#after s3 before s4

[steviesbicrisis]

Sometimes, Robin disappears.

Steve doesn’t know where she goes nor can tell how long she’s gonna be gone, usually she’s away just for a couple of hours and comes back acting like everything is fine.

It doesn’t scare Steve any less.

He knows she doesn’t do it to mess with him, and despite being attached to the hip since Starcourt there’s still a lot they don’t know about with each other.

When she’s gone, Steve’s mind those a whole 360 on every possible scenario: when his mind is good to him, she’s hanging out with imaginary way-cooler-than-Steve friends, who don’t know of his existence because Robin is embarrassed by him, which leaves him with a sting of jealousy until he hears back from her; when it’s a little less kind, he imagines her being attacked by Russians, or abducted by an Upside down creature, or both. She usually comes back before he leaves everything to jump in his car and frantically look for her.

The thing is, Robin acts like everything is fine and Steve doesn’t know how to approach it. She’s fine before, she’s fine after, and he doesn’t know where he stands. He doesn’t know if this attachment for Robin is okay or if it’s going to scare her away, so he lets her set the rules and he follows the best he can, trying not to die of worry in the meantime.

One day, Robin doesn’t go to school.

He comes to pick her up at the usual time but she isn’t on her porch steps, ready to scold him for being late. He rings the doorbell but no one answers, her parents are often out early in the morning and she doesn’t have any siblings, so he guesses she might have gone to school without him.

He drives to school and stands near the entrance, trying to spot her while planning how to make her feel guilty for not giving him any heads-up on the change of plans.

She’s nowhere to be found.

He drives to the streets nearby, then to the library and the park, no trace of her anywhere.

He goes to work telling himself she’s probably fine, she must’ve overslept or she was already in class or she had early band practice. It doesn’t calm his mind even a little bit. Because it's not like Robin to skip school, she has never done this before, or at least since Steve has known her. Before his mind spirals again thinking that he doesn’t even know his best friend, he decides to focus on work and look for her after, hoping she will call in the meantime to let him know she wasn’t eaten alive by a Demogorgon.

At 5:01 PM he’s out of the store and ready to search every corner of the town until he finds Robin.

He’s driving on the road coasting Lovers Lake when he notices Robin’s bike. Steve’s heart beats fast as he abruptly gets out of the road and parks next to it.

The bike is parked in perfect conditions so Steve feels safe enough to exclude a Will Byers situation and ventures into the coastline to look for her.

He notices her before she can: Robin is sitting cross-legged on an old bench, heavy book in her hands, looking very relaxed and completely out of danger.

Steve’s worry quickly turns into anger.

“Are you insane?” He asks when he’s close enough to be heard.

Robin winces, she was too immersed in her book to notice anyone coming near. She looks surprised to see him there “What are you doing here, dingus?”

“What am I doing here? What are you doing here!” Steve retorts, hands on his hips.

Robin recognizes the scolding-children pose and doesn’t like it “I am clearly reading and enjoying the nice weather, or at least I was until you came to bother me!”

“Oh, now I am bothering you? So sorry to interrupt your getaway because I thought you were dead!”

Robin slams her book closed “Are you serious? I was just taking a break, I needed alone time!”

“Take all the breaks you want but at least give me a fucking heads up so I know I don’t have to look for you around town like a maniac” he gestures at the area where he parked her car, his voice getting louder.

“I really don’t understand where this is coming from, I’ve been coming here to read for years, and no one as ever-“

“Well, maybe that’s because you didn’t have a best friend who worried about you!”

Steve regrets it as soon as he says it. Robin looks stunned, she opens and closes her mouth several times, then looks away.

After a minute of heavy silence between them, Steve approaches the bench and sits next to her, looking at the lake.

“I’m sorry,” they say at the same time.

“I shouldn’t have said that” Steve continues “I was worried but that is my problem and you don’t have to tell me anything.”

“No, you’re right” she shakes her head “I’m not used to having people worried about me. My parents are great but they don’t really question where I go every day and…” she glances at Steve quickly, then looks down at her book again “I’m not used to friends caring like that either.”

Never in a million years Steve would’ve guessed that one day he would’ve related so much to Robin Buckley.

“Why do you leave?” He dares to ask.

“I just need it sometimes. Everything gets too loud, there’s too much going on and I feel… overwhelmed” she explains.

Steve doesn't understand that, he has felt overwhelmed before but he would never leave or ask for space from people close to him. Sometimes, he misses Tommy and Carol just because they barely gave him any space. But it seems something important to Robin, so he nods.

"so, school was too much today?"

"no, I mean yes, but no" she groans, frustrated "It's just that- school is fine and I have my quiet places but... I had a nightmare. This wasn’t the first time since Starcourt but it was the most terrifying I had."

Steve doesn't say anything, and Robin grows more embarrassed by the minute. She's ready to tell him to forget about it when she feels Steve's hand taking hers and intertwining their fingers.

She remembers back on the Starcourt's roof, when she got scared shitless and her hand immediately found Steve's. She was still scared but comforted by the idea that Steve was with her.

Steve is looking the opposite way from where she's sitting on his left, so she can't see his face when he speaks "I have them too. Just tell me next time instead of giving me more nightmares material."

"Uh sure" she manages to say. She's not used to getting this sappy with Steve, or anyone else for that matter.

She squeezes his hand "so, is part of the Harrington charm to get all smushy?"

Steve squeezes back "fuck off! My art of charming is so much more than that!"

"Oh really, please do tell, I am so ready to take notes on how to woo all the ladies!"

"First of all: Hair."

Steve goes into a detailed list of things Robin should mind more ("I could do your hair" "never in a million years, dingus") and Robin groans and rolls her eyes at most of his points ("I so dress better than you" "you wear suspenders, Buckley. Unironically").

They keep holding hands the whole time.

[killjoy-prince]

House M.D. but it's when House says Wilson's name

[spockvarietyhour]

Parallels and Divergences "Before and After" & "Year of Hell Pt. 1"

[laurrelise]

one of my favorite parts about that scene in season 3 episode 7 of the umbrella academy is right after the umbrellas and sparrows “contained” the keugelblitz and celebrate by opening several bottles of alcohol and partying, because in every single shot ben is in, he’s either trying to get himself or five as wasted as possible

[janerogan]

what if I cried and cried forever. he left him a kiss..............

[chirpsythismorning]

S5 opener REAL

[journey-to-the-attic]

there's a moment in lesson 45 of nightbringer where mc falls off a thing (again?? is this foreshadowing?? i'm going to rule-of-three this and wait to see if it happens again) and satan tries and fails to grab their hand to catch them, but now i'm imagining the same thing happening with satan and ik except he does succeed, but it's her right hand and the prosthetic just POP comes straight off

[mikesbasementbeets]

to be real for a second, i think there is a moment in the show where mike has a ~realization~ of sorts about his feelings but hasn't quite put two and two together yet.... and it's this:

this realization of "hey my feelings for will are actually maybe different than my feelings for my other friends, but i'm not sure why" happens at the end of season two. and then mike spends the entirety of season three acting sort of strange and different around will while having his relationship with him constantly juxtaposed with his relationship with el. reaching the end of that season which, despite all the supernatural shit going on, took the time to focus so heavily on those two relationships (and how fundamentally different they are), and having mike have the same realization he had at the end of season two makes no sense because it would mean he accomplished absolutely nothing in his emotional arc during the course season three

especially to claim that he still believes he has feelings for el going into season 4. especially to claim he still believes he has feelings for el by the end of season 4. it's to claim that he has not made any emotional progress in his relationships for at least two full seasons, that he's been going through all of this for it to not have made any conscious impact on him, and the changes in the way he acts from s2-3 and from s3-4 aren't a product of his character developing (growing, changing, to quote hopper's letter) but rather..... ? i don't know actually. just him feeling weird but not understanding himself at all. still. it just doesn't make sense to me. he's one of the main characters of the show, and to keep him emotionally stagnant for 4 out of 5 seasons (especially when we can see that his behavior is changing, that he has not been stagnant at all but rather deeply affected by everything) would be a disservice to his character, first of all, but also a disservice to the narrative which has been showing us his (as well as the other characters') struggle with growing up and growing into himself every season. and it simply doesn't align with what we're being shown

mike is already having realizations by the end of season two. but by the end of season three, he's starting to be really honest with himself about what they mean

[imminent-danger-came]

thinking about how Macaque usually smiles when being more aggressive. Thinking about how monkeys usually ‘smile’ to show aggression. Thinking about MK smiling a shit ton durinf the Azure fight. THINKING ABOUT THE WARRIORS AND MKS REPRESSION GODD

Watching MK go completely unhinged while fighting Azure moodboard:

[aq2003]

there comes a beautiful time in life where i have to ask myselg th question, "did i accidentally project too hard onto the character that i only relate to a little bit and in doing so hugely missed this one entire aspect/interpretation of the characters . am i stupid"

[astranauticus]

rwd lines that haunt me part 1/????????

[peachshadows]

Despite appearances, SD!Wukong is very clever, meaning that the knowledge MK is a celestial primate could be used to his advantage.

After all the cub wasn’t born from an affair. No, he was born from the earth, cradled by the wind, and nurtured by the sun and moon. Or to be more specific, he was born on FFM, where SD!Wukong and SD!Macaque spent centuries dedicated to one another. Their love was so powerful it soaked into the very magic of the sacred mountain and created a miracle (which is complete nonsense, but the romantics and poets would devour it). MK was literally a manifestation of SD!Wukong’s devotion to his precious moonlight.

It may not silence all the rumors. “Just because MK’s not the child of infidelity, doesn’t mean the Emperor never cheated.” But should ease SD!Macaque’s troubled mind. Maybe…

Hmmm I feel like that'll only happen once it gets revealed that MK is actually a celestial monkey. But as of now MK takes on the appearance of a human which doesn't really help sd!Wukong's case of supposedly "cheating" on Macaque

[kneworder]

some of you guys weren't raised on heroes (2005) and it shows

[kurokoros]

first of all, the duffers absolutely didn't have the full series planned out from the start because Stranger Things was originally pitched as a limited series with 1) the potential for a direct "sequel" that would follow the younger kids as adults (basically, they pitched "It") or 2) an outright sci-fi horror anthology. second of all, even if the duffers did have everything mapped out from the start that doesn't mean that plan isn't garbage.

[spin-in-time]

Ninjago s1 and s2 i miss you so fucking bad . ;;;;;;;;;;;; i have to rewatch them, My God....

Lloyd and garmadon angst around the s1 finale, I MISS YOU, DO YOU WANT ME TO BAWL MY EYES OUT . ;;;;;

[karouvas]

Okay but what alchemically happens to make some shows suddenly good in their third season