#so i guess this is the second in a series i'd like to call 'limited palette comics of quirrel being introspective while ghost is not'

[brushstrokes-art]

randomizers are pretty fun i think

[lovebugism]

oh my god,,,, gurl!!!! THE CUSTOMER'S ALWAYS RIGHT fic is sooo good 😫 my heart literally breaks every time I read this story. Thank you for blessing us with this masterpiece <3

THE CUSTOMER'S ALWAYS RIGHT | square one

summary: eddie makes a confession that's been weighing heavy on his heart. you realize that your future with him is haunted by ghosts from your past. pairing: virgin!eddie munson / f!reader word count: 16.3k warnings: hopper, steve, and robin being the reader defense squad, hints at reader's previously poor mental health, mentions of abusive and toxic relationships, a banshees of inisherin quote, b*lly h*rgrove because he needs a warning. (pretend any typos don't exist pls and thank u!) a/n: guess who's back, back again? ✨✨ i'd apologize for disappearing for a month, but then there'd be apologies in all my notes, so just know that i'm sorry every time i disappear unexpectedly, okay? 🥲 thanks for being so patient! please enjoy this long-awaited installment of tcar ily <3

( PREVIOUSLY ) | ( SERIES MASTERLIST ) | ( NEXT )

Eddie’s got a 1986 Van Halen tape in his boombox and a baby pink heart stitched into the fabric of his shirt. He’s the least metal he’s ever been, but he couldn’t be happier.

You keep your promise to him to patch up his torn Hellfire tee. If anything, you use the absentminded assurance as your excuse to see him again. The night you shared before, all but baring your scarred souls underneath glittering stars and streams of pale moonlight, hadn’t satiated your hunger for him. Eddie left you craving in a way you weren’t used to before — a yearning to be close to him that went beyond the boundaries of physical intimacy.

It was a simple sort of longing. It was a homesickness. A sense of nostalgia for a love you’d never felt before.

You wish you could wear Eddie’s adoration for you like a blanket, wrap yourself in the hand-stitched quilt of many colors and bundle it tighter around your shoulders when the cold comes. You want his softness to hold you in a way you’ve never been able to hold yourself.

You feel swaddled in it, succumbed and cloaked and at peace in all his tenderness. You’ve never been so at ease, so blissfully comforted by the presence of another human being. And Eddie feels all of that, every ounce of warmth you feel, because it pours out of you like rays of sunshine and bathes him in shades of gold.

He didn’t think you could get any softer than you had been that night at Skull Rock, until you were nestled in his unmade bed the next morning. You curled your legs underneath you as you weaved the needle and thread through the tear in his t-shirt, eyes squinted and tongue poking out the side of your mouth in an astute concentration. 

All of the sudden, you were marshmallow fluff and honey on toast — made of all things sickly sweet that made his stomach feel suddenly full. 

You finish mending the rip in record time and beam when he wears the heart-shaped stitching with pride. The rest of the day thereafter was spent in the tiny confines of his one hundred square-inch bedroom. From there, the both of you came to the silent understanding that you didn't want to spend another day apart.

The weekend had given you a limited sort of freedom, allowed you to pretend that you lived in a world with no responsibilities or anything other than Eddie Eddie Eddie, but adulthood made you no such promises. He had a side job to do to keep himself afloat, and you had a cat that thought it was the end of the world anytime you were gone for longer than a night. Both of those things together meant that the eve of parting was ultimately inevitable.

Every second you spent away from Eddie felt like you were grieving.

You mourned for him in the darkness of your apartment and tried to pretend you weren’t half a person in the cat food aisle at Melvald’s.

You tried to lessen the unbearable distance with phone calls, though it didn’t come nearly as close as feeling his fingers thrumming imaginary beats on your thigh or his heartbeat thudding against your ear. 

But his voice filled the emptiness of your one-bedroom apartment and the Eddie Munson shaped hole he’d left just behind your ribcage, and that was good enough for you.

When you weren’t with him, you were roaming around your apartment like some kind of ghost, with the phone tucked between your ear and shoulder and the rotary clutched in your free hand. 

You cook yourself dinner with him ranting about his day in your ear. You hold the receiver closer to Bowie and force him to hear her purr when she’s being exceptionally cute. He falls asleep some hours later to the sound of your soft snores, and you wake up the next morning to the sounds of his.

It was pathetic, truly.

You’d be gagging at how sweet it was if it wasn’t happening to you.

But it was.

Every ounce of this sticky sweet goodness was yours, and it tasted just like honey on your tongue. 

It was the honeymoon stage times a thousand, all rose-colored and reflecting light — your own personal utopia. It brought with it a heavenly sort of refuge, a bubble of peace you never wanted to pierce.

Eddie basks in the serenity of it all when he finally has you with him again. You’re in his lap, on his lips, and all over him, but it still isn’t quite close enough. He doesn’t think he’ll be satisfied until you’ve successfully melted with him and your limbs have entwined with his like tree roots, destined to remain that way for the next couple of centuries or so.

And it’s weird because he could hardly handle living in such a tiny trailer with Wayne, let alone stomach more than a couple hours with the guys from Hellfire all in one place. But you? You entered his life all at once and now he can’t remember what it was like without you.

He doesn’t particularly want to, if he’s being real honest.

It’s why he’s always less enthused about letting you leave when you’ve both got responsibilities dragging you apart. He begs you to stay with him a few hours more, pleads for you to stick around while he makes a quick deal or an emergency pick-up when Dustin Henderson calls and says he needs a ride. 

And you promise you’ll wait on him there, because he makes it virtually impossible to say no to his rosy pouted lips and chocolate syrup puppy dog eyes.

That’s when you run into Wayne for the first time, when Eddie’s out and you’re making breakfast for when he comes back.

French toast and scrambled eggs sizzle on the stove and warm the kitchen with all its cinnamon confections. It makes the man’s face screw up in confusion when he steps inside the trailer because he’s never known Eddie to cook a day in his life. And then his eyes find you — a young, pretty girl all alone in his kitchen with his nephew’s van gone from the drive.

“…Who the hell are you?” he wonders gruffly and pops a cigarette between his lips, totally unbothered.

He’s got no reason to be intimidated by the stranger in his trailer. He’s more confused than anything else, and he’s got this contorted look on his face like he’s blaming the exhaustion from the graveyard shift for his vision of you.

“Oh— my god,” you mumble through the mouthful of whipped cream you’d squeezed into your mouth moments prior. You fight to swallow it all down. “Uh. Hi. I’m, um… I’m Eddie’s... girlfriend?”

It sounds like you’re lying. 

In some ways, it feels like you are. 

You’ve been spending more time in his trailer than in your own home, but it’s not like either of you has motioned to make anything official just yet.

He eyes you with a tired and heavy gaze, eyes as dark and as infinite as Eddie’s. The man gives you a once-over and then chuckles lowly to himself as he tosses his corduroy jacket onto the back of the recliner and his tin lunchbox to the coffee table.

You shift awkwardly on the other side of the room. “…What is it?”

“When Eddie said he was talkin’ to a pretty girl on the phone every night, I thought he was lyin’,” he admits through hearty chuckles. 

It makes you laugh too. 

There’s little talking after the fact, besides you offering him some of the breakfast on the stove and him joking that you should come around more often.

You recount the story to Eddie when he returns, utterly mortified about the whole thing. You’re even more embarrassed when the boy finds amusement in your horror and starts to chuckle to himself — not exactly at you, but not with you either.

He laughs louder when you swat at him for it. You clamber on top of him, mattress squeaking mattress under your weight, as you demand him to stop through giggles of your own.

Somewhere down the line, both of you stop caring. 

Neither of you is quite sure where the conversation stopped and ended, only that when you started kissing, you couldn’t stop. 

They weren’t innocent little pecks, but they weren’t sloppy and full of tongue either. You press your lips together with the intent of being as close as you can to the other, like you haven’t spent every second you could together.

Neither of you will be satisfied until you’ve swallowed each other whole.

And you, you’ve got this ache for him. A swirling of want that’s constantly rippling in your belly for this boy. He’s just not usually under you when it’s happening — and now that he is, the crackling embers have burst into white and blue flames behind your sternum.

Your lips click each time you part, a lewd noise you never want to stop hearing. The sound of it gives you goosebumps, like a good song you’ve just heard on the radio. You wonder if Eddie can feel them as his hands start to creep up beneath your shirt and find purchase along your waist. 

You open his mouth with your own and sneak your tongue inside just as you roll your hips over his lap.

It’s the most forthcoming either of you had been in your three-day stint of nonstop talking. Even when you were over at the trailer, totally alone and pressed underneath him, it was otherwise completely innocent. You just make out like a couple of teenagers until one of you wants to make a food run or offers to roll a joint. 

And you like that. You like that he doesn’t expect anything from you, but it does get a little agonizing when you’ve tried every attempt to give yourself to him and he just won’t take it.

Like usual, Eddie tenses when he feels you grinding on top of him — partly because he feels a tingle at the base of his spine when he gets instantly half-hard, but mostly because he knows there’s nothing he can do about it.

He keeps preaching to himself it’s not the right time, it’s not the right time, it’s not the right time — but he’s got no idea when it’ll ever be the right time, if it’ll ever be the right time, or if he’ll know it when it comes.

Because he’s had you to himself for days now — no Wayne, no responsibilities, no pressure — with his tongue rutting against yours and your hands fidgeting with the metal buttons of his jeans, and it still doesn’t feel good enough. Eddie doesn’t feel good enough.

He’s not sure if he ever will.

And it’s not you. God, it’s the farthest thing from you. As far as Eddie’s concerned, he’s never had more fun with anyone else. He’s never laughed harder with anyone else. He’s never felt as comfortable with anyone as he’s starting to feel around you. So he’s not entirely sure why he finds the rest of it so hard. 

Eddie wants you so bad that the ache of all his yearning is palpable. It’s like the weight of it is what’s keeping him from you — unstoppable force, immovable object, blah, blah, blah. 

Either way, it leaves him entirely unable to take things further with you, however much he wants to. There’s something in his way and it’s him. 

Your heartache is his own when he has to pull away from you.

“You okay?” you ask him with wide eyes and swollen lips, always so concerned for him.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good,” he’s quick to assure you. He’s still breathless when he fidgets beneath you, trying to prop himself up on his headboard without rubbing his half-hard cock against your thigh.

When he succeeds, he musters a smile that shakes at the edges. “It’s just… you know, not everything… It doesn’t have to be about sex, you know?”

He makes himself as soft as possible for you when he says this. He gets rid of all the usual teasing lilts that tend to lurk on his tongue as the words spill from his mouth. The last thing he wants to do is hurt your feelings or, in some roundabout way, make you think you’re the problem. 

He just wants you to know that that isn’t why he’s been wanting to spend so much time with you. There was never an ulterior motive with him other than all the adoration he holds in his hands and his mouth for you.

The strike of hurt that flashes across your face is obvious to only Eddie, who’s spent enough time mapping out your features to know what twitches are ones of discontent. The slight frown that dips between your brows when they scrunch together for half a second comes like a stroke of lightning. It’s a brief flash of purple in the sky that leaves so quickly that it makes you wonder if it was ever there at all.

You fidget on his lap, not resting as comfortably upon him as you had been just moments before. “Oh…” you murmur through soft, jutted-out lips. “Sorry. I, I didn’t—”

“No, it’s not— that’s not what I—” he tries to assure over your insecure stammers, but succeeds only in tripping over himself in return. He cuts himself off with a breathy laugh, shaking his head while his fingers fidget on your hips. “That’s just not what this is about for me, you know? I just… I wanna spend time with you.”

It’s easily the softest thing he’s ever said to you — to anybody, for the matter — and the marshmallow sweetness of it all wraps around you like wisps of pink cotton candy.

Your apprehensiveness twists into something lighter, a pair of twinkling eyes and a bashful smile.

“Oh,” you hum again, obviously more pleased than before. “That’s nice…”

“No one’s ever said that to you before, have they?” Eddie asks you.

He tries to muster a crooked smirk as the words leave his mouth, but he’s got a feeling he already knows the answer. Hearing you affirm his suspicions will do nothing more than make him angry at all the assholes that had you before him, at everyone who taught you that you were good for sex and hardly a thing else. 

It makes him wish that he’d gotten to know you sooner. Maybe then you’d understand that he’d be happy just holding you like this and never doing anything more.

You don’t answer him verbally, just shake your head with your lips pursed softly to the side. You look more innocent than anything he’s ever seen before, even with your lipstick smeared on your chin. 

He’s still not quite sure how someone could be so reckless with such a fragile thing — to watch you break and not spend the rest of time grieving to know that you’ll never be quite the same again. 

There’s a primal instinct that swims in him then, an urge to keep you in his arms and locked in the confines of his trailer forever and ever. He wants to keep the wolves of Hawkins, Indiana from ever getting a whiff of you again. It’d be more than they deserved, anyway.

“God, you have got to get better boyfriends, sweetheart,” Eddie tells you with a playful lilt in his voice despite the anger simmering in his belly.

“Isn’t that what you are?” you giggle.

His world stops.

“Huh?”

You tense at his tenseness. Only when he’s gaping at you does the weight of your words dawn on you. “…Huh?”

The awkward moment goes as quickly as it arrives, chased out by the fit of laughter the two of you are quickly thrown into. Your entwining chuckles rise like smoke in his tiny bedroom and then settle back over you like a fuzzy blanket.

“Are you asking me to be your boyfriend, babe?” Eddie teases.

“Of course not,” you scoff. “Babe.”

“Oh, right, of course not. That would be way too crazy considering we’ve spent, like, every day together and have made each other come… what is it now? Twice?”

“Three times for me,” you correct with you a smile. “You need to catch up, Eddie Spaghetti.”

“Another time?” he offers with a scrunched nose.

“Whenever you want.”

Eddie is grateful for your lack of urgency, even more so for the kiss you press to the tip of his nose. 

You peck him on the lips after — once, twice, and then a thiiird, drawn out time — before moving on to his chin and jaw and neck. Whatever part of him you can reach (which is just about everywhere, considering the vantage point you’ve got sitting on his lap), you sprinkle a kiss to it.

It’s an innocent sort of affection, the kind that makes him wonder how it ever came to be in the first place. What evolutionary measures led to this, to you pressing your lips to his skin to show how much you care about him? Eddie doesn’t really want to know the answer, he’s just grateful that it happened in the first place.

You’re so good at it, loving on him. You’re always so kind and so gentle in your way and it makes him feel guilty. There’s a lingering feeling of undeservedness that settles something heavy at the base of his stomach. How could he ever expect you to be so open with him when he hasn’t done the same for you?

A heavy sigh rattles in his deflating chest. 

“I gotta tell you something, sweetheart,” he cautions when your lips smack against the thrumming pulse below the left side of his jaw. “Something you’re not gonna like…”

A billion things run through your head all at once. When you part from him, he can see the rollercoaster of emotions each one of them puts you through.

Your first instinct is that he’s got some kind of partner he’s kept hidden from you until now. It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve gone steady with a guy who’s then told you about some other girlfriend he had — or, god forbid, a wife. 

But then you realize that you surely would’ve had some sort of inkling if that were the case. There’s no way Eddie would’ve been able to spend every second of his day with you — and then another several hours on the phone when you had to leave — without someone else coming along to burst your bubble. 

And so far, there haven’t been any angry wives, just the occasionally confused Uncle Wayne.

Then you start thinking he’s about to tell you he wants an open relationship. The you’re great, but I’m just not ready to settle down yet spiel that you’ve heard a thousand times before. Usually when people say that, they mean that they just don’t want to settle down with you.

You’ll become some douchebag’s fuck toy for a month or more until the girl next door comes around. He gets her knocked up in record time, his family forces him to marry her, and they begin their cushy lives together in the center of some cul-de-sac — really settle down, as it were.

You’re not sure if you could take that from Eddie. You could grin and bear if it you had to, take whatever attention he’s willing to give you because who cares if he’s giving it to someone else on the side? You’re just not sure how long you’d last like that.

And then you start to worry that he’s just going to break up with you entirely — it’s not you, it’s blah, I’ll always care about blah, please don’t tell anyone about how we blah-ed. That whole talk. 

All the rest of your worries stop mattering so much because you’ve only just called him your boyfriend. And here he goes, about to end it all before it can really even start. That’d be just your luck, you figure.

“Did I do something wrong?” you caution after a few moments of heavy silence.

Eddie’s bleeding heart wrenches at your words, at how sad they sound spilling from your mouth, and how you immediately think that it’s got something to do with you. 

He shakes his head feverishly in response. “No. No, it’s not you. You’re… you’re perfect.”

“Okay…” you concede quietly, voice trembling with a lingering disbelief.

“I just… I haven’t been totally honest with you, you know?” the boy admits before his glimmering chocolate eyes fly open and he corrects himself quickly. “And I haven’t lied to you or anything. Not— Not exactly. I just… I wanna be honest with you… As your boyfriend and all.”

You can tell by the sudden weight in his voice that he’s serious. But the fine coat of glowing rose that splotches Eddie’s cheeks after calling himself your boyfriend for the first time makes you melt. 

You smile to yourself and start to trace the heart you’d stitched into his t-shirt with your finger.

“Yeah. I mean, we are about to spend our two minutes anniversary together and everything.”

“Exactly,” the boy huffs out a laugh. It lacks its usual jest, though, because of the ice-cold anxiety that drenches him from head to toe and makes his hands and feet go numb.

His fingers tremble where the rest on your waist, trying and failing to find a comfortable position there because, right about now, Eddie feels the most awkward he’s ever felt.

“I just want you to know that I… I’ve never done this before,” he confesses quietly and with his eyes squeezed shut. He prays that he doesn’t have to be any less vague than that.

Your face twists in confusion — your brows furrow and your nose twitches and your head tilts to the side like a puppy. And then you’re laughing, a soft little thing of a giggle that normally makes his heart sing, though now he can only feel it breaking.

“What…?” he tries to scoff out his own chuckle. “Why are you laughing?”

“Because you’ve already told me that, dummy. That you’ve never felt this way before…” you answer, reciting his own words back to him. You haven’t yet forgotten how he’d looked at you as you said them, pale skin made silk under the moonlight while he sparkled beneath the beams of it and his love for you. 

“No, it’s… it’s more than that,” he corrects. “I’ve never even had a girlfriend before you. Or anything really.”

You still don’t seem to understand. You just look on at him with uncertainty. 

A quiet “okay?” tumbles from your mouth entwined with a nervous giggle, because you don’t understand what’s got him so somber. He’s never dated anyone, you’ve fucked half of Hawkins — these are just facts that went unsaid before now. 

And maybe it’s because you’ve never been with a virgin before, but the thought that Eddie might be one hasn’t seemed to cross your mind at all. 

It’s that exact thought that scares him. 

Because if it hasn’t already, maybe it’s because you’re avoiding it altogether. And why would he ever be the exception?

He opts to bite the bullet and hopes that his heart doesn’t get broken after.

“I’m a virgin. Okay? I’m a complete, total, proper adult virgin,” he blurts with a brazenness he’d previously lacked when it came to all this. “And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before now, but I didn’t, because I liked you and I was scared. So if you wanna yell at me or if you wanna break up with me before our five-minute anniversary, I totally get it, but I should probably let you know that it’ll rip my little virgin heart to shreds, so…”

Eddie ends his nervous ramble with a trembling, lopsided smile that does little to ease the leaden tension he’s just manufactured in the four walls of his bedroom.

He can’t seem to gauge your reaction after the fact, which is strange because he always knows what you’re thinking. 

He knows when you’re laughing with him and not at him. You scrunch your nose and giggle when he tells you a funny joke, then tilt your head back and cackle when he trips over the punchline. 

He knows the exact moment when something’s started to bother you — when you get real quiet in your bubble of reserved stillness and your eyes start to glaze over. To anyone else, it might just look like a person who’s keeping to themselves. Eddie’s starting to learn that usually means trouble when it comes to you.

He knows the difference between your gentle sort of sadness and when you’re damn near inconsolable. When you cried at the end of Stand By Me, you smiled at him with a glassy tear-filled gaze, then rolled your eyes when he tried to comfort you. The tears only spilled over when you laughed because Eddie pretended you’d hurt him when you’d shoved him away. 

But when you’re really upset about something, you don’t show him at all — you fight to keep it all to yourself until you’ve squished the problem into a tiny enough ball that you can forget about all of it.

This is something different.

There’s too much crossing your mind all at once for him to get a good read of you.

You just gape at him, like you’re trying to figure out if he’s joking or not, and then fighting to understand what it means when you realize he’s being serious. 

And just when you’ve started to wrap your head around it all, when your brain remembers how to make words again and you realize you haven’t said anything in several agonizing seconds, a foreign voice sounds from down the hallway.

Not foreign in that it was unfamiliar exactly, just foreign in that you and Eddie had spent so much time alone that you were starting to forget that there was an entire world outside of yourselves. A great big world, filled with a great many people, some of whom were your friends who tended to get pretty worried about you.

“Edward Wayne— why the hell is the Chief in my driveway?” his uncle curses from the living room, sounding like he’s speaking through a cigarette in his mouth.

Eddie himself is immediately freaking the fuck out because he figures he must’ve gotten tipped off again. He tries to calculate the quickest way to get you off of him and to all of his cubby holes full of miscellaneous drugs so he can flush them down the toilet before Jim Hopper busts the door down.

And even though you’re not the drug dealer who’s had cops on their ass since they were fifteen in this equation, you look a whole lot more terrified than Eddie does.

Your eyes go wide and the whites of them swim with terror as you launch yourself off of his lap. You don’t spare another glance back at him, not even when you nearly trip over yourself when you shove your sneakers on your feet and shuffle out of the room. He’s forced to follow behind you like a confused puppy as you bound through the trailer at lightning speed. 

The haste of your movements startles even Wayne, who halts mid-puff of his cig when you’re in and out of the living room before he can blink. The opening squeak of the screen door and metal slamming against metal is the only thing that punctuates your exit.

“Would it kill you to answer your damn phone every once in a while?” the powerful timbre of Jim Hopper’s angry voice, of which only the man himself could pull off, is muffled until Eddie cautiously slinks onto the porch behind you. 

He finds the chief standing beside the Cruiser he’s parked sideways. The door of it is still flung open. A distant beeping sounds from the ignition. 

He’s still got on the pressed khakis of his uniform — complete with the golden badge pinned to his chest, darkened sunglasses on the bridge of his nose, and flat-brimmed hat on his head. Even with the majority of his face covered, it does little to hide the anger that radiates off of him like a hot stove eye.

You remain on the porch, shifting your weight on your feet at the top of the steps. “Okay, Hopper, just listen to me for a second—”

“Three days!” he shouts over you, not deterred by your composed nature. “I have been calling you… for three days! Seventy-two hours. No answer!”

Eddie decides to speak up from behind you despite his better judgment. “Yeah, uh, that was kinda my fault,” he confesses with an awkward laugh. “Wouldn’t let her hang up the phone—”

“I’ll deal with you in a second,” Jim interjects firmly and without thinking. He goes back to berating you with an admirable finesse. “Buckley wanted my head on a pike when I wouldn’t file a missing person’s report in the first twenty-four hours, but seventy-two? She was gonna kill me!”

Rather than argue with him, like every fiber of your being so desperately wants to, you make the difficult choice to concede with a heavy sigh. Because you don’t doubt that Robin was on his ass the second she realized you weren’t answering your phone or at your apartment when she and Steve dropped by.

She did tend to be on the overprotective side, after all, which obviously paired well with her melodramatic disposition.

“I’m sorry, okay? I’ve just been… busy.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard the one before,” the man answers bitterly.

“It’s different, Hopper!”

“I’ve heard the one before, too!”

Eddie can only assume that the both of you are communicating telepathically, what with the way your synchronized glares seem to say a thousand words (probably every curse imaginable, if he had to guess) without your mouths ever moving once. 

He stands on the outskirts of it all, feeling a bit stuck in the thorniness of such a tense silence, like any slight movement might cut him.

Jim moves slowly, akin to a creeping snake, as his hands raise to remove the glasses from his face. Their lack reveals the ice-cold glare that was previously hiding beneath them.

“Get in the car—” 

“—No,” you reject just as the direction leaves his mouth because you knew it was coming.

Jim inhales sharply and smacks his lips against his teeth, like a father whose child is most ardently testing his patience. He plants his work boot in the gravel and his hand on his hips. His steel gaze goes far off for a moment before flitting back to you again.

“…Get in the car or I put you in handcuffs.”

Your breath hitches at the threat. You squint over at him. “You wouldn’t.”

Jim smiles at you, but it’s more threatening than anything else. “We both know that I would.”

Eddie’s eyes flit between the both of you. He can tell that Hopper’s serious and that you’re trying to decide whether or not to call his bluff, with your arms crossed defensively over your chest and lips pursed in a tight line.

You ultimately decide not to. Because Hopper has, in fact, done that before. And even though the circumstances are very, very different, you wouldn’t put it past him to do it again. So you all but stomp your foot like a protesting child and spin on your heel to storm back inside the trailer.

Eddie’s nervous gaze flits between your disappearing form and the storm cloud of a police chief standing in his driveway. When their eyes lock, he realizes he should probably say something. He cocks his thumb over his shoulder and stammers, “I should— I should probably…”

He doesn’t finish his sentence. He catches the front door before it shuts and slithers through the crack of it to follow in behind you.

“Wait, was he— was he being serious about that?” Eddie wonders once you’re back in his bedroom.

It feels a lot less cozy than it did minutes before, less like the bubble of refuge that you thought nobody could pierce and more like a lonely space that feels entirely too empty. You pluck your things scattered around his room, and it starts to feel less and less like home with parts of you gone from it.

“I don’t know,” you answer within a sigh as you collect your cardigan from the back of his desk chair and shrug the thing back over your shoulders again.

“But it’s happened before?”

“Yeah. Once. When I was…” you confess quietly, then trail off. You get your bag from his nightstand and haphazardly shove your scrunchie, sunglasses, and chapstick into the bottom of it. “…When I was in a bad way— it doesn’t matter now.”

Eddie so desperately wants to pry.

He’d wanted to make a joke before, about the handcuffs — something less than tasteful about them and you and Hopper and some good ol’ freaky deaky that you'd scold him for after. But he decides not to now because you sound so strangely solemn about the whole thing, as though it was a story you buried deep with the intent of never bringing it up again.

“You don’t have to go with him if you don’t want to, you know that, right?”

“Of course, I do,” you scoff at his worries, not nearly as threatened by Jim as the rest of Hawkins. You move to stand in front of him in the center of his room and meet his furrowed brows with a soft grin. “He’s not gonna do anything, he’s just pissed. He’ll berate me on the drive back to my apartment and then it’ll be like nothing ever happened.”

That seems to please Eddie well enough, though he’s still a bit disheartened at your leaving.

“I guess we couldn’t keep spending time together like this, huh?” he teases lightly, like the realization of it doesn’t make his chest ache. “Sorta forgot about the rest of the world… whatever that is.”

“It was fun while it lasted,” you tell him with a shrug and a whimsical sigh.

“Wait for me, will ya?” he jokes, if only to make you laugh and to feel like he’s stuck in some sickly sweet ending of a romcom for a couple moments more. 

You roll your eyes at his dramatics but let him wrap you in his arms anyway. His hands find purchase on your elbows, thumbs rubbing soothingly along the outsides of them. “How about a kiss, then?” he offers when the urge to feel you because too great to bear. “For our ten-minute anniversary and all?”

“You never have to ask me, Eds,” you assure with a laugh. You rise to the tips of your toes and he meets you halfway. 

Home is in your mouth. It’s warm and cozy and safe there. It’s easily the most familiar place he’s ever known, with your bottom lip nestled between his own. He feels homesick when you part from him. 

“You’re not mad at me?” he wonders quietly, feeling a bit like a cowering child from where he stands in front ahead of you — eased only when you shake your head almost immediately in response.

“No. I couldn’t be even if I wanted to, I think.”

“Okay. That’s… That’s good.”

“We can talk about it later, if you want. After I get lurch off my ass.”

He tries not to smile too wide, but it’s hard not to beam every time he looks at you. “Yeah. Sure. I’ll… I’ll see you around, I guess?” he stumbles over himself, having forgotten how to say goodbye to you. 

It’s equally as hard for you too, it seems, because you nod at him and turn to leave and then realize once you’re halfway down the hallway that you might not survive if you don’t kiss him again. 

So you turn and rush back, catching Eddie with his back turned and spinning him around so you can peck him again. You feel his cheeks heat beneath your palm and his sigh against your cupid’s bow and his lips melt against your own.

You etch each tingling sensation into the edges of your mind in the hope that you won’t drive yourself completely insane when you inevitably start to miss him like crazy. 

You focus on that and on him when you find Hopper and his stupid proud dad smirk. It’s the only reason you don’t punch him in the jaw and tuck and roll out of the Cruiser when the silence becomes so slowly insufferable.

You’re starting to think Jim left the radio off on purpose. You’ve never known the guy not to drive around without the strumming of an old-school folk song to accompany him. You figure it must be some sort of intimidation tactic, to make you so uncomfortable that you break. You’re a lot closer to that than either of you realize.

You spare a glance over at the man next to you. He hasn’t looked at you once since you get in the car. He’s got one hand at three o’clock on the steering wheel and the other with its elbow propped up on the door as he scratches at the stubble on his jaw. 

He’s too at ease not to be bothered. This is obviously some kind of front he’s putting on to conceal his inner irritation.

You give on the lecture you’d been trying to prepare yourself for and exhale sharply through your nose. Your fingers fidget on your thighs as you kick your restless feet up on the console. 

“Get your feet off the dash,” Jim scolds without missing a beat. 

You huff and obey. “Okay, this is crazy— can’t you just yell at me already?”

He barely wastes a second.

“I cannot believe you right now!” he seethes through gritted teeth, stewing in a dad-like sort of anger.

“It was three days, Hopper!”

“You know what happened the last time no one heard from you for three days?” he shouts back. 

You tip your head back against the seat and groan. You should’ve known he was going to play that card. 

He waves an accusatory finger between the both of you. “You and me— we had a deal, remember? You let me check in on you. You agreed to that. You visit your little high school friends, and I see you at work, so I can make sure you’re not off somewhere killing yourself.”

Hopper becomes a casualty to the tense silence he created then, when you don’t retort with some comeback of your own and force him to feel every ounce of pressure from the leaden quiet. 

He sighs a great big, too loud sigh and shifts in his seat. His softening gaze flits between you and the road. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean it like that, okay? I just meant it, you know, figuratively. I wasn’t… trying to be mean.”

“When have you ever cared about being mean?” you monotone.

“I don’t,” he assures. “I’m just not trying to hurt your feelings, alright? Jeez…”

You try not to take too much pride in the man’s half-apology, though you’d be lying if you said it wasn’t a little bit rewarding.

Jim Hopper’s practically an iceberg. He only melts for his kid, Joyce Boyers, and you, apparently. 

It’s why he’s always so damn protective over you. He’s developed this sort of deep-rooted urge to keep you safe after watching you make every wrong decision a human being could possibly make. And when you mess up, because you do mess up, he feels like it’s partially his fault — that, if he’d done more, he could’ve kept you safer. 

It makes you feel like a burden most of the time, but you know it’s above yourself and mostly out of your control.

You’d known of each other for a while before you really met, because a troublemaker and police chief in such a small town are bound to. But somewhere down the line, he found you in a valley of mourning for someone that was still alive and you found him in a black hole of grief for someone who wasn’t. The empty and infinite voids within you both were stitched slowly together all over again. 

Jim Hopper was the dad you never had. You were the daughter he couldn’t.

And you thought something might change after he adopted El. You figured he might forget about you because it wasn’t like it was his job to watch after you or anything. Playing pretend always felt nice, but you knew it wasn’t real. 

It was to Jim, though, who’d developed a similar adoration for you as the one he had for Sara. He hasn’t been able to forget about you in the same way he hasn’t been able to forget about her. 

Every night, after he’s scrubbed the day off his body and washed it all down with a lukewarm beer, he lays on his pull-out bed in the small living room of his cabin and goes through a checklist in his head. 

He makes sure that he’s checked on El and reminds himself to wake up early to make her breakfast the next morning before he brings Joyce coffee at Melvald’s — Joyce. She always comes next on his list, always right after El, and then you. 

He forces himself to calm down when his blood pressure inevitably spikes at the thought of not having heard from you all day. He reminds himself that he saw you at work on his lunch break and that he’ll see you again tomorrow.

Jim hums to himself as he settles more comfortably into his springy cot, deciding that he’ll try a new wine he can’t pronounce when he sees you at Enzo’s the next day and that he’ll drink it while he rambles about Joyce or El’s new boyfriend.

He drifts to sleep with thoughts of Sara.

You’re as ingrained into his mind as every other person he’s grown to love.

He stopped worrying about never getting you out a long time ago. Like a tomato sauce stain on a dress shirt, he knows he’ll never get you out of his head. He knows even more so that he doesn’t want to — no matter how much you annoy him or how angry you make him when you don’t answer his calls.

“Sorry…” you murmur and swallow down whatever mundane argument you could’ve spewed then, at the result of his sudden warmth. You turn to gaze out the window and trace the edges of the puffy white clouds with your eyes. “I wasn’t thinking about that — the… deal, or whatever… Honestly, I was a little too busy being happier than I think I’ve ever been in my life, so…”

You don’t see the dramatic eye roll he gives you in response, but you can’t miss the hearty groan that spills from his mouth. 

“What?” you laugh in response. “Have you never been a kid in love before?”

It’s almost jarring how he goes from huffy to concerned in a fraction of a second. His head snaps over to you, jaw clenched and eyes suddenly stern and swimming with a lingering fear. 

“Love?” he repeats like he must’ve heard you wrong. “Love— That’s— That’s what this is?”

You shrug. “I don’t know… Maybe…”

His eyes flutter shut for a moment. “Please don’t tell me you’ve said that to each other yet. This guy was just a crush four days ago.”

“No, Hopper. We haven’t. I mean, he literally just told me he was a virgin, so I don’t think we’re even close to—”

“A virgin?” Jim echoes, voice high-pitched and giddy. He beams at you from beneath his bushy mustache and slaps you a little too hard on your arm when he laughs. “Shit, teacup. Are you runnin’ out of options over there or somethin’?”

You twist your body to hit him back harder with your right hand. “It’s not funny, Hopper,” you scold. “He’s nice.”

“You said that about Hargrove once—”

“This is different,” you monotone before the words have the chance to leave his mouth.

“Yeah? How do you know?”

The question stumps you for a moment because you don’t know — you can’t.

You’d never admit it out loud, but Hopper was right; you’re still not quite sure how you ever could’ve thought that Billy Hargrove was a good guy, but you did. You felt a similar feeling of elation with him as you do now with Eddie, an otherworldly sort of happiness that makes you feel like you’re the only person it’s ever happened to.

And here you are now, sometime later and reveling in the aftermath, still gluing pieces of your shattered heart together.

You treat love like a drug. You use and use and use until it stops being a fun thing and becomes a crutch you can’t live without. That’s always when it starts to hurt you, but you’re in too deep to stop craving it.

And you know it’s bound to happen all over again, but you have to believe Eddie’s different or else you might as well fall into the deep pit of despair you’ve been trying this whole time to crawl out of. 

He makes you happy, really really happy, and you’d rather gamble that he hurts you than give it all without even trying.

“I… don’t,” you conclude after a few moments.

Jim seems surprised by your admission, shooting you an incredulous look with his untamed brows raised to his hairline.

You meet his look with a wavering grin. “But he makes me really happy, Hop. Like… It feels like it should be illegal or something. He makes me feel so good my heart hurts. There’s like this—”

“Ugh,” the man grumbles in disgust, sullen all over again.

“I didn’t mean it like that, you weirdo,” you chide.

A grin twitches beneath his mustache in response. “I know you didn’t… ‘Cause Munson’s a virgin.”

“Oh my god!” you groan. “I didn’t even mean to tell you that, okay? Leave him alone— and a swear to god, Hopper, if you make fun of him—”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with it, alright? I mean, he’s got the expert around to show him the ropes— ow!” You cut off his stupid joke and accompanying sardonic grin with a fist to his shoulder.

Steve and Robin tend to be quite the formidable duo.

They’ve barely got a brain cell to rub together between them, but there’s still something strangely intimidating about them when they’re both angry. It feels a bit like they’re your I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed parents, and you’re the scolded child taking your lashings in the form of a lecture.

It’s what you feel like now, sitting across from them in your designated booth at Benny’s Burgers — the one by the window in the corner. It’s far enough away from the bustle of the entrance but close enough still to gossip about the assholes you used to know from high school when they walk through the door. 

“You scare the shit out of us when you go AWOL like that, you know?” Steve confesses, still soft even though you know there’s a more upset part of himself he keeps hidden for now.

His chocolate gaze flits between you and the pile of fries in the middle of the table that the three of you share. He finds the one covered in the most salt and pops it into his mouth.

“AWOL?” you echo with a distant laugh when you realize how much he sounds like Hopper. “It was three days.”

“Yeah, and you fell off the face of the earth,” Robin retorts, half-muffled through the hearty gulp of strawberry milkshake starting to melt in her mouth.

“You guys are acting like I went halfway across the country,” you scoff. “I was with Eddie. At his trailer.”

“Exactly!”

Steve’s face contorts mid-bite. “Wait, you were with him? The freak?”

It makes you roll your eyes. He’d been too busy hopelessly flirting with the waitress at the counter to hear the entire recounting of your absence to Robin, though it was more of you gushing about it than anything else.

“Yep,” you answer.

“You skipped out on movie night to be with… Eddie Munson?” he reiterates for himself, as though there was any correlation between watching the same three movies while gorging on greasy junk food with your best friends and falling more in love with a guy you were already head over heels for as he tried to explain away the unopened box of condoms collecting dust underneath his bed.

Both are equally fun in their own ways, but totally totally different.

“How did you survive without me, Steven?” you joke back in response.

“He didn’t,” Robin quips.

“So… what? You guys just went on some kinda bender? I don’t get it. Did you just fuck the entire time or something?”

“Well, contrary to popular belief, I can actually spend time with someone and not fuck them—”

“Okay, that’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“And to answer your question — no, we didn’t fuck,” you confess, then elaborate more slowly, a tad bit awkwardly. “Because he told me today that… he is a… virgin.”

Your words seem to settle over each of them differently. Robin stills with her lips wrapped around the candy-cane striped straw then furrows her brows, as though their meaning hits her a few seconds after the fact.

Steve, meanwhile, goes entirely agape in an amazed sort of shock. His eyes go wide, his brows fly up and hide beneath the bangs that hang down over his forehead, and his jaw falls open. And then he starts to smile, a subtle hint of a grin on the corners of his pink lips, like he finds it funny.

“I knew it,” he murmurs to himself.

“…Why are you smiling like that?”

His smirk widens. “That freak said he screwed Vicki Carmichael senior year. I knew he was lying.”

“And why do you look so proud of yourself, exactly?” Robin asks him.

“Because now I feel less bad about never fucking her,” the boy explains like it’s obvious. He set his elbows on the table and gestures wildly with his hands. “I always thought the freak one-upped me because she, like, never gave me the time of day after Hargrove came along, you know? But… It’s good to know that I’m still king.”

His delighted grin is met with confused looks from both you and Robin, who look upon him with twisted eyebrows and squinted eyes. 

“Are you not aware of how strange everything that comes out of your mouth is?” you ask him, only partly joking.

“At least that settles why he wouldn’t let you give him a blow job,” the brunette girl concludes with a shrug as she slouches against the booth. “Poor guy was probably shitting bricks about it.”

You realize then that it does make sense, why he’d always been so adamant about your pleasure and never his own. Why he always touched you like you were some fragile thing he might break, and like everything was new to him. Because it was new to him. All of it.

And even though it baffles you to no end how he went his entire life without someone wanting to jump his bones (because truth be told, you’re doing a terrible job at hiding your want to do just that), the fact still remains — Eddie Munson is a virgin. 

He’s a virgin with an acute infatuation for the local slut, both of you freaks in your own right. 

It just adds more intricacy to a puzzle that already feels so complicated.

“I’ve never been with a virgin before,” you admit quietly, mostly to yourself, as you train your gaze on the straw wrapper you curl around your finger. “It’s different… Scary.”

“Why?” Robin wonders aloud.

“I don’t know. I just— I don’t know what to do now.”

“Just do what you always do,” Steve tells you like it’s that simple. He folds his arms on the table and leans in closer to you. “Experience is good. Okay? Experience is key.”

“No, it’s not that. I think I’m just… I’m scared I’m gonna treat him the way, you know, that I was treated. And I don’t wanna… I don’t wanna do that to him.”

You’re not sure when the shift started, when you stopped being a person to people. You only know that you were something less than that. Somewhere between junior and senior year, you become a plaything that anyone could do anything they wanted to with, and you were too starved for physical affection to tell them otherwise. 

You liked the attention. You liked feeling loved, even if it was only for a minute and a half, and all you had to show for it was a pool of cooling come on your belly.

Eddie’s the fragile thing now that you were then. 

He was a delicate little thing that can break so easily, something you could split in half if you wanted to. 

You don’t. 

You want so desperately to be kind, but you’re scared you won’t know how to, because no one’s ever been kind to you.

Steve reaches across the table for you, taking a wild stab at an attempt for affection after several months of being scared to touch you — he did enough of that, he thought, and he’d hurt you. But he can see the lingering ache hiding in your glazed-over eyes and feels an overwhelming urge to quell your worry. 

Five warm fingers wrap around your wrist, not too tight or too strong, just enough to stop you from cutting circulation off to the tip of your pointer finger and to remind you that he’s still there.

“Trust me,” he tells you with a sudden soft swimming in his caramel-colored eyes and a smile playing on his lips. “You couldn’t do that to anybody. Not even if you wanted to.”  

Your heart nearly stops at his words, at the sheer kindness of them, and at the way he holds you in the soft way you’re used to only Eddie holding you. Your eyes go wide when they flit up to him and then start to sting with the weight of unshed tears. 

You’re quick to blink them away though, while you playfully shrug him off and joke — “stop being so nice before I get the wrong idea, Harrington” — because it’s easier than accepting his tenderness.

Robin takes one look at his fond gaze, all gooey and dripping with honey, and then at your rolling eyes and accompanying shy grin, and groans at the softness of it all. She slides out from the confines of the booth and grumbles something about getting a refill on her milkshake.

“Some fries too, while you’re up?” Steve offers with a hopeful grin.

He’s met with the girl’s signature scowl.

“Please,” you finish for him.

Robin grins. “Anything for you,” she croons, if only to make the boy pout, before skipping off to the counter.

She leans her elbows upon the red wooden laminate top and smiles that same sickly sweet smile for Benny by the grill — no doubt trying to get her refills for free. 

Even though the bearded man seems unimpressed with her presence, you know that he’ll give them to her free of charge. He’s always had a soft spot for her, one of the only people in town who could rival his wit.

The door dings open, a familiar and high-pitched chime that often becomes more frequent as the evening progresses. This time it lets in a foreign, bitter breeze when the door swings open and closed again.

You can feel the chill from a distance — it resembles the crispness of autumn despite being comfortably settled in the middle of March. It nearly takes your breath away, prickles your skin and makes you grimace back a shiver. 

When your eyes leave Steve, a difficult feat considering he’s doing an alarmingly good impression of a walrus by sticking fries in his upper lip, you find that it wasn’t abnormally cold air at all. It was a Peter Parker spider sense form of anxiety that had felt like a bucket of ice water had been poured over you.

Billy Hargrove used to turn heads when he walked into a room. 

Now he just sucks all the air out of it.

And it’s not like you haven’t seen him since the break up; for a while, the asshole was painted on the backs of your eyelids — he all but haunted your consciousness. You’ll see him around town on occasion, in his sunglasses and jean jacket and too-tight denim pants, while he struts around Main Street with his new girlfriend (otherwise known as, his flavors of the month).

You think this is the first time you’ve been in the same room as him since your split, though. It feels like it must be with the way your throat starts to tighten and you forget how to breathe. 

All at once, you’re scrambling for an exit. It’s like Billy’s a fire and his smoke is rapidly filling your lungs. Your legs start to tremble when your adrenaline spike. Your brain tells you to get out as quickly as you can before he burns you.

Steve notices the look of fear flood your features like a dark storm cloud. You were laughing just seconds before the door opened, equal parts with him and at him, but now you just looked terrified — like a child who’s just spotted a boogeyman in her closet.

He turns in the booth to find what haunted thing has just caught your eye and finds that it’s worse than any monster you could conjure up. It’s Billy fucking Hargrove, with his pretty hair and his pretty smile and his pretty girl under his arm.

His presence filled targeted, almost. Like he chose to come to this diner, on this day and at this time just to fuck with the group of you.

“Don’t even look at him,” Steve advises when he turns back to you. “Look at me, okay? He’s not even worth it. That asshole doesn’t deserve to ruin our day.”

And you try to listen to him. You try really, really hard to let him change that subject to the cold fries or Robin taking too long or a combination of the two, but you can’t focus on him. You’re already so overwhelmed at the sight of Billy that you can’t focus on anything else but him. 

You settle on the fact that you might just have to drag Steve and Robin out by their wrists because you can’t sit in this booth any longer, and you definitely aren’t hungry anymore.

And that’s when he spots you.

Your eyes lock and you freeze, immediately averting your gaze but catching the sudden sparkle in his own as he grins a sly, sadistic grin.

“No way,” you hear him say with a laugh under his breath. The sound of his voice makes you tense. You hadn’t realized how at peace you’d been all this time without having to hear it. Now it feels like so many little needles piercing your skin.

“Fancy seeing you guys here,” he greets after he’s made a b-line for your booth and dragged Vicki Carmichael along with him. He smiles with all of his pearly whites while he smacks pungent wintergreen gum between them. 

When he slides into the booth beside you, he does so without invitation, and forces Vicki to slink in next to Steve.

And like it wasn’t already awkward enough, you know Vicki — like, know her, know her. There was a drunken makeout at a Halloween party in ’82. Then a one night stand with her brother before he left for college in ’83. And then her Tom Selleck clone of a father at a sleepover for her eighteenth birthday in ’85. 

You’re not exactly proud of it, but you’ve gotten a rather hefty taste of her family tree, and the fact that both of you know it makes it that much more uncomfortable.

“We’re kinda busy here, Hargrove,” Steve tells him when he notices how comfortable he’s making himself in your booth.

“Ooh… Is this a little date?” Billy teases with a grin.

Steve’s face falls. “…No.”

“Oh, right,” he nods, though the sardonic lilt in his voice tells you that he already knew the answer. He crosses his arms on the tabletop and turns to look at you with eyes bluer than any ocean. They flicker up and down your form. Suddenly, you feel self-conscious in your baggy jean and tank top duo.

“You’ve been seeing that guy, haven’t you? What’s his name again? The, uh— the freak?”

“His name is Eddie,” Steve answers for you, defending him because you can’t find the words to.

“That’s it,” Billy snaps his fingers, then points. He nudges you with his shoulder. The familiar feel of his jean jacket against your skin makes you wince. “God, you must be runnin’ out of steam over there, huh? I mean… the freak? Seriously? You couldn’t do any better than that?”

The jokes were tolerable coming from Jim and Steve and Robin — they weren’t funny by any means, but you could stomach them because you knew they were jokes. But this? This was just to hurt you. And it works too easily because Billy knows exactly how to break you. He knows all the wires to cut and buttons to push because the puzzle of shattering your psyche is one he memorized long ago.

“He’s actually a really nice guy,” you manage through a tight throat, still staring at your fidgeting hands.

“Well, that’s good,” he hums like you need his approval. “It’s about time, right?”

You huff and choose to entertain him despite your better judgment. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He only shrugs. “I don’t know... Just, you know, that found a guy willing to settle for you. That’s all.”

“Settle?” you repeat, trying to laugh despite how tiny your voice sounds.

“You know what I mean, c’mon,” the blonde boy chuckles. “Sluts are fun and all, but they’re not the kinda girls you wanna settle down with. Steve knows what I mean.”

“No, I don’t,” Steve monotones quickly and without thinking, gaze hardened and jaw clenched. “And you need to leave.”

“I”m hungry, Billy,” Vicki whines, feeling every ounce of the tension surrounding her — like syrup or quicksand. She slides her permed bangs from her eyes and tucks a rogue strawberry strand behind her ear in a nervous tick. “Can’t we just get something to eat?”

“Alright, alright. I know when I’m not wanted,” Billy chuckles.

You grumble bitterly under your breath. “Apparently not…”

“I’ll see you around, Harrington,” Billy singsongs with a grin that wreaks of insincerity while his girlfriend slides out from the booth. He turns to look at you and squints. “Don’t be a stranger, alright? Matter of fact, point Munson my way, and I’ll give him a few pointers.”

You’re uncowed by his offer and angered by his mention of Eddie. Your eyes are stern and unwavering as you meet his gaze for the first time since he sat down beside you. 

“I think you could learn a thing or two from him, actually,” you retort, words sounding sweeter than the venom lingering behind them.

Billy’s grin only widens, impressed by your arguing. “Ooh… I forgot about the mouth you had on you, sweetheart.”

The use of the nickname makes you cringe. It doesn’t sound nearly as fulfilling as it does when it comes from Eddie. Now, it just sounds artificial — degrading.

He leans in close to you like he’s about to tell you a secret and splays his arm along the back of the booth behind you. The nicotine on his breath makes you grimace; it’s intoxicating when it comes from Eddie, disgusting from the boy sitting next to you. 

His eyes are bluer so up close, darker than you remember them being, and you notice he’s trimmed his usual stubble to a patchy mustache. He looks like the grown-up version of the boy you used to know, visually more mature but still the same in his way.

“When he gets bored of you — because, let’s be serious, he will get bored of you — you know where to find me,” Billy murmurs to you, a cynical smirk on the edges of his lips. “I’ll make sure you stay nice and broken in for the next dozen guys that want a taste—”

Steve can’t hear a word from where he sits across the booth, but he’s fuming with fists clenched under the table anyway. He hates how close Billy is to you, more so how uncomfortable you look with the proximity and how his words make you flinch. 

“Alright, you need to leave,” he blurts. “Now.”

Before the blonde could respond with a quip of his own, Robin all but teleports to the head of the table. She’s standing in front of the four of you suddenly, carrying a basket of fries and a strawberry milkshake and wearing a frown on her face.

“You’re in my seat, dickwad,” she monotones, even though she hadn’t been sitting next to you before. She’s not the least bit threatened by the Californian douchebag.

Billy smiles up at her anyway. “I was wondering where the third musketeer was! Still a carpet muncher, Buckley?”

“Happily.”

“What do ya say me and you head up to Lover’s Lake later?” the boy offers despite his date shifting awkwardly a few feet away. It’s a joke, for reasons that are more than obvious, and that’s what makes it so unbearably unfunny. 

He slinks out from the booth. The lack of his warmth is strangely comforting and you’re able to breathe for the first time in five minutes. He stretches his back out when he stands to his full height in front of Robin, then shrugs with his hands splayed on his hips.

“Maybe you just need some good dick. I mean… we’re gonna die anyway, right?”

“I’d rather,” she quips with a rouge-tinted smile.

The way it makes him laugh is startling. He finds a strange humor in being rejected — in most things, really. You still haven’t forgotten the cackles that left his bloodied mouth when Steve delivered blow after blow to the boy’s face in the middle of his living room, like it was all a fun game to him.

That was, of course, before Billy got the upper hand and nearly killed Steve that night. He laughed about it that too, until Max knocked him out with a baseball bat.

He’s got the same grin on his face now as he did then when he turns to look at you. A pink and pretty smirk, just wide enough to reveal the dimple in his left cheek. It’s nothing short of taunting, like he’s mocking you without having to say anything at all.

“Don’t be a stranger, alright?” Billy repeats. He keeps smacking his gum between his teeth and winks at you before spinning on the heel of his boot. He guides Vicki with him to the counter with a hand on the back pocket of her jeans.

Even when Robin slides in next to you and effectively pierces the bubble of tension that had already started to shrink with Billy’s leaving, you still find it hard to breathe. You have to keep reminding yourself, forcing oxygen in and out with wobbling breaths through your nose, or else you just stop altogether.

The other two move on rather quickly, having no trouble finding their voices again after he’s gone. Their words are muffled, though, like they’re underwater.

“I forgot what an asshole he was,” Robin grumbles.

“Well, I didn’t,” Steve retorts, eyes scanning the basket of fries for the most strategic pick of the bunch. “I can still barely breathe through my nose.”

“That’s because you didn’t go to a doctor, dingus.”

“Because I didn’t need a doctor, Robin.”

“Yeah, because being concussed three times in two years is so healthy—”

Your eyes act like magnets as they stay locked on Billy’s form. He leans in closer to Vicki to tell her something, then pats her once on the ass before walking towards the exit again. The door dings when he swings it open. Through the window, you catch him pulling out a red and white pack of cigarettes — the same brand of Marlboro Reds he’s been smoking since he was in middle school.

“You okay?” you hear Steve say, but it sounds too far away for you to realize he’s talking to you.

Robin nudges you with her shoulder to jog you from your stupor. You blink hard once and then turn to her with wide eyes. “What?”

“You doing alright over there?” the girl wonders.

“Yeah,” your answer is too quick and too high-pitched to be true. “Fine.”

“Like, fine as in you’re actually fine, or fine as in, if I leave you alone for too long, I’m gonna find you living under a bridge like a troll?”

You roll your eyes at her. “Fine as in, if someone bums me a cigarette, I’ll be good as new.”

Steve huffs when you hold out the palm of your hand toward him. He’s the only one of you who smokes recreationally enough to carry a lighter and pack of cigs with him. You swear he only keeps it with him because the weight of them makes him feel cool. You’re grateful for them now, though, and for the escape they unexpectedly provide you.

His fingers are warm when they brush your hand. The metal zippo he drops in the center of it is far colder and carries a comforting sort of weight to it. He thumbs a cigarette from the pack for you, and you take it with a sardonic smile and a sickly sweet “thank you, Stevie.” 

Robin gets out of the booth to let you slide out of it.

The door chimes again, this time over your head when you open it. 

Fresh, spring air nearly knocks you on your ass when it hits you for the first time. You realize then, that you’d forgotten to tell yourself to breathe and now your vision’s all swimmy. The cool breeze tries its hardest to quell your swelling anger, but you’re still at a simmering boil. Fists clenched over the lighter and cig duo in your palm and your sneakers slapping angrily against the cracked pavement.

That’s what signals your arrival, the raging stomps that echo in the alleyway Billy takes his smoke break in. 

The boy takes a puff of his cigarette and smirks on the exhale at the sight of you. All he needs is one glance to see how angry he’s made you. It’s an innocent, childlike sort of rage that’s got you all scrunched face and red — a heartbroken girl on a war path.

“I knew you couldn’t resist me, sweetheart,” he taunts with his signature sarcastic smile. He holds his arms at his sides, like he’s waiting for some kind of embrace from you. “You used to be like that all the time — all over me, you know? Clingy.”

“You know what you used to be?” you ask him once you’ve planted yourself a few feet away from him, fists shaking at your sides in a nearly overwhelming mixture of rage and apprehension.

“What’s that?”

“Nice! You used to be nice! Or do you not remember that?” you wonder rhetorically. Your anger fades slowly, an ebbing tide, as a reminiscent sadness eclipses your fury — a flood of blue in all your red. 

The sharp frown between your brows crumbles and so does your clenched jaw as your harsh features crumple like a balled-up piece of paper. You look upon the man that broke your heart with all the shattered pieces of it.

“You used to let me sleep over at your place when I was too scared to sleep alone at mine, and you’d bring me food when I told you I hadn’t eaten all day, and you’d take me on drives when you knew I hadn’t left my apartment in days,” you ramble in a single breath, gesticulating wildly with your hands — waving them at him and at you and the still air between. They fall hopelessly to your sides. 

“You used to be so sweet, Billy…” you conclude with a wavering breath. Your chest trembles on the inhale as you straighten out your shoulders and lift your chin, trying your best not to look as defeated as you feel. “And you know what you are now?”

Billy grins that stupid grin at you, the one that almost looks kind. Almost. It’s still soft in all its insincerity, like a parent entertaining their kid that’s gone on some meaningless tangent.

“No, sweetheart,” he answers after a beat. “What am I?”

“Not nice.”

He scoffs out a laugh.

“You used to tell me, all the time, how scared you were about ending up like you’re dad—” he tenses at the mention of the man, of his own monster in his own closet. “—He’d beat you black and blue every night, and I’d bandage all your cuts and put makeup on you when you begged, so you could go out and pretend like everything was normal. And you know what? You’re just like him!”

Billy doesn’t cower when you walk closer to him. He’s got no reason to be afraid of you, but your words hit him in a place far deeper than a thousand bloodied fists.

“What he did to you, is exactly what you do to me… Or do you know see that?” you don’t wait for a sarcastic reply, mostly because you wouldn’t see the indicators of it through the tears that blur your vision. “You’re not punching me, but it feels like you are. You break me over and over and over and I have to pretend like everything’s just normal and that we—”

“Real mature of you. To bring out the dad-card,” he interjects, if only to stop your ramblings so that he might not have to hear the truth that comes with them.

“You used to he nice,” you repeat, you agonize, you deflate. “Or… Or did you never use to be?”

The shell of your mind answers for you, paints itself with all the memories you’ve been trying like hell to forget for the past six months. It’s easier to pretend the bad things aren’t real than unravel all the reasons why they were bad to begin with, you find.

The negative memories come together like renaissance paintings — dark and gloomy and blotted with too realistic tears and spatters of blood. The oil stains the backs of your eyelids, destined to remain there forever like paintings in museum that’ll stand the test of time if you nurse them well enough.

You hadn’t yet been able to forget the screams and the cracks of fists colliding with bone. They tend to keep you up at night, even when you squeeze your eyes shut and beg for your memory to be wiped away completely. 

Billy crouches over Steve’s chest and pummels wholehearted punches to the boy’s face, never tiring in their force, even well after the boy goes limp underneath him. You beg for him to stop while trying like hell to shield Max from the sight of it all. 

For a while, you’d blamed yourself for it — for Max being there in the first place and for Steve’s cuts and bruises. 

You’d taken the girl and sought refuge in the Harrington home after witnessing a rather heated fight between Billy and his father. There was a sudden urge within you to take her far away from it before it ended how it always did — in weeping cuts and salty tears and insincere apologies when the cops were called.

But you made it worse anyway. 

For Max, for Steve. 

And you apologized profusely for it after, cried to the boy in his bathroom while you nursed his cuts like you were the one who put them there. 

When he told you it wasn’t your fault, you didn’t believe him. Not until now. Not until you realized that Billy had always been angry — always raging with an ocean of fear and grief and violence.

When he fought with his sister, you thought it was normal, that that’s just what siblings did. But the way she cried to you after couldn’t have been normal. Neither could the unearthly fury that washed over Billy like a riptide when he found out you and Max had sought safety in Steve The Hair Harrington — angered that it was Steve and that he couldn’t be that for the both of you.

And then there was the fights. The yelling and screaming and crying fights that felt like the end of the world every single time. The kind of fights you shouldn’t be having when you’re eighteen. You thought that maybe there was some normalcy in the cheating and the secrecy and Billy’s accompanying assholery because that was all you’d ever known.

Or maybe because you had to tell yourself that was normal in relationships because you didn’t want your’s to end. Billy was the first guy to give a damn about you in ways that went beyond just sex. How were you supposed to just give that up?

But then there’s Eddie — Eddie The Freak Munson, who was really just sunshine wrapped up in leather jackets and wild hair and chunky rings and metal music. He makes you happy. The sort of happy that makes you suspicious because something bad has to counteract all the goodness he makes you feel. 

Maybe that’s what this was. 

Seeing Billy after having wrapped yourself in a blanket of Eddie’s warmth made you see somehow more clearly. He loves on you so much that it’s made a mockery of everything else. 

Whatever you had with Billy wasn’t normal, it was a goddamn shit show. He loved you when it was convenient and then had you believing it was the real thing, that you wouldn’t find it anywhere else, when you tried to leave him. 

It was a lie, all of it.

The realization makes you falter.

“Oh, god…” you sigh, voice fragile like cracking glass. “Maybe you never used to be…”

For the first time ever, you see Billy’s grin shake. The edges of it flitter, like he’s fighting to keep the corners quirked up. And his eyes have gone a lighter shade of blue, the way they always did when he blinked back angry tears as he talked about his father.

It isn’t rage glassing his eyes now. It’s something sadder, but still as real — something you never got from him in the two years you were together.

He tries, still, to cover it all up. He smacks his lips against his teeth, sympathetically. “Sorry it took you this long to figure that out.”

The laugh you exhale then is heavy with sadness. Your smile is far away and so is your gaze as you stumble back from him. You turn your head to the edge of the alley where mom’s with strollers and people in fancy suits bustle on the sidewalk and keep your eyes on the strangers that whiz by you’ll probably never see again. 

“This is… This is pointless,” you murmur. His lean form is blurry through the burning tears you blink away. “Every time I see you, it’s just more bullshit so let’s just— let’s just leave each other alone, okay?”

Billy takes a puff from his cigarette. When he sighs, white smoke billows from his plump, pink lips. “That’s a shame… I was just thinking that you were the most interesting you’d ever been.”

The ebbing tide that had just left you rushes back in a bubbling scarlet wave. His words don’t make you sad anymore, they just make you angry all over again because you know you don’t deserve them. And you’re not entirely sure why he’s chosen you to antagonize out of all the other girls who’d made the mistake of falling for him, but you’re too far past the point of not caring to ask.

“Bother me again and I tell Chief Hopper,” you threaten even though you don’t feel very threatening just now. “I know you’re not scared of me, but you’d be stupid to be scared of him.”

“Why’s that?” he wonders before sticking the half-gone stick between his lips again.

“Because he runs Hawkins. And he fucking hates you—” for what you did to me, you almost say. You swallow the words down like bile before they have the chance to spew out. “And… And be nice to Vicki. Okay? She’s too good for you. Don’t do to her what you did to me.”

Your plea for another is the last thing you say to Billy before you turn away from him. You wouldn’t be upset if it was the last thing you ever said to him. You’re grateful for the resounding silence that follows. It’s nothing but the sound of your receding footsteps and the soles of his shoes scrapping the concrete as he snuffs out his cigarette. 

There is no snarky remark or insincere plea — just two people who used to love each other that have no idea to exist together anymore. 

When you step outside the brick confines of the alleyway, you feel as though a fraying string that had always connected the both of you had been finally cut.

It allows you to take a deep breath in for the first time in months. A lungful of fresh air that cleanses you, body and mind.

And when you catch Steve and Robin idling at the corner and doing a terrible job of pretending like they hadn’t just been eavesdropping, you don’t get upset or angry with them — you don’t feel much of anything, really.

You just hand the boy his lighter and unused cigarette and let them comfort you on the drive back to your apartment.

A misery sandwich. That’s what Robin calls the three of you and the heaping pile you lay in. 

Your queen-sized bed is in no way meant to accomodate three moderately sized adults, but you make it work anyway, like you always do.

Steve lays on his back, legs crossed and hands tucked under his head. Robin is on her stomach on the other end of the mattress, arms wrapped around the pillow she smushes the side of her face into. You lay between the both of them — on the both of them. Sprawled out sideways, you’ve got your head on propped up on Steve’s ribcage and your legs thrown over Robin’s thighs. 

The awkward position is the most comfortable you’ve ever been.

“I can’t believe that asshole had the nerve to show up to the diner on our day,” the boy rants. “And then sit in our booth, I mean— who does he think he is?”

Robin’s response is mostly muffled by the pillow. “I thought he left, like, forever ago.” 

“Maybe he just couldn’t stay away. It’s Hawkins, shit attracts shit, right?” Steve answers with a shrug that jostles your head slightly. It doesn’t little to knock you from your stupor, though, where you’ve been stuck for the better part of the day. You pick at the skin around your nails with little regard for how red and raging it's gone.

He notices this and thumps you on your temple — hard enough for you to feel it, gentle enough that it doesn’t hurt you. 

You turn your chin to your shoulder to look over at him. He tilts his own head to stare down at you, honey-tinted gaze somehow stern and soft at the same time. “If he bothers you again, I’ll kill him.”

You’re instantly warmed by his protective disposition. You know that he cares about you, even though you like to joke that he doesn’t. Steve hurt you once, made a promise to himself to make it up to you, and then just never left you alone. 

You’re grateful for it. 

You’re not sure who’d be the butt of every joke if he wasn’t around.

“Good to know,” you answer, nodding against his side and trying to hide the smile he gives you. You fail. “You think if he breaks your nose again, it’ll pop back into place?”

His face falls. “You’re real sweet, you know that?”

You open your mouth to respond, something along the lines of “I’m always sweet. You of all people should know that, Stevie,” before a knock sounds at the front door. It comes in the several rhythmic raps that Eddie is known to give when he’s got a tune stuck in his head. 

Apparently now, it’s the chorus to “Why Can’t This Be Love?” The Van Halen song he said he couldn’t stand before you.

Robin huffs at the sound of the muffled taps. She frowns like a child. “Who the hell…?”

“It’s just Eddie,” you affirm through a half-hearted grunt as you rise from your comfy position.

That brightens the two of them up almost immediately. Her and Steve share a look you can’t place as they grin at one another. Then they turn back to you with identical mischievous twinkles in their eyes. “Your boyfriend is here,” the former of the two singsongs.

You roll your eyes, but make no move to correct her. 

When you stand from the bed and make the short journey towards the door, you hear the patter of their feet following close behind you. 

“Gonna go all the way tonight?” Steve teases and jabs you on the shoulder. “Do you want us to leave?”

“No, nothing is happening. And yes, I think you should leave,” you monotone playfully.

Robin rushes past you suddenly and grabs the brass door handle before you’re able. She swings it open without thinking twice about it. Her sudden appearance, coupled with the fact that it isn’t you, startles the man on the other side of the door.

Eddie’s umber eyes go wide, brows raising and disappearing beneath his fluffy bangs, as his head jerks back.

“Eddie Munson,” the girl full-names the stranger she’s never spoken a word to before now. She leans against the doorway and effectively blocks the boy’s view of you. Steve, who squeezes himself in beside her, doesn’t make it any easier. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“You too, Buckley…” he wavers, trying to peer past them for any sight of you.

“Perfect timing, Eds,” you call out from behind them. “They were just about to leave.”

He’s relieved at the sound of your voice — even more so at your appearance when the two in front of you step off to the side to toe on their sneakers. 

You don’t look much different than when he saw you last. You’ve put on some makeup that’s started to smudge after the long day and changed your baggy sweatshirt for a more fitted tank top and boxers, but other than that you’re still the same. Still familiar and comforting in your way, a home away from home.

His smile is a tired one and it wobbles at the edges. “Oh, shit, am I— am I interrupting something?”

“No,” you’re quick to reassure him. “You’re saving me, actually.”

“Oh, give me a break,” Steve scoffs. “You love us.” 

The boy pulls you into a hug before he leaves, and it’s not the rarest thing in the world, but embraces like this do tend to be few and far between. He whispers  “use protection” in your ear and then a sharp “ow!” when you jab him in the ribs.

He and Robin smile kindly at Eddie when they walk by him and out the door, but waste barely a second before turning back around and grinning wildly at you. Steve flashes you a thumbs up while she mouths a cartoonish ‘good luck’ — like it’s the first time you and Eddie had ever been alone together. Like they were just on your ass about having been with him this whole time.

You usher Eddie and shut the door behind them. A quiet sort of peace settles on the apartment like a weighted blanket. The boy revels in every bit of its warmth.

Exhaustion drips from him like syrup. He’s sticky with it. His eyes have lost their usual twinkle, weighed down now with the burden of his fatigue. His face has lost most of its color, leaving a pale sheath of monotoned skin, and his hair is wilder than normal, with an unintentional sort of ruggedness to his curls.

It’s what being without you has done to him.

“You okay?” you ask him softly. It almost makes him want to cry.

“Yeah,” he answers anyway and idles in the spot where your kitchen meets your living room. “Just had a pretty shitty day. Wanted to spend time with you.”

“Me too… About the wanting to spend time with you part— and the shitty day part, too, I guess.”

Eddie smiles at your rambling, but purses it to the side to conceal it from you. “And since it is just about our…” he trails off and bends his elbow to check the watch on his wrist. “…Twelve hour anniversary, I picked us up some takeout.”

He sets the plastic bag on the counter. The red logo of Oriental Jade on the side of it makes your stomach roll with a distant hunger. You hadn’t realized how starved you were feeling after you abandoned your early dinner at Benny’s. It makes you more grateful for Eddie, who always seems to be on the same wavelength as you without even trying.

“Keep this up and we’ll be married before we hit hour twenty-four,” you joke as you rifle through the cartons — chow mein, sweet and sour chicken, dumplings, the works.

Eddie settles in next to you, propping his elbows on the countertop. “Well, I’m pretty sure the courthouse opens at nine, so… What were you thinking for the honeymoon? Hawaii? Bora Bora?”

“How about a cabin in the woods where no one can find us?”

“Hmm… Spooky. Sexy. I’m into it.”

You settle in the living room and eat on the couch while She Ra re-runs play on the television. You try to teach Eddie how to use chopsticks, though he can only work them with his non-dominant hand and all the wrong finger placements. You think it’s cute to watch him fumble with them, and you giggle about it until you’re scolding him for trying to feed Bowie some noodles. He laughs as you swat at him.

When all the containers are fully scrapped clean and tossed in the recycling bin, you migrate to the bedroom — which is perhaps too raunchy a phrase to use when the two of you only bury yourselves under the covers to talk shit.

Eddie drags out the chunky box fan you use when the air conditioner goes out in the summer — because it always goes out in the summer — and props it on the chest at the foot of your bed so the covers will billow around the both of you. “And it’s perfect because we can stay in the fort forever and not get hot,” he tells you, all giddy about it like he's a kid again.

“What if I get cold?” you retort.

Without missing a beat, he answers, “Well, lucky enough for you, I know several ways I can warm you up, sweetheart.”

He ditches his leather jacket and strips down to his boxers and settles in beside you underneath the blankets. The two of you lay shoulder to shoulder while you trace absentminded patterns on the palm of his hand and tell him about your day.

You make sure to leave out all the re-traumatizing-Billy-Hargrove bits, though. You focus mainly on the tense drive with Hopper and the small fight you’d had with Steve on the drive to the diner later that afternoon about the lyrics to Love My Way (both of you had been wrong).

Eddie tries his hardest to focus on your story and your fleeting touches, but he’s too far in his own head. You tell him all these things but he can’t stop thinking about himself — about whether or not you might’ve brought him up somewhere in between. 

He wouldn’t have blamed you, if you had. Steve and Robin are your closest friends and, for whatever reason, so is Chief Hopper, you’re bound to bring him up eventually. He was just hoping it would’ve been in a better capacity. Maybe about how kind he was or what a god he was in bed — not how he could only be one of those things because he’d never been anything in bed.

“It doesn’t make things weird between us, does it?” he wonders out of the blue.

You halt mid-sentence and turn to him with furrowed brows. “What?”

Eddie realizes then, that the first half of the conversation with you had only happened in his head. He prays that it’s too dark beneath the covers for you to see how red his cheeks get. “Just… What we talked about this morning. About me… you know…” He finds it hard to say the words. Or any of them at all.

“Why would it make things weird?”

“I don’t know. Because I wasn’t… totally honest with you, I guess? I feel a little bad about it, you know?”

“It’s okay,” you assure and turn on your side to be closer to him. Eddie stays on his back, more than happy to let you cuddle further into him. “I guess I do wish you’d said something before, though.”

His chest tightens. “I’m sorry. I just… I didn’t know how to—”

“I’m not saying it to make you feel bad!” you interject quickly when you catch the spiral of regret he was about to twist himself into. You curl tighter into his side, tossing a leg over his thigh and wrapping your hand around his bicep in an effort to melt with him. When he turns to face you, your noses nearly brush.

 “That’s not how I meant it. I just meant that, if I’d known before, I wouldn’t have… I would’ve taken things slower. I wouldn’t have been so, you know, so all over you.”

He hates how apologetic you sound. Like there was ever an ounce of him that would want to take back what happened that night at his trailer or a part of him that might hate how much you love on him.

“I liked it. I do like it.”

“Maybe we can just start over,” you offer. “Pretend like none of that ever happened.”

Eddie knows there’s no way in hell he’ll be able to forget about a single damn thing — not his cum stained jeans and how you looked so pretty washing them for him, not the feel of your tits in his mouth or you wrapped around his fingers, not how you made him blow his load all over his fist just by talking to him. 

He goes along with it anyway, though, just for you.

“Okay...” he nods slowly, then squints over at you. “You’re still my girlfriend, though, right?”

“Of course I am,” you giggle.

He grins proudly to himself. “Well then… Hope it’s not too early to have our first kiss then?”

It makes you roll your eyes because it’s such an Eddie Munson way of asking to kiss you. You told him earlier the day that he never had to ask you — in fact, you’d prefer it if he’d just kiss you out of the blue and take your breath away without you ever knowing it was coming. But there was something foreign and sweet in his little reassurances.

“Kiss me silly, Eddie Spaghetti,” you beam. He twists on his side to press tiny pecks to your smile.

It’s rather strange, you find, to kiss someone this way without the intention of it ever becoming something more. You kiss him just to kiss him — just to map the outline of his cupid’s bow and memorize the pattern of his tongue. Just to feel him, as much of him as your mouth will allow you to.

With one arm curled under his head and the other cradling your jaw, when his watch alarms — high-pitched beepbeepbeeps in quick succession — it’s sudden and close to your ear. 

Your lips click in protest when they part. His are pink and swollen and glossy with your spit. He smiles with them. “Happy twelve hour anniversary, sweetheart.”

“How long are you gonna make that stupid joke?” you laugh like your heart isn’t swelling so much you’re scared it might burst entirely.

“Uh, I was thinking… forever. Yeah. That sounds about right,” he concludes after a moment of feigned thought. He turns his watch off again and you swear you see him set for another twelve hours from now.

“Forever?” you echo.

“Uh-huh. Forever—” he presses his lips to yours once. “—And ever—” Twice. “—And ever.”

Eddie kisses you until you’re flat on your back and surrendering to each of his tiny little pecks. You twist your hands in his hair and let him love on you a little while more. You giggle when his mouth trails from your lips to your chin to your jaw to your neck. Please don’t get bored of me, you beg silently within your laughter.

I don’t think I could even if I wanted to, he answers with each kiss his sprinkles to your starved skin. How could I, when you’re the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me?

[pochiperpe90]

[ENG] DISUNITI - Interview to Luca Marinelli by Gianmaria Tammaro

When choosing a role, Luca Marinelli lets himself be guided by instinct. He tries to listen to what his insides are telling him and to give a precise shape to his intentions. He doesn't move blindly;  he moves slowly, with the same awareness of someone who knows his work, even instinctively. It's useful for him, he tells me, to stay in touch with the story, with what he tells. Because that way he can become part of it. A character, until the last stop is called, never leaves; it's like a second skin, and he's there, docile, waiting, ready to come out. Luca has a deep and low voice. These days, while he's filming M. Son of the Century, he has freshly shaved cheeks and a cap that is always pulled down on his head, to hide his hair and forehead. The smile and the look, however, are the same as always.  Kind the former, intelligent the latter. When he speaks, he takes his knees in his hands, tries to collect himself, to compact himself into a single point. Not to limit the occupied space: but to find a center. We are in a park, in the late afternoon light, and a light wind is blowing. It had been a long time, Luca confesses to me, that he hadn't spent such a long period in Rome. In 2012 he moved to Berlin, and since then he has returned to Italy only for work reasons. "I've been in town since last spring, I think."

When you filmed the sequel of The Old Guard.

 "Yes, exactly. And now I'm working on this series".

 How did you find Rome?

"It's a question that, I confess, I don't quite know how to answer. I found Rome wonderful as always. And at the same time I felt tired. It's a beautiful city, and every time I have the opportunity to discover it more. Especially when I ride. And then I must tell you that I found her changed. Some neighborhoods aren't as I remembered them anymore, and that's okay: that's what happens to everyone, I guess; let's change".

When you will be finished shooting M., will you go back to Berlin?  

"Yes".

Why? Do you prefer it?  

"But no, it's not a question of preferring one city to another. Also in Berlin there is a fundamental part of my heart and a different dimension of life, just as important".

And does this diversity matter?

"Right now I feel like I have two houses, and it's nice. I feel at home both here and in Berlin. It took some time to reach this balance, I won't hide it from you. But now I'm really fine. Berlin is another dimension; it's not Germany. Berlin is Berlin, it's almost a place apart. I love his tranquility and his energy. When I'm in Rome, I feel a different kind of energy".

Tell me.

"There is a need to give oneself fully, to give oneself completely, when one plays a part or does something; but there is also a need to know how to withdraw in order to find one's own space. It's used to recharge. To fill again this container that is within us. Because when you work, you give everything. Everything is given. And you can come out of an experience exhausted. I say always that I don't get tired. But at some point, willy-nilly, fatigue still comes. Anyone who plays football has ninety minutes in his legs, he trains for that. When he goes too far, he risks overdoing it. So yes: it's important to stop and do something else, just to enrich yourself before the next project".

I imagine the type of preparation also changes

"Each project is completely different from the other: from the one that preceded it, and from the one that will follow it. The dynamics are the same, yes, because the set works, more or less, in the same way. But every experience is a different experience. And the city in which it's filmed has nothing to do with it; it's not just geography. There is more: much, much more".

What is your method as an actor? Indeed, I take a step back: you have your method?  

"I don't know. So, instinctively, I'd say no, I don't have it. Which doesn't exist. I've always had pretty much the same approach; and I modified this approach depending on the project and individual experience. Sometimes, over the years, I felt that I didn't do what I wanted to do in exactly the way I had imagined it; and then later, subsequently, I tried to improve. Keeping in touch with the reality of what we tell is something that helps me a lot".

Why?

"I can't tell you. I could foolishly answer you: "because I'm close to the story". But actually I think it's something else. It's like there's a smarter part inside of me. And it's this part that intervenes at a certain point, that understands what to do and that guides me".

Maybe it's instinct.

"I don't know. I tend not to ask. I tend not to compliment myself, or even see myself in a totally positive way. I'm not saying this out of false modesty or because I love to despair, no. I feel this is my approach: I need training, closeness to the thing we have to tell; and sometimes this closeness must also be on a physical level. Only later do I venture further in the project".

Why did you decide to play Mussolini?

"Well, I can't talk about that. Not at all. Let's take up this question again at another time."

Sure. Alessandro Borghi told me that you are like two brothers, that he's happy if you are happy. How would you describe your relationship?

“In a very similar way. I'm happy too if he's happy. I'm fortunate to have a group of very close friends: people I consider brothers and sisters and who, in some cases, I have known for more than thirty years. And Alessandro is part of this group. Every time we've worked together, we've talked about friendship. A friendship, precise, very strong. And next time too, the third time, we'll talk about a friendship: I'm sure of it. Indeed, I hope so. We meet again years later, with a greater awareness and maturity, because in the meantime we have grown up, and we face the same theme again: it's a wonderful thing".

Alessandro also told me that you are very different.

"It's true, we are. But that's also, I think, the beauty of friendship. Being different and still being able to find each other and be together".

Are you a rational or instinctive person?

“If Alissa heard you, she'd laugh…Look, I don't know. I don't think rational. In my head, I tend to get into a lot of trouble. If we talk about a project, I give weight to the first sensation I feel in this area here, from the neck down. And I have to say I have never been disappointed. Sometimes an immediate, definitive sensation came. Other times, however, I convinced myself and I totally trusted others". 

Has this trust ever been betrayed?

"From a film, you mean?"

From a film, a director or a fellow actor.

"No. Never betrayed. A project always has its own direction, and you must learn to follow that direction. Obviously, then, you too give it colors and a part of yourself. Bet on falling in love with someone else, and eventually you too fall in love. You rely on a director, you know a group of people who act with you. But if you get used to giving so much, you start to feel the urge to risk even more with something of your own".

So would you like to direct a film? 

"In general, not just at the cinema. Writing or directing, yes. I think about it every now and then. And in effect, a theater project already exists in the near future".

Does the anxiety of the set, of a new project, pass after a while?

"At some point yes, it passes. But I always see it that way. There are projects where it takes me less time and others where it takes me longer to ignore this anxiety. Or maybe it's not like that: because you always stay in character. It can happen that you completely abandon yourself to one thing before, turning off your brain. Or it may happen to succeed later. It's essential to trust yourself, and I say this first of all to myself. At the Academy I had a great teacher, Paolo Giuranna, who said: "trust the work you've done up to now; when you enter the scene, it's a blank page"".

How important was the Academy experience to you?

"Very. They have been three full and intense years. At the beginning I had a different vision of this profession, and then, being with others, with my class, I managed to find a more concrete dimension for what I had in mind. I remember the fire of that period, the passion. It's still there, sure. But now it needs to be fed. Before, however, it burned almost by itself. Instantly".

In some ways, you're talking about what it's like to be young.

"Yes, but also of not having experienced first-hand what it means to do this job. There is a substantial difference between working out and starting to play sports seriously. When you play sports, you understand that you have to deal not only with what you have learned but also with many other factors".

What relationship do you have with time? 

"I don't want to say trivial things... But time passes, and it also passes with a fair ease. It doesn't wait for you. He's not watching you. It would be nice to be able to live each day as if it was a lifetime. As if it was extremely important. To quote Thoreau: "As if one could kill time without hurting eternity." For heaven's sake: I spend whole days sitting, doing nothing, because mi pesa il culo (I'm a lazy ass)... (laughs, ed). But even that helps: do nothing, look around and don't box yourself in a phone. To stay. Simply. Throwing away some time makes me appreciate its value".

Even boredom has a purpose, in short.

“Boredom is interesting. It's curious. I get bored a little because I always try to do something - even here, perhaps, my wife would laugh. But I try, and I really try, to do something. Since adolescence, when I don't know what to do, I go out and about. When I read The Walk, I found this wonderful idea of ​​walking and learning to see what the world has to offer."

What is your relationship with Alissa?

"She's the person with whom I would like to share so much of this time, and I'm sorry when I can't: when I'm not enough with her and with our children. If I put time near her, to them, if I use them as a parameter of judgment, I wish I had more and more. It's never enough for me. I love sharing."

What are you afraid of now? 

"Fear is a strange word; a word that after meeting Claudio Caligari I tried to use less and less. I usually replace it with concern. Fear is something that makes you stop, and I learned from Claudio that it doesn't make much sense. You always have to keep fear at bay."

What worries you, then? 

"Maybe just the passing of time, because it holds together an infinity of speeches and aspects. I worry about not giving due importance to individual moments".

How do you experience success? I mean: what follows you is an extremely passionate audience. What kind of bond unites you with the viewers?

“This thing you're telling me excites me. As you know, I don't use social media. So I don't have a clear view of what's going on. And knowing that makes me happy. Above all, it makes me happy to be able to give something back to others and excite them. If I'm shy, it's because I've always been shy. Social media can be useful. They connect many people with little; think of all the protests that exist today and that start right from social networks. Being able to share a testimony with the whole world is important. But I can't do it: said exactly like that, in the Roman way. I can't use them. I get excited when I meet people: when they ask me a question, they tell me what they thought about a film. They are crazy moments, that shake you. It's what, at times, drives me to give more, to commit myself to the maximum".

You mentioned Claudio Caligari earlier. What other encounters in your career have influenced you so much?

"The meeting with Carlo Cecchi was very important, whom I met again, with my great pleasure, also on the set of Martin Eden: master in life and work. When I have a professional concern, I always want to call him. Sometimes I had, and he answered me with passion and sincerity. During the period of the Academy there were several important meetings, like the one with Anna Marchesini. In recent years, I have met many directors, actresses and actors with whom I have shared the set. And then, even if it sounds silly, there was the meeting with myself".

In what sense?

"Several times, over time, I felt the need to stop and refocus, to understand who I was and what I wanted. And so yes, I ended up meeting the many people I've been and who still live here; and I learned to know them all, more or less. This is also important: understanding where we are and how we got there. When I had dialogues with myself, I changed direction or went on, on the path I had taken".

If you could go back in time and give you one piece of advice - before you entered the Academy; when the fire was still alive, and burning on its own - what advice would you give yourself? 

"Go calmly. Listen. And listen to yourself. Have fun; have more fun. Smile. Enjoy everything; trust yourself".

I ask you the last question. Who is the actor?

"...what?"

Who is the actor?

"Someone who, trivially, feels he wants to communicate something, and communicates it. Someone who enacts a thought they've had or an emotion they've felt. Someone who is aware, hopefully, of all the possible consequences."

Like always, sorry for my English

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

You’ve mentioned how boring the Avatar movies are despite how visually stunning they can be (I can’t help but agree.) How would you rewrite it to be a more interesting?

Can't be done and not for the reasons you're probably thinking.

The Thing about James Cameron

To get into this, we have to talk about James Cameron as a director.

Now, I say this being a large fan of The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgement Day, as well as generally liking Aliens and Abyss.

But generally, the focus of James Cameron's films is not the story or the writing: it's a new cutting-edge technology he wants to develop and try out and or a particular setting. The story is presented as an excuse to do these things and is paper thin at best.

The focus of Titanic was the ship itself, the exact timing of its sinking, seeing all of the ship (both upstairs and downstairs) both before and after the sinking, and to aid that along we get this story of Jack and Rose where they run around the ship like lunatics so we can see everything.

Abyss, similarly, is exploring the concept of a setting at depth and the technology needed to produce such a film.

Now, what also ties into this, is that Cameron has a few tropes he really really really likes in films that aren't that... deep I guess I'd call them. Generally, in any Cameron film, you can count at least one (usually more) of the following:

US Marines (Good or Bad or Both)

Evil Corporations/Evil Rich People

A Surprisingly (!) Good Scientist/Science/Robot People

An Uncomplicated Action Hero/Heroine

An Uncomplicated Love Story

In the case of the Avatar series, Cameron had thought up this fictitious world Pandora, the native people there the Nav'i, and wanted to push both CGI as well as 3D to the limit (notable is that Cameron did 3D for these films in a way films generally don't, in that he did actual 3D where most '3D' films just have two cameras for stereo. This is why Cameron's 3D looks so fucking good and is actually worth seeing in theaters versus other 3D films which are eeeeeeh watch it at home). And, as usual, what we see is a story written in such a way to show off the setting, the made-up culture of the Nav'i, and the technology used to produce the film rather than the story in and of itself.

So, in the first film, we get a story that hits all the usual marks for Cameron. Through Jake's adventure, we get to explore Pandora and see all the things Cameron really wants to show off to us, we also get all the tropes Cameron usually loves: an uncomplicated love story, evil corporations, US Marines, surprisingly good scientists who seem bad at first but then are misguided, and a dumb uncomplicated hero.

In this case, it's just the plot of Dances with Wolves (almost to a tee) but uh... more blue.

(The second film is even worse in this respect, as well as just as a film, as Cameron now wants to show a new part of Pandora, the ocean but uh... has no reason for the characters to be there so has to make something up that doesn't make much sense or give the characters much to do.)

The trouble is where this works for Cameron in other films (Terminator and Terminator 2 were great in that they didn't need to be complicated, the setting and special effects provided what we needed for great films), in Avatar we're hampered by a plotline that has both aged and that we've seen before, and by a script that's... just not good.

But the point I was trying to make is that Avatar would not exist without Cameron. This isn't a case where you hire a new director, new screenwriter, new anything, this is Cameron's vision and there's really not much wiggle room in that without dumping out everything Cameron wanted.

The best someone could do is rewrite the script to make the lines more catchy/memorable/quotable without changing the plot.

(Caveat, again, I think Cameron is great when he's great. What he does well he does very well, and he has made some fantastic as well as very entertaining movies. However, sometimes, it just doesn't work out.)

Back to the Question

So, to 'fix' Avatar you have to have a script Cameron would like, one that shows of Pandora in the way he wants, and with the uncomplicated characters he generally likes.

Trouble is, that is Avatar. I can think of no way to produce what Cameron would have wanted beyond what Cameron himself did. He was involved in every step of that movie and it shows.

And again, to make it better or different is to make something that never would have happened as, well, it's not Cameron.

Long story short, you can't have Avatar without Blue Pocahontas in Space.

[mentallyshattered]

This is part 3 of the "What if Yuu didn't want to go back?" Series!

(I, the author of this work, do not consent to this work being crossposted/translated without my knowledge or used to train an AI, ever.)

Masterlist

"Myaah, keep going!"

"Non, chat. You no longer need to be brushed. Vil, how is Yuu's hair coming along?"

Vil sighs. I've noticed he does that a lot. "Not as well as I thought, Rook. Even though the top layer was absurdly thick, the lower layers don't look much better. This is going to take longer than I expected."

I look up and into the mirror in front of me. Vil has cut my hair short, but the process of detangling the remaining mat of hair has caused the detangled hair to be noticeably longer than what's still a total mess. I'd say the hair he's worked through is about 4 inches, just long enough to cover my ears.

"Say, Monseur Mystery, how did you guess Monseur Chat's name?"

"Well..." I hesitate. Even now, the thoughts of his death still hurt. "When I was living in my world, I found a cat. He was my only friend. He was an alley cat, but chubby- not in a concerning or limiting way, just in a cute way- and he was grey with a large patch of white fur on his front, and his tail faded into black at the end, and... he had polydactly. I think that's what it's called, at least. Do you guys know what that is?"

"Nope!" Grim's reply is cheerful, like an island of comfort in a sea of mourning.

"Well, it's a condition where your limbs split off into multiple limbs. So, a two-tipped finger or extra toe or something. Well, my cat had it on the end of his tail. It looked, " I pause, reaching my hand toward Grim and trying, failing, to hold back tears. "Into three. A trident tail, just like this." I'm holding his tail in my hand now, careful, like he might break just as my voice is doing now. I can hardly speak through the lump in my throat, but I can speak.

"A-and that cat's name was Grim. And he was hit by a car when he was eight, and I've never been the same." I'm crying now, my eyes reduced to floodgates and my voice to a wreck. Vil is hugging me, his arms bringing some sense of safe to me, but that sense of safe pales in comparison to the comfort of holding Grim in my arms. His fur is soft, much softer now that he's been brushed, and Rook has joined the hug.

We stay there, just like that, for what feels like forever. Vil's arms are strong around me, as are Rook's, and I'm holding Grim again, and I don't want to lose him again. I can't. I barely survived the first time; I can't survive a second. The guilt would kill me.

"I guessed his name, too. I didn't know how. It just felt right. But... Yuu, you kind of remind me of someone. Another human. He fed me in my dreams, and his name was Yuu, and we were great friends, but one day he just stopped showing up. I never saw him again." Grim's previously sad face brightens a little, like a tea candle with just enough air to burn. "You look a lot like him, but older. Maybe... maybe he was you."

The tears come back. I let them. This time, they're happy tears, and Grim is crying them, too. Vil allows a few more minutes to pass, just like that, before he lets go and resumes his task of unmatting the other half of my hair. Rook pulls away, too, and waves his magic pen.

A tape measure, like you see tailors using in movies, appears in the air in front of him for him to wrap around my waist with skillful hands. Soon, he's removed the tape measure from my waist in favor of wraping it around my chest, and then my arms, and then Vil tells him off for doing something unnecessary.

I laugh. "Say, Monseur Mystery, have you tried to use magic since you arrived?"

I ponder. "Not really."

Rook chuckles. "Facinating."

"Are you okay with others being let into the room, Yuu?" Vil's voice is soft and soothing. I'm a little jealous, but who cares?

"Go right ahead." The lump in my throat is gone now that Grim is purring happily in my arms, just enjoying the sensation of being pet. Rook leaves the room- still holding his tape measure, I notice- and the door shuts behind him. Surprisingly, I don't hear his footsteps as he walks away, even before the door is closed and blocking my view.

Less than a minute later, the door opens again, revealing Rook, Korrak, and Korrak's familiar, whose name I do not yet know. Rook waves his pen, cleaning the cat brush with magic, and starts brushing the strange oppossum as he brushed Grim.

"Hey, what's your name? I'm Grim!"

"Call me Mandible."

Well, I guess I have a name to go with both of my roommates now. Unlike Grim, Mandible needs only a few minutes of brushing before his fur is even and soft, at which point Rook measures him, waves his pen, and voilá: five small stacks of clothing appear on the counter.

"What are those?" Mandible is already poking at the piles by the time he thinks to ask. I wasn't expecting Mandible to be more talkative than Korrak, but I guess Grim and I are no better.

"Uniforms! The white one is a lab coat for alchemy, the violet one is a dorm uniform, the one next to the lab coat is a PE uniform, the one next to the dorm uniform is a school uniform, and the one in between the dorm clothes and lab coat are some ceremonial robes. All are sized exactly for Monseur Opossum, of course." Rook looks quite proud of himself.

"Myaah, neato! Do I get some?"

"But of course, Monseur Chat! If you'll allow me a moment..." Rook starts measuring Grim just like he did with Mandible, and Vil lets out a triumphant "Hah!"

"Finally conquered my hair?"

"Not entirely, but I'm done with the hard part." With this, Vil pulls out a brush- not a cat brush, just a regular human brush- and starts running it through my hair in a soothing rhythm. Tired from the short day's events, I allow it to lull me to sleep.

[bearfeathers]

gonna get a little personal for a second. when i say i imprinted so hard on trent crimm... boy i imprinted so hard on trent crimm. my love of writing, being intensely bullied when i was in school, keeping so many parts of myself secret but yearning to just be me, cool glasses; i could go on for ages. like i immediately vibed with this guy.

i've struggled with my gender and sexuality for a long time. i'd always felt "off" and could never quite pin down what it was. and while i eventually figured out that i'm a bisexual transmasc enby, i felt embarrassed. to me it felt like i had already come out for other things and that there had to be a limit to what those i love could accept. (like, okay kieran, what are you this time? these of course being my own anxiety thoughts, as my family has been very supportive.) i was - and am - in a place where there aren't other people like me and people like me aren't spoken about kindly. so i made no steps to transition in any way because i was scared of how people around me would react and of having to explain myself. i was afraid of committing to something like that. (yeah, the "you'll have to deal with being trans forever" narrative got me. fuck terfs.) i was scared. i didn't want to upset or disappoint anyone i love.

but i had this character that i felt a strong connection to who wasn't what you might call traditionally masculine, who i felt was queer and whose decision to completely upend his career inspired me. a few months after watching 2x12, i made an appointment at planned parenthood and i'll have been on t for a year this may. because something about trent made me realize that i had to do what made me happy. and yes, some people might not like it, but i get to decide who i am. it's my life to live and no one else's.

i'm not sure how to explain how 3x06 was so validating for me. having this character who i felt such a connection to become canon queer was just... i felt happy and comfortable and at peace. i felt so connected! and i felt so connected to so many other fans who had watched the episode and had that same feeling of belonging. i'm frankly still so jazzed that i might just float away lmao.

i don't know where the rest of the series will take us, but what i guess i'm trying to say is i'm so glad i started watching and i am so thankful for trent crimm. may everyone be as lucky to know and see themselves as i have been.

[the-bloody-sadist]

Ten Characters, Ten Fandoms, Ten Tags (except it's one tag bc I hate mass tagging, makes it feel less special lol)

Thanks for tagging me @chouchinobake ! Part of the reason I stay on Tumblr is how different and I suppose intimate (?) it feels to be on here. The whump community in general is such a home to me, but the oddity of this platform gives me a chance to do different things that I'd never be able to do on my Twitter/Instagram.

In any case, it just looks like I'm supposed to list ten characters from different fandoms and why I like them, so here goes. I'm going to limit it to anime, since there are way too many in manga/live action, and, as an organized person, I must restrain myself:

Ash Lynx [Banana Fish]: I've seen basically every BL anime that exists, and yet out of all the boys I've loved from those (Mafuyu didn't make it to the list but he is ONE OF THEM), no one quite stands out to me the way that Ash does. He was such a fresh personality to get into, and I found myself fascinated by the complexities of his character. One thing about Banana Fish in general that I enjoyed was the lack of "need" for it to go through as a BL, if that makes sense. It was an action/gang drama first and a love story second. I am always most attached to characters that I feel like I could never accurately write if I tried, since it gives me great respect for the author. Ash being violent but not uncaring, angry at the world and yet still a victim to it, plagued by recurring trauma (the amount of predatory gay men in BF is absolutely insane btw LMAO I love that Dino has just stocked his gang with gay rapists 😂) and yet still a very dangerous character. It's a tragedy that it ended the way it did, but I guess that's part of why he sticks with me so much. Definitely #1 saddest of the stories I've loved.

The way he has such fondness for Eiji without the author feeling like they needed to actually put them in a confirmed relationship was just so natural to me. Of course, I needed fanfics to help my crumbling heart after the ending, way back when I first watched it, but I always valued that about Banana Fish. I just fucking wish Ash made it back to Eiji for a hug, dammit. The one thing I hated in the show was the lack of hurt/comfort balance. There was so little comfort that it felt like sometimes the emotional aspect was ignored in favor of the action, and that drove me batty. Regardless, one of the favorites for sure.

Xie Lian [Heaven's Official Blessing]: MY SWEET BABU. Holy fuck, I didn't know whether to list Mafuyu here or Xie, because they're both somewhat the same breed of SOFT, MUST PROTECT to me, but Xie won out, since I have to have at least one bandaged boy on the list in the absence of Dazai. Words cannot express the amount of sheer devotion I have to this CREATURE. This is one of those stand-out shows that became a comfort anime for me. The soft-voiced Chinese VAs for Xie and Hua Cheng cause physical reactions lmao. It's a rare softie romance for my favorites.

There are some characters that are so fucking precious to me that somehow my sadist nature drains away, and I actually do not want to see them hurt. This is one of the very, very few. Nobody touch Xie Lian. I will murder you.

Yozo Oba [No Longer Human]: Written by the one and only Dazai Osamu, there is no character I've ever read about that I relate to more than Yozo Oba. There was a fantastic anime adaptation that I recently stumbled across, which is where the above gif came from. It's called Blue Literature Series, and its biggest feature is NLH, but it features other famous Japanese writers' (from Bungo) stories as well. The anime adaptation gave me such a visceral perspective on Yozo after reading the novel, and I loved everything about the anime (besides the way they changed Yozo's "best friend" to a far better person than he was). In reference specifically to the character, though, Yozo is the ultimate depiction of the extreme fear of human beings and masked depression. I cried at so many moments from the book that hit right where I struggled in life, and I hardly ever reread things, but NLH was a major exception.

No lie, that shit had me saying "he's just like me fr!" 😀 lol... sorry

Kaneki Ken [Tokyo Ghoul]: Yeah yeah, I know. Everyone has talked about Kaneki. But he really is amazing. No matter how memed this poor man is, he remains among the top favorites, both in the depiction of his warring personalities as well as the monster vs. human. The entirety of TG is just GORGEOUS in its world building, character design, and fresh perspectives on the old cliche of half human, half devil. His character arc always gets me going. But he's been talked about enough; everyone knows about him. I don't need to say much except that MAN he truly WAS wayyyy better in the manga. I was stunned at the extreme difference, and I get it now - all those fans who were pissed at the show. That's why I always watch the anime before the manga. It just gets better that way.

Johan Liebert [Monster]: Besides the other antagonist you'll find a little further down in the list, this is my favorite anime villain of all time, I think. He's been hailed by many as one of the best, so I'm sure the subject is already worn out, but everything about this man had me crazy for him. His vicious backstory, his psychopathy, his incredible manipulation, and his treacherously low screen time. This is one of those characters where the lack of appearances in the show actually fueled my devotion, because the times when he did show up were absolutely BANGER, and his fucking presence is so intoxicating. He was fabulously animated too, and the whole show was such a good watch. The VA always has something to do with it for me, and Johan was no exception. (I watch everything in sub, just because the VAs are usually that gorgeous whispery-ear-fuck for mysterious characters like this 😂)

Sebastian Michaelis [Black Butler]: I mean come on, who wouldn't like Sebastian. Honestly, nothing much needs to be said. Ciel makes him that much better. Their tension and dynamics, and the way that their relationship was set up is just incredible. Can't be beat, really. I wish I could go back to the first time I saw BB and watch it all again, cuz fucking hell it was so good. I love the contradiction of Sebastian's devil hunger for human souls being conflicted - not by the fact that he has a human half, but by the fact that he's signed a deal with a human, and has grown some semblance of attachment to that human, and that's what keeps him unpredictable. Will he care for Ciel in the end and choose not to follow through or not? Idk, that was my favorite perspective of his character and the whole show.

Akihito Narihisago [ID: Invaded]: If you haven't seen this anime, you're missing out, firstly on one of my favorite VAs of all time 🥹 Kenjiro Tsuda, and secondly on a very emotional plot and story arc that I didn't expect for the genre of show that it was. Akihito is a detective in a virtual reality, trying to solve a murder. What I didn't expect was the constant appearances of a girl in this world that is Akihito's daughter, and how her face being on every victim made the case so incredibly personal that it was tear-jerking for me. Honestly, Tsuda's performance is probably the main reason why it hits so hard, but this poor man has to go through seeing his daughter's face on every mangled victim, watching her die over and over, and never being able to save her. And that's all he wants. He just wants to save her. I won't spoil any more, but good grief this one was a very unexpected favorite of mine.

Zero Kiryuu [Vampire Knight]: ☺️☺️☺️☺️ Whaaaaaaaaaat? He was my first whumpy boy *pinches cheeks*, my first anime love, *squish squish* baby's first anime! Back then when I was a lazy first-timer, I was watching in dub. By now I've gone back and re-watched in sub after realizing the great and powerful Miyano Mamoru was the voice of my vampire crush, but I am not complaining over the English VA, because Vic Mignogna is the only comparable voice to do any of Miyano's characters. Loved that man. Wish he was still around. In any case, Zero is the ultimate angsty vampire and nobody will ever replace him for me.

Yashiro [Saezuru wa Tori Habatakanai]: I...where do I even begin? T_T The sheer complexity of this man's personality makes him such an obsession to me. I would consume any and all media relating to him, no matter what it is. He's one of those characters that can endlessly be studied and picked apart. He has so much conflict, so many walls, so much pain. It's the ones who pretend they love self-destruction that really get to me. I love seeing Yashiro crumble because of Doumeki's insistent care, and words cannot express how many times I've watched the BLCD paired with the manga for the climactic first sex scene with Doumeki, and how emotional it was. It offered a whole new perspective in my opinion of how deep something as dismissed as erotica could go, and I strive for that same emotional and character depth in my own works because of it. The dynamics of this show in general provoked and inspired the story I'm writing of Ellum and Callyx, even if it existed long before I got into Saezuru. It helped me form it around what I learned from experiencing the manga and then the anime, and then the BLCD, and I can't fucking wait for the rest of this trilogy to come out so I can weep ffs.

Iason Mink [Ai no Kusabi]: Ah, the man who created Taushin. Lol, way back when Sadist was a baby whumper, this was one of the first yaoi I ever set eyes on. Though set in the weirdest and most repulsive world for erotica imo, the dynamics of Iason the Blondie and Riki his little brat Pet will remain one of my favorite power plays, and remains the standard for what I keep looking for in other stories. The anime remake was so unabashedly uncensored that it remains hard to find something that matches it, as far as non-con and punishment/pleasure based relationships go, and I wish it hadn't been cancelled cuz that was a fucking shame. Despite the plot being rather boring, the tension between these two makes up for it, and the constant rivalry of enemies who basically remain enemies and are only reluctant lovers when it comes to it makes it so intriguing. Iason is THE Master of all Masters in my opinion, and was voiced so perfectly in both anime versions - that velvety, stern voice omg - and Taushin was heavily influenced by him, as well as the classism of Gailda, coming from Ai no Kusabi's rankings of Blondies and Pets, which I thought made for an interesting world. If not for Ai no Kusabi, I don't think I'd ever have come up with the story of Dancing with Death, even though Taushin and Angel have a much different dynamic, since Angel is obedient and nothing like the hard-headed Riki. I still owe it to that anime.

Griffith [Berserk]: It's insane to me how long it took for me to finally watch Berserk, but for years all I saw was that ugly bastard with the name Guts in reference to the acclaimed manga and its disgustingly animated show. I never had an interest in reading the manga, so when I discovered the existence of Griffith through one of my friends who was urging me to read it, I realized that the story wasn't what I'd thought. Then, seeing the movies that existed with far better animation, I instantly got into it and was hooked. My gods, the character arc of this man. It remains one of my favorite tragedies, only outdone by Kaneki's. AND THE BEAUTY OF THIS BOY GOOD GRIEF LMAO it's so hilarious to me how pretty he is in a male-driven male-gaze manga, if you know what I mean. 😂 Like this story in general just stands out, and Griffith is the shining star. I got so attached to him, and to see him imprisoned and betrayed and just...JEEEEz. It hurt so much. And it felt so good to see him turn, no matter how horrifying. Still can't really put up with the infamous Casca/Griffith scene as it felt a little misplaced 😂

The Red King [K-Project series]: I feel like this anime is very under the radar, so allow me to introduce you to yet another badass man voiced by Kenjiro Tsuda. Everything about him is just...MUAH. He is a little elusive in the movies (there are several of them), so his screen time is criminally low for how obsessed I am with him, but when he's there he's THERE and is GLORIOUS. As the leader of a gang, in a world where each king rules a color and that color means their gangs have a certain ability - so for crimson there is fire, of course - he is the ultimate stern leader. They contrast this in the movies SO FANTASTICALLY by having this man taking care of a young girl, an adopted daughter of sorts, and showing off his soft spot for her and her alone. Oh my gods, I can't even begin. I just...I live for it. He is a kind leader, but the stoic and cold type, you know? One of my favorite personality types. He is easy to anger, but this girl that he protects adores him and he treats her like a little princess. I need to stop lol, I can't ramble too much, but I'll just say his rivalry with the Blue King, who used to be a good friend (enemies to lovers ship here I come) is heart-wrenching, and his eventual fate which I will not spoil absolutely destroyed me. The end.

I did 12, and I'm not sorry. I couldn't leave out The Red King or Griffith okay. I couldn't. I tried to not list the purely obvious ones, such as Bungo characters, Vanitas no Carte characters, or fandoms where I've made it quite clear how much I like certain people lmao. But they'd nevertheless be part of the list if it weren't limited to ten (COUGH 12), and I wanted to list characters that I had something particular to say about. A lot of them are made better by their counterpart or romantic interests in the show, such as Yashiro being perfectly matched with Doumeki, Zero being put to so much tension with Kaname, Johan being an incredible antagonist to Tenma, Iason showing off his power because of Riki's constant defiance, and The Red King having his soft spot with the little girl. And I mean, who would Griffith be without Guts?

I would list Gojo, but there's nothing to say about him that hasn't already been said, and that's just BARKBARKWOOFWOOFGGRRRR

Hope you enjoyed reading. And I hope you might've found some new anime because of it! K-Project seems lesser known, but my gods it's gorgeous, it's ship-city, and it's a fascinating plot heavily featuring on one of my favorite things: COLORS.

Thanks again for the tag 🖤 it's nice to be able to obsess over my favorites for a reason 😤

Tagging @lustfulcat ☺️☺️ if you feel like it, my sweet!

[fangirlmedstudentblog]

Ann's 2022 Wrapped pt 2(A)

So, here's part 2 with my yearly recap in fandom that I'm guessing you all will like more, the FANFICTION RECOMMENDATIONS!!

Top fics of this year

According the ao3 wrapped, I've managed to read as many as 3.5k fanfics this year, which roughly amounts to 10 fics a day 😱 and a total of 115 MILLION word over the span of a year, which is amazing, considering all the time I've spent working in the hospital (because yes I was an intern), studying AND playing Genshin.

Since I'm tasking myself to rec fics from as many of the fandoms i read fics for (of which there are many), I'll limit myself, and it proved to be as hard I had thought it would be.

My list is in no way even close to an exhaustive fic rec list for the pairing. It has some gems to get you started if you're new to the ship, or some fics to re-read, if you've already read these. If there is a podfic of the fic, I'll include that too! Podfics deserve more love and are a boon, allowing us to listen to our favourite stories while doing other work or playing games! They're one of the top reasons I've not fallen asleep while completing exploration in Genshin Impact lol.

In the m/m fics, i don't write the ship name with the top/bottom fixed in mind as i always headcanon them as versatile. (I know some people like to read fixed dynamics for certain ships, so this is just a fyi for them.)

Do check the tags of the fics before reading and check the author's pages for further fics to read!

All fics are complete unless mentioned otherwise.

Fandoms/Ships covered:

1. Draco/Hermione from Harry Potter

2. Merlin/Arthur from BBC Merlin

3. Peter Parker/Johnny Storm from Spiderman and The Fantastic Four comics

4. Stiles Stilinski/Derek Hale from Teen Wolf

5. Namjoon centric BTS fics

6. Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto

7. James Bond/Q from James Bond (Craig) movies

Covered in part 2(B) because too many links lol

8. Frank Hardy/Nancy Drew from Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series

9. Prapai/Sky from Love in the Air

10. Batman / Red Robin comics

11. Miscellaneous fic recs

Pairing: Draco/Hermione aka Dramione from Harry Potter

Fuck JKR and any and all transphobes. Her world of HP was the first serious series that i read and grew up with, so the emotional attachment i have with this series is a lot. So while i don't support her in any way or form, fanfics are fair game for me.

I discovered Dramione when i started reading fanfiction and came across this rather lovely dramione fanfiction called Simply Irresistible that opened my eyes to the pairing. I'd always liked Draco as a character with unrealised potential. And Hermione is and always has been my favourite character from HP. The sweet sweet potential of Dramione combined with the excellent fanfics on ffnet dragged me in and hasn't let me go even now, to be honest. This pairing has so many EXCELLENT fics i simply can't even think of picking my top fics. So I'm just listing the top 6 dramione fics i re-read every year.

1. Rewritten in Time series by ScotlandEvander Rated T

Scared and tired, Draco Malfoy decides to take matters into his own hands. Using a potion, he travels back in time, finds himself in his eleven year old body with all his memories from the past seventeen years. Using this knowledge, he sets out change time. His first mission: befriend Harry Potter. His second: Keep Harry from doing death defying acts. (Turns out harder than Draco had envisioned.)

A Draco centric Harry potter time travel fix-it! It's one of my favourite Harry potter fic to read, and offers the full experience from first to seventh year. Features an OC who is important to the story but not part of the main pairing. It's a fun series that is a slow burn with the dramione as they don't get together till a lot later.

The fix-it version of Harry is hilarious, especially as the years progress. Features lots of friendship moments between the characters and the romance is slow and subtle with hints throughout the series. I try to re-read this whole series atleast once a year.

2. Rewriting Destiny by WaitForTheSnitch Rated General Audiences

They all thought after Voldemort's fall that the world would get better. But they were wrong. The Death Eaters used politics to accomplish what Voldemort never could. And with the dwindling Wizarding population and no one left to fight, there's only one solution: to go back in time to before Voldemort rose to power, and fix what broke the first time around. Time Travel AU

Features Draco and Hermione as time travellers that go back in time to make sure Voldemort never rises to power. I love how the author writes the characters, and their interactions with each other. I'm a goner for good world building and this fic delivers in SPADES.

3. Measure of a Man by inadaze22 Rated E

To truly know someone is to differentiate between who they once were, who they are now, and who they're capable of being. Hermione realises the duality of one man as she rectifies what she knows of the past and begins to understand the pieces of who Draco Malfoy is now: a father, a son, and a man.

It is a post-hogwarts dramione EWE (epilogue what epilogue for those unaware of the term) fic with Hermione being tasked to take care of a rather unique case, and during the process, she learns and grows.

It is NOT a short fic at all, clocking in at almost 600k, and it is SLOW burn, that sometimes is a long low simmering roast. Narcissa in this fic is amazing. I personally wouldn't recommend this to be read in one sitting, and with having some fluff fics on standby for the in between breaks because it is heavy in places.

*Funnily enough all the fics I'm recommending above are LONG as fuck fics clocking in atleast 100k words or more. I really love reading long fics*

4. The Eagle's Nest by HeartOfAspen Rated E

Hermione's eighth year at Hogwarts is already going to be difficult in the aftermath of the war, but is further thrown into upheaval when Headmistress McGonagall orders a re-sorting of all students to promote inter-house unity. But when the Sorting Hat sends Hermione to Ravenclaw with Draco - and without Harry or Ron - how will she cope? [Epilogue? What epilogue?] Prevalent alchemy.

I love eighth year dramione fics! They have so many possibilities, with most commonly having Hermione coming back alone to Hogwarts without Harry or Ron.

In this fic, both Draco and Hermione discover the hidden depths in the other, especially Hermione, coming to know more about Draco as they progress through their eighth year at Hogwarts.

5. The Gloriana Set by ThebeMoon Rated E

The War is won, and Hermione Granger is back at Hogwarts as an “Eighth Year”, feeling reckless and determined to shed her prim bookworm persona. She will do as she pleases, and anyone who doesn’t like it will see the business end of her wand. Also returning is Draco Malfoy, universally hated but determined to restore his family’s name. Hermione’s hopes for a quiet school year are quickly dashed as she contends with mischievous First Years, killer plants, enchanted hair accessories, a totally inappropriate Moaning Myrtle, renegade Death Eaters, a nice vampire, a poorly named study group, a depraved party, and mysterious, threatening blood messages on the castle walls. We have redemption, partial redemption and (sadly or hilariously) no redemption at all. Throw in a snarky, disturbingly attractive Draco with his own secret agenda, and we have a very slow-burn Dramione with a side of who-dun-it.

This is one of my favourite eighth year dramione fics that keeps you engrossed throughout the fic and it also has a in progress podfic that can be found here.

6. Chronos Historia by In_Dreams

Hermione and Draco stumble upon a mysterious portal and find themselves hurtled back through time a thousand years. Forced to team up to find a way home, they quickly realize that much of the history they believed to be fact, wasn't true after all. A founders era, time travel Dramione.

As it says on the tin, with such an interesting take on the founders, i was intrigued. It was also my first founders era fic.

While this next fic isn't strictly a dramione but a Draco/Hermione/Theo fic so i couldn't resist but add this in, it's a personal favourite. It's spicy and a very well written throuple polyamourous fic, with the characters playing nicely off each other and another eighth year fic as well!

7. Sugar and Spice by InLoveWithForever

Contrary to what she claimed, it wasn’t grass and new parchment and spearmint toothpaste she smelled.

A mind-boggling amalgamation of confusion followed by a peripheral realization, and then instantaneous fear made her flush so severely that the room went fuzzy around the edges of her vision as she choked out the lie.

It was old parchment housed in the restricted section, tart green apples, and something spicy—not cinnamon, cloves?—that lingered inside her nostrils. She was woozy, her lids drooping heavily, even as a small part of her brain screamed at how wrong this was. A larger, louder part of her shoved the shame down in favor of baser instincts. Those instincts dampened and dissipated and the shame crowded in the further removed she was from the delicate, unmistakable scent wafting from the cauldron.

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Pairing: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon aka Merthur from BBC Merlin

Despite knowing about this show since 2014 (blame this hellsite) i only got the chance to watch this show in 2016 and boy did i fall headlong in love with this show and it's characters. I love that the fandom still remains active to this day, even a decade after this show ended.

And we all cry hysterically every Christmas Eve because that ENDING 😭 or maybe that's just me lol and the i reread that one post canon fic because i want to feel. And that leads to my first rec,

1. And like the cycle of the year, we begin again by katherynefromphilly Rated E

Set after the Merlin Series 5 Finale "Diamond of the Day".

For many long years Merlin waited.

For the other part of his soul, for the other half of his life. He was born to serve Arthur. So that meant he was also born to wait. Even if it took a thousand years. Even if the wait seemed never to end.

Until one day, suddenly, it did.

When Arthur stumbles from the Lake of Avalon 1,500 years after his death, he finds a world unlike the one he knew. Faced with the loss of everyone he loved, and the threat of impending prophecy, Arthur must learn what it means to be not just a king, but the Once and Future King. Merlin does all he can to guide him, even as he struggles to hide his love for his king, and his fear of losing him again.

Story includes sass, banter, horseplay, & True Love

It is part of a lovely series, We Begin Again which i read every year atleast once, it's a classic masterpiece that fulfils my S6 dreams.

2. Evil Overlord, Inc. by Footloose, mushroomtale Rated E

Merlin is a recent graduate with a double doctorate in metaphysics and physics. Arthur is a low-level paper pusher with a desk in the sub-basement of MI5. They live in a world with ridiculous laws and restrictions against anyone who might be supernatural in any way, shape, or design.

Merlin has huge debts looming over this head, a few quid left in his bank account, and no job prospects. Arthur is pushing thirty, in a dead-end job with no chances of promotion to fieldwork agent, and is thoroughly bored with his life.

One ill-advised Craigslist advert, five pushy mates, one nosy all-knowing sister, and a hacked email account later, Merlin and Arthur take the world by storm.

(Or, more precisely, they take over the world.)

It is one of my most favourite Merlin fics coming from the minds of the godly duo of Footloose and mushroomtale with excellent story, GORGEOUS art and bamf!Merlin and bamf!Arthur.

I'm honestly down bad for the art in this fic, especially spectacled Arthur and the art makes me feel things. If you ever find any Merthur fic, with either of the two author's involved in it's creation, it's a must read.

3. Shadow lord and Pirate King by Footloose, mushroomtale Rated E

A fast ship, a good crew, a treasure, a Clan to lead -- that's all Arthur Pendragon has ever wanted. He sits on the Council, he supports his father's kingship, and he keeps an eye on the Imperial Conglomerate when they come too close to Pirate space.

One day the Conglomerate infiltrates the Clans and poisons the King. Arthur must search for a cure to keep his father alive and the Clans from civil war.

An escape route, a sharp knife, a target, the shadows at his command -- that's all Merlin has ever needed. He fulfills his assignments, he uses the Sterling to sustain his once-royal House in their exile, and wages a private war against the Imperial Conglomerate.

When he learns of an elaborate plot to assassinate him, Merlin does the opposite of what's expected. He flees onto a Pirate ship.

There's a saying among the Pirates: that one's fate is written in the stars. Destiny will always set to rights what has been made wrong.

Arthur and Merlin know that they were meant for the other from the moment they meet. They can feel it from across the galaxies separating them. Nothing can stop them from being together or from fulfilling an ancient prophecy.

Another beautiful fic with gorgeous art, featuring space pirate!Arthur, ninja assassin!Merlin, secrets, plots for revolution and so much more packed in a nice long story with sizzling chemistry and GORGEOUS art.

The art for this fic graced my phone as wallpaper for a long while and if shipping wasn't like sky high i would have bought merch for the fic art, I'm serious.

4. Loaded March series by Footloose Rated E

Captain Arthur Pendragon has put together the best team of specialists that the SAS has ever seen, but when his superiors assign Lieutenant Merlin Emrys as his communications officer, Arthur does everything to make him feel unwelcome. Arthur's job is to protect and guide his team through dangerous missions, and he worries that he can't do that when the newest member has a mysterious background and acts suspicious when he thinks no one is looking.

As their assignments become more dangerous, Merlin can't help but to use his magic to keep his team -- even his prat of a Captain -- safe from threats they couldn't possibly understand. But when they are sent on a undercover operation against a group of zealots intent on a magical apocalypse, Merlin needs to confront his fear of discovery and derision, and to finally trust his team with his secret.

Arthur and Merlin rely on each other for more than the sake of their mission. The entire world is at stake. When they learn -- from dragons, no less -- that they are prophesied to restore the balance of magic to the world, they fight on regardless of the outcome, because duty, honour and loyalty is a far stronger driving force than destiny.

A completed series featuring Arthur, Merlin and the other knights as part of an elite SAS unit with the varying adventures they face that clocks in at almost 1.3 million words, it's a good, LONG read that'll absorb you thoroughly if you aren't careful and you'll emerge as a changed person.

It also has a in progress podfic, which has the first 5 stories in podfic form, which you can listen to here.

Actually do yourself a favor and go to both of these author's ao3 pages and read ALL of their Merlin fic and also fics they've written for other fandoms if they interest you, because otherwise I'll just keep on listing their fics throughout lmao.

5. Gadarene by unpossible Rated E

“You’re the Prince?” Merlin says, eyeing him. He hesitates, then adds, defiant, “The Mad Prince of Camelot.”

Arthur doesn’t move. There’s quiet for a long time, then he says it. “I am.”

“You don’t seem mad,” he says.

The smile wells up from somewhere deep, and very sad. “Well, Merlin,” he says, “give me time.”

This is also a very unique Merlin fic, that deals with reluctant slave master Arthur and slave Merlin working together to take down the villian, with lots of intrigue, lot of sexy times and a little coup, for added flavour.

Also has a lovely podfic !

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Pairing: Peter Parker/Johnny Storm aka Spideytorch from The Amazing Spiderman and The Fantastic Four comics

I've read the Spiderman comics as a teen and was introduced to the fantastic four via those. Peter's friendship with Johnny, especially their bantering is top class. Definitely see the spideytorch queen @traincat blog with their posts on Spiderman, fantastic four and Spideytorch, with this and this (being posts on why Spideytorch? and the second one has a brief comic book timeline of Spideytorch. I personally prefer comic book Peter Parker, fyi but i don't hate mcu!Peter. Also traincat has written many of the gems in this pairing so do check out their ao3 as well!!

1. Tales From The Back Pages by Traincat Rated T

Peter Parker was born with his words. Johnny Storm's been sure his will be said sarcastically since he was a child. Everything else more or less happens according to plan.

A first words soulmate AU.

This is a pretty good fic for those new to Spideytorch in general and is a rather lovely fic. It is basically Marvel 616 Spiderman and the Human Torch but with soulmates. I personally have read it soo many times i can recite parts of this fic from memory.

2. Work Song by Traincat Rated E

Peter Parker has his company, more money than he knows what to do with, and the echoes of a ghost in his head. Johnny Storm's lost his family, his home, and is clinging to the remnants of his old life.

"I’m here with you. That’s not nothing, right?”

“No,” Peter agreed. It definitely felt like something, all the way up here with Johnny so close they were almost touching.

Peter looked at him, at the full lips set in a slight frown, the sharp curve of his jaw, the way his hair fell across his forehead. He fit all the dazzling lights around them, warm like sunshine even in the middle of the night.

“Beautiful,” Peter said before he could stop himself.

This fic requires you to be a bit more familiar with the comic timeline, but in essence, (comic book spoilers ahead) in one of the comic book runs of Spiderman, there's a time when all of the fantastic four except Johnny Storm have vanished and Peter buys up the Baxter building (the F4's home) and he's pretty rich in this because a while before this he had discovered that doctor octavius had taken over Peter's actions via *science ish mind control' with him making a major company and everything.

It kinda has glucose guardian Peter vibes as well and some references to non con as well (not between the main characters). It is one of my favourite fics by Traincat and honestly if you're even somewhat familiar with the spideytorch comic book timeline, i can't rec this fic enough!

3. Always Glad You Came by aloneintherain Rated T

Spider-Man is a relatively new, controversial vigilante, and Johnny has a crush the size of the Empire Building. The Four - operating under the assumption that Spidey is an adult - do not approve.

“I just happen to think Spider-Man's cool,” Johnny says, matter-of-factly. “A hero can think another hero is cool without making it weird. I admire his aloofness. And his badass-ness.”

“His aloofness,” Ben repeats, chuckling into his mug of beer. It’s roughly the size of Johnny’s head. “Yeah, sure, I bet that’s all your admire, right?"

While i usually prefer comic book Spidey, this one is mcu Spideytorch, with teen!Peter and teen!Johnny that is one of my favourite mcu Peter fics.

4. Spideytorch series by mizzy

A series of unrelated fics about my OTP, Peter Parker/Johnny Storm.

This series has some of my favourite Spideytorch fics not written by Traincat and of all of the fics in the series, my personal favourite has to be without a hitch.

This series is based on comic book canon, rather than mcu so do keep that in mind! It's a must read collection of Spideytorch fics!!

5. Better in Picture by weekend_conspiracy_theorist Rated Teen and Up

In which Peter Parker has no interest in sleeping with Matt Murdock, no matter what anyone seems to think.

Despite what it seems, it really is a Spideytorch fic! It has representation of one of the most underrated friendships of Peter and that is his friendship with Matt Murdock aka Daredevil.

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Pairing: Stiles Stilinski/Derek Hale aka Sterek from Teen Wolf

I've read fics for this pairing for a year of two before even actually watching the show a year or so back lol. Reading up on the history of the pairing, thankfully i wasn't the only one who saw this ship as possible in the show (before the makers betrayed us fans). But yeah, I've always been down for bad boys in leather jackets with a heart of gold and Derek was a perfect fit. Plus Stiles stole my heart in the first episode. Scott, while a fine character, was written with a bit too much of the protagonist's halo effect for my tastes, if that makes sense, but that's just my opinion.

1. Play It Again by metisket Rated T

In which Stiles goes along with one of Derek’s plans and ends up in an alternate universe as a result. He should’ve known better. He did know better, actually, and that means he has no one to blame but himself.

“Laura wants to lure the kid in with food and kindness and make a pet of him, like a feral cat. Derek wants to have him arrested for stalking. They’re at an impasse. (And the rest of the family is staying emphatically out of it in a way that suggests bets have been placed.)”

It's a time and dimension travel fix-it fic, featuring soft!Derek, kick-ass!laura and lot of realisations on Stiles' part.

Comes with a Podfic

2. Gravity's Got Nothing on You by zosofi Rated E

“Three weeks,” Derek says.

“Still don’t want to,” Stiles says.

“I’ll pay you,” Derek says, and that… that has Stiles interested. Alf’s Antique’s may be a great job, but it’s not a high-paying job, and half of Stiles’s tuition is coming from financial aid, so…

“How much,” Stiles asks, “are we talking here? Because I know your family, dude. And it’ll be kind of awkward after.“

“My family thinks you’re some sort of fucking gift to the world,” Derek seethes, like he’s jealous, “they’ll probably be pissed at me when we break it off, so don’t worry about that. Five hundred bucks.”

“A thousand,” Stiles says, because screw ethics. Also, the Hale family is loaded. Derek can deal.

Or, the one where the Hale fire never happened, Laura is a nosy sister, Derek is desperate, and Stiles is the only one that can help. It's a fake dating au that is a comfort read of mine.

Also as a Podfic

3. Stop Crossing Oceans by greenleaf Rated M

“There are no absolutes, Scott! No hard rights or hard wrongs! The world doesn’t fucking work that way and we can’t afford to think like that, because people are going to die! We signed up for that the moment we got involved with all this!”

“We? We?” Scott hisses. “Don’t you think you? Don’t forget that you’re the one who dragged us into that forest the night it all started, Stiles. So if it’s anyone’s fault, it’s yours.”

Something inside Stiles cracks, so strong and so deep that he practically hears it.

A look into a what-if Stiles and Scott's ideological differences are so much that it fractures the friendship between Stiles and Scott and Stiles chooses Derek over Scott.

4. Stuck in Reverse by crazyassmurdererwall (smartalli) Rated E

Look, Derek is the worst. Everyone knows that. Their fearless leader is a total and complete failwolf.

Which means the rest of them? Are kind of the worst too. They’re a ramshackle, slap dashed, sorry excuse for a pack that’s about a half second away from getting one of them killed. And this is a problem, because Stiles would really like to survive high school. Thanks.

Still, nobody deserves what Derek has gone through. Nobody.

And it’s about time somebody told him that.

Stiles decides enough is enough and somewhat ought to appreciate Derek and make sure someone cares for him, and in the process, makes friends with Jackson and unites the pack into a much more cohesive team.

5. Will to Follow Through by owlpostagain Rated E

“It depends entirely on how you look at it, I guess,” Stiles shrugs. “On the one hand, instant healing and the apparently inherited ability to pull off leather at all times. On the other, serious attitude problems and a suspicious disappearance of eyebrows.”

“Even Derek’s?” Danny snorts, “that’s a lot of eyebrow to lose.”

“I know,” Stiles agrees. “You should see, it’s so weird. Every time I want to ask him where they go, except he’d totally eat my face off.”

“There are worse ways to die.”

Deals with the in-transition state of Stiles' crush on Lydia to his crush on Derek, featuring a solid friendship trio of Stiles, Lydia and Danny.

Also has a Podfic (locked, so requires an ao3 account to access).

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Pairing: BTS featuring Namjoon centric fics only

I'll admit that I haven't read much of new BTS fics since 2020, so this might be a bit dated, but all of these are solid gold. There'll be only 1 per Namjoon ship and 1 OT7 fic, which was a MASSIVE STRUGGLE I tell you, because there are SO MANY good ones, except for the OT7 fic, that one I knew instantly.

1. Kim Namjoon|RM/Kim Seokjin|Jin aka Namjin :

I cheated. I chose 2 by the same author metastacia BECAUSE I COULDN'T CHOOSE, both of these are SO SO GOOD. Both have excellent plot, world-building, pacing and will suck you in till you finish it all. I have followed both fics from their first chapter to their last and let me tell you each chapter update was an EVENT on my tl, with discussions, theories, everything. So many of us laughed and cried to these chapters and i personally remember the eager anticipation of reading it!

The Shaman and The Exorcist Rated M

Seokjin doesn't believe in ghosts. Which would cause a huge uproar if everyone knew since he's kind of a big deal at his university; he's a shaman who protects people from evil spirits. He doesn't remember where he got the idea to do this from, all he knows is that superstitious people pay good money.

Namjoon does believe in ghosts. Better yet, he can see them and he can expel them. But there's a certain phoney shaman at his university who's stealing all his clients in his exorcism business, and he's not happy about it because haunted people pay good money.

So, what do they do? Figure out whose closet is holding all the skeletons, of course.

KAIROTIC Rated M

The Grim Reaper, they called him. He was the weird kid in school who knew exactly when someone’s mother was about to die. They didn’t believe him when he’d said it, and they didn’t believe him when he said he wasn’t a psychic, and they didn’t believe him when he said he didn’t cause her death.

The Grim Reaper, they still sometimes call him. Legendary trial lawyer who became known for weeding out the bad guy no one else suspected and putting them in prison. It was almost like he had a sixth sense for it. Like no one was safe from him. Like the black cloud of death still follows him around and no matter how much he tries to shake it off, it doesn’t let go.

Seokjin wonders at what point death had stopped following him around, and at what point he’d started to become death itself.

in which Seokjin can see everyone's lifespan floating above their heads, numbers steadily counting down to their deaths. the numbers never change, or so he thought.

2. Kim Namjoon|RM/ Min Yoongi|Suga aka Namgi:

What rhymes with pug me by sequoiasem Rated T

namjoon and yoongi share a sweater (and also some feelings)

This fic is like a warm hug when you're feeling meh or like sitting by the fireplace wrapped in your cozy blanket with a cup of hot cocoa on a winter night.

THE FEELS

3. Kim Namjoon|RM/Jung Hoseok|J-Hope aka Namseok

The Universe Needs More You by AttilaTheHun Rated M

Kim Namjoon is in love, and Jung Hoseok is always dating someone else. This is perfectly fine, even preferable, because the universe likes to tell jokes and Namjoon knows it's best just to laugh along. He's certainly got nothing to complain about when it comes to the building blocks of his life, and dating is a lot of effort. Too much effort, really. So it's obviously fine.

But the universe's latest attempt at a comedy sketch, where Hoseok moves in with him, bringing the sun and a lot of tiny shorts, might actually make him insane.

We all need a little slow burn lovely namseok in our lives.

4. Kim Namjoon|RM/Park Jimin|Jimin aka Minjoon

things we turn away from by themarmalade Rated M

Jimin, beloved by thousands and starved for affection, finds what he craves so deeply in his massage therapist's hands and very intriguing side job.

This will feel like a long long hug, especially if you're feeling touch starved.

5. Kim Namjoon|RM/Kim Taehyung|V aka Taejoon

Hurt Locker by MmeIrene Rated E

Kim Namjoon, college student and outspoken omega, decides that he doesn't want an alpha to help him through his next heat.

Kim Seokjin, best friend, decides that is a Very Bad Idea.

This is my favourite Taejoon fic EVER, with soft and sexy times in equal quantities.

6. Kim Namjoon|RM/Jeon Jungkook aka Namkook

come take it (if you want a piece of me) by babyblue(rhnull)

Jimin forces Jungkook to make a Tinder, and there's no way that profile of Kim Namjoon is real.

Self indulgent, Namkook fluff with pining makes for a lovely read.

7. Kim Namjoon/Everyone aka OT7

What I Did On My Summer Vacation, by Kim Namjoon, Age 18 ½ by Runchrandom(infraredphaeton)

On his gap year, Kim Namjoon accidentally joins a gang, takes over that gang, becomes the leader of the South Korean Underworld, publishes his first mix tape and gets six criminal boyfriends. It's a busy twelve months.

-

"Hey, you're Rap Monster, right?"

"...Yeah."

"You're really cool, man! I've been listening to you for ages!" the guy practically bounces over the body, slinging an arm around Namjoon's shoulders. "You got a crew?"

Namjoon shakes his head slowly.

"Well, we can fix that."

My absolute favourite BTS fic of ALL time, that I re-read ATLEAST once a year. This author has written many excellent Namjoon centric fics, so rest assured you're in for a treat.

Features smart as hell Namjoon who somehow finds himself as the head of the Seoul underground and six boyfriends, and it all started with sucker punching someone in the face. Interested? Read on!

Pairing: Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto aka Sasunaru from Naruto

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A classic pairing, which for many, as well as me, was their first anime m/m ship, if not their m/m ship ever. There's something hilarious that kishimoto, who wrote the women in Naruto so inconsistently and despite never wanting to, created a friendship that was so deep and with such homoerotic undertones, it surpasses the bond that the 'canon' heterosexual pairings have 😂

1. Kizuna Hikari by YoungAndOverIntelligent Rated M

The only reason Sasuke keeps coming back to Konoha is because of that mattress. The bed is his only respite. And perhaps the dumbass who owns said bed might be worth it, too.

Or, another canon divergence 699 that showers Sasuke with too much (deserved) love and attention that we all need for these unprecedented times.

Title means "Bonded Light". It'll make sense when you're about 100K in.

Remember the trope, "there was only one bed" ? This author took the trope and fit in 204k words of healing and feelings and character growth along with it that just moves you.

Sequel has POVs from the other characters as this one is from Sasuke's POV.

2. backslide by blackkat Rated M

Naruto’s friends are gone, his lover is dying, Konoha is destroyed, and Madara’s second return has pushed the entire world to the brink. Hunted and harried, Naruto is sent back in time to upend Madara’s plan before it even starts, and sets about changing everything. Butterfly effect nothing: the world is at stake, and Naruto is hardly about to let it fall to ruin once more. Not while he’s still breathing.

It's a time-travel fix it fic that has a not exactly unique concept, but the author portrays the characters so vividly they will stick in your mind forever.

It also has a Podfic by the awesome Opalsong (who is a prolific podficcer, check them out as well!) that is one of my favourite podfics to listen to, especially while traveling.

3. An Invincible Summer by ShanaStoryteller Rated T

When Naruto is five, he's gutted by a drunken civilian and presumed dead.

Six months later a girl with ash pale hair and dark blue eyes enters the Academy.

As you can see by now, I love my canon fix-its and this is that as well, but involving the Sexy no jutsu in a way I didn't imagine before reading this fic.

Naruto (or as she's known in this fic, Natsu Nami) is a bamf whose bonds with genin team and kakashi are a highlight of this fic.

Also has a Podfic

4. Forces of Gravity by Anxiety_Pickle Not Rated

The Rinnegan is hardly well understood; at the end of the world, Sasuke Uchiha takes a gamble.

In one world, Madara Uchiha wins. Sasuke escapes by the skin of his teeth and flees to the nearest dimension. Unfortunately, he has quite a few unintended passengers. Stranded five years in the past with the Akatsuki and the all too real threat of global extinction at his back, he decides that he'll be the one to stop the apocalypse - even if that means taking on the Akatsuki himself.

A time travel-dimension travel-canon divergence Uchiha Sasuke centric fix-it fic that has pretty good world-building. My favourite part of this fic are Sasuke's hawk summons! They're so interesting and lovely to read.

5. Corporate Secrets by Kizukatana Rated E

Everyone knew that Uzumaki Naruto was a businessman you didn't mess with. He was charismatic and able to win deals that left others wondering how they'd been talked into what they'd just signed. He was held up as an example of everything an alpha should be: strong, charismatic, and commanding. What they could never have expected was that Naruto was not, in fact, an alpha. In a society run by alphas, it was a secret that he kept closely guarded. As long as he never encountered his True Mate, he could keep his identity concealed behind scent blockers and suppressants. And with billions of people in the world, he didn't really have to worry about finding his True Mate. Right? Even if he did, Naruto was sure he would just kick the guy's ass and move on. He'd never met an alpha he was attracted to, or one that could match him. He wasn't worried at all.

Requires an AO3 account to access, but TOTALLY worth it.

One of my favourite A/B/O fics ever that has a pretty good world-building with respect to the trope and the characterization.

But then again, it is by KizuKatana, who along with blackkat (author of fic 2 in the Sasunaru rec list) are some of the most prolific authors in the Sasunaru fic-dom, who have written awesome as hell fics, so do check out their profiles!

Pairing: James Bond/Q aka 00Q from the Craig James Bond movies

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I love me some hardened spy and some bespectacled boffin being a pair of bamfs together. I'm still not clear why exactly why I started shipping this, oh wait, i know, that ENTIRE scene in Q's office where he calmly takes that gun from James.

1. Ordinary Numbers by BootsnBlossoms, Kryptaria Rated T

More than anything, Mike Taylor wanted to be ordinary. Being a genius, he learned early in life, meant people expected too much. A career at the MI6 Help Desk seemed the perfect way to guarantee a lifetime of obscurity, until he got a very unusual tech support call.

Requires ao3 account to read

🤌🏻 chef's kiss of a fic🤌🏻

Also has a lovely podfic which i love to listen to often.

2. Important Dates by AtoTheBean Rated E

After a brief attempt at retirement, James is back at MI6 and working hard to rebuild working relationships with his colleagues and friends. And he's making great strides.

Only Q continues to hold him at arm's length, maintaining a stubborn professionalism in their interactions that James remains unable to pierce.

But James doesn't want Q at arm's length, and so he takes a risk. But even a spy's instincts can run amok, and now James wonders just how long he'll be reaping what he's sown, and how many holidays it will take to win Q over.

A post Spectre fic, with Bond seeking to make amends with Q, but only to be met with resistance. A fic set in important holidays in Bond and Q's life, has groveling bond, something i enjoy reading any time.

3. Quriosity by dr_girlfriend Rated E

Bond finds himself increasingly curious about his enigmatic Quartermaster.

Excerpt:

"Your prior hotel is no longer secure, I will direct you to a new location. Your luggage has already been transferred. A field agent and medic from the Diréction Générale de la Sécurité d'État will be waiting at the side entrance. I have cleared them both personally." In contrast to his crisp dry English, Q's pronunciation of the French words was fluid and flawless, the throaty tone of the fricatives sending a surprising jolt of awareness straight to Bond's cock — all the more remarkable given his degree of blood loss.

"You're wasted on Q-branch, you have the voice for a phone-sex call-in line." The words slipped out of Bond's mouth without forethought, although he had plenty of time to think in the sudden pause that came afterward and stretched on for endless moments. Bond hadn't realized until now how Q was always there, with an immediate reply. In all their banter Q had never before been at a loss for words. Ever.

4. Redamancy by opalescentgold Rated M

If you write something on your skin, then it will show up on your soulmate's skin as well.

James doesn't quite fall in love over physics discussions and cheeky book quotes scrawled over his heart, coding and riddles inked onto his skin, but he comes close. He does.

And then he actually meets Q.

This is a soulmate AU with Holmes!Q that starts pre-Spectre and is a spectre fix-it that fits so many feelings in it, it's no wonder it's so long.

5. Red Queen to Overwatch by BootsnBlossoms, Kryptaria Rated M

After returning from the dead, James Bond moves into a new secure flat, only to find that his new neighbour is either: a scruffy teenager, a brilliant computer geek, a mad scientist, or the sexiest genius he's ever met. Two of these things turn out to be true.

Well, three, once the Red Queen gets involved.

Another beautiful, beautiful fic featuring Holmes!Q, that was one of my first 00Q fics and still remain in my top fics for this pairing.

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Part 2(B) continued here

[kotlc-deleted-scenes]

Keeper Summer Week #2

Deleted Scene from Exile

This scene used to be part of the aurenflare sequence and was a moment I created to show that something might be wrong with Sophie's abilities. But I realized after I wrote it that it didn't really sell the idea that she was “malfunctioning." If anything, it made her seem even stronger, so I cut it out. And I'd considered including the skill in a later Keeper book, but I decided it was too confusing trying to differentiate it from other things Telepaths could and couldn't do. So I dropped the idea from the series entirely. 

—Shannon

Biana yelped and jumped out of her seat. "Don't do that!" she screamed, flinging a cookie at Fitz's head. 

"Did I miss something?" Sophie asked. 

"Yeah, Biana's afraid of the dark,” Fitz told her. 

"More like my brother loves torturing me with his evil mind games," Biana corrected. 

"Actually, it's a highly developed skill," Fitz explained with a smug grin. "I bet even Sophie can't do it." 

His eyes narrowed and Biana screamed again. Even Keefe jumped though he tried to cover it with a cough. 

Sophie frowned. "I don't get it." 

"You didn't see the giant shadow wolf that just attacked us?" 

Biana asked before screaming again. "There-right there. You really don't see that?" 

She pointed to the fire, but all Sophie saw were the dancing rainbow-colored flames. 

"Okay, you guys are starting to freak me out," Sophie admitted. "What's going on?" 

"He's impelling," Alden explained as he joined them by the fire. "That's what we call it when a Telepath pushes a shadow of a thought into someone else's mind to make them see something that isn't there. It's mostly a novelty—and a bit of a gray area when it comes to the rules of telepathy. But it appears your unique blocking protects you." 

"But that doesn't make any sense," Fitz argued, narrowing his eyes yet again and making everyone except Sophie flinch. "I can transmit to her now-shouldn't I be able to impel?" 

"Impelling reaches a different part of the brain," Alden reminded him. "And your connection to Sophie is limited. You can't even read her thoughts-only make her hear yours." 

Keefe laughed. "Foster loves keeping her sense of mystery." 

Fitz frowned and Biana screamed again, clinging to Alden's arm. 

"Dad-tell him to knock it off!" 

"I think that's enough impelling for one night, son. Though, I wonder..." Alden turned to Sophie. "Would you like to give it a try? 

All you have to do is concentrate on a thought and push it toward us—without opening your mind to ours." 

“I guess," Sophie mumbled, not loving the way everyone was staring at her. 

She felt too frazzled to come up with anything original, so she copied Fitz's idea and imagined a shadow wolf with hackles raised and fangs bared. When she could picture every strand of its bristled fur, she narrowed her eyes and shoved the thought toward her friends. 

"What the—" Keefe shouted, covering his ears as Alden ducked and Biana and Fitz screamed. Sophie cleared the image from her head, and everyone slowly straightened, blinking at her with wide, haunted eyes. 

"Did you open your minds to ours?" Alden asked. 

Sophie shook her head. "Why?" 

"That was no shadow," Keefe mumbled, looking paler than she'd ever seen him. "That was a full-color, twenty-foot monster. I swear I could even smell the dog breath.” 

"Me too," Fitz said quietly. "And I could hear it snarling." 

"It was so real," Biana whispered, hugging her dad and glancing around like she expected the wolf to emerge from the shadows any second. 

"I'm sorry—I didn't mean…" Sophie fumbled for her home crystal. 

"Wait," Alden said as she held her pendant in the firelight. "You don't have to leave-you didn't do anything wrong." 

"I nearly gave you guys a panic attack!" 

"Yeah, you did,” Fitz said, trying to smile but not pulling it off. 

"I almost peed my pants," Keefe added. 

Humiliation burned Sophie's eyes. 

Why did she always mess everything up? 

"Your mind is stronger than we're used to. That's all," Alden assured her. 

"Well, that's still a problem," Sophie replied. 

She didn't know her own strength. 

And if she couldn't understand herself—who could? 

"It's really okay, Sophie," Alden insisted. "Please stay." 

She tried to stand a little taller as she shook her head. "Honestly, I…have a headache now. And I'm sure Edaline's waiting for me. Thank you so much for dinner and the aurenflare. I'll see you guys at the Opening Ceremonies, right?" she asked Fitz, Keefe, and Biana. 

They nodded, and everyone tried to smile as Sophie let the warm light whisk her away. 

But Sophie would never forget the look on their pale faces. Fear. 

Maybe even terror. 

Like she was the monster. 

And Sophie had a horrible feeling that they might be right. 

[sudoscience]

Thanks for the tag, @prodigaldaughteralice!

Favorite color: I've always liked black and red, but purple's been growing on me, lately. TBH, I really like the ace pride flag (black, gray, white, and purple), which is fortunate for me, an asexual. Like, I could easily put together an outfit with all of those colors, look damn good in it, and I feel like most people wouldn't suspect anything.

Currently reading: Tragically, I haven't read any books in a long time. I own several that I at one point intended to read, but never got around to. It's gotten to the point that I've pretty much stopped asking for books for Christmas/my birthday because I know they'll just take up space and go unread. I should change this.

Last song: "Who Can It Be Now?" by Men at Work. This is also the song I currently use as my alarm, so I'll probably hear it again in a few hours if I don't sleep through it. Not enough songs with sax solos these days.

Last series: I'm currently watching the second season of Amphibia. I just finished the episode with Kermit Crumpet the Frog and Stan Pines Ponds. I love it, but it still hasn't gotten to the point where I'm binge watching it because I absolutely must know what happens next. I've also been watching Westworld and Better Call Saul, but I'm caught up on those.

Last movie: I'm pretty sure the last movie I watched was They/Them. It wasn't very good. I think the last movie I watched in theaters was On The Count Of Three (TW for suicide if you decide to look that up), which probably tells you how often I go to the movies since it came out in May. I enjoyed that one, but the trailer led me to believe it was going to be funnier than it actually was. I'm not saying it was unfunny, but it's more of a dramedy than a pure comedy. I guess there's a limit to how funny a movie about two guys who want to kill themselves can be. No, iPhone, I did not want to write "Jill themselves". Why would anyone want to write that?

Sweet/spicy/savory: In order of preference, sweet, savory, then spicy. I tend to gravitate towards sweet foods, but if I ever have cravings for something, it's usually for savory foods. I feel like I used to do better with spice, but lately I'll see spicy food and just think, "That doesn't sound very good." I'm sure if I ate it, I'd enjoy it, but it's always like this mental block. I feel like part of it is that it tends to give me acid reflux now when it didn't use to, so I have to know in advance so I can take a Prevacid or something.

Currently working on: I've got a song, but I don't have a good title for it yet. Working title is "Village at Night" or "Peaceful Theme". My overarching goal is to create an album that could plausibly be a video game soundtrack, and the idea for this one was to be the main menu theme. I'd include a clip, but I don't want to bother with turning on my computer right now, so I'll just say it reminds me of "Home" from Undertale and "See You Tomorrow" from OMORI, neither of which is the main menu theme for their respective games, but that doesn't really mean my song couldn't be the hypothetical main menu theme of its nonexistent game. I also always feel like my songs are too short and/or don't have conclusive endings, forgetting that the main feature of video game music is that it (usually) loops indefinitely.

Other things I'm working on include getting to bed earlier. Since it's currently 4am, you can see how well that's going. (I went to bed at 5am last night, so I guess technically I am moving in the right direction, but my goal was to be in bed closer to 2am.)

I'll tag @sukifoof, @asgore-agenda, @sleebyjam, and @momxu, but no pressure. Anyone else who wants to do this can, too.

[catgirl-catboy]

Never read One Peice so I am VERY curious as to how and why Thriller Bark is the "most one peice One Peice gets". Cuz it already seems pretty wacky from what crossed my dash.

Okay, first of all: Don't read One Piece. I wouldn't say because its bad, but because its time consuming.

It is a very long manga about Some Guy in a hat making friends beating up assholes and the government. Doesn't everyone fantasize about having a rando show up out of nowhere and beat up your shitty boss, leaving your life permanently altered?

That being said, most One Piece characters look fucking weird. They all look like the artist might have seen a real person at one point in his life, and then made a caricature of that. I say this with affection. The wide variety of character designs such as long horse and Octopus with 6 swords make the world feel cartoony and silly.

All of them, but the women. (and our one trans dude character, it feels wrong not to mention him.) For one piece is... very catered to the male gaze. According to One Piece, a woman's internal organs are stored in her tits. And the second most prominent female character in the series, who has been in the series for a decade, just got her second solo fight! (Partly because the author gave her a good ranged superpower so logistically she could just snap her opponents neck before the fight begins... but still!)

Thriller bark begins by an antagonist spying on and groping one of our beloved female characters in the slower. Our traditional ladies man and wet cat (who happens to be my favorite turned problematic fave) is rightfully pissed off about this, since his friend and crewmate was assaulted under his nose.

Later, the antagonist kidnaps out leading lady, causing the ladies man to go after her. Decent plotline, right? Makes sense. SIKE! The reason he was mad is because he wanted the superpower the criminal used to assault his friend but didn't get it. Presumably to also perv on people, but a slightly more charitable explanation is given years down the line.

This seemed remarkably OOC at the time, but more jokes in this style would soon follow. To the point where I dare say my dude was flanderized.

Another main problem with Thriller Bark is that the pacing was incredibly wonky. This is slightly subjective, but most One Piece fights are slightly long because the villains are tough, and Luffy has to take a certain amount of damage before he can kick ass.

This fight, it felt like the Straw Hats were winning, and the villain was pulling tricks that weren't foreshadowed and didn't make sense out of his ass. He also wasn't making the best strategic decisions during the fight, which is in character I guess, but still disappointing. The heroes are on a time limit and would have died in a few hours if the villain of the week had just chosen NOT to fight. I wish that this was like, called out?

This is a nitpick compared to the two above problems, but the arc before this, we got two new crewmates! Going in, I was hoping the arc was about them, but instead it was about our first mate, captain, a third new crewmate, and total character derailment for my favorite boy.

That being said, the Zoro moment in this arc is fantastic, to the point where I'd feel bad spoiling it. Like, if you were to ask people about their top ten one piece moments, this would get mentioned a LOT. the badassery.

We also get this ICONIC moment from Luffy and tons more like it. You wouldn't think an arc based of halloween would be so funny, but here we are.

I'd give the arc a solid C, but every individual aspect is either an 100 or a 0.

[risingleomoon]

A Return to Reading

Since realizing that I have not one but two libraries barely a stones throw from the Paul Brown Lofts, I've been taking some time to fall in love with books again. Oh, don't get me wrong, I never stopped reading! Once a Kindle was placed in my hands, I never stopped! But the truth is, I started reading exclusively ebooks and lost the passion for reading. Prior to moving, I had relied on old stand-by's like 'Survivor' (Tabitha King) or the Beautiful Creatures series. Anything I already knew because I had enough guessing going on in my real life. Toward the end, I devoured the Fear Street saga by R.L. Stine (which started a whole new rabbit hole of mental clarity) and was "in between books" at the time of my move.

Week one Downtown I stumbled upon the Central Library Annex; or as I call it the "little library". This pocket-sized land of books is no bigger than my entire loft x 2 and situated in Post Office Square. Other offices for FOCUS St. Louis and people like the Secretary of State plus a small gallery paying tribute to bald men in power share space with the newest and greatest tomes of knowledge and entertainment. That first day I was with Kiki. We tiptoed in through the revolving door, quietly past security and into an enormous atrium. It was there I smelled the paper. I followed my nose. The selection is small, as I prefaced. We were able to get our accounts all set up in minutes and walked out an hour later with the best credit limit I can receive from anyone: 100 books at a time. Each!

This initial visit yielded a powerful boon. I stumbled upon the phenomenal Tina Turner's newest title; "Happiness Becomes You". The dam broke. I read this book everywhere. At work, in the bath, lounging in bed on Sunday, over coffee and a Jay in the morning. Everywhere. It isn't a particularly long book and my nose only remained stuck for 3 or 4 days, but I absorbed so much more than words on pages. Everyone knows the Tina Turner story. That isn't what her new book covers. This book is different from "I, Tina". In "Happiness", Tina teaches us to look inward for the peace and balance we all seek so desperately. These were not new words to me, mind you. I've heard them before. Buddhist teaching crosses over my own Witchery pretty much regularly. When it doesn't it crosses over with my Jewish Mysticism and bounces off Scientific Theory quite nicely. I'm well rounded like that. I was also unsurprised that Tina "The Goddess" Turner was teaching Buddhism. After all, Angela Bassett basically just chanted her way through the second half of the movie. Maybe this time I was ready to listen.

My return to reading had less to do with enjoying books and more to do with getting my shit together. Circumstances aside, my one true soulmate has always been books. I outlined my grand plan for Bookstagram and reviews on Goodreads while registering my SLPL accounts. Nowhere in my plan did I specify enjoying it. As I'm sure you can tell, I never made it past the outline and brainstorm and managed to wrap up whatever had been lingering from JeffCo but failed to execute the new plan. I did post a few sporadic 'Grams. Still not ready to actually begin drafting (let alone publishing) my own content, I took this new creative passion to the back burner and returned for inspiration in books.

With the floodgates now wide open, I decided to go further. I'd finished my stack from "Pan's Labyrinth" to "The Essential Anthony Bourdain" and it was time to refill. I returned Julie Andrews and Greta Garbo along with Kiki's finished books and during week three we found SLPD's Central Library (or the "big library". I'm not clever and witty all the time, you know). This time I was prepared and took my shopping cart. Gathering a few comfort reads (Cassandra Clare. New Book. Not my fault.) led to "The School of Good and Evil". Shameless brag: by the time you read this I may or may not have met Soman Chainani. Day and night my world expanded again. I continued to read my Kindle exclusives and download my Amazon First Reads because one doesn't turn away from free books. Yet my heart has been in the turning of real pages.

I'm not sure how many weeks in we are now but I know I still haven't been to every section. From classics to science, a media center and kids wing with climbing chairs, I was mostly blown away by my ease and comfort inside. I never felt that way when visiting the Arnold Library in Jeffco. I was happy to collect any holds and leave. Eventually we stopped going altogether Now I'm becoming a local "Belle"

"I've come to return the book I borrowed! Got anything new?"

"Not since yesterday, Belle!"

I'm sure at some point I will unpack the psychology behind my stasis and frenetic return to reading. But for today, I'm going to enjoy another book.

[thedevilinmybrain]

8, 11, 13, 20, 40 please <3 (yeah that's a lot and i had to refrain myself)

hello anon! thank you so much 8.what time are you most productive?

i'd like to say at night or very early morning. i think when i'm super relaxed i can get more work done and don't limit myself by second guessing everything. 11.do you listen to music when writing? i do. mostly lofi or movie soundtracks. i will listen to some songs if they're on a fic playlist to like keep me in the mood of the fic 13. hardest character to write i just answered this but i'll also add in that villains are really hard to write and write believable. i was really worried that craig in babydoll blues wasn't evil enough, like he wasn't despicable enough to a level that felt like simon without calling him simon

20.favorite character to write I'm going to say angel Harry. I hold him very close to my heart. all that guilt, all that reverence for life, all that guilt around who you love. 40.which one of your stories would you most like to see as a movie/series i know you all want me to say babydoll blues, but my answer is actually of the divine series. there is just something about seeing harry with wings and flaming sword that would like, blow my fucking mind.

[promoxie]

I think that Ging Freecss and Fugetsu Hui Guo Rou would have interesting interactions if they were to meet. Aka, more rambling about Fugetsu just waaaay longer now:

I'm not saying it as a particular theory post, or that I think they're MEANT to meet and form some kind of relationship, just that I believe their personalities and motivations compliment each other, or that they both have something that the other values.

Fugetsu at the moment isn't a super complex character, as of current events it's been revealed that she cares very deeply for her sister, knows very little about nen (she calls it "magic"), but is, at least, a determined character and is willing to learn and take risks in order to survive and protect her sister. She is as normal of a girl as we've had in this series, and I find that very endearing.

I'm sure you must be thinking then that she couldn't be any more different from Ging, who is a learned prodigy and a loner. If they were to interact, I'm sure many would think that he would brush her aside, but actually, I think that Ging often prioritizes a strong heart and a caring personality over innate skill. He does so with Leorio, saying that he possesses a lot of potential, despite how Leorio has seemed to have been lacking in skill to most everyone else in-universe. He also seems to value Leorio's friendship with Gon. Though Ging never seems eager to form lasting relationships himself, he seems to value other people's ability to do so. It's for this reason that I think that Ging would quite like Fugetsu, if he were to meet her.

I also think that Fugetsu would like Ging, or at least envy him. It's only stated once, but it's also represented in her ability that Fugetsu has a strong desire to travel the world, or at least, she values "the ability to go anywhere".

This coincides with Ging, whose desire to go anywhere, do anything, is a very prominent part of his character. With her very limited knowledge of nen, Ging's sheer skill and power would probably shock her, but I also think that it would inspire her. Like I said before, she possesses a strong desire to learn and grow. If she were to meet Ging, I'd say that she'd wish to be as strong as him, so she could also fulfill her own desire for freedom and protect her sister. Though this second desire is of course impossible now, as we all know...

How that may affect her and her desire for freedom is anyone's guess, but I would like to add that Ging and Fugetsu share one more similarity, or at least they share one more thing to gain from each other:

I believe that Ging cared for his son. However his being a father to Gon, traveling with Gon like how he'd done until his son was two, is no longer possible in my opinion. Ging knows this, and continues to travel and explore knowing this.

Fugetsu has lost her sister, her only relative that she feels safe with. She doesn't know this yet, but her dream to go anywhere, anytime, with the person that she loves and cares about the most, she can no longer do.

They both have something in their personalities that the other would value; they both have something that the other would gain from situationally. For example, Fugetsu could escape from the succession battle and travel the world with Ging. Ging could teach someone nen again, something he seemed to enjoy with Kite, but with the added twist that Fugetsu might be the perfect person for Ging to interact with positively.

I'd also like to point out one last thing, and it's that Fugetsu and Gon look INCREDIBLY alike:

This was pointed out by someone on Twitter a long time ago, but the eyes, the nose, shape of the mouth- it is all the same. That could of course be a coincidence, like I said this isn't exactly a theory post, but that, on top of all this other stuff strikes me as very noticeable, at the very least.

[wrestlingisfake]

Destruction in Kobe preview

Will Ospreay vs. Yota Tsuji - Ospreay is defending the IWGP United States championship, although he's been calling it the IWGP United Kingdom title for the past six weeks. Tsuji earned this match by pinning the champion in a tag match on August 13.

I like Tsuji's whole deal as a genetic space wolf dinosaur man or whatever he's supposed to be, but I don't buy for a second that he's going to win this match. Since returning from excursion a few months ago, Tsuji has struggled to beat anyone one-on-one; his only victories have been against guys like Gabe Kidd and Shota Umino that are in the same boat. Sometimes a guy like Jay White or Hiromu Takahashi hits the ground running after excursion, but the story with the current crop is that these things take time.

Meanwhile, Ospreay is hitting his stride as a top guy in New Japan, with key wins this year over Kazuchika Okada, Kenny Omega, and Chris Jericho. At some point he'll lay down and put over a rising star, and it might be Tsuji or someone like him. But they're already setting up Ospreay vs. Zack Sabre Jr., Englishman vs. Englishman, in London, for the "UK" title. So whatever the plan is for renaming/un-renaming this belt, I don't think we'll see it unfold until after October 14. This match is a formality for Ospreay, and Tsuji's just going to have to settle for impressing people with a solid losing effort.

Tetsuya Naito vs. Jeff Cobb - Last month Naito won the G1 Climax tournament, and earned a world title match for January 4. His first loss in the tournament was to Cobb, so Cobb issued a challenge for this matchup.

It used to be traditional in a situation like this for the G1 winner to put his title shot on the line. Last year, however, Kazuchika Okada flat-out declined to defend the contract, which seems to have ended the tradition. On the other hand, Naito has suggested that he wouldn't care about trying to win this match unless the contract is at stake. So it seems like Naito wants to defend his title shot, but New Japan won't let him...for some reason. "We can't decide if this is a lame duck match or not" is a weird way to promote a show.

It doesn't make any sense for Naito to lose to anyone before January 4, unless they're setting up someone to take his place in that match. And with all due respect to Cobb, I don't think he's getting that spot this time around. This match is another formality.

Shingo Takagi vs. Great-O-Khan - Takagi is 2-0 against Khan in singles matches. The story for Khan this year has been a series of failures and setbacks. It seemed to me that Taichi kinda lit a fire under him in the G1 Climax tournament, but I'm not sure that's an actual plot point they're going to follow up on. In any event, he's looking for a win over Shingo to get back on track. I don't know if beating Khan will really mean much for Takagi at this point, but then that's just another reason to give Khan a win he badly needs.

YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto vs. Shane Haste & Mikey Nicholls - Bishamon (Yoshi and Goto) are defending the IWGP heavyweight tag team title. Whoever wins this match will likely carry the belts into November's World Tag League. This is the third match between the two teams; so for Bishamon is 2-0. I guess there could be a title change here, but I'm not sure there's much point. If it was me I'd keep the belts on Bishamon all the way to January 4. But Haste and Nicholls could pull off the upset.

Taichi vs. SHO - Taichi's KOPW belt is on the line; whoever holds it at the end of the year will be the KOPW 2023 champion. As is standard for KOPW matches, the participants proposed special rules for this contest, for the fans to vote on. Taichi's "seconds handcuffed" rules won, so there will be no time limit and Sho's seconds (EVIL, Yujiro Takahashi, and Dick Togo) will be handcuffed Taichi's seconds (SANADA, DOUKI, and TAKA Michinoku), to discourage interference.

The most interesting factor in this match is that Sanada and Evil are scheduled to face off for the IWGP world title on October 9. Handcuffing them to each other may make this bout a fair fight, but it sets up the possibility of Evil working over Sanada's biceps injury, like he did last month.

As far Taichi and Sho go, I suppose this could go either way, but that's mainly because the KOPW title is utterly pointless, so there's no harm in putting in a bunch of crappy Sho matches for a while. Taichi really doesn't need the belt to keep moving onward and upward, so some heel shenanigans to cost him the win are definitely possible.

Kazuchika Okada & Tomohiro Ishii vs. Zack Sabre Jr. & Bad Dude Tito - This feels kind of random, since both teams have nothing better to do right now. Sabre's next destination is a big AEW match with Bryan Danielson, and Okada and Ishii are awaiting their own interpromotional bout against guys from Impact Wrestling, and none of those guys are in town to preview anything. I almot forgot Tito was still around and part of Sabre's TMDK faction. I assume he's in this match to lose the fall.

Hiromu Takahashi & BUSHI vs. Lio Rush & YOH - Takahashi is set to defend the IWGP junior title against Rush and Mike Bailey in a three-way on October 9. Rush was a solid babyface the last time he was in Japan, but he's turned heel in Impact Wrestling. Despite this, he's apparently still in CHAOS and partnered with Yoh, but that could change at a moment's notice. Bushi should probably take the pin here.

David Finlay & Alex Coughlin & Gabe Kidd & Chase Owens & Gedo vs. Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa & Hikuleo & El Phantasmo & Jado - This is a preview of three different matches on October 9: Finlay vs. Tama, Chase vs. Tanga, and Kidd-Coughlin vs. ELP-Hikuleo. Gedo and Jado are just there to be old guys that can lose the fall for their respective teams.

SANADA & DOUKI & TAKA Michinoku vs. EVIL & Yujiro Takahashi & Dick Togo - Sanada will defend the IWGP world title against Evil on October 9. After this match, all six of these guys will be handcuffed to each other during Taichi vs. Sho, as noted above. I'm sure that'll play into the psychology here, with the House of Torture trying to gain an advantage over Sanada's team. Other than that it really doesn't matter who wins this one.

Drilla Moloney & Clark Connors vs. Kevin Knight & Tiger Mask - Moloney and Connors are the IWGP junior tag team champions, and they'll defend the title against Knight and KUSHIDA on October 9; in this match, however, the belts aren't at stake. Seems kind of strange to do a two-on-two match to preview a slightly different two-on-two match, but oh well. Tiger Mask has to get beat in this one.

[korpikorppi]

The Untamed costumes extra

Wei Wuxian's iconic red underwear

Before I continue the actual series of posts looking into the character costumes, I thought I'd take a quick look at Wei Wuxian's signature red underwear. He wears this combo with so many of his outfits that it is easier to have a separate post to link back to than repeat these things each time (I am being lazy 😁).

Ok. Let's first repeat my very limited, Wikipedia-stolen knowledge on hanfu underwear. The innermost layer (inner garments, the actual underwear, I guess) typically comprises the zhongyi (中衣) or zhongdan (中單): a pair of underpants and an undershirt. Like you can see Wei Wuxian wearing here:

Even though here he is wearing a white undershirt that is most likely one of Lan Zhan's ❤. Anyway, moving on.

A separate, typically pleated skirt, chang (裳), seems to be standardly worn over the shirt and pants, under the middle layer (the inner robe). According to the Wikipedia article, the skirt can also be considered as part of the middle layer (or one of the middle layers), but in these costume posts I have always clumped it with the underwear, the inner(most) layer.

So onto The Red Underwear (I've also seen this called The Red Robe of Sin, which is quite adequate), of which we of course get the first proper view in the cave of the Xuanwu in episode 13.

So, a full-body view (unfortunately quite blurry in this blow-up). A red shirt, and a red skirt (some of the pleats can be seen below his hand), all good. A nice hole above the heart (I'll get back to that).

Black underpants, typical of Wei Wuxian. Poor Wangji, the hardships he has to endure 😁.

We get another good look at Wei Wuxian in his underwear Wei Wuxian's underwear in episode 23, when he is recuperating in Lanling from his use of the Jin Tiger Seal during the Sunshot Campaign.

The first thing to note is his figure the fact that what he is wearing is not a shirt, but actually a full length robe! The second thing to note is that Wangji has clearly gotten used to the idea of Wei Wuxian in his underwear. The third is that Wei Wuxian is demurely holding the neck of his robe closed, awww. Now compare this to when he was talking with shijie a bit earlier:

Lan Zhan is making him feel a bit self conscious ☺. Here we can see that he is clearly not wearing a separate undershirt; the same is true for the Xuanwu cave, I think, because there is nothing visibe either at the neckline or at the hole made by the branding iron. So he seems to be wearing an underrobe instead of an undershirt. And just a note that the colour is an exact match with his hair ribbon, nice.

The red robe really is full length, with a beautiful drape (material is silk satin, perhaps). And he is wearing black underpants again (if he wasn't, he probably wouldn't be sitting like that... ok, moving on).

A side view. From this it looks like there might be splits at the sides, but I really cannot say for sure. Those would add freedom of movement.

I also started thinking if he actually does wear a separate skirt on top of this robe. It looks like that from the Xuanwu scenes, but I wanted further confirmation. So I took a sidestep to bts material. This material, particularly:

Poor me, the hardships I have to endure 😶. And yes, he is definitely wearing a pleated skirt over the robe. The upper edge of the skirt is clearly visible at the waist (that waist 🥵!), as are the pleats.

I also think that it is possible to see both the skirt and the hem of the under robe in this shot, draped over his right boot, with a slight difference in the colour and sheen of the fabrics. So it seems Wei Wuxian is wearing two long undergarments (plus the underpants!) beneath his middle and outer layers (at least with some of his outfits). No wonder poor XZ was suffering from heat!

And this picture? No more reason than him being very pretty and there still being room for one more ❤. But I can perhaps point out that there is some extra length in the sleeves, possibly so that when he wears his armguards, the sleeves can be pulled up a bit leaving some extra fabric and more room for movement at the elbow. There.