#All over the place I know

[elwolfen]

Alfred Molinathon Day 10

Nervous Energy (1993)

Ira Moss

His Role: Supportive and undergoing inconceivable pain of having to watch his dear Tom slowly go through the trials and tribulations of AIDs. Someone you'd hope to have by your side in sickness and in health. Patient while understandably tired. The unprompted trip to Glasgow without him going or being properly discussed must have stung quite a bit, but he let Tom go, even knowing that it wouldn't go nicely. It's what Tom wanted.

His flashbacks to the past were... interesting, to say the least. There are two types: first meeting and them being much closer (if you catch me). Seeing him meet Tom, who was a biker at that point, filled me with much glee from hoping there would be a scene where Tom would take Ira for a ride, and he'd hold close to him. They do ride, but Ira doesn't cling to him sadly. And the other scenes? No full-on sex but very sexual undertones. You see plenty of naked Tom (past and present), plenty of ass and full frontal nudity. I'm sure plenty who haven't watched it but are a A.M. fans are curious about Ira's percentage of nudity (I see you)... the most you see is him laying in bed with his dear Tom and see all but his pecker. Which I'm thankful for, for me, seeing genitalia makes me uncomfortable for reasons not entirely known to me (my aro?/ace ass). So, seeing Tom's was a jumpscare.

Anyways a scene where, after going to the bar with his friends, sits and sings to himself while seeing a vision of Tom crying out in pain and begging for Ira made me tear up a bit. At the time of these reviews, I'm dealing with my cat's sickness and at times, I've thought about the idea if that if he could talk, would he be constantly begging for help and yowling about the pain? Obviously, he still could, but the thought of not being able to help with one's serious and fatal situation is heart-wrenching. I know a person going through AIDs and a cat going through Lymphoma are different, but this is how I relate. Ira has Tom, and I have my Sandy.

Seeing him go through and making a list of music for Tom's funeral was jarring. We forget what loved ones do for a dying person, getting all the arrangements, booking the funeral itself, and even the little details like the music. It just it me. Seeing him quietly work on that while Tom is in the hospital, not knowing if he's still fighting or trying to let it take him. All he knows is that Tom doesn't want him there.

He also abandons his radio hosting duties to be at the hospital with Tom. It's brought up a few times about the fact that Ira was going to interview someone that Tom was a fan of, and after all that happens, he stays with Tom. Someone else interviews him. A sacrifice, I'm sure he's willing to make time and time again.

When Ira finally gets the news that Tom is okay, it'll take weeks for him to come home, but he is still surviving. All Ira can think is that "he's coming home?" He breaks down crying at the thought of him being home with him. I'll admit I wanted to see him cry, just to see he acting chops, but it was so damn touching. Everyone at that hospital was so supportive.

In the end, it's just the two of them, in a hospital bed. Talking. Throughout the movie, we learn that Tom doesn't like kissing on the lips. But here, he wants to kiss Ira. I'm sure Ira would've loved that, but he knows his Tom. Instead, he says he wants to hold him, which is a relief to Tom. Holding each other close after a tumultuous time in Glasgow must have felt like heaven on earth. That's the last we see of them. The funeral is postponed, but we know the date will have to be made eventually. For now... all that's matters is each other.

~~~

The Rest of the Film: Tom was really going through the ringer of AIDs and everyone terrified that he's developed dementia (which I didn't know was possible). Going on shopping sprees, buying the wrong thing, and lashing out when told such and just knowing it's his expertise, brutal. Watching his sweaty spiral didn't give me much hope for the end of this movie. Yet I was surprised. He doesn't die at the end, but it is heavily implied that it will happen eventually. But it was a pleasant surprise.

Also, why does everyone keep letting him drive!? He drove into a hedge!

~~~

His family seemed kind of supportive at first. His mother really was the highlight out of all of them, she genuinely cares about her son and I'm glad. His father was hesitant about all of it, but he has been researching about his son's aliment. And Ian, his brother, was calm at first, throwing some shade until the point he snaps. This man really thinks his brother is just being a "theatrical wee shit"...

When Ira inevitably arrives and hears out Ian, Tom's brother, on what happened. While I understand his and his wife's discomfort; Tom messed up her kitchen twice, he went back to cook again while still naked (her very young daughters giggling) and he drove a rental car into their hedge. It was still crossing a line when he attacked him (one hit and brief crying but still), threatened death, and kicked him out in the morning. His brother is very clearly sick and disoriented and yet still does so. I do appreciate that he showed some care, but he needed more patience. What made Ian and his wife really snap? The fact Tom and Ira fucked in the shower? Really? That's what starts half his family bashing him for being born!? Wow.

When Ian turns up later to the hospital that Tom ends up after everything to visit. He still thinks he's being over the top. But Ira has had enough! He rightfully snaps at him, but still in a reigned in manner. He's tired of seeing everyone abandon this poor, suffering, and confused man who's been their for his friends, and his father and brother abandoned him ten years ago when he broke his leg. Why? Because they saw him with many gay men in the same room, I believe wearing leather.

I can't understand why Tom would want to forgive them. But it's not my place to do so.

~~~

Tom's seemingly fairweathered friends. Again, this is a difficult situation, I understand. Yet they still have the gull to dine and eventually dash as soon as things get too difficult and embarrassing. Ira bringing up the fact that his friends are way more reliable, a bit of a diss even before the abandonment, but he's not wrong.

Thankfully, after being rejected yet again, this time by a leather Dom, Tom begs Ira to call his ex-teacher at four a.m., and she takes them in for the night. She seems really nice and singing was lovely but little too much for my sensitive ears. A thing, though, all this moving around could have been avoided if Tom allowed Ira to book a hotel room. But for some reason, he didn't want to stay at one. Anyways, we get a conversation between Ira and Rosetta, which is really devastating. Ira hasn't been tested for AIDs. He thinks he may have it, but not knowing if that's the case or not makes him feel stronger. Strong enough for him and Tom. He doesn't want Tom to be concerned with it, he wants to deal with it on his own. Just like what's Tom has been doing throughout the film. They both don't want to be weaker, they desperately want to be strong enough. But it's ok to be overtaken by the overbearing pain and devastation of a disease. It's not your fault.

As soon as they get back home to London, who shows up? All of their London friends! As soon as they get off the train, they are swarmed by them and head straight to the hospital. It was heartwarming to see the true family they have there. Nothing but helping and patient.

Heads up! A Romani slur is dropped near the beginning of the film. Very brief yet there. Also, mentions of Antisemitism!

[hawberries]

vultur volans | paradisaea

[egophiliac]

now that I can think semi-coherently again...whooooo's ready for Friday WEEHOO

[cozylittleartblog]

worst way to start my new year, thanks. i have a lot of things to say about these companies but i'm tired and just keeping it focused to the pin side of things for this one. do not ever buy pins from these companies, literally ALL of them are stolen from small artists like me. if you want to buy enamel pins, check out etsy, and artist's personal websites and shops! (though even Etsy has some bootleg pins that ship straight from china, so tread carefully…)

Every pin I've designed is, thus far, EXCLUSIVE to my etsy. if you find it anywhere else, it's been ripped off! and once these stupid bootlegs pop up, it's basically a never ending game of whack-a-mole trying to get them all taken down...

[sp0o0kylights]

Part Two / Part Three

Ao3

It's 8:45 am. 

The Red Barn, which is neither red nor a barn, has been open since 7, catering to the early morning crowd with rounds of coffee and pancakes.

It was no Benny's, but given the size of Hawkins and the lack of alternatives?

No one was complaining. 

They were all too happy someone had opened up another watering hole for the working class man (or lass, as Foreman Shelly will dutifully remind you) which meant the place was packed with both day and night shift regulars, passing each other in staggered waves. 

It also meant Wayne was sharing the packed breakfast counter with a warehouse worker by the name of John Cheese on one side and Police Chief Jim Hopper on the other.

He doesn't mind it.

Wayne's a man on a budget thinner than his shoelace, but he's also a man who understands that small indulgences need to be made in life or you didn't truly live it.

This is how he convinces himself to get a coffee at the Barn after work everyday, reading the morning newspaper and chatting with the other regulars before he heads home.

Bonus, it gets him out of the rapid-fire franticness that is his nephew in the mornings.

(All the love in the world wouldn't change the fact that all that Eddie came with a lot of noise. 

The kind of noise that was a tried and true recipe for a headache right after a long shift.)

As a trade off, Wayne went to bed early so he could wake up in time for dinner with Eddie.

 It was a nice little system that worked for them. 

A routine Wayne was reminiscing fondly on, when the pager on Chief Hopper started to chirp. With a sad moan, the man fished out a few crumbled bills and threw them on the counter, abandoning his coffee to trudge out to his truck.

This was not unusual.

Particularly recently, given they were but a scant few weeks past that whole mall ordeal. A fact all too easy to remember when one caught sight of the Chief’s still healing face. 

What was unusual, was when he came storming through the doors a minute later, face now a furious shade of red with his hat clenched in his hand. 

The energy in the room shifted, taking on something a little watchful as Hopper swept his gaze from side to side, like a dog on the hunt.

Judging by the way he stilled when he caught sight of Wayne, the latter assumed he found what he was looking for and could only pray it was the person behind him. 

(He liked John, but Wayne had enough trouble this year and he wasn't looking for any more.) 

"Munson." Hopper called, striding over and dashing all his hopes. There was a choked fury emitting off him, and given the way John audibly scooted his chair away, Wayne knew everyone had clocked it. 

"Chief." Wayne greeted, inclining his head towards him.

Idly he wondered what the hell his nephew had done this time.

'So help me if he stole all the town's lawn flamingos and put them in that damn teachers yard again….'

Wayne didn't even get to finish his threat, the Chief was already next to him. 

"Mind if I have a word outside?" 

Dammit Eddie.

"Ah hell, what's he done now?" Wayne asked with a sigh, eyeing the coffee he had left morosely. 

There was still almost half of it left and the pot had tasted fresh for once. 

"What?" Hopper said, and then Wayne got to watch as the man ran through an entire chain of thoughts, each one punctuated by things like; "Oh," and "No. " 

"This is something else." He finished, flushed and fidgeting, anger making him antsy. 

Wayne stared up at him. 

"Something else?" He repeated, not sure he heard.

"Yes, something else." Hopper snapped impatiently, before leaning forward, voice dropping low. "This doesn't involve your nephew, but we both know you owe me for how many times I've let that kid off, Wayne. That's a damn big favor I've been doing you and I'm calling it in." 

If it were any other cop, it'd sound like a threat.

It was Hopper though. The same Hopper who Wayne had gone to school with.

They'd never been friends exactly, but they had been friendly and remained so. Even now, after Wayne had taken Eddie in, who’d gone on to be an undeniable pain in the local PD’s ass. 

Hopper really did let the kid off easy. 

Wayne really did owe him. 

So he put down his coffee with a sigh, passed his newspaper over to John and stood up, motioning for Hopper to lead the way. Got into the Chief’s truck when he waved him in, and didn’t make a big fuss when Hopper tore out of the parking lot like hell was about to open up under them. 

"Not a lot of the kids involved in the mall fire could be identified, but a few of them were." Hopper started, which felt nonsensical given the utter lack of context. 

Wayne hummed to show he’d heard. 

“Some of them got banged up more than others, and a lot of people wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t make it.” 

A pause, Hopper white knuckling the steering wheel as he swung the truck hard around a turn. 

“For certain people, those kids dying is the preferred outcome.” 

A mix of fear and warning swopped low in Wayne’s gut. 

"Jim." Wayne said, dropping the use of a last name because if any situation called for it, it was this one. "What exactly are you saying here?" 

The Chief chewed on his split lip. 

"I know you're smart, Munson. I know you, and plenty of others are aware that something's happening, been happening in this town." 

Which was a hell of an understatement if you asked Wayne. Plenty of the upper classes might be able to bury their heads when it came to the military parading about and the flow of “accidents” they brought in their wake, but then, they didn't see all the other signs of trouble. 

The absolute oddity that was Starcourt’s construction. 

How it had been built using primarily outside crews and anyone who'd taken a singular look at the site could tell you they were building it weird. 

Weird as in it looked like it would have a multi-level basement, and not what a mall should have. 

Then there were the constant electrical problems. The backups upon backups that failed. The late night delivery vans headed out to the Hawkins Lab. 

The things in the woods that kept spooking all the deer and the weird markings they left behind that unnerved even the hardest of hunters. 

This didn’t even touch the Russian military that more than one reputable person swore was hanging around. 

The very same Wayne himself had seen, on more than one occasion. 

(And you couldn’t deny it; those boys were military. Past or present, it didn’t matter. They moved like a threat, and Wayne treated them like one, staying well clear.)

"Yeah." Wayne admitted. "I also know better than to stick my nose in it." 

"That makes you a smarter man than me.' Hop complained under his breath, but the anger was self directed. 

"The point is, there are some government types crawling around, doing shit they shouldn't be doing, and more than a few of them are in the business of making people disappear.” 

This was absolutely not where Wayne had thought this was going. 

Hopper took a breath. Than another.

A third.

It was starting to make Wayne nervous, in a way he hadn’t felt since a social worker had brought Eddie to him for the last time and final time. It was the feeling that things were about to shift in a way that would change the course of his life. 

"Steve Harrington is sitting in my office right now, beat to absolute shit.” Hopper admitted.

Wayne gave him the floor to talk, letting him go at his own pace without interruptions. 

“He's there because some of those government types finally figured out his parents are never fucking home.” 

Wayne sucked in a breath. 

"We both know his parents, Wayne. Harassing them to come back and take care of their kid won't work, and frankly, I’m beginning to think all the phone lines are tapped anyway.” He winced here, like voicing such a thing pained him, and Wayne understood.

It sounded a little too out there, a little like he was buying into a conspiracy. 

Except he wasn’t. Wayne knew he wasn’t. 

Jim Hopper might have been an alcoholic, a man living in pain and unconcerned with his own life, but if there was one thing he was solid for, it was shit like this.

He didn’t jump to conclusions. Didn’t believe the first thing people told him. Even at his worst, he did the work to see what was really happening, and made his decisions from there. 

(Even if that decision was to accept the occasional bribe, or drive an intoxicated 13 year old Eddie home instead of hauling his ass into the drunk tank.) 

“Harrington won’t admit it, but he’s got a hell of a concussion if not a full blown brain injury and he’s not reacting as well as he should to Suites trying to run him off the road.” Hopper continued. Angrily, he added, “Damn kid didn’t even come to me until they tried to break into his house last night.” 

His fingers squeezed the wheel so hard Wayne heard the leather creak in protest. 

“I’d take him, but my cabin is being renovated from…” He trailed off, heaving a sigh.

 “A storm, so me and my kid are bunked with the Byers right now and we’re full up.” 

Hawkins hadn't had a storm like that in years, but Wayne wasn't going to call him out on the blatant lie. 

“I need a place to stash him for the next few weeks, until I can work with some of the higher ups sniffing around, and get them to call off their attack dogs.” 

“And you want to stuff him with me.” Wayne finished. 

“I know you don’t have the room.” Hopper admitted easily, stopping his truck at a red light and locking eyes with the other man. “But I also know you’ll be the last place anyone would look for him.” 

'Ain’t that the damn truth.'

“You’re really gonna go this far for a Harrington?” Wayne asked, instead of the million of other questions leaping to the forefront of his mind. 

This one, he figured, was the most important. 

“He’s not his dad.” Hopper said, as firm as Wayne had ever heard him. “He’s not either of his parents, and he saved my little girl.” 

Wayne hadn’t even known Hopper had another little girl, but he also knew better than to ask where the guy had found one. 

It wasn’t his business, just as nothing else Jim was involved in, was his business.

Except, apparently, Steve Harrington. 

“I’m gonna need my own truck if I’m takin' Harrington home.” Wayne said easily, instead of bothering to ask anything else.

If Jim said the kid was different than his daddy, then he was--because when it came to things like that, Jim didn't lie.

No point in it. 

“I know. Just needed to talk to you first, without anyone overhearing.” Jim said, before swinging the police truck around and heading back to the Barn. 

“I’ll stay in contact with you, and I’ll make sure Harrington pays you for the pleasure of your hospitality. Just--” Here Jim cut himself off, looking like he was struggling an awful lot with the next thing he wanted to say. 

Once again, Wayne waited him out.

“Don’t let Steve fool you. He’s good at fooling people, letting them think he’s okay. Too good at it, and between the two of us, I have a real good idea of the reason why.” 

A memory came to Wayne unbidden, of Richard Harrington and Chet Hagan, beating some poor kid in the highschool bathroom bloody. The grins on their faces as the poor guy wailed for them to stop.

How they almost hadn’t. 

“Alright.” Wayne agreed.

Hopper swung back into the Barn's parking lot, and Wayne moved right to his own beat to shit truck, ready to follow Jim back to the police station.

He wasn’t a praying man, not anymore, but Catholisim wasn’t a thing that let you go easy. 

He found himself sending up a quick prayer, fingers flicking in a kind of miniature version of the sign of the cross. 

Considering his own kid’s history with Harrington, and the sheer small space of the trailer? 

Wayne had a feeling it was needed.

[featheredadora]

[mugwot]

funnyjokespunperson

[furiouskettle]

went a little nuts and made a batman au joker and got really invested. i dont even go here.

in short, it's one of the morality switcheroo kinds, so bats is a "villain" (gone full crime eradication mode and stamped out any empathy. bruce has like. taken over gotham and keeps funding cops and surveillance.) and joker's a..... well. hes not a hero but he is here to ruin a billionaire's day and well if he ends up helping people out so be it. He's just a scrungly little guy and that's everyone else's problem.

(yes that is Dick in that one doodle)

[notsad]

You've done this before...

Countless of times...

Why now?

Bonus :)

[hotcinnamonsunset]

“When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.” --WHEN HARRY MET SALLY

[kiisaes]

after school pizza run 🍕 (catholic school au)

[wasyago]

jay and chip as tritons hehe

(i know that every other person drew them as tritons already, but like, cmon its so fun)

[fudgecake-charlie]

CHEERING AND WHOOPING I finished @applestruda's DTIYS! This took. so long.... first finished painting in over a month though so I'm very happy :D

Closeup (and a phonescreen version, this is already desktop sized!) under the cut

[castlefly]

this took a bit! I just wanted to try a little thing from the new update!

spoilers below VVVV

(tw derealization)

[cccotard]

purple ish saras

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

you want a new kind of guy, fine, i raise you: the lady i was briefly roommates with in college who once smoked a blunt at a party and then spent an hour confessing earnestly to me that she genuinely preferred reading detailed episode recaps over actually watching the tv show in question