#connections and things will be up later !

[charon-cries]

when OTHER people try to distract or comfort themselves, they call it "coping" and "self-soothing," but when i do it, it's a "mental compulsion" and "you have OCD"

[basslinegrave]

whatchu thinking about. nothing? just the changes to garys design and his character evolution and growth and everything. 24/7. you know. and the fact that even if he changed, hes still the same at his core!

[chirpsythismorning]

Fun fact: In the original pitch for Stranger Things, El had a little brother.

After being rejected by almost 20 studios for the Montauk pilot, the Duffers were finally green-lit by Netflix. It was at this time that they began casting and then writing the first season officially, which included reworking a lot of that first episode.

This led to the removal of the brother reference, and with it, removing any sort of arc El could have had about her apparent brother.

But the thing about this moment, is that it might not have been scrapped entirely...

Going into the final season, no one can explain why or how El recognized Will back in 1x02. And while there are plenty of things on the show that are left unexplained, with a small portion likely left that way with the intention to uncover it later, what sets this moment apart from the rest is that there are very few possibilities here.

Because for starters, the story presents El's ability to see people in the void in s1 as requiring either a picture of that person for reference, or having met that person before.

But when El see's this picture of Will, she's never met him before. Or maybe she has, but we wouldn't know because they never showed us. They could have just not done this scene at all, given that it's clearly a copy/paste/edit of something scrapped from the pitch. Or they could have even still included it, but explained it.

One explanation could be that the lab had shown El a picture of Will before, similar to what they did with the Russian agent they wanted to spy on. But then that begs to question, why would the lab show El a picture of Will? Why would they want to see what he was doing? That alone is incriminating in and of itself, implying that Will is more connected to the lab than we realize.

The only other, and frankly most likely explanation, would be that El stumbled across Will at some point on her journey between escaping the lab and Will going missing. This is actually something that happens in The Other Side comic, which explores all the things Will may have experienced during his time in the Upside Down.

Though it’s worth noting the comics aren’t technically canon, and I highly doubt they would outright spoil everything in relation to Will’s time there, years before it was intended to be revealed. But still, let's humor this for a moment given that I do think Will's time in the UD is going to be very relevant in s5, which means it's highly likely they will finally address how exactly El saw him.

Basically, in the comic, Will see’s El walking through the woods, almost apparition like, glowing as she passes by, while also sporting the Benny’s burgers shirt. This means they would have crossed passed within a short span of time, between when El escaped Benny’s when the agents arrived, but before she was found by the boys.

Though it’s worth noting that we’re seeing this all from Will’s perspective. This means from the UD, Will was capable of seeing El on the other side, despite them being on different sides. And not only that, but she also looks back at him.

What confuses me about this, is that it doesn’t make sense for El to be in the woods, only to randomly decide to pop in to the void for a moment. She was trying to escape the lab and everything that came with it. I doubt she had any desire to lurk back there for some reason, not until someone encouraged her to. Not to mention, it would make no sense for her to go there and see Will if she wasn't even looking for him in the first place. And so this would mean Will and El could see each other, with Will being in the UD, and El being on the other side.

While it does seem pretty far off, given that you would think Will and El wouldn't be able to see each other from different sides, it is true in the story that El not only recognizes Will, but knows that he is in danger. She mentions that he is hiding specifically.

Which means she has likely seen him within the last 24 hours regardless.

This, in combination with Will being able to respond to El in the void at the end of the season in Castle Byers, when no one else outside of Terry and flayed-Billy have been able to, seems to imply that there is indeed something special about Will that makes him capable of communicating with El from the UD. Not only that, but El also seems to have an ability to be in this constant knowing state of how Will is doing, without even checking again to confirm. She's just certain of it. And she seems terrified about it.

Going forward, El never uses a picture of Will to find him. She never did. And more often than not, they don’t show us what she see’s either, not until the very end. And that’s the moment they reveal that he was able to communicate with her.

Again, there was really no reason to have El recognize Will. If anything it complicates things. But the fact that they chose to introduce this concept, with a scene from the original pitch that was related to El’s younger brother, with her pointing at his name cryptically, startling Benny, only to revamp it and have El not say anything at all while pointing at the picture of Will, startling Mike… It just really makes you stop and think.

Which brings me to the other aspect of this that might have people doubting, which is that El’s brother was originally younger than her.

We know Will is not younger than El, so how could this apply to him?

Well, it might be helpful to consider that in the original script, El was actually 10 years old, while the boys were always 12. Meaning that for some reason, they decided to age her up to the age of the boys, aka the same age as Will…

Ever since @erikiara80 shared this brother discovery with me, I have been sort of reeling. It then led to other little discoveries of changes they made between Montauk and Stranger Things.

It’s important to understand that the Montauk bible and the original script precedes what we ended up with in the final product, with it finally changing and evolving months, maybe even a year since that original vision. Even casting occurred before writing started for the first season. We know this because casting announcements were made in June and August of 2015, with writing not starting until August going into early 2016, simultaneously while they were filming.

And believe it or not, what I've discovered is that a lot of the changes they made between their original plans and what we see in the final product, have to do with not only Willel, but also Byler.

If you've read the original script for Montauk, you'll know that Mike's crush on Jennifer Hayes was focused on right from the jump, along with the birthmark on his face being focused on, which was the main cause of the bullying he experienced.

This has actually been talked about recently, and some of the claims people make do fit with what I am genuinely starting to consider here, which is that the initial plan for what makes Mike an outcast shifted.

I think when they completed casting, and started actually deep diving into what they wanted this world to look like, both from a short-term and long-term standpoint, they were presented with some pretty interesting discoveries, arguably already hiding in their initial plans without realizing it.

And this is where it sort of becomes a 'chicken or the egg' situation. Because which one came first? Byler or Willel?

I can't say for certain, because obviously this is all just speculation. But in the case that Willel came first, I think Byler would come very naturally after that.

The Duffers themselves are twins. Then they hire Noah, who is a twin. Then they're thinking and planning for El's past and how her family all fits into this, and they're thinking... wait a damn minute... We could totally Star Wars this bitch!

And then when they think it couldn't get any better, they uncover another layer that they hadn't planned or really considered in their initial plans.

While Will was always going to have sexual identity issues according to the Montauk bible, meaning that the writing process for him likely involved sitting down imagining scenarios that encapsulated this arc for Will from the beginning, they were simultaneously now finding very interesting aspects of Mike's character that made it hard not to at least consider the possiblity that Mike is not exactly straight.

Just think about it. The Byers and Wheelers are basically polar opposites on the spectrum of what a family looks like. While Will's discovery and acceptance of his queerness is interesting to explore because he comes from a low-income, single-mom household, all while having been bullied for years based on his perceived queerness, he also has a mother and brother constantly reinforcing that they will accept him no matter what. They've been sort of hitting us over the head with it for years, and so it wouldn't be very satisfying for his entire arc to merely lead up to something we've known all along. It's pretty much a given at this point.

On the other side of the spectrum, Mike comes from a more upper-middle class family at the end of a cul-de-sac, more aligned with what a nuclear family looks like. Mike's family is also presented as being more conservative, and while Karen does give that very queer-coded speech to Mike in s1 (I'm convinced they only wrote this after deciding to explore queer-coding more heavily with Mike), it also comes with comments from Ted and even still Karen that hint that they are probably not as open-minded and accepting as Will's family is to him. Which means Mike's arc would be a lot more about acceptance around him from his loved ones who we have been led to believe might not be as accepting of his queerness in contrast to Will.

And so as they're putting this story together, and they're being presented with something very interesting. Two similar experiences that play out in different ways because of the characters circumstances.

Will goes missing, and his twin sister with a buzzcut pops up and has the ability to help them find Will.

This leads to several moments where El is being compared to as not only a boy, but Will as well.

Now suddenly, their initial plans to have Mike's arc be about having a girl be interested in him and to hopefully have his first kiss and feel like less of a loser, starts to look a lot like what the experience a queer kid in his position might encounter growing up in the environment that he did.

And if you don't want to take my word for it, just hear the Duffer's themselves hinting at what they initially planned for Mike and the fact that it changed.

The changes don't stop there.

Believe it or not, 'It was a seven', did not exist in the initial pitch. When the boys went outside bickering over Nancy, they leave right after that.

Another thing that changed from the first script, was Scott Clarke's introduction:

And so you might be thinking, who cares? What does that have to do with anything?

Well, it's interesting because the line we end up with on the show is arguably one of the most on the nose Twelvegate proofs to date. Mind you, this is from the first episode:

Why chuck the original version, which was arguably more interesting and fascinating in terms of it hinting at the mysteriousness surrounding this story, only to replace it with him listing off tips about their upcoming test?

Well, I think it's the irony of it all. Here Mr. Clarke is practically telling us where to look to figure stuff out for ourselves what is going on, with all the kids filing out and ignoring him...

I relate to Scott a litttle too much in this shot here, any time I try to drop Willel evidence.

And the changes go on, as they obviously would.

Things like Terry Ives not even being El's mom, but actually a man who more so aligns with the characterization of Murray.

And one very interesting one I almost overlooked was in Hopper's introduction, where instead of a kids drawing done by who we assume to be Sarah, we actually see a picture on the wall of him and his wife and daughter... Interesting that they decided to switch it something that is a lot less definitive in presenting what Hopper's past looked like...

If you've made it this far, congratulations.

If you still think I'm out of my mind, just remember that El was going to have a brother in the original script, but they scrapped the scene and gave a near identical one to introduce her connection to Will instead 😘

[saltycharacters]

[ID: Digital artwork featuring Shimazaki Ryou from Mob Psycho 100, with some cameos from Serizawa Katsuya and Reigen Arataka. First drawing has Shimazaki in a casual pose as he rests one hand on his hip and the other grasps his white cane. He's wearing a short pink dress with a leather jacket, heels, some pointy jewlery and leggings, smiling smugly. The next image is a rough comic following Shimazaki as he infiltrates Serizawa's home, the text above it stating "Headcanon: Shimazaki likes to teleport into Serizawa's house and steal his food bc he's too nice to stop him". The first panel shows Serizawa flicking the light on, asking in exasperated disbelief, "Shimazaki. Whya re you in my kitchen at 3 am" as Shimazaki casually responds with "Heeeey bud don't mind me just doing a late night food run". Next panel has Serizawa and Reigen sharing a couch as Shimazaki rumages through the kitchen in the background, the words "After Reigen moves in" written near the top. Reigen is facing the kitchen with a confused glare, angrily questioning, "WHY is he in our apartment" while Serizawa stares at the tv in tired acceptance as he responds with "Ignore him". Shimazaki, from the kitchen, inquires "Yo Serizawa did you change the location of the pretzels I can't find them", followed by "3rd cabinet to the left" from Serizawa and a "Thanks" from Shimazaki. End ID]

Shimazaki headcanons for the win

[t-u-i-t-c]

"That's the kinda thing... That I hate."

[wandixx]

Dani gives people heart attacks and brings down a lot of trafficking rings, making friends along the way. Everything by accident, really

Dani traveled around world, hadn't she? While doing it, she had to meet a lot of interesting people.

Like heroes or villains.

In civies or not or both who knows.

But to actually learn things about someplace you have to spend more than one night there. Like, idk? Month? Probably more but I doubt she would be able to sit in one place for any longer. In many places she is shorter.

Month is long enough to create some connections though.

Enough to get someone to realize when you disappear...

Yeah, Dani on her way of gremlin and self discovery ghosted bunch of people without second thought. They'll probably forget her in few months anyway. And she was everywhere in USA. She didn't left American soil only because she didn't want to be too far from Danny in case of emergency. Before anyone tells me he was in space so he could fly to her wherever on Earth she would be, Earth's atmosphere ends about 100 km above sea level and officially this is border of space. Telecommunication satellites are between 8000 to 12000 km up. It's about how wide Atlantic Ocean is.

Plus y'know, time. If she needs help, she probably can't quite wait until he flies all the way to Hong Kong, Wladywostok, Rio de Janeiro or wherever she is.

So America it is. For now at least. When they're 100% sure she is stable she'll fly elsewhere.

Anyway people who she ghosted are used to batshit crazy stuff but "this tween is alone on her road to self discovery and just left for new city" isn't first thing anyone thought about. Maybe outside of Martians. They know. Everyone else? No idea what happened to this tiny, chaotic, snarky, probably meta child.

First thought though?

She got kidnapped.

So now 3/4 of Justice League, some individual heroes and bunch of less intense rogues are scrambling around their cities tracking every trafficking ring they found glimpses of, trying to find Dani.

Flashes work with Captain Cold on this and seem to slowly descend into madness. At the same time, Dani eats ice cream with nice museum lady from Washington who introduced herself as Diana. Then she helps at animal shelter with kind stuck up boy called Damian. Oh, Danny likes aliens, let's visit Martian Manhunter. Maybe she'll manage to get autograph for her template. Wait Space Cops? Kinda sucks but Danny would probably like their signatures too. Let's go. Oh, Superboys are fun mess with and older one is like her! This Nightwing guy puns like Danny but she always feels like he looks at her weirdly. Billy should eat more, magic or not, fighting is tiring. Good thing she has Sam's money to buy him burgers.

She has time of her life while people she met are slowly dying.

She probably doesn't even hide that she is traveling but for whatever reason they don't think she actually left.

They don't bring it up on any meeting because no matter how concerned they are, it's not really whole league type of business. And Martians just discreetly enjoy chaos.

There is a lot of ways it can get resolved (or not) but I kinda thought about Jon introducing his old buddy Damian to his new buddy Dani because he thinks they would get along and they just stare at each other for long moment before:

"Dani..."

"Dami!"

"WHY DID YOU LEFT WITHOUT A WORD! WE THOUGHT YOU WERE KIDNAPPED OR DEAD!"

Some screaming and revelation that Killer Croc was looking for her too, Dani hits moment of realisation.

"Wait, is this what people think when you just up and go?"

"Honestly? Yeah"

"Oh, Ancients I did this to so many people. So many..."

Idk, just Dani traveling and leaving people behind.

Do with it what you will

[skrunksthatwunk]

something he can't put into words.

[ruvviks]

// wip day.

i'm working on a new project that is (for once) not connected to any of my bigger original universes, so i thought i'd share some of the writing i have for it! taglist down below, feel free to take this opportunity to share your own wips (in a separate post of course) if you have any!! the first part is a sort of introduction to the story, from the perspective of main character marshall! the second part is a snippet from a scene much further into the story, to kind of paint a picture (for both you and myself lol) of what the setting and the tone of the story is gonna be like. it's a bit different writing than what you're used to from me so please take a moment to read the warnings first!! warnings >> blood, cult, death, implied cannibalism, gore, religion, violence

God won't speak to me.

He spoke to my sister when we were eleven, her howls echoing through the backyard of our childhood home as the venom of a wasp spread quickly through her veins.

He spoke to my mother the day we buried her oldest son, the hem of her alcohol-stained dress torn where it had caught on the thorns of a blackberry bush she had blankly passed through.

He spoke to my father the day he put the barrel of a .44 in his mouth, reenacting what he had classified a sin for all the wrong reasons, his trembling finger on the trigger strong enough to rip apart the last tendon holding our family together yet not to finish the job.

I was eighteen, when I was found on the river bank near Overture, Louisiana, the sharp end of a jagged knife plunged deep within my side and my bloodied hands clutching the cross necklace of my brother, my breathing akin to the ice cold shallow water grazing at my ankles as I stared up at the star-spotted sky with glazed over eyes, blue chapped lips shaped in the final hum of a prayer.

A black abyss stared back, a strained vacuum without comfort, leaving me with a plea unheard and the metallic taste of blood in my mouth.

And God did not answer.

'Gotta dig… Just gotta dig. Gotta get 'em out of there… Gotta take 'em home…'

The physical distance between Marshall and the grave did not muffle the continuous mumbling, the shaky voice of the young priest clear as day like a whisper directly in his ear as the eerie silence looming over the church's cemetery left him with not much else to focus on. He knew he should turn around and leave, at that hour of the night— get back in his car and return to Posey in the motel, get some sleep while he still could— yet curiosity held him tight within its grasp, and each step he took pushed him closer into the wrong direction.

'Just the bones… Just the bones…'

The man was hunched over, back turned towards Marshall and partially obscured by the few last rows of gravestones stood between the two of them. His neck twitched— a sudden and unexpected movement at an angle Marshall did not hold for possible, yet it had happened entirely too fast for him to clearly see.

'Hey, is everything alright?' he called out; well against his better judgment, hairs on his forearms standing up straight as his feet carried him another few inches closer to the priest.

And the closer he got, the more he wished he had listened to himself.

If he had just turned away, he wouldn't have had to notice the unusual and unplaceable noises bubbling up from the priest's direction. He wouldn't have had to realize the priest was sat next to a coffin, yet to be lowered into an undug grave. (A curious practice, but Marshall was not one to judge— Overture'd had to endure a rather tiresome series of curiosities as of late, and an unburied corpse in the middle of bumfuck Louisiana in the midst of a yet to be explained power cut would be the least of its problems.)

'Just the bones…. Gotta dig… Gotta bring 'em home.'

'Do you need help?' Marshall persistently asked, his voice muffled by the thrumming of his own heart in his eardrums while his eyes trailed over the coffin— splintered and shattered at the lid, the glimmer of the distant church lights barely enough to reveal the outline of an axe resting on the dirt at the priest's ankles.

'Have to do it, there's no other way. Gotta dig, gotta dig, gotta dig—'

'Hey!'

Marshall should have never stayed in town.

He realized that now, as the priest's obsessive muttering came to a sudden stop forcing Marshall to hold still too— yet he had already approached too closely, and realized that no dirt had been dug in at all, and realized that the priest's hands were instead stuck inside the coffin repeatedly plunging deeper and deeper into the rotting remains of the corpse inside, once white vestment covered in blood and gore and he stared up at Marshall with a faint glow in two milky white eyes and with a wide grin exposing bloodied and shattered teeth, much akin to a predator looking at its next prey.

'Just the bones,' he repeated, the nodding of his head nearly belittling— as if to convince Marshall this was how it was supposed to be, as if to convince him the Word of God was not to be neglected and his fate as a sinner was a gift to the Divine Light and as if to convince him as long as he would not struggle it would all be over soon.

'Gotta dig.'

Marshall could not move, lamb to the slaughter as the priest rose to his feet with the axe in his hand.

'Just the bones! Gotta take 'em home.'

taglist (opt in/out)

@velocitic, @deadrlngers, @euryalex, @ordinarymaine, @gurathins;

@mojaves, @shellibisshe, @dickytwister, @mnwlk, @rindemption;

@ncytiri, @calenhads, @noirapocalypto, @florbelles, @radioactiveshitstorm;

@strafethesesinners, @fashionablyfyrdraaca, @aemondtargeryen, @radioactive-synth, @katsigian;

@estevnys, @elgaravel

[artiststarme]

Staying Alive, Staying Alive

I was feeling a little angsty today and now here we are. I hope you guys like this and please leave your thoughts in the comments!

Title brought to you by @lumoschild!

~*~*~*~

Steve’s stomach dropped when he heard Dustin’s screaming from the trailer park. He and the girls were only about halfway back in their trek when they started hearing his cries which caused Steve to sprint in his direction. Why was Dustin screaming and where was Eddie? They were supposed to be out of danger. They were the goddamn decoys and Steve told them not to be heroes! 

The sight he stumbled on when he broke through the barrier of the trees would forever haunt him. Just past the rows of trailer homes, Dustin was knelt on bloodied knees, sobbing, with an unmoving Eddie situated half on his lap. The two of them were sitting in a pond of blood that was growing ever larger. Steve had never seen Munson so still, he was always flamboyant and larger than life in everything he did. His face, usually so expressive and full of life, had never been so pale either, only made worse with the sluggishly bleeding wounds still leaking from his neck and torso. 

“Dustin!” Steve screamed for him as he ran closer and fell to his knees beside him in a careless slump. “What happened? When’d he stop breathing?”

“I-I don’t know, just before you got here, I guess. He-he saved me. He didn’t run away this time, Steve.” He grabbed onto Eddie’s shoulders even stronger in a desperate hug while tears ran down his cheeks.

“Okay, I know he didn’t. Munson’s a strong guy and he still has fight left. I need you to put him down so I can bring him back, okay?” Steve muttered soothingly. If Eddie had just lost his pulse a few minutes ago, there was still a chance that he could get his heart beating again.

“What? Steve-”

“Put him down, Dustin!” Steve would feel bad for yelling at him later but he had a very limited window for CPR to work and he didn’t have time for any more niceties. 

Dustin flinched back as if struck and let go of Eddie abruptly. His face screwed up in a vicious sob when Steve started applying forceful compressions to his friend’s chest. “Steve, you’re hurting him!”

“He can’t feel pain if he’s dead, Dustin! If this works, he can complain about it later.” Steve struck Eddie’s chest over and over again to the beat of Stayin’ Alive by the Bee Gees like he was taught to as a swim instructor. He never could’ve imagined then that this is how he’d be using his skills. 

Both Dustin and Steve winced when they heard Eddie’s ribs crack but Steve didn’t stop applying his full body weight into every push. Nancy and Robin showed up at some point between Steve giving compressions and breathing into Eddie’s mouth but he paid them no mind. In fact, he didn’t pay anything any mind until Eddie gasped for air on his own. 

“Eddie!” Dustin yelled and tried to scramble away from Nancy’s arms that restrained him. 

“Ouch,” Eddie whispered before his eyes slid shut once more.

“No, no, no. Munson, wake up. Keep your eyes open. We have to get out of here, c’mon. Robin, help me pick him up,” Steve ordered. She quickly stepped forward and helped situate Eddie bridal-style in his arms. With a few well-placed cloths to act as bandages, she patted Steve’s shoulder and he bolted towards the gate in the Munson trailer. The entire Upside Down started shaking and the ground started to fracture in a horrific version of  ‘the-floor-is-lava’ game. 

But Steve could only focus on holding pressure against a particularly deep wound on Eddie’s side and the soft breaths fanning his neck. One step in front of the other, he sprinted as fast as he could without jostling the injured man in his arms too much. His efforts proved fruitless if the muffled moans of pain into his ear indicated anything. 

When he got to the trailer, Robin was right behind him. She threw the door open and pushed the small kitchen table underneath the quaking gate and threw herself through first, ungraceful and uncoordinated as it was, in order to catch Eddie when Steve pushed him through the portal. Which she did. By falling with him and kneeing him in the spine. Seeing them mostly safe, Steve carefully guided Dustin onto the table and threw the gate with his injured leg and then offered a hand to Nancy and gave her a gentle push. 

As the gate started to close, he hardly had enough time to jump through the portal into the Rightside Up himself. He could feel the sizzling heat on his sides and burning on the outer parts of his leg until his back met a soft surface on the ground. He made it. 

They didn’t have time to celebrate though because Dustin was crying in pain about his leg, Robin was rubbing her side in discomfort, and Eddie was still groaning and bleeding out onto his own stained mattress. Steve’s sides were screaming but he didn’t have time to acknowledge his own wounds until he was sure his friends would survive. 

“Alright Nancy, where’s your car? We have to get to the hospital.” Steve asked her, easily falling into the position of leader once more.

“Um, it's right outside.” With a peek out the trailer’s window, Steve could definitely see that it was not. 

“No it isn’t. Where’d you park it?” 

“I swear,” Nancy promised. “I parked it right in front of the door. We’ll just have to call for an ambulance.”

Steve shook his head and ran a stressed hand through his hair. Eddie didn’t have time for an ambulance. With the earthquakes and the preexisting stigma around the people that lived at Forest Hills, an ambulance would take up to thirty minutes and he didn’t have that. Fuck, what were they going to do?!

He sent another glance out the window to see a small sedan parked outside the neighboring trailer. Bullseye. 

“Okay, new plan. Eddie and I are going to hotwire that car and drive to the hospital. You guys are going to call an ambulance and meet us there.” He nodded to himself and went to pick up a blurry-eyed Eddie. 

“Steve, we should stick together. It’s not smart to go off on our own,” Nancy expressed condescendingly. 

“Well, no one’s ever mistaken me for being smart so I guess that’s par for the course. We’ll see you at the hospital.” Then they were off. Steve was once again carrying Eddie as gently as he could but this time Eddie’s eyes were open and searching. 

“Who knew that Steve Harrington would be so adamant on keeping me alive?” He muttered.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Munson.”

“I’m bleeding all over you, surely we’re on a first name basis now. Right Steve?” His tone was pretty challenging for a guy that was dead less than five minutes ago. 

“You can call me whatever you want, Eddie. Just keep your eyes open.”

“Okay, I’ll try my best. What’re you planning on doing? Lisa always leaves her car locked,” he said as soon as he saw the direction Steve was walking in.  

Steve didn’t dignify his question with a response. He just grabbed the ax from its position secured on his back and swung the dull edge towards the driver’s side window, shattering it instantly. 

“Holy shit,” Eddie murmured in amazement. Unknowingly to Steve, that was the exact moment that Eddie fell in love with him. He had risked his life to save him in the Upside Down and carried him bridal-style out of hell. Now he was committing crimes to keep him alive and looking hot while doing it. Eddie’s heart didn’t stand a chance. 

Steve gently leaned Eddie against the car while he worked to get the driver’s side door open and then picked him up again to gently settle him in across the backseats. His movements caused Eddie to whimper in pain but they were so close, they couldn’t stop now. 

“Okay Munson, focus. How do I hotwire this car?” Steve looked back at him and saw the seats quickly staining red. “Shit Eddie! Put pressure right there, we have to slow the bleeding. C’mon, how do I do this?

Eddie tried to press his bandana into his worst wound as he gave Steve directions. “Pull off the steering column and grab the wires. Did you get my pliers? You’ll need those to strip the coating.”

“Yep. Okay, I got the cover off and I see the wires. What next?”

“There-there should be… two wires. One red and one black. You have to s-strip them and tap them together until the ignition starts…” 

His voice started to taper off towards the end of his explanation and he could hardly keep his eyes open anymore. Steve pulled the wires from the steering column and stripped them just as Eddie had in the RV. When he looked into the backseat, he did a double take. Eddie’s skin was even paler and clammier than it had been before. Most worryingly though, his eyes were glazed and his breathing was labored. Steve reached an arm back to shake at his shoulder. 

“Don’t fucking die, Eddie! I didn’t carry you out of the goddamn Upside Down just for you to die in some stranger’s backseat.” He hissed in angered panic. 

“Ooo kinky.” Eddie mumbled through chapped lips. 

“Not kinky, dying is not kinky! Wake up, Eddie!” 

Just then, the engine turned over and the ignition started. “Yes, yes! Eddie, hold on. I got the car to start. C’mon man, five minutes to the hospital. You’ve got this.”

“Okay…” Eddie whispered. Steve could hardly breathe as he sped down the roads and broke every traffic law. He didn’t care about the consequences of his actions as long as Eddie lived. He didn’t care about speeding tickets or jail time, he just needed his new friend to survive. 

“Eddie, you doing okay?”

“I wouldn’t… characterize this as- as being… okay,” he answered between labored breaths. 

“You’re doing great, man,” Steve told him. He looked back at him in the rearview and saw Eddie’s eyes looking back at him. 

“Thanks for doing this, Stevie. You didn’t have to. You-you could’ve left me there-”

“Shut up, man. I wasn’t going to leave you after you risked your life to help us. You’re one of us now whether you like it or not.” Steve told him. He wasn’t going to stand for any self-deprecating comments after he’d almost died (did die for a few minutes) to save Dustin. 

Eddie hummed before the car lapsed into silence for the next minute or so, only broken by the sounds of Eddie wheezing for air and Steve’s fingers shaking against the steering wheel. When they arrived at the hospital, Steve pulled right in front of the emergency room and screamed for help. Nurses, doctors, and assistants came rushing out to help him and they placed Eddie on the gurney. 

His lips were red with blood and his face was ashen without it. But when Steve looked at him, he smiled wide. “I’ll see you later, Big Boy.”

Steve couldn’t even threaten the hospital staff to treat him well or tell them to ignore the rumors on TV (although he would find out later that Nancy and Robin did that well enough on their own). As soon as Eddie was wheeled out of sight, Steve collapsed from his own injuries. 

Just a few days later, Steve woke up from sedation to find himself in a hospital bed with Eddie as a roommate. And if his heartbeat sped up on the monitor when Eddie smiled at him, well, that wasn’t anyone’s business but theirs.

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[jackfrostimposter]

genuinely why is there so much misinformation about the guardians of childhood book series?

[alexcabotgf]

not to be true crime posting on main but i think i'm falling down the wm3 rabbit hole again

[triglycercule]

im on vacation how can i make this about the murder time trio. mtt fresh out of a flight and the minute that they leave the airport dust stops horror and killer for the smoke break. because being around a smoker is like that. and while horror is dying and coughing from the cigarette smoke and killer is pretend coughing to make dust feel terrible theyre both simultaneously roasting the shit out of dust for being such an addict smoker. cancer speedrun GO says horror. refreshing his signature smell says killer. dust just glares at them and blows smoke in their face (horror literally takes damage he's at 0.7 HP)

[antianakin]

A question, if I may? Do you think Anakin, as he was when he first joined the Jedi Order in TPM, was doomed to fail as a Jedi, so to speak? In-universe, not out-of-universe meta. At that point, do you think it could have gone either way for him, in that he was still capable of becoming a Jedi? And may I be cheeky and ask for full details of why you think that, one way or another?

I've written a post about this before because my answer to this kind-of encapsulates my primary interpretation of Anakin as a character.

In case people don't want to click the link, I'll rehash it a little below.

I think Anakin never would've been a good Jedi because by the time you reach him in TPM, he's already the kind of person whose values and desires don't match up with the Jedi lifestyle. This doesn't make him a bad PERSON, at all, and he's entirely capable of getting a lot of good out of the Jedi's teachings. I think that Anakin was capable of really being able to HEAL through Jedi training, but that if he had been able to really learn from them the way he should've, he would've left the Order voluntarily eventually out of recognition that this life ISN'T WHAT HE REALLY WANTS. Anakin doesn't WANT to be as limited as the Jedi are forced to be by making themselves answer to the Senate and the Chancellor. Anakin DOES want to be able to prioritize the people he personally cares about (in the more normal way that people tend to do, not the genocidal way he does in canon).

And all of this is FINE. Honestly, I think this is the ultimate good outcome for Anakin, to spend enough time with the Jedi to allow their teachings to heal him from his past and give him control over himself to the point that he can pursue the life he really wants in a healthy way. I think Anakin was always capable of being an incredible person and the character we see in TPM is entirely capable of going either way on that, but no, he'd never make a good Jedi.

I also think that if Anakin had been found a much YOUNGER age, like 3 or younger, he'd have been perfectly capable of being a good Jedi. It would remove his attachment to Shmi and the way they had to live their lives, it would allow him to have a better foundation of Jedi philosophies, and it would help him to really see the JEDI as his family rather than constantly searching for a "real" family beyond them. This interpretation comes straight from Lucas himself, who has said that if Anakin had been found at a much younger age, he'd have been fine with being a Jedi, but that being found late was, in many ways, his first stumbling block towards darkness. And that's no one's FAULT, obviously (aside from perhaps the slavers who took Shmi), but it doesn't make it any less true.

Let me know if you want more details on my personal interpretation of this!

[quirkle2]

do u guys remember this pla au where i shoved mob psycho characters into legend arceus and then in an ask i answered abt it i decided on a whim that ingo would stay in the universe and be teru's mentor. do u guys remember that cuz i do

[scalproie]

really wish people would realize that every single character endings in t8 isnt canon

[skrunksthatwunk]

you go to a lesbian blog and find it says women only!! no men allowed!!! and go oh! excuse me, um, what about other lesbians? plenty of lesbians are genderqueer... and they go well, okay, go fuck yourself tim chop off your sweaty dick and stop calling yourself a lesbian. you do not have a dick, actually. you think about that fact often, even though it does you no good. you do not tell this person that.

you go to another lesbian blog and it says women only and you try again, and this time they change it to wlw + nblw only (non-men who love non-men :D). and you'll say hey i appreciate that but gender's not really that cut and dry for a lot of people. someone could be both a man and nonbinary, for instance. i just worry that you're looking at nonbinary as a generic third gender, or an extension of womanhood. i mean yeah you include nblw in your tags but all your posts are about pussy-havers exclusively. what's with that? and they say go fuck yourself you pervy man pretending to be a lesbian. you tried to sneak in but i won't let you.

so you go to a lesbian blog with a dozen or so posts about queer people needing to be more weird about it and you sigh in relief. but you still see the men dni. that's odd. hoping for the best, you say hey! i know you mean well but please maybe don't put men dni at the end of the lovely posts on your lesbian blog bc some lesbians are men. and they'll be like ok!! well you're allowed ;) and you say no that's not. no. some men are lesbians not just me. you think about your own dicklessness and wonder if that's why you were given entry. and you add that even if male lesbians are allowed, there's no indication of that. how would anyone know without asking? and they're like ohh gotcha gotcha well men dni + this is for sapphics only!! and you'll be like ok well that treats the concepts of men and sapphics as mutually exclusive identities and i just told you that's not true and you agreed with me so.. i don't think that solves our problem. and they're like. ok. fine. men dni but genderfluid and multigender people are allowed! and you're like no see that's. that's still the same thing.. you're saying the same thing just with different words. if you don't want men to interact but you're fine with multigender/genderfluid/etc ppl interacting then you either don't see them as Real Men (because they don't reach a standard of Full Manhood) or Complete Men (because they're only Part-Time Men), both of which suggest that they are, in some way, not men or less-than men, which is invalidating and defeats the point of the exception in the first place (accommodation) OR that you don't really mean the dni which is confusing and inconsistent and makes guydykes feel weird and uncomfortable and excluded from the lesbian space you're trying to cultivate. and they're like um. ok. so. cishet men dni? and you're like well i think that makes more sense, but what if someone identifies as both a cishet man and a sapphic? again, if we're trying to accommodate the genderfucky populace then that has to be a possibility that is considered. and they say god you people are never happy. what do you want me to do? what am i supposed to say to keep the right men out? and you pause. you empathize with the need for a space free from dudes trying to fuck you straight and feminine. dudes who watch lesbian porn and joke about what they'd do if they were allowed into girls locker rooms. who look at you like a piece of meat, and like someone who looks at women like pieces of meat in the same way he does. you get it. you know. you want a space where you can be sapphic, too. that's why you came to these blogs in the first place. you brace yourself and you say well i don't know that there are "right men" to keep out. i don't know that there's any single label that would accomplish whatever it is you're trying to accomplish. you could go for "sapphics only" or "queers only" and i think that might be the closest thing to what you want, but it's never going to be perfect. creating any exclusive space is going to shut out people you didn't account for, and the broader the label, the more people will be shut out that you didn't want to shut out. and what about people who don't know if they're allowed? what of questioning transbians, where are they supposed to go? and, frankly, i think i might rather my dykey posts get read and appreciated by a gay guy who sees me as a man than a woman who only sees me as a sacred womb, pure from male perversions or violence or whatever. i think community might just be more complex than a dni can handle. and they look at you and say i don't want to not have a dni. i think you're too permissive. you can't just "what about" or microlabel your way into everything. go fuck yourself, i bet you're not even a lesbian anyway. go find a real problem to get mad about.

you go to a lesbian blog. you ignore the men dni because you know you probably don't even count to them. or maybe you do count and, out of respect for your manhood, they'd shun you accordingly. you try to feel okay about that. you scroll past dozens of posts about mediocre men and gagging at straight friends' boyfriends and how gross and undeserving men are of the beautiful women they couple up with and how all women should be gay so they can get treated right and and and and and. you finally find a post about curling into someone you love and feeling at peace and try to lose yourself in it. you know that feeling is what unites you, what makes you belong. you try to focus on it. you think about carding your hands through a butch's hair or lacing fingers with a femme and feeling warm and loved and more yourself than you ever have before. like this is who you're meant to be. you read about lesboys and butch boytoys and genderfucky dykes and big hairy deep-voiced wonderful women (like you want to be someday, like you wish you could make yourself) and you try to ignore the men dni underneath each and every post. and you daydream about meeting someone kind and earnest at a lesbian bar even though you don't think any such bars exist within three states of you and you can't drink and don't want to drink because you need to be in control of yourself at all times so you don't fuck up like you're always about to and here in the nonexistent lesbian bar you feel wanted and safe and in good company. you picture your ideal, happiest self. it is a mistake. ideal-you has a goatee. not the mascara one you smear on and call drag even though you know it's not drag, not really, the beard you call drag because you think everyone would look at you sadly if you told them it was just to pretend you had something out of your reach. a beard that's soft and that you grew and that cannot be smudged away if you get too comfortable with it. the dream shatters. your people pull away from you, their scoffs mixing with the mind-numbing gay girl bedroom pop you learned to settle for just to have something that almost resembled you, they all pull away and turn their backs and do not look at you. you're too close to being a man now, even though you're the same amount of man as before. and they know you're not supposed to interact with men, not as you would with dykes, at least. and it sours. it's all your imagination, all in your head, but it sours.

you sigh. you think about how small you are. how short, how narrow, how feeble. how your voice pitches up when you talk to strangers because it's easier to speak quietly when it carries more, and because you're nervous. because it's a chore to talk, like everything is. you think about testosterone. you think about how your family would look at you, the questions they would ask, your answers they would only pretend to accept. the uncomfortable glances and whispered questions they'd try to hide from you. you think about how small you are, and how small you will always be. how you don't know of a way to fix it, but even if there was one, no one would want you anymore. you'd be the only one thinking it made you a cooler dyke. you think about how you don't even want a T-voice all the time, how you'll never be able to switch it at will, because you don't know how and can't bring yourself to figure it out. you think about how your throat closes around every hint of your own attraction. how wanting is perverse, how wanting is invasive, how wanting is embarrassing and too vulnerable so it must stay anonymous, as an online witness, and how you can barely manage to form or maintain friendships because your brain makes you pull away, always spinning out and struggling to recover from the simplest of interactions. how they'll all leave you and you won't chase after them at all and how that will hurt them. how stuck you get. how it looks like nothing's holding you back, how that frustrates everyone who thought you were going to be more than you were. the people you love who understand except when it comes to being ghosted, being shut out. how you don't want to hurt them. how you can't tell them that because you're stuck. how you turn to stone when touched, how you never reach out, how you lose your speech and can't look at people, how your autism is fun and sexy until it becomes real and you never see them anymore, how much you longed for someone who knew everything without you having to explain, and who loved you anyway. how unreasonable you know that is to expect of anyone. you think about that not-even-real lesbian bar. you think about how you still can't drive. how you can't leave your home on your own, without dragging somebody into helping you. how you can't leave your body. how you can't leave your manhood behind.

you think about finding another lesbian blog and ignoring everything. about skimming it for the parts you can juice some meaning from. the parts men ignore and don't understand, and how typical of you it is to do so. or the parts where you're not welcome and you should accept that, because it's for lesbians only. how you are a lesbian anyway. how you're meant to choose lesbian or man, how each is a betrayal of some kind to yourself or your people, your family, your lovely strangers, your rare friendly acquaintances. about the parts that tell you you're not wanted, that you're ugly and lazy and gross and insert yourself everywhere without even asking. about the parts that tell you you are hated, and how lesbians are above it all by rejecting men. how lesbians are each blessed miracles. about the parts that say you should be ashamed of being whatever twisted confused freak you are, of everything, of looking and wanting or not looking or not wanting, of picking and choosing instead of taking it all in with a smile. after all, shouldn't you take it? or is your ego too fragile, as men's so often are? aren't you tired? good. we're not here for your consumption. and we sure as hell don't want your company or "community" or whatever. didn't you read the sign? no boys allowed. and if you want to come in you have to make up your mind. as if you haven't told them the only answer you have. you're both. you're both.

you know you broke the rule by interacting.

but it gets lonely sometimes. you wonder if they know.