#and then they were both on the run

[panickedpenguin]

@shieldofiron gifted us with a list of soulmate ideas, here is my expansion on one.

Soulmates are rare but have matching fingerprints. Doctors obtain fingerprints at one year of age, where they are government regulated and cross-checked between countries. If a print match is found, the parents will be notified. No further information is revealed until the younger match is eighteen. In the event you have a soulmate who is a criminal, you are monitored by the government for public safety.

Steve had known he had a soulmate for as long as he could remember. His mom would hug him tight and say "oh your soulmate will love you so much" and his dad would say, "be good, still have a soulmate to meet" and Steve would just beam. He couldn't help but to be ecstatic. He was the only kid in his entire school to have a soulmate until the fifth grade when some kindergartener came. But everyone in his grade was jealous, and that felt good, he felt so cool. Girls would giggle about how he is destined for someone and then they would suck him off at parties to prove they are better than any ol soulmate. Boys would tease and laugh about what Steve's perfect soulmate must be like, the size of her boobs and forehead and teeth. Steve gobbled it up, basked in the attention, the popularity.

When Steve's eighteenth birthday came around, he was ready to receive the official letter of soulmate introduction, to learn who his soulmate was. He wanted to know if they liked scary movies or comedies, if they failed any of their high school classes too, if they were sweet or stubborn or smart. He wanted to know if they would be on top during sex and kiss him softly at night. But the letter didn't arrive on the day of his birthday, or the next day, or the day after that.

His mom said "you know she is probably just younger than you. you won't get to meet her until after her eighteenth" and his dad said "hopefully you won't have to wait too much longer son, you're pacing a hole in the grass to the mailbox"

So Steve got a job while he waited, figured he could save up some money of his own to set up a future for him and his soulmate. He spent much of his day thinking about who it could be, what kind of house they would want, how many kids they will have. Steve smiled and smiled just thinking about it.

Finally, many months later, Steve got the letter he'd been waiting for. He got home from work and his mom was right at the door, holding out the thick envelope with his name on it. Steve yelped and cheered and ran to his room to open it. He kicked off his shoes and threw himself onto his bed, ripped open the envelope and skimmed past all the jargon to reach his goal. The name of his perfect soulmate! His soulmate--

William "Billy" Hargrove

Born to Neil and Sarah Hargrove in Santa Cruz, California

Wanted for the murder of Neil Hargrove

What?

Steve continued to read, re-reading again, confused and then horrified and then firmly denying every word in front of him and then reading it again. His soulmate, Billy, had been arrested for breaking and entering, theft and destruction of private property on multiple occasions. He has a skull tattoo on his shoulder and two long scars across his back. He has blue eyes. He is wanted for the murder of his father, killed four months ago with a gun. Three shots to the body, dead.

Steve didn't come out of his room for a long time. He closed the door and cried and fought with the letter in his hand, trying to reason with its atrocities, it's lies. When he showed it to his mom three days later, she cried too. His dad said "that isn't your soulmate son" and went away to make phone calls.

It was awful. But Steve still thought to himself, they're my soulmate, I was made for them. I was made for Billy. Maybe-- maybe-- one day, I can visit him in prison and we can--

He didn't know. He didn't have time to figure it out. Not even a week after receiving his soulmate letter, he stopped at a gas station just out of town, ready to drive and drive and hopefully clear his head, when he met a boy. A boy with blond curls cut short and ocean blue eyes and a skull tattoo just under the sleeve of his ratty tshirt, asking for a ride to anywhere.

Anywhere is just where Steve was going.

[ciderjacks]

despite Laios low self esteem making him think that if he’d been eaten, Chilchuck and Marcille wouldn’t have helped Falin,

theres a small part of me that thinks the reason Chilchuck stayed with the party and went back in the dungeon in the first place was because he didn’t want to leave Laios alone. That Laios was moreso the reason he stayed.

[mjulmjul]

Katya / Goncharov

[umblrspectrum]

hi heres art so you pay attention to me now go read the tags

[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.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

oh noooo or whatever

bonus aka The Real Motive Behind This:

SURPRISE double bonus. textless ver of the first pic under the cut

[nidbaesenpai]

Viet blasts Loop as well ✨✨✨

[sandflakedraws]

How about Floyd, who came back as promised, hugging little Branch who just saw Grandma Rosiepuff get taken/eaten by the Bergen Chef?

Or how about Floyd, who came back as promised only to find the Troll Tree devoid of life and Rosiepuff's pod empty, going grey as he mourns baby Branch whom he thinks got eaten?

Hey so! Totally fun (and not hurtful at all) fact-!

For Trolls Band Together, the story the writers wanted to go with (according to the Artbook and novelization), implies that Brozone's disbandment happens before Bergen Town is even a thing, which has such severe implications to me.

so.

tfw you return to your home to find that

actually, the forest that sheltered you is eradicated, replaced with a giant town whose occupants' sole form of joy consists of devouring you.

the tree that served as your home is the only thing left of that forest, and it is decayed, withered, and desiccated... displayed in the middle of the town in a cage.

your pod, your home, is empty. every home around it is empty too. there are no trolls in sight.

as far as you know, everyone that used to be here is gone. or dead. most likely dead.

you will never see them ever again.

you were just a teenager.

[withdenim]

Lullaby <3

[navree]

Incorrect, the fact that Biden has dropped out and a candidate with history of supporting medicare for all and being more receptive to a ceasefire in the I/P conflict has made me go from "I cannot morally support the Democratic nominee" to "I am voting for the Democratic nominee despite the fact she isn't perfect in every respect." I'm really happy this played out. The Dems for the most part abandoned the old Obama platform and it feels like its possible an actual progressive agenda could come to pass in my lifetime.

Kamala 2024!

If you weren't going to vote Democratic in this election before Biden dropped out you're a dorkass loser who does not care about any of the issues you're yammering about here and also a fundamentally bad person, and I hope you get run over by a bus.

But you got one thing right in all of this gibberish, Kamala 2024.

[lucabyte]

Stardust.

[mickeym4ndy]

Even if Mickey had never come back, none of Ian’s relationships in the show or even after would’ve worked out long term because Mickey is the only person that truly knows Ian and he’s the only one that Ian could ever truly be himself around.

Ian changed himself to fit into a mold of what he felt Caleb & Trevor wanted. He wanted to hide the ugly parts of his life from them. To Ian, these shiny new relationships that were separated from the South Side and his past, were a way to hide those ugly parts of his life from himself. He wanted to move on from his past and every thing that happened in seasons 4 and 5. And he also wanted a better life for himself than what he’d had, because Ian’s always been ambitious and always wanted a way out from where he was. To Ian, a relationship with a “normal” guy who didn’t grow up like him was a way to do that.

But because of this he was never his full true self around them. He was always just playing a part for them (and himself) and keeping the things he wanted hidden, hidden. Through that he was able to hide things from himself too.

But Mickey grew up with him. Mickey’s life was just as messy, if not more so, than Ian’s. He understands Ian better than anyone. He saw first hand all the messy parts of Ian and still loved him. Even with all his insecurities that stemmed from his diagnosis, Ian never felt like he had to hide himself or change himself around Mickey. He was always just himself.

Even though it’s Mickey who says “I don’t do normal, Gallagher,” the truth is - neither does Ian. A “normal” relationship never would’ve satisfied Ian long term.

If Mickey had never come back Ian would’ve continued to do this with every new guy he dated and they all eventually would’ve ended because of this. Mickey is the only person that he doesn’t have to act with. He’s always able to just be himself.

[lord-of-the-ducks]

Apologies to everyone who follows me because you’re about to be subjected to SO much Lisa Frankenstein posting, I am so deeply abnormal about this movie and I would not be surprised if it ended up being one of my top ten favorite movies of all time.

My only wish is that my theatre could have been more crowded, it was a pretty dead audience (pun intended) which meant I spent a solid 60% of my energy trying not to cause a scene every time there was a needle drop or anything that felt like it was specifically calling me out for being a weird little goth.

[yardsards]

do people who have listened to taz balance but not graduation Know that it was HEAVILY IMPLIED that lup and barry eventually adopted a lil sorcerer child who got disowned by his family for his natural necromancy magic, and they taught him how to use his powers for good and were overall great parents that he looks back on fondly

(and said child grew up to be a dimension-hopping lich, caretaker of the dead, and very sweet adoptive father of a major npc)

[quibbs126]

Okay but it’s kind of funny how out of all the Ancients, from day one Dark Cacao was just designed to be Dark Choco’s dad

Like his original beta designs have the Oreo pads, but with a different design, he has the same star shape, they have the same eye colors, and like the Wiki says, I wouldn’t be surprised if the reason his design changed is because he looked too similar to Dark Choco, which would cause potential confusion

Like even with Hollyberry, who is the other Ancient to have had a pre-existing character be related to them, she doesn’t look identical to Princess and it’s not immediately obvious they’re related. Heck if anything, her beta design looks even less like they’re related, at least a little and at least to me

So like, why was this specifically a thing with Dark Cacao? Did one of the designers just really like Dark Choco or something? What’s going on?

[aardvaark]

im so glad that we never get a clear picture of sophie’s background in leverage & i hope we never do. however i also really like making up various, often conflicting backstories for her in my head. perhaps they’re all backstories for an alias of hers, ones she laid to rest back in season two.