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gigilberry-wips · 3 years

Text

the bonds of kinship

(image used can be found here)

Fandom: The Mandalorian

Pairings: None

Warnings: Brief mentions of fighting and violence, Spoilers for Season 2 Finale

Tags: Reader-Insert, No (Y/N), GN!Reader, Jedi!Reader, Creative Depictions of The Force, Action, Angst, Feels, Character Study, Healthy Relationships, Hopeful Ending

Word Count: 2.9k

Summery:

You’re a Padawan training under Luke Skywalker when your master recieves a distress signal from a Force sensitive child. He follows the lead and brings you along for the ride.

AO3 link

A/N: A few days after the season 2 finale I was lurking in the mandalorian tags, as you do, when one of those “i wish someone would write-” posts (this one) got my muse to drop by long enough to toss this one shot through the window.

- Obligatory disclaimer that I don’t know a thing about Star Wars. This show is my first introduction to the franchise and at the moment I am in absolutely no hurry to enlighten myself further (is there anyone else who’s here for the authentic experience of being as clueless as Din about this show? Because I’m having a blast :D Just about every subtle reference, easter egg, and character mention has gone flying over my head and I honestly find that hilarious)

I don’t know how well I’ve written the Force here, so just ... roll with it, please and thanks.

- Apparently Luke's ship is supposed to be a one seater kind of deal, but for the sake of this fic let's just pretend it has room for two people, yeah? Yeah? Good.

While writing this I thought of the song King of the Fairies, performed by The Dubliners. It'll make more sense near the end bit of this. I hope.

@ctrlmando I hope this turned out alright! Enjoy! ^_^

The Imperial battle ship made an imposing figure in the vast, glittering expanse of space. Under the cramped confines of your knees, R2D2 stirred, blinking and beeping in a way that made you mildly concerned for your shins.

“… so, this is where he is?”

“It is.” Master Skywalker nodded, his eyes trained on the floating craft. “Do you remember your part of the plan?”

“Get in, find the kid, get out.”

“Correct.” As a port came into view, he added, “Are you sure you’re ready for this? If you want to, you can stay here with R2D2.”

You gripped your saber’s hilt where it was clipped to your belt. In all the years you’d been under your master’s tutelage, there hadn’t been much in the way of students to train with on your level, few and far between as they were. This wasn’t just the first student to contact your master first, and through the Force no less, this was the first time you were being trusted on a mission like this.

For you to pass up such an opportunity? Out of the question. “Born ready,” you said, your tone firm.

“Then by all means, lead the way.”

The ship’s hull passed through the entrance just as the comms came to life. A woman’s voice spoke through it, but neither you nor your master answered. The moment the ship docked, you jumped out and took off at a sprint.

Keeping low to the ground, you focused all your powers on stealth and speed, dodging around the combatants before they had time to react. It wasn’t your job to take care of them, not yet – and from the sounds of it, your master was doing well for himself. While he took the brunt of the fire, you focused on navigating the corridors and opening your mind to the Force.

He was there. The child was a strong, bright little beacon, his presence lighting a path that ran clear as truth. The droids that tried to block your way you shoved aside with your powers, until you were well past them and they were left to face another, far more deadly opponent to charge at.

You hardly registered the fallen bodies you skipped over. Didn’t matter. You’d think about it later. Rescue came first.

The child’s presence led you to a lift. Above your head, a humming, artificial energy grew stronger and stronger the further up you went. When the lift opened, it was to a short corridor lined on either side with battle ready droids.

But by then you had your lightsaber out. Time to fight.

In a blur of sparks and tearing metal, you sliced the first droid in half. The next to come at you got its gun tossed out of its grasp through the Force and its head swiped off. One after another you cut them down, using the lightsaber and Force as needed, switching between the two with an efficiency that had been drilled into you until it had become habit.

The last droid fell in a twisted pile at your feet. You stepped past it. You waited.

In the few minutes of sizzling silence, you contemplated the dented metal door before you, so large it encompassed to breadth and hight of the corridor. There were … five? Six? Six adult creatures, all facing the entrance. Or no – one was unconscious. There was also that bright little child. He seemed unharmed, but you couldn’t be sure until you saw for yourself.

The door slid open. You marched into the room with lightsaber in hand and smoke curling at your heels. You allowed your hood to drop, finally showing your face to the gathering.

Front and centre there stood a humanoid clad in armour. Beskar armour. In a style you never thought you’d see more than once in your life.

A Mandalorian.

And it wasn’t just one. There were two more in the back, with slight modifications in their armour design, but distinctly Mandalorian all the same. Save for the first Mandalorian, the rest of the adults had their weapons raised at you.

The Mandalorian spoke. “Are you a Jedi?”

“… I am a Jedi in training.” You tilted you head. “My master should be arriving shortly.”

He had just finished down below. You felt more than heard him board the lift; he would be there in a few moments. Deactivating your lightsaber, you clipped it to your belt and stepped to the side of the entrance, closer to where several monitors idly hummed.

A very long, very green ear peeked out from behind a chair and you were met with the beseeching gaze of a child.

He … was tiny. You doubted he’d even pass your knee. He clung to the seat with tiny, tiny hands, and he was dressed in a brown, smock-like thing that made him look even tinier. But no matter how fragile he looked, no matter how impossibly wide and dewy his eyes were, the presence that radiated out of him was unmistakable. He was the kid.

Curious, you reached your thoughts out to him. A warm, exuberant little mind eagerly found yours, shy and hopeful.

What do you want? You asked.

You were met with a flurry of sensations. A sweet smell, a full belly, a metal ball?, gentle hands, a human chuckle.

… well. That wasn’t … unexpected, per se. He was a baby after all. But he hadn’t quite understood your question.

You tried again. Why did you call my master? Why are we here?

The child’s ears twitched. He opened his mind further and allowed you to see.

There were many emotions there, confusing in how strong they were and how drastically they contrasted. Nostalgia, safety, joy, peace. Sorrow and pain, loss and rage. They all held a strange depth to them, like a mind that had lived far, far longer than its apparent youth suggested.

Eventually, the emotions solidified into thoughts. Make me strong. They said.

… You want strength? Why would he need more? He was already strong, incredibly so.

… I have been hurt and I have been lost. But he protects me. The child looked up and to the side, towards what you now realised was his caregiver. I love him, and he loves me, but I can’t protect him. He fights for me and he saves me and he will die saving me and everyone dies saving me and it’s MY FAULT. Without warning, a barrage of memories flashed through your sight, followed by feelings of fear, panic, and helplessness. So make me strong. If I can protect me, then he doesn’t have to. He can just love me, and we will be happy.

At this, a sudden wave of love flooded out from him. It was a selfish love, needy and possessive. But that wasn’t unexpected either. Most of it was just simple, baby love, a “this is mine to keep and mine forever” love. You would’ve been surprised had it been anything different.

A hand landed on your shoulder. At once you felt your master’s presence, bringing you out of your observations and back to the present.

“… he doesn’t want to go with you.”

You looked up sharply. It was the Mandalorian who’d spoken. He glanced between the two of you and his charge.

“He is waiting for your permission.” Said your master, oddly gentle.

The way you were reading into the Force meant that you could feel a little of the surface emotions coming from those in the room. You imagined that if you could see it, the Mandalorian’s face would’ve taken on a complicated, pained expression.

Not receiving a reply, your master continued. “He is strong with the force, but talent without training is nothing. I will give my life to protect the child. But he will not be safe until he masters his abilities.”

Although he spoke quietly, his words carried a weight and authority that could not be refuted. One that came from being the one and only Luke Skywalker, the Jedi master who had earned the right to use it. And when he spoke, most tended to listen.

Something in the Mandalorian seemed to fall apart at those words. But at the same time, many other things fell together, forming a picture of resolve and acceptance.

He walked to the chair and carefully picked up the child, his hands steady even as his voice shook. He spoke to him and him alone, words so soft you barely heard some of what he said.

“… I’ll see you again … I promise.”

The kid reached for him, an unspoken request. Without hesitation, without a second thought, the Mandalorian did something that shocked what little knowledge you had of the Mandalore right out of you.

He removed his helmet.

Where before there had been a nondescript Mandalorian, there now stood a man. A heartbroken man with tears in his eyes. The tears did not fall, not even when the child touched his cheek and he shut his eyes to them.

“… time to go.”

The kid’s ears drooped.

He said something else and let the child down. Straightening up, he nodded to you and your master.

While your master nodded back, you furrowed your brow. There was something strange about the emotions that came from this man. Not so much that they were bad or wrong, but that they were different from what you knew. It wasn’t just sadness or longing, as it often was in the parents and family of the disciples your master took into his care. It was more … complicated. Deeper, somehow. Even the love that came from him felt different. You couldn’t quite place your finger on how or why.

It perplexed you, made you want to reach into his skull and see what was there. But that would be rude.

“Are you sure you want him to come with us?” You asked.

Because if he didn’t, if he really, truly had a problem with it, then the kid wasn’t coming. Family drama was messy, and your master knew better than anyone else not to get in the way of that.

The man considered you. You crossed your arms. His gaze darted to the monitors, where the view from different parts of the ship still showed.

“… do you know, I took out one of those droids.” He smiled. That is, his lips tilted up at the corners. “One of them. And I barely did it. But you, you took on dozens of them. I saw you. You did it in moments, and you say you are in training.”

Glancing down to where the child clung to his leg, the smile became something sad. “This child has been hunted across the galaxy. I have done what I could, but this … this is more than I can do for him. I cannot give him what he needs me to. I cannot protect him the way he needs me to. He’s made a choice. The least I can do is see that he gets it.”

“Even if it doesn’t make you happy?”

Because it didn’t. It shouldn’t have, not with the bond that stretched between the two of them.

But he only shook his head. “I’d rather he be alive with you than dead with me.”

Before you could think further on that, a loud trill interrupted the air. R2D2 rolled past the doors and came to a stop to the right of where you and your master stood, happily beeping like it either didn’t notice the tension in the room or else didn’t care.

It caught the child’s attention. His entire face lit up – oh. Oh. There was a bond there, too. Something to ask about later that you tucked away in your head.

Letting go of his caregiver’s leg, the kid toddled up to the robot and babbled at it. R2 responded in kind. The sight created a bubble of cuteness strong enough that you didn’t have to look to know that most of the adults had eased their collective guard.

While the two conversed, the unmasked-Mandalorian idly held his helmet. And there was another contradiction – to ask, or not to ask, that was the question. To get it over with now or leave it alone. You didn’t have to; it’s not like knowing the answer would affect you in any way.

But then again, it was the first time you had a Mandalorian to give you an answer. Might as well.

“… You know, I’ve never met a Mandalorian before.” You said conversationally. “Doesn’t taking the helmet off go against your creed?”

He blinked, looking down at the helmet like he’d forgotten about it. Meanwhile, Master Skywalker did the mental equivalent of a tsk, but you ignored it.

“… yes, and no. I thought it did. But there is more to it than that. When you reach the heart of it.” His eyes settled upon the child. “I am a Mandalorian. I have my creed. I have not betrayed it, not in the way that matters. It … took me some time to realise this.”

He sighed, closing his eyes again. When he opened them, it was with a clarity that shone in his emotions. “I trust you. Both of you. Please look after him.”

“We will.”

At the sound of his voice, the child seemed to notice your master for the first time. He tilted his head curiously up at him. After a moment, he shuffled over and lifted his arms up.

Master Skywalker obliged him. Picking him up, he nodded his thanks to the room and walked out the door. Taking one last look around, you gave a slight bow and did the same, not turning back or minding the still sparking heaps of broken metal strewn across the floor. Propped up on your master’s shoulder, the kid had a good view of what you were walking away from, kept in his sights all the way to the lift.

It was when you were in the lift yourself that you saw what he saw. The gathered adults back in the room, but especially, the man who had cared for and protected him. And as you contemplated the two of them, you felt that something again, reflected in the child as he felt it from his guardian and held fast to it.

It stayed with you, as your little rescue party traversed back through the wreckage that was a once heavily armed battle force, as you climbed into your seat and your master guided the ship into the embrace of space.

Of course, he called attention to it first. “Your mind is troubled.”

You shrugged, even if he couldn’t see it. The lights of hyper space flashed by the windows, reflecting in the child’s eyes while you held him securely in your lap.

“I’m just somewhat … confused, is all. I know what I felt, but I don’t know what to make of it.” You bit your lip, giving the kid’s cheek a tap. “You felt it, too. What do you think?”

“Why don’t you ask the little one? He should be the most familiar with it.”

Ah. That reminded you. So far you’d spent the entire time referring to your new fellow disciple as “child” and “kid” and had yet to ask his name.

You mentally nudged him. He twisted around to look up at you and gurgled.

Grogu. He said.

“Grogu.” You nodded, brushing your thumb over his nose. I have a question for you. That person you cherish, he confuses me. When you think of him, what do you see?

Grogu pushed his hands against your chest, and his bright little mind painted a picture of the man who’d come to span the entirety of his world. Who’d lifted him from a life of darkness and pain and given him another, one filled with safety and warmth and home.

Through his eyes you saw what he saw. Through him you felt what he’d felt. A man who bore the marks of loss and terrible grief. A soul that had been shaped by duty, devotion, and sacrifice. Of promises that were honoured, of kindness for the sake of kindness, of extending peace when there was a choice to be had. Of an unconditional, selfless love, that gave itself freely and demanded nothing in return.

That you knew. You knew it in the way you were taught to connect with the Force and all it touched. Because the truth was that being free of attachments did not dictate that there had to be no love. To protect something, you first had to love it enough to protect it. To honour life and all it entailed, you had to accept it and grow with it and still learn to love it, faults and all.

That is what it meant to be on the side of the Light. That is what it meant to take the gift you had and use it to restore balance and peace.

The way that man had loved carried a protectiveness and freedom that was entirely for the one he gave it to. A love that was given freely, that cherished what it held and asked for nothing in return.

And this little child held it in his heart and his hands. He pressed them into your cheek, and his dull claws made indents in your skin. You dazedly blinked out of your thoughts, his face coming into focus and the warm weight of him held against your front.

“… I don’t know that I’ve ever seen such a thing in someone.” Even to your own ears, you sounded faint.

Your master didn’t ask what you were talking about. He’d probably felt it as well as you had. “He has a good example set for himself.”

The ship’s dashboard blinked with lights as it exited hyperspace. It made Grogu perk up and try to turn around to see it, wiggling in your arms. You quietly smiled.

“Yes … yes, he does.”

I have my own thoughts on the finale and people’s reactions to it that I might share eventually, but for now I’ll give credit where credit is due:

Din and his beliefs

Din being a good father: here, here, here, and here

Din being a kind, wonderful person in general

What got me thinking of that song for Din in the first place

R2D2 & Grogu headcanon

From Grogu’s perspective: here and here

From a storytelling perspective: here and here

#the mandalorian #the mandalorion spoilers #grogu #din and grogu #din and baby yoda #baby yoda #din djaren #luke skywalker #star wars #sw #star wars fanfiction #reader self insert #jedi reader #my writing

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zodiyack · 4 years

Text

Updated Version of Rules And Fandoms

Masterlist | Prompt list / Prompt list 2 / Smut prompts | Taglists

Request Stuff / Send in Feedback / Ask | To Do | FAQ

[Updated 10/1/23] Requests I’m Catching Up On: 0 / Total Requests Currently: 0

Rules And Disclaimers

Disclaimers ~

[1] I normally write for female reader and I might use terms that make you think the reader is short*, so I apologize. If you would like a tall/bald/male/(insert something that describes you or someone else) reader, please request it rather than telling me how to write my fics.

*This is more than likely because of the fact that I’m 5′'3½**, meaning most likely smaller than the characters, and when I write, I go by my knowledge of, personal experience, or personal take on things unless requested or wanting otherwise.

**Feedback is greatly appreciated though, especially when it comes to fics involving attributes I do not, and have never, nor will I ever, have (aka a fic I have high insecurities about)

[2] I don’t do character x character unless it involves the reader in the relationship*. Character x reader x character. It can be a love triangle, a poly relationship, anything involving the reader as well.

*I would like to add that if you’ve read any of my Thomas Shelby fics (at least Rest Easy For Me or another including the reader dying), you’re probably thinking, “But isn’t that character x character?”. No worries. I have an answer; I will write a fic where a character is in love with the reader but is in a relationship with someone else. It’s not quite character x character, but it still includes them being together.

[3] If you’ve requested something and I take a long time to write it, it could be one of five things. Either,

I’m busy/lazy/sick and I’m trying to get back into writing,

I’m taking some time for myself and reading rather than writing at the moment,

I’m editing stuff (on here or on quotev...or both),

or I’m catching up on requests that I was unable to write previous to yours.*

My computer’s being an ass so I can’t write until I fix it

*You can see how many requests I have/am catching up on at the top of this post.

[4] Not all the fandoms/characters/people are on this list. I watch, read, and listen to a lot of stuff, so I’m not gonna be able to remember them all at the time of posting this. I will add them if I get a request for them, discover a new fandom, or if I remember. If you want to know if I know or write for a fandom or character, please feel free to ask; there is a chance that I do and I just forgot to add them.

Rules and Such ~

Please know that when I write my fics, I normally write for a female reader unless I want to write a fic for, or if it’s requested as, a different gender.

I do write special fics that include specific descriptions for the reader every now and then, but if you would like me to write something with specific stuff like weight, hair, gender, skin tone, eye color, disabilities, etc, please send in a request* mentioning it.

*You don’t have to request a fic, you could just say, [character name] with a [gender] reader who [insert stuffs here]”

Look at disclaimer 3! Please don’t spam me with asks or get upset if I do end up taking a while, it’s not nice nor is it fun to have that kind of feedback :(

I do write bxg, gxb, gxg, bxb, gender neutral, so on.

Smut is 16+ please!!

I’m not too confident in how it’d turn out, but I’ll recommend writers who write smut if I end up turning down your smut request

If your request makes me uncomfortable, I won’t write it. I’ll let you know if it makes me iffy, but please know I mean absolutely no offence if this happens.

It’s not necessary to follow me if you request, but it’d be cool

My requests are usually open, but if they’re closed it could be one of the reasons from disclaimer 3, but there’s also the chances that I’m just not in a writing mood or that I’m severely behind on requests.

I beg of you, please, just please, do not spam my inbox. You can send a request or two in a day, but please don’t send request after request after request or wait day to send more. Especially if I already have a lot of requests. I’m find with sending me a request even if I have a lot, just as long as they are open and you only send one.

Please don’t copy and paste requests to me and other writers. It isn’t fair on any of us and it’s not the kindest of things either. Request hopping is also disrespectful and can possibly prevent you from ever reading what you wanted, so there’s two more reasons, mate.

Feedback is greatly appreciated! All of it, even the one sentenced asks, makes my day <3

Don’t be sorry if you spam me, and don’t be shy to; when you like a post, it lets me know I’ve done a good job. Liking multiple has the same result, plus I’d be a hypocrite if I told you to stop :\

Liking, commenting, and reblogging help let me know I didn’t disappoint!

Fandoms And Some Characters

IRL People ~

KEY - People in this list (bold) are people I write for as their actual selves. As in not a fictional character. If they act, I will add under their name (italic), the characters of theirs that I write for if I write for any of them at all.

Actors + Actresses (Some artists??) ~

Ivar Ragnarsson

Jamie Campbell Bower

001 / Henry Creel / Peter Ballard / Vecna

Jace Wayland

Alex Høgh Andersen

Bill Paxton

Severen

Paul Andrews

Gus

Chet Donnelly

Graham Krakowski

Cody Fern

Michael Langdon

Richard

Jim Mason

Duncan Shepherd

Xaiver Plympton

Chandler Riggs

Carl Grimes

Cillian Murphy

Thomas Shelby

Jonathan Crane

Robert Fischer

Pedro Pascal

Joel Miller

Colson ‘Machine Gun Kelly’ Baker

Tommy Lee

Bill Skarsgård

Pennywise

Roman Godfrey

Mickey

Axel Cluney

Joe Mazzello

John Deacon

Tim Murphy

Pat Murray

Eugene Sledge

Gardner Langway

Margot Robbie

Harley Quinn

Naomi Lapaglia

Tom Holland

Spiderman / Peter Parker

Tom Hardy

Bane

Alfie Solomons

Eddie Brock

Tommy Conlon

Eames

Andy Samberg

Jake Peralta

Rod Kimble

Robbie Klaven

Devon Bostick

Rodrick Heffley

Casper Galloway

Bill Hader

Richie Tozier

Matthew Gray Gubler

Spencer Reid

Dacre Montgomery

Billy Hargrove

Jason Lee

Rami Malek

Joshua Washington

Freddie Mercury

Pharaoh Ahkmenrah

Benjamin

Finn

Elliot Alderson

Kenny

Merriel ‘Snafu’ Shelton

Henry Cavill

Superman / Clark Kent / Kal-El

Geralt

August Walker

Napoleon Solo

Charles Brandon

Sherlock Holmes

Taron Egerton

Eggsy Unwin

Douglas Booth

Shem

Nikki Sixx

Bingley

Joseph Morgan

Niklaus Mikaelson

Sebastian Stan

Bucky Barnes

Lee Bodecker

Johnny Knoxville / PJ Clapp

Luke Duke

Scrad (and Charlie)

Artists (Artists who act as characters I write for are above) ~

Damon Albarn

Dominic ‘YUNGBLUD’ Harrison

Gerard Way (& My Chemical Romance)

Roger Taylor

Harry Styles

Ethan ‘Crankgameplays’ Nestor

Mötley Crüe (Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee, and Vince Neil)

Corpse Husband

Miscellaneous ~

Corpse Husband is both artists/youtubers by the way-

Actors/Actresses Not Mentioned (ask if they are not on this list)

Youtubers (ask, they are not on this list aside from Ethan)

Singers/artists (ask if they are not on this list)

NOTE(S)!! PLEASE READ!

FOR: Slashers (mainly), DC, X-MEN, Marvel, etc. (fandoms with lots of movies, shows, characters, so on)

I’ll tell you if I don’t write for a character you’ve requested! However, I’m likely to have seen most that you request for. If not, I’m down to watch it, just mention in your ask if you recommend it!

If a character was listed under a celebrity’s name, and the fandom from that character is listed here, it means I possibly write for more characters from the same fandom/movie/show/etc.

Fandoms are in alphabetical order by the way!

Remember, as I said in disclaimer 4, not all are listed due to me not being able to think of every fandom I know in one moment..

Bates Motel

Fictional Fandoms and Characters ~

(hasn't been completely updated yet)

Across The Spiderverse (mainly Miguel)

American Horror Story

American Psycho

Bill And Ted

Batman Begins

Black Christmas (1974)

Birds Of Prey

Carrie (1976)

Bohemian Rhapsody

Child’s Play 1-3, Bride Of Chucky & Seed Of Chucky (Rarely, but I want to watch them again so I can write for the characters better)

Criminal Minds

Detroit Become Human

Divergent, Insurgent, Allegiant (Books & Movies)

Doctor Who

Enola Holmes

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Guardians Of The Galaxy

Gotham

Halloween

Hannibal

Harry Potter (All movies & Books, including Fantastic Beasts!)

Happy Death Day + Happy Death Day 2 U

Hemlock Grove

Heathers

House of 1000 Corpses

House Of Wax

Interview With The Vampire

Inception

IT (2017 & 2019)

iZombie (Rarely)

Jennifer’s Body

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure

Jurassic (Rarely)

K-12

Kakegurui

Labyrinth

Leatherface

Maze Runner, Maze Runner: Scorch Trials, Maze Runner: The Death Cure (Movies)

Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children

Mortuary

Near Dark

Need For Speed (Rarely)

Now You See Me (One and Two)

Once Upon A Time

Peaky Blinders

Psycho

Ready Or Not

Resident Evil (Village)

Re-Animator

Saw

Scream

Sherlock

Stranger Things

Spiderman: Homecoming + Spiderman: Far From Home

Supergirl

Supernatural

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

That 70s Show

The Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Avengers: Infinity War & Avengers: Endgame

The Babysitter

The Boy

The Dirt

The Flash

The Lost Boys

The Mortal Instruments; City Of Bones

The Originals

The Outsiders

The Shining

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre + The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

The Umbrella Academy

The Vampire Diaries

The Walking Dead (AMC) (Rarely)

The Witcher

Until Dawn

Venom

Vikings

Warm Bodies

X-Men stuffs

Zombieland + Zombieland: Double Tap

#fandoms #what i write for #characters #fictional characters #reader inserts #x readers #masterlist #zodiyack #reader insert writer #request #requests open #requests #requester #prompts #imagines #oneshots #blurbs #drabbles #song fics

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adrrianraines · 5 years

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―not now, not ever. | (colt)

genre: romance book: ride or die characters: colt kaneko x reader insert + kisses with meaning lips: love; eyelids: adoration; wrist: desire. song inspiration: crying in the club―camila cabello

disclaimer: i finally finished rod again with colt as my LI―i have many emotions mmm. just wanted to put this one out there y’all. tagging @bi-cookie sis needs colt in her life.

MUSIC BLASTING, LIGHTS BLINDING, people grinding and sweat forming were one of the few things to consider once entering a club on the outskirts of town filled with individuals you aren’t even familiar of. There are times you’d think back to when things were a lot simpler―an open book in your lap, a pen in hand and your notebook beneath, ready to receive the jots of ink used to fill the gap in between the fresh sheets.

Sometimes, you’d wish you were at home, enjoying a good, warm breakfast with your father who was tired from the previous night’s stakeout yet energetic enough to ensure he’d be able to see you off as you prepare to leave for school. You had nothing to worry about aside from where to hang out, how to study and to think about the future ahead of you.

You’re jolted back to reality. Of how different things were now than it used to be. Eyes adjusting against the neon lights, mouth running dry, palms clammy from nervousness of being utterly alone in a crowd full of strangers couldn’t even exactly explain the derailment from the fight that had ensued earlier that night. You felt dizzy, nauseous even, that your breathing hitched and your surroundings spun around. It was too much.

Then, that moment, you feel it, that soft touch of skin to skin; squeezing, comforting, and causing your heart to leap from its containment. You knew exactly who that sensation was from yet your small amount of pride that was left wouldn’t let you acknowledge the sense of security that erupted in your veins.

His soothing voice, wrapping you in a tight embrace, stimulating your emotions with warmth slowly filling in the cracks that he himself inflicted. Then, his voice fills your ears, so close that you’d think it was your own.

“Let’s go.”

Two simple words had never granted so much impact. Stern and commanding, yet gentle and soothing. It was almost idiotic you see, to even tune out the entirety of the commotion around. Suddenly, there was nothing else you could focus on but the heat of his touch on your wrist and the deep roll of his voice from his mouth. You felt him closer, temperature rising as he snakes his other arm around your waist, tugging you near.

“You told me to leave, Colt. And that’s what I did.” You bit your lip, trying to keep the composure of your tone, yet miserably failing. “Why did you even follow me here? Did you want to see the look of disappointment in my face?” You spat. It wasn’t a good sight to be somber and mad in the middle of a lively crowd. However, in a sea of dancing bodies, in the charm of the music playing, there was only his presence that was evident and real.

“That―that’s not what I had in mind. I didn’t mean to…” Colt sounded unsure and it was more than enough to break your heart once more. For all the days that passed, it was as if that was the only thing that he could do. Breaking you again. And again. And again. Not even bothering to pick up the pieces that he stepped on.

“Please… I can’t do this right now.” You begged him, voice tiny and small, not even turning to look. You couldn’t bear to make a decision you knew you’d very much be willing to give. “I’m giving you the space that you wanted… what more do you want from me?”

Flashes of red, green, blue, magenta and purple illuminated the club, the lights creating hallucinations of your own. You’re a tough girl, you reminded yourself. Yet why do your knees wobble in his presence?

But as you tried to break free from his hold, it only tightened. Your back was facing him, his body deliberately close behind. Each movement of his muscles, each rise of his chest, you can almost feel it. Trapped in an open space filled with walls of dancing assemblage only heightened the sensation of his presence that was too close, too near.

The spark in the air crackles and tingles your skin as you closed your eyes softly. You felt your mouth let out a sigh as you felt Colt’s warm embrace around your physique, the touch as light as a cloud yet as tight as it was imposing. You feel him sniff your hair, his free hand that was holding your wrist slowly moving up and down your arm. It’s the strangest feeling, like trying to catch fireflies in an open field under the moonlight.

The melody shifted and a mild, luscious sound serenaded the space. The bodies that were dancing scattered about and soon, there were only pairs present on the floor. You perceive various background noises of people retreating to rest yet they were all slowly fading out until it was only his breathing you could hear.

“I’m sorry,” His voice whispered and your heartbeat accelerated. “I’m so sorry,” He whispered once more, as if this time, he’d never get tired of saying it until you believe it. The riveting sensation of his body swaying behind you, the music livening your body like the heat of a thousand fires igniting a small flicker of hope that should’ve died the moment you bared your emotions, eventually lit up a hazy smoke in your decisions.

Colt’s hold on your arm smoothed out as he gently raises it near him, his head moving towards its direction, mouth finally touching your exposed skin. His lips peppered gentle kisses as his hold on your waist tightened, gently urging your body to follow his movements from behind, in time for the melodic line. He gently turned you around and you couldn’t do anything but to follow his lead, soon finding yourself facing him.

His eyes looked at you intently, orbs blazing a thousand emotions you couldn’t name. Brows knitted, lips pursed, jaw clenched and the occasional lights illuminating his handsome features were your kryptonite. You find yourself staring at his eyes, to his perfectly angled nose, to the very lips that caused both your safety and downfall.

And when he spoke, it was as if nothing else mattered. “That was a lie. Everything I said there was a lie, y/n.” You lost yourself under his gaze, fascinated by how utterly serious he is that moment. Your voice came out soft, like a whispered puff of air against the wind.

“What kind of… lie?” Your heart pounded madly, almost wanting to jump out of your chest. And just like that, you found yourself falling for him face first once more.

“I was jealous.” The way the words rolled out of his mouth was like an angel’s lullaby. Your eyes widened at this, the weight of his sentiments lighting your soul on fire. “Look, it’s not something… I’m used to admitting. It was rash. It’s my fault. And when I saw you walk out through that door, everything clicked.”

Colt remained silent, both of his hands now gently cupping your face in between his palms. He dipped in lower until his forehead touched yours, nose gently letting out a sigh. He whispered once again, the words warming the depths of your soul. “I thought that what if I lose you tonight… will there be a way to bring you back to me?”

You remained silent as you basked in his presence, the moment feeling longer, the milieu feeling a lot smaller. You felt a bile form on your throat as you fought back the tears you tried so hard to keep. His voice, forlorn and begging, continued. “…that’s when I knew I couldn’t lose you. Not now, not ever…”

Then he leaned back, eyes searching your own for answers. Your gaze became cloudy as beads of tears started to gently form on the edge of your eyelids, threatening to create waterworks on your cheeks. The tiniest quirk of his lips made your emotions soar high as you felt him kiss each of your eyes, wiping the tears away. And when he pulled away, the purest, most genuine and warmest of all smiles enraptured his features. His other hand now wrapped behind your back as he pulled you against his body while his free hand caressed the side of your cheek.

“...Not this time, not anymore.” Colt’s smile became a full blown grin and your chest erupted with all of your unsaid emotions. You nodded, the tears he kissed away now freely flowing, making itself known.

“I want to hear it directly from you. Tell me, please.” You delicately begged, hanging onto the lapels of his leather jacket for dear life. Part of you didn’t need the answer, but a bigger part of you desired for his feelings to be known, to be out in the open. For Colt to bare his soul like you did, for the two of you to share the forbidden fruit that has destroyed mankind for ages.

“I may not be the one you’re looking for, may not be the one you always wanted…” He trailed off and a flash of pain crossed his eyes. Slowly, he started leaning in close, gently closing the space in between your face and his. Until the distance in between his lips and yours were only a mere inches apart.

“But I will be here for you, y/n. Because I love you.” The confession has set off the fireworks in your system. You can feel it―his words, his thoughts, his emotions, bubbling up suddenly towards the surface that he eventually had to spit it out. The scrutiny of doubt and disbelief in you evaporating like a veil of smoke up in the air.

“I love you too, Colt.” You profess once more, forgetting your failed confession a couple of hours ago. Forgetting the excruciating pain he caused when he turned you down without much of a thought. And then he seals it with his lips, with everything he could offer and give.

The emotion that the kiss he gave felt like a starburst in the night sky. It felt like the first peek of the sun after a winter’s might. As both of your mouths moved in sync coupled with the fast beating of your hearts, you felt him smirk in between the contact. Finally, with the softest of all tones, he said, “You’re my driver forever, you know that, right?”

“Yeah. Forever and always.” You grinned back and continued the passionate frenzy you both shared in front of the crowd of party-goers, under the pretense of blasting music, inside an enclosed space of a club on the outskirts of town.

#playchoices #playchoices fanfiction #ride or die #rod #choices rod #ride or die a bad boy romance #colt kaneko #colt x mc #colt kaneko x mc #rod colt #choices fanfiction #ride or die: a bad boy romance #writings

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arethereanyoriginalusernames · 5 years

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A Zoophobia critique: how stuff could've improved behind the scenes

Disclaimer. This is not a critique nor on attack on Vivziepop, who owns Zoophobia. The reason I criticise Zoophobia is because I believe that we can learn from mistakes made here. I do not hate Zoophobia, I actually love it, and this post does not come from a place of vitriol. Whatever your reaction is to this post, please be civil to everyone in re blogs and comments. Thank you.

-'----------------'-'

I think by this point, we can all agree on something about Zoophobia, or at least the 5 chapters we got from it. The idea for the story was fine, the art was visually pleasing, and there was only good intentions behind the comic. However, the writing, well.... *checks notes*

......was mediocre at best.

Zoophobia is far from the worst thing in the world, but it still has some glaring issues. However, while I believe Vivz has in fact improved on some of these issues, it would undoubtedly benefit others to identify why Zoophobia may have turned out the way it did. What could've improved behind the scenes?

1. Time Management

This is one of the bigger ones in my opinion. I want you all to think about the schedule Zoophobia pages were on while the comic was running. One page a week. Now, this may not seem like much, but consider how long a page itself would take, add in personal life issues, and the amount of other drawings and doodles, and how much personal time the artist may believe they need each week. We can still go on Vivz's YouTube account and see that she was not working exclusively on Zoophobia. While it isn't a bad thing, it doesn't seem as though she had the ability to juggle the comic, her speed draws, and other projects. It wasn't even as if her fans would be entirely accepting if a page came late. There were fans and critics alike confused when Vivz didn't upload a page at the proper time once.

Art critics have identified various art issues, especially with later chapters, and I believe these could've been fixed if Vivz had perhaps spent more time on the comic.

2. Peer Review

Better time management may have also given Vivz time to have people review the comic before she released it. In her Zoophobia ramble, she mentioned how chapter 1 was the only one she had other people look at before she put it online. And the result? Chapter 1 is arguably the best written of the chapters, and, from what I can tell, not a lot of people have even had problems with the art here.

I'm not great with art, but remember when I discussed composition not too long ago? With angles and whatnot? Look at some of the shots in chapter 1. They're actually pretty decent, and some even looked somewhat complex.

Now compare that to what followed.

Cartoony styles don't usually have realistic anatomy, but holy fuck. Characters would have broken arms or legs, characters would grow to 20 feet thanks to perspective, the infamous "floating boobs" problem was there, and let me tell you, the neck game got REAL.

I've already discussed composition and writing, so long story short, they also regressed. Hmmm...... I'm sensing a pattern here....

3. WARNING! WARNING! THE HYPE TRAIN HAS NO BREAKS!

I think it goes without saying that the Zoophobia fandom, while not on the same level of bad as others, it, well.....*checks notes* could be a lot better.

One critique I've come to have issues with is that Vivz apparently "hypes up characters who ultimately aren't important". I disagree with this since the majority of the time, it isn't Vivz creating the hype necessarily. She'll draw and talk about a character of hers. That's it. That's not too different than what the majority of those with ocs do on this platform. The difference is that Vivz is popular and had on ongoing web comic. When Vivz would show off a character, fans would get excited to see said character in the comic. The most obvious example of this is JayJay.

I don't remember if I've stated this previously, but I don't believe that JayJay was meant to be the poster child of Zoophobia. She just happened to be the star of an animation that was super popular. And I doubt Vivz meant for JayJay to be as popular as she ended up being. Vivz tends to select characters at random, basically just animating whoever she wants whenever she wants. And this isn't a bad thing. But after this, I'd reckon that she kinda had to keep hyping JayJay. People wanted more party wolf. People wanted more speedpaints . A character who was meant to have a small role was inserted into various drawings just to attract attention .

If I were Vivz in this situation, I'd understand the compulsion to "give the audience what they want". This problem could've been remedied by Vivz not drawing JayJay as much as she did, and making it clear that she is not the main character of Zoophobia.

Now, there is a possibility that I won't deny, which is that the reason Vivz draws some characters more than others simply because she has more fun drawing those characters. If that's the case, I can't really fault her there. She can and should draw whatever she wants. But then this would make the over hyping of fans rest more fault on the fandom. And if this is the case, then perhaps it is something the fandom should speculate more on. Who's to say.

These are just some problems I identified, but this post is already fairly lengthy. If I missed something, let me know. And let me know your thoughts as well. Remember, I'm not some omniscient god who's always correct. I encourage skepticism, and for you to come to your own conclusion.

I apologise for wasting your time.

- ATOUN

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tobespecial-a · 6 years

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HIYA FOLKS WELCOME TO MY BLOG HERE. GONNA KEEP THESE AS SIMPLE AS POSSIBLE SO LETS GET TO IT. --- this blog is dash only for now but may change in the near future.

first things first. i am a student in school monday - friday from 1-5pm so expect some slowness on my end. i am studying to be a mental health and addictions worker & am really passionate about the�� field i am in so i will be obviously prioritizing school & also irl commitments over rp. please respect this & we shall be dandy

now that thats outta the way. HI THERE I AM ES !!!! ( well technically its ESTELLE, but you can call me either or i do not mind !!! ) YOUR LOCAL NON-BINARY GAY ( they / them pls ) who is in fact straight af for a certain gay icon zachary quinto --- i hail from the pst timezone in vancouver canada. fun facts about me. ANYWHO ON WITH THE RULES.

REPLIES

this is not my only blog folks, it will be one of my more active ones, but it is not the only one i run. please be patient in terms of replies. i usually try to stay on top of my game but sometimes i miss shiz. pls poke me after 2 weeks if you are wondering, i may have missed it !! however it is likely in my drafts. PRO TIP THOUGH, i like each reply or starter posted to me, if i didn’t like it there is a 95% chance i did not see it. so please feel free to remind me after the 2 weeks.

also personals do not reblog my threads, ooc posts or anything thats not a reblogged photoset , its annoying, just don’t do it. -- i also have minor case of dyslexia so please be patient with spelling errors. i catch most of them, but sometimes i don’t get them all. if something becomes an issue please tell me.

FOLLOWING AND UNFOLLOWING

i am mutuals only. please keep this in mind. i will only take ooc asks from non mutuals. if i am not at least following you ( cos i know some people who i write with / have written with don’t follow everyone cos they want a clean dash, but they still wanna write ) then please don’t attempt ic interactions. this is your first & final warning. i will ignore attempts & block if it persists.

do not follow & refollow me repeatedly its also annoying & will likely get you blocked. i take a while to follow back sometimes, please be patient. i rarely unfollow so if you see it happen, please poke me. however i have the right to ignore it, or not answer. you have the invitation, i just don’t have to invite you in if i chose to revoke it.

disclaimer i probably will not follow blogs that romantically ship peter/claire. incest normally doesn’t bother me enough to mention it, but this one just really is a big nope for me. sorry in advance.

CHARACTERIZATION

gabriel is based off nbc heroes & my own personal headcanons. at the point of writing this i have seen the first & second season, i am making my way through the rest of the show at present. don’t worry about spoilers though as i pretty much know most of the major plot points for gabriel during the series, just not all the specifics. --- threads will generally take place in aus & content i have seen however, until i have caught up. though idk how big the fandom is so i sense a lot of aus my way any ways lol

*** REGARDING HEROES REBORN

i have no plans to watch it. sylar isn’t even in the show so its really just not required of me to view it. any plot lines transpired in that canon will never be seen in any way on my blog. sylar reforms himself post series & just goes on from there. when i officially make it through the whole show i will write proper headcanons on that.

ACTIVITY

because of school & other blogs i won’t always be around. however i can always be reached by mobile if you need anything, just hmu. thank you for your patience in this regard. also fair warning i do have ADD a low grade form of ADHD so i get a lot of the fun extras that come with it. please respect there are times i may need to step back or times when i become disassociated , its been happening a lot lately so i wanted to inform people so they don’t think i am ignoring them. i promise its not you, its me, i just need space. FOR THE MOST PART, i am usually always around to answer ims & messages so do not be afraid to message me or anything.

SHIPPING

ah yes everyones fave category. if anyone has questions you can always im me or hu my ask box for more deets. GABRIEL IS PANSEXUAL BORDERLINE GRAY ROMANTIC ( hes between demi & gray )

imma start off by saying that i ship syelle as well as petlar. a note about the later, from what i have read & seen i will only really ship them ( petlar ) during / post the wall, which at the time of writing this i still need to view. i would be open to pre show aus to start at this point.

anything else is fair game at this point, just be aware sylar isn’t looking for anything serious really during heroes canon. plus hes not exactly a nice guy so like be warned there. ---- honest to god if your interested in shipping with sylar or gabriel ( yes there is a difference ) pls come @ me. the worst i can do is say no.

i will also state i don’t ship sylaire because well…. shes underage ???? & before you leap down my throat about heroes reborn, most of the content i have seen is her being underage. but i’m not gonna accuse anyone of aging anyone up for a ship, cos there is canon where she is older. i am just not interested. don’t see the appeal, i’ve read way too much meta & just don’t see it.

it is also worth noting that post 3x01 the second coming, sylar can no longer die. he is immortal. save for one weak spot which he aint about to tell anyone where it is.

finally ummmm i’m 22 guys so no lying about your age to smut with me. i will block your ass if you do. don’t make me be the bad guy.

GODMODDING

pls do not god mod my muse. you wanna write him ?? make a blog of your own, or go write some fic. i play three strikes. first time is a reminder, second time is a thread drop third time is a partner all together drop. THESE CAN BE EXERCISED AT MY DISCRETION HOWEVER

also i think its worth mentioning cos some might see this as potential godmodding. sylar is not a nice guy, hes a type of serial killer. he will kill you if it benefits him, or if you piss him off enough. hes not above doing it just to prove a point. he will hurt you if you make angry, might not kill you but he can hurt you if you anger him. so if your muse riles him up enough ?? just be prepared for potential violence, that might follow. --- i will not exercise my muses strength cos you think its funny to have yours poke the hive. -- if you don’t like this, please don’t attempt to write with me. my muse is a villian for most of the show & i won’t be watering him down for you.

OOC VS. IC KNOWLEDGE

at the point i am in the show, the only people who know what sylar looks like are the people that have seen him, furthermore only those who have heard the name know he is even a thing. so its safe to say a lot of normal savillians don’t know him. HELL a lot of the heroes don’t know him either. --- keep this in mind when interacting. if your character has special abilities to know who he is, thats different, but don’t just assume you know who he is or what he does.

FURTHERMORE TO GO OFF A TANGENT i am not gonna be too keen to see a bunch of starters of people begging for their lives. gabriel is a hell of a lot more then just a random serial killer. he is a complex character who has feelings & issues of his own. hes not going to kill just anyone for the sake of it. please bare this in mind. i will likely not reply to those kind of random interactions. --- by all means if you wanna plot something like that i am game for it, but please give me the heads up. i will not reduce my muse to a stereotype killer, cause hes not & thats the tea. he only kills when it benefits him, its not a sport for the hell of it.

TRIGGERING CONTENT

given the nature of my muse there will be some triggering themes on this blog. such as murder, gore, suicide, manipulation. if anyone is bothered by this, please blacklist accordingly. i tag “ insert trigger “ tw. i will not be posting heavy gore on this blog in visuals at least & i ask you tag it if you post it. i’m fine with a bit of blood, but too much makes me a little ill. writing is fine, anything like a photoset with heavy gore needs to be tagged for me, & i myself will not be posting such content.

MAINS & EXCLUSIVES

i will only be doing exclusives for ships & crossover fandoms at this time. if you are interested in being mains lemme know. i do however require previous interaction ic or occ, preferably both. if you wanna be exclusive i ask you return the favour otherwise i drop the exclusivity.

AND I THINK THATS ABOUT IT !! I PROMISE I AM LESS SCARY THEN THESE RULES MAKE ME SEEM, I AM GIANT NERD WHO IS HELLA FRIENDLY & LIKES TO GUSH ABOUT HER FAVES ALWAYS !! MUTUALS MAY ASK FOR DISCORD IF THEY WISH TO TALK THERE

NOW HURRY UP & ATTACK MY INBOX OR IMS OR LIKE A STARTER CALL LETS WRITE !!

#rules !

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hannahberrie · 6 years

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Everybody Talks | Chapter 13: Into the Woods

Fandom: Stranger Things Pairings: Mileven, Lumax Rating: K WC: 13,562 😵 Summary: When Will invites the group on a weekend camping trip, everyone gets a lot more surprises than they bargained for.

[AO3] Chapter Selection: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]-13-[14][15][Epilogue]

El is crowded with her friends in the A.V. Club room when Will brings up the idea.

“Are you guys busy this weekend?” He begins, glancing at everyone curiously.

Mike is crouched in front of the TV, trying to get it to turn on. Dustin is hovering beside him, snacking on a 3 Musketeers bar, and trying his best to instruct Mike on what to do, even though Mike claims he already knows what to do. Max and Lucas are seated in two of the desks, with Max’s legs draped across Lucas’ lap.

It’s Monday after school, and they’re all in here to see the boys’ final cut of their Homecoming video. El is seated on top of the third desk, near the back of the group. She finds herself torn between eyeing Mike (because he looks really cute whenever he’s focused), or eyeing Max and Lucas (because she can’t help but wonder: are they dating now? It’s kinda unclear. El’s pretty sure that Max would tell her if they were, so they’re probably not, but first it was holding hands during movie night, and now Max is totally acting even weirder than usual around him).

Despite all the clamor, when Will poses his question, everyone stops what they’re doing to turn and look at him.

“I dunno,” Dustin shrugs, “I mean, whatever we do, we’re probably going to be together anyway.”

“Why?” El asks Will, intrigued.

Will, seated in the fourth desk, hesitates before continuing. “Well, I was just wondering if you guys wanted to go camping?”

“Camping?” Lucas frowns, confused.

“That’s kinda random, Byers,” Max nods, eyeing him.

“I know,” Will blushingly admits, “It’s just…I don’t know, it’s kinda dumb.”

“No, what is it?” Mike asks concernedly, “You can tell us.”

Will gives Mike a grateful smile before turning to look back at the rest of the group. “Well,” he begins, “Jonathan and I kind of have this tradition. On the last weekend of October, we take a camping trip to the woods, you know the big forest out by the Quarry? And we like, set up sleeping bags and build a campfire and roast marshmallows and…I dunno, it’s just always a lot of fun.”

“And you want us to do that with you?” Mike offers.

Will nods.

“Let me get this straight,” Max cuts in, removing her legs from Lucas’ lap and sitting up straighter, “You want us, a group of teenagers, to go spend a night in the forest, alone?”

“Yes?” Will hesitates.

“You realize that that’s like, the set-up for every slasher movie ever?” Max points out, “Friday the 13th? Madman? Sleepaway Camp? You’re basically asking to get murdered.”

“Those are just movies,” El frowns.

“I dunno, Max has a point,” Dustin shrugs, “It sounds kinda risky; we’d basically be tempting the horror fates.”

“I know,” Will patiently replies, “But…I mean, we’ve been doing it every October since our dad left, and this is the first year that Jonathan’s not going to be here since he’s at NYU now.”

Everyone falls silent at that, looking a little guilty.

“I dunno, it was a dumb idea,” Will hastily continues, slumping back in his desk, “Just forget I said anything.”

“No!” Mike frowns, “Let’s do it!”

“Really?” Will asks hopefully.

“Yeah,” Max nods, looking a little embarrassed, “It could be fun, I guess. And if a serial killer does come after us, we could always use Dustin as bait.”

“Why me!?” Dustin protests, looking offended.

“My dad has a lot of old camping stuff,” El offers, ignoring Dustin and Max’s bickering, “If we need anything.”

“Okay!” Will replies, starting to look more excited. “I mean, if you guys really want to.”

“We really do,” Mike assures Will before turning back to fiddle with the TV.

“But wait,” Lucas suddenly pipes up, looking concerned, “Isn’t the homecoming dance this weekend?”

“No, that’s the football game, you dweeb,” Max huffs with an eye roll, “The game is this weekend, the dance is next weekend.”

“Why do you know that?” Dustin snorts.

“Why don’t you?” Max snaps back defensively, “You’re the ones who made a whole video for it!”

“But do we care about going to the football game?” Will points out, looking puzzled.

“No,” Dustin snorts again.

“Speaking of,” Mike segues, “I finally got the TV to turn on, so we can watch our video.”

“Finally,” Max sighs, “Let’s see this thing.”

“Full disclaimer,” Dustin prefaces, “It’s kinda super boring, because it’s about football, but in our defense, we did the best we could.”

“It’s not boring,” Lucas counters, “I mean...it kind of is, but it could be worse.”

“I think it’s fine!” Mike insists, “Let’s just watch it and see.”

“Have you guys not watched it or something?” Max asks skeptically.

“This is our first time watching the final cut,” Will explains, “We just finished it today.”

“It’ll be good,” El assures them, “I know it. You guys are all really talented.”

Mike glances over his shoulder to smile at El thankfully, and El feels her heart flutter in response. It’s not fair how he manages to look insanely cute even when his face is still a little bruised and he’s wearing the most basic of hoodies.

El watches Mike as he inserts the tape into the VHS player under the TV, hurries to the back of the room, and turns off the lights. As the tape clicks into place and begins to whirr inside the player, Mike comes to sit beside El on the top of the desk.

This, of course, causes El to blush like mad. It’s a pretty small desktop as is, so having Mike squeeze in beside her means that they’re seated rather close to each other. It’s not like she minds this, or anything, but she’s still adjusting to being this up close and personal with Mike on a regular basis.

Ever since they spent Saturday afternoon eating waffles and watching cheesy soap operas at her house, things have felt a little different. El’s not quite sure what it is, but something has definitely changed. They’re more comfortable around each other (for the most part), and El notices that Mike’s been casually gazing at her more often, like before school, during lunch, during Biology, right now...

“Aren’t you supposed to be watching the video?” El whispers, giving him a teasing smile.

Mike flinches and nods, looking flustered. “Uh, yeah,” he admits, turning to look back at the TV.

El has to bite down on her lower lip to stop herself from giggling. As she turns to look toward the screen, she does her best to pay attention to the video, and not the fact that Mike currently smells like Ivory soap (a fact that, while albeit slightly strange to point out, is nevertheless pretty distracting).

El doesn’t know too much about sports, but from what she can tell, the video is constructed well. There’s plenty of footage from the games, the transitions are nice, and she can tell that the boys must have worked really hard on it.

When the video ends, Mike leaves El’s side, turns on the lights, and goes to retrieve the tape from the VHS player. “And that’s pretty much it,” he summarizes, glancing at all the members of the group as he stands before them.

“So, what do you think?” Dustin asks, turning to look at Max and El, “Did that not just like, blow your mind?”

“Oh, it did,” Max nods, “But not in the way you probably wanted.”

“What do you mean?” Lucas frowns.

“Isn’t this supposed to be a video supporting our school?” Max asks incredulously.

“Obviously,” Dustin scoffs.

“Then why did you dweebs put in so many shots of the other teams scoring on us?”

The boys pale and turn to look at each other worriedly.

“We did!?” Mike exclaims, looking panicked.

“But the crowd was cheering!” Will pouts, “Doesn’t that mean we scored?”

“That means that the other team’s crowd was cheering,” Max replies, “Not ours.”

The guys exchange collective groans of defeat.

“It’s a small mistake!” El offers encouragingly, “I didn’t notice!”

“Still,” Mike sighs, “We’re gonna have to fix it.”

“But Mr. Coleman wants it turned in by Wednesday!” Lucas laments. “That gives us less than two days!”

“I’ll help you geeks fix it,” Max huffs.

Dustin eyes her. “You know about video editing?”

“No,” Max admits, “But I know how to tell the difference between winning or losing, which you guys obviously don’t.”

The guys nod reluctantly, all unwilling to argue with that.

“Let’s meet after school and work on it tomorrow,” Mike instructs, “It’s already getting late. We’ll work on it tomorrow, finish it up on Wednesday, and then we can start planning for the camping trip.”

Everyone else nods in agreement before rising out of their seats.

“I can’t believe I’m gonna have to help you nerds,” Max gripes as she grabs her backpack and skateboard.

“If you’re helping them make the video,” El nonchalantly responds, “Does that mean you’re in the A.V. Club now?”

Max pauses to crinkle her nose in disdain. “Please, no,” she groans.

“Too late!” Lucas smirks, giving her a light nudge, “You’re one of us now, Mad Max.”

Dustin bursts out laughing at this, which only causes Max to look more annoyed (though, to be fair, El is certain that Max’s annoyance falls under the “pretending like she hates something even though she secretly likes it” category).

Max exits the classroom while bickering with Lucas and Dustin on whether or not she’s a nerd like them (according to Dustin, since she has the highest scores at the arcade and she’s seen 2/3 Star Wars movies she is; according to Max, Dustin can shut up).

Will grabs his backpack and moves to follow them, but first stops to look at Mike and El.

“Thanks for agreeing to go on the camping trip with me,” he says, smiling shyly, “I know it sounds dumb, but...it really means a lot.”

“It’s not dumb,” El assures him.

“El’s right!” Mike nods, “If it’s something important to you, then it’s important to all of us.”

“Still,” Will insists, “I just wanted to say ‘thanks’.”

El and Mike both give Will reassuring smiles before he continues to head out the door.

“See you tomorrow!” Will cheerily calls back over his shoulder.

“‘Bye, Will!” Mike calls back.

And just like that, they’re alone.

There’s an awkward beat of silence as Mike and El exchange nervous smiles. Even though they’ve been more comfortable with each other since Saturday, this current newfound privacy came quickly and by surprise.

Thankfully, Mike, as usual, has something to talk about.

“Did you see that Troy was back in school today?” He asks. He moves closer, sits on top of the desk that Max was previously seated in, and positions himself so that he’s facing El.

“Yes,” El nods, “We have Biology with him.”

“Right!” Mike blushes, looking embarrassed.

It was true, Troy had returned to school that day. He was sporting an arm cast and a surly glare, but other than that, he’d kept to himself. El caught him looking her way during Biology class, but all it’d taken was one cold glare from her to get him to snap back in the other direction.

“I don’t think he’s going to bother us,” El remarks.

“Yeah, all thanks to you!” Mike beams.

“And you,” El reminds him.

“I guess,” Mike shrugs, “But it was mostly you.”

El doesn’t feel like turning this into a debate (mostly because she knows that Mike would never give it up), so she chooses to give him a soft smile instead.

“Speaking of all that,” Mike continues, “I kind of have an idea.”

“An idea?” El frowns.

Even though they’re completely alone, Mike still glances around the A.V. Club room before leaning in a little closer. “I think the camping trip might be a good time to tell everyone,” he says, voice low, “About your...you know.”

Her powers.

El glances down at her hands before looking back up at Mike. “Why?”

“Well, just think about it,” Mike explains, “We’re gonna be completely alone in the woods, so you don’t have to worry about anyone overhearing you. Plus, both Max and I will be there to help you explain everything.”

“That’s a good point,” El nods, though with slight reluctance.

While they watched soap operas and ate waffles on Saturday, they’d also discussed ways that El could reveal her powers to the rest of their friends. It had to be just right, Mike pointed out, so that their reaction wouldn’t be like his reaction. But after finishing off two boxes of Eggos and learning that Jessica’s sister, who was thought to be dead, is really alive and having an affair with Robert, her long-lost half-brother, Mike and El still hadn’t come up with any plan. The subject was eventually dropped in favor of discussing how “totally insane” soap operas were (Mike’s words, not hers).

El knew that she was going to have to tell her friends, she just didn’t think it was going to be as soon as this weekend.

“Do you think you’re ready?” Mike asks concernedly.

El sighs and shrugs her shoulders. “I don’t know, but...I think I should get it over with.”

“Yeah,” Mike nods, “I think so too.”

“You’ll help me?” El asks, glancing up at him.

“Yeah, totally!” Mike assures her, “I promised you! I’ll make sure that they don’t freak out like I did.”

El gives him a small, relieved smile as she feels herself relax. “Thank you,” she murmurs.

Mike smiles back, nods, and leans forward in his seat to give her a quick little hug.

Before he can move away, El grasps him tighter and holds the hug longer, not wanting to leave his arms. She nuzzles her face into his shoulder, taking in both the scent of his Ivory soap and of the fabric softener that lingers on his hoodie.

Safe.

On Tuesday, everyone stays late after school to finish the video. The time is mostly comprised of Max teasing the guys, Dustin getting offended, Lucas not-so-subtly drooling over Max, and Will and Mike trying to keep them all on task. Even though El doesn’t know much about film editing, she still hangs around to give moral support (and to pass out lots of caffeine-filled sodas for stamina). They finish the video around 8 pm, and when they’re done, they’re all pleased with the final product.

“If this doesn’t get on the news,” Max says after they drop off the finished tape at the main office, “I’m gonna torch Mr. Coleman’s car again.”

“Because that’s a reasonable reaction,” Dustin replies dryly.

Since they finish editing the video early, they get to spend Wednesday solely focused on planning their upcoming camping trip. Though El’s excited, she can’t help but worry. While everyone else already got their parents’ permission to go on the trip, El has yet to ask Hopper for his, mainly because she’s almost 100% certain that he’s going to say no. He’d just met Mike, and while Hopper had admittedly treated him well, El can’t help but feel like she’s asking for too much too soon.

When she confides these concerns to Max after school, Max offers to help El ask Hopper, a proposition that El readily accepts.

Since Hopper is still on duty, the girls decide to visit him at the police station. While El doesn’t spend a lot of time there, the secretary, Flo, is always super nice, and Max always gets a kick out of messing around with the handcuffs, badges, and other police equipment that Hopper now says are ‘Off Limits.’

As the two girls walk down the sidewalk with their skateboards under their arms, El shares the details of her planned confession.

“So, you’re going to tell all of them?” Max summarizes.

El nods.

“And this is all Wheeler’s idea?”

“Sort of,” El frowns, “But...I want to do it. I don’t want to lie to my friends.”

Max nods. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

They walk in silence for a moment before Max speaks up again. “Well, I got your back, okay?” She assures El.

“Thank you,” El smiles gratefully, before reluctantly adding, “But it won’t matter if I don’t get my Dad’s permission.”

“Why wouldn’t he give it to you?”

El gives Max a wary look. “He made me keep the door open when Mike was in my room. I know he won’t be happy about us going to the woods, alone.”

“But you won’t be alone,” Max points out, “The rest of us will all be there.”

“That’s true,” El admits.

“Plus, if your Dad wants, I’ll make sure that you and Mike are never alone together. I’ll be your personal third wheel.”

“But then Lucas will be lonely,” El teases.

The late-afternoon air is rather chilly, so when Max gives off an exaggerated, indignant huff, her breath fogs into a wispy mist. “What?!”

El holds back a smirk, instead keeping her expression innocently inquisitive. “I thought you liked him?”

“No!” Max fervently exclaims.

“You were holding his hand during the movie. You sat by him on Monday.”

“So?! That doesn’t mean anything.”

El can’t hold back her smile any longer. Max likes Lucas so much, it’s completely obvious. She can try to deny it all she likes, but El sees right through it.

“Are you dating him?” El asks, studying Max’s reaction closely.

“No,” Max answers, rolling her eyes dismissively.

“Do you want to?” El smiles, giving her a light nudge.

In a rather out-of-character reaction, Max actually blushes and seems a little flustered. “Maybe,” she mutters.

El opens her mouth to gasp excitedly, but Max quickly moves in and clamps her hand over it.

“Don’t!” Max hisses, “You can’t tell him, or anyone!”

El nods, still smiling elatedly.

Max likes Lucas and Lucas likes Max and they’re probably going to date and everything is perfect!

She’s about to voice these elated thoughts to Max, but then she realizes they’ve finally arrived at the station. Her thought process shifts to the main task at hand: convincing her Dad that allowing her to spend a night in the woods with her friends is a good idea.

Flo greets the girls when they enter and cheerily guides them back to Hopper’s office.

“Hey, Hop!” Flo calls out as she knocks on the closed door, “Your 3 o’clock is here.”

“I don’t have anyone at 3 o’clock,” Hopper grumpily replies from inside.

El and Max have to bite down on their bottom lips to keep from giggling out loud.

“Well, I got two people here who really need to talk to you,” Flo continues, smiling at the girls.

“Send them in,” Hopper sighs.

Flo gives the girls a wink before walking off. El and Max give her appreciative waves before El moves forward, turns the doorknob, and steps inside.

Hopper is seated behind his desk, surrounded by empty white mugs, miscellaneous documents, and a couple untouched apples (El doesn’t know why Flo insists on giving Hopper apples every morning — he never eats them and El just winds up throwing them away after they start to rot). When Hopper sees the two girls walk in, he’s surprised at first, but his expression quickly relaxes into a warm smile.

“Hey, kids,” he greets, putting his feet up on his desk.

“Hi, Dad!” El smiles, trying to stay calm. Her dad is so much more intimidating when he’s in full uniform, and as she and Max sit in the two chairs in front of his desk, she can’t help but feel like one of the suspects in his cases.

“What are you two doing here?” Hopper asks, glancing at them, “Is something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Max shrugs. She slumps back in her chair and puts her feet up on the desk, mimicking Hopper’s pose.

“Really?” Hopper asks flatly.

El forces herself to smile, though she feels like crumbling. What if she’s the only one who can’t go on the trip? Would they go without her?

“I…uh…have to ask you something,” El states, trying to sound as confident as possible.

“Okay,” Hopper replies, eyeing her cautiously.

“I want...I want to go camping.”

“Camping?!”

“...With my friends.”

Hopper blinks at her, confused.

El takes a deep breath and without further hesitation, proceeds to spill out the entire plan, from where she’d be going (the woods near the quarry), how she’d get there (she would skate to Will’s house Saturday morning, or Hopper could drive her, if he really wanted), how long she’d be gone (they’d hike Saturday afternoon, camp in the evening, come back Sunday morning), and who would be coming with her (Max, Mike — yes, that Mike — Dustin, Lucas, and Will).

When she finally finishes, she’s slightly breathless from talking so much. As she stops to catch her breath, she crosses her fingers under her seat, hoping that her dad will be understanding.

There’s a minute of silence has Hopper processes all this information. As it starts to settle in, he takes his feet off his desk and furrows his brow.

“Let me get this straight,” Hopper finally says, leaning forward, “You want to spend a night in the woods, alone, with a bunch of teenage boys?”

“Not just teenage boys,” Max pipes up, “I’m gonna be there.”

Hopper eyes Max, most likely dwelling on the fact that that’s not the most comforting news.

“It’s for Will!” El pleadingly continues.

“Byers?”

“Yes. He used to take the trip with his brother, but now he left for college.”

Hopper nods. “Yeah, I know. I know the Byers. I…I went to high school with their mother. We were pretty close.”

Max snorts. “What, did you like her?”

Hopper and El both turn to look at Max indignantly, Hopper especially.

“Max!” El hisses, hoping that her chances of getting her dad’s approval weren’t about to be thrown away like one of Flo’s daily apples.

“I did not like her,” Hopper huffs, though he looks slightly flustered, “I’m just saying I know her, so I know her boys. Will’s a good kid.”

“He’s Mike’s best friend,” El adds quickly, “Well, one of them.”

“Is that so?” Hopper remarks. He keeps studying El, but El can’t read his expression.

“If it makes you feel better, I can be your eyes and ears the entire time, Chief,” Max offers, “I’ll make sure that El doesn’t get into any Mike-related shenanigans.”

El, cheeks burning, throws Max a dirty look. She’s not sure if that statement is going to help or hurt her chances of getting permission, and with the stoic look on Hopper’s face, there’s no way for her to tell.

It seems to work though, if the way Hopper proceeds to smile is any indication.

“I’m not that worried about Mike,” Hopper admits.

“Why not?” El frowns, not liking his tone.

Hopper hesitates. “Well, you know, he just seems kinda...”

“Like, the biggest nerd ever?” Max finishes.

Hopper hesitates again, but then nods and shrugs. “Yeah.”

Even though this is pretty much true, El can’t help but feel offended on behalf of Mike. “He is not!” She insists.

Hopper and Max only exchange knowing looks.

“He’s not!” El huffs, slumping back in her chair.

“He seems like a nice kid,” Hopper amends, sounding like he’s trying not to laugh.

“He is,” El grumbles.

Hopper gives her a small smile before stopping to think.

He’s deciding.

Another minute passes, though it feels more like an hour. El keeps her fingers crossed as her heart pounds in her chest.

Please, please, please, please!

Finally, Hopper gives a sigh and replies, grudgingly saying, “I guess you can go.”

“Really?” El replies, breath hitching.

“Only,” Hopper warms, holding up a finger, “If you promise to behave.”

He turns his finger to point it at Max. “You’ll keep an eye on Wheeler?”

“Totally!” Max nods.

“Okay.”

El leaps out of her chair and leans across the desk to give him a hug. “Thank you!” She beams, heart soaring.

Hopper returns the hug, patting El on the back. “Don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

“I won’t, I promise.”

Hopper nods and relinquishes the hug. “Alright, kid,” he replies, “You better get going, I got a lot of work to catch up with.”

“Okay!” El nods.

She and Max both prepare to exit the room, but just as El reaches the doorway, she remembers that she almost forgot one of the most important parts.

“Dad?” She asks nervously, turning to face the desk again.

Hopper glances up at her. “Yeah?”

El swallows. She’s probably asking for too much at once, but if she doesn’t do it now, she’ll miss her chance.

And so, tone mild and hesitant, she voices her next request.

“Can I have $5?”

It’s Thursday afternoon and El is standing in the parking lot of Bradley’s Big Buy with the rest of her friends.

“Alright, did everyone get the five dollars?” Mike asks, standing in front of the group.

Everyone nods, digs into their pockets, and retrieves a bill to show him.

As El shows off the $5 she was able to get from Hopper, she can’t help but smile. Now that she’s been given the all-clear from her dad, she feels as if she can finally allow herself to be excited.

While they were planning the trip on Wednesday, Dustin pointed out that they were going to need food for their travels. Will wholeheartedly agreed, mentioning that he and Jonathan always had a great time making s’mores. Lucas worried that they wouldn’t have enough money to afford food, so Mike proposed that they all ask their parents for just $5, that way when they all put their money together, they’d have a lot.

Mike’s so smart like that, El dreamily muses, smiling at Mike as he continues to say something. What he’s saying — she’s not sure, but he looks really cute saying it. He’s wearing a blue collared sweater under his windbreaker, and El is probably enjoying the sight more than she should. As she continues to gaze at him, she takes note that his wounds from the fight have finally started to heal. While he still has scars and a few bruises, he doesn’t have to wear the band-aids anymore, and his face looks less discolored overall.

She snaps out of her lovesick daze when she realizes that Mike is now yelling at someone. She flinches, startled, and glances over her shoulder to see that Dustin and Lucas have climbed inside a shopping cart, and Max is pushing said shopping cart in figure-8’s around the parking lot.

“Holy shit!” Dustin and Lucas gleefully exclaim as Max zooms around.

“Stop! We’re gonna get kicked out!” Mike exclaims, irritated. “What are you guys even doing?!”

“We wanted to see how fast I could push them!” Max calls back as Lucas and Dustin cheer her on.

Mike sighs and frowns, but El and Will both give him comforting smiles.

“I’m sorry,” El smiles sheepishly, even though she knows that she really has nothing to do with their friends’ antics.

“It’s not your fault,” Mike grumbles.

“Don’t worry,” Will reassures them, “I know what will get them over here.” He turns and cups his hands around his mouth, but even when he proceeds to call out to the others, his voice still isn’t very loud. “If you guys don’t stop, we’re gonna get sugar-free marshmallows and whole-grain graham crackers!”

The shopping cart comes to a screeching halt.

“What?!” Dustin and Max snap, sounding disgusted.

Sure enough, that does the trick.

Five minutes later, they’re hurrying down the aisles of the grocery store together. Will pushes the cart, reading off a shopping list that he composed, while the rest of the group darts around, listening to his instructions.

They get a little bit of everything: cereal, juice boxes, water bottles, hot dogs, trail mix, potato chips, cookies, and, perhaps most importantly, plenty of supplies to make s’mores.

When the time comes to check out, they all step up towards the register and place their $5 bill into the hand of the slightly confused-looking cashier.

The money they have left over, while not much, is given to Mike. The group, despite Mike’s humble protests, insists that he should keep it so that he can start saving up for a new bike.

“Thanks, guys,” Mike blushes as everyone grabs a shopping bag and heads out the door.

“This is gonna be the best trip ever!” Dustin exclaims.

“You know, I’ve actually never been camping,” Max admits.

“How?!” Lucas gapes.

Max shrugs. “I dunno. It’s just not really something my family does.”

“Well, I’ll have to teach you then,” Lucas states, gently nudging his arm against hers.

“Fine, whatever,” Max replies with an eye roll.

El has to clamp her mouth shut in order to not giggle out loud. They like each other and it’s so obvious and—

“Are they like, dating?” Someone mumbles into her ear.

El is startled, but when she looks over her shoulder, she sees that it’s just Mike.

“Not yet,” El whispers back, eyes shining with mischief.

Mike smirks back with a small shake of his head, as if he can’t believe they aren’t together yet.

As El smiles at him, heart fluttering, she can’t help but feel the same.

El and Max both decide in advance to dress down for the camping trip. They agree to ditch the eyeshadow, hairspray, and leather jackets in exchange for softer, more comfortable attire.

When Saturday morning comes, El borrows one of her dad’s flannel jackets, which is more than enough to keep her warm, even if it is really large on her. She also decides to keep her hair natural. While she’s slightly worried about getting teased by the other guys, the whole point of this trip, at least from her standpoint, is revealing her true self to them.

Plus, it had felt amazing when Mike ran his fingers through her curly hair, so maybe, he’d like, do that again.

Hopper offers to drive her to the Byers’, which is a little surprising, since El knows he has a lot of tough case files that he’s supposed to be working on. Nevertheless, she accepts the offer gratefully. Skateboarding while also lugging a sleeping bag and heavy backpack was not a feat that she was looking forward to.

When they pull up at Will’s house, everyone else is waiting outside in the front yard. There’s an older, pretty woman with mussed brown hair talking to Will, her hands on his shoulders. She’s short, Mike’s taller than her, but she still stands out amongst the clamor of jabbering teenagers.

“Is that Will’s Mom?” El asks, turning to glance at Hopper as he pulls the car to a stop.

El’s never seen her dad look anything close to shy, but that’s the only word she can think of to describe the way he’s glancing over at Ms. Byers.

“Yeah, that’s Joyce,” he nods, hastily averting his gaze back towards El.

El eyes him. He’s acting so weird. “Do you want to talk to her?”

Hopper gives a gruff, indifferent sort of huff.

El rolls her eyes. “C’mon,” she says, stepping out of the car.

Hopper composes himself and follows El. As they approach the group, her friends turn to greet them excitedly.

“You’re here!” Mike beams.

“Finally!” Max grins.

“HOLY SHIT! Your hair!” Dustin squawks. “What happened?!”

“Dude!” Lucas snaps, punching Dustin in the arm, “Shut up!”

“I think it looks nice,” Will states, giving Dustin a disapproving frown.

El feels her cheeks start to burn as she shyly tucks a curl behind her ear. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, it does,” Dustin quickly adds, rubbing his arm, “You look great!”

Joyce steps forward to give El a warm hug. “You must be Eleanor,” she says, pulling back to examine El’s face.

El nods shyly. “Yes.”

“Will’s told me so much about you,” she continues, “More than your dad has, anyway.”

Hopper, who’s been hovering on the sidelines this whole time, flushes pink at this. “‘Hello’ to you too,” he grumbles.

Joyce gently pulls away from El and moves to stand in front of Hopper. Her smallness compared to Hopper’s largeness makes for an interesting contrast, to say the least. Will’s Mom has to crane her neck way back to even make eye contact with Hopper.

“Hopp,” she smiles.

“Joyce,” Hopper smiles back.

Will’s Mom steps forward to give Hopper a hug, though her face only meets his upper torso.

El frowns, still a little confused as to how weird they’re acting. She turns to glance at Will, hoping for an explanation, but he looks just as puzzled as she does.

As Hopper and Joyce begin exchanging pleasantries, El steps closer to her friends. Everyone’s sporting bulging backpacks, bundled in warm coats, and carrying a sleeping bag under their arm.

Max is wearing a beanie with a large pom-pom on the top. The pom-pom bounces around as Max tilts her head to the side, and El has to force herself to not laugh at how funny it looks. “I’m pretty sure your dad likes Will’s mom,” she comments, eyeing Hopper and Joyce.

Will’s brow furrows in confusion, but he shakes it off, instead turning his attention back to El. “Is that a camera?” He asks, motioning to El’s torso.

El glances down where indeed, she has her Polaroid camera hanging around her neck. It’s kind of a bulky thing, but she loves using it to take photos of her and Max whenever they hang out. “Yes,” she nods, smiling at Will, “I wanted to take pictures.”

“Me too!” Will enthuses, pointing to the camera hanging around his own neck.

El’s eyes widen curiously as she leans in to look at Will’s camera. It’s different from hers; it has a bigger lens and more buttons to work with.

“It’s a 35 millimeter Pentax MX,” Will says proudly, “It’s Jonathan’s old camera; he let me have it when he got a newer one.”

“Where does the picture come out?” El frowns.

“It doesn’t, you have to develop it,” Will explains, “I can show you sometime, we have a dark room in the school for it!”

“We should get a picture of all of us,” Mike smiles, “Before we leave.”

“El could use an updated one,” Max mutters wryly.

El gives her a warning look, but thankfully, no one else seems to have noticed her comment.

“Good idea!” Will nods. He walks over to his mom, gently tugs on her arm, and asks her to take their picture.

As Will walks her through how to use the camera, El and the others drop their things and huddle together. El and Max stand in the middle with Mike and Lucas at their sides, respectively. Dustin crouches in front of them, and as soon as Will hands the camera to Joyce, he runs over to crouch beside Dustin.

As Mike wraps his arm around El’s back, she shivers, and not just because the morning is a little cold.

“Alright,” Joyce announces happily, peering into the viewfinder as she aims the camera at the group, “Smile!”

Everyone smiles, leans closer together, and the camera flashes. The flare leaves El’s vision dotted with colorful splotches for a moment, and she has to blink several times to get them to go away.

“You all look so cute!” Joyce gushes, causing Will to blush.

“Mom!” He bashfully whines. As he runs over to get his camera back, everyone else picks up their backpacks and sleeping bags again.

“We should probably get going,” Lucas reminds them, glancing at his watch, “It’s already after 11 o’clock.”

“Yeah, and I wanna eat the snacks,” Dustin chimes in.

“You already did!” Max snaps.

“Uh, no!?”

“Uh, yeah? Someone opened the box of Fruit Loops!”

“Oh, yeah,” Mike hesitates, “That was me.”

“What?!” Max exclaims.

“I got hungry!” Mike defends.

“El,” Max gripes, “Tell your boyfriend to stop digging into all our food like a weirdo.”

“He’s not my boyfriend!” El insists at the same time that Mike stammers, “I-I’m not her boyfriend!”

Max, Lucas, and Dustin all exchange doubtful stares just as Will rejoins the group.

“What’d I miss?” Will asks, glancing at everyone.

“Nothing new,” Dustin snickers, “We’re just ready to go.”

Hopper and Joyce step forward to wish the kids goodbye. As Joyce fretfully lists off a series of reminders for Will (all of to which Will replies, “Yeah, I know Mom”), El moves in to hug her dad goodbye.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Hopper mumbles, patting the back of her head.

“Tomorrow,” El agrees.

They pull away, Hopper gives her one last smile, and El waves goodbye.

“Let’s go!” Lucas says eagerly.

“Hopefully we won’t get murdered,” Max jokes.

As they enter the forest that surrounds Will’s house, their feet crunch against the fallen leaves and their backpacks brush against protruding tree branches. Even though the morning is cold, the sky is a clear, vibrant blue.

“We won’t get murdered; there’s no serial killers out here,” Will sighs as he takes the lead.

“Other than Mike,” Dustin snorts, “He totally killed all those Fruit Loops.”

Everyone but Mike gets a good laugh out of that, Max especially.

“Wheeler’s a cereal killer!” Max cackles, shaking from how hard she’s laughing.

“Yeah, I got that,” Mike replies flatly.

The camping site isn’t too far from Will’s house — it only takes a little over an hour until they’re there. Will leads them to a small, secluded clearing. Trees stretch on for miles, their branches curving over the clearing, almost protecting the stop. Sunlight filters through the branches, causing the ground of the clearing to look like a mosaic of light and leaves. In the distance, El can make out the rocky bluffs of the Quarry’s edge. The air is tinged with the faint scent of clean, crisp freshwater, musky oak trees, and sticky sap.

“Well, here we are!” Will announces, motioning around the clearing, “This is the spot Jonathan and I always come to. It’s right by the Quarry, and there’s plenty of firewood, and—“

“Isn’t this place right by the kissing rock?” Max interrupts, looking around the forest skeptically.

Will pauses and frowns. “The what?”

“I think she’s right,” Dustin nods, “I mean, I’ve never been there, but I heard it’s in the woods right next to the Quarry.”

“It is!” Max nods, “I’m pretty sure it’s like…a 5-minute walk from here.”

“What’s a kissing rock?” El asks, brow furrowing in confusion.

“It’s this big boulder by the edge of the quarry where all the kids at school go to like…kiss,” Lucas explains, blushing.

“Where all the lame kids go,” Max corrects.

“I mean, I guess we’re by it then?” Will pouts, “I dunno.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Mike huffs, setting down his things, “It’s not like any of us are gonna—“

His voice trails off, and El suddenly realizes that he’s glancing at her. When El sees that he’s doing this, and Mike sees that El sees that he’s doing this, they both look away from each other quickly, cheeks crimson.

“Whatever,” Max sighs, shrugging the entire conversation off, “Let’s just unpack.”

Everyone else nods and proceeds to do so.

It takes the entire first half of the afternoon to set up camp. Will designates that they leave the center of the clearing for building the fire, so everyone else sets up their sleeping bags in a radial formation around it (first Lucas, then Max, then El, then Mike, then Will, and finally Dustin). After the sleeping bags are rolled out, the group proceeds to hike into the woods in search of sticks and stones for the fire pit.

The forest floor is covered with a thick layer of dead leaves, and El has to kick them all out of the way to find the stray twigs and sticks hidden beneath. As she bundles sticks into her arms, she tries to formulate a way to reveal her powers. She wants to tell them at just the right time and place, but there doesn’t seem to be any organic way to work it into the conversation.

By the time they finish gathering enough supplies to make the fire, it’s already late afternoon, and El’s mind is still as blank as ever.

“Okay,” Will says as soon as they return to the clearing, “We should probably get the fire going.”

“Already?” Lucas questions.

Will nods. “It’ll keep us warm, and it’s kind of hard to start one once it’s really dark out.”

El’s pretty sure that they’re all eager for a heat source right now, so Will doesn’t need to tell them twice to help him build a fire pit. They follow his instructions eagerly, setting up a circle of stones in the middle of their clearing and placing a pile of sticks and dead leaves inside.

“Great, so, how do we get it started?” Mike asks once they’re done.

“We’ll just use some matches,” Will shrugs. He gets up, goes to kneel beside his backpack, and starts digging through it.

“Can we make s’mores?” Dustin asks, “I’m really hungry.”

“Those are for after dinner!” Lucas disputes.

“Says who?”

“Says…I don’t know! Rational people!”

“We could have s’mores for lunch,” El points out, “And then again after dinner.”

“Yes!” Dustin beams at El, “That sounds like the best idea ever.”

“You guys are gonna get a stomach ache,” Mike smiles wryly.

“It’d be worth it,” Dustin insists, “I wanna eat nothing but s’mores for the rest of my life.”

“What about baloney sandwiches?” Max counters dryly.

“Those too.”

“Hey, guys?” Will calls out, still rummaging through his backpack, “Did you guys take the matches?”

“No,” Mike frowns, “Why?”

“I can’t find them!” Will says worriedly, turning to look back at the group.

“Are you serious?” Lucas groans.

“I’m sorry!” Will frets, starting to shake a little. “I think I forgot them!”

“Hey, it’s okay!” Mike insists. He rushes over to Will’s side and gently places his hand on Will’s shoulder. “It was an accident!”

“An accident that’s gonna leave us cold and hungry,” Lucas mutters under his breath.

“What should we do?” El asks, trying to remain calm.

“We could try to start one without matches!” Dustin offers, “You just gotta rub two sticks together! I saw someone do it on TV once!”

“If we wait for that to happen, we’ll all freeze to death,” Max snorts.

“Well, do you have a better idea?” Dustin snaps crossly.

“Uh, yeah? It’s going back to Will’s house and getting the matches!”

“But that’s like, an hour long walk!” Mike points out, “Plus another hour back! That’s two hours!”

“I know,” Max huffs, “I’ll do it.” She walks over to where she’d set her things down, picks up her backpack, and slings it over her shoulders.

“But it’s dangerous to go alone!” Lucas hesitates.

“Then come with me,” Max shrugs.

“Me?”

“Didn’t you go to karate camp?”

“Karate camp?” Lucas echoes, confused.

“Remember?” Max raises an eyebrow. “Jennifer’s party? Dustin told me you spent all of last summer at karate camp.”

Dustin and Lucas exchange quick glances. “Right!” They both exclaim, nodding quickly.

El doesn’t remember any of this, but she’s pretty sure the boys are lying. Either way, the whole situation is pretty amusing, and she can’t help but snort into her palm.

“Then let’s go,” Max orders, already starting to walk off, “I wanna get back before it gets dark.”

“Okay!” Lucas nods, grabbing his backpack before hurrying after her.

“You better not die!” Dustin calls out after them, “If this really is a horror movie, one of you probably isn’t going to make it back!”

“Dustin!” Mike scolds.

“What!? I’m just stating the facts!”

“You’re being dramatic.”

“I’m sorry,” Will mumbles woefully, “This is all my fault.”

“You make a mistake,” El reassures him, “It’s not that bad.”

Will only pouts in response, still seeming pretty resentful of both the situation and himself.

Mike turns to glance at El, looking pretty helpless.

El racks her mind, trying to think of a way to cheer Will up. “Why don’t we take some pictures?” She offers, motioning to both of their cameras.

“Of what?” Will asks curiously.

El shrugs as she glances around their surroundings. “Everything.”

Will hesitates, seemingly unsure, but then El raises her camera. “Like you!” She smiles, snapping a picture of Will and Mike.

“El!” Mike exclaims, looking frantic, “I wasn’t even ready!”

El catches the polaroid as it slowly prints out of her camera. “I know,” she smiles teasingly, slipping the photo into her pocket.

Will smiles back, looking more excited. “Okay!” He nods, rising to his feet.

Time passes by quickly as Will and El explore the clearing together, snapping pictures of everything. The weirdly-shaped knot on a tree trunk, the dandelion peeking out amongst the dead leaves, the squirrel sitting on a tree branch. Mike and Dustin follow them around as they work, pointing out all the potential subjects of interest (including themselves).

Before long, the two hours has nearly passed. The sun is a little lower in the sky and the air has grown colder, but they’re having too much fun to notice.

At least, they are until they’re abruptly interrupted by the sound of a high-pitched, terrified scream. It echoes through the trees, causing some birds to fly off with a frightened squawk.

“Shit!” Dustin hisses, eyes wide, “What the hell was that?”

“Someone screamed,” Mike replies, balling his fists.

“Was that Max?” Will asks worriedly.

“I’m not sure,” El frowns, “It didn’t sound like her.”

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! We’re gonna die!” Dustin exclaims, clutching the sides of his head, “I knew this would happen! I told you, we’re tempting the horror fates and now we’re all gonna get picked off one by one and—“

Dustin’s interrupted by the sound of twigs snapping.

There’s a collective gasp as they all jolt in both surprise and fear.

Someone’s coming closer.

El takes a deep breath and prepares to raise her hand. This isn’t how she planned on revealing her powers, but she’s more than willing to do so if it means keeping her friends safe.

As it turns out, her determined gallantry is for naught. Moments later, Lucas marches into the clearing and everyone breathes a sigh of relief.

“Son of a bitch, Lucas, you scared the shit out of us,” Dustin says, slumping his shoulders.

Lucas doesn’t reply. Instead he looks annoyed. Really annoyed. He drops his backpack onto the ground with a grumpy huff, not really making eye contact with anyone.

“Did you get the matches?” Will asks hesitantly.

“Yes!” Lucas snaps, sounding just as irritated as he looks.

El doesn’t know why Lucas is so upset, but moments later she gets her answer when Max rushes into the clearing. She’s holding a box of matches in one hand and a metallic, sharp-looking object in the other.

“C’mon, Lucas!” Max laughs, “Are you still pissed off at me?”

“Yes!” Lucas scowls, crossing his arms.

“Wait, what happened?” Mike questions, glancing at both of them.

“When we were walking back, Max thought it’d be funny to hide behind some bushes and jump out at me!” Lucas snaps bitterly. “She snuck off, and I thought she was hurt or something, but no! She just wanted to scare me! With a knife!”

“It was funny!” Max counters, “You screamed like a girl!”

“You had a knife?” El frowns.

“It’s not even a real knife!” Max defends, “It’s from my old Michael Myers costume.”

“Why did you bring it?”

“Just in case,” Max shrugs.

“It doesn’t matter!” Lucas replies brusquely, “It wasn’t funny!”

“I thought it was!”

“Well, you thought wrong!” Lucas dismisses.

With that, he storms off again, disappearing amongst the countless trees that surround the clearing. He leaves both a tangibly awkward silence and a worried-looking Max in his wake.

“Here,” Max mutters surly, tossing the box of matches to the guys.

Mike, Dustin, and Will exchange uncomfortable glances, but ultimately decide to turn their attention back to the main task at hand: starting the fire.

El, on the other hand, walks over to Max, not wanting to leave her feeling upset. “Are you okay?” She asks gently.

“Not really,” Max grumbles.

“It’s ok,” El murmurs, placing a comforting hand on Max’s shoulder. “It was just a prank.”

“I didn’t think he’d get so mad,” Max mutters, not looking directly at El.

El pauses. Even though she doesn’t want to hurt Max’s feelings, she ultimately decides that it’d be best to tell her the truth.

“You pretend to not like things, even though you do,” El states, making sure to keep her voice low.

“That’s not true!” Max protests.

“It is,” El nods, not bothering to waste time further arguing this fact, “I know it. But Lucas doesn’t. He doesn’t know that you teasing him so much is good. You tease him because you like him, but I think…he might think you’re doing it to be mean to him.”

Max’s head droops as she silently considers this.

“I think you should be honest with him,” El advises.

“Be honest?”

“Tell him how you feel.”

“Like…that I like him?” Max gulps, looking terrified.

“That you don’t hate him.”

“Oh.”

El watches as Max shuffles in place, contemplating what to do.

“I guess you’re right,” Max finally admits. She drops her backpack, tosses her prop knife onto her sleeping bag, and turns to smile gratefully at El. “I’ll go talk to him.”

“Good luck,” El smiles back, giving Max a reassuring hug.

Max nods before darting off, running off in the same direction that Lucas had.

El’s smile falters as an uneasy feeling starts to churn in her gut. As she turns to rejoin the others, she can’t help but feel incredibly guilty. Here she is, telling Max that she needs to be honest with Lucas, and yet, she still hasn’t managed to tell her friends about her powers. She’s a giant hypocrite.

Will has the beginnings of a small fire going. There’s a faint trail of smoke streaming from the fire pit, and the sound of crackling leaves fills the air.

“Wouldn’t it be awesome if we didn’t even need matches?” Dustin comments as Will gently blows into the glowing embers.

“What do you mean?” Mike frowns, eyeing Dustin.

“Like, if I had superpowers,” Dustin elaborates, “Like Pyro.”

“Pyro?” El blanches, wondering if that’s some kind of codename. Does Dustin know? How did he figure it out? Did Mike or Max tell him? No, they wouldn’t, not without telling her that they’d told him—

“From the X-Men comics?” Dustin offers.

“Oh,” El flushes. Even though she feels slightly dumb for rushing to judgment, she’s still left rattled. She just doesn’t know how to tell them. It has to be as normal as possible, with seems highly improbable. She almost wishes that it was a serial killer that’d walked out of the trees, and not Lucas. At least then she wouldn’t have to use any words.

Even though El’s trying to remain outwardly calm, Mike seems to notice how anxious she looks, because he suddenly gets up and walks over to her.

“Do you wanna talk?” He whispers.

El meets his eye and nods gratefully. “Please.”

“Okay,” Mike murmurs before turning back to Will and Dustin to announce, “We’re gonna be right back!”

“Sure you are,” Dustin snorts.

Mike rolls his eyes indifferent and doesn’t reply, instead grasping El’s hand and leading her off down a forest trail.

El blushes as their fingers intertwine, but she accepts the comforting gesture gratefully. “I’m sorry,” she mumbles as soon as Dustin and Will are out of earshot.

“For what?” Mike asks concernedly.

“For being so nervous,” El answers, “I just..I don’t know how to tell them. I don’t want to just blurt it out.”

“You don’t have to be sorry for being nervous,” Mike reminds her, “I would be nervous, too.”

El nods, grasping Mike’s hand a little tighter. She remembers how shocked Dustin had been upon seeing her hair this morning. If curly hair had been enough to make him shout HOLY SHIT, she could only imagine how learning she had powers would make him react.

“Well, there’s no pressure to do it right now,” Mike points out, “We can wait until the night, that way you’ll have more time to think about what you want to say.”

El glances upwards, towards the sky. The blue sky is already beginning to fade. The days feel so much shorter as November draws closer. Waiting until the night still doesn’t give her much time.

“It’ll be okay, I promise,” Mike assures her, giving her hand a squeeze.

“Okay,” El murmurs.

It’s not until El pauses and looks around that she realizes they’ve walked a pretty good distance away from the camp. They’ve exited the wooded area and are now standing on the rocky terrain that surrounds the top of the quarry. There are large boulders scattered about, and El realizes that one of them is probably the kissing rock.

Oh.

El feels herself flush pink as she cautiously turns to glance at Mike. He seems to be thinking the same thing, if the way he’s flushing bright red is any indignation.

El bites her lip shyly, and Mike turns to meet her gaze. “Maybe we should—“ He begins.

“Yes?” El asks hopefully.

Mike swallows, still blushing like crazy, but then his gaze moves to something just beyond El’s shoulder. “Holy shit!” He whispers, eyes widening.

El pales. “What?”

“Look!” Mike says, still whispering. He uses the hand that’s not intertwined with hers to point behind her, and El cautiously turns around to look.

She spots two figures sitting on a large rock about 20 or so feet away. At first she can’t tell who it is, but then she spots that silly pom-pom hat and the long, vibrant red hair tucked underneath it.

Max. Talking to…Lucas. Their heads are ducked low together, deep in conversation. Since they’re so far away, El can’t make out what they’re saying.

“What are they doing?” Mike murmurs.

“She was going to say sorry,” El murmurs back, “For scaring him.”

“Oh.”

El hesitates, unsure of whether or not she and Mike should leave. She can’t help but feel like they’ve walked in on something, even if Max and Lucas are just talking.

She’s just about to voice this concern to Mike when suddenly, without any hesitation, Max shakes her head, cups Lucas’ cheeks in her hands, pulls him towards her, and presses her lips to his in a firm kiss.

El hears a gasp, and she’s not quite sure if it’s from her or Mike. Maybe both of them. Either way, her brain seems to have stopped working, because she’s instantly overwhelmed with surprise, happiness, and excitement all at the same time.

“She kissed him!” El whispers gleefully, turning to beam at Mike.

“I can see that,” Mike replies bashfully, averting his eyes away from the still lip-locked couple.

El bounces in place excitedly, squeezing Mike’s hand in order to keep herself steady. “On the kissing rock!”

“Where all the ‘lame’ kids go,” Mike jokes, pitching his voice higher in what is apparently his best Max impression.

El giggles as she gives Mike a gentle, chiding nudge.

A beat of silence passes as they both turn to steal one more glance at Max and Lucas.

“We should probably go,” Mike whispers, motioning his head in their direction.

“Yes,” El nods, still beaming.

Mike, still clutching her hand, pulls her back into the woods. As they hurry back to camp, El just can’t stop giggling. She’s just so happy for her best friend that there aren’t even enough words to express it.

By the time she and Mike reach the clearing, the sky is a rich ochre and a few crickets have begun to chirp. Dustin and Will have successfully gotten a fire going, and the flickering flames cast dancing shadows against the surrounding trees.

El and Mike release each other’s hands and come to sit beside the fire, both grinning from ear-to-ear.

“What’s so funny?” Will asks, eyeing them suspiciously.

“Nothing!” El smiles.

“Ugh, ew, I don’t even wanna know what you guys just did,” Dustin frowns, wrinkling his nose. “It’s probably going to ruin my s’mores appetite.”

“It’s not like that,” Mike insists, throwing Dustin a look.

“Uh, huh. Whatever you say, Mike.”

Thankfully, neither Dustin or Will presses them for any further information, and instead focus on setting up the fire for hot dog roasting.

15 minutes later, Max and Lucas rejoin the group. As they step into the clearing, El studies them carefully. If she hadn’t seen them kissing with her own eyes, she never would have guessed that they had. Their expressions are neutral and they’re not holding hands or anything. Lucas’ cheeks look a little more flushed than usual, but that’s about it.

“What took you guys so long?” Dustin asks as Max and Lucas come to sit with everyone else.

“We just talked for awhile,” Max shrugs, grabbing a roasting stick and a hot dog. She comes to sit beside El, face completely unreadable.

“How did your talk go?” El quietly asks, making sure to keep her tone nonchalant.

“Fine,” Max breezily murmurs back. “He’s not mad anymore.”

“That’s not surprising,” El mutters under her breath.

“What?” Max asks, sounding confused.

“Nothing!” El quickly amends, “I’m glad you talked.”

Max eyes her warily but ultimately turns her attention back to the fire pit. “Me too,” she says, and even though El knows Max’s trying to hide it, there’s no missing the faint smile pulling at the corners of her lips.

“—And with that, the creature gave off a final screech, dragging his last victim into the night,” Dustin concludes dramatically.

“How the hell is that a scary story?” Max snaps.

“Because the dog turned into a giant, killer lizard!” Dustin defends.

It’s long after nightfall. The forest is pitch black and the only light comes from the crackling fire.

After the hot dog roast and the seemingly endless, completely delicious s’mores feast, Max suggested that they all tell scary stories. They all gathered around the campfire, seated atop their sleeping bags, faces illuminated by the glow of the warm flames. Max had kicked things off with a story about a deranged killer with a hook for a hand that stalked the forests of Hawkins. After that, any story would have really paled in comparison, but Dustin’s tale of a boy adopting a dog that secretly turned out to be a lizard seemed especially weak.

“Lizards aren’t scary,” Max snorts.

“They can be!” Dustin insists. He turns to glance at the rest of the group for validation. “Right?”

“Not really,” Will yawns, looking a little sleepy.

“Well, it was a killer lizard,” Dustin reminds them.

El is trying to focus on the stories, she really is, but her mind is still elsewhere. She feels like she’s not actively engaging with her friends, but rather, waiting on the sidelines, praying for a way to work her confession into the conversation.

“Killer lizards are still just lizards,” Lucas says, shaking his head, “They’re not scary.”

“What about Godzilla?” Dustin points out.

“You didn’t say it turned into Godzilla,” Lucas counters.

“What do you think, Mike?” Dustin asks.

“Honestly?” Mike shrugs, “When you said killer lizard, all I could picture is that newt Mr. Clarke had in the terrarium back in 8th grade. With like…little fangs.”

The conversation is going nowhere. Nowhere near telekinesis, at least. El realizes that she probably gave up her perfect chance when Dustin had mentioned the X-men, and instantly hates herself for it. She had her opportunity practically handed to her, but she’d freaked out and given it up. She could be such a knucklehead…

“El?” Dustin pleads, turning to her, “Please tell me that you think my story was scary. You’re my only hope!”

“Now you’re quoting Star Wars?” Max smirks.

“Now you’re recognizing Star Wars?” Dustin smirks back.

“I am not!” Max insists.

“You literally just did!”

“Are you even gonna let El answer?” Mike huffs.

They’re all growing a little louder, and little more heated, and all the commotion is making El’s head hurt.

“Does El need to answer?” Max snorts, “Literally nobody thought that story was scary.”

“And your hook-hand story was?” Dustin glowers.

“Uh, yeah!”

“Uh, no! Having a hook for a hand isn’t scary!”

“Yes, it is!”

“Captain Hook has a hook for a hand!” Dustin points out, “And he’s from a kids’ movie!”

“Can you guys please stop fighting?” Will pleads, “It’s getting kind of late.”

“Dustin is the one who keeps on arguing!” Max insists.

“Am not!” Dustin argues, “It’s not my fault her opinions are wrong!”

“Your opinions aren’t facts, Dustin!” Lucas retorts.

El doesn’t know what comes over her. She just wants everyone to stop arguing over their dumb stories, and her head hurts, and she’s just so frustrated and tired of trying to wait for the perfect moment that’s probably never going to come. And so, before she can’t stop to second-guess herself, she just blurts it out.

“I’m a telekinetic!” She bursts.

That shuts everyone up quickly.

Mike and Max’s heads snap over to El, looking startled. Will sits up a little straighter, suddenly looking less tired. Lucas and Dustin both freeze, eyes wide.

“Wait, what’d you say?” Dustin asks, cautiously.

“El?!” Mike hisses, sounding confused. Since his sleeping bag is located next to hers, he’s able to reach out and grab her arm in a protective manner.

El gently shrugs him off with a shake of her head. Even though she’d initially pleaded for Mike’s help, she now knows that she needs to do this on her own. She needs to come to term with her abilities once and for all, no more hiding, no more secrets.

“I’m a telekinetic,” she repeats, keeping her gaze locked on her friends, “I have superpowers.”

Lucas, Will, and Dustin exchange confused glances. They look at Max and Mike for some sort of explanation, but Mike and Max only have eyes for El. They both give her encouraging nods, silently showing their support.

“Wait, are you being serious?” Lucas questions, looking hesitant.

El nods solemnly.

“A telekinetic?” Will asks slowly, “Like…you can move stuff with your mind?”

El hesitates. The easiest way to get them to understand is going to be by showing them. Taking a deep breath, she raises her hand, points it at the fire pit, and uses her powers to raise one of the burning sticks into the air. As it hovers before their eyes, spinning slowly, flickering embers crackle off the stick and drift off into the cold night air, extinguishing with a faint whisper.

After several seconds, she relinquishes her hold on the stick and allows it to fall back into the flames.

“Holy shit,” Lucas breathes, looking floored.

“That’s so cool,” Will whispers, eyes wide with wonder.

Dustin, shockingly, still hasn’t talked. He seems to be responding in the same way that Mike did: stupefied, unadulterated shock. His jaw is hanging open, his eyes are nearly bugging out of his head, and for a moment El worries that she might have broken him.

“H-how?” He finally manages to stammer.

El proceeds to give them an abridged version of her history, starting from growing up in the lab, escaping with Hopper, becoming his legal daughter, and finally joining their class in the 6th grade. She explains how her powers work, how she was the one who saved them at Jennifer’s party, how she broke Troy’s arm. By the time she’s finished, she’s left emotionally exhausted and slightly out-of-breath, but satisfied all the same.

“Oh my god,” Dustin whispers, still frozen in place.

“That’s so COOL!” Lucas exclaims, “Like, holy shit!”

“Right!?” Mike beams, “El’s amazing!”

“Wait, you knew?” Will asks, looking surprised.

“She told me last week,” Mike nods.

“And you didn’t tell us?” Lucas exclaims, sounding a little offended.

“I told him not to,” El cuts in.

“Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” Will asks curiously.

“Because,” El mumbles, suddenly feeling a little sheepish, “I…I didn’t like being different. I wanted to be normal, like you guys.”

“Us? Normal?” Lucas jokes.

“You know what I mean,” El smiles wryly, “I didn’t want to be a freak.”

“Well, you’re definitely not a freak,” Dustin beams. It appears that his mouth has finally started working again, as he proceeds to ramble quickly and excitedly. “You’re so awesome! Like, the coolest person ever! You’re like a wizard, or a superhero, or Yoda!”

“Or a mage,” Mike adds affectionately, giving El a playful nudge.

“Yeah!” Dustin gushes, before pausing and adding, “Oh my god, I’m so sorry I that ever called you our enemy, and a murderer, and a Drow!”

“What?” El frowns.

“Nothing!” Dustin hastily backtracks. “I just…uh..I’m really happy you’re our friend.”

“Me too,” Will nods, “And not just because of your powers. You were always nice to us, even when we judged you at first.”

El flushes pink, unsure of how to react to the unexpected slew of compliments. “I’m happy we’re friends too,” she murmurs, ducking her head shyly.

“Just so you guys know, we can’t tell anyone else about El’s powers,” Mike pipes up, “We have to keep it a secret, just between all of us.”

“Of course!” Will nods.

“I’ll never tell anyone!” Lucas agrees.

“Never!” Dustin insists.

El feels her heart swell with happiness. The feeling of finally feeling accepted not only by her friends, but by herself, radiates within her, leaving her warm and bubbly inside.

She reaches out to grasp Max’s hand. Max smiles and blushingly grabs Lucas’ hand. Then Lucas grabs Dustin’s, Dustin grabs Will’s, Will grabs Mike’s, and Mike finally closes the circle by grasping El’s free hand.

As they all grasp each other’s hands tightly, huddled around the warm light of the fire, no further words need to be said. They’re friends, but their bond isn’t like everyone else’s. Their friendship isn’t the kind that’ll just dissipate after high school or over a silly argument. It’s the kind that’ll keep them all connected for years to come, through good times and bad times, through whatever toils they’ll have to face.

El isn’t sure how she knows all this, since she can’t see into the future, or anything, but as she smiles at each of them, she knows that it’s true. She can hear it in her heart like a whisper, like a promise, reminding her that this moment is one she’ll remember.

It’s the start of the rest of her life.

The night is calm and the forest is still. Off in the distance, the reverberating hoot of an owl echoes through the trees.

El’s not sure what time it is, but she knows it’s late. Everyone else is nestled inside their sleeping bags and the fire has died down to its last glowing coals. Consequently, it’s cold. Very cold. Despite her sleeping bag, flannel jacket, and thick sweater, El feels the chill settle into every pore. It makes it hard to sleep, and while El definitely doesn’t regret coming on this camping trip, she’d be lying if she said she didn’t miss her warm bed and soft quilt.

She flips onto her side, hoping that maybe if she moves around a little, she’ll be able to keep warm.

It doesn’t work.

El sighs and flips onto her other side. She’s now facing Mike, who’s bundled up inside his sleeping bag less than a foot away from her. Since he’s situated so close to her, she’s able to make out his features in the faded silvery light of the moon. As she shuffles around, she sees his eyes flutter open.

“Mike? Are you awake?” El whispers, even though it’s pretty obvious that he is.

“Yeah,” Mike whispers back, locking eyes with her.

“What time is it?”

Mike shuffles a bit around before he manages to pull his arm out of his sleeping bag. “Like, 3 am?” He whispers, eyeing his watch.

“Oh.”

“Can’t sleep?”

El shakes her head.

“Me neither.”

“It’s just...it’s pretty cold,” El murmurs, shivering slightly.

“Yeah,” Mike agrees with a quirked smile, “I guess that’s what happens when you go camping in the fall.”

El nods and wraps her sleeping bag more tightly around herself. Even though she doesn’t want to look like a dopey weakling in front of Mike, she can’t stop her teeth from chattering.

“You look really cold,” Mike murmurs concernedly.

“I’m o-okay,” El lies, “I j-just need to f-fall asleep.”

Mike looks her over for a moment before his cheeks start to flush red. “Maybe,” he begins, voice cracking a little, “You could, like...uh...”

“W-what?” El shivers.

Mike smiles nervously. “Like...come over here?”

Now El’s the one blushing bright red. “N-next to you?”

“There’s room,” Mike explains, looking flustered, “And you’d be warmer.”

That’s definitely true. El’s not even next to him yet, and already she feels incredibly warm (mostly from blushing so much, though).

“Okay,” El whispers with a small shrug.

“Really?” Mike whispers back, sounding like he’s trying (and failing) to not seem too hopeful.

El nods.

With shaking hands, Mike moves his hands down to unzip the side of his sleeping bag. El quietly wriggles out of her own, crawls over to Mike, and snuggles up against him.

As Mike zips the sleeping bag closed again, El instantly feels enveloped in warmth.

Mike slides over so that El can rest her head on the pillow with him. As she wriggles upwards to do so, she can’t help but feel flustered, being pressed this close to him.

She rests her head on the pillow, shyly meeting Mike’s soft gaze. Their faces are only inches apart. As El studies his face, she can feel his warm breaths as they faintly brush against her skin.

“Hi,” she whispers teasingly.

“Hi,” Mike whispers back with a smile.

El falls silent, content with just enjoying the sight of him beside her. As she gazes at him, Mike wraps an arm around her back and starts playing with her hair. He runs his hands through it idly, almost mindlessly, and it takes everything within El to not melt on the spot. She’d give up anything to just spend the rest of eternity in this moment, snuggled beside Mike, his fingers nestled in her curls.

She gives off a contented sigh before she’s able to stop herself. As she relishes in this moment, her vision starts to seem a little hazy. Nevertheless, she does her best to take in every last one of his features: his warm, chocolate-brown eyes, his ruffled dark hair, his pink, though still faintly bruised lips, and of course, his freckles.

The sky above them is glittering tapestry of stars, way more stars than what El’s used to seeing in town. As she examines Mike’s face more closely, she realizes that the freckles on his cheeks remind her of constellations.

She’s definitely losing her mind.

“What are you thinking?” Mike murmurs, twisting a strand of her hair around his pointer finger.

“Your freckles are like stars,” El mumbles, not caring how insane she must sound.

Mike doesn’t say anything, he only nods, but it seems like he gets what she means. Either that or he’s just too nice to call her out on how weird she is.

The longer El gazes at him, the more she feels drawn to him. She wonders if it’s possible for people to be made up of magic, even if they don’t have superpowers. Mike has to be. The way he makes her feel is unlike anything she’s ever experienced before. Surely, if his cheeks are dotted with constellations, then his insides must radiate with stardust.

She’s getting pulled closer into his embrace, deeper into his orbit, and El realizes that she’s tired of wasting time. Her eyes close as she carefully leans in and presses her lips to his cheek.

It almost feels like the first kiss she gave him, only this one is far better. The first time, he’d just laid in bed, lifeless and cold. Now, while still a little cold, El can hear his breath hitch in awed wonder and feel his eyelashes flutter against hers.

It’s an intoxicating feeling, and El, feeling emboldened by his awestruck reaction, moves her lips down to press them against the corner of his mouth.

It’s not a kiss, not quite — her lips land more against his jaw than anywhere else — but it’s close. Very close. Close enough to make Mike’s breath hitch in another faint gasp.

Maybe the gasps aren’t a good thing though.

El pulls back to examine his face, suddenly worried that she might have overstepped her bounds. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs, looking a little embarrassed.

“Don’t be,” Mike murmurs back, shaking his head ever-so-slightly. His eyes seem almost glazed over, like he’s somewhere in between waking and dreaming. His fingers curl more tightly in her hair, slowly pulling her closer to him.

El feels light-headed, but in the best of ways, like she’s floating. Like the only sense of gravity she possesses is the force that’s pulling her closer to Mike, slowly narrowing the gap between their parted lips. Just a couple centimeters closer, and—

“Oh my god,” Dustin’s voice grouses, “Are you guys making out?”

Mike and El jump apart as quickly and jerkily as is they’d both been hit with an electric shock. Since they’re both still stuck inside the sleeping bag, they don’t manage to get that far apart, and only wind up accidentally elbowing each other instead.

“DUSTIN?” Mike yelps, “You’re awake?”

“No, Mike, I’m clearly asleep right now,” Dustin replies dryly.

Oh, god. Dustin’s awake and he’s heard everything, including that El thinks Mike’s freckles look like stars. She instantly wants nothing more than to jump off the edge of the Quarry.

“We weren’t making out!” El blushingly insists. She’s thankful it’s dark out — at least Dustin can’t see how humiliated she looks right now.

“You better not be,” Max suddenly pipes up, “Because the first teenagers to get it on in a horror movie always die first.”

“W-what!?” El stammers.

“MAX!?” Mike again yelps.

“Mike,” Max mimics in a whiny voice, “I couldn’t sleep over the sound of your mush-fest.”

“How many people are awake?!” Mike demands, sounding mortified.

“Like, all of us,” Lucas admits.

“Yup,” Will concludes.

“You’ve all been listening this entire time!?” Mike exclaims, “And you didn’t say anything?!”

The rest of their friends all shuffle inside their sleeping bags as they make an indifferent sort of mumble.

“Oh my god,” Mike mutters.

Oh no, no, no. This is officially the most embarrassing thing ever.

“Great,” El mumbles, turning to bury her face in the pillow.

“You guys are pretty cute,” Lucas snickers.

“And you guys are pretty much hypocrites!” Mike grumbles.

“How?!” Lucas counters.

“If this was a horror movie, El and I wouldn’t be the first people to get killed off, it’d be you and Max!” Mike explains bitterly, “‘Cause you guys totally made out on the kissing rock!”

As everyone falls silent, the sound of chirping crickets fills the air.

“Wait...you guys kissed?” Will asks.

“Um,” Lucas hesitates.

“Fine!” Max snaps, “We did! It wasn’t a big deal!”

“It wasn’t?” Lucas asks worriedly.

“I mean,” Max pauses, sounding flustered, “I guess it was.”

“Oh my god,” Dustin groans, “I mean, I’m like happy for all of you, but you guys seriously need to get a room, like, right now.”

“A room? In the forest?” Will questions.

“Lucas and I aren’t the ones being all weird! At least we understand the concept of privacy!” Max gripes, “Instead of trying to get to second base in front of literally everyone.”

“We thought you were asleep!” El insists.

“We weren’t trying to get to second base!” Mike adds.

“Because you were already there!” Max counters.

At this point, El knows that she wouldn’t need to cuddle Mike for warmth, her entire body feels like it’s been engulfed in flames. “Let’s just go to sleep,” she pleads, “Please.”

“It’s pretty late,” Will agrees with a yawn, “We should try to get some rest.”

“Fine by me,” Max sighs, settling back down into her sleeping bag.

A beat of silence passes as everyone tries to settle down. Unsurprisingly, the silence doesn’t last long.

“Wait, so are you and Lucas dating now?” Dustin asks Max.

“Dustin!” Everyone snaps.

“Jesus!” Dustin exclaims, “Sorry! I’ll go to sleep!”

“Thank you!” Lucas sighs.

As everyone finally falls silent, El wonders if she should go back to her own sleeping bag. Maybe Mike is too embarrassed to do this anymore.

But to her surprise, Mike doesn’t push her away. Instead, he draws her closer to him, gently tucking her head under his chin and wrapping his arms around her protectively.

Her ear is pressed against his chest, and as she cuddles Mike back, she listens closely to the steady, pounding rhythm of his heartbeat.

As embarrassing as that entire interaction with her friends was, a small part of El is relieved that they’re not afraid to tease her. Even though they know that she still has powers, they’re not treating her like some strange oddity, or someone to handle with rubber gloves.

To them, she’s still just El, and as El drifts off to sleep in Mike’s embrace, she realizes that that’s the most comforting feeling of all.

Tag List:

@pixie813, @lovecolesprouse, @miss-sad-marshmallow, @wrongirish, @lonewolfhard, @bbc-radio-phan, @ontariokid, @catalystofhighhopes, @iliketheinternet, @e1vn , @the-proud-princess, @bugheadqueen , @mother-harrington , @finnywolfyy, @ethoctransierit, @elevenhawkins, @kathpride18, @sherlock-salvadale, @creepyfangirlwhosucksatedits, @barbara----holland, @puzzlingsnark, @milevenbeauty , @gemel-dreamer, @itssciencefitz

#mileven #mileven fanfiction #stranger things #stranger things fanfiction #berrie fics #everybodytalks

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awed-frog · 6 years

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Hey, I was just wondering do you have any thoughts on Barthes, death of the author? And I guess in extension the return of the author? Also slightly related, have you ever read any of Chris Krause's work? I read I love dick and I'm rather conflicted, I don't like the character but then I identify with her? Anyhow all the best x

Okay, so - as a disclaimer, I never had tons of classes in any of this stuff, so I’m hoping what follows makes some sense? If it doesn’t, it’s 100% my fault.

Anyway: the tl;dr is, I hate it with a vengeance and I never use it. On the contrary, it is very central to my life, and as close a certainty as I have on anything, that whatever we consume we should always ask ourselves: who is saying this? And why? And most of all, cui bono?

Oh, and a second disclaimer is that what I’ll allow *waves a generous hand* is that, like many other extreme, rebellious or wacky theories of the 1960s, it was probably Good and About Bloody Time that someone pushed back against the status quo, because some things back then needed to be broken down - but that doesn’t make those movements rational or right in themselves, you know what I mean? What matters is not the wrecking ball, but the new thing you’re planning to build on the ruins.

So - imo there are two big problems with the concept of ‘death of the author’ - one is the theory itself, and the other is how this theory is understood on tumblr and fandoms (from what I see on my dash, that is).

First of all, Barthes basically says that to understand a text, we shouldn’t go and explore its author (their life and other works, the historical context, what they’ve read and talked about with friends and stuff like that) because the author is born with the text, and the text already contains all that it’s necessary to its full understanding; also, the reader will supply the rest, because, in a way, the reader creates the text - and gives it meaning - just as much as the author.

To be perfectly honest, to me that’s downright bullshit. Knowing who the author was and what was happening around them is paramount to understanding what the hell the text is trying to say, you know? For instance, knowing Orwell took part in the Spanish Civil War makes Homage to Catalonia much more poignant, and the fact Burgess went through the exact same ordeal he describes in A Clockwork Orange (his wife was attacked and brutalized by a group of American soldiers in 1944) will change the way you read the book, as it bloody should, and the same is true of literally everything else, in my opinion. For instance, last week we went to see The Greatest Showman, a biopic of P. T. Barnum that’s horribly inaccurate and almost a parody of itself; but knowing full well what the polical climate is like today means I actually sort of liked the movie despite its many faults, because I recognized it as what it wanted to be: a ‘hymn to freakishness’, an exploration of what it means to be different, and that’s exactly what we’re in dire need of.

Now - what is true is that we’ll never be able to pin down exactly ‘what the author intended’, because authors may not know themselves and that’s just the world we live in and the kind of creatures we are. I met writers who’re extremely smart, attentive people completely dedicated to their craft, and all of them said there’s always this moment when some reader goes, I liked how that detail with the dead bird was a direct reference to Clara’s illness or something and it’s a light-bulb moment for them, and I mean - they wrote the damn thing, but still didn’t notice that detail was there and why it was important. It probably just sounded right, because that’s what happens when you’re good at something and do it daily: sometimes things just click and work and you don’t even stop to consider the whys and wherefores. But the fact that we don’t have a complete insight into our own minds doesn’t mean we should give up completely on interpreting art and literature, right? What would be the point of that? Because I always perceived Barthes’ theory as a kind of giving up, myself, a kind of Fuck, Le Grand Robert lists 100K words and I’ll never be able to learn all of them, I might as well stop my French classes, you know? And, like, no? You can speak and understand a language with 500 words - and whatever, your glimpse into that world won’t be perfect (and there’s no such thing as perfect, btw), but still better than nothing, right? So, anyway, I don’t much like this theory in itself.

As to its application to fandom life, well, here is where things get even worse. From what I see on tumblr, people generally think that ‘death of the author’ means their interpretation of what they see is always valid, and also that there is no right or wrong way to understand a story. And this bothers me a lot, because I see it as a direct consequence of a) capitalism doing its best to tailor its products to everyone by leaving out as many details as possible so that, Sure, Luke Skywalker can totally be gay, why not, and here is your Funko pop toy and your stickers and thanks for shopping with us and b) the age-old myth that science, now, that’s a hard and unforgiving discipline where there’s truths and untruths, but in the liberal arts, everyone’s opinion just counts the same (because you don’t need a degree to watch a movie and also the author is dead, so there). But, well - as the people who actually produce the content we enjoy know perfectly well, the author is not dead. There is a message in stories, and there is a right and a wrong way of reading them - if not on all the details, then on the main point of them; and, frankly, it’s weird how on the one hand we celebrate the triumph of this ‘everyone’s opinion is valid’ society we’re building (thus not simply killing the author, but bludgeoning the dead body with a blunt axe) and then on the other we loudly demand a world where artists are ‘unproblematic’ in their private lives (one example: the recent furore over Balthus’ painting in the Met). It looks like truly, this may be the era of the Schrödinger’s Author.

(And let me be clear: of course you’re allowed to like or dislike whatever you want based on your personal experiences and bias, but that’s your opinion, not any kind of truth. Like, a thing I found quite interesting in my personal life was a discussion I had with a woman from New Zealand about Thor: Ragnarok, a movie I mostly hated. One of the reasons for my disappointment in it was how Valkyrie had been represented: to me, her laddish drunkenness represented yet another attempt to insert women in a story while making them behave like men, a trend I profoundly despise. But, as that woman was kind enough to explain to me, from her perspective (and probably Waititi’s, since he’s from New Zealand and has explored the same subject in other movies) Valkyrie’s loss of focus and alcohol problems were there to evoke the plight of the Māori people, who, like other aboriginal communities, were forced into alcoholism and excised from their traditions when the ‘civilizing’ might of the the White Man showed up on their shores. This to say that I still don’t like the movie, but since Waititi was talking to a different audience, and they got the message, I’m wrong and he’s right, because I’m free to have an opinion on anything, but at the end of the day, he’s the goddamn author, alive and kicking.)

As for Chris Kraus, I don’t know her at all. I heard good things about the TV adapation of I love Dick? And as for what you say - fiction often reveals deeper truths about ourselves. I’d say that if you feel close to a character you don’t like, well, that’s a good starting point to understand (and change, or maybe learn to love) what it is that you don’t like about yourself? Anyway - sorry for the novel - I wish you a good afternoon/evening/whatever it is where you are!

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lifeonashelf · 6 years

Text

CARS, THE

I don’t mean to be crass… (granted, I know an introductory repudiation like that will immediately lead you to assume that the ensuing statement is, indeed, going to be crass, and will probably cause you to brace yourself for a statement far more crass than the one I’m actually going to make—especially given this lengthy parenthetical, which is likely only serving to compound your trepidation about the prospective crassness of my forthcoming statement, because surely when you see such an interminable block of text following a declaration like “I don’t mean to be crass” you’re bound to suppose that the statement I’m cautioning must not only be crass, but so reprehensibly crass that it warrants a sprawling disclaimer before it can even be tendered—although your concerns will be mostly unfounded because the statement I’m eventually going to make, after I finish fucking with you via this gratuitous insert, isn’t really as crass as you’re undoubtedly expecting it to be; I didn’t write an additional 200-plus words after announcing “I don’t mean to be crass” because I have any earnest intention of being crass, I did it because: a) I’m an ass, and b) I’m misguided enough to suppose this might be amusing in some way, when in fact the negligible comedic value of this passage is roughly equivalent to the relative crassness of the statement that will follow it, as you’ll find out right now…)

Actually, at this point, it would probably be prudent for me to start my sentence over again so that it bears some resemblance to a coherent thought.

So, to reiterate, I don’t mean to be crass… (although, it now dawns on me that perhaps devoting this exorbitant amount of text to introducing my statement may actually enhance its crassness, since the statement in question is one that potentially could be considered marginally crass by certain audiences, and the flippant manner in which I’m addressing its potential crassness perhaps could be viewed as offensive by those audiences if they presume that my insouciant tangents here are demonstrative of an insensitivity to the possibility that some people might find the statement crass—which, consequently, might lead folks who wouldn’t customarily deem the statement in and of itself as crass to instead deem my exposition of the statement crass—and this means: a) I may be inadvertently rendering the statement crass when it was actually reasonably benign to begin with, and b) at this point, I’ve probably pissed off just about everyone reading this, and I haven’t even made the statement yet—although I suspect that most of the people I’ve displeased thus far are more upset that I’ve wasted several minutes of their time on these ridiculous asides than they are about either the potential crassness of the statement I have not yet made or my perceived arrogant indifference to the potential crassness of that statement).

Anyway, I don’t mean to be crass… but the first thing I think of when I listen to The Cars is Phoebe Cates’s breasts.

I’m not necessarily ashamed to admit this, though I am acutely aware that revealing this tinge of alpha-“BOOBIES!”-maleness in myself doesn’t bask me in the most flattering light. In my defense, I’m reasonably certain that most heterosexual males who have seen Fast Times At Ridgemont High have spent a lot more time thinking about Phoebe Cates’s breasts than I do (I don’t listen to The Cars very often). I am simultaneously aware that reducing a band’s entire existence to a singular film sequence in which a mere snippet of one of their songs appears is awfully reductive of their legacy, particularly when the band in question certainly merits a far more substantial appreciation. However, since I have been mercilessly honest throughout this exercise, I would be remiss in my methodology if I wasn’t forthcoming about my inescapable mental link between The Cars and the mammary magnificence of the lovely Phoebe Cates.

Rest assured, I have no desire to herein objectify Mrs. Cates-Kline (she married Kevin Kline in 1989, which rhymes). For the record, I would like to clarify that I find her far more appealing in Gremlins, a film in which she eschews demonstrating advanced oral sex techniques on carrots to instead deliver a super-gnarly monologue about discovering her father’s decomposing corpse in the family chimney after he breaks his neck while trying to impersonate Santa Claus. Based on the five or so additional movies of hers I’ve seen, I think she was a perfectly excellent actress and I’m duly curious why she opted not to sustain that burgeoning career. Sincerely, I have the utmost respect for Phoebe Cates-Kline, and if she’s reading this I hope that message will come through loud and clear. Still, as I sit here listening the The Cars’ self-titled debut, I can’t help but evoke her iconic pool-side disrobing in Fast Times; “Living in Stereo” is so firmly intertwined with that specific sequence in the pop-cultural consciousness that there’s simply no escaping the association—much like it’s impossible to listen to “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” without clips from The Breakfast Club running through your head, or to hear “Goodbye Horses” without recalling Ted Levine’s tucked-penis shimmy in Silence of the Lambs. And this interference is proving to be detrimental to my process, since I’d rather not make my ability to readily visualize Cates’s areolas every time I hear the opening riff of “Living in Stereo” the ultimate focus of this essay. I’m only mentioning this telekinetic linkage up front in the spirit of getting it out of the way so I can write something more thoughtful about The Cars—which I’m sure Phoebe Cates, Ric Ocasek, Kevin Kline, and the seven other people reading this would greatly prefer.

Actually, come to think of it, I suppose I could have skipped that entire introduction. I’m just now realizing I have a personal connection with The Cars which handily surpasses my limited fandom for an ‘80s teen comedy that I recently watched for the first time since I was an actual teenager and didn’t find all that extraordinary upon revisiting (the scene where “Living In Stereo” plays was still pretty amazing, though). My band Happyending used to cover a Cars number—“Just What I Needed”—so I’ve actually played that tune on my guitar more times than I’ve played it in my CD player; since this is a designation I can only apply to a small handful of songs, that correlation is surely more exclusive and well-suited for our purposes here. I’m fairly positive Phoebe Cates never attended any of our gigs, so her presence in this essay is arguably extraneous (also, it seems downright bizarre to me that I’ve referenced Gremlins, of all films, two entries in a row; I honestly have no fucking idea what’s going on with this piece right now). I probably should have just led with the Happyending thing and spared us all from the previous six paragraphs entirely, so do me a favor and don’t read any of the stuff you just read.

Anyway, welcome to this installment of Life on a Shelf. It’s about The Cars.

“Just What I Needed” was an incredibly fun song to jam. Since we didn’t have a keyboard player to tackle the melody, Happyending’s version emphasized the tune’s power-chord bedrock and our arrangement sprawled out in the middle before eventually culminating in a cacophonous blast-beat meltdown which bore no resemblance to anything in Ric Ocasek’s original composition—essentially, we sullied the track’s pure pop perfection to suit our own purposes. Nevertheless, our rendition rawked and we always got an enthusiastic response whenever we slotted it into our setlists, so we sullied it often and with gleeful abandon.

Ultimately, we could have probably tackled any cut off the band’s self-titled LP and made a decent go of it, simply because the source material is so dynamite. The Cars’ eponymous introduction is one of the most exceptional and self-assured debut albums in the rock canon, a cohesive and nearly flawless set of songs that establishes a fertile and wholly original musical language in less than forty minutes. I would place the circa-1978 Cars in that rarified class of bands who sounded like no one but themselves, and though they would promptly inspire countless lesser New Wave outfits, none of their imitators fully cracked Ric Ocasek’s code and very few managed to scrape together anything even remotely as hooky or indelible as the choicest morsels on The Cars.

Perhaps the most exceptional heritage of the band’s inaugural opus is that it still sounds futuristic three-and-a-half decades after it was released (“I’m In Touch With Your World”, in particular, is so spacey and bizarre that it seems totally plausible Ocasek recorded the track on another planet), no lean feat considering how manifestly dated the bulk of the synth-rock which arrived in its wake sounds today. “Just What I Needed” is arguably the album’s centerpiece—and it’s certainly catchy as a motherfucker—yet it isn’t even one of my personal top-three tracks on the disc (we ended up covering it mostly because I figured out the chords by accident). My favorite song remains “Moving in Stereo”, for reasons that have nothing to do with Phoebe Cates (okay, maybe a little) and everything to do with the indisputable fact that “Moving in Stereo” just plain fucking rules.

On a collection loaded with shindig-ready anthems—a motif announced by the disc’s opening statement, “Good Times Roll”—“Moving in Stereo” stands out like an alluring black-clad femme fatale brooding in the corner smoking clove cigarettes and quoting Nietzsche while she dispassionately surveys the revelers on the dance floor. If I was at a party and the host put on The Cars, I would immediately like this host at least 70% more than I did when I arrived—and if I spotted a girl across the room singing along with “Moving in Stereo” I would immediately march over there and propose to her on the spot (okay… I know this is a completely ridiculous notion; I don’t go to parties). “Moving” is the song on the album The Cars which sounds the least like the band The Cars, yet conversely demonstrates the breadth of their creativity, offering a grim counterpoint to bouncy numbers like “Don’t Cha Stop” and augmenting the somber undercurrent which runs through several cuts whose buoyant instrumental backdrops cunningly mask their lyrical proclamations that the good times don’t always roll.

Witness my second-favorite song on the disc, “You’re All I’ve Got Tonight”, in which Ric Ocasek bluntly tells his gal that she can “hurt,” “use,” “mock,” and “abuse” him, but “[he] don’t care” because he’d be far more distraught if she left him. All things considered, that’s a pretty fucked up scenario. Though probably not quite as fucked up as the one outlined in “My Best Friend’s Girl”—a chronicle of the bro-code’s most grievous violation: “my best friend’s girlfriend / she used to be mine.” “Bye Bye Love” (probably my third-favorite song, if you’re keeping score at home) sort of speaks for itself, and even the otherwise jaunty “Just What I Needed” takes a disquieting turn when Ocasek eventually confesses that “I needed someone to bleed.” And then the album’s moody closer “All Mixed Up” comes along to decisively end the party with the knife-in-the-guts couplet: “I wait for her forever / she never does arrive.”

Perhaps the only failing of The Cars is that it serves up such an impeccable distillation of everything I enjoy about the band it shares its title with that until I reached this point in our tome, it was the sole offering of theirs I felt compelled to own. Although, I finally opted to bolster my discography with 1979’s Candy-O and their 1984 set Heartbeat City a few days ago to foster a more comprehensive representation in these pages (though I willfully neglected Shake it Up because the title track kind of annoys me). The results of my supplementary reconnaissance are as follows:

Candy-O has plenty of inspired moments, but much of the material the band cooked up for their sequel audibly labors under the onus of the dreaded sophomore slump. A few of the tracks sound like throwaways from the first album, others come across as vague sketches of songs that weren’t quite ready to be recorded, and a couple are so blatantly derivative of the highpoints of The Cars that they become essentially pointless. Granted, opener “Let’s Go” is easily on par with the group’s best work, and the following number (“Since I Held You”) is cagily excellent as well. But the discerning listener can plainly hear The Cars running out of gas as the record motors on (trust me, I know how obvious and dad-jokey the employment of automobile puns is in this case… but I haven’t used a single one until now, so please park your criticisms). By the next track—“It’s All I Can Do”—the band is clearly spinning its wheels (shit, car pun; that one was an accident; shit, “accident” could be considered a car pun too) and that tire-d (okay, I did that one on purpose) cookie-cutter composition finds the band idling (yeah, that one was on purpose too), marking the first point in their catalog where The Cars stall (I should probably put the brakes on this lame device now, huh?).

Though the funky title track perks up the affair a bit and “Night Spots” is likewise wholly decent, the second half of Candy-O is bogged down by a succession of tepid retreads (I swear I didn’t mean to include another reference to tires there) and the album fails to really take off again (okay, that was a plane pun, which is just confusing). The disc’s nadir “Lust for Kicks” is banal enough to qualify as certifiably crappy, shackled as it is by a dopey melody that would sound more at home pealing from the loudspeaker of a trolling ice cream truck. Like most Part-Twos, the fundamental fault with Candy-O is that it’s simply nowhere near as strong as its predecessor (overall, it’s only slightly better than Gremlins 2: The New Batch), even if its sturdiest moments demonstrate that The Cars still had enough of a pulse to be interesting.

Speaking of pulses, I’m listening to Heartbeat City right now… and I’m regretting that pun already. I’m also regrettably ascertaining that the spark of timelessness which characterized the band’s early work faded rather quickly for them—despite being released only six years after their debut, City contains very few of the former’s charms and resonates as an album which could have ONLY been made in 1984. This is mostly due to the flaccid production of “Mutt” Lange, whose abiding steadfastness to characterless grandiloquence later transformed Def Leppard from marginally-ballsy hard rockers into scrubbed-shiny arena darlings whose songs all sounded like jingles for shampoo commercials. It’s perhaps fitting, then, that the a cappella refrain which introduces the opening track “Hello Again” evokes Joe Elliot more than it evokes Ric Ocasek—actually, several of the tunes on City could have easily appeared on Hysteria with minimal tweaking, which perhaps says volumes more about the uniform soullessness of Lange’s twiddling than it does about either The Cars or Def Leppard.

Though Heartbeat City spawned two of Ocasek’s biggest singles—“You Might Think” and “Drive”—it’s a fairly pedestrian offering on the whole, and a far cry from the not-then distant age when The Cars managed to build full suites of great cuts around their radio anthems. “Magic” resonates like it was specifically written to accompany the pivotal montage scene in a direct-to-VHS Jon Cryer romantic comedy, “I Refuse” is so anodyne that it could have been a Kajagoogoo b-side, and even the solid mega-hit “You Might Think” is essentially a reductive re-write of “Just What I Needed”. “Stranger Eyes” boasts some of the dark promise of “Living in Stereo” and makes good use of its sturdy Tom Petty-esque guitar lick, but the track’s momentum is woefully hamstrung by Lange’s saccharine sheen, which neuters David Robinson’s propulsive stick-work to such a degree that the drum tracks sound like the percussion presets on a $7.99 Radio Shack keyboard. “Drive” is assuredly the best tune in the bunch, yet even that apex ends up being more perplexing than effective since the lone resemblance it bears to the band’s other work is that it appears on a record by the band The Cars.

Sadly, while my ardor for the group’s first LP remains stalwart, my investigation of their subsequent offerings is only serving to reveal that I don’t love The Cars nearly as much as I love The Cars. I might have been better off sticking with that solitary disc in my library (though you would have missed out on all those genius vehicular bon mots I threw at you a few paragraphs back)—as things stand, it’s highly unlikely I’ll be cueing up Candy-O or Heartbeat City in its place next time I’m in the mood to immerse myself in Ric Ocasek’s stellar song-craft or envision the nipples of retired ‘80s actresses.

We won’t get a Hollywood Ending to this piece, I’m afraid. As we roll the credits here, our protagonist (or maybe I’m the antagonist of this opus—I’m never quite sure) still hasn’t met his Nietzsche-citing clove smoker, and now he’s dispirited to discover that he doesn’t adore the band he’s writing about as completely as he thought he did.

Plus, Kevin Kline probably wants to punch me in the face now. Just what I needed.

I know what you’re thinking… A song-title gag is about the laziest way I could wrap this thing up, even more unimaginative than settling for another witless car pun, right?

Whatever. Boobies.

August 1, 2015

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