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lovebugism · 1 year

Note

i am so sorry but reader talking about robin right before making out with eddie is like absolutely the best thing i’ve ever read i’m obsessed i genuinely can’t wait for anything else in that universe that you do

THE CUSTOMER'S ALWAYS RIGHT | god help the girl

summary: in which you come to terms with the fact that you're hopelessly in love with eddie munson. pairing: virgin!eddie munson x reader word count: 13k warning: phone sex, more discussions of shitty boyfriends, j*son c*rver name drop, talks of unhealthy eating practices, smut 18+ mdni! a/n: this ask has been sitting in my inbox for ages now, but i wanted to save it until robin made an appearance in the series! thank you, anon, for being so sweet! and for the few of you who've been waiting on me to finally post <3 hope you enjoy! xoxo

( PREVIOUSLY ) | ( SERIES MASTERLIST ) | ( NEXT )

They only met once, but it changed their lives forever.

That’s what the movie cover reads at least, but the words have long blurred into a jumbled mess at your tunnel vision. John Bender stares you in the face, but all you see is Eddie — boyish and brazen and scowling because he thinks it makes him look intimidating, but nowhere near as cruel as he seems.

He’s certainly got the hair for it, much longer and curls far wilder than Judd Nelson’s measly set of brushed-back locks. He’s got the terribly animated personality down pat, too; the one that either makes you laugh uncontrollably or squirm in discomfort when it’s pointed your way. And the style’s a pretty fine match also, though you’d argue that no one sports a leather jacket quite like Eddie Munson does.

Wallowing in your boredom at the empty Family Video store on Main Street — where your best friends slave over mundane work with aching backs and a lingering sense of gratefulness that no customer has been in in well over an hour — you find yourself analyzing each character pictured on the front cover of The Breakfast Club.

Robin would surely be Allison, you conclude rather quickly, because their deadpanned glowers are eerily identical. They’ve also got this sort of atypical aura to them, too, like a dark storm cloud or the promise of a long night. But strangely it sparkles — strikes of lightning or a sky full of stars. It draws everyone’s attention to them; even when they’re desperately trying to hide in the very back of a room.

And Steve would be Andrew, not particularly because of his affections for this Allison-Reynolds-Robin-Buckley hybrid you’ve concocted, but because "popular guy with daddy issues" is a trope that fits him far too well. He’s way more likely to get detention for trying to look cool in front of his assholes friends than for anything actually malicious of heart. But that would’ve been years ago now. He’s not that kind of guy anymore.

He’s soft and sweet — a Brian Johnson sort of soft and sweet, if you will. If Brian wasn’t the brains, but the sweetest dumbass anyone’s ever met.

You realize then, that Jim Hopper would make a mean Richard Vernon. He’s impatient to a fault, almost too stern at times, but never enough to make you genuinely fearful of him. You’ve found that it’s virtually impossible for you to take him seriously when he’s so cartoonishly angry. It’s a match made in heaven, you find, though Jim might take offense to the comparison.

And if Eddie is Bender, then that’d make you the Claire Standish of the bunch.

She’s dreadfully stylish, a bit stuck-up at times, and perhaps a little bit more spoiled than the average person; but it’s not like she ever claimed to be perfect. And you wouldn’t either.

You’ll take more pride in your wardrobe filled with pretty pleated skirts and flouncy dresses than your somewhat glacial disposition. And you might not be drowning in daddy’s money, but you’re certainly spoiled in other ways — if only in the employee discount at Enzo’s that got you wine for cheap and your connections at Family Video that meant free movie nights whenever you wanted.

The bad boy and the princess was a tale as old as time itself. It’s a fairytale you wouldn’t mind living in if it ended how it did in the movies — with a kiss on the cheek and an exchanged diamond earring in the calloused palm of another. A soft pink smile and a celebratory fist in the air.

But you’ve met your fair share of John Bender’s and none of them had been particularly kind to you, let alone had fallen in love with you.

Maybe that’s because you were no Claire Standish. Never pretty enough, never mousy enough, never pure enough. You try and dissect why you’ve never been successfully loved, and all the signs point to you, you, you.

You hope Eddie’s different. You need Eddie to be different.

“Something’s wrong with me,” you blurt out of nowhere.

Well, it’s not totally out of the blue for you. You’d been stewing over that thought since you got there — since you left the woods with damp underwear and the scent of you on Eddie’s fingers.

But to Steve and Robin, who’d stayed relatively silent and locked eyes only once after they noticed how abnormally hushed you’d gone, it catches them quite off guard.

Steve lifts his heavy head from where he mans the counter. His tired eyes leave the computerized catalog for the first time in forty minutes, and he has to rub at them with the bottom of his palms to see you properly. Meanwhile, Robin crouches at your side, taking returned tapes from the bin sitting next to her and placing them back upon the shelf you lean against.

She blinks up at you, deep ocean eyes swimming with apprehension, like she can sense the spiral you’ve just about twisted yourself into.

“What do you mean?” she wonders, ever the supportive best friend, as she plucks Heather’s, Pretty in Pink, and Weird Science from the bin and sets them onto their assigned rows in the Teen Drama section.

“Eddie won’t fuck me.”

Neither of them is particularly stunned by the unabashed nature of your admission.

Not only have they both fucked you at one point or another, but they’re your best friends — no one’s ever going to know you quite the way they do. It leaves little left unsaid between the three of you, with secrets you’ve all sworn to take to your graves. Steve once stuck a finger in his ass to see if he liked it (he did) and Robin sometimes gets off on her childhood teddy bear (rather ironically named Mr. Snuggles).

So this? This was nothing. Especially in comparison to all the other shit you’ve confessed to them because god knows the whore of Hawkins has a plethora of stories to tell.

Steve is more shocked by the name that leaves your mouth than anything else. “Eddie Munson?” he repeats with furrowed brows, like he had to have heard you wrong.

You bring your chin to your right shoulder to look at him, then nod.

“Eddie… The Freak… Munson?”

You nod again, slower for him this time.

“You wanna fuck… Eddie Munson?” Steve reiterates once more, as though the idea was too appalling to be true. “Eddie Munson — The Freak?”

“Yes, Steve,” you huff in irritation.

His face contorts into a puppy-like confusion. A frown settles between his bushy brows and he cocks his head to the side, nose scrunching and his lip quirking slightly. He couldn’t look more disgusted if he tried.

“…Why?”

You groan and tilt your head back dramatically. “That’s not what’s important here, Steve. The better question is why won’t he fuck me?”

The boy’s lack of any actual assistance doesn’t surprise Robin in the slightest — his dumbfounded gaze and innate confusion are actually pretty on brand. It just puts all the burden on her, to help you wriggle out of the mess you’d tangled yourself into.

It’s not like she isn’t used to it, though, nor does she mind doing it for you. She walks you through your emotions like a professional, squashing out all the burning orange embers for you before they have the chance to burst into flames.

“Well, what do you mean he won’t fuck you? Like… did he actually say that or does he just wanna, you know, take things slow?”

The latter would’ve been way too easy. Eddie’s always been nice enough to you. It’d make sense for him to want to stay unhurried and gentle with you, but those words weren’t exactly in your vocabulary.

The first time you were alone with him, you were getting yourself off on his thigh after making him come in his jeans. The next time you saw him, after four days of him clinging to your consciousness, there wasn’t as much small talk so much as there were two of his fingers stuffed knuckle-deep inside of you.

You don’t know Eddie’s birthday, but you know how he likes to be touched — squeezed and not rubbed. You don’t know his middle name or how he likes his eggs in the morning or what his relationship with his mother is like, but he’s already made you come. Twice.

You are completely, utterly, and totally incapable of taking things slow. So it wasn’t that. It couldn’t be. So it had to be the other thing. The very scary, terrifying, boogeyman of a thing.

“I mean, I offered to give him a blowjob and he completely turned me down,” you lament in reply.

Robin and Steve wince. Like, physically wince. Their faces scrunch and their heads flinch from something invisible. Audible ooh’s fall from their mouths without them even realizing it, because you don’t get rejected. Ever. Especially not after offering to pleasure someone without much of anything in return.

They don’t mean to react the way they do. The visible shock that coats their features is involuntary more than it is anything, and it only adds to your fears.

“Exactly!” you exclaim.

“I hate to say it, but I think hell might be freezing over as we speak,” Steve half-jokes.

“Well, he was working, right?” Robin asks with raised brows. “Maybe he was just busy.”

“Sorry, Rob, but no guy’s too busy for a blowjob.”

“Real charming, Stevie.”

“Maybe he just has a small dick,” the boy concludes with a shrug.

“I felt his dick,” you shake your head almost immediately. The feeling of Eddie’s hard cock through his denim jeans, all rough and warm against your palm, hasn’t yet left you. “It’s not small.”

“Well, maybe he can’t get it up—”

“Yeah, that’s not a problem either.”

Eddie was rock hard when you left him, throbbing and aching and obviously needing some kind of relief. That’s partly why you’d been so ardent to return the favor, though the other half of it was purely selfish — you haven’t seen a more beautiful sight than Eddie Munson getting off. To deprive yourself of that masterpiece made you feel like you were starving.

You have a hard time imagining the raging hard-on just… dissipating after you’d left him. That means he probably jerked off in the back of his van and you missed it. And if he came, right after he promised everything was okay, that means he just didn’t want you to do it… right?

Steve seems to be caught in the same inner turmoil you’re currently stuck in; and for good reason. In all the years he’s known you, he can count on one hand how many times he’s had to turn you down. And every time, it was because he’d gotten back together with Nancy. It was never because of you. Not once. And sometimes he felt like it hurt him as much as it did you.

As far as Steve’s concerned, you’re so out of Eddie Munson’s league that you’re not even in his fucking orbit — so the freak show, turning you down, doesn’t make whole lot of sense to him.

“Huh…”

“It’s me. It’s definitely me,” you conclude with the shake of your head. A bitter, almost hysterical laugh spills from your lips. “He thinks I’m fucking ugly or disgusting or something. It’s totally fucking me—”

Robin completely abandons her basket of tapes then. She rises to stand in front of you, looking timid as she does so. Her raised brows form wrinkles on her freckled forehead and her blue eyes widen to reveal more of the whites of them. She looks like she’s approaching a wild animal. A bomb that’s about to explode.

“Okay… You’re starting to spiral, alright? So let’s just try and take a few deep breaths—”

You don’t listen to her.

Actually, you do quite the opposite, as you begin to blurt every fleeting thought that crosses your mind.

“I’ve made out with nearly everyone in this stupid town— I’m pretty sure I’ve fucked almost half— and you’d think Eddie would wanna take advantage of that, the way everyone makes him out to be some sort of freak, right? But he hasn’t and at this rate, he won’t, and I just don’t understand why,” you ramble without taking in a single breath. “Usually being a slut is a huge turn-on for guys, you know? But what if Eddie thinks it’s gross? I mean, it is gross— I’m gross—”

You only stop for air when Robin takes your shoulders in both hands. She looks less apprehensive and more stern, as she forces you to look at her.

“Look. I love you, but you need to get a hold of yourself, alright? I know you’re not used to being told no, and I know how much it sucks, but shit happens. I’m willing to bet all the money I’ve ever seen that whatever is going on with Eddie has nothing to do with you, okay? And if it’s making you this upset, maybe you should just talk to him.”

“But I don’t wanna seem like I’m too eager, that’s gross—”

“Then find someone else to fuck,” she offers with her signature Robin Buckley half-smile. “I’m sure it would take you less than five minutes to find a willing participant.”

“Yeah, right here,” Steve jokes from the counter with the pathetic wave of his hand and a dumb grin on his lips.

You don’t hear him over the voices in your head — half calling you crazy for letting a boy drive you this mad over nothing, and the other half bitterly affirming each of your deep-rooted insecurities.

Your face screws up, like the thought of being with anyone other than Eddie upsets you — it does upset you.

“I don’t want anyone else.”

“Then what do you want?” Robin yells in your face, shaking you by your shoulders.

“I want Eddie!” you shout back without thinking. The words seem to spill out of nowhere. It takes you of all people by surprise. No one in this rat trap town would ever expect the whore of Hawkins to want to settle down, least of all the harlot herself. It’s strange; it’s riveting; it’s really fucking scary. “…Fuck.”

The brunette smirks, proud of herself. “Well. There’s your answer.”

“I hate when you’re right,” you mumble to yourself, pouting as she crouches back down again.

“I know.”

It was a terrifying thought, to know that you were head over heels for someone else. You try to come to terms with what that means.

Sometimes you think you fall in love with a new person every day. A cute guy holds the door open for you, a pretty girl compliments your outfit — they never think about you again, but they’re on your mind for days. It was so easy to develop such meaningless infatuations, especially when you were bored.

But Eddie was different.

He was a nice guy. A nice guy that was sweet to you just for the sake of being sweet to you; not because he secretly wanted something in return. That made you fall for him at first, but then you just… kept on falling. Eddie Munson was an infinite void you couldn’t crawl your way out of even if you wanted to, even if you tried.

And that’s what frightened you the most.

Because if you really thought about it, you’ve only truly been in love a handful of times. And, sure, it didn’t work out — that was normal — but some of them fucking ruined you.

You’re still trying to figure out who you are without all of the people that have broken your heart. You’re still fighting like hell every day to recognize the person you see in the mirror, while Billy Hargrove fucks off with a new girl every other week like he didn’t totally destroy you.

But, even still, Eddie was completely different. No one’s ever made you feel the way he makes you feel. And it’s more than the stupid heavy petting — it’s more than anything. It’s never been like this before; not even with the blonde mulleted asshole who ripped your heart to shreds.

And you’re scared that if you get hurt again, you’ll never be able to come back from it.

“Steve, do you have another copy of Fast Times in the back?” you suddenly ask the boy, tossing him a look over your shoulder.

It’s your last ditch effort to rid yourself of the ponderous, gray doom and gloom surrounding you like some storm cloud. Your comfort movie solves all of your problems — or, at the very least, Phoebe Cates does — but it seems everyone else in town has developed a similar fondness for minute fifty-three of the film and got all the tapes off the shelf before you could get your hands on one.

“You know I keep on in stock for you,” he answers quietly.

He reaches below the counter to pull out a spare copy for you, and your heart swells with the rays of a thousand rising suns and the songs of every morning bird.

Steve told you some time ago that he could change. And back then, all it did was piss you off, because he didn’t want to change for the town slut — for the girl he put through the goddamn ringer. He wanted to change for Nancy. The princess bruised his brittle ego a little, and then he realized what an asshole he’d been to everyone, to you.

But as angry as it made you, you never believed him. “Once the King of Hawkins High, always the King of Hawkins High,” you remarked bitterly.

You wouldn’t say it to his face, for the sake of keeping his ego from inflating all over again, but you could tell he was really changing.

He was kinder, he was softer. He stopped caring about what everyone thought about him, about what not caring would do to his reputation, and started giving a fuck about the people worth giving a fuck about.

Apparently, you were one of them.

“…Really?”

He nods with a subtle shrug. Like it was no big deal. Like it wasn’t one of the sweetest things he’d ever done for you — keeping your favorite movie on hand so you’ll always have a spare, knowing that it’s the only thing that gets you out of a deep, dark funk sometimes.

“Stevie… You’re gonna make me blush,” you lilt with a grin as you saunter over to him, hands innocently laced behind your back. “You need to be careful, Harrington. I’m gonna start to think you actually like me.”

He scoffs. “I do like you.”

“Yeah, when it’s convenient.”

It’s obvious your joke hits him where it hurts. It serves as a bitter reminder of the asshole he used to be, the douchebag he’s trying like hell to grow out of. He looks up at you with a sheepish, honey-tinted gaze before ducking away again.

A year or more ago it would’ve made you feel good, to know that you hurt him just a fraction of the way he hurt you. But you know that that isn’t the same man standing in front of you now, that he’d rather die than make hurt your feelings, and it makes you feel like shit for saying it in the first place.

“Sorry,” you apologize with a scrunched nose. The palms of your hands dig into the edges of the counter as you lean against it. Your shrug. “It just kinda came out…”

The barcode scanner in his hand beeps as he passes the thing over the back of the tape — never charging you, just getting the movie out of the database.

“So, uh…” he starts before clearing his throat. He focuses his gaze on the computer and types on the bulky keyboard with the tip of his pointer finger. “You really like this Eddie guy, huh?”

“Maybe. I think so.”

“And he’s not, like… a total freak or anything?”

You can’t tell if he’s trying to look out for you or if he just wants intel on what it’s like trying (and failing) to bang the local weirdo. Either way, it makes a smile tug slow at your lips as you joke: “Not in the way everyone thinks.”

“Jesus,” he winces at the obscenity of your words.

“Sorry,” you apologize again, though the laugh that bubbles from your lips after cancels out any hint of actual sincerity. “You don’t need to give me the talk or anything, Steve. I can take care of myself.”

“…Can you?” he half-jokes.

It makes you falter. “Well… With you and Robin and Hopper constantly on my ass, then yeah.”

“Just don’t want you to get hurt,” Steve finally admits, soft and suddenly shy as he hands the VHS over to you.

“That’s rich coming from you—”

He jerks back the tape before you can take it from him, leaving your hand reaching for thin air. His cinnamon eyes glimmer with a foreign seriousness, not completely unkind, but lacking their usual blithe. “That’s why I’m saying it. I just… I want you to be okay.”

Steve is one of the rare ones, you conclude right then in there — in the liminal emptiness of Family Video, beneath fluorescent lights that cast sharp shadows upon his already chiseled features. He was a mythical creature of a man, one who breaks your heart and does everything in his power to mend it again.

He hasn’t forgotten about what he did to you, not like Billy did, and he won’t. Not ever. He saw what he did to you and he never moved on from it, just matured enough to make sure it never happened again. And he won’t let another unworthy douchebag hurt you like he did. Not if he can help it, at least.

And he did try to warn you about Hargrove, to be fair. You were just the dumbass that didn’t listen.

“Well, me and my Phoebe Cates wet dream are golden, Pony Boy,” you promise. He hands you the tape again and lets you snatch it from his grip this time. “Don’t worry your pretty little head, Stevie.”

Steve Harrington was right.

The fleeting thought flashes across your mind for half a second, and you quickly realize that those words have never been uttered in the same sentence before now. But he wasn’t wrong in what he’d said about you, just before you left — you were completely, totally, absolutely, and implicitly unable to take care of yourself.

You nearly passed out in the bathroom after taking the hottest shower of your life, feeling too woozy to slap on anything other than moisturizer because you failed to remember to actually eat something that day. It wasn’t totally your fault, though; if anything, it was because of Eddie and all the butterflies he’d given you that made food the very last thing on your mind.

You half-heartedly dry yourself off, keeping your hair in a towel, while you slip on a cotton set of underwear you’ve had for way longer than what's likely acceptable. Damp and half-naked, you prance into the kitchen to fix Bowie her bowl of dinner before you feed yourself.

You fork a can of wet food onto a flower-shaped plate and let her eat on the counter — because you’re an adult now, and you can do that sort of thing.

The calico purrs while she feasts, but your stomach thunders with negligence. You peek into your mostly bare refrigerator and make a mental note to go grocery shopping when you get paid next week.

With a lack of food and an even lesser will to cook something, you settle for the half-eaten chocolate bar you keep stashed in the very back of the fridge; kept only for the most special of occasions — when you’re reveling in your loneliness and trying to convince yourself that you can make it on your own.

It was practically the size of your forearm when you first bought the thing at some too expensive candy store in the city. Now it’s no bigger than your hand.

You eat the thing in bed, even though you know you’ll get crumbs everywhere and that it’ll make sleep agonizing for you — if you get any, that is. You’re bound to feel like a total zombie by the time the sun rises and the late-night sweet will likely make its appearance on your skin by then, in a red and raging blemish of a consequence.

You’ll feel empty and starved and surly, a snapping grouch instead of an actual person, until you get some actual food in your system.

And you’re more than aware of all of these things, but you don’t do a single damn thing about them.

You’re nothing but a sulking lump upon an unmade bed, lying in a pitch-black darkness that’s evaded only by the static-y television across your room, trying your best to pretend like you aren’t waiting for Eddie’s phone call. It’s hard to remember to forget him, though, when the movie you’re watching is practically a feature film of him and all the ways he makes you feel.

Spicoli and his terribly inebriated friends slur as they chorus “No shoes, no shirt, no diiiice” and you swear you can feel Eddie’s shoulder bump softly against yours as he laughs, hear every sound of his melodic chuckle in your ear that made you giggle right along with him. The low bass of Moving in Stereo plays in the otherwise empty silence of your bedroom, and every beat feels like the rhythm of your thrusts against his thigh.

Eddie Munson is all-consuming.

Even the thought of him feels physical.

Phoebe Cates all but undresses herself in front of you, but you’re stuck thinking about some guy who lives in a trailer park across town, deals drugs for a living, and can’t graduate high school. You’re a total fucking goner.

Your eyes flutter shut, and instead of the backs of your eyelids, you see Eddie’s trailer. Your lips start to tingle as they kiss his for the first time — hungry, yearning, needing. His thigh is pressed snugly into your cunt, denim jeans rough against your soft cotton panties, and you have to bite back a moan when he tenses every time you squeeze his hard, covered cock.

You can feel it, all of him, like he were here with you now.

You wish that he were.

His fingers would feel far better, leave far more sparks of electricity in your belly, than the ones as you sneak through the hem of your underwear.

You try and take things slow with yourself, to be as gentle as he had been with you earlier in the woods, but it feels strange to treat yourself with so much tenderness. To touch your pussy like it’s the first time it’s ever been touched. Like it’s a beautiful thing you need to be sweet to.

Maybe you find it so foreign to be careful with yourself because no one has ever been careful with you.

No one, except for Eddie.

Your touch doesn’t rival his. It doesn’t even come close.

No matter how tightly you squeeze your eyes shut or how hard you try to pretend that they’re his fingers inside of you, you can’t make yourself feel as good as he did.

Your fingers aren’t as rough as his guitar-string-scarred ones and they don’t caress your clit with the same methodical care. They don’t fill you quite the same either, nowhere near as satisfying as his much thicker ones.

And you’re no stranger to masturbation, not by any means. Sometimes it’s the only way you can guarantee an orgasm for yourself when you’ve got a partner who cares so little about your own pleasure. But Eddie was different. Eddie cared — so much so, that he’s gotten more orgasms out of you than you’ve gotten from him, which is something you’ve never said about anyone else you’ve been with.

It’s rare and unfamiliar, a bouquet of all things refreshing and terrifying and strange, tied together with a pretty little ribbon.

You know that you can make yourself come. It’ll just take way too long to actually be worthwhile and won’t be nearly as mind-blowing as you need it to be. You won’t be left with trembling thighs and nearly numb legs — just a pitiful excuse for an orgasm that you could get from any one of your exes with half as much work.

What you need is Eddie.

And you hate that. You hate how much you need him and you’re terrified of what that means.

As far as precedent goes, right when you start needing someone is usually when they start to leave. It’s like fucking clockwork most of the time — like everyone knows that you’re a ticking time bomb and eventually it gets too risky to stand too close to you.

You’ll just have to keep Eddie at arm's distance. So he won’t see the grenade that you are.

You pull your fingers out of your wanting cunt, still slick and throbbing with a need that you can’t give it, when the phone rings.

The high-pitched shrill in the quiet makes you tense like it’s the first time you’ve ever heard the damn thing. Your breath catches in your throat, first out of fright and then at the inclination of who waits for you on the other line.

Suddenly, you’re scrambling to collect yourself. As though there was any possibility that Eddie might be able to see you through the phone line.

You wipe your wet fingers haphazardly on the cotton of your underwear and sit up straighter from your ungracefully lazed position. Then you count to five — one mississippi… two mississippi… three — so Eddie won’t think you’re some kind of crazy person who doesn’t have anything better to do than wait for his call.

So he won’t know that’s exactly what you are.

You lift the ruby red rotary from its hook at your bedside table and stretch the corkscrew cord to press it to your ear. “…Hello?”

“Yeah, hi. I’d like to order a pizza. Half pepperoni, half hawaiian.”

You roll your eyes at his dumb joke, even though the familiarity of his voice makes you smile. It warms you like a home-cooked meal, like you were high-pitched and starving before and now you’re on the soothing comedown of finally being satiated.

“Yeah, sorry, we’re closed.”

“Then why’d you pick up the phone, huh?” he teases back. You swear you can hear the grin in his voice. You didn’t know a smile could be so audible. It makes you wonder if he can hear yours — if you’re doing a real shit job at pretending. You anxiously twirl the cord with the pointer finger of your free hand.

“Because I’ve been waiting for you to call me all night, dummy.”

Your answer is more honest than either of you were expecting.

Eddie’s sigh crackles through the shoddy reception. “Yeah. Sorry ‘bout that, sweetheart. I’ve been working all night. I only got home, like, five minutes ago.”

You can hear the heavy exhaustion in his voice. “Rough day?”

“Kinda,” he answers with a shrug. You can hear the grating squeak of his mattress as he plops down onto his bed. “I dealt to one of Jason’s goons today… They always give me a hard time.”

“I’m sorry,” is all you can think to answer.

Eddie’s been the brunt of every joke since seventh grade — people made fun of too big clothes, his too wild hair, his too loud music. But he took it all in stride, laughing with everyone else before volleying a harsher joke back in response. You almost started to think that he liked it. That, somewhere deep down, he was fond of all the attention he got from people who supposedly couldn’t stand him.

But it hurts to know that it hurts him.

“Don’t apologize. It’s not like you did anything,” he assures with a soft laugh. He makes the bold decision to be honest then, too. “You, uh… You made my day a whole lot better, actually.”

You don’t know if he’s talking about the brief fling in the woods or the phone call you’re sharing now or if you particularly care either way. Your heart flutters like it’s been kissed by the wings of a butterfly.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean… I don’t know— I couldn’t stop thinking about you, you know. And, knowing that I was gonna get to talk to you again kinda got me through the day, I guess… And, yes, I am fully aware of how lame that sounds, but—”

You don’t get to hear the rest of his excuse, of why what he just told you totally isn’t lame, because you’re covering the receiver with your palm and turning to squeal into your pillow. A far more pathetic sight, in your humble opinion.

There hasn’t been a more fulfilling feeling than this one, to know that he’s been feeling the same way you’ve been feeling about him this whole time. It’s better than all the orgasms he could give you combined, to be loved so wholly.

“…You okay?” you hear his muffled voice ask after you’ve gone suddenly AWOL.

You press the phone back to your ear and nod like he can see you. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good. The phone… fell— you said you just got home?”

“Uh, yeah. I met with Hellfire for a bit at school. We’re almost at the end of the Cult of Vecna, so they’re kinda on my ass about it. The little shits are obsessed.”

“Well, they should be. It’s a really good campaign, Eds.”

“Thanks to you,” he mutters. You can almost picture the glimmer in his button eyes and the shaky half-smirk he always looks at you with when he gets all shy.

“That was all you, Eddie Spaghetti,” you retort. “I still have no idea how you did it.”

“Did what?” he wonders, chuckling a bit at the nickname.

“Make something so beautiful out of thin air.”

Lying in the depths of his bedroom, blanketed by the darkness and bathing in streams of moonlight, Eddie feels his breath catch in his throat.

For the first time in his life, he doesn’t have a joke to spew out on the spot. He’s speechless, just for a moment, a quick blink of a second, with nothing to say. Because, if he really thinks about it, that’s sort of what happened with you.

You were just his customer and he was just your dealer.

You were a loyal client and then a girl way out of his league that he developed a too big a crush on. Then you made him come in his underwear and washed the sticky stains out of the denim for him. Now you’re on the phone with him. You let him tell you all about his shitty day and apologize like you weren’t the only good thing about it — like you aren’t the only good thing, period.

It’s not the most cliche love story, nor is it the most beautiful, but it has his cynical little heart beating like the wings of a hummingbird.

Then, when all the mushy mess fades like fog, he finally thinks of something to say.

“It’s the witchcraft, sweetheart,” he shrugs to himself. “Didn’t you hear? I’m a devil-worshipping freak.”

“You know that’s not it, Eds,” you retort with the roll of your eyes.

You know that it’s hard, to be a metalhead from the wrong side of the tracks in the eighties — at the height of the Satanic Panic and all the delusional craze. That shit’s followed him since freshman year. Even still, it nips at his ankles like rabid dogs.

Maybe you were never naive or bored enough to believe all the rumors, but Eddie Munson was always more than that to you.

“No?”

“You can blame it on being a freak show all you want, but I know it’s because you’re one of the funniest, smartest, most creative guys I’ve ever met—”

“You must not know a ton of guys then, sweetheart,” he interjects playfully, like he couldn’t stand to hear you compliment him any longer. You’d give anything to see his blushing cheeks just now.

“…You’re kidding right?” you giggle in response.

“Sorry— that’s— I didn’t mean it like— It was— I was joking,” he stammers, frightened that he might’ve offended you in some way.

It only makes you laugh harder. Both of you know you lost count of all the guys you ‘know’ a long, long time ago. You do imagine it’s somewhere near ‘a ton’, though.

“I know, Eds,” you assure with a contented sigh. “I was just teasing.”

“Oh.”

“The slut and the freak… Who would’ve thought?” you wonder all dreamily, like it’s a fairytale as old as time itself. That’s what it feels like, sometimes.

Eddie isn’t sure what you mean — who would’ve thought you’d be friends? Two people caught in that in-between stage of platonic and romance that’s complete agony and total, total bliss? A couple of kids falling in love—

“It’s sort of kismet, huh?” he answers.

“I think so.”

“So, uh… What are you up to?” Eddie wonders then, equal parts curious and eager to keep the discussion going. He’s frightened any lapse in conversation is going to lead to saying goodbye.

He wants to stay on for hours, until both of you are fighting to stay awake, and then listen to the sound of your heavy breathing when you inevitably lose — like that isn’t the creepiest thing anyone’s ever wanted. He’ll fight Wayne about the bill if it comes to that, he doesn’t care, he just never wants to stop being this close to you.

“Do you want the real answer or the fake one?”

“Uh… Both?”

“Well, I’d say I was doing something super productive with my night, you know, catching up on all the boring adult shit, but then I’d be lying. And I don’t wanna lie to you, Eds,” you tell him with a teasing lilt playing at the edge of your voice.

Eddie swallows thickly, fearing he’d somehow been caught in his own lie — or rather, his half-truth. He moves on quickly, though not exactly full of grace. “Right. Yeah. Totally.”

“Honest answer is, that the only productive thing I’ve done tonight is shower, and now I’m in bed watching Fast Times and eating all the chocolate in my house, because I can’t cook for shit and I have nothing else better to do with my night,” you admit to him, picking at the thread of your comforter.

“Oh, don’t tell me I missed the ‘Moving in Stereo’ bit,” he agonizes.

“Just.”

“Well, correct me if I’m wrong, sweetheart, but it sounds like you’re having loads of fun tonight.”

“I’m having a lot more fun now,” you assure him.

“Glad I can be around to make you laugh,” he retorts like he’s not all too happy to do it.

“You’re a total comedian, Eddie Spaghetti.”

“If I’m the jester, you’re the queen, sweetheart,” he promises, a grin evident in his voice.

Your breath catches in your throat something fierce; you’re almost worried that he’s heard it. His words pierce your heart, a stroke of lightning or a blade of steel. He’s joking, but it’s so strangely profound, the kindest thing anyone’s ever said to you and it’s dripping in sarcasm.

It’s sort of Eddie’s love language, you’ve come to understand, to say something so sweet but coated in venom to make it sour again. It makes you feel special, loved, almost.

A fire builds behind your rib cage, sharp and distant and all-consuming.

“Are you alone, Eds?” you ask him suddenly.

The sudden curve ball in the conversation takes him by surprise. “Uh, yeah, Wayne’s at work right now… Why?”

“Because I want you to talk to me…”

“Oh?” is all he can say because isn’t that what he’s been doing this whole time?

“And I want you to say things that… maybe other people shouldn’t hear,” you explain slowly to him.

“…Oh.”

He’s heard about this only once before, the whole phone sex thing.

It was from Andy in the back of Ms. O’Donnell’s class a year or more ago, though Eddie never called him by that name. Andy, in all actuality, was Jason Carver’s right-hand man, and he meant that in every sense of the phrase. Eddie was more than convinced that the guy was so obsessed with the blonde haired, blue eyed douchebag that he was giving him handjobs on the regular.

But it seemed the dick brigade couldn’t function properly without their leader and Eddie had the misfortune of hearing all the mindless bullshit they were spewing behind him — basketball, parties, girls; in true white bread fashion.

His friends gathered around him like he was telling some sort of secret, though it was loud enough for anyone in a three foot radius to hear. Eddie, caught directly in the line of fire, heard all about Chrissy’s older sister, Wendy, who was two years older and off at college.

He’d gotten her number from some party he’d crashed. At least that’s how he told it, right before telling everyone that she swore like a sailor when she came and that she told him all the dirty things she wanted to do to him while she did.

“It was like her hand was on my dick, dude, I’m serious. That shit was crazy, bro,” he’d laughed after retelling the whole conversation in excruciating detail.

Eddie rolled his eyes to himself then, inwardly jealous that he’d never get to meet Wendy — or any other girl that would be willing to have phone sex with him, for that matter. His phone only ever rang for telemarketers or a rogue Dustin Henderson calling to annoy him.

But, here you are now, the most wanted girl in Hawkins, offering it to him on a silver platter. He wonders if you’ve done this before, surely you have — oh god, he thinks to himself, what if you’ve done this with Andy?

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” you assure him after his unusually long silence. “I know you’re probably busy and tired and everything—”

“No! No, yeah, I— I want to. I totally want to.”

“Okay,” you nod. Petals of a flower begin to bloom in your chest as you lie back in bed, settling further into the mattress. The movie, already long forgotten, serves only as light and background noise. “So… What are you wearing, Eds?”

“I feel like I should be asking you that,” he laughs.

On the other side of Hawkins, in a trailer in the middle of nowhere, Eddie rises from where he’d originally flopped back onto his bed with the notion that it was going to be a semi-normal night. He props himself against his headboard. His fingers twitch at his thigh.

“Beat ya to it, Munson.”

“Well, I’ll have you know that it is very sexy, sweetheart. I’m wearing the same Hellfire shirt you saw me in, I don’t know, five hours ago — except now it’s got a rip in it because I totally ate ass on the way back to the van.”

He tells you this to make you laugh — it works — but he prays you don’t ask any questions. Because he got it while hurrying back to his van mere minutes after you’d left him, so hard he thought he was going to burst, with no more than seven minutes until his next client arrived.

Thankfully, he only needed three.

“I love that shirt,” you respond in place of saying what you really want to — ‘I love how that shirt looks on you’ — how it clings to his lean torso and reveals his midriff whenever he stretches his arms over his head.

“She’s a lit-tle worse for wear now, sweetheart,” he lilts.

“I’ll stitch it up for you.”

“And I’ve got on a pair of boxers that are so old they’re practically see through because I’m pretty sure they used to be Wayne’s back in… I don’t know… the eighteen-hundreds.”

Eddie was right. It was sexy, though, for the exact reason they weren’t supposed to be.

There was something so domestic about it all. You can picture him lying in his bed, in the most comfortable clothes he owns, in the one place he can feel at peace. Like a renaissance painting, something familiar and comforting and beautiful — fuck, you’d give anything to be next to him.

“…I think that means it’s your turn now, sweetheart,” he teases.

“Is it?” you mock in return.

“C’mon. Don’t leave me hangin’ over here.”

“It’s nothing, special,” you assure. Your eye flits down to peer at your own body — nothing special, indeed, you think to yourself. The lilac cotton set came from the grocery store downtown on the clearance rack you so often frequent. “I just have my underwear on. It’s very boring, I’m afraid.”

It’s not boring. Not to Eddie — the boy who prides himself on his insanely active imagination. He might not be able to pass english with his brain, but he can certainly create worlds with it, and it’s too easy for him to picture you. He imagines you, freshly showered, and smelling of the warm lavender-vanilla scent you always smell like, mostly bare and lazing upon a fluffy comforter.

He swallows thickly. “Oh, that’s— that’s really, uh— that’s really sexy.”

His thankful that you don’t seem to mind his poor excuse for dirty talk.

“It’s only because I was too lazy to get into actual pajamas.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

“Yeah?” you press, smiling to yourself and caging your bottom lip between your teeth.

“Yeah.”

“Can I tell you a secret, Eds?” you wonder, made brave enough by his own admission.

“‘Course you can.”

“Before you called…”

“…Uh-huh?” he eggs on, intrigued at the way you trailed off, sounding suddenly shy.

“I was…” The thought of telling him what you were doing mere seconds before he called makes you nervous. It wasn’t like you were ashamed of touching yourself or anything, nor is the art of dirty talking lost on you, but something about Eddie makes you timid.

“You were… what, sweetheart?” he wonders gently, with a too audible grin.

“I was touching myself.”

That’s all you tell him. The words linger and hang in the air of your separate bedrooms and you cling to the silence — almost mortified and anticipating his reply. Eddie, meanwhile, feels like his tongue has swelled in his mouth and all the air has been punched out of his lungs.

“Oh...” he tries to respond without the breath to accurately do so. “…Yeah?”

“You know what Phoebe Cates does to me,” you try to joke.

His laughter crackles through the receiver. “Yeah. I kinda have her to thank for the other night, don’t I?”

“Give yourself some credit, Eds. The hottest guy in Hawkins was sitting right next to me, what was I supposed to do?”

“No way you think I’m the hottest guy in town,” he scoffs. “Everyone knows you’ve got a thing for pretty boys.”

“Pretty boys?” you echo with a giggle.

“Uh-huh. The Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington type, you know?”

“Well, I think you’re a hundred times prettier than he is.”

“Really?” he scoffs cynically, obviously not believing you.

“He wasn’t the one I was thinking about with my hand shoved down my panties,” you admit, immediately quelling his self-doubt. “That’s gotta count for something, right?”

Eddie clears his throat and then stammers, “I— I guess so— yeah.”

“Are you hard, Eds?” you ask in a breathy whisper.

And he just nods to himself at first, too stupid to answer audibly. He can feel himself stiffening in his boxers, only halfway hard now, but getting firmer by the second. Soon, he’ll be aching.

“Yeah…”

“Can you touch yourself for me?”

Eddie would rather take a bullet to the chest than say no to you — at least, he figures that’d probably hurt less — so he slips his fidgeting fingers through the band of his boxers and takes his warm, stiffening cock in his hand. He squeezes himself just enough to make his stomach tighten.

“Want you to touch yourself, too,” he admits, neither asking or demanding it, just telling you.

“Yeah?” you tease.

“Well, I think it’s only fair, sweetheart.”

You can’t help but notice how breathy he’s gotten — how it shakes on the inhale and hitches on the out. He’s got his hand shoved down his underwear and you’re jealous of the fingers that get to wrap themselves around his cock. You wish they were yours. Both of you will have to settle, it seems.

“Whatever you want, Eds,” you answer playfully.

You obediently slide your hand back into the warmth of your panties. Your fingers slot between your lips and collect the slick that had gathered there since before you’d even answered the phone. You bring it up to your clit, circling the pads of your fingers there until you twitch, then dragging them down to press into your opening. They slip in with ease.

Both of you have turned into lovesick idiots, separated by so many miles, and missing the other most ardently. Lying in the depths of your bedrooms, basking in a velvet loneliness, building with a mutual pleasure with nothing but yearning hands and longing sighs.

Eddie’s eyes flutter shut at the sounds of your low moans and fragile whimpers that crackle through the static — beautiful still, but certainly no match to the ones you were breathing in his ear just hours ago.

His lashes dance across his cheeks as he tries to remember how you’d felt against his fingers, soft like velvet and delicate like silk, weeping and pulsating with need.

He drags his hand from his boxers and lets the band snap against his pelvis. He spits into his palm and wets his cock with it, sighing as he tugs at himself without much friction.

“Are you wet, sweetheart?” he asks, though the words threaten to get stuck in his throat.

“Yeah,” you whisper back like it’s some kind of secret.

You work yourself open with your middle finger and slip your pointer in next to it without much trouble. Your walls flutter around them while you fight to find the spot the makes you keen. You’re only able to tease it, fingers not quite long enough to caress it completely. Your thumb keeps working at your clit, though, to make up for the lost pleasure.

“I’ve been wet since I left you,” you admit through labored breaths. “Haven’t been able to… to stop thinking about you, Eds.”

“Glad I’m not the only one whipped over here, sweetheart,” he manages a laugh.

“No one’s ever made me come that hard before. Not just with their fingers,” you tell him mindlessly, dumb on pleasure, as you feel yourself climbing that peak.

“Really?”

“Never,” you promise, then whine. “Doesn’t even feel as good now… Can’t get as deep as you can—”

Eddie hangs on your every word as he works his palm up and down his stiff cock, squeezing at the base and swiping his thumb over the head with an expert hand. His face scrunches as his stomach starts to tighten, he’s close to coming — too close for his liking. He doesn’t want this to be over so quickly.

“You’ve ruined every other guy for me, Eddie Munson,” you confess, more than pleased to hear how it makes him whine. It sounds like it comes from the depths of his chest, the way it crackles low and needy through the receiver.

“Good,” he grumbles through his pants after he’s gathered himself all over again. “Don’t want anyone else to have you, sweetheart.”

This time you’re the one letting out the most pathetic of whines. It makes a smile flicker at the corners of his lips.

“You like that?”

It sounds so dirty, but you can tell by the sincerity of his tone that it’s genuine. So you answer with a longing truthfulness, a delicate “yes”entwined with a yearning moan.

“You just wanna belong to me, don’t ya?”

Now, this is dirty talk. The teasing lilt of his tone — it’s almost degrading — and makes you clench around your fingers. “Yes, please,” you whine, all but pleading for him now.

Eddie’s close, so dreadfully close, with a pleasure so tangible he could taste it. Your words make his cock twitch in his hold as the fire builds in his belly.

Through your whole-hearted promises and wanting moans, he can hear the sound of your slick through the receiver. The static reception doesn’t do it justice, but the wet click of your fingers working you open was unmistakable.

A moan grumbles in his throat as he digs the crown of his head back into his pillow. “Holy fuck— I can hear you, baby.”

“I’m so wet for you, Eds,” you tell him through fragile slurs, like it wasn’t inherently obvious.

You were wrong before, about wanting to hide from him. You couldn’t conceal your need for Eddie if you tried. The honey you drip, all sweet and just for him, wouldn’t let you keep it a secret.

“I know, baby, I know,” he nearly coos. “Are you— fuck, please tell me you’re close?”

“Yes,” you promise in a whine. Your thumb presses harder into your clit. It makes your thighs tense until they’re shaking.

“You rubbing your clit for me, sweetheart?” he asks like he knows. “I know that’s what you like.”

You whimper, working at the spongy spot within you as your hips buck off the bed. “Yeah.”

“Keep rubbing yourself like that for me, okay? Want you to keep going until you come for me.”

If he keeps talking to you like that, it’ll come a lot quicker than he’s prepared for.

It’s too soft to be much of a demand, but you listen obediently anyway, rubbing at yourself though your sensitivity keeps building. It grows like a morning tide, rising and flowing like white waves on an ocean, stirring something fierce in the depths of your stomach.

“Eddie,” you sigh out his name, broken through staggered pants.

You hear his stuttering breaths, too. “Y—Yeah?”

“I’m about to come,” you promise through a whine when the familiar crescendo sends a shock through your body.

“O… Okay,” he responds, pathetically, then whines, even more so.

“Want you to come with me… Please…”

“Fuck— okay. Shit, sweetheart, I’m almost there.”

“What are you thinking about?” you ask him.

“Your pussy,” he answers without thinking — he’s not doing a whole lot of that anymore. “Wish I’d gotten to taste you earlier. Wanna feel you… fuck… Wanna feel you come on my tongue.”

“Holy shit, Eds,” you moan at his words, at the vivid picture they paint in your head.

“And you get so… God, you get so fucking wet. Just want you to drench me, baby.”

It feels good, to be complimented for something boys used to make fun of you for, to realize for the first time that’s it’s sexy — that you’re sexy — and that Eddie is more than happy to drown in you. The feeling almost rivals the impending orgasm that’s bound to hit you like a tidal wave.

“I’m thinking about how I coulda took you on that bench… Just, fucking, get on my knees for you. Shove my head between your legs. Hold your— shit, baby— hold your thighs open, keep you exactly where I want you,” he rambles but then cuts himself off to moan at his own words. “Goddamn, sweetheart. Wanna taste you so fucking bad.”

The moan you let out is pitiful. It leaves your mouth in the most delicate cry.

No picture has ever been clearer than the one of Eddie between your thighs, your hands knotted in his hair to move him to exactly where you need him most and forcing him there. You can feel his fingers digging into your hips, his rings pressed against your burning skin, and the way your legs tremble on either side of his head.

“Yeah. Keep— Keep doing that. Keep moaning for me,” Eddie tells you. “I’m about to… holy fuck, I’m about to come.”

“Wanna feel your tongue in me so bad, Eds,” you whimper, egged on by the moan he lets out. “Want your cock even more.”

That’s what does him in, the assurance — the promise — that you want him just as bad as he wants you.

He tightens his fist around his cock, achingly hard and raging a crimson at the tip, trying to imitate the way you’d feel around him. It’s not all that close, not nearly as wet as the honey you’d be dripping for him, but his imagination does the rest of the work for him.

All at once, you’re on top of him, riding him for all he’s worth, your pussy threatening to swallow him whole. You’ve drenched him, just like he’d begged for, and that wet schlick noise still echoing from the receiver is the evidence of each of your assured thrusts over top of him.

You’re still pleading for him anyway — for more, for his tongue, for his cock — and he wants so desperately to give everything to you.

“Oh god, baby—” he sputters. He grips the phone in a white-knuckled, fist trembling. “Oh, fuck, I’m coming, baby.”

“Please, Eddie. Please come for me,” you plead over the low sounds of the forgotten film playing across the room and all the dirty wet sounds your pussy makes against your fingers. You sound like you need it, like you want his orgasm more than your own.

“Want you to come with me… Can you— Can you do that for me, sweetheart? Please?” It’s not dirty talk anymore. He’s actually fucking begging you and doesn’t feel the least bit ashamed to do so.

He wants to hear all the pretty noises you make when you come — that initial cry that stems from the depths of your soul, the high-pitched whimpers that come when the sensitivity builds, and the whines that leave you when it ebbs.

He wants to hear it over and over and over again, like a worn cassette, and play it until the tape spins out.

“Yes…” you promise through a set of stuttering breaths.

There’s no talking when either of you come. Eddie’s long forgotten to talk you through it, but you would barely hear him if he had. The phone slips out of your hand when your grip slackens and it falls to the pillow beside your head.

You chase your orgasm full throttle, working through the crescendo and the strikes of lightning, focusing only on his muffled moaning and the pretty sounds he makes as he comes.

The breath of your name whimpered through a tight throat is what does it for you. Your body has hardly any time to warn you before you’re gushing all over your fingers, twitching every time the pad of your thumb rubs over clit.

That cry, the one you always let out as you come — all wet and full of need — makes Eddie orgasm right alongside you.

He swipes his thumb over his head again, collecting the pearls of precum gathering there and sliding them down the base to squeeze himself there like he’d been doing this whole time. He clutches harder this time, imagines it's your cunt locking him in a vice-like grip, and whines in his throat when he comes.

Several loads of it spill onto his cotton boxers, most of it gathering along the side of his hand and dripping down his knuckles. His breath staggers as he works himself through his high, praising you through the phone like you’re the one who brought him to it.

“Fuck, baby… You’re so good… So fucking good.”

You’ve long settled from your own orgasm, still tingly and numb in some places, but not as gone as you had been just moments before. You still float on a cloud, getting lost as you stare through your window at the half-hidden stars sprinkling the night sky and feeling as though you could reach out and touch them.

You can feel the satin moonlight bathing you, and the jittery static of the neon of the television screen. You can feel everything and somehow nothing at all.

“I don’t know how you do it, Eds,” you confess, hardly thinking about the words spilling from your mouth when you lazily bring the phone to your ear again.

“Do what, sweetheart?”

“I don’t know… You always make me feel good. Even when you’re not here… Even when we’re not getting each other off.”

“I feel the same way,” he promises you, all mushy, even though he feels like a slob for wiping his hand off on his discarded jeans on his bed. “Just… wish you were here.”

“I wish I was there, too… Wish I could clean you up.”

Eddie’s eyes shut tight as his head tilts back to his pillow at the thought. “Fuck… You’re gonna make me hard again, sweetheart.”

You perk up suddenly as an idea sprouts like a flower in your head. A smile blooms on your lips, and you rise up onto your elbows, glowing with an unanticipated excitement. “How long would it take you to get ready?”

“…Get ready?” he echoes.

“Yeah,” is all you say.

“I mean, I— I don’t know. I figure if I put on some new underwear and a fresh pair of pants, I’ll be good as new... Why?”

“You wanna do something?”

“Yeah. Sure. Anything,” he answers clumsily in place of saying, ‘Anything to not have to be without you.’

“I wanna go to Skull Rock.”

“Skull Rock?” he repeats.

Legend has it, you and Steve made that place a local landmark. People have always said that Hopper caught the both of you one too many times up at Lover’s Lake and the Quarry, that you needed a more hidden place to fuck. So you’d stumbled around in the middle of the woods until you found a place the chief wouldn’t think to look for you.

You’d certainly found it. Then every other horny high schooler did too.

It’s the place you go to fuck, the most private place in all of Hawkins — hell, maybe even Indiana entirely for teenagers who can’t get the house to themselves. And as appealing as it sounds, to take you beneath a sky of twinkling stars, Eddie doesn’t want his first time with you to be on dirt or in the middle of the woods. That’s how all the horror movies start, don’t they?

So, needless to say, your answer takes him by surprise.

“Yeah! You can see all the stars really good from there. It’s too hard to see them so close to town.”

Eddie’s heart swells all at once at how sweet you are, like sugar poured directly onto his tongue. You’re not eager to be without him either, it seems, and that thought is as gratifying as it is thrilling.

You’re an adventure he’s about to go on, without a map or a way out, a journey he’s happy to go into blind as long as you’re holding his hand the entire way through it.

It breaks his heart to hang up the phone. He practically begs you to do it for him, and it makes you laugh — a kind giggle entwined with a tease ‘you’re such a baby.’ It rings in his ears long after the receiver clicks.

Most of all, he hates all the stoplights that separate your place from his. He hadn’t known where you lived before now, not until you uttered it over the phone. He makes a mental note to figure out a quicker way, somewhere through the winding back roads that his old van can speed through to make the distance less daunting.

He pulls into your apartment complex, a quaint two-story thing on the quieter side of town, where the woods are plentiful and the street lamps far fewer. He turns his radio down out of respect for all your neighbors that he’s sure he’ll never meet and spies you through the neon orange porch lights. You shut and lock your door in quick succession, then scurry across the way to meet him.

Eddie leans over to unlock the passenger side door for you, already beaming, and finds you’re smiling too when you climb in next to him. The grin you shoot his way outshines the night sky and makes a bright yellow sun of the girl sitting in his passenger seat.

“Hi,” you’d greeted him, all shy like you didn’t just make him come all over his hand thirty minutes ago.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he volleys back like he always does, with that big ol’ smirk and teasing lilt as he cock his head to the side — using his playfulness to cover up the bashful mess you so easily reduce him too.

Neither of you had gotten particularly dressed up to see each other. All he did was put on fresh under and pajama pants. You succumbed to a smilier laziness it seems, haphazardly brushing through your half-damp hair, throwing on a too big t-shirt, and calling it a day.

The cotton hangs low at your chest, stretched out and obviously well-loved. It falls well past your thigh, though you spend much of the drive anxiously tugging it down.

It makes him wonder what you’re wearing beneath it. If you’ve tugged on a pair of shorts or if you’re in the bra and (undoubtedly wet) underwear you’d told him you were wearing over the phone.

Eddie winds himself up all over again while you sift through the flimsy case of endless cassettes he keeps tucked in the glove compartment that never quite shuts all the way.

“How do you now have any ABBA tapes?” you wonder like it’s baffling, with an Iron Maiden tape in one hand and Cinderella in the other. Metallica plays lowly, nearly inaudibly, from the stereo.

Eddie laughs and darts his eyes from the darkened back roads to look at you, all smiley and bathed in moonlight, before turning back to the road again. “Uh, because I’m not a thirty-year-old woman. That’s the shit moms listen to.”

“Moms and hot girls,” you retort jokingly.

“Right, moms and hot girls listen to ABBA — of which, I am neither, sweetheart. Sorry to be the one to break it to you… Besides, it’s not like you walk around listening to, fucking, I don’t know— Van Halen or whatever.”

“Hey. I listen to Van Halen,” you shoot back.

He scoffs. “Yeah, right.”

“It’s got what it takes!” you sing suddenly, not quite catching the rhythm of the song, but smiling anyway as you reach for his forearm resting on the center console. “So tell me why can’t this be love!”

“Oh, my god— that’s literally their worst song,” Eddie chuckles through the widest grin you’ve ever seen from him.

It makes you smile big too, looking like an idiot who’s totally head over heels for the boy next to her. And of that, you’re happily guilty of.

“Not true,” you shake your head defiantly. “I love that song.”

“So that means it has to be good, right?” he retorts playfully, shooting you a teasing look, though his beam is more than sincere.

“Obviously,” you answer with a scoff that makes Eddie roll his eyes.

He knows he’s going to start to love it, though, if only because it’s the only Van Halen song you halfway know.

He’s going to hear that song on the radio and he’s going to want to turn it, but he’s going to remember this moment now — the one with you reaching for him while you sing the lyrics to a song he can’t stand, sitting pretty in his passenger seat, while the moonlight blanches your smile and the bare skin of your thighs.

Eddie Munson is going to love that goddamn song for the rest of his life.

He parks as close as he can to Skull Rock, knowing his van can’t work its way that far into the woods. The two of you are forced to walk the rest of the way, not exactly minding it, though Eddie’s incessantly worried you’re going to get cold.

He’s already forced his jacket upon you, which you took with little fight. It warmed you almost immediately — with his cozy heat and musky cologne.

You make mindless conversation the entire way there, about music and then about his band and then what animal you’d want to be in your band if that were the least bit possible. Eddie chooses a sheep without any hesitation, though you’re confident that a penguin would be far cooler.

You keep a careful distance between you, at first, like both of you are too scared to initiate the first move. That is, until you trip over a raised branch and nearly eat ass on the forest floor. Then Eddie’s holding your hand the entire way, keeping you close.

“If you wanted me to hold your hand, you coulda just said so, you know?” he jokes. “Didn’t have to go through all the dramatics, sweetheart.”

You try and yank your hand out of his grip in protest then, but he doesn’t let you. In fact, he pulls you closer and twirls you into a bear hug that you happily relax into.

He feels your sigh fan against his collarbone as you rest your head at the nape of his neck, his arms wrap around your shoulders as yours settle at his waist. He rocks you back in forth, in a moment that’s too almost sweet to make fun of.

Eddie finds a way, of course, “See?” he singsongs. “I’ll hug you like this all the time, if you want. You don’t have to almost kill yourself to get my attention, babe.”

“All I did was trip,” you laugh at his theatrics.

“Death by tree root… What a gnarly way to go.”

He holds your hand the entire way to Skull Rock.

He doesn’t let you go once, not until you’re ascending the large boulders to plant yourselves at the very peak of them. He’s grabbing you again once you settle, though, and the two of you just sit there, for several long moments, just gaping at the stars that dance with life above you. They sprinkle an infinite void with enough light that manages to touch you, trillions of miles away.

There’s a subtle beauty in that Eddie never would’ve appreciated before now.

“Shit, babe,” he breathes through a whimsical existential dread. “You were right. The stars are really fucking pretty out here.”

You love how much he loves this, to come to Skull Rock with you and count the stars. Any other guy would’ve had their tongue down your throat by now, stuffing your hand down their unbuttoned jeans.

But not Eddie.

He just holds your hand because he likes the feeling of his fingers entwined with yours, grasping tightly onto you while he gazes at an infinite universe — like you might float off right along with it.

His neck is stretched to gape at the night sky. You catch his adam’s apple bobbing every time he swallows. You want so desperately to kiss his milky white skin and sprinkle blotchy red bruises there.

His curly locks fall over his shoulders. He shakes his head to get his bangs out of his eyes while the chocolate buttons of them dart around the endless void.

He’s more beautiful than every star in the sky combined. You can’t be sure of how many that is, of course, but it’s a whole bunch if you had to guess. It makes sense, though, for the prettiest boy in the whole damn galaxy.

“Told ya,” you answer with a smile, leaning over to nudge his shoulder with yours. “You come out here often?”

You’re asking if he takes girls here and he knows it, but it’s not like you’re being inconspicuous about the whole thing. Eddie gauges it almost immediately, the subtle jealousy hinting at your tone — something no one else would’ve caught — and he squeezes your hand in reassurance.

He shakes his head. “No… Never.”

“Never?” you press with raised brows, like his answer shocks you.

“Ever. It’s not really my scene, I guess… But what about you, sweetheart? Never seen you around these parts before.”

You knock his shoulder again, harder this time. “Shut up. You already know the answer to that.”

“Yeah…” he nods to himself, eyes darting back and forth as he reminisces on something. “You and Harrington, you and Hargrove. Hell, I think I heard about you and Jason one time—”

“That was a long time ago,” you argue. “Before I even knew you, okay?”

“I’m just saying,” he shrugs in defense. “You totally have a thing for pretty boys, sweetheart.”

“I never said I didn’t, Eds. Just that you were pretty, too.”

“Whatever,” he scoffs and rolls his eyes like he isn’t glowing red beneath the moonlight.

“You’re better than all three of them, Eds,” you confess with a sudden softness that catches his attention almost immediately. He turns his attention from the sky to look at you properly again. His breath catches at you sad you look — all beautiful and coated in shades of blue.

“…Yeah?”

You nod and drag his hand into your lap to fidget with his fingers. You trace the skeleton heart on his middle finger, subverting all your attention there because it’s easier than having to look at him now. “Better than all of them combined— not even just them, you know? Out of everyone. No one’s ever been this nice to be before.”

“Me neither, sweetheart,” he confesses with a morose grin. “The freak of Hawkins High attracts a lot of assholes, believe it or not.”

“Is it bad?” you wonder cautiously, like you’re scared to hear the answer. In some ways, you are.

You hadn’t known him in high school, not really. For obvious reasons, you ran in very different circles. You never even had classes together. There was never any excuse to be close to each other before now, never a reason to become friends. So you didn’t.

You grew to know him as a freak, and he knew you as the town slut. Then somewhere down the line, he became your dealer and now… here you were.

But you’ve graduated now and he’s still army crawling towards a diploma. You couldn’t save him from the hell of Hawkins High even if you wanted to.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” he shrugs. “Jason and the dick brigade just wanna make my life hell, that’s all.”

“I hope they aren’t,” you respond shyly.

Eddie scoffs then shoots you a smile. “Oh, of course not. Look at me. I’m at Skull Rock with the most wanted girl in Hawkins. I’m living the dream, sweetheart.”

“So you don’t care?” you wonder, peering at him through your lashes, as you twist the silver cross around his finger.

“Care about what?”

“That I’m a slut,” you laugh like it’s obvious.

Eddie doesn’t think it’s all that funny. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s not like it isn’t true, Eds,” you retort with a trembling smile. “I mean, that’s literally what people call me — most people don’t even care to call me by my real name anymore.”

“I don’t care,” Eddie shakes his head. “I don’t care about that. I don’t give a shit about what people say about you. If everyone cared about what everyone said about everyone, neither of us would be here right now… Because you’d think I was some devil-worshipping freak and I’d think you were too busy getting it on with Chief Hopper.”

You screw your face up immediately at the thought. The mere idea was repulsive. The asshole was practically your father these days. Jim Hopper was in that small bunch of available people you would never fuck, and happily so.

“I’d never stoop that low,” you joke.

“I like you, how you are, right now,” Eddie promises. “Don’t want you to change a damn thing.”

His brown eyes twinkle with a sincerity that rivals the stars above you. All of a sudden, you don’t care about a bunch of heavenly bodies light years away from you — you care about this man, the one sitting beside you now, holding your hand even though your palms have gone all sweaty.

It’s too good to be true — the way you looks at you, the way he talks to you, the way he treats you. You’re scared that it’s a dream, that you’ll wake up and find that none of this was ever real. Or worse, that he was, and that he just didn’t care about you the way you cared about him.

It’s almost irrational. Almost.

But it’s happened before.

And it’s left you a scarred and mangled mess.

You shake your head to yourself and scrunch your face as you turn to look him. “Have you ever done this before, Eddie?”

“Don’t what?” he wonders with furrowed brows.

“I don’t know…” you shrug. “Any of this? With anyone else?”

He’s grateful he doesn’t have to lie. Or tell some clumsy half-truth for the sake of saving his own skin. He realizes tonight is perhaps the most honest he’s ever been with you, baring his pale soul beneath a silver moonlight.

“Never,” he answers, unwavering, with a firm shake of his head.

“Really?”

“Really,” he nods, then swallows thickly at a gut-wrenching realization. “I’ve never felt his way about anyone else before.’

“Me neither,” you promise.

It’s a tad more meaningful coming from you than from a boy who’s never had someone to love and to love him back.

You’re experienced, you’ve found what you like and what you don’t like. You’ve been with guys who have given you the world and guys that have ended yours altogether. And out of all of them — all of the assholes in Hawkins you could’ve picked — you’ve chosen the freak.

You want him.

You want Eddie.

The revelation makes him grin. “Promise?”

“Cross my heart, Eddie Spaghetti.”

#published by bug #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson smut #stranger things x reader #stranger things imagine #eddie munson imagine #virgin!eddie munson x reader #virgin!eddie munson

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lunatiqez · 1 year

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“MAKEOVER” — Allison Reynolds x Reader

PAIRING: Allison Reynolds x Goth!Reader

GENRE: Platonic

SUMMARY: After getting a bright idea, reader, who is a goth, decides to give Allison a makeover in their style.

WORD COUNT: 0.6k

A/N: Yippee!!!! I love the breakfast club sm, Allison is such a cutie. Requested by anon and proofread by @lu-vin-it !! P.S., I don’t wear a bunch of makeup, so I hope I explained the makeup scene well enough to understand :)

SHERMER HIGH SCHOOL, CHICAGO Illinois. been sitting in detention for about four hours and have made some unlikely friends. Andrew Clark: the “athlete.” Claire Standish: the “princess.” Brian Johnson: the “brain.” John Bender: the “criminal.” Last but most certainly not least, Allison Reynolds: the “basket case.”

Out of all of them, Allison was the person you got along with the best. You were labeled as “The Goth” in school. You always wore thick eyeliner, black lipstick, and dark clothes. The kids in school described you as a real life vampire. Most of the time, you just scoffed and rolled your eyes.

You were in detention for skipping class. It’s not like you skipped the whole period. Just most of it. You had to fix your makeup because you were in a rush that morning.

Unfortunately, out of all the people that could have caught you, it was Mr. Vernon. You two already didn’t like each other, and this made matters worse.

That’s the recap, though. Now you’re doing your time and talking to people who you wouldn’t be caught dead with otherwise.

After your dance break, John had to go back to Mr. Vernon’s closet and there was small talk between you and the four other teenagers. Then you got the brightest idea.

“Allison.” You announce her name. She looks over at you with curiosity. “C’mere.” The girl walks over to you and you present your idea in her ear. She smiles toothily and nods her head. You smile back and lead her to a supply closet, bringing your bag with you.

Once in the closet, you pull out your palest concealer, liquid eyeliner, black eyeshadow, and tube of black lipstick. She sits on a table and fidgets with her fingers excitedly.

You dot concealer underneath her eyes, patting it into Allison’s skin with your finger. She flinches a couple times, then gets used to the sensation.

Once done with the base, you move onto eyeshadow. You brush the black pigment onto her eyelids and bring it down to the bridge of her nose, contouring the skin with the eyeshadow.

You contour the rest of her face— her cheekbones, forehead, and her chin. By now, she’s looking almost identical to you. You smile, prideful of her transformation.

“Now it’s the hard part,” you say slightly, unscrewing your eyeliner lid. “You’ll be fine, just hold very still.” She complies.

You line under her eyes and then wing it up to the corner. You connect the eyeliner to her top lid and fill it in, doing the same with the other eye.

You then pull away from her face, smiling. Allison looks amazing as a goth. You silently hoped she would like the look as much as you do. You dug in your bag for your compact mirror and handed it to her. She opened it up, and when she saw her reflection, she smiled wider than ever and squeaked again.

“Do you like it??” You ask excitedly. She nods. The two of you talk some more and then you bring her out to the library for the others to see her.

Brian smiles at her awkwardly, and you swear you can see a dust of pink cloud across his face. Claire gasps and says she looks really good as a goth. Finally, Andres is left speechless. Allison looks at the floor in embarrassment.

“See something you like, Andrew?” You ask loudly, teasing him. He looks at Allison, and then you, and then Allison again. He then nods slightly, making you giggle.

“Go get your honey.” You whisper in Allison’s ear. She playfully swats your shoulder.

#the breakfast club #breakfast club #breakfast club x reader #breakfast club x you #breakfast club x y/n #breakfast club fanfic #breakfast club fanfiction #Allison Reynolds #Allison Reynolds breakfast club #Allison Reynolds x reader #Allison Reynolds x you #Allison Reynolds x y/n #goth reader #trad goth #80s goth #📂 — liv’s writings ★.

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just-finished-watching · 5 months

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The Breakfast Club

Finished Watching: 01/22/24

Language: English

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Rating: 🌟🌟/5 (2/5)

Expectations: I've heard a lot about The Breakfast Club, so I really did expect more out of it. It's considered a cult classic, and frankly, I can see why people like it. There are simple characters, easy to grasp at first, and slowly reveal their complexities. I expected something a little more plot-wise but was a bit disappointed.

Not a Favorite

Summary: Five high school students from different walks of life endure a Saturday detention under a power-hungry principal. The group includes John (the criminal), Claire (the princess), Allison (the basket case), Brain (the brain), and Andrew (the athlete). Each gets a chance to tell their story and make the others see them differently. When the day ends, they learn they are more similar to each other than they first thought.

Thoughts (*SPOILERS*):

I thought the movie was going to be much better than it actually was, I won't lie. I've never seen the breakfast club before, and maybe if I were a high schooler (currently in college), I would have had a deeper connection to it. It's an ok coming of age film at worst, but a good one at best. The characters were archetypal at first, but that was to be expected. When it came down to it, I really liked certain characters, and others fell flat to me. But what felt flatter was probably the plot.

To begin, let's discuss the plot. Boring. Bland. Bleh. Teens get a detention and get to know each other. Now an overdone trope. With it being released in the 80s, I will give it some credit. I can see why people latched on: they saw themselves in these characters. They remembered themselves, or saw themselves, as these teens who felt lost and scared and wished they had a group of misfit friends to talk to about it. But most of it felt like a new plot point came out of nowhere. For example, the smoking scene. A classic, but for me, someone who's never seen it before, it was almost annoying. I don't know how else to describe it other than didn't like it.

Now the characters. John Bender is everyone's favorite bad boy. Felt too much like a perv and a douche. "Aww, but he had a hard home life." That's true, and I appreciate that part of his backstory. He is an asshole and only is probably because that's all he's ever seen. But, when he talks about sex way too much and forces everyone else to talk about it too it's uncomfortable. However, I do feel for him, especially when the principal (teacher?? Idk what Mr.Vernon was) locks him in the storage cabinet. You want to like him, especially when he's not making others feel uncomfortable. Also, 100% called that he would be a sort of hypocrite, scorning Claire and Andrew for social cliques, but also upholding the ideas himself. Oh, and of course he ended up with Claire.

Next, Claire Standish. Boring rich girl. Yes her parents argue and use her as a pawn in their arguments. Another stereotypical background just like John's. I was actually really hoping that she would prove somehow, other than just shouting from time to time, that she was sick of the perfect life. We know she skipped class to go shopping, and that's why she got detention. However, I was hoping to see a bit more. When they brought up the earrings, I was hoping that she would reveal that she stole them. Not because she had to, but because she wanted to.

By far, the most devastating character development to me was Allison Reynold's. Allison is weird, not really talking for most of the movie, only being a basket case. But I liked that. She was weird and exciting. I loved that her symbolism of growing closer to the others is actually physical as well. She starts off far, and as time goes on, she's allowing herself to stand next to them. Sit with them. Her being neglected was something I expected, but I love how she was a compulsive liar and it actually tied to her story. I hate how she got a makeover and that got her the guy? NO! Andrew liked her already, but he's just not used to it! Come on now!

Now, I have to talk about Andrew, but really, I didn't like him all that much. Just another jock character who acts like a douche sometimes cause of daddy issues. Ya' know, I would not be shocked if every single teen character made after this movie was loosely based on any of these characters, and Andrew furthers that point. He's alright, and I like how he's protective of the girls, but other than that, he's got nothing else.

Finally, Brian. Brian's a good character, but I wanted to know more about him. With Allison, the best part of her character is that you don't know what's going on in her head. For Brian, a character named after the fact that he's literally the BRAIN (I'm guessing), the opposite approach needed to happen. I wanted to know more about the pressure he felt. Yes, he felt intimidated when around the other characters, but he did open up. If he brought up his family dynamics a bit more, I think I would have appreciated his character even just a bit more.

Overall, the movie was actually good, but expectations and the things I hoped for made me a bit disappointed after I finished watching.

#the breakfast club #movies #movies to watch #movie review #john bender #claire standish #allison reynolds #brian johnson #andrew clark #breakfast club #80s movies #to watch #spoilers

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chloeshandblyth · 2 months

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The Breakfast Club (1985)

“The Breakfast Club” stands as a cinematic masterpiece, a timeless gem that transcends generations with its poignant narrative and unforgettable characters. Directed by John Hughes, this 1985 film remains a beacon of progressive storytelling, tackling themes of identity, societal expectations, and the complexities of human nature with both depth and nuance.

At its core, “The Breakfast Club” is a character study, unravelling the intricacies of five high school students who, on the surface, appear to have little in common. Yet, as they spend a trans-formative day together in Saturday detention, their facades crumble, revealing the raw vulnerabilities and shared struggles that bind them together.

Each character is a rich tapestry of emotions and experiences, expertly crafted to challenge stereotypes and provoke introspection. John Bender, the rebellious troublemaker, hides a wounded soul beneath his bravado, while Claire Standish, the popular princess, grapples with the suffocating pressure of parental expectations. Andrew Clark, the jock, struggles to reconcile his desire for independence with his father’s relentless demands for perfection. Meanwhile, Brian Johnson, the brain, grapples with the weight of academic achievement and the fear of failure. And Allison Reynolds, the eccentric loner, shields herself from the world with layers of detachment and mystery.

As these disparate personalities collide and clash, “The Breakfast Club” becomes a profound exploration of the masks we wear and the truths we conceal. It exposes the universal human experience of feeling misunderstood, judged, and alone, while also celebrating the trans-formative power of empathy, connection, and self-acceptance.

What sets “The Breakfast Club” apart is its ability to balance profound emotional depth with moments of levity and humour. Amidst the characters’ soul-baring confessions and heartfelt discussions, there are also moments of laughter and camaraderie that remind us of the resilience of the human spirit and the healing power of friendship.

Ultimately, “The Breakfast Club” is a testament to the enduring power of storytelling to inspire empathy, provoke thought, and spark meaningful conversations. It challenges us to look beyond the surface and recognise the humanity in others, to embrace our flaws and imperfections, and to find strength in solidarity and shared experience.

My rating of 10/10 is a testament to the profound impact of “The Breakfast Club” on both an emotional and intellectual level. It is a film that lingers in the heart and mind long after the credits roll, inviting viewers to revisit its timeless truths again and again. If you haven’t experienced its magic yet, it’s an absolute must-watch that promises to touch your soul and leave an indelible mark on your cinematic journey

https://chloeshandblyth.tumblr.com/

#submission #movie

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liberty-barnes · 2 years

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(Y/n) Lively-Reynolds Breaks Down Her Tattoos | GQ

Part 9 of the (Y/n) Lively-Reynolds series

Tom Holland x Singer/Actress!Lively-Reynolds!Reader

Summary: (Y/n) goes on GQ to explain her tattoos. It goes about as well as you can imagine.

Warnings: *smirks* just a couple of breakdown inducing fluffy things, no big deal, also a heavy load of background on (Y/n)’s life, as well as some mention of Louis and Harry’s closeting situation because my Larrie bones are strong and they’re everywhere

Word Count: 2.5k words

Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes

A/N: Haha. Get guessing. And yes I did spend an hour on Picsart looking for the tattoos I wanted and putting them here so you have visual support for what I'm gonna be saying.

Also, in case you missed it, there is one more bonus chapter added to this series, you can check it out on the masterlist or here:

BONUS 6

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Click.

(Y/n) Lively-Reynolds appears, sitting on a stool in front of a white background. She’s wearing a white corset top, solid silk on the cups but see through everywhere else, as well as a light blue skirt and some white pumps.

She’s gesturing to her left arm.

“I actually have my next one planned really soon. It’s gonna be just a massive wolf’s head on my upper arm- why are you cringing? How did you end up doing a tattoo segment if tattoos scare you, Claire?”

Cut.

“Hi, I’m (Y/n) Lively-Reynolds and today, I’m here to break down my tattoos!”

The screen shows a number of her tattoos from a few different angles, before turning back to her.

“Alright, let’s try to do this chronologically. So the first tattoos I got were these ones on my outer ankle.”

The camera shows the tattoos, two short words following the curves of each of her lateral malleoli.

“I got these the day I turned eighteen. It’s my parents’ nicknames for me, written in their handwriting. Mom’s always called me angel cause well, I am one.”

She looks at the camera with an expression that screams “duh”.

“And Dad calls me daffodil cause it means new beginning in the language of flowers, and well, we’ve both had those.”

Next is a series of Roman numerals spelling XI-XIII-MMVIII just under her left collarbone.

“This one I got on my Mom’s birthday, just after the first two. It’s the date she adopted me and that we decided to use as my official birthday cause apparently I exude Scorpio energy. Mom often says she should have waited a few weeks cause two Scorpios in one household isn’t manageable. I don’t know what she’s talking about, I’m a delight to be around, especially when my Dad’s involved as well.”

Off-screen, someone asks.

“Do you know your actual date of birth, though?”

“I don’t, actually. The government whipped up a birth certificate when I was left at the orphanage, and they had to guess a bit, but it’s not fully accurate. I figured I’d just keep the day Mom adopted me as my birthday, cause it really did feel like that was the day I was born, you know? It didn’t feel like living until Mom showed me how to.”

The camera cuts to a view of her left arm, where a familiar symbol is tattooed.

“This one here I got the day I filmed my last episode for Supernatural. It’s the anti-possession tattoo that you see on the show, in the exact same place my character had hers. So yeah, a nice memory from the show which also keeps me safe from any demons wanting to take control of my meat suit.”

She smiles cheekily and the crew laughs.

The camera then shows a video of her chest, where the symbols for woman and man are connected by an infinity sign on her sternum. Her hands cover her breasts, and we can see that her nails are painted in a soft pink colour.

“This one I got when I was… nineteen? I think? I was at Comic-Con, during a panel for Supernatural and a girl named Sarah, she had to be a couple of years younger than me at the time… She told me that I was the reason she came out, that she understood that being bisexual is okay and she doesn’t have to choose, then she thanked me for helping her learn who she is.

“That was the moment I realised that I can do good with my platform, that what I say and how I act matter. I scheduled an appointment at Funhouse right after that and I got this tattoo the same day.”

The camera then shows a view of her left wrist, where the word breathe is written.

“This one I got a few months after Supernatural ended. While I was on the show, everyone protected me, cause I was so young. For two years, I lived in a bit of a happy bubble where I got to do what I loved without having to worry about many of the responsibilities.

“But when it ended, that changed. Suddenly, I was getting scripts left and right, people were recognizing me on the streets much more often, tabloids printed out the most gruesome and untrue gossip about me, everyone was wondering what my next step would be, including me…

“It was all a bit overwhelming. I got this cause it’s in an easy-access place, and I can discreetly trace it whenever I’m nervous. It’s such a simple reminder, to breathe, but it got me through a lot of tough times when I was making the transition between being the child of someone famous that few people know or care about, to being someone famous myself.”

The camera then pans to her right ribcage, showing three delicate butterflies.

“I got this one when I was twenty-two. Up until then, I’d always been living with someone, whether that be my parents, or friends that I’d already made.

“But when I started filming for Forsaken, I didn’t have any of that. The plot of the movie is that my character, Adelia, is the sole survivor of a shipwreck and has to learn to take care of herself on a deserted island. It’s not until well into the film that we discover that there’s a tribe living on that island, on the other side of the mountains, and she joins them.

“As such, most of the initial filming was done alone. I was on a Hawaiian island, I only had the crew around me, and as much as I bonded with them, it wasn’t the same as when you have a cast to share the load of filming.

“Much like my character, I had to learn to become independent, to live without my parents or my friends around to always remind me what to do. I didn’t have a PA at the time, either, so I had to learn to check my own schedule and make sure everything was in the right place. It sounds very spoiled, but when we’re filming, we’re extremely busy, so I was sort of on overdrive all the time.

“But at the same time, it made me feel grown, free. I knew that I could take care of myself, but that was the confirmation that I wasn’t a little girl anymore. So as soon as filming was over, I got these tattooed, to represent the freedom and the changes I went through during that filming.”

Subtitles appear on the screen, transcribing a question asked by the interviewer off-screen.

“Do you think that’s what made your performance so good? Even mentioned by some critics as the best performance of your career?”

She nods.

“Definitely. It’s the work I’m most proud of. I think because we went through similar things, I really managed to identify with Adelia. I think at some point the lines between me and her blurred. There’s a big part of me in Adelia and how she’s portrayed, but there’s also a part of Adelia in me, that I’ll most likely carry forever.”

The camera then shows her left ribcage, on the side of her body, where Louis Tomlinson’s famous smiley face is tattooed, along with the phrase we’ll be alright underneath. The lines are a bit wobbly, as though they weren’t done professionally, but the smile on her face as she talks about them is blinding.

“These are two of my favourites, actually. They’re two tattoos that complement each other, and I got them done just last year, in February. Louis and Harry have always been a big inspiration to me, not only because they’re amazing lyricists and performers, but because they stayed together through years of abuse, closeting, and homophobia until circumstances were finally right for them to come out. Since at the time, I was in a somewhat secret relationship as well, it felt nice to talk to someone who understood that yes, I want to brag about my boyfriend, but I don’t want everyone forcing me to admit something so private. I wanted things to be done on our own terms, and Lou and Haz understood that.

“I spent two months with them, showing them my songs, getting closer to them, as well. We started out as mere acquaintances because Taylor introduced us, and two weeks into my stay, I could honestly say they’re some of my closest friends.

“So, after much begging on my part and promises that I would not regret it, I convinced them to tattoo me. Louis did the smiley face with the x’s, cause I love it and I’d always wanted to get it. Then Harry did the we’ll be alright underneath, for two reasons: one is that it’s a reference to Fine Line, my absolute favourite song of his, and a great inspiration for my own debut album, and two is that it’s just a gentle reminder that when everything’s going wrong, it’ll be alright eventually.”

Next is a dragon tattoo on her right thigh. It takes up almost the entire surface of it and is extremely detailed.

“This one, I’m not gonna lie, it hurt like a motherfucker. It’s the most detailed one I have, too. At first, I barely even felt anything, because the thighs aren’t as sensitive, so I was lulled into a false sense of security. But the tattoo was huge and detailed, and it has a lot of shading as you can see.

“I was alright for the first hour, and the second only hurt a little, kind of like how when I got my butterfly tattoos. By hour three it was starting to be really fucking painful, and by the time the artist was doing the last shading, I was ready to chop off my legs and be done with it, it hurt so bad. I wanted to seem tough, so I just followed the instructions calmly and walked out of the studio, but as soon as the door closed and they couldn’t see me anymore, I had Tommy carry me out. I could barely walk.

“Seriously, four hours in what feels like constantly the same spot was– complicated, my leg was sore for a couple of days. Tommy loved it, of course, he likes taking care of me, and he’ll take any opportunity to get to touch me so I just let him mother-hen me a bit.

“Besides, the tattoo was an homage to him so he felt like it was partially his fault that I was suffering. I got it right after we went public with our relationship because dragons are a symbol of strength and hidden knowledge. It’s my way to remember that no matter how much everyone talks and thinks they know everything, we’re the only ones who know who we really are.”

She looks off screen and snorts.

“Oh, my God, are you crying? Maisie, no, don’t cry! If you start crying, I’ll start crying and then my makeup will be ruined.”

Cut.

(Y/n) gently wipes her eyes.

“Oof, okay, that’s enough of that, we still have a couple more. Now, what came after the dragon? Oh, right! The snake!”

The camera now shows a familiar snake, tattooed onto the middle of her back, right over her spine.

“I got this one the day my debut album, Stepping Stones, came out. The snake is my album cover, and although many people see it as a negative symbol, it’s completely different in my book.

“Snakes represent rebirth and transformation, they’re a symbol of creative life force. This album was very personal to me. Lyrically, it can be very vague, and represent many things, but if you look closely enough, it’s like you’ll get a peek into my mind, and into all the moments where I’ve had to change, adapt, and overcome difficulties. This one also hurt like a bitch, which, after the dragon one I should have been discouraged but… Tom always jokes and calls me a masochist cause I keep getting tattoos even though I always end up crying afterwards.”

Finally, the camera pans to her left collarbone, where a series of Roman numerals sits parallel to the first ones, spelling out XVII-XII-MMXXII.

The camera switches back to her just in time to see the brief panic pass through her face, that she cleverly disguises with a laugh.

“This one’s my most recent one! I got it about ten days ago! It’s the date we adopted our dog, Atalanta. She’s a rescue and had been at the shelter ever since she was just a couple of weeks old. Tom actually went there with Harrison, his best friend, cause he was looking to get a cat. But Tom saw Tala and it was love at first sight. So now I have two golden retrievers instead of just one.”

Cut.

She smiles.

“And that’s all the tattoos I have for now! I want to say a special thank you to my interviewer, Claire, my camerawoman, Maisie, and my amazing PA, Georgia, for making this interview run smoothly and not be extremely awkward given that you saw me half-naked for a lot of it.”

The crew laughs and she blows them kisses.

“Anyway, I hope you liked this video, and don’t forget to subscribe to GQ for more videos like these!”

End of video.

Recommended:

TomYn got engaged??? Rumors explained

Larry Stylinson being that most powerful of power couples for 45 minutes gay

(Y/n) Lively-Reynolds funny moments [2022 version]

62,597,135 views ● December 28th 2022

48M 👍 367K 👎

756,125 comments

yn_my_beloved: if wasn’t sure i was a lesbian before this video i definitely am now, holy shit, where i can get one?

tomfuckinghotland: i love how literally every tattoo has a meaning, no matter how small it is, and she just- lets us in on them? Like up until now i thought she got the butterflies cause they were pretty but omg!!! I’ve never felt so honoured to be let into someone’s mind

iphoneconspiracies28: (Y/n)’s really just out here living all our collective dreams, getting to hang out with Larry and have them tattoo her!!! ALEXA PLAY I WISH BY ONE DIRECTION

girlsboysandyn: I’m sorry, you’re telling me that the bisexual symbol tattoo was a result of me telling (Y/n) she gave me the courage to come out? She remembers me? I made a difference in her life? That’s it, I’ve peaked.

steppingstonesholland: Uh… Guys. The date she has written is December 17th 2022. They adopted Atalanta on December 3rd. And the panic??? What does this mean?? ARE THE ENGAGEMENT RUMORS TRUE PLS I CAN’T HANDLE THIS HOLY FUCKING SHIT

tomynschild: New prompt just dropped: Tom taking care of (Y/n) after she got the dragon tattoo, writers, make us proud.

(Y/n) Lively-Reynolds ✔ reply to tomynschild: Do you think it would get them writing faster if I posted a couple of the videos I took of when he was taking care of me?

tomynschild reply to (Y/n) Lively-Reynolds ✔: Most definitely yes please mom.

#libby writes #tynlrs #the (y/n) lively reynolds series #tom holland #tom holland x reader #lively reynolds!reader #singer!reader #songwriter!reader #actress!reader #ryan reynolds #blake lively #taylor swift #louis tomlinson #harry styles #larry stylinson #marvel

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richincolor · 3 years

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Learning About the Present Through Our Past

There are people who would say that students in the U.S. do not get a comprehensive education when it comes to history. So how can we understand our present and work toward our future without a clear view of our past? There may be some schools or teachers who are doing an excellent job, but in many cases we still have a very long way to go. This makes access to thorough and accurate accounts all the more important for young readers. Here are two recent books that could help fill in some gaps.

Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party's Promise to the People by Kekla Magoon [available Sept. 28] (Review copy provided by Candlewick)

Publisher summary: In this comprehensive, inspiring, and all-too-relevant history of the Black Panther Party, Kekla Magoon introduces readers to the Panthers’ community activism, grounded in the concept of self-defense, which taught Black Americans how to protect and support themselves in a country that treated them like second-class citizens. For too long the Panthers’ story has been a footnote to the civil rights movement rather than what it was: a revolutionary socialist movement that drew thousands of members—mostly women—and became the target of one of the most sustained repression efforts ever made by the U.S. government against its own citizens.

Revolution in Our Time puts the Panthers in the proper context of Black American history, from the first arrival of enslaved people to the Black Lives Matter movement of today. Kekla Magoon’s eye-opening work invites a new generation of readers grappling with injustices in the United States to learn from the Panthers’ history and courage, inspiring them to take their own place in the ongoing fight for justice.

A few thoughts: Aside from the middle grade book One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia and Kekla Magoon's own teen novels The Rock and the River and Fire in the Streets, not much literature exists for young readers featuring the Black Panthers. That was why I was very excited to see this available for teens, but I think adults will also appreciate it. Revolution in Our Time begins with one of the events that brought the Panthers to national attention, but also goes back hundreds of years explaining many actions and events in history that led to that moment. Readers can see how the organization came together, shaped their collective identity, and got to work.

It's a very comprehensive look at the members and their day-to-day activities, victories, losses, and the many challenges they ran up against. It also includes a look into the many instances of governmental opposition. The Panthers were strong and did want to be seen that way, but their opponents painted them as violent and dangerous and that image is the only picture that many folks still hold in their memories. Here people can see a much more complete and accurate view.

The actual details and the stories are awesome by themselves, but the way that Magoon connects the past to our present makes this an incredibly powerful work. The final sections of the book are a call to action. The Black Panthers' average age was 19. Young people can do amazing things. There's a lot to learn by looking at the past and there's so much potential and opportunity for young people to make change happen today.

From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry: The Killing of Vincent Chin and the Trial that Galvanized the Asian American Movement by Paula Yoo Norton Young Readers

Publisher summary: America in 1982: Japanese car companies are on the rise and believed to be putting U.S. autoworkers out of their jobs. Anti–Asian American sentiment simmers, especially in Detroit. A bar fight turns fatal, leaving a Chinese American man, Vincent Chin, beaten to death at the hands of two white men, autoworker Ronald Ebens and his stepson, Michael Nitz.

Paula Yoo has crafted a searing examination of the killing and the trial and verdicts that followed. When Ebens and Nitz pled guilty to manslaughter and received only a $3,000 fine and three years’ probation, the lenient sentence sparked outrage. The protests that followed led to a federal civil rights trial—the first involving a crime against an Asian American—and galvanized what came to be known as the Asian American movement.

Extensively researched from court transcripts, contemporary news accounts, and in-person interviews with key participants, From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry is a suspenseful, nuanced, and authoritative portrait of a pivotal moment in civil rights history, and a man who became a symbol against hatred and racism.

A few thoughts: It's clear that Paula Yoo did an incredible amount of research and she carefully unraveled many layers of this complicated story. Vincent Chin was brutally killed and though to some it may seem like an isolated event, it happened during a time when there was increasing anti-Asian sentiment brewing. Yoo takes the time to explain many things that had happened contributing to the creation of this environment. She uses the personal history of Vincent's family and even goes back through U.S. history as a whole to see the threads of hatred and racism that had been there over time.

The narrative includes many people involved in the case and explores their lives and actions--and where possible--their motivations. Seeing Vincent's friends and family up close makes the loss very difficult to witness even just via the page.

A powerful aspect of this book is seeing the way people pulled together and spoke up. They formed Asian American advocacy organizations and some aspects of the justice system were even changed as a result of the work done around Vincent's case. Unfortunately, this book is very timely. It was published during a time of rising violence and racism against people of Asian descent in the U.S. Yoo shows readers that our present has come about because of our past, but our past can also inform and inspire us.

Here are links to a few more YA nonfiction history books that we've featured in the past:

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz adapted by Debbie Reese and Jean Mendoza

We Are Not Yet Equal: Understanding Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson and Tonya Bolden

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi

A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 by Claire Hartfield

Courage Has No Color: The True Story of the Triple Nickles by Tanya Stone

Infinite Hope: A Black Artist's Journey from WWII to Peace by Ashley Bryan

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, & Harmony Becker

Pipestone: My Life in an Indian Boarding School by Adam Fortunate Eagle

Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White by Lila Quintero Weaver

The March graphic novel series books 1-3 by John Lewis with Andrew Aydin and artist Nate Powell

In addition to books written specifically for the YA market, there are also some fantastic historical picture books for children, teens, and even adults. Here are a few that are exceptional:

Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre by Carole Boston Weatherford illustrated by Floyd Cooper

Queen of Physics: How Wu Chien Shiung Helped Unlock the Secrets of the Atom by Teresa Robeson illustrated by Rebecca Huang

Freedom in Congo Square by Carole Boston Weatherford and R. Gregory Christie

I Am Not a Number by Jenny Kay Dupuis and Kathy Kacer illustrated by Gillian Newland

Twenty-two Cents: Muhammad Yunus and the Village Bank by Paula Yoo illustrated by Jamel Akib

Separate is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez & Her Family's Fight for Desegregation by Duncan Tonatiuh

The Book Itch: Freedom, Truth & Harlem's Greatest Bookstore by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson illustrated by R. Gregory Christie

Fry Bread: A Native American Family Tradition by Kevin Noble Mailland illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal

Paper Son: The Inspiring Story of Tyrus Hong, Immigrant and Artist by Julie Leung illustrated by Chris Sasaki

A Day for Rememberin': Inspired by the True Events of the First Memorial Day by Leah Henderson illustrated by Floyd Cooper

Overground Railroad by Lesa Cline-Ransome and James Ransome

Soldier for Equality: José de la Luz Sáenz and the Great War by Duncan Tonatiuh

If you are aware of other books we should watch for, please let us know.

#history #YALit #history in picture books #kekla magoon #paula yoo

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snowonthebeachftlana · 3 years

Text

July 2016

Jul 3rd - Taylor's 4th of July festivities kick off at her Rhode Island house. Guests include Tom Hiddleston, Abigail Anderson, Matt Lucier, Claire Winter, Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Karlie Kloss, Josh Kushner, Austin Swift, Ruby Rose, Harley Gusman, Halston Sage, Gigi Hadid, Cara Delevingne, Britany Maack, Ben LaManna, Martha Hunt, Jason McDonald, Uzo Aduba, Chioma Aduba, Jordan Masterson, Kesha, St Vincent, Ed Sheeran, Cherry Seaborn, Rachel Platten, Kennedy Rayé and the Haim sisters. (x) (x) (x) (x)

This is the day Tom wears the infamous 'I <3 TS' tank top while they're all at the beach. (x)

Jul 4th - The online mockery for the 'I <3 TS' shirt is quick to pour in. Daily Mail commenters are yet to shut up about it in 2021.

The party continues with a giant inflatable waterslide, body painting, karaoke, charades and fireworks. (x) And also Kesha and Haim getting tricked by Cara, Uzo and Ruby into thinking they heard scary noises in the night, and trying to call the police but not knowing their own location. (x) (x)

Jul 5th - The day after the party, when all the guests post their photos online.

Britany posts a photo of her & Ben, Blake & Ryan, and Taylor & Tom. (x) The internet has a field day with Ryan's unimpressed facial expression. (x) (Ryan later says that it's just his resting bitch face as he wasn't aware a photo was being taken. (x))

Taylor posts several photos to Instagram of her celebrating the 4th July with friends, but doesn't post any pictures with Tom. (x)

Claire Winter posts a bunch of Polaroids, including one of Taylor and Tom kissing. (x)

Abigail posts a photo to Instagram showing the banners Taylor put up to celebrate her engagement to Matt and the anniversaries of Cara & St Vincent (real name Annie Clark) and Ed & Cherry. (x)

Jul 6th - Taylor and Tom fly out of Rhode Island (x) and arrive at LAX that evening. (x) They then get on a plane to Australia.

Joe attends the Warner Music Group summer party in London. (x)

Rumours are swirling that Tom is no longer in consideration to be the next Bond, due to his relationship with Taylor. (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

Jul 8th - Taylor and Tom are flying on a commercial Quantas flight so someone is able to take a pic of them on the plane. (x)

According to another passenger on the plane, Taylor plays Scrabble during the flight (presumably on her phone because nobody takes big physical board games on commercial flights and the creepshot of Hiddleswift on the plane suggests she wouldn't have had anywhere to put the board anyway). In hindsight, knowing how Taylor and Joe play lots of Scrabble together including online Scrabble aka Words With Friends, and how they stayed in touch largely via texting that summer, it’s very possible she was playing against Joe.

Taylor and Tom arrive in Sydney, where Tom is about to start filming for Thor: Ragnarok. (x) Aussie media, including daytime TV, goes nuts over Hiddleswift's arrival in the country. (x)

Flying from LA to Australia involves crossing the international dateline, so they would have left the US on the 6th July local time and arrived in Sydney approx 15 hours later on the 8th July local time.

Calvin's new song Olé, written for John Newman, is released. There is speculation that it's a Hiddleswift song, written from Tom's perspective and containing lyrics implying that Taylor cheated on Calvin with Tom. However, sources also told multiple outlets that the song was written and recorded months earlier, and its supposed links to Hiddleswift were just for publicity. (x) (x)

Jul 9th - Tom goes out for a run (x) and avoids answering questions about Taylor. (x)

Jul 10th - Taylor and Tom go out for dinner to Gemelli Italian restaurant in Broadbeach on Australia's Gold Coast. (x)

Jul 11th - Taylor is named as the highest earning celebrity on the 2016 Forbes Celebrity 100 list, with earnings of $170m mostly due to the 1989 World Tour. If she and Calvin had not split up, they would have been the top-earning celebrity couple. (x)

Jul 12th - Taylor visits Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital in South Brisbane. (x)

Jul 13th - Us Weekly makes a wild claim that Tom is planning to propose soon, and Taylor is going to say yes. The magazine cover also claims they're already talking about babies. (x)

TMZ claims that Taylor wrote TIWYCF, and that Calvin disrespecting Taylor following its release was the reason for their breakup. (x)

Taylor Swift really is the creative brains behind Calvin Harris' monster hit "This is What You Came For," and their relationship fell apart because he disrespected her when the song was released ... this according to sources connected with Taylor.

It's a fascinating story. We've learned an early fan rumor about the song is true, but to a deeper extent than anyone suspected. During their relationship, Taylor wrote the song, sat down at a piano and did a demo into her iPhone. She sent it to Calvin, who loved it. They both went into a studio and did a full demo with Taylor on vocals and Calvin doing the beat.

They both knew the song would be a hit, but Taylor wrote it for Calvin and both agreed it was a bad idea to let the world know they collaborated as a couple ... it would overshadow the song.

So Taylor, who kept the publishing rights, used the pseudonym Nils Sjoberg on the credits.

The problem in the relationship came the day the song was released. Calvin appeared on Ryan Seacrest's radio show and Ryan asked, "Will you do a collaboration with your girlfriend?" Calvin responded, "You know we haven't even spoken about it. I can't see it happening though."

We're told Taylor was hurt and felt Calvin took it too far.

It was a quick downward spiral from that point. One source called it "the breaking point in the relationship." The Met Gala was several days later, when Taylor danced with Tom Hiddleston.

Tree confirms to People magazine that Taylor did write TIWYCF under the pseudonym Nils Sjöberg. (x)

Calvin also confirms that Taylor wrote TIWYCF and goes on a Twitter rant:

Katy Perry tweets a gif of Hillary Clinton with a smug/'told you so' expression. (x) She also retweets an older tweet from May 2015 which reads, 'Time, the ultimate truth teller.' (x)

#TaylorSwiftIsOverParty trends on Twitter (x) (x) and Taylor's Instagram comments are spammed with the snake emoji. (x)

Following Calvin's tweets, TMZ publishes another article claiming he is downplaying Taylor's involvement in the song as she wrote the melody in addition to the lyrics. (x)

Jul 14th - Taylor goes out shopping in Gold Coast. (x)

Tom mentions Taylor in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter: (x)

You're in the middle of a cultural frenzy right now because you're dating Taylor Swift. How would you respond to people who claim that you're involved in some sort of publicity stunt?

(Laughs.) Well, um. How best to put this? That notion is — look, the truth is that Taylor Swift and I are together, and we're very happy. Thanks for asking. That's the truth. It's not a publicity stunt.

Martha says at a Pepsi/World Emoji Day event that Taylor and Tom are 'both happy and free together. It's amazing, I'm all about people being happy in love.' (x)

Kim talks about Taylor and the Famous controversy in a clip from an upcoming episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians. (x)

“I never talk shit about anyone publicly, especially in interviews. But I was just like I had so had it,” Kim says in the clip to her sister Kourtney. “I wanted to defend him in it. She legitimately quote says, ‘As soon as I get on that Grammy red carpet I’m gonna tell all the press. Like I was in on it.’”

“And then she just didn’t like the reaction?” Kourtney says in response.

“Yeah, and you know just another way to play the victim,” Kim replies. She then brings the infamous VMAs moment from 2009 by saying, “It definitely got her a lot of attention the first time… I just don’t think he should be punished for it still to this day.”

Jul 17th - Kim posts an edited recording of Kanye and Taylor's phone call. In it, they discuss the 'I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex' line and Taylor says, 'Go with whatever line you think is better. It’s obviously very tongue in cheek either way. And I really appreciate you telling me about it. That’s really nice.' However, nowhere in the Snapchat video does Kanye consult her about the line, 'I made that bitch famous,' which is the line Taylor insisted she had never approved. (x) The other Kardashian sisters retweet and support Kim. (x)

(The full recording of the call, leaked in 2020, confirms that Kanye never told Taylor he was going to call her a bitch. It also shows her reminding him that she sold 7 million albums before he had even heard of her, in response to him suggesting the lyric, 'I made her famous.')

Kim takes to Twitter to call Taylor a snake.

Taylor posts a statement on Instagram responding to Kim's Snapchat video. (x)

Selena tweets, 'There are more important things to talk about… Why can’t people use their voice for something that fucking matters? This industry is so disappointing yet the most influential smh' (x)

Katy Perry tweets, '#RISE above it all' and links to her new single. People interpret it as a dig at Taylor. (x)

Martha Hunt tweets, 'It's pathetic how quick our culture is to sensationalize a fabricated story...' (x)

Jul 18th - #KimExposedTaylorParty spends the day trending at number one worldwide on Twitter. (x) To the point where 0.8% of all tweets posted in the entire week from the 18th-24th use the hashtag. (x) (Assuming that 1/7th of the week's total tweets were posted on each day, that means more than 1 in every 20 tweets on the 18th used the hashtag.) #TaylorSwiftIsOverParty also returns.

TMZ claims to have a copy of a letter from Taylor's lawyer, dating back to February, demanding that Kanye destroy the recording of their phone conversation and reminding him that it is a felony to secretly record a phone conversation in California. (x)

Taylor changes the name on her writing credits for TIWYCF on the BMI songwriters database. She is now listed as Taylor Swift instead of Nils Sjöberg. (x)

Camilla Belle, the subject of Taylor's 2010 song Better Than Revenge, posts a quote to Instagram which reads, 'No need for revenge. Just sit back & wait. Those who hurt you will eventually screw up themselves & if you’re lucky, God will let you watch.' (x)

Abigail tweets against Kim and Kanye, saying, 'May God forgive you & your wife for doing to others the very things you pray are NEVER done to your daughter.' She deletes the tweets after receiving death threats but leaves a tweet which reads, 'Guys…I will always stand by my best friend. There's no point in fighting over that.' (x)

Joseph Kahn (director of many of Taylor's music videos) defends Taylor on Twitter. (x)

The aunt of Dinah Jane from Fifth Harmony tweets, 'I always knew @/taylorswift13 was a SNAKE! Trying 2 break up my girls & use @/camilacabello97 as her protégé bitch bye you’ve been exposed!’ (x) The tweet is soon deleted and she claims her account was hacked. (x) (Camila quit the band at the end of 2016 and has since said that Taylor had nothing to do with her decision to leave.) (x)

Paula Erickson, Taylor’s former publicist from 2007 until 2014, likes a two-and-a-half-week-old tweet dragging Hiddleswift for being a badly executed bit of PR by Taylor and Tree. (x)

James Corden spoofs the recorded phone call on the Late Late Show. (x)

Calvin is rumoured to be dating Tinashe. (x)

Jul 20th - Todrick Hall defends Taylor, saying, 'She's one of the most genuine people I've ever met in my entire life.' (x)

Uzo Aduba says Taylor is 'a beautiful person and strong' and that she will overcome the Kimye drama. (x)

Paula likes another tweet shading Taylor and Tree. (x)

A graffiti artist creates a mural in Melbourne 'in loving memory of Taylor Swift' (misspelled as Smith). According to the artist, they are then contacted by Taylor's lawyers and threatened with legal action. (x)

Jul 21st - Taylor's Wikipedia page is vandalised with insults. (x)

Taylor and Tom fly back from Australia into a private airport in LA, and are seen out and about. (x) (x)

Jul 22nd - Fergie, who had Kim appear in her M.I.L.F. $ music video, says she thinks the Kimye-Taylor feud was planned and 'they’ll probably all come together at the MTV Awards or something.' (x)

Taylor goes to the gym in LA. It is the first time she has appeared in public since Kim posted the edited video, and her phone screen is now shattered. (x)

She also returns to Instagram to wish Selena a happy birthday. (x)

Jul 23rd - Taylor goes to the gym in LA. (x)

Tom is at Comic Con in San Diego. (x)

Calvin lip-syncs to Kanye's song That Part in a video posted on his Snapchat. (x) He also attends J-Lo's birthday party and is photographed with Kim. Apparently they have a friendly chat. (x) A source claims to E!, 'When Kim walked in Calvin saw her and stood up. He was clearly excited to see her and said 'hi' to Kim backstage.' (x)

Jul 24th - Taylor blocks the snake emoji from her Instagram comments section using a new Instagram feature. (x)

Tom is seen at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills with members of Taylor's security team. (x)

Jul 26th - Tom flies back to LA from NYC, where he has just spent a couple of days. On the same day, Taylor's plane arrives back in LA from Nashville, where she has spent a couple of days. (x)

VMA nominations are announced. Taylor is not nominated in any category, despite Out Of The Woods and Wildest Dreams being eligible, leading some people to think she has been snubbed. Gossip Cop, an outlet widely used by celebrity publicists to quietly squash rumours, says that Taylor did not submit any videos for consideration this year. (x)

Jul 27th - Taylor goes to the gym in LA. (x)

John Newman, singer of Calvin's song Olé, jokes, 'Supposedly we had a holiday where he was movin’ on from his ex-missus,' referring to the trip to Mexico to film the music video, which involved girls and a yacht. He also says he doesn't think it's his place to say what inspired Calvin to write the song. (x)

Taylor and Tom go for dinner at Hillstone restaurant in Santa Monica. One source claims they 'seemed to really be enjoying each others’ company.' (x) It is the last time they are papped together.

Kanye makes a surprise appearance at Drake's concert in Chicago where he responds to Kim's Snapchat video for the first time, saying, 'All I gotta say is, I am so glad my wife has Snapchat. Because now y’all can know the truth. And can’t nobody talk shit about ‘Ye no more.' (x)

Cara appears on James Corden's show and talks about how she, Uzo and Ruby pranked Kesha and Haim at Taylor's 4th of July party. She mentions consulting Taylor and Tom first so that security knew what they were up to. She also says that Taylor and Tom got woken up at one point by all the noise they were making, and came upstairs together to find Cara and Uzo still making ghost noises. (x)

Jul 28th - Taylor goes to the gym in LA. (x)

Jul 29th - Sources close to Calvin deny rumours that he is planning to collaborate on music with Kanye. (x)

Abigail likes E! News' Instagram photo of Tom and Taylor going out for dinner on the 27th, which has a gushing caption about them. (x)

Jul 31st - Taylor is seen entering her gym in LA through the back door. (x)

A fan sees Tom and Taylor at The Church Key restaurant in LA. (x) The outing is not papped.

Intro // February // March // April // May // June // July // August // September // October // November

#taylor swift #hiddleswift #tayvin #swiftwyn #jaylor #toe #taylor swift in 2016 #timeline

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readerbookclub · 3 years

Text

Before introducing our newest book list, I want to say sorry about this month. It’s been underwhelming to say the least. So far this year was very chaotic (packing up to move countries, having the plane tickets cancelled, and getting into Oxford?!). Between everything that happened, I neglected this club. But I’m very excited and well-prepared for next month, so it won’t happen again at least in the foreseeable future. We also have several enthusiastic new members who’ve messaged me, so hopefully our discussion will be even more lively this time!

Now back to our newest book list. Not to brag, but I think this is the best one yet. Time Warp is a collection of books that bend and play with time. It’s such an interesting topic that includes books from many different genres. Several of your recommendations also fit in perfectly. So let’s jump right in!

Typically stories play out over the span of weeks, months, or even years. But what if a writer were to shrink that timeline? Not to days or hours, but the mere seconds it takes to ride an elevator? Well, that’s what Jason Reynolds did in our first book, a story that lasts for a single elevator ride:

Long Way Down, Jason Reynolds:

A cannon. A strap. A piece. A biscuit. A burner. A heater. A chopper. A gat. A hammer A tool for RULE Or, you can call it a gun. That’s what fifteen-year-old Will has shoved in the back waistband of his jeans. See, his brother Shawn was just murdered. And Will knows the rules. No crying. No snitching. Revenge. That’s where Will’s now heading, with that gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, the gun that was his brother’s gun. He gets on the elevator, seventh floor, stoked. He knows who he’s after. Or does he? As the elevator stops on the sixth floor, on comes Buck. Buck, Will finds out, is who gave Shawn the gun before Will took the gun. Buck tells Will to check that the gun is even loaded. And that’s when Will sees that one bullet is missing. And the only one who could have fired Shawn’s gun was Shawn. Huh. Will didn’t know that Shawn had ever actually USED his gun. Bigger huh. BUCK IS DEAD. But Buck’s in the elevator? Just as Will’s trying to think this through, the door to the next floor opens. A teenage girl gets on, waves away the smoke from Dead Buck’s cigarette. Will doesn’t know her, but she knew him. Knew. When they were eight. And stray bullets had cut through the playground, and Will had tried to cover her, but she was hit anyway, and so what she wants to know, on that fifth floor elevator stop, is, what if Will, Will with the gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, MISSES. And so it goes, the whole long way down, as the elevator stops on each floor, and at each stop someone connected to his brother gets on to give Will a piece to a bigger story than the one he thinks he knows. A story that might never know an END…if WILL gets off that elevator.

***

Our next book warps time in a slightly different way. What if every time you woke up, you found yourself in the same day (a sort-of Groundhog Day situation)? But unlike Groundhog Day, you wake up in different bodies. This thrilling book was suggested to me by one of you, and I absolutely loved the premise:

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, by Stuart Turton:

Aiden Bishop knows the rules. Evelyn Hardcastle will die every day until he can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest at Blackheath Manor. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others. With a locked room mystery that Agatha Christie would envy, Stuart Turton unfurls a breakneck novel of intrigue and suspense. For fans of Claire North, and Kate Atkinson, The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a breathlessly addictive mystery that follows one man's race against time to find a killer, with an astonishing time-turning twist that means nothing and no one are quite what they seem.

***

Now we move on to an exciting genre: time travel! This next book was recommended to me by @earphonesandquills and I just had to put it on the list. A sci-fi love story between two people on opposite sides of a war:

This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone:

Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future. Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There's still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war.

***

Typically, the protagonists of time-travel books are very intelligent people. But what would happen if someone wasn’t so competent? What if they fucked it up? That’s exactly what the protagonist in our next book does. Coming from a perfect reality, he messes up and finds himself in a horrifying dystopia (aka our world):

All Our Wrong Todays, Elan Mastai:

You know the future that people in the 1950s imagined we'd have? Well, it happened. In Tom Barren's 2016, humanity thrives in a techno-utopian paradise of flying cars, moving sidewalks, and moon bases, where avocados never go bad and punk rock never existed . . . because it wasn't necessary. Except Tom just can't seem to find his place in this dazzling, idealistic world, and that's before his life gets turned upside down. Utterly blindsided by an accident of fate, Tom makes a rash decision that drastically changes not only his own life but the very fabric of the universe itself. In a time-travel mishap, Tom finds himself stranded in our 2016, what we think of as the real world. For Tom, our normal reality seems like a dystopian wasteland. But when he discovers wonderfully unexpected versions of his family, his career, and—maybe, just maybe—his soul mate, Tom has a decision to make. Does he fix the flow of history, bringing his utopian universe back into existence, or does he try to forge a new life in our messy, unpredictable reality? Tom’s search for the answer takes him across countries, continents, and timelines in a quest to figure out, finally, who he really is and what his future—our future—is supposed to be.

***

Our final book is something I never knew I needed until I found it. I have spent way too much time day dreaming about a scenario where I find myself in the distant past. I imagine myself telling people about electricity and planes and modern medicine. But if they asked me to actually make something, I wouldn’t be able to. And that bothers me. This book is the solution. It’s a non-fiction guide on what to do if you were to find yourself in such a scenario (as unlikely as it may seem):

How to Invent Everything: A Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler, by Ryan North:

What would you do if a time machine hurled you thousands of years into the past. . . and then broke? How would you survive? Could you improve on humanity's original timeline? And how hard would it be to domesticate a giant wombat? With this book as your guide, you'll survive--and thrive--in any period in Earth's history. Bestselling author and time-travel enthusiast Ryan North shows you how to invent all the modern conveniences we take for granted--from first principles. This illustrated manual contains all the science, engineering, art, philosophy, facts, and figures required for even the most clueless time traveler to build a civilization from the ground up. Deeply researched, irreverent, and significantly more fun than being eaten by a saber-toothed tiger, How to Invent Everything will make you smarter, more competent, and completely prepared to become the most important and influential person ever.

***

That’s it for this month’s list. Hope you like these books as much as I do! As always, please vote here.

Member’s List (message me if you want to be added/removed): @solitarystudies @adhyayana-v @gordinmegan @appleinducedsleep @morphedphase @lilian-evans @bowieziggyfan @calebprior25 @bluebellraven @love-witch-magic @badasthesun @theeezoneee @montaguest @wanderlustingdreamer @csloreen @elfspectations @astreamoflight @engineeriblr @chemistrybaby6-022x10-23 @pepperpaprikash @bubblylion

#book list #books #book club #booklr #long way down #time travel #sci fi #the 7 1/2 deaths of evelyn hardcastle #this is how you lose the time war #how to invent everything #all our wrong todays

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AFTERSHOCK COMICS Almost American #1 (Cover A Rus Wooton), $4.99 Almost American #1 (Cover B Juan Doe), AR Miles To Go #5, $3.99 Phantom On Scan #5, $3.99

AHOY COMICS Second Coming Only Begotten Son #4, $3.99

ARCHIE COMIC PUBLICATIONS Archie 80th Anniversary Jumbo Comics Digest #4, $7.99

AVATAR PRESS Providence Compendium TP, $29.99

AWA STUDIOS Telepaths #1 (Of 6)(Cover A Steve Epting), $3.99 Telepaths #1 (Of 6)(Cover B Mike Deodato Jr.), $3.99

BEHEMOTH COMICS You Promised Me Darkness #5 (Cover A Damian Connelly), $3.99 You Promised Me Darkness #5 (Cover B Damian Connelly), $3.99 You Promised Me Darkness #5 (Cover C Damian Connelly), $3.99

BLACK MASK COMICS Alice In Leatherland #5, $3.99 White #2 (2nd Printing Khary Randolph Cover), $3.99

BOOM! STUDIOS Basilisk #4 (Cover A Jonas Scharf), $3.99 Basilisk #4 (Cover B Declan Shalvey), $3.99 Basilisk #4 (Cover C Rafael Albuquerque Sense Virgin Variant), AR Basilisk #4 (Cover D Declan Shalvey Virgin Variant), AR Basilisk #4 (Cover E Jonas Scharf Virgin Variant), AR Buffy The Vampire Slayer #29 (Cover A Frany), $3.99 Buffy The Vampire Slayer #29 (Cover B Vasco Georgiev Multiversus Variant), $3.99 Buffy The Vampire Slayer #29 (Cover C Frany Virgin Variant), AR Buffy The Vampire Slayer #29 (Cover D Claire Roe), AR Buffy The Vampire Slayer #29 (Cover E Vasco Georgiev Multiversus Virgin Variant), AR Eighty Days HC, $29.99 Magic #6 (Cover A Qistina Khalidah), $4.99 Magic #6 (Cover B Vincenzo Riccardi), $4.99 Magic #6 (Cover C1 E.M. Gist Hidden Planeswalker Ashiok Variant), $4.99 Magic #6 (Cover C2 E.M. Gist Hidden Planeswalker Ashiok Black & White Virgin Variant), $4.99 Magic #6 (Cover C3 E.M. Gist Hidden Planeswalker Ashiok Virgin Variant), $4.99 Magic #6 (Cover D Ig Guara Character Design Variant), AR Magic #6 (Cover E Christian Ward), AR Magic #6 (Cover F Christian Ward Virgin Variant), AR Many Deaths Of Laila Starr #5 (Of 5)(Cover A Filipe Andrade), $3.99 Many Deaths Of Laila Starr #5 (Of 5)(Cover B Nimit Malavia Death Foil Variant), $4.99 Many Deaths Of Laila Starr #5 (Of 5)(Cover C Martin Simmonds), AR Many Deaths Of Laila Starr #5 (Of 5)(Cover D Martin Simmonds Virgin Variant), AR Saban’s Go Go Power Rangers Volume 9 TP, $16.99 We Only Find Them When They’re Dead #8 (Cover A Simone Di Meo), $3.99 We Only Find Them When They’re Dead #8 (Cover B Toni Infante Dead God Variant), $3.99 We Only Find Them When They’re Dead #8 (Cover C Marco Checchetto Virgin Variant), AR

COMIC SHOP NEWS Comic Shop News #1776, AR

DARK HORSE COMICS Black Hammer Reborn #3 (Of 12)(Cover A Caitlin Yarsky), $3.99 Black Hammer Reborn #3 (Of 12)(Cover B Fiona Stephenson), $3.99 EC Archives The Vault Of Horror Volume 1 TP, $19.99 Groo Meets Tarzan #2 (Of 4)(Cover A Sergio Aragones), $3.99 Lucky Devil #2 (Of 4)(Cover A Fran Galan), $3.99 Parasomnia #3 (Of 4)(Cover A Andrea Mutti), $3.99 Parasomnia #3 (Of 4)(Cover B Patric Reynolds), $3.99 Witcher Witch’s Lament #4 (Of 4)(Cover A Vanesa R. Del Rey), $3.99 Witcher Witch’s Lament #4 (Of 4)(Cover B Anato Finnstark), $3.99 Witcher Witch’s Lament #4 (Of 4)(Cover C Stefan Koidl), $3.99 Worst Dudes #4 (Of 5)(Cover A Tony Gregori), $3.99

DC COMICS Aquaman 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular #1 (One Shot)(Cover A Ivan Reis & Joe Prado), $9.99 Aquaman 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular #1 (One Shot)(Cover B Michael Cho 1940s Variant), $9.99 Aquaman 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular #1 (One Shot)(Cover C Ramona Fradon & Sandra Hope 1950s Variant), $9.99 Aquaman 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular #1 (One Shot)(Cover D Walter Simonson 1960s Variant), $9.99 Aquaman 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular #1 (One Shot)(Cover E Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez 1970s Variant), $9.99 Aquaman 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular #1 (One Shot)(Cover F Chuck Patton & Kevin Nowlan 1980s Variant), $9.99 Aquaman 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular #1 (One Shot)(Cover G Yvel Guichet 1990s Variant), $9.99 Aquaman 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular #1 (One Shot)(Cover H Becky Cloonan 2000s Variant), $9.99 Aquaman 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular #1 (One Shot)(Cover I Robson Rocha 2010s Variant), $9.99 Batman Adventures Cat Got Your Tongue TP, $9.99 Batman Fear State Alpha #1 (One Shot)(Cover A Ben Oliver), $4.99 Batman Fear State Alpha #1 (One Shot)(Cover B Dylan Teague Card Stock Variant), $5.99 Batman Fear State Alpha #1 (One Shot)(Cover D Jorge Jimenez Card Stock Variant), AR Batman Superman 2021 Annual #1 (Cover A Bryan Hitch Connected Flip Variant), $5.99 Batman Superman 2021 Annual #1 (Cover B Francesco Francavilla Connected Flip Card Stock Variant), $6.99 Batman Zero Year TP, $29.99 Dark Nights Death Metal #2 (Of 7)(Soundtrack Special Edition Grey Daze With Flexi Single Featuring Anything Anything), AR Dark Nights Death Metal #3 (Of 7)(Soundtrack Special Edition Denzel Curry With Flexi Single Featuring Bad Luck), AR Harley Quinn 2021 Annual #1 (Cover A David Lafuente), $5.99 Harley Quinn 2021 Annual #1 (Cover B Derrick Chew Card Stock Variant), $6.99 Infinite Frontier #5 (Of 6)(Cover A Mitch Gerads), $4.99 Infinite Frontier #5 (Of 6)(Cover B Bryan Hitch Card Stock Variant), $5.99 Infinite Frontier #5 (Of 6)(Cover C John K. Snyder III The Suicide Squad Movie Card Stock Variant), $5.99 Midnighter 2021 Annual #1 (Cover A Michael Avon Oeming), $5.99 Midnighter 2021 Annual #1 (Cover B Aco Card Stock Variant), $6.99 Preacher The 25th Anniversary Omnibus Volume 2 HC, $125.00 Static Season One #3 (Of 6)(Cover A Khary Randolph), $3.99 Static Season One #3 (Of 6)(Cover B Nikolas Draper-Ivey Card Stock Variant), $4.99 Swamp Thing New Roots TP, $16.99 Teen Titans Academy #6 (Cover A Rafa Sandoval), $3.99 Teen Titans Academy #6 (Cover B Steve Lieber Card Stock Variant), $4.99 Wonder Girl #3 (Cover A Joelle Jones), $3.99 Wonder Girl #3 (Cover B Matteo Scalera Card Stock Variant), $4.99

DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT Red Sonja #1 (Cover A Mirka Andolfo), $3.99 Red Sonja #1 (Cover B Jan Anacleto), $3.99 Red Sonja #1 (Cover C Joseph Michael Linsner), $3.99 Red Sonja #1 (Cover D Erica D’Urso), $3.99 Red Sonja #1 (Cover E Tabitha Lyons Cosplay Variant), $3.99 Red Sonja #1 (Cover F Blank Authentix Variant), $3.99 Red Sonja #1 (Cover G Brett Booth Original Art Variant), AR Vengeance Of Vampirella #21 (Cover A Lucio Parrillo), $3.99 Vengeance Of Vampirella #21 (Cover B Ben Oliver), $3.99 Vengeance Of Vampirella #21 (Cover C Stephen Segovia), $3.99 Vengeance Of Vampirella #21 (Cover D Rachel Hollon Cosplay Variant), $3.99 Vengeance Of Vampirella #21 (Cover E Stephen Segovia Virgin Variant), AR Vengeance Of Vampirella #21 (Cover F Rachel Hollon Cosplay Virgin Variant), AR

HEAVY METAL MAGAZINE Suneater Volume 1 TP, $19.99 Taarna Elements #1 (One Shot), $2.99

HERO TOMORROW COMICS Bloom #3 (Of 4)(Cover A Jay Gonzo), $3.99 Bloom #3 (Of 4)(Cover B Simon Berndt), $3.99 Bloom #3 (Of 4)(Cover C Chiara Colasanti), AR

HORRORHOUND HorrorHound #90, $6.99

HUMANOIDS Space Bastards Volume 1Tooth And Mail TP, $19.99

IDW PUBLISHING Crime Comics Confidential TP, $39.99 Marvel Action Origins #3 (Of 5)(Cover A Lanna Souvanny), $4.99 Marvel Action Origins #3 (Of 5)(Cover B Lanna Souvanny), $4.99 Marvel Action Origins #3 (Of 5)(Cover C Agnes Garbowska), AR Sonic The Hedgehog #43 (Cover A Thomas Rothlisberger), $3.99 Sonic The Hedgehog #43 (Cover B Matt Herms), $3.99 Sonic The Hedgehog #43 (Cover C Nathalie Fourdraine), AR Star Wars The High Republic Adventures #8 (Cover A Harvey Tolibao), $3.99 Star Wars The High Republic Adventures #8 (Cover B Ilias Kyriazis), AR Transformers #34 (Cover A Winston Chan), $3.99 Transformers #34 (Cover B Susan ‘Suna’ Margevich), $3.99 Transformers #34 (Cover C Andrew Griffith), AR Transformers King Grimlock #2 (Of 5)(Cover A Alex Horley), $4.99 Transformers King Grimlock #2 (Of 5)(Cover B Ilias Kyriazis), $4.99 Transformers King Grimlock #2 (Of 5)(Cover C Paul Harding), AR

IMAGE COMICS Beauty All Good Things #1 (One Shot)(Cover A Jeremy Haun), $4.99 Commanders In Crisis #12 (Of 12)(Cover A Davide Tinto), $3.99 Commanders In Crisis #12 (Of 12)(Cover B Yanick Paquette), $3.99 Commanders In Crisis #12 (Of 12)(Cover C Davide Tinto), $3.99 Commanders In Crisis #12 (Of 12)(Cover D Giovanni Timpano), $3.99 Fire Power By Kirkman And Samnee #15 (Cover A Chris Samnee), $3.99 Geiger #6 (Cover A Gary Frank & Brad Anderson), $4.99 Geiger #6 (Cover B Simone Bianchi), $4.99 Geiger #6 (Cover C Jamal Igle), $4.99 Geiger #6 (Cover D Gary Frank), $4.99 Hey Kids Comics Volume 2 Prophets And Loss #5 (Of 6)(Cover A Howard Chaykin), $3.99 Inkblot #12 (Cover A Emma Kubert), $3.99 Jules Verne’s Lighthouse #5 (Of 5)(Cover A Brian Haberlin & Geirrod van Dyke), $3.99 Jules Verne’s Lighthouse #5 (Of 5)(Cover B Brian Haberlin & Geirrod van Dyke), $3.99 Lady Mechanika Volume 1 HC (not verified by Diamond), $29.99 Mirka Andolfo’s Sweet Paprika #1 (Of 12)(2nd Printing Mirka Andolfo Cover), $3.99 Mirka Andolfo’s Sweet Paprika #2 (Of 12)(Cover A Mirka Andolfo), $3.99 Mirka Andolfo’s Sweet Paprika #2 (Of 12)(Cover B Stjepan Sejic), $3.99 Mirka Andolfo’s Sweet Paprika #2 (Of 12)(Cover C Guillem March), $3.99 Mirka Andolfo’s Sweet Paprika #2 (Of 12)(Cover D Andrew Hickinbottom), $3.99 Mirka Andolfo’s Sweet Paprika #2 (Of 12)(Cover E Mirka Andolfo NSFW Variant), $4.99 Savage Dragon #260 (Cover A Erik Larsen), $3.99 Savage Dragon #260 (Cover B Erik Larsen Retro 70s Trade Dress Variant), $3.99 Spawn #321 (Cover A Bjorn Barends), $2.99 Spawn #321 (Cover B Todd McFarlane), $2.99 Spawn #321 (Cover C Francesco Mattina), $2.99 Spawn #321 (Cover D Bjorn Barends Virgin Variant), AR Undiscovered Country #15 (Cover A Giuseppe Camuncoli), $3.99 Undiscovered Country #15 (Cover B Jenny Frison), $3.99 Walking Dead Deluxe #22 (Cover A David Finch & Dave McCaig), $3.99 Walking Dead Deluxe #22 (Cover B Tony Moore & Dave McCaig), $3.99

IT’S ALIVE Strange Attractors #4 (Cover A Michael Cohen), $5.99 Strange Attractors #4 (Cover B Michael Cohen Retro Variant), $5.99 Strange Attractors #4 (Cover C Andrew Pepoy), $5.99

MAD CAVE STUDIOS Honor And Curse Volume 2 Mended TP, $17.99

MARRS MEDIA Rue Morgue Magazine #202 (August 2021), $12.95

MARVEL COMICS Amazing Spider-Man By Nick Spencer Volume 14 Chameleon Conspiracy TP, $17.99 Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus Volume 5 HC (Gil Kane Direct Market Variant Cover), $125.00 Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus Volume 5 HC (Paco Medina Book Market Cover), $125.00 Avengers #48 (Cover A Javier Garron), $3.99 Avengers #48 (Cover B Ernanda Souza Miles Morales 10th Anniversary Variant), AR Black Cat Volume 5 I’ll Take Manhattan TP, $15.99 Captain America By Ta-Nehisi Coates Volume 5 All Die Young Part Two TP, $15.99 Captain Marvel #32 (Cover A Iban Coello), $3.99 Captain Marvel #32 (Cover B Lee Garbett), AR Captain Marvel #32 (Cover C David Nakayama Miles Morales 10th Anniversary Variant), AR Dark Ages #1 (Of 6)(Cover A Iban Coello), $4.99 Dark Ages #1 (Of 6)(Cover B Inhyuk Lee), AR Dark Ages #1 (Of 6)(Cover C Francis Manapul), AR Dark Ages #1 (Of 6)(Cover D Ryan Stegman), AR Dark Ages #1 (Of 6)(Cover E Patrick Gleason Stormbreakers Variant), AR Dark Ages #1 (Of 6)(Cover F Skottie Young), AR Dark Ages #1 (Of 6)(Cover G Black Blank Variant), AR Demon Days Cursed Web #1 (Cover A Peach Momoko), $4.99 Demon Days Cursed Web #1 (Cover B Peach Momoko Design Variant), AR Demon Days Cursed Web #1 (Cover C Peach Momoko Virgin Variant), AR Demon Days Cursed Web #1 (Cover D Gurihiru), AR Demon Days Cursed Web #1 (Cover E Ron Lim), AR Demon Days Cursed Web #1 (Cover F Bengal), AR Demon Days Cursed Web #1 (Cover G Agnes Garbowska), AR Demon Days Cursed Web #1 (Cover H Jenny Frison), AR Demon Days Cursed Web #1 (Cover I Jenny Frison Virgin Variant), AR Demon Days Cursed Web #1 (Cover J Tradd Moore), AR Demon Days Cursed Web #1 (Cover K Junggeun Yoon), AR Doctor Strange Epic Collection Volume 9 The Vampiric Verses TP, $39.99 Eternals Volume 1 Only Death Is Eternal TP, $17.99 Hellions #15 (Cover A Stephen Segovia), $3.99 Hellions #15 (Cover B Stephanie Hans), AR Heroes Reborn America’s Mightiest Hero Companion Volume 1 TP, $19.99 Heroes Reborn America’s Mightiest Hero Companion Volume 2 TP, $19.99 Last Annihilation Wiccan And Hulking #1 (Cover A Luciano Vecchio), $4.99 Last Annihilation Wiccan And Hulking #1 (Cover B David Lopez), AR Marauders By Gerry Duggan Volume 1 HC, $34.99 Marvel Masterworks Marvel Team-Up Volume 6 HC (Book Market Edition), $75.00 Marvel Masterworks Marvel Team-Up Volume 6 HC (Direct Market Variant Edition Volume 311), $75.00 Moon Knight #1 (2nd Printing Cover A Steve McNiven), $4.99 Moon Knight #1 (2nd Printing Cover B John Romita Jr.), AR New Mutants #21 (Cover A Martin Simmonds), $3.99 New Mutants #21 (Cover B Edge), AR Sinister War #4 (Of 4)(Cover A Bryan Hitch), $4.99 Sinister War #4 (Of 4)(Cover B Mark Bagley Connecting Variant), AR Sinister War #4 (Of 4)(Cover C David Baldeon Handbook Variant), AR Sinister War #4 (Of 4)(Cover D Jeffrey Veregge), AR Sinister War #4 (Of 4)(Cover E Carlos Gomez), AR Star Wars The High Republic #9 (Cover A Phil Noto), $3.99 Star Wars The High Republic #9 (Cover B Leinil Francis Yu), AR Star Wars The High Republic #9 (Cover C Carlo Pagulayan), AR Thor And Loki Double Trouble TP, $13.99 Ultimate Comics Fallout #4 (Facsimile Edition), $3.99 W.E.B. Of Spider-Man #4 (Of 5)(Cover A Gurihiru), $3.99 W.E.B. Of Spider-Man #4 (Of 5)(Cover B Greg Land), AR What If? The Original Marvel Series Omnibus Volume 1 HC (Jack Kirby Direct Market Variant Cover), $100.00 What If? The Original Marvel Series Omnibus Volume 1 HC (John Buscema Direct Market Variant Cover), $100.00 What If? The Original Marvel Series Omnibus Volume 1 HC (Ron Wilson Book Market Cover), $100.00 Wolverine By Benjamin Percy Volume 2 TP, $15.99

ONI PRESS Kaijumax Season Six #3 (Cover A Zander Cannon), $3.99

TITAN COMICS Life Is Strange Coming Home #2 (Cover A Sloane Leong), $5.99 Life Is Strange Coming Home #2 (Cover B Claudia Leonardi), $5.99 Life Is Strange Coming Home #2 (Cover C Gretel Lusky), $5.99 Life Is Strange Coming Home #2 (Cover D Gretel Lusky), $5.99 Life Is Strange Coming Home #2 (Cover E Iolanda Zanfardino & Lisa Romboli Pride Variant), $5.99 Lone Sloane Volume 2 Delirius HC, $24.99 Monday Monday Rivers Of London #3 (Cover A Rian Hughes), $3.99 Monday Monday Rivers Of London #3 (Cover B V. V. Glass), $3.99 Monday Monday Rivers Of London #3 (Cover C Claudia Iannciello), $3.99

TOHAN CORPORATION Hobby Japan July 2021, $20.00 Megami June 2021, $20.00 Newtype June 2021, $20.00

TWOMORROWS PUBLISHING Alter Ego #171, $9.95 Back Issue #130, $9.95 BrickJournal #69, $9.95 RetroFan Magazine #16, $9.95

VAULT COMICS Money Shot #14 (Cover A Caroline Leigh Layne), $3.99 Money Shot #14 (Cover B Caroline Leigh Layne Black Bag Variant), $5.99

ZENESCOPE ENTERTAINMENT Robyn Hood 2021 Annual The Swarm (Cover A Al Barrionuevo), $7.99 Robyn Hood 2021 Annual The Swarm (Cover B Igor Vitorino), $7.99 Robyn Hood 2021 Annual The Swarm (Cover C Ale Garza), $7.99 Robyn Hood 2021 Annual The Swarm (Cover D Geebo Vigonte), $7.99

TOYS - T-SHIRTS & COLLECTIBLES Dragon Ball Z Match Makers Super Saiyan Trunks Figure, AR Marvel Animated Thing Statue, AR Marvel Animated X-Men Rogue 1/7 Scale Bust, AR Marvel Comic Iron Man 1/7 Scale Bust, AR Marvel Legends In 3D Dr Doom 1/2 Scale Bust, AR Marvel Select Human Torch Action Figure, AR Marvel Spider-Man Menace 5 Pack Short Comic Storage Box, AR Masters Of The Universe Origins Evil-Lyn 2 Action Figure, AR Masters Of The Universe Origins Lop Mer-Man Action Figure, AR Phunny SpongeBob Squarepants Rainbow 8 Inch Plush, AR POP Alice 70th Alice Curtsying Vinyl Figure, AR POP G.I. Joe Version 2 Storm Shadow Vinyl Figure, AR POP Masters Of The Universe Merman Vinyl Figure, AR POP NFL Raiders Howie Long Vinyl Figure, AR POP Rocks Boyz 2 Men Nathan Morris Vinyl Figure, AR POP Rocks Boyz 2 Men Wanya Morris Vinyl Figure, AR POP Rocks Green Day Billie Joe Armstrong Vinyl Figure, AR POP Rocks TLC Chilli Vinyl Figure, AR POP Rocks TLC Left-Eye Vinyl Figure, AR POP Rocks TLC T-Boz Vinyl Figure, AR POP TV Animation Dragon Ball Z S8 Super Saiyan Child Vegeta Vinyl Figure, AR POP TV Parks And Recreation Leslie The Riveter Vinyl Figure, AR Star Wars Clone Wars Asajj 1/6 Scale Bust, AR Star Wars Clone Wars Legends In 3D Ahsoka 1/2 Scale Bust, AR

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