Faun

the amount of research i have already put into it and THE AMOUNT OF TIMES I HAVE THROWN THE WHOLE THING INTO THE TRASH TO START OVER is insanity.

and yes. will throw the biggest plot point so far into the trash tonight and with it around ten chapters.

someone help ugh

After a while, Robin began to sing.

So quietly that, at first, Nancy thought she had imagined it. The words were German, shaped almost entirely beneath Robin’s breath.

"Du, du liegst mir im Herzen…"

The melody was simple and tender. Nancy felt it as much as heard it, each low note vibrating through Robin’s chest beneath her cheek. Robin’s hand continued its gentle path along her back, never hurrying, never demanding anything from her.

Nancy did not know whether Robin understood how intimate it felt - to be held against the place the song came from, to hear affection carried through bone and breath rather than spoken directly.

- snippet from IN A COUNTRY NOT OUR OWN

But on the morning of November 6, Vickie Dunne was arguing with the soldiers who had arrested her almost-certainly-addict girlfriend, spent the afternoon in another dimension searching for some guy named Dustin (after first surviving an attack by mutant dogs), and spent the night glued to her walkie-talkie like some action-movie hero's wife.

I just think they’re both too lost by the end of the show to somehow figure out they could be together. I love the idea of Mike being able to find himself in college, time to mourn El, space to see what their relationship really was like with adult eyes. New people to love and experiment with and just learning what the difference is like when you get to kiss someone you’re actually attracted to. To experience people outside of Hawkins and to give himself time to begin to heal from all the mistakes he made as a kid, to understand he was just a kid and he did the best he could. To understand how the default straightness he was put in isn’t the only way to be.

Space for Will to see how other people can perceive him, and know him, and love him more for it. Making friends, experiencing the queer scene in NYC art school. For him to learn to love himself and gain more self confidence and accept that, while Mike was his first love, it’s far from his last. For him to get to feel as normal as he can for once in his life.

I love the idea of every break, when they see each other there’s something there, that’s not addressed because how do you bring it up? When the relationship they’ve had so far is built on doubt? When you only have a few weeks or months together before it’s back to weekly phone calls?

Mike starts to see that it’s more than just how deeply he loves his best friend as he experiences new romance and new friends over the years. He sees the part of himself that romantically longs for Will.

Will feels that spark of first love every break, but it goes from being a weight he doesn’t know how to carry, to being bittersweet. Something he knows will never fully go away but something he can live with because he knows there so much love in the world for him.

And when they graduate and come home and talk about the future, where to move and who they want to be, they realize they can’t be anything without each other. And when Mike starts showing real interest Will can allow himself to have real hope again.

Day 5!! of Michael Wheeler’s Adventures Abroad 🤗

Today we made the arduous- and incredibly hot- trek through Pompeii. We fully avoided any sort of melting (although we did learn there was zero lava involved in the explosion of Mount Vesuvius and it was mainly ashes and smoke that buried the city instead)

like what is she doing

Their dates either (1) end abruptly, (2) end badly, (3) end in a conversation about threesomes (what?), or (4) ends because their date is way too into the idea of cheating.

Hindsight is 20/20.

These two have not made it to four because they don't seem to realize that they're doing this to themselves.

Honestly, it's Nancy's favorite topic of conversation when they do their monthly meet up. She could listen to these two bitch about their abysmal dating lives all day.

Robin never acts on a crush and it drives Steve crazy because like. Yeah. Sometimes it's a straight girl so it's a crush that'll go nowhere and maybe don't tell them but sometimes she's crushing on a(n obviously) queer woman and -

"You don't know that," Robin insists. "You're just assuming and what if you're wrong? I go talk to her and implode my life?"

"I'm not wrong though," Steve shrugs. "Go ask her out."

"You can't know for sure."

So, Steve figured it out. For sure.

By coming out and seeing how these (could not be any more) queer women take handle it and you know what?

They're always supportive.

They're always queer.