Paper Hearts Part 1
Remember how my posting schedule was going to be based on strictly vibes from now on? Yeah this is why. I have three chapters of this completed and only two of most everything else because I hurt my right wrist on Wednesday evening (I think I overextended my elbow and it fucked up the tendons in my wrist, because I've done that before on my arm and it feels like that).
So instead of getting more work done on stuff that is literally paragraphs away from the end of the chapter I'm having to tap into my backlog. Which is what it's for. But it is annoying.
I am also aware it's nearly May, but my muse was never one for sense.
Summary: Hawkins High is selling paper hearts to help raise for senior prom. $3 for red romantic hearts and $1 for pink friendship hearts. Steve hasn't dated anyone since the horrific breakup with Nancy on Halloween and so he decides that he's going to send pink hearts to senior girls who wouldn't normally get any hearts at all. When Eddie hears about this he can't help be intrigued. It goes against his very well curated Munson Doctrine. But as events keep throwing them together, Eddie learns there is more to King Steve then meets the eye.
Also a note: the use of the other's last name when it's their point of view is deliberate. As they get to know each other more, the more first names get used.
****
Steve was staring at the huge sign with a sense of dread. In big pink and white letters on a red background screamed the words:
PAPER HEARTS FOR YOUR VALENTINE
$1 FOR PINK FRIENDSHIP HEARTS
$3 FOR RED ROMANTIC HEARTS
ALL PROCEEDS GO TO CLASS OF 1985
SENIOR BALL
Valentine’s Day. That time of year for lovers and romantics. That used to be him. But not since Nancy broke his heart by breaking up with him for Jonathan Byers.
There would be no paper hearts in locker this year. Not even pink ones. Nancy had well and truly blown up his life and she got to walk away scott free.
He didn’t know what to do anymore. He pinched his nosed and rubbed the end. He wasn’t going to cry in the middle of the fucking main hall of Hawkins High.
Just before he was about to start moving again someone shoulder checked him, sending back to the floor and all his stuff sprawling around it like some fucked flower.
“Watch it, Harrington!” the voice growled as whoever it was sped off down the hall.
Steve didn’t even bother looking to see who it was. It could have been anyone these days. His former friends. Billy and his ilk. Hell, even the nerds and geeks got in on the action lately.
He knelt down to start cleaning it up when someone else kicked his books toward the lockers. He managed to get most of it picked up when he reached for the last notebook. Someone stepped on his hand and ground down, hurting Steve and ripping the cover off the notebook, crinkling the first couple of pages.
He shoved it into his bag and cradled his hand to his chest. He looked at his watch and sighed. Lunch was nearly over and he hadn’t even made it to the cafeteria yet.
There was nothing for it, he had to get to his next class. He walked into the class room just as the bell rang, but instead of heading for his usual spot near the front he made for the back of the class. There were always a few empty seats around Munson. The guy was terrifying on a good day.
And Steve hoped it was a good day.
****
Eddie made to class on time by the skin of his teeth. He slid through door just as the bell rang above his head. He was about to lope over to his usual spot in the back when he stopped dead in his tracks.
He looked up at the front at the deliberately left open seat and back at the seat next to his with a raised eyebrow. He wisely said nothing as he flopped into the torture device known as the chesk. Dair? Whatever the hell it was called where some unspeakable horror thought to combine a desk and a chair.
Eddie glanced sidelong at his new companion. The recently deposed king of Hawkins High sat slumped in his chesk, head down, just staring at its surface as if held the meaning to life the universe and everything.
Which if Harrington asked him, he would have been told forty-two.
He pulled out his notebook and noticed that Harrington did not do the same. Curiouser and curiouser. He pulled out a pencil and settled in to avoid falling to sleep today.
He was taking notes and doing the assignment like he was supposed to when about half way through class the teacher called out to him.
“Mr. Harrington!” she shrieked. “If you are going to be sitting in the back, please have the decency to pay attention in class!”
A couple of kids snickered.
“You were talking about how the Fool is used to lighten the absolutely horrific scene above him of Lady Macbeth as she tries to get blood out of her gown,” he muttered, scratching his cheek with his left hand.
That was when the teacher and Eddie noticed the same thing at the same time.
Harrington was cradling his right hand to his chest.
“Mr. Harrington is there something wrong with your right hand?”
“I accidentally hurt it during lunch,” he said with wince.
The teacher tapped her foot and crossed her arms. “And why didn’t you see the nurse?”
“It happened right before class,” Harrington muttered, “and I didn’t want to be late.”
The teacher huffed and shook her head. “I will give you note for your next teacher, but you will see the nurse after class, am I understood?”
He nodded.
“Mr. Munson,” she cried out, shrill. “If you’ll share your notes with Mr. Harrington after class so he does not fall behind.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He continued to keep an eye on Harrington throughout the whole class but whenever their English teacher tried to catch him out, she would fail every time.
When the bell rang Eddie started shoving his stuff into his backpack. “You sure you even need my notes, Harrington? That was pretty impressive shit you pulled out of your ass today.”
Harrington just shrugged. “Just because I was paying attention doesn’t mean it won’t bleed out of my ears with all the algebra and chemistry stuff I have later.”
Eddie winced in sympathy. “Yeah, I hear that. What’s your locker number and I’ll just slip a copy of my notes in the slots.”
“323B.”
“They got you on a lower locker?” he asked with a grimace. “That’s jacked up. Even Mr. Super Senior here got a top locker. Does the secretary hate you or some shit?”
Again Harrington shrugged. “I’ve got to go. I’ll catch you later.”
Eddie folded his arms at looked at him. “You’re not going to the nurse’s station, are you?”
This time it was Harrington who winced.
“That’s what I thought,” he huffed. “I’m walking you to said nurse’s station because it could be broken and if you don’t get that looked at, you’ll be in more than just a world of hurt, man. You could fuck up your hand for life and you wouldn’t be able to anything in that hand ever again.”
Steve’s eyes went wide as all color drained from his face.
“Shit.”
Eddie grabbed both of their backpacks and headed for the door. “Yeah, shit.”
Harrington hurried to catch up, hand still cradled to his chest.
“How did you know that could happen to my hand?” he asked softly.
Eddie eyed him sidelong, but the kid wasn’t being an ass. In fact he would say Harrington was being earnest.
“My uncle works at the machinist plant up the road,” Eddie explained. “One of his buddies broke his hand on the machine and refused to get it looked at. Guess how well that worked?”
“Was it the plant’s fault?” Harrington asked. Eddie cocked his head to the side. “That you uncle’s friend got hurt?”
Eddie reared his head back in shock that Harrington would even ask.
“No, man,” he said shaking his head. “He was goofing off, being a dick. Uncle Wayne always said that if you knock on every door asking for the devil, one day he’s gonna answer.”
“What happens when the devil comes looking for you?” Harrington muttered to himself and Eddie couldn’t help but wonder what this kid had seen.
Because he knows haunted. And Harrington looks like he has an attic full of ghosts.
Once they got to the nurse’s station Eddie waited for him. When the other boy came out he asked how it went.
“She says it doesn’t feel broken,” he huffed. “But that if it doesn’t improve over the weekend after icing at least three times a day, to come back on Monday and she’ll order an x-ray.”
Eddie nodded. “Right. See you around, Harrington.”
He had barely turned around when Harrington called out to him. “Wait!”
Eddie turned back around to have a piece of paper shoved into his hand. “I got the nurse to excuse us both.”
And before he could even reply the other boy was tearing off down the hall as if the devil himself was chasing him.
And after that comment he’d heard, Eddie couldn’t be sure he wasn’t.
****
Steve was curled up on his bed, icing his hand, staring up at the ceiling, and wondering where the fuck his life had gone so wrong.
Okay so he could answer that one, actually. Demogorgon ate his girlfriend’s best friend while in his backyard. While him and said girlfriend were having sex for the first time.
Yeah... that was all kinds of fucked up.
He still couldn’t believe that Nancy sided with Jonathan about him taking pictures of their first time.
So now Valentine’s Day was two week away and he was dateless, friendless, and unpopular. He wished he could just be called a loner. But a loner was cool and Steve wasn’t even that anymore.
He just had to make until the end of may and then he could graduate, leaving this town in his rearview mirror for good.
Steve knew that he would have to struggle through this fucking holiday and Senior prom then it would be smooth sailing from there.
He had all this money that he would normally spend on his girlfriends, but now he didn’t even have that. He supposed he could blow it all on beer and weed and then he could enjoy the weekend for a change.
Steve sat up suddenly, the ice pack falling from his hand to hit the floor with sploosh!
Now that was an idea.
He still had one thing in the school that was nonpareil and that was gossip. In fact, it was easier to hear all the dirty little secrets because no one cared if he was standing there.
A smile spread over his face.
That could actually work. It would be a great way to spend his allowance and it would be fun.
He got up and put the ice pack back in the freezer. He couldn’t do anything about it right then but once his hand was better he would formulate his little plan.
Steve was suddenly excited for the first time since he dropped Dustin off at the middle school’s Snow Ball.
He was going to make this holiday fun even if he had to manufacture the fun himself.
****
Eddie was pissed. A little at himself, but mostly at how Harrington was being treated.
He had to sit through lunch and listen a bunch of stupid jocks brag about stomping on Harrington’s hand when he was trying to pick up his stuff off the floor in the hallway yesterday.
They had been hoping for an actual break, but the asshole thought he’d only bruised it.
The reason Eddie was a little mad at himself for this was because he was the one that had shoulder checked Harrington. He had only been trying to get the guy out of his daze. Not send his shit flying.
And then to have someone deliberately stepping on his hand. Fuck. Not even Hagan ever went that far.
Stev–Harrington didn’t deserve that kind of bullying. No one did.
But he could see the twisted sort of appeal, though. And fuck if that didn’t make his stomach turn.
To see the deposed king and want to mock that? Want to dig the hurt in as deep as he could? To drive home the lesson that popularity was fleeting and that existence was a curse?
Yeah, Eddie could see the appeal.
But he wouldn’t. He might make fun of literally everyone and everything but his own interests, but to make turn that into actual cruelty? That was were he drew the line in the sand.
He went home feeling sick to his stomach. And of course Wayne picked up on it immediately.
He jutted his chin at the chicken and rice on Eddie plate that he had only merely pushed around with his fork.
“What’s got you so twisted around the bend?”
Eddie put his fork down and hid his mouth with his clasped hands, elbows on the table.
“I fucked up today,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean for it to go as it did.”
“What did you do?”
So Eddie told him. “I wasn’t trying to hurt him, but he got hurt anyway.”
“That does sound pretty bad,” Wayne agreed. “And as you say, you were trying to help only for it to go very awry. And since you didn’t about it until after the fact you couldn’t apologize and that’s what’s eating you up inside.”
Eddie nodded around his fists, his lower lip quivering.
“You’ll just have to find a way to apologize on Monday,” Wayne said wisely.
Eddie sighed. It was the best he could do. It wasn’t as though he could call the guy up or show up at his house. The first because he didn’t have the guy’s number and the second because he’d get the cops called on him so fast by the neighbors.
It would just have to wait until Monday.
****
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El's protectiveness and friendships in the lab
wanted to take a minute to appreciate that El's protectiveness isn't a character trait that only emerges post-lab. she's always been that way [assuming, for this post, that NINA stuff more or less happened]; it just couldn't always present in a way that looks badass on a poster.
El and Eighteen
only crumbs here, but if I have to point out a lab kid that El is friendlier with than the others, it's Eighteen.
El holding Eighteen's hand is the only affectionate act I've ever noticed between any of the lab kids, and offering that comfort to her littlest sister is probably as "protective" as El can afford to be (esp as an eight year old with the least power and social standing of anyone).
when the kids in general laugh at El for failing at the light game, Eighteen is not one of the kids shown doing so.
Eighteen is the first dead child El is shown to be upset about. it's not that she looks more distressed about her than the others, but it's odd that she saw Ten dead on the floor next to Brenner a second before this and didn't really react. (maybe she couldn't tell Ten was dead from the doorway? idk)
maybe an El/Eighteen friendship is cornplating or whatever the youths are calling it, but bearing in mind that we're never actually told that El/Eight had some super close friendship, maybe theirs looked something like this.
side note - are friendships even permitted in the lab?
letting the kids form friendships could be dangerous, as Brenner, couldn't it? risks them forming alliances against you? this is why I was asking the other day if socializing seems discouraged in the RR. like, even the bullies, who were "friends," never chatted openly in there unless the cameras were off. maybe any lab friendships have to be hush hush by nature.
anyway idk there's just something about us going "🤯 same numbers!!!" upon seeing the 001 / 011 tattoos, and then 008 + 018 being the only other kids El is hinted at being friendly with... why are we reusing the same pattern? 001 / 008 / 011 / 018 just happen to be every combination of those three numbers within the number of available children.
especially with El "being 8" (as in, years old) at this time. it's giving Henry, 12 / mother of 5. idk where I'm going with that but I'm squinting. Eighteen, you're not some bizarro Little Eight who has an inverted friendship with Big El, right?
El lashing out in the lab
we're shown repeatedly that El hates seeing people get hurt, but multiple times onscreen (and you know innumerable times off) she witnesses severe abuse to her siblings, and we never see her act in their defense like post-lab El would. of course, that's because she realistically can't. we know trying to help anyone in the lab accomplishes little except getting both people in trouble.
but I was thinking about how we DO see El lash out for her own sake in 1983. so what's the takeaway? El cares more about protecting herself than others?
nah. let's look at the other guard killing scene (again. assuming this really happened):
when similarly cornered in 1979, El's immediate response is silent surrender.
why is her behavior so different? because she's weak? too scared / well controlled? too nice to kill? all those factors have already been established as non-issues in this moment. (she does have her powers here; the circle game proved that Brenner can't control El and knows it; killing when cornered is canonically within her nature)
you might think having a staff member on her side would make her more defiant, but instead she's more compliant here than in '83 (either time. even in the non-guard-killing flashback, El screams and struggles the whole way.)
El and One
he's the difference. she doesn't know he's her brother or has powers yet, but he has presented himself as a fellow prisoner rather than someone in a position of authority. she's also already seen him get punished because of her.
as far as El knows right here, if she lashes out - whether she then escapes successfully or not - she'd be bringing SEVERE punishment onto a nice guy who can't defend himself or escape.
she has a chance at freedom, the power to kill, and the escape route all planned out, but she doesn't do it. the thing that's not in her nature is abandoning a friend to God-knows-what punishment on her behalf.
so while One killing the guards is an act of protection to El, it's also a massive act of protection to One that El is ready to throw out the whole plan right here. don't miss it just because it's not the classic El-screamy-hand thing.
she's sacrificing her chance at freedom in hopes of slightly mitigating his punishment. (they're both doomed to very bad punishment upon capture right here, but if she escapes I think he'd get punished even worse. so she's choosing to share in pretty bad punishment over him being punished extremely severely and her not at all.)
even aside from punishment, she knows she'll be returning to an even worse home life than the one she believed necessitated her immediate escape (Brenner apparently arranging for her to be killed).
so here, can she afford to act out not only because she's acting alone, but because she's an only child, so to speak? there's no one else who could potentially suffer as a result of her actions. no other siblings to use as leverage. no one to protect.
whatever consequences Brenner carried El off to after killing those orderlies, she bore it alone.
I can sorta read this as protective of the other kids in general - not that she did it, but that she didn't until now.
am I saying Brenner might have randomly punished other kids as a result of something El did?
have you met the guy? definitely would've threatened it, might've actually done it. manipulation by whatever means necessary.
when you work in a building full of superpowered people who hate you, you gotta control them psychologically, because physical control isn't something you can maintain for long. it's imperative that they're more afraid of the consequences of kicking your ass than they are of whatever torture you're putting them through. emotional manipulation using friends and innocents as pawns is a classic move. (another reason the kids might want to keep lab friendships secret even if they're allowed.)
that's not theory - we've seen Brenner use this tactic onscreen, telling El that he'll have Owens killed if she tries to get to him. he knows he can't physically control her, so he exerts psychological control by placing Owens' blood on El's hands to get her to cooperate.
the phrase "blood on one's hands" means being responsible for deaths, not having literally, personally committed murder. this imagery is used onscreen to denote El's sense of guilt about the massacre well before she comes to the conclusion that she actually did it. (this could be symbolism that El's mind organically dreamed up instead of engineered fuckery, but who knows. we have no textual explanation yet for how her hands would be that bloody).
and together with Brenner very textually using the kids against each other in other ways - having them literally duel each other in the circle game, but also the "driving them to do exactly what he wants" stuff - I don't think it's unreasonable to figure that fear of harm to the other kids was a manipulation tactic used in the lab.
that definitely includes One - lines like "I'm not going with you / if he finds me he will find you" "I wanted to help you, but I only made things worse" smack of a guy kept in line by fear of something happening to the kids.
and the Brenner-orchestrating-El's-murder story smells like a psyop. is this just Brenner wanting One to think harm would come to El as a consequence of his actions? (she became "uncontrollable" as a result of his coaching). El is too valuable an asset to actually kill. who would know better than One that the treatment for being uncontrollable is soteria, not death? assuming One is being truthful, why would he not see through that. idek what I think is going on here anymore
anyway. MKUltra is ALL about manipulation but I'll talk more about that in my other post
times El protects her friends the same way she protected One
practically every move El makes is about protecting her friends but I want to point out a few times that are specifically reminiscent of her protection of One, where she's ready to give up her freedom to protect her friends even at risk of the worst case scenario (going back to the lab):
sacrificing herself to protect the party from the demogorgon ("no more") <- is that line in reference to the 6 people the demogorgon has snatched, or is that a massacre reference given how incredibly parallel these scenes are. I'm not sure whether "goodbye Mike" meant she thought she'd die or just get so wiped out that she'd be easily recaptured by the lab
leaving Kali and "freedom" to return to Hawkins and protect her friends, where she volunteers to go back into the lab to close the gate
leaving Cali and "freedom" to return to the lab to get her powers back to protect her friends
final thought: I just had a chuckle with myself at the fact that iirc it's Mike and Nancy whose lives El has individually, directly saved the most times.
[honorable mention for Max because I don't know how to quantify 4x9. is that like one massive save?]
like, Mike, okay, but why the Nancy emphasis when she and El have basically zero onscreen relationship. (actually I have a lot to say about El and Nancy coming up soon that might add context)
idk.. lab sibling guilt smth smth El protecting Nancy "she'll be like your new sister" and Mike "will you be like my brother" Creeler. you gotta love it
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So I thought I'd make a post on this as it's been a minute since the season 3 trailer dropped and what I'll be talking about was something that was making the rounds and I thought I'd say something when the craze had died down; but amongst the various topics of conversation, weirdly Colin's virginity seems to have come up, along with the general nature of his sexual experience. So be warned I'm going to be referring to spoilers at points from what's been posted by others on here and on Reddit, I'll leave a gap between this paragraph and the next so there you go, read at your own discretion. (note: post may be long, whoops)
So even if you've remained away from spoilers and seen only the trailer and other official promo stuff, it's clear that Colin has returned from his travel's more experienced this time in more ways than one, namely it is clear that he has been deflowered (kind of hate this term but I couldn't think of something else), and beyond that he's then also become particularly experienced in the bedroom and in the ways of charming women and such. I've seen some people say that they wished he'd still been a virgin more so because they would've found the dynamic of both him and Penelope being virgins something interesting to see as a shift from dynamics of previous seasons, and whilst I don't necessarily hate that, what's disturbed me is the way other people have had such a visceral reaction to Colin having any involvement with any other woman ever and getting ridiculously angry; which is funny when really they should be seen as interesting points of character development. In episode 1 of season 3 he returns home obviously looking as he does now and there's the whole sequence of the dropped glove that he picks up and kisses the hand of the lady in question it belongs to, Colin has returned feeling he has a solid sense of himself but also thinks himself untethered to the necessity of connection in order to engage in sex or even just flirtation, but this is important as the season progresses. In episode 2 from what I've read, he visits a brothel in which he pays for the services of a woman who works there, everything goes fine, I don't know exactly how much we will see of that encounter but it'll probably be enough; also to note, the source of this information stated very clearly that this interaction and a following one in episode 4 do not bear significance or even compare on what we will get with Polin in terms of an array of content that this season delivers.
Speaking of episode 4, reportedly he goes again but this time he's unable to engage as well as he did before and without a doubt this is due to Penelope. Additionally, this is an interesting look at sex in terms of it just being for gratification, and sex in terms of connection, a means to an end versus an act of love. In previous seasons, the depiction of brothels/sex work establishments doesn't really bear the same importance plot wise (side note I am not nor should you go shaming these people in that line of work as it's one that deserved respect like any other, it is simply functioning as a part of the conversation here), unlike here where I think that it's really important as it show's Colin's inner need for connection in order for it to work, because when he was away he probably had no issues getting his kicks because he convinced himself this felt right and back home would be no different, but that only lasts briefly and why you may ask? because the friend who he'd left and returned to transforms from a woman only in name to a woman in fully realised form, from a wallflower into an Emerald, and this kicks into gear the real maturity he needed to gain, realising from not just her appearance but the other qualities she possesses and the ways in which he is both attached and attracted to her, that she is who he has truly loved this whole time, he just needed to get out of his own head. It should also be pointed out that in the show, Colin has always drifted with finding himself let alone sorting out his feelings, so it is highly likely whilst he was technically violating polite society rules with his interactions with Penelope and this should've fired something off in his brain, that it caused him instead to think this is simply something that someone does with a friend they value highly versus being a by-product of his underlying feelings that he has with no one else. And as such, whereas Penelope was the one pining before, now he will be the one doing so and he's no longer on the pedestal he was previously so they'll be on even ground to start something real.
On a quick note, this is a friends to lovers ship but I want to make it clear, especially with men and women dynamics, that not all friends are going to have this trajectory whether we're talking about characters or irl people; friends to lovers tropes should be understood as two people who's connection starts with friendship and there's always a sense it could be something more whether or not both parties are consciously aware and it's to do with how they explore that, and is NOT in any way the case that these friends can somehow never be just friends with a strong connection, case and point Penelope and Morgan from Criminal Minds, close friends and nothing more and they're great.
Something also to say is that the obsession with Colin's sexual experience is just as bad as they way women are treated for their sexual experience, it creates this weird value and attributes a weird rating system of respect to something that's not our business, as well as fetishizing what people do or don't do with their bodies and making assumptions about their activities, so you know maybe we should agree to not do that. Beyond that, how about we actually watch what happens instead of spiralling out of control about this stuff. Also, if I see anyone who aren't fans of this ship to begin with, just leave, you're wasting energy on something that you literally don't need to be, do what the rest of us do and exit out and invest your time in what you actually enjoy instead of festering hate.
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