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#happening. i have no sense of scale for them either. by which i mean i struggle w scale already and also cant decide what i want it to be

luveline · 2 years

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𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐬 | 𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧

summary eddie munson is super weird. he holds your hand too tight, he has a fascination with your neck, and he can’t give a hickey to save his life. good thing you’re super weird, too. [20k]

warnings two losers falling in love!! vampire!eddie munson, ditzy!reader (kind of), fem!reader, smut mdni (p in v, unprotected sex, oral fem receiving, general heavy petting and kissing, praise), fluff, hurt/comfort, angst (eddie struggling with guilt and grief). canon divergent (the events of volume 2 take place but there’s a mostly happy ending i.e. everyone good lives and everyone bad dies) TW eddie doesn't have suicidal thoughts, but he does think about it briefly. not with intent or anything like that though. requested here for my halloween party <3

(㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ)

Eddie Munson never wanted to be a vampire, and he wants that on the record.

It's a ridiculous existence. It's embarrassing. It's nothing like all the movies and books promised him.

He's looking at you, Bram Stoker.

In Eddie's mind, Stoker’s nothing less than a liar and a sycophant.

"Who's dick were you bouncing on, Stoker?" he demands to know, kicking fallen leaf mulch under his feet angrily. "Need'ta fucking impress some vampire lover with your over-exaggerated, over-powered, ridiculous descriptions? Great. Hope it was worth it. Meanwhile I'm here, self-esteem half the size of a grain of rice because I can't scale a building with my bare hands."

Eddie would know. He's tried.

He's not genuinely angry with Bram Stoker, but he'd rather take his frustrations out on a guy who's been dead for a hundred years than take them out on the demobats, because he doesn't want to even think about the demobats. They're all dead too. Not before they'd had (see: devoured) their pound of flesh and changed his life for the worse, though.

He shakes his head to drive out the memory like water in his ears. It's easier to pretend none of that shit in the upside down ever happened. (Impossible to pretend. He begs himself to try anyway.)

He’s pissed because science fiction has promised him a lot of things and reality has delivered on none of them. No super strength, no impermeable skin. He is faster, but that's more a reflexive thing than anything else. And being faster doesn't make running fun. That’s impossible.

Sunlight breaks through the treeline and his skin crawls. Science fiction didn't get that right, either. The sun doesn't hurt. It's just really, really annoying.

He covers his eyes, winces at his itchy hand, pulls his sleeve over his fingers and covers his eyes again. "This blows," he says, and means it.

In Dracula, the sun nulls Dracula’s supernatural abilities. Eddie doesn’t have any abilities worth nulling, unless you count echolocation.

He doesn’t.

He walks another five minutes up the road toward Forest Hills when he realises you're behind him. His senses are enhanced now as a bat’s might be, hearing fine-tuned and dialled up every second of the day — which makes living in a trailer park where everyone thinks he's a murderer an acute misery — but he's as prone to distraction as anyone else. Especially when he gets stuck in a memory.

Eddie throws his gaze over his shoulder and finds you thirty or forty feet away, talking to yourself under your breath. He knows you more for your sounds than your appearance. To be able to put a face to your mindless babbling is a mystery solved. Of course you look like that. A skirt made of soft looking fabric bounces over two cute thighs, a pretty lacy corset type of thing that isn't too tight outfits your top half. You look more like a vampire than he does.

"Hi, Eddie," you call.

His eyes widen, a deer-in-the-headlights kind of surprise. If you notice how he's frozen you don't show it, continuing to push your bike toward him. The tick of the wheels grows louder as you get closer, two hands on the handlebars with wrists draped in bracelets, both silver and fabric.

Besides your jewellery, your arms are bare. You must be freezing.

"Hey," he says.

He doesn't know your name. He doesn't know how you know his, and he’s too awkward to ask.

Your sounds peak as you close the gap. The wet scrape of your dirty black canvas shoes over shining asphalt, the soft puff of your breath, the clinking sounds of whatever trinkets you have in your bag. If he focuses, he can make out the tiniest pinches of fabric. Your short sleeves rubbing against your arms, your bra straps stretching over your shoulders.

Eddie takes a deep breath and tries to diminish his senses.

"Where's your van?" you ask curiously.

"Piece of shit kicked it in the middle of town. Just my luck."

You pause at his side, looking him up and down obviously but without the judgement or irreverent disgust he's come to expect from near about everybody in Hawkins.

"That's not good," you say succinctly.

It's such a genuine response that Eddie can't find it in himself to be sarcastic.

"God awful," he agrees sullenly.

You nod and start to walk again. Eddie falls naturally into step beside you, matching your pace without thinking.

"You should get a bike."

He laughs. Coughs to cover it up. "Yeah?"

"They're way more reliable than a car, and it doesn't hurt the zone."

Eddie squints. "The o-zone?"

"Is there another one?"

You're still so serious that he spares you the ridicule he might dole out to anyone else. If Dustin had said something like that he would've ripped the kid a new one, but you're rather sweet in an odd way. You have a soft manner of talking — each word sounds like you've thought its pronunciation through meticulously beforehand.

He ignores your question and points at your bike, ring catching the sun. "Why aren't you riding it?"

"My chain slipped."

"So much for reliable."

That makes you smile. Eddie feels it like a punch, a flat palm slapped into his chest.

"You can't put the chain on yourself?"

A brisk breeze whips your hair, your earrings. The left kisses your cheek, a silver heart-shaped hoop with pink beads that click together. You lean into it, face tilted to one side as a perplexed smile plays on your sticky lips. "You can do that?"

"Sure, you pull it back around the gear. It's easy." He hesitates for a moment, and then feels guilty about hesitating. "I'll do it for you, if you want."

"The guy in no. 62 has been charging me ten dollars." You don't sound as angry as you should, in Eddie's opinion.

"I'll do it for nothing."

You beam at him. His chest feels like a bruise.

Pretty girls don't like Eddie. Not before Chrissy, not after. He's trying to work out your angle, what it is that you want.

Or maybe you don't know.

As soon as you find out who he is, you'll turn your pretty nose up at him and walk the other way. He shouldn't smile at you, he definitely shouldn't fix your bike.

He can't help it. He's so starved for positive attention that he follows you all the way through the park, westside to east.

He checks the driveway of his own home and smiles mildly when he spots Wayne's new car. It's new in the sense that it's different. It's actually way older than the one he'd had before, the one he'd pawned to pay for Eddie's — well, Eddie's everything. His check-ups, his court dates, his goddamn bail. In the same way that this trailer isn't the trailer, but an older, smaller one as far away from their first as possible.

Kid, if I had the money…

Wayne hadn't needed to finish. If he had the money, they'd leave. Leave Hawkins, leave Indiana. Settle down in some other mediocre Midwestern state with all the same creature comforts and none of the "You were acquitted but literally none of us believe you didn't kill someone," motif.

All they have now is debt, each other, and the Great Munson mug collection.

Eddie keeps his head down as they pass the old trailer. Nobody lives inside now. Only termites.

He can taste blood by the time they reach your home. Far from the metallicity of his human blood, Eddie's blood now harbours a bitter taste. Not quite like coffee but with that same overwhelming earthiness. He pulls his teeth from the bitten flesh of his bottom lip and quickly raises a hand to his teeth, alarmed.

No knife-like points. Normal teeth.

"Are you thirsty?" you ask him.

Eddie flinches and drops his hand. You've parked your bike against the wooden lifts of your porch and are halfway up the steps to your front door, hand clasped loosely on the railing.

His heart fucking pounds.

"I have grape juice?"

"Right," he says hurriedly, "right. Yeah, that would be awesome."

Duh, you meant juice.

You send him another endearing smile and pop up the last of your steps and into the front door. It's not locked. He doesn't follow, thinking you must live with somebody (who's gonna know exactly who he is and tell him to get lost).

He turns his attention to your bike instead. It's easy enough to fix. He rolls the bike so its handlebars are resting against your concrete driveway and covers the top bar of the metal body with his sneaker to stop it from toppling. He rolls up his sleeves and bares his arms, but pulls them back down immediately when he remembers the white-purple whorls of scar tissue lurking underneath.

"Fuck," he mutters. Everything is a reminder, all of the time. He can't escape what happened.

It's everywhere.

He's getting his fingers under the chain when you reappear. You've layered up, bracelets and naked arms hidden by a black hoodie.

The wind blows and your skirt shifts. From his position he can see a ladder hiding in your tights where your inner thighs are pressed together. He whips his gaze up like a high-school perv caught sneaking peeks in the girls locker room and notices the stitching on your chest for the first time.

"You like Dio?" he asks excitedly.

"Who?"

He wilts. "Uh, your hoodie. Dio."

"I got it for three dollars in the bargain bins," you supply helpfully, all pep as you climb down the stairs and offer him a glass cup adorned in dainty enamel flowers. "Is Dio good?"

He waves his hand at the glass apologetically. "Two seconds…" Lifting the chain with the second hand, Eddie tugs and then feeds until the links are lined up with the bumps on the big chainring. The skin on his fingertips get pinched and his eyebrows pull together in pain, but it's a mild irritant at worst and after a moment the chain is back in place.

He pulls his hand away and wipes dark grease down the front of his jacket. "I think I did it."

You're glowing, earrings like a metronome as you ask, "That fast? You're awesome."

He turns the pedal and your back wheel spins in time with his heart. You're awesome. When was the last time somebody who wasn't Wayne said anything like that?

Although Dustin had told him he thought Eddie was a much cooler, more fucked up version of the guy from Van Halen the other day.

You're just saying that 'cos we're both called Eddie, Eddie had said morosely.

Learn to take a compliment, dude.

When they aren't pity compliments, he might.

Eddie lifts your bike back onto the wheels to show you that it's working perfectly. You giggle your evident pleasure. "Oh, thank you, thank you!" you say, super sweet even as grape juice sloshes over the rims of your flowered glasses and drips down your fingers.

"Here, let me," he says, taking the glasses from your purple-stained hands.

You kiss your hands clean which is a thing, a lot to watch. Eddie admits to himself that he thinks you're really pretty, recognises that that is a bad thing to think considering the likely very short life span of your acquaintance. God knows you won't be saying anything as friendly when you find out who he is.

"You're so nice," you say. It feels like you're talking more to yourself than him. "Thank you. It's slipped off three times this month, and ten dollars is ten dollars. Wait, do you want ten dollars?"

"My services were administered charitably.”

Your smile grows. You accept your glass and take a small sip, eyes lit up as Eddie steers your bike one-handed to rest against the porch.

"Do you wanna come inside? I don't have any of the Dio, but I have Blondie."

He holds in a throwaway comment about real rock and roll, astounded that you’d ask him. "Your folks aren't home?"

"I'm twenty-two."

Eddie squints at you. "Seriously?"

"You didn't think so?"

He shrugs. It's not that you don't look twenty two. Or even that you don't act twenty two. But it's been a long time since he met somebody living alone in the park. Forest Hills is where poverty comes to settle.

"A boyfriend?"

"Just me and mister Porterson."

"That your grandpa?"

"That's my pet fish."

He smiles. It's his first real, authentic smile in days. He's genuinely elated by your offer and your attitude, but he doesn't know how to handle it, struck with a sudden nightmare of you, afterward, telling somebody you'd invited him in and he'd tried to hurt you. It isn't fair of him to assume you'd do anything like that. You've been nothing but sweet and sincere this whole time.

Eddie hasn't let his guard down in a long time.

You're giving him this wide-eyed, imploring look that promptly suffocates any fear.

And in a week, when she finds out who you are and feels betrayed, feels tricked? What then, Munson?

"You know what happened?" he asks.

"What happened?"

"Two years ago. Chrissy… Chrissy Cunningham?"

Don't say her fucking name.

Your expression clears as clarity blooms. You take a step. He needs a second to realise you've come forward rather than away, fingers twitching toward his hand.

"I know about it. I'm sorry that happened to you."

He stares.

This is a trick. Two years and he can count the amount of people who believe him on his two hands, and only because they'd all gone through it with him. Sometimes there are outliers, logical people who seem to realise Eddie couldn't have killed all those people, couldn't have been in all those different places without leaving any evidence behind. And sometimes there are people who agree he didn't kill Chrissy, but he's a coward for leaving her to die. (She’d already been dead.)

Eddie doesn't know what he thinks. Wayne sets the record straight every now and then with a clap on the shoulder. You did what every parent wants their kid to do. You lived. I can't ask for more than that.

"You don't believe it?"

"That you hurt her?" You hold his gaze, face practically impassive. "No, I don't believe it."

He pulls in a breath that fills every inch of his chest. "I could learn to like Blondie," he says.

—

You're standing in the driveway of Eddie's trailer with a heavy bag over your shoulder, face to face with a man who kind of looks like him but not really. You assume it's his uncle because who else could he be? If you hadn't seen him here you'd never guess.

"Eddie's mom must've had strong genes," you say. You bring your shoulder up toward your cheek thoughtfully. "He didn't get any of your face. Was she pretty? Eddie's really pretty."

"She was," he says, peering down his nose at you.

"I got sandwiches. Do you want one?"

"What kind?"

"I have ham and cheese, or ham and lettuce and tomato, or I have pumpernickel cookies. Is Eddie a vegetarian?"

"Why?"

"'Cause I only brought one cheese and cucumber, and I have dibs."

He climbs down the last couple of steps and is still taller but definitely less imposing, face covered in scratchy salt and pepper stubble and crows feet deeply embedded into the corners of his eyes. He looks like a man who has been tired for a very long time. You make a mental note to bring him some lavender for his pillow on your next visit.

"You're Eddie's new friend?"

You nod your head briskly. "Yes, sir. I'm Y/N."

He opens his box of camels like a pro, bottom pressed to his chest. He tucks a cigarette between his lips and pulls his lighter out. He doesn't light it.

"It's nice to meet you," he says eventually, voice warming.

You search through the mess of your skirt for the zipper on your bag and peel it open, pulling out your tupperware of cookies and cracking them open to release the fragrant smell of cinnamon and almonds. It's a heady scent, fitting for the holiday season approaching.

You offer Eddie’s uncle a cookie.

"Thought pumpernickel was bread," he says gruffly, taking one.

"It is, but there's this little town in France that makes these every year at Christmas and they call them pumpernickel biscuits," — he takes a bite and winces at the hard snap — "you're s'posed to dip them in hot chocolate."

"You don't say."

You nod happily and he moves aside to let you pass.

"Thanks, kid."

You turn back to him with your fingers curled around the door handle. "Of course! It's really nice to meet you, Mr. Munson, sir."

"Wayne is fine."

You laugh and repeat his name in a similarly rough voice, letting yourself in as Eddie had told you to do. You find him immediately in a man-made corner of the living room, pale and in his pyjamas. The trailer is open planned, a living room they’ve divided by propping a couch against the kitchen counter, a slim hallway leading to a cramped bathroom and the single bedroom. It's exactly like in your home.

You're somewhat surprised to see him in pyjamas. Eddie doesn't wear comfy looking clothes out of the house — you've only ever seen him in jeans and jackets like a real rockstar.

"Are you ready?" you ask.

You've invited him to come and search for bugs with you. Catching any kind of bug, whether beetle or butterfly or spider, is really scary, but you need to be able to catch them to draw them.

You'd expressed this to him over the phone and he'd said, "I can come and help. I have good reflexes."

He rubs his hands over his knees. There's a blanket pooled around his feet, a quilt he must sleep with, and the room is decorated with not a whole lot of stuff but enough to make you take a step back.

"Is this your room?" you ask, enchanted.

"Kind of." He pulls his hair from behind his ear, obscuring a pale cheek. "I don't think I can come with you today, I'm sorry. I meant to call you."

You toy with a dark thigh high sock as you ease out of your shoes, height drastically decreasing. "That's okay, we can stay here. I brought you a sandwich. I brought you two sandwiches," you correct.

He nods. Rather sadly, in your opinion. "Alright. Thanks."

You step over a tented paperback and hand off the cookies before sitting down beside him on the couch he's occupying. It's smaller than the one against the wall and round like a clam, lots of room for your legs to stretch out.

"I feel like a pearl," you say.

You and Eddie have been friends for a little while now. Long enough for you to realise he's either depressed or mentally unwell in some way. You hardly mind keeping him company on his bad days if he needs somebody, so drawing bugs will have to wait.

His hair is limp, not totally greasy but not super clean either. His face looks fresh enough, though the bags under his eyes make you frown.

You pull your purse into your lap, thighs covered by the thin layers of your midi skirt. "I have just the thing for you," you murmur.

"Yeah? Bring me another bracelet?"

You like that he sounds eager. Making his bracelet had been a challenge, lots of knotting and double knotting, three restarts and one small under the breath tantrum. It's not anything special, black and white hearts seven strands wide, but he'd been very appreciative.

"No, but I can make you another one if you want. I mastered the inverse chevron last night."

He hums. You pull a saran wrapped sandwich from the depths of your crowded bag, glad to see it's mostly intact. When you open it up you find that it's the ham and lettuce and tomato one, so you drop it into his lap haphazardly and move onto the next.

"Aha! Here," you pull a cucumber from your sandwich. "For you."

He takes it between two tentative fingers. "Thank you?"

"For your eyes."

"There's cheese on it."

"I'll still work," you assure him.

"M'not putting cheese on my eyes."

You laugh because he probably shouldn't put cheese on his eyes, cucumber adjacent or otherwise. "Okay, don't. I'll make you a hot towel."

He drops his hand on your arm as you go to stand. You like how he touches you, soft but not scared. "You just got here. Stay here." He pats you nicely. "Tell me about work last night."

You settle heavily into the seat beside him, your thigh to his thigh, your hip squished against his hip, doughy flesh separated by nothing more than a strappy tank top and a cotton long-sleeve t-shirt. His heat quickly becomes yours, a sinking transference of warmth.

"Well," you begin, cheek turning into the couch to face him. "It was mostly okay. I dropped another plate, but this time it didn't have a stack of waffles on it."

He smiles ruefully and sinks back as you had. Neither of you eat your sandwiches. "Progress. Taking it out of your pay?"

"Yes, definitely."

"Discrimination."

"That's what I said! I said, Sarah, I was born with butterfingers and you know that."

"She didn't budge?"

"Dishwashing all week next week. Whatever, though, 'cause it's Saturday."

He laughs and shakes his head, his gaze dropping to your neck. He does that sometimes. You can't blame him; you wear a varying assortment of necklaces because you think they're pretty, and you're glad he likes them too.

"See my new one?"

"What?"

"New necklace." You look down at your chest and pull the newest addition from between the cups of your bra. "It's real silver."

"It's nice."

"It's surprisingly heavy. Wanna feel?"

"That's okay," he says, slightly strained.

Right, you think. I'm talking a lot.

You press your lips together in a mild pout and look at him through appreciative eyes. He's a very pretty boy, all soft and pale and sweet dark curls.

"Do you want me to put your hair up?"

His lips part before he talks. "I don't know if you should."

"Sure I should. It's getting in your eyes, right?" You take his hand where it's laid unsuspectingly in his lap and slip the hair tie from around his wrist, his fingertips tickling the inside of your palm. "Sit forward, Eddie."

He takes a deep breath, holds it, and sits up. You twist and then realise you need some more height, pushing a leg under yourself to kneel next to his lap.

You weave our fingers softly into the hair at the front of his face and rake away in lieu of a brush. After it's mostly tamed you pull it all into one hand and wrap the tie at the base of his head. You hum to yourself as you go, pleased when his lovely curls behave.

"Voilà," you announce, moving back on your haunches.

He breathes out. "Thank you."

You reach for a curl you'd missed at the very front and encourage it behind his ear. He has subtle indents in his cheeks today like he's in need of a good meal, and his skin is colder than it should be when you flatten your palm.

"You need something to eat," you fret. Your fingertips stroke under his eye, your thumb his smile lines.

He moves away slowly.

You pull your hand back into your lap. "Maybe we can go out and get something, if you don't like the sandwich?"

"What?" he asks, pale lips taut as he simpers at you. "Are you kidding? This is about to fix everything that's wrong with me."

His enthusiasm emboldens you. "It so will! There's ham and cheese too, if you prefer that one."

"Get it! I'm gonna eat both of them." S

Eddie eats both of his sandwiches and you eat your own, the two of you with your heads dropped back against the couch as you watch TV. There's a guy you've never seen before running around the streets of Chicago city centre looking for people to be in his play. Eddie's seen it before. He repeats dialogue in time with the characters, performing each line. Impressive, what with how tired he looks.

"What did he just say?" you ask, mouth full of cucumber.

"He said he's gonna throw himself off a bridge," Eddie informs. "Poor guy. I know the feeling."

You swallow harshly.

"Seriously?"

Your sad tone surprises him.

"I- No, I'm kidding," he says, scratching the base of his throat, friendship bracelet his only adornment.

His nervous itching makes you even more worried.

"If you did wanna do that, you can talk to me-"

He baulks, tongue poking out past his lips as he licks the corner of his mouth. "Thanks, sweetheart," he says, pet name like a kiss. It sounds silly but it really feels like one, right in the centre of your chest. "But I'm fine. Promise. It was a bad joke."

"Okay," you say, letting your suspicion shine through. You hold his eyes.

You haven't known Eddie long. It feels like you met yesterday, though really it's been two or three weeks. You fit together in a way you hadn't expected and adore more than you can articulate, two funny puzzle pieces.

"Well, I just wanted you to know. I like being your friend, I don't want you to disappear."

He laughs and licks his lips, a rough, chesty sound. "I don't want you to disappear either."

Tires crunch outside, a shushing sound and then the sharp shriek of a jeep being put into park. Eddie perks up considerably, his shoulders straightening.

"Hey, Chief," Wayne calls.

Trailer walls. Basically made of cardboard.

"Hey, Wayne. Where's the kid?"

You can't hear what Wayne says after that, words stolen by the TV.

"Is that Chief Hopper?" you ask, trying to catch a glimpse of him through the mostly shuttered blinds.

"Yeah, he- He's friends with Wayne."

"Why's he wanna know where you are?"

"'Cause I got into so much trouble."

You bite your tongue. His tone is hard, not stern but almost, and you realise you've overstepped as you usually do. You want to apologise but you don't want to pick the wound, eager to gloss over and make him smile again.

"It's pretty cool, isn't it?" you ask him.

"What?"

You spread your legs wider to slide onto your thighs and make him the taller one again, legs bent in a 'W' shape. "Coming back from the dead! First Will Byers, then Hopper."

Something surfaces in his expression. An irony.

"The undead," you croon, aiming for a smile, a laugh.

He cracks. "The undead," he agrees, smiling in bemusement. His eyes are a funny shade of brown.

—

Eddie shoo’s you home early that night but tries to do it kindly. He feigns exhaustion, a facade that's difficult to uphold when his entire body is thrumming with want. If there's one thing Eddie hates about being a vampire (there are literally hundreds of things he hates, but this one's special) it's that he wants to hurt the people he likes a thousand times more than the people he doesn't.

He can't explain it. Your blood is more appealing than any lonesome stranger's. Your pulse is practically music to his ears when you sit beside him. He'd kill himself before he ever hurt you, though. Or that's what he likes to think. Whether he has that amount of control is debatable.

No. He would kill himself before he hurt you, or Wayne, or any of his friends.

Steve can see the way that he's feeling on his face.

Hopper's delivery set to one side, a tall glass with blood congealed in a sticky ring at the bottom, Eddie curls under his huge quilt and tries not to pass out. Blood sate feels the same as a thanksgiving food coma. It's awesome.

He hates how good it feels.

"Stop feeling guilty," Steve says.

"He doesn't look guilty to me," Dustin says beside him, taller than the last time Eddie had seen him but still miles off of Steve's tall stature. He's changed his hat again, this one a garish green. It's not a good look.

"He looks like he's napping," Robin says, delighted.

"Can you guys go home?" Eddie asks.

"Shithead."

"What Steve means to say," Robin corrects, grinning her huge, catching smile, "is that no, we aren't going home. We brought games."

"I don't wanna play games." He does. Eddie needs the distraction, because eventually the blood sate will fade and all that will remain will be self-revulsion and a cruel desire to do something awful.

"I do not care even slightly," Steve says, deadpan, as he sits right there next to Eddie where you'd been sitting before. Steve's nowhere near as soft and he doesn't smell as nice, but Eddie's honestly glad someone is willing to sit next to him at all.

"Ouch, what the fuck?"

Dustin looks up from where he's sat himself on the floor. Robin giggles in her seat on the coffee table.

"Munson, are you fucking shedding? I just got stabbed."

"They don't work like that. They retract."

Eddie feels at his broken gums with his tongue. There's a clean incision where his fangs come out and then snap back inside after a time. They're remarkably thin, fitting in front of his natural incisors neatly.

Steve grumbles, hips lifted and hand searching under his butt for whatever it is that jabbed him. He retrieves exactly what Eddie had been expecting but hadn't had the forethought to prepare a lie about with a shocked gasp.

"Is this an earring? You don't have your ears pierced."

He swallows, knowing it's a very guilty gesture, and meets Steve's eyes straight on.

Funny how Steve's hair speaks as much as his expression, bobbing as he nods his head to emphasise each word, "Munson, do you have a girlfriend?"

Silence.

"...Not really."

"Holy shit," Dustin says, sounding extremely pleased. "No way."

Robin tucks her short hair behind her ears, hands paused in disbelief at her neck. "Actually?"

"I have a friend," Eddie admits.

"Thank god," Steve says, dropping your heart earring onto Eddie's thigh. The silver feels extremely hot over his pyjamas, like it's been held in the centre of a blistering hearth.

"I really thought Steve was gonna have to take one for the team and give you a pity handie," Robin says agreeably, scratchy voice coloured by genuine awe.

Eddie groans, "Harrington, get this shit off of me. You know I can't touch that."

"I forgot," Steve lies. "Can you wait? My hands are busy."

—

He has Steve put your earring between two pieces of kitchen towel and holds onto it. He doesn't see you for a week, and he keeps your damn earring in his pocket that entire time worried it's gonna slip out and brand him at any second.

Finally, you call him. He pretends he wasn't waiting.

"Hello," you say, like you're announcing something.

"Hey. How are you?"

"Eddie, I need your help. Badly."

He flinches up where he'd been leaning casually, hard enough to make Wayne jump. Eddie smiles at him placatingly and mouths a poor sorry, turning away to pretend there's a semblance of privacy to be found in such close quarters.

"Are you okay?"

"I gotta find a rainbow leaf beetle. Do you have a torch?"

"...What?"

"They only come out at night, so I'm gonna go look but I don't have a torch that works."

He relaxes, the lilting cadence of your voice enough to make his whole night. You sound so pretty even through the phone. He suspects you could hold any pitch, deep or high, and you'd still sound nice.

It's all in the way you — he says this with love — perform the words. You speak like each word you're saying has equal importance, and it's calming.

Even when you say stuff that's nonsense to him.

Right now, you don't sound upset or even worried about not having a torch, simply curious to know if he has one. If he focuses hard (and he's been trying not to, as you deserve your privacy) he can hear you all the way across the park, shifting from foot to foot in your bedroom, carpet crushed under your heels.

The action makes him think this might be more urgent to you than you'd first admitted.

"I have a torch." He also has amazing night vision. Like, impeccable. "Can I come help?"

"You want to?"

"I'd love to. Are you going out tonight?" He leans back to glance out the window. "The rain is finally stopping."

"Yeah, tonight! Is that okay for you? We could go tomorrow if you can't."

You're willing to change your plans now that he's asked to go with you. It's a gesture as lovely as you are. Eddie doesn't think you'd ever think it of yourself; your kindness is so intrinsic you don't notice it, like the fine stitching of a leather bound book. Integral and widely unappreciated.

"That's perfect."

Wayne raises an eyebrow when Eddie relays the conversation. "You're going out in the middle of the night with this girl to… look for bugs."

Eddie crosses his arms over his chest. "I swear."

"Be honest with me, kid."

"I am!"

Wayne swirls his coke can around in his hand as he thinks, a reluctance evident in his scowl. Eddie knows he's way too old for a guardian's oversight like this but he lets Wayne have a say because Wayne loves him, and Eddie doesn't ever want to put his old man through the turmoil he went through when he ran away. If that means a curfew in his twenties, Eddie's okay with that.

"If you're going to have sex with this girl, I'd prefer you did it here. You have to treat women with respect."

Eddie shivers, full body. "Wayne," he groans, covering his face. He can feel his cheeks pink under his palms, that's how quickly his embarrassment rises.

"I know you're more responsible these days, and you're a grown up. If you want a girlfriend and you want to do adult things with her-"

"Jesus Christ."

"- then that's alright. You don't have to fool around outside."

He drags his hands down on his face, pained. "It's not like that. You met her, you know she's…"

"Strange?"

"Alternative."

"No, you're alternative. She's cooky."

"Don't," he says. He knows his uncle isn't actually being cruel, so he lets it lie and fights for his own cause. "We aren't messing around. She genuinely wants me to go find these bugs with her. And…" He hates himself. "She has her own place, you know? If we were going to-"

Wayne seems stricken by the same mortified embarrassment as Eddie, raising a calloused hand in surrender. "Spare me."

"Thank you," Eddie says, spinning on his heel to hide in the bathroom for a while. It's only when he's sitting on the closed toilet does he realise Wayne hadn't mentioned his more dangerous ailment. For a time, he'd been a normal (debatable) person having a normal (horrifying) conversation with his dad. Not a vampire. Not somebody who ruins everything he touches.

—

"It's so quiet," you whisper.

For you, Eddie thinks.

You're in the forest surrounding the aptly named Forest Hills trailer park, wielding your borrowed torch carefully into the dark. Eddie's following in your footsteps, trying not to smell everything that's on you today and failing.

You smell like a person as everybody does. Over that is your soap, a faint hint of milk and honey that sticks to your skin even after you've washed it away. Over that is your deodorant, 'unscented', and over that is your perfume, which he likes most. It's a mix of smells, some Eddie doesn't know and some he does. There's lavender, though that might be down to the bunch you'd brought for his uncle wrapped in newspaper, and there's something fruity he can't quite put his finger on, all of it wrapped up in a cloying pairing of vanilla and coconut.

"Eddie?"

"What?"

"Are you okay? You're almost as quiet as the trees."

If only you knew the trees aren't quiet.

"I'm alright," he says quickly, catching up to you where you stand a few feet ahead. "What are we looking for?"

Best change the subject. How to explain he'd been smelling the notes of your perfume?

"They rest on tree trunks. You have to be careful, any sudden sound or light will scare them away. But if you flash the torch on them, they shine like oil stains."

He loves when you talk. "Where'd they come from?"

"Place called Snowdon. They're so rare, they think there's only about a thousand alive there."

"Well, how did they get here?"

You laugh under your breath, so quiet he would've missed it if he wasn't enhanced. "I don't know. How do beetles get to different places?"

"They fly?"

A twig crunches under your shoe.

Eddie tips his head to the side, thinking. "If there's only a thousand, how-" He stops, your circle of torch light growing further and further away. "Are you sure that they live here?"

"No, but if they do we'll be the first to find them."

"So they've never found any out here? In- In the midwest?"

"Not yet. Where'd you go?"

He shakes his head in an affectionate disbelief. "Right behind you."

You search in silence for a while. Eddie wishes he could say he was mad, or even mildly annoyed, wishes he had even the slightest regard for his own time, but really he thinks any time with you is time well spent. Especially if it's helping you do something you want to do. Whether you find your rainbow leaf beetle or not, he feels better knowing he's out here with you to keep you safe and in company.

Conversation is sparing. He doesn't mind. Your footsteps fill the sound and he finds even that stupid detail charming, the crunch, the pick up. His own are silent, a rare advantage to his terrible affliction.

"Any other beetles you want me to keep an eye out for?" he whispers.

"I'm not sure…" You turn to face him, torch pointed at your shoes. Rubber toes touched together, you lean in until you're all he can smell. Perfume. Blood. "If you see any cool spiders, too."

"You have the mason jar?"

"You know I do."

More than you realise, he thinks. The glass clicks in your bag.

There's enough light reflected to see the most minute details of your face. Your nose, the circle of your irises but not their colour. He suspects Eddie from early '86 wouldn't have been able to see hide nor hair, and it wouldn't shock him if you were technically blind right now.

"Thanks for coming out with me. I was gonna ask you."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, but I didn't want to come on too strong." He can sense your smile even though he can't see it. It's in the way your breathing deepens. "I know I can be a lot to deal with."

"Who told you that?"

"What?"

Eddie doubles down.. "Who told you that?" he sounds heartbroken.

He kind of is. Yeah, you're weird — Who cares? Who isn't? — but you're not a lot to deal with. He doesn't 'deal' with you.

"Everybody tells me that. All the time."

"Everybody's stupid." To say it so loudly, scathingly, is sweet. It's therapeutic. "They are. This whole town is stupid."

Your fingertips touch his thigh. He's willing you to turn the torch up and see his face, because he has a lot of feelings on display that he isn't brave enough to say out loud.

"You never make me feel stupid," you say softly.

"You're not."

You giggle breathily at his vehemence, fingertips pressing in with a touch more pressure before you pull away and shine the torch deep into the trees.

"This whole town is stupid," you mumble. "But not you."

He thinks of his friends who are definitely stupid, but he loves anyways. He's about to add them to the not-stupid (subjectively) list when he remembers Steve's discovery: your earring burning a hole in his pocket. He'd been carrying it for long enough now to forget all about it.

"Hey, I have something for you."

"You do?"

"Don't get too excited. It's not a gift."

He digs in his pocket for the tissue paper wrapping and hisses in shock as the silver plating of your hoop graces his index finger. You shine the torch at him. His eyes ache like he's been stabbed and he slams them closed, hand pulled to his chest.

How embarrassing.

"Eddie, what happened?" you question loudly.

He winces at the sudden overstimulation. Slowly, he blinks, and finds you staring at him in a worry that softens every feature, even your nose. He doesn't know the logistics.

"It's okay. Stabbed a paper cut on the back. Your earring's in my pocket, the heart?"

"The hoop? I thought I lost it." Your worry turns to confusion and then melds into joy. You step forward and fish in his jacket pocket for your earring.

"Steve found it."

"'The hair'?"

"Yeah, the hair."

You both laugh and yours heightens when you find the earring, pulling it out like a knife to be brandished. "Yes."

"I meant to tell you a dozen times that I had it."

"You're the best."

There's a crunch of wood somewhere to the left like something heavy falling over.

The forest sprawls in every direction and the trees tower, their presence looming as skyscrapers. The wind ruffles the topmost branches and their trunks groan with pressure. It's enough to freak Eddie out super sense or not, feeling suddenly like he couldn't protect you. He could hear the individual droplets of drool dripping from a lynx's bloody maw, and he can sense each twig underfoot before he takes his next step, but none of that is going to keep you safe in the face of real danger.

"Maybe we should head back," he says tentatively.

"Okay. Do you want to come over?"

His breath catches. "You want me to?"

"Yeah, we can watch movies, I have leftover pasta."

That sounds more like what he should've been thinking. "I don't wanna keep you up."

"What kind of pasta?" he asks.

The torch flickers. "With the tiny tomatoes. You'll like it, super creamy."

"How do you know?"

"You like Alfredo," you say astutely, hitting the torch into the palm of your hand. It flashes weakly, the shadow of the trees flickering and so dark they're violet.

"Try tightening the handle."

You turn the barrel of the torch and the light switches off completely. You try to undo what you've done to no success, the sound of plastic rubbing plastic almost as loud as your heartbeat. Your pulse falters and then grows to racing when the light fails to come back on.

"Eddie," you say, sounding unsure. It's a new sound on you. "I don't know where we are. How are we gonna get home?"

Your admission is like a dousing of ice water over his head. "You don't know what direction we came from?"

"No, do you?"

Eddie wouldn't know if he couldn't hear the sound of the electricity pylon buzzing somewhere to the right. But how can he explain that? "Uh, we were turned around."

You creep to his side and grab his arm with both hands. "Are you sure?"

"Hey," he says gently. "Hey, it's okay. I know where we are. We'll be fine."

"Are you sure?" you ask again.

"I'm positive."

You take a deep breath that doesn't erase your shakiness, a failed attempt at self-soothing. "I really don't know where we are."

"You're not afraid of the dark, are you?"

"Not really… I don't wanna get lost out here."

"You won't. I know how to get back. C'mon," he prompts, pulling his arm to encourage you forward.

You let go of him and navigate a few steps by yourself. He weaves through the trees, waiting for your heartbeat to slow.

It doesn't. He opens his mouth to reassure you again when you gasp, kicking your foot against a root and tripping. You barely fall, catching yourself on the trunk of a tree, and Eddie remembers himself. You can't see the trees. That's why you're worried. You can't see anything.

Then the smell of blood hits him like a freight train.

—

Your hand stings where you caught yourself, palm scraped down against harsh bark.

"Shit," you mumble.

You're panicking badly, and you're confused as to why Eddie isn't. Not only was it fucking stupid of you to come out here with only one torch, it was stupid of you to assume you'd remember what way was home. It was stupid of you to come here tonight for that stupid beetle, and stupid of you to drag Eddie along. You're an idiot, and now you're bleeding.

Your eyes sting with tears, pain like a popped seal. I'm so stupid.

"Hey," Eddie says, his tone silky soft, "you're okay. Let me help you up."

You hold your hands out.

"Eddie, this is weird." Hopefully he understands that weird means scary.

He takes your hands, fingers closing slowly over your bloody palm. His breath is loud as he pulls you up toward him like he's panicked but his grip stays kind, and you abandon the notion when he rubs over your knuckles with his thumb. "It's alright."

He doesn't sound the same.

"Eddie, we can't see."

"We'll go slowly, okay? I'll put my hand out and we'll walk around anything that gets in the way."

"Yeah," you say hurriedly, heart bump-bump-bumping against your ribcage.

He keeps one hand, the injured one, and starts to drag you slowly through the trees. His grip tightens as you go until it starts to ache, until it feels like it might bruise.

"Ouch, Eds. You're hurting me," you say, going for a lightly teasing tone and missing the mark.

Instantly, he eases off. "Sorry, sweetheart. You hold onto me, alright?"

You do as he'd asked, hand clinging to him as he leads. He doesn't squeeze you again, walking slowly as he'd promised, and the closer you get to the edge of the forest the clearer it becomes. Light pollution from the centre of town leaches through the trees like water trickling from an overflowing basin.

His second hand is in his pocket.

"Here," he says after you've traversed to the very edge of the forest. "There's the park. We're bona fide explorers."

He looks out toward the park and you look at the side of his face. Something isn't right. Something uncanny.

You drop your gaze from his face to your joined hands. They come apart, blood smeared in both your palms like two halves of a dripping heart.

—

There is something weird about Eddie. As a residential freak of Hawkins you think you're an authority in this, and you don't feel guilty for judging him. Your brain can't stop going over your night in the forest. For days you play the scenes back and for days you lose the details. You forget how the wind had tousled his hair, how he'd smelled, what he'd said.

You remember the way he'd squeezed your bloody hand. You remember the way he'd spoken, strained.

Not strained like he didn't want to comfort you, he had, but strained.

Restrained.

You're poking at the shallow cut half-healed now in your palm at work when a dude walks in, very tall, handsome, and gunning straight for you.

You straighten your badge and hide your bracelet heavy wrists behind your back, receding slightly as he approaches. He slows in front of you.

You have a light bulb moment.

"The hair," you say.

He scowls. "He told you that, huh. Typical."

"You're Steve?"

"That's me." Steve crosses his arms across his chest, his back to a booth, your back to the diner bar. "You're Eddie's new friend."

"What counts as new?" A month and a half doesn't feel so new to you.

"Trust me, you're new."

He has the strangest patch covering the outside of his left wrist, the same peculiar scarring that you can see on Eddie's waist when he reaches for a glass out of the kitchen cabinet. You don't ask because you're not a dick no matter how curious you find yourself, but it makes your heart skip. What is that? You'd assumed Eddie's was road rash. Now you're not so sure.

He tucks it under his arm.

You meet his suspicious gaze.

"You want coffee?"

"No."

You kick your foot, shoe sliding over the shiny waxed floor with a squeal. "Is Eddie okay?"

"Did you want to come to a party next Friday?"

"No," you say honestly. "Like a cult?"

"What?"

"Are you initiating me into your cult?"

He finally smiles, eyes creased with amusement. "I'm inviting you to our club."

"Club where you chew on each other?"

You look pointedly at Steve's wrist.

"No. Club where we play board games and drink jiffy pop. Come or don't, doesn't matter."

"If it doesn't matter, why are you asking me?"

It's a strangely intense conversation to have this early in the morning. Patrons chatter about work, coffee gets poured. The diner smells of syrup and sugar and bitter cold-press. You're both in work apparel, both refusing to move back. If this is some kind of shovel talk then that's fine, and if it's a test you're determined to pass, even if Eddie's been super weird lately.

"I'll come if you promise not to eat me," you say.

"It's really not that kind of club."

—

"I had the weirdest visit in the entire world today," you declare, stopping in front of Eddie's porch with a smile.

"Yeah?" he asks without looking up, guitar in his lap and pen scribbling over a lined notebook.

You wait for him to stop before you continue, leaning forward with both arms braced on the porch by his feet. "Steve Harrington came to see me, and he was super mean. You said he was nice."

He frowns at you. "I told you he was a dick."

"You like him when you tell me stories."

"How mean?" Eddie asks, patting the seat beside him.

You climb up onto the porch and plop down onto the couch, worn leather cold with the weather and damp in the seams.

You take a strand of his hair and curl it around your finger. "Not really super mean, but he was, like, acting like I killed a baby."

"He's like that."

You sigh and lean your cheek against the couch cushion, watching Eddie's stubble move as he tamps down a teasing smile. "He invited me to a party next weekr."

"It's not a party- Sweetheart, what are you doing?"

You tickle his cheek with the end of his hair. "Nothing."

"M'gonna sneeze."

You tickle him again, fine dark strands brushing over his pale cheek. He's a very ashen guy, you've found. Likely because he barely goes out in the sun and he doesn't eat enough. You draw circles around the apple of his cheek and grin softly at his growing smile, a sweet, silly thing.

"I'll tickle you back," he warns.

"Promise?"

He steals the curl back and tucks it behind his ear.

"You're not a cannibal, are you?"

Eddie chokes on air. You startle at his coughing and move to pat his back, palm slapping a steady rhythm into his shoulder. When he calms down you run your hand down the length of his arm, long sleeve t-shirt soft beneath your touch. You linger at his wrist and decide to hold it.

He drops his pen and your hand travels until he's caught your thumb. He kneads it in his fingers.

"I'm not a cannibal. Why would you think that?"

"I don't, but you and Steve are in your club, right?"

"Hellfire wasn't like that," he says heatedly.

"No, not- Not that one."

He doesn't say anything.

"You have… He has this scar, on his wrist. Like something bit him, or-" He turns to you and he looks formidable and upset and himself, not mad at you but raw emotion in his expression anyhow. It's gone as quick as it came.

"When all that… stuff happened," he begins quietly, "we got hurt. A couple of us."

You drop your head, ashamed at having pried. "I'm sorry, you don't have to tell me anything else."

"Don't be sorry…" He squeezes your hand and lets it go. "Don't worry about it."

"Okay."

"We usually call ourselves a party, these days. Not a club."

"Do you really play board games and drink jiffy pop?"

"Sometimes we get really crazy and order a pizza. You should come."

You realise as he says it how much his wanting you to go had mattered to you. Eddie's your friend, and you don't think that you're going to stay friends much longer.

"You think your friends will like me?" you ask, voice descending to a new kind of gentle.

He puts down his guitar and his notebook. His full attention is something you've come to really enjoy, not because of the hunger you often see flitting across his face — though that's neat —, but because of the inklings of adoration clinging to his smile when he looks at you. His blinking lashes. He smiles at you and just slows. A usually frenetic boy calmed.

"Maybe not Mike. Mike doesn't like anybody. Except for Will," he muses.

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

"Who do you like?"

"I like all of them." He juts his cheek toward his shoulder, conceding, " I think Dustin's my favourite. He's funny. He's funnier than I am, and he's the smartest kid I've ever met. And he knows it."

Your eyes focus on the pink outline of his upper lip as he speaks. It's a pleasure to be this close, and see him in this kind of crazy detail. When you go home tonight you might try to draw him. You'll probably forget.

It's the kind of smile that deserves to be immortalised.

"I really like your smile," you tell him, hoping it'll last a little longer.

It stretches. The pink outline turns white. "Shut up."

"I do. I've seen a thousand different smiles but I've never met someone who smiles like you do."

"How's that?" he asks, edging toward you, face a mirror in which you can see your own charmed expression.

"Like you," — you shake your head with your lips parted — "know a secret. Something you won't tell anybody."

His smile abruptly ends.

You've nothing if not a talent for saying the wrong thing.

"A good secret," you amend.

He picks up his acoustic and gives it an experimental strum. "Maybe one or two," he agrees.

Relief catches you. You nibble at the inside of your lip and watch his fingers work over the neck of his guitar, tipping your head so you can read the words he's markered over the body.

"This machine slays dragons," you murmur to yourself. "Yeah? How many?"

"Just the one."

"Save any princesses?"

"Not yet." He plucks at the strings, lost in thought, before turning to you with eyebrows raised. "Can you play?"

You exhale out of the corner of your mouth as he pushes the guitar into your lap, an arm coming around your shoulder, the other reaching to guide your curled forefinger to the strings. You turn to face him, watching him talk with a growing fondness.

"It's easy, I swear. We'll do Call Me. Blondie's basic, even a baby could play it."

He realises you aren't listening and raises his gaze, shiny brown irises stuck on your lips. This close, it would be worse if he didn't look at them.

You glance at his, an obvious thing, half a wish. If he only lifted his chin.

Your breath mingles.

"It's easy," he says again, a murmur of his usual volume as his gaze pulls back up to yours. "I'll show you."

You wonder if he can hear your heart pounding; it's deafening. You wait, and you wait, and you turn your eyes back to his guitar and clamp your fingers down against the struts so he can't see them shaking with adrenaline.

—

Eddie sits beside Steve and tries not to admit to himself that Steve Harrington is, horrifyingly, his best friend (along with the rest of the party, obviously). Steve is the closest in age and Eddie can't make excuses (though he tries and tries and tries), Steve understands how much Eddie doesn't ever want to talk about anything that's happened to them, so he talks about literally everything else instead.

"It was the weirdest pawn shop I've ever been in. They had, like, a wall of combi's playing the same video at the same time but all slightly delayed."

Eddie blinks.

Steve turns his head from the TV, having expected a response. "Did you say something?"

"No." Then, because he's not a dick. "Sorry, Harrington. Want me to sit on your other side?"

"What for?" Steve says. Not because he denies how he's hard of hearing, but because he denies having conversations with Eddie.

He does end up moving to Steve's other side with a pathetic excuse. "I can't see the TV."

Steve doesn't say a word until he's sat down again. "Sorry I was mean to your girlfriend."

"Yeah, what was that about?"

"I was cranky because it was early and I don't want her to damage the integrity of the party." He gives equal weight to both reasons.

Eddie snorts at him. "Since when do you care about the integrity of the party?" Steve barely acknowledges that they are a party. He thinks that's a very nerdy way to say friends.

"Since always, dipshit."

"And inviting her to join the party was the solution because…?"

Steve drinks the rest of his coke and pretends to really care about what's on TV. "If," he begins after a minute, refusing to look at Eddie, "something happens with her, and something happens to you, that damages the integrity of the party."

"Steve," Eddie says, jaw dropped down to his chest, "do you have a crush on me?"

"Oh my god," Steve mutters. "Oh my god," he says louder. "I can't stand you."

To prove his point, he gets up from the couch with a wrinkled nose, stops to tap his shoe gently against Max's where she's sitting in the armchair across from the coffee table, and disappears into his kitchen.

Steve Harrington cares about me enough to give Y/N the shovel talk.

He feels kind of great about it.

But he's not sure your the one who needs warning.

That night in the forest, Eddie had almost snapped. There are rules to follow if he wants to keep people safe, self-imposed, Hopper-imposed, and he's broken too many with you already, the most important being no close proximity when he's hungry. Eddie doesn't even realise he is hungry half the time. He'll be standing by you and he'll want to touch you, and suddenly it's like he's three weeks in to the month without sating.

He thinks about kissing you and suddenly he's thinking about biting you, and hurting you, and it's literally tearing him up from the inside out.

How can he want to do that to you?

"You look so depressed and pathetic," Dustin says out of the blue.

Eddie pouts and falls back into the couch, Steve's fancy throw falling onto his shoulder. "I used to like you," he says, taking in Dustin's outfit with a kind of parental approval. He's getting older and it shows, slightly more handsome than he had been — he's kept all his baby weight and it suits him, his full cheeks surrounded by the softest brown curls Eddie has ever seen. The outfit stays immature, a funny t-shirt and ill-fitting pants.

"Sad. You have a sad face," Dustin says.

"Go play with your nerd squad, please."

He doesn't listen, collapsing in Steve's still-warm seat like a cheap tent and crossing longer, thicker arms over his chest. He smiles at Eddie genuinely. "Where's your girlfriend?"

"No."

"Where's Y/N?"

Eddie tips his head so he can see past the coffee table and points to where you're almost hidden, sitting with Robin on the floor by Steve's sideboard. You have a basket of tapes in front of you, the two of you trying to choose what's going in the stereo. Eddie prays for anything but Blondie.

You will most likely choose Blondie.

"What does she like?" Dustin asks curiously.

"Everything, kind of. Why?"

"I wanna know what to say when I talk to her."

Eddie smiles at his friend's face, a soft, surprised thing. "I don't know if she knows anything about the radio but if you're happy about it she'll be happy too. She's a good listener."

Dustin picks at a piece of lint on his t-shirt bearing a white and black print of a dog wearing sunglasses. "So you talk to her?" he asks without looking up.

"I mean, yeah. What else do you do?"

"With a girl that likes you? Huh, let me think." Dustin laughs and ruins his own sarcasm, pointer finger laid against his chin in a show of thoughtfulness.

"It's not like that," Eddie says lightly.

"It could be."

"Could it? I mean… I don't even know if she'll stick around. And I feel bad 'cos I can't be honest with her."

"Why not?"

"Hopper said he would literally put me in the hole if I even thought about it." There's no need to expand. Dustin would know better than anyone what he's talking about.

He cringes at the thought, self hatred a hot poker down his throat. He must've said it to Dustin a hundred times when he finally came around from his coma (that wasn't a coma, but a death, and then a rebirth). I can't believe I put you through that. I can't believe I put you through that. I'm so sorry.

I'm just glad you're alive, Eddie.

And for a while, Eddie hadn't felt the same. The world he'd woken up to was hard. There had been lawyers and grief and guilt and becoming. He doesn't have the words to describe how it feels to become something new, something that needs to hurt people to live, something that will hurt people to live, whether Eddie wants to or not.

The loss of choice is suffocating.

Though moments like this with his friends– they don't make it 'worth it', they're just how it had to happen. There isn't a scenario where Eddie could give up. He can't leave Wayne, and he can't leave Dustin. He can live with the grief of what he is if it means other people don't have to live with grief of what he isn't.

"Eddie, are you okay?"

He's missed something. Dustin isn't the only one looking at him.

He curls a hand around his forearm subconsciously. "I'm fine. I think I'm gonna go to the bathroom, actually. Gotta piss real bad."

"Eddie-"

"I'm fine, Henderson." He puts on a good show, patting Dustin's arm. His heart, usually so slow these days, has enough life in it to ache.

He can't have been in the bathroom for five minutes when somebody knocks on the door aggressively. He's expecting Steve, pissed at his disappearance and likely preparing a speech on attention seeking behaviours and how they're hurting the youth of America, so he opens the door with a tired glare.

He finds you, beaming and pretty, dressed ridiculously nicely for his idiot friends.

"Hi," you say. He can hear something from Blondie's Parallel Lines playing from the living room, familiar because it's your favourite album. "Any room for me?"

Eddie moves back. You close the door behind you. The bathroom becomes a vacuum of your sounds and smells.

"They didn't have any Dio," you say with a smile.

"I honestly wouldn't expect any different."

"You could've brought some tapes, your mix from the van," you suggest. "I love that one."

"Which one?" he asks, and he can't help it, whenever he's with you his voice crops to a dulcet murmur. The urge to speak to you as you speak to him is unconquerable.

"One with the winking smile on the slipcase. I really like it."

"You can have it."

You lean against the sink. "I can?"

"Mm. Whatever you want." Especially when you look like this.

You smile at him, your 'thank you' smile, all sticky fondness and mischievousness. He has no idea what you're thinking.

"'S a small bathroom in a huge house," you marvel. Your voice echoes "Where does he shower?"

"There's an upstairs bathroom."

"Two bathrooms? That's-"

"Audacious?"

"I was gonna say overkill."

Your candidness has him shaking with laughter. He clutches at his sides, arms crossed and leaning forward. You visibly take in his appearance, eyes panning slowly over his clean hair. He'd taken care to look like somebody you might want to look at tonight.

"Why don't you sit down, Eds?" you ask, eyes creased with an unreadable emotion.

Eddie feels blindly for the toilet lid and pushes it down so he can do as you ask, wondering why you're asking.

"You look very handsome today."

He hugs himself. "As opposed to every other day, when I don't?"

You take a step forward, a second, hands playing with the hem of your shirt. Your outfit today is delightfully simple, a pressed black t-shirt long enough to cover the waistband of your pleated skirt. There's an expanse of thigh that makes his heart beat spin out, one longer than the other where your thigh-high is falling down.

He wants to pull it up.

"C'mere," he says.

You take that last step between his shoes and he reaches out, getting his fingertips under the elastic of your sock and tugging it upward over the soft fat of your leg. Your hands come up to his shoulders for balance, and you say, "No, you look handsome every day. Today you look very handsome. I made the distinction."

He covers your thigh with both hands, looking up into your face as you look down. "You look really pretty today," he says boldly, fingers spreading behind your knee.

"Thank you. Do you like my t-shirt?"

It's a screen print of Debbie Harry. Eddie tries not to roll his eyes. "I love it, but your dedication to Blondie is seriously worrying, sweetheart." He gives your leg a short squeeze and pulls the most giggly smile out of you yet.

"Like Madonna."

"No!" he bemoans.

You laugh and grow closer, arms on his shoulder, a hand threaded into his hair. "Cyndi Lauper?" you suggest.

He puts a hand on your waist as you move in for a hug. Your arms wrap around his neck and the tops of his shoulders, cheek crushed to the top of his head.

He'd ask if you were okay if he thought you weren't. You're not upset or seeking comfort. You're affectionate. You've been getting more and more touchy for weeks, as he has. Stolen touches, your almost-kiss on the porch last week.

"No, not Cyndi Lauper," he says, his hand skirting around your back to pull you in properly.

"R.E.M?"

"God, no. Where are you hearing all this junk?"

"The radio."

"Tuned into the wrong station."

You pet the back of his head. "Yeah," you say softly, "I think I was."

The hug is shorter than Eddie wants it to be. You make one of your happy sounds and pull away to get your hands on his face, stroking curls from his cheeks with a protective touch. "Handsome," you say, turning your hand to stroke his cheek with your knuckles. "Pretty. You have really big eyes, Eddie, so brown, and so…" You tilt your head to one side, face inching forward.

He turns his face to suit, to fit, breath held as you close the gap.

"So pretty," you murmur, and kiss him.

His hands are limp and then alive, one clutching your hip, one splaying against your chest. He can hear the thud of your heart clear as day — you're bumping with excitement as you kiss him. It's a delicate, tender thing, the party suddenly far away, the music drowned by the sounds of your breathing. You kiss as you talk, as you move, gentle but with bursts of ardency. Your lips are a blissful heat, the tip of your nose smushing into his as you part your lips over his.

He lifts his chin higher, his neck craned to receive you. He's savouring every movement. Each pause for breath that you take. The feeling of your inhales over his quick-bruising lips.

Your hands play in his hair so sweetly it makes his eyes burn with an embarrassing amount of emotion. He screws them closed and squeezes up your waist, steadying himself as you feel along his bottom lip with the tip of your tongue.

You don't get much further than that, seemingly pleased with your own brazeness or perhaps his touch, eyes glowing with mirth as you pull away.

"Sorry," you breathe, not sorry at all. "You just really looked like someone should be kissing you."

You're flushed. Eddie can practically see the heat emanating off of your cheeks. He can feel it.

He stands up, your pulse a ringing in his ears. The wet valves of your heart opening and closing.

"Eddie?" you ask quietly, lifting your head to meet his eyes as he walks you back into the door.

His gums sting. A click.

It's a compulsion.

His hands curl around your elbows, holding you in place. Your eyes are wide with confusion, your lightly swollen lips parted. He can see the tiniest slip of your pink tongue.

He holds your gaze as he leans in. Your eyelids flutter closed. You wrap your arms around him as he descends, totally trusting.

He's a meaner kiss than you are. He starts slow but swiftly loses a handle on it, kisses short but insistent, hot presses like little crescent moons against your barely open mouth.

His hands move up your arms, a near vice-like grip until he finds your sleeves. His fingers slip underneath, hands hungry for your warmth.

You make the worst sound anyone has ever made as he moves back, like something has been ripped from you. A gutted gasp, near silent.

He placates as he wades back in. Thumbs rubbing your arms, lips mouthing damp kisses down your face. The corner of your pout, the hill of your chin, the skin under your jaw. Your head tips back against the door with an audible thud. You exhale hard.

Eddie can't feel his hands.

Your pulse hammers under his lips. He kisses it once. He can't think. He can't breathe.

"You're always cold," you whisper, your hands drifting lazily under the fabric of his t-shirt. Your fingertips trail up his spine. "But your lips are warm."

He kisses your neck, his lips parting slowly, a hair's width a second as he sucks your skin into his mouth gently. It's barely a kiss. He does it a second time. A third. You start to laugh, a golden sound.

The point of his fangs touch your skin and you stop.

Eddie closes his mouth abruptly. His hand leaps to your neck and he feels your heart skip as he holds you still. "I'm sorry," he says, nose rubbing over the damp spot he's left behind, your teased skin.

Your heart hikes again.

"I'm sorry," he repeats. He pulls away, an agony.

"It's okay," you say. Your breathlessness says otherwise.

Eddie takes as many deep breaths as he can stand, wanting to clear his head and filling it with you instead. Your everything; your smell, your skin. Your limp hands against his back.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?" he asks when he gets a look at you, your unreadable expression. He takes care to keep his head angled down so you can't see the lower half of his face.

"I don't think you could."

You cup his cheek in your hand and he leans into it, his weight against yours.

"I wanted to tell you something," you confess.

"What-" He licks his lips, wincing when his fangs slide into his tongue and scrape grooves across his taste buds. "What was that?"

"I know you…" You pause, fingertips rubbing at his cheek.

Does she know? Eddie thinks, horrified. He hadn't realised how scary waiting could be. A thousand worries condensed into a handful of seconds. Does she know?

How could she not?

You press your palm to his cheek with more insistence. "I don't want you to think you have to hide anything from me. I know you have scars," you say, fingers sliding into the soft baby hair at the back of his neck. "You don't have to cover up. You don't have to cover any of it."

"I won't hurt you," he says, trying to convince himself.

"I know."

You stay a while longer. Eddie's friends pretend that you hadn't been alone in the bathroom for an inordinate amount of time together. You thank them all silently and less so, trying to talk to as many of them as you can.

There's Lucas, who's really, really nice, and his girlfriend Max, who's less so. She gives you an unimpressed look through her thick-lensed glasses, but you compliment her crutches and she comes around.

There's Mike, who actually isn't anywhere as bad as Eddie had described him. He's not frosty or standoffish, he's sweet and he asks questions. There's a girl with him that you don't catch the name of, and a boy on her other side.

There's Dustin, who you adore immediately, Robin, who you adore more, and then there's Steve.

Steve offers you a pretzel like you're more than familiar. He strolls right up to you with a bowl of them in hand and doesn't leave until you've eaten half of them.

There's a couple of people you don't manage to talk to at all, and you feel guilty about it all the way home.

"What if they think I'm rude?" you ask, tired eyes locking onto the stereo system. The time blinks analog in the dark, 12:59AM.

"They don't, don't worry about it. You have lots of time to get to know them, anyway."

You hum and turn to his face, indulgent because you know he can't look back. "You're not too tired to drive, are you?" He's spent. Yesterday had been one of his bad days.

"I'm fine."

"You say that all the time," you observe, dropping your cheek into the passenger seat's headrest.

"I'm fine all the time."

"Liar."

"Nuisance."

You huff a laugh through your nose. The strands of his friendship bracelet, the small beads at the ends, swing like pendulums in the gap between his arm and the steering wheel. You can see the rough skin of a scar creeping out from under his sleeve.

"Mike was really nice," you say.

"He has a bleeding heart."

That feels accurate. "He reminds me of you."

Eddie rolls his eyes. You feel for every detail, the strange tension between you like a gaussian filter over everything. He's gorgeous in a horrific way, heartbreakingly pale, eyes dark as pitch, hands restless. They squeeze alone the wheel, thick fingers curling tight until his knuckles are stark white. Running down the back of his hands are veins like rivers. They're more purple than green.

"Eddie," you say, playful, a tiny bit insecure.

"What?"

"Wanna stay the night?"

His hand moves forward on the wheel like he's revving a motorcycle, the tendon in his wrist rising to the surface. He clenches. "Not sure it's a good idea."

"Just to sleep. It's late."

"I don't know if I can sleep next to you."

You don't wanna say please. You don't want to ask Eddie to do anything he can't or doesn't wanna do.

He pulls up outside of your house with his mind already made up. He gets out of the car and you follow his lead. He locks it, shoves the keys in his pocket as you join him on the path up to your porch.

He's been in here enough times to know what it looks like, but for some reason you find yourself checking his face, worried about what it is he thinks of your things, all your mismatched trinkets, your stained glass lamps, your life as you let yourselves in. He ducks through the beeded curtain into your bedroom wary that they'll get tangled in his hair like they sometimes do.

"Do you wanna call Wayne?" you ask, gesturing to your telephone on the right hand side, nestled between a stack of books and a cup full of coloured pencils.

You pull your knee up to your chest and unlace your shoes one at a time. Eddie punches the number into the phone and holds the receiver to his shoulder to do as you're doing. It takes him less time to pop his sneakers off than for you to get out of yours. He's just taken the phone back into his hand when Wayne picks up.

"Wayne?" he asks softly. "Didn't wake you up, did I?"

You can't hear his response.

"I'm gonna stay with Y/N tonight. Yeah, we had a good time. Yeah…" His eyes drift to you as you peel out of your thigh highs.

"Yeah, I'm still here. What?" He meets your eyes and it feels accidental, because he throws his eyes to your bedsheets and turns his face to the wall. "No," he says firmly.

You scrape together something to wear for bed and some fresh underwear and leave for the bathroom, telling yourself that nothing is gonna happen so don't get your hopes up but not wanting to get caught out if it does. You freshen up, brushing your teeth and washing your face.

You stare at yourself in the mirror and wonder if you should've left your face-powder and your mascara on. Maybe even the skirt. You'd looked nice and pretty for the party. Now you look like yourself, still pretty but without those extra touches. Will he care? Does it matter?

You debate your pyjama pants considerably.

There's a lot happening.

Eddie is… Eddie is something else. He's different, you'd known that for a long time, and his kiss had confirmed it.

He's something out of a science fiction book.

Well, nobody's perfect.

Whatever he is, he'd kissed you. You'd kissed him and he'd responded, he'd come back for more, and now he's sitting in your bed when he could've gone home. You bring your hand to your neck and crane to one side, fingertips poking at your unbroken skin. His hickey's haven't even bruised.

You screw the pants up and drop them into your laundry basket. You take off every piece of jewellery on your person.

"Do you wanna use the bathroom?" you ask from behind the beaded curtain. "I left a new toothbrush for you on the sink."

"Yeah, desperately, I…" He takes you in as you emerge. Fresh-faced, bare-legged. As naked as you've ever been in front of him, physically and otherwise.

Eddie meets you where you're standing. He's ditched his jacket, and for the first time since you met him you can see the full length of his arms.

"You're not wearing your bracelets," he says, looking between your bodies. His hand twitches toward yours.

"You have tattoos," you say.

"They were better, before."

There's a misshapen mess of black splodges near the crook of his elbow broken up by scar tissue. One arm is less scarred than the other, an almost perfect flank of white skin.

"Is that a puppet? He's super spooky."

"Mh-hm."

You bring your hand to his tattoo and feel over the skin. It doesn't feel like it's there. Eddie holds your wrist and the two of you move together, your fingertips stroking up until you're wrapped around his bicep.

Eddie brings his free hand to your collar. His index finger straightens, encouraging your chin up so he can ease forward and kiss you. He's firm, eager, and your lips curl up into a smile underneath it. He turns his head to the right and you fall left, smile worsened when you feel his own start to form.

He nudges your nose. You take it for a telling off and laugh. "Sorry," you apologise, kissing his top lip.

"You're making this difficult," he chides.

Despite any sternness, Eddie loosens his grip on your wrists to slide his fingers between yours, pressing your joined hands to your chest. He leans back down and he's careful, almost methodical in the way he kisses. Chaste pecks, hot and precious as tiny stars.

You reach for his waist.

Eddie kisses you a final time and steps back. "I'll be back," he promises.

You lower your chin, flustered and perplexed by his sudden departure.

Walking around to the right side of the bed, you click on your bedside lamp — a beautiful glass and foiled contraption that throws dainty stripes of stars and hearts over everything close in the dark — before climbing in. You sniff one of your pillows experimentally, trying to remember when you last changed the bed. You decide they're acceptable even if they really smell like your hair oil and flip them around to be safe, plumping them up with your hands.

You've curled up on your side and almost succumb to your fatigue when Eddie returns, bringing with him the smell of spearmint and a fuzzy feeling in your stomach as he shuts off the light and sits on the opposite side of the bed, facing you. The hair around his face is damp with water, baby hair's limp.

"I'm sorry I don't have anything for you to wear, I-" Youre cut off by your own gasp as Eddie kisses you, his hand on your neck, his nose bridge sliding into your own. You hadn't been expecting it, and it's no less dizzying than any other kiss he's given you today.

"It's okay," he murmurs lowly, lips pressed to your lips, "have to wear you, is all."

You huff a laugh into his mouth. "I swear I'm always laughing when I'm with you," you muse as Eddie dedicates himself to your bottom lip. You cup the back of his head. "You're amazing."

Eddie groans and eases back. "I'm not good with words, sweetheart. To tell you how I feel about you."

You push one of your legs toward his knee. "...You can show me."

He shifts in the bed until he can lean over the entirety of your chest, hands cupping your face and lips poised hovering over your own, a millimetre of space between your mouth and his. "Okay," he says quietly.

He dips down. You can feel his bottom lip tremble, and then he's kissing you too hard to feel it anymore. You wrap loose arms around his back.

"Are you sure?" you whisper to him.

He rests his nose against your cheek, eyes closed, drawing the tiniest left to right. "I want you," he reassures.

"And you're okay?"

"Yeah, sweetheart. I'm okay. Do you want to?"

"Yeah. More than anything."

Another loving kiss against your cheek, Eddie moves down, down, down. "Tell me if I do something you don't like," he murmurs, top lip dragging and leaving a line of dampness to the base of your throat.

He adorns the canvas of your neck in half-moon contusions, big hands caressing your shoulders, your chest. You hold your breath as his fingers pass over your nipple, fighting to keep in any embarrassing sounds.

Eddie disagrees with his plan of action. You shiver as he brings his lips to a close and his bottom teeth scrape upward, as he pulls his head up and says, "C'mon, angel, breathe."

He follows his command with a manipulative touch, a circle over your nipple that makes you shudder. He kisses you and it feels like a thank you, pressure, a heat as his palm smooths over the bump of your tummy to your thighs. He squeezes the outside of one and for a while you can kiss him back, and then he pulls your thighs apart and you break away. Eddie follows, kisses you even when your reciprocation is weak.

He pushes your thigh flat to the bed.

You feel the heat of your excitement start to grow. Your stomach aches with the want to be touched.

"You're like a space heater, you're that warm," Eddie says, hand coasting down the inside of your thigh. He squeezes until fat melds under his fingers. "Are you scared?"

His whispering in your ear, his hand as close as it is to where you want it, it winds you up like a coil. You sigh as his thumb strokes the edge of your panties, sound coloured by an awful, devouring desire.

His face presses further into yours in reaction.

His touch is like the tide. He wades in, away. His thumb strokes inward over something soft and then his whole hand moves back to your thigh.

"Teasing," you utter.

"A little… Why, is there something you want me to do?"

His clueless whispering is infuriating and exciting at the same time. Your heart races and you can't discern if it's more lust or love.

"Touch me," you plead, pouting, knowing he's a pushover.

Anticipation stabs like a needle in your tummy as he slides his palm over your cunt completely. He rubs a careful, almost casual rhythm into your panties with the breadth of his fingers, lips kissing a lazy stripe up to your forehead, where he rests his face. You both watch his hand move past the valley of your rising chest.

"M'gonna pull these off, yeah?" He sits up, fingers pushing under the sides. "Lift your- yeah, thank you, sweetheart."

You buzz with his pet names, his soft voice, the feeling of your panties sliding up to your knees and his gentle exhale. You swear you can feel it fan over your slit. "Shit…" he moan, pulling at your spread cunt.

He looks like he's in pain, eyebrows pinched together and murmuring curses as he circles the wetness gathered at your entrance. You turn your head searchingly as he starts to ease his index finger inside your heat, a gentle probing.

One becomes two. He muffles your sighing with firm kisses, amorous praises, "That's it, baby, relax," as he works you open, fingers wet with slickness but not enough. He changes his position, pushing his middle and marriage finger inside and curving as his thumb slides up your slit looking for the bead of your clit.

Slow, slow circles. "There, huh?"

You shiver as he pushes in deeper, fingers as far as they can go. He spreads them wide, drops reassuring kisses all over your face when you keen. It's so new to have him kiss you at all, and to have him touching you — you're melting into nothing right there in his hold.

"I got you. Tell me if it hurts, okay?"

"Want you to- I want you to fuck me," you murmur, arms wrapping around him so you can hide your face in his neck.

"Fuck. Fuck, baby. Gonna fuck you just as soon as I can fit," he murmurs back, sinking three of his thick fingers into your snug cunt. He pulls wetness out with every thrust, a line of slick dribbling down onto the sheets underneath. He wipes it upward and pushes it back inside, his chest heaving. "Y'so tight, gotta take my time. Take our time." He rubs his nose against your head until he can kiss the highest point of your cheek. "Make sure you can take it."

"I can."

It doesn't bear repeating how quietly you're speaking, a mouthing inaudible under the wet, rhythmic thud of Eddie's pinky finger slapping your sticky cunt as he ups the pace of his finger-fucking.

"I don't think so," he coos, pulling his fingers from your cunt and making a show of spreading them wide. Your slick ribbons between them, almost invisible in the dark. "Ruin your sheets before any of that, maybe."

Eddie sits up and gets his hands under your armpits. You laugh as he tugs you up so your shoulders are on top of the pillows, but you don't have time to be confused. He quickly moves to kneel at your feet and pulls your leg over his shoulder, your back lifting unevenly from the sheets.

He starts with a sweet kiss pressed to the skin closest to his mouth, your lower thigh, and then works his way up, open mouthed, barely kisses at all until his hair whispers against your sensitive cunt and he's nipping at the stripe of skin between your thigh and the place where you most want his attention.

"Pretty," he says into your damp skin, lips shining. You reach down to stroke his hair behind his ears, worried he's gonna get it dirty.

He looks at you from between your thighs, his eyes dark in the dim light, their lashes long and soft where the outermost flutter into your skin. He's lovely.

He holds your gaze as he pulls back to your inner thigh. "Pretty everywhere," he says salaciously.

His lips part over your skin and you think he might bite you, a bruising hickey, but he pushes you down flat to the bed by your hips and kisses your clit, a simple kiss. Your fingers weave deeper into his hair. Your fingernails scratch lightly against his scalp, every tiny lick or kiss reflected in the minute tightening of your hands.

He goes slow, mouths down, kisses wetter and wetter as he reaches your entrance. "Poor girl," he murmurs, hands pulled down to further scandalise. He sinks two fingers inside and laughs into your cunt. You squirm.

"What happened? You're dripping on my fingers." Your thighs draw closed around his head as he curls his fingers against a soft spot.

"Eddie, can you-" You swallow. "Please. Please."

He pries your thighs open and rubs them soothingly, lapping at the heat of your cunt in face of your pleading. His tongue appears broad and flat up the centre of you until he's kissing on your clit, fingers pumping in rhythm. Your fingers work into his hair and he groans, the vibration enough to make you whimper under his mouth.

He laps at your clit messily and you tip your head back, breath coming in tight pants. You don't know what you say, only how you say it, desperate "please,"s and keening "Eddie,"s.

His thrusts grow in enthusiasm, fingers rubbing eagerly against something sweet. You pull your legs up and nudge his face to your cunt insistently, thigh shaking as you hold it up. Eddie doesn't need any more encouragement, his pretty pink lips suckling at your clit until you see stars. You make a pained little sound and try to move away from his kissing, startled at the intensity of your high.

Eddie lets your clit pop out of his mouth with a lewd, slick sound, his hands moving under your thighs and pulling you closer. "Good girl," he says, rubbing his wet face against the inside of your thigh. He inhales hard as you are, though he pauses to kiss your kneecap and pat your leg. "Good girl, sweetheart."

"I'm sorry," you say breathlessly, hands pulling his hair from his face. Pleasure rolls through you in hot waves.

"For what?"

"Tugging on your hair," you explain, shoulder pulled up to your cheek.

Eddie kisses your tummy lovingly and climbs on top of you to do the same just under your chin. "It’s okay, sweetheart, I like that shit. That was good, huh?" he asks, lips dropping down to yours all wet and warm.

He's not bragging, he's genuinely asking.

You nod into his kiss, your hands coming up to his sides. You swear your ears perk up as he unzips his jeans and eases them down, a hand disappearing into the mess of fabric. He moans quietly at the first touch.

You move his hair out of the way to watch. Eddie tugs at the length of his cock with a cruel hand, a short dribble of pearly precum sobbing down the tip and under his fingers. He spreads it as it goes, the slickness emphasising the ridges and veins of his cock. You can see it throb, if you look close enough.

He sits back and eases his jeans and boxers down enough to reveal a thatch of curls that brush his hand with every pump downward.

"You okay?" he asks, smirking.

You pull your shirt over your head and your chest warms at his adoring smile. "Will you take off yours?"

He doesn't hesitate like you worried he might. He sheds his t-shirt, pulling the fabric over the back of his head and dumping it off the side of the bed.

You take in his chest and it's abundance of ragged scarring still purpled with newness. He has a tattoo over his heart, a black whorl of legs and eyes. Fine dark hair crawls from the middle of his chest down his navel, joining with the thatch of coiled hair surrounding his aching cock. You shuffle forward and wait with two tentative hands held aloft until he says, "It's okay," before you touch him. You run your hands down the soft slopes of his waist.

"Does it hurt?"

"Not anymore."

"Can I kiss it?"

He snorts. "Prefer you kiss something else."

That really makes you laugh. You dot a kiss against his jaw and can't make yourself stop, dropping them all the way to the skin behind his ear. Your hand creeps lower as you go, held to the curve of his tummy. His skin is hot to touch the lower you go, and his stomach feels solid, a heaviness you know all too well.

"Can I touch you?" you whisper into his ear.

"Please."

You drop your forehead against his chest and he brings his hand up to cup the back of your head. His cock pulses as you wrap your hand around it, skin smooth and slick as you palm slowly up and down. You watch in awe as a bead of precum wells at the tip, Eddie's rough breathing loud overhead.

"Lie down, Y/N," he says, hand moving behind your naked shoulders.

"What way?"

"How do you want it, sweetheart? We'll do it whatever way you want."

You think about it. Whatever way you want. No matter how indulgent, you know he means it.

"Will you spoon me?"

He pushes you gently and follows behind, dragging your body into his front and angling your hips, cock hot and prodding your back. He gets his hand under your knee and pulls it up, splaying your cunt. You jump in surprise as he pushes his cock through your folds, tip rubbing against the still sensitive bead of your clit.

Eddie wraps his arms around you, hugging you from behind. "You wanna put it in for me, baby?"

You reach between your bodies and take his sticky cock into your hand, shifting until the head nudges against your hole. He sinks in inch by inch, arms tightening around your waist and grinding you down onto his cock until you're whimpering.

You grab at his arms with your hands and tether yourself to him as he starts to rock his hips, his thrusting tender and his face turned into your neck.

He presses his hand flat to your abdomen, an anchoring point as he moulds your weepy cunt around his length, each slovenly movement into your heat spreading you that little bit wider.

"Fuck," he says finally, sounding seconds from a black out. "Oh, fuck- You're tight. Gonna fuck you open slow, okay?"

You're pretty sure you'd let him do just about anything. You bring his hand to your mouth and kiss every white knuckle, every freckle you can see on the back, and when he bottoms out your cover your lips with his stolen hand to smother a tearful gasp.

Eddie's thrusts are spearing in their steady rhythm, a dirty slap ringing with every punching thrust forward. You curl in on yourself and hide your mouth in the sheets, wet pants smothered by fabric. Eddie's grip falls to your hip, where he pulls your body back and forces your cunt open even deeper.

His cock pushes into your sweet spot sudden and emphatic. You moan and he stills, rutting into that same space without pulling out until you're babbling his name, body knocked forward with every thrust.

Eddie turns your face toward him as much as he can without hurting your neck, your moans echoing in time with each thrust. "There you go," he says, "wanna hear how good it feels."

If he cares that you can't answer him he doesn't show it, arm coming up under you arm to grasp at your chest, your breaststroke soft and aching under his hand as he squeezes tenderly. His cock kisses at the sweet spot inside you intermittently; you're dizzy with it.

Eddie can't keep quiet either, his moans breathy, his breath hissing between his teeth when you clamp down around him. "Fuck," he begs, dragging his cock out of your heat, "fuck, Y/N."

He says your name like the syllables alone are appraising.

You can tell when it gets too much for him. He slows. His face drops into your shoulder, and he matches his pace to the wet kisses he leaves behind. Your wetness feels stickying, each of his thrusts snug.

His breath hitches, ragged pants accompanying every slow push of his hips. "Where's my girl?" he asks, eyes still closed as his hand abandons where it'd been squeezing the bump of your tummy to search further downward, fingers disappearing into your folds, short curls wet with slick. He can't find any purchase. You roll your hips, chase his touch and the pleasure that comes with it.

He groans into your shoulder. It sounds more pain than pleasure.

"Are you okay?" you ask, trying to turn in his arms. He holds you in place. "Eddie?"

"Yeah, fuck, I'm okay." He grinds up into your cunt. "Fuck, you're perfect."

"Will you kiss me?"

He does. It's nowhere near the bruising press you'd wanted. It's too careful.

"Listen," he murmurs, "I'm gonna get you on your front, okay? Gonna make you feel so good," he promises, waiting for you to nod before he pushes your shoulder away from him and climbs up behind you. You lay flat on your stomach and Eddie settles on your thighs, a heavy weight.

He pushes into your cunt with two fingers first, the new position allowing for a new pleasure. He pumps in and out and swaps his fingers for his cock quickly after, bearing the full weight of his body into your back as sinks to the hilt.

You both moan in time, hands fisted in the sheets.

He kisses your neck, lips parted, and his teeth feel so sharp that your heart sinks as it had in the bathroom.

"Eddie-" you start.

He pulls away, stops every movement.

"Eddie," you say again. What are you supposed to say? You both know what he is.

There's a lull where neither of you knows what to do filled by your too-fast breathing.

"I won't hurt you," he says, hands rubbing up the length of your back and then under. He holds a hand over your heart. He drops his lips to your back. "Do you want me to stop?"

He must feel your pulse calm under his touch, but he still asks again when you don't answer. "Do you want me to stop? It's okay if you do. You're okay, baby, I promise."

You steal a pillow from against the headboard and rise up on elbows. Your admission comes weak but completely honest. "Fuck me, Eddie, please... I want you. I want you-" Your murmuring's interrupted by a sharp breath as Eddie starts to move again, the head of his cock pushing into your cunt, a slick, perfect feeling.

He moans from the back of his throat as his cock pushes into you again and again, hips smacking the dough of your ass as his pace quickens. You hug your pillow tightly, tears popping up in the corners as he ruts deep.

"Being so good for me," he groans, clamped down on your hip with a vice-like grip. "Fuck, you feel so good. Fucking clinging to me every time I pull out, baby, Christ." His blasphemy is punctuated by a thrust that has you sliding up the bed, sheets wrinkling under your arms. You spread your thighs and wetness pools at your clit as his pelvis thrusts into you, driving pleasure so deeply it aches in your hips.

You moan pathetically and reach back to hold his hand, wiggling your fingers. He takes it in one and presses your arm against your lower back with the other, struggling to maintain a steady pace as he gets close to cumming. You're a babbling stream of sounds as he fucks in deep, swollen sweet spot tapped against mercilessly.

He throws himself back on his haunches, cock dragged out of your heat.

You pull your legs out from underneath him and curl onto your side to watch, eyes wide as white spurts of pearlescence jump out of the head of his reddened cock and drip down the bumps of his fingers. He leans back, his stomach and thighs tensed with every pump.

He groans through a smile, moan's coloured by a happy, relieved laughter. "F-uck," he drags, fisting his cock dry.

He meets your eyes as the last of it slides down onto his stomach.

You smile softly. "Fuck," you mumble.

Eddie wipes his hand in his jeans like a fucking hooligan and tucks his cock back into his boxers with a wince, and then he collapses on top of you. He's sort of nice about it, his arm over your shoulder and his face behind your ear.

"Fucking beautiful," he praises, dropping his head back on the bed so you're face to face. "You're so fucking pretty. So perfect." He kisses you. "You're perfect," he repeats, staring intently into your eyes.

You pull a hand from between your legs, smelling of sex. Eddie literally couldn't care less if he tried, and he lets you take his face into your hand without complaint.

He gets his arm under your arm and starts to rub your back. "You want me to take care of you again?" he asks, eyebrows raised gently. "Yeah?"

And you would let him, you would, but you need to see them for yourself.

You touch your index fingertip to his lip.

"Can I see?" you ask.

He loses his boisterous joy, tamps it down. He realises that he can't lie, that he hasn't been lying, and he nods. You tremble as you pull his lip up over his canine tooth, excited and scared.

A sharp, exceptionally white tooth pokes out of Eddie's gums. You're taken aback, though you'd known exactly what you'd find.

A fang.

Blood oozes at the gums.

"You're bleeding," you worry aloud, touching your finger to the dark beading at the base of his tooth.

Eddie's eyes rove over your face thoughtfully. He pulls your hand away from his lip and sets it on his neck instead. "They always do that. The gum heals, breaks when they wanna come out."

"How often do they come out?"

"A lot more since I met you. Whenever my adrenaline spikes, they seem to think it's… feeding time."

That is a dizzying thing to learn.

You're not sure how you feel, but you know one thing: he's Eddie. "It's too bad," you say, forcing a lightness that turns real more easily than you expect. "I really want to kiss you right now."

He strokes your cheek with his thumb. "I really wanna kiss you too. Maybe a small one?"

You find yourself leaning forward, unafraid.

He kisses you once, twice, three times, the two of you holding each other's faces and covered in mess. Slick and sweat and blood. The hearts and stars from your lamp spray over his hip and paint him with pinks, greens, oranges, a rainbow cutting over his trim waist. You rest your hand overtop, feel his keloid scars like hills under your fingers.

"My boyfriend's a vampire," you mutter, bemused at fate.

Eddie blinks at you. "I'm your boyfriend?"

"Yeah, I think so. Don't you?"

Eddie pulls you into his chest and doesn't let you go for a long, long time.

Your first time watching a blood sate is weird.

For one, Chief Hopper is firmly against it. He's got his kid with him, the boy from the party that Mike had been so heavily doting on, and if he didn't you might think he was a pretty scary guy.

"I think this is stupid," the chief says plainly. "I think this is stupid, I think you're stupid," — he points at Eddie where he's sitting sickly in the round couch — "and I think you're plain crazy, kid." He points at you last.

You beam at him. "People have said that about me."

His kid laughs.

"Will," Hopper says tiredly, "go sit in the car."

"Look, Chief, I know I messed up, okay, but she kind of stuck her hand in my mouth and I didn't really have a choice."

Wayne looks at you with new eyes. "You did?"

You nod at him faux-seriously.

"And what gave her the inkling that you might have had something in your mouth worth looking at?" Hopper says, which is hilarious. You laugh behind your hand.

He gives you a disapproving look that you completely ignore. If you'd taken notice of disapproval you would've stopped having this much fun years ago.

"Uh, well, she might have… felt them?" His pitch rises.

Hopper looks like he's about to blow a gasket when Will says, "What was he supposed to do? Never talk to anyone new ever again?"

"He did a lot more than just talk to me," you say. There'd been a fixed bike, phone calls, lots of sandwiches, bug hunts, an entire sketchbook full of drawings.

"I told you to wait in the car," Hopper says.

Will grins and raises his hands in surrender. "Bye," he mouths. You wave.

Hopper waits for the door to close before he continues. "I get it, when you're a teenager you think your hormones are the end of the world-"

"I'm almost twenty three."

Hopper pinches his hand closed. "But you do not understand the danger that you are creating here."

"Like a stake-ing," you whisper, very very quietly. Eddie's the only one who can hear you, and he laughs so hard he snorts.

"I'm glad you find this funny." Hopper's tone could not imply the opposite any more.

He hands Wayne a paper bag that audibly sloshes and stalks out, his anger a palpable cloud of steam rising off of his shoulders. Eddie seizes up beside you at the sound, lips parting as his fangs come through. You don't touch him because you value your blood inside your body, only slide away from him and smile. "You okay, handsome?"

"Kid, maybe the chief is right. We don't know how Eds is gonna act with you here," Wayne says.

You nod respectfully. You like Wayne, and he knows about all of this stuff more than you ever could.

"No," Eddie mumbles, putting his hand out for you across the couch.

You take it without thinking.

Wayne sighs. You can hear him grumbling as he disappears from view into the kitchen and puts a pot on the stove. There's the sound of a bag being punctured with a knife, a wet slosh. Eddie's grip on your hand tightens.

You're still fascinated that he even drinks blood in the first place. That's wickedly sickening. Wicked, because it's cool that he's a vampire, with his impressive hearing, senses and smell. But sickening, because if you had to drink a pint of blood every couple of weeks you'd throw up.

"I read about a new blood-sucker."

Eddie raises his heavy head. "Another bug?"

"No, a finch! A vampire finch. They're really pretty, Teddy. They're small and brown with long beaks and they drink blood because there's barely any water on their island." You give him a loving smile. "They aren't parasites. S'just how they had to change to survive."

He squeezes your hand, this time on purpose.

"Are you gonna come and have it in here, Eddie?" Wayne asks, one last shot at separating the two of you.

"I'm okay," he says loudly. His eyes trace your smile. "Really."

It can't be fun to have two people watch you drink a warm mug of blood, but Eddie finds it funny. He keeps laughing every time he brings the rim of the glass to his mouth.

"I can't do it if you're looking at me," he says.

Wayne rolls his eyes and looks away. You cover your face with both hands and part your fingers to spy on him through the gaps. He makes it look easy, draining the mug basically in one long pull, though his hunger turns violent as the cup empties. He chokes. Blood trickles down from one corner of his mouth.

You automatically want to reach over and wipe it away. Wayne grabs your arm before you can and gives you a fatherly look that says, I wouldn't do that if I were you.

"Shit," Eddie says, slamming his now empty mug down on the coffee table. It makes a grating sound like a ground mortar and pestle. He sits as far back on the couch cushions as he can, nausea clear on his face.

"Deep breath," Wayne says.

"Fuck, Wayne."

"You're aces. Deep breaths."

Your heart hurts watching Eddie like this. He covers his mouth with eyes closed tightly and breathes hard through his nose. Already there's colour coming back into his face, not a lot but anything is an improvement. He'd been practically grey.

When Eddie pulls his hand from his mouth blood has spread over his lips and jaw. Your eyes widen.

"I'll get the shower running," Wayne says, slapping his knees as he stands. He stops before the hallway. "Good job, Eddie."

The boy in question slouches into a ball on the sofa and nods into a cushion. You wait for the sound of Wayne pulling the shower cord that turns on the hot water before you stand up, head tipped to one side.

"You okay, handsome?".

"Tired."

"You want a hug from me?"

"Is anyone else offering?" He opens one eye to peek at you and grins at your distraught expression. "I'm joking, I'm kidding. C'mere, before I start bawling." You sit and then flop onto your side, pulling your legs up next to his. "Such a frowny face." His voice is adorably tired.

"Better than yours. You look like someone from Night of the Living Dead, baby."

Eddie's arm lies limp like a dead fish over your waist. "Lemme nibble on your brains," he says, words thick as dark honey, eyes closed. "Just a snack."

You're waiting for someone to pull the rug out from under your feet. No way your boyfriend, your cries at the end of every movie, brings you flowers because he felt like it, won't step on cracks in the sidewalk boyfriend just skulled a glass of O-negative like it was a milkshake.

You feel guilty as soon as you think about it. He's not confined to all his softest parts and he never will be. He's snarky and angry and loud. He plays guitar like a real rockstar and he doesn't take anyone's shit. He's a survivor. A glass of blood every now and then was never gonna stop him.

You keep wondering if you should let him suck your blood. It could be hot. It could also probably be the worst idea ever, a relationship faux pas up there with proposing after a month or saying I love you on the first date.

"What are you thinking about?" he asks.

You brush the hair out of his eyes with your ring finger. "Embarrassing relationship fumbles."

"Oh yeah? Like letting your girlfriend watch you drink human blood from a mug shaped like Woodstock?"

"Least it wasn't Snoopy."

"God forbid."

"Is it always like this?" You stroke your hand down his face and rub along his jaw with your thumb. "D'you always get sleepy?"

"Yeah." He turns his face so your hand covers his mouth.

You've stopped wearing silver jewellery, your wrists bare besides the endearingly awful friendship bracelet he's constructed for you. Not a friendship bracelet, he'd corrected. You're not kissing other friends, are you? Because that's really gonna put a downer on this whole thing.

You dip your forehead to his chin and the two of you lay there in silence. You can smell blood, a thick, metallic stick permeating every corner of the room. It's especially strong between the both of you.

"Do you wanna bite me right now?" you inquire without opening your eyes.

"Not really. Blood sate kicks in quickly. It's the worst for, like, the first ten seconds after. Now I wanna sleep, but Wayne's gonna make me shower."

"Maybe I can shower with you."

"I'm sure he'd jump for joy if you suggest it."

"Really?"

Eddie kisses your hand. "No," he says with a giddy laugh.

"I'll pretend I'm gonna sit on the toilet. Keep watch."

"How will you stop your hair from getting wet?"

"I'll lean out."

Eddie laughs even more than he had been, peeling laughter that warms you from the inside out as he kisses your hand again. "That'll definitely work."

Wayne clears his throat.

"Shower's hot. I'm going out. For an hour." Eddie perks up. His uncle looks him dead in the eye. "Don't make me regret this."

And while Wayne had been under the impression you and Eddie were gonna have some grown up fun together in the shower, what you really do is an innocent act of affection: you wash Eddie's hair.

"You have to lean your head back," you chide.

"I am."

"More than that."

"There's no room."

You're lucky you both fit. You're freezing standing behind Eddie, the only relief the warm water that trickles down from your hands to your elbows as you draw circles in his scalp, working the shampoo into a fine lather.

"How did you get blood here?" you ask, scratching rusty flakes from the hair behind his ear.

"I don't know. It gets everywhere. Like eyeshadow."

You push your chin over his shoulder. "You wear eyeshadow?"

"For shows."

"Really?"

"Is it hard to believe?"

You encourage his head under the water and rake your hands through his curls, encouraging the soapy water down to the ends with patient hands. "Lip gloss too? Hey, can I do your makeup?"

"Maybe tomorrow," he bargains. While the shower has helped to wake him up, lethargy remains thick and unshakeable as adamant.

You kiss the wet ridge of his shoulder blade, picturing his pretty face decked out in dark liners and sticky balm. "Thank you."

"I haven't worn any in a long time. Haven't played a show in a really long time."

You wring the water out of his hair and search in the steam for his conditioner. It's mostly empty. "You could put on a show for me. I never got to see you play," you say, shaking it really hard. A dollop collects in your hand and you work the dregs through the ends of his long hair.

"You want that?"

"I think you're the best guitar player in the world."

You're not joking. He's the best, and he plays guitar. And he's pretty good, semantics aside. You love sitting out on the porch with him and listening to him play old rock songs off the top of his head. You could watch his hands move over the strings for hours.

"If that's the case, I can definitely put on a show. Make-up, costume, stage dives. The whole nine yards. Anything for my girl."

You roll the ends of his hair between two coated palms and step back. "There. You have to let it soak in for a couple of minutes."

Eddie turns with a grin, angling his chest and hair forward, away from the stream.

"Whatever will we do?"

You wipe an escaped streak of blood off of his bottom lip and smile. "I have no idea."

You kiss. Eddie leans down and you move up, damp noses glancing off of each other. You're used to short kisses, never enough to make his heart race in case it prompts an unnecessary appearance of his fangs, so when Eddie encourages your lips apart to wade in deeper you pull back questioningly.

"Blood sate. I'm 'sated'. They won't come out."

Your jaw drops. "For real?"

He shakes his head with a pleased smile. "For real. Kiss me sick, sweetheart."

You throw your arm around his neck and drag his face to yours, kissing with an ardency that both surprises and amuses him. He laughs into your open mouth until suddenly he's not laughing at all, only breathing, pushing against you with the same urgent force and the same adoring smile.

"Does this mean you can give me a hickey?" you ask enthusiastically. Eddie has yet to give you a proper love bite.

He leans back under the show spray and pulls you in with him, laughing when you dissolve like rice paper in his arms, finally warm. There's never been a sweeter sound.

/\^._.^/\

thank you for reading! | my masterlist | my halloween party

if you enjoyed reading his, please consider reblogging. i promise it makes a huge difference

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turbofanatic · 5 months

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Hyrule's resting bitch face champion for three decades and counting.

@scopophobia-polaris asked for some more details on this silly guy and I needed to post the redesign of his scars so I'm gonna ramble!

General "rules" I am using for the Bad Moon AU:

-You cannot change the future. If you saw the future, it happens. Maybe not to you, but it happens. Time travel either involves splitting timelines, temporal loops (see the song of storms), or two extremely similar timelines that collapse together (a dumb child goes to the past to plant beans). What does this mean for Termina? OH GOD OH GOD WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TINY WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!

-If you turn into something, you will never entirely turn back.

-Two opposing wishes on the Tri Force will really fuck things up. Also, it happened. Bad Moon is about dealing with the fallout.

Tiny has a series of magic scars from his various transformations. Most of them are benign or beneficial due to Farore's blessing and the Fierce Deity's Mask's intervention, but not all. Believe it or not, this is me nerfing him, because I'm getting rid of all the Terminian masks except for the FD's mask, which gets broken.

-From the Deku mask he has ivy vines. Most are centered along his spine. He uses them to hold stuff. If he sleeps in fertile soil they will grow into the ground and he leaves weird plants that are sort of beholden to him all over the place. Gross. Anyways, remember how the Hero's Shade is covered in ivy? The "missing" eye is also more or less a Deku scrub's pitlike eye now, granting him low-light but otherwise mediocre vision in that eye.

-From the Goron mask he is disturbingly strong now. Most of Farore's blessed are pretty strong to begin with and now he's got Darmani's strength on top of that. His teeth are continuously growing and need to be worn down by grinding them on each other (because he's missing a tooth from that facial scar those teeth are maloccluded and grow all weird). It's definitely inspired by wrathful deity artwork though. He's also extremely resistant to heat. He got the white hair and scales on his shoulders/knees/elbows from Darmani too. Guess what part of his magic scarring the Hero of Twilight inherits!

-From the Zora mask he has some extremely strong scales on his forearms that can be used to defend himself. He can also make nasty electrical shocks, is very resistant to electrocution, is an extremely good swimmer (nowhere near as good as Mikau though), and can hold his breath for twenty minutes easily. His toes are webbed too.

-From the Giant's mask his height just kinda varies. His "true" height is over seven feet tall but it can vary between about 6"/15cm in either direction. He has some control over this but it's more related to his sense of security. He's at his smallest when he's the most insecure but like, that's still 6'10"/208 cm so he's still way too big. Lucky for him the magic also affects his clothes/armor but it takes some time so he just makes/buys things on the larger end and waits for them to shrink to his current size. The effect goes away when removed from his body. Is this so I don't have to be consistent? Yes.

-He turns into a puppy in the War of Eras when he's ten and Zant uses the twilight as a weapon. Specifically an epicyon puppy! A 100lb/45kg puppy! Medli will ride him! I just want to draw the biggest puppy in the world. He can still turn into the big ancient wolf, and thankfully it doesn't do too much to him (unlike Twilink) but his jaw attaches waaay further back than it ought to and he can open his mouth to a scary degree. It's probably influencing those big fangs too. Combined with the Goron bite strength and... yeah.

I'll probably change things because I'm just playing around with him, so don't be surprised when I do!

#bad moon #the legend of zelda #zelda au #oot link #mm link #hero of time #hero's shade

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david-talks-sw · 1 year

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What's 'Star Wars' about?

A while ago I got an 'Ask' that concluded with "what is Star Wars about, if not the Jedi, right?" And weirdly enough... I have to disagree.

I mean... to me? Yes. Star Wars is about the Jedi. A Jedi-less, Sith-less, lightsaber-less Star Wars movie or series will struggle to get me on board (which is why I was surprised that I loved Andor so much).

But if you read everything George Lucas said, if you think about the Jedi's place in his two trilogies... they're not front and center, right?

Sure, there's Luke Skywalker... but he's a learner, in the Original Trilogy. Same goes for Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, in the Prequels. They're going through character arcs.

Otherwise, the Jedi are either used as mentors to the protagonist...

... or to deliver exposition...

... but they're mostly vectors Lucas uses to present his thesis.

Functionally-speaking, the Jedi are important in that they embody the Buddhist philosophies the movie's themes are based on.

But when it comes to the plot, they're secondary. That's because the the themes of these films are bigger than the Jedi themselves.

So the question becomes... what's are the themes?

The primary goal of the Star Wars films is to inspire kids to start thinking outside the box and teach them a set of values and psychological motifs that have been passed down through mythology and fairy tales.

These values can be summed up in the dichotomy between greed and compassion / selfishness and selflessness / pleasure and joy.

We all have both aspects and need to strike a balance between the two. After all, being greedy ultimately comes from fear and being afraid can happen to all of us. Problem is, unchecked fear can lead to anger, hate and a whole lot of suffering.

The more selfish you are, the more you want things and the more you're afraid that you'll lose everything you have, you'll get angry when someone tries to take it and that will hurt everyone around you.

In other words, fear is the path to the tempting/addictive Dark Side.

Thus, seeing as we'll be inevitably tempted by the Dark Side and give in at some point (because nobody's perfect), we should aim to be as selfless and compassionate as possible for our own good... but also for the greater good, because we're all connected to a life energy. You can call it Qi or God; in Star Wars it's known as the Force.

As such, we all form a symbiotic circle and working with that in mind is better than putting ourselves first and draining from everything and everyone around us.

But we also need to be careful because there will be people who give in to that selfish side and will try to control everything. When the time comes, we must stand up for what's right.

So that's Lucas' thesis.

If I had to sum them up, the six movies illustrate it as follows:

The Prequel Trilogy is about the consequences of greed, explored through Anakin on a smaller scale and the Senate on a larger one.

The Original Trilogy shows the triumph of compassion, through Luke, Leia & Han and the Rebellion's fight against the Empire.

Lucas talked about it multiple times, the Prequels are about how Anakin becomes Darth Vader and how the Republic becomes the Empire, and in both those cases, it happens because they're greedy.

The Senate is greedy in the more classical sense. They could give a shit about "symbiosis", no they're taking bribes, letting corporations dictate policy, using loopholes to keep themselves in power and halting any meaningful progress out of fear that the new status quo will conflict with their own self-serving goals.

Anakin's greed manifests in a different way. He turns to the Dark Side because of his attachment. He wants to stop Padmé from dying... but not because he wants to save her, rather he wants to save himself from feeling the pain of loss again and will do anything to not have to live without her, her own wishes and the natural cycle of life and death be damned.

In both cases, they cave under pressure orchestrated by Palpatine, but nobody puts a gun to their head. They make a deliberate choice that comes from a selfish place, and neither one takes personal responsibility for it, they blame others, the Separatists in the case of the Senate and the Jedi in Anakin's case.

The Republic becomes an Empire with thunderous applause, betraying the people it was meant to protect.

And when faced between doing something he knows is right and giving in to his selfish desires...

... Anakin elects to do the latter, thus betraying his family and leaving the Force in darkness.

These selfish choices impact the galaxy as a whole, including the only characters in the trilogy who were doing their best to be compassionate and live in symbiosis: the Jedi, Padmé and Bail.

These champions of the Light Side are stuck playing catch-up or helplessly witnessing the events unfold, throughout the trilogy. They're playing by the rules and Palpatine uses this to his advantage.

Thus, as the galaxy tears itself apart because of Palpatine's manipulations, the Jedi and Bail are ignored and gradually weakened until they're either rendered irrelevant or killed.

A new order is born, one built on blood, lies and greed: the Empire.

But a new hope remains.

While before, the Jedi and people like Bail stood alone as everything around them became willfully corrupt... now, a Rebellion inspired by their legacy has banded together to overthrow the current order. But they don't fight for power or personal glory, they fight for altruistic, compassionate reasons. There's a sense of general responsibility that moves them, they're all doing their part.

On a larger scale, we focus on the Rebels, who are tired of seeing people suffer and decided this needs to stop. They have gone from being passive, to proactive.

On a more personal scale, we see the evolution of Luke, from naive farmer to a hero, and guess what? More and more selfish people - like Han or Lando - are inspired to join the Rebellion, after seeing the exploits of Luke, Leia, or even Ben.

It all culminates in the final film, wherein:

The Rebels band together with the Ewoks - literal teddy bears whom the Empire, in their arrogance, never even considered to be a threat - to destroy the Second Death Star and free the galaxy from imperial tyranny.

At the same time, Emperor Palpatine pressures Luke, who is tempted by the Dark Side like his father was.

But instead of giving in to his selfish desire to kill Darth Vader for all the horrors he's done...

... he finds the strength to rise above it, instead showing compassion for his father, which, in turn, inspires Anakin to do the same.

He faces a choice, like he did in Palpatine's office, two decades prior...

... and this time he chooses right.

Children teach you compassion. Anakin lets go of his fear and anger, and saves his son at the cost of his own life, finally bringing balance back to the Force.

Good triumphed over evil. Its champions achieved victory by being selfless, hopeful and fighting together / helping each other.

And that's it, that's how the movies thematically tie together.

As you can see, the Jedi aren't that directly impactful on the overall plot, because it revolves around Anakin, Luke and the respective factions/institutions around them.

But what the Jedi do bring to the table is their ability to teach and inspire others, both in-universe and out. They're spiritually impactful.

The Jedi are the epitome of compassion, and it's partially through them that George Lucas teaches his values to the audience.

#to be clear: Star Wars doesn't HAVE to be about all this #This is just me trying to summarize what Lucas said in all his interviews and speeches #The post-Lucas Star Wars transmedia franchise made the Jedi more central than they were originally meant to be; especially in the Prequels #You see this in interviews from current SW creators /writers #but also small stuff like renaming the Prequel era “Fall of the Jedi” when it was originally named the “Rise of the Empire” era #meta #george lucas #star wars #jedi order #the force #anakin skywalker #luke skywalker #prequel trilogy #original trilogy

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exitpursuedbyavulcan · 2 months

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The Silver Dragon (12)

Dearest Friend

As Arianwyn adapts to her new surroundings, and Aemond heals from his wound, the pair take comfort in the letters they exchange.

Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x OC (Daemon and Rhea's daughter)

Warnings: none

Series Masterlist - Previous Chapter - Next Chapter

Aemond,

I am sorry it has taken me so long to write to you. So much has happened since I watched you and Vhagar fly away.

Oh, what a sight that was! I had not been able to appreciate her fully in just the moonlight. From where I watched in the tower, I could truly grasp her massive size and see her scales gleaming. Truly, the gods must have a sense of humor, giving you the bronze dragon and me the black.

Emrys was distressed when you all left without us. I could hear him wailing for Dreamfyre from my rooms. But I cannot blame him; I felt very much the same. I miss you – all of you – very much.

We did not linger for long at Driftmark after Ser Laenor’s funeral. It was not as grand an affair as Laena’s. I think Lord Corlys and Princess Rhaenys were eager for us to leave – I do not think they like either Rhaenyra or my father very well. I cannot blame them. Neither has said a word to me since we arrived on Dragonstone five days ago. I suppose it is the best outcome I could hope for, for I know Daemon to be capable of much worse.

Have you heard that Daemon and Rhaenyra were married? It happened only two days ago. I did not attend the ceremony, but I almost wish I had, as it was done in the Valyrian tradition. It would have been fascinating to see in reality what I have only read about and imagined for so long. But I could not have stood to be around my father for so long—to witness him in a moment of joy. I would have been sick, I think.

I have been settled in rooms in the opposite wing from the rest of them. I am grateful for this, for it means I do not have to see my sisters or Jace and Luke (who are now my step-brothers, as awful a thought as that is) more often than necessary. While I am allowed to break my fast and take my luncheon in my rooms, I am still required to attend dinner with the family.

Jace and Baela have taken to mocking me. Once, Baela wondered aloud whether my face would scar, and the way she suggested that she wished they would. Jace often tries to goad me by praising his brother for what he did to you. Luke has said very little, but he does smile when they make their comments. I wager once his nose has healed, he’ll join them, as well.

It is worse than how Aegon mocks us. I don’t really know how to explain it. But after what he did on Driftmark, defending you and saying aloud what the entire court has known for so long, I no longer believe he was acting out of malice. With my new siblings, it is. They want to hurt me. And they do. But, like Aegon, they lost interest once they realized they would get no reaction from me.

So now I simply sit in silence and eat my food—which on this barren island mainly consists of fish, which you know I hate. It does help to imagine throwing my food at them or cramming the entire stupid down their throats, but I obviously cannot actually do so.

As soon as the meal is done, I retreat to my rooms. Though it is lonely without Brynna and the rest of my companions from King’s Landing and Runestone, it is better than facing Daemon and the rest. I never thought I would, but I find myself praying for my father to continue ignoring me.

But oh! I am selfish. I have not asked anything of you. How was the ride on Vhagar? Have you ridden her since? Surely she cannot fit in the Dragonpit, so where does she lie?

And most importantly, how is your wound? Are you reading this letter yourself, or is Orwyle reading it for you? If he is, let him know how much I appreciate him and that I hope he is treating you gently.

Please write back to me soon. I have not yet been brave enough to try to find the library here, so I am near to going mad with boredom.

Arianwyn

Sent to the Red Keep from Dragonstone on the 19th day in the third month of the year, 124 years after Aegon’s Conquest.

Arianwyn,

I am immeasurably glad to hear you are unharmed. Mother, Helaena, and I were so worried about what Daemon would do once you were in his grasp. We will continue to pray that you remain safe and well.

Do not apologize for not writing – my happiness should be the least of your concerns while you are living among enemies. My mother has written to your cousin, Ser Gerold, and Lady Arryn, your Godsmother. Our hope is that they will come to the capital to petition the King for your return and that they will be able to succeed where we could not.

I am very pleased that you were so impressed with Vhagar. I have not been able to ride her since we arrived back in the capital, as Maester Orwyle insists on confining me to his tower so he can force me to drink tremendous amounts of milk of the poppy to numb my pain. I am not even sure I have any pain, for he has not given me a chance to feel it. He is treating me gently, overbearingly so. He treats me as if I am a helpless, petulant child!

Your guess is correct. He is reading for me. And writing. And every other damn thing. It is only my eye that is wounded, and yet he acts as though I have been rendered incapable of even independent thought.

Arianwyn, please forgive my interjection into the prince’s many complaints. If I indeed treat him as a “petulant child,” it is only because he acts like one. Be assured, if I did not place such restrictions on him, I am sure he would overexert himself and end up injured further than he is now. – Orwyle

Enough about overbearing Orwyle. You asked about Vhagar.

She is so wonderful, Aria! Aegon was right, she did not need a single command from me to make her way back to King’s Landing. I think she was happy to return to Westeros after so long across the sea. She flew around and around the city, frightening all the small folk and even the nobles in the castle – they were not expecting to see such a massive dragon!

She did try to enter the Dragonpit, but you are correct; she is much too large. She has instead taken up residence in the empty Tourney Grounds. Where she will go when we have a tourney, I have no idea. As soon as Orwyle lets me off his gods damned sedatives, I will take to the skies once more.

You did not mention how Emrys was. Have you been able to ride him? If you are so permitted, perhaps we could arrange a place to meet. There must be clearings in Kingswood large enough for both our dragons. Or you could just return to the Keep—come home. With me and Vhagar to defend you, surely Daemon would not try to force you to return.

Perhaps this is the poppy speaking. But I miss you very much. There are so many people at the castle, but it still feels empty without you. Even the library doesn’t feel right when you are not here to read with me.

I asked my mother about my sending you books or some of your things from your rooms here, but she said no. It would require a great cost, and we cannot be sure that Daemon would not turn the ship away.

I am so sorry for your loneliness. I wish there was something I could do to give you comfort.

Aemond

Sent to Dragonstone from the Red Keep on the 24th day in the third month of the year, 124 years after Aegon’s Conquest.

Aemond,

Your words alone give me great comfort, which is increasingly hard to find. I have read your letter over and over again, for when I read it, it feels for a moment as if I am not truly alone.

I have heard from Gerold. As I write this, he is sailing for King’s Landing. Lady Arryn will be not far behind him. I have never met her, but it warms my heart that she cares so much for the memory of my mother that she would make such a journey for me.

However, I am hesitant to hope their words will sway the King. Your mother told me that he believes my presence will soften Daemon, somehow. And now that he is wed to Rhaenyra, I fear he will be even less likely to bring me home. Besides, I am doubtful of trusting him after the way he treated you at Driftmark.

As for your daring plan for my escape, I am afraid it will not be possible.

I did not have the courage to approach my father with the question of my mounting Emrys again. But I mentioned my desire to ride him again to my maid, a woman named Kiyara. I now believe that she is more spy than maid, for the next morning, I received a note from Daemon as I broke my fast. It said:

“I am almost impressed by your boldness. But I must not have made myself clear. You will not leave this castle until I say otherwise. You needn’t fret for the little black dragon. He has been made comfortable in the volcanic tunnels. He is unrestrained and has been spotted flying across the bay to hunt with Vermithor. He is most happy amongst the other unclaimed dragons.

If I knew how to reach Emrys, I would burn this whole wretched island to the ground.

My ignorance is my greatest weakness. I am utterly lost in this monstrosity of a castle. Were it not for the guards leading the way each night, I am sure I would get lost trying to find my rooms after dinner.

I feel so helpless, Aemond. I thought that as long as I had Emrys, I could endure whatever Daemon did to me. But now, I am a Targaryen without a dragon and a Royce without armor. How will I ever survive?

Arianwyn

Sent to the Red Keep from Dragonstone on the 31st day in the third month of the year, 124 years after Aegon’s Conquest.

Arianwyn,

Just send word, and I will fly Vhagar across the Blackwater and burn the island down for you. Curse of the Kinslayer be damned. It would be worth it to save you and Emrys.

But I speak in anger. To do so would have consequences beyond my control and comprehension.

All I can think to do is pass on the note from Daemon to my father when Ser Gerold and Lady Arryn arrive. Even he cannot deny the cruelty in denying you your dragon. I hope.

The fact that you have not even seen Emrys since you arrived makes me hesitant to mention my progress with Vhagar. But I know you will want to hear – perhaps it will cheer you?

I have at last been able to ride her again, as Orwyle has finally permitted it. It is just as wonderful as it was that night. Why did you never tell me how thrilling it was? Yes, you told me of the wind in your hair and the sight of people and towns below shrinking to nothing as you climbed higher and higher, but you never told me how it set the blood ablaze. When I mount Vhagar, I feel as though I could conquer the world.

But I don’t want to conquer the world, Aria. I just want to save you.

Aemond

Sent to Dragonstone from the Red Keep on the 6th day in the fourth month of the year, 124 years after Aegon’s Conquest.

Aemond,

Let us write no more of my escape. Until we know it to be true, or at least have reason to hope, the thought only saddens me.

Instead, tell me only of happy things—things that bring me light and joy as I sit alone in my gloomy tower.

How is Helaena? She and Aegon will be married soon. I wish I could be there to help her prepare. I had great plans for her gown. She has shown me so many insects over the years, though I often wished she hadn’t. I was going to embroider the prettier ones on the skirts of her wedding gown. I thought that if she had them with her, she would not be so afraid. Perhaps you can ask your mother to do it for me.

What are you reading now? I have now found the library here, but it is a pitiful thing. What books there are mostly about warfare and its history, which, as you know, is of no interest to me. And while there are many books on Old Valyria, they are only what we have already read. There are only a handful of collections of fairy stories. I will soon devour them all, and I have no idea what I will do then.

Please do not hesitate to tell me more about Vhagar. If I cannot ride Emrys, your stories are my only way to the skies. I always told you that you would be the fiercest dragonrider since Aegon (the Conqueror, not your brother, obviously). Consider that now a promise. When I see you next, I want to be awed by what you and Vhagar can do together.

Arianwyn – the girl in the tower

Sent to the Red Keep from Dragonstone on the 10th day in the fourth month of the year, 124 years after Aegon’s Conquest.

Arianwyn,

I pray we will find that hope soon. Ser Gerold and Lady Arryn arrived today. My father will hear their petitions tomorrow. With luck, you will be home in time for the wedding.

My mother says she will begin embroidering Helaena’s dress for you. She is sure her work will not be as beautiful as yours would, but she has fallen out of practice in recent years. Helaena is very excited to see the finished gown, but that seems to be the only thing that interests her about the wedding. I don’t blame her; I would not want to marry Aegon either. But it is their duty, and we must always perform our duty.

I don’t know if I can be called “fierce” yet. After so long firmly planted on the ground, adapting myself to the skies can be, well, a little frightening. Vhagar is used to more daring riders than I, so she likes to fly in an equally daring manner. I am now convinced that her dive on the night I claimed her was her going easy on me. She has since flown me in ways I could have never imagined.

She has a particular fondness for flying upside-down! The first time she did so, I screamed as loud as I could for her to right us – I was afraid I could not hang onto the saddle – but she did not listen. I could only hold to the horns as tightly as I could until she at last swung around. As soon as we landed, I immediately ordered more straps to be added to the saddle to spare my aching arms.

She will make me fierce, there is no doubt about that. But with the blessings of the Seven, you will see me again before I can become the “fiercest dragonrider singe Aegon.”

Aemond, the novice dragonrider

Sent to Dragonstone from the Red Keep on the 17th day in the fourth month of the year, 124 years after Aegon’s Conquest.

Dearest Aria,

I wish I could write to you with better news. Lady Arryn and I were unable to secure your release from Daemon.

We were able to convince the king to make some concessions – threatening to move the armies of the Vale against Daemon will do that. He shall immediately send a raven to Dragonstone to command that you will be allowed access to your dragon. The note Aemond gave us to show him did enrage the old man.

He is a clever boy, that one. He took me to your chambers in the Red Keep to show me the work you two have done deciphering the Runes. I am immensely impressed. I will be asking your Maester Orwyle to make a copy of your translations, that I may take it back to Runestone with me for our own library.

Speaking of Runestone, Lady Arryn and I also convinced the king to send your attendants from the Vale to Dragonstone. Their presence was a crucial part of our original agreement, and it will continue to be enforced now that Daemon has you. You may not be able to return to Runestone just yet, but it will still be with you through them.

Do not fret, dear girl. Brynna will be with you soon. She, Ser Warren, and many of your other guards have been distraught while separated. I am surprised they have not simply swam across the Blackwater to get to you.

I am so sorry that I could not free you from that man. The king still foolishly believes that his brother can still be saved. You and I know the truth: Daemon is a monster.

You are strong, my dear. Perhaps even stronger than your mother. I have no doubt that you will survive this, and when you at last return home to the Vale, no one will ever be able to command you again.

Ser Gerold Royce, Lord Regent of Runestone

Sent to Dragonstone from the Red Keep on the 20th day in the fourth month of the year, 124 years after Aegon’s Conquest.

Aemond,

Never stop writing. It is all I have.

You are my dearest friend.

Arianwyn

Sent to the Red Keep from Dragonstone on the 22nd day in the fourth month of the year, 124 years after Aegon’s Conquest.

My dearest friend,

I will write every day. So long as I am alive, you will never be alone.

Aemond

Sent to Dragonstone from the Red Keep on the 25th day in the fourth month of the year, 124 years after Aegon’s Conquest.

#aemond #aemond fanfic #aemond targaryen imagine #aemond targaryen fanfic #aemond targaryen #aemond one eye #aemond imagine #prince aemond #aemond x oc #house of the dragon aemond #house of the dragon #hotd #hotd aemond #aemond fic #hotd fanfic #aemond xf!oc #aemond x original female character #aemond x original character #the silver dragon

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tyrantisterror · 12 days

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Can you talk about ettercaps in your world? I assume that they're an example of homo falsum-in this case spiders that mimic humans?

That's spot on, yeah. Ettercaps are spider fairies who have evolved to look very humanoid.

While they do a decent job of adapting to a human body plan, Ettercaps still diverge in a lot of ways, with the large abdomen and four pairs of very spidery arms growing out of their back being especially prominent.

Like normal spiders, Ettercaps have eight eyes: two main ones placed roughly where a human's eyes would be on their face, as well as six lesser eyes that sit in clumps of three above each main eye, occupying the same place as eyebrows do on a human. Ettercaps do not have noses or human-style ears, and while their mouths may appear human on the outside, inside they're a collection of articulate fangs as well as two pedipalps that have fused to make a rough approximation of a human's lower jaw.

Ettercaps exhibit sexual dimorphism to some extent as well. Male ettercaps rarely grow taller than three feet, while female ettercaps will reach five feet tall when they're sexually mature, and continue to grow taller until the day they die - which, given that death of old age does not happen in Fairyland, means some female ettercaps are VERY tall creatures.

Like spiders, ettercaps wrap their prey up in silk, inject digestive enzymes into it, and drink the resulting slurry. They are not restricted to this method of feeding, though, as they've come to imitate humans enough to be able to consume human food in a human way - i.e. chewing and swallowing it. This actually comes as a surprise to many ettercaps, as most have rarely have the opportunity or reason to try eating things the human way.

Unfortunately, ettercap physiology is so dependent on the abundant magic of Fairyland that they cannot survive in their true forms outside of it. An ettercap stranded in the mortal plane will begin to suffer organ failure in a matter of hours, and if they do not return home their body will attempt a last ditch transformation to save them from death: either turning them into a human, or into a spider (often an impossibly large spider, but an otherwise ordinary spider nonetheless in terms of physiology and intelligence). If this spell fails, the ettercap will die. Even the liminal spaces between Fairyland and the mortal plane are not entirely safe, as an ettercap's health will suffer the same way a human's might from spending time in a place where the oxygen is thin or the air is heavily polluted. As such, seeing ettercaps outside of Fairyland is extremely rare.

Fairies in general - the sapient ones, anyway - like to live in buildings that at least outwardly resemble those built by human beings, and ettercaps are no exception. Because they still feel a desire to build vast webs, their structures tend to be long, tall towers, often with no actual floors between the ground level and the ceiling - they instead scale the walls by climbing ladders of silk and rest themselves and their possessions on silk hammocks.

Ettercap culture is based primarily on their belief in the Great Web - i.e. the idea that ALL things, great and small, living and dead, mortal and fairy, are connected together by strings of magic and fate. They may be onto something, too - ettercaps are better than most fairies at spellcraft (most fairies only know a few spells they can consciously cast, and even then don't quite know how those spells work) and especially gifted at the difficult and dangerous art of prophecy, all of which they accomplish by "looking at the Great Web" through a magical sense that only they innately possess.

Because their arachnid appearance and nature is upsetting to humans, ettercaps tend to be recruited exclusively by the Unseelie Courts, with most Seelies fearing the spider fairies might scare off the humans they wish to convert into more of their kind. That's not to say there have NEVER been Seelie Ettercaps, though - one of Empress Titania's ladies in waiting in the Mediterran Seelie Court was an ettercap named Cobweb.

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thesoulspulse · 2 years

Text

Danny Phantom Randomness (Principal Masters)

Not sure if this idea has been used in the phandom before, probably not since it’s a pretty common for the principal of a school in a cartoon to be the antagonist in some way, but I thought I’d share it anyways. So here’s what I’m thinking. Personally I think it would have made a lot more sense for Vlad to switch tactics and double down on trying to win Danny over instead of going full cookie-cutter-bad-guy-that-wants-to-rule-the-world after cloning him failed which would make him realize that his little badger really is one of a kind and what he has can’t be replicated.

Up until this point Vlad’s been making Danny’s life more difficult instead of easier which was his whole sales pitch when they first met...

Vlad: Daniel, stop. Think about the things I could show you, the doors I could open for you. You, Danny Phantom, and I, Vlad Plasmius. Together, we could rule.

Then there’s these comments Vlad made to Danny in Reign Storm...

Vlad: Sneak attack, very good, Daniel.You're getting more like me with every battle.

Danny: I AM NOTHING LIKE YOU!

Vlad: Oh, you're not? Using your powers to get back at people you don't like? Throwing the first punch? You're more like me than you know.

I’m so disappointed this didn’t develop into something more interesting where Danny starts to genuinely worry he’s becoming too much like Vlad which would have made the events of The Ultimate Enemy twice as cool because it’d be like a glimpse of that reality where he’d actually become worse than Vlad. But, back to the topic at hand! I’ve mentioned this in a few of my fanfics but I think the whole cloning thing was more of a desperate attempt to get Danny on his side since Vlad never really made any serious attempts to tempt him to join willingly and just spent the whole time bashing Jack and telling Danny he’d be a better father.

With that in mind, rather than being a petty rich bully after Danny gets Vlad’s mansion destroyed in Season 3 what if Vlad decided to put his foot down to “re-educate” him so to speak? What I mean by that is instead of running for Mayor of Amity Park, why didn’t Vlad try to replace the principal of Casper High? For one thing it would have ACTUALLY made sense because the position doesn’t require living somewhere for more than 6 months and its purely based on their education and teaching experience. And I think overshadowing the right people on a smaller scale would make it more believable than the whole Mayor thing.

Vlad could of course still be a jerk about a lot of things to get back at Danny like force the whole dress code thing, however, it would have been an interesting twist if when Danny comes to Vlad to apologize and ask for a truce he graciously accepts which totally throws Danny for a loop. Why? Because that was the plan all along! Vlad wanted Danny to learn there are consequences to his actions, realized that fighting him is counterproductive, and on top of that, to actually show how much easier he could make Danny’s life by letting him become a part of it.

Honestly, I absolutely love the idea of him unexpectedly becoming the cranky overprotective type kind of like what you see in this amazing comic strip by @lilianade-comics: https://www.tumblr.com/lilianade-comics/703807353584320512/aw-man-dont-you-hate-it-when-your-arch-enemy?source=share

Think about it. If Vlad started to make Jack look bad without actively insulting him to make Danny finally get fed up with being hunted by his parents to the point where he’d reluctantly go there just to catch his breath once the two of them agree to a cease fire. Trouble with the high school bullies? In comes Uncle Vlad who happens to be the richest man in the world and a close personal friend of the Fenton family so Danny’s off limits. Ghost attack? Vlad helps cover up Danny disappearing to fight them or even scares them off if he has an important test that day. The list goes on on what Vlad could do to either make Danny’s life a living hell in a more personalized way by invading his school life or a lot better depending on their interactions at Casper High.

Long story short its basically using the idea that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar and all that so seeing Vlad gradually start doing nice things for Danny from time to time might help change his tune. Because deep down Danny DOES want to learn more about being half-ghost, but he refuses to accept Vlad’s offer to join him because he hasn’t really done anything to make it appealing. Vlad’s always insulting Danny and his father so if you ask me, giving him the praise he doesn’t get at home or at school could change so much between them...

Vlad’s just gotta be smarter about it.

Obviously Danny would be suspicious if Vlad started acting too nice to him right away so the changes would be gradual. And whenever he goes to Vlad for help or at the very least asks if he’ll cut him some slack Vlad will reward him for coming to him first. Especially because unlike his parents, Vlad knows exactly how much he’s dealing with and I’d love it if what started off as a plan to manipulate Danny transformed into an actual student and mentor relationship leading into a redemption arc instead of whatever Season 3 was.

And there you have it. Principal Masters AU anyone?

#danny phantom #danny phantom au #danny phantom headcanon #dp headcanons #headcanon #vlad masters #vlad plasmius #principal masters au #au #alternate universe #alternate reality #casper high #casper high teachers #thesoulspulse #thesoul'spulse #the souls pulse #the soul's pulse #vlad's little badger #badger cereal

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thekingofwinterblog · 7 months

Note

There is no established way that elves dressed.

Don't know why you feel this strongly about it, but as it happens, you are wrong, we know pletora of ways Tolkien's elves dressed.

Tolkien himself drew a picture of Beleg Strongbow from the first age, and from it we can see that the Elves of Doriath dressed in pointed shoes with what seems to be long white socks, knee length pants, and what looks like a black doublet.

In other words, the male Elves of Doriath dressed in a style clearly inspired by Tudor england, only a bit toned down, and seemingly withouth it's more outlandish/silly features(Codpieces and those frilly necks for example).

We also know that elves seems to have prefered shoes over boots, though some elves(The ones of rivendell at the very least) used boots, though wheter it was the prefered footwear even then is another question.

Many elves also were clearly described as "Robed" in the sense of wearing actual robes, though what sort of robes and how fanciful they might be is not specified.

Famously they are also known to use enchanted cloaks, which we can presume looked pretty similar to the movie version.

Overall though, Tolkien made it clear that all of his various people dressed in a variety of styles, depending on their climate and their ancestral heritage. An elf from Doriath would probably not much resemble an elf from Mirkwood for example.

As for war, there would be a bit more overlap(though some differences as i'll go over below), as all elves dressed the same way for war, given Plate armor is not a thing in the book legendarium.

Namely iron/steel hauberks of interlocked metal rings, aka Mail/Chainmail.

All elves wore these though there is some question wheter they wore a surcoat above it as well.

It is possible that the elves did wear coats of arms above their mail shirts, but there is nothing in text as far as i can tell that auggests this, and all description of family crests and symbols suggests they carried such on their shields, not their armor.

As for their helmets, we dont know the exact style, but from what i can tell, there doesnt seem to have been any mentions of a full helmets amongst them, so there seems to have been a tradition of helmets with open faces, with fully closed off helmets being more of a dwarf thing.

Finally, there is one bit of Armor speciffically noted to be unique to Earendil, so there is a question wheter this was from his elven side, or his Human heritage, so this style would either have been the style of Gondolin, or the house of hador.

That of course being what Bilbo describes as "Panoply of ancient kings".

Now a Panoply has several meanings, as it can be used to describe "a full suit of armor", but this is a later meaning, speciffically refering to a suit of full plate armor. The older meaning, and far and away the more obvious one when you take into consideration thst Earendil's son would found numenor, which was inspired by ancienct Greece and Rome, is the the breast armor worn back during antiquity.

Now, as Tolkien made clear there was never any true plate armor in the legendarium, this rules out the early breastplates from the bronze age and the greek golden age, and instead means that Earendil either wore a greek suit of scale armor around his chest(and some form of band armor over his shoulder, be it scales, or boiled leather), or Linothorax, the kind of paper armor that Alexander the great used to conquer the known world.

While the latter is possible, there is no mention of such kind of armor anywhere in the legendarium, but plenty of references to scale armor, so i find the first much more likely.

Which means that the Elves of Gondolin(or if we're being completely literal, only it's kings) may or may not have had breast armor similar to the kind of scale armor sometimes used by the hoplites of ancienct greece.

#tolkien elves #fashion #meta #armor #j r r tolkien #tolkien's legendarium #clothing #questions and answers

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zhongrin · 2 years

Text

rule two hundred and sixty nine

◇ characters ◇ zhongli

◇ tags ◇ minors dni, yandere!dragon!zhongli, unhealthy relationship dynamic, 'whore' used 1x, spanking, nothing too explicit - mostly suggestive

◇ a/n ◇ this is an expansion of this but it's kinda tame??? i wanted to go feral but i was scared and my writing is simply ✨not✨Good✨enough✨ and i got too embarrassed im sorry-

𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡 ⬙ 𝑡𝑎𝑔𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡

it started small at first.

since starting your relationship, you thought you’d fully understood that your lover is a man that has his set of rules and expects them to be followed at all times.

and at first, it worked well.

it provided you with some sort of structure - a clear guideline to follow, so to say. almost comforting, really, since following his rules meant smiles and sweet kisses bestowed oh-so graciously unto you, along with immaculate praises accompanied by his velvety rich voice. meanwhile, when the opposite happens, his disappointed glare burns into your mind and eats you up from the inside, searing the moment into your memory and deep into your heart so you remember to not do it again.

…. but as time passes, you find that the list seems to be unending, and you're pretty sure he’s been adding new rules more frequently these days. while it might not sound that bad at first glance, you start to notice that some things either don't make sense or suspiciously correlate far too close to what you recently did.

it’s overwhelming. and a tad irritating, to be completely honest.

so is it really your fault for disobeying some of the rules he set for you? for going out past his curfew and not telling him that you hung out with a few friends? that you let them hug and touch you since it's all platonic anyway?

you will quickly find out that yes, you're, without a doubt, at fault. at least from your lover's perspective, that is.

as soon as you step into your shared home, you’re pinned onto the floor by a furious dragon.

a weak mortal that you are, you struggle fruitlessly against the literal claws that have replaced your lover’s usually slender fingers. adrenaline pumps through your veins, your head pounding from the sudden escalation of your heartbeat. there’s a sudden pressure that makes it hard to breathe, partly because of his half-dragon body’s weight on top of you, but also caused by the two half-lidded draconic slits which are seeing into your very soul.

"rule two hundred and sixty nine," he growls, talons digging onto your cheek and neck, making indents on your skin, threatening to sink into your flesh, "you do not. come into my nest. smelling like a whore."

your breath seizes, both panic and embarrassment blooming rapidly from your chest and warming your whole body. you should be scared, you really should. a mythical beast eyeing you in displeasure, you're at his complete mercy - but when presented with such mean words, most would try to defend their honor, and you're no exception.

“zhongli-”

“how dare you disobey me like this.”

there is no gentleness to be found in his person, only blazing fire of fury, as if you’ve insulted him the vilest things known to humankind right in front of his face. to him, that’s awfully close to what you’ve done. undermining his authority, betraying his trust, and worse of all, breaking the rules- the contracts, which were supposed to bind both you and him together.

“i was just-” your tongue feels heavy inside your mouth when you see his glare harden. his hands moves off you, giving you more space to breathe, and yet you find that it’s even harder to do so, now.

“yes, [name]? continue.”

continue your excuses, see what it’ll lead to.

“…. n-no, nevermind…..”

a click of a tongue. his hand is back on you, but this time the sharp black claws grip around your clothes, easily tearing them off your body. you’re about to protest, not wanting the cold hard floor of the front entrance to become the place of… whatever this will turn out to be, when you feel the black scales dig onto your body as he lifted you up with one arm. he casts one last glance at the torn fabrics and mumbles something along the line of burning them later.

you don't dare to ask.

hell, you don't dare to even make any sort of noise.

“you broke the contract and you’re not even sorry. i expected better from my mate.”

“i’m sor-”

"silence."

you’re thrown into the bed unceremoniously, and before you can even think about escaping, the half-dragon is already caging you in, predatory eyes eyeing you hungrily beneath him.

his puny little human, sometimes too dumb for your own good. why can't you understand that the rules he has set in place, are all for your sake? for your safety, for your purity- for it is only him who’s allowed to corrupt you, to strip you bare and to breed you full until you can’t help but leak his cum for days.

your lips tremble and move slightly, but you don’t dare make a sound, his previous command preventing you to do so.

well, at least you’re obedient now, he thinks proudly. but if he lets this go unpunished, then what’s to say that you won't do the same thing again in the future? the thought makes him growl in irritation, and your arms press closer to your sides, to your chest, in an attempt to make yourself smaller.

his head dips down towards your neck, breath hitting warmed skin. at once, he’s attacked with a plethora of foreign smells. aside from the very faint smell that is you, none of them pleases him.

“you drank.”

you want to talk. want to explain to him that it was just a few sips. that it didn’t even make you tipsy. but he has yet to give you permission to, so you swallow those words and look at him with pleading eyes, trying to convey your thoughts through it.

“tell me. rule forty seven. what did we agree on regarding this topic?”

“that-that i shouldn’t drink alcohol when you're not around, but-”

“that you should not drink alcohol when i am not around, period. i do not think that there was a ‘but’ in the clause. unless you’re saying i misremembered?”

you shake your head fervently, tears of shame and frustration starting to creep beneath your eyelids.

“that’s not all, is it not? i can smell others, all over you, on your clothes, and worse - on your skin. and to top it all off, you’ve broken your curfew.... so many contracts broken within a day, [name]. this is unacceptable behavior,” the dragon’s eyes dilate, and you catch the sight of his long tongue swiping over his lips, “i’ll have to be sure to clean you all up… but first, you need to learn your lesson.”

your beloved retracts himself from above you, and you tremble in both fear and excitement of what’s to come. he’s manhandling you at this point, bruising grip maneuvering your smaller body and preventing you from escaping, the harsh glare and agitated sway of his tail making you quietly obey his silent demands.

you’re spread across his lap in mere seconds, his knees digging on your stomach and dangerously close to your weeping pussy. the scales and ridges of his tail wrap around your legs in a vice grip, trapping you in the position. one hand trails sharp nails over your jugular - a silent warning, you think with a shudder, and the other slides down your back before settling on your buttocks.

zhongli’s smirk widen when you jolt, realizing what he was about to give you. what he expected you to take.

“you will count, and for each and every single one, you will apologize.”

“b-but-”

claws dig into your scalp, your back arching desperately to follow his movement. a low snarl rumbles right beside your ear.

“did i stutter, [name]?”

“i’m sorry! i’ll be good! i’ll be g-good-!!”

the tail wrapped around your legs tighten momentarily before a loud slap echo in the room, along with the sting of pain shooting up your spine, staggering your senses. breath hitching, you’re not sure if what came out of your mouth was a cry of pain or pleasure.

“then start counting.”

ps. if you want to be removed/added from the taglist, just send an ask!

#genshin impact #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #zhongli #zhongli x reader #minors dni #yandere #rin writes

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yolatirra · 3 months

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Okay, with all the Game Informer information I'm going to take a stab at some speculation for where the story is going & what's going to happen.

This turned out to be... a very long post.

---The Evanuris---

First of all, I was right that the male figure is Elgar'nan! Not that it was an uncommon theory, but I still haven't seen anyone else pointing out that his symbol is an eclipse, so I'm still running with my Elgar'nan - God of Darkness/Eclipses theory. But I'm still not sure exactly what to say about it other than that.

We can now make a pretty solid guess that the final voice in the Thedas Calls teaser trailer is Elgar'nan. His dialogue suggests that he's trying conquer the world, which makes sense. He was the leader of the elven pantheon, and likely kind of a tyrant. Ghilan'nain, on the other hand, I suspect cares more about doing her weird experimental stuff than ruling the world. I suspect each one will be causing different problems for us.

-Ghilan'nain-

Ghilan'nain might be attacking places and/or sending monsters to attack for her, in order to collect material for her experiments, meaning people, animals, lyrium, red lyrium, and other stuff. She may have particular interest in Seheron, Par Vollen, and Rivain, because of the Qunari presence in those places. There's also the tentacle monster we see over Rivain in the Thedas Calls trailer, and the voice associated with Rivain saying "Glory to the risen gods, they come to deliver this world".

I've always suspected she has some connection to the Qunari, because they seem to be a created race, and she's the most likely candidate for having created them. If a Tevinter magister was responsible for creating the Qunari, it may have been the Augur of Mystery, aka the high priest of Razikale, who is almost certainly either Ghilan'nain herself or a dragon who is closely connected to her.

There are also the thaigs. In Horror of Hormak, we learn that there were 12 mountains that (probably) Ghilan'nain sent elven prisoners to. There were also 12 great Dwarven thaigs. With the creepy lyrium pool in Hormak destroyed, that leaves the 3 currently inhabited thaigs, Orzammar, Kal-Sharok, and Kal-Hirol (which was only recently reclaimed). Of these, Kal-Sharok I think is the most likely for us to visit, since it's furthest north and we've heard of vague weird stuff happening there. So I suspect Ghilan'nain will be up to some shit over there.

I'm also wondering now if the lyrium pools are directly powered by titans in some way, which would explain why they are seemingly in the same places as the thaigs. Or maybe they just need to be built near titans for better access to lyrium.

There's also the Scaled Ones. If they end up being relevant, they're probably connected to Ghilan'nain.

-Elgar'nan-

I have fewer guesses about Elgar'nan, but I expect he'll go after Tevinter. He might kill the Archon or the Black Divine, or both. I could see him convincing many magisters to follow him, just by offering them power. The Venatori in particular would probably be happy to follow Elgar'nan, since they're already familiar with red lyrium, and Elgar'nan probably knows how to use red lyrium far more effectively than anyone else in Thedas. I wouldn't be surprised if Elgar'nan fully takes control of Tevinter at some point in the game.

---Locations & Companions---

-Seheron & Par Vollen-

We don't have any confirmation or even strong hints that we'll be visiting these places, but it wouldn't surprise me if we do. We should at least be learning a lot more about them. I think with Ghilan'nain in the picture, we may even learn where the Qunari actually came from, or at least get some clearer hints about it. It would be cool to finally learn what the Fog Warriors are.

We've been hearing about the Qunari less than I expected in recent news, but they may just be choosing to focus on Solas and the Evanuris for now.

-Rivain-

Taash is probably from Rivain, going by her being a Lord of Fortune and her location in the reveal trailer, so that's one connection. There's also the "glory to the risen gods" voice from the Thedas Calls teaser, which is probably either a Qunari leader or a Rivaini spiritual leader of some kind. Or, if the Lords of Fortune have a leader, that's another option.

-Antiva-

The "the crows rule Antiva" voice from the Thedas Calls teaser is probably a leader of the Crows. I'm going to guess this is Caterina Dellamorte, grandmother of Lucanis. It would make sense that we have some connection to her through Lucanis. Either he gets us access to Caterina, or Lucanis joins us because we talk to Caterina. That said, the world seems to think Lucanis is dead according to "The Wake", and something weird is going on with him, with all the weird purple eyes and wings symbolism, so who knows.

-The Anderfells/Weishaupt-

I'd love to see more of the Anderfells besides Weishaupt, but I'm guessing Weishaupt will be a very important location in this game. I suspect the blighted forest we see Davrin in in the reveal trailer is either south-east of Weishaupt in the foothills of the Hunterhorn mountains, or north in the Donarks.

Really hoping we go to the shore of the Volca Sea at some point, but there's no particular evidence for that.

I think Weishaupt is going to be pretty much destroyed in this game, and we may visit it more than once.

-Nevarra-

The Necropolis is going to be important somehow, but I can't even guess at how. Maybe there's some old artifact buried in its depths and we have to find it? Maybe there's a particular spirit living down there we need to talk to? Maybe, like much of Thedas, the Necropolis is actually Old As Fuck and there's elven stuff at the bottom.

Emmrich, of course, will be our guide.

-The South-

I doubt we'll be going anywhere we've been before. Skyhold seems to have gotten its farewell in Callback, so as much as I'd love to see it updated in pretty graphics, I don't think we'll go there. Though maybe we could see it in a flashback, and find out why it's called Tarasyl'an Te'las. I could also see a quick visit to Val Royeux to talk to the Divine or whoever is on the throne, but I think it's more likely they'd come to us in the north or we'll just talk to them via letters or through the Inquisitor.

-Tevinter-

Okay, I think there are going to be some BIG changes to Tevinter by the end of this game. I expect Elgar'nan to kill most of its existing leadership, so by the time we take down Elgar'nan, Tevinter will need a completely new government.

I think the Tevinter-Qunari war will be resolved in the first half of the game, because both sides are going to be taken over or destroyed by the Evanuris. "Peace" via conquering.

---Plot---

-Prologue Predictions-

Here's my guess for "where the hell is Varric when Rook & the others are in the fade?"

While I, like most people, agree that Varric's death has been HEAVILLY foreshadowed, I don't think he dies this early on in the game. The devs and the community council members keep saying he's a major character, and I don't think they would keep emphasizing that if he dies a few hours into the game. At least a couple community council people have even said they do not know Varric's fate, and they've played a good bit further than the Game Informer article described. I do, however, think Varric will die at some point in the game, either at the midpoint or sometime during the second half. I doubt all the foreshadowing is purely a red herring.

I also think a part of the ritual site scene was cut out of the gameplay trailer. After Solas blows away the statue, I think Varric tries to take the dagger away from him while he's distracted, and probably succeeds. Either Varric has the dagger, or he gets it away from Solas and it falls off the platform (which I think is more likely). He then falls down the stairs, which is why we maybe see him in the background in that one shot. I doubt Solas attacked him or hurt him intentionally, but he may have used magic to pin him in place, which would explain the green glow & why the blurry figure seems to try to get up, but can't.

What I'm not sure about is how Rook's blood gets mixed in with the ritual. Maybe Rook helps Varric get the blade away from Solas, and ends up getting cut by it? Maybe there's some kind of fight between Solas and the Evanuris and Rook gets caught in the middle?

Moving on past the gameplay trailer, I don't think Varric gets sucked into the fade with the others. Either he manages to hide from Ghilan'nain and Elgar'nan, or they dismiss his presence as unworthy of their attention and leave without hurting him. A few things could happen after that.

Varric goes back through the eluvian and arrives back in Tevinter as expected. He goes to the Inquisitor or to Dorian, seeking help from old friends because he has no idea what happened to Rook, Neve, Harding, and Solas.

Varric goes back through the eluvian, but it takes him somewhere else, because it's not working right with Solas stuck in the fade. From there Varric still finds his way back to the Inquisitor or Dorian, or he ends up lost somewhere.

Varric gets picked up by other Veil Jumpers, and we meet up with him soon after the quest with Bellara. This could also happen if he tries going through the eluvian and it doesn't work.

If Varric ends up lost somewhere but isn't picked up by the Veil Jumpers, I think he'll end up back with the Inquisitor or Dorian regardless. I doubt we'll spend multiple missions trailing after Varric.

While the idea of Varric getting stuck in the fade with Solas is funny, I doubt it would actually happen. One, I don't know if anyone but an Evanuris could survive the fade prison Solas has created. Two, it seems like a waste of Varric as a character. Presumably he wouldn't be able to communicate with Rook the way Solas can, so he'd just be absent from the story until he and Solas are freed. That doesn't line up with him being a "major character".

Could the Evanuris capture him? I guess, but... why? These are elven gods, and we know the ancient elves didn't really see the dwarves as people ("witless, soulless"). What information would they expect to get from him? They likely wouldn't consider using him as a bargaining tool either. They'd be more likely to kill him than capture him, but even that I think is unlikely. I think they'd just ignore him, or not even notice him.

When Rook leaves the Lighthouse and ends up meeting Bellara, they're trying to get back to the ritual site. Why would it be important to return there? Two reasons. One, figure out where Varric is and if he's dead or not, and two, retrieve the ritual dagger. I doubt it ended up in the fade with Rook, because that would be way too easy. We'll have to search for it. That'll be the first big goal of the game.

If we meet up with Varric after the quest with Bellara, either he has the dagger or he doesn't. If he does, cool, we have it now. If he doesn't, we have to keep looking for it. I suspect he wouldn't have it.

From here, Bellara acts as a guide to get us back to the ritual site. The dagger is likely still here, and I suspect that recovering it will allow us to travel through the eluvians accurately. It's possible we'll have to keep searching for the dagger, but if I'm right about it acting as something like a key for the eluvians, we'll probably have access to it pretty early.

At this point, if we haven't met up with Varric yet, we'll probably seek him out. I would assume Harding knows how to get in touch with him and/or the Inquisitor, so this may be where the Inquisitor gets introduced. It seems a little early to introduce the Inquisitor, but maybe the pacing of it works out. Besides, I don't think Rook at this point would feel they have the authority to start giving orders or leading people on missions. They aren't a leader yet, so they're going to seek out leadership.

I kind of doubt we'll have a full dual-protagonist thing with Rook and the Inquisitor, but the Inquisitor may be playable for specific story sequences. The possible specializations for the Inquisitor are mostly not present in this game, so trying to transfer their abilities and playstyle to Veilguard wouldn't make much sense. They could have a very simplified playstyle in comparison to Rook, but I think it's more likely the Inquisitor just won't be playable in combat. They could join the party as a guest though, like Varric does in the gameplay trailer.

So, we might meet with Varric and/or the Inquisitor here, and this might be where our group gets the Veilguard name. Together we decide on our next mission.

With Bellara, Neve, and Harding in the party, we need a warrior, meaning we'll probably go to Rivain or Weishaupt next. I think, considering that darkspawn showed up in the Arlathan Forest during Bellara's intro mission, Weishaupt is more likely. Either we hear of something going on there, or we choose to seek out the wardens for help/advice/information.

It's also possible we meet Davrin somewhere else and go to Weishaupt later on, but if so I can't really predict where. Maybe Varric or the Inquisitor are already aware of Davrin and introduce us before we head over to Weishaupt.

-Major Plot Threads-

I think we'll have three major plot threads through the story.

Elgar'nan conquering and Ghilain'nain experimenting

Solas being trapped and us finding a way to free him (if we choose to)

The Tevinter-Qunari war & conflict between Qunari factions

There may also be a fourth one involving the titans but it's hard to guess at that with how little we know about them.

-Misc. Guesses & Theories-

From here it's a lot harder to speculate about anything specific, so here's a list of my guesses for future events:

If I were to guess about the order the rest of our companions will join in, I'd say Lucanis > Taash > Emmrich, mostly just because of their classes. I could see them joining in any order though.

Bellara manages to repair the housing for the archive spirit that we find in the veil bubble during her intro quest. It ends up living in the Lighthouse and either acts as our crafting/upgrade person or is a source of elven history.

Elgar'nan will fully take over Tevinter at some point.

The big circular building hovering over Minrathous will be involved in the final conflict somehow, though I doubt it's where the final battle will be. It might even crash down on the city at some point, leveling a good chunk of Minrathous.

Final battle will be in the black city.

Over the course of the game, Solas will try to convince us to free him. We might be able to choose whether or not to listen to him.

We are able to free Solas in the last 3rd of the game. Or, something happens that results in Solas being freed. The Inquisitor is present for this event and this is when their reunion happens.

Dorian & Maevaris show up in the story when some shit goes down with the Magisterium, maybe Elgar'nan convincing the other magisters to join him.

Either we meet the Inquisitor first and hear the Dorian's voice for the first time over their communication crystal thing, or vice versa.

Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain are both against us, but not necessarily working together. They may even end up fighting each other. We know the Evanuris often fought amongst themselves, after all.

The old gods Lusacan and Razikale are to Elgar'nan and Ghilain'nain, respectively, what Corypheus's red lyrium dragon was to him. In Trespasser Solas says Corypheus "discovered the secret of effective immortality". Since the Evanuris were already immortal, I would assume this refers to them coming back from being killed, as Mythal can.

Lusacan and Razikale are ancient great dragons, not just high dragons, and are thus incredibly difficult to kill in their own right. They are also more intelligent, possibly capable of speech.

Elgar'nan is the one who murdered Mythal.

Mythal shows up in dragon form toward the end and fucking wrecks Elgar'nan, maybe saving Solas from dying/sacrificing himself in the process (okay this one's less of a prediction and more "what if!" but still)

I think the Titans and Sandal will be relevant to the story but I can't even guess at what their roles will be at this point.

And that's a long enough post. I'm sure I'll have more theories as we learn more.

#dragon age #elgar'nan #ghilan'nain #dragon age the veilguard #dragon age veilguard #dragon age 4 #solas #mythal #evanuris #dragon age theory #dragon age speculation #dragon age spoilers

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districtunrest · 2 months

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2QQ Generation Headcanon

speaking of my 'details, said in passing' approach to worldbuilding in fic, I've been thinking about my headcanon for the 2QQ generation and might as well get it fully on record before SOTR...

when Katniss' mom and Haymitch mention things getting bad again, "like before," we all assume it's immediately around the 2nd Quell, when they were teenagers. and while I do think that time was tense, I've always imagined the actual time of district-wide unrest (🤓) and whippings they're referring to being when they're older, in their early 20s. their generation joined the workforce with unresolved rebellious feelings from Haymitch's Games - and directed it into a miners' strike.

miners' strikes are historically significant to Appalachian coal mining. the Battle of Blair Mountain was a big labor rising that happened right in West Virginia, where D12 is very likely to be. and it makes sense for people in D12 to get on board with as well - it's not total rebellion that requires help or communication with other districts. it's smaller scale, wanting better working conditions, but still in line with the trajectory of the second rebellion without getting ahead of itself. it's local. it's how Haymitch knows "it's got to be all of us or nothing," to rebel in D12.

and what better time for the Seam vs. the merchant class divide to be widened and inflamed? which leads me to our second favorite Seam/merchant couple...

this is when I think Katniss' mom left Peeta's dad for hers. Katniss' dad, Peeta said, was already a coal miner then (tho I do also headcanon him as being a couple years older than Mrs. E, which I think I got from @katnissmellarkkk 's keen point about Katniss not trying to find her dad at the reaping in the 2QQ tape, as if she knew he wouldn't be there). Mrs. E had Katniss around 25 years old, assuming she was 17 at the 2QQ reaping, which may not mean much but it leads me to think she didn't leave her possible fiance(?) Mr. Mellark for Mr. Everdeen as a teenager.

as for Haymitch, this is a time that cemented his place as an outcast in his own district. he's not an orphaned teenager anymore, he has a couple Games under his belt now and is still trying to be involved in the community through the strikes, but he finds himself at odds with his former peers. things come to a head for him when he returns from the Games and tries to help with another whipping, but a coal miner who lost a child to the Games confronts him. Haymitch told Katniss "we" used to take people to her mom - but there came a point when he was no longer welcome among them, no longer in the "we." like he says it in passing but it's a wistful, bitter, loaded "we" imo.

(and the whippings - this might just be me not wanting it to be kids as the ones that were whipped on the regular, even tho I know that tracks for Panem, but I just can't get behind rebel teens being flogged and brought to teenage Mrs. E by other teenagers as easily as if they were all older. I can't imagine it was parents working side by side with their children as easily, either. when Gale was whipped, his mining crew stepped in to help Peeta and Haymitch - and that's the vibe that I believe it was, before. like I know this is all YA but where are the adults lol we already know it was adults controlling the narrative and winning the war, not 17-year-old Katniss; that was kind of a main takeaway there)

Idk. I think it's interesting to imagine all those 25 years between the 2nd Quell and the 3rd being more active than not, before it's all died down by the time Katniss is aware. I find it hard to believe the generation of teenagers that saw Haymitch win wouldn't get a little rowdy once they enter the workforce as young adults. they have more of a leg to stand on by then, and their lives are more at a crossroads with work and marriage and such, that they aren't at 16 or 17 years old.

but fine, whatever. this can all happen when they're teenagers. it is a YA series after all.

#but that's. ya know. why i wanted to be left to pick up what collins was putting down without YA constraints 🤷🏻‍♀️#haymitch abernathy #mrs everdeen #mr everdeen #the hunger games #sunrise on the reaping #hunger games #district 12 #second quarter quell #thg headcanons

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cipheramnesia · 2 years

Note

Hey, just say your tags about TME/TMA language being problematic. Genuine question: what is the issue with them? Is it that transmisogyny can be directed at people who aren't considered "TMA"?

I've talked about it here and there, but maybe this will be the time my thoughts are organized.

Up front, let me note there could be more elements involved the TME/TMA than I'm familiar with. I also feel it could be a useful tool in the right circumstances (for example, if you pursued research specifically focused on transmisogyny). My subjective experience is that TME/TMA are not used in this way, and the functional use of them isn't beneficial in general to trans people.

For those unfamiliar, TME means "transmisogyny exempt" and TMA means "transmisogyny affected." Now, as a thing that happens, these make sense. However, as commonly used, TME/TMA describes innate traits, which is where they stop being useful for me.

To start at the broadest scale, TME/A is often used reductively, with the principle that general bigotry against trans folx is in effect all derived from transmisogyny. I'm simplifying a little bit, but if we cut through some of the theory mechanics, we end up left with a broad generalization of transmisogyny as the primary and defining feature of the effort for trans rights, transphobia, and such. And, not to undermine the substantial effect transmisogyny has on the whole community, but this is not completely different from treating misogyny in general as the defining characteristic of all inequality. Misogyny is a significant form of inequality, but reducing all inequality to misogyny is kinda radical feminist territory. What with radfems generally wanting to wipe trans people off the map, I'm not comfortable standing on an ideological platform that close to theirs.

Related to this, there's no terms like "Transandrophobia Exempt," nothing at all addressing what kind of exemption / effect would apply to anyone off the gender binary - if it's going to be used to examine different kinds of bias against different kinds of trans people, or if it's meant to represent a state of being for trans people, there should be versions of it which apply to other people affected by bigotry who aren't trans femme. I suppose it can be argued that it's only to define one category of people (TMA) versus any other people (TME), which is true but again defines away the experiences of a large number of different trans people, or necessitates other trans people's experiences being defined through transmisogyny. To me that's not useful, because it excludes a significant amount of the complexity of the trans experience for the sake of only understanding a narrow band of it.

This leads into some further difficulties with the term. As a group, trans people have a great deal of insight to share with one another about our positive and negative experiences. The great variety and range of experiences in our community is fantastic, because I can find the experience of people who are trans men, agender, genderqueer, nonbinary, or anything else very relatable. I don't need to limit my understanding of gender via my specific experience as a trans woman either to share in how other trans folx view gender, nor to share my experience with the trans community at large.

We're getting deep down into it now, but related to the above and your note, I see TMA/E used as interchangeable with AFAB/AMAB, while being affected by transmisogyny isn't particularly limited to your assigned gender at birth. Bigotry expressed against trans people is not complex - it's a matter of a person or person who thinks any expression of gender they perceive as out of sync with what they assume is an intuitive understanding of innate gender characteristic should be must be resisted in the strongest possible way.

Or, more succinctly, transphobes do not care your agab, where you fall under the trans umbrella, or if you're trans at all. If a transphobe sees a cis woman and thinks she looks like a trans woman, they'll be transmisogynistic. If they see a trans woman and thinks she looks like a trans man, it's transandrophobia for them. They don't believe they ever have or ever will encounter anyone intersex, because they're really bad a statistics (fun fact, a small percentage is still a huge amount in any kind of city or town population). Bigots do not slow down to decide what kind of specific form of hate they're expressing, because the only thing important to them is that they're seeing someone who deviates from their internal belief system, and that person must be penalized for deviation.

We can certainly dissect how bigotry affects us all after the fact, the particular and (importantly) varying social lenses people are experiencing when they direct prejudice based on gender. I think that's a very complex and interesting question but it can't be examined via transmisogyny alone, because it's not limited to trans feminine people. Gender is one component of the many facets of how society can exert controls over disenfranchised groups, and it's tied into race, income, religion, nationality, and so forth. It's not impossible to examine one facet, it's just important to recognize that one facet is neither universal nor exclusive.

So far, the issue I have with TMA/E is that in a broad sense it seems to be used in an exclusionary way, as well as used in a way that re-creates a gender binary, and limits understanding bias towards trans people clearly. But all of this overlooks one very important issue.

We don't define who we are by how we are hated. I don't want to define myself as TMA. I'm a trans woman, I'm awesome. My gender isn't defined by someone who hates me for my genitals, my gender is defined by how much I love who I am, how much better my life is for being a trans woman. I do not find it useful to define myself by whether some specific kind of hatefulness is directed at me. To me, that's the component of TMA/E I cannot find a way around.

I am a depressed lady with massive anxiety, sometimes to the point I can't function, okay? I don't want to designate myself by another reason to be unhappy. So I don't find it useful, I kinda get why it's used, because it feels like a more inclusive way to talk about being trans and being expected to conform to an idea of femininity but not doing so. I do not think it succeeds in that capacity, and my overall experience with the term is that it does not usefully serve the trans community. My personal feeling is that it makes me uncomfortable. Despite being TMA by technicality, I haven't experienced much in the way of transmisogyny, and I would rather use a positive term to describe who I am.

(i haven't checked this for typos or spelling or inconsistencies)

#tma tme discourse #transmisogyny

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dxxtruction · 3 months

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Honestly, the way you have to view ships in IWTV is not through a 'they're meant to be together' measure of things which is typical of shipping - as that's what shipping often functions in saying. You can find the happy, romantic moments, sure, and seek in those if it suits your pleasure. Just as well though the typical framework you'd want out of shipping, the 'why they're together', doesn't work here when it's antithetical to what the very text is implicitly, sometimes explicitly, telling you:

No one is meant for another.

In fact, that kind of bonding is always shown to be violent in nature. If not in itself then a lead up to its eventuality. Victim and perpetrator to this abuse is attributed on lines of ownership over another - a marked claim to someone at an expense of the victims full selfhood and/or body - by use of force, power, and status. Meant to be together, to be for another, is always a threat. Being meant for someone is to be meant for them in a way that it to their liking.

It borders on, and in some cases just is, offensive to the violent weight of the content being shown within the ships dynamics to ignore this - or not and to instead feud around the idea with 'which ship is therefore better' or 'more correct' based on whatever scale or actions, when this isn't something you can accurately measure let alone compare. (Neither does it really matter when literally no one here is 'meant to be'. Regardless of how much we root that they were). Ultimately, you can't actually justify these ships on this premise - as you can't justify the abuse.

Though, nowhere do I think this theme is more starkly pointed out than in Claudia's relationship with Madeleine, which lacks abuse in anything but what occurs to them - it isn't what goes on between them that the abuse occurs. And yet the same happens most apparently: it isn't meant to be. It's therefore the easiest relationship to digest with what the text is trying to tell you. Tragically, it's the most hopeful version of this story, and it's the most doomed.

Note: I realize there is a course of how things play out in the books and that certain characters do end up together. Remember ships are a personal attribution of your own wants for the characters relations and so doesn't just apply to who's endgame. Saying something is more correct because of this is really besides the point here.

Certainly it's a hard balance to strike then, to ship something when it's not something you should be shipping. If this were real you wouldn't dare to, and in approaching this in a typical ship sense this would be seen as especially vulgar, considering. ('you want them together?'). I find however you can still be charitable to both the text, abuse, and the placing of two characters together all at the same time. You can, just like the show does, explore within that dynamic something of importance. Be that to you, or on the shows terms, you can build upon its nuances, and admit to its difficult truths. All of them. There's dualism as well as ambiguous aspects to all these relationships (not just romantic ones either but this is another post) - where it goes right, where it goes wrong, and where it's not quite either. Mostly not quite either. At no point is the abuse also not there, or awaiting arrival.

Coming to a more honest understanding of what it means to ship an abusive relationship is to first just admit that it is all that it is. Then it comes down to this simple want of them together, for what is really is, as opposed to saying that they are fated to the harm done. Justification comes from the lack of justification. This isn't for a meant to be situation but instead a dive into its morbid opposite. They shouldn't be, or can't, but it's not against the rules to explore the ideas in which they are - especially when this is a real part of the text itself. And, sort of reiterating, with this you can focus more on the 'where it went right' if you want, that's your choice, but you still can't then refute and diminish the existence of 'where it went wrong' or you'd be back to square one.

I think, how people engage with these ships reflect in a lot of ways how they might feel, or shy from feeling, about abuse. Both in real life, and fiction. How one views victims and perpetrators. How one views them when applying for race. How one navigates their own comfort level and understanding with addressing the topic. A kind of beauty about letting people ship as I've just described, is it can offer a confrontational space to examine for the nature of it, that we would never usually get to do safely. And this is important in demystifying abuse.

So, for me, it seems apt to say that shipping abusive relationships isn't wrong in itself, rather it can be wrong in its execution. No one is wrong for liking it, but they can be for how they go about liking it. It's a choice on what you do an do not ship, just as much as it is a choice in how you ship it, or don't.

#interview with the vampire #iwtv #amc iwtv #iwtv spoilers #iwtv season 2 #iwtv s2 #discourse #Is this discourse? Kinda just wanted to make an essay on shipping. tagging anyway for the filters #Guess I've not been active in this fandom for very long so if this is already some shit ya'll have hashed out a dozen times already welp #timely though I think

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from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras · 16 days

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Do you have any headcanons about Rohan’s folklore? What kind of fairy tales did they have (if any)? Superstitions? Thank you so much, and welcome back! Love to see more of you on my dash! 😊

This is such a great and fun question! It’s a big topic and one with a TON of room for creativity. I can’t say that I’ve built all this out in my HC yet, but I can give a start/framework based on a few things that I already had in mind or that make sense to me.

For folklore, which I think of as the culture expressed through poems, songs, stories, etc., I can imagine three big categories. (These categories exclude straight-up history, which the Rohirrim also document and transmit through song, poetic sagas, etc.)

Legends: These would be traditional tales that have some basis in historical fact but have become embellished or fictionalized over time. The Rohirrim have a TON of these about their most famous ancestors, like Fram, the slayer of the dragon Scatha, or Mahrwini, who led refugees out of enslavement at the hands of the Easterlings and wandered Rhovanion for years before eventually settling and establishing the Éothéod. These were all important people who did big things, but the legends really amp them up to an 11/10 on the hero scale.

Myths: These are stories, songs, etc. that have no basis in history or science but are used to explain the unknowable things about the world around them, like where stars came from, what happens when you die, etc. Some of the Rohirrim’s myths overlap with the mythology of the elves and Gondor (i.e., the Silmarillion) because those stories are in wide circulation and were adopted. So they’ve got tales of Béma (Oromë) riding among their ancestors, teaching them horsemanship, etc. But they also have some that their own ancestors invented, like the tale of the herd of magical wild boar who raced across the plains and created the tracks and gullies that rain would fill to create the Entwash and the Snowbourn rivers.

Fables/fairy tales: Much like us, they have a bunch of entirely fictional little stories – often centered around animals of Rohan – that were created to teach children important lessons about morality, ethics or safety. So they might have a story about Wrenna, a little bird who wouldn’t share a bounty of summer berries with his fellow birds and then froze to death when they wouldn’t let him back into the flock’s root nest once winter came. This is meant to teach the importance of group cohesion and fulfilling commitments for mutual support and allegiance.

Superstitions are really fun to think about, and I find them much easier to come up with on the fly. Some of the superstitions that I like (based either on traits of Rohan that were already directly in my HC or that I’d adapt from real life) are:

They leave little hunting-related offerings for Béma when they’re hoping for his intervention in life events.

They never pick or display white flowers, as those are associated with death.

The day in spring when the first foal of the year is born is considered a particularly lucky day. Any human babies born on that same day are thought to be destined for greatness.

If you ever sound your horn indoors, you’re inviting defeat in your next battle.

Every stable has a small statue or carved figurine of Felaróf, the first of the mearas. People rub Felaróf’s nose when arriving at the stable in the morning to guarantee themselves a good ride, so the nose of every statue always ends up being slightly shinier/a different color than the rest of it.

If you sneeze once, it means a friend is thinking of you and will bring you good news. If you sneeze twice, an enemy is thinking of you and you should check to make sure your sword is sharpened. (If you sneeze three or more times, you’re just sick and need to go to the healers.)

I could make those all day, but then this post would be even longer than it already is, so I’ll stop there. But if anyone else wants to throw in ideas, please do! And thank you for the Ask! ♥️ It’s nice to be back and chatting about Rohan again with you all! 🗡️🐎👑

#answered asks #rohirrim #folklore #superstitions #excited to hear others’ ideas #especially on superstitions!

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brainrot-mx · 4 months

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I DON'T KNOW WHERE ELSE TO POST THIS BUT HERE U GO ‼️spoilers hsr 2.2‼️

I am aware the danganronpa fandom is prolly really inactive rn and I also have no idea if the HSR fandom is on here BUT I HAVE TO SHARE MY IDEAS (saiouma mixed into hsr)

Kokichi would be an emenator of the Enigmata or Elation:

I'm leaning Enigmata honestly, but his lies and hatered for violence would be a great motivation for him altering history to prevent humanity from ever commiting heinous crimes ever again (like the killing game?)

The remark from Shuichi after the 5th trial about Kokichi being a lie itself would fit perfectly for being someone either made by a fictionologist (like Gallahager) or being an emenator

He's also incredibly smart which would help him with covering up history, twisting facts and generally messing with public opinion/knowledge about history in subtle ways by using lies

His belief that lies can be used for good also factors into this

Messing with anyonr related to Nous, specifically Shuichi here but I think the memebers of the Genius Society would hate him <3

As an Emenator of Enigmata, it fits that his backstory is very unclear and messy/dkesn't make sense even when you have clues (like DICE for example)

Him not being given any credit for his plan in chapter 5 also solidifies him being perfect for this, as he wasn't written down to be remembered, leaving him with no legacy and no history

I take his ultimate to mean he is the perfect leader, so he fills a groups gaps and the support or drive, depending on what is needed, which is what I think a leader should be. Here, it would be used the way he did in the DRV3, which is to say he turned people against him (either by writing down false history and acting it out or making the planet hate him specifically therefore throwing the repeating history off it's rails with a new factor)

A lot of people would mistake him for a Masked Fool. He is friends with a bunch of them though and uses it to his advantage

Because he is so elusive and has very similar ideals to Mythus, he'd probably be given a lot of power. Deciphering the messed up history and stories he leaves behind is a giant pain

Would go very heavy on the planets that constantly repeat their own history, especially if it involves lots of killing and unreasonable authorities doing it

Hates the IPC, constantly messes with their records and

HOWEVER for the Elation:

Being a Masked Fool or even an Emenator would fit him becuase he loves pranks and subtly changes the situation is ways to fit himself (which is a characteristic of Aha)

Messing with people, making fun of people, having his own agenda and generally orchestrating everything from the background works as well.

And Shuichi would probably be part of Genius Society and blessed by Nous, the Aeon of Erudition:

As is customary for anyone in the GS, he would live a life engrossed in his own work, trying to find the truth of cases across the cosmos

The cases he solves are very important, usually solving mysteries connected to important figures in the universe or were unsolved for years before being solved by him, prompting Nous to actually notice him

A lot of people dislike him for revealing corrupt leaders, especially the IPC, because he exposed how horrible they were and as a result the IPC was unable to invade his home planet

Accidentally solved a case where an Aeon was involved, it was a really big scale conflict/event and he got involved, then solved it

Is curious about the Aeons since (and because he was blessed by Nous). Has been invited to work on the Simulated Universe, where he tries to solve historical events like the Swarm, dissapearance of Aeons and what could've happened to them

Probably constantly getting fucked with by Kokichi, by having his records of cases and notes of findings from years ago altered. He gets targeted because of a case he solved earlier in his life, where he exposed that someone messed with the evidence, that person having been Kokichi

He always figures out when his records were messed with, while alse realising that Kokichi was the one doing it, but he could never solidly prove it, causing him to continue his research on the other

Their end comes when Shuichi fully realises who Kokichi is and finds out everything there is to know. None of the information makes sense, accept for the others name. He then dubs Kokichi a "living lie" and calls him by the only things he's certain is true, prompting the Eminator of Enigmata to start fizzling away, as he has become "real" because of Shuichi solidifying him as "real" and "true" by the use of his name instead of a "lie" and "nonexistent" or "altered"

(this is because the Enigmata wants history to be obscured and therefore untrue, which is why I believe it's Eminators would follow, having fabricated lives with no records to show their true history.)

Shuichi would then spend his whole life trying and forget Kokichi's true name, just so he could see him one more time.

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