#shit is going to get bleak af...

[chirpsythismorning]

Joyce staying at the cabin with Hopper and El to keep them safe bc no one in Hawkins knows they’re alive. Will, Jonathan and Argyle staying at the Wheeler's bc they have more room and presumably aren't in danger like the others.

OH WAIT there's a witch hunt for the Hellfire club, which means all the boys are in danger from the townspeople. OH WAIT the boy who came back to life has returned from the West, the same boy whose assumed death jumpstarted this small town's curse in the first place! The same boy who apparently everyone and their fathers knew was gay...

THE END IS NEAR! THE GAYS ARE RESPONSIBLE!

+ Time jump early somewhere in between.

Now picture how that would look in an 8 episode story format, leading up to a final battle lasting about 2+ hrs, and that's loosely how s5 is gonna go down.

[casuallyanidiot]

Yantober Day 4

Homemade Meal [Yandere Girlfriend x Gn. Reader]

Using @ozzgin's prompt list!

yeah I'm like totally behind on yantober at this point, but I'm going to keep trying to write for it because I don't like the thought of quitting lmao. This one is kind of boring but I wanted to try something a bit different from what I usually do

Tipjar :)

TW! MDNI ! DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT! Abusive relationship, manipulation, isolation, toxic af relationship, yandere

You're girlfriend isn't really happy about the fact that you've got a job...

2.7k words

Recently, Dannica was obsessed with this domestic shit, and it was pissing you off big time.

“One of us should stay home and look after the place.”

Oh please. Like either of you could afford to take care of two people. You worked a night shift at a convenience store, and your on and off again girlfriend did god knows what. She could be whoring herself out for all you knew. It didn’t matter. You couldn’t survive on your own, and she always managed to bring in just enough cash every couple of weeks to make sure neither of you starved. 

“Dis’ is bullshit…” You grumbled out, an unlit cigarette pressed between your lips as you held a lighter in one hand and your phone in the other. It was blowing up like crazy, eating up your already precious break time. 

Where are you?

Send me a photo.

Are you with someone?

Are you cheating on me?

Pick up

Now

I’ll seriously leave this time if you don’t

I love you

“Ugh, shut up,” You huffed as you put your phone on do not disturb and slid it into your pocket. Shielding the stick of tobacco with one hand, you lit up your menthol infused vice. Your bleak eyes stared out into the near empty parking lot, only occupied by your beater of a car, a raccoon digging through a nearby dumpster, a swarm of moths enveloping a street light like a halo, and yourself. Everything was bathed in an eerie, cold glow from the buzzing LED sign from the store. You inhaled before you let out a plume of smoke into the open air. You tilted your head back, letting it rest against the concrete wall.

Dannica had been getting worse recently. 

It wasn’t like you didn’t know what you were getting into when you first started going out with her. She hit all the boxes of a crazy chick. Split dyed hair, tongue piercings, eyeliner so sharp it looked like it could kill a man. She had this look in her eye that had you drooling along like an obedient dog, pinning her to the wall and laughing at every other word she said. 

“You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

She was right, but you were far too drunk at the time to realize that.

You sighed and rubbed your eyes as you stepped back into the store after grinding the last of the embers under your muddy, stained shoes. The bright, cold lights sucked up any last vestiges of your mind. Check the cameras, check the register, check the shelves… you had done everything that you needed to for the rest of your shift. Well, at least until the small amount of people would trickle in after all the local bars closed. 

3am. You only had to wait until 3am before you could go home. You would normally be excited, but there was a familiar seed of dread that was blooming into a full blown nausea. You stared down at the old, faded clock, watching with a bleak stare as your free time dwindled.

You just didn’t understand why she was so fixated on having someone be home at all times. It’s not like your place was nice. All the furniture was shitty and second hand. If anything was stolen, it would be a pain in the ass to replace, but it wouldn’t be impossible per se. You had no pets and no, god forbid, kids, so what was it? Why was she putting so much pressure on this whole thing. Plus, although she acted like she would be fine with either of you staying home, cooking, cleaning, and waiting eagerly for the other to return, you knew that the one person she wanted to have as little contact with the outside world wouldn’t be herself.

You blinked as a paper was slid onto the counter in front of you. You blinked in surprise as you looked at the intimidating man standing before you, wearing a black face mask and a dark gray hoodie. The random tightness of the fabric as he moved suggested that he was probably fucking jacked underneath his baggy attire. You looked up at him with a slow blink. When had he come in? The bell to the front door hadn’t even chimed.

“Bring these home.”

“What?”

You jumped slightly as he spoke. You looked down at the paper. It was a list of ingredients all scrawled in Dannica’s handwriting.

“Bring those home with you when you close up for the night,” He repeated before lighting himself a cigarette. Your nose wrinkled. There were like 50,000 no smoking signs in here. “If I were you, I’d shutter down and head back right now. I mean, if you don’t wanna lose all your privileges and all… Here,” He said and slid another item across the surface. This one was an envelope filled with a wad of cash. “She doesn’t want you paying.”

So you ended up sitting in front of your apartment complex, your car’s shitty engine still thrumming. There was a bag of the groceries she wanted in the passenger seat, and you gripped the plastic bag with a shaky sigh. 

It was like you were in a trance like state. Turn off the car. Go up the steps. Put the key in the lock. Turn it. 

The bag felt heavy in your hand, and the faded number painted on the door before you seemed like it was growing blurrier and blurrier by the second. You didn’t want to open this door. You didn’t want to go inside and face her and whatever this was. You hadn’t even mustered up the will to turn your phone back on. 

You could only imagine all the things she had sent you. Would she call you a slut again? Or threaten to destroy all your shit? Would she go through with it, like she had one time when you found your clothes all shredded?

Dannica hadn’t done anything wrong today.

Yeah, your girlfriend had been a bit annoying, sure. That was putting it lightly, honestly, but she really hadn’t fucked up crazily. She’d only… She’d only sent someone to your job… and threatened you with some vague punishment if you didn’t come home…

That couldn’t be good, and it certainly wasn’t healthy. After all you put up with, she thinks she can push you around by sending some lackey or friend or whatever after you? Not to mention, it pissed you off to no end that she got someone else involved in all your toxic, messy shit. That was it. You couldn’t go through with this when you were so aggravated. It would only make things worse. She made you worse.

You turned away to go back to your car, to figure out where you would go tonight, to really process the fact that you probably, most definitely, were done with all of this-

“[Name]? What are you doing out here? Come inside already.”

You listened. You didn’t know why but you did. Dannica stood there with her hands on her hips and a slight frown on her pretty face. You just stared at her, unmoving for a couple of seconds, before she huffed and reached out to grab you by the wrist and pull you inside.

“Are you dumb or what, baby? Ugh, see this is why I’m telling you that you should be the one to stay home… That place has got you all spacey and shit… not listening to me…,” she grumbled and shut the door behind you with a resounding click. The apartment was dingy for the most part, but it had touches of where you tried to make it look and feel more cozy with some cheap fairy lights strung up haphazardly. It used to feel more vibrant and homey, but after every argument, you’d find that another trinket would be shattered, or another photo of a loved one would mysteriously disappear. 

“Did you at least do what I asked you to?”

“Huh?” You finally snapped out of it and looked at her. She was all up in your space, caging you against the cheap, linoleum counter. Her manicured nails drummed on the surface, and she narrowed her eyes. You cleared your throat and shrugged.

“Dunno’... you kinda lit me up there so I just turned off my phone…” You answered and brought the bag up to set it down and start putting away the fresh stuff. Dannica’s expression brightened when she saw it, though, and you paused as a big, cheshire cat grin stretched across her lips.

“You did listen!” She gushed and hugged you suddenly, and you had to stop yourself from flinching too much.

“Oh.” You said, standing there a bit stupidly. Oh, indeed. It was like you didn’t even want to really consider that she had sent someone, that she had gone that far.  “Yeah that… Danni, what the fuck was that?”

“What was what?”

“Don’t play dumb. What was with that guy that showed up at my work? Who was he?” You asked and shook her shoulders just a bit to emphasize how seriously you were taking this. As much as Dannica hated the fact that you worked so late, in such a ‘dangerous’ area, and really the fact that you worked at all, she had never stepped over the line that you had firmly set once she started showing signs of her paranoia and clinginess. 

Never, ever show up to your work unless it was something serious.

The only time she had even come close to doing so was when she followed you to and from work one day to make sure you weren’t off cheating somewhere, so having her do this felt too much. You couldn’t not bring it up. You couldn’t not be angry.

“Hmm? Him? Oh… he’s no one, really. Just a … colleague,” She hummed as if she was bored, like you shouldn’t even bother to ask in the first place. Her gaze sharpened all of a sudden, and you could’ve sworn you saw a thought be processed in her mind in real time. “Unless… unless you want to know more about him? Why? Is it because you think he’s cute or something? What did you two talk about, huh?” 

“What? No it’s not-! You know what? I’m not even going to answer that. This is fucking stupid…” You muttered despite how pissed her expression was. Her grip grew stronger, and you shrugged it off as you moved to start putting away the groceries.

“It’s not stupid. I’m just trying to make sure we’re okay. Don’t you want that?”

“I didn’t realize me going to work meant we weren’t doing well. You know usually it’d be a good thing if the other person in a relationship isn’t a deadbeat…” You snorted, and Dannica put her hand over yours to stop you from dumping the vegetables into the Crisper drawer. A frown was etched on her face, mirroring your own. She wordlessly pulled out a piece of paper and slapped it down in front of you. Your lips curled back in disbelief as she tapped it with a sharply filed nail.

“Look…” She relented, or at least pretended to. “Just make this for me, kay? You can do that, right? I just want a good night, baby. No more fighting, no yelling. Can’t we just have a good meal?” Her words were like honeyed poison. You didn’t understand how someone could switch their tone so quickly. You turned your head away, just to escape from having to look at her, and actually read what she was trying to prompt towards you. It was a recipe for a meal. It wasn’t anything complex, just roasted vegetables and pasta, and it fit what she had made you buy to a tee. You sighed and pinched the bridge of your nose.

“Babe…” You mumbled. Your anger was being stamped out with every breath you forced yourself to take. You just needed to calm down. She wouldn’t stop bitching until you calmed down. “I’m tired-”

“You’re not that tired,” She jutted in, and you huffed. She brought out some pots and pans. “Just start the oven and cook,” she gestured to the crockery with an impatient, patronizing wave. You bit your lip in frustration.

“I don’t even want to eat right now. It’s 4 am. I just wanna go to bed.”

“So you don’t want to spend time with me then?” She accused, and you found your hands instinctively reaching for the cutting board and knife.

“What? I didn’t even say that.”

“But you meant it.”

“No? Danni, quit doing this shit. Just because you don’t get your way doesn’t mean I have to deal with you being all pissy. Look, I’m fucking making it, okay?” Each other word was enunciated with a swift thunk of a vegetable being sliced. You just wanted her to stop talking, to leave you alone, but you felt Dannica press up to your back. You felt her pouty lips against your shifting shoulder blades, and suddenly your already tiny apartment became a thousand times more cramped. Your skin crawled, and you tried to ignore how trapped you felt.

“Quit your job,” She said, not asked.

You stayed silent, though your muscles tensed and your heart hammered in your chest like a motor revving up. Your entire body was ready to spring, ready to just leave. You didn’t want to do this anymore, but it was like you couldn’t do anything but move with a molasses-like pace, grabbing the right ingredients, filling the pot, turning on the oven. You gripped the handle of the knife tightly.

Her hands slinked down over your waist, settling on the bones of your hips and clinging as a second skin. Her breath was hot on your neck, and you felt her teeth nibbling gently. Her efforts soon grew larger, and you couldn’t help but feel like she was just trying to get a reaction out of you, so she could have an excuse to smush you further down into whatever she wanted. Her bites became sharper. She was eating you alive.

“Hey, baby, answer me,” she said again once you stood back from the stove. You were at the point in the recipe where nothing else could be done except to wait.

“I like working Danni,” you stressed, and you flinched when you heard how desperate you sounded. 

“I know,” she cooed. You felt like you were crazy. Why did it sound like she was the reasonable one here? While you were what, a hysterical thing that she was so kindly taking care of?

“I know, but it’s not good for us. And I think I’ve been pretty patient and good about it so far, but I’m not going to let you just ruin everything because you want a little extra money. I know you like being independent, but I can take care of you. You know that? You don’t have to worry with me, baby,” she murmured. Dannica was calm, almost even elegant, while she was shutting down your life.

“But you don’t earn enough to support two people-”

“I do,” She insisted, and her arms looped around your waist and squeezed ever so slightly. You wheezed, and you felt her smiling. You just stared at the wall, hoping that if you blinked and turned around, magically she wouldn’t be there anymore. 

“I can, baby. You don’t even know what I’d do if you would just let me.”

The pit in your stomach grew despite the warm, inviting aroma that started to waft up from the oven, the little clock you hand winded up ticking away merrily. Her nails drummed over your clothing, teasing with the waistband of your pants. You jerked away, and she pressed her sharpened digits further in. You hissed out in pain, and she let out a disapproving hum.

“Quit your job, baby,” she repeated. This time, it felt like more of a placated threat. “Or else.”

By the time the timer finally chimed out, and the meal was ready to be plated, you knew that you had no more room to argue.

[l3xistentialism]

LIFE | hello Gemini stellium 😉 we got a lot going on in my 5th House rn. Growing a lil person while raising a not-so-little-anymore person while fostering my creative pursuits & just tryna get back to something that feels right & real is…exhausting.

I been feeling disillusioned & disconnected from things & people lately. Shit is pretty bleak on a grand scale & pregnancy is isolating af, even with people around supporting the journey. I miss my favorite vices but I’m also thankful that I’m having to do some unfinished inner work with sober mindfulness.

I wish these dreams would calm tf down though 😅

I’m utilizing this concentration of energy in my 5H to get back to what matters & is most fun for me, deepening my spiritual practice & just being a better parent overall.

Readings are open with the intention of working thru my registry 🩵

The intention with this offering is to get back to what I love while working on bringing this new life earth side as smoothly and comfortably as possible.

Free Palestine, Happy Pride, nobody’s free till we all free.

✌🏾🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸

For inquiries on Readings, feel free to DM me.

[scienceoftheidiot]

I don't consider myself part of the fandom anymore and I still have had to block two different blogs suggested to me because their posts were all about Karen Page hate

I'm not one of these blogs that go awh awh you hate women or whatever, I despise these.

But for fucks sake talk about not understanding a character. Fuck you. You don't deserve Karen Page. And if you won't take Karen, you don't get to have Matt or Foggy. They're a team. Deal with it, it's Nelson, Murdock and Page, and even if the new show fucks this up as I am convinced it will, you don't get to shit on DD S3.

S2 is there for that.

I might be bitter and not planning to engage with anything new about DD because everything looks bleak and shitty AF TO ME, but I won't have people shitting on what was good in the three seasons (two, because S2 sucked) we had, or on the sixty fucking years of comics that have led to the mess we have now.

Let me re-read Waid's run in peace and rewatch S1 and 3 occasionally.

[its-been-rose]

Adding to my fire frequency crossover

I feel like Forrest and Henry would just be chill af cuz they’re both older guys who have been through some shit (and are also both massive flirts lmao) but like they’re both in their 40’s they’re both kinda jaded and a little lonely and have similar senses of humor so i feel like they’d just instantly get along.

But I feel like if Peggy met Delilah she’d be like “wow you’re so cool maam” and Delilah would be like “you are too good for this world cupcake” and just have that almost maternal but more like aunt or older sister kind of “I wish you didn’t have to go through shit because you are a ray of sunshine on this bleak earth” vibe

[felixdragonheartofficial]

TFP KINDA SUCKS RANT

Unfiltered opinion below ⬇️(long)

Transformers prime

Listen, you can like what you like, but tfp is not the Pinnacle of transformers media like every salty old fan of it says it is

Repetitive soundtrack

The soundtrack isn't varied, all of the music is comprised of grandiose orchestral pieces that become so goddamn repetitive it leaves you feeling empty. There's never any other emotion present in the music other than

"feel epic now pls"

I shit you not. There are scenes that are "supposed" to be funny, but it's just stale dialogue with absolutely no background music so it doesn't work at all. Any emotion conveyed with music is either epic, sad, or action and nothing else

"Haha, no moments of silly, that would kill the seriousnesz emo vibe U_U"

Terrible setting

Tfp is also much more visually unappealing due to the uncanny af models, the barren and drab backgrounds, and a convenient lack of humans to "disguise" from

not to mention how fuckin weird they look

sims 4 mfs

I'm so sick of animation elitists saying TFP's the better show because it's 3D and 3D is somehow Automatically better because it's "more advanced and sophisticated" which if you ever dipped your fingers into animation at all, you'd know how untrue that is

Feats of storytelling can be attained with either or, and the execution is dependent on the style and narrative that the show presents

TFP was trying to go for a visually darker theme, which is why they went for a realism. The only problem is that the settings are bleak and devoid of any soul

Speaking of which

Robots in disguise... From what???

Outside of team prime, there are literally no humans with speaking roles that have actual story importance

except for Silas

until there are infact- no, non-team humans of significance ever again, either because they couldn't afford the voice actors anymore, or they just chose to never bring them up again.

We don't get to actually see people, we only see the implication of human dwelling and it's lackluster.

There's never any of that conflict or tension that the show promised with the disguise plot, and It pisses me off so much because not only do a bare few of the fights happen around or inside of inhabited areas

but these robots

ARE LOUD

HOW THE HELL HAS NOBODY WALKED OUTSIDE OF THEIR HOUSE TO CHECK

A N Y T H I N G

"Honey, do you hear that loud, metallic ripping and obnoxious plasma fire?"

"Must be the neighbors shagging, Gerald. Don't be such a paranoid freak<3"

"Fair enough Cathleen, let's go back to playing spiderman 2 for the ps5"

"robots In disguise"

respectfully, Hasbro- you can eat out my entire ass with your forked tongue, ye fuckin liars✨

The Nothing Narrative

Tfp legit feels like the circle jerk of patriotism, oh my god.

Sure, it sounds far fetched but let's not forget that this show has agent fowler sucking off the American government every chance he gets

Its so audacious to show the devastation that war brought to cybertron, only to turn around and be like

"So kiddos, wanna join le special forces" at the end of it

How can you be anti war and pro US military?

The US

The leading imperialistic force in the world for the last 200+ years?

That's who you wanna prop up as a stand up figure in your "war is bad" show??

H o w

How Does That W o r k that's so fucking stupid

Wasted potential

considering wasted character opportunities that pissed everyone off, tfp weighs down the heaviest

1.Breakdown could've joined the autobots-killed off because they couldn't afford the va

2.Airachnid could've come back as a larger threat with her hoard of zombie/vampire insecticons -transported to Luna 1 and then never seen from again because they couldn't afford the va

3.cybertronian pirates were supposed to appear but didn't because they didn't use their own production bible

And that shit show sequel

(nice one hasbro, you really rodded yourself up the asshole with a ferocity for the millionth time)

Oh and that one moment that legit pissed me off

When megatron pulled that

"because I now know the true meaning of oppression, and have thus lost my taste for inflicting it"

😐

This prompts the question for me

Why would you even waste the little budget that you had creating this show with a premise that literally lies to the audience??

Its so funny that people meatride this show so hard because of animation elitist bullshit like "3D animation is better than 2D"

And yet, despite the scathing review I just gave I do not gaf if you watch this show and like it, that's literally great for you

But don't ever claim that it does narratives better than TFA/Earthspark dude, omg

[grannypantiesnchill]

—Sometimes the waves come crashing…and you just get sucked right in.

I’m heavy today, found myself crying in my Uber on my way to work, got to work and lost it. Been suppressing my feelings and that shit just been festering…I haven’t felt bright for some time now. I miss my light, I know I’ll get it back but right now it’s been dim af…bleak if you will…and I feel like I don’t have much control of what’s going on. I just…I ain’t got it today.

I’ll revisit this post a month or two from today and marvel at my bloom. But for now I feel…

[madanimalscientist]

~10 years ago I realized I was trans (or rather, a friend said 'cis people do not have panic attacks over whether or not they're cis' and I went '....huh') and then it took a few years for me to figure out exactly -what- flavor of trans I was but by the time I graduated grad school in 2018 I had figured out I was a genderqueer trans dude. And I was so terrified that coming out as trans would tank my career, I spent years trying to get a stable start to my career, to find a safe place and safe way to come out. And last October, almost 10 years after that first conversation, I came out publicly as a trans dude and it went more amazingly than I could have realized. And things have gone SO WELL. My career hasn't suffered (as far as I can tell), my coworkers accept me, my family handled it really well....I feel so blessed, I feel like I got so goddamned lucky.

In undergrad I thought I'd have to choose between being out as queer and being a scientist, til I met someone who was both and who made it work. And then later I was worried I'd have to choose between being out and my job....but I didn't. And at Mardi Gras I got to meet multiple trans coworkers in person (having met them over Teams before). Multiple trans scientists just in the org I work for! Community!

I was lucky. I had people who I could look at and see their journey and go "if they can do it, maybe I can make it work". I had people who inspired me and people who supported me and I am so so grateful. But part of me still feels like I'm getting away with something, like I shouldn't get to be so happy, that there's another shoe waiting to drop. But I'm starting to believe/hope that maybe there isn't, that this time I got lucky that this time....things actually worked out better than I could have dreamed.

It isn't perfect, I'm still trying to figure out how the hell I go about going into the dating scene. I'm still nervous AF about the next time I go to the USA to visit family. But....I'm happy. I'm not having to origami parts of myself away. I feel like I'm stretching my wings and in the sunshine and I'm -me- in a way I never thought I'd be able to feel.

I spent my pre-teen and teenage years absolutely MISERABLE, the lowest I've ever been in my life. Especially high school. And I wish I could go back and tell that miserable, terrified kid that 'I know things seem fucking bleak right now and unfortunately you're still going to have to deal with more shit before things clear up. But in time.....oh honey you are going to be greater and more awesome than you could ever imagine and you will be yourself and love who you are and people will love you for who you are'. Because 20 years ago, heck 10 years ago I didn't think this would be possible. And I am so, so glad I was wrong.

I am happy and I am me and I love my job and love who I am and I am so -happy- and it feels like a miracle.

Some good news/joy to share: when I marched in Mardi Gras this past weekend I saw SO MANY kids and teens there watching the parade and it was so heartwarming. And there were some kids and teens with trans flags/trans pride flag clothing and I'd point to the trans flag button I'd pinned to my costume and point at myself and smile and I got such smiles and cheers back it made me tear up with joy. It was so amazing to march with other queer folks and show our pride and strength and love to the thousands of spectators but especially seeing kids there with their families - I am so happy for those kids. I never could have imagined something like this when I was younger, and I am gonna be emotionally overwhelmed for ages about this but in the best way. Queer joy is so powerful. Trans joy is so powerful.

That's incredible.

[lovebillyhargrove]

Life's a quest, innit Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4

...

So, where is the next clue?

***

Turns out, it's waiting for Steve in his locker, again. Next day, bright and early, before the first period.

"Morning, sunshine. Looking pretty af today. Oh wait, I haven't even seen you this morning. So how do I know? Cause you always look pretty. Next clue is Friday, under the bleachers, a white envelope under a rock."

Steve's palms turn sweaty. Who is it ..? It has to be a girl. Why does it feel like it's not a girl ..? Which girl would say "pretty as fuck"? Unless it's fucking Tommy playing a trick on him for old times sake. Maybe Carol is in on it, and they are doing it together. Or maybe it is a girl, but a guy is helping her? .. No, why would someone ask for help with something like that?

Steve is so confused. The next couple of days he's trying not to think about this whole situation but he can't help it. Should he tell someone? Who?? Nancy ..? Dustin ..? It's stupid.

***

Friday is officially the last day of school. Nostalgia hits him hard. He has spent 12 years of his life on school education. Feels big. Feels like he's turning a life page. To become an ice-cream boy, haha.

After the last period Steve goes to the bleachers. There's nobody there. He remembers how many classes he had skipped hiding here. How many cigarettes he'd shared with Tommy. How much gossip they'd passed back and forth.

Steve looks around, doesn't find it quick, but it's there. A rock, size of a fist, and a white envelope under it.

"Hey, it must be tough. Don't think about it too hard though. Life's going to be great. How do I know it? It's written in the stars. I was watching the night sky yesterday and saw these exact words all over it

✨Steve Harrington is going to have it all✨

Find next clue in the hollow of an old elm tree in Hawkins park. Monday."

Steve's heart skips a beat, and he's smiling. There are actual stars drawn there. If this is a prank, then why be so nice? And .. it still has to be a girl, but it sure doesn't sound like one? .. Maybe she's just a super chill girl, like a .. buddy type?

On his drive home he repeats the phrase

Steve Harrington is going to have it all.

And why the hell not? He might be at the bottom of life now, but there is always a chance, right? Maybe that mystery girl is not wrong. He is going to have it all. He really should stop stressing out too much.

Steve can't shake off the nagging suspicion that he had heard some of these words before. Somewhere.

***

Steve allows himself to have a nice weekend. Sleeps in, cooks a delicious breakfast. He can cook when he wants to. Has his favourite music on full blast. Life is still bleak, but things are kinda okay. Dustin calls him and asks to take them all to the Hawkins community pool tomorrow. Yeah, Steve can do that. He can go for a swim in the pool as well. He'd actually loved swimming in his own pool before this whole inter-dimensional situation played out.

Oof, the pool is packed on Sunday. Jesus, so many people. At least, it's safe. Well, nothing is safe in Hawkins anymore, but it feels much safer than his own lonely backyard.

Steve's stretching on a sun bed when he notices the lifeguard. Oh, shit. Seriously?? It's the jackass Billy Hargrove, looking all important and bossy. It's hot as it is, but Steve feels as if he's been thrown in a frying pan now.

Sizzle, sizzle all you want, Steve. You can look from behind your shades as much as you want, but it'll just add to your suffering. Billy fucking Hargrove is a lifeguard, looking super fit and super tanned and wearing these red flashy shorts. Everything is just so flashy about this guy, it's irritating.

***

On Monday Steve needs to go to work. It's his first day at Scoops Ahoy. He hates the uniform. He doesn't hate his co-worker. Robin is okay actually. There are plenty of girls around. Maybe one of them is this mystery admirer/pranker? Anyways he can even try getting back in the game, that is if he remembers how to flirt. The break up with Nancy was tough. But it's fine now. They weren't meant to be.

Steve goes to the Hawkins park in the evening. There are old people sitting on the benches and kids running around chasing a kite.

He knows where the old elm tree is. It's been there forever. It has T&C carved in its trunk - Tommy and Carol. Steve heard they are still together. Good for them.

The hollow isn't so high up so he reaches it easily. Feels weird doing it, what if there's upside down shit involved. He remembers Nancy's story, how she got into another dimension through a tree. Fuck. Spooky. Steve quickly puts his hand inside the hollow and thank god it finds a piece of paper right away.

Another white envelope. This person - whoever is sending Steve on this quest - sure is consistent.

"Such great weather - finally! Been craving sunshine and heat. Feel like going for a drive later tonight, you up for it, heartbreaker?"

Damn. Steve is up for it. It's fucking summer!!! It's like .. she's reading his thoughts. She because it can't be a he, right, unless it's a prank, and if it's a prank, Steve's gotta give it to whoever's doing it - they got him. They got him good. It's working.

Wait, it didn't say where to find the next clue! Oh shit. Steve rereads the note again, turns the paper. No, nothing about the next clue .. There's a pang of disappointment in his heart. That's it?

And. She has a car. Who of high school girls has a car? .. Some of them do. Or maybe she doesn't, she just wishes she could go for a drive?

Shoot Steve right in his heart, it doesn't feel like there's a girl involved. But that's.. unthinkable.

***

The next one is a surprise.

Steve wakes up next morning and the first thing he does, he rereads the note from yesterday again, maybe he's missed something. Maybe .. oh my god, maybe it's invisible ink?? It's part of the game, right? Should he .. place it above a hot lamp or something? Kids do it when they play this game, don't they? Steve vaguely remembers something about using lemon juice for writing ..? or milk? Actually.. he might radio Dustin after work tonight and ask him that question - how to reveal what's written in invisible ink?

Okay, that's fucking nuts.

Steve does his morning routine, gets ready for work. Not gonna lie, his mood isn't so great today. He needs the next clue, did she decide not to play anymore?

Goes to work. Sulks through the day. Doesn't even want to flirt with the ladies.

He sees the white sheet of paper on his windshield the moment he turns the corner to the parking lot. First, his heart goes boom, yes! A fraction of a second later - shit, a speeding ticket??

A speeding ticket, why? Steve almost trips as he walks to the beamer.

Snatches the white paper from under a windshield wiper, yes, it's an envelope! His hands are trembling, for real now.

Rips it open

"Yeah I kinda felt like surprising you. Bet you thought it was a speeding ticket? Impossible. You're the safest driver in the school parking lot.

Next clue Monday after 1 pm. Hawkins library. Shakespeare. The most heartbreaking lovers story of all time.

If you ask me, they just lacked communication."

***

Steve has lived in Hawkins all his life. Been everywhere. Knows every corner. This is a small town, but it's his town, alright? He probably wouldn't like to live all his life here but he's got strings attached to practically every Hawkins road.

That said, the only place where he can't remember ever going to, is Hawkins library.

Not a big fan of reading, not all people are, okay? Jesus. Does he even have a membership card there?

Turns out, he doesn't. Has to make one. He also understands that the library creeps him out. Just a bit. Too quiet, just like his own house.

"I'm sorry, ma'm, can you please help me? What's Shakespeare's most tragic story about some .. uhm .. lovers? And where can I find it?"

The librarian gives Steve a condescending disapproving look. Lady, he's seen enough of such looks from his parents, so please, just stop.

"Romeo and Juliet", probably? Aisle 9, look under the author's name."

Look under the author's name. He can do that. Traces the spines of books with his fingers. Oh, there it is! "Romeo and Juliet", why was their story so heartbreaking?? .. Steve takes the book off the shelf, opens it hastily, yes, there it is, a white envelope.

"Have you ever been consumed by love, Steve?

..My only love sprung from my only hate

Too early seen unknown, and known too late.

Prodigious birth of love it is to me,

That I must love a loathed enemy.

Or

..When he shall die,

Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he will make the face of heaven so fine

That all the world will be in love with night..

Next clue Thursday after 2pm. Scoops Ahoy, table 7."

Wait, what?? Steve works at Scoops Ahoy! How .. ??

He takes the book home. Might read it later. Find out what's so tragic about it. Like .. someone fell in love with an enemy? Someone died?

Steve can't sleep at night. Is tossing and turning and thinking.

Has he, Steve Harrington, really ever been in love?

***

@dragonflylady77 for you🌹

On ao3

[iintotheunkncwn]

Here’s my whole stance on the James Gunn comment that’s recently come to light…

Now… a few things have come up since the infamous post from Henry Cavill as to why he’s not Supes anymore and whatnot. Some of it even from Gunn himself and I find it quite interesting.

To me, it sounds like he is trying to do some damage control because everyone is literally on his ass over the whole thing. And now that his future lineup is out there for people to see, even more people are on his ass for it. And honestly, his statements are very asshole-ish and I’m not about that shit.

So what you’re saying, Gunn, is you want a completely clean slate to start anew because it’s the future DC deserves. Okay, fine. I’m totally on board with that and I was in the very beginning. I truly believed and still do, that DC needed a whole new storyline. I wasn’t on board with getting rid of a fantastic cast (not including Ezra, and I’ll get to that in a minute). I’m still not happy with it but it is what it is and from the looks of it Gunn doesn’t care what the fans are screaming about so, here we are.

He (Gunn) says that ‘he never fired Henry, Henry was never casted’. Let’s clarify that Henry, indeed, was not hired BY GUNN. Henry was under the old regime and was fucked with. I’m aware that in my old post when everything happened, not only did I blame WB, I also blamed Gunn. But I now realize in light of things it wasn’t Gunn’s fault per se, but WB’s for being dicks to Henry and the way they did him dirty. Unfortunately, Henry got the shit end of the stick here and it really fucking sucks and I’m still mad about it.

NOW. Here is where I still dislike Gunn. Remember I mentioned Ezra earlier? Well here is my gripe with Gunn in this whole thing. You say you want a clean slate, start anew for a new era of superhero films, yet you keep an incredibly problematic man in your arsenal and on top of that, are allowing others within the Snyderverse to potentially keep their jobs as the characters they portrayed. Excuse me but…tell me how this makes ANY sense. I don’t give two shits if the film Ezra is in sets up your line of films. Scrap it like you’ve scrapped everything else with ease. Or edit Ezra out and put someone else in his place. Idk, work that movie magic however you want, but Ezra should not be utilized in any way for a multitude of reasons that a majority of people already know about.

Also, Jason, Gal, Duhwayne and Zachery are still able to keep their roles for potential future projects…when you wanted a clean slate and move away from what was already set up with the Snyderverse. And, yet again, Henry is cut out and gets the shit end of the stick for no reason other than ‘he is not right for this Superman’. Basically, Gunn in his own roundabout way, also screwed Henry from what I’m seeing on my end.

So tell me…how is anything I’ve touched base on, making any sense? Someone please explain this to me because my brain can’t wrap itself around this bit of info.

IF YOU WANT A CLEAN SLATE, GET RID OF EVERYONE WITHOUT EXCEPTIONS, GUNN. Rip that patched bandaid off with one clean swipe and let it be the end of an era to really start over like you’re claiming you want. What’s happening so far just makes everyone (WB, Gunn and Safran) look like even bigger idiots and the future of their films bleak AF. I’m not remotely excited for any of it, personally. The new lineup that was released yesterday is not making me jump for joy in any way or hold out hope for a franchise I have loved for years, and that is WB and Gunn/Safran’s doing.

If you read this far, thanks for coming to my TedTalk / rant. Also, please know that these are things that I personally feel and have observed, and are based on things I’ve read. Please go research things for yourself so you may form your own personal opinion, and if anyone would like to discuss this topic like adults without insults and the like, I am happy to do so. Problematic behavior in the comments / reblogs will not be replied to.

[lazyscience]

throwing another anecdote about choice out there into the water.

In 1984, I was suffering through sixth grade and adolescence in Catholic school. Worldly child that I was, I'd read that Judy Blume rite of passage, Are You There God It's Me Margaret. I had written my first unnecessarily gritty fanfic as a school assignment (Sword of Shannara, mercifully pre-Internet). On the other, my BFF and I still played with My Little Ponies when we got home.

(that fic was violent AF, the kind of thing that you'd probably get a visit to the counselor for nowadays. But for Christ's sake - ha- they let us read aaaalll kinds of Lives of the Saints. Especially martyrs to purity. I had already internalized Maria Goretti, Agnes of Rome, Agatha of Sicily, Catherine of Alexandria, little girls torn apart, beheaded, casually brutalized, dead because they refused to be raped, held forever in God's love and raised above the sinful masses because of it.)

(rape is not sexual, either, as was clearly understood by providing this snuff porn to tweens who still played with My Little Pony. but, we continue.)

In health class, I don't remember which Sister taught that day - I don't think was Mary Ruth, who was a WAC in World War II and wore Franciscan brown like olive drab and noncom stripes on her shoulder, or Esther, who was frail and fluttery and easily flustered. It might have been Mary John, who was calm and kind and left the next year replaced by a lay principal. Could have been the saccharine Sister Peggy - yes, a wholeass nun who went by Peggy instead of Margaret - who liked neither me nor questions. It might have been Sister Eugenia, on loan from the Jesuit's sister order, who validated my already questioning streak by assigning us a list of events to find in the Gospels only to find that they didn't all have the same events or same stories, and her answer to that was "The Bible was written by men, who are not all-seeing or all-knowing, and prone to tell stories in the way that fits their biases."

(we used to speculate Eugenia was one of the last girls who "had" to go to a convent. Maybe she was. If you get through this, remind me to tell you the "video rock" story. Explaining MTV to someone who had gone into the convent before television was a trip.)

I don't remember, because mostly I remember the appalling content. The graphic and bloody pictures of dismembered parts with tiny hands and feet the only things recognizable, the ominous pronouncements of damnation of the mother - and of the hapless infant, who would never see God because of being killed before they could be baptized. How such a selfish, destructive and violent act was unforgivable, couldn't be allowed to happen! Abortion, the worst crime of them all. And we must always, always speak out about it, no matter what. They gave us all these tiny feet pins, so we would remember our goal. To save those tiny babies who had no one else.

(If that shit had been in a movie, it would have been rated R. And this was when the Church still taught that unbaptized babies would go to limbo, not heaven. Why? probably some BS about original sin. The single most corrosive concept anybody has ever come up with, the idea that non-baptized were automatically stamped Damaged Goods.)

I didn't tell my parents; I felt...wrong. About seeing those Freddie movie basins of parts, about having just barely learned what a period was and what girls were supposed to do instead of submit to defilement. And babies living a bleak existence of unending loneliness forever?

...bullshit, some 12-year-old part of me thought. That is absolute horsehockey. Why would God blame the baby? If he's all-powerful and all-knowing, he knows the baby didn't do anything wrong. Also, in First Confession classes we were taught even Hitler could possibly get to heaven if he was really, really sorry for what he did (which Sister Mary Ruth personally doubted "but only God knows for sure, and he WILL know, so you'd better tell Father S. EVERYTHING at Confession, and do NOT confess unless you are Really and Truly Sorry."). We were supposed to believe Hitler could go to heaven, but not a baby?

The next day at school, a classmate who HAD told her mom came to school and very quietly at recess handed folded paper pamphlets out to the other girls in class. These gory pictures were in black and white, but equally violent. They were of young women lying in blood-blackened sheets who had died using coathangers, or other illegal methods of abortion. And I thought - if the baby and the mother died, then that was two souls that were damned, and if the mother didn't live how could she be sorry? If we were supposed to ask God every single day, like we did every single day when we prayed our decade of the rosary, "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive others their trespasses against us, and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil" - whose fault was this, really?

Amy Coney Barrett is the same age I am. I do not doubt got the same talk I did, if not from her deacon father, from her Sunday school teacher somewhere in Louisiana. But she believed every word, because it allowed her to imagine beauty and justice in blood spent for heaven, instead of cruelty and waste.

I took the pamphlet. I put the creepy feet pin in the trash. And I stopped believing in a God who thought the best thing a woman could do for him was die, and would punish her unborn child if she didn't want to. And I haven't confessed, because I'm not fucking sorry.

[redrobin-detective]

Idk why but dp and bb crossovers are so funny to me like imagine just being a ghost kid trying to do your job and this smug demon won't leave you alone because he knows you aren't completely human and just wants to reveal your secret for fun

Danny and Seb lowkey get into a competition to out inhuman the other as an intimidation tactic until they're complete monsters at this point and Ciel is in the middle just so goddamn exhausted. He just wants to find the people who murdered his family and die in peace.

I've gotten enough asks that I now have a plan for this au haha: Danny accidentally goes through a time portal in the Zone into BB Victorian London and can't get back through it before it closes. He's trying to find a portal when he runs into some other supernatural beings in London which also leads him to Ciel and Seb. They initially peg him as a reaper but he's pretty obviously Something Else. So they do the same thing they do when they find a talented, powerful, stupid and lost being capable of causing massive harm; they take him back to the manor and give him a job.

Danny doesn't really get a choice in this, Ciel basically strong arms him with a deal: he will use his abilities (of which Danny doesnt really tell them what he can and can't do, he doesn't trust them as he shouldn't) to help Ciel's mission and Ciel will provide Danny with sanctuary as well as search for a way home for him. It's a stalemate but get the following delightful situations.

- Danny has to admit he's from the far future and, to excuse his powers, pretends everyone in the future has supernatural abilities. The things he tries to bullshit are hilarious.

- The servants a d o r e him, he's barely older than their young master but has also bene through some shit while also remaining a sweetie. They would die for him even though he could probably take them all, except Finny, out. Danny has no idea he just got new uncles and an aunt. They try and teach him Victorian England stuff, Danny is working on teaching Finny to skateboard. It's great fun.

- Danny finds himself strangely relaxed in this foreign land and time to be more of himself? Especially around Seb, like yeah he's devious and evil and manipulative but that's just Vlad only more polite. When the humans aren't around they let out their more inhuman traits until even Ciel is getting disturbed. The servants are desensitized by now and think it's great fun.

- Danny actually running into reapers and being like 'hi what the FUCK are you doing with a 21st century lawnmower/chainsaw' and they're like 'hi what the FUCK is a ghost hybrid from 200 years from now doing here?' everyone is confused and there's lots of yelling.

- They get so much sneaky shit done with Danny around who is very much stressed out. He is 14 and committing actual treason in another country in the past and he's upset. His parents won't be born for centuries and he just knows they'll find out somehow.

- Danny is given the role as a page boy because he's too young to be anything else and it's hilarious. Ciel delights in giving him menial assignments and Danny delights in being a contrary pain in the ass. They're both snarky, depressed, overwhelmed with their black, bleak outlook and sense of humor. They get on very well actually. Sometimes, he asks Danny very quietly when Seb is far away what it's like to die.

- Speaking of which, if Danny gets a whiff of the contract btw Ciel and Seb he is going after that demon with his claws bared. That is his LITTLE BROTHER that he just adopted just now and you are not going to purposely make him miserable only to eat his soul. It is fucking on.

- This is a very fun, ridiculous yet strangely heartwarming au about finding comfort in shared oddness in different circumstances. London proper doesn't even know what to make of the newest Phantomhive servant because that house is weird af.

[hiccanna-tidbits]

HICCANNA MONTH WEEK 2, DAY 2 - WAYS TO SAY “I LOVE YOU”: LOUD, SO EVERYONE CAN HEAR COLLEGE AU

*Collapses into exhausted heap* IT’S DONE IT’S DONE IT’S BARELY IN TIME FOR THE END OF HICCANNA MONTH BUT IT’S DONE

Y’all git HYPED, because this is my first-ever crack at Established Relationship Hiccanna!!! Get ready for some of that sweet sweet “Anna is insecure about ‘not standing out’ in any super obvious way but Hiccup reassures her in the most blunt but effective way possible” trope that I’ve been meaning to really delve into since forever :D I love how he’d be really calm and patient with her when she needs it but also would straight up say “Uhhhh that’s bullshit???” when she starts talking bad about herself. Like YES king say it how it IS :O He’s also just. Genuinely confused, like??? HOW is it possible for people see his girlfriend as any less awesome than he sees her??? Including (and ESPECIALLY) his girlfriend herself??? Like it straight up Does Not Compute, Hiccup.exe has stopped working, please try again later

Yes, Insecure Anna is just as worthy of love as Confident and Self-Assured Anna and if anyone wants to dispute this and act like she doesn’t “deserve” Hiccup because she hasn’t totally conquered her self-loathing tendencies yet (but she’s working on it!!!) then I will throw ALL the hands with you I stg

Fair warning that this ended up being a shamelessly self-indulgent, projection-filled ventfic, because I needed an avenue through which to bitch about a very specific issue XD Anyways, to all the girlies who have ever sat in awkward, uncomfortable silence while your friends all talk super excitedly about some piece of media you’ve never seen/weren’t that into and you feel like you have nothing to add and also your friends aren’t bothering to bring you into the conversation...this one’s for you!!! :D

Also, not me using Anna to deal with my ADHD issues again XD Sadly, that classic shit attention span extends to literally everything, not just boring and lame school and work stuff. I can zone out during practically anything, even the most interesting movie/show/RPG game. Like I’m not bored, my brain just needed a smoke break and now all my friends are gonna think I’m stupid af for it ^^; Fun times! Also not me writing Hiccup reassuring Anna the same way I wish someone would reassure me--

Apologies in advance for potentially OOC Jack...I needed someone for Anna to squabble with a bit, so I upped his Little Shit tendencies just a bit XD In my defense, I DO think given whatever the Modern AU equivalent of “300 years of loneliness” is (probably something mental illness related), Jack would be drawn to more dark, “broody” media because he would feel like it better reflected his experiences. Anna, meanwhile, is like “To hell with this bleak grimdark shit, why would I watch something that just makes me even more miserable???” I do have them bicker a little For The Drama, but it’s mostly all in good fun XD

Not me writing fics set in winter/involving snow in some way to combat the horrible heat wave I’ve been getting where I live XD Physically I am braving 90+ degree weather, but mentally I am rolling around in a snowdrift.

Fic under the cut!!!

***

9:40 pm. The numbers briefly light up Anna’s phone screen as a text from Elsa slides in.

Sorry I couldn’t make it tonight. Hope you’re having fun!

Anna twirls another mozzarella stick through her marinara sauce, watching the viscous red liquid seep into the gaps in the crumbly, golden-orange crust. With a little imagination, it could be a very crispy, basil-speckled submarine being sucked into a massive blood whirlpool. Now that’s a movie she would see—provided the blood looks fake enough, anyways. (She does not go to the cinema to get nauseous and uneasy, thank you very much—school does that plenty enough as it is.)

She is having fun. She’s having immense fun. How could she not be? She’s eating delicious empty calories, she’s surrounded by her best friends, and Hiccup is turning 19 in about an hour and a half. She’s at her best friend’s—pardon her, her new boyfriend’s—birthday outing and she is having the time of her life.

Or at least she should be.

It was an event they had all been planning for months. The new sci-fi thriller, Cold Life, was all Hiccup could talk about. An ambitious project based on a comic book series Anna had never heard of (as so many sci-fi thrillers were), the plot centered around a ragtag group of time travelers trying to prevent the heat death of the multiverse while also not causing too many timeline overlaps and unraveling reality. So you know. Very low stakes.

They made a movie night out of it, buying tickets a week in advance and surprising Hiccup with reserved seats in the back of an iMax theater. They bustled their way in and paired off, as they so often did, organizing by who was most comfortable whispering and joking under their breath to who. Anna watched the movie eating popcorn with one hand and holding Hiccup’s with the other (she’s still getting used to being allowed to do that), and now she’s sitting in a sparkly blue plastic diner booth, delicately picking at her food in such a way to make it last as long as possible.

It isn’t that she’s not hungry. She’s always some degree of hungry. In a world where she was her most authentic self, the chicken Florentine panini, the mozzarella stick appetizer, the onion rings, and the honey mustard sauce would be gone within minutes of being delivered. The reason they are all still on her plate in some capacity is because they’re keeping her busy enough to not look…

Well, busy enough to not look like she shouldn’t be there.

She looks up for the first time in a while, tearing off the end of the marinara-soaked cheese strip as she scans the diner booth. The lively conversations—the same type that usually give her some degree of comfort and belonging—are starting to agitate her.

They shouldn’t be. The topics are innocent enough. Merida and Astrid are raving about how epic the movie’s fight choreography was, occasionally ripping off pieces of honey chipotle wings with their teeth for emphasis. Rapunzel and Moana are wrapped up in an animated discussion about all sorts of visual imagery and motifs and other such things, trying to meander their way toward a conclusion about the meaning of the recurring pink glow on the horizon. Flynn and the twins are rating the explosions (of which there were many, despite explosions being impossible in the oxygen-devoid environment of outer space) with a surprising amount of thought. Mavis is spearheading a deep dive with Tooth and Johnny into the psyche of a character Anna found rather irritating. Finally, next to Anna, Hiccup and Jack are arguing over themes, and whether Cold Life is making a statement for or against the idea of inevitability.

Usually when they go out with friends like this, one of Hiccup’s hands is always reserved for Anna to hold. They’re still getting used to being together, and sometimes Anna (or both of them, for all she knows) needs a reminder it’s real. For years and years it was only ever friends—Anna gazing longingly when his back was turned, drawing hearts around their names in her notebook margin and covering them up when anyone looked. Wondering how he’d feel wrapped around her, or pressed up against her while they slept. Daydreaming about flooding his locker with candy boxes on valentine’s day. She’s still in shock from bumbling her sorry way through asking him out and him actually saying yes.

Yeah, I’ll go see Black Hole Tyrannosaur with you. You want to grab ice cream afterwards? Absolutely fucking surreal.

Black Hole Tyrannosaur, for what it’s worth, was very good. The concept of going through a wormhole and finding a planet containing several extinct animals who had fallen through gaps in space-time sounded ridiculous, but the practical effects were solid and the characters funny enough to make it a delightful ride.

They’d held hands across the seat, sprouting a tradition of linking one pair of hands and using the other to share popcorn. Anna glances at Hiccup’s hands now, one making slicing motions to indicate how distinctly the movie laid out that butterfly effect-style change is always possible and the other clutching the side of his head the way it always did when he was frustrated.

Usually he can convey his points well enough with one-handed gestures, but today is his birthday. He deserves to utilize the full power of elaborate, sweeping hand motions to discuss Cold Life. She’ll let the hand-holding rule slide, if only for one day.

Anna takes a long sip of the cookies and cream milkshake she and Hiccup are sharing, and feels a deep pit start to settle in her stomach.

It isn’t that she didn’t like the movie. It had some interesting concepts, and it entertained her well enough. She rarely got bored, per se.

It’s just that it’s one of those movies where you have to have your whole brain turned on. Whirring at 100% capacity the entire time, or you’ll miss about 16 important details. And then later details build off those details, and later details build off those ones. It’s an endless cycle of “if you zone out for a few minutes, you’re fucked.” And then when you try to play mental catch-up, you miss yet another plot-relevant piece of info.

Hiccup loves this kind of stuff. He loves sinking his fingers into complicated things and picking them apart to see how they work. He has an eye for detail that she could never dream of, and a knack for piecing them together like some kind of mental jigsaw puzzle. He’s probably the smartest person she knows. (Still a little shocking to her that he found her to be anywhere near his supreme Level of Brain.)

It's not that Anna isn’t smart. She can usually follow Hiccup fine when they’re chatting about this or that or the other, discussing pressing concerns like the future of AI or whether single-biome planets like the ones in Star Wars could actually exist. Not to mention she’s beaten him in chess. Several times.

It’s just that her brain is constantly running on full power mode. It’s the only way to keep up with her classes, no matter how wired and anxious it leaves her 24/7. And nowadays, even during what’s technically her downtime, her poor brain is spluttering and overheating like a computer that no one ever shuts down.

She couldn’t keep it on full power for an entire 2 and a half hour film even if she wanted to. It always flutters away mid-movie, demanding rest and leaving her at the mercy of shallow, mediocre movie takes developed by an Anna Runeardsen only half there.

And now, between her failure to keep track of Cold Life’s many timelines, her merciless confusion at the vague symbolism, and her frustration with mean characters everyone else seemed to think were fascinating and deep, Anna suspects she arrived at a very surface-level and mediocre take indeed. From what she overhears of the babble around her, she wouldn’t have anything to add—or worse, would cause a stir by accidentally disagreeing with something everyone else is in solid accord about.

All right, no more lying to herself. This sucks. Never in her life has she felt so painfully boring.

She considers trying to butt into Flynn and the twins’ conversation—how hard could it be to have a discussion about explosions? When she checks on them again, though, they’re packing up. From what Anna overhears, Flynn is apparently taking Ruffnut and Tuffnut to some monster truck show, so they can’t stay all night.

Do they even have monster truck shows in this city? If they do, Anna sure wasn’t aware. She wonders if the three of them are bored and faking an excuse to leave, although Ruffnut’s enthusiastic speculation about which unlucky car would be crushed the flattest seems to indicate otherwise.

Anna scans the table again, assessing her remaining options. Rapunzel and Moana have moved on to talking about some weird little piano leitmotif Anna completely missed. Mavis’s miniature discussion circle is now analyzing the main love interest, a rather nasty woman who used her tragic backstory of finding out she was an “accident” and her general bitterness over being infertile as justification to implode an entire timeline.

Her eyes pause on Jack and Hiccup, now discussing the “brilliance” of the ending. Though they seem to be disagreeing over what details they did and didn’t like, the general consensus was that the entire finale was very, very good.

Jack is being particularly insufferable about it, seemingly incapable of shutting up about what a mad genius Directorman Whatshisface is. During his spiel, he seems to be on a mission to dip his fries in every available substance on the table—honey mustard, ketchup, Merida’s chipotle aioli, Hiccup’s side of Ranch, the table sugar jar, someone’s abandoned spare BBQ sauce, Hiccup’s soda, Merida’s lemonade, his own mint chocolate shake. He barely seems fazed by even the most disturbing of combinations.

“Hey Jack,” Anna pipes up. “Which one tastes the best?”

“Huh?” He looks at her, blinking in confusion before he realizes what he’s subconsciously been doing.

“The ranch,” he says cheekily. “No question.”

And just like that, he’s back to gushing about the poetic cinema of the last 20 minutes of Cold Life. So much for getting him to change the subject to something she could talk about without making an idiot of herself.

“Okay, yeah, yeah, I get it, you think it’s brilliant that all their efforts were for nothing. I want to hear what Anna thought.”

Anna isn’t sure how long Jack has been going on when she hears Hiccup say her name. “Huh?”

Hiccup turns and smiles at her. “I want your input. I know those like…hopeless, depressing endings movies do sometimes aren’t your cup of tea, so I was wondering how this one fared.”

Anna blinks, eyes widening with shock. “You remembered?”

“Uh, I’m in love with you?” He looks at her like she’s completely lost her marbles. “Of course I remembered.”

Anna’s entire face grows hot, probably turning redder than the marinara sauce.

It isn’t like they haven’t exchanged “I love you”s. They’re six months in. Anna dropped an “I love you” after four (although rest assured, she knew long before they started dating—she just didn’t want to scare the poor boy off right after she somehow managed to woo him. Somehow.). He said it back after only a little contemplation (which she considered a win, from the guy who overanalyzes everything), soft and slow under a blanket fort. They’d been huddling for warmth and telling ghost stories, and when Anna accidentally came up with one so alarming she freaked herself out, she took a break from the spooky tale marathon to confess her undying love.

So yes. Factually speaking, he loves her. She loves him. It has been stated aloud many, many times at this point. Not exactly a surprise.

But every time he says it, it still feels like one.

Maybe it’s because she still, even after all this time, worries she doesn’t deserve it. Maybe it’s because she’s not used to people loving her and being so upfront and straightforward about it. Maybe it’s because the mere concept of someone she loves reciprocating the sentiment with equal or greater intensity will never not shock her.

Anna has never had reason to hold a particularly high opinion of herself. The idea of anyone thinking so much of her is still a little hard to grasp.

She’s never been first-in-line for anyone’s heart, or been anyone’s top choice. But now, with Hiccup looking at her like that, she can believe she’s his.

He isn’t exactly talking quietly, either. Hiccup has never been particularly loud—much to the chagrin of many of his more rowdy, boisterous family members, who always complain he’s no fun at parties. While not exactly soft-spoken, he didn’t often care to raise his voice and preferred a tone that could devolve into inconspicuous mutters if needed. Generally speaking, Hiccup cared quite a bit more about the cleverness of the things he said rather than the volume at which he said them.

And yet here he is, announcing that he’s in love with her so noisily that several of their friends look up in surprise. His enunciation leaves no room for argument, either—the oft-present incoherent mumbles and splutters have apparently gone on sabbatical.

He’s speaking with an open confidence Anna doesn’t often hear.

“I mean…I, uh…”

Anna isn’t so lucky.

“Good, right?” Jack cuts her off, mouth full of French fry, before she can stumble very far. “There’s something so beautifully ironic about them ripping themselves apart hopping between universes and sacrificing their own timeline versions of themselves…and then their plan still doesn’t work. And for a second there, you really thought everything was going to be fine! Like the way they set it up to trick you was brilliant—”

“I don’t necessarily think—”

As usual, it’s difficult to get a word in edgewise once Jack is off on a rant. “Kinda underlies this idea that you can try really, really hard, and still fail. That people with the best intentions can do everything right and still get fucked over. Like, that’s just life, you know?” He punctuates the statement with a bite of an onion ring dipped in tabasco sauce.

Anna frowns. “That doesn’t really—”

“And the twist of the heroes being punished when they fucked up, but the villains ultimately getting rewarded? Solid.” The bite of onion ring is not nearly long enough to slow Jack down. “I never see movies ballsy enough to flat-out show that evil rich people can buy their way out of trouble. At least not without some kind of ‘karma’ coming for them. Which it doesn’t in the real world, since karma isn’t really a thing.”

“Seems a little bleak, don’t you think?” By some miracle, Hiccup manages to cut in. “This idea that any efforts to spearhead positive change in society are ultimately doomed.”

“That’s not really the point, though. It’s more about how all societies will eventually end, and trying to prolong the inevitable is a waste of your own existence—”

“Will they, though?” Hiccup interrupts Jack a little more boldly as they fall into their usual movie-arguing rhythm. “I mean, no future time travelers have come from the end of the universe and told us for sure.”

“It’s likely.” Jack takes a noisy sip of his green-and-brown milkshake. “Entropy ultimately prevails and all that.”

“But there’s no point.” Anna finds herself shoving her way in before she can second-guess it. “I mean, like…what’s the purpose of showing us a story where nothing gets accomplished in the end? What am I supposed to take away from that?”

For a moment, Jack looks surprised before the usual air of self-assurance returns. “No, no, I think you’re misunderstanding,” he says around a mouthful of fry. “There’s not supposed to be a point for the characters. The point for us is that there’s no point for them. It’s kind of showing how everything we do is meaningless in the face of a cold, uncaring universe.” He grins, like he just put in the last piece of a particularly tricky jigsaw puzzle.

Ah, so this is the answer that she’s been missing for so long. Complete and utter nihilism.

“You seem oddly sanguine about all this,” Hiccup notes. Jack only smirks, raising his milkshake like he’s making a toast.

“What can I say? I’m just speaking the facts.”

Anna felt one hand clench into a fist under the table, the other starting to whittle away at the wood beside her placemat with green fingernails. It’s hard to tell if he’s actually that smug, or if he’s just trying to get a rise out of her. Maybe both.

Probably the latter. He’s not above causing a stir to get the attention on him. She’s not so different from him that way—dismissed and overlooked for much of her life, always wanting to be seen.

Still, there are other ways to go about it without talking over her. Or her boyfriend, for that matter.

“I guess you aren’t wrong,” Hiccup says, though he sounds resigned.

Jack looks briefly appalled that that was even considered a possibility. “Psh. Of course I’m not. Seriously great ending, though. I was more impressed than I’ve been in a while.”

“Yeah, kept you on your toes.” Hiccup doesn’t sound quite as enthusiastic as before. “Certainly couldn’t say it’s predictable, that’s for sure.”

“Really subverted all the stuff you—”

“Well, I thought the ending was stupid.”

She surprises herself with how ferocious she sounds.

As so often occurs, the entire table happens to go quiet the second she calls attention to herself.  Her friends all turn to stare, and she suddenly wonders if she’s made a grave mistake.

Maybe she should take it back. Force an anxious laugh, say she was kidding. Let Jack have his fifteen minutes of movie analysis fame while she goes back to hiding behind the remains of her panini. Maybe she shouldn’t stir up controversy and strife at her very own boyfriend’s birthday outing.

Then something warm settles over her fingers, still digging nervous trenches in the wooden table. She feels a thick hand curl around her own, and some of the tension trickles down her back and out of her body.

A couple quick squeezes, subtle but unmistakable. It’s a small gesture, but Anna knows exactly what it means.

I’ve got your back.

He’s taken to doing it when the old, rusty metaphorical springs that make up her body get coiled a bit too tight. It helps drain out the worst of the anxiety, social or otherwise, and get her bent back into place.

She glances up. Hiccup is giving her a soft look, encouraging and perhaps even a little…eager.

Right. He’s in love with her. He’s probably not lying about that. If he’s in love with her, he’ll probably want to hear her opinions. That logically tracks, right?

He gives her a small nod, as if to say go on.

And so she does. No turning back now—she has to commit to the bit, at least.

“So nothing they do will ever be able to save the multiverse.” She crosses her arms. “They try, and they fail, and they go back in time, and they try, and they fail again, and they keep doing that until they dissolve into the space-time continuum and cease to be, blah blah blah. It’s boring. It’s the same objective with the same result every single time.”

“Well, yeah, but the thing that makes it entertaining is the variety of ways in which they fuck up.” Jack smirks.

“Sure, the first few times. Then eventually it’s like…okay, is this going anywhere? Is it gonna show me some epic thing that makes all of this worth spending three hours getting my brain sliced up and handed to me? And then, to top it all off, you get Clinical Depression: Movie Finale Edition!”

She spreads her hands wide as she says it, mouth hanging open in mock wonder.

“I still don’t think you’re getting it.” Jack’s smirk turns to a frown. “It’s not really about some big dramatic reveal. In the real world, you don’t always get to know the how or the why of things. They just happen.”

There’s a note of bitterness in his voice, like he has quite a few of his own unanswered questions. A predicament that apparently he wants to see reflected in media everywhere so as to not feel alone.

Anna almost feels sorry for him until he continues talking.

“I mean…come on. Not every ending can be this cheerful ‘friendship and teamwork save the day’ thing. Anyways, it wouldn’t make sense for the story. If you pay attention to the plot structure, like Hiccup was saying earlier, it’s more narratively satisfying to end on a bleak note.” Jack sips his milkshake smugly before popping another handful of fries in his mouth. Hiccup looks away, eyeing the table guiltily. “Honestly, I think more movies could use endings where—”

“Oh, shut the fuck up, Jack.”

Jack freezes mid-chew, the end of a French fry poking from his lips. The entire table turns to stare at Anna again.

She glances over the shocked faces of her friends, suddenly feeling mortified. Jack looks like he got smacked with a mallet.

“Oh, gosh.” She shrinks back into her seat, studying the few bites left of her panini. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped. Geez. That was so rude, I—”

“Are you kidding?!” Hiccup’s voice cuts in, and a hearty hand slaps her back. “Annihilate him, babe.”

She looks up to see the shock has faded from Jack’s eyes to be replaced with…an almost playful glint. He’s not mad, she realizes. Not even annoyed. More intrigued than anything.

He’s challenging her. Which is good, as he is, from this moment forward, essentially consenting to being annihilated.

“I can’t deal with you right now.” She leans back in her seat, letting out the most exaggerated groan possible. “You’re so ridiculous. ‘Ooooooh, look at me, I’m such a deep and profound movie where everything sucks and nothing gets any better! I’m gonna win an Oscar because the movie awards committee loves pain and suffering and they think the only way to be respectable is to wallow in your own sadness and misery!’ Give me a fucking break. You think I need to be told by some...brainscrewey movie that sometimes things go to shit?! My life has been going to shit for years. And I don’t think I’m the only one. I mean…we’re all kind of fucked, right? Not like our majors are gonna make us more than pennies.”

She looks around at her friends, all studying liberal arts or humanities or whatever other field that was absolutely not hiring. Hiccup was maybe the only exception, with his path toward an engineering bachelor’s.

They stare back at her, eyes growing even wider. Apparently the perpetual optimist talking with absolutely 0 filter whatsoever isn’t something you see every day.

“The Adderall doesn’t always work, y’know.” She knows she’s oversharing now, but she doesn’t care. “Neither does the Zoloft. Or whatever else I try. I’m panickey, I’m stressed all the time, I pretend I have a promising future to keep myself sane but I really, really don’t. I see the world and the economy and the environment and all this stuff like…falling apart around us, and I need to delude myself into believing maybe everything’s going to be okay or I’ll lose it. And you think a movie about people giving their all to prevent a disaster and failing miserably every time is what anyone needs?!”

There’s a short pause before Jack speaks up again, this time lifting a finger insightfully.

“But narratively speaking—”

“Well, fuck the narrative!” Anna starts frantically waving her hands around, copying Hiccup’s over-the-top gestures in her desperation to get her point across. “Maybe if its message is this shitty ‘nothing you do will ever matter’ thing, then the narrative is what needs to change, not get an equally-shitty ending to go with it. I mean, last I checked, people watch movies for fun, and like…who enjoys feeling hopeless, crushing despair?! How am I supposed to leave a movie theater feeling satisfied and like…generally okay about the state of the world when none of the good guys get a happy ending, and they all died for nothing?”

“Arlin got a happy ending—”

“Fuck her too!” Before Anna knows it, she’s picking up an onion ring drenched in honey mustard and chucking it across the table. Drops of yellow goo fly onto her friends’ faces, and the fried vegetable lands on Jack’s cheek with a wet splat. He peels it off his face, eyeing it with distaste.

“She’s the worst,” Anna goes on emphatically. “Look, we all have problems, but you don’t see me going around and destroying timelines over it. Sorry, but I’d be different. Also, can we talk about how sexist it is that only the ‘traditional’ lady who wants babies gets a happy ending?! Bet they thought I wouldn’t notice that. Ha!” She smirks triumphantly, ripping off a piece of a mozzarella stick. “I see how it is. They think the one who wants to be a mom is the pure and virtuous and innocent one by default, so she’s the one who gets to live. But I see right through their bullshit, and I think Karis and Suret should have lived! Everyone else can die, I guess, if the plot really needs them to, but give us someone to root for, you know?”

Hiccup whistles, nudging Anna playfully. “That’s my girl!”

Anna gives him a sidelong glance, sure she’s blushing an embarrassing amount. “I’m your girl?”

He blinks. “I’d think so, unless you’re only dating me as a friend. In which case it might be necessary for us to have a talk about the nature of our relationship.”

“Did Arlin get a happy ending, though?” Moana asks. “I mean, she got stuck in that eternal time loop. And wasn’t the implication it was just a fake dream dimension?”

Rapunzel is temporarily distracted from their conversation, watching Jack with Merida and Astrid in a sort of morbid fascination. He pops the earlier-chucked onion ring in his mouth before beginning an elaborate routine to lick up the honey mustard splashed across his cheeks.

Anna shrugs. “Happy comparatively. It was still better than what everyone else got.”

“She had growth, though, man,” Johnny pipes up. Casual but insistent, in the way he has a habit of being. “At least she’s less of a jerk than she was in the beginning. So she kinda deserves it.”

“And Arlin’s psyche is so interesting!” Mavis stretches out her fingers, grinning. “Like…why did she feel so incomplete without kids? She was super well-loved by everyone for like…her whole life, so it’s not like she didn’t have a support system. And she was smart enough and rich enough to basically become whatever she wanted, so…why was she gunning so hard for her own kids? I mean, she could’ve easily been a pediatrician or a teacher or a social worker or something, if she wanted them around so badly. But she was so insistent on being a mom, so like…what is her deal?”

Before she can stop herself, Anna lets out a puff of frustration. “To be honest, it was hard for me to care when she spent most of her screentime being an asshole. Like, I know ‘unlikable main characters’ are the new fad or whatever, but they’re just…draining to watch.”

Mavis gives her a puzzled look. “Really? I love picking them apart. Trying to figure out how they work.” Johnny and Tooth nod emphatically.

Anna frowns. “So you don’t ever get like…aggravated, having to see somebody be a huge jerk over and over?”

Tooth shakes her head, rainbow-dyed hair forming a bright blur around the dark skin of her face. “Not if it’s fiction, no. I mean I would assume any reasonable person would know not to emulate that kind of thing, right?”

“But it’s not like…disheartening?”

Johnny shrugs. “Honestly makes me appreciate real actual nice people more.”

She hears a shifting in the chair next to her, and glances over to see Hiccup turning back toward them. For a time, it seems he was distracted by Jack’s show. The other boy has, to the best of his ability, cleaned the honey mustard off his face, and is now sipping his milkshake and watching Anna—the contrarian of the day, apparently—with great interest.

Hiccup opens his mouth to speak, and Anna preemptively winces. She can only imagine how inane and childish the love of her life will find her views on unlikable characters. Honestly, if this many people are looking at her like she’s nuts, she probably deserves for him to make a snide comment—

“Anything else I can get for you kids? A dessert, maybe?”

A new voice interrupts before Hiccup can realize Anna’s movie takes are probably horrendously wrong. Their waitress is standing by the booth, notepad in hand.

“Oh! Ah—” Hiccup looks down at his lap nervously, and Anna sees his eyes drift to the wallet in his back pocket. His brow creases, a note of sadness drifting onto his face.

She knows what he’s thinking. Even before they started going out, it became second nature for her to tell.

He thinks he can’t afford this.

They’re all broke college students, some more comfortable asking their parents for handouts than others. Hiccup’s the stingiest with money, with his need to prove to his dad he’s independent ensuring he spends nearly every spare moment working on-campus jobs and every paycheck only on rent and essentials. He doesn’t have much left over on less than minimum wage.

But it’s also his birthday.

“Oh—oh no, I think we’ll be okay—”

“I’ve got it.” Anna pulls out her duck-shaped purse and nearly slams it down on the table. “Are you still doing the February special? The one where you sub out chocolate ice cream for strawberry and you get a discount?”

She read about it online when they first picked the place. Something to do with having leftover strawberry-flavored stuff from not as many people ordering Valentine’s desserts as the diner planned, Anna guesses. Today’s technically the first day of March, since Hiccup’s “actual” birthday comes only once every 4 years, but perhaps it’s close enough.

The waitress nods, and Anna launches into the dessert order.

“Can we get a banana split? February special, so two strawberry scoops and a vanilla scoop. Extra caramel and hot fudge sauce. Oh! And, uh…I don’t know if pineapple’s in season this time of year, but if you have any…could you sprinkle a bit on the top?”

After the waitress leaves, Anna turns to see Hiccup gawking at her. “What?”

“I love you.”

He says it with so much force that Anna’s surprised the table doesn’t shake. Several of their friends smirk, and Anna feels her cheeks burn.

“Oh, stop it.” She rolls her eyes, smiling nervously. “It’s your birthday! You deserve nice things.”

“But…that thing costs like $10!” he spluttered, waving his hands around. “Plus tax! And…you remembered I like caramel sauce?”

It’s her turn to stare at him like he’s been claimed by insanity. “I’m in love with you? Duh.”

He dissolves into incoherent stutters, blushing like a madman, and Anna smirks triumphantly.

If her doing a nice gesture can evaporate his dignity this quickly, then perhaps he isn’t exaggerating about the high regard he views her in.

“But back to Arlin,” she says, sitting up a little straighter. “Was it just me or was the scene where she goes on and on to Cyndilla about how she wants a baby completely out of nowhere? It was so annoying—”

“You sure you’re not just projecting because you don’t want any babies?” Jack asks, cutting her off as he slurps annoyingly at his milkshake.

Anna narrows her eyes. “Say that again and I’ll use you as a projectile missile.”

Merida snorts out a laugh, giving Anna an approving nod across the table. “Drag him, lass! Ah swear, someone’s got tae.”

***

It’s snowing when they walk out into the parking lot.

Hiccup shivers, mouth no doubt still feeling the last traces of his birthday sundae. Smiling softly, Anna takes off her puffy magenta jacket and slips it over his shoulders. No trouble getting those skinny arms in the sleeves, though the bottom of the coat hangs a ways above his waist.

He frowns at her. “But aren’t you gonna—”

She pats his arm. “You ate ice cream. You need it more.”

The group is starting to disperse across the curb, finishing up conversations and texting their older friends for rides. No one, save maybe Jack and Rapunzel, seems keen to walk back to the dorms in the snow.

Elsa’s coming to pick Anna up soon. To what Anna’s sure would be the shock of her earlier self, she feels a prick of disappointment. She doesn’t want the night to end.

“I agree with you, by the way,” she murmurs, looping her arms around her boyfriend’s neck. “I think it was pro-inevitability—the movie, I mean. Nothing in the greater timeline changed in any meaningful way—nothing that I noticed, anyhow.”

“Ha!” Hiccup scoffs triumphantly as he wraps an arm around her waist. “I knew it. Jack’s an idiot.”

“But…” She slides a hand into his thick hair, starting to twirl stands around her finger in little circlets. “I also think its entire statement on inevitability was complete bullshit.”

He looks taken aback, leaning away from her. This only presses him farther into her massaging fingers. “What? Really?”

“Yeah, absolutely.” She snickers. “Nothing is inevitable. There’s so many of these like…” She shakes her head. “Chaotic…chance…equation things I could never hope to understand that determine the probability of everything. And as I do understand it, they have to line up just so for literally anything to happen. Saying any cause will only ever produce one specific effect no matter what, and no matter if new outside stuff crops up and complicates everything—which it inevitably will, by the way, because random unexpected shit is always happening—seems…pretty improbable to me? Like, saying you can’t avoid a certain thing when there’s so many factors that have to work together to lead to any like…event…thing, and there’s like a billion other slightly and largely-varying event kinda things possible, acting like one is all special-weshial and can’t be altered no matter what seems kinda stupid.”

“So you’re saying…nothing is inevitable?”

“Yup. Same way nothing is certain-certain.”

“Oh? So not even us falling madly in love?”

Anna scowls at him as her cheeks begin to burn. “Okay, first of all, stop trying to be cute when I’m getting a point across. Second of all, especially that.”

She snorts mockingly, and Hiccup raises an eyebrow. “Care to elaborate? I mean…I had a crush on you for ages. You liked me even longer. Why wouldn’t we have gotten together?”

She rolls her eyes. “Oh, we had all kinds of things working against us. You were so dead convinced I was out of your league for some reason, and I was terrified you’d friendzone me and it would like…totally ruin me. No offense.”

He boyfriend shrugs. “None taken.”

“Point being that it would have been so easy for both of us to just never say anything. And voila! There you have it! No more being in love and making everyone else tell us to get a room.”

She spares a sidelong glance at Merida, who’s currently glaring at them with her tongue stuck out.

“Well, we’d still be in love though, right?” Hiccup says, frowning. “We’d just be a lot more miserable about it?”

“Not necessarily. Maybe one or both of us would meet someone else we were convinced was our soulmate or whatever, and we’d get super obsessed with them. Like, to the point it seemed stupid to like anyone else. Or I’d get frustrated when you put walls up like Elsa did, and I’d stop trying to get through to you. Or you’d hear me fart in class or something, and then decide I was disgusting and never worth considering as a romantic option again.”

He pouts. “You really think I’m that shallow?”

“I doubt it.” She shrugs. “But it’s what I’ve come to expect. You ever hear that ‘never ever ever do anything gross or lame in front of the guy you like or he’ll be turned off and never consider liking you back ever again’ stuff on the internet? Had me watching my every move around you for a long time.”

Hiccup scoffs. “Well, you didn’t need to. I’ve known for years that you snore, and sometimes you stink to high heaven because you forget to put your deodorant on in the morning, and you can get so overwhelmed that you can’t bring yourself to shower for days, and you still have all your toys from when you were a kid, and you love predictable and critically-panned movies because surprises and endless trope inversions stress you out, and you panic when you have to make big decisions or decisions where you think people will hate you for getting it wrong, and guess what? I still love you.”

His volume drifts up on the last sentence, like he’s speaking over a blizzard instead of a light, silent snow shower. Anna catches glimpses of several of their friends turning to look at them.

She tenses against him, sliding her hand out of his hair. Suddenly she’s looking at the snowy concrete, unable to meet her boyfriend’s eyes. “Why do you always say it like that?”

“Say it like what?”

“Like…like loud like that. So like…any old person can hear.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Aren’t you embarrassed?” She finally looks up, grimacing slightly. “I mean—well, it’s just—I guess I wonder—aren’t I embarrassing?”

He looks genuinely perplexed. “…are you? This is news to me.”

“You’re not like…” She bites her lip anxiously, somewhat dreading the blunt answer she knows she’s going to get. Her voice softens, as though if she speaks too quietly for him to hear, she’ll have an excuse to drop the subject and put off learning what has to be a painful truth.

“You’re not embarrassed to be with me? Like…at all?”

To her surprise, his confusion only grows. “In what world would I be embarrassed to be with you?”

“I mean…I’m barely passing college. I’m addicted to Starbucks and posting food pics on Instagram and a bunch of other unoriginal ‘basic girl’ stuff. I can’t go more than a few sentences without accidentally saying something stupid. I’m super gross and can’t take care of myself half the time. My brain overwhelms itself over the dumbest things, and then I can’t function at all. I’m not really on track to become anything like…exceptional. And smart people movies fry my brain, and I probably form a whole host of bad opinions about them while I’m watching them. I’m kind of a failure.”

After a small pause, Hiccup lets out a deep sigh. “Okay, I don’t even know where to start with all that. First of all, half that stuff doesn’t matter to me. That’s what I’ve always told you, and like…let’s be real, I’m not a good liar. If I was bullshitting, you’d know by now.” He shakes his head, smiling fondly. “If any of those things did bother me on any significant level, I can assure you I never would have gone out with you in the first place. I knew you long enough to know what I was getting into, Anna. Secondly…”

He casts a glance behind her, Anna following his gaze. Jack is stuffing snow down a giggling Rapunzel’s shirt, the smug air from earlier long gone. Anna looks back to see Hiccup rolling his eyes.

“I didn’t get most of Cold Life, either. Really, I was humoring Jack more than anything, but it’s no crime not to be able to wrap your head around that clusterfuck of a movie. I was impressed that you were able to analyze as much as you did. Thirdly…”

His hands slide up her waist to firmly grasp her shoulders. “You need to listen to me here. You’re the farthest thing from a failure. You get up every morning and you work your ass off ten times harder than anyone I know—just to get through the day. You bite and claw your way through advanced high school classes and college applications and now these terrifying exams that are worth 60% of your grade, and you still somehow find the energy to look out for me when I can’t do it myself. You keep on smiling and trying to see the best in everyone and everything, even when people are awful to you and you feel like no one wants you around—absolutely not true, by the way. Honestly, I do all right in school because a lot of technical, mathy stuff comes easily to me, but…” He smiles meekly. “I wish I had half the resilience you do. I wish I knew how to bounce back when I do eventually find a class that’s too much, because gods know it takes the balls of steel you have. Or…” His cheeks flush in embarrassment. “Boobs of steel, I guess.”

“Nice.” Anna grins. “I have natural protection if someone tries to stab my lungs!”

“Precisely.”

“But…” She meets his eyes, a little embarrassed by how desperate she probably looks. “You think there’s still hope for me?”

“Absolutely. You just haven’t found your niche yet. Which is fine—most people our age haven’t, despite what stupid college marketing campaigns will try to tell you. But when you do find it? I know you’re going to kill it. Zero doubt in my mind. When you funnel all that energy into something, it’s going to blow people away.”

And then Anna Runeardsen stands on her tiptoes (curse her boyfriend’s growth spurt the last year of high school—now he towers over her and it’s really rather unfair) and kisses Hiccup Haddock like never before.

They’ve kissed probably dozens of times at this point, some more memorable than others. This one feels different, though—like something straight out of a cheesy Hallmark Christmas movie.

(One where the actors have good chemistry, though. Not those lifeless budget movie kisses where it looks like two fish trying to eat each other.)

Her hand slides back up into his hair, and she breathes him in. He tastes like Oreos and hot fudge and ice cream and a shameless burst of self-confidence when she needs it the most. His lips are dry and chapped from the cold late winter air, but Anna doesn’t mind. It’s him, and that’s what matters to her.

Her heart still pounds every time, just like it did holding hands with him for the first time during a 6th grade game of Red Rover. All these years, and he still makes her feel like she’s floating on a summer breeze, wildflower aromas all around her and the sun in her hair.

Ironically, being with him is also as tranquil and easy as cloud-watching in the grass on a clear day. He excites her endlessly and keeps her grounded all at once, and she doesn’t know what she’d do without him.

Nearby, she can hear Merida gagging. This only makes Anna kiss her boyfriend harder.

When she pulls away, Hiccup’s hair is dotted with snowflakes. She smiles, brushing it out fondly.

“So,” she says cheekily. “Out of all the infinite possible timelines we exist in, I’m glad I’m in the one where I got to date you.”

He raises an eyebrow teasingly. “Are you sure? There’s probably several where you marry some famous actor, and get to livestream from a private pool all day.”

“Well…if you get that Silicon Valley job you’re striving for…” She pokes him playfully in the chest. “What’s the difference? Financially, anyhow.”

He raises a teasing eyebrow. “Anna, I don’t think you understand how money works—”

“Sure I do. There’s three categories of the monetary elite: ‘Rich’, ‘Richer’, and ‘Filthy Fucking Rich.’ And I, sir, am more than happy to just be in the ‘Rich’ category.”

He gives her a skeptical look, and she wonders if he knows she’s joking. She quickly backtracks.

“Or not. We could also be mega-broke together. I’m all right with living in a cardboard box under the freeway as long as I’m doing it with you.”

“Yeah, don’t get your hopes up about being rich.” He leans forward and kisses the side of her head. “I don’t think it’s time for us to start packing our bags for San Jose yet. I haven’t even passed my upper divs.”

Anna snorts. “You will, though. You really are the smartest person I know.”

“Maybe you have low standards, then.”

“I absolutely do not.”

“Debatable.”

There’s the soft crumbling of snow under tires, and Anna looks past Hiccup’s mop of brown hair to see a pale blue fiat pulling up to the curb.

“Looks like my ride’s here.” She leans up and plants a last kiss on his cheek. “We’ll have to continue this dispute some other time.”

“Good.” Hiccup snorts, crossing his arms. “You’ll have adequate time to realize you’re wrong.”

“I’m not,” she says breezily. “But even if I was, and you start failing absolutely every class starting tomorrow…” She blows him a kiss as she backs toward Elsa’s car. “You know I’m sticking with you no matter what, babe.”

“I love you!” He shouts the words at her as she closes the car door, loud enough for all their friends to glance at him again. Elsa snorts with laughter.

“Seems like your relationship is in terrible jeopardy,” she deadpans.

Anna snickers as her sister drives away. “Oh, yeah. I’m so concerned.”

***

...y’know, I thought up the “Eugene takes the twins to monster truck shows” completely on accident, but now I can’t stop thinking about it, like. Hilarious yet oddly wholesome??? For whoever was asking for more interactions between the side/supporting RotBTFD characters, I come here to deliver XD

Yes, Anna swears like a sailor because the only reason she canonically doesn’t is because she’s in a disney franchise XD She’s also older and wiser and just a little more cynical and not nearly as sold on the concepts of “destiny” and “one true love” as she once was XD I also find it extremely funny that I was combing over the dialogue and noticing some of Anna’s lines sounded more Hiccup-esque than I intended, and vice-versa...but then I realized that adopting someone’s speech patterns and mannerisms happens naturally when you date them/are around them a lot ;____; They’re absorbing parts of each other because they’re in love hELP

Amateur psychologist Mavis is so valid, I love her ;____;

For whatever reason I feel with an odd certainty that Hiccup would be a caramel guy. Also I was inspired by him ordering a pina colada milkshake in one of @lovestrucklyuniverse‘s fics and now I think he’s a pineapple guy too.

[theonetheycallhannah]

The Treatment of Captain Syverson-Chapter Four: E-Stim

Pairing: Captain “Sy” Syverson x OFC (Shane Benton)

Summary: Shane deals with the consequences of her email to her boss, both good and bad. A mortifying situation has an…unexpected outcome. Emotions run high in the fourth chapter of The Tx of Sy! Behind on the action? Catch up HERE! 

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: Language, some angst and emotions. (Like I literally cried writing part of it) And like, an asshole boss…but if you stick it out with Susan, you won’t be disappointed.

Disclaimer: Unfortunately for me, Henry is not mine, le sigh, and all mention of him, his characters, any characters from his films, or his precious doggy, Kal, are strictly for transformative and recreational use. I neither ask for, nor accept payment for the work I post on Tumblr or AO3. Unbeta’d because this is for fun and escapism.

Tags:

@onlyhenrys

 @cavillryarchive

 @summersong69

 @titty-teetee

 @bloodyinspiredfuck

 @agniavateira

@oddsnendsfanfics

(you didn’t ask, but i took the liberty! Hope that’s okay!)

@tumblnewby @suavechops

Shane had spent her morning getting ready for work and treating her first patient with a whopping headache…maybe a small glass of wine would have been more responsible of her. But she slept like the dead, which was the goal.

She took a moment before her second patient to check her email…there was a reply from Susan.

Shane, come to my office at your next possible availability.

No "thank you" or "please" or "fuck you very much." just an order. Last she checked, SHE wasn't in the military. Since Heather wasn't in yet, she messaged the secretary on duty, Marsha, to see if she could find a way to make an opening in her morning. She wanted to get this meeting over with.

Sure, Shane. Looks like Cory could take your next patient, if you like. He's seen him before.

Perfect. Please make that change and block me for a meeting with Susan. Thank you so much.

She saw Cory walk by, and warned him. "Cory, I'm having Marsha move Mr. Greenbaum to you next hour. I need to meet with Susan about something." she rolled her eyes.

"Oh, shit. Okay. No problem." Cory knew all too well the fuckery that a Susan meeting could entail.

"I really appreciate it. I owe you big time."

"Nah, Mr. G is cool. We just talk about huntin' and stuff."

"He'll probably like that we switched, then." she laughed. And headed for what felt like the principal's office. Bleak and miserable.

She knocked on the door, and was told in an all too cheerful manner to come in.

"Hey!"

"Morning Susan."

"Close the door and have a seat, Shane."

She typed away for a moment before fully engaging…as was her way. She thought it gave her the power. It really just annoyed the fuck out of everyone.

"So, tell me what's going on with this patient you emailed me about."

"Well, he's an ACL and MCL tear, traumatic, plus a dislocated patella. He did it during a mission in Iraq. Ummm, he's improving a lot. Potter did the surgery. He had him keep the crutches about two weeks longer than we thought he would, but--"

"No I mean…this relationship. What's the deal, here?"

"Oh, there's not much to say about it, really. He's been fairly flirty from pretty early on. I've been able to ignore it, but to be honest, I think he's a really great guy, and I think he deserves better than me ignoring his advances, especially when, to be honest Susan, the feelings he has for me are not unrequited." her heart was racing. More than if Sy had been in the room flirting with her, but so much less pleasant.

"I don't think you should see this guy until the treatment is over. What if it doesn't work out and he doesn't want to come here anymore because of you." That hurt…not that it wasn't rattling around in her head, too.

"Well, Susan, to be honest, that's one reason I haven't spoken up about this already. I have that fear. But he's been very adamant about it lately, and it's been on my mind a lot, and I think I owe it to the both of us to see it through."

"I think I should call this guy. Let me pull him up."

She gave her his details to get his information pulled up in their system. God, this was embarrassing. She should have known this nightmare was coming.

"Hello?" a gravelly bark came across the speakerphone.

"Hello, Mr. Syverson?"

"Captain Syverson, yes, Ma'am." She wasn't expecting him to pull rank…and he did it so politely.

"Sorry, Captain Syverson. My name is Susan DeForrest, I'm the manager here at Fort Wood Therapy Clinic. How are you this morning?"

"This side of the daisies ain't worth complainin. What can I do ya for, ma'am?"

"Well, I have Miss Benton, your therapist here in a meeting. You're on speaker."

"Hey Sy." Shane mewled sheepishly.

"Hey there, Shane." she could hear the smile in his voice. She didn't know if Susan could.

"She's saying that the two of you would like to see each other socially, outside of therapy."

"Oh, that's not quite the words I'd use, ma'am, but I s'pose you're technically correct."

"And she's explained to you that this facility has a policy in place regarding such fraternization?" What a load of bullshit she was shoveling. Making it sound so sinister and clandestine what she and Sy were trying to start up. Like espionage. This woman…

"I'm aware that certain policies exist like that to protect patients or customers, and more frequently the staff from situations that could present problems for both or either parties. I am not aware that a strict policy exists to police your staff in such a stringent manner. In fact, I know the opposite to be true."

"Excuse me?" Susan asked, shell shocked.

"See, them policies o' yours, they're all available online. Public knowledge. Even your personnel ones. Now, y'all have a nice and thorough handbook, I mean, I have been up all night just pouring over this like honey on toast, and I can tell you, I ain't findin' a word about y'all not being allowed to date your patients."

"Well, it's in policy number…"

"Nope, you were gonna say 47, subsection 2, part b. But that just says that you shouldn't treat anyone you're close to (i.e. friend, relative, or significant other) if you can't maintain objectivity or your own comfortability. Now, if I'd make Shane uncomfortable, or if she lost her objectivity over me, I'd be devastated. Shane, do I or do you think I could make you uncomfortable or unobjective?" he was laying it on so thick. If she hadn't been falling for him, this would have done it.

"I don't think so, Sy." She held back a smile…but not well.

"There ya have it. Miss DeForrest, I trust that Shane is free to live her life in the way she sees fit?"

"Well, I still think she should wait…" Susan started, but was cut off again by Sy.

"Because you see, I've seen a lot of young people fail to grow old. A lot of people waitin' to do things…they never ended up doin'. This life…it can be real, real short, Miss DeForrest. And I'm not keen on waitin' to be happy when I could be happy right now. Have I made myself clear enough for you? Or do I need to go to the next link in the chain of command here?" The emotion and resolve in his voice was completely shattering. He wasn't crying. But Shane and Susan both were. And then suddenly, Susan sniffed herself into composure and answered him with dignity.

"No, Captain Syverson. That will not be necessary. Shane…is free, of course, to socialize with whomever she sees fit so long as it doesn't affect anyone's treatment adversely. Thank you for your time, candor, and perspective, sir."

"I'm glad to help Shane. She's helped me more than any therapist I've ever had. We clicked immediately. I knew she was somethin' special. But getting to know her over the last few weeks has shown me what true happiness could feel like…I'd forgotten that over in Iraq. She gave that back to me. I'd like to thank her properly."

"I think she'd like that too. Thank you, sir." Susan hung up the phone without letting them say goodbye to each other, but Shane was an utter mess, and unable to form coherent words right now, anyway.

"Wow." Susan exclaimed.

"Yeah." Shane sniffed into a tissue, dabbing her eyes and then blowing her nose loudly, and unapologetically.

"Did he say he spent the whole night reading our policies?" Susan asked, not sure she heard him right.

"That's what I understood." Shane was somehow not surprised.

"Did you tell him to do that?"

"I didn't even know the policies were online, nor did I know you'd pull him in to our meeting…I didn't even know we were having one until twenty minutes ago."

"Right…fair. Sorry, I'm still…off-put by all of that." She had been beaten…and it wasn't familiar or comfortable.

"So, are we finished here?" Shane inquired, tentative about the state of mind her boss was in.

"Yes, go on and take the rest of the hour for continuing ed or whatever." She was normally much more composed…Sy had really gotten to her. She loved it.

Shane hurried back to her treatment room. She had to call him.

"Hello?" that same gravelly voice now confused as he'd just hung up with her, basically.

"May I speak to the great hero Captain Syverson, please?"

"Sunshine. How ya doin'?"

"Did you really stay up all night last night to read our entire employee manual?"

"I wanted the straight up, true life details about this policy that could mess up my future."

"I think you broke my boss's brain. She was still stewing when I left. She thought I told you where to find all that and what not. I didn't even know you could find it online. Plus, I didn't know we'd be meeting or that she'd drag you into a personnel matter. She's the worst. And you're literally my hero for beating her down like you did."

"Hey, ya know, she started it. I just finished it."

"You sure did. And how!"

"So…since we're all legal now…"

"Is the magic gone since it's not forbidden?" she laughed.

"Oh, I was gonna say, yeah, I think this may be a mistake. Sorry."

They both giggled.

"I'm free after work on Friday." she suggested.

"Not anymore, you're not. Bring some nice clothes and change when you're done. I'll pick you up after. Just text me when you're about ready?"

"You haven't given me your number, Sy."

"It's in my chart, dork."

"You have to officially give it to me."

"Oh I'll give it to ya, baby." He'd dug deep into the bass part of his register for that one.

"Syyyyy." she groaned.

"Oh, you already know I like it when you say my name."

"I'm being serious right now, what's your damn number or the date is off." She bluffed.

"Not because I believe that idle threat, but because I wanna…give it to ya." he rattled off the number.

"Okay, I'll be texting you with mine. Now, I have work today, so if you text me and don't get an immediate response, you know that's why."

"I'm not your only patient? I'm hurt, Shane."

"I know, that's why you've been coming to therapy for weeks."

"Har-Har, good thing I'm not into you for your sense of humor."

"Good thing I'm not into you for your looks, since 80% of your face is obscured by hair."

"We could go all day like this."

"The stamina." she teased.

"Well, look who joined the game!" he sounded almost proud.

"Don't think I haven't been participating silently for…a while."

"How long?" he inquired

"Isn't that my line?" she laughed at the penis joke she'd just made.

"You'll find out soon enough, and you won't be laughing. How long?"

"Well, you remember your evaluation."

"I do."

"Yeah…then." she bleated, too shy to say so with pride.

"No way! You mean you've liked me all this time too! And haven't said shit!?"

"I had to be professional, Sy! I didn't want to! Damn! You've gotta know how much I didn't want to be professional."

"I'll forgive ya, I guess, lil' lady."

"Merciful of you, sir!" she chuckled. "I'll need to go here soon. Won't be long now until my next one gets here."

"Tease me with a 'sir' then cut me off. Cruel."

"You like 'sir,' huh?" she whispered.

"I do. Yes…I…do."

"Noted. Well, until tomorrow."

"Don't forget to text me. I want you to give it to me too." he chuckled.

"Oh, you're bad."

"But, I'm real, real good sunshine." The deep rich promise in his voice did not go unnoticed.

"Bye Sy."

"Later Shane."

She hung up and texted him immediately. A selfie. He replied in kind. He seemed to be home on his couch, Aika by his side…he was not wearing a shirt…well…this day would be eternal.

Up Next: Chapter Five- Sensory Integration 1

[rjalker]

oh god okay so i just remembered another reason to say "fuck you" to KA Applegate. The ending to Animorphs was bleak AF, because "realism" and "war is hell so I'm not going to coddle the readers and in fact end with killing off the surviving main cast.". THAT was her response to fans unhappy with the ending.

THERAPY EXISTS. HELP EXISTS. Like yeah there's the argument that therapy is just a bandaid on a gaping wound or just a tool by the government to get us back into Working Order and there's also the cost to factor in but like- you have OPTIONS!!

Yep, especially because up until the very ending, she didn't give a shit about realism, all she cared about was stretching the series out as long as possible so she could make more money. She didn't care about telling a good or a realistic story. The status quo ruled as god - right up until the series was over, so there was no money for her to lose. Then she decides to just fucking be misogynistic and ableist as shit.

If she wanted to make the Animorphs a "realistic war story" then she would have had actual consequences within the series itself, but no, she didn't. If she wanted a "realistic war story" then poor fucking Karen should have been immediately reinfested and her father also infested and then all the fucking Animorphs murdered because they just let that kid who knew their faces and names and addresses go back to her home like the yeerks literally havent' already targeted her and are just gonna go "oh she's not a host anymore? K".

KA Applegate wasn't interested in telling a realistic war story with the Animorphs. The only thing she cared about was making as much money as possible with as little effort as possible, which is why the story is dragged out across over 60+ books despite nothing ever changing throughout the story in any meaningful way until the very end.

[sinnhelmingr]

dbd ship bias go! // anonymous

Meg/Raven. This is one that me and my buddy Ferret are teasing, with Lea as the bird of prey and Meg as the rabbit caught in an eternal chase. But it’s more than that, it’s not as dire as it sounds. Lea will have to strike eventually, but until then she’s the one circling above, her shadow leading Meg away from what must be avoided, just as Meg listens to her and watches overhead, wondering if that old bird ever gets tired. Meg is the first one to really trust Raven’s intentions, and in turn Lea shows a bit more loyalty to Meg outside of trials -- and even in Trials, she has been known to show mercy that is uncharacteristic even for her rebellious ways. There’s a lot of potential here that I am very excited to explore, so these two get my top spot.

Huntress/Raven. Listen it is supertext that Raven is an androgynous femme who wants the big buff Siberian butch to tear her in half with her bare hands. Lea sees those aesthetics and is smitten from the word go. Now we have yet another raven/rabbit motif, but this time, it’s the raven that is at risk. Both have known the cold, the loneliness, and brought down far greater adversaries. There’s a thread of recognition between them that helps to balance their at odds aesthetics and eras. Delve beyond Raven’s stupid sub brain, and there is gold in those hills, at least as I imagine it. I live and die for the idea of Anna just scooping Lea up and making off with her tiny wife, and the two irritating their peers by being sugary sweet and gay af.

Charlotte/Raven. Two disfigured women from a historical period of faith being used to subjugate others, who were used by Fog cultists and ultimately lost so much of themselves in different ways. The two could really connect, I think, if they had a chance to work past their individual problems, and if Charlotte could open up to her, something might happen there. Unfortunately. I muse Victor, and in my brain he just goes bite maim kill whenever the two have a more physical moment as friends, such as hand-holding. That little man is going to go ballistic if Lea further monopolizes his sister’s valuable time. Still, I think the bite marks would be worth it for the two to have even a brief moment of happiness in their otherwise bleak lives.

Ash/Raven. This. This one came out of a shitpost. A joke with friends. Ash will flirt with any woman he sees at least once, just to get it out of his system, and respect their response in terms of if they’re reciprocating, humoring him, or clearly disinterested. Then there’s Raven, who cannot understand his strange little language and is baffled by his gestures. Ash calls her Sugar and tries to sweet talk her into turning him loose in Trials. He also jokes to his fellow Survivors that older chicks dig him and he has experience with time travel romances. Ash cannot get a read on whether Raven is into this, confused by this, or killing him because of it. Lea, likewise, cannot get a read on anything Ash is doing, and yet admits he has some charm and that it might be working on her regardless of the language barrier.

Plague/Raven. She’s a tall, sexy, half-rotted adherent to an ancient religion who sees the Trials as part of her duties. Raven is a tall, classically beautiful, half-monstrous adherent to an ancient religion who is made to see the Trials as part of her duties. It’s like poetry. It flows. Lea probably does want Adiris to step on her in much the same way that she wants Anna to snap her in half. There’s something about women who could absolutely wreck Lea’s shit that she just finds innately sexy. That said, IDK how they’d work around that language barrier or if I can even see Adiris being willing to play ball, but I hold the mere concept close to my heart and think about it pretty often when the subject of shipping Raven comes up.