The latest Family Video customer is barely through the door before Eddie explodes, "Ugh, Tyler."
Beside him, Steve scoffs in agreement, nose wrinkled with distaste. He's so hot. "Yeah, exactly, uugh."
"That should be his middle name. Ugh," Robin chimes in. Eddie's so glad they're in agreement about the bleach-spiked punk guy that graduated three years ago but is still bumming around Hawkins. "Steve, I can't believe you dated that guy."
Seriously, Tyler is the worst— Wait, what—?
"Wait," Eddie says, gaping at Robin. "What?"
"You could barely call it dating," Steve huffs.
"You were together for a month and a half," Robin says. She's got this evil grin on her face and is pointedly not looking at Eddie who is very desperate for Robin to look at him right now, please. "You drove that bum to Indy every weekend. He broke up with you on Valentine's day."
Eddie's weak "Tyler? Tyler Teaks?" gets completely ignored.
"I—" Steve says with haughty emphasis. "—broke up with him on Valentine's day. Don't get it twisted, Buckley."
Robin snorts and finally glances at Eddie. "Steve only broke up with him because the guy blew him off. On Valentine's Day. Which is basically getting broken up with," she tells him, and ignores it when Eddie whimpers at her.
"Yeah, but I'm the one to ended it!" Steve insits.
Eddie, finally, finds his voice, and says, "Tyler Teaks?! Harrington!"
"Ugh," Steve says, slumping against the counter. "I know." He cuts a glare over at Eddie after a moment. "I blame you for this."
"Me?!" Eddie shrieks, incredulous. He's pretty sure he's stepped into another parallel world. Perpendicular world? A world where Steve apparently dates guys—and guys like Tyler Teaks, no less. Eddie's sure he's gone completely batshit insane. "What the hell did I do?!"
Steve stands, cocking his hip the side, and looks down his handsome nose at Eddie. "You wouldn't be my New Year's kiss at Tina's party," he says. "So I had to settle for Tyler Teaks instead."
"What the fuck?" Eddie says, completely lost. "What—? You—? Tina—? KISS—?!"
Beside them, Robin is grinning, laughing, eyes going back and forth between them, munching on a stolen back of skittles—her own personal dramedy on stage before her.
"Yep," Steve says, popping the P. He looks distinctly bitter. "Pulled my best moves on you, and you turned me down."
"Steve," Eddie breathes. He reaches out, places both hands on Steve's shoulders, intent. The eye contact he forces Steve into is desperate. "I don't even remember getting to Tina's New Year's Party." He takes a deep breath. "I woke up in her mom's pantry the next morning with no shoes and no memory of how I got there."
Finally, Steve cracks, a big smile stretching his face. Robin cackles. "Yeah, I kind of figured as much," Steve sighs, wistful now. "You told me, and I quote, 'Steve Harrington, you are very beautiful and I want to have a summer wedding because you'd look beautiful-er with sunflowers'—"
"Don't forget the 'you look so hot in that sweater' part."
"—'But actually, I am a very straight man. So very super straight.' And then you crouched down on the floor and crawled away." Steve is biting his lip now to keep from laughing. Robin is not so nice. "Like I couldn't see you, and the handkerchief flagging in your pocket."
"Oh my god."
"Don't worry, it was really cute," Steve says, grinning. "But, I still needed a New Year's kiss, and unfortunately for everyone involved, Tyler was my only willing choice."
"Oh my god."
"Totally duped me though, he was super sweet the entire night," Steve sighs. His mouth is twisted into genuine regret now. "Plus, the next week, you acted like you'd never spoken to me before, so—"
"OH MY GOD."
Steve and Robin give him twin grimaces. Robin's is a lot more sympathetic. Steve's is confused. "Listen, man," Steve tries to soothe. "I'm sure that's pretty embarrassing, but it was a cute story! No hard feelings, I promise."
Robin's sympathetic grimace deepens.
"No," Eddie says, standing up straight. "I refuse. There is no way I turned down Steve Harrington for a New Year's kiss. There is no way."
"Wait—"
"Eddie, where—"
Eddie marches for the door, digging his keys out of his pockets. "Good-bye friends, I must go see a supergirl about time travel."
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might as well put this here now that it's confirmed hunter was created as a toddler but i do have a headcanon that hunter's sprig plushie was originally a gift from belos from an early childhood...
belos getting it for him when hunter was a kid, back when he was still somewhat affectionate towards him, when he was actively making him love him/making him think HE loves him, before he grew colder/pulled away/started using more hurtful manipulation tactics... carrot and the stick, etc.
and then hunter not knowing what he did for the affection to end, wondering Where he went wrong, yearning to one day be good/helpful enough to get that affection back.......
and then after everything is done and belos is dead, hunter still asking darius/raine/whoever else would be going through the castle rubble to give him the plushie if they find it. cuz he still cares abt it, and it still WAS a source of comfort throughout his life, despite it being a gift from belos. in his mind the plushie is a positive thing in his life, that probably helped him through many scary moments and lonely nights..... a relic from the time he Felt like he was loved by his uncle.
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im gonna start a fight; and, at the same time, i need you to take this in the most good-faith way possible, but:
videos that involve body-checking and intentionally (and uncritically) show a mealplan of an unhealthy number of calories are just a revamped version of pro-ana food diaries.
and yeah, i know there's arguments. i address some of them under the cut. but at the end of the day, we're just coming back to romanticizing mental illness; we've just found a better platform for it.
this is already something we've done. we knew it was wrong and tried to stop it. and tbh. it just wasn't enough.
there are people who argue "well, what if you have an eating disorder, you can't help it if you don't eat!" except that as someone with an ED; we are not infants. we know what we're doing. part of having an ED is that you are like, maybe too self-aware. even if we can't help our own food choices, we don't need to fucking romanticize the disorder - something we've been warning you about since 2013. there are hours of setup, filming, and editing that go into these videos. they do not happen to fall into place randomly. there is a reason they are pieced together to be beautiful, bright, inspiring.
there's this woman who pretty much only posts daily plans under a normal amount of calories, and everyone defends her saying but it's better than nothing! and i'm like. except she opens those with images of her showing off her body and provides no context in the video or caption that suggests that she believes what she's doing is unhealthy. she has hundreds of thousands of followers on a platform designed for young kids and teens. i refuse to believe that by accident her content just happens to be cheery advice on "healthy" versions of starving.
for any other symptom of mental illness, we would be incredibly enraged by this kind of placid acceptance of a "tips and tricks" fast-start guide. imagine if people posted pink & pretty videos saying "best places to cut yourself" as if it was a fucking storytime. we, as a society, are so fucking fatphobic that we would rather accept blatantly harmful displays of self harm than admit that we are obsessed with a hyper-thin body type.
i am not suggesting someone never talks about their disorder. i talk about mine. actually, it's a plot point in my book.
here's the difference: i recognize it's a fucking mental illness. i am very careful to never mention a specific weight, eating pattern, or calorie plan. i always make sure to position it as something that ruined my fucking life. i do not put cheery music in the background and hearts and sparkles over my worst moments. i do not film it in bright light. i do not start each passage with an image of a thin body followed by "here's how to look like her."
eating disorders should not be framed as aspirational. and the problem is that society worships the "after" image, so long as you don't get too sick. there is a reason so many people who quit being "influencers" will later admit - i wasn't eating well that whole time; an obsession with food was completely destroying my life.
we let any uncredited, uncertified person write the most backwards, fucked up shit about how to get the body you desire! because the underlying, secret belief is: well, at least they're thin! and the real thing that fucking gets me each time - they make fucking money off of it. their irresponsibility and societal harm literally pays off for them.
"why do you care so much." "don't like it don't look." "so what if people experiment with new ways of thinking of food?"
thank you for asking. we're about to get extremely personal. it's because when i was 18 i discovered "thinspiration"/"thinspo." and it absolutely influenced, shaped, and codified my pre-existing eating disorder. i went from having some troubling habits and traits to being incredibly unwell within what felt like a matter of days. there were actual pages designed to train me on how to have an ED correctly. it was all so suddenly easy. i was sick; and the nature of the illness meant - i wanted to be sicker.
it takes an average of 7 years for a person to fully recover. i know this personally - even now, 10 years from the worst of it, i still fucking struggle. i am so much happier now and i eat what i want and i literally don't think about food at all (19 year old me would shudder) and yet - i still fucking know the calories of plain toast with butter.
an eating disorder is one of the deadliest types of mental illness. over 1 in 4 people with an ED will attempt suicide.
and i'm sorry. i just do not see the exchange rate of "high rate of engagement" versus "the value of a human life."
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