#….don’t kill me?

[unfinishedslurs]

Whoopsie!! I totally killed Steve. My bad guys

Steve is batted away like a rag doll, and goes flying into a tree. The sickening crack leaves Dustin stunned, and he stops in his tracks, staring. Waiting for Steve to get back up, like he always does. 

He doesn’t.

Okay, so he’s passed out. Bad timing, but it’ll be like when Billy beat him up. He’ll probably have a nasty concussion, and a broken bone, but it’s fine. He’s fine. He’s always fine. It’s Steve. 

“Steve!” Robin cries. She starts to run to him, but a monster gets in her way and she has to defend herself. One rushes at him, too, and Dustin goes back to the fight. 

As soon as it’s over, Robin is hurtling towards the tree that Steve is still lying at the base of. Bile rises in Dustin’s throat as he follows her. He shouldn’t be passed out this long, it’s a sure sign of severe brain damage. He shouldn’t be laying this still. 

When he catches up, Robin is already shaking him. “Steve,” she pleads as the others come to see what’s going on. “Steve, c’mon, wake up. We gotta get you to a hospital. Hear that? It’s your least favorite word! I’m going to stick you in a hospital for life if you don’t wake up right now—“

“We should check his pulse,” Dustin says distantly. “Make sure his heartbeat’s steady.” He drops to his knees to do just that. Just as quick, Jonathan nudges him away. 

“I’ll do it,” he says, in a voice Dustin’s only heard him use on Will. “I’ve got some first aid training under my belt.”

He doesn’t reply, just takes the hand Robin’s not clutching and stays still, staring at Steve. He can’t stop feeling like something’s off about the way he’s laying there, completely motionless—

His heart stutters in his chest. Steve’s completely motionless. He’s usually so bad at staying still, always running his hands through his hair, or flicking his lighter, or tapping a beat against the steering wheel. Now, he’s not doing any of that. He’s not moving at all. There’s not even a rise and fall of his chest. 

Dustin stares uncomprehendingly. He has the puzzle pieces, he knows he does, but he can’t make them come together. It’s like his brain is rejecting the picture it makes. 

Jonathan pulls his fingers away from Steve’s throat, brow furrowed, anxiety pulling at his features. He starts to take Steve’s hand, but Dustin can’t make himself let go. 

Gently, ever so gently, Jonathan pries his fingers off the limp wrist in his grasp. Dustin lets it happen, silent.

Robin hasn’t stopped talking, quiet murmurs replacing the panicked concern from before. He can’t understand the words through the roaring in his ears. 

Jonathan has turned white as a sheet, frozen with his fingers looped around Steve’s wrist. He thinks he might know what it means. He thinks he’s wrong, he’s wrong, he’s got to be wrong—

Robin shifts to lie perpendicular to Steve, and lays her head on his chest. Quiet, like she’s listening for something. 

She doesn’t find it. 

It’s been three weeks, but Dustin can still hear Robin’s anguished howl ringing in his ears. 

They had to pull her off of him, needed Hopper and Murray both because she fought. Kicked and scratched and screamed when they took her. Kept calling out for Steve to wake up between it all, escaped twice so she could go back and hold him. Hopper was grim, face open and awful, Murray pale and swearing as they wrestled her away. 

Dustin hadn’t moved, still in shock. Jonathan and Argyle had to practically carry him out, because he couldn’t make his limbs work. He couldn’t make himself leave Steve’s side. 

He realized what they were doing halfway to the car. 

“Wait,” he said, twisting, “wait, what are we doing? We can’t leave him there. We can’t leave him alone, he hates being alone. We can’t—“

Jonathan and Argyle exchanged a look over his head. 

“I’ve got him, man,” Argyle said quietly. Jonathan gave a sharp nod before moving in front of Dustin, ducking down to meet his eye. Tears were streaming down his face. 

“I’ll sit with him,” he promised. “Go ahead and go with Argyle, okay? I’ve got him. He won’t be alone.”

“But I—“

“I’ve got it,” Jonathan repeated, voice cracking. Dustin nodded and fell limp against Argyle’s side. He trusted Jonathan. Steve did too. 

When they got to the car, Robin was still thrashing. Murray was practically sitting on her, a bruise forming over his eye. 

“Where’s Jonathan?” Hooper asks sharply when he sees them. 

Argyle gestured helplessly. “Sitting with him. Dustin said…he didn’t want to leave him alone.”

Hopper's eyes were defeated, and he swiped a hand across his face before getting up and heading towards Steve and Jonathan without another word. 

Dustin climbed into the backseat, where Murray finally had Robin pinned. She was yelling herself hoarse. 

“You—you asshole, get the hell off of me, you can’t just fucking—you don’t get it, he needs me, he hates being alone, he hates it, he fucking hates it and he’s never alone. As long as I’m here he’s never fucking alone so let me go—“

“Robin,” he croaked, holding her arm. She whipped her head towards him immediately, eyes wide. 

“Henderson. Dustin, tell this asshole to let me go. I need to go to Steve. We can’t—I can’t leave him alone, please, he needs me there—“

“He’s not alone,” Dustin promised around the lump in his throat. “Jonathan’s with him. Jonathan’s gonna stay with him, he won’t be alone.”

She shook her head. “No, he needs me—“

“Jonathan will take care of him,” he repeated. “He’s Will’s big brother, he’s good at taking care of people.”

She finally stilled, eyes on Dustin. “Jonathan has him?”

He nodded, face wet, and she finally relaxed.

“Jonathan’s good,” she said. “Steve…Steve likes Jonathan.” She laughed, sharp enough to make him flinch. “He’s a sucker for pretty boys.”

Argyle made a low, hurt sound, like he’d been punched. Murray moved to the middle seat, relieved that he no longer had to pin her down.

In a move that they should have seen coming, she opened the door and bolted. 

“Shit!” Murray barked, and ran after her. 

[badolmen]

People against piracy fail to realize that no, I can’t just ‘buy it.’ They stopped making DVDs and Blu-Rays. They’re barely offering digital copies for download. I am not spending money I could use for food or bills to pay for a subscription service just so I can always have access to a beloved piece of media. Especially not when the service will remove media on a whim without concern for how the loss of access to that piece will make its artistic conservation nigh impossible.

For example, I recently learned that Disney+ had an original film called Crater. It’s scifi, family friendly, and seems cool - I would love to buy it as a holiday gift for my little brother! But: it’s exclusive to D+ and THEY REMOVED IT LITERALLY MONTHS AFTER ITS RELEASE.

The ONLY way I can directly access this film is through piracy. The ONLY available ‘copies’ of this film are hosted on piracy websites. Disney will NEVER release it in theaters, or as something to buy, and it may NEVER return to the streaming service. It will be LOST because we aren’t allowed to purchase it for personal viewing. If I can’t pay to own it, I won’t pay for the privilege of losing it when corporate decides to put it in a vault.

So yes, I’m going to pirate and support piracy.

[soliusss]

Funniest thing I’ve seen on tiktok are those sigma male boys getting mad that American psycho was written by a gay man and going “well I like fight club better” buddy I’ve got some world ending devastating news for you

[theoldkyokodied]

The Allegiance of the Ascended Vampire and the New God of Magic

[and-this-of-all-my-hopes]

Sometimes you just are trying to live out your day and then your brain thinks:

What if in the opening titles of Season 3 Aziraphale and Crowley aren’t walking together anymore.

[palipunk]

Shouldn’t be a controversial opinion but even homophobic Palestinians don’t deserve to be carpet bombed, have their homes destroyed, be thrown into jail, tortured, and be at the mercy of a settler colonial state that seeks to get rid of them regardless of orientation - how am I seeing “they should only genocide the homophobic Palestinians” and “homophobic Palestinians deserve what’s coming to them” from white queers who say they’re against the actions of the state of israel? You’re not pro palestine, you’re a homonationalist. Lgbt Palestinians don’t want you.

[raceydays-hopelesshaze]

Still thinking about Batman #133 where Tim had to stop himself from killing a guy. Like a week without Batman and Tim’s already like “I could just tell myself he’s not a living creature <3”

[withdenim]

Local man desperately trying to stop the cycle before it gets to his kids (it’s already there)

[danggerine]

going insane thinking about the harrow and palamedes friendship. harrow, who has never met another necromancer her age forming a bizarro 3D chess rivalry while pal worries about her safety at every possible turn. harrow, who is up to her eyebrows in paranoia and secrecy, trusting the sixth house with gideon unconscious and hurt, letting them into the ninth house quarters unsupervised. if “i cannot conceive of a universe without you in it” is goth for i love you, “death first to vultures and scavengers” has got to be goth for i love you (platonic). pal’s first reaction when harrow comes into his bubble in the river is to scoop her up in a hug, and at this point she doesn’t remember anything about him because cutting out all her memories of gideon is impossible without cutting out memories of the sixth, but she still makes him a skelehand to inhabit anyway. when harrow’s memories are finally whole, she tells dulcinea she couldn’t face pal knowing that his pen pal girlfriend died on her account, but the next time she “faces” him, palamades’s soul is in someone else’s body and harrow’s body is full of nona’s soul. he spends six months protecting and caring for harrow’s body (and nona obv), believing in the possibility of bringing her back to it the same way cam believed in him. “god, do you know i miss harrow terribly.” and by the time harrow comes back to her body at the very end of ntn, pal is gone forever, fully pauled. the last time harrow and palamades see each other as their complete selves is in canaan house, alive and unlyctored. two of the smartest and loneliest people in the solar system meet each other in the worst of circumstances and spend the rest of the story dancing around each other as fragments of themselves, trying to care about each other in the interim but never fully meeting like they did the first time. a friendship made almost entirely of missing the other person. “do you know i miss harrow terribly.” god. i need to lie down

[ewwww-what]

You are not a coward. You have a goddamn medical condition, alright?

[mothmothwoth]

Welcome home neighbor! It’s so quiet

[pherredraws]

hug! that! captain!

[twinstxrs]

so much happened in this whole episode but i’m still on fig infiltrating ruben’s dream, making it look like the place where his friend was murdered, and then disguising herself as kipperlilly & repeatedly saying different variants of “somebody needs to take the fall for this, and it’s not going to be me. it’s going to be you.” while adaine as the elven oracle shows up next to her. can you imagine waking up from that, the idea of a horrible truth being pinned on you by your friend to save her own skin while the personification of fate and destiny stands there, almost as a promise that this is GOING to happen to you. we don’t even know if this kid is guilty. my god.

[that-one-weird-cloud0]

Batman: You need a new costume. That one provides no protection.

Danny: oh I cant.

Batman: You won’t owe me for it.

Danny: no I literally cant. Like if i remove it it just returns.

Batman:………. Explain.

Danny: look *takes off glove and explodes it into pieces*

*glove reforms on his hand*

Danny: see? Can’t get rid of it. It’ll just heal itself.

Batfam: …

[olasketches]

two sides of the same coin

[bixels]

Always an experience watching the leftism leave FNAF fans when someone mentions that Scott Cawthon financially backed fascist politicians.

The switch from posting hardline leftist tweets about boycotts and signal boosts and critical takedowns of politicians and celebrities to ‘ohhh, well. everyone makes mistakes. who can blame him, listen he. he donated money to gay charities too. that makes it ok! a millionaire in his forties is allowed to have political beliefs. does it even matter? just let it go!’ is whiplash inducing. The antivaxxer celebrities have got to go, but this one horror dev who quietly handed wads of cash to antivax lawmakers? He’s chill, he can stay.

The charity thing is so funny too because suddenly utilitarian positive-negative point counting is the way to go. Maybe an abacus would help calculate the net good of donating to the Trevor Project minus donating thousands of dollars to Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump. -10 points if I push a kid in a lake but +11 points if I help an old lady across the street, so I’m chill. You can’t judge me. Hey, maybe. Just don’t push a kid in the lake period. How fucking low is the bar when we’re excusing maxing out the possible dollar amount of donations to Mitch fucking McConnell. That should be like. Default you’re a bad person.