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steddie-there · 1 year

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Just another bit of my Steddie wip Holding Out for a Hero (ETA: new name - I'd Fall For You Twice). It rapidly got away from me, as this particular story has been wont to do 😅 (over 18,000 words and counting!)

Eddie’s curled up on the couch in the living room, afternoon sunlight slanting warm across his shoulders and onto the notebook on his lap. He’s sketching a new tattoo design, a baseball bat studded with nails surrounded by winding vines and a fucked up monster bat. Steve’s quiet steps shuffle into the room and Eddie raises his cheek for a kiss but doesn’t look up from his work. There’s a moment of nothing and Eddie smirks, knowing Steve is rolling his eyes, but then he feels the press of lips against his skin and he sighs happily.

Steve settles next to him on the couch and it’s quiet for a while.

“Hey, Eds, I, uh, I have something for you.” There’s something about the way Steve says it, the uncharacteristic nervousness, that has Eddie tearing his eyes from his notebook and focusing on his boyfriend.

Steve is holding his hand out toward him, fist clasped tightly around something Eddie can’t see. He tilts his head sideways, studying the outstretched hand before he meets Steve’s eyes, questioning.

“Oh, come on, just hold out your hand. It’s not anything weird, I promise,” Steve says, rolling his eyes, any hint of nerves gone now.

Eddie has to bite back a giggle because, out of the two of them, Steve is not the one who drops weird things into people’s hands. No, that would be Eddie. Like two days ago, when he caught and handed Steve a tiny frog while they were walking through the woods behind Loch Nora. Or the leaf with a ladybug crawling across it a few days before that.

So he holds out his hand, palm up, and blinks when something silvery plinks into it. Then blinks again as he stares at the item now resting in his palm. His eyes widen.

It’s a ring. A class ring. Steve’s class ring.

Eddie blinks. Blinks again. The inside of his chest has gone all fluttery and his breath hitches a little and, as usual, the soft squeeze to his heart melts the connection between his brain and his mouth.

“Isn’t it a little early in our relationship for rings, Stevie?”

Steve opens his mouth. Closes it. “I - no, that’s - that’s not what I - I just wanted you to have something of mine! I thought, you know, this might - work. The best. With your - your style,” he babbles, gesturing to Eddie’s multitude of rings.

There’s that squeeze to his heart again. Not just because of the gift and the thought that went into it, but because a flustered Steve is an adorable Steve. And a very teaseable Steve.

“Why, Steve Harrington, are you asking me to go steady?” Eddie asks, mischief in his tone as he bats his eyes playfully up at Steve.

“Eddie!” Steve splutters, blush spreading up his cheeks. “You know what, never mind, I’ll just take it back, clearly this was a bad - “ he reaches for the ring as he speaks, but Eddie clutches it to his chest possessively.

“Nope, this is mine now. No take backs. You’re stuck with me now, whether you like it or not.”

It has the desired effect of making Steve snort a laugh and murmur, “That’s why I gave it to you, ya dork,” as he runs a hand through his hair.

They’re quiet for a moment, Eddie turning the ring this way and that, admiring the way the clear stone set in the middle catches the light, Steve watching and pretending he isn’t still feeling a little self-conscious.

Finally, Eddie glances up at Steve from under his lashes. “Put it on me?” he asks, uncharacteristically shy, as he tentatively holds out the ring.

Steve smiles, the one that lights up his whole face, that makes Eddie feel like he’s looking directly into the sun. He takes the ring and Eddie’s right hand and slips the band onto the middle finger. Then he brings Eddie’s hand to his lips, presses a kiss to the ring, and oh Eddie might actually combust now.

He tugs a lock of hair over his mouth, trying to hide the blush he can feel rising up his neck. But Steve just grins knowingly. With one last, lingering press of his lips to Eddie's hand, he drops it in favor of gently tucking Eddie's riot of curls behind his ears, even the one he's trying to hide behind.

"There you are," he murmurs, eyes locked with Eddie's. He gently cups Eddie's cheeks, runs his thumbs across the skin under his eyes like there’s something precious there, like Eddie is something precious. And all Eddie can do is stare into those honeyed eyes, his lips parted and heartbeat kicking up more than a few notches.

Steve’s grin turns soft and he presses a gentle kiss to Eddie’s lips before leaning their foreheads together. Eddie’s eyes slip closed, needing that illusory barrier to settle his jumping pulse. It still all feels so new, is so new, but that’s not what has his breath catching in his throat. Because, despite the newness and despite the fact that it is still totally incomprehensible that Steve wants Eddie, of all people, he can’t deny how right it feels to sit so close to Steve that their breath is mingling and their hearts are beating in sync.

For just a moment, Eddie can see them in his mind’s eye, sitting exactly like this - but they’re older, gray in their hair, crow’s feet at the corners of their eyes, and laugh lines framing their mouths - and he wants so desperately that he doesn’t even think before he’s pulling back, hands going up to his neck.

Steve frowns, a question forming on his lips, but then Eddie is yanking the chain with his guitar pick over his head and holding it out to Steve. He swallows, takes a breath. “I want you to have something, too. Something of mine.” Something of me, he doesn’t say, but it’s there between them anyway.

And now it’s Steve’s turn to just stare for a moment, for his breath to stutter in his chest. He gingerly takes the pick from Eddie’s fingers, holding it like it’s made of crystal and not just plastic, and slips the chain over his own head.

“This is the one that you used in -” he starts to ask, voice hushed.

“In the Upside Down, yeah,” Eddie answers, just as softly.

With quiet reverence, Steve runs his fingers along the smooth edge, then just brings the pick up to his lips and holds it there for a moment, his eyes distant.

That squeezing sensation seems to have taken up permanent residence in Eddie’s chest. He can’t take his eyes from Steve and he knows if he opens his mouth now, he’ll say something wrong or crazy or too soon, too fast. Something like I love you or marry me or I wish I could climb inside you and live there forever. But he’s also terrible at stopping himself from doing anything, so he opens his mouth

and laughs.

Immediately, he claps his hands over his mouth because he didn’t mean to do that, it’s precisely the wrong reaction to the most romantic moment he’s ever experienced in his entire life. Even saying “I love you” would have been better than this. Because he’s laughing and Steve is looking up at him with a flash of something in his eyes and his shoulders are shaking and oh dear god, I’ve completely fucked this up, haven’t I? and if he could bury himself in the couch cushions he would, because he cannot handle the hurt he knows he’ll see in every line of Steve’s body, because Steve is… Steve is laughing, too.

Steve is laughing, too?

Eddie stares at the other boy, at his mouth stretched wide around his laughter, his face lit up with relief and mirth and joy and love and sheer astonishment - all the emotions Eddie feels swirling in his own burst of laughter. And then he’s laughing again, too, and they’re leaning into each other, giggles spilling past their lips even as they press them together and cling to each other’s shoulders to stay upright.

They laugh until their stomachs hurt and then keep laughing, quiet giggles escaping every so often as they kiss and hold and breathe each other in. They’re so immersed that they don’t even hear the front door open or Robin’s voice calling to them from the entryway. They don’t notice her step into the room and stop and stare at the manic picture they make. They have absolutely no clue she’s even there until she says, “Hold up, are you two high?”

They look up at her, blinking like deer in the headlights, before Steve catches Eddie’s eye and they dissolve back into gales of laughter.

“You two are so weird,” Robin mutters, dropping her bag on the coffee table and heading for the kitchen. If she has to deal with them the way they are right now, she needs a snack.

#steddie #stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #my fic #holding out for a hero #<- it's about fifty fifty at this point that i won't be keeping that name #this fic is running itself at this point and its not going quite the way i originally envisioned 😅#but that's okay because the direction it's taking itself is working for me #also i am so terribly soft for my ships exchanging rings or necklaces or some symbol of them belonging together #it's about each of them having a little piece of the other to remind them how loved they are #and it's beautiful #and eddie is definitely the kind of person who reacts in unexpected ways when he's overwhelmed with emotion #thus the laughter #but steve gets it and he loves it about eddie and i really hope that comes through here #ETA: new title is I'd Fall For You Twice #i'd fall for you twice

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valleyfthdolls · 4 months

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(Old -> new)

Redrew & redesigned Virgil bc I miss him sm. My funny guy I will find more to do with you <3

#danganronpa #danganronpa oc #fanganronpa #rp: hopes reprisal #oc art #oc: virgil wagnon #i forgot my art tag #at risk of sounding like cinemasins #obvious chain symbolism is obvious #he's so sad with it tho i love him #boy who is kind of a girl and kind of an old clown doll on a shelf or a marionette with twisted strings #boy who is his own greatest fear #y'know the deal #favorite oc kg #was that the tag #i forgor

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kiun · 2 years

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putting it out there that despite take’s entire story arc was being forbidden to use his lightning, something that’s essential to him as as person and as a god since hes the god of thunder, and a huge part of his character growth and development was him getting to use it again as a way to begin freeing himself from his elder shinki’s control, he actually hasn’t used his lightning since the heaven arc.

#noragami #idk if it's a narrative choice because hes going to use it at a later date when shit really goes down (despite shit aslready going down NOW)#or if adachitoka forgot he can use lightning oputside of kiun #like kiun symbolized for a long time how take was denied usage of his own lightnign and by defacto was denied his identity #so him still using kiun and not his lightning is uh..... kind of defeats the themes of takes character #ofc there could be an arc of take reconciling with kiun and learning to trust him and both learning to care about each other in healthy ways #but we didnt really get that either lmao #idk i have a huge gripe with how theyre both rtreated #after the hiatus they both turned ot comic relief but especialyl kiun #flanderization exce[t this time its not the fandom doign it its the writers themselves #the only rreason im even complaining about this now despite having these thoguhts for a long while is because apparently this is now #the final arc #so any hopes i had for them are diminishing #ofc take could use his lightnign in future chapters and ill put on the clown makeup and clown shoes if that happens #but until then....

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alchemania · 1 year

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I'm feeling absolutely bonkers rn so I wanna talk about music again because I'm crazy about the OST of this game so!!!! Here I go!

I've been thinking about Raiden and Wanderer's themes a lot and I love how they contrast - so, you have Raiden, who like. Her theme starts OFF strong and triumphant you have the horns you got the drums and everything is crescendoing and you feel it in your soul and your bones and then it drops and it's more muted but then by the middle of the song it crescendos again like thunder do you feel me it's about insane power all at once and then it's gone and it builds and builds and builds again and that's the cycle!!!

Whereas with Wanderer it starts off gentle and slow but there's a steady beat that only gets stronger as the song progresses and unlike Raiden who starts off virtually capturing your soul with the baseline this song steadily keeps on moving and building and building it's like a gentle hand that gently takes yours and begins to walk with you and gradually gets faster and faster until you both are virtually on the wings of the angels, running as fast as you can possibly go!!! Power showcased in completely different ways and I love love love them both Raiden is like power just. In who she is you LOOK at her and you know she'll mess you UP but in Wanderer's case he's like. A wild card who seems unassuming but is extremely dangerous if not taken seriously it's like dormant. Dormant power. Do you feel me.

AUGHHH I LOVE THIS GAME'S SOUNDTRACK IT'S SO GOOD IT MAKES ME WANNA CRY PLEASE TALK. TALK TO ME ABOUT IT .

#she is thunder and lightning and he is the winds TOGETHER they are the storm that is approaching #PROVOKING.. BLACK CLOUDS AND ISOLATION..!!!!#you want raiden for meta and pretty and hot and girlboss i (maybe kind of not really) want raiden solely for reuniting her with wanderer.#we are not the same. it's about the symbolism it's about how there's so many similarities between them #it's about how they're BOTH emotional but react to trauma in different ways (ei isolates wanderer lashes out)#it's about how raiden wants to protect dreams now and how wanderer has given up on dreaming and hoping but he lives on through spite #and YET! HE LIVES! HE IS ALIVE AND HIS LIFE AND HIS OWN AND BY GOD /HE IS GONNA LIVE IT/!!!#it's about them both becoming accustomed to the world again and becoming part of its history; ACTIVELY.#it's about how ei wears lighter colors now to embody makoto's ideals that have now become HER ideals #and how wanderer has light and dark colors because he has accepted ALL sides of himself. what he was what he is and what he WILL be.#it's about!!!!! how the thunder CANNOT exist without the lightning and how ei is actively trying to reach out to people more #whereas the winds are an entity in and of themselves and for so long wanderer has depended on himself but the winds are stronger together.#and he is slowly integrating back into society and finding people. not necessarily that he trusts but he is finding people and his way #AUGHHH THE RAIDEN FAMILY HMSHSHSJ OUGH. AUHH. PAIN.

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adammilligan · 2 years

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while i do think michael’s grace and adam’s soul are holding hands in there just given how they like to do things with one of them in their body and the other one projecting a body for themselves i think michael would refrain from touching adam at first because he wasn’t built to be gentle he was built to be a weapon for his father’s use and he’s never been good at being anything BUT that and adam is so small compared to him and he means so much to him and michael is half afraid that he’ll hurt him somehow. like he’ll let ADAM do things like shove him when they’re being playful or put a hand on his shoulder if he’s trying to be comforting but michael is never the one to reach out first. until postcanon when his father’s influence is no longer staining the world and he’s finally learning to be his own person and he reaches out and very very very gently takes adam’s hand in his. because he’s slowly leaning into the concept that maybe he can be more than the tool he thinks himself to be and he WANTS to touch him and because adam doesn’t push him away despite everything he’s done. he just sort of looks down at their joined hands and smiles

#i think the worst thing 15x19 did by way of adam's death was drain michael of any hope of existing #he wanted to live in peace! he walked off the chessboard! and then god killed adam and michael spends the episode reading his own propaganda #and seeming to come to the conclusion that it could've never ended any other way. he is still his father's tool and he might as well just #resign himself to that. he's not even HAPPY about it he just goes. it's always been my destiny to serve you #he doesn't even WANT to. he just wants adam back!#and so with that kind of brainwashing in mind it's kind of like. the fact that adam sees him as more than a tool more than a symbol #and lets him touch him without fear of what michael is capable of. after everything michael's done. it would kind of blow him away #but anyway #kate rambles #midam

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purposefully-lost · 7 months

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Something something charlie southern baptist upbringing + poppies not as a symbol of God's eternal word or whatever but as acknowledgment and a claiming of his own brief lifetime

#specifically southern baptist where his mom and grandparents were concerned #his dad was too busy for church and had a distaste for it anyway #also charlie with two different floral tattoos that to him have some kind of meaning based in hope and control over his own life....#charlie as broken down as he is and who's been suicidal with these symbols tattooed onto him that are signs of how much he still #wants to live....

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skelekins · 10 months

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#thinkin of night and dream having a spat where they say hurtful things #maybe dream actually tried to kill him #but just the idea of night #'the hope you give people makes the despair that much tastier'#n just going on about how the best/most delectable negativity #is after he's let the hope and happiness fester #when theres plans and dreams in place #and then to stamp them out #and let them try again #because each subsequent time they get closer and closer to losing hope #negativity #delete later #skelekins speaks #flkjsfljs #i wasnt going to write the whole thing because i know these are extremely depressive thoughts but here u go #longtags #long tags #night would regret saying it #because u know that would have long LONG lasting effects on how dream saw his own actions #i imagined them having some kind of room with little figures or something symbolizing their pos/negative #and him just smashing the happy ones over and over again #upsettyspaghettimare

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sirenofthegreenbanks · 9 months

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hiiii really enjoyed your chenglingposting i was thinking about how sometimes the kids in adult stories function as a sort of barometer for optimism about the future in their views and options in life... obviously the alliance wants to continue the cycle of antagonizing and vengeance and conflict with the veneer of "honor" but. zcl gets to choose not to. its been a while since I either read or watched, do you know if zcl was ever onboard with actually wanting vengeance or if that was just being pushed on him? Obv its not super in line w his personality but grief could be a factor. i just thought it'd make a lot of sense if he changed his mind on that due to the influence of wenzhou and how they prioritize enjoying life w your people and following your own path over expectations. priest really took one more chance to emphasize breaking cycles/"if it sucks hit the bricks"

hi!! omg!!! thank you and im glad you enjoyed it! honestly this is a question i have been thinking about since at least two rereads ago. the show and the novel are handling this issue of zcl picking up his legacy / giving in to external expectations / finding out what he really wants in life a little differently, i think, as befitting of what they both focus on. ive said in my chenglingpost that the show is about legacy and inheritance in my eyes, while the novel is about martial arts and freedom of choice. obvs freedom of choice is a high priority in word of honor as well, but word of honor seems to have an overarching look, kind of focusing on the big picture and what a generation / a community needs rather than a few individuals, while the novel focuses exclusively on wenzhou and their little group and seems to handle the rest of the themes in priest's usual style. the show is about something "grand", the novel is about the mundane, almost boring human experience. martial arts play a bigger role in the latter too because they are a stand-in for many things that are hard to grasp, like autonomy. in chengling's context, martial arts are irrevocably linked with seeking revenge. i think that is specifically in the novel the case, not so much in the show. in the show seeking revenge is pushed onto him by others as well as inheriting his sect's legacy and becoming worthy of being his father's son. in the novel, the idea of seeking revenge is first presented to him by gu xiang, and it is actually this huge contrast to how others treat him because others "generously" offer to take revenge for him, while gu xiang tells him he can do that himself. we see with wen kexing that getting revenge does not make u happy. it gives u closure but it does not make u happy. i think that is something chengling learns during the novel. he gets closure in the end but it does not look the way he had imagined it would. i think he imagined himself to get super strong and then single-handedly slay his foes. yknow, as u often see in wuxia and as wen kexing literally does. then he starts learning martial arts and realizes getting super strong is actually not that easy, and this chasm between what he expects of himself and what he is able to achieve gets wider and wider and he falls into depression spirals, because to chengling, seeking revenge was taking ownership of his life and his trauma, and what use does he have when he cant even do that? that is the path wen kexing walks and it hollowed him out and it would have him kill himself if he hadnt met zhou zishu; wen kexing viewed himself as an instrument for a very long time rather than as someone deserving of having his own life. so obvs, that path is rubbish by itself (wkx gets his revenge and his closure and his life, good for him!) and its far too much for a kid. and i think, that is what chengling learns here: he only needs to do as much as he can, only bite off what he can chew, and the rest should not be his concern. and there really turns out to be a way to get everything he needs without walking the same path as wen kexing, as the novel proves, because wen kexing had nobody when he was in the same situation while trying to survive the valley, while chengling has wenzhou who guide him and shield him and love him. (crying myself into a huddle over wen kexing and chengling and them being foils of each other.) so in that sense youre already putting it into words. chengling seems to have changed his mind over the course of the novel, he doesnt have that same outlook on vengeance as he as in the start. i think thats different for the show. in the show, there is this weighing of the concept of revenge against the concept of getting justice, and what both these things do and require of a person and what they can offer u as an individual, but also u as a collective, in the long run. they are seen as two different things and are explored and qestioned individually. i think that can be seen in the conflict with chengling and all these expectations everyone has of him and how he handles that.

#i cant say much more regarding the show rn. but i think it does something very similar to the novel #re: wen kexing and chengling getting their closure parallel to each other and being foils of each other #one walking a path the other doesnt have to or doesnt get to #chengling is kinda symbolically getting the kind of justice wkx would have deserved to and gets now through chengling #but for the show #their closure is not just holding the big bad accountable. its also the community effort of forging a better future together #aa this went off track. but i cant get into more detail re: chengling and vengeance for the show. still in my rewatch!#i hope this answers your question anyway!!!!#thank you for sending it to me i had a lot of fun!#i have a lot more to say but tumblr seems to impose a word limit on answering asks! >:(#something something martial arts are zzs's way of communication and he uses that rather than his words to give chengling what he needs #something something practising martial arts helps chengling discover the boundaries of his own body and reverts him back into a child #rather than the orphaned failure of a son who needs revenge to give himself meaning. like a tool.#something something martial arts is both chengling's cause of suffering and his tool of freeing himself #something something zzs knows for pretty much most of the novel that zcl has this grand potential inside him and simply ignores it #something something chengling's shifu (he has a shifu in the novel before zzs!) is an idiot who doesnt even see his disciple's potential #who blames chengling instead of reflecting upon himself (and how thats kinda like schools blaming neurodivergent and other kids for failing #and how zzs notices chengling's inert dormant potential / difficulty practically immediately and is probs uniquely qualified to teach him #drawing from his own experience with harsh teaching methods and surviving impossible tasks and breaking through body limits and difficultie #paired with being bamf at martial arts and probs having this vast pool of knowledge #something something zzs acting nasty but doing good (and nobody knows) and chengling turning out happier and more stable in the end #inbox #geneticcatalyst #tian ya ke #faraway wanderers #word of honor #meta #zhang chengling #zhou zishu #wen kexing

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