rant into the void… or maybe more like semi-void cause idk, maybe someone reads this and can relate or give advice or just talk or something? Buuut you suck at talking… then later you feel embarrassed about your tired rambles and probably end up deleting them and just bring them up in therapy later like you should…

Anyway, until this embarrassment pops up I’m probably gonna try to find some painkillers and go draw or something -3-

[aemiron-main]

Will Scott Be in TFS?

So! What’s the likelihood of our beloved Scott Clarke showing up as a kid in TFS? I think it’s pretty solid. We have the fuckton of Creelarke analysis demonstrating that Scott and Henry very very very likely knew eachother at some point, including things like the black cat imagery with Scott, which is specifically connected to TFS.

Now, I’ve seen some people bring up the issue of Hopper not remembering Scott/saying that he doesn’t think they’ve met before & so if Scott was in TFS, how could they have never met?

Well, a few things about this:

1.) Hopper also forgot who Scott was in S3. Even setting timeline and memory fuckery aside, clearly Hopper’s memory isn’t the best, especially when it comes to Scott

2.) Hopper seems to forget Scott’s name by the end of the initial S1 convo, just calling him “teach” and Hopper sounds disoriented/distracted.

3.) Interestingly enough, when Scott introduces himself, Jim does not do the same. He doesn’t say his own name. Now, there’s absolutely a chance that Scott just knows who Hopper is from him being police chief, but it’s definitely an interesting choice, because if Scott didn’t know who Hopper was, and Hopper didn’t introduce himself, then even if Scott remembers meeting Hopper during the events of TFS, he may not have put the clues together that this is Hopper, especially since teenage Hopper seems very anti-authority/generally not the kind of guy you’d expect to become a cop.

4.) Hopper is almost 18 at the time of TFS & Scott definitely seems younger than him, especially since they clearly didn’t go to school in the same class, or else Hopper likely would have remembered him. I don’t think it’s unlikely for Scott to just be some random kid to Hopper during TFS (especially since Hopper’s never even mentioned Henry, who would be a memorable kid considering the Creel murders), and for Hopper not to remember him years down the line. We also know that Hop got sent to Vietnam when he turned 18, and then moved to the city, so he didn’t stick around Hawkins to get to know Scott better as Scott got older. I have more to say about this in the Bob section!

Now, moving onto the next section: Bob Newby. I’m setting everything from the comics aside for this analysis since those get retconned all the time & instead focusing on the concrete stuff we have in the show. So, what do we know?

Well, we know that Scott learned everything he knows about AV from Bob:

Keeping in mind that the play is canon, it would seemingly be a retcon of the canon not to include Scott. Scott was there, learning AV from Bob when Bob founded the AV club/when Bob was in highschool. Which means that Scott SHOULD be present during the events of TFS, since that’s when TFS takes place.

We also know that Bob seems to be in Jopper’s general age range/mentions being in highschool with Joyce. And on a final note, going back to Hopper not knowing that Scott existed/not remembering him- Joyce didn’t know that Bob existed either/didn’t know who Bob was. And her and Bob went to school together. So I don’t think it’s a stretch for Jim to not remember some random child.

So, yeah! I think we’ve got a pretty firm chance of Scott being in TFS, especially since he knows such a weird amount about the supernatural stuff and sensory tanks- almost like he’s had to use that knowledge before…. During the events of TFS perhaps……

[leprosycock]

If I’m trying to dip my toes into writing jlud fics, is there anything you think should be highlighted in their dynamic, I’ve never written real people before, so I’m worried they may come off as OOC

i think having a history of writing rpf in general does help you portray real people a little better, but even if you've only written fic based on movies or tv, then you really just have to study and think about the way real people talk. none of it is carefully orchestrated or prewritten or flowery or anything like that. real people use lots of filler words and phrases like "uh", "ah", "um", "like", "yeah", "i mean", "you know", so on and so forth. they stutter. they fumble. j stutters a lot, usually because he talks very quickly and his mouth can't keep up with his brain and he short-circuits when he's placed into unfamiliar situations.

a lot of people make the mistake that lud is inherently domineering and suave and super alpha and he always knows what he's doing, which isn't true. he's able to fake confidence VERY well and he tries to make up a lot of his personality so he can mask his vulnerability and sell himself as a product to others, but he's easily broken through because he wants SO badly to be loved and praised and coddled. at the same time, he also has the capacity to be very cruel and snide and shitty on purpose and he doesn't really care about hurting people's feelings. all of these spawn from him being a miserable, unstable, spoiled manchild. he's very mean to jrma in between glorifying him, constantly diving between these two extremes depending on his mood and what his current perception of jrma is. he acts out and expects everyone to put up with it and doesn't care when people don't. j usually puts up with it no matter what because he hates himself and needs so badly to stay in lud's good graces. unless he sees lud being mean to somebody else. then he'll scold him for it.

they absolutely and thoroughly adore each other and they've been following each other's exploits closely for years. lud has been watching jrma ever since he was at asu and jrma has been watching lud from a similar timeframe. the first time j ever shouted him out and thanked him for raids was all the way back in 2018. they're VERY familiar with each other from a voyeuristic standpoint; j listens to the yard and watches a fuckton of his streams and lud regularly looks up and watches jrma clips along with a bunch of his streams too. they both look up to each other so much. lud looks up to j because he sees him as a mentor, an artist, and a father/teacher figure, and j looks up to lud because he also sees him as an artist and so fucking cool and slick and handsome and he's awed by and jealous of the success he's achieved at such a young age. they both want very, very badly to be liked by each other but their own mental blocks that they have put in place makes it so that they can't see how crazy the other one is about them. j because he can't stand himself, and lud because he's constantly playing 4d chess with everyone in his life.

j is VERY needy, physically and emotionally, when they interact with each other in real life. he doesn't feel the need to interact with others or make more friends. he wants lud to be around him and talk to him and hype him up. and once they do find each other again, they talk easily and comfortably for ages and ages because they have a ton in common. they both seem to ignore the strange obstacles that both of them tend to throw up around each other because it's so much easier to be the best of friends than it is to talk about their feelings at all. they don't admit things to each other. they don't talk about things deeper. they just exist in each other's vicinities and grab at each other and try to steal pieces for themselves.

all in all, watch their streams and see how their relationship has developed over time and listen well. some key streams to watch are the replacement stream, bro v bro, name your price, juiced, beerio kart, and risk, because they're all wildly different and they all uniquely showcase aspects of their relationship that you can pull from.

[sojutrait]

15 questions for 15 mutuals

ty for the tag my brother @literalite and fellow fnafer @gunthermunch

1. are you named after anyone? my first and middle name are both a play on my older brothers’

2. when was the last time you cried? ngl i don’t remember but it was probably some time this week while listening to my playlists

3. do you have kids? naur god forbid

4. do you use sarcasm a lot? not anymore bc it reminds me of my middle school cringe era 😭😭 the few times i do now i do it in a very obviously lighthearted way

5. what sports do you play/have you played? volleyball and dancing in the past but now i’m in my running and lifting era

6. what's the first thing you notice about other people? height. if i have to look extremely down or up to look at you i will notice

7. eye colour? v dark brown, basically black dkrkdk

8. scary movies or happy endings? scary movies but finding a good scary movie is like finding a needle in a haystack

9. any special talents? there’s sm shit i’ve randomly memorized out of boredom. off the top of my head there’s the entire periodic table, every book of the bible, every state in the united states, and the first 100 numbers of pi. so i have a pretty good memory for dumb shit

10. where were you born? another dimension. a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. a journey into a wondrous land of imagination (the south)

11. what are your hobbies? outside of simblring, i workout occasionally, play card games (i am a master of solitaire) complain on twitter and go feed the ducks around my local pond. oh and youtube args

12. do you have any pets? boy do i. 3 dogs, a cat, a fuckton of snakes and i used to have a lizard may he rest in peace

13. how tall are you? 5’5 ehe

14. fave subject in school? art history and biology

15. dream job? museum job or any job in the art world where i can get rich and party and get paid for it

i tag @orphyd @castawavy @itsmariejanel @sadnesshotline @cheesehair @okruee @leafrue @cowplant-pizza @cas-fulleditmode @moodnamars @homophobictrait

[chikoyama]

not me realizing i might have accidentally made chiyori mildly neurodivergent, but probably high-functioning. she’s probably masking a fuckton to compensate.

she’s kinda sensitive to touch, so she’d always be careful to touch other people herself unless she feels 100% comfortable around them. if she needs someone’s attention, she’d normally she’d just grab their clothes (like sleeve) instead to avoid direct physical contact. she doesn’t randomly seek physical contact unless it has practical purpose (lovers might be an exception). if the situation isn’t urgent, she’ll ask: “is it okay, if i touch you?” because she thinks they might be as sensitive as her (she’s projecting). for people who are just naturally touchy-feely, she’d probably get startled at first, but might get used to it, or learn how to tolerate and respond to it.

she’s compelled to animals, especially cute ones. she’ll emphasize with them a lot. as a kid, she’d spend her pocket money on buying treats to feed street cats, or her pet rabbit instead of candy for herself, lmfao.

for people who aren’t able to get past her ‘mask’, chiyori will continue to appear timid when interacting, or she might expend a lot of energy trying to not appear unpolite. once it slips, she can be quite mischievous though.

she’s likely hyper-empathetic. she has a lot of compassion, even for strangers. it might be hard to actually offend her, because she’ll reason it by looking at the situation from their perspective. even in her younger years she might have been susceptible to being (ab)used.

a lot of emotional monitoring, which means she’ll be constantly scanning the moods of other people to understand how they’re feeling, so she can adapt her own behaviour. that’s why she might appear intense with her staring and gauging — she’s just analysing the other’s emotions and reactions. people who appear stoic or inscrutable in a way might make her incredibly nervous though.

things that might appear obvious to other people, might not be to chiyori, so she might ask questions that are considered dumb. usually, she’d try to conceal it by asking in an elaborate way. “so, uh, what’s your definition of [insert term]?”

hyper-observant. might be tied to being hyper-empathetic, but she notices small details about people and her surroundings. she’s good at listening, asking questions, noticing subtle social cues that makes it easier for her to appear considerate and blend in. i’m not sure she’d know how to channel it into something actually useful in her younger years.

in a larger social setting, chiyori would probably prefer to be hovering in the periphere to observe people and their behaviours. it’s easier for her to interact one-on-one rather than in larger groups of people, because the sensory input from multiple people might overwhelm her. she only has two eyes — can’t monitor the emotions of everyone at once.

chiyori might be oblivious to flirting or sarcasm, or like she’d understand it but not know exactly how to respond to it, even if she is interested? she’d likely learn as she gets older. in her younger years, she might take a lot of said things literally, but learns the meaning behind eventually.

a lot of these personal ‘quirks’ she finds a way to cope with, or learns how to apply to her own advantage as she gets older. in her younger years, people might just think of chiyori as naive, dumb, or adorable even. she usually gets away with it, because she’s… well, a girl, i think?

chiyori doesn’t feel the urge to share her interests with other people. most likely, she’d just do her own thing, but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t crave or enjoy company. she just doesn’t feel the need to share unless prompted, or she knows they’re like interested, or like there’s a specific goal to it?

i don’t really think she questions her own behaviour a lot? mental well-being, neurodivergency etc. isn’t a prominent focus in japan and might be considered a topic of taboo even. i think most people and chiyori herself just accept her as she is, because she’s not being brash or an obvious inconvenience to others. unfortunately, it might be more to her own detriment.

[olderthannetfic]

I’ve done a lot of fandom-hopping recently and I realized that I’ve sort of mentally compiled a list on what fandoms are the most “toxic” (AKA anti or drama-dense) in my experience.

Most toxic:

1. DC comics. Good luck having an opinion in there. I was a writer of some prominence for a certain widely-derided ship (*cough* Dick/Damian) and you bet I got harassed. Even the circlejerk subreddit is full of antis.

2. Video game fandoms. Assassin’s Creed, Elder Scrolls, Dragon Age… So many antis, despite the fact that the subject matter doesn’t lend itself to anti-ism very well. Also these three specifically have this very specific variety of fan who wholeheartedly believes they are the single force keeping racism at bay by policing other fans’ depictions of characters.

3. Witcher fandom. Now, if you hide in the little corner of the second Witcher game you’ll be fine, but there’s a lot of super entitled fans that suck. I won’t deride it too much because I actually had /am having a great experience there, but seeing the discourse peripherally still bugs me (depending on discourse topic, lol)

Least toxic:

1. Tolkien. Expected it to be worse because it’s so goddamn big, but honestly it’s awesome. I’ve met a lot of super passionate, kindhearted people, and it also seems to skew a bit older, which is great.

2. Major Grom/Plague Doctor. So teeny tiny and minority English-speaking so if there is discourse, I can’t read it! XD

I’m a young’un, so I’d be interested to here others’ experiences here, especially people who’ve been in fandom longer than me.

--

Man, the vids for Major Grom look so badass. I still haven't gotten around to watching, but I spotted it when I was making the dance party playlist for Escapade since I'm always on the lookout for the next hot thing that attendees won't have heard of.

Tolkien fandom used to have a fuckton of homophobia dressed up as "respect for the text". (This used to be more common in general, but it was especially virulent there.) I think the passage of time and several archives has decreased that.