#neil being a criminal is EVERYTHING

[crystalmethsthings]

fanfic writers, pls… im begging y’all… give me confident, arrogant neil josten 🧎‍♀️ i need this man to KNOW how hot he is and weaponize it. i need him to put second son, wannabe, bitchass riko moriyama in his place. i need him to use his first son status. PLEASE, IM BEGGING 🧎‍♀️

#pls he needs to use his first son status #“you forget yourself riko; you’re only a second son. i however am not” #HE IS A FIRST SON OF A FIRST SON PLS I NEED BAMF NEIL #he’d be so hot #i need him to live up to his potential #butcher neil 🧎‍♀️ #neil being a criminal is EVERYTHING #he is NOT soft #he’s a badass that survived 8 years on the run #aftg #all for the game #the foxhole court #tfc #neil josten #aftg hc #aftg headcanon #the raven king #butcher neil josten #raven neil

[vintagepvssy]

(Mostly) NSFW Headcanons - Part II

Disclaimer: Slight spoilers ahead so be warned. Just covering movies I have seen before or know a decent amount about the character. Overall, just my own personal opinions. This is just for shits and giggles so feel free to disagree. I’m also very aware that I’m being a hater rn.

Red Eye (2005) | Wes Craven - Jackson Rippner

• FREAKY ASS DUDE

• probably would learn everything about you before asking you out

• mean asf, like definitely the type to pick on you and call you a cry baby

• loves, loves, loves roleplay, specifically: CNC (Burglar x Sleeping Victim)

• big on humiliating you, probably the type to hold your head down while giving head. Likes his balls being sucked..

• feral mf, loves to use his teeth (ankle biter energy) and eats pussy like a champ [insert slurping noises]

Perriers Bounty (2009) | Ian Fitzgibbon - Michael McCrea

• top contender for best in bed

• grimey little dude.. but hey, bums know how to lay pipe like it’s their god given purpose

• not attached to any particular fetish or kink just very experimental and kinky

• 3 words: tongue in ass. There I said it. Specifically from the back, he will stick his tongue in places god hasn’t even seen.

Broken (2012) | Rufus Norris - Mike Kiernan

• spontaneous and sensual. Probably an exhibitionist lowkey

• can be a bit selfish at times, but definitely makes it a priority to make you cum.

• could definitely see him having a thing for stockings or thigh highs

Inception (2010) | Christopher Nolan - Robert Fischer

• if a boy was a princess it would be him

• DADDY ISSUES

• all bark no bite, he’s a bottom if I’ve ever seen one. Loves being told what to do and how to take it

• big fan of praise and humiliation

• will dom at times but definitely is not his preference

Watched the Detectives (2007) | Paul Soter - Neil Lewis

• Puppy

• horny teenager vibes, probably would fuck you in his office while your bent over his desk

• loves roleplay but in the vanilla way like: cop x criminal, stepsiblings 🤭, strangers, Bonny and Clyde. Just overall loves recreating cheesy pornos.

• loves when you’re all natural down there

• definitely likes to think he’s the one in charge but you would absolutely wear the pants in the relationship

• whiny asf, likes to whimper and pout. Big on theatrics.

Breakfast on Pluto (2005) | Neil Jordan - Patricia Kitten Braden

• the queen herself 👸

• another top contender for best sexual partner

• pillow princess, loves to be taken care of but will absolutely do the same for you. Definitely giving switch vibes

• super tender and sensual, could definitely see a friends to lovers trope here

• LOVES to tease and loves sexual tension. Wandering hands and subtle glances kind of shit

Sunshine (2007) | Danny Boyle - Robert Capa

• needy little freak but in a subtle way

• you would probably have to make the first move

• would probably zone out during sex ngl

• classic fan of gripping hips and neck kisses, relatively vanilla but open to exploring

• nonchalant lover but good bf overall

The Dark Knight Rises (2012) | Christopher Nolan - Jonathan Crane

• say it with me now— Mommy Issues

• don’t be afraid to join in— daddy issues

• probably grew up with his grandma or two loving parents that he despises deeply

• sick little gremlin, probably into sounding or golden showers

• two words: doggy style 😎

• he’s a switch, but mostly doms because he gets off on the thought that he’s better than you

• big on quickies, hump and dump kind of dude. Casual sex, but not super big on multiple partners

• so repulsed by the thought of sex that either the utter crippling shame of it turns him on so much that he acts like a deranged animal

• or is so repulsed that it hinders him and only does it when absolutely necessary

28 Days Later (2002) | Danny Boyle - Jim

• Jim, Jim, Jim — I love him with my whole heart and my whole pussy

• hear me out.. probably the best sex out of everyone HEAR ME OUT

• this man is DEVOTED okay!! Bro would take out an army base of 20 men just to get a lick of pussy (more so, a gentle sensual kiss, shared between two troubled lovers)

• you know he’ll eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Probably would bring his own bib and cutlery js 🙄

• not overly kinky, in fact probably a bit inexperienced, but satisfaction is guaranteed.

#cillian murphy #cillian murphy x reader #robert fischer #jonathancranexreader #jonathan crane x reader #red eye movie #red eye #broken movie #breakfast on pluto #cillian x fem!reader #cilliangifs #cillian murphy characters #the dark knight rises #scarecrow #freaks I’m telling you #i’m rambling again #harlot #28 days later #husband material #feminized husband #little freaks

[xxxbabyinatrenchcoatxxx]

I love Andrew Minyard as a criminal justice major. Just imagine the possibilities that could happen!! He'd 100% write a paper about nature vs nurture that is about himself and Neil (only if you read between the lines can you tell that tho)

Oh man!! An idea is coming into my head as I think about this!!

Okay, okay, so imagine the following.

Andrew is in his The Serial Killer's Psyche class when he learns about the more recent recent killers, including The Baltimore Butcher.

He lowkey becomes fascinated with the whole thing.

(It's the knives)

And goes down a rabbit hole looking into anything and everything regarding the Wesninski family.

He learns that Nathan was married and had a son, Nathaniel, with a member of another known mafia family from across the Atlantic, Mary.

The son would be the perfect killing machine for these two.

But then he learns that Mary and Nathaniel died tragically in an unknown form.

"The family wants to keep their privacy in these hard times." The press says.

Despite Andrew researching for days (he even went to the library once!) He can't find any record of how they died, but their death certificates have the same time stamp on them so at least he knows they died at the same time.

After finding out as much as he can about the family, he is (and he would never admit this to anyone at all ever) solely on the side of the cops in believing that Nathan Wesninski is The Baltimore Butcher despite there not being enough evidence, etc etc.

Having learned all he could, he all but forgets about the Wesninski family.

Fast forward to the next semester when Kevin tells him they are going to Arizona because he found them a new striker.

As Neil is trying to catch his breath from Andrew hitting him, Andrew is suddenly excepiencing a new phenomenon to him "familiarity"

For some reason, this flight risk reminds him of someone, but he can't quite remember who.

This is new.

Not remembering something.

Is his memory failing him for the first time ever?

He blames it on his meds and moves on

Everytime he sees Neil after he moves to Palmetto, he has the same feeling.

Ever. Single. Time.

It is increasingly aggravating and intirely too intresting.

After weeks spent trying to remember who Neil reminded him of, filing through every person he's ever encountered, and Neil's skitish behavior, he decided that Neil must be a threat.

Why else would his instincts tell him not to trust Neil?

Why didn't he react to the Moriyamas coming south that fall?

Why couldn't he fucking remember where he knew Neil from???

His shell cracked a little bit and he decided on impulse that Neil was going to Eden's with them

Andrew was practically vibrating with rage by the end of that night.

"Who are you?" Andrew asked.

"Wha- I don't understand? I'm Neil?"

"No. I know you, but I've never seen you before." Andrew watched as Neil tensed, wondering what was running through the runners head.

"We don't know each other." Neil made as if to walk away, but he didn't make it far before he had to grab the wall to stabilize himself.

"I know you." Andrew said, grabbing his shoulder.

"No, you don't." Neil shoved him.

"Do you work for the Moriyamas?"

"You think I'm a mole?" Neil scoffed, but it was more slurred with the drugs in his system.

"You're something. And I know how to properly dispose of a body." Andrew said lowly, threatingly, putting both hands on either side of Neil, caging him him.

"So do I." Neil's voice was steady, and he shoved Andrew back as far as he could before taking off.

Neil feeds Andrew half-truths the next day at Wymacks, saying that he must have seen him on the street somewhere. He honestly had no idea why Andrew recognized him.

Andrew doesn't believe that, but he believes Neil's half-truths about his family and lets him go.

Eventually, the familiar feeling is exchanged with actual recognition, and the books continue on as normal

UNTIL

Andrew gets out of Easthaven and sees Neil with his blue eyes and Aubrun hair and brused face, and Andrew freezes for only a moment.

But for that moment, it's like a Christmas tree lighting up in Andrew's head.

Neurons firing and connecting dots he didn't know went to together.

Nathaniel Wesninski stood next to his family

Nathaniel Wesninski protected his family while he was in rehab

Nathaniel Wesninski has been alone with Kevin every night for the past 4 months

Nathaniel Wesninksi was a runaway

Nathaniel Wesninski was alive

Nathaniel Wesninski

Andrew doesn't know what to do with this information yet, so he does nothing

He goes about his decided itinerary for the day

He still doesn't know what to do until "I never understood why he liked knives."

Everyone else was thinking Riko, but Andrew was thinking Nathan.

He decides then and there that he's not going to say anything until Neil tells him.

Neil's "I'm Nathaniel" hits Andrew like a gut punch.

He already knew it but now it's confirmed.

When Neil goes missing, Andrew was the first to tell coach about Nathan's release from prison.

He persuades Coach (read: stares down repeating "Baltimore") to take them to Baltimore because that's where Neil is.

Books go on as normal

Life seemingly goes back to normal after summer break.

They start the new semester with significantly fewer worries, and Neil is figuring out his newfound freedom.

Andrew is in his Advanced Psychology class when Nathan Wesninski is brought up again.

The professor - fortunately for her sake - doesn't mention Neil or Nathaniel at all but assigned them an imaginative assignment

They are to pick a serial killer and study what is known about their at home life and write a paper about what it might be like to grow up in that kind of enviroment

Andrew was going to ignore this assignment, but Neil found out and thought the whole thing was hilarious.

Neil finds out that Andrew was entirely too fascinated by the Wesninski family.

"You liked me before you even met me."

Eventually, they decided that Andrew didn't have to write the paper.

"Mr. Minyard. It is your turn to present."

Andrew and Neil walk to the front.

"This was a single person assignment, Mr. Minyard."

"I think a first-hand account is better than anything I could have come up with. Don't you think?"

"First hand?"

"Hello Andrew's classmates. I'm Nathaniel Wesninski, but please call me Neil. Fair warning. If you ever call me Nathaniel, I will kill you."

They spend the rest of the class basically ragging on Nathan the entire time

#aftg #all for the game #andrew minyard #neil josten #the foxes #aftg neil #the foxhole court #andriel #the raven king #the kings men #aftg au #criminal justice major Andrew Minyard

[hanawrites404]

So @pinguwrites mentioned about the backstories of Cillianverse characters and I am gonna give some of my insight on them lol.

Also, disclaimer. In this post I'm only gonna include the characters whose movies I have completed. But as I see more movies, I'll add their characters in the next post like this. I won't include Jonathan Crane (because I strongly stick to the backstory that DC comics has provided) and Oppenheimer (it's obvious why).

Now that I have established this, let's gets started ✨

Neil Lewis

Watching The Detectives

Neil was born in a family containing a single soccer mum and a big sister who is at least seven years older than him. Neil was shy as a toddler but would be very invested into something once you give him a chance.

He didn't change much when he got to his school days. He had his fair share of friends and answered in the class like an average student. But what was special about him was that he had the most unique stories. When it came to show and tell or small story writing, no one could beat Neil in terms of creativity (but somehow he never got a prize because his grammar used to be horrible).

At highschool, he was definitely a target for bullying, but luckily his friends always defended him. I believe he met Lucien and Jonathan during highschool too. Neil was a comic + movie nerd and he would randomly start to speak out facts about it whenever he finds someone to talk to, and many didn't appreciate that so he was also sort of an outcast. But he didn't mind that because he had his small circle of friends.

Neil was again, average in his studies. But he was such a theatre kid. He never got the main role but he used to steal the show, even if this mf is acting as a tree. He was THAT talented. He has also participated in sports events but ends up chickening out in most of it. Until one day he practised hard with his sister for a match against the rival school and 'accidentally' won his school the baseball trophy. Neil's mom has a photo of him crying with a red face and holding the well-deserved trophy high in his arms. We love our crybaby.

Neil graduated from high school and went into a decent university where he took film studies as his major, despite his mom and sister wanting him to join something that would make him 'rich and popular' like sports or music.

College Neil was an absolute blast. He had his own style, and he had a second-hand guitar from one of his seniors. He used to drive his sister's old motorcycle to college and he also learnt driving a car from her. Neil met Denise during his final year and after graduation, Neil with help of his sister and his friends opened the famous Gumshoe video store.

Jackson Rippner

Red Eye

Okay, for this. I really want to thank @/pinguwrites Jackson Rippner bot. It literally provided a very cool backstory that makes so much sense for someone like our thin-eyebrowed assassin. So I'm gonna copy paste some of it here + add some lines of my own.

Jack's parents were drug addicts and he used to live in a slum filled with junkies and small-scale criminals where no one had any honor or sympathy for one another. So the neighbourhood was always filthy and toxic. He has seen murders and robberies at such a young age. And poor boy had no choice but to learn how to fight and protect himself.

Things only got worse as he grew older. He had to join a gang because a child living alone in slums was as a good as dead. The gang would provide him food, clothes and shelter in exchange of stealing, killing and burning houses. He hated everything he did but he had to do it for surviving.

After years of being a criminal for his whole teenhood, he decided to quit it and do something good for once. So he joined the military. But nothing was good there either. With strict routine and rules, and the other recruits bullying him for his past. He used to get into a lot of fights with his peers and he had developed quite a temper there.

Everywhere was war and destruction. Never once that he was spared from witnessing violence and gore that Jack had gone numb from all of it. From feeling disgust and anger, he now loves watching people suffer, especially if he is causing their pain.

He left the military to start everything again, but he couldn't get any ordinary job because he didn't have any formal education. However, he was noticed by a secret association of assassins and contract killers. The agency took Jack in and taught him all and everything which is needed to become a spy.

Also, I highly believe Jackson Rippner is not even his real name. It would be something else that his parents used to call him but he would rather have someone use his alias than his birth name (it brings bad memories).

Jim

28 Days Later

Jim didn't have anything crazy going on with him (at least before the apocalypse lol). He has had a loving family who supported him throughout his life. But what's mysterious and wierd about him is that he was an ordinary bicycle courier man, *yet* he managed to sabotage what, 10-12 soldiers single-handedly?! That ain't male hormones dude, that's something else 😭

So, I at least think that he used to do something more before becoming a delivery man. Perhaps something like a sports player, or a security guard of some complex or maybe he was still a courier man! But of more heavier objects like crates of fruits or something. But one thing is for sure is that he was a guy who would rather do odd jobs than a 9-5.

Also, canonically the director of the movie has described him to be a soft-looking man with a body strong as an iron, and that's so real y'all. Jim throughout the movie was underestimated until the end where he ended up becoming the hero of the whole show. And you know what, we love that.

Also, I don't think he ever had a girlfriend before. And Jim gives strong virgin vibes yet knows where the clit is.

Jim

The Delinquent Season

Jim was a simple boy. He also didn't have much crazy going on with his childhood too. He was quite a smart student and a straight-A kid. His parents were strict regarding his grades and behaviour but they raised him normally. He had his fair share of playing around, partying etc. But nothing hardcore, and Jim doesn't like it that way anyway.

He got into a reputed college away from home and must have studied something sophisticated like law or psychology. Jim in college only focused on his studies and didn't have many friends. He was quiet and light academia student who spent most of his time in library or alone in his desk at his dorm. He calls his parents once a week and that was it.

He has worked from home since the start and met Danielle after two years. Then a year after he married her and had kids.

Raymond Leon

In Time

Ray is almost similar to Jackson in this case. He was born in timezone 12, also known as the ghetto. Where one minute is like a year for the people who live there. Ray's parents worked at the factory and had died quite early in his life due to a hazard that occured in their workplace. So he was adopted by his uncle who ran a pawn shop. He was a great role model and a second father to Ray. His uncle's dream was to see the world outside timezone 12. And naturally, Ray took on that.

He helped his uncle to run the shop and he used to venture out and doing odd jobs to bring some time. He also learnt how to do trade and gamble as it was one of the main sources of income in timezone 12. Ray was given basic education by his uncle and other skills such as cooking, driving. His uncle had made Ray into a fine and independent man, and for his 25th birthday, his uncle gave him a handgun.

Until one day when Ray was coming back from his work, he finds his uncle dead and bleeding on the floor. Not only his hard-earned time was stolen, the thieves had stabbed him in the chest five times. Ray was devastated and mourned for his only guardian's death. He blamed himself for not being there for him when he needed him the most. But what burnt inside him more was anger and revenge.

With all the skills he had gained while being under his uncle, he was able to track down the thieves. They were not some ordinary robbers but an infamous gang who like to steal from people with a lot of time. He has seen them in the gambling bars many times and it was time to end their reign. Ray had managed to outsmart and kill everyone in the group. He genuinely felt disgusted but also satisfied murdering them.

A few days later, Ray was approached by the head of the Timekeepers who had tracked him. They detected time being lost but not stolen. Ray had not stolen even one second after killing the group. It made the timekeeper intrigued by the young man. Ray was offered to work under him, and that's how Ray got out of the timezone 12 forever.

Robert Capa

Sunshine

The sun god™ himself. Our beloved Robert was a prodigy in science. Since his childhood, he had always wanted to see a proper sunrise from the horizon of Sydney. He helped his family with the winter while also planning out ways that he can bring out sunny days like it used to.

His room was filled with posters of Icarus I and its crew members. He wanted to be like them but also didn't want to be like them. He wanted to be the reason humanity would feel pure sunshine on their skin but he also didn't want to fail and just disappear when they were *this* close to revive the sun. He opted physics as his passion and had dreams of how earth used to be before it went into the phase of eternal winter.

During his training for venturing into space and fulfilling their mission, Robert was quite determined too. He got acquainted with the rest of the crew members but he usually kept everything to himself. He was only focused on bringing the sun back and returning to see his parents and sister.

I also think Robert has synesthesia. He has a vivid imagination and can sense colours and sounds at the same time. That would really explain his last scene.

Anyways, that's all for my rant. Thank you for listening. Part 2 will come soon once I have watched enough movies.

#cillian x reader #cillian murphy #sunshine #red eye #the delinquent season #28 days later #watching the detectives #in time #raymond leon #robert Capa #jim 28 days later #jim the delinquent season #neil lewis #jackson rippner #jackson rippner x reader #neil lewis x reader #raymond leon x reader #robert capa x reader

[reiryugazaki]

I put off playing tlou2 up until recently just to get a firsthand account of everything and I can't sleep so let me say some things. I deeply resent everything about this game. I hate how it's an all hurt no comfort fan fic of a game. I hate how every moment of lightness or happiness is a flashback intended to twist the knife and remind you of what's been lost by Ellie/Abby/the player. I can't even enjoy the flashbacks with Joel because it's so obviously there just to go "wow, isn't it so sad? Isn't it so fucking sad how happy Joel and Ellie were here? Isn't it?" There are no genuine present day moments of hope. And how it tries soooo much to make you go, gee this Jerry guy sure was nice. He was a neurosurgeon and a firefly, an objectively good person who'd never hurt a fly. Except well, he would kill a 14 year old girl and is never able to even fathom the idea of giving up his own daughter. But nevermind that. He helps animals. He liked to collect coins! He wasn't a criminal so his life had value! I sure do feel bad for shooting him now! Except I don't. I couldn't give a fuck about Jerry or Owen or Mel or the racist caricature that is Manny and anyone else that's connected to Abby. I am incapable of caring about this massive cast expansion. Abby is only likable to me when she has absolutely nothing related to Ellie/Joel on her mind. And even then her principles are so weak, but that's somehow meant to come across as her being empathetic and open to chaning her mind. 2 days. 2 fucking days of hanging out with a pair of kids she considered the enemy and would've killed without remorse or hesitation before. But oh, these kids SAVED her. That's different. Maybe Seraphites are PEOPLE? Whoa. The attempts at humanizing her because, oh, she's afraid of heights! How vulnurable! She still collects quarters like her dad did! She's already so bonded with Lev in such a short amount of time! It's just like Joel and Ellie! As if Abby didn't hold onto revenge and hatred for 5 years and have the audacity to not even feel satisfied with killing Joel. Or roping her friends in on her revenge quest while betraying one of them. Give me a break. And I don't even necessarily hate Abby because I don't think there's enough of her as a character for me to hate. I hate that she represents this game that has so little ties to the first. I hate that Neil took advantage of our attachment to Joel and Ellie for the purpose of telling his little story about violence and revenge when that had shit all to do with the first game. Everything about this game is so BITTER and HATEFUL towards the two characters we bonded with in the first game. It's so fucking edgy and gritty, like a shitty reboot. It's torture and trauma porn and a misery simulator and UNFUN with too many fucking cinematics. With the context of the HBO adaptation, I just can't help but wonder what the fuck caused Neil to turn on Ellie, and agree with her having a "violent heart."

#tlou 2 critical #anti tlou2 #i cant fucking take it anymore

[detectivebambam]

For the choosing violence thing.

I curious about your thoughts on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24, and 25

(Your thoughts make my day tbh)

lol i gotchu pinky

the character everyone gets wrong: Dan. she's not a badass. i mean she is, but she's not. she's a scared little girl who had to raise herself and has no idea what she's doing at any given time and i love her for it

why andrew would never top or bottom: actually he does both, and tends to enjoy it. kind of an agressive top but Neil likes it, and sometimes likes to follow orders when he bottoms 🫣 i think they do anything and everything with each other. Neil could be dominant or submissive at any given time, which gives Andrew space to learn about what he actually enjoys. He finds that as long as it involves Neil, he doesn't mind

worst tumblr take I've seen: that Andrew was a misogynist because he doesn't like being manipulated, and "manipulation is a woman's weapon" like how is THAT not misogynistic be so real

why did you block that annoying person?: kept saying that Kevin abused Riko as much as Riko abused Kevin. don't know how far they had to reach into the depths of their asshole to find that one, i just hope they didn't get stuck

i don't have discord

which ship fans are the most annoying: y'all are going to absolutely murder me for this but kevaaron. 1) where did it come from? 2) what's wrong with Katie?? 3) no hate ship what u want but also, i can ship what i want? and it's fine it's literally fine

what character did you start to hate because of fanon: i hate to say it but Thea. i adored her when I read the books originally, but after 4 years of exclusively fanon content i didn't like her. but i did a reread recently and adore her again so it's all good

common fandom opinion everyone is wrong about: Andrew being a sex god. Neil is his first consensual sexual partner. like yeah he knows how to suck dick like a dying man, which he learned in juvie (when he was 13-16?) but in terms of sex? he doesn't know what he's doing and he's probably really scared and nervous

worst part of canon: kevin and thea turning their daughter into a mini Raven 😔

worst part of fanon: Renee erasure 😔😔

fandom related words you've filtered: as of currently? anything tsc related because I don't have access to it yet and people aren't tagging properly. but I also have Rinee (rixo x renee) blocked because,,, what do you actually mean

unpopular character you like and why people should like them: Aaron. yeah he's an asshole and a little homophobic but he was raised that way and he's getting better

worst blorboification: if this means what i think it means, fucking riko. like wdym "he serves cunt" he needs to serve time

answered prev

answered prev

you can't understand why this is popular: kevaaron, any riko ship, riko himself, ichirou x neil, andreil breaking up in fics ?

there should be more of this: fic: oral fixation. sexual or non sexual idc but let's Freud these bitches. fanart: ANDREW WITH LONG HAIR PLS PLS PLS

it's criminal that y'all have been sleeping on: STUART HATFORD. LITERALLY NEXT TO WYMACK ON THE FATHER FIGURE SCALE. I LOVE HIM

you're mad/ashamed/horrified you actually kind of like: i don't feel guilt I'm Presbyterian

part of canon you found boring: anytime they were in class like wdym

part of canon you think is overhyped: this one is going to get me in trouble so i wanna start off by saying that yes, Riko was a victim of abuse. I'm not disputing that at all. but the part where he got beat by Tetsuji and "was more blood and bruise than skin", while being horrible, was also because of Kevin leaving due to Riko breaking his hand. Tetsuji lost one of his biggest investments because of Riko's petty ego

fav part of canon that everyone ignores: Stuart Hatford man

ship you've unwillingly come around to: Kandreil lol. i didn't like it at first but idk the more fanfic i see I'm like yeah that could be cute

topic that brings up the most rancid discourse: picture this, if you will: Nora Sakavic says something about her own damn characters. yeah that's all

common fandom complaint you're sick of hearing: "it's poorly written" it's not. if you can get over the first chapter of The Raven King, the rest is actually written very well and it's so so beautiful and depicts traumatized characters in a way I haven't seen before that is very refreshing

ty for the ask pinky ily

#aftg #all for the game #andrew minyard #nora sakavic #the foxhole court #neil josten #andreil #kevin day #aaron minyard #jean moreau #alison reynolds #matt boyd #renee walker #stuart hatford #riko moriyama #tetsuji moriyama #dan wilds #nicky hemmick #kandreil #kateaaron

[tenebrius-excellium]

Neil being made to believe he can't change his ways by some stupid psychiatrist in 5x04 hurts so much T_T

Fascinatingly, we meet an ex-criminal who DID change his life for the better in the same episode. And on the other hand there's Dr. Mara Summers who sows this terrible doubt in Neals mind about who he is and who he can be. That he can never be anything else but a thief.

It's very untypical for Neal to listen to random strangers, and so that had me startled. However, there's a distinct difference between the woman's and the other ex-criminal's voice of influence on him...: He is just a family man, she is cunning and on his level intellectually.

When Neal meets Dr. Summers, they immediately spar a mindgame.

And I'm not sure what about that made Neal change his mind about getting clean of his criminal history, because he clearly despises himself for being a con man afterwards. He's learned to hate the manipulation which he is able to intuitively force on the people he interacts with. It becomes wildly apparent who Neal is and who he is not in Season 6 with Keller and Amy (no more spoilers but those who have already watched know what I'm talking about).

So what did Dr. Summers trigger in Neal that made him lose faith in Peter and in himself? Why does he give up on the legal life again when he - once free - could have easily found work that feeds his desire for the thrill within the FBI, within security firms or insurance companies (like Sara)? Of course the conversation with Dr. Summers may have reminded Neal of how much he missed the high life. But it shouldn't have tampered with his identity. Neal claims to not know who he is, I say he has a fairly good idea. He knows what he's good at, he knows he doesn't do violence, he knows he wants an extravagant lifestyle and he knows who his friends are. That's a lot more than can be said about just any person.

So in a way, Neal went back to old habits, but they became very purposeful. It stopped being a game to him and it became about getting out for good. He somehow went back to shady behavior yet grew as a person and lost all joy in it.

I feel that part of his arc remained unfinished at the end of Season 6. Neal was on his way to learn that he doesn't need to steal to be able to live out who he is. And it kinda stopped there halfway.

I feel like Neal was about to become a Robin Hood type of guy. In saying that he could never change, Dr. Summers solidified the fact for him that he had definitely changed, but since everything was going too slow for him, he used the old methods to speed up the terms of his release. One last con.

The con to get out. For good.

I just wish I didn't have to analyze that in a wholeass essay. I wish it had been spelled out for us in the ending of the show. I wish I didn't merely have to hope that Neal found his peace after Dr. Summers got into his mind, while deep down knowing he is haunted. I wish someone had told him that he didn't have to listen to her.

I wish him peace.

@e7y1 @kimkhimhant

#white collar #neal caffrey #dr mara summers #mara summers #analysis #white collar analysis #wherethekiteflies

[qqueenofhades]

You know, it remains absolutely wild to me how... like... we know exactly who is responsible for this, where, when, and why. There's a short list of like 10 people. It looks like this:

Donald Trump, for being a fascist narcissistic grifter, con man, and criminal, who nonetheless managed to weaponise enough white grievance, backlash against Obama, voter apathy, Clinton smears from the Republican slime machine, and leftist moral posturing to get elected as President and have three Supreme Court picks, all of which were obtained dishonestly;

Mitch McConnell, for being the absolute worst, not to mention proudly on record as wanting to obstruct everything a Democratic president ever does, a power-hungry shriveled racist who refused to even hold hearings for Merrick Garland and then filled that seat with Neil Gorsuch, colluded with Trump to force Anthony Kennedy to suddenly retire and install drunken sex abuser frat boy Brett Kavanaugh, then jammed Amy Coney Barrett onto the bench to fill RBG's seat, eight days before the 2020 election, in brazen open hypocrisy of everything he had said about SCOTUS and election years, since the only principle that matters to him is maintaining Republican power;

Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett themselves, for doing exactly what they were put on the court by theocratic dark money fundamentalist operatives to do, and joining Bush-era fascists Thomas, Roberts, and Alito to overrule Roe vs Wade, as the culmination of decades of deliberate and openly stated Republican policy;

Rupert Murdoch and the Fox News disinformation ecosystem, for creating the alternate reality that made Trump possible and continues to empower his sycophants, supporters, cronies, and other bad actors, and generated much of the anti-Clinton slime and smears that made their way into the mainstream, were endlessly repeated by so-called respectable media outlets like the NY Times, and poisoned the American electorate, already disposed to misogyny, against the most qualified (and historic) Democratic Presidential candidate there has likely ever been;

James Comey, for deciding to issue the "we are still investigating HER EEEEMAILS!" letter a week before the 2016 election, which took just enough off Clinton's increasingly narrow margins to put Trump over the top thanks to the rigged and racist Electoral College, which has often functioned exactly as designed in helping non-popular-vote-winning Republican presidents into power;

Vladimir Putin, for running a well-attested and repeatedly confirmed wide-ranging disinformation and interference campaign in the 2016 election to boost Trump, the Kremlin's pet stooge, and discredit Clinton, as part of his overall and equally well-attested scheme to disrupt and destroy Western liberal democratic institutions and boost Russian power;

And like... in terms of direct, locatable, empirically provable concrete responsibility, that's it. I'm even being charitable and leaving Bernie off this list, though I feel that he played a major part in creating both the 2016 clusterfuck and the "I'm too good to ever vote unless for my perfect socialist messiah" attitude that now prevails among much of the Online Left. That is a small number of names. Their actions are all verifiable in public records and a wide variety of news sources, both partisan and non-partisan. (Protip, anything you can only find in one news source that precisely matches your own ideological beliefs is, uh, deeply suspect.) I'm a historian. I work with verifiable facts and evidence, even if they might lead me to conclusions that I personally don't like. And any wide-sweeping broad generalisation, with absolutely no specific evidence or sources cited, is... not how it works and will get you a bad mark on an essay or research project every time.

So against this short list of 8 people, all demonstrably bad actors with bad motivations, what does your average Online Leftist do? They blame Obama, who "said he would codify Roe vs Wade and didn't!" Well, you might say, did Obama ever have a filibuster-proof pro-choice majority in the Senate? No, he didn't, but that's not an excuse, it just means he and Harry Reid didn't try hard enough (this already after McConnell's announcement about making Obama a one-term president and obstructing everything). Obama had the greatest financial meltdown since the Great Depression on his hands, and then spent all his political capital passing the Affordable Care Act, lost the House in 2010 as a result and the Senate in 2014, and which, despite being an actual, y'know, codified law, has been subject to literally hundreds of Republican challenges to gut, reverse, or overrule it as much as possible? YOU'RE JUST MAKING EXCUSES! WHO CARES ABOUT THE ECONOMY? OBAMA COULD HAVE DONE IT IF HE CARED AND FORESAW THE FUTURE!

Likewise, the left's other favorite scapegoat is RBG, for not "retiring in time" or otherwise precisely predicting the moment of her own death and who would be in office at the time. Literally no blame for McConnell, the one who actually and deliberately crammed the three illegitimate justices onto the bench in defiance of all protocol and precedent. So let's see... the so-called progressives are blaming a Democratic black man and a liberal Jewish woman for the actions of a bunch of evil Republican white men. Or the other laughable false equivalence I saw yesterday, which claimed that ever since the Democrats were elected in 2020, civil rights, LGBT rights, and now abortion rights were being stripped away (with the clear implication that it was their fault). This just happened on its own, I guess, and not because specific Republican-controlled state legislatures and the Republican-packed Supreme Court had deliberately done this as a strategy of pursuing and consolidating fascist power even after Trump's forced departure from the scene. Name one non-Joe Manchin/Kyrsten Sinema instance of the Democrats actively doing the same thing. I will wait.

This is not even to mention the leftists repeating straight-up QAnon propaganda about how Joe Biden is a racist sexist child molester and, I quote, "the literal scum of the earth." There are legitimate policy and performance grounds to criticise Biden on: his speech yesterday said all the right things, but it remains to be seen how much of a promised "whole of government" action will actually be made, including the available powers of the executive branch to which Biden, as chief executive, has access. His personal response has, at times, likewise seemed slow and flat-footed. But the Online Leftists have abandoned all pretense of a rational and reality-based critique, in favor of hurling the most overheated personal moral slanders possible, like the Puritans at a witch-burning. Again, I ask, we're supposed to believe that these are the progressives?

I saw a stat recently about how only 23% of American adults use Twitter. That is... not even one quarter of the country. Out of that, the Online Leftists are only a tiny percentage. These ideas are not popular or universal or just something that "everyone believes" outside of a carefully curated echo chamber. It may feel all-encompassing, but it's not, and frankly, its denizens seem to be interested in anything except building workable, practical coalitions, if it would mean taking any criticism or compromising on their exalted ideals (which, as I have noted throughout this post, really aren't as great as they seem). As I've said before, my own political views are as far left as it's possible to go, and yet, I doubtless will continue to receive more messages like the charming anon from the other day who told me to kill myself for being "bootlicking slime." This is how they like to communicate with people who otherwise agree with them on every policy level (at least as outwardly stated and certainly not as practiced). This... kind of seems like a problem.

I've likewise written before about how ideological revolutions to drastically remake societies with the Right Idea have never, ever succeeded, and only bring more pain, suffering, and death. To all those people preaching "revolution!" as the solution: you realize that all the idealistic young students manning the barricades in Les Miserables get shot, right? And that it's not an actual, legitimate political plan, not least because it isn't a plan? It's a reactive coping-mechanism magical-thinking wish that everything bad would just magically disappear in a burst of glory, and everything would be better now. It's comforting to daydream about, but it's not something any sane, rational adult really puts any stock in, since it's never something that has ever worked in history. What revolution? How? When? Surely you don't mean like the January 6 rioters, unless you do, since overthrowing the illegimate government with overwhelming violence is, oops, once again straight out of the right-wing playbook. Still waiting for those promised progressive ideals!

Basically, even in the unlikely event that they actually acquired it, I wouldn't trust the current crop of Online Leftists with power any more than I trust the Republicans, despite them outwardly sharing my beliefs and values. They haven't proven that they're interested in anything except punishing those who don't hold their exact narrow and rigid idea of "moral" views, blaming other people who again, think largely or entirely like them, threatening or using violence against anyone who disagrees with them, and finding ways to constantly excuse and ignore the actual perpetrators of illiberal Christofascism. All, again, while claiming to be progressive! Like the AO3 anti crowd, who thinks that perfect morality in the world can be achieved by aggressively and abusively policing the fiction that people write for fun in their free time, it's about using cult-like techniques and tactics to position the entire outside world as the morally inferior enemy and building in-group solidarity by attacking them. Which seems like, oh, I dunno... Trump supporters. Again. Womp womp.

I don't know. Call me an old person; I definitely am. But as terrible and cynical and generationally damaging as the Dobbs decision is, and how it represents the greatest legal denial of personhood and autonomy to American women in most of our lifetimes, there's something even worse about seeing the generation who claims to "know better" blaming the people who opposed it, excusing the people who did it, and then going straight into more nonsense about why it's not actually bad and/or twisting themselves into pretzels to invent the hypothetical (white, rich) woman who somehow won't be affected by this. Maybe that's just me in thinking that is a profoundly flawed and wrong response on literally every level, but you know, I suspect it's not. So yeah.

#hilary for ts #history #american history #politics for ts #long post

[taciturnpoet]

okay here is the promised anderperry Icarus and the Sun/Apollo post because @73647e enabled me lol

this will be mostly rambling because I love this comparison (and use it a lot) so be happy if there is even a single coherent thought in this okay? talking about this makes my brain go FAST and I went over this about a thousand times so bear with me here

When I had first started thinking about this, I had originally thought of Neil being the Sun and Todd being Icarus. But then I realized no, their dynamic shifts and actually switches roles after Todd does the poem in Keating’s class.

In the beginning, Neil is the one that draws Todd into the group and persuades him to join the poets, all while also encouraging him to be himself and speak up more. While Todd is not only falling for Neil, he’s also trying to take Neil’s advice to heart since Neil is what Todd wants to be.

Neil could befriend a brick wall if left alone with it long enough. Everyone likes him and believes that he is made for great things (though not the same great things he wants to do), and you can tell that Todd wants to get to that point himself eventually. Todd’s been told his entire life that he will never amount to anything unless he becomes this thing he doesn’t even like, and Neil is more of what he aspires to be.

Then the poem in Keating’s class happens and things change.

After the poem, Todd starts to come into himself a little more. He’s gaining confidence in himself and his work—the work he wants to do, the work he’s passionate about—and he’s joking around and talking more with the poets. (Even though this scene is deleted, and I think that’s a crime) he reads a poem out loud to them and Keating at the end of the movie without Neil there.

Now, we know why Neil isn’t there, but that’s not important yet lol

Neil has been Todd's safety net, the person that kickstarted his self-confidence growth and made him truly embrace himself in the long run. By the end of the movie, Todd can show other people his work without Neil having to be there, which is a major development from Todd in the first poets meeting too afraid to speak and always looking to Neil for guidance.

When Todd is helping Neil practice his lines on the dock—another criminally deleted scene—he’s excited. He’s teasing Neil and playing around with him and becomes what he had the potential to be at the beginning of the movie with the help of Neil and Keating. 

Todd’s decided that he wanted to be his own person. He’s not going to try and live up to his parent’s expectations of him becoming a second Jeffrey, he’s going to pursue his writing and be his own person, and he appears to become so much freer after that realization. He’s embraced his passion for writing and poetry and pursues his art without hesitation, just as Neil wants to do with his acting, becoming a shining light of possibilities and potential, and most of all, freedom. 

After the poem, the glimpse of Todd’s brain, and his passion, Neil almost views it as something holy. In Neil’s eyes, Todd and his freedom are something to strive for, to look up to, and hope for like it's something divine. In a way, Todd becomes a symbol of freedom and passion, a beacon of everything Neil could be and wants to be/do.

I know we as a fandom talk about this a lot, but look at the way Neil looks at Todd after the poem, the way the sun is shining on his face and lighting him up only in the way it does whenever he’s having a Moment™ with Todd. No, seriously, it does that to him both when he decides to audition for the play and after the poem, but practically nowhere else in the movie.

Insanity. Anyway.

But then, during this same time that Todd is embracing his freedom, there is Neil. Neil who is practicing and alive and passionate while preparing for the play, making plans for the future, and dreaming of pursuing this life as an actor.

 ["God, for the first time in my whole life, I feel completely alive!" // "Most people, if they're lucky, live about half an exciting life. If I could get the parts, I could live dozens of great lives!"]

And yet, there is another Neil. The Neil who gets confronted by his father and told to stop doing the play, to stop acting, and give up his dreams, his passions, and what he believes to be his life, all to stay stuck in the existence his father wants him in. The Neil that goes to Keating for help and cries that he’s “trapped.”

The moment Neil decides to lie to Keating and tell him that he talked to his father, the moment he chooses to continue with the play and acting despite everything that could happen is the moment he cements his place as the Icarus in their dynamic. He chooses to ignore his father’s warnings against participating in the play and does it anyways. He chooses freedom and passion over safety. Neil chooses to fly.

Neil chose to take a chance, to try and escape and join Todd on the other side of freedom and authenticity, where he could pursue his dream and become an actor. He has his moment to shine, to taste the warmth of the stage lights akin to sunlight as he brings the play to life. All the possibilities, hopes, and dreams, all within his reach in the form of a crown made of sticks and leaves in a small-town theater. He can see his friends and his teacher in the crowd and feels invincible and in his element, bigger than life.

But then comes the melting of the wax and the plummet back to earth as he sees his father’s angry face in the back of the theater, and he knows.

He knew that there was no going back now, no reversing what he’d done, the fact that he’d lied to the two most influential men in his life for just a chance to join the other side. And yet, as someone pointed it out recently (I can’t find the post right now, I’m so sorry), there is a moment when Neil comes out after the play, and he smiles at his father, an attempt to see if maybe he won’t be falling tonight. But then his father doesn’t smile back, and everything goes by in a rushed blur of a freefall.

All of the poets try and reach out to him, to talk to him and congratulate him on his way out, but the only one he looks at is Todd. Todd, who’s so excited to see him afterward, tries to talk to him and get him to come back with them, but Neil smiles sadly at him and lets himself be dragged away. He knew he couldn’t put off this fight with his father forever and decided to stop hiding from it. He’s falling and isn’t trying to stop it.

I think Neil looks at Todd the way he does before they leave because a part of him knows he’s not coming back. He doesn’t want to go, but he can’t slow it down and spends his last moments with them looking at the boy whose become his Sun.

The descent is quick after the car pulls away, and Neil cannot stand up to his father. Every moment that led to Neil’s decision to be a part of the play, to follow Todd, is in the sun's bright light. It makes sense then that he’d die at night, with death embracing him with the sound of a gunshot rather than water splashing.

Todd finds out about Neil's death after sunrise. It's gray and quiet, but the sun still rises even after he knows Neil isn't rising with it.

And he's devastated, and he's angry, and he's no longer afraid to show that. He gets mad at Cameron for blaming Keating for Neil and believing he would kill himself under any circumstances other than his father. [“That is not true, Cameron, you know that. Keating didn’t put us up to anything. Neil loved acting!”]

Then, he gets mad at Nolan, talking back to him in front of his parents in that sham of a conference and in front of Keating's class as Keating is leaving. The same Nolan Todd nearly cried in front of on his first day at Welton because he was so afraid to speak his mind, to stand up for himself.

Todd is grieving, he is angry, and he is stronger than he was at the start. While he stands on his desk for Keating in a show of support, in thanks, he is also standing on his desk in thanks to Neil. For Neil.

Neil's gone. And yet, Todd shows his strength. He stands up for the ones he loves and is thankful for while also standing in defiance for those who played a hand in Neil's end and killing their dreams. He appears to smile ever-so-slightly when Keating looks at him, and Keating must know he'll be okay. 

His best friend is dead. The actor who brought a play to life and cast light everywhere he went was gone, but Todd isn't. Neil's light only reflected what Todd still had and would dedicate to Neil.

The freedom, art, and life that Todd now held were what Neil fell for, and Todd would spend his life creating in memory of the boy who fell trying to join him. Todd had to ensure that everyone would know the story of Neil Perry as much as they did Icarus. They were so similar, after all.

(this started to change halfway through, so idk if it makes sense but that’s fine. please talk to me about anything like this I get so excited about it lol)

#i had to stop myself from continuing this #but i will if people want #this is 1600 words long wtf #neil is so icarus-coded it’s not even funny #it got worse the longer i thought about it #this is probably my favorite greek myth #if you couldn’t tell #dead poets society #dead poets fandom #dps #dps fandom #anderperry #neil perry #todd anderson #neil x todd #todd x neil #icarus and the sun #icarus and apollo #kaz rants #kaz posts

[threewaysdivided]

So, I've noticed that DP fans and authors have a sliding scale for Vlad. They vary from "haha look at poor little meow meow who fails at everything" to "Vlad is an absolute psycho and the Fenton parents are criminally negligent for allowing him near their kids". I'm very curious as to how you view Vlad and his relationship with Danny because that variance is so huge, and since it kind of slides between the two in canon as well.

Ah, Vlad.  Perpetual runner-up of Dracula lookalike contests, consistent bronze medallist in the race for most-culturally-relevant-Vladimir, and called by the internet everything from Psychopath to Meow Meow to I regretfully inform you Daddy.

One of the things that makes interpretations of Danny Phantom characters more fluid/variable than others is that (as you said) canon can be rather slide-y at times - something which lends itself to multiple quasi-canonical potential readings.  I think I’ve mentioned before that for me this means I have a bit of an annoying tendency to change my headcanons depending on what best facilitates a given story concept, rather than being wedded to One True Version™.

That said, Vlad is probably the major-character who I have the most consistent read on.

Vlad’s Character

When it comes to the question of whether Vlad is an entertainingly pathetic failure or a dangerously unhinged threat, I would say the answer is that he’s kind of both.

My core reading of Vlad is that he’s a narcissist.  He sees himself as exceptional/ superior, he has very little empathy for others, and he often treats other characters less as people and more as prizes to be won or as existing to support/ serve him.  His ghost powers probably exacerbated this, but since he behaves pretty similarly during Masters of All Time it’s likely that this is a part of his native personality.

Now, on its own this wouldn’t be a consignment to villainy - there can be narcissistic or egocentric hero characters (early MCU Tony Stark is like this, and it’s basically Neil’s whole bit in Class of the Titans) - but Vlad combines it with a bunch of significantly nastier traits.  He’s entitled, he can be extremely petty, he’s immature and he holds grudges to an irrational degree.  He also twists narratives; finding ways to position himself as the victim or somehow secretly the victor/ mastermind even when he loses.  Most of all, he’s controlling and part of that comes out as sadism - he enjoys the power that comes from hurting, inconveniencing, frustrating and generally making life miserable for others.

All of this means that Vlad can be incredibly dangerous toward people/ in situations where his self-concept is threatened, where he feels slighted or where he has been denied something he feels should be rightfully his.  That sadism combined with his lack of empathy, his manipulativeness, his capacity to hold petty grudges for potentially years and his ability for patient, premeditated planning has the potential to be terrifying.  At his worst, Vlad is a malignant narcissistic abuser with wealth and superpowers.

But on the other hand, it’s those same core traits that make Vlad kind of pathetic and even tragic.  Like many narcissistic antagonists (and IRL malignant narcissists) he creates a lot of his own suffering.  Someone else on this site put it well when they said that Vlad doesn’t care about people, he cares about the people-shaped objects he’s trying to stuff into the holes in his lonely, miserable existence.  Vlad had multiple opportunities to course-correct and build the kind of genuine, sincere relationships with Maddie, Jack, Danny and Danielle that deep down he seems to want, but he burned those bridges himself with bad choices and worse behaviour.  He has needs and desires, and on some level he has the capacity to change and choose better, but until he learns to care about people for their own sake and to treat others with consideration and respect he will always end up driving those things away.

Vlad’s strategic plans fall apart for similar reasons.  He’s unwilling to admit when he’s wrong or has been bested which means he doesn’t really change his opinions of people or adjust his strategies accordingly (Jack will always be “an idiot”, Danny will always be “an underperforming fool wasting his potential” etc), he doesn’t really pay attention to people unless he’s fixated on/ wants something from them, and because he sees his perspective as universal and/or doesn’t value empathy, his plans often have big gaping weak spots that people can easily exploit. 

There’s an almost classic-tragedy element to Vlad; his compassionless hubris is his hamartia and it walks him into nearly every reversal of fortune.

But also… yeah, watching him repeatedly trip over that ego and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory is funny.  This is a character who never holds himself accountable or bothers to grow; at some point you run out of sympathy for the whiney middle-aged man who uses his tremendous wealth and power mostly to skulk around a big empty mansion while creeping on a married woman and her teenage son, and seeing him become a perpetual karmic butt-monkey of his own making can be very satisfying.

Vlad is both at once; simultaneously a potentially terrifying villain and a deeply pathetic little man living in a selfish mundane suffering of his own creation.  Forget The Fright Before Christmas, a holiday morality visit from Scrooge’s ghosts would have done Mister Masters a world of good.

My preferred use of Vlad

Okay so, despite everything I’ve managed to say above, I’m now going to cop to the fact that I… don’t find Vlad super compelling as a character.

Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s very useful as an antagonist and source of schemes that can be complex while still being beatable, but in isolation he just doesn’t have a lot going on under the hood for me at that deepest level. 

This might be coming from personal experience - I’ll spare you the details but there are some abusive malignant narcissists in my extended family and I’ve observed this kind of behaviour and its consequences in real life.  And the truth I’ve found is that once you strip all the layers back it’s depressingly simple.

I completely understand other people’s fascination: when you first encounter this kind of mindset, it can seem deeply compelling.  It feels like there has to be a reason, an answer, an explanation.  A lot of time can be spent searching for that; trying to puzzle out how a person could be like this, what kind of moral framework they must have, what internal justifications a sane and reasonable person could have that would possibly excuse doing something that seems so obviously wrong/ hurtful.  But deep down the answer is: they just don’t care.   There is no moral rationalisation because morality never factors into it.  They want, so they do and the only thing that will give them major pause is if it will have negative consequences for them personally.

In this regard Vlad for me sits more in the realm of Fire Lord Ozai, Batman’s Joker or YJS1’s Vandal Savage.  These characters aren’t super complex or compelling in isolation (there’s a reason people write feature-film-length analyses on Zuko and Azula but not Ozai himself).  They’re more like a force of nature and while you can definitely interrogate the specific context of their origins, their self-perception and get a lot of mileage from dissecting the ideology that they use to rationalise their actions to others (and how those arguments often don’t hold up to questioning) underneath all that grandiose posturing the evil they represent is eerily mundane and commonplace.  Just reactionary id and ego run rampant, detached from compassion and placed in a position to exert itself indiscriminately.  Power and control.  Want and do.

I think that’s part of why they’re striking - we expect some grand ideological philosophy to match the presentation and instead what we get is something small, hollow and pathetically human.  It feels unfair and unsatisfying and that’s because it so often is.

Because of this, I’m often more interested in stories that focus on other, more layered members of the cast and their struggles (it’s a bit weird how little involvement Vlad has in a lot of my favourite DP fics and fic premises).  When Vlad is present I usually prefer him to function more as an antagonistic force for other characters to struggle with than stories which try to justify his worldview or make him “relatable”.  Like I said above, Vlad at his worst is a controlling, manipulative, abusive stalker and that can make him a very effective villain in horror-thriller style character dramas.

Vlad and Danny

On a meta-level Vlad and Danny work well as character foils.  They share several surface-level flaws (both can be superficial, immature, judgemental, prone to grudge-holding and tempted to misuse their powers) and in some ways Vlad is a warning for what Danny could become were he to allow his power to go to his head and separate him from other people.  But at their cores (heh) there’s a fundamental difference to do with compassion and responsibility that sets them apart.  Vlad is an exceptional man with power and status but no empathy or accountability, and deep down, beneath all that performance he’s alone­ - still skulking around the fringes of the ghost zone, using threats, lower-power mooks and bribery when he needs someone to do his bidding.  And then there’s Danny, unexceptional by many metrics, who might feel stressed, lonely and overburdened at times but who genuinely cares and tries, and without even realising it has a lot of powerful allies who would rally to his aid as a result.

As for what they have in-story, I wouldn’t really call it a relationship.  They have a dynamic, but to me relationship implies some kind of mutual participation, and I don’t think Vlad sees or treats Danny as a person.  He doesn’t seem to care about Danny’s interests, feelings or needs: his fixation is mostly on shaping Danny into an heir/ apprentice of his own design, and getting yet more revenge on Jack by supplanting Jack as a father figure.  Danny is the son-shaped-object that Vlad is trying to shove into one of those holes, and once Danny makes it clear that he will never willingly submit to that, Vlad goes full supervillain.

From an audience perspective there is a tragic element to this, since we can see how much Danny would have benefited from having a genuinely supportive mentor, and how it might also have helped Vlad as a person… but Vlad burned that bridge himself.

In that regard I think it’s good that Danny doesn’t have any prior attachment to/ affection for Vlad or desire to please him.  Vlad isn’t a healthy person for Danny to be around, and it’s pretty obvious that Danny knows this and tries to minimise contact with him as much as possible (outside of the occasions when he gets stupid-teenager-brain and decides to poke the bear by pettily antagonising him).  I think that that’s really the best outcome; minimising a toxic person’s presence in his life so he can independently pursue things that are actually healthy and productive.  

Ultimately, Vlad is a grown man who makes his own choices, and he is not Danny’s responsibility.  Yes, it is admirable to extend understanding and respect to others but there is a limit on that and a relationship requires input from both people.  As they say, it takes two to tango; it’s not for one to be doing 100% of the work when the other is unwilling to sincerely engage or compromise with them.  And it is especially not the responsibility of a teenager to be playing that role for an adult (particularly an adult who routinely manipulates and threatens him). 

The biggest issue for Danny is that he can’t fully remove himself from Vlad.  Vlad has too much power and influence; as Masters he’s an important businessman (and at times political figure) with sway in Danny’s hometown, as Plasmius he’s a powerful ghost who can use those powers to bypass physical barriers (when he isn’t sending mooks to harass him), and as a person Vlad’s the kind of creepy stalker who will use his power, influence and resource-access to literally plant spyware in the Fenton family home.  But, most difficult to avoid, Vlad is also a close family friend of Danny’s parents from their college days and Danny frequently has to play nice with him for their sake.

And let’s talk about that last one.

Vlad and the Fenton Parents

The Fenton Parents have some the most divisive interpretations in fandom (short of Vlad himself and sometimes Sam).  Their presentation ping-pongs all over the shop and whether they read as “good but flawed” or “absolutely awful” really depends on how much you want to take things at face value, read into implications and/or recognise certain scenes as being purely hyperbolic Rule of Funny Nicktoon gags.  The only readings I would call a mischaracterisation are ones that paint them as actively disinterested, uncaring or malicious towards their kids - the fact that they do sincerely love their children despite their behaviour is part of what makes them compelling.

However, I want to talk about them because - while you can certainly make the case that they are “criminally negligent” in other ways - the fact that they don’t realise how bad Vlad is, or that he shouldn’t be allowed near Jazz or Danny isn’t one of them.  It’s actually pretty believable to me.

Something to remember is that, as an audience observing a story from the outside, we often have a much more omniscient perspective than any of the characters within it.  Even when characters think they are “alone”, we are observing them through the fourth wall - we get to see What You Are in the Dark.  Fandom loves to joke about how obvious it is that Danny is Phantom or Clark Kent is Superman but that’s kind of forgetting that we get to see things from a Doylist perspective while all the actual characters are stuck being Watson.

Just from that viewpoint, it makes sense that Maddie and Jack aren’t aware of the true nature of Vlad’s character.  Maddie might recognise that Vlad is a creep toward her specifically (Jack meanwhile is cluelessly naïve and loyal to a fault) but most of Vlad’s worst moments take place outside of their awareness and he often behaves a lot better in their presence in order to keep them close.  Danny has seen much more of Vlad’s darker side and Jazz is aware of that through him, but since most of it is connected to Danny being Phantom they’re not exactly rushing to share.  From Maddie and Jack’s point of view, “Vladdie” is a dearly beloved college buddy who might be a bit eccentric and incel-adjacent but is otherwise mostly harmless.  And sure their kids might not like him but of course teenagers are going to complain about hanging out with their parents’ friends - they’re teenagers!  Plus, Danny and Jazz have frequently objected to other aspects of their parents’ lives, so it’s not like that would raise an immediate red flag on its own (let’s be real: even at their best, Maddie and Jack are not the most attentive parents).

So to me it’s pretty reasonable that they wouldn’t notice those initial signs.  And (speaking again from IRL experience) even assuming they did notice some of them it would make sense for them to not want to believe it.  It can be really hard for people to accept that someone they’ve known and respected for a long time has done something awful.  We want to give people in our lives the benefit of the doubt and that can lead us to make excuses for/ try to defend them in ways we wouldn’t for a stranger.  There’s also a level of fear and guilt that can get in the way.  If our judgement about one person turns out to have been that badly wrong, then we could be potentially wrong about everyone; suddenly the world is a lot less safe/ certain.  And then we have to face the question of how complicit we might have been by ignoring, excusing, or enabling their actions.  It’s not really surprising that even well-intentioned people can end up reflexively dismissing whistle-blowers and victims; it’s a self-protective impulse as much as anything else.

I think that’s why Danny’s “mutually assured destruction” threat is so effective.  If Maddie and Jack accept Danny being Phantom then they wouldn’t be able to deny what Vlad has done as Plasmius.  And, once they can’t deny that, they probably wouldn’t continue to accept Vlad as a friend.

And that’s another bridge that Vlad has burned himself.

What a cheese-head.

#Danny Phantom #Vlad Masters #Vlad Plasmius #DP Meta #Character Analysis #I feel like 'long essays containing tepid takes' is becoming my signature style #I know 'Vlad is a narcissist' isn't a particularly revolutionary take #but he fits it to a surprising number of levels #kaiobeast #3WD Answers

[pseudolife]

every once and a while on my personal blog i'm reminded of this interview from 2022 where elliot talks about how happy he is to see someone "who looks like me, or identifies like me being celebrated as a hero." in reference to gaz. implying he's gay. and i start to cry because it really be like that. gaz is gay. gaz is gay in canon, and elliot actively ships gazprice. and then i think about CANON LESBIAN KATE LASWELL talking about her fucking WIFE. and bisexual alejandro as confirmed by alain mesa. and how fuckin, neil actively goes out of his way to search and like soapghost on twitter (please, we have ALL SEEN THE LIKES, THE REPOSTS, THE UNPROMPTED AND EXCITED TALKING ABOUT IT) and how sam is EXACTLY IN THE SAME BOAT (and i suspect this is why soap was killed because YA CANT HAVE GHOST BE GAY NOPE he is the cishet male fantasy character despite... everything.), and that yulian ACTIVELY searches the makarov tags on social media (please note: NOT HIS NAME. AND NOT #MAKAROV BUT SIMPLY JUST MAKAROV AND MWIII) and SHARES ALL THE ART INCLUDING GAY SHIP ART with his fans in a group chat in instagram (YES BITCH, I AM IN THAT AND YES BITCH, HE GIVES OUT CREDIT. AND IF HE IS ALERTED TO STOLEN ART, HE CORRECTS HIMSELF IMMEDIATELY AND GOD I LOVE YULIAN MORE THAN I LOVE BREATHING) BUT HE DOESN'T HAVE TO DO THAT. HE DOESN'T HAVE TO DO ANY OF IT??? He also ACTIVELY LIKES art he's not even tagged in with ships with Makarov and other characters in the series. (1, 2) (he also.. likes ghostsoap???? again an unprompted LIKE ON TWITTER) but also that stefan (nikolai) has actively liked and retweeted nikprice art before and also he's really into the deadpool/colossus ship and that's a WHOLE ASS OTHER THING SURE BUT LMAO I LOVE! SUPPORTIVE! ACTORS!

I guess what I'm trying to get at is this: COD was probably not made intentionally for us, but the cast has made it so, of their own free will.

They've taken military propaganda and remixed it square enix style for people who don't get to see themselves represented in media ever, especially as heroes. (allow me to borrow Elliot's wording, it's so so so important okay.)

Well, except Vova Makarov.

And, yanno, the fact that the boys are literal war criminals. But you know what I mean aha.

THE CAST HAS MADE THIS A WELCOMING SPACE FOR THE LGBT+. AND THAT'S SO FUCKING RAD.

AND SOMETIMES I THINK WE NEED TO SIT BACK AND THINK ABOUT HOW COOL THAT IS. BECAUSE NOT A LOT OF OTHER FANDOMS AND SHIP SHIT IN MEDIA GET THAT KIND OF SUPPORT???

SO. NO MORE SHIP WARS. ONLY APPRECIATION FOR THIS CAST AND HOW GREAT THEY FUCKING ARE.

but also for fucks sake can i get some yuri content that man was so barking hot i'm still fuming about it.

#mun » ooc #long rant post #i like my men bald with attitude problems and trauma #this is my truth.

[astragreenwoode]

The Spitfire Curse - Chapter Five

Previous: Chapter Four • Next: Chapter Six • Masterlist • AO3 Version

Rating: Explicit (18+ ONLY)

Pairings: Billy Hargrove x Fem!OC (Only Mentioned)

Genre: Adventure, Thriller, Horror, Slow-Burn Romance, Angst, Hurt/Comfort. Smut, Fluff, Slice of Life, Slight Canon-Divergence, Fix-it fic

As always, thank you @take-everything-you-can for your beta reading and all your feedback!

Chapter Five: A New Found Feeling I Did Not Understand

Word Count: 11,151

Chapter Warnings: Disembodied Voices, Anxiety, Self-Deprecating & Violent Thoughts, References to Murder and other Criminal Activities, Drug Use, Mentions of Substance Abuse, Mental Illness, Hypersexuality

Chapter Summary: Maeven remembers the first time her mother and sister caught her doing drugs, as well as the reason she started in the first place. After her meeting with the Chief of Hawkins, her mom drags her and Max to the general store for some last-minute shopping. While there, she meets a single mother who offers her a gig that could help her find her place in her new home. Maybe she had more friends in Hawkins than she initially thought.

Relationships: Maeven and Joyce Byers • Maeven, Max and Susan Mayfield • Maeven and Billy(Mentioned) • Susan and Neil

February 1984

It had been two weeks since I shot up from my bed in a cold sweat after dreaming about the brutality that followed Melody Chandler’s New Year’s Eve party. Two weeks since I frantically ran to my mom’s craft room to swipe her sewing shears before running out the back door to the fire pit on the grass. Two weeks since the voice in my head convinced me to cut off all my hair to keep what happened to me from happening again.

“You don’t need it anymore. It’s only going to hold you back and get you hurt,” it told me. “Cut it off! Burn it! You need to get away from it!”

After being homebound on doctor’s orders after my release from the hospital, I was finally going back to classes at Newport High following my last weekend as an in-home patient. My injuries and fragile state of mind kept me home for six weeks. It was still painful to walk or think too hard. I wasn’t looking forward to returning. Perhaps it was my subconscious reacting to my return that made me do it.

My hair was no longer an extension of my soul. Feeling it against my neck and back now made me shiver. It was going to tangle around my body and strangle me to death if I didn’t do something. I had to cut it off. They made me do it.

In my hysterical haste to cut it away from me, my mom’s sewing shears nicked my cheeks, ears, and the back of my neck. I ran to the shed to get the matches and lighter fluid and set the pile of my sheared locks on the fire pit to set it aflame. I couldn’t wait any longer to watch it burn. I didn’t need it anymore, like an animal shedding its fur for the new season. Just like that, it was as if all my troubles and burdens disappeared the moment the match ignited the flames.

During the entire process, I was sobbing my eyes out. It was surprising how neither Mom nor Max came out to check on me. Mom told her it was sometimes best to just let me cry it out, like a baby who didn’t know any better. But they didn’t think I would ever go this far. And only when I watched it all burn in the fire pit did I feel a strange sense of relief, and my sobbing turned into hysterical laughter. It was only then that Mom and Max came outside to put out the fire of my own making. Mom barely looked at me afterward.

She barely acknowledged me when she came to pick me up from the principal’s office after getting in yet more fights or talking back and losing my shit at the staff. If she knew about me lying and sneaking out to go to parties and drown myself in sex and drugs, she never said anything about it. She rarely even noticed when I walked in a room, anymore. 

It was bad enough that everyone at school apart from my closest friends avoided me like the plague. Mom hardly baring to look at me was the icing on the cake. Even when she did, she looked heartbroken, like I wasn’t even her daughter, anymore. Looking me in the eye for too long was too painful for her.

But even when she finally did pay attention to me, it wasn’t pleasant.

One night, I woke up from yet another nightmare that I was an animal being ripped apart and turned into taxidermy. Max was asleep and Mom was out on a date night with Neil. I thought about calling my Dad, but I didn’t want to be a burden and wake him up. He had been working so hard, lately. Earlier in the evening, Billy fucked me in his Camaro until nothing hurt in my heart or head, anymore. I couldn’t wake him up after demanding orgasm after orgasm from him before.

I opened the window of my bedroom next to my bed to get some fresh air before reaching for the little door handle of my side table. I pulled out this beautifully psychedelic bong Madison made me at her cousin’s glass studio as a get-well gift. Nutmeg trotted into my room and sat next to me on the edge of my bed as I lit up the bowl and inhaled. I leaned against the window and breathed out, keeping the smoke away from her as I exhaled all the pain and fear. The tips of my fingers and toes tingled as all the tenseness left my limbs and I regained control. 

Instinctively, I brought my knees up to my chest and hugged myself as Nutmeg attempted to squeeze herself into my lap. Her fur tickled my face as I fell back on my bed and pulled her up to my chest. She looked at me with her wide blue eyes before letting out a tiny squeak and pressing her face against mine. I let out a soft laugh as she sat on my tummy and started to scratch behind her ear with her hind leg.

“Need help with that, Nuts?” I playfully asked, reaching my hands up to scratch behind her ears. Her eyes widened before closing again as she nuzzled her face into my palm and let out one of her long and comforting purs that never ceased to warm my soul. When she opened her eyes and softly mewed again, I found myself wondering what was going on inside her head behind those big blue orbs. My fingers traced her face and the outline of her skull, feeling all the dents and dips in her bone.

“It would be so easy to just crush her body in your hands right now, wouldn’t it?” The voice barked at me, making my muscles tense as my heart threatened to stop out of fear. “Then maybe you could take a real look and figure out what’s going on inside her. She’d probably let you do it, too. She trusts you. Go on. Do it.”

“No! Get away!” I begged aloud, slapping myself across the face as if I could scare away whatever devious thing lived inside my head. Nutmeg yowled as she scattered off my lap and onto the other side of my bed. I frantically sat up as my breathing became more erratic. The voice was gone. . .for now. But they would come back. They always did.

I’ve been hearing this voice inside me ever since I was a little girl. It wasn’t always so malicious and violent. They could tell me to do good or fun things. They told me to be cautious and calm down. It brought me this newfound feeling I did not understand, which grew and manifested in my soul; I wished I wasn’t fully human, anymore. 

I wished I could turn into a beast of some kind and wreak havoc upon the world and the people who wished me harm. That’s probably what happened on New Year’s Eve; I was too tired of being hurt and so angry that I unleashed all my rage upon those boys. And though that instinct saved my life, it also scared the ever-loving shit out of me. Hidden beneath that little girl who loved rainbows and all things wild, was I secretly a bad person? I didn’t want to have hate in my heart. It made me feel ugly.

Nutmeg’s sudden meows as she rubbed up against my arm brought me out of my anxiety-induced trance and helped my heartbeat slow down to a calmer rate. I pulled her into my lap and hugged her in my arms like a baby as I inhaled her familiar, homely scent.

“I’m sorry, Meg. I’m so sorry,” I told her. I didn’t know why, but I felt like she could sense my innermost thoughts and feelings. And that meant she could see the dark thoughts that invaded my head. “I’d never hurt you, baby. I promise,” I whispered as I kissed her cheek.

Setting her back down on the bed, she curled up into a fluffy ginger circle on top of my pillow. As I leaned against the window and lit up the bowl of my bong again, I inhaled again.

“Margaret Maeven Mayfield! What do you think you’re doing!?”

My heart stopped as my eyes widened, and I started choking on the smoke of my bong as I turned around, mentally preparing for another one of Susan Mayfield’s world-famous lectures. She stood in the doorway to my room with her hands on her hips and a wide stance in her high heels. It looked like she was trying to stand like a wonder-woman action figure, and I couldn’t help but laugh in my high state.

“I think that’s pretty obvious, Susan. You’d have to be blind not to figure this out. Are you blind?” I laughed again.

“This stops right now!” She heavily stomped her way over to me and reached for my bong on my lap. I held it away from her in my arms like I was teasing her on the playground. As I leaned back on my bed to get further away from her, Nutmeg jumped into my lap and hissed at my Mom, causing her to stand back in shock as my little fluffy guardian upsettingly trilled.

“What the hell is going on?” Max mumbled, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she stood in the doorway.

“Max, go back to your room!” Mom all but shouted to her. Max’s eyes widened, now fully awake, and darted to the bong in my hands.

“What is that?”

“Nothing,” I said, sitting up to wrap my arms around it in a pathetic attempt to hide it. I may have been a shitty daughter, but I’ll be damned if I expose my baby sister to drugs the same way our parents did to us, even if it was just weed.

“Something that is absolutely not allowed in this house!” Mom shouted at me, trying to wrestle the bong out of my arms again. I leaned back and kept her at bay with my feet on her stomach. Nutmeg swiping her paw at her finally made her give up. She put her face in both hands and frustratingly groaned into them as she shook her head.

 “Mae-Mae, what were you thinking!? What is wrong with you!?” It was a question I had been asked so many times in my life, by teachers, other kids, and strangers. I could handle it. I was used to it, by now. But it always hurts the most when it comes from her.

“Everything, apparently. No matter what I do, nothing changes,” I answered. Her face dropped and her tone changed. Despite her constant nagging and annoying talks, she had been more gentle with me these last couple of months while I recovered. But seeing her switch between moods wasn’t anything new.

“I have been pretty forgiving of what you’ve been doing lately after. . .what happened. But that does not mean you can just get high in the middle of the night while your sister and I are just down the hall.”

“When else would I do it?” I asked, rolling my eyes. At least I had the decency to hide it. When she was going through her rough patch, she never tried to conceal her addiction from us. She flaunted it around us like some kind of medal.

“Maeven, you are seventeen years old. You cannot be doing this at all,” she lectured me, using her hands to emphasize and annunciate like always

“Why? Why does it matter so fucking much to you, Mom? It shouldn’t. It doesn’t. Nothing does,” I sneered back at her. It’s not like she was never seventeen, herself.

“So, what? Nothing matters? Is that what you’re saying?” Her stern and annoyed tone had returned. This time, Max answered before I had the chance.

“Not really. Even if we so much as breathe in your general direction, you get mad at us,” she sleepily groaned, leaning against my door frame.

“Max. Stay out of this. This doesn’t concern you,”

“Like Hell, it doesn't!” my sister suddenly fumed.

“Language!” Mom boomed. I held in a laugh and almost choked on it before it could escape my mouth. As far as cursing goes, that was the mildest word. And here my mom was reacting like Max just called her the ‘C word.’

“She’s my sister, Mom! I’m a part of this family, too, y’know!” The way she phrased it, laced with so much pain, threatened to break my heart. I could tell it had already broken Mom.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked. Max rolled her eyes. For someone who was once smart enough to be a nurse, she was still clueless.

“Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about! You’ve been ignoring me for weeks. And even if you aren’t taking care of Maevey or out with Neil, all you do is yell at me!”

“I do not always yell at you!”

“Yeah. You’re not really making the best case for yourself there, Susan,” I interrupted. Something that had been present all my life, but I was just starting to notice, was how the women in this family had the tendency to rapidly switch between moods. I’m not sure if was something Mom passed down to us, or something we picked up over the years of witnessing it in her. Either way, we seemed to bring out both the best and worst of each other.

She turned to me, her finger pointing inches away from my face.

“Don’t call me that! I am your mother, and you will address me as such!” she demanded. I flinched for a moment, rubbing my hand across my face to wipe off her spit.

“Still proving her point, Mom,” I pointed out to her.

At this point, Mom was physically shaking and visibly seething, like a volcano threatening to erupt. Not wanting to prove us right, she didn’t say a word for about thirty seconds in order to regain her composure. I pictured her as the Yellowstone Caldera boiling and then suddenly simmering.

“Girls, listen. I don’t want to be mad at either of you, okay? I really don’t, but. . .you’re both making it really hard not to. You need to help me out here. Can you just try to do the right thing and stay out of trouble!?”

Max got in trouble sometimes for saying a swear word in class, or maybe even a misunderstanding with another kid. Every once in a while, she would hit someone who completely deserved it. I was worse, for obvious reasons, and it had only gotten worse, lately. Mom was embarrassed; she was ashamed of us. We were her daughters; a reflection of her as a parent and a person, whether we liked it or not. And while she did indeed try her best to raise us to be good, we also had her biggest flaws.

“That doesn’t mean you can just ignore her! I’m just smoking weed! It’s natural and besides, It’s not like you’ve never done it before!”

“What? What’re you talking about?” Mom’s eyes darted from side to side, avoiding eye contact with me as she continued to play dumb.

“I’ve seen your secret stash of cigarettes in the laundry room. I’ve known about it for three years, now,” I reminded her. 

One day when I was fourteen, it was my turn to do the laundry that week. It was also where Nutmeg’s scratching post and Bullet and Lucy’s beds were. Nutmeg decided to climb up on the top storage shelf above the washer and dryer and meow at me to come and bring her down. When I climbed up to reach her, she kicked a small keepsake box from the corner. 

When it fell on the linoleum, it was filled with Marlboro Red 100s and a couple of lighters, and Mom’s old driver’s license. She looked so different in it than I was used to; happier, less haunted. It crossed my mind more than once that Nutmeg knew it was there and wanted me to see it. I knew it was ridiculous. I put everything back in its place and never spoke about it. But I never looked at my Mom the same way, again.

“Are you really judging me right now? You?” she laughed at me, seizing her opportunity to finally snatch the bong from my hands and swipe my lighter from my table. But I didn’t fight her this time. As she stomped toward my door, Max moved out of her way to sit on the edge of my bed.“You’re going to get addicted and when you do, you’ll be sorry! I should know. I’ve been there, and I don’t want you to go down that path,”

I rolled my eyes and put my head in my hands. Did she really think me smoking weed for my anxiety was comparable to the drinking problem she had been struggling with on-and-off her entire life?

Max stood up and walked closer to Mom.

“That’s not the same thing and you know it. You had to stop drinking ‘cause you were a danger to us and to Dad,” she grunted. I quickly stood up in front of her and put my arm in front of her. Even if she was right, this was my fight with Mom. She shouldn’t have to stand up for me against our mother. That was my job; I was the big sister.

“While you’re poisoning your lungs with nicotine, I’m smoking a fucking plant, Mom! We’re not the same!”

“Well, y’know what, girls!?” Mom thundered, laughter, pain, and anger weaved through her voice. “You’re right. I do smoke cigarettes! I do drink, and I’m not ashamed of it. You wanna know why? Because I’m an adult. I do what I want.” “So you just get to do whatever the fuck you want?”

“Yes, Max. I do,” she said, quiet this time as she took my lighter and lit up the bowl of the bong. Was she really about to do what I think?

“And when you two grow up, . .” she continued, inhaling the smoke before coughing out her last words straight into my face. “. . .you can do whatever you want, too.”

For the first time in my life, I was speechless as she looked at me with tears filling up in her now-red eyes. I was surprised she even knew how to use it. I wondered if I possibly looked like her when I smoked weed. I hoped not. She looked pathetic trying to be tough and prove her point.

“Yeah. Nice one, Mom. You’re really earning that ‘mother of the year’ trophy,” I to her. She narrowed her eyes at me. I should’ve known she wasn’t done.

“But until then, you are kids. You’re my children. And if I were you two, I’d hold onto it for as long as I can, okay? Because once you grow up, I’m not gonna always be around to protect and guide you girls. Once you grow up, you’re both going to have to go through and deal with some pretty shitty stuff.”

I knew our Mom didn’t have the easiest life growing up. Her older brother died when she was fourteen; she never said how. Her mother disappeared for a while, which she never talked about either. She jumped through so many hoops to put herself through medical school and be taken seriously as a Medical Professional, not just a woman. She lost her baby brother to HIV just a few years ago. I’m not denying that her life was hard, but how dare she try to turn pain and suffering into a competition after everything that we’ve been through? What Max has been through with her family falling apart? What I’ve been through in just these last few months? How dare she?

“Like we haven’t already?”

As soon as I said that, her demeanor suddenly changed as she reached out for me; as if she hadn’t just said all those cruel things to me, to my sister. She got what she wanted; she won the argument. Wasn’t that all that mattered to her, after all?

“Oh, Mae-Mae, I didn’t mean-”

“Goodnight, Mom,” I plainly said, crawling into bed as if she wasn’t even there. Nutmeg curled up at my feet. It was quiet for a while, and even if I couldn’t see it, I knew Max was staring daggers into Mom, just as pissed as I was.

“Max, I-”

“Don’t. Just don’t,” she said, closing the door without another word before climbing into bed with me. In the now pitch blackness, I rolled over to face her as we rested our arms across each other. Nutmeg moved up from my feet to fit snuggly in the gap between us. We both gave her soft pets before returning our hands back to their original snuggling position. I left her with one last word of wisdom before we shut our eyes to sleep.

“Max, I know I’m not the best role model, but if I ever catch you with weed before you’re eighteen, I’ll kill you.”

She only let out a soft laugh.

. . .

Maeven’s left arm leaned out the window of the family station wagon as she let the cold, autumn wind blow against her hand and between her fingers. The other held her backpack securely in her lap as she squished against the bottom to squeeze Woodsy Owl. She let the cool air brush against her face as she closed her eyes. 

The Hawkins air would take some getting used to. It was absent from factory fuels, cigarette smoke, and car exhaust the family was used to in crowded California. The atmosphere in rural Indiana was fresher than that of the big cities to the west, enriched by the lush forests surrounding the small town. Of course, the scent of manure from the local farms was a little intense. But it reminded Maeven of when they lived in Oregon when she and Max were little, or when they would travel to Colorado to visit Aunt Maggie on her farm.

“So, how’d the meeting with the Chief go?” Neil spoke up from behind the wheel, bringing Maeven’s attention back to the present. She brought her arm back in and threaded her fingers together beneath her backpack.

“Okay, I guess,” she shrugged. “We didn’t really talk that much, but he wasn’t scary like Daly.”

“Daly wasn’t scary, Margaret,” Neil scoffed as he turned the car into downtown Hawkins. “He was just doing his job. You’re too old to be scared of people like that, anyways. It’s pathetic.” He locked eyes with his stepdaughter through the rear-view mirror, to which Maeven darted her eyes downward to her lap to keep the tears from falling.

“He’s right, you know. It’s pathetic. You’re pathetic, Maeven,” the voice taunted as her heart raced, silencing at the sensation of another hand grasping hers. Maeven looked at Max, who gave her a reassuring squeeze. Susan’s eyes went sad at the sight, prompting her to place a gentle hand on her husband’s shoulder.

“Neil. . .” she pleaded, approaching him with a soft voice she would use on her daughters when they were upset. He shrugged her off.

“What? It is,” he stood his ground.

Susan flinched at his sudden and unnecessarily aggressive shrug, but didn’t push the topic to her husband any further; not that surprising to Maeven or Max. It became more common between them the longer he’d been around and made himself comfortable in the Mayfields’ lives. Just another thing to add to the list of things Maeven would have to tell her school counselor about. . .if she decided to share anything at all, that is. It was too early to tell how she felt about it.

“It’s good to hear that, Maevey. It sounds like you felt good about it?” Susan tilted her head toward the back seat. Maeven nodded.

“I do, yeah. He was actually really nice to me. He didn’t really seem like a cop,” she explained, still gobsmacked that their earlier meeting didn’t end up with her crying. It was refreshing to not be pushed for once.

“I’m not convinced.” Neil scoffed and shook his head. “Lotsa folks I talked to today said Chief Hopper’s got quite the bad reputation around here. Doesn’t do his job right or some shit.”

Maeven stopped breathing for a few seconds as the gears in her head turned.

“See? He’s not even qualified to look after you,” the voice whispered into her head, her arm instinctively twitching in an attempt to shake the gross feeling away. Of course, Hopper was too good to be true. She should’ve known better. This is how it always goes.

“Well. . .the important thing is he seems nice. And it looks like he’s taking Maevey’s case seriously,” Susan followed up. It was really one of her better qualities; the ability to turn almost any bad situation into an opportunity with her optimism. But of course, there were some situations that didn’t have that easy of a solution. Maeven was living proof of that, thanks to her recent string of bad luck.

“Yeah. He better. The last thing we need is another one of her problems,” Neil commented as he looked for a good spot to slow down so the ladies could get out. He always had to have the last word. He often made sure that his opinion was made known; Maeven was a problem instead of a person to him, and she had a long way to go before his view changed. But she wasn’t sure if she should care about that.

When Neil brought the car to a full stop, the girls all unbuckled their seatbelts and climbed out. They recognized it as the place they were in front of when Max fell off her board a few feet from where they were now parked. Maeven tripped as she tried to stop herself so suddenly. A nice woman, the store clerk, came outside to see if they were okay. She seemed like the kind of person who would invite you in for tea and cookies if you fell right in front of her house. That’s probably what would’ve happened if Billy hadn’t magically shown up to drag them back home, almost as if on cue.

As Maeven and Max stood next to each other on the sidewalk in front of Melvald’s General, Susan went from the passenger seat around the front to lean down to talk to her husband. It was always a weird sight to witness, as the sisters often joked that she looked like a hooker trying to entice a deal with a potential client. Despite her knowing what her daughter’s felt about that position, she did it anyway.

“I’ll circle back around in thirty minutes. Just be ready by then,” Neil told her, placing his rough, calloused hand over hers.

“We will, Sweetie. Do you need anything while we’re here?” she offered.

“Wouldn’t mind a couple of six-packs, Suze,” he replied, leaning in for his usual goodbye kiss. It was almost pathetic.

“You got it. We’ll see you in a bit. Love you,” she laughed softly as she returned to the sidewalk.

“You, too, Susie.”

. . .

It was a huge culture shock to the Mayfield women suddenly going from having a store for every little thing on every little block in California to having only a small handful of choices Hawkins had to offer. Sure, they had been to stores like this in passing while on road trips or visiting their rural relatives. Having to live like that was a whole other thing. Something else they’d need to get used to.

It was nice, though. At least, Maeven thought so. So what if the place had that strange lingering smell? It was part of the charm.

“Hi, there. Welcome to Melvald’s! Can I help you guys find anything today?” The clerk the sisters met the previous day walked right up to them. Her nametag read ‘Joyce;’ something they didn’t notice yesterday. It suited her, though. They could tell.

“Are we that obvious?” Max groaned, leaning her head on her big sister’s shoulder. Maeven wrapped her arm around her as she grabbed a shopping basket from the entrance.

“Oh, no, honey,” Joyce laughed with a wave of her hand. “I greet everyone like that. Force of habit. I don’t think I’ve seen you around before, have I?” she asked.

Susan confidently gripped her purse and secured it over her shoulder. “No. Well, maybe my girls. They were goofing off around here yesterday. We just moved here.”

Joyce’s eyes widened as they turned to the girls, causing them to purse their lips and shake their heads. She figured their mom probably didn’t know about their little tumble yesterday, so she said nothing; much to the girls' relief, it looked like.

It made sense that they were new. She hadn’t seen hair that fiery since poor Barbra Holloway.

“Really? You liking Hawkins so far?”

“It’s okay,” Max yawned, causing her sister to do the same. Even though Susan told them the previous night that they had to wake up early this morning, the girls’ bodies were still adjusting to their new schedule and timezone. She expected them to go to bed early when they arrived back home, even if she and Neil were planning on a date that night.

Susan took the shopping list in her left hand and folded it in half before tearing it and handing the lower half to her oldest daughter.

“Girls, here. Why don’t you go divide and conquer?” she asked. This was a usual Mayfield family routine, in which Norman and Susan would send their daughters off on a scavenger hunt for groceries. It made the important-yet-boring tasks of everyday life a little more fun. Norman was good at that; turning everything into a game for his girls.

At her suggestion, the sisters' drowsy demeanors basically disappeared as they both perked up. 

“‘Kay, Mom,” Maeven smiled before running off elsewhere in the store with Max by her side.

“It’s Joyce, by the way. Joyce Byers,” the clerk introduced herself, holding out her hand. Susan gladly returned the gesture. For a backwater town, the people in Hawkins sure were nice.

“Susan May-. . . Hargrove. Susan Hargrove,” she corrected herself. Susan still had trouble with the sudden name change after proudly wearing her ex-husband’s name like a badge for over a decade. But she was getting better at it. At least she didn’t make that mistake around Neil, anymore. She knew better, now.

“Nice to meet you, Susan. I have two sons, around your girls' ages. Maybe they’ll meet in school?” Joyce suggested, getting that typically hopeful spark in her eye that every mother seemed to have when talking about their children. Susan missed that feeling.

“Sure. That might be nice,” she agreed. She’d have to think about it. Max was certainly ready for new friends. But was Maeven ready, too? That seemed to be the question Susan asked herself every day for the last nine months.

“Where’d you guys move from?” Joyce wondered.

“We’re from California. San Diego. My husband got a promotion that took us here,” she said. That was what she and Neil agreed they’d tell people. It wasn’t a complete lie.

“Really? Is it nice down there? I’ve only ever been in Hawkins my whole life.”

“It is yes. My husband wanted us to have a fresh start here. My ki-. . .my girls and stepson are starting school tomorrow,” Susan corrected herself again. Even if Billy wasn’t around her right now, she could clearly hear him annoyingly scoff at her; “I’m not your kid, Susan. You’re not my mom. You never will be. Stop acting like it.”

“I need some supplies,” she told Joyce

“Oh, great! Well, school supplies are over there,” she replied, pointing the mother in the direction of the stationary. Maeven was probably loitering around there. “We still have a lot of leftover stock from our ‘back-to-school’ sale. I’ll just be around if you need anything.”

“Thanks, Joy. I appreciate it.”

. . .

Maeven had to contain her excitement at the sight of the small, yet charming selection of books at Melvald’s General. She knew if she let it out, her mom would come running over before crushing her in a hug and proceeding to scold her for being “too much.” Of course, Susan would want to make sure her daughter was okay after coming so close to losing her not even a year ago. For more selfish reasons, she also didn’t want her family to be stared at like they were a traveling freak show. She didn’t think Maeven would notice this, but she did.

The humble collection of books of all genres stood amongst the stationery and office supplies; her favorite part of any department or superstore. She decided she would look at all the arts and crafts supplies another day. Her mom always took care of the school supply shopping, anyways.

Maeven loved reading. She remembers getting bored of all the books in her own room as a toddler and sneaking out at night to browse her parents’ little private library. Libraries quickly became her place of refuge from an early age, as if the sheer number of books could somehow keep her safe from everything bad. There were always answers for life and the high amount of unfairness it contained if you knew where to look.

Books were also a place to look for an escape when she needed it. Despite loving all the books she had read about animals and ecosystems around the world, there was nothing quite like reading a fantastical fairytale. Maeven was first and foremost a woman of science, but also had an insatiable appetite for magic.

Once she spied an old copy of The Hobbit, she instantly pulled it out from amongst the other books. She flipped through it and inhaled the smell of vintage printing. Despite having her own copy, she loved seeing other editions of it out in the wild. As a kid, she wanted nothing more than to go on an epic quest in search of a dragon. 

Her best memories of the book were when her dad read a chapter each night to her and Max when they were little. Her favorite was Rhadagast the Brown and his rabbit-pulled sled. They spent at least an hour or two on every chapter since Maeven kept stopping her dad’s narration to ask questions that he always answered and never yelled at her for. He didn’t want to disregard his daughter’s curious nature or undermine her intelligence.

The highlight of their journey together through that book, in Maeven’s opinion, was how she managed to convince her little sister that Tolkien's full name was ‘Jolkien Rolkien Rolkien Tolkien.’ It was a classic Mayfield family moment that their family loved mentioning no matter how much it embarrassed the sisters each time.

“That’s one of my boys’ favorites. Are you a fan?”

Maeven flinched in surprise at Joyce’s sudden entrance into her bubble, instinctually putting the book back up on display. Once her brain caught up with the rest of the world and she realized she was safe, she relaxed her shoulders and breathed out.

“I am, yes. . .”

Joyce eyed the young woman as she tightly clutched the small shopping basket in her hand. She and her sister most definitely followed their mother’s instructions and completed their half of the shopping list; filled with everything from silverware to powerstrips and household tools. Joyce didn’t think she was that loud or startling. Why was this girl so nervous? So pale and seemingly fragile? It reminded her of Will and how jumpy he was for the first few weeks after his rescue.

“Sorry. I didn’t catch your name, did I?”

“Oh, no. It’s okay. I’m Maeven. My little sister’s Max,” she told her, waving her hand in multiple directions, gesturing to wherever her sister was.

“Maeven? That’s pretty interesting. Where’s it from?” Joyce wondered. This girl had a hippie vibe to her, despite the dark clothing and evident sadness that surrounded her. Susan seemed too uppity. What about her dad’s story?

“Well. . .it means ‘sage’ in Gaelic. I’m Irish on my Dad’s side,” Maeven explained. She could’ve gone into more detail but then remembered what her therapist back in California about oversharing. There was no need to bother a total stranger with her life story. Strangers weren’t interested in her. She knew better now.

“Really?” Joyce cocked her head to the side. “That's pretty neat that your family is so connected to their roots. I have zero clue about mine. All I really know is my Dad’s was Norwegian and my Mom’s was English.”

Maeven said nothing but gave Joyce a soft smile before her eyes returned to the books and stationery. When she pulled the strap of her backpack to be more secure, Joyce’s eyes widened as she let out a small gasp at the sight of the keychain on the zipper.

“Is that a dragon?” she immediately asked.

Maeven almost jumped again, surprised that this woman continued with the small talk. She hadn’t had a conversation so pleasant with someone outside her family in a while.

“Oh. . .yeah. It is. My friend made it for me,” she replied, looking down at the little accessory. At this point, it was a good luck charm. Dylan made it for her as a present for her birthday this year, but turned it into a goodbye present; a red dragon with yellow eyes atop their hoard of gold and gems. He told her that he based it off of her; her fiery spirit and determination.

“They made that? That’s impressive,” Joyce stared at the little figurine in awe, repressing her urge to reach out and touch it. This girl clearly already had issues with boundaries and being close amongst strangers. She didn’t want to worsen it. It looked like one of Will’s drawings came to life.

“Yeah. He sculpts and paints DND miniatures all the time. It’s kind of his thing,” Maeven added. At that moment, a light switch flipped on inside Joyce’s head.

“‘DND?’ Are you talking about Dungeons and Dragons?”

Maeven turned back to the woman in shock. This lady was definitely the last person she’d expect to play DND, much less just be aware that the game exists, but was glad she did. Hawkings just seemed to keep on surprising her.

“Yes! Oh, my God! You know about it?” her face lit up in excitement.

“Well, through my son, Will. He and his friends play it all the time,” Joyce replied. “They hold a campaign together once a week, at least. He’s a wizard.” She wondered what class Maeven would fit into. She seemed like a sorceress or druid. Maybe even a ranger?

‘Of course, her kid played it,’ Maeven figured. Just from that fact alone, Maeven could tell she was a good mom. Good parents show interest in what their children are interested in. Susan used to be that way. Now? Not so much. She feels a little envious of Joyce’s children, now. Having a mother who didn’t brush off their interests like they were a burden must’ve been nice.

“That’s not a very nice way to think about your mom, Maeven. You should be ashamed, wanting to just trade her like that. One day, she’ll be gone, and you’ll have nothing but regret.” the voice whispered in her head, trying to make her stray off-track and retreat into herself like usual. But she found herself not wanting this conversation to end.

“How old is he?”

“He’s thirteen, like your sister,” Joyce said, tilting her head to the side and briefly gesturing to Max, who was now in view with their mother by the chips and candy. As if on cue, Susan’s head turned to Joyce and Maeven before grabbing her youngest daughter by her arm and dragging her along.

“Maeven! What have I told you about bothering others with your. . .interests?” she asked, trying to sound as stern, yet as calm and gentle as possible. She failed.

“Speak of the Devil. You just had to jinx it, didn’t you?” 

Thankfully, Joyce immediately jumped to the girl’s defense.

“Oh, no! She wasn’t bothering me at all, Mrs. Hargrove,” she explained. “If anything, I’m the one bothering her. I’ll let you get back to shopping now.”

As Joyce returned to the front of the store, she left the Mayfield women in an awkward silence. Maeven was now shaking in her boots in humiliation and anger as she crossed her arms to hug herself. Why did her mom have to do this? What benefit could she gain from embarrassing her already fragile daughter in public?

Susan’s instincts told her to comfort the now-shaking Maeven, as she was obviously distressed by the whole situation. Never once did she consider herself to be the cause of that distress. She walked towards her daughter, taking the shopping basket from her arms before wrapping her in a tight hug and placing a kiss atop her head.

“Did you find everything on the list or did you lollygag around the books again?”

Maeven rolled her eyes and groaned before wriggling out of her mother’s grasp and turning away from her and towards Max.

“I have everything, Mom. It’s fine. I’m not an invalid,” she grumbled, standing next to her sister as she leaned against the beer cooler. The cold feeling of the frost against her neck and back calmed her down just a bit. But, of course, her mom had to open her mouth again.

“I never said you were, honey. . .” Susan said, gently reaching out to cup her daughters’ cheek, to which she wriggled away again with a pout. She took her hand back in shock, standing still with a blank face. Maeven had been doing that each time she was angry with her mother, but it had become more frequent within the last nineteen months. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to that. “. . .and don’t take that tone with me,”

“What tone? This is how I talk, Mom,” she whined, her head rolling along with her eyes this time, as she shoved the handbasket into her mother’s hands. turning to walk toward the front as they now had everything on their list.

“No, it’s not. You never used to sound so. . .so defiant.”

“Well, maybe you just don’t know me anymore, Mom. Have you ever thought of that?”

“Oh, Mae-Mae, I-”

“No, Mom. Please. For both our sakes, just. . .just stop talking.”

Maeven used to love it when her mom used pet names for her. It was another one of the tiny beautiful things that made life matter. But now? Now, it didn’t feel right. Every ‘Mae-Mae’ that came out of her mother’s mouth often sounded patronizing, condescending, and just plain. . .wrong. And when she was scolded while being addressed that way, it was as if her beloved childhood nickname had become a curse, an insult for behaving the way she did.

The nickname was a reminder of her childhood; the one that she so desperately wanted to go back to. If she did, she knew exactly what she’d do differently. She remembered the book in her dad’s collection of various encyclopedias that explained the butterfly effect. She obsessed over it when she was in treatment, trying to give meaning to the events that lead her there as if it would bring her peace. It didn’t, but she still reminds herself of each little event that could’ve changed where she ended up.

Now that it was ruined for her, Maeven had seen her mother in a whole new light. Susan was a lot of things; demanding, egotistical, pushy, and annoyingly talkative, just to name a few. But Maeven never thought the woman who carried her in her womb could reduce all that she was into a mentally fragile victim. And now, there was no way to change it back. It was tainted, ruined. . .just like her.

. . .

The three walked back to the front of the store to find Joyce at the register, marking a few lawn and garden items left over from summer with a price gun. When she looked up, she immediately put the price gun into the box of items and put it below the counter before Susan placed the hand cart on top.

“You find everything alright?” she asked with a smile, starting to scan everything before putting the objects into a brown paper bag; a routine she has mastered throughout her many years as a retail worker.

“We did, yes. Thank you, Joy,” Susan replied with a nod.

“Can she seriously not see her nametag?” The voice whispered in Maeven’s ear, one of the rare moments lately where she listened to it.

“It’s Joyce, Mom,” she corrected, crossing her arms. 

Susan was about to scold her daughter for such a sudden and, quite frankly, rude outburst. But when she looked down at the nametag to see that Maeven was indeed, correct, she stopped herself. Both mother and daughter definitely shared a rash temper.

“Oh, of course. My apologies.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Joyce waved it off as she continued to scan and bag. “It’s not the first time that’s happened and it won't be the last.”

Susan smiled and nodded as she looked Joyce over, debating whether or not this would be a one-off meeting or perhaps the start of a new friendship.

“How long did you say you lived here again?” she asked, also curious to know more about Hawkins from a local.

“My whole life. Hawkins has its problems, but so does everywhere. Lots of my classmates, including my ex-husband, went off for ‘better lives’ or whatever,” she pondered for a moment. “But Hawkins is where I belong. It’s my home,” she said with pride.

“You’re separated?” Susan asked.

“Yeah. It’s all right, though. We’re better off apart,” Joyce replied. Susan let out a scoff as she rolled her eyes.

“I hear that,” she laughed before continuing. “You said before that you have kids?”

“Yep. My oldest, Jonathan is around Maeven’s age, and my youngest, Will, turned thirteen in March.”

Now that Joyce had her full attention, Susan could see the classic signs of motherhood etched into her face. She could see the circles underneath her eyes acquired from so many sleepless nights with newborns. The lines above her brow were from the seemingly countless times a mother would get frustrated with her children. The wrinkles across her cheeks were no doubt from all the worrying about their safety.

“Really? Max just turned thirteen last February. Maybe we should set up a-”

“Mom, I swear to God. . .” Max suddenly interjected,  pushing her way between her mom and sister, desperate to stop Susan before it was too late. “. . .if you use the word ‘playdate,’ I’m skating home.”

The ladies, apart from Max, of course, all started laughing. Maeven pulled her sister into a tight hug accompanied by an affectionately annoying noogie. She and Max started playfighting and giggling; a classic Mayfield Sister moment.

“That everything?” Joyce asked, gesturing to their now bagged-up purchase. Susan nodded.

“Sixty Two dollars, please.”

Susan reached for her wallet in her purse but had to dig deeper when she didn’t immediately find it. As Joyce looked at the family of newcomers, she focused her attention on the eldest daughter. Seeing her relationship with Max reminded her too much of Johnathan and Will that it was uncanny. And as she thought back to her earlier interaction with the girl, a plan formed in her mind. She just hoped that it wasn’t too outlandish of a request for someone she just met.

“Actually, Johnathan’s really busy with the Photography club and works part-time down at the Theatre. And Maeven seems to have a lot in common with Will. If you’re alright with it, would you consider watching him after school?”

At the sound of this, Maeven froze, allowing Max to finally wriggle out of her grip and silently proclaim a victory with a fist pump. She didn’t know what to think. This woman had only just met her and she already decided she was trustworthy enough to look after her kid? Maeven wanted to sing from the rooftops. She wasn’t used to these kinds of offers back in California. Everyone in the community tended to steer clear of her there.

As she was about to reply, Susan interjected.

“Does he really need someone to watch him at that age?” she asked, finally producing her wallet from her purse and handing the cash to Joyce.

Maeven did her best to stop herself from erupting like a volcano. Why did her mom always do this?

“She probably thinks you’ll do something psycho if you’re left alone with a little kid like that. She thinks you’ll go full-on Carrie again,” the voice theorized. They weren’t entirely wrong, either. 

Susan always had the final say these last nine months. Of course, she had the best intentions. She wanted to make sure Maeven was ready to test the waters the way she used to and make sure there wasn’t a potential for her to be triggered and re-traumatized. And God forbid if she happened to have one of her episodes. As always, she never asked her daughter about her thoughts on this. She just did it, much to Maeven’s annoyance and frustration. Susan wasn’t as easily trusting as Joyce apparently was.

“Technically? No, but. . .” Joyce paused, trying to find the right words as she calculated on the register. She couldn’t exactly tell them the whole truth. “He’s been through a lot in the last year and even if he doesn’t like to admit it. . .he’s fragile. He can’t really be alone right now,”

‘Fragile’ was a word that seemed to describe Maeven a lot, lately. Even if she tried so hard to prove the people in her life otherwise, she knew it was true. But she was seventeen when she went through what she did. Will was thirteen, possibly even twelve when he went through whatever he did, barely out of childhood.

“Sounds like you and little William might have a lot in common. You should make him your intern when you become the next Zodiac Killer,” the voice laughed. Maeven waved her hand by her ear and shook her head, washing those nasty thoughts away. . .for now, at least.

“I can’t pay you a lot, but I’ll give you what I can,” Joyce offered as the cash till popped out. She noticed some of the snacks she picked out when talking to her earlier, as well as how she longingly looked at some of the many knick-knacks on the miscellaneous shelves. Maeven seemed like she would willingly accept being paid in small gifts.

“Are you kidding me? I’d love to,” she expressed. Joyce smiled, noticing the girl had a nice gap-toothed smile when she wasn’t twitching with anxiety.

“Well, we’ll see,” Susan compromised, taking the change when Joyce offered it to her. “She needs time to get adjusted to school first. Can we get back to you on that? Maybe in a week?”

“Of course! No problem,” Joyce said, closing the drawer and swiping the receipt from the printer, taking out a pen from the cup on the counter. “Here; I’ll put my phone number on the back of the receipt. Just call me when you’ve had a chance to think about it,” she told Maeven, making eye contact with her as she wrote on the receipt before tucking it into the bag.

“Thanks, Mrs. Byers.”

“Oh, just ‘Joyce,’ dear,” she gently corrected, surprised that the girl remembered her last name from earlier.

“Okay. Thanks, Joyce,” Maeven said with a little bow of gratitude, an odd change in her demeanor, and a sudden spring in her step.

“Alright, receipts’ in the bag, and you guys are all set!” Joyce said, handing the bag to Susan.

“Thank you.”

“Bye, ladies! Welcome to Hawkins!”

For the third time that day, Maeven walked away feeling oddly hopeful about the future. Maybe luck was finally on her side. She sure hoped it was, for a change. For now, she’d just have to wait and see.

. . .

For an hour since they got home, Susan had been dolling herself up for her date with Neil. While other families went to Church on Sundays, the day was reserved for them and their marriage. They worshipped each other instead of a faceless God. No matter how bad the previous week may have been, they always seemed to find something to celebrate. It was a tradition she thought died with Norman when he came back from that trip he never talked about, and she was glad she could recreate it with Neil. Of course, she would never tell him that, lest he react negatively.

Meanwhile, Max helped her sister unpack. So far, they had put all her clothes away in both her small orange dresser and her tall, sticker-covered wardrobe. They moved boxes with all her art and school supplies around her desk where they belonged and now had moved on to her collection of books. Maeven’s favorite thing about her new space had to be the bookshelf built into the wall. She left a few spaces blank, planning on filling them with her knick-knacks and mementos, saving the middle shelf for all her animal bones and other oddities. Max had a shelf just like it in her room, connected, as they now shared a wall. They knew they’d have fun tapping in Morse code to each other at night; a trick their dad taught them from his military training.

Maeven then came across a box she knew she wasn’t ready to open, yet; filled with the pieces of her old life that still brought her pain. As she stored it underneath her bed for a rainy day she hoped would never come, a soft knock on her door interrupted her thoughts.

Billy gave her a soft smile, playfully shaking Maeven’s water bottle in his hand as he leaned against the door frame.

“Here. You left it in the kitchen. I refilled it for you,” he casually mentioned, handing it back to her. She leaned up on her knees to reach from her spot on the floor, the soft brush of his fingers against hers sending a pleasant shock throughout her body as she took her bottle back.

“Thanks,” Maeven noted, biting her lip at the gesture. Maybe later she’d thank him properly for mixing in a strawberry flavor packet. Billy left the room with a sly wink, hidden away from Max(but not as well as he originally thought).

Max may not have seen Billy physically wink, but she noticed how weirdly kind he had been to her ever since they first met that day at Fort Fun back in April. And since Maeven went through treatment, she had been different, too; her demeanor changed when Billy entered a room from her new normal, nervous, but passionate self, to a visibly anxious, restless, and vulnerable version. Did she have a crush on him? Was it the other way around? Whatever it was, it was fucking weird.

Maeven climbed up her bed and leaned over to place her water bottle before crawling back down to the floor to continue unpacking. But once she saw the way Max was looking at her, all serious, she tilted her head in confusion.

“What?”

“You don’t think that's a little weird?” Max asked her, gesturing to where Billy once stood, then to where her bottle now sat. Once she connected the dots, the voice crawled back onto her shoulder.

“She knows. She knows what a big slut her big sister is,” it taunted in her ear. She decided that playing dumb was her best way out of this.

“That he’s looking out for me? Not really?”

“Not that. The fact that he’s nice to you and an asshole to me,” she whined.

“He’s an asshole to everyone, Max,” she laughed, rolling her eyes as she continued to unload and categorize her books. “You’re not special.”

“But you are?”

Maeven froze as she cringed at what the inner voice whispered next.

“Oh, you’re special, alright. You like being his special little fuck-doll, don’t you?”

She squeezed her legs together and held her head down in shame, her head invaded with sinful memories she struggled to push back for another time.

“He’s still pissed about moving, Squirt,” she said, turning her head back to her sister once she found her bearings again. “Give him a week or so to warm up to the place. If he’s still giving you shit, I’ll talk to him,” Maeven promised her. Max gave a barely noticeable nod before turning back to unpacking the rest of the box.

She felt terrible lying to Max but explaining her relationship with Billy wouldn’t be easy no matter how she could possibly start the conversation. Maeven didn’t even know where to start, as she didn’t fully understand why she was with him, either. All she really knew was that he made her feel safe, and that was what she needed the most right now. Otherwise, she feared she’d fall apart all over again. She couldn’t let that happen, again. She couldn’t do that to her family.

“What happened to your nightlight?” Max changed the subject tilting her head in perplexity. It was literally the first thing they did to her room once they got into their new house.

“I was honestly hoping you’d know,” Maeven confessed. She hated that her sister sometimes bore witness to her sleepwalking and other nighttime episodes. But it was always possible that Max knew something she didn’t, and that maybe it could help her.

They continued unpacking for ten more minutes. And when Maeven finally found her box of animal bones and natural oddities, she had to stop herself from squealing. She missed them while they were packed up in that moving truck. 

The sudden ringing of the landline throughout every room in the house made them jump but went back to what they were doing as their mom picked it up in the living room.

“Girls! Your dad’s on the phone!” Susan's voice called from down the hallway.

The sisters’ heads shot up as they looked at each other before they darted like greyhounds across Maeven’s bed to pick up the phone.

“Thanks, Mom!” she yelled back.

“We’re leaving now! We’ll be back around midnight!” Susan called back as she hung up the phone in the living room. But by then, the girls had already drowned her out as they eagerly put the phone on speaker and held it in front of them.

“Dad?” Max spoke first as they awaited an answer.

“Maevey! Max! How’re my girls doing?” His voice was warm and familiar. It felt like home, even if Hawkins was technically their home now.

“Good,” Max shrugged.

“Okay,” Maeven added. Even in the girls’ indifferent mood, they were giddy just being able to talk to him for the first time in the week since they left California.

“Okay? C’mon girls, gimme more to work with here!” Norman laughed on the other end. “You had the school tour today, right? How you are guys feeling about it?”

“Fine, I guess,” Max replied. Jennifer Hayes wasn’t a good tour guide. She just talked about herself the entire time. Of course, Max tuned her out, taking in her surroundings and mapping the layout of the middle school in her head. At least she knew where all her classes were.

“I feel better having met a couple of the other students,” Maeven admitted. Her little sister scoffed.

“Yeah, except that Natalie chick looked at you like you were a ghost,” Max recalled. She wasn’t exactly wrong. Nancy was a little on edge during the tour, causing Maeven to feel the same. Her mind began spiraling again.

“She probably saw you in a newspaper. She knows what you did. She knows how fucked up you are and now she’s gonna tell everyone,” the voice told her. But this time, it didn’t matter to Maeven. Why her headshot was in the news, what happened on New Years, or just how broken she was; none of that mattered right now. All her troubles temporarily disappeared whenever she and Max were on the phone with their Dad.

“It’s Nancy, Squirt,” Maeven corrected her sister, as they both grabbed one of her pillows to rest their heads on while laying on her bed.

“Relax, Maevey. I’m sure this ‘Nancy’ was just shocked to see hair so bright,” their father reassured her on the other end of the phone.

“Or she was stoned,” Max ventured a guess. Maeven laughed at the idea. Witnessing that uppity honor student get high is something she would pay for. But Nancy looked like too much of a prude. Maeven would have to at least see her sloppy-ass drunk.

“No, she seems like too much of a goody-goody,” she shrugged her shoulders.

“Neil still giving you a hard time?” Norman asked.

“Yeah. He keeps calling us ‘Margaret and Maxine,’” Max groaned. Rolling onto her back as she let her frustrations out into her pillow. “Ugh. It’s so annoying”

“That jackass doesn’t know shit from applesauce, girls. Pay him no mind,” their Dad cackled on the other end, forcing his daughters to do the same. After regaining composure from their laughing fit,” Maeven changed the subject

“How’re the fur babies, Dad?”

“They’re doing alright!” Norman replied. “You wanna say hi to them?”

“YES!” Maeven raised her voice to almost a yell. She never felt like she had to hide her enthusiasm around him.

“Oh, my God, yes, pleeease!” Max begged with a smile. The sisters leaned forward in anticipation, their ears almost pressing flush against the phone’s speaker.

“Okay. Bullet, Lucy, speak!”

On command, Maeven and Max heard the familiar howls of the beloved family dogs. They always found it odd that Lucy was the one with the gruff, deeper growl while Bullet was the high-pitched one.

“Hi, babies!” Maeven nearly squealed.

“Is Nutmeg there, too?” Max asked, more eager than ever to hear from her best and longest friend.

“I got her right here. You wanna say ‘hi,’ Nut?”

The ginger Somali half-squeaked, half-meowed through the speaker. It was another one of those sounds that just felt like home to the Mayfield sisters.

“I’ve missed that noise so much!”

“Hi, Nutmeg! I miss you!”

The cat made another sound in reply, pulling another laugh from the two girls.

“Hate to cut this short, but I gotta pee,” Max announced, leaning into the phone.

“Alright, Max. I love you,” Norman said.

“You, too, Dad,” she replied, nearly bouncing off her sister’s bed before leaving the room.

Maeven watched the soft glow of the Indiana sunset as the warm light hit the windows of her bedroom, causing the suncatcher she put up there to make the whole space sparkle with like a rainbow disco ball. She zoned out as she pressed her face against her comforter that was now warmed up from the light.

“Maevey? You still there?”

She suddenly remembered the phone she held in her hand, and who was on the other side.

“I’m here, Dad,” she reassured him.

“You nervous?” he asked.

‘Nervous’ was an understatement. Maeven was petrified. She had been given a second chance at life; a chance to still live after going through hell and back and barely surviving. If she fucked this up, it meant she never really deserved another life to begin with. She should’ve just died bleeding out in that forest when she had the chance.

This wasn’t like when she was starting a new school after moving to California from Oregon. When she was eight years old, the most she had to worry about was who she’d play with at recess. Now she had everything to lose. Her very livelihood was on the line.

“A little. . .” she lied.

“You’re gonna be fine. Trust me,” Norman implored her. Maeven just groaned in reply, wishing she could melt into all her blankets and never come out again. However, after nearly seventeen years of having the pleasure of being her parent, Norman knew just how to bring his daughter out of this funk.

“Hey. Let’s just lay out some rules okay?” 

Maeven untangled herself from her covers and phone chord, laying flat on her back as she tilted her head to the glow of the setting sun. It made her feel better that her Dad was probably looking at the same natural wonder she was. She remembered being a little kid and telling him that it looked like a campfire.

“Okay, fine,” she rolled her eyes with a smile. Her Dad laughed on the other side.

“Number one, Only raise your hand once or twice in each class. You don’t want them intimidated by you. Except for Science. Crush ‘em.”

Maeven held in a chuckle, unsure whether to be offended or flattered. A long time ago, that task would’ve seemed impossible to her. And even if it would still be hard not to be the teacher’s pet, the young girl was more than happy to not be the center of attention, for once.

“Got it,” she replied.

“Number Two: If you’re not where you are, just picture where you wanna be,” Norman continued. That one definitely wouldn’t be hard. It was practically how Maeven survived; picturing herself in the woods by a river instead of a stuffy classroom surrounded by people she didn’t like.

“Of course, always,” she confirmed, sarcastically insulted that he’d expect any less from his daughter.

“Number Three: You’re gonna feel like you’re all alone in there, Maevey. You aren’t. And I’m sure that school is gonna be a lot more interesting with you and Max around,” he concluded. Maeven could tell that he was starting to choke up. She had to pull back her own tears from falling. Even if her Dad couldn’t see her, she didn’t want him to hear her cry. He had already felt bad enough about having his daughters taken from him cross-country.

“I miss you, Dad,” she all but whispered into the phone, almost as if she was sharing a secret with him.

“I miss you, too, Maeven. Take care of your sister for me, okay? I’ll talk to you girls next week. It’s getting late.”

“Goodnight, Dad.”

“Goodnight, Spitfire,” he softly spoke, before all that could be heard was the dial tone.

She was gonna be fine. . .she hoped.

. . .

A/N: Life in my neck of the woods has been super chaotic, my friends. I'm currently on a week-long break after I had to go to the hospital due to my boss overworking me. I'm using this time to catch up on some much-needed rest, organize and rearrange my house, spend time with my family, and work on projects. I'm going to definitely be looking for a better job once I finally get my license that'll hopefully allow me to build healthy habits for myself.

Thank you all so much for being patient with me and loving my story! Next chapter will mostly be smut after we learn more about how Billy and Maeven met and fell in love, initially. I hope you're all ready because I will also be making some major lore dumps. As always, please leave me likes, reblogs, and comments as they help add fuel to my creative fire and hopefully, you'll get more frequent updates!

Stay safe and wild, my dears!

The Spitifre Curse Taglist:

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Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist!

#stranger things #stranger things fanfiction #my writing #the spitfire curse #stranger things fanfic #stranger things oc #maeven mayfield #max mayfield #billy hargrove #joyce byers #johnathan byers #will byers #st fandom #stranger things fandom #the party #scoops troop #hellfire club #steve harrington #eddie munson #robin buckley #Chrissy cunningham #nancy wheeler #2023

[the-s-exy-squad]

I have so many headcanons about all for the game and the parts of everyone’s lives that weren’t discussed in depth. Also a few oc/canon character interactions yk. (Another post bc I am not adding it to this today)

To start off, things about canon characters.

I don’t think the entire reason Neil stayed was bc Andrew and Exy. I think he decided at some point whether it be subconsciously or not that even if it results in death, he wanted to help the people who treated him the best. He wanted to make sure that they were better so that he’d have the comfort of knowing that in his last moments when his dad finally caught up to him. He was the foxes team captain and lead most of the practices until he left palmetto and got signed to a pro team with Andrew. They lived together and everything.

Nicky still have spurts of depressive episodes around thanksgiving for sure and during random times bc he feels guilty. Andrew wouldn’t have been there if he didn’t ask Neil to get him to go. Andrew snaps at him once about how it isn’t his fault and he didn’t hand him on a silver plater to drake and that even though he wanted him to go, it wasn’t like he KNEW. Which would also mark the first time Andrew openly talks about the shit drake did to him. He eventually goes back to Germany but makes sure to stay in contact with everyone so he doesn’t miss them too much and can make sure they’re staying out of trouble.

Andrew gets better. He still struggles with his feeling and emotional control but it’s gotten to where he knows his limits and the little tells that his body gives him in regards to what he needs to do to calm down. Mostly includes alone time with Neil and Neil touching his shoulders or hair. I also like to believe that one day he forces himself to budge on his touch boundaries. They start off small like one of Neil’s hands on his arm and when he gains a positive association (Neil) with that touch they do another. I also like to think that he goes back to criminal Justice and gets a career as a social services worker or juvenile court lawyer. He wouldn’t want any kid to get some shitty ruling like he had with the meds and he’d be trying everything he can to ensure it doesn’t go that way bc fuck he knows those meds didn’t do shit but make him find stupid shit funny.

Kevin goes to pro obviously and that’s his entire life. He gets traded to a team and agrees to go because it’s the same city Aaron is a doctor in. He missed his college team and despite how he disregarded their well-being over exy, he hopes they’re doing good. He and Neil still stay in contact and occasionally taunt each other on social media that the fans go WILD for. Andrew rarely pops in with some embarrassingly clumsy thing Kevin did in college or a picture of him half asleep during a practice HE scheduled and the fans eat it up.

Aaron leaves the state and goes to a city that was hiring for doctors. During his intern/probationary period, he would work 3- 12 hour shifts a week and usually pick some up as well because he didn’t like having entirely empty days. When Kevin moved to that city to play exy Asron debated letting him stay in his apartment bc he’d have social interaction and he closer to someone on the team again. I read in a fic once and I absolutely love this idea: Neil is still working on fixing their relationship by making them have calls. I edited it a little to be at least 10 minutes once a week instead of however long once a month.

I think Matt would (since he majored in business administration) just go get a job at some big corporate business of some sort. He’d be the funny work friend guy and a lot of people would ask questions about college and how he and the team get during the whole thing with the ravens to which he’d laugh and say something light hearted about the situation. Even though they asked, they still treated him great and never brought up his life before palmetto.

Renee on god I love this so much. Since she’s adopted, I think she’d start a summer camp for kids in foster care and adopted kids so they didn’t feel alone. I feel like it would be the same way a Christian summer camp is but that wouldn’t be the priority at all. She’d mention it a few times as camp Dean and they’d pray before meals (if kids didn’t want to partake that was entirely fine), but the main thing for the camp is to be able to feel less alone and gain some friendships through exy and religion just like she was. I love this idea sm and it is entirely based off a camp I went to when my dad got full custody of me that was entirely for kids in bad homes or in distaste/was in distaste and adopted.

I think Dan starts her own little league exy team and would take the team to the camp. I just don’t see her slipping out on letting her team go to a camp that’s p much CENTERED around Exy but also super fun and nice and also missing out of her friends.

I believe Allison would also work at camp with Renee bc she thinks that if there’s support at a younger age, kids won’t turn to drugs. When the camp isn’t open, She runs a non profit organization for helping families with struggling kids to work through finding ways to support them. (She would very clearly state she is not a psychologist but she does have a thing for helping people see things through their kids eyes and emotions) she runs a small fashion and clothes/accessories business that she uses for funding the non profit that allows for more people to have a chance at getting assistance through her or other programs. A lot of the kids she works with through her non profit go to Renee’s camp since she can send a majority of them through her business profit. The ones she doesn’t send have stated their stance on it and would rather not go. (Usually it was for it being too overstimulated and/or anxiety about being away from home or with a bunch of strangers).

I DEFINITELY want to believe that since Exy is one of the main topics of this camp, Kevin, Neil and the rest of team go visit for a few summers when they can. Matt would even save up his vacation days so he could go. It’s like a annual reunion with the team (Nicky would call and be on call with them every second he isn’t working or something if he can’t go back to the states to actually be there). All the kids that knew of exy previously would be jaw dropped that the entire team that beat the ravens were standing in front of them.

As for Seth, I think he didn’t cross over yk. I think he decided to stick it out until his found family was happy so he can say he’s seen them happy before he goes to the after life. I think he’s been with them since his death and the beginning broke him. Seeing Allison miserable and so broken. I guess he just wanted closure on their closure. Seeing everyone together and smiling as they played Exy with kids left him feeling genuine joy her never thought he would. They were still foxes, the disfunctional, and emotionally stunted college kids that he knew, but they were happy.

This doesn’t really fit into the the previously stated ones but I think when his old teammates going to interviews he fucks around behind them bc cmon. He would. He’s dead nobody’s gonna see him 😂 and always adds in his own two sense about the situation. He’s also joked several times about his death bc what’s gonna happen? Ghost therapy?

#yes these were ​thought abt for MONTHS #I think Neil and Andrew would also brin King and Sir as esa/mascots for the camp #I refuse to accept anything that counters these in canon as canon #aftg headcanons #After canon aftg #aftg #aftg ​foxes

[dayurno]

To me ideal kidnap situation would Kevin and Neil (in a semi non violent aiming for the ramson scenario). Neil who has actual torture experience and does not shut up vs Kevin who is trying to get a good grade at being kidnapped. The kidnappers will be lucky if the police arrives before Andrew does.

i adore you people i truly do where else am i going to get an ask that starts so earnestly with “to me the ideal kidnap situation is…” SERIOUSLY. i feel like anyone who has motivation to kidnap kevin would probably not have it to kidnap neil just because the way i see it who kevin’s at risk of getting kidnapped by is stalkers or raven cultists (either fans or athletes themselves) who would ultimately not really care much for neil. BUT after neil’s dad kicks the bucket and neil tells the fbi everything he knows i do think neil would be put under an IMMENSE target for being a tattletale, and that would be a genuine concern of the moriyamas because his death would be an investment lost

to me the ideal (and funniest) situation is someone trying to kidnap neil and accidentally taking kevin along without recognizing him. can you imagine? you’re here for some fucked up kid of the butcher who put your entire livelihood as a criminal in danger and you happen to accidentally take a FAMOUS ATHLETE along. you were already wrong thinking no one would notice neil’s disappearance and now you have to deal with kevin day’s face blasted on the news everywhere because he went missing. like it’s seriously ridiculous. i think this kidnapper would probably just kill them and be done with it if i’m honest but since we’re having fun i will say that this person will dream of carcerary life if they ever encounter andrew minyard. kevin and neil get saved by moriyama agents eventually but kevin is never getting out of his house again

#i cant stress this enough being kidnapped has got to be one of kevins biggest fears #because its not just being Taken Away its being Locked Away its being stripped bare of any and all external help its having no one else to #lean on #do you get it. #yes kevin already has been human trafficked once but a second time would really mess him up #i sincerely believe any fics where kevin gets kidnapped need to be followed by 28293 therapy scenes because he’s never living that doen #like he would become so paranoid and so afraid and so genuinely obsessive about never allowing it to happen again #AND NO ONE WOULD HAVE A GOOD TIME HONESTLY #but would i read such a fic? yes. of course #i wanna see neil being like its okay andrew it was normal and no one got hurt Really bad :) #while kevin is like. in the medical sense of shock. making plans in his head to change his entire life #around having this never happening again if he can help it #i want to see kevin agoraphobic and terrified and deeply obsessive. For my funnies #asks #kevin #neil

[greyghoulclub]

The Ghost at the Boarding School - Mungrove Week prompt 6

Written for @mungroveweek

Ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46783390

Billy didn’t believe in ghosts. 

That’s what he would’ve told you two months ago when he was sent to this stupid fucking boarding school. But lo and behold he was told he was getting the ‘haunted’ dorm since it was the only one free at this point in the year. 

“Welcome to Our Lady Immaculate School, Mr Hargrove,” droned the tiny woman at the reception desk, “Your room will be on the third floor, number 306.” She passed him a key and a map of the school and grounds and his timetable. “Classes start at 9 am sharp and your uniform will be waiting upstairs.” She eyed his Metallica t-shirt with distaste. 

She had then shuffled off into the room behind her desk, Billy took that as his cue to get out of her sight. He grumbled at nothing in particular and then at something in particular when he realised he’d have to lug his suitcase up three flights of stairs.

“God fucking damn it,” he glared at the stained glass window showing the Virgin Mary with seven swords piercing her heart. 

Room 306 was like any of the other dorms apart from one slight difference. It didn’t look like anyone had been in here since the 80s. Seriously, it had old Dio tour posters on the walls from 1986. Although everything had been cleaned and the bed had been made for his arrival, none of the old occupant’s had been touched. Billy flopped down on the bed and stared at the ceiling, it could be worse, he thought. 

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and saw he had three missed calls from Argyle and some commiseration texts from Max. While Billy was being sent off to a boarding school for ‘troubled kids’, it didn’t say that on the pamphlet Neil had shoved at him before yelling at him to pack his bags but he got the gist, Max was getting ‘etiquette lessons’ on how to act like a proper young lady. Billy had laughed at the idea of rough-and-tumble tomboy Max in a frilly dress and heels. But that was before the reality of his end of the deal hit him. He was being sent away from everything he ever knew. Everyone he knew. Neil even wanted to confiscate his phone but Susan managed to convince Neil to let him keep it. If only to keep in contact with the house.

The texts from Max read;

“They’re making me learn which fork goes with salad… I think I’ll stab someone in the hand with it instead”

“Billyyyyyyyy I’m so bored this sucks so much”

“Can God smite me now? What did I do in a past life to deserve this?”

Billy chuckled and sent her a picture of a cat looking angry with its cheeks puffed out and captioned it “It’s you rn”. Max sent back three middle finger emojis. He then went to his voicemail and tapped the first one that Argyle had sent.

“Yo man, what’s up? I hear you’re being sent to this like, uh, boarding school for criminal kids? Wicked nasty move of your old man to move you to Indiana.” Even though the slightly tinny speaker of his phone, Argyle’s voice sounded like the beach and summer. He missed his best friend already. He could hear the clatter of the pizza shop Argyle worked at in the background. “Call me when you can. Gotta make sure you’re ok man. Gotta go now, boss man’s on the floor.” And then the voicemail ended. 

Billy could feel the prickle of tears at the corners of his eyes, he didn’t wanna listen to the other voicemails just yet, he wanted to savour them, reminding him that this wasn’t forever. But he should probably call Argyle back. He wiped his eyes and cleared his throat, waiting for Argyle to pick up. 

When he did, he sounded like he had been asleep. He probably was since Billy still wasn’t used to the time difference in Indiana vs California. 

“Hello?” The sleep was heavy on Argyle’s voice, and Billy felt a little bad about waking him up but he needed someone to talk to. 

“Hey Argyle, it’s me,” Billy’s voice was small, still the instinct to keep quiet remained. Even if he was far away from Neil. “I, uh, you asked me to call you when I could?” God, he sounded pathetic. 

“Yo! B-man what’s going on dude? You’re in the boonies now, huh?” Argyle still sounded happy to hear from him, even if he probably did wake him up at like 3 am. That was the good thing about Argyle, even if you were kind of an asshole like Billy, if Argyle decided you were one of his brochachos, you were a brochacho for life. 

“Yeah, it's like, this Catholic boarding school for ‘troubled teens’ but they don’t say that. I got this dorm that looks like no one’s been in it since the 80s. No seriously, there’s Dio posters from 1986.”

“‘86? Really? Dude, I bet you’ve got one of the haunted dorms like in horror movies,” Argyle’s laugh was like having a sip of warm hot chocolate, warming you from your belly. Billy didn’t realise how much he missed his best friend until now.  

“Man, you know that stuff’s not real. How much of a dork would a ghost from the 80s be? If they died here I bet they’re still a teenager. God, I’d hate that, being a teenager in the afterlife.”

“How do you know it’s not real? Maybe the ghosts won’t talk to you because you’re always denying their existence.”

Billy laughed, “Yeah that’s why the ghosts won’t speak to me because I’m mean to them.” Argyle laughed with a ‘yeah you’re so mean!’ tacked on. They fell into easy conversation after that, with Argyle catching Billy up with all the antics of their friend group and the new pizza combos he’d come up with at work. 

“Mix a bit of sriracha into the marinara and top with pineapples, it’s so good dude. Like sweet and spicy,” Billy had a warm but strange feeling in his belly listening to Argyle, it was like he had gone on a rollercoaster and had come out giggling with adrenaline. It lasted until Argyle hung up to go back to sleep. Then the loneliness came back, like quicksand sucking Billy in. He stared out of the window, the school was covered with thick forest land as far as the eye could see. This place seriously looked like the setting for a Stephen King novel, he thought. 

He heard a thump from the corner of the dorm, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t jump a little.  He looked over from where he was lying on his bed. It was just one of the paperback novels that were stacked on the dresser falling onto the floor. 

“Sure, this is a fucking haunted school,” he muttered to himself. 

******

Billy couldn’t explain why but weird stuff had been going on in his dorm, and he was running out of ways to logically explain it. The window opens in the middle of the night? Well, it was windy last night. Something brushes against his back while he’s sleeping? Probably just his duvet. 

His classmates had noticed that he was always tired in class, and he knew he couldn’t keep using the jetlag excuse. 

“Are you sleeping ok?” a girl in his history class, Jennie asked him. Jennie was on the girl's volleyball team and she had clocked Billy immediately. She had also decided that they were friends. 

“I’m fine,” Billy turned back to his history textbook but the words were swimming in front of his eyes.

“And you can’t lie to me, Cali.” Jennie poked his shoulder with her pencil until he turned to face her. “You got the haunted dorm didn’t ya?”

Billy rolled his eyes, and it seemed like everyone believed in this alleged haunting but him. “Yeah, the fucking time capsule from 1986.” 

“D’ya know what happened to the last guy who had that dorm?” 

“He died.”

Jennie flicked her eraser at him. “No, but really, there’s a rumour that he got murrrrrrderrrred,” Jennie said the last word in a sing-song way. 

“What? You’re making that up.” Billy hated to admit that he was intrigued, a murder at a boarding school? It reminded him of the thriller novels that Susan read. 

“I’m not!” Jennie said that a bit louder than she intended and got a glare from Mr O’Donnell. “I swear that there was a guy who was killed here! My brother went to this school too and he told me about it.”

“Ever considered that he was pulling your leg?”

Luckily for Billy, Jennie didn’t have anything she could throw at him without causing a scene. “Nah, I’d be able to tell if Nick was lying to me.” Jennie passed Billy her phone under the desk, it had a picture of a guy on it. He had curly brown hair that was shoulder length and a battle vest. And a grin that marked him down as a troublemaker. “That’s the guy that got killed, Eddie Munson.”

“Explains the posters that are still in my room,” Billy looked at the guy’s battle vest, there was a Motorhead patch, WASP and Judas Priest. There was a demon on his shirt and the words ‘Hellfire Club’. 

“Ok so, he was retaking senior year for the second time in ‘86 and he had this club for like, um, DnD,” Jennie spoke quickly as she got more excited. “But there were rumours that he was a Satanist or something? And there was this other guy,” Jennie scrolled to another photo in her camera roll, “Jason Carver. And he’s like this super ultra-Christian guy and the captain of the basketball team. He and Eddie do not get along. Eddie was making fun of him and his cronies for conforming or some shit, in front of everyone in the cafeteria, and Jason is mega pissed, right? So he and his teammates jump Eddie in his dorm and I don’t know if it’s true but they accidentally broke his neck. But everyone thinks Jason killed Eddie on purpose.”

“Sounds like some Satanic panic shit,” Billy said, deducing from the time of the story, and what he knew about the 80s from his dad’s drunken rants about ‘how it used to be’. 

“Yeah probably-” Jennie started to say when she got interrupted by Mr O’Donnell. 

“Miss Park, Mr Hargrove, if you two would return to your worksheets and stop talking about the accidental death at this school, it would be very much appreciated.” They both mumbled an apology and Billy swore he felt a cold breeze go through the classroom, even though none of the windows was open. 

*****

Billy felt like he was being watched. 

It was always in his dorm room but he refused to believe it was the supposed ghost of Eddie Munson. If it was, this ghost is going to have to show himself to Billy. Jennie was convinced that Billy was being haunted. 

“Dude! He is absolutely haunting you and he probably wants you out of his dorm or he wants to kill you,” Jennie told him over breakfast the next morning.  

Billy pushed his scrambled eggs around on his plate, “Little morbid for 7.30 am Jen,” He didn’t tell her that he was maybe starting to believe her because some of the shit that was happening in his dorm he couldn’t explain logically. Like feeling something poke his face while he was sleeping or waking up to his phone ringing with an unknown number but when he answered it, it was all static. 

Jennie stuffed some Cheerios into her mouth and raised an eyebrow at Billy. Like she had read his thoughts or something. She swallowed and said, “But isn’t that what the ghosts of people who were murdered do? They’re, uh, vengeful?” She pointed her spoon at Billy, “Maybe you look too much like Jason for him.”

“The only thing we have in common is that we both have blonde hair. Plus the guy is probably 50 now, the statute of limitations passed a long time ago,” Billy chewed on a bit of toast but it was dry in his mouth. 

“We should try and speak with him.” Jennie sounded very intense suddenly, she was making direct eye contact, which she never did unless it was serious. 

“What?”

“We should try and make contact with Eddie, get his side of the story bc all we have is rumours and Jason’s side,” Jennie passed Billy her phone with an old news article on the screen. 

“Accidental death of a student at Our Lady Immaculate School” was the title of the article, dated 21st of March 1986. The article read:

“An accidental death of a student at Our Lady Immaculate School in Roane County, Indiana has been reported by Christine Cunningham, a senior year student. 

The student in question, Edward Munson, was a 2nd time senior and a noted troublemaker. Having been sent to the school after being caught for defacement of public property in his hometown of Hawkins, Indiana. Munson had also been known to be involved with the game ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ and the heavy metal subgenre of music. He was also known to have a rivalry with the captain of the basketball team, Jason Carver. 

Carver said, “Munson went against everything the school stood for and he was making moves on my girlfriend Chrissy. I told him to stay away but he challenged me to a fight. I was going to scare him away from Chrissy and we did fight but he fell down some stairs and didn’t move when we went to check.” 

Coroner’s reports say that Munson died from a cervical fracture and that the death was accidental. However, some students at the school, who were associates of Munson, say that Munson was deliberately pushed down the stairs.”

In the article, there was a picture of Eddie, with the dates 30th May 1966 - 21st March 1986 underneath. 

“Shit, he died when he was 19,” Billy muttered after he read the article. 

“It’s sad, isn’t it?” Jennie took her phone back from Billy, “But I bet that the Carver dude is covering something up. It’s just a little too convenient that Eddie fell down some stairs when they fought.”

“So you want to contact Eddie to get his side of the story?”

“Yeah.”

“How are you going to do that?” 

“Well, we are going to use an Ouija board tonight,” Jennie pushed her bowl away and grabbed her bag and pulled out what looked like a cassette player, “and if the Ouija board doesn’t work we can use this,” Billy looked at her confused, “It’s called a spiritbox, ghosts can use it to communicate via radio waves.” 

Billy knew he couldn’t say no to Jennie at this point, but goddammit if he wasn’t curious if it would work.

“Ok, meet me at my dorm at midnight. We’ll try this shit and if it doesn’t work don’t say I didn’t tell you so.” 

****

If they said they weren’t nervous, they’d be lying. Not because of the ghost that might be there but in case one of the nuns caught them in Billy’s dorm. There was a strict rule of no couples in each other’s dorms. No one said anything about same-sex couples, but Billy didn’t tell you that. 

Jennie had come to the dorm at about 15 minutes past midnight, she said she would’ve been earlier but she had to take the long way because Sister Franklin was doing a round on the girl’s floor.  

“I had to hide in the bathroom for ages, man, she was just standing in front of the stairs, it was creepy,” she shuddered like she had eaten something sour. She then set the Ouija board on the floor between her and Billy. The spiritbox was off to the side. 

Billy felt a little stupid sitting cross-legged on the floor with his index fingers on the bottom corners of the planchette. Jennie was doing the same on the other side, but she looked like she was a little scared. 

Her voice trembled a little when she asked, “Eddie? Are you here?”

It felt like a force from above moved the planchette under their fingers to the ‘yes’ on the board. Jennie gasped a little, the fear in her voice disappearing. Billy was doing a speedrun through the ‘accepting that ghosts are in fact, real gauntlet’.  The planchette moved around the board to say “I was waiting for you guys to notice me here. Especially you Billy”. 

“Have you been haunting me?” Billy asked before he could stop himself. 

“Thanks for noticing. Have been for the last month.”

This wasn’t real, was it? But Billy was awake, and he was actually talking to a ghost. If you told him he’d be doing this a month ago, he’d laugh in your face.

There was suddenly a blue glow above their heads, both Billy and Jennie looked up to see the ghost of Eddie Munson appear before them. 

“Man, it’s nice to be able to appear in front of people again. Last time I did that, I think the guy had a heart attack,” Eddie talked very nonchalantly like it was no big deal that he had just altered the fabric of reality for Billy. He looked down at the two teenagers gawping at him, “Huh, nice to see you didn’t take down any of my stuff. And the uniform hasn’t changed either,” he gestured at the similar white shirt and black sweater he was wearing as well. Although Eddie had his tie loose around his neck. 

“Why haven’t you moved on?” Jennie spoke first, ever the curious.

“Can’t,” Eddie answered simply. Like he had tried before. Billy had a feeling in his gut that it had something to do with Jason Carver. 

“I’m missing something. I can’t remember what it was now, it’s been so long. Bet that bastard Carver hid it after he killed me,” Eddie floated around the room like he was pacing. 

“Jason Carver really did kill you?” Jennie blurted out, “I thought that was a rumour!” She fumbled with her phone to pull up the article again. But her phone seemed to glitch in Eddie’s presence. 

“Uh yeah? He pushed me down some stairs. Big news in the county,” Eddie’s tone took on a darker note, “and he got away with it.” Eddie’s glow got darker with his words, Billy could see now why they were called vengeful ghosts. 

Billy’s throat felt dry, and a small part of him felt like running. But he spoke anyway, “I don’t know if we can do anything about Carver, he's like 50 now but we could help you find the thing you need to move on.” 

Eddie’s glow went back to the light blue from before, but now it was a little warmer, “Really? You’d do that for me?” He seemed happy. How long had he gone ignored? Billy knew how that felt. 

“Yeah, we would,” Billy nudged Jennie with his elbow, getting her to react too. She nodded quickly. Eddie floated down to be near the floor, almost like he was sitting with them. 

“I could tell you what I remember, it’s not much though.”

*****

From what Eddie told them, it turns out that he was not in fact hitting on Chrissy Cunningham but selling her some weed. And she had broken up with Jason and he was mad about it, Chrissy had a thing for Eddie, and Jason had caught them maybe nearly kissing. And so Jason challenged him to a fight and told Eddie to meet him at his dorm. But Jason was waiting at the top of the stairs and pushed Eddie down them. 

Billy had been thinking about what Eddie said, his bleeding heart went out for Eddie, he knew exactly how Eddie must’ve felt at that moment. Someone blowing up over a small infraction. 

Reading the article again, Jason must’ve used the excuse of Eddie being a social pariah against him. Because how dare you be the social reject and be friendly towards the most popular girl in school?  

He went back up to his dorm on lunch break, saying he wasn’t hungry to the other guys in the gym, Eddie was waiting for him. 

“I thought you could only appear at night?” Billy dumped his gym bag by the desk. 

“It's just harder in the daytime,” he flickered a little bit, “gotta concentrate more to stay visible.”

Billy nodded and opened his desk drawer to get his cigarettes. Technically, he wasn’t allowed in school but the reception lady didn’t bother to check his pockets. He opened his dorm window and lit the end. Breathed in the smoke and enjoyed the feeling of the nicotine buzz. He saw Eddie floating closer in his peripheral vision. 

“Aww man, I haven’t had a cig in years…” He sounded like he was yearning for it. 

“Can you even smoke? Like should I blow some smoke at you?” Would that even work? 

“I dunno, you could try.”  

Billy took another drag of the cigarette, and blew the smoke at Eddie. The other tried to breathe in the smoke before it flowed through his incorporeal body. 

“Did that do anything for you?” Billy tapped the ash away on the edge of the window. 

“Uh, I could feel something. Like when you walk by something that smells good? It’s like that.” Eddie reached out and put his hand on Billy’s shoulder. It felt cold. “Thanks for trying though.”

“If you died with your cigs in your pocket are they like ghost cigs now?”

Eddie looked at Billy like he had just slapped him in the face. Then burst out laughing. As he was laughing he lost control of his floating and he rose up to the ceiling like a helium balloon. Once he could breathe again, he admitted that the ghost thing doesn’t quite work like that.

“We only really keep stuff that meant a lot to us in life,” Eddie raised his hand to show some rings on his fingers, they looked like ones Billy would find at a flea market back home. Billy had a fleeting thought of him keeping his St Christopher’s pendant if he was a ghost. Eddie for a moment, looked like he got an electric shock. 

“My pick!” He looked down his shirt, “My guitar pick! I kept it on a necklace and I think it’s what I need to move on!” 

Billy’s brain was going a million miles a minute, so if Eddie got this guitar pick he’d be able to pass over to the afterlife? He guessed it was something to do with him being very attached to it in his lifetime. But also he kind of didn’t want Eddie to go, it was nice having him around, almost like a really annoying roommate. 

“Helloooooo, earth to Billy, are you there?” Eddie was floating face-to-face with Billy. He grinned when Billy flinched backwards. “Whatcha thinkin’ about?”

Once Billy’s heart stopped jackhammering in his chest he told Eddie some white lie about how he and Jennie were going to try and look for Eddie’s guitar pick tonight. Eddie did some backflips in the air and pumped his fist. He genuinely did seem excited about this. 

“At night I’ll be able to move around more so I can help you guys, I think I might have an idea of where it is,” If ghosts could get a sugar rush, this is how Billy would think it looked like. Eddie was floating around the room again muttering stuff about the Hellfire Club and the theatre room. Theatre room? There wasn’t a theatre room mentioned when Billy came to this school. 

“Uh, one small problem Eddie, there isn’t a theatre room here,” Billy felt like he was stating the obvious but maybe Eddie didn’t know that the theatre room that was there when he was a student might be gone now. 

“Sure there is, they just don’t use it because it’s haunted,” Eddie put the last word in quotation marks with his fingers. 

“You’ve been haunting this theatre room? Jennie is gonna flip her shit when she hears that,” Billy rubbed one eye, sighing in exasperation. “Alright I’ve got to leave for class but here’s the deal. Me and Jennie will meet you by the back door to the school grounds after the nuns have done their nighttime prayers. You show us where this theatre room is and we’ll look for your guitar pick. Sounds good?” 

Eddie was in ghost-sugar rush mode again, Billy thought he kind of looked like a ping-pong ball bouncing around the room. “I’ll be by the stairs ok!” He told Billy just before the other left the dorm again. 

*****

Jennie was just as excited as Eddie was, Billy half-thought that she would start floating around the room. 

“If this actually works, what’s gonna happen to you Eddie?” Jennie was asking a million questions, like she was interviewing Eddie. Eddie floated a few paces in front of Billy and Jennie, leading them to the abandoned theatre room. 

Eddie turned to face them, his glow was a lot brighter in the nighttime. “Well, I’ll just move on. Like, I won’t be here anymore.” 

“You just disappear?”

“Yeah. Think so anyway.”

Billy was quiet as he followed the other two, he was still thinking that he didn’t really want Eddie to go, but if that made Eddie happy, he wouldn’t stop him. It must’ve been kinda sad, seeing everything change around you but you’re still the same. All of his friends must’ve grown up and forgotten about him right?

“We’re here,” Eddie stopped in front of an old side building to the west of campus. It looked like a storage container to Billy, in fact he had seen it when he was dropped off at campus by his dad and he had assumed it was where sports equipment was kept. 

Eddie went ahead and floated through the wall, yelling for the other two to come along with him. Unfortunately for them the door was locked and they couldn’t phase through a solid wall. Jennie rattled the door handle to get Eddie’s attention again. 

“Is the door locked? Oh uh, I figured it wouldn’t be,” Eddie’s head appeared outside of the door. 

Billy crouched at the locked door and pulled some wires from his pocket, sliding the wires in, he started to poke around until he found the locking mechanism. A few more pokes and he heard the click of the door unlocking. 

“Where did you learn how to pick locks?” Jennie blurted out when Billy stood back up. He opened the door to Eddie floating there in amazement. “It’s a long story,” he muttered. “Are we gonna find this guitar pick or not?” he really didn’t want to go into why he got sent to this school right now. 

“Should I uh, lead the way?” Eddie made some grand gestures like he was welcoming them to a grand hotel. 

The only light in the room was the glow from Eddie, with the dark shapes cast by whatever was in the room, it looked like something out of a horror B movie. Billy and Jennie were tripping over stuff, themselves, each other until the were drowned in the overhead lights. 

“That better for you guys?” Eddie called from somewhere in the distance. The room looked like a theatre nerd’s wet dream, there was a fucking throne in the room for god’s sake! Chalets lined the dust covered table, which itself was littered with dice and bits of paper that were scrawled with drawings of elves and some numbers that meant nothing to Billy. Eddie was floating in a sitting position in the throne. Like it was his, it probably was. 

“Was this the- the Hellfire Club?” Jennie sounded amazed by all that was around her, eyes taking in everything. Some of the stuff in here reminded Billy of the mountain hall in the Fellowship of the Ring, maybe Eddie was a fan when he was alive. 

“You’d be right, this was indeed where brave adventurers gathered to take on the wrath of the dark lord Vecna. Where-” 

Billy wasn’t listening to Eddie anymore, he was wandering about the room, looking for anything that might be Eddie’s guitar pick necklace. If he was going to be honest, he just wanted to find it quickly and rip off the bandaid of Eddie leaving. Easier that way. 

Then, he found the photo. 

It was just a polaroid but it was of Eddie and his friends from 1985, they were smiling and the photo was so full of joy. The Eddie in the photo didn’t know that he’d be stuck at 19 while the rest of his friends got to grow up and move on with their lives. 

“That photo huh?” Eddie was now beside Billy, “God, man Gareth was such a goof. I saw him at the ten year reunion in ‘97. He’d gotten married and was gonna be a dad,” he pointed the smaller boy with a flannel shirt in the photo. “And Jeff?” he now pointed to the tallest boy in the photo, “he got into Stanford on a scholarship, always the brains of the operation in here.” Eddie sounded wistfully nostalgic about the time he had with them but Billy didn’t miss the sad note in his voice. 

“Eddie, do you wanna stay?” Billy asked quietly. 

Eddie for once, was speechless. Was his brain short-circuiting? He looked like he was buffering.

“Stay? What do you mean?” 

Billy turned to face Eddie, “I mean stay here with me and Jennie. You’ve probably been so lonely for years, and honestly, I don’t want you to go.” He felt more vulnerable than he had in months, just as much as when he admitted his feelings for that boy back on the beach in California and feeling his stomach rise and fall with the waves. He just hoped that Eddie wouldn’t throw him in the deep end. 

“I never thought about that…” Eddie trailed off, as if he was unsure what to say, “I, I don’t think I wanna go either. Even if I can only hang around with you guys outside of the school building at night.” Eddie chewed his lower lip, waiting for Billy to say something, anything. 

“I uh… maybe…” Billy started to speak again but was interrupted by Jennie holding a leather cord with a guitar pick strung on it. “Found it in the box behind the throne,” she held the necklace out to Eddie. But I um… might have been eavesdropping and I don’t want you to go either Eddie.” Jennie blushed and turned away, like she had just admitted to having a crush.

Eddie looked happier than either Billy or Jennie had ever seen him, maybe there was a little tear in his eye but no one was going to bring attention to it. Maybe the afterlife didn’t have to be the end for Eddie Munson.

#mungrove #mungroveweek2023 #billy hargrove #eddie munson #billy x eddie #billy antis dni #greyghoul fics

[power-chords]

tbh mann really perplexed me w/heat2, lol. not that he NEEDED to make it explicit that vincent/neil is platonic - most straight guys wouldn't even think that was in question. but chris is repeatedly referred to as neil's brother, which makes hanna's lack of labeling seem even more ambiguous. why a heart-shaped locket, instead of oval? if mann didn't realize how that ending could be interpreted then he's clueless almost beyond belief. my best guess is that he just likes keeping it undefinable.

My take on his dramatic intention, in the total context of the movie and the book and close to 30 years of his own editorializing, is that their relationship is supposed to transcend categorization entirely. (Kind of like how he insists that Heat is not a genre film.) He’s been asked repeatedly about the obvious interpretation, for which there is cultural precedent and plenty credible suggestion within the story itself, I.E. whether Hanna and McCauley are his versions of the “double” or "doppelgänger" in film and literature. He always counters that it is not anything so simple or straightforward like that, and he’s right — but those pieces of symbolism have nevertheless been scattered throughout. Critics and academics are not pulling this out of their asses.

So it’s not an incorrect reading so much as an incomplete one, and I think this is what he keeps trying to clarify in his interactions with the press etc, to varying degrees of success. That motif is thoroughly established, right alongside the absolutely unrelenting insistence that these two dudes are star-crossed soulmates who have been brought together by fate. One of them is going to kill the other if they meet again, and they are also the other’s “only safe person” (Mann’s script annotations! His words, not mine!) with whom genuine honesty is possible. Mann’s whole thing is that both of these truths exist, and exist harmoniously as opposed to in contradiction (note how often he refers to Hanna and McCauley’s respective story arcs as being contrapuntal, that they are in collision more so than in conflict).

The paradox of their connection is introduced via these externalities, time and place and circumstance, what it is they do for a living. Who they are as individuals, he seems to be suggesting, makes them so essentially, cosmically compatible that even the institutional structures constraining their self-expression cannot diminish the bond. It defies the incompatible, irreconcilable spheres of their existence: cop and criminal, friend and enemy; it goes well beyond the rules of the zero-sum game of predator vs predator. (...So why not the rules of heterosexual attraction?)

These truths do not negate the other, but rather transform and amplify the strange magic of their connection, kaleidoscoping the audience's view of it, positioning it almost within the realm of the fantastic. What happens in the movie feels tragic, no doubt, but also dazzling and dynamic and profound and... oddly uplifting. Mann employs ambiguity, un-resolution, as an explosive emotional force multiplier, trying to induce this subjective experience of infinite possibility even as he seals off his characters’ exits. His goal is to cast this dreamlike spell on you, to induce a hallucinogenic sensory experience of contemplation and awe. So why subtract from that array and intensity of enjoyment when you could add yet more enchanting shapes and colors?

To that end, I think any reading that makes a point to exclude a romantic part in the subtextual symphony is arguably also incomplete. What Mann is trying to say, over and over again, is that absolutely everything I am presenting you with is real. These men are sworn enemies who will not abandon their professional and/or moral obligations, and they are platonic spiritual blood brothers bound by invisible cosmic filaments. OK, well, maybe they're also psychotically sexually repressed traumatized veterans and deep down some small part of them wants to crawl across the table and tear each others' Men’s Wearhouses off! Why the hell not! Clearly they already contain multitudes.

Funnily enough, the guy who introduced the screening I saw at MoMI back in May specifically referred to the film as a romance, and a theater FULL of straight dudes good-naturedly cheered. Of course they were also laughing, but they definitely didn’t have question marks floating above their heads. That signal is unequivocally in the broadcast, and it’s getting picked up on — to say nothing of the response to the infamous Chris Fleming tweet a few weeks ago! LOL. And since Mann’s films tend to incorporate “masculinity in crisis” as a major venue of thematic interest, allowing room for romance would be internally consistent. After all, what's more crisis-inducing to traditional norms of masculinity than a sudden realization that maybe capitalism sucks and you want to quit your job and Hey what if I just fucked that guy instead of shooting him??? I’m being hyperbolic for my own amusement, but the point remains. Love, children! It’s just a kiss away! ("Gimme Shelter" is in fact the song playing in Nate’s bar at the end of Heat 2 oh my god this isn’t even queerbaiting it’s second degree queer gaslighting, I feel insane.)

Jesus, this got out of control. TL;DR yes, he would have to be clueless. Or, more likely and perhaps more cynically, he would have to consider that analysis so self-evidently off the table as to be unconcerned with the subtext of coffee dates and tearful hand-holding. Or writing director’s notes to Al and Bob in the margins of the script for the diner scene: “ULTRA intimate now,” “both seduced, ironically,” or my personal favorite, “NOTE: exchanged dreams is when palship maximized.”

NOT going to bring this up as a part of my Plots & Schemes, lmao, although not because I’m not ballsy enough to do it or am insecure in my analysis. I honestly think I can make a solid, evidence-based case that is free and clear of any social media fandom brain worms. (My two spheres of artistic engagement are CONTRAPUNTAL, you could say.) I'm just not going to hand him the rolled up newspaper with which to swat me on the nose, so to speak. If I don’t bring it up he can’t hypothetically email me back, subject line IT’S NOT HORNY YOU SILLY BITCH, so perhaps I also thrive on the intoxicating magic of the ambiguous and undefined. Although getting that type of response would be funny enough to warrant the risk of an explicit refutation. I would just be like, a little bummed out if he didn’t go, “You know what, I see your point!” LOL.