Crimson and Clover

✦she/her · cancer · reader · angst with my morning coffee ✦ 👣 marauders | 🕸️ marvel | 🩸 tvd | 🎸 stranger things

[i-creel-riddle]

Sirius: "dumbledore trusts you." Snape: "yes." Sirius: "i don't." Snape: "i know." Sirius: "doesn't that bother you." Snape: "Black i spent six years sharing a school with you. very little bothers me anymore."

[i-creel-riddle]

can we talk about dustin henderson for a second

there is a consistent pattern with this kid that i don't think gets appreciated enough. dustin always, always defends the people nobody else is willing to defend, and he does it before it's safe or popular or easy.

he defended eleven when she was new and genuinely terrifying and nobody knew what she was. he defended eddie when the entire town had already decided he was a villain. he grieved dart, a creature that literally endangered the people he loved, because he doesn't love things halfway.

oh and erica. lucas's little sister who had zero respect for d&d or the people who played it. dustin recruited her anyway. saw something. was correct. as always.

and then there's steve. steve was kind of awful at first and dustin just... believed in him anyway. brought out a whole side of him that probably never would have existed otherwise. that's the dustin effect.

what gets me is that he's not just kind, he's perceptive. he sees the humanity in people before they've even proven themselves. he takes the risk first, every time.

he's also somehow more emotionally mature than most of the adults in the show, which is wild for a kid his age. the one exception is when he was grieving eddie and snapped at steve but honestly that just made him more real. even the most emotionally intelligent person falls apart when they lose someone they love that much.

[i-creel-riddle]

Sirius: "you know i actually felt bad about the willow incident. for a whole week." Snape: "a week." Sirius: "it was a long week." Snape: "i spent a month in the hospital wing." Sirius: "…" Snape: "a MONTH, Black." Sirius: "i felt bad for two weeks."

[i-creel-riddle]

if tom riddle had a son, he would be exactly like jamie from adolescence. i will not be taking questions on this

like first of all. LOOK AT JAMIE. the dark hair, the eyes that are simultaneously empty and calculating, the face that reads as "sweet kid" until he catches you looking and suddenly you're not so sure anymore.

tom riddle didn't grow up throwing tantrums. he grew up being the most well-behaved child in the room and somehow that was scarier. jamie has that EXACT energy. this is not a coincidence this is genetics.

both of them figured out early that being likeable is a weapon. that if you smile the right way and say the right things, adults will defend you. people will doubt themselves before they doubt you.

the charm isn't loud. it's quiet and deliberate and that's what makes it so unsettling.

also imagine him at hogwarts. in slytherin obviously. being deeply unnerving in school robes and nobody can explain why they're slightly afraid of a fifteen year old.

anyway tom riddle's son is out there in a british secondary school and i think about that a lot.

oh and his name is Hadrian Salazar Riddle, by the way. yes i'm the mother. yes tom riddle is the father. no i don't want to talk about it.

[i-creel-riddle]

eddie munson was completely plot irrelevant and somehow that makes it so much worse.

remove eddie munson from stranger things 4. go ahead. do it. what changes?

i'll wait.

NOTHING. absolutely nothing. the upside down is still there. vecna still does his little villain monologue. max still almost dies. eleven still saves the day. hawkins still falls apart. THE PLOT DOES NOT MOVE DIFFERENTLY.

eddie munson existed to be hot and play guitar and die in the most dramatic way possible and the AUDACITY of that working so well on all of us

joseph quinn carried that character on his back through sheer charisma and face genetics alone. the writers handed him narrative decoration and he turned it into a whole ass moment. the metallica scene? ICONIC. for what? for vibes. purely for vibes.

and the death?? the death was so pointless it looped back around to being insulting. he died in the upside down fighting demobats while the actual plot was happening somewhere else. he died buying time for a plan that would have worked anyway. he died and hawkins didn't even know he's innocent.

the only person whose story actually changed because of eddie munson was dustin. DUSTIN. one character. that's the entire narrative footprint of this man.

and yet here we all are. still not over it. because the vibes were IMMACULATE and he came and served facecard and left like wind and took a piece of us with him

the duffer brothers really said here's a man with zero plot utility and the most compelling presence in the room. good luck grieving.

i'm totally normal about this...mostly

[i-creel-riddle]

The Kaz we deserve

y'all. hear me out. i was watching ST and the thought hit me like a ton of brick.

jamie campbell bower as kaz brekker. i haven't been able to unsee it ever since AHHHH

jamie has that sharp, angular bone structure that screams "i haven't slept in 72 hours and i'm plotting 17 different ways to ruin your life."

he does unhinged SO well.

he's got that weirdly elegant but dangerous thing happening. like yeah he could kill you but he'd look beautiful doing it and also charge you 6 million kruge for the privilege.

imagine that "get out" voice doing the "i would have come for you" speech. IMAGINE IT.

the CANE choreography?? sir would EAT.

netflix. I'll write the check myself idc.

[i-creel-riddle]

Mischief Managed

The moon is a cold, white coin tonight, pressed against the black velvet sky. I pay it no mind. The ache is old, a familiar tenant in my bones. It’s the other aches that keep me up.

I think about the map, you know. The one that showed us, showed everyone. Sometimes, in the dusty corner of my mind, I still see the ink bloom. A tower. A name in loopy script. Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, & Prongs are proud to present The Marauder’s Map.

Proud. Gods, what a stupid, brilliant word that was.

Now, when I close my eyes, I don't see the dormitory. I don't hear James’ laugh, loud and sudden as a firecracker, or Sirius’ dramatic sighs from his four-poster. I see a man, twisted and afraid, not for himself, but for his wife and his boy. I see the fear in Lily’s eyes, green as the Killing Curse that took her. I see a rat. A fat, grey rat with a missing toe, scurrying away from the blame.

Peter. You coward. You made us a joke. You made our teenage rebellion, our grand secret project, into a blueprint for betrayal.

And Sirius. Oh, Padfoot. The map showed us everything, didn't it? Everything except Peter's hiding place. It showed you going after him. It should have shown me why. It should have shown the switch, the betrayal, the moment you realized the secret we'd guarded for years was the very thing that led him to their door.

You chased a rat. I called you a traitor. We were both wrong, and by the time the truth came out— by the time I understood you'd never have handed them over, that you'd have died for James a thousand times over— you were already in Azkaban, and I was already alone, and the world had already moved on.

The moon still rises. The map still folds. And I still carry the weight of believing the worst of you, even for a moment.

The moon tugs. A low, familiar pull. But it's not the wolf I'm fighting tonight. It's the memory of Prongs. James. He'd probably hex me for sitting here in the dark, for calling myself a monster. "Moony, you idiot," he'd say, shoving my shoulder, "you're the best of us. The only one still standing. So bloody well stand."

But standing's hard when everyone else is gone. When Peter's fear became a dagger. When Sirius' love became a prison sentence. When the best of us became a smear of red on a cottage floor, and all I have left is a piece of parchment I can’t bear to look at, and a body that remembers the full moon like a heart remembers how to break.

I solemnly swear I am up to no good. I lied, Prongs. I am up to my neck in good, and it's drowning me. Mischief managed. If only it were that easy.