#Writing(with a capital W)

[withacapitalp]

Hidden Valley

Steve managed to get away with hiding his dirty little secret for a whole six weeks. 

Six. Weeks. 

It would be impressive, but in all honesty, it wasn’t exactly that hard to accomplish.

A few things worked out extremely well in Steve’s favor. Not only was Eddie wildly lazy when it came to things he didn’t want to do, but Wayne also worked double shifts pretty much every single day. Both of those things meant that a lot of the housework in the trailer got pushed to the side, in particular the things that they didn’t like doing. It wasn’t that they were slobs, but neither of them really cared as much as Steve did about doing the dishes promptly or getting the laundry done often enough that no one ever had to do a sniff test to see if something was still fresh enough to wear. 

And both of them really hated cooking. 

And so after he moved in, Steve naturally ended up being the one doing most of the chores in the trailer. And, most importantly, Steve was the one making most of the meals. 

He got up early to make breakfast, packed all three of them lunches, and usually put something to marinate in the slow cooker so dinner would be ready and waiting by the time they were all home. Eddie was happy because he loved pretty much anything Steve did for him, Wayne was a lot less exhausted now that he just had to come home, put his feet up, and wait for Steve to tell him to come get a plate, and Steve got to keep his secret. 

So he got a whole six weeks into living with the Munsons before they finally caught on that Steve would only eat when he was the one cooking. 

Read the rest on ao3!

[inkskinned]

you have to go to work so you can pay for your doctor, who is not taking your insurance right now, and if you say i can't afford the doctor's you are told - get a better job. it is very sad that you are unwell, yes, but maybe you should have thought about that before not having a better job.

(where is the better job? who is giving out these better jobs? you are sick, you are hurting - how the hell are you supposed to be well enough for this better job?)

but you go to the doctor because you had the nerve to be hurt or sick or whatever else. and they tell you that it is because you have anxiety. you try your best. you are a self-advocate. you've done the reading (which sometimes pisses them off worse, honestly). you say it is actually adding to my anxiety, it is effecting my quality of life. so they say that you are fat. they say that all young people have this happen to them, isn't it a medical marvel! they say that you should eat more vegetables. they say that you probably just need to lose a little more weight, and that you are faking it for attention.

(what attention could this doctor possibly give? what validation? that's their fucking job, isn't it?)

there is always a hypochondriac, right. someone always tells you about a hypochondriac. or someone who is unnecessarily aggressive during the worst days of their life. or someone looking "for a quick fix". or some idiot who wasn't educated about how to properly care for themselves who just abandons their treatment. and again, the hypochondriac, the overly-cautious hysteric. these people don't deserve to be treated like humans (right), and since you might be one of these people, you also don't get treated like a human. because those people can really fuck with the system, you now have to pay for it. and besides. you're actually probably faking it.

(more often than not, you find a 2:1 ratio of these stories. for every "hypochondriac", there are 2 people who knew something was wrong, and yet nobody could fucking find it. the story often ends with pointless suffering. the story often ends with and now it's too late, and it's going to kill me.)

you are actually just making excuses. someone else got that procedure or that diagnosis and he's fine, you should be fine too. someone else said they watched a documentary about other inspirational people with your exact same condition, maybe you should be inspirational, too. you're just too morbid. your pain and your experience is probably just not statistically concerning. it is all self-reported anyway, and you're just being a baby.

(once, while sitting down in the middle of making coffee, you had the sudden, horrible thought - i could kill myself to make the pain stop. you had to call your best friend after that. had to pet your dog. had to cry about it in the shower. you won't, but that moment - god, fuck. the pain just goes on and on.)

you know someone who went in for routine surgery and said i still feel everything. they told her to just relax. it took her kicking and screaming before they figured out she wasn't lying - the anesthetic drip hadn't been working. you know someone who went in for severe migraines who was told drink water and lose weight. you know someone who was actively bleeding out and throwing up in the ER and was told you're just having a bad period.

in the ER there are always these little posters saying things like "don't wait! get checked today!" and you think about how often you do wait. how often the days spool out. you once waited a full week before seeing the doctor for what you thought was a sprained wrist. it had actually been broken - they had to rebreak it to set it.

but you go into the doctor. the problem you're having is immediate. the person behind the counter frowns and says we're not taking your insurance. you will be paying for this out-of-pocket.

they send you home with tylenol and a little health packet about weight loss or anxiety or attention deficit. on the front it has your birthday and diagnosis. you think about crying, and the words swim. it might as well say go fuck yourself. it might as well say you're a fucking idiot. it might as well say light your money on fire and lie down in it. and the entire fucking time - the problem persists.

it's okay. it's okay, it's just another thing, you think. it's just another thing i have to learn to live with.

[lambnotincluded]

no promise of heaven will make me march with my final breath I deny the church

[astrobei]

he’s fine, he’s just in his sam winchester era

day 3 of @bylerween2023: demons, devils, and exorcisms. nooooo will don’t drink the demongorgon blood noooo

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

JUST CHANGED MY BIO FROM "IS PURSUING HER BA IN CREATIVE WRITING" TO "HOLDS A BA IN CREATIVE WRITING" AHHAHAHAHA

[sluckythewizard]

GET BACK ON THE OPERATING TABLE, SIRE BOY! YOU DIE WHEN WE LET YOU! EVEN AS WE SPEAK WE'RE SYNTHESIZING BLOOD AND ORGANS, SYNTHESIZING HEART AND SOUL.FACES R HARD TO RECONSTRUCT. MAYBE A COOL ROBOT VISOR? SEE YOU SOON.

[rollercoasterwords]

like. i still wouldn't want someone to copy and paste my fics into a large language model like chatgpt but it's not so much bc i'm worried abt my work being stolen (seems unlikely that an LLM would spit back out my exact words considering how it works, and even if it did, i doubt any individual would be able to like. publish and profit from those words, based on the nebulous status of copyright law when it comes to LLMs like chatgpt. and having my words fed into the LLM really isn't going to make much of a difference when it comes to corporations profiting off the tool in the first place; plus in instances of corporate exploitation i think there are more effective ways to organize than like...arguing for strengthened ip laws or trying to like make ip laws for fanfiction spaces). it's more because i'm wary of what that says about how a person is like...approaching my fic specifically + fanfiction more broadly. in two main ways:

1. i think it is just. basic respect to check with a writer before u take their work off ao3(or whatever fanfic-specific place it's been shared) and put it somewhere else. and like, this applies to lots of things outside chatgpt--reposting fics to other sites, posting them on goodreads/storygraph, printing + binding fics, etc. if u are treating fanfic writers as people who u are in community with, who are generously sharing a gift with u, then it seems like basic kindness to check in and see if they're alright with u taking that fic outside the space it was posted to do something else with it.

with chatgpt and similar LLMs specifically, a lot of people are wary because there's still so much unsettled in regards to how copyright laws might shake out, and most people (myself included) are unsure of how/whether our writing/data might be stored and used by these corporations that own the LLMs. i don't think ai itself is something that should be mythologized as like ontologically evil technology, but anytime a corporation is introducing us to new tech like this we need to be wary of where it's coming from and how it could be used--people have already pointed out a lot of very serious issues with the way this technology is being developed and how it could/likely will be/already is being used exploitatively--which, again, is more a matter of organizing against corporations than railing against ai tech itself, but is still a valid reason for writers (again, myself included) to be wary of having their work fed to LLMs without permission.

and like. sure, u don't have to care abt writers' feelings + boundaries and can just take their stories and do whatever u want with them. but to me that says u aren't treating fanfic as a community space, but rather a content farm in which fics are products that u are entitled to do whatever u want with. and i just think that's shitty! and if that's how ur treating fanfic then i'd rather not have u reading my fic at all

2. i honestly think it's a strange way to engage w storytelling by treating endings this way. like. story endings are usually v important + intentional, and can completely change the entire tone, themes, messages, etc of a story. i understand going to the writer and asking them abt what they had in mind for the story ending if ur looking for closure, and i understand imagining ur own story ending or even writing ur own ending to an unfinished story. what i don't understand is plugging a story into chatgpt and having it spit an ending out for u.

and like. maybe this is bc we've all been calling these LLMs ai, which evokes an impression of like. a sentient robot creating something. but that's not what these programs do! the first article i linked explains how they actually work really well, but essentially--chatgpt and similar LLMs cannot create new ideas. they can't take a story and synthesize its themes or pick apart its tone to then come up with an original idea for an ending. at the same time, they aren't just plagiarism machines that are ripping text directly from other writers and spitting it back out.

instead (to my understanding), what they're doing is compressing vast amounts of information by running statisical analyses to just save the most common trends, patterns, recurring info, etc, and then plugging that in to fill the gaps. it looks like it's writing something new, but it's essentially just paraphrasing already-existing information pulled from the internet. so i'd imagine that if u fed an ai a fic and said "write an ending," the ai would basically compare the fic to whatever similar stories it has saved and then spit out an ending that is most commonly found on the internet for that type of story. [not an expert here tho--this is just my best guess based on the bit of research i've done].

my point is--you won't be getting a new ending inspired directly by the story u put in. you'll be getting a paraphrased version of the most commonly recurring type of ending for similar stories on the web. and i just....don't see how that would be satisfying in any way. it seems, again, like a way in which someone would be approaching fic like a product, something that needs to be finished + complete bc ur entitled to it, rather than viewing fic as a piece of art with its own unique themes, message, and story that can't just be plugged into a one-size-fits-most ending generator. and like, i'm trying to avoid mysticizing writing as some sort of ethereal art form that would be blasphemously degraded by having someone plug in a shitty ending paraphrased from a conglomeration of various similar stories--i don't think someone creating a shitty ending for a story is like. a horrible evil thing. but i can understand where the satisfaction is coming from if you're writing your own shitty ending, where you get to come up with where u think the story would go + where u get to synthesize the themes u picked up on etc. but ai isn't even doing that--so again, i don't understand where the satisfaction is coming from aside from just going "well every story i read needs to be finished," which. makes me wary bc it just feels like a completely different way to approach stories and storytelling than i would hope to find in fanfic spaces, one that treats fic less as a creative place to explore and more as a transactional space where u are entitled to products.

anyway. feel like my thoughts + feelings abt ai keep changing the more i learn abt it + i'm sure they could change again, but rn my impression of this whole situation is like. i find the fact that some people are plugging fics into LLMs less concerning re: ip + ownership rights, and i don't think it's useful to exaggerate or mythologize abt what ai actually does (i think even calling it ai has kind of misled a lot of people, myself included). what concerns me more is that plugging fics into LLMs to write endings feels symptomatic of a broader culture in which people treat fanfic as an informal profit economy in which fics are product or content that a consumer-audience is entitled to, and i think that sort of approach leads to a whole plethora of other issues + makes fandom a more hostile space.

[rush-the-stars]

something i think about a lot is how like. a lot of kinks within fic are no longer the character study they used to be. like its Just There. and therefore makes it weirdly….plain? or removed from the reason it was originally maybe taboo or NOT vanilla?

not to be like “back in my day…” but i’ve been in fandom spaces for like 10 or so years now? and i felt like awhile ago, you’d read a fic with a specific kink and it’d be like 60k+ and largely it was a study on the character(s) and why and how they’d have this kink. maybe if they denied it or were embarrassed or how they even can become comfortable with it. what circumstances would give them this desire.

the fic itself sometimes felt more like someone’s thesis on why these characters would have sex like this. but it kinda amped everything up? it gave it context and build up and conflict.

not to say its bad or that writers can’t also do the same in shorter fic. but ig i feel like now its mostly just. like the kink is Just There. and there’s not a huge justification for it—not that there always has to be!

this isn’t hate to anyone or anything in particular its more just me musing. ig sometimes i miss the days when character study type fics were very popular.

[villainartist]

can i be honest and say that the idea of danganronpa being a tv show where the tv actors are legit murdered on live television, and thats just that, never made sense to me.

i know we get vagueries of the world being all rotten and fucked up and its not like i deny this! but i think a big corrupt tv company that has a death grip on the worlds attention would want its actors around after the season ends for contracting shit, merch ads, interviews, etc etc etc.

it just makes more sense to me then actually killing off popular characters and basically never being able to do anything w them again bc you fucking killed the actor playing them. VR au just makes so much sense yknow

[moe-broey]

Like it's def been said before one thousand times way more in depth/eloquently but like. It truly is striking how inhospitable and downright hostile Everything has become

[mariatesstruther]

more tlou hunger games au picking up after this post

(essentially we’re at catching fire, joel and ellie are going into the quarter quell together as district mates. ellie was the winner of the 74th games and joel was the only winner of district 12 before her. his daughter was killed in the games also. ellie won her games with sam, who is kind of a rue/peeta combo in that he’s from district 11 and him and ellie won together)

im mostly skipping straight to the reaping/games for now but some details for context:

ellie has spent the six months since her win recovering and healing up at joel’s, growing closer to him and becoming basically besties with his brother tommy

ellie is still the girl on fire, as her and sam’s innocence and dedication towards one another has captured the hearts of everyone in panem. before their victory tour, president (david) snow has issued threats that she keep in line, otherwise he’ll kill joel and sam. she does not tell joel this, but he knows suspects

there are riots going on in districts and the secret rebellion is actively underway

at the end of ellie and sam’s victory tour, during the president’s mansion party, ellie meets tess—who is apparently joel’s ex which BLOWS her mf mind. she was a gamemaker last year and is now the head gamemaker (after snow killed the one that failed to kill her last year). she is scary-level beautiful and commandingly intimidtaing, but she is also nice enough to compliment ellie’s aim. apparently, tess was in the room last year when ellie had thrown a dagger straight at the gamemakers during her private training

by the time ellie gets back home to 12 and sam gets back to 11, ellie is just tired and ready for her and joel to hang out and be victors at home

boom quarter quell

joel gets called as the only male victor of their district, but he tells ellie after that he would’ve volunteered regardless to protect her. he assures her that, even as confident and as good as she is, these games are about to be a bloodbath

ellie tries to play it off, but she’s extremely scared and worried for joel because she knows he won his games like, a million (20) years ago, but now he’s fucking old. he’s half-deaf and has a permanent limp, barely noticeable to most people but clear as fucking doomsday to her. she is young and fast and thinks she is more dangerous (“did you fucking forget that im the first and only tribute ever to score an 11, joel???? huh???? did you forget that in ur old man age?? what score did you get, a 6?” “ellie. i scored a 10.” “well. how was i supposed to know that. they don’t teach us about history that far back in school”)

ellie and joel are also assigned new stylist, maria, for the quarter quell. she is from the capital, so joel and ellie immediately have their guards up around her—but maria is confident and snarky in way that reminds joel of tess, and unyieldingly no-bullshit in a way that reminds ellie of joel—plus, she has a ton of cool piercings and multicolored locs that ellie is obsessed with, so. they tentatively warm up to her

maria also tells joel that she’s a friend of tess, referencing details about her (and himself) that she would only know if she were someone tess could trust—and he figures that if tess could trust her, so could he

ellie quickly grows grateful for joel being there (though it does take her a while to admit it), because when she and joel arrive at training they witness the other victor’s skills. the victors are deadly and cocky and look at her like she’s food—two different people have inhumanly sharpened teeth. she is the youngest there and, admittedly, very freaked out

(sam wouldve been the youngest there this year, but another tribute from his district, jesse, had vehemently volunteered in place of him. jesse was unable to volunteer and save sam from fighting the year prior because he was still recovering from his own game-inflicted chronic injuries. luckily, he’s healed enough by now to keep sam from having to go through the quarter quell)

so jesse comes into the games with another tribute from their district, dina. joel isnt at all interested in making allies or friends, but ellie can’t help but be a goddamn social butterfly, even among a bunch of assholes, kill-happy freaks, and showboaters.

she makes friends with dina and jesse quickly and vehemently. despite how grumpy it makes joel to be surrounded by no one but teenagers all three days of training, he can’t deny they’re good to have around

dina is stealthy and intelligent. joel already knows she’s a good kid because she had volunteered for her own games to save her little sister, who was called as a tribute at only 12 years old. her knowledge of different plants and wildlife is insane, like she’d spent all 15 years of her life surviving in the wilderness. she had won her games by simply hiding in shelters, defending them with traps, and resourcefully leading mutts straight to the locations of other tributes. she hadn’t needed to kill anyone at all, not directly. still she has great aim and, with ellie’s teaching, gets pretty good with a bow and arrow

jesse is less quick and less stealthy than dina and ellie, but he is incredibly strong. he had managed to win his own games with a gladius sword; it was a particularly brutal and bloody games his year, with an arena theme based on the roman colosseum. despite the brutality of his fighting style and weapon if choice, jesse is also one of the kindest kids joel has ever spoken to. they’d actually met a few times at mandatory capital events, and every single time, jesse shook his hand too quickly and called him “sir” far too much for casual conversation

anyway, the four of them basically team up alongside two older victors, bill and frank. joel and bill fucking hate each other, always have (definitely because they’re exactly alike but frank won’t say that with bill around). frank and joel have been friends for a long, long time—basically since he was with tess—and were good enough friends that he can’t deny there’s still some trust there

plus frank absolutely hits it off with ellie during training, teaching her how to use paint and natural materials for exceptional camouflage (which was how he won his games. he had been the first victor to win the games with no kills at all, direct or otherwise, before dina)

and even though bill was an asshole, he was an undeniable tactical genius of an asshole. he had taken out basically everyone in his games with stoic and refined skill. his were the quickest games that had ever occurred, and still to this day remain so. joel has no fucking idea how him and frank got together, but he really doesn’t care. he knows bill is genuine in his loyalty to frank, and frank seems genuine in his fondness of ellie, so joel tentatively accepts the both of them as allies

the private trainings proceed and all of them get pretty impresive scores, even for victors. thus is born “the goddamn motherfucking dream team” (ellie picked the name. dina and jesse love it)

at the interviews before the games, all of the victors do the tactical appeal-to-the-masses-and-try-to-stop-the-games thing. everyone expects joel to be an asshole or maybe mention sarah, but he actually gives a very sincere address to ellie about how she’s become a second daughter to him and given him a new reason to fight to survive: to make sure she lived. his clear love and dedication to protecting her (which is both an intentional warning to the rest of the victors, and an unintentionally-heartfealt appeal to the masses of panem) leaves everybody near tears

for her interview, ellie curses out president david goddamnmotherfucking snow live on camera

commence the games

lmfao. well, definitely more coming later because i LOVED thinking about all of this ides and it basically writes itself

for @clickergossip, @banchywanch (so glad i still got jesse & dina volunteering in there, even though it isn’t quite the same as your briliant idea <3), @bumblepony, @liveandletcry23, @hypnotisedfireflies, @mrsquill and @hinewai

[withacapitalp]

How to Rehabilitate a Jock Pt 20

Part Nineteen Part One Link to ao3

A huge thank you to so many people but it's especially @thefreakandthehair for betaing, being the best, and generally encouraging all of my nuttiness. Also a big shout out to Bowie ( don't remember your Tumblr my lovely!!) for doublechecking some sensititvity reading for me. Y'all rock!!!

Jeff had the decency to wait until Frank was safely in his house before he called Eddie out on his shit. 

“What the fuck are you doing, man?” Jeff sighed the second the door closed behind Frank, leaving only the snow, Eddie’s headlights, and two best friends about to have an incredibly awkward conversation. 

“Driving you dicks home?” Eddie tried, hoping that he could fool Jeff into not having the uncomfortable conversation that was already beginning. He kicked the van into reverse, throwing a hand casually over Jeff’s seat as he turned and began to maneuver his way back to the road. 

“Eddie.”

It wasn’t much. It wasn’t anything really. Just his name, nothing more, nothing less, but it was Jeff’s tone. 

That voice, the voice he always used when he was trying to cut through Gareth and Eddie’s bullshit. Corroded Coffin had lasted all these years because of balance. Frank was their rock, steady and sure; Eddie and Gareth were the stream, bouncing and playing and whirling around in a daze; but Jeff was the earth around them. Jeff was everything, and Eddie might be their leader, but Jeff was the one that held everything together. 

And he was the only one who could get Eddie to drop the act with just one word. 

“Honestly, dude? I have no fucking idea what I’m doing,” Eddie sighed, slightly curling in on himself as he focused on the road. The snow was only mildly awful at the moment, but winter in Indiana could turn on a dime and Eddie wasn’t looking to run his van off the road just because Jeff was grilling him about his stupid little completely non-existent crush. 

“Well, what do you want from him?” Jeff asked, dragging the first word slowly out as he thought about what he wanted to say. Sometimes the other members of Hellfire would do things like that— talk slow or choose words carefully, just to try and avoid Eddie’s sparky temper. 

Unfortunately for him, Eddie was already worked up about this particular topic. 

“Great question!” Eddie snapped, going to throw his hands up before choosing to be wise and hold the wheel steady. A small squall was beginning to form around them, and his visibility was starting to cut to next to none.

“Okay, okay,” Jeff said, placating to Eddie’s need to be a bit of an asshat, “So what happened between you and Steve that’s got Gareth so pressed?”

If it was any other person in the car with him, Eddie might have been able to fake it. Even Frank might have fallen for a lie about Gareth’s hatred of jocks and conformity and how Steve was just a representation of that. 

But it was Jeff. Jeff, who was their Earth, who knew that Gareth’s grudge wouldn’t have lasted this long if it wasn’t motivated by protectiveness. That the only reason Gareth wouldn’t have started to warm up even a little bit was his need to make sure his people were safe. 

Few things in life were assured, but death, taxes, and Gareth Winston’s need to protect his own were all a given.  

“Steve probably doesn’t even remember, so it doesn’t matter,” Eddie muttered, evading the question just as he narrowly evaded a pothole that seemed to appear out of thin air on the road in front of them. The storm was picking back up again, and this was not the conversation to be having right at this moment.  

“Well, do you want him to fuck you?” Jeff asked bluntly, cutting through the fat and straight to the juicy meat of the problem. 

“Jeff!” Eddie blurted out, a nervous burst of laughter escaping along with his name. He took the risk of looking away from the road for a few seconds to give the other boy a wild-eyed look, but Jeff seemed unphased, cool as a cucumber as a lion’s smile began to curl on his face. 

“Do you want to fuck him?” 

Unbidden, a dozen images flashed through Eddie’s head. Steve in his bed. Steve shirtless. Steve underneath him with his hair splayed out on the pillows, wrists trapped in gleaming silver cuffs as he begged so pretty for—

No. 

No no no no no no NO. 

“Dude!” Eddie groaned, turning away from the road again to shout at Jeff. 

And then it happened. 

Jeff’s shit-eating grin disappeared, his eyes growing to the size of dinner plates as he shouted a wordless warning cry and Eddie had less than a second to turn back to the road, slamming his foot on the brake and throwing his arm out to protect Jeff from the inevitable crash. 

There was something on the road in front of them. The snow made it impossible to see beyond the shape, but, whatever it was, it was massive. Huge, and hulking, with a dark shadow that sent a chill down Eddie’s spine, and he was sure his van wouldn’t survive the impact. 

But no impact came. 

His tires skidded, the van turned half a quarter, but no collision, no smashing glass, no pain. Just twin panting from him and Jeff, and an empty road all around them. 

“What was that?” Jeff whispered when he was able to form words again. 

“A deer, I guess,” Eddie murmured back, not really feeling all that sure of his answer. He had never seen a deer like that, but he also hadn’t really seen anything. His wild imagination wanted to run with it, but there was no point. Whatever it was, it was gone, and that’s what mattered. 

He leaned back against his seat, his heart still racing as he patted Jeff’s chest twice, slightly assured when he could feel Jeff’s heart pounding through his shirt as well.

“Sorry.” 

“Shouldn’t’ve distracted you,” Jeff mumbled, lacing his fingers together to hide how badly they were shaking. 

“Hey, not your fault,” Eddie said, knowing how Jeff’s anxiety tended to latch to any blame it could when it got tripped like this. Eddie tested the van, carefully pulling back onto the right side of the road. They stayed quiet as Eddie turned them towards Jeff’s house, driving at a turtle’s pace with both hands on the wheel. 

“I want to help him,” Eddie offered into the silence, eyes firm on the road. “If I can.”

When Jeff didn’t immediately respond, Eddie thought that was the end of the conversation, but as they approached Jeff’s neighborhood, the boy next to him spoke up again. 

“Steve needs the help. Something’s really wrong with him, Eds.”

“You’re turning over to Gareth’s side?” Eddie joked, the words thin and frail and instantly disappearing the second he put them in the air. 

“No,” Jeff replied, no veil of humor over his words. “There’s something wrong with him like there’s something wrong with me.” 

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Eddie said on instinct, hating the bitter scoff Jeff gave. He pulled up to a stop sign and put the van all the way in park, turning in his seat and giving Jeff his full attention 

“Look at me.” Eddie ordered, waiting until Jeff’s dark eyes met his own in the dim light of the streetlamp before speaking again. 

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Jeff. Nothing.” He said, making sure that there was zero wiggle room in his voice. 

Because there wasn’t, and Eddie hated that his best friend thought there was. There was something wrong with Hawkins, with the country they lived in, with the world. There was something wrong with a species that somehow made color a defining factor in a person’s worth, but there was not, and never would be, anything wrong with who Jeff was.

“Fine, then something wrong happened to both of us,” Jeff amended, a ghost of a smile crossing his face at Eddie’s insistence. “Either way, just be careful with him,” 

“Aren’t you supposed to be giving Steve the shovel talk? Not the other way around?” Eddie joked, putting the van back in gear and turning onto Jeff’s street. 

“When you get him, I’ll give him the talk,” Jeff promised, crossing his heart as he did. 

When, not if. Just one word instead of the other, but a flush of warmth flooded Eddie from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. There wasn’t a chance in hell that Jeff was right to use the word ‘when’, because Eddie’s chances were not even ‘if’, but he loved the positivity. 

“Have a good night, man,” Jeff said as they pulled into his driveway, holding out a hand for a quick shake as he unbuckled his seatbelt.  

“Hey,” Eddie called, grabbing the edge of Jeff’s coat as he stepped out of the van. “Us freaks stick together. Always.”

It was a little reminder, just a hint of a conversation they had over a year ago, but judging by the way Jeff’s eyes softened and his shoulders lowered, he knew exactly what Eddie was reminding him of. 

“Always,” Jeff echoed, squeezing Eddie’s wrist once before he hurried towards his darkened house and slipped inside. Eddie waited till the porch light turned off before sighing heavily, resting his head against the steering wheel for a moment before reversing again. 

Back to the lion’s den. 

The house was dark as Eddie quietly let himself back in, but the glow of the pool and the embers of the fire crackling in the fireplace gave just enough light to see the aftermath of the party. It wasn’t half as bad as some of the messes Eddie had seen from Steve’s previous parties, but it was still pretty messy. There would be a lot of cleanup coming tomorrow, and Eddie’s heart ached when he thought about Steve spending Christmas Eve alone cleaning up his house. 

Damn this boy. Eddie didn’t even celebrate Christmas, and here he was worrying over Steve about being alone for it. 

Maybe Wayne wouldn’t mind having one more person over for dinner. Usually it was just the two of them, but Wayne loved his strays almost as much as Eddie did, and Steve was an easy guy to care about. 

Eddie would ask him tomorrow morning. Call before anyone woke up and see what Wayne said. Then he would offer to help clean and ask Steve when it was just the two of them. After all, no one should be alone on the holidays. 

Eddie was so lost in his thoughts, that he almost missed the sound of an angel singing somewhere up above. 

Are you lonesome tonight?

Do you miss me tonight?

Are you sorry we drifted apart?

But no, there was no missing that voice. Eddie was a connoisseur of music, but he already knew that almost any other song was ruined for him. He was the cat caught by the canary instead of the other way around, lost in the sound of a voice he hadn’t heard in years. It was deeper now, fuller, grown almost into a man from the boy he had been the last time Eddie heard him sing.  

Does your memory stray to a bright summer day

When I kissed you and called you sweetheart?

He climbed the stairs slowly, drawn like a moth to a flame, knowing it would burn, but needing to be close anyway. 

Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare?

Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?

Outside the room now, Eddie could see it all while still staying hidden. Steve was sitting on the floor, his head leaned back against the bed that was filled to the bursting with his sleeping children. 

His entire self was on display for Eddie, not just his body, but his soul and his mind, a gift being given without knowing, and Eddie was too selfish not to take it. 

Is your heart filled with pain?

Shall I come back again?

This was the boy Gareth couldn’t see, but the one Eddie couldn’t stop looking for. A boy who knew their first memory together. Without a doubt. Who had never forgotten, no matter how much Eddie tried to convince himself he had. 

There was no other reason to pick this song. 

Tell me dear, are you lonesome tonight?

And without permission Eddie was thrust into a memory.

Despite it only being his sophomore year, Eddie was more than used to getting detention. In the two years since he had moved to Hawkins, Eddie had earned his ‘problem child’ status at least twice over. This particular afternoon, he was stuck sitting at a graffitied desk in the detention room because he dared to argue when his teacher told him that it was valid to not believe in evolution when it went against your religious beliefs. 

Evolution. The base of all humanity. 

She was wrong, but she was the one with all the power, so Eddie was the one in trouble. 

Still it could’ve been worse. Wayne had given him the van for his fifteenth birthday, so he wasn’t stuck waiting on the steps for a ride home after missing the bus. It wasn’t technically legal, but Hopper tended to look the other way as long as Eddie continued to give him discounts on ‘merchandise’. 

All Eddie had to do was wait out the clock. Mr. Whiter had already fallen asleep at the desk up front and at six, Eddie would be free. Maybe he could even stop at Benny’s. The man always gave him extra fries to bring home to Wayne, and Eddie was making good money now that Rick was in the slammer. He was the last dealer left in town, so things were looking up. 

Well things would be looking up, except the kid next to him refused to stop sniffling. 

Eddie muffled an irritated sigh, sliding his eyes over to take stock of the boy sitting across the way. Clearly a freshman, and obviously his first time in detention. He was looking around the room with wide-eyed horror, slightly terrified of every single thing he saw, and obviously trying to brush tears away from his bruised cheek and busted lip. 

Normally, Eddie would just tell him to shut up. That detention was barely anything to have to deal with in the grand scheme of things, but he had seen the fight that landed the kid in detention, and it had been bad enough to warrant some misery. 

One second he and another boy (obviously a friend given how upset the kid was) were laughing by his locker, and the next second they were exchanging blows. It had been bad, taking three teachers to separate them, and somehow this kid had gotten in trouble for the whole thing!

But Eddie had seen the start, and it was the other twerp that had thrown the first punch. Yet somehow, he was already on the bus home and this schmuck was stuck in detention with the Freak of Hawkins High

The unjustness gnawed at Eddie’s soul, and the longer the kid sat there doing nothing but brush at his already dry cheeks, the harder it was to ignore him. 

Fuck it. There were worse ways to spend an afternoon. 

Eddie grabbed his notebook, slamming it open to a fresh page and dragging his favorite purple pen across the paper, taking a cursory glance at Mr. Whiter’s snoring form before sliding his chair over to the other boy. 

“Hi!” Eddie said, throwing a big smile in the kids direction and hoping that would grease the wheels a little. Eddie knew how intimidating he could look to the rest of the world, and he liked it that way, but it sometimes made it hard to make friends. 

Sure enough, the kid startled the second Eddie spoke, looking at him the way a deer looks at the hunter right before they hear the death shot. He didn’t seem like the type to just outright tell Eddie to fuck off, but he did look massively uncomfortable with Eddie invading his space.  

Oh well, what was the worst that could happen?

“Wanna kill some time?” Eddie offered, holding up his notebook before placing it down on the desk in front of them. A tic tac toe board sat in the middle of the page, and a scorecard was up in the top corner with the word ‘Eddie' on one side and the words ‘Random Kid 'on the other. 

A barely there smile glanced across the kids face as he looked down at the page, and then those big brown eyes were on him. Eddie waited patiently, forcing his body to stay still which was actually a pretty herculean task— not that this kid knew. He had the worm on the hook and the line in the water, and now he was just waiting for the curious fish to bite. 

Whatever the kid was looking for, he must’ve found it because that same soft, shy smile was gifted to Eddie as he leaned down, rooting around in his backpack for his own pen. When he found the one he was looking for, he carefully crossed over Eddie’s purple writing, replacing ‘Random Kid’ with just one word instead. 

“Well, Steve, let’s hope your tic-tac-toe powers are better than your fighting skills,” Eddie joked, pleased when instead of getting mad, Steve’s cheeks darkened in a pretty little blush, and he simply ducked his head with a soft protest and an embarrassed smile. 

They played a few rounds in relative silence, the occasional quiet groan or cheer when one or the other managed to clinch a victory. It was nice, a little boring, but far preferable to what they had been doing before. 

And then Steve’s pen died. 

It was a slow death, long and drawn out with some furious scribbling to try and get one last juice for the squeeze. 

“Here, man, just take mine. I’ve got a spare somewhere,” Eddie offered, not even thinking twice as he gave away his favorite pen, even though he never let anyone borrow that pen. Wayne had gotten it for him on a day trip to Indianapolis for his birthday, just a tiny trinket to commemorate the day, and Eddie loved it to death. 

There was no way Steve could have known that, and yet he was looking at the pen like it was a live snake. 

“Why are you being so nice to me?” Steve asked, his eyes narrowing as he looked down at the clearly treasured object in front of him. 

Eddie looked up at the other boy, furrowing his brow. 

“Why not?” Eddie said with a shrug, going back to his notebook with a plain black pen. He was scratching out another tic-tac-toe board to add to the dozens that were already on the page, but paused when he saw Steve wasn’t picking up his own pen. 

“People aren’t just nice,” Steve insisted, giving Eddie an unexpectedly guarded look. “They always want something…so what do you want from me?” 

“I want to make this afternoon a little less unbearable, I want to fight the system, and I want to make you feel better.” Eddie offered, quirking his head to the side and picking up his favorite purple pen to offer once more to the other boy, “Isn’t that enough?” 

They stared at each other for a long second, until Steve’s face broke into an incredulous smile and he ducked his head down. 

“You’re really weird,” he said with a soft laugh, taking the pen. It was a lovely sound, like birds singing in the morning, or the first soft strum of a guitar as practice began. 

Eddie needed to hear it again.

From there they were off, talking about everything and anything. Eddie shared about all of the  ridiculous reasons he had gotten detention over the years, and Steve explained that the other punk from the fight was Tommy, apparently his best friend for his entire life. They had lived next to each other since Steve had moved to Hawkins as a kid, and had done every single thing together. The reason Tommy had started the fight was Steve had told him he wasn’t sure he wanted to go to basketball try-outs tomorrow. 

“It’s not that I don’t like it, I just want to try some other stuff too you know?” Steve said, looking up from their game to catch Eddie’s eye, “We’re in high school now, so it’s the time to try something new, isn’t it?” 

“Sure it is!” Eddie agreed eagerly, holding himself back from going on a diatribe about the laundry basket devils that ran the school and instead talking about all of the clubs he was in. He couldn’t really see Steve enjoying Marching Band or Creative Writing, but Drama might be a good fit, or maybe Art. 

“You could even join the new club I’m trying to start if you wanted,” Eddie offered, trying to stay casual but practically vibrating at the thought of having someone else to show Higgins that Hellfire was worthy of a place at the table. 

“A new club?” Steve asked. 

“Yea, it’s gonna be great,” Eddie started, taking a deep breath to start his long rant about the joys of dungeons and dragons, “So it’s called—”

“Alright boys,” a nasally voice droned from the front of the room. “Time to pack it up.”

Both boys jumped at Mr. Whiter’s interruption, and Eddie rolled his eyes, frustrated at being stopped right as he had started to get to the good stuff. The geometry teacher either didn’t notice or didn’t care, too eager to get back to his own home to do whatever geometry teachers did when they weren’t at school. 

If Eddie had to guess, it was probably fucking their wives with compasses while reciting geometric formulas as foreplay. That seemed right. 

“And don’t let me catch you in here again, Mr. Harrington. I would hope your parents had taught you better,” Mr. Whiter said as they trudged past him. His blank potato looking face was only showing the barest hints of disappointment, but that was still enough to make Steve cringe away.

“Yes sir,” he whispered, all joy from the last hour they had spent together vanishing in an instant.

“What? No warning for me Mr. Whiter?” Eddie inquired, batting his eyes and trying to take the attention away from Steve. 

“I don’t particularly like wasting my breath on hopeless cases, Mr. Munson,” Whiter droned, half raising one brow, as if shocked that Eddie would even bother to ask for an admonishment. “Try to get your homework done tonight, will you? I’d hate to add another zero to my gradebook,”

Hot shame rushed down Eddie’s spine, replaced quickly by a lightning fury that made his lips loose and his logic take a quick hike. 

“Well, I don’t particularly like making promises I can’t keep, sorry Tighty-Whiteys!” Eddie declared, grabbing Steve’s hand and dragging him away before they could get in any trouble because of Eddie’s big fat mouth. 

“Jesus H Christ, that guys a dick!” Eddie shouted, both boys laughing breathlessly as they burst through the doors of the school. 

“You gonna do the homework?” Steve said through his giggles. 

“Now? Hell no!” Eddie swore, cackling as he did and jumping up onto the low wall next to the school. “Gotta fight the system however you can, Stevie. Trust me. Listen to your elders.”

“Whatever you say,”  Steve said, continuing to laugh at Eddie’s antics. He idly looked around the parking lot, his mood starting to darken as he looked again, searching the parking lot again, but Eddie wasn’t exactly sure what for. 

Then Steve sighed, plopping down on the curb and wrapping his arms around his knees resting his chin on top of them and rapidly blinking. 

“What’re you doin’?” Eddie asked with concern, shocked at Steve’s sudden turn and hopping down from his spot on the wall. 

“My parents aren’t here,” Steve muttered glumly, staring out at the empty lot instead of looking at Eddie as he sat on the curb next to Steve. “The school called after the fight, and they knew when I was getting out, but my dad’s probably going to make me wait ‘till after dinner or something.”

It wasn’t exactly the most damning thing to say in the world, Eddie could think of a dozen things that his dad had done to him that were worse, but the thought of making his own son wait for hours in the cold and dark still made something in his stomach squirm. He could never imagine Wayne doing anything like that to him.

Steve curled up even tighter around himself, completely unaware of Eddie’s internal struggle. 

“God, I bet they’re so pissed.” Steve whispered into his knees. “And now my dad’s going to have to come get me, and he’s going to be even madder about that—”

“Why don’t I give you a ride home?” Eddie offered in an instant, shocking even himself with the boldness of the offer. He had just met the kid only an hour ago, but Steve’s genuine nature touched something in him, and there was a magnetic pull to want to help him that Eddie couldn’t quite explain just yet. “Then at least they won’t be mad at you about needing a ride, right?”

It would make more sense for Steve to say no, to try and play it off, but instead he was giving Eddie a watery smile and a look of gratitude as he nodded, starting to stand. 

Eddie had never really worried about what the van looked like, but as they walked towards where it was, Eddie jogged ahead, trying to throw the multitudes of wrappers and junk into the back where Steve wouldn’t see. Luckily for him, the younger boy seemed enraptured by the simple fact that Eddie had a car at all. 

“I want something cool like a Beemer or a truck, but my mom doesn’t want me to get a car ‘till I’m 18,” Steve said idly, pausing and furrowing his brow as he did, “She’s really weird about me driving for some reason.” 

Hopefully, she wouldn’t feel too weird about a random guy giving her kid a ride home in a kidnapper van. 

“Pick a tape for us to listen to,” Eddie offered as he climbed into the driver's seat, fighting with his seatbelt as Steve perused his choices. Unfortunately, Steve quickly skipped over all of the metal that Eddie had at the front of the pack, but soon familiar notes began to sing, and Eddie’s shoulders relaxed as he recognized the song. 

“Ahhhh, The King. A good choice,” Eddie commented as Elvis’s voice began to croon out into the air between them. 

“Who could hate this song?” Steve asked rhetorically, a wry grin on his face as the tune began to take shape.

“I always loved that nickname,” Steve said off handedly, staring out the window at the rows of corn, “King.” 

“You should steal it then,” Eddie said automatically. Sure, Steve was a kid right now, but Eddie could see it in his eyes. A few years, a couple more inches, and that kid would have the world eating out of his palm. That sweet nature, that funny little humor, ‘King’ wasn’t too hard to imagine when it came to Steve. 

“Maybe,” Steve replied, drawing out the word with a tone that showed that he wasn’t sure about that. He gave Eddie a few more directions, and they got closer and closer to their time being done together. A strange desperation started to make Eddie’s heart race, like he could feel the two of them pulling back into their roles, backing away from whatever they had this afternoon. 

“It’s got a good ring to it. King Steve,” Eddie pushed, pausing and making the turn into Loch Nora before he put his heart on the line. 

“Why don’t you blow off basketball try-outs tomorrow? Come to my club I’m starting instead. You can meet my friends.”

It was a chance, a choice. Steve could make the right one, and be one of them, or he could get sucked into Hawkins and all of it’s hell hole small town bullshit. Eddie was giving him an out. 

“That sounds really fun,” Steve said in a small voice, a secret smile shared between them before it was ruined by a shout from the house in front of them. 

“Steven!”

It was a woman’s voice, and Steve’s entire body stiffened. No more smiles, no more relaxing, Steve was a rod of pure steel, with a blank unaffected face. A man and a woman, Steve’s mother and father presumably, were standing on the porch together, twin faces of disappointed gravity that stole all of the air out of the van. 

“Well, wish me luck,” Steve laughed without humor, his fingers worrying over the straps of his backpack as he started to unbuckle his seatbelt. 

“See you tomorrow?” Eddie asked, already knowing in his stomach that he wouldn’t. 

“Tomorrow,” Steve said, the word so thin and frail now. 

And he was gone. Out of the car, and most definitely out of Eddie’s life. But if he was losing this like he seemed to lose everything, Eddie wanted to at least say a proper goodbye. 

“See you later Alligator!” Eddie shouted through the window. Steve turned back, haloed by the setting sun, looking far too angelic for a gangly fourteen year old. 

“In a while Crocodile,” Steve called back with a slight laugh, just a shadow of his former self, turning and rushing to his waiting parents who gave Eddie one last glare before slamming the door shut. 

Eddie waited a second, staring at the locked door and listening to the song on the radio, wishing that the burning in his eyes would just disappear the way Steve had. 

Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and care?

Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?

Is your heart filled with pain

Shall I come back again?

Tell me dear, are you lonesome tonight?

Eddie opened his eyes again, back in the present, to find Steve already watching him. 

In another world, things worked out differently, but not in this one. 

In reality, Steve didn’t come to Hellfire the next day. Tommy was at his locker bright and early, there to laugh the whole thing off and drag Steve to try-outs come hell or high water. Eddie had seen the whole thing, and he had known then and there Steve wasn’t one of them. Steve’s cheek was still bruised, but there were finger shapes on his wrist that definitely hadn’t been there the day before during detention. He had glanced at Eddie, but quickly glanced away, agreeing loudly that try-outs were going to be awesome. 

When Steve had caught his eye that day, when he had tried to say he was sorry without words, Eddie hadn’t been in a place to listen. He had a thousand chips of his own weighing on his shoulders, and an inability to see anything but his own opinion as right. 

There was no way to be two things at once, not back then. 

But that bruised beat up kid was in front of him again, big hazel eyes begging for forgiveness again. And this time, Eddie finally felt ready to give it to him. 

“Hi Alligator,” Eddie whispered, the words barely able to get out past the lump in his throat. A small smile graced Steve’s lips as his eyes began to shine in the dark. 

“It’s been a while, Crocodile,” Steve whispered back. 

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[corvidcall]

there's a podcast i like thats focused on leftist theory through a christian lens (which i just think is really interesting, given how many christians you meet that are loudly anti-communist and for some reason are convinced jesus would love capitalism) and i just saw a tweet thread they made saying that, for Lent, they want to give up the US blockade against Cuba (so theyre spending the next 40 days writing letters to biden and their local reps and encouraging others to do the same)

i am delighted i bought all those stamps at costco because i am gonna be writing some goddamn letters to our dumbfuck government

[bmpmp3]

dysgraphic artiƨts risɘ UP!!!!!

[sunshinexlollipops]

bro the job market where I live is fucking terrible. literally nothing available is doable bc I either need a degree I don't have, years of experience in this specific field that I don't have, they don't provide benefits, or it's something like working at twice daily. I'm about to start selling feet pics fr

[wolvierinez]

hm