#how i've missed writing them

[traumxrei-archive]

【 don't be afraid to get close 】

prompt #1: He had them against the wall but now he can’t stop looking at their mouth… (ft. jamil viper + riddle rosehearts)

gn! prefect (you/yours), drabbles, word count: 737 words

a/n: i said i'd delete requests, but i figured out that writing them out as hcs was a lot faster aND more fun for me. so. the rest of my 600 followers event fics will be in hc format >:DD had lots of fun writing for mr rosehearts and mr viper, so enjoy

Riddle Rosehearts

The one thing that peeved Riddle more than anything was when a uniform was worn incorrectly. So when he saw you walking around the halls with a loosened tie of all things, he knew he had to intervene.

"Prefect?" You looked at him with a slight smile. "Could you come with me for a minute?" You followed him easily to a more secluded part of the hallway, where Riddle could finally grab at your very loose tie.

"Prefect, as i've emphasized, it is important to keep your appearance as neat as possible," Riddle lectured as he continued to tie the knot. "It not only helps with cleanliness, but also with confide–"

Riddle's gaze flitted up. Big mistake.

He tried not to flinch at the proximity of your face to his. He was definitely not paying attention to the curve of your cheek or the part of your lips. Sevens, your lips looked so soft, he wondered if–

He dropped the tie like he was burned

You raised an eyebrow, "Is this how the great Heartslabyul housewarden ties a tie?"

And Riddle went red. He was sure he was flushing down the base of his neck, but he couldn't get his mouth to work.

"Senpai," There was a hand at his arm, tugging while you innocently tilted your head. "Did you get distracted by something?"

Great Queen of Hearts, Riddle was not going to make it out of here alive.

"O-of course not," Riddle forced out, his voice coming out unnaturally high. "I was merely just...we were standing very close together...."

He shut his mouth, intent on salvaging whatever petty pride he still had left. He then grabbed the tie with shaky hands, working at it once again as if he didn't just flush his rapport with you down the drain just seconds before.

Once the tie was done, Riddle sighed with relief, smoothing the material before letting it go.

"Thanks senpai," You said, before leaning in close and– Riddle shut his eyes, a light pressure landing on his cheek. He opened his eyes to see you smiling as you waved, heading to class as if nothing happened.

Riddle, on the other hand, crouched on the ground. He would never be able to get the flush out of his cheeks.

Jamil Viper

Jamil had a love-hate relationship with rain. but today he was bordering on the "hate" side. He was completely drenched, caught off guard by the rain as he quickly ducked into an alcove, tugging you behind him.

He cursed, pulling out two towels from his gym bag, "It's clean." At your questioning look he elaborated, "I bring two because Floyd always tries to steal mine."

Jamil draped the towel over your head, helping you dry your hair out of habit. He was secretly pleased as you let him do as he wanted.

However, he didn't realize how intimate of a situation he had created for himself until he felt you reaching over with the towel in your hand to help him.

That was when Jamil's gaze slid to the wall that he had backed you into, before dropping down to your lips.

Oh.

Jamil averted his eyes, trying hard to school his expression into neutrality. He picked up his pace, swiping at the water with renewed vigor until—

"Jamil?" A small silence. "Hm?" His reply came late, too busy focusing on a droplet of water as it traced down your face, wishing it was his fingers instead.

"You...look like you want a kiss."

Jamil swallowed, throat dry because he had been completely exposed. How was it that you were able to know his feelings so easily?

He saw the nervousness flit across your expression at the prolonged silence, so he let himself speak, "And...what if i do?"

You tugged at the towel around his neck, pulling him that much closer. His lips met yours clumsily, the cold of the rain fleeing for something warmer. He couldn't help but hold you closer, bridging the gap to feel the slide of your skin against his.

As he pulled back, Jamil wasn't sure what was louder, the sound of the rain pelting the roofs, or the sound of his heartbeat in his ears.

"Was that okay?" You asked tentatively, and Jamil all but wanted to laugh.

Instead he smirked, letting his cold fingers press against the warmth of your cheek, "i think i'll need a few more of those to warm up, ya sukar."

thank you for reading this far ^^ if you'd like to see the rest of the 600 followers event, find it here, and if you want to see more of my writing, go check out my masterlist <3 (p.s. to the people asking, 'ya sukar' means 'my sugar' >:D)

#/trau writes #jamil viper x reader #jamil viper #riddle rosehearts x reader #riddle rosehearts #twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #twisted wonderland #tbh these were fun to write #ah the joys of drabbles and hcs #how i've missed writing them #and how quick they are lmfao

[toldentops]

talk about kinoga. NOW.

GAH I JUST THINK THEY ARE SO............. well first of all. they are so cute and handsome. look at them right now

Second of all I have one million feelings about them and it's barely an exaggeration. For those who aren't familiar, Kinoga is one of my beloved splatoon ocs and I think about them all the time. Originally made when I tossed a "what-if" idea about Trito, my first splatoon oc, who was once part of the octarian military, if he runs into one of the old squad members on the surface, and Kinoga was born with the help of @igneouskit. Brainworms ensue. its terminal. check out their toyhouse

(extremely brief rundown for those unfamiliar with splatoon lore the relevant bits are as follows: some octolings are part of a military that were forced underground after a war with the Inklings over land due to rising seas. At some point during the plot, the song Calamari Inkantation is sung by the two idols, which is apparently imbued in the DNA of all creatures and compels octolings to see the surface. In the splatoon 2 DLC, octo expansion, some octolings are recruited by a shady company called Kamabo Co, which entices participants to enroll in tests through a deep sea metro, and offers the "promised land" as a reward. Completing the tests entails collecting parts of a blender, and the "reward" is getting blended into sludge. This sludge can get injected into other octos which causes them to lose their will and consciousness ("sanitization").

timeline-wise much of their story takes place between splat 2, through octo expansion, and is currently in the splat 3 era. When they were still in the military, they ended up hearing the Calamari Inkantation like Agent 8 did. Kinoga and their squad were incredibly close to each other. Unwilling to just up and leave the underground but wanting to give their squadmates a better life, Kinoga hears about Kamabo's "promised land" and wants to seek it out, so they leave the squad to embark on the metros and promises to return. They do not <3 Some of the tests make them encounter sanitized octolings and they begin to question what's really happening in the metros. Their tipping point is when they run into Agara, one of their squadmates that decided to enter the metros to look for Kinoga and ends up being sanitized. Kinoga, facing the crushing realization that their squadmates had followed them, unaware of the danger, narrowly escapes being killed by Agara and eventually makes it to the surface.

This results in them experiencing a good amount of crushing guilt about leaving, they never knew it would lead to the possibility of dooming their whole squad that followed after them because they were loved and trusted. Kinoga had no way of letting the rest of them know that they should turn back and it's so. AAUGH. They have no choice but to continue on, finding life on the surface and eventually making it to splatsville with the belief that the rest of the squad may be gone. Agara and Trito end up running through the metro, Agara gets sanitized and Trito survives, albeit without getting a nasty scar from an accident that nearly got him sanitized.

Trito makes me insane also. he's my funny silly rabbit. I care about him so so much. trito goes through the metros, to maybe catch up with kinoga or meet them at the promised land, trusting that it was worth leaving if Kinoga decided it was worth it for all of them too.

Trito, upon learning about The Horrors in the metro later, realizes what could have happened to Kinoga and Agara and is unwilling to return to the rest of the squad with this knowledge, struck by the possibility that they're both gone. <-also has to realize that these horrible things have been happening to all the octlings that left to go do the metro tests. He too, eventually escapes to the surface and makes it to Inkopolis.

Years later, Trito, on a day trip to Splatsville, encounters Kinoga on the streets, and they lock eyes. and. fuck. They thought they were dead and had dealt with the grief and accepting that they were gone, effectively pushing those thoughts aside, and now they're physically in front of each other and they have to deal with it again. they make me SICK. Kinoga knowing that trito went to the metros and followed them and made it out also. Trito knowing that Kinoga experienced the horrors as well and survived. Neither of them able to return to tell the rest of the squad but they're both here, alive on the surface and aarrghhhhhhh. now they have to cope with this. they hastily exchange contact information, having to leave each other again, and end up meeting later to really catch up.

I'm so normal about kinoga and their relationship to trito post-domes. They don't even realize that they miss each other so much because they accepted that they were already gone. Seeing how much the other had changed. Being each other's only tie to their previous lives and it dawns on them that they never can move on from this. Kinoga struggles to tell Trito that they couldn't bring themselves to go back, not knowing if they could escape a second time, not knowing if any of their teammates were still left, already dealing with occasional spurts of being wracked by grief. Trito feeling the same, wanting to forget the terrible things and find happiness on the surface, but disheartened when learning that Kinoga also couldn't bring themselves to go back to look (though now that the both of them are together.....they do eventually muster the courage to go back to the domes to look for their old squadmates). It like. sucks so bad. They didn't intend to abandon their squad, but they were given circumstances where they just could not, and none of the other squad members could have known and suffer for it. aarghhhhh.

They end up at Trito's place, Kinoga and Trito end up being very affectionate towards each other after reuniting, definitely Trito being clingier...Compelled to hold onto each other and not let go, not after feeling so much regret about leaving in the first place. It's like. they left once before and terrible things happened out of their control, so they're allowed to hold each other as close as they can so it doesn't happen again (THE DEMONS) (GRIPS). it's irrational for Trito especially to think that he'll never see Kinoga again when they have to leave, since they live in separate cities and have to go in the morning. and kinoga knows it's irrational and they do their best to comfort him anyways because. who could blame him for wanting to keep them there after being gone for so long and so unexpectedly. The slow, crushing experience of not fully registering that someone could be gone and it creeps up to them until it hits. auuuuugh. they have to be so tender with each other, not really knowing where to take things afterwards but relishing in the moment of having each other there. riding the high of each other's comfort. fuck. this post is just getting worse as it goes. Trito breaking down in Kinoga's arms because he's had to hold in his grief and having nowhere to put it and then finally being able to release it. just being able to feel Something again. kinoga feeling so heartbroken to see trito like this, remembering that he was always so outspoken and smiling and having him curled up against them unable to say anything. holding him as tightly as they can. Feeling the need to take good care of him. They aren't his squad leader anymore but they still feel compelled to look out for him because then they can feel like they're doing at least something right. whatever. you guys get the gist. I'm way too much of a sucker for like...............pained intimacy. I'm down terrible. I think both of them deserve a little kissy and more. again. very touchy and affectionate with each other, I guess theyre still like "friends" (A WARRIOR'S BOND. OR WHATEVER) and are not "together" like a couple but here are words from igneouskit who put it better then I could ever. they love each other so much and they make me blow up. worlds most situationship

and also one bit I forgot to mention is that Trito has a huge scar on his chest that he hates talking about, it just brings back the fear and pain felt when he got it, and by association reminds him that he's alone from his squad who may never see again, so he's very protective of it. Upon getting back to kinoga, they do find out about the scar accidentally, and Trito lets them. like auuuugh they were so familiar with each other and now get to see what's changed since the last time. exploring eachother's bodies. whatever

Kinoga also ends up feeling really guilty at some point for Trito being immediately so affectionate towards them, they harbor thoughts that they don’t deserve it after having him go through that pain, and trito having to tell them that he made his own decision, nobody was forcing him to go, and besides, did it to see kinoga and now that they’re right in front of him he can give him all the love he’s been holding for them. Auuughhhh. Like don’t worry about feeling guilty for it. It wasn’t their fault. What matters to him now is that they’re both alive and with each other. I feel like blowing up

Even after Kinoga goes back to splatsville the next day trito is still aches about them......like a few days of reunion could never be enough to compensate for the years that they spent apart. every time they meet up after that trito jumps in kinoga's arms and kiss them like it was the first time they'd reunited

anyways. they eventually go back down to the domes to find the others. By that time, Agent 8 had dismantled Kamabo, the Sludge shit was no longer in operation, and octolings have started going to the surface. Kanu, another squad member, left the domes to find Kinoga, Agara, and Trito(jilon was another squad member who left for reasons I haven't decided yet). Denchu, the last remaining member, stayed behind, holding on to the hope that the missing members would someday return (denchu is a whole other can of worms. theyre everything to me and I feel so terrible for them <3). Trito and kinoga meet denchu, they update them on everybody else, leaving agara unaccounted for. Kinoga, who was the only one to see Agara firsthand, knowing that she might be completely unsalvageable, hesitates to bring it up, but Trito insists on going to look for her. aughhh. kinoga wants to spare trito the pain of seeing her dead or unconscious. They do eventually find her </3

She is alive, but not doing well at all, Kinoga desperate to maybe find some way to undo sanitization and restore her to full health, knowing full well that it may not be possible. They take Agara back with them to the surface and Kinoga spends a lot of time agonizing again over having caused this, feeling that agara's state is somehow their fault (ITS NOTT they're beating themselves up so bad for this because they feel responsible for the squad. aughhh).

I think thats all I have for kinoga. for now. obviously there are more thoughts I can get into but currently my brain has just latched so hard on trito and kinoga's fun situation and I love them so much. didn't think I'd get attached to them this bad but here we are </3. I hope everyone who has read this far also enjoys them as much as I do

#THIS TOOK FOREVER TO TYPE. KEPT GGETTING SELF CONSCIOUS ABT HOW MUCH IVE ALREADY TYPED FOR THEM IN OTHER POSTS #my ocs #my art #trito #kinoga #splatoon #splatoon ocs #THEYRE SO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #I have been so crazy about them. so crazy. this post doesnt even encapsulate all my thoughts about them #basic arc(?) in chronological order and some thoughts also #cant even describe the like. aching. burning. thinking about kinoga #like I need to kiss them of course but (AGONIES) trito misses them so so much. #loves them so so much and has to deal with it when it floods him all at once during the first encounter #sorry if none of this is like. comprehensible #I've been so ill about them and trito for weeks #these thoguhts are usually for rotating them in discord servers but you all get to get blasted by them all at once #STRUGGLED so bad to write this out because every time I had a new thought I had to go lie down and think about it #anyways. anyways. care about them so much. what ever #its still mostly about trito since he's like my 'main' character but kinoga still gets roped into these feelins #also joked that if trito ever gets a partner itll be like #'this is my partner' #'and this is my friend kinoga who id die for and trust with my life and kiss on the mouth' #more realistically trito just loves all his friends as closely as he would a partner. he has so much love in his heart #blows up I just reread this I think I used ‘crushing’ as an adjective like 4 times. whatever

[pineapplefulfillseveryneed]

Sparks tour 2023

#I thought it would be nice to put all their photos from the tour in one post because I love seeing them all together :) #(there were so many though - I sadly had to leave 5 photos out) #best tour. 10/10. zero notes. <3 #everything I could find from the tour that was already posted has been reblogged ^^ (if I missed any of your posts: let me know!) #a little explanation about the archive (maybe I should write a proper thing on how to navigate it sometime): #I've tagged posts with the city things happened in so you can find them that way through tags #posts have additionally been tagged by date following the format Month Day Year like so: june 16 2023 #if you are on desktop or using a browser you can click the link I put above & it'll lead you to the archive of all the posts from the tour #I still have a lot of things to add (including my own tour experiences) so I'm not done with tour posting! #I'll post any new posts the normal way and in a week or so I'll send them back in time so they'll show up at the right dates in the archive #End of PSA! #sparks tour 2023 #sparks tour 2023 photo #2023 #sparks #russell mael #ron mael

[angrilydancing]

i find it rlly cool how even though c!tommy & c!purpled's friendship was never canon, we as a community still managed to make such an amazing, interesting dynamic between these two character foils: someone who would do anything to be in the spotlight, and someone who would do anything to get out from under it. the boy who no one notices and the boy who everyone knows. like that's beautiful

#WAIT upon further and deeper research (ty for pointing this out in tags) there's some vods with them both i've missed and have yet to watch #i can't wait to watch them oh my god #still i sort of write them as ride or die bffs when they're kinda just not in canon #i'll level w you though i try to watch major streams so i can get a good idea of everyones lore #but i'm not the /most/ knowledgeable so apologies for that #i just think its fun to think about how their dynamic has also grown outside of canon yk what i mean? #goldenboys #c!tommy #c!purpled #golden duo #goldenduo #golden boys

[unfinishedslurs]

welcome to eden

this is a love letter. inspired by this song

As soon as Steve picks up the phone, she knows she’s making a mistake.

“Rob?”

“No,” she says instead of hanging up like she should. 

“Nancy?” He sounds more alert now, and she can picture him standing up straighter, calling to attention at the sound of her voice. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” 

“Not really,” she sniffs, hating herself for it. “I—can we talk?”

He’ll say no. He’ll say no, because it’s one in the morning and he was probably asleep before the phone rang and she shouldn’t be asking to talk years after she broke his heart and didn’t even remember—

“Of course,” he says, and Nancy could kick herself. “Over the phone?”

“No. Not over the phone. I’m sorry, it can wait, you can go back to bed.”

She hears him huff a laugh, even though there’s nothing funny about any of it. “I wasn’t in bed,” he assures her. “Am I picking you up?”

Tears spring anew to her eyes. “If that’s okay.”

“Works for me,” he says. “See you soon.”

“See you,” she echoes, and hangs up. 

She spends the time it takes pacing quietly in front of the front door, berating herself for using him like this. But she needs to talk to him, and the sooner it’s over with the better. 

Headlights cut through the window way too soon, and she nearly throws herself out the door. 

She gives him a look when she opens the car door, telling him she knows how many traffic laws he must have broken to get here this quick. He just grins in return, ready to point out the felony in her closet. 

“Where are we going?” He asks, and her heart clenches. He’s so good. He’s so good, and she couldn’t-can’t love him like he wants. She has to tell him. 

Tonight probably wasn’t the best night for this conversation, but her skin feels like it’s peeling off and the faster she says something the quicker it will be over with and she can go back to how it was before. Back when she didn’t have anyone to talk to, because Robin might never speak to her again after she breaks her best friend's heart for the second time. 

Just rip the bandaid off, Nance. 

“I don’t know,” she says instead. Maybe she’s a coward. “A field? Somewhere I can see the stars.”

“I can do that.”

The drive goes by in silence, Nancy staring stubbornly out the window. She can feel Steve periodically checking on her, and she knows he wants to know why she called. She can’t open her mouth to say it in the suffocating enclosure of the car. She rolls down a window. 

They get to a field almost out of Hawkins, and the car is barely in park before she’s climbing out, going around to sit on the hood. Steve cuts the engine and follows. 

She still doesn’t say anything. She called him to have a talk, why can’t she just open her stupid mouth—

“Nancy?” Steve asks, gentle in a way that used to make her melt. She pulls her legs to her chest, feeling vulnerable. “What’s wrong?”

“Jonathan and I broke up,” she finally gets out. 

“Oh shit.” He looks genuinely surprised. “That sucks, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well, it was never going to be forever.” Except she’d thought otherwise. She thought they were Nancy and Jonathan, the two of them against the world. She hunches her shoulders. “We never talk anymore, and he was pulling away from me, and he was lying to me for months-“ she shakes her head, clearing the anger she feels at that. “It doesn’t matter. I’m starting to realize there’s things I need to work on, too. A lot to work on, actually.”

“I don’t know what that could be,” he says, flashing her a smile filled with boyish, roguish charm. “You’re already the best person I know.”

She sniffs, and suddenly she’s crying into her knees, shoulders shaking. He freezes beside her, before wrapping an arm around her and pulling her into his side. She leans in for a second, chasing the comfort, before remembering what she came here to do and ripping away violently. 

“Fuck,” she whispers. “Fuck, I’m so sorry. I don’t—I can’t—this isn’t what I—“

“Hey,” he soothes. “Slow down. Let it out.”

She wipes her eyes, suddenly furious. “I don’t want to date you,” she says, finally looking him in the eyes. “I don’t—I’m sorry for calling you. I just remembered how much better you used to make me feel, but then I realized that’s like…really shitty of me.”

“Why?” He asks, as if Nancy didn’t come out here to break his heart again. “I want to make you feel better. I like knowing I can make you feel better.”

“I don’t want to lead you on,” she says, mouth screwing up. “That’s why I called you out here. And I know it’s shitty of me—“

“Nancy, you’re not leading me on. I…I don’t want to date you either.”

That stops her in her tracks. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh,” he echoes quietly. “I—don’t take this the wrong way, okay, ‘cause I know I’m gonna sound like an asshole saying it, but, uh, I can’t do that again. And even outside of that, I don’t like you that way anymore. Uh, sorry.”

She tries not to sag at the overwhelming relief she feels at that. 

“Are you sure?” She studies him closely, trying to see if he’s saying this for her sake or if he means it. “Back in the Upside-Down, and when we were fighting Venca, it seemed…”

He grimaces, and Nancy thinks if it wasn’t dark she’d see the beginning of an embarrassed flush on his ears. “I…may have been feeling things,” he admits. “I was testing the waters, I guess. I started feeling nostalgic, and you were there, and everyone was encouraging me, and it all just ended up in this weird…feelings soup. Sorry.”

“You said you wanted to have six kids with me,” Nancy reminds him. “And travel the country in a Winnebago.”

He groans, covering his face with his hands. “I am,” he says, “so sorry. I don’t know why I said that. That had to be so weird for you.”

“It was kind of sweet?” She tries, not letting her relief show. Not yet. 

“We haven’t been together in years, and I decided to tell you I used to dream about you having my babies. How do you deal with me?”

“Well it helps to know you were dropped on your head. Puts everything in perspective.”

“Yeah, yeah, yuk it up.” He looks at her, really looks at her, and she tries not to fidget under his gaze. Too earnest, too caring for someone who doesn’t deserve it. He’s always tried so hard. To woo her, to be a better person, to keep back the vicious streak she still sees in him. “I meant it, when I said I loved you,” he tells her gently, no sign of that cruelty that had him painting her as a whore for the whole town to see. “Back then, I mean. I just wanted you to know that.”

She wants to cry. “I know. I’m sorry I couldn’t say it back.”

“It’s okay,” he says like he means it. He leans back against the windshield, looking at the sky. After a moment, she copies him. 

They watch the stars together, and the air feels clearer. 

“Where do we go from here?” She asks, afraid of the answer. 

“What do you mean?”

“What happens with us now?”

“Well,” he says gingerly, like he’s testing the waters. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard you’re a pretty kickass friend.”

Friends. She doesn’t know that she and Steve have ever been friends, not properly. Even after the apologies they made to each other, she doesn’t know that she could call what they had friendship. It wasn’t substantial on its own, needing Jonathan as the barrier between them. When it fell, so did they. 

“I haven’t had a friend in a while,” she admits. “Robin is kind of a novelty for me. She’s amazing.”

It’s funny, in a way. She was so jealous of Robin, of how close she was with Steve in a way Nancy wasn’t. She’d thought, at first, that it was because they were so clearly dating. After Robin told her they weren’t, she realized how badly she’d just wanted friends. She missed hanging out with Steve, missed his laugh and his squint and his bitchy attitude. She’d hoped that eventually they’d get to that point, was sure they were almost there before Starcourt. In a way, she’d been jealous of Robin for stealing Steve. She knew it was ridiculous. Steve had found a friend, a real friend who hadn’t cheated on him or slept with his girlfriend. She couldn’t begrudge him that. 

She just missed him. 

“She is, isn’t she?” Steve grins, but sobers up quickly. “I didn’t really think about that. How lonely you must be, since…”

She’s already shaking her head. “It’s not your fault. I didn’t reach out.” 

“I didn’t exactly reach out either.”

They fall silent again, at a loss for words. Barb’s death, as always, the canyon between them. 

Finally Nancy huffs. “It’s both of our faults,” she declares, “or neither of our faults. I don’t know. I just missed you.”

“Well shit, Nance, I missed you too,” he says, touched. 

“I’ve heard you’re a pretty kickass friend too, you know,” she says, glancing at him. He smiles. 

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, Nancy Wheeler, I would be honored to be friends with you,” he says, and sticks out his hand to shake, like they’re meeting for the first time. 

She stares at him, and starts laughing. “You’re an idiot, Steve Harrington.”

She shakes his hand. 

Max has always felt like a mirror. One Nancy wanted to smash, pull her out of the shards of her reflective grief and hug. Stroke her hair the way she wanted someone to do for her and say you’ll get through this. So Max could hear it from someone who knows. 

Except Nancy doesn’t know anything. Still drowns in her guilt, the ball and chain dragging her into the depths. She can’t help when she’s still such a mess, three years later. 

Her hands clench when Mike says Max is pulling away from Lucas. She wishes she could look her in the eye and tell her you don’t have to be me. You can be better. 

She’s Mike’s friend. They barely know each other outside of a quick hello as they cross paths or fighting monsters. Max has enough on her plate, she doesn’t need her friend’s weird older sister butting in to tell her how to mourn the right way. 

Nancy just hopes she’s getting out of bed. Remembering to eat. Brushing her teeth. She had more cavities in the year after Barb died than she’d ever had in her life, and she knows Max doesn’t have insurance. 

Now, sitting next to Max’s hospital bed, Nancy wishes she’d reached out. 

With school back comes studying, and with studying comes Eddie Munson, in all his super-senior glory. Nancy is going to get him a diploma if it kills her. 

He laughs when she tells him so. “Shit, Wheeler,” he says. “The day something manages to get you is the day this shithole goes down for good.”

Robin turns down her offer to form a study group. “I’m pretty sure if I joined, I’d just distract Eddie, and let him distract me, and we’d end up throwing things at each other until you killed us. Sorry. Steve’s going to help me study for finals, though!”

She looks at Steve, eyebrow raised. She’s pretty sure it’s fair to be dubious, since she was the reason Steve passed his finals in the first place. 

“I’m her rubber duck,” he says as an explanation, and she nods in understanding. 

Her mom isn’t about to let her study alone with a boy in her room, though, and especially not a boy like Eddie, so she drags him to the library three times a week. He complains, he bitches, he tells her he doesn’t care about his fucking history class anymore. She just hands him a Rubik’s Cube she found to keep his hands busy as she quizzes him. 

Three sessions in, he slowly puts a worksheet down and screams into his hands. 

“Stop that!” She kicks him in the shin. “If you get me kicked out of the library I’m never forgiving you.”

“I can’t do it,” he says, staring up at the ceiling. “I’m so fucking stupid, Nancy. I can’t even get past question two. Is this torture? Did I die and go to hell? That would be fitting, wouldn’t it? Doomed to repeat high school for the rest of eternity?”

“Stupid” her ass. She knows what kind of work goes into those campaigns of his, has absently flipped through his annotated fantasy novels and left feeling as if she’d seen the story anew. Plus, she went and made a tape of everyone’s favorite songs, just in case, and she knew damn well how quickly he’d taught himself to play the song he did in the Upside-Down. “Stupid” and “Eddie Munson” don’t belong in the same sentence, much less belong in the same space in his brain. She hates Hawkins High just a little bit more for it. “Stop being dramatic. What are you stuck on?”

“Fucking nothing! I can’t focus, it’s driving me fucking insane. I keep trying, I swear, but it’s like I can’t even read anymore! This always happens, I swear to God it’s killing me more than the fucking demobats ever did.”

“Don’t joke about that,” she snaps. “You’re smart, Eddie, you know that. You just need to try.”

His face twists, and she realizes that was the wrong thing to say. 

“Oh, thank you, Miss Wheeler, why haven’t I thought of that? Sorry for wasting your time, I’ll get out of your perfect hair now—“

“Sit down,” she protests as he gathers up his stuff. “Eddie, I’ll help you work through the problem, okay? Just sit down, please.”

“No, Nancy!” He swings around, eyes wild. “It’s what everyone always says. Just sit still, stop doodling, be quiet, pay attention, try fucking harder…I tried, okay! I’ve been trying, I tried for fifteen fucking years, and I can’t do it! I might as well just drop out and get it over with. I’m fucking sick of this.”

“Okay!” She feels herself getting riled up. “You want to fail so bad, fine! I’m not your keeper, do whatever you want.”

“I will!”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

They stare at each other, not moving. Finally Eddie storms off in a huff, flinging open the library door in a grand gesture she pretends not to see. There’s a sinking feeling in her stomach, but she can ignore it. 

She pretends not to notice when he comes slinking back five minutes later, shuffling his feet. 

“Sorry.”

“For what?” She asks primly, going over her notes. 

“Nancy, please.”

She sighs. “I’m sorry too. I’m just…frustrated.”

“I’ve been told I’m pretty frustrating,” he offers. 

“It’s not…”

“It is,” he says, sitting down. “It’s okay. God knows I piss myself off with this shit.”

She studies him, looking over his defeated face like he’s one of her flashcards. “You’re trying your best,” she says, sounding it out. She can’t really make sense of it. After all, trying her best has always been straight A’s, not stopping until she knew everything she needed to and more. 

“It’s not good enough.”

“It will be,” she says. “You’ve got me this time.”

“Listen, I know you’re trying to help—“

“Do you want fries?”

“What?” He blinks at her, shocked, as she starts packing up her things.  

“We’re not getting anywhere today. Sometimes you have to step back, and come back with a clearer head.” Usually she locks her door and cleans her guns, the repetitive motion soothing her mind until she can think again, but she has a feeling that won’t work for Eddie. 

“I usually just give up.”

“I don’t. Get your backpack, we’re going to the diner. Dinner’s on me tonight.”

At the diner, he makes her laugh so hard soda comes out her nose. The next day, they go to the library again. 

After a couple of days, he solves the cube. After three weeks, he nearly kicks her door down rushing to show her the B he got on a test. 

Two months later, he throws his cap into the air and his cane on the ground. Swings her around, both of them laughing. 

“Nancy fucking Wheeler!” He crows. “Achieving the impossible yet again!”

“Eddie, put me down!” She shrieks gleefully as he stumbles. She barely makes it back to solid ground before two more bodies are slamming into them, Steve and Robin whooping in their ears. 

It was weird, to see Steve and Robin effortlessly communicate the way she and Jonathan always had and have it be so unabashedly unromantic. She’d always thought that knowing someone like that was a sign you were meant to be, and they did it while still loudly proclaiming Platonic with a capital P. 

She and Jonathan didn’t do it much anymore. It was like dancing to a song that was always a beat off, syncing for just one moment before stumbling again, unsure that they were still allowed this. 

She’d known him better than anyone, once, and he’d known her the same. Now she wonders if that was ever true. 

“So,” Eddie says, throwing himself onto her bed. “Steve.”

She sits in her desk chair, raising an eyebrow. “What about him?”

“You broke up with Jonathan, right? Are you going to get back with him? I thought you would, but it's been months and neither of you said anything.”

“No,” she says. “No, that’s not what I want. It’s not what either of us want.”

“Really?” He rolls over, eyes searching. “What happened there, anyway? With both your boys. I’m a nosy little asshole, and I wanna hear it from you.”

It makes her laugh, the way he admits to it so freely. He grins wolfishly at her, baring his teeth in a grin. That’s probably why she tells him the truth. 

“I wasn’t okay, when I was with Steve,” she says honestly. “I was distant, grieving…I was a mess, and I stayed with him because I didn’t know what else to do. With Jonathan…I was getting closure, I was healing, and things were good between us. They were so good, but after a while, we just started to…deteriorate. I don’t know if we lost momentum, or if the stress just got to us, but we started fighting more and more,” She traces the desk with a finger, remembering the sour taste of Oliver Twist on her tongue. It was a shitty thing to say. “I thought we’d figured it out, for a little while, but then we just…stopped talking. I think, maybe if we’d talked more, we could have worked it out. But I’m…not upset that we didn’t, you know?”

It’s a different kind of loneliness when your partner won’t talk to you. It was different than grieving, different than not having anyone to talk to at all. Because even when she didn’t have friends, she had Jonathan. And then, slowly, she didn’t anymore. 

“Nancy, you’re one of my best friends, so-”

“Steve is your best friend.”

“Steve is my best best friend,” she agrees. “But he’s also more than that? Like, I think we’re literally soulmates. Platonic with a capital P soulmates, but, like, it feels like more than friendship sometimes? Like sometimes it’s like he can literally feel my bad days even when I haven’t talked to him yet. He told me once he just knows sometimes. It’s like I hit my hip on my desk and he felt it, but emotionally. It’s wild. It’s like the drugs literally combined our minds. Where was I going with this?”

“I don’t know,” she says, slightly bewildered. She wants to ask how they do that, but Robin barrels forward. 

“Right. So outside of mine and Steve’s platonic more-than-friendship, you’re kind of my best friend? And you’re, like, the coolest person I know.”

She blinks. She’s not sure she’s ever been described as cool before. 

After Barb, Nancy tried to cut her own hair. 

Her mom found her in the bathroom, unshed tears in her eyes and hair a mess on the sink and floor. 

She hadn’t laughed, hadn't said oh, honey, your beautiful hair. Just clucked her tongue and took the scissors from her hands. Stepped behind her and took over, took the uneven mess and made it something good, something presentable. 

She didn’t say anything until she was done, setting the scissors on the counter. “Sometimes,” she said, wetting her lips. “Sometimes we need a change, before we can move forward.”

The closer she gets to Emerson, the more she feels like she’s letting someone down. Mike. Max. Jonathan. All the people who have relied on her, all the people who trusted her to fight.

In a strange turn of events, her mom is the only one she doesn’t feel is disappointed in her. Her mom is more excited about college than she is sometimes. Chattering excitedly over dishes about the classes she’s going to take as Nancy dries and smiles and tries not to feel like the ground is being pulled from under her feet.

This is everything she’s ever wanted. Why does it feel so wrong?

She takes Eddie to the gun range, because having a gun in her hands has always made her feel safer. More in control. More like the badass protector she wants to be, than the scared little girl she feels sometimes. 

Eddie stares down the scope of the gun and shoots like he has experience, but doesn’t hit a single bullseye. 

“Your hands are shaking.”

“I’m in a fucking gun range and a bunch of small town hicks were hunting me not too long ago,” he snaps, taking another shot and missing the target completely. He swears and changes the magazine. “Excuse me if I’m a little bit on edge.” 

She hadn’t really thought of it like that. “You didn’t have to come,” she says. “I just thought with everything that’s happened, you should know how to use one. Just in case.”

“I know how to use a gun,” he rolls his eyes. 

“You know how to shoot one.” She looks from him to the target pointedly. “Not the same thing.”

“Deep. I could really feel the judgement there. Tell me, is there anything else wrong with me?”

“There’s security cameras all over this place. We’re not in Hawkins, so there’s no mob coming after you. I’m here, and I do know how to use a gun. No one is going to hurt you here.”

“I know all that.”

“Do you?”

He scowls at her. She looks back unflinchingly. She’s been here plenty of times, and the guys laughed at her until they didn’t anymore. By the time she brought Eddie, all she got was a raised eyebrow and a “boyfriend?” from Hunter at the desk. She didn’t know what was more incriminating, so she just shrugged. 

“You’re kind of a pain in the ass, you know that?”

She rolls her eyes, taking the gun from his hands and lining up a shot. “I’ve heard worse,” she says, thinking about Nancy Dre-ew, and Nancy “the slut” Wheeler, and priss, and shoots. It hits the bullseye. 

So do her next five shots. 

Eddie looks begrudgingly impressed when she reloads and hands the gun back to him. It’s more satisfying than it should be, to realize that while he’d known she had guns he’s never seen her actually shoot before. 

She raises a challenging eyebrow at him, and he huffs around a smile. “All right, all right,” he says good naturedly. “Let’s try this again.”

He does a little better this time around, now that he’s actually trying. He does a little dance when he hits one of the inner rings. 

“Take that!” He crows. “I bet Steve couldn’t do this. In your face, Harrington!”

“He’s much more of a close-combat kind of guy, isn’t he?” Nancy agrees. 

“Oh, yeah, definitely,” he says. “Does he really have a bat with nails?”

She blinks, caught off guard by the fact that Eddie hadn’t seen it. She never registered that he hadn’t used it during Vecna. Something about the fact seems weird somehow, as if it was as integral to Steve as his coiffed hair. “He keeps it in his trunk.”

“You and Byers need to update your Steve manuals. He said it’s under his bed now.”

“Ah,” Nancy says, thinking of all the times she’s slept with her pistol under her pillow. Empty, because she’s not stupid enough to sleep with a loaded gun when her little brother sometimes wakes her up after a nightmare, but the comforting weight of it alone makes it easier. 

“Just tell me one thing,” he says, widening his eyes imploringly at her. “Did he look as sexy as I think he did? Byers won’t give me a straight answer.”

It’s a joke, but his cheeks are a little pink. She’s not dumb, she’s seen the looks the two of them share, as if he and Steve were circling each other. Caught in a whirlpool, waiting for the moment the vortex would drag them down and they could finally touch. 

The looks between Eddie and Jonathan, too, that share a certain camaraderie she doesn’t entirely understand and at the same time understands all too well. Steve and Jonathan had always had a strange relationship, too close to not be friendship but not quite there. Surprisingly enough it was better after she and Steve broke up, Jonathan no longer avoiding them and the talk she’d forced the three of them into clearing the air. Sometimes, she’d wake up to Jonathan climbing into her bed, smelling of cigarettes and a hint of something stronger, and he’d tell her it was Steve who drove him there. 

She’s a journalist. It’s her job to notice things. She just wasn’t ready to confront that reality, where the two boys she’d wanted wanted each other as well. But she’s grown since then. 

She also knows that whoever Steve chooses, it won’t be easy. 

“You know,” she says, considering, “when we were dating, Steve never pressed me up against the wall or anything you’d expect from the King.”

Eddie gets this look on his face, caught between confusion and caught out. “…okay? Did you want him to do that or something? Are you trying to ask me to hint to him?”

“No,” she says. “I’m just saying, he never did any of that. It was kind of funny. He always made it so that he was the one pressed against the wall.”

Eddie misses the next five shots entirely, and she laughs at him through it all.

She’s hyper aware of touching other girls now. She didn’t used to be. Even with Robin, who is a lesbian and definitely won’t hate her. Who’s probably gone through the same thing. She can’t help it. 

What if they get the wrong idea? What if someone else sees? What if they can tell, what if they know, what if they hate me?

She hates feeling like this. She doesn’t know why it started, doesn’t know what’s wrong with her. She’s no stranger to casual affection—or at least she didn’t used to be. Why does it make her feel so tense now? It’s been years since she realized she liked girls, shouldn’t this have happened back then?

Deep down, she knows why. The Reagan sign in her front yard. Her dad sitting in his chair, the news always on. “Always that nasty disease, Karen, I swear some people are just asking for it.” She’s always known she could never tell him, but now she knows that if she gets sick he’ll say she deserves it. She doesn’t know what her mother thinks. She’s afraid to find out. 

She’s growing up, and her fear is growing with her. 

Objectively, Nancy knows she and Eddie don’t make sense. 

They’re not cut from the same cloth, like Steve and Robin. They don’t calm each other down, like Jonathan and Argyle. They’re too different, too alike in all the wrong ways, for them to get along. They’re both snappy, a little mean. Eddie’s dramatic enough to get on her nerves, and she’s prim enough to get on his. At their worst, they have earth shattering arguments that end in them not speaking to each other for days. 

When people see them walking down the street together, they whisper about “that nice girl Nancy Wheeler” and “that awful Munson boy.”

It’s not fair, never has been. Nancy hasn’t felt nice for a long time, maybe before Barb ever disappeared. Eddie isn’t always particularly nice either, but the court of public opinion takes it to extremes, twists him into something cruel instead of the kindness he carries under his leather armor. Someone to keep their children away from. It really is a shame, because Eddie loves kids in a way Nancy never has. She can see it in the way he interacts with them, his bright smile fading when a parent comes to drag them away. Even when he’s expecting it, his face falls, just for an instant, before spinning around with a grin that won’t reach his eyes. 

Nancy wants to take him out of here. There’s an offer on the tip of her tongue that she knows he’d refuse.

He’s not her brother, but he’s not…unlike one. It’s almost like talking to an older, flashier Mike. He’s annoying, is what he is. He picks at her, keeps pressing over the littlest things. Tries to get under her skin, succeeds, until she’s on the verge of stabbing him with her pencil. Looks triumphant whenever Robin has to grab her arm to drag her away, rambling an excuse about “some girl thing I totally forgot, yeah it’s an emergency,” while Steve drags him the other way to have bro time. 

“She loves it,” she’d heard Eddie crow delightedly once, when Robin didn’t get her out of hearing range fast enough. “Do you see that fire in her eyes?”

“Do I?” She asked Robin. “Love it?”

“I mean, far be it from me to tell you what you do and don’t like,” Robin answered. “But, uh, as far as I can tell, you totally love it. You look like you’re going to rip him to pieces and enjoy it, and he loves that. I didn’t think you’d be this much of a nightmare together, seriously, like, how are you two at each other’s throats one second and then best friends the next? Steve and I have debated locking you in a bathroom until you get along, but we’re kind of afraid you’ll kill each other.”

So no, Nancy and Eddie don’t get along. They’re kind of a nightmare together. They don’t make sense, and they don’t try to. They have other friends, who they get along with better, that they can seek out. 

But when Eddie knocks on her window, the only surprise is that he could even get there. 

“How?” She hisses, opening the window. He tumbles in, doesn’t even try to play off the utter gracelessness he’s displaying. 

“Wowie, I am never doing that again,” he breathes, flat on his back. “You’re going to have to help me down the stairs when I leave, had to leave my cane at the bottom and I cannot get back down that way.”

She doesn’t even want to know what he had to do to get up on her roof with his bad leg. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m but another lover, nothing but an ant in the face of your unwavering beauty, my queen,” he says, batting his eyes at her. The dramatics don’t hit the way he intends, given that he’s stuck on the floor. He holds a hand out pleadingly, and she rolls her eyes, hauling him up until she can get him to her bed. 

“Never mind.” She puts her hands on her hips, a gesture that is so obviously Steve she removes them immediately. From the glint in Eddie’s eyes, he notices.

She tries not to be jealous. She tries, she swears, but…

Three of the four (five? she doesn’t know what Argyle thinks of her) friends she has are dating each other. Two of them dated her, first. She can’t help but wonder, if she’d known that was an option, if everything would have been different. If she wouldn’t have this aching bitterness between her teeth. 

(Nothing would have changed, she knows. She’d been too desperate for other things. Trying so hard with Steve so her best friend didn’t die for nothing. Staying with Jonathan because he understood her more than anyone else, so maybe they didn’t need to talk. It wouldn’t have helped anything. She still wonders.)

It doesn’t matter. What’s past is past, and she needs to move forward. She can’t stop to think about could-have-beens, because thinking about boys is what got her into this mess in the first place. 

She closes her eyes, taking a shaky breath. That’s not fair. None of this is fair. None of it is fucking fair because Nancy stopped caring about fair when Barb died. 

She needs a drink. She needs a nap. She needs to stop feeling like Atlas with the world on her shoulders. 

She doesn’t do any of that. She calls Robin.

“Barb was my first kiss.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Nancy says, and keeps talking, because Barb is dead and Robin is a lesbian and she’s long forgotten what Barb’s favorite chapstick was back then. “We were seven, and I liked it but I didn’t know if I liked her. But I was convinced I was going to marry her, until my mom told me that girls don’t marry other girls. And I knew she liked girls when she died. She told me when we were fifteen, and I didn’t know the word bisexual but I knew I loved her and that was all that mattered. Not—not like that, not romantic, or maybe it was but it doesn’t matter because she was my best friend and I still love her but she’s gone forever. I loved her.”

She feels Robin lay a tentative hand on her back. 

“I had to look her parents in the eye and pretend. All those fucking NDA’s, I had to pretend there was hope. Pretend she was still missing. It was like everyone forgot about her except for me and them, and they sold their house to find their dead daughter and I wasn’t supposed to say anything and Steve kept reminding me about the fucking NDA’s—“

 “Nancy…”

“It’s my fault,” Nancy says, staring at the water. “I lumped in Steve, because it was easier than being alone. He didn’t know her like I did. She was worried about me. She stayed because she cared, and look where that got her.”

“That’s bullshit!” Robin’s eyes are wide, and she waves her hands around as she talks. “If it’s anyones fault, it’s those—those scientist guys experimenting on El! They knew there was a problem, and they tried to cover it up instead of making sure people were safe. You didn’t know it was dangerous. How were you supposed to know it was going to end up as anything other than normal teenage drama? None of this is supposed to be real, you didn’t know—“

“But I left her,” Nancy cuts in. “I left her alone to go lose my virginity to a boy she didn’t even like—“

“He was your boyfriend, it shouldn’t have mattered if she liked him—“

“It doesn’t matter!” Nancy shouts, and Robin falls silent, mouth still moving. “It doesn’t fucking matter how it happened, because it did and now she’s dead and she’s never coming back and it’s all my fault.”

Nancy is sick of crying. Sick of feeling helpless. Sick of not being able to change the past. 

“It’s not just Barb. I took Fred to the trailer park—he didn’t even want to be there, and now he’s dead. Eddie needs a cane, Max is almost completely blind and might never walk again and it was my plan that put them there. My plan that almost killed them. I’m responsible—“

“Fuck that.”

“Robin…”

“No, you listen to me, Nancy Wheeler,” Robin says, grabbing her by the shoulders. “You are one of the most remarkable people I have ever known. Max would have died without that plan. We all would have died. Venca-slash-Henry-slash-One would have won without that plan, and I am not going to sit here and listen to you blame yourself for saving lives. And-and Fred! Venca had already marked him, you know that. You couldn’t have done anything! And Barb is not your fault, okay? I-I-I know I can’t convince you, but I’ll say it as many times as it takes until you start believing it, because it’s true. You didn’t kill her. You didn’t kill anyone.”

“I killed Bruce,” she says, just to prove Robin wrong. And isn’t that shitty of her, to forget about him until she can use him to prove a point? She’s a fucking awful person.

“I don’t know who Bruce is, but given your track record I highly doubt that.”

“I bashed his head in with a fire extinguisher.”

Robin pauses, and Nancy’s stomach sinks. This is it, she thinks. This is what will convince her, this is what will make her see that I’m wrong, that I’m poison-

“What was he doing?”

“What?”

“Bruce. You had to have a reason for it. What was he doing?”

It’s like Robin doesn’t even care that Nancy just admitted to first degree murder. “He was flayed,” she admits, knowing Robin will take it as proof that she’s right.

“That’s not murder, that’s self defense,” Robin says, just like she knew she would. “Also, if he was flayed he was already dead. Sorry, I’m sticking to your side on this.”

“But I’m less torn up about killing my asshole coworker than I am about anything else. How does that not make me a monster?”

“He was already dead, Nancy!” Robin shakes her. “You’re not beating yourself up over it because you know he was already dead, a-a-and I know you’re using him to try and push me away and I won’t let you.”

“Robin…” she says, tears springing to her eyes. She’s so fucking sick of crying. So sick of the way she never seems to stop anymore. 

“Nancy,” Robin says. “None of us are going to leave you. Stop trying to make us.”

She pulls her into a hug, and Nancy sags into it, boneless. 

There, sandwiched between the sky and the water, Nancy starts to feel like she could forgive herself. 

“Nancy,” Steve says, putting a hand on her shoulder and ducking his chin to look her in the eye. “They won’t be alone.”

Tears well up, unbidden, at the way he seems to understand her now in a way he never did before. 

“I want this,” she insists. 

“I know you do,” he says. “Which is why you’re going to go out there, kick ass, and take names. We’ll be here, okay? We’ll keep an eye on them.”

“I know you will.” She swipes a hand across her eyes. “Can you talk to Holly, too? She gets lonely.”

Steve smiles. He’d always loved Holly, when they were dating. He used to braid her hair sometimes. Asked her about her drawings, her TV shows, listened to her talk with the same attentiveness Nancy’s father had never shown any of them. He’ll be a good dad, someday. To someone else’s children.

“I’ll talk to Holly,” he promises. “Does she still like princesses?”

“Ladybugs,” she says. “It’s ladybugs, now.”

“Ladybugs. I can do that. Black and red, and they’re all ladies. What’s not to like?”

“There are male ladybugs.”

“Wait, seriously?”

She laughs, tearfully, but they’re happy tears. Steve wipes them away gently, and she smiles at him to let him know she’s okay. “You’re an idiot, Steve Harrington.”

“You’re the best person I know, Nancy Wheeler,” he replies, achingly sincere. “You’re gonna have the whole world under your thumb, I just know it. Ever thought of running for President?”

“Can’t be worse than the one we have now,” she says, grimaces as her own joke lands too bitterly to be funny. She sees his jaw tighten before he forces himself to relax. 

“I’d vote for you.”

She grins at him, sharp to punch through the tension she’d made. “I’ll make Eddie my Vice President.”

“Oh, fuck no. You lost me,” he says, and Eddie makes an offended noise from where he’s stealing snacks from the glovebox. Jonathan swats him, and she smiles at him too. He smiles back, tentatively, and wanders to her side. 

“You gonna be okay up there?” He asks quietly. She can hear the guilt in it, still, and she reaches down to squeeze his hand. The one with the scar that matches hers, so their palms line up. It feels full circle, somehow, the three of them together like this. 

“I’ll be okay,” she confirms, and feels the truth of it in her chest. Her boys are here with her, the ones who have been there since the beginning. Eddie’s watching them fondly, munching on a granola bar. Robin is inside somewhere, rambling at her mother. Mike and Holly are probably still bickering over the last cupcake. She loves them so much, all of them. 

“Of course you will,” Steve says. “You’re Nancy fuckin’ Wheeler. Nothing stops you.”

She wants that to be true. She can feel in her bones that it will be. Eighteen has nothing on who she’ll be at thirty. 

She’s Nancy Wheeler, and the world won’t see her coming. 

#welcome to eden au #stranger things fanfic #nancy wheeler #eddie munson #steve harrington #robin buckley #jonathan byers #this is the biggest thing i've posted so far #i ran out of the little fics i'm gonna have to start figuring out how to format the big ones #there's background steve/eddie/jonathan bc this was originally a companion piece to a seperate fic about them #that was 22k before i lost interest #i'll post that one eventually #can you tell nancy is my favorite character. i love u miss survivors guilt <3 #sometimes i think about how nancy has no friends for p much three seasons after barb died and i get very upset #jonathan could count but he also wanted to date her so i'm not counting it #I JUST WANT HER TO HAVE FRIENDS #i also love nancy/eddie friendship they're both judgy bitches #so is steve frankly. nightmare trio #i'm gonna write that ot3 one day (don't hold me to that)

[non-un-topo]

Sometimes I procrastinate writing a fic by “storyboarding” it 😅

#pls enjoy: no context whatsoever sdfghfds #it's Content not Context #siggy draws #tog #the old guard #not tagging individual characters bc it's just my dumb fic art #but i will always tag #the old gays #andy looks very awkward because i struggle a lot with her face. she's so.... pointy. so i've drawn her sweaty <3 #why is nicky missing a hand? don't worry about it #trying to colour these but idk #i'm experimenting with how i want them all to look in the fic. wanted to give andy short hair but i'm kind of digging the wild woman look #i finally gave nicky short hair in a historical fic i can't believe it. i already miss the long hair dfds #what do we think should i bother colouring them or just fix the plot-hole in the fic and finally write it?

[mattodore]

found out while putting together matthias's oc page that his name has the exact same etymology and meaning as theo's name...

i’m sure this is information matthias is very normal about…

#theo is in fact a gift from god so jot that down ! #river dipping #i've been throwing myself into oc stuff bc i'm not doing hot mentally which is... tbh when i do my best writing 😭 #none of this is new tho i wrote the bios and 'at a glance' intros months and months ago when i first made an oc page #which is why i do plan on rewriting them but for now i'm leaving them like this... so i guess the echthroi page is done? #obviously echthroi has more characters than this but i haven't taken new screenshots of everyone yet... #i put the gray cas bg back in my game a few days ago only to completely forget i wanted to take new headshots for the oc page 😭 #like these are just placeholders... i want the backgrounds to match the oc page. oh... or maybe i could just do transparent pics? #i think i remember vyx made a post abt how to do that... will look into that when i open the game again. rn i'm at my keyboard 🧑‍💻 #like i am writing new things! started a google doc for theo yesterday and have been writing on it here and there since then #i've already cried in there... lmaooo. i like oc pages for sure but i think a huge google doc is what i really need to keep track of things #i drop so much lore in tags on here and it's like! river write that down somewhere else or you'll lose it 😭 #like i fr have never actually written down any of the info i've shared on here. i've just had all this oc knowledge stored in my brain. #so i went through and copied over a tonnn of tags and posts i've made into google docs but i just know i'm missing things i've probably #said in the tags of their core tagged posts... 🧍 if my blog didn't have so many posts i'd have an easier time going through it but 🤷 #and on top of that i've been making a bunch of posts about theo and matthias on my main acc. which is like 🧍 well great now there's more #i'm gonna lose track of...... i fr have gottt to get into the habit of actually putting things down in theo's google doc!!! #i'm just trying to figure out the best way to format it all but i've downloaded a few templates that i've been messing with. #...anyway. if it isn't obvious i'm trying to get back to posting on here. i'm opening my inbox now with the intent to just. #sit here in my inbox until i can get myself to reply. lads... avpd is actually so torturous i'm not kidding. #i feel like i'm dying trying to get myself to interact with people sometimes even despite how badly i want!!!! to interact!!! #theo and me and our avoidant trauma responses holding hands and skipping around together

[sciderman]

After the plot ends- does the activity on the blog end to? No more fanfics Or spideypool (any ship in general) ? Or will you still make one shots/one offs of them?

the simple answer is that the plot won't end! peter and wade will always be going through it. i think that's kind of the conceit – there's no such thing as a happily ever after, exactly.

you get what you want, sometimes. sometimes you don't. but you keep going. that's kind of what i love about wade and peter. that's their whole thing.

#so i have like. a “satisfying conclusion” per say but. it's not the end. after that there's still raising ellie. there's still drama. #i don't know how long i'm going to keep it up. but their story doesn't just End. ya feel. #i've had some people say they're glad there's a continuation to the blog after their big hook up. #because i could've ended it after civil war really. that's a satisfying ending. #but miss out on all the fun that would ensue with them being a couple?? all the drama?? their evolving dynamic?? #that's the good stuff!! #i was so excited for how their dynamic would change when i'm able to write them as a couple at last. and it changed so much. #and i can't wait to write about how their dynamic changes when they're raising ellie. hoough. #sci speaks

[ell-arts]

Baby Tears

He didn't understand.

The mute mutterings, the mourning eyes, the cold tears.

The black suits and gowns, the tolling chapel's bell, or the sadness on his aunt's face.

All this grief and heartache.

It confused him. His young, naïve, 7-year-old mind couldn't understand it at all.

Couldn't understand the weight and meaning of the funeral.

Or the not-funeral. The adults sometimes called it a memorial. Not that he knew the difference.

He's heard the people speak. Heard them whisper and mourn. Listened with only half an ear to the priest's honourings.

Words of empathy overlapped. A hymn of condolences, speeches, and formal utterances.

Above the lull and sway of confusing words, only one phrase had stuck to him.

"Missing and never found."

The service ended, and friends and family stuck around for one last vigil.

Little blue eyes searched the crowd, looking for the familiar face of his aunt. A man held his little hand, a friend of theirs, keeping him from wandering off.

He spotted his aunt back over at the memorial, littered with photos and candles. He nearly didn't recognise her usually chipper face behind the mask of thinly veiled tears.

The yellow boy tugged at the man's hand, wanting to go over to her. Blue eyes looked up when the man didn't budge.

"I'm sorry, little lad," the green man intoned, the sadness in his own voice muffled by the rain. "Your auntie just needs some space."

The boy's only response was a saddened pout, gazing over at his aunt again. At her despondent figure, kneeling above a picture of two faces he could hardly recognise anymore.

"Auntie Spheria," the little boy murmured that evening back at their home.

"When are they coming back?"

She had gone numb, frozen in her step. Halfway from reaching for the pan in the cupboard, dinner barely prepared.

In her limp silence, she didn't answer him. Couldn't answer him from behind the fresh look of heartbreak on her face.

The little boy's face fell. He had made her sad again.

Little feet trudged over to her side, and the young orb tucked himself under his aunt's arm, wrapping his arms around her waist. Giving comfort, while also seeking comfort.

The kitchen held its breath. A dreary silence.

A warm hand tucked the little boy closer, holding him as though to protect him from the weight of his unanswered questions. His aunt swallowed a sob.

He won't understand. The little boy wouldn't understand for a very long time.

That his mother and father have been missing for years.

And may never come back.

#pmatga #pacman and the ghostly adventures #pacster #spheria suprema #sir cumference #sunny #zac #pmatga fanfic #pmatga drabble #Drabble: Baby Tears #funeral #So i woke up today and chose emotional damage #you're welcome? :'D #I like the idea of starting a series of pmatga drabble fics #posted only on my tumblr #Maybe if I write more of them then I'll post them all as one fanfic/drabble collection on Ao3 #lemme know what yall think #I've always wondered how young Pac would process the idea that his parents are missing and could never return home #He was so young when it happened after all #my art

[renrooked]

i need to get this off my chest otherwise i'll explode but i am so unbelievably tired of the "older sibling who takes care of everyone" narrative

give me more youngest siblings who fill the oldest sibling stereotype, youngest siblings who mediate, who take care of everyone, who are reserved and more oldest siblings who are actively independent, who aren’t caretakers, who are stubborn, who are "the trouble makers"

every time i’m introduced to an eldest sibling and expected to respect them because the writer thinks it’s assumed that by making them the older sibling they were a selfless mini-adult who was forced to grow up in the family (and no one else) it takes so many years off my life

not every oldest sibling is going to be a parent figure with a sense of duty

not every oldest sibling shows they care openly/communicates well

not every oldest sibling is easy going

you can write well liked and relatable eldest siblings without making them a wise mini-adult

and their problems and struggles can extend past the side effects of being an oldest/older sibling

also, you can create a character that knows the burden of having to take care of someone without having to make them an older sibling at all!

and you can create younger siblings who aren’t selfish and sporadic. i promise, not every younger sibling is chaotic and causes a scene in order for their needs to be tended to

you can create a character that has the flaw of being brash and codependent without making them the youngest

not all younger siblings are wild and reckless

not all younger siblings are spoiled by their parents/put on pedestals

not all younger siblings are attention seeking

you can write flawed younger siblings without making them forever-children

personally my older sister never filled the whole “i’m meant to take care of you” role. she actively made it clear she didn’t want me around well into adulthood, and would often actively ignore any time i was hurt or upset to make a point for me not to bother her

and she near constantly got into arguments when we were younger that i had to mediate (mind you, she's 6 years older than me) and would make a habit of smacking me on the arm out of annoyance/frustration if i was doing something she didn't like

so sorry, but i just find it lazy a lot of the time when entire personalities are implied of "older sibling so obviously wise second parent and younger sibling so obviously messy selfish baby" and i don't think people realize how absolutely constant this dynamic is implied as an inherent fact in media

anyway, this is all probably doing nothing more than just revealing deep rooted familial trauma but i'm tired of being expected to just believe your oldest is the genuine kind hearted caretaker and youngest is the loose cannon, show me!

make me believe that it’s a natural progression of their personalities! why did the oldest decide to take on that role rather than reject it! what about their situation made the youngest feel the need to be so rebellious!

#literally the only media i've ever accepted this dynamic is arcane and supernatural #they're the only two i've watched and been like okay yeah this shit makes sense this checks out i believe it #everything else i'm just annoyed #it skips all the showing and any setup and starts right in the middle like well obviously we ended up here #no! no it's not obvious! what made y'all this way #what did yall go through. how did your parents raise you or not raise you. what made y'all feel like you needed each other #just one older sibling who is a piece of shit is that too much to ask in this economy god damn #anyways idk what to tag this now #rennie talks in tags #rennie rants #writing #sibling dynamics #familial relationships #if i miss any tags just lemme know and ill add them :D

[yuseirra]

if there's one thing I personally focus on when I draw something, it would be the emotions. I try to convey the exact emotions of a character when I make art, and portray how they'd be feeling at that exact situation, as they say something, and so on...

I try to feel the same feelings they would when I draw an expression, as close as I can get at least, it's what I do over and over. You don't really have to do that ofc, but for me, it's a huge part of the point and it's really fun to do! It's what I believe could give my drawings more life and make them more genuine, even if it's a sketch (in fact, sometimes sketches can be more powerful on that aspect so I used to stick to drawing exclusively those for a very long time). That's how I pour my heart in, and I'm sure a lot of artists would do the same in their own ways when they create their works.

For that same reason, I really like drawing smiles (and characters that can make genuine ones) because that makes me happy. Other feelings are cool, too, but drawing happy art is so soothing, so I draw a lot of smiles!! It's also why I feel the need to understand a character, because you can't exactly feel what they'd be feeling unless you aren't so aware of what they're going through. I wouldn't be entirely right, I'm sure, but I really want to try. It's maybe why I usually stick to drawing a select few characters from a series all the time, because there are some characters I "get" better than others, and feel I can bring out better(and most of the time, luckily, those kinds of characters end up to be my favs, so I can draw then alot ;v;) Then again, I'm seeing them through my own lens of thinking, I'm just putting out what I see in those characters in the end. But it's usually the good things I love! Or something I feel is really intriguing and want to think about, or want to explore on, emphasize? Anyhow, it's the feelings and emotions part I've always been interested about! So I hope I can do that well!

My drawings aren't perfect, but they aren't too bad either, and I've been trying all the way. If they could imbue some sort of feeling for you, that's definitely what I wanted to accomplish! It makes me so excited when I get feedbacks about it being able to make someone "feel" something.. it means what I wanted got across so I'm like "yes"!!

it'd be nice if they will feel genuine one way or another!! I was and is and will be happy to continue to share my works with you all

#random blabbering #hehe #I recently got really nice tags and I #I kind of want to go and thank ppl individually for that but I was out of energy... I missed the timing.. #drawing makes me think about feelings #characters too #so I really like seeing characters that can make big genuine smiles from the heart #ofc I love other types of characters too #but sometimes you just need to think about that kind of feeling and it exists #and I love characters that are literal saints right.. those kind of characters have always been my favs #they are very inspiring and thinking-not just thinking but trying to feel how they would be feeling..is really good for the soul I think #I wish I could be strong like them and genuinely feel like that #(you could a little as you draw #being immersed is very nice #and I hope what I draw could be that way for someone #here I am writing at midnight..I don't know if what I'm writing's making good sense but wish you all the best #thank you for seeing my drawings together with me!! #I CAN draw some self-indulgent stuff that'd not exactly cater to be educational or inspiring yeah but #I probably won't mean bad. I want to have fun~which I've been!! for so long

[blossom--of--snow]

Happy belated birthday to @andallthatmishigas! This one's for you <3

#blossom writes #tdbm #lucien x jean #oh how I've missed them

[dylanconrique]

who's gonna read lucaya smut if i write it?????

#*carly catalogs #gmw #lucaya #idk if some of you could tell but i've been really going through it with and have been missing them as of late #was thinking about writing them reuniting after not seeing each other in like... 5/6 years #although idk the entire context/setting of where and how they meet up again #maybe at some new years party or something????? #idk if anyone is interested in me writing present day lucaya reuniting again but if you are..... #pitch me any other ideas cause like... my heads pm empty #lucas friar #maya hart

[timandlucy]

Linstead 💛

💛 reunion kiss / relief

Erin’s laughter fades off softly, slowly, the hand holding the keys to her apartment suspended mid-air as she realizes they're at the crossroads.

She breathes in, willingly ignoring the sharp sting in the vicinity of her heart when she turns to look at Jay, her heart on her sleeve once more. She's known this is where they were heading for weeks now, when they ran into each other in a Seattle coffee shop on a rainy afternoon—Jay fresh home from deployment, Erin finally settling in her new FBI post.

She's known it the moment she said something that made him laugh and her heart squeezed painfully; known it the second he texted her after obtaining her new number—waiting a whole ten minutes before he reached out. She knows it now, as her eyes speak the silent question, and he steps into her apartment, not unlike she did that day after her press conference.

Their lips meet for the first time in years and it's soft and tentative and her entire being flutters with hope.

Finally.

Here you are.

I've missed you.

She feels him grin into the kiss and a heavy weight she's felt for weeks now falls off her chest because they're on the same page. Erin decides that whatever pain they both had to endure to get to this point, it was worth it.

#Ahhhhhhhh #I've missed them!! #How dare you open this 😭 #linstead #kiss prompts #my writing

[lonely--seeker]

I think I'm going insane. Lately my dreams have been so mundane, it wouldn't be weird if I wasn't just a person that has nightmares 80% of the time, so I now my dreams are so hard to distinguish from reality.

I wouldn't be able tell what was real from what not if it wasn't because last night I went to my doctor's appointment and I was handed new glasses by Harvey just to go back home and find out Laois was cooking something in my backyard.

#to be fair. in my dream i was back at my old house. so the horrors where there still #also i've been dreaming about my dog. but sometimes it's not him. it's other dog trying to replace him. but it's not him. i miss him dearly #but it's... weird. i never actually dream with characters either. something strange is going on #I've been telling my brother i wake up and i have to remember who i am #for the totally normal dreams. it's like my soul is divided and it's living somewhere else for the night #who is the person i am when i dream. because it's not me. it's a whole different live. whole different people around me. I'm going insane #there's such a strange feeling about it. it's familiar? it's comfortable? #which only makes it even more weird. why is a life so different to mine feel so comfortable... #to the point i wake up and i don't remember who i am for at least ten minutes #but then i forget what i had dreamt about. and then i go around my day randomly reminding things. then that's when i realize those memories #were actual dreams #i should write a fanfic about this lmao #it was a nice dream though. i remember vividly i was sitting in one of those chairs thingies that hang in the air? #and i was swinging happily. i think Laios was talking about where he got whatever the fuck he was cooking. i couldn't understand him really. #he wasn't speaking in spanish but it wasn't english either. i think it was a made up gibberish... I'm still baffled by how comfortable i was #i think there were friends around too. maybe a hangout was going on? everything was nice. it reminds me of the times #i would go eat at a friend's house. but things felt a lot nicer. it was like if time had stopped and nothing wrong could ever happen. #and even then. i was still there. which i think that's why i started to feel dizzy in my little swing. i ended up waking up from that. #i still get dizzy remembering it. #welp. I hope i don't lose myself tonight... #I don't actually know what's worse. the nightmares are common. they are familiar. there's comfort in knowing what to expect. #but “good” dreams like that... i end up thinking about them too much. the residual feeling is weirder #and i have to deal with the whole different layer that is.. there's was a fucking anime guy there. kill me. kill me. get him OUT of my brain #I'm not lying when I say I can physically feel Laios rearranging my brain in ways i will not share publicly #kill me.

[leslutdepointedulac]

So me and my family spent the morning at a rescue looking at dogs and there's two that we're looking at inparticular and I shit you not one is giving pure Louis vibes while the other reminds me so much of Lestat it's literally Louis and Lestat but if they were dogs. The only thing is, we're only getting one but we love them both so making a decision is going to be so hard

#i'll update when we get one of them #though that won't be for a couple of weeks yet #providing we can get either of them anyway #it was weird though cause i had a dream about our last dog before i woke up this morning #and i think it's the first time i've dreamt about him since he died at the beginning of the year #and it felt like he was saying goodbye even though i said goodbye when he died #i just think it's funny that happened on the day we go to look for a new dog #and then when we were at the rescue i kept seeing a robin which i like to think was our old dog #anyway. despite how much i still deeply miss our old dog i'm really excited to get another #also we took the two dogs we're looking at on walks #and while we we're walking the second dog there was a huge group of bikers that went passed all dressed as santa #so that was cool #i didn't intend to write a whole damn essay but here we are #my vampire chronicles