#“what do puppet show have to do with metallica's song???”

[pigeorgien]

"Dream the same thing every night, i see our freedom in my sight"

"No locked doors, no windows barred, no things to make my brain seem scared"

"Sleep, my friend, and you will see – That dream is my reality"

[deliriumsdelight7]

Okay so I'm too afraid to watch Stranger Things (I have on good authority that it would actually break me) but I feel like I Need to know about hellcheer, what are the most important things to know xD

You, my friend, are in luck, because Hellcheer has all of, like, five minutes of interactions. I’ll only show you the video for the good one so as not to break you. This scene OOZES chemistry:

As for things to know, I will do my best to stick with strictly canon material and avoid headcanons (of which there are many).

For Chrissy Cunningham:

1.) She is a senior in high school, head cheerleader.

2.) She is dating the captain of the basketball team, Jason Carver.

3.) She is being plagued by visions from an otherworldly creature who is essentially feeding off of her trauma. That’s why she’s so jumpy in the clip.

4.) She has an eating disorder. This manifests in her visions as a table full of food that is rotting and fly-infested.

5.) Her mother is abusive. This manifests in her visions with her mother at a sewing machine altering Chrissy’s clothes to fit. Additionally, in the vision, her father is sewn to his recliner, his eyes and mouth sewn shut - implying that he has been violently blinded, immobilized, and silenced by his wife.

6.) Later in the night the same day as the above scene, Chrissy goes to Eddie’s trailer so he can sell her ketamine to try to ignore her visions. The creature haunting her takes this opportunity to kill her brutally in front of Eddie.

For Eddie Munson:

1.) Eddie is loud and abrasive. Compare the scene where he’s introduced to how soft he is with Chrissy:

2.) Eddie lives in a trailer with his uncle. According to the prequel book, his mother is dead and his father is in jail. His father taught him to hotwire cars when he was a kid.

3.) Eddie has been held back twice. His goal is to graduate high school, flip off the principal, and get out of Hawkins, Indiana.

4.) He is not the same person after Chrissy dies. He is deeply traumatized, and blames himself for running away and leaving her in his trailer (even though she was already dead).

5.) Eddie’s uncle, Wayne, is Eddie’s number one supporter. This guy is continuing to shelter his twenty-year-old drug dealer metalhead nephew when he has no obligation to. When he comes home from work to see a dead cheerleader in his trailer, he is 100% positive Eddie didn’t do it. We would all die for Uncle Wayne.

6.) In the last episode of the season, Eddie goes into the alternate dimension where the evil creature lurks and plays Master of Puppets by Metallica as a distraction. Now, people take this as Eddie being a guitar prodigy because that song came out only WEEKS before the events of this season. But more importantly: he dedicates his performance to Chrissy.

(Only the first few seconds of this are relevant)

7.) Chrissy’s death affects Eddie right up to his own. He successfully distracts the creatures in the alternate dimension. He’s in the process of returning to his own when he stops, turns around, and sacrifices himself in order to keep the monsters at bay a little longer. As he’s dying, he says, “I didn’t run away this time.”

Jason Carver (because no Beauty and the Beast style ship is complete without a Gaston):

1.) Jason is Chrissy’s boyfriend and the captain of the basketball team. He is handsome and well-liked, but very self-centered. One of the first times we see him, he takes a town tragedy - a “mall fire” that killed dozens - and makes it about his upcoming basketball game.

2.) When Chrissy dies, he goes off the rails. He gathers his teammates, packs his trunk full of weapons, and goes hunting for Eddie.

3.) We never really see Jason sad about Chrissy’s death. He’s only angry. There’s a scene where a classmate offers her condolences to Jason. He changes the subject.

4.) When someone tells Jason that Chrissy went to Eddie because she was scared, he grows angry and says that she would have come to him. Kinda says a lot about the relationship.

5.) Fun fact: the actor who played Jason based his personality off of Tom Cruise and mega church leaders. Yikes.

Parallels:

1.) ‘86: Chrissy wears a 1986 necklace, and Eddie says that ‘86 is going to be his year.

2.) We never see either character out of their “uniform” - her cheerleading outfit and his Hellfire Club t-shirt (his DnD club).

3.) Both characters were victims of the town’s perception of them. Chrissy didn’t get the help she needed because her life seemed so perfect. Eddie was pursued by a literal mob because the town succumbed to Satanic Panic.

4.) Both had parents who put unfair expectations on them: Chrissy’s mother put the burden of beauty on her, and Eddie’s dad made him help steal cars.

Hopefully that’s a good jumping off point! If anybody else wants to chime in with anything I missed, feel free!

Let me know if you want popular headcanons to go with it!

[steviewashere]

Master of Puppets (I'm Pulling Your Strings)

Rating: Mature (For Various Themes) CW: This whole fic is about Eddie drug dealing, Talks about Drugs, Implied/Referenced Drug Overdose, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use Tags: Post-Canon, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Arguing, Making Up, Dialogue Heavy, Worried Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington is a Sweetheart, Eddie Munson is a Sweetheart, Established Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Doing Questionable Things For The People You Love, Eddie Munson Deals Drugs So That He and Wayne Can Keep a Roof Over Their Heads (It's Not Uncommon)

Based on actual things I've heard from people I've known over the years, all of whom live in poverty and do this as a means to survive. Also, this debate I keep seeing online about how it's "OOC" for Eddie, a character living in poverty, to be selling hard drugs. As if he didn't almost sell ket to Chrissy? As if he didn't perform a song about drugs while in the Upside Down? Anyway. He definitely sells, and he most definitely has tried drugs before. That's all I'll say on that. Title from "Master of Puppets" by Metallica.

💵——————💵 He fists the handle of his lunchbox tighter. It’s not the same one as before spring break, but it was the cheapest one he could find. Some dinky red one that showed up in a thrift store; dented and chipped, squeaking on the hinges, but just enough room for what he actually needed it for. And he needs to go now to use it, but Steve’s throwing a tantrum over this—or at least, that’s what it feels like.

“I just”—Steve’s voice cracks, hands flailing in front of him. He’ll break one of Wayne’s mugs if he isn’t careful, Eddie thinks sourly.—“I don’t understand!” he crows, “why aren’t you stopping with this shit? Especially after Chrissy?”

“That’s a low blow,” Eddie rumbles.

Instead of apologizing, though, Steve rolls his eyes, puts his hands on his hips, and scoffs. “I’m right, though. You know that I’m right.”

Eddie huffs. “Okay, fine,” he snipes. “Fine, let’s say you’re right. Which, sure, you are a little bit. I should stop, especially after what happened to…But I don’t think you get it. I really don’t think you get it, despite me explaining it to you already!”

And he has, is the thing. Steve’s picked fights over this arrangement Eddie’s had with Rick countless times before. He’ll be making dinner and Eddie will say, “I have to go…got some business.” And Steve’ll huff, throw down whatever utensil he’s using, scowl as Eddie is walking out the door—doesn’t matter which place, it could be the new trailer or Steve’s new-ish apartment, he’s walking out. He’ll go distant for a couple hours afterwards, not wanting to touch, not wanting to talk. Which hurts, Eddie can admit. He knows Steve is trying to make a point, but if he could stop making it so direct and sharp, that would be great.

He squeezes his hand tighter again, the metal handle creaking with his strength. Blinks. Steve shifts in front of him, one foot in front. Hands still on his hips, like he’s scolding Eddie—maybe that’s really what he’s doing, now that he notices, like Eddie is some misbehaving child. He rolls his eyes at the realization.

“Explain it to me again,” Steve finally chuffs.

Eddie blows out a long, unrelenting breath. Sits back down in one of the breakfast nook dining chairs, knowing there’s no way to get around Steve to the door. Even if there’s a second door out to the porch, walking away is a big no-no in their relationship. So he sighs again, settling back in his seat. “It’s because”—he starts slowly—“I need to make end’s meet. Wayne and I need this money, Steve.”

“Why not just get a job?” Steve asks—for the thousandth time, mind you. “And…And I’m sure Wayne makes enough at the plant! You don’t need to do this dangerous thing, you don’t need to”—

“I do!” Eddie shouts, jaw closing tight, molars grinding together. Finally, after what seems like eons in this argument, Steve is startled into complete silence. His hands fall away from his hips. His eyes widen. He even takes a step back. Eddie hates that he did that, but a part of him recognizes that it was deserved. Quiet as a mouse, “I do, Steve. I do need to do this. Wayne doesn’t make enough at the plant, I don’t know why you assume that shit. But he doesn’t. He makes like…a few bucks over minimum wage, which sure as hell isn’t a lot—I’m sure you know that, with Family Video and all—it’s less than what he made before spring break. Can’t get myself a job, Steve. Nobody wants to associate themselves with a Munson.”

Not that they really did before, he thinks bitterly. His dad, Al, really did a number. Really made himself a spectacle in Hawkins’ police department. Made himself a home within a maximum security prison. But he’s not willing to explain this all again to Steve—they’ve had this conversation what feels like years ago, but was surely only a few months.

He continues, shaking with an undercurrent of both anger and a sour sadness. “I have to do this, Steve,” he speaks quieter than before, “I know it’s dangerous. Somebody could come up with a knife or a gun or beat me black and blue, I’d barely know what’s happening. I’m a runner, sure, but I ain’t a fighter. And…I know what I do. The shit that I supply to Hawkins? This is the kind of shit that gets people killed. The kind of shit people make money for.

“Nothing about what I do is ethical. I get that. I know, in fact. My job relies completely on people’s desires and none of those desires are healthy or good or safe. Hell, I should know, it’s what got me the job in the first place.” And, well, he hasn’t said that out loud before.

Steve must realize that because he’s coming closer, sitting across. Trying to reach his hands out, but backtracking almost immediately. Like Eddie’s something untouchable now, something feral. Like he might bite the hand. Yet Steve still speaks to him, brokenly, too quiet, “What? What do you mean?” A devastation Eddie never wanted to know.

He levels Steve with a stare. God, he really doesn’t want to explain this. “Steve,” he breathes. “I…You think I’d sell a bad supply?” Eddie asks rhetorically. Still, Steve tries to open his mouth to answer, but Eddie stops him with a palm out, letting it slither back to the tabletop. His other hand fiddles with the squeaking handle of his lunchbox. Speaking low again, he admits, “I was going to do ket with Chrissy the night she came over.” He remembers the way he was going to dim the lights even more, how he was going to let her pick a movie, how he was going to hold her hand just in case. “I was going to sit on my uncle’s sofa, while he was out working, making good and honest money. And I was going to show her how to use it. Was gonna sit right there”—and he points at the middle seat of the floral sofa—“and have her on my right. Was going to get a minimal high and sit with her until she came down from her own.”

Across from him, Steve swallows hard. But his head is turned towards the couch, when Eddie looks back. His hands are fisted tight in front of him. Settled heavy on the table. He doesn’t blink, doesn’t speak. Just keeps staring at that spot. Like maybe he’s seeing just what Eddie was going to do. Like maybe he’s taking in the reality of this awful livelihood. Like maybe he’s understanding, even if the tightness of his jaw wants to stop learning.

When Steve still doesn’t look his way, Eddie admits in a murmur, “I do some kind of drug with all my first timers, whatever they want. When Tommy came over for weed for one of your parties? I smoked with him. Wanted to make sure he knew what he was doing. Wanted to make sure he’d be able to show all of you guys. Wanted to make sure he wasn’t gonna get sick on me. And I did the same with…I’ve done cocaine with Billy Hargrove. Any time somebody wants something from me, when they’re a first time client, I sit with them. It’s the one time that rivalries go out the window.”

Steve finally looks back to him at that. An unreadable expression on his face. Somewhere between aching and awful understanding, but there’s still a question in him, yet he doesn’t speak.

“Wish I could stop doing this as my job. But for now, this is what I do. Not all of it is easy. Have to be lucrative, quiet. Sometimes people get pissed at my prices and threaten to sell me out to the cops, as if they aren’t doing something illegal, too. And, yes,  I do get weapons pointed at me from time to time, robbed then and there. I’ve seen one person overdose, which was horrific in its own way—called an ambulance and everything. I’ve seen people waste away right in front of me.

“And I”—he sighs a grievance. Long and suffering. Rubs his fingers at his temples, the inevitable headache that will burn him alive from this.—“I’ve been guilty for a good portion of my life, Steve. It’s my fault that a lot of people end up the way they do, maybe not entirely, I can see the defiance in your eyes. But I do play a part. And…I try my best to avoid them after some time, but that’s not always my call. Sometimes Rick agrees with me. Sometimes he pushes me back out there to get a specific person’s money—especially if their family is a high earner.

“Chrissy probably would’ve been a returning customer. Just like Tommy and Billy were. Like Jason was at one point. I hate that. I hate knowing that I’m supplying them. I hate that I know what it’s like to be in their shoes, returning and returning and returning. It’s why I denied the heavy painkillers back in the hospital. It’s why I refuse to let you have more than weed in my supply, even if all you want is something to make you knock-out. It’s why I do my best to sell as infrequent as possible.

“But business calls, sweetheart. I’ve got a debt to Rick. Groceries need to be bought. The power needs to stay on. And especially, I’m not going to let Wayne down. If something happens to me, it’s one less mouth to feed.” With that final statement, he stands up from his seat. Walks around the table with his lunchbox and gets as far as his hand on the knob before Steve is tugging on him. He whirls back around with a bitter retort on his tongue, but is stopped in his tracks by Steve’s impossibly wider eyes and an incessancy to his expression. He raises his eyebrows in silent question.

“Let me come with you,” Steve rushes out.

“Steve, no, that’s”—

“Just to make sure you’re safe, that’s all. I don’t want to see Wayne mourning again, please. I don’t want to mourn—I won’t…I promise I won’t intervene unless something gets serious. I promise.”

Eddie stands idle, contemplating. His chest is caving in. “I don’t want to drag you into my mess. I don’t want you to get hurt. You can’t even be there all the time,” is what he settles on.

However, Steve just takes that in stride. “I know, but I can be there today. I was probably going to go home and wait for you to call me afterwards. It’s just the one deal…right?”

“Yeah,” he answers quietly. Tries not to think of Steve at home biting at his fingernails, gnawing down to the bone until he gets that phone call. Like he’s imagined Wayne doing from time to time. But he fails, because of course he does. He’ll always fail to say no to Steve’s eyes; those pleading, loudly expressive ones of his. “If you come with, you have to wait in the car. Only come to the picnic table if I’m not back in fifteen minutes. It’s just a weed deal, shouldn’t be anything more than that. But I don’t want them to spot you. You hold priority over the money, always.”

Steve gets up from his seat. He holds steady and firm to Eddie’s arm. A murmur from his chest, “I wish you didn’t have to do this. But…I promise I’ll be better about it.”

“I…I know you will,” he whispers, “and I know this isn’t easy for you, either. I’m sorry.”

Against Eddie’s shoulder, Steve lays his cheek. Squishing it up his face, squinting his left eye. “Maybe one of these days we’ll go and find ourselves something better? And I'm sorry, too...I just get so worried, Eds. I love you too much, y’know.”

Eddie squishes his own cheek atop Steve’s head. “I love you,” he breathes into Steve’s hair. His free hand reaches over and holds Steve’s closest one. Squeezes once. “We’ll talk about it later, though, okay? For now, I just need to do this. I’ll even let you pick the music in the car, how’s that?”

“All I want is for you to not go somewhere that I can’t follow or find you in. But sure, I’ll put in a Queen tape. See how long it takes until you get sick of my singing voice.”

“Never, sweetheart. Never.” And he’s not quite sure which part of Steve’s statement he’s saying that to. He knows he won’t go far, though. Not with Steve tailing after him.

💵——————💵

[stitchdfox]

Eddie is on tour pt 3

His eyes blur as he stares at his phone. The phone app open, taunting him with Steve’s contact info. His thumb hovers over the green call button. Hesitant.

“Come on, Munson. He told you to call him.” Eddie mumbles to himself.

“Joining us tonight?” Their drummer Gareth asks as he slaps Eddie on the shoulder.

“Ah. No. Gotta make a call.” Eddie holds his phone in the air.

“Who’s Steve?” Gareth asks.

Eddie blushes and locks his phone.

“Come on, Gar.” Jeff pulls him away as he flashes a knowing smile at Eddie.

Gods. He owed that man a shot of tequila and the best wingman award.

Eddie takes a breath. Finally tapping the call icon.

“Hey there.” Steve’s voice is groggy.

It only rang once. Was he waiting for him to call?

“Hey.” Eddie smirks. “It’s like 3 am in Indiana. What are you doing up so late?”

“Well, I’m actually in Chicago so it’s only 2 am. And I’m working on an essay for school. Deadline is coming fast.” There’s a rustle of papers being gathered. “May have accidentally dozed off…”

He’s so cute.

“Whatcha gonna be when you grow up, Stevie?” Eddie cringes at his awkwardness.

“Guidance councilor. Hopefully. Schools not the the easiest for me so, it’s been a lot of late nights.” Steve yawns. “How was the show?”

“Surreal.”

Steve hums.

“Honestly, I don’t think it’ll ever not be surreal.” Eddie stares up at the clear night sky above him. He’ll stay with the van outside the venue until the guys get back.

“I’ve loved music all my life. My uncle used to play the radio while we made breakfast. He shared his old records with me when I was old enough to understand how fragile they could be. From there I saved up for my first guitar, my baby, and I knew from the moment I first held her there was no turning back.”

“Wow.” Steve breathes low.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to—“

“Don’t be sorry, man. That’s so cool. What bands inspired you?” Steve asks, urging him on.

“There’s a few,” Eddie holds up his fingers as he names them. “Metallica- Master of Puppets was the first song I taught myself. Wild. You know how hard that song is to play? Worth it though. Then there’s Dio, Megadeath, Black Sabbath and Ozzy of course.”

“Of course.” Steve says.

“Do you even know who Ozzy is?”

“Yeah. I know who Ozzy is. He was on that reality show where they swore a lot.”

Eddie pinches the bridge of his nose. “No Steve—“

“Yes Eddie. He was on that show.”

“Okay, yes he was on the show but do you know his music?” Eddie can’t help the smile that grows on his lips.

“Guess I have some more homework.”

“Steve, you don’t have to listen to them. I’m sure they’re not your taste.” Eddie runs his fingers nervously through his hair.

“I want to. If you like them then they have be pretty good.” Steve says.

“Don’t give me too much credit here, sweetheart. I’m just the guitarist of a small metal band.” Eddie slumps his shoulders.

“Come on! You’re on tour, literally right now on tour, with a big name band that invited you to join them. That’s huge.” Steve’s voice is loud and excited. “Like, where are you guys right now?”

“Denver.” He says low.

“See. I’ve never been west of St. Louis.” He goes quiet. “Anyway, it’ll be nice change of pace from my Harry Styles kick.”

Eddie let’s out a guffaw. “I would be into a One Direction fan.”

There’s silence on the other end of the line.

“Shit.” Eddie says to himself as he squats down, wrapping his arm around his bent knees.

“You’re… into me?” Steve asks with an air to his voice.

“I… um…”

Silence again.

“The honest answer?” Eddie sighs.

“Mhmm.” Steve’s voice is soft.

“Alright. Here goes.” Eddie stands up, a little light headed from the action. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you since I called you by accident that night. I don’t even know what you look like and it wouldn’t matter at this point. There is something so… so…” he’s at a loss of words.

“So what, Eddie?” Steve’s voice is a whisper.

“Amazing. Wonderful. Heart stopping. I want to write songs about you. And now that I’ve put myself out there I don’t even know if you’re into guys, let alone a stranger and—“

“Eddie.”

“I’ve ruined this like I ruin everything.”

“Eds.”

“I’m such an idiot and—“

“Babe.”

Eddie stops pacing in a circle and let’s that word settle in.

“I know it was your turn to spiral this time but you’ve gotta breathe.” Steve waits for him to take a deep breath. “It is a bit crazy but I… I mean… Me too! I was being honest when I told you I drove my best friend crazy talking about calling you.”

They both laugh and Eddie sighs.

Steve speaks again. “Okay?”

“Okay.” Eddie taps the back of his head against the van.

“I should let you go, sweetheart. I’m sure you have class tomorrow.”

“I do. I’ll text you when I get home and maybe we can talk again?” His voice is a bit shaky. Nervous maybe.

“I’d love that.” Eddie’s heart threatens to beat out of his chest right there in the venue parking lot.

“Sweet dreams, rockstar.” Steve teases.

“Good night, big boy.” Eddie hangs up the call before Steve can respond.

His muscle loosen as he leans against the side of the van. His phone vibrates once in his hand. He looks down to see a message from Steve.

“Hope your imagination didn’t oversell my good looks. 😉”

There’s no way the picture to follow is of a real human being.

Steve has a strong jawline, moles dotting his face and neck, his hair is auburn and a bit on the long side, not that he had anything on Eddie’s length.

His eyes were bright and hazel. His smile wide and perfect.

Eddie opened the van door to dig in his bag. He pulls out his head phones, flops on the middle bench, and searches Spotify.

If he pulls up the “this is Harry Styles” playlist it was nobody’s business but his own.

——

Part 1 here.

Part 2 here.

Part 4 to follow. I’m kind of in love with this AU rn.

If you’re interested I’m posting on my Twitter as well.

[eufezco]

You were laying on his bed, him sitting on the edge of it, with no t-shirt on and just wearing his grey pajama pants. You hugged him from the back, resting your head on his shoulder as you enjoyed him being focused on the song he was playing. You listened to the sound coming out of the guitar and admired how skilled Eddie's fingers were. You planted a soft kiss on the warm skin of his shoulder when he finished.

"It sounds great. What's the song called?"

"Master of Puppets." He answered, turning his head to you and kissing your lips. You showed him a little smile and started running your fingers up and down his tummy.

"Can you play it again?" You rubbed your nose against the crook of his neck and how could he say no to you? Your fingers played with his happy trail and a shiver ran down his spine, making him have to fix his position in bed. He cleared his throat before letting his fingers strum the guitar once again as yours dangerously played with the elastic band of his pants. Eddie took a deep breath and focused on his fingers playing Metallica's song instead of focusing on yours palming him through his pajama.

Eddie couldn't help but hiss once you finally slipped your hand inside his pants and wrapped your fingers around his semi-hard cock, wanting to throw his guitar away and toss his head back to your shoulder and squirm and melt under your touch, but he knew that you would get no satisfaction out of that and that you would stop touching him if only you knew that he had been thinking of doing that. "Don't stop, Eddie. Keep playing." You mewled into his ear and kissed his neck, giving him goosebumps as he nodded like the obedient boy he was. Somehow his hands played the song perfectly, his lower lip between his teeth, being able to taste the blood coming out of it thanks to how hard he was trying to keep playing the song meanwhile his mind was only capable of processing how good your hand was making him feel.

You could hear him moan and curse, the sound coming out of the guitar hiding the majority of his sinful sounds but you still could feel his hot back vibrate every time he groaned and relax every time he sighed and gasped for air. "Good boy, Eddie. You're doing so good for me." He moaned after hearing your praises. It was true that he was doing great, it was like his fingers worked separately from the rest of his body which was completely lost in your touch. He finished the part of the song he was playing before coming in his pants, his thighs clenching and you softly stroking his cock as he came down from his high.

Eddie left his guitar on one side of the bed, you could see the dark patch in his crotch as he placed himself between your legs. Your back was against the wall and his face was already buried in the crook of your neck, his lips kissing, sucking, and biting in that sensitive place of yours while his hands roamed all over your body.

"You didn't miss a single chord."

"I know." He moved away from your neck just to brag about it and immediately went back to suck on the skin of your neck, making you moan and hook your legs over the swell of his ass but he furrowed his eyebrows and he had to let go of your neck again. "Wait, are you surprised?" You could tell by his voice that he was playing the victim, not really offended by your words but still wanting to tease you and you couldn't help but chuckle.

"Not at all, baby."

masterlist.

[eddiesghxst]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C1j5rhsgbVu/?igsh=cm5keWUyOWNnOWJ3

(Safe link!)

You come home to the smell of funk in the air, master of puppets faintly playing in the background, a bunch of boxes of cheese everywhere in the kitchen as you come into view with eddie’s back, hair flying as he head bangs

“Uh… Eddie?”

He turns around, eyes wide and wild as he holds a block of cheese in one hand and the guitar cheese shredder in the other

“You will never guess what I found at the grocery today…”

(Please it’s so him he wouldn’t stop to the point you gotta keep having meals with cheese until the boxes disappear from the kitchen)

- daisymunson 🌼

HES SO FUCKING ANNOYING😭

he’s so excited when he shows you what he’s been doing all day, thrashing his head around and shredding the block of cheese in time with the guitar of the song. when he finishes the song he’s breathless and crazy eyed, fingers sticky and gross with cheese, “awesome, right?”

“uh… sure,” you nod, “but what are we gonna do with all this cheese, eds?”

eddie waves a hand, “don’t worry about it, babe. wanna try?”

and…god it’s such a fucking stupid kitchen appliance but eddie made it look fun, so— “…yeah.”

you make him pick a song for you and you’re shy about being as animated as eddie was at first, but when the tempo picks up you’re all in and eddie joins in on head banging with you and when the song finishes you pause and gaze at him and he’s got this wild look in his eyes. “wanna go again?”

“abso-fucking-lutely. we’re going through metallica’s entire discography, babe.”

[rip-quizilla]

Your Leather, My Lace ~ Part 2: Better Not Touch

*This fic was co-written by curlyfry23, whom you can find on AO3 here

Pairing: Rockstar!Eddie Munson x Rockstar!fem!Reader

Summary: You see a familiar face at the next show you attend, and he makes it very difficult for you to keep your eye on the prize.

Word Count: 5.1k

Tags for Entire Fic (from AO3): Enemies to Lovers, Rival Bands, Tension While Singing, Leather, 80's Rock References, Song Lyrics, Slow Burn, Sexual Tension, Thinly Veiled Hex Girls Inspiration, Eddie Munson Lives, 1991, Porn with Feelings, Shameless Smut, Mutual Masturbation, Hate to Love, Oral Sex, Consensual Sex, Smut, Eddie Munson Has No Sense of Personal Space, Cunnilingus, Nipple Licking, Catholic Guilt, brat!reader, Dom/sub Undertones, light degradation, Car Sex, The Lord of the Rings References

Part 1

The next day was spent sorting out your setlist for your first performance, which was scheduled to take place in four days on Thursday night at a club called Steve’s. Since you would likely get kicked out of your hotel due to noise complaints if you all practiced there, you had called ahead of time to secure a place for you to rehearse. Your uncle and his family lived close, so you convinced him to allow you, Lana and Denise to practice in his garage for the duration of your stay. This is where you stood today, staring at the list of songs in your notebook and tapping a pencil to your chin. 

“We should open with something familiar to get people’s attention.” Denise said. She sat at her drumset, arms crossed over her chest and eyebrows pulled together argumentatively. “That’s why starting with Bonnie is our best bet.” 

You shook your head as if doing so would make the idea go away. “You want the only all-girl group competing to open our set with a pop cover? We might as well hand in our resignation right there.” 

Denise sighed, rolling her eyes exasperatedly. “It doesn’t sound like pop, the way we play it! I know you think we need to play more heavy stuff if we want to be taken seriously, but I’m telling you, if we kill that song on stage the way we have been in rehearsal, they’ll forget Bonnie Tyler ever sang it.” She looked over to Lana, as if hoping she might back her up. Lana shrugged, looking at you. 

“She’s right, we make that song sound fucking metal.” Denise smiled thankfully at Lana, who went back to practicing a particularly tricky chord progression on her keyboard. 

You smiled at them, still not quite sure about their proposal but eager to reach a decision so that you could move on. “Okay, you guys are right about that- I never denied how great we sound, just whether that’s the right song to open with.” You gasped excitedly as an idea came to you. “What if we make that our closing number? Start with something we know the audience will love, then once we have their attention, finish with a bang?” 

Denise and Lana looked at each other, both nodding their heads in agreement. “Yeah,” Denise conceded, “I think that would work pretty well, actually. So what’s our opening number, then?”

You smiled devilishly. “We could do Master of Puppets-” a loud groan immediately erupted from the girls. “We are not starting our set with a nine-minute song.” Lana whined. 

You chuckled. You hadn’t been serious… okay, you had been half-serious. “Well technically it’s only eight and a half.”

Lana deadpanned. “Oh sorry, my bad.” she scoffed sarcastically. “No. No way in hell.”

Denise idly tapped out little rhythms on the shiny metal edge of her snare. “You’re the only one of us that actually enjoys that song- playing it feels like a punishment. No song should be that long!” 

You were outright laughing at this point. That was the easiest way to deal with your love for Metallica being shot down by your best friends yet again- laughing it off. You should have known better than to suggest it, even if you had been (mostly) joking. 

“Calm down, I wasn’t serious. What about Barracuda?” you suggested, “It’s punchy, we get to show off a little, but it isn’t too much right out the gate.” 

“Oh I like that!” Denise nodded excitedly, “Barracuda always does a good job of setting up a Joan Jett song, so we could follow with one of those-”

You smiled to yourself as you scribbled your tentative setlist into your moleskine. Denise continued tossing song ideas into the air, which you and Lana took turns catching, playing with the order of songs and making rearrangements until you were all happy with your song choices. 

“So how was last night?” Lana asked as you prepared to run through Barracuda a couple of times. “They get better, or did they suck from beginning to end?” 

You got to work tuning your guitar after a few days in its case. You shrugged, “Yeah, they pretty much sucked from beginning to end. But if I’m ever craving a goth rock cover of I Will Survive, I’ll know who to call.” 

Lana cackled. “Oh my god, did they really?” She shook her head, orange tresses shining in the sunlight flooding in through the open garage door. She undid the clasps on her bass case, abandoning her keyboard for yet another instrument that she’d mastered over the years. That was Lana- your band’s jack of all trades. “Wow. That’s a bold move- and I normally respect bold moves, but that’s just bad.” Lana’s bass guitar rang out in a low humming baritone as she joined you in tuning her own instrument. “Anything else interesting happen? Any tall, handsome strangers offer you a drink?” She accompanied her question with a wag of her eyebrows. 

You avoided her eye contact, thinking of your encounter the night before- the conversation had flowed between the two of you so easily, it was hard to forget about him. “Well, I did have one guy hit on me at the bar, but obviously I turned him down.” you glanced at Lana over your shoulder, smiling placidly. “No distractions, remember?”

Lana rolled her eyes, bored that you didn’t have something more juicy to spill. “You really are perfect, Ace.” With that, she began practicing the opening chords of Barracuda, while your mind wandered back to red stage lights glistening off a pair of big, brown eyes.

***

That evening led you to yet another smoky bar in the city, the first of two venues you planned on visiting to get a feel for your competitors. The drinks were cheap, seating was sparse, and the crowd was much more amped up than last night’s. You hoped that the energy would be the same at Steve’s on Thursday. 

After spending a good few minutes trying to grab the bartender’s attention, you ventured into the main space with a drink in your hand to search for a place to stand- or sit, if you were lucky. You smiled when you found a spot by a staircase where a couple of beer kegs had been stacked atop one another. You tested the kegs with a small shake of your free hand; the stack seemed sturdy enough for you to sit on. Carefully balancing your drink in your hand, you braced yourself on the top of the keg stack and gave a little hop to bring your bum high enough to take a seat. Unfortunately, the stack was not as stable as you’d thought. 

The top keg slipped to the side once you shifted your weight onto it, toppling both of them and in turn, flinging you towards the ground and sending your drink sloshing over the side of your glass. You prepared to hit the ground, but luckily you never did. Instead, you collided with a person, their arms wrapping around your middle in an effort to stabilize you. Momentum launched the glass in your hand around until it too hit your savior in the chest, and you had barely registered the brown curls in front of your eyes before your drink crashed into them, turning them darker and making them shine in the blue stage lights. 

Stunned and beyond mortified, you grabbed a beverage napkin from a nearby table and scrambled to dab at the stranger’s soaked shirt.  “I cannot believe that just happened-” you stuttered, “I’m so sorry, thank you for catching me. Let me buy you a drink… again, I’m so sorry-”

“You had me at ‘buy you a drink’.” 

The familiar voice that came from above the soaked T-shirt was enough to freeze you in your tracks. You paused your dabbing, slowly looking up into the eyes you hadn’t stopped thinking about since last night. 

A wide grin stretched across your face. “If it isn’t my stalker.” you said, pleasantly surprised to see Big Eyes again, as if thinking about him all day had summoned him. 

He smiled back down at you, arms still wrapped around you with every intent of staying there. “If it isn’t Rapunzel, falling from her tower.” You raised an eyebrow at the comparison, to which he cringed and glanced away. “Yeah, that was bad wasn’t it?” 

You laughed, giggling down into his chest- which reminded you about his arms still wrapped around you. Awkwardly, you gave his alcohol-soaked chest a little drum with your hands. “You can let go now.” you prompted. 

Arms flying off of you and finding purchase in his hair and on his hip, he stifled a laugh as you giggled at his antics. “Now, about that drink-?” he said, embarrassment clear on his face while he clearly hoped you would find his awkwardness charming.

You did. 

Giving him a small smile, you nodded. “It was Eddie, right?” He gave you a broad grin upon hearing that you’d remembered his name. He remembered yours too, and the way it tumbled from his lips sounded like something reverent the way he said it. You walked with him to the bar and waved down the bartender once more, ordering yourself and him a round of whatever Eddie wanted. 

Drinks ordered, Eddie turned and leaned against the edge of the bartop. “Taking more notes tonight?” he asked. You pulled your small notebook from your bag and showed him. “Guilty.” You said, “I know I should probably be hoping this next band is just as awful as yesterday’s, but honestly I’m in the mood to be entertained tonight so I have my fingers crossed for a good show.” 

Eddie took your drinks from the bartender, handing you a glass and raising an eyebrow. “In the mood to be entertained, she says…” he mused, “Careful, or I might start acting out for attention.” His gaze left yours, feigning distraction as his drink touched his lips. “I can make myself quite entertaining given the right motivation.” Almost as if on cue, you noticed a dribble of beer escape his mouth and land directly onto his shirt. You snorted as he mumbled an “Aw shit” and swatted at the new wet spot, struggling to save face.

You couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up from your chest, snidely watching him pat at his shirt. “You were right, that was entertaining.” He was completely soaked now, the combination of your mixed drink and his cheap beer mingling on his band tee and making it lay over his torso like fresh paint. Eyeing him up and down, you smirked, “I think you’re a bit early for the wet t-shirt contest, I’m pretty sure that’s not supposed to happen until three drinks from now.” 

 “I think I’ve got a shot at the title, sweetheart” a chuckle rose out of Eddie as he looked down at his sopping shirt. “Think I’d emerge victorious?”

You ignored the urge to laugh, as well as the way your heart raced when he called you ‘sweetheart’. “Easy there, tiger.” you murmured into your cup. “You’re distracting me.”

A rueful grin tickled Eddie’s lips as he lifted his hands in a small surender. “My apologies, I can behave.”

 You scoffed incredulously. “Oh really? Can you?”

Eddie splayed his free hand out over his chest, feigning grave offense at your suggestion. “Lil’ ole’ me?” Sarcasm and shock were thick in his voice, and you couldn’t tear your gaze from his giant brown eyes even as the audience began to cheer on the band taking the stage. “Sweetheart, when I make a promise to a lady, I intend to keep those promises. There will be no distracting coming from my general direction.” he thought for a moment before adding, “At least no intentional distracting.”

You squinted at Eddie through the flashing stage lights. “I don’t remember you making any promises, actually.”

A mischievous smile snuck out through the mock seriousness on his face. “Didn’t I? Hm… I could’ve sworn I promised not to be a distraction. What a shame…” 

You shook your head, unable to stop yourself from laughing now. The band had started up their set, and even though you knew you should be paying attention to whatever might give you an edge when competing against them, you couldn’t think of anything worse right now than ending this conversation with Eddie. 

As the crowd grew louder, you had to lean in closer than normal for Eddie to hear you. Your lips moved beside his ear, and you could smell the masculine scent of men’s soap mixed with worn leather. “Okay, well the way I see it… if you’re helping me take notes and evaluate the band, then it’s not a distraction, right?” You opened your moleskine to a fresh page and clicked your pen as Eddie’s smile bloomed across his face. “You’d just be helping me stay on task.”

Instantly, Eddie was shoulder-to-shoulder with you, denim vest brushing against the bare skin of your right arm. Crossing his arms over his chest, he leaned toward you conspiratorially, as if the two of you were spies gathering intel. “An excellent suggestion, I’d be happy to lend you a well-trained ear.” Even though he was close enough to speak directly into your ear, the room was ringing with the electric sound of guitars and shrieking voices that could rival Brian Johnson. Eddie’s lips hovered over the top of your cheekbone, yelling above the din in order to be heard. That was a pleasant sensation to say the least. 

“Well-trained, huh?” You yelled back, keeping your eyes forward so you didn’t accidentally touch your cheek to his lips… Lord knows what that might do to you should it happen. “Okay, tell me what you think, if you’re such an expert.” You scribbled the band’s name at the top of the page- Banshee Boys. 

Eyeing the drying ink on your page, you felt a puff of breath across your skin. It sent a rush of goosebumps over your shoulders. “Appropriate name.” Eddie chuckled, “I’m worried the bottles at the bar are about to explode from this guy’s damn frequency.” You nodded in agreement, wincing at the nearly imperceptible song lyrics ringing out from the stage. “Can’t argue there.” you said, scrawling Singing ≠ Shrieking on the first line of the page.  

You both fell into a focused sort of trance as you watched the band play, assessing the music they made like seasoned critics. After about a minute, you offered another critique. “I think if the bass was a little heavier, it might balance out the screechiness of the vocals. Like, that might even everything out and give some drama to it?” You lifted your chin to glance over at Eddie, and your heart stuttered surprisingly when you saw that he was staring at you with an intensity that you definitely had not been expecting. You told yourself that he was only glancing down at you since you were talking to him… but something in his gaze gave you the impression that he hadn’t been watching the band for a solid chunk of time. 

“I think you’re right, actually.” Eddie said, nodding slowly as he imagined your proposed changes to the way the band was playing. Your eyes were looking so unwaveringly into his that you jumped when his hand covered yours, taking the pen from you. He wore heavy silver rings on every calloused finger, and they were cold against the skin of your knuckles.

You felt Eddie chuckle again at your jumpiness. “Sorry, sweetheart, didn’t realize you had an issue giving up control… of the pen.” You looked back at him, eyebrow raised and your expression a tad more heated than before. 

“Are you saying I have control issues?” you asked, plucking the pen from his hand. Eddie smirked in response. You frowned. “I’m not sure you know me well enough to make that assumption, Eddie.” 

Smirk still going strong, he moved behind you and- to your horror- draped his arms over your shoulders, one hand cupping over yours that held the notebook, the other resting over the pen in your writing hand. You became acutely aware of the fact that there was more of his body touching yours than what wasn’t touching yours. 

“A little experiment in letting go of control then, hm?” his lips were right next to your ear now. 

Good God. 

You cleared your throat. “I would… uh…” licking your lips around the nervous words, “I would consider this distracting, for the record.” 

“Like you said, I made no promises.” The smile in Eddie’s voice made you feel… some type of way. You barked out a breathy laugh as he took the pen from your hand, writing Heavier bass would balance out vocals. 

“See?” he yell-whispered near your temple. “You can trust me.” 

You shook your head, smiling despite your instinct to hide his effect on you. “I was just concerned about a senior-year-triple-repeat thinking he was going to take better notes than me.” 

The baritone of his voice buzzed from the back of your head to the nape of your neck, “Well this Repeat can be a good student with the right teacher, princess.” 

Geez…if he kept this up, you might cease to function.

You exhaled, slow and heavy. “All of these nicknames…” you sighed, struggling to make sure your voice didn’t come out as a whine. “You need to stop with that sweetheart, princess shit…” 

“Well then, what would you prefer?” Eddie’s retort was immediate. You felt the pad of his finger on your bare shoulder, toying with the velvet strap of your top. You were wearing one of your favorites tonight- the wine-red velvet tank top hugged your curves just perfectly, and the sweetheart neckline was lined with soft black lace that matched the onyx lacquer on your fingernails. You felt perfectly vampy- and Eddie seemed to be a fan of the buttery-soft fabric as well. 

His fingertip slipped under the strap, taking it between his thumb and forefinger to stroke the soft velvet material along your shoulder blade. “I can call you ma’am, or maybe your majesty. Dressed like this, I think Elvira might be appropriate.” 

You giggled at the comparison, his warm lips spoke directly behind the sensitive skin below your ear. How was it possible to simultaneously feel your temperature rising as he’s sending shivers down your spine? It was pure infuriating bliss. You started to nuzzle into the touch like a cat before snapping out of your trance as applause thundered through the room. It seemed the Banshee Boys were about to start their next song.

Get a hold of yourself, you mentally chided. With every stroke of his finger on your upper back, you felt control slipping- damn whatever control issues he might be right about; you couldn’t be letting your guard down right now. It wasn’t fair to your girls.

Taking a small step forward sent your shirt strap snapping off of his fingertip and into your skin. The soft sting sent a jolt through your system, clearing your senses as you spun to face him. “What,” you yelled over the raging applause as the guitar onstage rang out into the smoky air. “You don’t like my name or something?” Your expression betrayed nothing as you smacked a mask of cocky condescension over your eyes. 

“Oh I like your name.” Eddie replied, arms crossing over his chest as he matched your confidence effortlessly. You could have sworn he even puffed out his chest a bit as his eyes darkened when he continued, “I just enjoy the way you have to take a deep breath every time I call you something else.” 

Crap. You weren’t as slick as you’d hoped you were. 

Huffing out a heavy breath, you grabbed his wrist and pulled him through the crowd until you reached a somewhat-quieter corner by a set of stairs. You should be focusing on the band onstage, but fuck it- this needed to be done. Ducking under the staircase, you yanked Eddie by the sleeve of his leather jacket until the two of you were both crammed into the dark closet-sized corner. 

Eddie looked even more pleased than he had before. “Hey, if you wanted me all to yourself we could have just gone back to my van out back-”

“Quite the opposite, actually.” you bit back. Eddie’s smile faltered upon hearing the irritation in your voice. Suddenly, his eyes shifted from that flirtatious confidence you’d learned to expect to an expression that was so gentle it nearly broke your heart. “Hey, did I…” His voice had also changed drastically- any trace of flirty innuendo gone and replaced with delicate concern. “...I’m not making you uncomfortable, am I?” 

You weren’t sure exactly how to react; you felt like you had whiplash from the complete one-eighty you had just witnessed. One minute this guy was all hot breath and smirking lips, poking fun at your breathlessness each time he came up with a new pet name, and the next minute he was wide eyed, gentle, and concerned with nothing but your comfort in his presence. You were reeling… but it wasn’t necessarily in a bad way.

It was a little perfect, actually.

You shook your head, trying to clear your thoughts and tell him what you’d dragged him all the way over here to say. “No- no, I’m very comfortable. Around you, I mean.” He seemed to relax a bit, which you were glad to see but didn’t help the message you were trying to convey here. “But I told you last night that this-” you gestured between the two of you, “-is not happening. You are a nice guy, and I feel comfortable around you, but I need the flirting to stop, because it’s very frustrating when you get all flirty and I can’t do anything about it.” 

You paused finally to take a breath, and when you took a moment to take in his reaction, you noticed that same intensity from last night when you’d had a conversation quite similar to this one- his eyes were wide, fixed on you and taking in every word you said with dedicated fixation. You got the feeling that there was a whole lot of thinking going on behind those big brown eyes- which was why it infuriated you when his response came in the form of a one-word answer.

“Alright.”

And with that, he turned around and began to walk back into the throng of onlookers beneath the stage. Taken aback by his terse response, you reached out without thinking, grabbing him by the elbow. “Wait, wait, wait,” you stuttered, and you felt your brow wrinkle as you tried to make sense of his behavior. “What does ‘alright’ mean?” You asked, noting the edge in your voice, but you didn’t care. “Are you going to stop it or not?”

To your surprise, Eddie turned back towards you, cocking his head ever so slightly to the side and stepping up so that he was only inches from you, looking down through his curtain of brown, wavy locks. “Do you want me to stop?” He asked.

Your lips hung open, grasping for words to construct a response with but coming up empty. Eddie didn’t wait for you to respond. He smirked open-mouthed for a moment, looking around as if he were searching for words that wouldn’t come across the wrong way- but stopped caring a moment later when he dropped his gaze to meet yours.

“You’ve told me twice now that you’re avoiding ‘distractions’,” Eddie took a step forward, backing you into the space underneath the stairway once more. “Merely interacting with you seems to be, in itself, a distraction, the way you see it, so tell me-” your name tumbled off his tongue as he addressed you and it sent lightning down your spine. “Do you want me to leave you alone? Or are you just scared of what you’ll do if I don’t?”

You gaped at his brashness, amazed that he would just come out and ask the question instead of letting it hang in the air like an unacknowledged storm in the distance like you had been perfectly content to continue doing. 

Jaw hanging open incredulously, you crossed your arms over your chest and pretended not to notice the split second that his eyes flicked down to your chest when you inadvertently smushed your breasts together. “You’re being awfully presumptuous, considering that you barely know me-”

Eddie cut you off, taking one step further toward you and bringing your back in contact with the exposed brick wall behind you. “Be honest princess, every time I flirt, you flirt back.” Eddie said, hands in his pockets and looking at you as if he had caught you with your hand in a cookie jar. “And personally-” he splayed a hand across his soaked t-shirt, “-I believe that any two mature, consenting adults should be able to flirt and have fun without any expectation of things getting serious unless otherwise specified.” 

His silence after finishing his sentence indicated to you that he wanted to know if your sentiments were the same. You had to think about it for a moment- were you afraid of what you might do if he kept flirting with you? Had you been flirting back this whole time? You thought about the way you couldn’t help but smile when he cracked a joke, how you’d thrown a smirk his way to match his own on several occasions, how you didn’t pull away when he’d pressed his body against you while taking notes… crap. You had been flirting back. 

And you liked the way it felt to flirt back. 

You didn’t want his big brown eyes to leave yours. You wanted him to keep looking at you the way he was now- curious, appraising… a little hungry. It wasn’t until he began speaking again that you realized your gaze had fallen to his barely-parted lips. Which were smirking. Because he’d noticed. 

“Look, while you think of an answer-” he gestured to his still damp shirt, “-I need to change. And I have a spare shirt in my van, so...” He cocked his head a little to the side, as if he were about to share a secret. “If any… consenting adults were to follow me out,” he began backing away with his hands back in his pockets, eyes alight with meaning as he wove hidden messages into his words. “I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to whatever flirting and/or… extracurriculars were to go on out there.” 

You choked out a laugh. “Extracurriculars??”

A grin mingled with a cringe on those fascinating lips as he shook an accusatory finger at you. “That.”  he bit out, “That smile is why I won’t stop with the name-calling, princess.” He quirked an eyebrow and added, “It’s damn distracting.” You couldn’t help but giggle at his reference to the very thing you kept accusing him of. 

And then he was gone, out the door and strolling down the sidewalk into the smoky night air until he had disappeared from your line of sight. 

You stood there under the stairs for a good minute or so, still reeling from the way he had spoken to you- like he could read your goddamn mind and knew exactly how much you enjoyed the way you felt around him. He had heavily insinuated that he was going to be waiting for you out by his van. Your brain went wild as you wondered what he expected to happen out there. 

Did he just want to talk? No, he had used the phrase extracurriculars and in this context, that sounded anything but innocent. If you followed him out there, you were openly admitting to him that you were not only okay with the flirting, but whatever the flirting might lead to. 

Your fingers slid as you absentmindedly stroked your sweating glass with your thumb. Everything in your brain yelled- practically begged- for you to simply wait out the band’s set, take a few more notes, and catch a cab back to your hotel. To look your bandmates dead in the eye and tell them no distractions, then mess around with a stranger at a bar? It would be hypocritical. 

The more you thought about it, though, Eddie had been clear that he had zero expectations of anything other than what might happen tonight. He didn’t ask for plans tomorrow, nothing next week- just a little sweetness to round out the night. That wouldn’t lead to any future distractions, right? And there was no way Lana or Denise would find out… 

You should have thought about it further. You really should have waited until enough time had passed that there was no way Eddie would still be out there waiting. Unfortunately, however, your glass was quickly placed on a nearby table, your moleskine shoved into your purse, and your Doc-clad feet marched through the threshold of the bar without nearly enough thought thrown into your decision. 

The cool air of the night enveloped you, and you instinctively began to rub the goosebumps away from your bare arms. Cigarette smoke from patrons lazily draped against the windows looking into the bar wafted around you as you strode with purpose down the sidewalk. Eyes snagging on a clunky-looking Chevy van peeking out from around the corner behind the bar, you noticed the familiar silhouette of a man leaning against the driver’s side door. Amber light from the street lamps glowed at the edges of his curls, playing on the plumes of his own cigarette smoke which he blew upward into the air through those lips that had somehow hypnotized you beyond rescue tonight. 

He didn’t look up at you until you were leaned up against the brick wall parallel to the side of his van. Eddie kept his eyes trained on your pristine black leather boots as he smiled around his cigarette. Slowly, he brought his gaze up to meet yours, a silent question in those mesmerizing eyes. 

Your breath turned to vapor in the brisk night air as you huffed out a frustrated sigh, wanting very badly to not let on just how hard your heart was pounding out of your chest.

“Alright.” you muttered, feeling awkward now that you couldn’t  count on blaring guitars to fill the silence between you two. 

Eddie nodded, practically smiling ear to ear. “Alright?” he queried, and you could hear the unspoken question he was really asking. Are you sure?

You stuck your hands in your pockets, and before you could chicken out you nodded back in response, flashing him a matching smile. 

“Alright.”

Part 3

[theshireisburningg]

thinking about eddie sitting down in his room to learn the master of puppets solo and…

He listens to the tape the whole drive to and from school, laughing at Max’s reaction which is half impressed and half disturbed, as he cranks the volume to show her his favorite songs. By the end she’s fighting a smile as Eddie sings along horribly, cackling at himself as he makes up the words he hasn’t learned yet.

Max goes home and Eddie enters the trailer to find Wayne stirring a pot on the stove, a cigarette hanging out the corner of his lips. Eddie tries to steal it from him as a greeting and laughs as Wayne swats him away, because dammit if he’s not going to at least try to get Eddie to break the habit while he’s still young.

They sit at the table and eat, a baseball game playing quietly in the background. Wayne tells Eddie about the cool vintage car he saw at the mechanic shop that day, describing it in detail, down to the paint coloring and the engine power. Eddie pointedly avoids talking about school, because he tries his best not to bring that shit home, but he does recount a funny story Dustin had told him back to Wayne, who just rolls his eyes at how ridiculous Eddie's friend group is.

Eddie scarfs down the food, and makes three offhand comments about the new Metallica album before Wayne gives in and tells him to go play. Eddie stands with a ‘thanks for dinner!’ and slams out the front door with a bit too much enthusiasm, running across the yard in his mismatched socks to get to his van and extract the tape that he only has one cherished copy of.

He finally gets it playing in his room, fast forwards through the first song, mentally apologizing to the metal gods for skipping an unskippable album, but he has things to do. He greets his guitar like he always does, takes it off the wall while whispering a confident ‘we got this’ into the neck (He wouldn’t admit that he talks to his guitar but he definitely does. It's a team effort, Eddie and her).

He plays and rewinds, plays and rewinds. He picks up the bigger chunks faster than most would because he’s played his whole life and has already dedicated hours to learning the technical bits of Metallica guitar solos. Some parts still get him and have him cursing loud enough that Wayne yells out a half-hearted ‘watch it!’ in response.

He plays for hours, doesn't keep track of the time but eventually he gets it, plays the entire solo with no mistakes. He pauses to catch his breath, smiling to himself. Because he did it, he does what the masters do, what his idols do. At that moment it doesn't matter to him that he’s not "school smart", forgets anyone that has even made him feel less than because of it. It doesn't matter because that's just one small thing, and he’s talented and creative and has something about himself to be proud of. He doesn't see Wayne who stands in the doorway watching fondly, but if the smile on his face and the slight shine in his eyes is any indication he’s proud of Eddie too, knows he's destined for greatness.

[gaiagangoffical]

do y'all have a fav song from the old ones?

you BETTER appreciate this because i am about to run around the base passing the focus along to everyone !!!

Aloy - Oh. Um. I don’t exactly listen to their music a lot, I generally prefer what we have today. Although, GAIA gave me this playlist once called “Phonk”, and I guess it was ok, so I guess that? Sorry, that’s not really a song..

Erend - HEAVY METAL BANDS, I THINK METALLICA OR SLIPKNOT IS MY FAVOURITE. I ENJOY MASTER OF PUPPETS A LOT, THOUGH. ITS EIGHT MINUTES LONG, SO I GET TO ENJOY IT FOR AGES.

(ooc: i know nothing about heavy metal bands all i have is a friend with a metallica bag whom we call emo all the time)

Varl - i actually quite enjoy the pop genre! i think there was a heavy split between the old ones between people who did and didn’t, but i think they sound cool and upbeat. my favourite has to be this one song called shake it off by this girl called taylor swift!!! i don’t know if she’s still relevant with you guys but i enjoy a lot of her music :) also i listen to classical sometimes from zo!!!

Zo - Generally I listen to calmer music, classical like Varl said. I enjoy Beethoven, but I also switch over to more 80s, 90s, 2000s, and 2020s music sometimes because of Varl. I like Adele - my favourite from her has to be Chasing Pavements, or Easy On Me :) Alva got me into The Lumineers too.

Kotallo - i don’t have a lot of time to listen to music. all i know is mr. sandman. bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam oh mr sandman. that one. i think it’s old so i don’t know if you all still know it.

Alva - MY TURN!!!!! i enjoy this one band called the lumineers a LOT. my favourite is ophelia because it reminds me of federa and sometimes it makes me cry. also!! taylor swift!! she was 2000s to 2020s i think so like varl said i’m not sure if you all know her.. but i heard her fans called themselves “swifties” so that’s pretty cool!! me and varl listen to music together a lot we share similar tastes :3 i like the pop genre too!!

Beta - i really enjoy the crane wives i really like the moon will sing or the well also there was this song called lovely and i think billie something was her name and all i can do is see myself in the lyrics so it makes me cry but it also makes me feel really comforted also alva showed me this song called rises the moon and it makes me really calm

Sylens - Classical.

GAIA - My likes are what Elisabet liked. Sometimes, when she was feeling a bit happier, she’d listen to 70s, 80s, 90s, but when she needed to focus or needed something calmer in a solemn mood, she’d put on some classical or generally calm music. I believe her favourite was “Keep On Movin’” by a band called Five. Although, I do enjoy the songs everyone plays around the base, too.

sorry guys sylens was grumpy… it took me like 5 minutes of pestering him to get him to write ONE word!!!!

now i am going to look at some data. sitting down. i’ve been running around the base i need a break.

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

my official reasonings/ramblings for why each song on my steddie playlist was added because the brainrot is real (this list is constantly being updated!)

i tried to keep this as close to the actual time frame as possible, but any song can be a steddie song since eddie is actually alive and well ofc 🥰

any song with just the reasoning being “Steve” or “Eddie” means it’s a song on that’d i think would be on their playlist/they’d listen to and may or may not think about the other while they do

Eddie My Love - The Chordettes duh. but also this is the song Steve puts on the jukebox in response to the scenario below with ‘Hey Lover’ (here’s a drabble I wrote for this and ‘Hey Lover’)

I Was Made For Lovin' You - KISS Eddie’s Steve song; part of my #steddieweek2023 fic

Mary On A Cross - Ghost Literally all the first steddie edits I saw on tiktok were to this song

Hey Lover - The Daughters of Eve I have an scenario in my head of Eddie putting this song on a jukebox in a small diner, saying “hey that sounds like you Stevie” at the line “You don’t have to be a king” and blushing like crazy when Steve smirks and asks “You trying to tell me something, Munson?” (here’s a drabble I wrote for this and ‘Eddie My Love’’)

Sex on Fire - Kings of Leon this tiktok by luna.weasley11 that says it sounds like Eddie singing

Never Ever Getting Rid of Me - Waitress Soundtrack POV, Eddie singing this to Steve because Eddie didn’t die and Steve and Robin work at a diner now, fight me.

Teenage Dirtbag - Wheatus Eddie singing about Steve; Steve comes to Eddie at prom (Steve is chaperoning or is Robin’s date idk) and invites him to an Iron Maiden concert. basically this post by erlij on twitter (the twt post was what i saw first, but they also posted it here on tumblr (@erlie))

Pour Some Sugar On Me - Def Leppard Eddie

You Shook Me All Night Long - AC/DC Eddie

Head Over Heels - Tears for Fears Steve’s Eddie song; part of my #steddieweek2023 fic

Angeleyes - ABBA AU where King Steve and Eddie meet earlier and maybe fool around and this is Eddie after King Steve drops him (don’t worry they still get together later after Steve isn’t a complete ASS.).

Cry Little Sister - Gerard McMann Kas!Eddie vibes also Lost Boys?? Hello?? - also this vid from @verk0my of steve meeting vamp eddie the first time

Lay All Your Love On Me - ABBA Steve

Everybody Wants To Rule The World - Tears For Fears Steve’s “Heat of the Moment”/groundhog day song from “The Lathe” by @palmviolet on AO3

1985 - Bo Burnham duh

Master of Puppets - Metallica DUH

Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) - Kate Bush duh, but also this Kas!Eddie x Steve fanvid by @softoreos on youtube

Psycho Killer - Talking Heads was in the show, but I added it to this playlist because of this tiktok by roguealien (@rogue-alien here on tumblr)

Take on Me - a-ha Steve

Somebody To Love - Queen duh, but also: don’t watch this Ella Enchanted AU vid by roguealien on tiktok and then DON’T think about this song/scene in the movie but steddie

Take My Breath Away - Berlin duh

Bad Habit - Steve Lacy Steve to Eddie when he finds out Eddie had a crush on him and was too late to do anything about it either due to canon or because Eddie’s in a coma from his injuries

Voulez-Vous - ABBA added because I read this fic by @bmodiwrites where Eddie walks in on Dustin and Steve singing and dancing to this while cooking and it sends Eddie into a mixtape-making spiral

Eddie Baby - Felix Hagen & the Family AU where the fruity four go see Corroded Coffin play at some gay bar in Indianapolis’ open mic night and after Corroded Coffin plays, Steve, Robin, and Nancy surprise Eddie by being the next act to go up on stage; Steve singing as a confession to Eddie, Robin and Nancy as his backup/band! I finally wrote this!! tumblr | AO3

You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) - Dead Or Alive Steve’s “Oh shit I have a crush on Eddie Munson” song

Kiss the Go-Goat - Ghost seen this used in steddie edits

Tainted Love - Soft Cell Eddie with his big ol’ pining crush on Steve

I Ran (So Far Away) - Flock of Seagulls Eddie coded: “Outside of D&D, I am no hero. I see danger and I just turn heel and run. Or at least that's what I've learned about myself this week.”. also, “..with auburn hair and tawny eyes” is obv. about Steve

Play With Me - Extreme Eddie

Hungry Eyes - Eric Carmen Steve

This Charming Man - The Smiths Steve coded

Heart Of Glass (Live) - Miley Cyrus the song fits the era, but this is the version I like better tbh

Spillways - Ghost idk, i like it and I think Eddie’d like Ghost in the future

Don’t You Want Me - The Human League classic 80s song

Super Freak - Rick James classic 80s song (also I love the Hillywood ST parody vid)

Crazy Little Thing Called Love - Queen DUH

As the World Falls Down - David Bowie, Labyrinth HELLO?? JARETH!EDDIE AND SARAH!STEVE?? “I will be there for you as the world falls down”??? editing this one to add THIS BEAUTIFUL ART BY @vesperalhemlock

The Power Of Love - Huey Lewis & The News perfect for S3 steddie!

Can’t Fight This Feeling - REO Speedwagon classic 80s song, plus a fic of the same name by @steddieasitgoes​ where Steve finds a mix tape Eddie Made about him and this song is on the tape twice because Eddie is that down bad for him

I’m Still Standing - Elton John fits both of them, Steve after having gone through all the upside-down bullshit, Eddie still standing tall after everything he’s been through

Le Hace Falta Un Beso - EL Chapo De Sinaloa this tiktok/meme by littlecorvo also i’m in LOVE with hispanic!Eddie

Watching Over Me - Radio Company i used this song for the title to my destiel!steddie fic bc it's a super destiel coded song by jackles himself!!

The King Has Lost His Crown - ABBA STEVE’S SONG FR ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? ABBA?? The title?? “The world is upside-down”?? In the words of my friend Eli (@transizzyhands): “I can’t believe abba invented Steve harrington”; now part of my #steddieweek2023 fic

Rainbow in the Dark - Dio Eddie

Last Christmas - Wham! idk, i’ve seen edits of them to this song and also i love this song lmao

Hopelessly Devoted To You - Olivia Newton-John Sandy!Steve x Danny!Eddie

SOS - ABBA Steve pining after Eddie even though he’s gone

Acolyte - Slaughter Beach, Dog “Eddie, I want you to marry me, we’ll wait a few years, I don’t mean to frighten you, I just wanna be clear.” (this specific vid by tubesock_ (@tubesock86 here on tumblr) made me add this to the playlist!)

Your Love - The Outfield Steve

More Than a Feeling - Boston classic

Is This Love - Whitesnake there was a specific video by chloeeerenee on tiktok that made me add this song to the playlist but it has since been deleted 😔; also part of my #steddieweek2023 fic

Love Bites - Judas Priest Kas/Vampire!Eddie x Steve vibes, this art by @eddiemunsonrulesmylife, ALSO THE ART FROM THIS ALBUM IS A POSTER IN EDDIE’S TRAILER FROM THE ST SET

Every Breath You Take - The Police this is giving either ghost!eddie still watching over steve OR steve pining after eddie from afar as far back as S2

Kickstart My Heart - Motley Crue i originally thought Eddie would’ve liked this song, but now i’m thinking that steve is the one that ends up liking it and is like ‘oh, you like this right? this is metal?’ and Eddie has to be all 😬😬😬 ‘yeah stevie, i love this song’

Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy - Queen THEM!! classic 80s song, also this vid by roguealien

Honey, Honey - ABBA Steve

Camel by Camel - Mix Vocal - Sandy Marton this video by @/marcluvr on tiktok

Rock You LIke A Hurricane - Scorpions Eddie

Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) - John Lennon them ❤️ also this edit vid with the album by lordnessly

You Really Got Me - Van Halen Eddie

Starman - David Bowie from a Instagram story by @szczurherbacany; when they posted the first pic on this insta post, had this song on it!! basically, steve's moles/freckles are constellations

Take A Chance On Me - ABBA Eddie wanting Steve to take a chance on him

Turbo Lover - Judas Priest this art by @eddiemunsonrulesmylife

Owner of a Lonely Heart - Yes Steve

Freaks - Surf Curse Eddie coded

Going to Georgia - The Mountain Goats the song for the songfic title “the most remarkable thing about you standing in the doorway is that it’s you” and its sequel “frozen with joy right where i stand” by @greatunironic ; AKA steddie fic royalty

The Promise - When In Rome this tiktok from nextjen

(I Just) Died In Your Arms - Cutting Crew Kinda literal lmao sorry

Sweet Leaf - Black Sabbath In my fave steddie fic “The Shire is NOT on Fire” by @kissesforcas, Steve tells Eddie that this song reminds him of his love (Eddie); it makes sense when you read it!.

For Whom The Bell Tolls - Metallica Eddie’d love this song but also this vid specifically from @toktopus-art

Ballroom Blitz - Sweet idk why but this is giving me fruity four vibes OR will be the song that will be playing during S5’s big fight™ and we find out eddie’s still alive and the big fight™ is the party vs. kas!eddie and vecna

Shout - Tears For Fears Steve

Somebody’s Watching Me - Rockwell this vid by roguealien

Dancing In the Dark - Bruce Springsteen Steve coded in general also this art by @mankanar

You’re The One That I Want - John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John Sandy!Steve x Danny!Eddie in general, specifically this vid and this vid from toktopus-art

Lovesong - The Cure duh

This Year - The Mountain Goats this vid by roguealien

I Will Follow Him - Peggy March this vid by roguealien

Be My Baby - The Ronettes part 4 to my mixtape fic!

Take Me Home Tonight - Eddie Money duh! but also i added this to my #steddieweek2023 fic!

Enjoy the Silence - Depeche Mode this vid by vimenage is what made me add this song to the playlist!

I’m Still Here (Jim’s Theme) - Treasure Planet soundtrack Eddie coded; seriously makes me emotional thinking about Eddie singing this like wtf

Rewrite The Stars - The Greatest Showman soundtrack in my head this is a AU where Steve is the rich boy that falls for acrobat Eddie; Steve joins the show just as staff to get away from his Dad/family, travel with the show and to learn more about the absolutely enchanting trapeze artist (like Ewan McGregor does in Big Fish but his love is in the show he’s working for). Steve wants to go all in in their relationship and Eddie is wary because he doesn’t trust rich boy Steve (at first) and also he is more cautious of how their relationship would be perceived to anyone outside the showgrounds/performers/their friends and pushes him away because of it.

I Won’t Say I’m in Love - Hercules Soundtrack DUH!!! A classic song for any ship; Eddie is Meg and Steve is Hercules obv. w/ corroded coffin and/or robin and dustin are the muses being like, “we all know you’re down bad for the big hunky jock you can’t fool us eddie.”; bonus! i wrote this!

Misunderstanding - Ninja Sex Party classic angst song (this version cause I personally prefer it over the original)

Radio Ga Ga - Queen I feel like they’d both love this song

Agora Te Puedes Marchar - Luis Miguel this edit from moonysmunson

Time After Time - Cyndi Lauper Steve after Eddie died 🙃

I Want to Know What Love Is - Foreigner Steve when he’s going through is sexuality crisis/figuring out his crush on Eddie

Careless Whisper - Wham! 😏

Crazy For You - Madonna Steve

Heaven - Bryan Adams future steddie!!!! 😭😭😭

St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion) - John Parr Steve coded, thinking he’s the only one who can save everyone and once it’s all over, just being on top of the world being with Eddie and getting the fuck away from his fuckass dad

Broken Wings - Mr. Mister

I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch) - Four Tops Eddie has a soft spot for sappy oldies

All I Ask Of You - Phantom of the Opera soundtrack added this for the steddie fic i wrote where Eddie was a theater kid in school and steve fell for him when he saw Eddie play the Phantom

Necesito Decirte - Conjunto Primavera my hubby found this song after looking for it for a while and the lyrics fit a lost depressed steve after eddie is gone

Tragos Amargos - Ramon Ayala sad sappy songs for eddie music hc, but this time it’s hispanic!eddie(, my love)

Quién Como Tú - Ana Gabriel this vid by corvus_chronicles on tiktok (@corvuschronicles here on tumblr) with hispanic eddie jamming to this while cleaning 🥰

If I Could Turn Back Time - Cher timeloop fics 🫠🙃

Alone - Heart this vid by @becomingfoxes that made me realize i hadn’t put this on my playlist yet????

Bigger Than The Whole Sky -Taylor Swift this edit by mira (@/hellfiresteddie on twitter) FUCKING HELL ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS BULLSHIT??? ALSO @strawberryspence and @undreaming-fanfiction's fic of the same name

Welcome to the Black Parade - My Chemical Romance this video 🙃🙃

Teenager in Love - Dion & The Belmonts they really do just be two teenagers in love?? also see prev. explanations about Eddie having a soft spot for sappy oldies because of Wayne

Love is a Battlefield - Pat Benatar Steve

Boys Don’t Cry - The Cure Steve

Wouldn’t It Be Nice - The Beach Boys It really would be nice if they could just be in love and happy, wouldn’t it?? sorrynotsorry about making this happy sounding song sad

The End of the World - Skeeter Davis Steve being in his feels after Eddie’s gone (Believe it or not, I don’t really like angst, I promise! idk what’s up with me lmao)

Can’t Help Falling In Love - Elvis Presley they really can’t lol

Holding Out for a Hero - Bonnie Tyler Steve deserves a bashing in some UD monsters heads montage to this song; now also included in part 5 of my mixtape fic!

Lady Stardust - David Bowie this tweet about how this song is Flight Risk steddie coded

Something About You - Level 42 Steve

Into the Groove - Madonna Steve

How Will I Know - Whitney Houston Steve

Always Something There to Remind Me - Naked Eyes after eddie dies, steve seeing things everywhere that remind him of eddie

Like a Prayer - Madonna “I’m down on my knees, i wanna take you there”?? 👀

The Man Who Sold the World - David Bowie it’s giving witness protection eddie, maybe WP eddie that even the party thought died but then find him again??

Heartbeat - Wham! this vid by rachelismommytbh on tiktok that inspired my #steddieweek2023 fic!

My Boyfriend’s Back - The Angels this vid 🤗 by @ranebowstitches on tiktok

Out of Touch - Daryl Hall and John Oates Steve worried he might not have the time to get to know the guy that may or may not have made him realize things about himself after the world didn't end. now also part of my #steddieweek2023 fic

Soldier, Poet, King - The Oh Hellos this video from @sam-loves-seb that made me bawl uncontrollably!

Your Kind of Lover - Freddie Mercury this tiktok from @miserablekingsteve ; and now in my #steddieweek2023 fic

Underground - Cody Fry this video by @maatdraws

Object of My Desire - Starpoint this vid that pointed out this is canon Steve music; it plays in the car in s4 e1!

Self Control - Laura Branigan

True - Spandau Ballet

Stephen - Ke$ha you can't tell me that eddie wouldn't sing steve's name to him in this exact tone whenever he sees him after hearing this (either modern au or ELND and they are together through the 2010s etc.)

People Are People - Depeche Mode steve internally being like 'damn why does eddie hate me sm?' i.e. before getting together, after vecna, eddie is still wary of "King Steve"

Forever - KISS this HC post from @undreaming-fanfiction about steve and eddie's first dance to this song at their wedding; now also my #steddieweek2023 fic

The Trooper - Iron Maiden eddie would BODY this guitar!! also this is from the same album that eddie grabs from robin and says "THIS. IS. MUSIC."

Runnin' with the Devil - Van Halen I can see Eddie blasting this through town just to see how offended people get, leaning into the rumors and all that; now also because of my #steddieweek2023 fic

Kiss On My List - Daryl Hall & John Oates Steve; also in my #steddieweek2023 fic

Faithfully - Journey in my head, this one goes like this: at the end of one of his shows, rockstar!eddie says "okay guys, we're about done here, and there's just one more song i want to play for you. it's a little outside of our normal type of thing, but there's a very special someone out there in the crowd who just loves these guys... so, to stevie, thank you for sticking by me through the absolute hell that touring can be, thank you for always being there for me in general really.." he chuckles into the mic, "anyway, this one's for you sunshine." he goes to leave the mic but comes back to mumble out a "also, please don't sue us, journey." and plays this for his steve ❤

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun - Cyndi Lauper tbh i’m getting girls day/sleepover at steve’s (robin, nancy, erica, el, max) and he gets pulled into a dance party/sing-off to this song, and afterwards, while they are giving him a makeover, tells the rest of them about his crush on eddie (robin already knows obv)

I Want It All - Queen

Everybody Needs - Danny Elfman this video from @/havisham.hfc on tiktok

Easy Lover - Philip Bailey, Phil Collins

Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go - Wham! Steve (duh), but also tbh i saw this edit of my original blorbos and i immediately thought but what if also steddie??

Hold The Line - TOTO “love isn’t always on time”?? it’s giving canon ending to s4 and steve realizing his feelings too late 🙃 also, now in my #steddieweek2023 fic

American Pie - Don McLean this vid by @strawberryspence

Stand by Me - Ben E. King i saw a top 10 songs of the 60s and for some reason this one made my brain go brrrrrrrsteddiebrrrrr

La vie en rose - Louis Armstrong from @ohliooh’s playlist for their fic One Need Not Be A House 🙃

Livin’ on a Prayer - Bon Jovi this post by @sparrowtapes, duh of course steve has a crush on eddie cause he also has a crush on bon jovi

Uptown Girl - Billy Joel steve is the uptown girl he (eddie) is singin' about obv

There Is a Light That Never Goes Out - The Smiths steve just wanting to get out of his house and away from his lonely thoughts, even before steddie, just being out doing nothing with eddie starts to mean everything to him

Dreams - Van Halen steddie talking about getting their dreams of getting out of hawkins, even before steddie happens

At Last - Etta James my #steddieweek2023 fic

Remains of the Day - Danny Elfman this original corpse groom au by @undreaming-fanfiction that inspired this continuation i did covering the remains of the day scene!!

For the Dancing and the Dreaming - How To Train Your Dragon 2 soundtrack this video by @/stevie.boy_19 on tiktok that WRECKED me 🥰 also included it in my fic here

You Give Love A Bad Name - Bon Jovi this video by @/mione.ae on tiktok 🥵🥵

A Guy That I’d Kinda Be Into - Be More Chill soundtrack this video by @toktopus-art

I’ve Got You Under My Skin - Michael Bublé the song from ‘The Proposal’ and the title for @strawberryspence ‘s fic of the same name. the most bestest, most important most au fic ever

Hysteria - Def Leppard this tiktok from @/doodle_soup72

Burnin' for You - Blue Oyster Cult

Lovers In A Dangerous Time - Bruce Cockburn suggested by this lovely anon, these lyrics are super steddie coded

In My Head - Joe Sarafini & Andrew Barth Feldman this video by @/usu_mimi on tiktok (i’ve been assuming this is @usumimi here on tumblr!)

Poison - Alice Cooper Eddie being mad at being down bad for Steve, everything about him being dangerous for Eddie to have feelings for. like, s1 era

Everywhere - Fleetwood Mac Steve AND Eddie (surprisingly/not surprisingly; it's Wayne's fault he likes Stevie Nicks, okay?)

Shadows of the Night - Pat Benetar Steve

Foolish Heart - Steve Perry Steve

Renegade - Styx i've had this one associated with spn/the winchesters in my brain for so long but this post by @roykentt made me see that it's also eddie's song fr fr fr

Never Ending Song - Conan Gray this video from naysa on tiktok that made it so now all i can think of is eddie when i hear this lmao

Would That I - Hozier this video from @tubesock86

Indiana Wants Me - Eddie Taylor this video and art from @rogue-alien

Love Me Like There’s No Tomorrow - Freddie Mercury their last night together bc they decided they just don’t work anymore, or eddie is being hauled off into witness protection and won’t be allowed to see steve anymore, hell, even a “you’re getting married tomorrow morning and this is our last night together” vibe. and then i cried.

Dance the Night Away - Freddie Mercury

Work Song - Hozier i got a brainworm about this song and wrote this thing

When I See You Smile - Bad English

If You Love Me (Really Love Me) - Brenda Lee

Back to the Old House - The Smiths this video by @/eliminatolives on tiktok

Little Lies - Fleetwood Mac from this tiktok that i could 100% see being a years later meet cute between the boys (eddie is dancing in the middle of the aisle lmao)

Cheri Cheri Lady - Modern Talking

Talking In Your Sleep - The Romantics steve

Freak of the Week - Freak Kitchen idk i just love this song and i could totally see this beinga song/video Corroded Coffin would do. can you imagine the animated versions of the boys in this video?? iconic

Here I Go Again - Whitesnake

The Boys Of Summer - Don Henley classic song, theme song for summer fling fics in my head (also the title song for this fic by steveharringtoned)

Give Him A Great Big Kiss - The Shangri-Las this little thing by @thefatedthoughtofyou

I Think We're Alone Now - Tommy James & The Shondells

Dial Drunk - Noah Kahan king steve song fr, i hc the person he's calling is his mom and she doesn't answer or tells Hop to just leave him there to teach him a lesson or smth (completely ignoring the fact that he's a high schooler getting drunk on the regular). i have more thoughts about an au where steve writes this song and eddie is a more established star who adds his vocals to it as a re-release but that's for another time.

Run Away to Mars - TALK for this thing i wrote of eddie being the one to sing this about steve

Sherry - Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons tbh i just like this song, but also i can see either finding out the other does too and starting to sing along to it but replacing 'sherry' with 'eddie' or 'stevie' lmao

Holy Diver - Dio duh

Seek & Destroy - Metallica kas!eddie comeback theme song. he and his army of demobats are hunting down the hawkins gang, montage of them all fighting, ending when eddie finds steve backed into a corner with only his bat >:)

As Long As It's Not About Love - Dio from this post by @novakiart

To Be Young Again - Holy Wire this sounds like steddie finding each other again after being something back in the day and now they are wistful about what could have been and also what was

[mc-i-r]

Hi hi hi!!! On the bandwagon to say how good Disposable Heroes is! (also - what a title!) I love how this take exposes everyone's biases in such a casual way, that through something minor, it snowballs. Not a single person (adult or kids alike) thinks to check on Steve, that one misunderstanding becomes an excuse to treat Steve how they truly view him (ie, still an asshole, taking digs at his personality and intelligence, how easily they distance themselves after everything he's done for them with zero regards to his well-being and feelings.) Thinking of the party trying to defend themselves by downplaying Steve's part in everything, only to have it pointed out that half of them wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for Steve - but how it also extends past mortal danger as well, all the outings, check ins, lunch and arcade money, a shoulder to cry on, someone to talk to - And everyone now being forced to confront these biases, that Steve isn't a two dimensional NPC they can recruit whenever they need a tank, devoid of feelings or emotion outside of them. That he's been struggling with the trauma of this shit too. I love your exploration of Steve's character - how he's alarmingly aware and observant of the people around him, how he assesses quietly and chooses to take action for better (despite it maybe not being reciprocated - that scene in Family Video where Steve is so earnest with Eddie... it broke my heart.) It feels so true to his writing, even all the way back to S1/S2 when he realises where he went wrong, tries to make up for it. Also the angst, the good good angst! Dying to read when Eddie finds out Steve's true feelings and what Steve's had to endure this entire time... and how harmful the King Steve moniker actually is. Selfishly, I want the party (+ extended) to grovel a bit to earn back his friendship - but I love that your version has one steadfast Robin Buckley by Steve's side. Such a good premise!!! Sorry for such along ask haha, i got excited. I'd love to be tagged for future updates! - @foundintheshallows

Thank you so much! It amazes me how much positive feedback I'm getting from Heroes, it truly feels surreal. The fact that so many people are liking it is insane to me but it's definitely encouraging me to keep writing more!

Funny little thing about the title, it's actually based on a Metallica song from Master of Puppets! I was listening to the album when I was writing one day and as soon as I was trying to think of a good title, this song came on and the lyrics just... Fit. It's not super important, but I think it's kinda cool :)

That's something I really wanted to express, how people's biases never really go away despite knowing or thinking otherwise. I wanted to show that bias can hurt a person, even when you don't think about it or actively do it. Steve gets hit with a lot of that since his character was one who had a rough past, so I really wanted to drive the point home that even though people can change, they can still get hurt.

Trauma in the show, I feel like, is immensely overlooked so I wanted to amend that. Steve has been through some shit- including Russian torture- and he would obviously have permanent issues from that. Physical issues such as his eyesight (all those concussions had to have fucked up his vision somehow), migraines (seriously, head trauma is no joke), and hearing (which will come in later) as well as mental issues such as panic attacks, paranoia, dissociation, and anxiety. But, despite all that, he puts it all aside for the Party even though they never do so in return and that's where some of that sweet, sweet angst comes in.

This is really just an excuse to dive into the mind of the tiny Steve that lives in my brain because he gets so little attention in the show regarding his character and I wanted to fix that. Showing how kind and compassionate he is- and really has always been- is something I really really wanted to get right. That scene in Family Video was an example of that (I'm really glad you liked it, I rewrote it soooo many times) and I wanted to express how genuinely thoughtful he is to others even if they don't give him the same courtesy in return. He's had a lot of character development, and this is just my way of paying homage to it, I suppose.

I don't wanna give away too much, but the Party definitely feels some retribution for what they did to Steve and he really takes his time to fully accept their apologies. It'll all come full circle in the end, and a loooot of loose ends are tied up.

I'm jumping between Robin's and Eddie's chapters right now to try and iron out some final details so your wait might not last too much longer!

Thank you so much for this ask and I'll add you to the tag list right away!

[madwheelerz]

Alright so I mentioned in one of my posts that Vecna is literally a puppet on a string because of the vines holding him up like a puppet. This is going to be a post going into detail about what I think the Mind Flayer actually is and more clues basically that I have pointing to Vecna being a puppet.

First there are two puppet references that I can think of off the top of my head, one relates to Hopper and the other is the song that Eddie plays prior to his death “Master of Puppets” by Metallica. It’s also interesting that Eddie’s entire thing had to do with metal or being metal and metal is silver in the same season we are all trying to figure out who the silver cat the feeds is, but those sound like big brain thoughts not being thought by me today so anyway, next.

The Ilsensine

So, let’s start with my speculation on who is running this show because right now it’s not looking like Vecna, but Vecna is stronger than a mind flayer so if not Vecna then who? When I made my post regarding the Mind Flayer, I realized that some things didn’t add up with what I was thinking so I went digging farther and found something else.

So, illithids or mind flayers are a species in DnD with power psionic ability. They are evil and have a physical form as we know the shadow monster does not have a physical form. They are highly intelligent. I believe that what we saw in season three was a mind flayer, but that the shadow monster in its entirety is something else. The mind flayer we see in season three is only a small piece of the actual shadow monster. I believe that the shadow monster is actually the Ilsensine, also called the Tentacled Lord or the Great Brain. This is a patron deity mind flayers and believed by some to be their creator. It also serves as a patron to evil mages, like Vecna, and psionicists who dominated the minds of others.

The Great Brain is a greater deity that rules over the mastery of the mind and it’s favored monster is cranium rat, psionically enhanced rats that were transformed by mind flayers through bombardment with psionic energy. This creature also possessed infinite tentacles of infinite length that stretched across all planes.

The Great Brain resided in something called the Dismal Caverns, which has a chaotic evil alignment. The place is described as a great solid mass of rock perforated by caverns, chasms, and tunnels of all sizes. There’s no sky or light expect for that which comes from luminous fungi and molten lava flows. It is also the home plane of other deities; The Great Mother (mothergate?), Laogzed, and Ghaunadaur. Vecna describes what he was doing as being an explorer of the new realm.

Anyway, the Great Brain rules over the terrain called the Caverns of Thought.

This looks like the tunnels under Hawkins.

The connection to librarygate is the function of the Ilsensine is that mind flayers in the game don’t worship it, rather they admire the mental capacity that it has. There’s also the fact that Bob the brain helped to figure out the tunnels, the hivemind is what they needed to deal with in season two and three, once with the upside-down creatures and the other time with the zombies. The library is where you go to seek knowledge and the Ilsensine represents the union between the illithids and universal knowledge. Whenever we go to the library our characters are seeking out important information.

Vecna the Puppet

So basically, I believe that Vecna is a puppet of the Great Brain. We have Vecna’s puppet imagery with the vines propping him up like – well, a puppet.

There is also some evidence that there is more going on with the eldritch monsters. In season three B*lly says “we” while we’ve only seen Vecna use singular pronouns. These things happen back-to-back in season four via flashbacks from El and Vecna’s dialogue. El says it’s been Vecna this whole time, but Vecna neither confirms nor denies this instead opting to remain silent.

The show tells us that Vecna isn’t the big bad. Dustin says that Vecna is like a general.

Also, obligatory Erica speaking the facts-

I mentioned in the beginning that one of the times we hear about a puppet and puppet master is with Hopper so let’s pull that up.

I always though this line was a little weird, but here Hopper is referring to himself as a puppet and telling Joyce that she’s the master. He says that “it turns out, getting to Mike, now that was the key”. The puppet is telling the puppet master that the key to getting what the puppet wants is by getting to Mike. If we replace the term puppet with Vecna that paints a very specific image. After season four we can definitely conclude that Vecna does indeed need to get Mike out of the way and that would be the metaphorical key.

The Eldritch

So, on my little hunt for informational background for this theory I noticed something very interesting about the way we are perceiving the eldritch within the show. Like they will make sounds and the subtitles won’t tell you that they are making sounds, but they do tell you a little in season four.

“Eldritch thrumming”? “Shrill shrieking”? Both of these are from season four. I did a light browse of the earlier seasons and didn’t come up with any subtitles despite still hearing sounds from the eldritch. It was strange especially when you consider that the shrieking is from a specific scene in season two and when you go back you can’t find the subtitle for that part even though it definitely happened. So, this indicates to me that the gates are alive, and it appears that most of the things we’ve seen are alive, but they didn’t want us thinking to deeply about that yet.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

About Me: Favorite Albums

Music isn't something I talk much about here on my blog, mostly because I don't feel like I'm qualified enough to talk about these sorts of things. I know movies like the back of my hand, but I'm definitely not smart enough to dissect what makes music good beyond "I like how it sounds."

But hey, I'm trying to help you get to know me, so here are thirty albums I like the sound of from a variety of artists. My big rule is I have to like at least five songs on any given album for it to qualify. I've listed my top three from each here, so the other two I'll leave to your imaginations (except for my #1 favorite, for which you'll get all of my top 5).

Honorable mentions: Pinkerton - Weezer, Under the Covers, Vol. II - Ninja Sex Party, Montero - Lil Nas X, Poodle Hat - Weird Al, Bad Hair Day - Weird Al, Master of Puppets - Metallica, License to Ill - Beastie Boys, Thriller - Michael Jackson, Purple Rain - Prince, Teenage Dream - Katy Perry, and the so bad it’s good masterpiece Angelic 2 the Core - Corey Feldman. I also didn't include the soundtracks to stage musicals, but the 90s version of Cats and the 80s version of Starlight Express are also some of my favorites.

30. The Hazards of Love - The Decemberists

A tale of a tragic romance told in the form of a concept album, this would almost certainly make the list even if it didn't have some of the best villain songs I've ever heard.

Favorite Songs:

3. “Won’t Want for Love (Margaret in the Taiga)”

2. “The Queen’s Rebuke/The Crossing”

1. “The Rake’s Song”

29. Youthanasia - Megadeth

Quite simply, a fantastic metal album. Not much more to say than that!

Favorite Songs:

3. “Youthanasia”

2. “A Tout le Monde”

1. “Family Tree”

28. In the Court of the Crimson King - King Crimson

Even if it was just the semi-title track that I loved, this album would probably make the list. It's prog rock perfection.

Favorite Songs:

3. "Moonchild"

2. "21st Century Schizoid Man"

1. "The Court of the Crimson King"

27. Saturday Night Fever - Various Artists

The Bee Gees obviously are the stars of the show on this soundtrack album, but it also has one of my favorite things: Disco remixes of classical music.

Favorite Songs:

3. “A Fifth of Beethoven”

2. “Night on Disco Mountain”

1. “Stayin’ Alive”

26. The Marshal Mathers LP 2 - Eminem

While the original album is a classic in its own right and nothing on this one is as immediately iconic as "The Real Slim Shady" or "Stan," I do think that this older, more mature Eminem reflecting back on his career and flexing his skills is overall the better package. This was a real comeback for him, after multiple less-than-impressive comebacks, and it is glorious.

Favorite Songs:

3. “Love Game”

2. “The Monster”

1. “So Far…”

25. McCartney II - Paul McCartney

This is what happens when you let a beloved rock star get really weird. It’s so experimental and quirky; only a Beatle could get this bizarre.

Favorite Songs:

3. “Frozen Jap”

2. “Coming Up”

1. “Temporary Secretary”

24. Painkiller - Judas Priest

One of those rare times where the songs on a metal album are actually, genuinely as fucking awesome as the album cover art.

Favorite Songs:

3. “Night Crawler”

2. “Painkiller”

1. “A Touch of Evil”

23. Songs for the Deaf - Queens of the Stone Age

With the assistance of Dave Grohl, Queens of the Stone Age really put their best foot forward for their breakout album. As hard as most of the tracks go, my absolute favorite is the eerier, slower hidden track about cannibalism.

Favorite Songs:

3. “You Think I Ain’t Worth a Dollar, But I Feel Like a Millionaire”

2. “First It Giveth”

1. “Mosquito Song”

22. Crash Twinsanity - Spiralmouth

The day I found out this entire soundtrack was a capella, my mind was blown. You mean to tell me this whole album is just mouth noises? It really does have the Crash vibe down.

Favorite Songs:

3. “Worm Chase”

2. “Rusty Walrus Chase”

1. “The Evil Twins”

21. Awesome Mix Vol. 2 - Various Artists

Every Guardians movie soundtrack is great, but out of the three it’s the second movie’s soundtrack that reigns supreme. It kicks off with ELO, scores the climactic final battle with Fleetwood Mac, and features a groovy disco remix of the Guardians theme music with vocals provided by David Hasselhoff over the credits. It’s all killer, no filler.

Favorite Songs:

3. “Guardians Inferno”

2. “Mr. Blue Sky”

1. “The Chain”

20. Mouth Dreams - Neil Cicierega

The way the songs flow into each other, the subtle jokes scattered throughout… Really, the only thing holding this back is some songs are just a bit too weak to justify bumping it above its predecessor.

Favorite Songs:

3. “Closerflies”

2. “Ribs”

1. “Fredhammer”

19. Mouth Moods - Neil Cicierega

From fantastic mashups that combine a dozen songs into one coherent whole to remixes that alter a single song and completely warp the premise to the point of absurdity, this is absolutely the highest point of the Mouth series.

Favorite Songs:

3. “Annoyed Grunt”

2. “Shit”

1. “Wow Wow”

18. Ten - Pearl Jam

Homelessness. Suicide. Incest. Murder. This might be one of the single darkest albums of the grunge era, and it firmly cemented Pearl Jam as a force to be reckoned with. Eddie Vedder’s unique vocals really are what makes these songs stand out from the crowd.

Favorite Songs:

3. “Alive”

2. “Jeremy”

1. “Even Flow”

17. The Symbol Remains - Blue Öyster Cult

You wouldn’t think a 70s rock band that loves singing about weird occult stuff could drop anything good five decades into their career, but BOC ain’t any old rock band. Only they could take a silly, memetic concept like the stereotypical “Florida Man” and turn it into a song that has enough weird and mystic vibes that it can easily sit alongside songs about aliens, eldritch horrors, vampires, and zombie Joan Crawford in their discography.

Favorite Songs:

3. “Tainted Blood”

2. “Florida Man”

1. “Box in My Head”

16. Impera - Ghost

One of Ghost's most solid albums to date. It has a few low points ("Twenties") but the highs are so high they easily eclipse those few lesser tracks.

Favorite Songs:

3. “Spillways”

2. “Hunter’s Moon”

1. “Call Me Little Sunshine”

15. The Presidents of the United States of America – The Presidents of the United States of America

I have very fond memories of listening to this in the car growing up. It’s such a charming piece of 90s rock, with the band foretelling their ultimate fate with the track “We Are Not Going To Make It.” Oh well, they manage to make it onto this list at least.

Favorite Songs:

3. “Kitty”

2. “Lump”

1. “Peaches”

14. Born This Way – Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga has fallen from the lofty heights she once stood upon, not quite being as massive as her heyday... But with an album that gets you this high, there's really nowhere to go but down. This album has a song for everyone, and for someone with taste as weird as my own, it had a load of great tracks.

Favorite Songs:

3. “Bad Kids”

2. “Bloody Mary”

1. “Judas”

13. In Utero - Nirvana

You can definitely tell that Nevermind was a more polished, commercial album when you listen to this one. The songs here are so much more raw than on their more famous album, with so much more bite to them. It can be a bit off-putting for sure, but this is definitely the short-lived band's best work (if not my favorite).

Favorite Songs:

3. “Dumb”

2. “Rape Me”

1. “Pennyroyal Tea”

12. Undertale Soundtrack – Toby Fox

Easily my favorite instrumental soundtrack of all time—and considering all the fantastic game soundtracks I’ve heard in my time, this is saying something. Every single track is a fantastic and fitting tune for wherever they’re used in-game, and even if my favorite track is the obvious pick, even I’ll admit that it’s not the best one (that would probably be #2).

Favorite Songs:

3. “Death By Glamour”

2. “Battle Against a True Hero”

1. “Megalovania”

11. Metal Gear Rising Soundtrack – Various artists

A game as insane and metal as Rising needs a soundtrack to match, and to say this one delivered is an understatement. Every song is one of the most badass things you will ever hear, with a good chunk of them elaborating on the motivations and personalities of the bosses. It says a lot that the weakest song is Blade Wolf's, and even that's just "okay" as opposed to "awful."

Favorite Songs:

3. “Red Sun”

2. “A Stranger I Remain”

1. “It Has to be This Way”

10. Seven Inches of Satanic Panic - Ghost

I don’t think this is better than their full albums, but I definitely think this is one of the best musical one-two punches I’ve ever heard. “Mary on a Cross” and “Kiss the Go-Goat” are two of Ghost’s finest songs, and this is where they came from

9. I Get Wet – Andrew W.K.

In the proud tradition of AC/DC, pretty much every song on this album sounds the same—and none of the songs rock any less for it. It’s a collection of awesomely stupid anthems about partying, hot girls, and NYC that goes harder than it has any need to.

Favorite Songs:

3. “Ready to Die”

2. “She is Beautiful”

1. “I Get Wet”

8. Running With Scissors – Weird Al

This was a big turning point in Al’s career—it’s when he debuted his new look, sans glasses and with his hair grown out—and for me at least it’s the album where I feel like he put all the lessons he learned over the 90s to good use. It’s true that there’s a few lines that haven’t aged well but the overall package is strong enough that it overshadows the blemishes. It has his strongest “movie recap” parody song, his best polka medley, and his funniest and most iconic epic-length song; how can it not make my top ten?

Favorite Songs:

3. “The Saga Begins”

2. “Polka Power!”

1. “Albuquerque”

7. Doolittle - Pixies

It’s genuinely tough picking between this and Surfer Rosa, but when it comes right down to it Doolittle is the one that has more tracks I like. I don’t think anything here is quite as good as “Where is My Mind?” from the latter album, but that album doesn’t have “Mr. Grieves” on it.

Favorite Songs:

3. “Here Comes Your Man”

2. “Wave of Mutilation”

1. “Monkey Gone to Heaven”

6. Invisible Touch - Genesis

I think Invisible Touch is Genesis’s undisputed masterpiece. It's an epic meditation on intangibility. At the same time, it deepens and enriches the meaning of the preceding three albums. Listen to the brilliant ensemble playing of Banks, Collins and Rutherford. You can practically hear every nuance of every instrument. In terms of lyrical craftsmanship, the sheer songwriting, this album hits a new peak of professionalism. Take the lyrics to “Land of Confusion.” In this song, Phil Collins addresses the problems of abusive political authority. “In Too Deep” is the most moving pop song of the 1980s, about monogamy and commitment. The song is extremely uplifting. Their lyrics are as positive and affirmative as anything I’ve heard in rock.

Favorite Songs:

3. “Domino”

2. “Land of Confusion”

1. “Invisible Touch”

5. Mandatory Fun – Weird Al

As of 2023 this is Al’s last album, and if he never makes another it’s hard to argue that he didn’t go out on top. The style parodies are some of his best ever, the polka medley is fantastic, and the parodies here are all leagues better than the songs they’re spoofing. “Foil” in particular is worth singling g out for being a hilarious subversion of the stereotypical food-related parodies Al was known for back in the day.

Favorite Songs:

3. “Foil”

2. “Handy”

1. “Jackson Park Express”

4. ABBA Gold - ABBA

Is it cheating to put a greatest hits compilation on this list? Well, since it's my list, the answer is no! An album like this is all bangers, no filler, every song I love in one place one after the other. The omission of “Tiger” is the only flaw.

3. Nevermind - Nirvana

It's pretty inarguable that this is a more polished and commercial grunge album than In Utero, but no matter what Kurt or the other band members say this is still one of the best albums ever made. My only gripe with it is that the song that gets the most attention, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," overshadows a lot of songs better than it. "In Bloom" is the best track in my opinion, with its lyrics abut fans with zero media literacy still very relevant even to this day.

Favorite Songs:

3. “Polly”

2. “Come as You Are”

1. “In Bloom”

2. The Number of the Beast – Iron Maiden

From the band with the greatest album covers of all time comes a metal album featuring the hard rock version of "Roxanne," an epic seven minute track, and the greatest song condemning the actions of colonizers. Oh, and the title track is pretty awesome too. Considering how lukewarm the first two albums are, this might be one of the greatest glow ups in metal history, going from a decent but not spectacular act to one of the greatest bands of all time.

Favorite Songs:

3. “22 Acacia Avenue”

2. “Hallowed be Thy Name”

1. “Run to the Hills”

1. Spirit Phone – Lemon Demon

Maybe I'm just a basic bitch for calling this my favorite album ever, but the fact of the matter is that this whole album is basically tailor made for my interests. Songs about conspiracy theories? Songs about urban legends like Gef and Polybius? Songs that make fun of Reaganomics? I genuinely could not imagine a better set of songs than this if I tried.

Favorite Songs:

5. “Reaganomics”

4. “Touch-Tone Telephone”

3. “When He Died”

2. “Sweet Bod”

1. “Cabinet Man”

[final-girl96]

Monsters, Metallica and Keith Moon: meet Eddie Munson actor Joseph Quinn

By Rich Hobson( Metal Hammer ) published about 12 hours ago

Stranger Things' Eddie Munson actor Joseph Quinn talks heavy metal, guitar heroes and why Dave Grohl should write a Corroded Coffin EP

(Image credit: Netflix)

Actors can spend their entire careers waiting for a role like Eddie Munson. The resident metalhead of Stranger Things core setting of Hawkins, Indiana, Munson captured the hearts of viewers worldwide, becoming a hit internet sensation that turned actor Joseph Quinn from a relative unknown in the world of TV and film into a star-in-the-making. Hammer sat down with Quinn earlier this year to talk Eddie Munson, his guitar heroes and why Foo Fighters should write the music for his on-screen band, Corroded Coffin.

When you took the role of Eddie Munson, did you expect that it would take off like it has?

“Not at all. No, I think expectations get you in trouble in this game, and I couldn’t have predicted people’s warmth and acceptance for him. So it’s a really lovely feeling, it caught me completely off guard.”

What attracted you to the role in the first place?

“Well, the chances are so stacked against you - it’s very rare to be asked to participate in something that has this much kind of cultural significance so it was a no-brainer.”

How much of the character had been fleshed out when you were cast?

“I auditioned a couple of scenes that were actually in the show. We had no idea how many episodes he was going to be in; we were told at least four. But I didn’t know anything about what would happen at the end, or how much he would actually be involved in the season. So I’m delighted that I got as much to sink my teeth into.”

What were your influences for the character?

“I think we all have those people that were a little bit older than us growing up, that we admired or had a soft spot for. I was always very impressed with those people that were a little bit older than me that were very nonconformist, a little attention seeking.”

How reflective is Eddie of you?

“Not much. We all have moments where we feel vulnerable, maybe overcompensate. I joined my school two years late, so I guess there was maybe a little bit of overcompensation there. But I’ve been very lucky, I’ve always had friends and haven’t felt like too much of an outsider.

But with all of my characters, if you don’t humanise them, you don’t care about them, and if people aren’t vulnerable and themselves and authentic, you tend to not really want to be around them. I think we’re far more drawn to someone that’s offensively imperfect than someone that’s constantly trying to be perfect and impressive.”

We hear you “connected with the character through metal” – what were your entry points?

“I listened to Master Of Reality by Black Sabbath over and over. Master Of Puppets as well, Slayer… all that kind of stuff. That was my way into that whole world, really. Black Sabbath were my guys, and Led Zeppelin too, but I guess they’re less metal.”

Is it true you’re actually a guitarist too?

“Yeah, I’ve played since I was a kid, but it’s been woefully under practised in recent years.”

What was it that got you into guitar?

“Well, my dad played guitar and my granddad played for a time, so it’s something we’d do as a family. We are by no means virtuosos, but we all have a go.”

Who are your guitar heroes?

“Hendrix is an obvious one, I was always very enamoured with him. Nirvana were my first proper band obsession; I had all of Kurt Cobain’s posters on my wall. It’s kind of cliché, but it’s true.”

Did you get any input on the epic Master Of Puppets solo in the new season? Was it your choice?

“I don’t know where the fuck the showrunners got it from! Ha ha ha! But it was completely their choice. It was the perfect song for a crescendo to take us through this crazy sequence. I think it’s an inspired choice, really.”

Will we ever hear Eddie’s band, Corroded Coffin?

“We’re working on an EP… Joking! I’m joking!”

It’s not that ridiculous – Dave Grohl did it with Dream Widow this year…

“Maybe I should email him – ‘Would you write the music for Corroded Coffin please?’”

How would they sound?

“Oh, thrash! Proper, old-school thrash – really fast, really evil.”

If you could play any rock star in a biopic, who would you choose?

“Keith Moon would be pretty cool, you could have a lot of fun with him. I don’t understand how that hasn’t been done already. I’ve actually heard that there’s something in the works, but I don’t think I’m in consideration for it. Whoever gets to go at that… That’ll be a lot of fun.”

[riemmetric]

Metallica concert at the cinema, night 1, first thoughts:

I don't care that they're sell outs or whatever the fuck, nor that they're from California (bigger crime in my opinion), this right here is my favourite band.

HARVESTER OF SORROW MY BELOVED. Imagine hearing that in person?? I would die. I hope they keep it in the setlist forever. The power that song has. The anger. This is what metal is about.

This night was truly for the "Master of Puppets is my favourite Metallica album" crowd (of which I am a member). Leper Messiah (James reading every single word off the monitor, not a moment when that man looked at the crowd during the song, haha), Sanitarium, ORION and Master of Puppets itself at the very end. Incredible collection of songs.

Just one song from Hardwired :( I love that album so much, I hope they do another one on night 2.

I was just thinking yesterday in the shower that at the end of the day, although there are many Metallica songs I love and have a special connection with, my favourite is Sanitarium and then they played it at this show?? That I got to see in theatres?? Love that for me :D

Too Far Gone is one the three songs on 72 seasons I cannot get into no matter how hard I try and I'm just a little disappointed to see it on the setlist. INAMORATA LIVE DEBUT WHEN? Crown of Barbed Wire?? There's so many better songs on that album.

Anyway. The drone shots triggered my motion sickness and the sound in the cinema was surprisingly bad (the speakers couldn't deal with the volume of the music, they had that metallic quality when the uhhh sound amplitude gets cut off?? it's been a while since I did my engineering degree). But I love this band. I just do. I like every song they ever made and love a great majority of them. Watching this concert on the big screen was a joy and I can't wait for night 2.

[portaltothevoid]

For Whom the Bell Tolls - Chapter 26 - The Final Countdown

Pairing: Eddie Munson x OFC (Kat Ramsay), sequel to Foolin’

Summary: Kat explains what Vecna showed her and the gang try to figure out his plan while coming up with their own.

Warnings: alcohol, aftermath of a terrifying event?

Word count: 3.5k

Chapter song: The Final Countdown by Europe

Tag list: @munchabunch @madaboutmunson @earl-greater​

“You wanna…” Steve asked Kat, motioning towards the makeshift exit out of the Upside Down. He waited for her reaction, but it never came. “Kat…? Kat!” he shouted, shaking her shoulders. All he could see were the whites of her eyes as she stood statuesque. “Hey, hey! Kat! Stay with me. Kat, hey! Kat, wake up. Kat!”

The group crowded around, gazing into the gate above them. They could hear Steve’s distorted screams coming from the Upside Down.

“What? What’s happening?!” Eddie asked, staring expectantly up into the gate.

“I– I– I don’t know! She’s not… moving!” Steve screamed down at them. 

“Vecna…” Max said unable to take her eyes off Kat. Within an instant, she snapped out of her trance. “Music. We need music! She listens to the same crap as you, right, Eddie?”

“It is not crap!” Eddie said, already two steps away from his room.

Dustin, Max, Robin, and Lucas all took off after Eddie to help him find just the right tape.

“Okay, what are we looking for?” Robin asked.

“What’s her favorite song? Take on Me? That Dokken song you guys covered at her birthday party?” Dustin chimed in.

“I– I don’t know!”

“You don’t know your girlfriend’s favorite song?” Lucas asked, dumbfounded.

“No, it’s not that,” Eddie said through his teeth. “She loves music. She doesn’t have a– Master of Puppets. Find Master of Puppets! That’s it. Metallica. There’s, um…” Eddie began shuffling through a bin with various tapes. Of course, he always knew where this tape was, but when he needed it the most, just like with the Special K, it was nowhere to be found. “A bunch of crosses on the cover, it’s red…”

Erica stayed behind to watch the gate. “Kat, just stay with me! Stay with me, okay? Whatever you guys are doing up there, hurry up!” Steve screamed up to her and she took off down the small hallway.

“Steve says you need to hurry!” she relayed.

“Yeah? No shit!!” Dustin screamed.

“We’re trying! We can’t find anything!” Max said, her tone beyond stressed.

“Seriously! What is all this shit!?” Robin yelled.

“What do you even mean!? I told you what to look for!” Eddie yelled back, gliding across his room to the other side to check another one of his hiding places.

“Jesus, there’s no Madonna, Blondie, Bowie, Beatles! There’s no music! We need music!” Robin continued.

Eddie paused and turned to her, eyes glaring. He grabbed an Iron Maiden Piece of Mind tape right from Robin’s hand who was shaking it at him and held it so tightly that his knuckles turned white. “This… is… music!” he shrieked at her. “Just because it’s not your horrible, bubblegum taste, Buckley, doesn’t mean it’s not good. It’s good enough for Kat! So find the goddamn tape!”

“How do you find anything in this place?” Max groaned.

“I don’t know! We listen to it all the– The tape deck! Check the tape deck! The stereo. Move!” Eddie realized and scooted Max out of the way. After he pressed eject, he tore the tape out and ran back to the living room. 

“Forgetting something, Munson?” Robin said, shaking Kat’s walkman she found somewhere in Eddie’s blackhole of a room.

“Yep, thanks,” he said before he shoved everything in the pocket of his leather jacket. “Get her out of the way, Steve.” Eddie hoisted himself up and made it in record time. He fell flat on his back and groaned as he tried to recover quickly. Steve offered his hand and helped him up on his feet. He fumbled as he tried to get the tape in. 

He moved behind Kat and went to put the headphones on her head, when suddenly, she gasped and fell backwards into his arms. The walkman dropped from his hands and he caught her. His arms hooked under hers. Taking a step back to brace himself, he gently lowered the both of them to the ground, turning Kat so she could see him, so she could know she was safe again. He felt her whole body begin to tremble.

“Kat, you’re safe. You’re safe. I’m here. It’s okay, it’s okay,” his whispered, guiding her head up to his chest. She could only look at him. Her face froze in utter horror at what she had just seen in her mind. Eddie looked up at the gate, but didn’t really see it. Tears had bubbled up in his eyes and he did everything he could to blink them away. Kat finally reached her arms around him, enclosing him in a vice grip, which he returned as he gently rocked back and forth.

“Um, not to break up the love fest or anything? But we should… We should probably, um, get out of here,” Steve said, hands on his hips as he watched over the pair. 

“Can you… are you good?” Eddie whispered to her. She tucked her lips in, pressed them into a straight line, and nodded her head. “Alright, c’mon,” he spoke softly as he helped her get up. 

She managed to stand on wobbly limbs. Her desperation to get out of that hellscape was all the strength she needed. Without missing a beat, she scaled up the rope and fell back onto Eddie’s mattress. “I’m so goddamn happy to see you guys,” she said as Robin pulled her up and engulfed her into a hug.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Robin asked as she pushed Kat back to give her a once over.

“I’m– I’m okay,” she said as she was pulled back into another hug. “A little shaken up, but… I’m here,” she laughed at the affection. Then she felt another set of arms around her from behind her. “Would be… nice to… breathe though, guys.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Dustin said, backing up. “You’re part of the party now. We can’t lose you,” he added sheepishly. Kat felt her heart melt.

“Aw, Dustin, no. I’m not going anywhere,” Kat reassured him as she reached her arm around his neck and dug her knuckles into the top of his head. Behind them, Eddie dropped back into the actual trailer a second time followed by Steve. 

“Hey, uh, we should probably get out of here. Probably don’t want to be hanging around a crime scene with the main suspects for longer than we have to…” said Max.

“She’s right, but where should we go?” Nancy pondered.

“I mean, I literally live in the trailer across from here, so… and my mom’s at work. Probably won’t be home for a while,” Max suggested. 

“After you guys,” Kat said as she ushered Robin and Dustin out the door first. This way, Eddie was right at Kat’s side. They all huddled around them as they trotted across the way over to Max’s place. 

Once they all settled in the living room, a strange stillness fell over everyone. They wanted to know what happened to Kat and what exactly she saw, but no one was brave enough to break the ice. Max got up suddenly, “Anyone want anything to drink?” she asked on her way over to the kitchen area to open up the fridge. “We have, uh, beer, more beer, and a couple cans of Coke?”

“Beer,” Kat and Eddie said in unison. 

“You sure beer is a g–” Steve started to ask, but Kat was quick to shut him down.

“I think beer is the perfect idea right now,” she said as she got up and helped herself to two beers. When she plopped back down on the couch, she handed one to Eddie. With the slightest nod of her head, both beer caps flew off and landed on the ground. Kat clinked hers with Eddie’s and chugged just about half of it. After a loud belch, and excusing herself, she leaned her head back on the couch. Flashes of the visions from Vecna kept playing through her mind whenever she closed her eyes. Her face winced. With a shake of her head, she had another drink and then pressed her lips together. 

Everyone was avoiding eye contact. Kat looked around the room at each one of her friends. Her eyes lingered on Max and tears welled in her eyes. Max caught Kat’s eye and saw her sadness and fear. “Wh– what’s wrong…?” she asked hesitantly. Kat only shook her head and took off for the bathroom. With a wave of her hand, the door slammed behind her.

“Eddie, you gonna…” Dustin trailed off.

Eddie shook his head. “Nope. She needs time. Whatever she saw, I’m guessing it was really bad, man. If she needs to be alone…” He chewed the inside of his cheek and then took a swig of his beer. 

“Maybe a beer isn’t actually–” Max started to say.

“Absolutely not. Don’t even think about it,” Steve warned as he made a slash in the air with his arm and shook his head.

“You know, Steve, Dustin’s right, you do make for a goddamn good babysitter,” Eddie laughed while Max rolled her eyes and huffed. 

“Dustin, really?” Steve mouthed. 

In response, Dustin held his hands up in surrender. “Hey, I only speak the truth.”

Nancy cracked a smile and leaned over so she could see Eddie. “You should see him protect these kids with a baseball bat.”

Eddie’s eyebrows shot up. “A… baseball bat?”

“It’s got these nails in it. Steve used it to kill a demodog and then it became his weapon of choice,” Dustin recalled excitedly. Steve’s face turned beat red and he ran his hand through his hair.

“Bas ass, Harrington, who knew…” Eddie mused as he continued to sip his beer, hiding the fact the two of them had already had this conversation earlier.

The door to the bathroom opened and Kat returned to her spot next to Eddie. A weighted silence fell over the room. Kat finished her beer and set it on the coffee table. Her eyes flitted from each person in the room. She inhaled a jagged breath and exhaled with a huff. “He… he showed me things… from the past and–” she told them hoarsely. “And he showed me things that haven’t happened yet. Just… the most awful things.” Her voice cracked and she stared off into space with the visions replaying yet again. With a small shake of her head, she continued. “I saw a dark cloud, spreading over Hawkins. Downtown on fire. Dead soldiers. And… this giant creature… with a gaping mouth… And this creature. This creature wasn’t alone. There were so many monsters. An army. A whole army of them. And they were coming into Hawkins. Into our neighborhoods. Our homes… And then…” Everyone was listening with bated breath. Kat sucked in a breath through her teeth trying to muster as much courage as she could to get through the next part. “He showed me… each one of you. A–and…” A tear fell from Kat’s eye which she quickly batted away. Her breathing turned shaky. She shook her head and rubbed her hands over her face. Eddie placed a hand on her leg, gently rubbing it with his thumb.

“Okay, but… He’s just trying to scare you, Kat. Weaken you, throw you off your game. Right? I mean it’s not real…” Steve said, trying to offer some semblance of a condolence. 

“Not yet…” Kat whispered to him. “But… there was something else. He showed me gates. Four gates. All spreading across Hawkins. And these gates, they looked like the one inside Eddie’s trailer, but they didn’t stop growing.” Eddie watched her as she spoke, a chill creeped down his spine. His other hand, pressed up to his face, as if he was about to start biting his nails because of the anxiety that was draping around him like a weighted blanket. “And this was not the Upside Down Hawkins. This was… this was our Hawkins.”

“Four chimes. Vecna’s clock,” Max spoke up. “It always chimes four times. Four exactly.”

“Yeah… I– I heard them too. He broke up the visions in sections. Each one… separated by a chime…” Kat said, shock still encasing her voice.

“He’s been telling us his plan this whole time,” said Max.

“Four kills. Four gates,” realized Lucas as he looked directly at Max. “End of the world.”

“If that’s true… he’s only one kill away,” Dustin said.

“Oh Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ,” Eddie muttered as he put his head in his hands.

“I told you these kills weren’t random. It’s exactly why he chose people with the most… the most pain,” Kat said. Her eyes flitted to Max who quickly looked down at the ground.

“We need to get Mike and Will on the phone. Now!” Steve urged. Max rushed over to the wall phone and dialed, getting nothing but a busy signal. He copied Eddie by putting his head in his hands and leaned back in the chair he was sitting in. Max hung up the phone.

“Anything?” Dustin inquired.

“No,” Max groaned. “Rang a few times then went to a busy signal.”

“Maybe you punched it in wrong. Try it again,” Steve said.

“I didn’t punch it in wrong,” Max countered even though she picked up the phone again.

“Well… I don’t know!” said Steve.

“Dude… I think she knows how to use a phone,” Dustin said.

“I’m just saying, she could have typed it in wrong,” Steve shrugged defensively.

Max hung up the phone. “Same shit.”

“How is that possible?” Lucas wondered.

“I told you. Joyce has this telemarketer job. She’s always on the phone,” Dustin reminded them. “Mike won’t stop whining about it.”

Kat was listening to the conversation around her, but she could feel something was different. The energy in the room was different.

“Okay, yeah, but this phone’s been busy for, what, three days now?” Max said. “It’s not Joyce. Something’s wrong.”

“She’s right. It can’t just be coincidence. It can’t be,” Nancy said. “Whatever’s happening in Lenora is connected to all of this. I’m sure of it. But Vecna can’t hurt them… Not if he’s dead. We have to go back in there. Back to the Upside Down.”

Whatever Kat was picking up on, Nancy’s words made her lose all focus. She shot Nancy a death glare. “Excuse me?!”

“Whoa, no, no, no. What?” Steve said, blindsided by Nancy’s suggestion.

“Nope. Nope!” Eddie said sternly, using his hand for emphasis.

“Let’s think this through,” Steve said as he got up to pace around.

“What is there to think through?” Nancy shot back.

“We barely made it out of there in one piece!” Steve argued.

Kat bolted off the couch and walked right in front of Nancy. “I barely made it out of there in one piece! Nancy, you have no goddamn idea what you’re up against.”

“Yeah, because we weren’t prepared. None of us were. But this time we will be. We all will be! We’ll get weapons and protection. We’ll go through the gate. We’ll find his lair. And we’ll kill him.”

“Or he’ll kill us!” Steve contested.

“Nancy. You have no idea what you’re even talking about–”

“Oh I think I do. We’re the ones who’ve been here this whole time in Hawkins, Kat. Not you. We’ve dealt with everything Vecna’s thrown at us before.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t of this magnitude!” Dustin joined in.

Kat took a step closer to Nancy, getting in her face. “Do you understand what it’s like when someone attacks you from within your own mind? Because I don’t think you do, Nancy.”

“The only reason Kat even survived was because he wanted her to,” Steve interjected.

Kat turned around and snapped her fingers and pointed at Steve. “Bingo,” she said as she turned back to Nancy. “He wanted me to relay what he showed me to Eleven. This whole time, his ‘grand master plan’ is to take over the world and destroy it. Destroy everything we know.” Kat scoffed. “And the bastard wants me at his side. He wants my power. He wants to use it – use me – to get it done.”

“Kat, do you even hear yourself? He wants your power. You have something he wants. If he wants your power then… then you're one of the only ones that can stop him!”

“Goddamn it, Nancy, look!” Kat said as she placed both hands on the side of Nancy’s head. Her fingertips pressed into her temples. She shot the memories and visions that Vecna had shown Kat. She showed Nancy everything. It was over before the chrouses of No’s rang out around them. Steve pulled Kat back as she dropped her arms from Nancy’s head. “Get off me, Steve,” she said, shaking him off. 

Nancy just blinked, having been caught completely off guard. Quickly, she collected herself and confidently stared at Kat. She took a step toward her, inches from invading her space. “I stand by what I said. We need to take that son of a bitch down.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Kat laughed dryly as she threw her hands in the air.

“He’s not scared of us or of Kat,” Steve said.

“And for good reason!” Robin said, getting up from her seat on the floor. “We were wrong about Vecna. Henry. One. Sorry, what are we calling him now?”

“One,” said Dustin, Kat, and Lucas in unison.

“Vecna,” said Erica.

“Henry,” said Nancy.

“Right. We’ve learned something new about Vecna/Henry/One. He’s a number like Eleven and like how Kat was, only he’s a sick, evil, male, child-murdering version of them with really bad skin. But my– my point is, he’s super powerful. He could turn us inside out with the snap of his fingers. And last I checked, Kat isn’t quite up to that level yet. It’s not a fair fight,” Robin argued.

“So then why fight fair?” Dustin offered. “You’re right. He’s like Kat and Eleven. But that gives us an upper hand. We know both Kat and Eleven’s strengths. And… weaknesses.”

“Weaknesses?” Erica repeated.

“When El remote travels, she goes into a trance-like state.”

“Kat, too,” Eddie added. Kat shot him a glare to which he just shrugged.

“I bet the same is true about Vecna,” Dustin surmised.

Kat, having simmered down just a hair, felt the energy she picked up on earlier. It was stronger this time, more prominent. She turned around and saw a girl in a white bodysuit and a shaved head. Inaudibly, she gasped. Eleven? She wondered with her mind. The girl held up a finger to her mouth. 

I do not want them to know I am here. Not yet, Eleven said to her. Taken aback, Kat tried to compose herself and tune back into the group’s discussion.

“That would explain what he was doing in the attic,” Lucas pieced together.

“Exactly! When he attacks his next victim, I’ll bet you he’s back in that attic, physical body defenseless,” theorized Dustin.

“Defenseless? What about the army of bats?” Steve asked, pointing at the bruise around his neck for emphasis.  

“Right. True. We’ll have to find a way past them. Distract them somehow,” Dustin agreed.

Eddie started to stand up. “And, uh, how do we do that? Exactly?” 

“No idea,” admitted Dustin.

“Right…” Eddie said, immediately sitting back down, not even having fully stood up. It was as if his confidence had been shot down and forced him back onto the couch to stew in his anxiety.

“But once they’re gone, he doesn’t stand a chance. It’ll be like slaying sleeping Dracula in his coffin,” Dustin said.

“That all sounds good in theory, but there’s no real pattern to Vecna’s killings. At least, not one that I can decipher. And I know Kat said he feeds off people with the most pain, but how are we to judge who Vecna judges has the most baggage? We don’t even know when he’s going to attack next or who he’s going to attack next!” Robin said.

“Yeah, we do,” Max and Kat said at the same time. Everyone’s head turned to Kat since her voice had drowned out Max’s hushed tone.

Kat fixed her eyes on the redhead. Max raised her hand timidly. “Me,” she scoffed as she waved her hand. “I can still feel him,” she divulged. “I’m still marked.”

“One’s a sore loser. Always has been. And Max got away once…” Kat trailed off. 

“I’m cursed. I ditch Kate Bush… I draw his focus back to me,” Max suggested.

Kat looked back and she could see Eleven’s chest starting to rapidly rise and fall. I’m not going to let anything happen to her, Eleven.

You are very powerful, Ten. But Max is my friend. I am not there to protect her. I need to help. I have to help her.

“Max, you can’t. He’ll kill you!” Lucas stressed.

“I survived before. I can survive again,” Max said with confidence. “I just need to keep him busy long enough so that you guys can get into that attic. Then you can chop off his head. Stab him in the heart. Blow him up with some device Dustin cooks up. Kat just… obliterates him. I honestly really don’t care how you put this asshole in his grave. Just… whatever it is… whatever you do… try not to miss.”

Kat could not only see, but she could feel the fear that was radiating from Eleven. Her face frowned sympathetically at her. 

“Okay, Kat, why do you keep staring at the empty kitchen? Because honestly, it’s kind of starting to freak me out a little,” Robin said nervously.

Kat focused her attention back on everyone. “As much as I hate to admit… This plan seems like it’s so ridiculous that it just might work. Especially because Eleven has her powers back.”

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