#shyanara

LMAO. i often think about when helen broke up with ryan in 2018 and ryan mentioned he was spending a lot of time with shane and sara. certainly a lot of antics a sad newly single boy could get up to. much to think about...

[Reposting because tumblr won't let me reformat my original post]

Summary: "You want those breathers flushed out of here, I'm your guy. I'm the universe's one and only bio-exorcist." He flicks out two fingers towards Shane, between which he's holding a very tiny piece of paper. Shane takes it, to be polite, and as he touches it it grows into a full size business card.

"Beetlejuice," Shane reads aloud doubtfully. "Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice."

The little man cackles like a witch, with his tongue held fully out of his mouth, gleefully shaking two shakas.

(a shyanara fusion taking parts from both Beetlejuice (1988) and Beetlejuice: The Musical)

It's the second week of their second year of marriage when the accident happens. Shane has just gotten off the phone with his mother, who had asked yet again when Shane would be giving her a new grandbaby, and reminded him yet again that Scott has already delivered two. Shane had side-stepped the question as long as he could before eventually giving up and claiming to have something urgent to attend to so that he could end the call. Shane would feel guilty if he told her that the baby thing is all up to Sara, though he's not sure why. His mother would never be passive aggressive about it, he knows. And how else can he explain why they're still waiting? It just sort of seems like one of those things you're not supposed to say out loud. Shane heads up the stairs in something of a hurry. He's got a half complete shadowbox up there waiting for him and it will be nice to sink into working on it after the uncomfortable phone call. He gets part way up the narrow staircase to the attic before almost running right into Sara on her way down. They giggle at each other, and Shane touches her waist. She's wearing one of her favorite dresses, pale pink and long-sleeved with a subtle ruffle down the front. The sleeves are rolled up and there's a smear of neon green at her temple. "What spook have you summoned this time?" Shane asks, gently teasing. Sara's paintings are always so unique and haunting, and Shane loves them. He kind of wishes they could have them downstairs, up on the walls. Once they're fully dry and won't get messed up, Sara puts them away, and Shane never gets as much time as he'd like to look at them. So he tries to encourage her. Painting is much less weird than meticulously pinning dead insects to light absorbent boards anyway. "A demon, I think," Sara answers shyly, tucking an errant curl behind her ear. "He just kind of came to me, I can't explain it." "I can't wait to meet him," Shane tells her honestly. She rolls her eyes, but the soft blush across the bridge of her nose tells him she's pleased. And Shane does love to please, so he soaks it up, and lets it make him feel good too. On a sudden whim, he pulls Sara down another step and into a kiss, the both of them giggling again. Even after so long together, it's such a giddy feeling to be in love. So Shane hams it up a little, acting out his love for Sara like it's a fun skit. He loops both gangly arms around her waist to hold her more firmly and dips her. She throws her head back to laugh, and Shane tucks his own flushed face into her neck, and then- Shane's foot slips. It's a long, long way down.

Everyone read this!! It's my "Halloweeny" fic from last year, and I even posted it on time, and I'm really proud of it, but it didn't get the attention I expected it to which is a huge bummer!

The fic features themes of heteronormativity including the pressure to have kids, compulsive heterosexuality including the disproportionate need to not be "weird", the definition of "evil" and how there isn't one, people with personality disorders: they're just like us!, death obviously, and deportation. And listen. I know I wrote it, but I think I did a pretty good job with those themes while also making them kind of funny and fitting them into a light read.

Please. It's under 10k words long, or about a half hour read. And it's good. I promise.

Happy 'Ween Season

Hello friends and shippers! 

It is still January, and it’s cold and dark and sort of miserable in the Northern Hemisphere, so the book club was definitely looking for something to warm us up. 

Our theme this past week was Shyan+, and we had nominations for all permutations of Shane and Ryan plus an extra! There’s an amazing variety of options in this fandom, which is a wonderful thing, and with a close vote, we selected To The Sun by blacktofade featuring the Shane/Sara/Ryan combination as our read this week. 

It’s domestic, it’s comforting, it’s bittersweet in the way that all the best ten years later fics tend to be. It features our usual suspects, in a wildly different era of their lives than the one they were all in in 2019, and it’s done with great care and presence of mind. 

Rating: Explicit

Summary: 

Life is weird. Ten years after Unsolved ends, Shane’s married with a kid and Ryan accidentally bumps into him at a gas station in Illinois.

Book Club Thoughts:

it's really excellently written. it's beautiful simple prose that never feels overwritten.

I love the balance of it with the tide swaying towards hope.

i really love that their reunion is a chance encounter. it's like fate, which is how i feel about their whole damn relationship.

one of the most excellent establishings of a past without using literal flashback i've seen in fic.

the way [the author] weaves in the memories from past encounters and writes them in the scene so it feels heavy, meaningful, purposeful.

There's this sensation of thinking you have managed to fully get over something and then being faced with it again and discovering that all the feelings you'd managed to forget are still there that gets captured really strongly and accurately through the story.

it's understanding not just who they are, but who that means they will be. incredibly aware writing.

Polyamory and absence and reunion. All were handled so well.

I love in reunion fics when the characters are better together older.

I want to mention "Ghoul Man". that's so cute.

there's nothing quite like the idea of turning all of BuzzFeed Unsolved into children's stories featuring Ghoul Man.

bear is the perfect writing of a lab, they are such good dogs and this writer knows the truth of that fact.

What sticks with me most from this is  how much the domesticity of Shane and Sara’s life means to Ryan. It doesn’t put him off, but drags him in. Because it’s them, everything is different but it’s still them.

...bruh. Out of literally all of the things that people guessed to be the topic...it was just straight up THIS. Which means that excellent fic fodder shall be provided. (I watched this episode when it came out but my brain was on fire the whole time and it it took awhile to process...)

...or is it? >:3

They’re moving.

This place—Shane and Sara’s place that morphed into Shane and Sara and  Ryan’s place—has served them well. But with Watcher flourishing, and Sara’s art income growing a little bit every month, they’ve really pushed the current home office to its absolute outside limits.

or, domestic polyamory but add some spice

Ryan gets in Shane and Sara’s car.

They don’t talk about it, but they don’t question it either. He just gets in the back like he belongs. Shane and Sara talk quietly in the front, holding hands over the center console. Ryan leans his head against the car window and watches as the Los Angeles skyline, painted in dark black and shades of gold, whizzes by his head.

“It’s not real,” Sara says.

She’s the first one who’s spoken since they wrapped, and somehow her voice is startling. It pierces the silence that’s washed over the trio in the car. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I know,” Ryan answers. Shane’s different, somehow, but they don’t talk about or question that either.

Ryan goes home with them and they eat Taco Bell in Shane and Sara’s living room as they watch a true crime documentary. Sara and Ryan try to joke over it, but the air’s thick with tension, and Shane doesn’t joke back.

“I’m going to bed,” Shane says, at 9:48PM.

Sara frowns at him. “Baby,” she says.

Shane shakes his head. “I’ll be okay.” He motions to Ryan. “Stay here with him.” He leans forward to kiss her, ruffles Ryan’s hair, and then he’s gone.

They keep watching the documentary, but it’s a farce. Sara scoots closer to Ryan until she’s sitting in his lap, her face hidden between his shoulder and his neck. “It’s not real,” she says again.

Ryan brings a hand to her back, rubs it in big circles. “I know,” he says.