#Doors and Signs

[morganbritton132]

There’s a replica of a military tank in the center of the park.

Around the tank is a fence and around the fence, there are multiple signs telling you not to climb on it. The purpose of the tank is to memorialize the soldiers of WWII but currently, Steve Harrington is standing on top of it.

The (only) great thing about a trainee is that Hopper can send Callahan over to handle the trespassing first grader.

He looks away to scan the park and when he looks back, Steve is trying to kick Callahan in the head. Hopper whistles, “Knock it off, Harrington. The sign says no trespassing. Get down.”

Steve explodes, “I. Don’t. Know. How. To. Read!!”

He emphasizes this outburst by ripping off one of his shoes and throwing it at Hopper. It bouncing off his chest and Hopper gives him a flat look, “Get down.”

Steve goes for his other shoe but Hopper is already pass Callahan, grabbing him by the leg and yanking him off the tank. He gets kicked in the gut for his trouble.

He keeps ahold of him, carrying Steve kicking and screaming over to the truck and sitting him on the hood. The whole time thinking, this is new.

Steve’s troublesome but mostly polite. Half the time, Hopper’s just got to tell him to stop doing stuff and he will. He’s never seen a tantrum before.

“You know it’s against the law to hit a cop. What you just did would be called assaulting a police officer,” Hopper say because Steve likes to show off what he knows about law. “Could spend some time in jail.”

“Good,” Steve sniffles. He weakly kicks out again, just barely missing Callahan. “I want to go to jail.”

“That’s good,” Hopper says flatly. “Because that’s where you’re going.”

He picks the kid up again and unceremoniously dumps him in the backseat. He gets in the front. Callahan gets in the passenger seat, asks, “Boss, you’re not really going to..”

Steve’s still crying when Hopper starts the car. He’s eerily quiet about it but Hopper can see the tears in the rearview and he can hear the sniffles. He doesn’t say anything but drive.

He doesn’t go to the precinct despite what he says. He drives out to Benny’s Burgers, parks the kid in a booth, and then plays the cop, “I have some questions.”

Steve has his head down, pillowed by his arms. His shoulders are shaking with tears but his voice is painfully steady when he sniffles, “Need’a lawyer.”

“Callahan is not pressing charges,” Hopper says. “I need to know what happened for my incident report. I gotta explain why you tried to kick his head off his shoulders.”

“Cause he’s a butthead and I hate him.”

Hopper hums, “And what made you angry enough to do that?”

Steve looks up at him.

His watery brown eyes meeting his, and then Steve cries, “Tommy doesn’t want to be my friend anymore!”

Hopper thinks, Jesus Christ.

[lazylittledragon]

im wondering. are jayce's immediate sledge-hammering at the first sign that a doorway might not be accommodating and the "we fucked up" note over the hole in wall related

i think they're just discovering that jayce is very chill about plowing a hammer through a fucking wall at a moment's notice

[gothamitee]

Nothing keeps this boy off of the job...

[totalrager]

Bill prefers a more hands-on approach when it comes to gaming.

cw: set between late 90s/early 2000s, fem!reader, r is not a #gamergirl for plot purposes, ooc to the max bc bill isn’t allowed within 50 feet of the opposite sex :P

Nailed to the wooden door, painted in bold, red letters, is a giant sign that reads ‘NO GIRLS ALLOWED’.

“You break a single thing in here, and I’ll call the cops, I swear to god.”

“Great, anything else?"

“Touch my comics, and you’re dead.” 

The threat rolls off your shoulders as quickly as he said it.

It’s been like this ever since you walked through the front door.

After getting a call, at 2 a.m. might you add, Bill had been real adamant about you coming over; something about his usual visitors being 'too busy doing other stupid bullshit' and wanting to show off his mad skills at a new game he'd purchased.

Had you not been on the verge of falling back asleep, you would've called him on his shit and made him admit that he really just wanted to see you.

Regardless, and in hopes of putting an end to the semi-rantish call, you said yes.

Bill, having finally gone through his extensive rule list and coming close to having you sign a contract, unlocks the wooden door and pushes it open; the worn-out stairs squeak loudly as the two of you make your descent into the dark room.

As if it were second nature, he felt around in the air for a moment before yanking on a dangling cord. The only source of light reveals his magnum opus.

The basement was exactly as you pictured it.

Hanging on almost every wall that didn't have a giant bookshelf pushed in front of it, several shelves were bearing multiple miniature knick-knacks and large posters featuring what you assumed was every single sci-fi movie to have ever existed.

Towards one of the corners of the room was a beat-up table covered in a fictional map, surrounded by over a dozen mini figurines; a battle having clearly taken place the night before.

But what stuck out to you the most was that it was noticeably clean.

Y'know, for a guy.

Aside from the clutter of personal belongings that bordered on a novice level of hoarding, there was not a single speck of dust.

No crumpled papers, bits of plastic, fast food wrappers, or anything. You could be mistaken, but you’re almost positive he vacuumed, too; Hell, even the tiny waste basket shoved next to the couch was empty.

Was this all because you were coming over? Did he want to make a good impression? 

The thought alone sends your guts aflutter with some bizarre version of flattery.

As your gaze flits all around the room, you feel a heat radiating from your host’s laser-focused gaze aimed directly at your face.

“What?”

“You look… different.”

Okay, so what if you actually put some effort into your appearance, doused yourself in your favorite perfume, and put on your nicest pair of jeans?

It’s not like you wanted to look somewhat decent for the guy you were maybe-kinda-sorta seeing or anything; even if said guy couldn’t give any less of a damn about how you looked.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” You shrug nonchalantly, hoping he wouldn’t see through your thinly-veiled ruse, “I always look like this. Are you just now paying attention?”

God only knows the amount of ridicule the little weasel’d dogpile you with if he found out you got all ‘prettified’ just for him.

Plus, his ego would over-inflate to unprecedented levels and take out all mankind like a modern-day version of the meteor that ended the reign of dinosaurs.

Luckily, with one last eye flicker and a low, noncommittal ‘hm’ from the back of his throat, the brief subject is dropped.

Guess you both did some light primping.

He moves further into the room, not before throwing back a witty 'You should take a picture; it'll last longer.'.

“I can’t help it; it’s not every day my pookie bear lets me into his holy sanctum to play with his little toys.” You flutter your eyelashes at him, earning a disturbed sneer in return.

“Don’t call me that.”

“What? Pookie bear?” you feign innocence. 

“Yes, that. Only pussywhipped normies use that cutesie crap and I refuse to subject myself to such standards.”

“Whatever you say, snookums.”

“I so loathe you.” Bill let out one last aggravating sigh before busying himself with the gaming system he’d mentioned over the phone.

As he connects a couple of wires to his TV, you awkwardly hang around for something more to do, settling on picking at a hang nail just to have something to busy your hands with.

The solution comes when you make eye contact with a nearby shelf, a couple of out-of-box action figures practically beckoning you over.

“Ooh! What if we each grabbed one and made them kiss and junk? Wouldn’t that be romantic?”

You snag a figure that had a very Baywatch David Hasselhoff-y vibe with puffier hair and a gun strapped to his hip and deepen your voice, holding it up close to Bill, “Listen to the chick, punk. She’s got the right idea.”

A certain lasso-handling heroine is also thrown into the mix as you adjust your tone to be more smooth and confident.

“I agree, Please help me declare my undying love for…” You pause for a moment in an attempt to recall the gunslinger’s name, “that guy.”

Bill scoffs 'unamusingly' at your childish display and (lightly) swats the hand holding the intergalactic smuggler away from his face, “Like Han Solo would ever be caught dead making out with a woman who wears her panties out in public to fight crime.”

“Pssh, He’d be lucky if Wonder Woman even glanced in his general direction.” 

He pauses, “How do you know who Wonder Woman is?”

“Can’t tell you; it’ll take the mystery out of our relationship.” (You thumbed through a stack of comics when he wasn’t looking.) “Are you going to show me how to play or what?”

As if on cue, the TV’s noisy static blaring through the speakers smoothens out to a more upbeat and inviting tune, making way to display the psychedelic home screen of one Mario Kart 64.

You let out a delighted ‘oooo!’ before plopping down next to your kinda-sorta boyfriend on his circular carpet as he fiddles around with two controllers, ensuring that both are fully functional and cooperating.

Bill messes around with the game select screen, making sure to pick two players before moving on to the character select screen, the more exciting of the two.

There are eight options for you to choose from, ranging from a human plumber to... you want to say a punk dragon with a mohawk? 

Before you can make a decision, you're given some unwarranted advice: "You can be peach, obviously."

“Are you saying that because I’m dainty and pretty like her?”

“Uh, no. She’s pink and the only girl.”

As appealing as that sounds, another character had already caught your eye. “Forget that. I want to be the green dino thingy.”

“Yoshi? Out of the question, I already chose him.”

“No way, I want him!”

“No, fuck off! I picked him first!”

“BILL, PLEASEEE!”

“Get off of me!”

———

After the two of you take the time to have a well-rounded and productive discussion ("STOP THROWING CUSIONS AT ME!"), you come to an agreement.

“Whatever, I wanted to be Toad anyway.” He eventually concedes.

A triumphant giggle bubbles past your lips, earning a heatless scowl from Bill, as the game finally, finally begins.

You watch as a quick runthrough of the track displays itself: a hilly, rainbow-y mess set deep in outer space; cartoon logics, who were you to argue.

As the countdown begins and the competitors rev up their engines, a previously forgotten problem makes its way to the forefront of your mind. “Wait- Bill- I don’t know the controls!”

“Can’t help you, gotta win.”

And the race is on!

As he moves freely around the map and plays out maneuvers only capable of being done by someone who already knew every trick in the game, all you managed to do was move forward a couple feet, change the camera angles, and then crash straight into a wall, where you remained until the end of the race as Bill, as expected, effortlessly places first.

To add insult to injury, right before crossing the finish line, one of the last remaining CPUs nails you with a projectile. "Oh, come on!"

He lets out a victorious and annoyingly mocking cackle as the rankings are given, placing you at dead last, right underneath a literal ape.

You jut your bottom lip out in disdain, “Does unfairly beating me make you feel good about yourself, Dickey?”

“It really does. Thanks for asking.”

"Jerk."

"It's not my fault you're so bad at this."

“I am trying my-“ a sudden warmth descends upon you as a pair of flannel-covered arms wrap themselves atop of your own, “-best.”

He’s initiating contact! holy shit, holy shit, don't make any sudden moves or he’ll get spooked. Oh my god!

Bill ‘hand-holding is for douchebags’ Dickey was willingly pulling a slightly less messy version of the pottery scene from Ghost; all in the name of showing you how to play a game meant for kids.

During all this overthinking, he's also pointing out each multi-colored button and its designated purpose. 

So it's possible he doesn't consciously realize the very intimate hold he has on your right now.

Oh well, you'll take what you can get.

Is that aftershave you're smelling? Since when has he ever worn that?

“-button to perform slides on turns so you don’t lose any speed, but it’s a move for more advanced players, such as myself, and I doubt you’d be able to do it correctly.”

Wait, how long has he been talking for?

Any sound tumbling out of his mouth sounds exactly like it’s coming from one of the offscreen adults in Peanuts.

"You’re holding it wrong.”

You blink. “W-what other way is there? I don’t have three hands.”

“The controller's only meant to be held by the middle and right part.”

You nearly swallow your tongue as Bill maneuvers your hands, which were getting embarrassingly clammier by the second, into the correct position.

He then chooses another track, one that was covered in cows, and the countdown begins once again.

Except this time, once the little guy on the cloud makes it to one, instead of focusing on winning and jetting off to remain ahead of the other racers, his cart remains at a standstill next to yours. “Okay, press A to go.”

That should be easy enough to find!

One measly little A shouldn’t be an issue.

You stare down at the controller, and a beat of awkward silence hangs thickly in the air.

“Uh...”

Unseen by you, Bill rolls his eyes. “Are you new to the English language? You’re hopeless.”

He presses your thumb down, and by some odd miracle, Yoshi is finally moving forward, this time without hitting any barriers.

Like the world's most annoying teacher, he helps remind you again and again what button serves what purpose, all while keeping his hold on you.

While it initially flustered you, you started to get used to the added heat and focused on actually winning.

When he feels that you've finally got a grasp on the controls, he gives you full-reign of the controller and drops his arms; although, Bill doesn't seem to go too far, simply choosing to hang them loosely around your waist.

You don't think much of it, too preoccupied dodging a few cows whose life mission was to be run over.

"Stupid asshole," you murmur angrily under your breathe as a green plumber bumps into your kart and nearly sends you veering off course. 

The race gets even more intense when you finally manage to catch up and riding the red plumber's ass for first. 

"Throw it already, he's right fucking there!" Bill encourages, his grip tightening from excitement.

Your arm jerks to the right as if the movement will help Yoshi avoid a banana placed by the unfair CPU racer. "I'm trying, I'm trying!"

"Then throw the damn shell!"

"Stop backseat driving!"

With the checkered finish line in sight, you make the last ditch effort to twart your opponent and toss the green shell.

You both watch with bated breath as it hits the white fences along the sides like the world's most annoying pinball, inching closer and closer to its intended target before it finally makes a-

"Direct hit!"

At the absolute last second, Mario is sent toppling over like the giant tool he is, making a clear path for Yoshi, the ambitious little dinosaur, to take first place.

"I did it!" The wide grin on your face nearly splits your face in two as Yoshi lets out his victory... cheer?

You don't dwell too much on it.

Maneuvering yourself around and then tossing your arms around his neck, you relish in the small, dare you say, proud expression displayed on your boyfriend's face,  "Did you see that?" 

This time, you can see when he rolls his eyes, "Duh, I was right here." 

"How does it feel to be dating someone with better gaming skills than you?"

"Please, I could've played better than that in my sleep."

"Is that a bet I hear, Mr. Dickey?" You twirl a lock of his auburn hair in between your fingers.

You're not sure exactly when it clicks, but the sudden realization of the extremely close proximity he's placed himself in brings an abrupt end to the light teasing between you two.

Bill's entire face turns a brilliantly bright cherry red as he scrambles back over to his side of the floor, accidently knocking you on your ass and stammering the whole way, “T-tell anyone about this and I-I’ll just say you were c-coming onto me.” 

Initially, you thought that you accidentally overstepped your boundaries and caused him some grief, knowing how weird he is with physical contact, all of which is thrown out the window when he keeps glancing over at you.

You snicker, "Don't worry, I liked it too."

He sucks his teeth in what you took as dismissal, "whatever."

The tiny smile he's fighting so hard to stamp down says otherwise.

He quietly grabs his controller and returns to the map selection screen, scrolling through the submenus until he finally settles on one.

You take the silent hint and reach for yours, keeping your distance and refocusing on the screen.

As the two of you settle back in, Bill not-so-subtly scooches himself closer to you, tensing slightly when his leg makes contact.

Not wanting to ruin the moment, you just slump further into his side, leaning your head on his shoulder.

It takes every fiber in your body and then some to not squeal in pure ecstasy when he returns the small gesture by squishing his head on top of yours.

"YEAHHH, EAT SHIT!”

“WHEN DID YOU GET A RED SHELL?!”

extra:

"Hey, freak. Have you seen my sewing kit? I got a couple grudges to- what the hell?”

Jane watches in complete shock as the whirlwind formerly known as her brother frantically shoves pile after pile of trash into a large bag.

There’s a couple more just like it in terms of size piled up in the corner; right beside them is a discarded feather duster and a tangled-up vacuum cleaner.

"I didn't touch your shit," Bill calls over his shoulder, "can't you see I'm busy?"

“Since when do you clean?”

Her only answer is a grumbled 'mind your damn business' as her brother proceeds to dump last night's leftover campaign fuel into the overstuffed garbage bag in his tight grasp.

"Is it for a girl? It's a girl, isn't it?"

The younger Dickey takes a moment to soak in the fact that her brother, the selfish bastard that couldn’t bring himself to give a shit about other people, was actively making an effort to try and impress another human being and allowing them to step foot into his ‘nerd cave’.

You really can’t make this stuff up.

"Y'know,” she drawls after a moment of complete silence, an almost cat-like smirk stretching itself across her pale cheeks, “for a while there, I thought you weren't interested in girls."

"Oh, for the love of- GET OUT!"

[thistransient]

24小時營業

[captainjonnitkessler]

Just deleted the ask I was trying to respond to, but re: "skeptics always die in horror movies" - I have mixed feelings on that trope!

On the one hand I think it sets the tone and helps the audience suspend their disbelief - people are always complaining about horror movie characters being idiots, so this can be a way to be like "see? We DID consider rational explanations, and then someone immediately got murdered very supernaturally, so stop asking questions and accept the premise."

On the other hand, I think it definitely contributes to the idea that skeptics are close-minded killjoys who are too stubborn to accept reality, which is a very common and incredibly annoying mindset. Shane Madej did not spend the last eight years marching into haunted houses and loudly demanding that the demons inside kill him for me to still be hearing shit about how "if you don't take the supernatural seriously you will Attract Evil Energies And Die".

[inkskinned]

crows use tools and like to slide down snowy hills. today we saw a goose with a hurt foot who was kept safe by his flock - before taking off, they waited for him to catch up. there are colors only butterflies see. reindeer are matriarchical. cows have best friends and 4 stomachs and like jazz music. i watched a video recently of an octopus making himself a door out of a coconut shell.

i am a little soft, okay. but sometimes i can't talk either. the world is like fractal light to me, and passes through my skin in tendrils. i feel certain small things like a catapult; i skirt around the big things and somehow arrive in crisis without ever realizing i'm in pain.

in 5th grade we read The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night-time, which is about a young autistic boy. it is how they introduced us to empathy about neurotypes, which was well-timed: around 10 years old was when i started having my life fully ruined by symptoms. people started noticing.

i wonder if birds can tell if another bird is odd. like the phrase odd duck. i have to believe that all odd ducks are still very much loved by the other normal ducks. i have to believe that, or i will cry.

i remember my 5th grade teacher holding the curious incident up, dazzled by the language written by someone who is neurotypical. my teacher said: "sometimes i want to cut open their mind to know exactly how autistics are thinking. it's just so different! they must see the world so strangely!" later, at 22, in my education classes, we were taught to say a person with autism or a person on the spectrum or neurodivergent. i actually personally kind of like person-first language - it implies the other person is trying to protect me from myself. i know they had to teach themselves that pattern of speech, is all, and it shows they're at least trying. and i was a person first, even if i wasn't good at it.

plants learn information. they must encode data somehow, but where would they store it? when you cut open a sapling, you cannot find the how they think - if they "think" at all. they learn, but do not think. i want to paint that process - i think it would be mostly purple and blue.

the book was not about me, it was about a young boy. his life was patterned into a different set of categories. he did not cry about the tag on his shirt. i remember reading it and saying to myself: i am wrong, and broken, but it isn't in this way. something else is wrong with me instead. later, in that same person-first education class, my teacher would bring up the curious incident and mention that it is now widely panned as being inaccurate and stereotypical. she frowned and said we might not know how a person with autism thinks, but it is unlikely to be expressed in that way. this book was written with the best intentions by a special-ed teacher, but there's some debate as to if somebody who was on the spectrum would be even able to write something like this.

we might not understand it, but crows and ravens have developed their own language. this is also true of whales, dolphins, and many other species. i do not know how a crow thinks, but we do know they can problem solve. (is "thinking" equal to "problem solving"? or is "thinking" data processing? data management?) i do not know how my dog thinks, either, but we "talk" all the same - i know what he is asking for, even if he only asks once.

i am not a dolphin or reindeer or a dog in the nighttime, but i am an odd duck. in the ugly duckling, she grows up and comes home and is beautiful and finds her soulmate. all that ugliness she experienced lives in downy feathers inside of her, staining everything a muted grey. she is beautiful eventually, though, so she is loved. they do not want to cut her open to see how she thinks.

a while ago i got into an argument with a classmate about that weird sia music video about autism. my classmate said she thought it was good to raise awareness. i told her they should have just hired someone else to do it. she said it's not fair to an autistic person to expect them to be able to handle that kind of a thing.

today i saw a goose, and he was limping. i want to be loved like a flock loves a wounded creature: the phrase taken under a wing. which is to say i have always known i am not normal. desperate, mewling - i want to be loved beyond words.

loved beyond thinking.

[satoblue]

satoru is horrified when his kiddos start using the locks on their doors — he acts like he’s dying. disrupting their peace, panicked as he rattles the doorknobs, asking if they are alright— if they are alive. you both decided to install it for a reason (for them to use it for privacy obviously however long they need), but he can’t help being dramatic about it bc it is too soon (they are teenagers)

[sirellas]

i think what gets lost in the "reposting gifs is bad" message is that the people reposting don't realize that someone made these gifs. a real human person who is a user on this godforsaken site, made it. it didn't come from "tumblr" it didn't just appear here out of nowhere. it's weird, i get it, especially if you're new here. it doesn't look like a creative work, it's just a few dozen frames of a tv show or whatever. making gifs and posting them to tumblr is different things to everyone who does it, but it's an art. it's fanwork. no qualifiers, it just is. and i think with about 10 more seconds of thought everyone could come to that conclusion too. the art is in the choice to make it. so don't steal it, please.

[queerfandomtrifecta]

Starting to second guess the choice to go play mini golf at one of the few places still open during the off season in Myrtle Beach

[romancemedia]

Crunchyroll Anime - Alternate Banners

[thistransient]

Panaji, Goa

[kcrabb88]

Goin’ to the chapel (courthouse) and we’re gonna get marriedddd 💕

@librarianladyx

[negrowhat]

QUICK! Choose Your Fave from My Faves: Height Difference: Thai Edition!

Okay here is Part 2 of my Height Difference Poll Series! We're focusing on Thai ships. As always please don't yell at me about forgetting a ship! I could probably do a 2nd poll with Thai ships tho lol. Anyways!

[opbackgrounds]

"Might say" my foot. Level Four is literally an inferno hellscape. Not sure that's where I'd want to stick my office.

[fluffydragonchips]

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