acowardinmordor

[acowardinmordor]

Robin and Eddie are mid rant about how neither of them have been kissed and being gay in small town America is hard when Steve interrupts them like —

Steve: “uh, no, don’t blame being gay for your lack of action. You’ve never been kissed because you both don’t have any type of game.”

Eddie: “it’s not like there’s a wealth of people we can kiss here steve. It’s Hawkins.”

Steve: ive made out with like three different guys in this town since last summer.

Robin and Eddie: “you. What.”

Steve, flipping through a magazine: “it’s not because you’re gay. It’s because you’re nerds.”

[acowardinmordor]

Every poll on this blog is about fictional characters only. This request was sent to us and we made a poll in response to it. Send any Blorbo-related question you want to our inbox and we’ll make a poll on which people can vote with their own Blorbos in minds

[acowardinmordor]

I would like people to please stop making my boy a coward by default. He calls himself a coward because he ran away from supernatural evil killing people in front of him. He learned that about himself during that week. The boy says it about himself, even as his actions do the opposite.

That is not a coward, that is an unreliable narrator.

[acowardinmordor]

This is amazing and could be a very funny, sweet, thing but it’s me, and it’s 11:30 at night, folks. You know what that means.

Eddie tries to let it roll off of him. He plays up his responses into swooning and flirtation, and puts on an over the top girly voice because if he puts his hands on the knife too then getting stabbed doesn’t hurt so much. It doesn’t stop it hurting, but Eddie has a mask to hide behind.

Steve treats him like a girl now, and Eddie makes it a production, and then Steve laughs and gets that dorky grin, laughing along with the joke. Eddie used to love that grin when it was pointed his way. He used to make a fool of himself because it would make Steve laugh and smile at him.

He stops doing that. It’s bad enough he has to see it whenever Steve jokes about Eddie being like a girl. That smile became a blade, and at least Eddie can avoid stabbing himself with it all the time. He stops playing the jester, and maybe that’s why it seems like Steve is being worse about the gay thing now.

Steve brings him a flower, so Eddie tucks it in his hair until Steve goes home, then it gets crumpled and torn. Steve holds open doors, so Eddie curtsies, and then climbs through a window the next time.

The worst is that Eddie realizes this is Steve being accepting. The teasing and treating Eddie like a girl isn’t to be cruel. Steve isn’t that guy. It’s just that Eddie came out, and Steve kinda recategorized him as a girl now. He kinda did the same with Robin, so maybe that’s why makes sense.

It’s not their fault that Eddie hates it.

It is Eddie’s fault when things get weird and awkward between him and Steve.

Steve keeps doing all these nice, girly things, and Eddie manages to play along with the joke each time, but it’s exhausting, and makes these uncomfortable spikes of energetic performance in the midst of creeping numbness.

Of all people, Eddie didn’t think it would be Will that he’d end up talking to, but Robin wouldn’t get it. If he told Steve directly, then he might learn that the only version of acceptance available was to be treated like a woman. Still, Eddie should have had a talk with Jon or Nancy. Instead Will asked him about it while they were planning a joint campaign.

A not-quite-casual, “do you not like it when Steve does that stuff? The flowers and the pet names? You always look upset after, and you haven’t been around as much.”

Eddie doesn’t want to tell this kid that coming out means getting treated like a woman, not when he knows that Will is almost ready to admit it aloud about himself.

“Cause if you don’t, I could tell him to knock it off.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I want you walking up to Steve to pass a note for me.”

Will rolls his eyes. “I’m not Dustin. I wouldn’t tell him like that. I can be subtle. But I think he thinks you like it. And I think you act like you do as long as he’s looking at you. Steve’ll stop if he knows you don’t like it.”

Eddie agrees, even though it’s very strange to ask that from a sophomore. By the next weekend hangout with the group, Will must have done whatever he was going to do. No pet names, no random stolen wildflowers. Steve stops all of the jokes and comments and stops treating Eddie like a woman.

It’s good. He’s not getting stabbed with it. He likes that.

But that was Steve’s best version of accepting Eddie as a gay man. Without it, even though they’re all at Steve’s, even though they’d been close friends for months, Steve talks to him like a stranger, and won’t make eye contact.

Eddie coming out to Steve (who conveniently forgets he hasn’t come out to Eddie). Steve’s only long-term relationship experience has been with girls who like having the door opened, surprise flowers, endearing pet-names, and other “sweet” gestures. Eddie comes to suspect that Steve wasn’t as accepting as he first appeared and is now making fun of him by treating Eddie like a woman.

[acowardinmordor]

Fun fact about Habanadas is that they sometimes revert to Habanero for a single fruit. Or a plant can mostly revert to spicy. If that happens to Kas, I am going to start naming things more carefully.

[acowardinmordor]

This is not important, but is that graffiti meant to look like someone used their thumb and tempera paint to write it because I can’t come up with another method that would be that drippy without being more solid brushstroke or a rattle can. They can’t even show him some respect with proper graffiti skills. And if it’s meant to be an oooh scarryyy blooood which was my other guess then that makes no sense. Then the writer is attending the sacrament too

[acowardinmordor]

I just wanted to put him in a situation. Cause you almost never see an accidental pregnancy fic where someone gets an abortion. And you super don't if its a character that wants kids. But it takes so much context and setup to get to the thing I really wanted, which is a truly insane first meeting at the abortion clinic.

Fucked up the pacing of an outline/ficlet thing.

[acowardinmordor]

Fucked up the pacing of an outline/ficlet thing.

[acowardinmordor]

Eddie agrees to go to the gym with Steve ONCE and fully intends on making fun of him the whole time, but doesn't consider that his shirt will ride up a lil bit and he'll get a glimpse of the Harringtummy

Cue a months-long streak where Eddie insists on going to the gym together more and more often just for the view, until they're going six times a week and get absolutely jacked

Meanwhile, Steve was already into Eddie when he was a bean pole but now they're both strong as hell and actively drooling & pining while spotting each other

They do not talk about it

[acowardinmordor]

My boy is attempting to have other branches. Highly exciting.

Eddie the Habanada is bougie, but has now remembered that leaf nodes are supposed to grow leaves.

[acowardinmordor]

Massive trauma + skewed scale of normal + Steve is protective + I want more things where characters are legitimately doing bad things.

Result: Eddie or Robin or both get caught in undeniably gay situation. Steve gets told that Local Guy saw them. Steve says he'll handle it.

And in totally unrelated news, the guy left town suddenly, and wow, so crazy that they found his body the next summer.

[acowardinmordor]

Steddie has been hooking up. Steve made Eddie promise that if he ever saw something weird to call him. Breakup before Chrissy

——

Sometimes when I can’t sleep I’ll write something angsty. Sometimes it falls apart and I delete. Sometimes I finally get sleepy and I save it because I think it’s worth coming back to.

That thing up there was dated July fifth. Which means I was trying to sleep while the motherfuckers who live near me set off fireworks until three am. It feels like I found crayon scribbles on the wall of a cell.

Edit: he is not out of fireworks.

[acowardinmordor]

Looks about right.

[acowardinmordor]

I am not going to write more of this because if I try the wip doc for FtB will spontaneously develop a physical form so it can slaughter me in my sleep. But I will provide a couple thoughts.

Steve scrolls back through the convo and recontextualizes it. Things like when Eddie asked who his favorite musician was, Steve said Hozier or Sabrina Carpenter, and Eddie thought it was a joke. Or Eddie saying his sleep schedule sucks, and Steve thinking that was weird since it was sent at 10pm, but Eric was in Germany at the time.

One angst option is that Steve tries to explain, Eddie thinks they were fucking with him the whole time, ghosts. Or. Tries to explain, and Eddie thinks that part is the joke and then talks about how it’s good that’s not real because ew gross no thanks.

Or. Steve panics and stops responding until Eddie gets worried and tags Eric’s account. Or panics and goes to Robin who is utterly useless and they almost quit their jobs.

Also this whole time Eddie has been guilt tripping because he doesn’t want it to seem like he’s using Eric, but CC got a huge bump and if they can get mentioned again, it would be enormous and he doesn’t want to be a dick, but he and Eric have been talking daily for months, so is it really that rude to ask?

You know the new trope we’re doing in fandom where someone sends a message to a famous person on Instagram and is shocked to get a reply, thinks they’re an assistant so keeps talking to them, yadda yadda fanfic magic, it really is the famous guy, something something, hook up with a rockstar. You know that one?

Let’s take Steddie and invert it.

Invert. Not reverse.

In a series of events neither could explain, Robin and Steve find themselves working in social media roles at a music label.

Robin is working for pop-Star Chrissy, and spends almost all her time on TikTok and Instagram liking posts Chrissy would like and blocking creeps, and finding things that Chrissy should do a video response to. Yes, this is boiling Robin’s brain because she ends up seeing a lot of really offensive messages, and she’s spiraling a bit because she has had similar thoughts. However. This is not about them right now.

Steve is working for a big name in Metal and Rock doing essentially the same job. Down Devastation is more popular than Steve would have expected, and he had a training session on how to impersonate a heavy metal guy. The front man is a guy named Eric, who he can admit is hot when he’s not in his stage makeup.

His job is to filter the bad ones, like some things, share things, and send stuff to Eric that the guy would want to reply to with more than a button tap.

At some point, Down Devastation gets tagged in a cover of one of their early songs, and it’s actually good and it wasn’t tagged by the group. It’s other users tagging it. They’re a band called Corroded Coffin, and Steve was told specifically that Eric likes to lift up baby-musicians. It gets sent to Eric. Eric stitches/edits/whatever and promotes their upcoming (teeny tiny) show. That should be the end of it.

Corroded posts some extra videos from their show - biggest crowd they’ve ever had (75 people! All conscious! There on purpose!) and Steve makes sure he likes them all, chooses one to share on the DD account.

A couple days later, while scrolling the thousands of notifications and messages, Steve spots one from a user he remembers was tagged in the Corroded Coffin stuff.

The guy, Eddie, sent a message from his personal instagram to say thanks.

It is legitimately part of Steve’s job to stalk people a little bit before replying, so he gets to see this guy who, if Steve is being honest, is fucking adorkable. The message isn’t raising any flags, the guys profile is clean without looking fake, and the guys band did get a callout. This is solidly in the list of things that are Steve’s job.

Steve sends a you’re welcome, uses some of the descriptions and phrases Eric had actually used, and figures that since the guy is normal, that’s the end of it. Eddie sends another message a few hours later, not like he’s trying to be that weird fan, not leading or forcing a conversation, but mentions something nerdy. It catches Steve’s eye the next time he’s clearing insta messages.

It accelerates pretty quickly into an actual conversation. Steve is used to being the character of Eric, but it slips a little when talking to Eddie. Not on purpose, but also not a big deal. Eddie has proven he’s pretty saavy, so the guy definitely knows that Grammy winners don’t answer their own DMs. Steve has almost jumped the conversation to his own account, but he’s paranoid that he’ll use the wrong one at some point, so never has.

it’s not until a few months later, when Eddie actually calls Steve ‘Eric’ in a message, instead of the joking ‘King’, that Steve realizes; no. Oh god, no. Eddie doesn’t know that. Eddie thinks he’s been talking to a famous metal head.

Choose your own adventure on how much angst there is in the space between that realization and the happy ending.

[acowardinmordor]

You know the new trope we’re doing in fandom where someone sends a message to a famous person on Instagram and is shocked to get a reply, thinks they’re an assistant so keeps talking to them, yadda yadda fanfic magic, it really is the famous guy, something something, hook up with a rockstar. You know that one?

Let’s take Steddie and invert it.

Invert. Not reverse.

In a series of events neither could explain, Robin and Steve find themselves working in social media roles at a music label.

Robin is working for pop-Star Chrissy, and spends almost all her time on TikTok and Instagram liking posts Chrissy would like and blocking creeps, and finding things that Chrissy should do a video response to. Yes, this is boiling Robin’s brain because she ends up seeing a lot of really offensive messages, and she’s spiraling a bit because she has had similar thoughts. However. This is not about them right now.

Steve is working for a big name in Metal and Rock doing essentially the same job. Down Devastation is more popular than Steve would have expected, and he had a training session on how to impersonate a heavy metal guy. The front man is a guy named Eric, who he can admit is hot when he’s not in his stage makeup.

His job is to filter the bad ones, like some things, share things, and send stuff to Eric that the guy would want to reply to with more than a button tap.

At some point, Down Devastation gets tagged in a cover of one of their early songs, and it’s actually good and it wasn’t tagged by the group. It’s other users tagging it. They’re a band called Corroded Coffin, and Steve was told specifically that Eric likes to lift up baby-musicians. It gets sent to Eric. Eric stitches/edits/whatever and promotes their upcoming (teeny tiny) show. That should be the end of it.

Corroded posts some extra videos from their show - biggest crowd they’ve ever had (75 people! All conscious! There on purpose!) and Steve makes sure he likes them all, chooses one to share on the DD account.

A couple days later, while scrolling the thousands of notifications and messages, Steve spots one from a user he remembers was tagged in the Corroded Coffin stuff.

The guy, Eddie, sent a message from his personal instagram to say thanks.

It is legitimately part of Steve’s job to stalk people a little bit before replying, so he gets to see this guy who, if Steve is being honest, is fucking adorkable. The message isn’t raising any flags, the guys profile is clean without looking fake, and the guys band did get a callout. This is solidly in the list of things that are Steve’s job.

Steve sends a you’re welcome, uses some of the descriptions and phrases Eric had actually used, and figures that since the guy is normal, that’s the end of it. Eddie sends another message a few hours later, not like he’s trying to be that weird fan, not leading or forcing a conversation, but mentions something nerdy. It catches Steve’s eye the next time he’s clearing insta messages.

It accelerates pretty quickly into an actual conversation. Steve is used to being the character of Eric, but it slips a little when talking to Eddie. Not on purpose, but also not a big deal. Eddie has proven he’s pretty saavy, so the guy definitely knows that Grammy winners don’t answer their own DMs. Steve has almost jumped the conversation to his own account, but he’s paranoid that he’ll use the wrong one at some point, so never has.

it’s not until a few months later, when Eddie actually calls Steve ‘Eric’ in a message, instead of the joking ‘King’, that Steve realizes; no. Oh god, no. Eddie doesn’t know that. Eddie thinks he’s been talking to a famous metal head.

Choose your own adventure on how much angst there is in the space between that realization and the happy ending.

[acowardinmordor]

What is your reading speed? Here’s an online test for it. Just leave it at high school level. It’s not a race, and polls are anonymous.

[acowardinmordor]

Eddie the Habanada is bougie, but has now remembered that leaf nodes are supposed to grow leaves.