in the time traveling shenanigans AU, if future Jancy also come back, I think it'd be really funny if the Dusteve relationship reveal or even the Steve dates men reveal came from some offhand comment of future Nancy's and she doesn't even realize she's revealed anything until everyone's freaking out.
and then she's like oh right. Dustin is 16 right now. that hasn't happened yet. and everyone's like YET?!?!? and then future Nancy, who 100% had a HUGE issue with Dusteve when they first got together, is like "it is not that big a deal!!! we have bigger things to address!!"
also Jonathan is REELING right now. this whole time he thought Steve was coming for Nancy
Thank you so much for this ask! I realized as I started writing my other drabble series that I couldn't handle eight characters for such a prolonged period of time especially when I don't have that strong of a handle on writing Jonathan's character. That being said, I thought it would be fun to try writing in Jonathan's perspective for this to see where it went. Consider this, parallel universe #1 to dilf dusteve time travel drabble. this was a great suggestion, so if anyone has other concepts for my time travel shenanigans, shoot them into my inbox!
Behind a read more bc I'm incapable of writing anything short.
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Jonathan's head hurts, and not just because he fell through the roof of the Lab into conference room that had rapidly filled with unidentifiable white goop. No, the real reason his head hurts is because he's staring at himself. His hair may be gone and he might have deep lines under his eyes and along his mouth, but it's him alright. He's looking at himself from decades into the future. Beside him and on the opposite side of the table sits a woman who clearly is Nancy, brown hair most likely dyed and in a sleek short cut he imagines must be the fashion from whatever year they're from.
They'd woken up in a daze, struggling to get free of the goo and then nearly had heart attacks when they saw that not only were they not alone, they were looking at funhouse distorted mirrors of themselves. Nancy had scrambled for her gun, only to find it gone, lost in the explosion, and the other two immediately starting swearing up a storm, as if they had been in this situation before and were very unhappy to be back. They all scrambled for the table and after brief theories and confused explanations, they all sat staring at each other in suspicious silence.
The older Nancy breaks the silence. "We should call for Steve and Dustin, so they know where to find us."
"If the older ones are here too, they probably know where to go," the older Jonathan suggests reasonably.
"Hmm, true. Are you from 2012? I wonder if we all got yanked from the same time," older Nancy muses.
"Yeah. I was in the middle of a shoot. You?"
"Just finished up an interview. So...how've you been? Has the filming been going well?"
The older pair continue to talk, catching up, and Jonathan realizes swiftly that they're not together the way they cover months of activity in their conversation. He spares a glance at Nancy. Her expression, unsurprisingly, is unreadable. He rolls his eyes. Always the stoic, Nancy Wheeler.
When Steve busts down the door with a fire extinguisher, golden light bursting into the room, Jonathan imagines he should feel more relieved, but the way that Steve gallantly offers his hand to Nancy to help her through the hole he's created puts a sour lump in his craw.
The feeling grows when he catches sight of an older Steve standing just beyond in corridor, still with a full head of hair, and now with a thick beard. Typical, Jonathan thinks to himself. At least he's gone gray. An older Dustin stands next to him, looking much the same as the younger, though he sports a pair of thick glasses and his face is more drawn. Silver threads his dark curls here and there. The two Dustins are talking rapidly back and forth under their breath, too quick to follow.
Once everyone is out of the room, Jonathan is surprised to watch all of the older versions start to embrace each other, swapping big hugs and warm, firm handshakes. Even the older Steve and Jonathan seem to be glad to see each other. He can't imagine a world where that's the case.
Everyone starts talking at once, trying to question what happened, why there's two versions of everyone and what this means for the timelines of events in everyone's lives. Eventually the older Dustin shouts everyone down to offer a rapid fire explanation of the situation that leaves Jonathan with more questions than answers.
"So what's our next move then?" the older Nancy asks, already eager to leap into action.
"Find a way to untangle the timelines, right?" the younger supplies, looking at her older counterpart for confirmation.
"Right, but how?" Jonathan asks, suddenly frustrated.
"The answer should be in this journal of Dr. Brenner's," the younger Dustin pipes up eagerly, brandishing a large notebook filled to the brim with handwritten notes.
"That'll take forever," Jonathan grumbles.
"Well, if we've got time, I suppose we should get comfortable," his older self mentions, looking much less irritated than Jonathan feels.
"Let the geniuses put their heads together," the older Steve says with a soft smile.
Jonathan wrinkles his nose at the soppy look on his face. What a prick. The feeling grows when he sees his Nancy eyeing the older Steve, gaze flicking up and down, clearly checking him out.
The older Nancy looks over at the older Steve. "Are you guys sure this isn't anything to do with what your Dustin has been doing recently?"
"What, no? Dust isn't even doing anything related to exotic or dark matter these days. All his work has been on the electromagnetic interactions of quantum gravity and that's been purely theoretical. Besides, he's been too busy trying to whip the younger generation into shape in his undergraduate courses to do much experimentation."
The entire group, with the exception of the older Dustin in question turn to look at the older Steve. Their expressions range from total bafflement to delighted surprise.
"I'm sorry, how on earth do you know any of that?" the younger Nancy asks.
"Do you even know what half those words mean?" Jonathan sneers.
The older Nancy cuts through these questions easily. "Yes, but you know that it's entirely possible that Dustin is doing stuff without your knowledge. Lets not forget what happened during your wedding."
"What happens during my wedding?!" the younger Steve asks anxiously.
The older Steve and Dustin laugh easily as if reminiscing over a fond memory together. "We'll leave that for you to find out," the older Steve says, winking at his younger self.
"You know, I think I still have undeveloped film from that night," the older Jonathan muses. "I should get that done. Consider it your Christmas present this year." He's fiddling with a small camera in his hand as he lounges against the wall, having followed his own advice.
The older Dustin doesn't look up from the journal, flipping pages rapidly. "I'd love to see them. We only got shots from before the ceremony before the photographer fled. Never even got the deposit back."
Jonathan narrows his eyes, confused by the way the older Dustin is speaking so possessively about the event. Why would he care so much about seeing photos of a wedding that wasn't even his?
"Yeah, well that's what you get for blowing up half of the venue, Dustin! I'm surprised you weren't sued into oblivion!" Nancy chastises.
"They couldn't ever prove it was me!"
"I can't believe Steve didn't divorce you on the spot," she says fondly, shaking her head.
Hold on...
The hallways erupts into commotion as young Jonathan, Nancy, Steve and Dustin all start shouting over each other in absolute dumbfounded bewilderment.
"You two are married?!" -- "We're in love?!?" -- "What the fuck, gross!" -- "When the hell did this happen?!"
"Are we being punked right now? What is happening?" Jonathan says to the room at large.
He feels like his whole world has been turned over and smashed on top of his head. Steve Harrington, king douche of Hawkins High, is married to a man? And not just any man, but Dustin Henderson, one of his brother's best friends? What the hell has he been doing flirting with Nancy for the last eighteen months, then?
His only consolation is that young Steve and Dustin are looking at each other with barely disguised twin expressions of horror. In fact, they might even look more shocked than Nancy does, whose face is screwed up in a look of pure disgust.
"Oh, shit!" the older Nancy says, looking chagrined. "How old are you right now, Dustin? Sixteen? I completely forgot you guys weren't together yet."
"Yeah, well, it was always hard to keep track, Nancy," Jonathan says from his corner, pulling the camera down from his eye where he'd been snapping photos of everyone's reactions. "I forget when they even officially got together, honestly. They've been attached at the hip since basically forever."
"Um, what the hell?" the younger Nancy bursts out. "Why are you all acting like this is normal? It's completely messed up! Steve and Dustin?"
"Hey!" all four Steve and Dustins shout in indignation. The younger two immediately snap their mouths shut and look anywhere but each other.
The older Nancy rolls her eyes. "Oh please, Nancy, get over yourself. We've got bigger issues to worry about. In a few years their age difference won't matter at all. It barely matters now!"
"It's not about that!" Nancy splutters. "They're--Dustin is the same age as Mike!"
"Since when have you been gay, dude?" Jonathan asks the younger Steve.
"I like girls!" Steve snarls back, pointing a finger in Jonathan's direction.
"Yeah, one girl! Well, maybe you can finally back off of Nancy since you're gonna be sucking face with Henderson here at some point!"
"Hey, screw you, Byers!" Steve says as Dustin shouts, "like hell he is!"
Jonathan is so fed up with everything that he goes to grab Steve's shirt, wanting to shove him against the wall and really give him a piece of his mind, maybe go for fight #2 but before he can the older Nancy is intervening, shoving a firm arm against Jonathan and pushing Steve back at the same time.
"Cool it, you two! Stop being meatheads for one second, please!" she shouts as Jonathan and Steve continue to rail at each other. The others are shouting too, until finally the older Jonathan cuts through the noise.
"Everyone shut the fuck up!" he roars, quieting everyone instantly.
Jonathan takes the opportunity to pull himself away from the older Nancy, adjusting his coat roughly and breathing heavily.
"You," his older self points at Jonathan. "Give it a rest already. Since we're already revealing truths about our relationships, you and Nancy should have already broken up. Literally. In our timeline we broke it off in that room. So I'll do it for you guys. You don't like each other, you don't like each other's interests, or personal tastes, and you've outgrown the trauma that brought you together. So just give it up already."
Jonathan thinks he can hear a pin drop with how silent it is in the hallway. The older Nancy continues. "And Nancy isn't interested in Steve in the slightest. Well, he's hot. But that's obvious." She shrugs apologetically at the room in general.
The older Dustin mutters under his breath, "yeah, obviously. I'm clearly the winner in this room." The older Steve elbows him.
"Nancy, give girls a try. We like both, so open your eyes to the possibilities before you and stop acting like you know what's best for everyone," the older Nancy continues bossily.
The younger Nancy scoffs, folding her arms tightly.
"Really convincing there, Nance," the older Steve says sarcastically.
"I don't even want to touch you two," the older Nancy says, looking at the younger Steve and Dustin. Dustin, in particular, looks like he's speed running realizations, eyes darting around and face dropping into a look of dawning comprehension. Of what, Jonathan can't possibly fathom.
The older Jonathan nods in agreement. "I can't go there. That's between you two. Or...you four...I guess."
"Nope, no way in hell are Henderson and I a thing. That's crazy," Steve says.
"Great, good for you," the older Nancy says. "Shit, I just remembered. Holly! We haven't heard her screaming yet, so we may be able to catch her sooner this time!"
This cryptic announcement is met with another wave of loud reactions, and the group makes their way back up to the roof. As they do, Jonathan catches sight of Dustin, who's face is shuttered and stormy, staring at Steve's back. Pity twists through Jonathan, recognizing the same longing underneath the anger. It's the same that colors Will's face when he looks at Mike. He suddenly feels bad that this is how Dustin has found out that he's in love with Steve Harrington of all people. He has no idea what you say to comfort someone in a situation like this, though, so he follows after him silently.
actually the funniest way for the Eddie/Dustin/Steve triangle to shake out if Eddie lives I think is that Eddie truly does just see Dustin as a kid and likes having the ego boost of this freshman thinking he’s the coolest thing ever. He hates hearing about how cool Dustin finds Steve just because what do you MEAN he’s gotta compete for popularity with Steve Society Sheep Harrington even with his Hellfire kiddos. Dustin should know better than to be swayed by popular jocks!!
So after he realizes Steve’s a decent guy he puts a lot of that aside. After all, Dustin still thinks he’s a hero for fighting off the bats. He can live with that. He can make peace with Harrington.
And meanwhile Steve is STILL crazy jealous of him because he hasn’t clocked that his feelings are a lot more complicated but he knows he feels SOME sort of way about Dustin’s obvious crush.
Eddie trapped in a love triangle that he doesn’t even realize is a love triangle
OMG YEAH I WAS LITERALLY THINKING ABOUT THIS JUST TODAY. I mean listen I love the idea of Eddie and Steve both being into him because Dustin as a YA protagonist being chased after by two hot older guys brings me so much joy. But I find this super plausible, and super fucking funny. Dustin has two separate crushes that are visible from space, Steve has a one sided beef that he can't explain, and Eddie has zero feelings for anyone involved. No one is doing it like them.
go off on the topic of Bat!cest and how the fandom deals with shipping the Bat family :)
The fact that people ship incest (or pseudo-incest) doesn't bother me and never will. There's even a couple ships here and there I've been interested in, though it's mostly canon ones because I'm either blind to the so-called subtext OR I see it but it's unshippable to me do to my own comfort levels. I do believe is possible to ship these and other ~problematic dynamics without incurring in bad behaviour, which is what actually matters to me, and which doesn't necessarily come from shipping it. The most insensitive jokes about I've seen about incest, for example those about the usamerican south or inbred children, have often come from self-described antis. Unfortunately, determining whether someone is a safe person to be around in fandom isn't as easy as looking at their ao3 page and DNI proclamations. It's a case-by-case problem and it requires effort on one's part.
The term batcest does bother me though LOL. Mainly because it's so damn vague, and inconsistent, and people are bringing in a lot of baggage even when they don't realise it. Some of the standards for what counts as incest are so transparently homophobic I don't even want to bother with the whole thing (like. There are so many het "batcest" combination that have been canon or near canon and that's either not an issue for most OR out of people's radars). Not to mention it doesn't respond to the (very, very ugly) reality of incest, it's a cudgel to use against ships one doesn't like. Jaysteph getting lumped into "batcest" while Stephcass isn't is a clear example of this, whether the argument is that Steph counts as another "batkid" or that Jason dating his "brother's" (they're not brothers) ex is also somehow incestuous.
Also I really fucking wish some of the shippers like. Fucking thought twice about the things they say. "I find this darkly fascinating/arousing/whatever" is one thing. When you get to a point where you're arguing about a ship's morality on the grounds of "normalcy" (as if that means anything other than "common" or sometimes "terrible thing that happens often because nearly everyone in the world shrugs it off") you've lost the plot. Like. Isn't the whole point that liking taboo ships doesn't reflect on someone's morals? That you're aware that enjoying something in fiction doesn't say anything about your thoughts on the real phenomenon as it occurs in reality?
sports fans fascinate me lol. that post you reblogged made me laugh but BOY do I not understand the feeling.
although one time my dad and I did come to this weird agreement moment where we were like "you, you like to cheer for your sports teams and make predictions. I like to go on my little fan website and reblog gif sets. we are not so different, you and I"
Hahahaha the thing about being a sports fan, and I'm sure this is true for many cities, is that if you're not a fan of Philly sports while living in Philly you're basically leaving joy on the table. I may not have anything in common with the guy standing behind me in the checkout line or waiting at the bus, but both of us can talk about the Eagles, how great the last game was or how frustrating the refs calls were. It's the best feeling the world to be in a bar with the game on and everyone cheers and sings the fight song when we score and we're all enjoying the moment together. I love calling "go birds!" to a kid decked out in kelly green and eagles merch and hearing them yell it back. It's a way to feel connected to my larger community and to find joy and excitement from the weekly games.
but also, I'll be honest. God, I love being able to cheerfully and unseriously hate another team. It's partly faux-aggression and partly a safe way to get out the anger and frustration I feel from other areas of life and vent it safely toward something that doesn't matter. which isn't to say there aren't fans who take things way too far! They absolutely do, but sometimes we need something dumb and unimportant to hate. Plus a friendly rivalry can be fun, if not taken too the extremes. It can be fun to gently rag on an opposing fan, or see a rival team eagerly stoke the fires of the rivalry in order to have the most competitive game possible.
In terms of relating to fandom, I definitely think there is crossover in certain types of behavior. I mean, god, sometimes you just hate another ship for no good reason other than you just don't like it! you get invested in the story lines (and there are definitely narratives and story lines to follow with sports and players, underdog teams getting to the superbowl, veteran players having comeback seasons, a player picked last on the draft excelling beyond everyone's expectations) and want to see certain characters succeed and others fail! Its fun to hate teams like its fun to hate a great villain. and every villain thinks they're the hero in their own head.
I want to talk Coach Ben dream theories with you bc even though I didn't respond I have been THINKING about your theory but I have to watch the next episode first bc I have no idea what more happened with that. I feel like I'd propose a theory and you'd be like WELLLLL lol. But oooooh the whole dream world thing is SO interesting
So this is obviously dated and before the finale, but I am still on this train!!
Sadly, I think we've left behind the world where Coach Ben is fully dissociating, though. Since dream!Paul kicked him out of the dream world and Misty talked him off the literal edge, Benny Boy's got his groove back. And that groove means attempted murder-by-fire of like, a dozen teenage girls (and Travis.) So I don't think anything about my theory of Ben eating in his dissociation dream world and permanently disconnecting from them is ever going to pan out.
But it's still very interesting to me that there were other similarities between Ben's dream world and the death dreams of the girls in the wilderness. In the death dreams, the girls are tempted by something they really want. Jackie drinks the hot cocoa and dies, and before that she dreams of her friends warmly accepting her and telling her they love her. Lottie's dream is a weird inverse, where her friends judge and belittle her, and Laura Lee pushes her out of the dream before she can eat food there and die in real life. Even Shauna's death dream, difficult as it is, involves her successfully feeding her baby and connecting with her child. So the pattern of not eating/eating and survival/death is pretty well established at this point.
Ben's dissociation dream world is so similar to these in some ways. He gets what he's dreaming of - he's with Paul, he never got stuck in the wilderness or lost his leg, he's not surrounded by cult-ish cannibalistic teenage girls (and Travis.) And at the end of it, Paul forces him back into the real world, just like Laura Lee did for Lottie. And Paul tells him he loves him, just like Shauna did in Jackie's death dream.
I don't know what these parallels mean, lmao. I'm not even sure they mean anything, anymore. And I don't know if they were ever going to get so literal as the "even if you're not dying, if you're dreaming and you eat, it's bad" route. That was probably too on the nose.
But I do think it's interesting that there are a lot of similarities to all these dreams. Maybe, since Coach also wasn't eating in real life, being the only one who hasn't given into cannibalism, the similarities between the dreams were only supposed to suggest that, if Ben hadn't woken up, he would've eventually succumbed to starvation and died anyway. And they just thought it'd be too obvious to have him be offered and refuse or nearly accept food in his dreams with Paul.
I thought it was clever, though, dammit!
Anyway, this is a long-winded way of saying that I think there's something there, I don't think it's exactly what I thought it was, and sadly, I think we've gotten all the answers we're gonna get. What a nuts story beat, though.
why am i doing this to myself is the question. it's 11 am on a tuesday and I'm about to start crying about fictional characters
It's 10AM here and YOU are going to make ME cry over fictional characters so who's the real villain here???
(the writers of The 100)
honestly though... I'm so bitter about this show in hindsight, to the point that I wonder why I even ran a blog in the first place. and then you show up and remind me of my spacekru feelings and of all the lost potential there, but also how the crumbs we got were SO GOOD. and I remember again, that, despite its many, many, many flaws, sometimes The 100 was actually very emotionally impactful and occasionally well-written.
BRUH!!! I gave up on Supernatural (for honestly, undestiel related reasons) and now they want to go and give me all this!!!! Dean is the reason Cas rebelled!!! Even Chuck can't control Cas because he's in love!!! WHAT??!? Overall I don't think writers ever have to make a ship canon just because of the fandom, but like, WHAT is the point of this writing if it's not about the Romance of it all?? (Sorry saw your tags and was like!!! fellow destiel shipper!!!)
DON’T WORRY I AM EMO ABOUT DESTIEL RIGHT NOW!!!!!!! Like honestly I don’t expect them to have an official canon ending like kissing or whatever but.... bro. They’re so in love xD I mean at this point we’re reaching s9 levels of romance it is insaaaaane
Because it’s fun! And I like exploring how the same people can fall in love in dozens of different scenarios! And I love the characters I write about just so much!
4. Are there any writers that inspire you?
@pawprinterfanfic 100%. I dream of being as good as her.
6. What element of writing do you find comes easily?
Funnily enough it’s dialogue! I used to rp a lot, so getting into the heads of different characters is surprisingly easy for me to hear their voice in my head and think of things they’d say.
18. Wildest fic you’ve ever written?
What do we mean by wildest? Because if we mean the most out-there fic, it’s probably A One-Time Thing (Captain Swan, E) because it’s definitely not something I normally would write. But I also feel like in terms of what actually happens, when life gives you shit, you make kool-aid (Becho, M) is pretty wild too.
