#you know the shitty friends you had in elementary and middle and even high school who had a Thing

[semercury]

The real reason i stopped reading was bc im already insane if i saw some of the quotes i reblog out in the wild in context I would lose it.

[unbotheredalwyn]

I just have to say how disappointed I am in allowing myself to fall back into the Taylor trap. I started listening to her music in elementary and middle school and followed and genuinely liked her music until Red. I dropped her music because I got tired of all of drama with Jake and how everything was about a guy and then 1989 dropped and I got even more of an ick with all the Harry styles drama and after that I genuinely stopped hearing about her and her drama until midnights. I genuinely liked the vibe of it and then listened to lover, folklore, and evermore and was like Omg?! When did she mature? When did she grow this much? Folklore became my favorite album especially because it resonated so much with me while I was struggling. I went to the eras movie with my friend and we rekindled our girlhood memories and made friendship bracelets and even traded them with the few people the cinema and it was so cool to have had that moment watching the film and reliving our childhood with these people who we didn’t know but bonded with BUT THEN I got hit with the Joe break up, the Travis nonsense (like I didn’t stop seeing this man’s face no matter how hard I tried to avoid it) and then the Joe trash talk, Ratty, and worst of all-Taylor seemed to revert back to this immature, catty high school mean girl persona and I was shocked! I was so mad to find out that she contributed to this narrative against Joe and then TTPD admitting she cheated and blasted Joes mental health and her fans just justify all of it? They went from saying Joe was jobless and poor and used her to Joe being too rich to have mental health struggles and if he hadn’t been “so sad” she wouldn’t have cheated. Well which is it? Did he use her for money or did this rich man just ruin her vibe and deserve to get cheated on? And which is it from Taylor? Does she even have a real personality because it feels like she just picks up whatever suits her for the time being and I hate it.

I totally understand how you feel. I find myself sometimes missing her music.

One of the best times was the eras tour in cinemas for me too. My girlfriend surprised me with tickets we got flyers and it was a genuinely good time we were all dancing and singing along, people were handing out friendship bracelets, doing the fan chants etc but genuinely this entire thing is making me genuinely so sad because I really thought Taylor was a better person but she is just not.

Don't feel bad or disappointed because I promise you the fact that you see her bullshit and just does not blindly follow her like all the others says a LOT about you as a person and it shows your character so don't worry anon 🤗

I really am proud of Joe regardless what swifties say about him and honestly I don't think he gives a shit 😂 my unbothered king

I hope he sues them though about the ai shit and I hope Emma and Alison sues the people who spread she shitty rumors around tbh

[createdbytragedy]

IN THE END,BOTH OF US WE'RE BLIND, 'CAUSE YOU NEVER SAW ME AND I NEVER SAW ANYONE ELSE BUT YOU

Pairing: Choi Beomgyu x reader

Genre: Angst

Warning: I think I made Beomgyu a bit too madly in love here, poor attempt at writing an angst, shitty grammar, not proofread and may contain misspelling

Synopsis: In all those years of being together, you never saw Beomgyu and he never saw anyone else but you

"What if I find someone new but still fall asleep to the thought of you?"

You had a special bond with Beomgyu. At least, used to. He remembered the first day he met you as the little girl in white dress. And you remembered him as the kind boy next door who later became your best friend.

Your childhood pictures included Beomgyu in almost everyone of them and if someone told you to share an incident of your childhood, it was impossible to share one with no Beomgyu in it. You were that close. All your childhood spent beside each other, either you in his house, eating the delicious sweets made by his mother or playing video games with his brother or him in your house, letting you put bows in his head and making him babysit your dolls.

You entered elementary school together while still clinging to each other's side. Both of you didn't leave any space for anyone else to enter your magical friendship.

Then came middle school, where both of your friend groups grow larger and more varied. You find new friends and so did Beomgyu but you still claimed each other as your best friend and preferred to walk home with just the two of you. The concept of crush was introduced and it would be a big, fat lie to say Beomgyu didn't have a crush on you. His friends would tease him whenever they caught him staring at you from across the classroom, talking to your girlies. You would smile and wave at him when you noticed him and he'd blush while his friends made cringey faces.

Typical childhood crush, you know.

Middle school end and came high school. Everything changed. For you, at least. When you started seeing more of the world and seeing other people, all Beomgyu saw was you.

You in your high school skirt, laughing with your friends as you walked past him. You weren't as close anymore, That was something he had to admit. Both of your interest were different which separates you. You grew interest in arts and fashion while his passion revolves around being a singer, which means most of your class were different. Your bodies changed, with you growing more curves that sure turned heads in the hallways. The long conversations turned into small talks before school until one of your girls would pull you away. You weren't as much regular in his house anymore. Always on a friend's house for a girl's night or some project. But he can't help the way his heart skip a beat whenever you smiled at him from the window of your house that overlooked his. The one thing that didn't change about you was your smile and your personality. Both of them remained as cheerful and sincere.

All he saw was you even when multiple girls asked him out for prom that year. Declining politely in hope that you would turn around to look at him again and just maybe be the one he goes to the anticipated prom with.

But you never did. You never saw him. Not that year. Not ever. Not when there was already a boy wrapping his arms around your waist as you looked at him with love and adoration. The look Beomgyu craves. Beomgyu skipped the first prom of his life that year. Curling in his room and playing video games.

He could only imagine you, with him, looking into each other's eyes as you slowed dance, shy smiles being exchanged. He wanted that to be him. Be the one who picked you up in your satin white gown, take your hand and place a kiss and watch the light blush appear on your face? Why can't you see him?

He closed the curtain, trying to ignore the sharp pain panging in his chest. But he can't get you out of his head.

All he saw was you even after the prom, the whole school buzzing with the aftermath of the spectacular night and the news of your new relationship with the boy. He remembered the immense pain starting to grow as you walked in hand in hand with a guy who didn't know how you liked to take your coffee. And once again, you walked past him.

You never saw him.

Oh, but how could he ever not fall for you when you give him a kind of smile that made his heart do summersaults and swarm of butterflies erupt in his stomach? How could he ever get over you when you always asked about his day when you happen to meet each other at the front door, both coming home from your day's activity with the orange tint of the setting sun illuminating your features as the summer breeze blew your hair in all direction while you smiled at him which makes him feel just a little bit too much emotions to control?

Like he could be the one to walk you home everyday like he used to.

Beomgyu was in love with you in ways that boy will never know. And that's why he was ready to give you up. Because he valued your happiness over his own. And you looked so happy holding hands and smiling and looking at him like he was your everything.

He can't have you. That's why he wanted to avoid you. Avoid seeing you with your so called lover, to be accurate. You had no idea about the clench in his heart and the desire to be the one running through his veins whenever he sees you both.

He tried to stay content with what you had. You looked happy and honestly, he was too. But the thought of you never left his mind at night. How he could be happier with you. Make you happier. But, he would never say that. He only returned smiles shot his way and satisfied himself with the small talks between classes. He liked to think that there was no one waiting for you when he talked to you. Like he still had a chance and you're heart wasn't already given to someone who didn't value it. But all his daydream won't last long when reality came crashing back in the form of a highschool teenage boy.

He needed to get his mind away from you, he needed to get a grip. But he decided to let you keep his heart. He lets you be the reason he was excited to go school. He let you make him smile and make him laugh and he let you break his heart million times but he still loved you. Though from afar and in the sidelines. He patiently waited for you in hopes that maybe you will see him. Standing right there and realizing that he's all you ever wanted. Like you were all he's ever wanted.

God, one sided love sucks, right?

His passion (other than you) would be his dream. To be a singer. And it was no surprise that he was over the moon when he got accepted in his favorite company as a trainee. He remembered jumping up and down with joy when he got the email. The news travelled fast enough thanks to Beomgyu's motor mouth and it was insane how hypocritic his classmates were. The usually discourteous boys who didn't give a damn about him were suddenly asking him to sit with him for lunch and others from the class who he didn't really have a good blood with were suddenly interested in his well being. And oh, Beomgyu was no idiot. He knew the guys were just trying to include themselves in his soon to be stardom but he would be lying if he said he didn't love the attention. He always did.

The only one who wasn't kissing his ass and buttering him up was you. And maybe the fact just made him miss you a little bit more. Amidst all affection and attention, he was missing yours.

So, he checked his watch and then went out the front door of his house, hides in the bushes for a few minutes until he heard your footsteps approaching.

"Hi, Beomgyu," he pretends to get startled by your voice as he twisted the door knob of his home ," Heard the news, congratulations!"

Your face was radiating by the sunlight just the way he likes it and he can't help the smile that etched onto his face , " You did? Word sure travels fast huh? I only told my friends about it and now the whole school knows. "

Your laughed ringed in his head minutes after you entered the door ," It sure does. I'm really happy for you. You sure got the looks and talent to be an idol. I'll be looking forward to seeing you on the screen. Good night, neighbor. " And with that, the door shuts behind you.

Neighbor, huh. So that was all Beomgyu was to you.

Maybe that's what made him work harder to be something more than a neighbor to you.

And maybe that's why he was determined to get selected.

And maybe that's why he got selected.

And maybe, just maybe, he was still as in love with you as he was 5 years ago.

And maybe that's why he never saw anyone else more beautiful than you in all those world tours, concerts, fan meets, and all over the country.

He only had eyes for you.

It may seem he may have forgotten such an insignificant person to you but you were on his mind every single night. Praying that you've broken up with your high school sweetheart.

And he was still praying on his way to Daegu for the holiday. His mother have told him about you coming back from abroad after finishing your course. He hadn't been able to see you on any of his visit to his home town since you also went to study abroad for your passion. He was ecstatic to meet you again after so many years.

His heart was beating fast the whole way, butterflies erupting and his mind filled with thoughts of what could happen. What he wanted to happen. He wondered if your smile still looked like the twinkle of stars in a moonless night and if your eyes still held the same amount of mystery and love as it did. Whatever may have changed of you, he knew one thing for sure that his feelings for you certainly didn't changed.

He reached his home, greeted his family, let the nostalgia of his childhood flood in his head, changed into comfy sweatpants and then stared at the window which overlooked your house. He looked at his phone then at the window. Phone, window, phone, window, phone, window.

And there you were. Walking down the road with a blue floral dress, writhing along your body and hugging your curves just right. Your hair looked longer since the last time he saw you. And the setting sun illuminates your face just the way he remembers it. His phone fell to the floor, long forgotten as he got up in a rush and reached for the door.

You stood in front of your door, like you always used to. And he looked at you and smiled before it falter off.

"Oh, hey, Beomgyu!! I didn't know you were in Daegu!! " you sounded happy, a wide smile stretching over your lips but all he could see was how your hand entangled with the man, standing next to you. So close that when the summer breeze blew your hair, it touched his face and fan over it.

"Hi......" his said, waving weakly as his eyes scanned over the space between both of your heads.

"Jagi, you know Beomgyu from TXT, right?" your words felt like a blunt knife jabbed into his heart ,"We used to go to the same school and we've been neighbors since childhood. Isn't that so privilege?"

A different guy but there's nothing new. The same old face that looked like they want something from you. That looked at you like you were just what your face showed. Like you were nothing more than a human with pretty face.

"Its so good to see you. Big star now, are we? I really enjoy listening to your music and I am really, really proud of you! feels good to brag to everyone I went to school with the one and only Beomgyu," your voice sounded so far when the only thing separating you both was the short wooden fence. He nodded, forcing a smile and trying not to let his eyes wander to your joined hands.

"Its good to be back in town. You've got a new friend there, huh? already replacing me?" he was in no mood for teasing but he decided to ignore the burning ache in his heart in hope that he'll get to hear your laugh.

"Oh, no," and you did. Eyes scrunching up into crescent as the heavenly sound slipped past your lips ," This is Yujin, my boyfriend of 3 years. We met at the uni." you said, proudly slinging an arm around the said male's waist. He smiled, leaning down to place a kiss on your forehead which made you giggle.

He clenched his fist, opened it then tap his index finger against his thigh, nodding his head like the scene wasn't so painful to watch for him.

"I'll see you around then. Good to have a star next door. " you said with a wink before disappearing inside with your boyfriend of 3 years.

Beomgyu stood there, frozen.

After 5 years, after being one of the most successful kpop idol, still, you didn't see him.

Never did.

His throat felt numb and he could feel a sensation he hasn't felt for so long. His heart pounded in his chest, heaving and shattered. The warm breeze blew his hair and he bites his lips as the echo of your laughter filled the silent lawn.

"Beomgyu, what would you like for din- oh my, darling, what happened?!" Beomgyu's mom asked as she saw Beomgyu come in through the door, lips trembling and crystal dew dropping from his eyes. Beomgyu sniffled and shook his head, unable to form words as his mother took him into her embrace.

He break down fully, full on sobbing and crying onto her shoulder ,"Eomma!! " he snivel as his mother run her hand up and down his back, trying to soothe the 23 year old like he was 3.

"My goodness, what happened, Beomgyu? " His mother asked trying to calm his son down ," why are you crying?!"

Beomgyu pulled out from the hug, sniffing and wiping his tears from the sleeves of his shirt and shook his head, smiling at his mother through the tears that blurred his vision.

"I just realised something," he said. His mother raised her brow in confusion, what on earth could be the realisation that made him cry out like he was still 3?

"Realised what?" She could see the sadness in her son's eyes. The flood of new tears collecting in his eyes once again.

"What happened, Beomgyu?" She asked, a bit more sternly this time as she cupped his face in her hands. Beomgyu smiled as more tears spilled down his cheeks. He couldn't even see anymore. Just breaking down because god, it hurts. It was suppose to just a little crush. Just a one sided love. How did you go from being his childhood best friend to a friend who no longer had long talks in the night and sneak out to eat snacks after midnight to a woman he so desired but can't have? "That, in the end, we were both blind," he choked, grabbing onto her arms. The scenario of your first crush in middle school flashed across his mind then your first boyfriend in high school now your current boyfriend with his hands around your waist. Why couldn't that be him? Your first crush. Your prom date. Your first boyfriend. And the one to be laughing with you on a hot and breezy summer evening? Can't you see him? See that he was the one all along. The one who bought you chocolates and candies when you were sad, the one who gave you his jacket and comforted you when you had your first period in school, the one who gives you piggyback ride on your way home from school, the one who would smile at you and cherish every moment of your presence even when you weren't as close anymore. Would anyone else do the things he'd do for you? would he love you like he loves you? Even after being a idol, having all the things anyone could desire, the money, the fame, the looks but you still didn't see him. You looked happier, you do. With him. "'Cause she never saw me and I never saw anyone else but her," you voice ringed inside his head, calling him, hugging him, embracing in each other's warmth. All he ever wanted. "Aigoo, Beomgyu - ah, is it (y/n)?" his mother asked, pulling him back into her embrace. And Beomgyu lets her. Burying his tears and pain on her shoulders. He knew in his heart that there is someone else who deserves you but, he was still in love with you. Still wanted to be one. Its crazy cause you were never his but how does it break him so much to know that he lost you? "Its okay, baby. Don't cry...... maybe, she wasn't the one for you," she comforted, patting his hair while the dinner was long forgotten. Thank god mothers don't find other boyfriend........ "You'll find someone better. Prettier. Someone who loves you the way you loved her. Maybe more. You know its alright. I know it hurts but its gonna be okay. She was just not the one and its not yours or her fault. So stop crying, you'll find someone new........." Would he? It has been 5 years though and he was still yearning for your touch. Hoping that maybe you'll open your eyes and see that he's been here all along. But, He guess not. Sniffing and wiping his red eyes, he asked his mother with trembling voice, " What if I did find someone knew, but still fall asleep to the thought of her?" "I'm scared..."

[dadsbongos]

a warm body

Stranger Things x Horror Movie Collection

American Psycho / Halloween / Scream / Friday the 13th / Fear Street / Jennifer’s Body

13.7K words

warnings - sexual allusions lol!, descriptions of wounds/violence (blood n gore n such), bimbo reader bimbo reader <3, jennifer’s body au

summary - You drag Robin to The Hideout in hopes of fulfilling your fantasy of hooking up with a boy in a band. Hijinks ensue and suddenly you’re a succubus that only your bestest friend can satiate.

“Hey, we’ve gotta go to The Hideout tonight.”

“Ew,” Robin gags, “Enough of Munson, okay? I’m sick of going to their gigs.”

“It’ll be fun,” you pout and lean your head against the locker next to Robin’s, “besides, there’s a new band showing up today. Heard it straight from Gareth in the lunch line - Bombed Grave, or some shit. Should be good.”

“Oh my God,” Robin shakes her head, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, “You need to get over this fantasy of being a groupie, it’ll get you killed.”

“It will not get me killed, it’s just a one-time thing, you know?” you fiddle with one of the rings Robin had gifted you a couple of years back, “Some stupid boy in a stupid band and me, just once. It’d be fun. And then it’s over.”

You shrug like it’s simple - like you’re talking about a piercing.

“Well, as long as I’m here - no stupid boy from a shitty band is getting anywhere near you,” Robin grins sardonically.

“Hey,” you stick out your bottom lip, elbowing Robin in the side, “I’m a big girl now, I can take care of myself, Rob,” then just to tease, you throw out, “Mom.”

“Don’t call me ‘Mom’,” she groans.

“Then don’t act like I need a savior,” you look away, immediately finding the gaggle of math club members staring at you.

Robin watches as you wave and giggle and they nervously return the gesture.

Robin hates to call you an airhead, but sometimes you didn’t think things through. Going to The Hideout every Tuesday in an effort to sleep with a band member, she suspected, was one of them.

“Fine, okay,” Robin doesn’t know why she puts up a fight anymore, she always gives in. Perhaps it’s just the illusion of debate - the back-and-forth - that she likes, “I’ll go. And I won’t be your little savior.”

“Okay, then!” you perk up, reaching into the collar of your cheer uniform and pulling out your half of a BFF magnet necklace.

It was your part of a heart-shaped strawberry charm. You held it out proudly and Robin, despite how much she’d pretend to hate it, couldn’t help but pull out her own half. She connects your pieces and watches you light up at the way they click.

“I’ll drive you home to drop off your shit and change,” you pause, narrowing your lashes, “And I need to borrow a shirt,” she raises a brow and you just shrug, “People dig the short cheer skirt, but the uniform top makes it a little too real.”

“Gross,” Robin shuts her locker as the minute bell shrills.

“Uber,” you bump her shoulder with yours, “‘kay, I gotta go. See ya!”

“See you later!” she sighs once you’ve left.

What shirt could she possibly lend you that you didn’t already steal?

Every cute shirt - or article of clothing period - she owned was most likely already stashed in your closet. Not that Robin necessarily minded, it isn’t like she wore those clothes very often (or at all) anyway.

Robin has no fucking clue how you and her stayed friends after elementary school. She was adopted by the Hawkins’ middle school band and you became one of their beloved cheerleaders. Your rise to popularity was swift and unmatched by even King Steve himself and even now, you haven’t fallen from your pedestal.

She assumes it’s because you, unlike most other popular kids, are actually really nice. Chrissy Cunningham is your cheer co-captain and if it weren’t for Robin, you two would be the most iconic duo since Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs.

Now, as you’re both seniors, Robin remains a band geek, and you queen of Hawkins High (if not all of Hawkins itself), and you two are still tied at the hip.

Seriously, how Robin is your little friend after X amount of years, is an absolute cold case to her, but she’s not about to give it up.

So, Robin just bites her tongue and goes to her Spanish 3-4.

“No, no, no, no,” you pause your cycling through clothes and Robin looks up from her peeling black nail polish, your head is tilted and you pull out whatever has caught your eye, “When’d you get this?”

Robin’s cheeks flush and she huffs, reaching out to rip the offending sweater from your hands, “Oh my God, just put it down!”

“No!” you whine, clutching the pink fabric to your chest, “It’s adorable. I like it.”

You hold the sweater up. Robin usually buys her clothes in bigger sizes than what she actually is, that’s why you like borrowing her clothes - it’s rare to find something of hers that won’t fit you too.

It was something you’d have to work with - just a plain pink sweater with red hearts. And it’s not like it’d go with your cheer skirt.

You throw the garment over one shoulder and move to where Robin stored the skirts she doesn’t wear anymore.

“See, this always happens,” Robin rolls her eyes, all in good fun, and leans back on her elbows, “‘Just a shirt,’” she mocks, “You’re a little thief.”

“Whatever,” you chuckle and pull out a short, black skirt, “As if you were gonna wear these.”

“It’s the principal of the matter,” Robin stands, sighing loudly and draping her arms around your shoulders.

“Okay, turn so I can change,” when she doesn’t move, you shrug, “Fine. Don’t.”

It wouldn’t be the first time Robin has ever seen you change, but it never fails to make her squawk and cover her eyes before giving up. You’d be lying if you said that her watching you change never sent a spark through you.

“What’s even your plan?” Robin tilts her head, trying her absolute damndest to keep her eyes above your collarbones, “Hook up with who? The guitarist or the singer? And then what? Just go after a painter?”

“I dunno,” you grin, “Maybe I’ll keep chasing bands. Maybe it isn’t a regular guy I want, but Eddie Munson, and now I’m just trying to fill the void,” Robin wretches dramatically, “Okay, okay. I’m kidding.”

Eddie’s nice. You don’t have a reason to dislike him, you just didn’t think he was your type beyond a quick fantasy. Not that you spend all day thinking about how he isn’t your type, mainly because if you do that then you have to confront what - or rather, who - is your type.

“What about after, though? Are you still gonna drag me around so you can screw with guys who don’t deserve you?”

“Haven’t thought much about it,” you move to look yourself over in Robin’s full body mirror, “Best friend approval?”

Robin hums as if thinking, eyes narrowing and lips pressing thinly before she ultimately nods, “Best friend approves.”

“Yay,” you cheer under your breath, grabbing your purse from her vanity and skipping over to her bedroom door, “Ready?”

She looks around as if there’s anything of importance that she could possibly be leaving behind. Everything she needs is already at the door, ready to flutter out and right into the arms of some guitarist. Or vocalist. Anyone but the drummer.

“Maybe the drummer,” you announce to Robin, parking in front of The Hideout.

“How low will you go?” she gasps, scandalized, then giggles when you shoot her a glare, “I’m just saying, bunny, it isn’t that big a deal if you go with the drummer instead of the guitarist. I bet 99% of people won’t even know who you’re talking about if you tell them who you’re with. Just saying.”

“You know what I think?”

The both of you climb out of your car and Robin tilts her head, watching as you wait to hear your doors lock.

“Hm?”

“It wouldn’t hurt you to get out there.”

Robin scoffs and you bounce up to the door, lugging it open for Robin to enter the dingy, dim, dank bar.

You see Eddie immediately and Robin hates to say how jealous it makes her when you squeal and throw yourself on him with a giggly, “hi, Eds!”

“Hey, bubble-brain,” his eyes flick to Robin, “Someone’s outta their element.”

“Huh?” you rear back and nod, “Oh! Yeah.”

Robin tries smiling at Eddie, but it comes out strained, her hands packed in her pockets and clenching tightly. Her rings indent her skin and she can feel her teeth digging into the thin stretch of skin inside her cheek.

“Hey,” you reach into her coat pocket and take her hand, “if you really don’t wanna be here, we can go.”

She considers it.

Honestly? Honestly - she’d rather be back at her house, with you. Eating ice cream with bad romcoms stuffed full of cliches she makes fun of but always cries to at the end. With you, though. It’s only worth it if it’s with you.

“I’m fine,” she looks over at the bar, then past your shoulder, “You go look for your boy toy,” her brows shoot up at Eddie, “Munson, wanna help a girl out?”

“I’d be honored,” he bows and you peck Robin’s cheek appreciatively before bounding further into the bar. Eddie is observant - it’s one of the things Robin hates most about him - and he pulls out a fake ID while staring right at her.

The bartender knows Eddie - hell, everyone in town knows Eddie - and she knows that he’s only twenty. But hey, then again, he’s twenty and it isn’t like she’s being pressed to card the people they serve anyway. Because nobody even gives a fuck.

“What’s your damage, dingus?” Robin can hear how tired she sounds but there’s no room for her to try and pretend she’s anything else, “Staring’s rude.”

Eddie orders before looking down at Robin, “I think you should get it over with and just take her home.”

“You’re crazy!” she swats his shoulder, “Also, shut up.”

Eddie finding out Robin is a lesbian was a massive accident. She didn’t know he was behind her and Steve during Ferris Bueller and kept whispering about how hot Ally Sheedy was. It was way after hours at Starcourt, how was she supposed to know anyone else was there?

But he kept her secret.

“I’m just saying,” Eddie hands over a glass ripe with condensation, “You’re gonna watch her flirt her cute little sweater off with some douche, and then you’re gonna whine and ask me to drive you home. ‘Cuz if you go with her, she’s gonna drop you off and you’ll have to walk through the door alone knowing the one you love is about to get her shit rocked.”

Robin stares down at the cocktail. If she was a little smarter, she would’ve asked what it was before taking it. It’s clear, if a little auburn. Just a tad.

She doesn’t even know what to say, “It’s my sweater. She’s ‘borrowing’ it.”

Eddie coos, pouts, and pats her head, “Poor thing. You’re so fucked.”

Robin takes a cautious sip of the cocktail and her face immediately screws up, she gags and holds the glass away as Eddie laughs, “Dude, what the hell is this?”

“Moscow mule,” he clinks his glass to hers, “Vodka. Ginger. Lime. Enjoy and don’t drink it too fast.”

“Won’t be an issue!” she huffs, watching his stupid vest’s stupid Dio back design disappear into the crowd, “Atthay assholeyay.”

She takes another sip, somehow more careful than last time, and that’s when she sees you. You’re talking up the lead singer of the other band and he’s eating it up because who wouldn’t?

You’re sweet and, yeah, simple, but you’re more than that. You’re not just a best friend, you’re her one. Her person. The Nancy to her Margaret. The burger to her fries. The Shaggy to her Scooby. You two are Wham! You stay up until midnight just to call and wish her a happy birthday. She holds back your hair and helps you out of your heels when you go overboard at your popular friends’ lame parties. You feed each other soup when the other is sick.

You try really hard. All the time. Doesn’t matter what it is. School, cheer, dressing, befriending, shopping, whatever it may be - you try like someone will die if you fail. It’s intense and admirable to her at the same time.

And right now, you’re trying really hard to get the singer to like you. Robin would bet her entire college fund that it’s working, too.

So she stays out of your way and pretends that seeing that stupid guy’s hands pet over her sweater on your body doesn’t make her silently languish.

This time, her drag of Moscow mule is longer. Stronger. And she thinks that somewhere in the back of her head, or perhaps the back of the bar, Eddie is laughing.

“They’re not good,” Robin mutters as soon as you’re back at her side.

You wrap an arm around hers, yanking her shoulder into your chest, “Yeah…” you sigh, “but he’ll do. Not like he’s gonna be my boyfriend after this or anything, so no need to pretend.”

Robin has hated every single one of your boyfriends.

“You, uh,” she swallows the marble in her throat, “you giving him a ride?”

You giggle and she groans, “Jeez, Rob, talk about forward.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she tosses her head back and when you just keep laughing, it’s almost like things are how they should be.

Then your cheek presses to hers and you nod, “You need a ride home?”

“No,” she clenches her eyes shut, “Munson said he’d give me one.”

“Aw, he’s such a sweetheart,” you pull away, one hand wrapping around hers, “Call me if you need anything, ‘kay?”

“Yeah, ‘course,” Robin watches you reapply her favorite gloss that you own, “Don’t have too much fun without me.”

“Impossible,” you search the crowd and wave over your beau for the night, “Seriously, though. I’m a ring away. Maybe just gimme an hour or two before you have an emergency.”

“Sure,” Robin knows she’s being curt, but it’s not like she can help it. She can, but she shouldn’t. If she talks in longer sentences then everything will come loose and all her secrets will be like a rippling wound.

Eddie hangs an arm over Robin’s shoulders and laughs in her ear, “Hmm, did I get it word for word? Or did I get it word for word? I need to be reminded.”

“Shut up and get me another, Munson,” Robin shoves her glass into his chest.

To her, boys were ugly, red, agitated zits (except maybe Steve, who was a smaller, healing zit). To you, they were momentary fun when Hawkins felt a little dry. If she wasn’t so desperately wishing she could be the boy you give a ride, then maybe she’d be happy for you.

You wait for your car’s heater to thaw at Hawkins’ chilled night air before pulling away from the bar, “Your place or mine?”

“Actually,” the singer, Robbie he’d told you, lays a hand on your thigh. Toothy grin and pink lips on display, “there’s this cute little place in the woods. Think you’d like it.”

Robin didn’t like drinking. It gave her a headache and made her stink. Made her have to sneak back into her room just to avoid her parents finding out. Made her mind somehow less aware of her words.

So she laid in bed - face down in sunset sheets and stripped to her shirt and underwear - with one hand on the bedside table phone. Her fingers were wound tight around the receiver in a wavering display of determination. She wants to call you.

Make sure you got home safe. Make sure that idiot didn’t hurt you. Make sure you’d sleep well.

But you’re probably busy, so she also wants to leave it be.

Her fingers don’t move though, and when the sheets grow too hot with her breath being shot back in her face, she angles her head to the side. Her hair falls into her eyes and over her cheeks; she can’t be bothered to fix any of it, so it remains.

Fuck it.

You said to call, right? You want her to be able to call, right? Yeah, of course, you do. Robin knows you well, and she knows you don’t say things you don’t mean.

So she picks up the receiver and her fingers fly about the numbers in muscle memory. Turning onto her back, Robin blinks up at the ceiling as the phone rings.

A few streets down, your bedroom window is still open from when you forgot to close it before school. Inside your bedroom is an egg-shell white nightstand on the side of your bed not pressed to a wall. On the nightstand is a bubblegum pink phone gifted to you by your parents. It rings once. Twice. Three times.

Robin blows a stray hair from where it’d tangled into her lashes.

Four times.

The line beeps and your family’s voicemail message plays.

She slams the receiver down and picks it back up. You usually don’t let the phone ring more than twice - even if you don’t want to take a call; you have the balls to either pick up and say so or simply pick up the phone and immediately hang up. So she dials your number again and sighs.

A handful of blocks away, there’s a forest that hides Lover’s Lake. A few miles from Lover’s Lake is Skull Rock. Against the side of Skull Rock is a young girl - you, in a torn pink sweater that wasn’t even yours - bound and screaming through a gag. You watch, wide-eyed and seconds away from pissing yourself, as Robbie unsheathes a knife, his drummer readies a printed prayer to Satan.

In your bedroom, a pretty pink phone sends its unlucky caller right back to voicemail.

Robin groans, scratching at her stomach, and lets the receiver tumble back into place.

She debates calling again. You probably aren’t even home.

You probably aren’t even home.

The thought makes her turn back onto her stomach and groan louder into her pillow.

The night is dark and cold. Robin hates the cold. It reminds her of the dead - of how her Aunt Shauna looked so pale and plastic in her casket. Young Robin made the mistake of touching Aunt Shauna’s hand and now teenage Robin has to deal with the consequences.

It’s agony.

She awakes with a shiver and looks to where her peachy curtains are dancing gently in the wind from an open window. Of which, she was sure she shut.

Robin rises from bed and yawns, one hand on the window frame and the other rubbing at her drool-crusted cheek. Just as she goes to shut the window, she sees it - right on the ledge of the frame are two big bloody handprints.

That’s when she wakes up a little more - realizes that her bedroom door was open when it’s normally shut. She hears it then, too, the rustling in her kitchen downstairs.

Someone’s inside.

Robin scurries to her closet and pulls out the bat full of nails that Steve insisted she keep for him. Her bare feet touch cold wood and her legs shake as she makes her way to the kitchen. The lighting there is limited to the bulb inside the fridge.

There’s more rustling. Things unwrapping and ripping open. Tupperware lids thrown across the tile and the sounds of something - an animal - eating straight out of the containers.

She wants to run, but her parents are upstairs and even if they don’t get along at the best of times, she’s not going to let them be attacked by… by…

There’s a sharp gasp of pain and her resolve is wavering.

Then the thing comes up, and it casts a human shadow on the wall opposite the fridge. A feminine silhouette dances across the ugly pistachio paint.

A croak. A cough. A call.

“Rob…in?”

It’s broken and pained and inhuman, but it’s your voice. Undoubtedly.

Robin’s bat clatters to the ground, just narrowly missing her feet and she runs into the kitchen.

“Holy shit,” she clasps her hands over her mouth, eyes wide at the sight of you.

You’re fully leaning against the counter, arms limp at your side and head slid against the side of the fridge. You look like hell.

You swallow, sputter, and blink at her miserably, “Robin.”

“What…” her eyes roam - sweater torn open down the middle and stomach gaping with blood and prickled flesh, shoes missing, socks ripped and stained with dirt and blood, skirt weathered to threads at the end and thighs slashed. She can’t look you in the eye, “What the fuck happened to you?”

She flies forward, hands cradling your face. She can feel her heart in her stomach and throat simultaneously.

You’re so out of it, your eyes don’t even seem to be seeing her. They stare straight through, like she’s not even there.

You smile and that’s when she sees the blood staining your teeth, it spills out between your split lips and you giggle when she gasps.

“Oh my God,” she backs away, head on a swivel to find the paper towels, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God- “

You wrap your arms around her waist, chin leaning on her shoulder and temple pressing to her cheek, “Robin…”

“Yeah,” Robin extends her arm, fingertips just brushing the paper towels, “I’m Robin - and I’m gonna get you cleaned up. Then we’re going straight to the hospital,” she stops, “Or should we go to the hospital now? We should go to the hospital now.”

“Uh-uh,” you tut, squeezing her tighter, your tone drops a little lower - how it does when you flirt, “Are you scared?”

“Scared of you?” Robin tries worming from your grasp but you’re holding too tightly, “I’m not- I could never. But we need to go, right now. You’re really hurt and I can feel you bleeding on me and you’re- “

“Good,” you coo and stumble back. There’s a rumble, you belch, and then your jaw drops open - black mucus-tar amalgamation spills out. It spots and bubbles and Robin throws herself backward - spine cracking against the doorway. Her hands clamp over her mouth to muffle the scream that rips her throat sore.

Her eyes squeeze shut and she slides down to her ass, hands covering her ears. There are tears and her chest burns and she can’t breathe. The air is too thick and she squeezes into herself, as if it’d make her physically disappear.

She starts rocking. It’s all she can do.

This is a nightmare. A nightmare. A horrible fucking dream.

When she opens her eyes, everything is the same. The fridge door is tossed wide, there’s blood smeared on her counters and floor, and the thick muck you tossed up is spreading across her floor.

But you’re missing.

Bloody footprints lead from the fridge to the where kitchen meets hallway - then vanish. Her bat is gone, too.

“What the fuck?” her eyes bubble with tears and she collapses onto her side, legs pulled tight to her chest, “What the fuck?”

The room smells like death. It’s cold. So very freezing cold.

“Hey,” you look tired, books hugged tight to your chest as you approach Robin and Dustin at her locker.

“Hey,” Robin stares. Eyes almost cartoonishly popping from her skull.

She knows what happened was real. She spent hours cleaning and scrubbing and showering. Unless that was all part of the dream.

Jesus, Hawkins was fucked up if that was passing as a mere nightmare now.

Dustin nudges her with his elbow and shakes his head, then turns to you, “Are you… feeling alright?”

“God, no,” you frown and droop into the locker beside Robin’s, “I’m breaking out and I pulled out so much hair in the shower this morning. I thought I was about to go completely bald.”

“Maybe you should go home,” Dustin leans down to see your face when your head hangs, “You really don’t look good.”

“I’m fine, Dusty,” you pat the boy’s shoulder before turning to Robin, “I think I have to cancel tonight, though,” you pout and if it were a normal day, she’d just want to make that dismal expression go away, “Gonna stay in and hope whatever this is passes.”

“Oh, yeah,” Robin looks into her locker and pulls out a random textbook, she slams the door shut and clicks the lock back into place, “No worries, just…” you looked like something from a horror movie last night, “What happened last night? After you left.”

Dustin figures this conversation isn’t for him and wanders off when he spots Eddie in the crowd - wishing you well as he goes.

You shrug and scoot closer, “Normal stuff. I mean, nothing even happened with that guy,” you shouldn’t be lying, but it isn’t like she’d believe the truth, would she? “He figured I was a virgin and when I corrected him, he - like - demanded that I bring him home.”

But you didn’t correct him. Didn’t have the time. Didn’t get the chance.

Now you’re hoping that Robin figures last night was all just a nightmare - and from the look in her eyes, you know she’s teetering on that edge.

She wants to ask, you know that. You know her. If she wasn’t so terrified of speaking last night into reality, then she would. But asking would make it real. Outside of the gates and monsters and girls with telekinesis, Hawkins was normal and there was a certain level of abnormality that a person could take before they snapped.

And you and Robin both knew that this was just outside her limit. So she doesn’t ask and you don’t tell.

Instead, you yawn and shake your head to keep yourself awake, “Anyway, I gotta go to Mr. Peters’ math. See ya later?”

“Yeah,” she smiles, though. Her lip balm tints her lips a soft red and you like the way it looks. She accepts the kiss you press to her cheek, “See you later.”

In the meantime, you catch Sully Vacks outside of your shared first period. You drag him away from the door by the sleeve of his varsity jacket.

He looks at you weirdly and you already know it’s more about your lack of makeup than the fact you’re a living zombie wanting to take him somewhere private. Well, private-ish.

Sully isn’t a nice person. He dated your fellow cheerleader, Stacey Bennett, for a while and you knew firsthand about the explicit polaroid pictures he’d taken of her without her permission. And you knew secondhand how he shared them with the football team.

You can justify this to yourself. To what remains of your conscience.

“Do you have any plans later?” you tilt your head and gently run a finger over his bicep, “If not, I was thinking maybe we could… hang out?”

You put on the show of what boys like and you watch, half there and half out of control, as he dumbly falls into your line.

But you remember how much he hurt Stacey, and you can imagine she isn’t the first (or last) girl he’s hurt. So you decide that you can justify this meal to yourself.

Like a cheat day - he practically doesn’t even count.

“So,” Sully’s brows draw tight as he looks up at Skull Rock, “you bring all the boys here?” then he looks at you, “Or am I special?”

You simper and loop your arms around his neck, “Which do you prefer?”

“I like to think I’m special,” he leans down, nose nudging yours.

You nod slowly, “You’re very special, Sully.”

He practically collapses into your kiss and you’d be lying if you said it wasn’t amusing how desperate he was. Your hands settle over his chest, then sink lower, lower, lower until your fingers are grazing under his shirt.

“Is this okay?” you whisper against his lips, watching your work through your lashes.

Sully’s breath stutters before he nods, “More than okay.”

Your nails scrape his stomach, just enough to be there without hurting, “Good.”

Prey should be at ease before they die and prey should die quickly - it’s inhumane otherwise.

And the news spreads as Robin gets out of the double doors after the final school bell rings.

“Did you hear what happened?” Steve is glaring right at Robin, “No, I am not letting you walk home. Get in the damn car.”

“Steve,” Robin sighs, “how’d you even know I needed a ride? You stalking me now?”

He gives her a pointed look and she relents, throwing open the passenger door of his BMW and climbing in.

“I didn’t know you needed a ride but I wanted to make sure,” his brows furrow as he continues to wait outside the school, “Also heard your little girlfriend wasn’t feeling well.”

“She’s not- “ Robin smiles at the thought though and the retort dies under her tongue, “Also, what happened?”

“You didn’t hear?”

“Obviously not, dingus.”

“That varsity kid - Vacks? He…” Steve sounds winded, he worries his bottom lip between his teeth, eyes wide, “His torso was torn open. Literally. Apparently, it looked like something was eating him.”

“Oh my God,” Robin’s hands fly over her mouth, slowly lowering for her to ask, “Do they know what did it?”

“‘What’?” Steve shakes his head, “No. That’s the weirdest part. It wasn’t like a wild animal did because it wasn’t those wounds that killed him,” Robin tilts her head. Steve looks out at the double doors and honks when some of his kids pile out, “Something snapped his neck. He died fuckin’ instantly.”

He puts up a finger to preemptively shush Robin as Dustin leans into the driver-side window.

“What?”

Steve nudges his head toward the backseats, “Get in.”

“No way,” Mike folds his arms, “We have to get Will and go to Hellfire tonight, we can’t just skip it.”

“Eddie will literally kill us,” Lucas tacks on.

“I can name something else that will literally, actually kill you,” Robin pipes up, earning a glare from Steve.

Mike and Lucas come closer to the car and Steve can practically see their hearts in their throats.

“It doesn’t look good,” Steve sets both hands on the wheel, “We don’t know what did it, but… Sully Vacks was more or less turned into a Thanksgiving dinner.”

“‘Don’t know what did it,’” Lucas shakes his head, “Yes, we do! Obviously, we do!”

Steve spots Max in the throng of people exiting Hawkins High, “No. Hopper said it didn’t look like anything we’ve seen, but I don’t want to rule it out entirely,” he drags a hand down his face and briefly wonders when his gray hairs will grow in, “Ask Mad Max if she needs a ride, will you?”

“There won’t be enough room,” Mike points out.

“Then we’ll deal with it,” Steve grumbles, “Someone sits on a lap. I don’t care, you’re not staying late and I’m making sure you little shits get home.”

“I’ll go talk to her,” Lucas backs away, jogging over to where his girlfriend is sitting on the curb, fiddling with her walkman.

“How the hell did you even hear about this?” Dustin stands straight.

Steve rolls his eyes, “I may or may not have gotten a call that I legally can’t admit to,” his gaze darts between the boys to Robin, “From someone that may or may not have been Hopper.”

“Is El with him?” Mike asks, and Steve hates to see the way his face deconstructs in worry.

“Yeah, she’s with him,” Steve waves them off, “Go get Will and come right back. Do you hear me?” when they walk away with no confirmation, he shouts out the window, “I’ll hunt you all down, I’m not kidding!”

“You’re a regular Mama Bear, Steve,” Robin throws her head back against the rest, mind flooding with thoughts of you. More specifically, if your sudden change has anything to do with the possibility of the Upside Down being open again.

“These kids have seen too much,” Steve grips the steering wheel as Lucas approaches his car, “If possible, I want them as out of this whole thing as possible. If it’s even a thing,” his shoulders are tense and his mouth is distastefully dry, “Hopefully it’s just some psycho.”

But he doubts it.

Lucas leans down, one eye closed when the sun hits it dead on, “Max says Eddie can give her a ride. I’ll hitch with them, too, so your car’s not crowded.”

“Alright,” Steve nods, “Radio in when you’re home. Tell Max, too. I want to know you two are safe.”

“Yes, Mom,” Lucas rolls his eyes, waving off Robin as he walks away.

Will, Dustin, and Mike come upon the BMW. Will shakes his head vehemently, his hand brushes the back of his neck and he continues shaking his head.

Robin takes note of how at ease Will’s body is. As if everything, aside from this new paranoia, was totally fine.

Maybe this isn’t the work of the Upside Down. Which would usually be good - great, even - but it would raise more questions than it answered.

Who slaughtered Sully? Why would they do it? Why were you so suddenly ill? And what the fuck kind of dream did Robin have last night?

The Upside Down was officially ruled out as an option to the spectacle of violence when neither Eleven nor Will felt that it was open. Things were… safe.

You’re just glad Robin excused you from the meeting, on account of you being “sick”, before you could even hear about it. You don’t know how long and how hard you can lie, but you don’t plan on testing it out.

You give it a couple days before you return to Robin’s side at school.

And a good sum of weeks before forcing the whole thing out of your head.

Books hugged to your chest and preppy little cheer uniform on in eager wait for the pep rally and game later, you bounce up to Robin and slap a hand on her shoulder, “Boo!”

She gasps and jumps and glares when she realizes it’s only you, “You’re evil.”

“You’re just easy to scare,” you move and lean against the locker next to hers, “So…”

“So…?” she shuffles a couple books around, then flips down the cover to a mirror plastered on her locker door, peering into the glass.

“Prom is coming up,” you lean in close, grinning as she flounders for lipstick.

“Yeah, in two weeks,” she shrugs, “I know your schedule of tryouts for people to be your date is usually packed, but I am not so lucky.”

You roll your eyes and pull a garnet red lipstick from your bag, handing it to her over her shoulder, “I can only go with the people the general population would approve of, so that sucks.”

It was true, you couldn’t bring a girl to prom in the way Robin couldn’t. Unless it was as friends. But everyone knew that if you brought someone to prom as a friend, then you couldn’t dance the way you would want to dance with your date.

Except Robin, but that was more cowardice to confess than anything else.

“We could just go together?” you watch her apply your lipstick and you can hardly find it in yourself to tear your eyes away.

“Nah,” she sighs and caps the tube, “I don’t wanna screw up your chances of being prom queen.”

“Aw, don’t say that,” you accept the lipstick she holds out and replace it in your bag, “You wouldn’t mess up my chances. And it’s not like prom queen is that big a deal to me, you of all people should know that.”

“But this is our senior prom, if you didn’t win then I know you’d be bummed,” Robin shuts her locker and leans back against it. Her face dangles in front of yours like a carrot on a stick, “I might just make Steve bring me.”

“Ew,” your head thunks back on the metal, “I have no idea who I’m going with. All the boys here suck.”

“Are you just realizing?”

You shove her shoulder and huff while she laughs, “As true as that is, I can’t have my judgment mocked.”

“Oh, of course,” she shakes her head, “I’m so sorry, your highness.”

“I forgive you.”

Robin mocks a curtsy and swings her bag over her shoulder.

Things between you and Robin are different. You feel like she knows and she feels like you should know.

Over the same night, with two perspectives, you two are bound into different corners of the same room.

You want to tell her. You want help, you’re tired of fighting whatever it is inside you that tells you to feed. But you don’t want to drag anybody else into this - both for their safety, and yours. If you assume wrong, and there’s no way to help this curse, then you’re already dead.

Robin wants to tell you about her terrifying dream. Or at least, she’s decided it was a dream. She feels like you have a right to know, but you don’t. And also, what a peculiar thing it would be - to tell you about it. You weren’t even acting like yourself, it’d be childish to hold it against you. It is childish to hold it against you.

But there’s a pit in her gut no matter how badly she tries to shake it off.

“Wanna watch a movie together later?” but you’re so sweet and she adores you so much.

“Uh, sure, yeah,” Robin looks up at the ceiling as if it would tell her what’s in stock at Family Video, “Anything specific?”

You hum as you think and she’s always found that adorable about you, “Something cute. I don’t wanna think too hard after what happened.”

“I got you,” she promises, “I’ll get a great movie. No thinking required.”

“Awesome,” you stop outside Mr. Peters’ room, “Alright, I’ll see you at lunch, right?”

“Definitely,” she punches your shoulder, “as long as you remember where the band table is.”

“I remember, I remember,” you swat her hand away and set a hand on the doorknob, “See ya!”

Robin nods dumbly, grinning lovestruck as she waves, “See you later.”

Fifth hour is a mixed bundle.

On one hand, your lab partner is Robin! That’s exciting. On the other, your teacher is Mr. Gordon Vacks. Sully’s father. That’s exhausting.

You wonder, though, if he’d be pressing people to bring justice if he knew what his son was doing with explicit polaroids he took and showed without permission.

Would he even care?

Probably not.

You discovered at a young age that most fathers don’t care what their sons do as long as they can brag to their friends how smart or strong or funny he is.

It might be unfair to lump Mr. Vacks in with such a crowd, but you have yet to be proven wrong (aside from Wayne Munson, he was more of a father than most biological dads in your opinion).

Another study day is laid upon the students. Another day for Mr. Vacks to spend grilling teenagers about if they saw anything, what they heard, where they were, and whatnot without having to worry about actually lecturing.

There’s a sick, twisted glee trapped between the rungs of your ribs every time he mentions his son. It’s bizarre and you don’t like it, but there’s something undeniable about it.

Your hand pressed to your mouth just to hide your growing smile, you act like you’re reading from the study guide while he speaks with Trinity Liú about Sully’s death. She last saw him with Jason Carver.

Good.

A paper pricks the side of your arm and you jump slightly, calming when you see Robin trying not to laugh at you.

You roll your eyes and take the paper.

ouyay okayyay?

“Pig Latin, really?” you whisper and she shrugs, trying not to giggle while you translate.

You pass the paper back.

fine. just worried i guess

As if.

Sully was a bastard.

But did he deserve to die?

Duh. He was awful. He was only going to hurt more people.

Well yeah, but did he deserve to actually die?

Did he?

You’re not so sure anymore. It makes you sick.

Robin passes the paper back.

ouyay ooklay icksay

Huffing, your reply is quick.

write like a normal person

She concedes and crosses out her previous statement. Replacing it.

you look sick

Are you sick because of your cracking mind? Or is it because you’re growing hungry?

You tilt your head and shrug.

i’m fine

Liar.

Though, now that you think about it. It’s been a good month of peace since Sully had to die, and now - you hate to admit it - you do feel weaker. You got a paper cut after feeding last month and it healed instantly.

You look down at your hands now, where you cut yourself removing a staple in homeroom, and it’s still a fine line of puckered, dying skin.

“You can tell me anything,” she whispers.

Not this. Robin doesn’t want to know this - she doesn’t have to know this.

Your eyes flip across the room. Past Robin. Past Trinity. Onto Andy - one of Jason’s best friends. He hasn’t done anything to you other than be annoying, but you know he bullies your friends.

Well, Eddie’s friends that are your friends by association. And the freshmen, who you insist are your friends.

Robin leans forward, brows knit tightly and lips pursed, “What’s wrong? Seriously, you’re being weird.”

“I’m fine, Rob,” she doesn’t look convinced. Not at all, and you don’t blame her. Your hand finds hers under the table and you squeeze, “Really. I’m okay.”

She doesn’t let go of your hand, and you don’t let go of hers.

Robin hates this feeling. She hates distrusting you. She hates feeling like you’re lying - because that’s not you.

You're her best friend. You’re more. You’re her one. Her person.

“I’m here for you,” it's the last ditch.

You nod, “Thanks, but really. ‘m okay.”

And it falls through.

She hates distrusting you.

When the bell rings, you’re quicker than her to pack up. You rush after Andy and she can’t surmise why. You have never liked Andy, never so much as muttered about how he was even cute. Robin wishes she could just look inside your head and see what’s wrong.

Why’re you acting like this?

Or is she being paranoid?

She hates this.

Robin chooses to stay on the sidelines when she sees you pouring the sugar over Andy. She won’t tie you down when you two aren’t even dating, but there’s no chance she’s going to sit there and listen to you hook up a date.

Eventually, you’re back at her side, “Sorry. Had to make plans for tomorrow.”

“You can…” she sighs, “you can go tonight, if you want.”

“I don’t.”

“You sure?”

“Duh.”

It doesn’t fix what’s between you two - whether you’re hiding something or she’s paranoid - but it makes her beam. Pride and joy and love.

Movie nights are simple and easy.

This movie night is different.

You look awful - dried, bumpy skin and heavy bags under your bloodshot eyes. She doesn’t say anything, though.

“Okay,” Robin stands in front of your TV, holding up three videos, “We have: Sixteen Candles, Footloose, and Flashdance.”

“Uhm,” you wet your dried, cracked lips that persisted no matter how much balm you applied, blinking hazily, “Sixteen Candles.”

“Sucker for Ringwald,” she ‘tsk’s but pops the movie in all the same.

“Says the one who liked Vickie McNulty, that girl’s a carbon copy of Molly Ringwald. Have you seen Pretty in Pink yet? They’re the exact same.”

“Yeah, and I liked her. Past tense,” Robin emphasizes, returning to her rightful place beside you on the couch. She tosses an arm over the back and you drag yourself into the open space of her side.

Robin is warm while you shiver. Your skin is cold - like death. Like Aunt Shauna. She tries not to let it show and brings a family favorite throw blanket over the two of you.

Your eyes are already beginning to flutter shut and Robin can’t help but grin. There’s an adorable quality about you - no matter how tired or sick you look, there’s something in the air around you. Sunshine and bubblegum and a BFF necklace in the shape of a strawberry heart hidden beneath your shirt collar.

Robin checks the clock. The game isn’t for another two hours, she can let you sleep awhile.

But then you’re pawing at her shoulders, lips pouting and eyes pleading. The tactics you usually bulldoze through are now lathering thick over her like cement.

“What, uh,” she blanches, hands coming to entwine with yours, “what’re you doing?”

“Hm?” you simper, for real this time, “Playing.”

“Playing?” she quirks a brow.

You nod, leaning up to kiss her cheek again, but this time it’s different. No more friends and no more giggles. This is want.

Need.

You feel foggy, though. Like your actions aren’t yours and when you realize what’s coming, you also realize that they aren’t.

And when Robin’s caged beneath you on the couch, you’re entirely out of control.

The hunger is just a little too strong.

It’s need that makes you lean down - lips pressing to hers.

It’s want that makes her reciprocate.

Her hands are on your sides and you feel something burn at your skin. It's sparkling. Sensual and smooth. Robin keens into your lips and you feel a little better than before.

But Robin’s brows furrow and she pulls back.

She wants this, but it feels odd.

You don’t feel like you and this isn’t how she wants this to go down. But she also doesn’t want to outright reject you. So she settles for the middle.

A cowardly, stupid middle.

“Maybe not now,” she whispers, eyes avoiding yours.

You jump off of her and nod. You press your lips to gather the lasting taste of Robin’s watermelon chapstick, and you notice your lips are pillowy instead of rough. Your skin feels fuller. Firmer.

You think Robin notices by the way she stares at you. You look down at where you cut yourself removing that damned staple.

Completely healed.

“You can…” Robin clears her throat, “see him. If you want.”

You have to. You know that.

And rather than assume Robin is just conflicted, you accept this as rejection. Because what in God’s name would it be otherwise?

“Right,” you have a little under two hours until the game, “Right. Sure.”

“Sorry- “ Robin stands, hands outstretched for you when you begin walking away.

“It’s okay, Rob,” you pull on your shoes, head too full of thoughts about the next meal to even begin conceptualizing the fact that the girl you love is directly turning you away, “I’ll see you at the game.”

“See you at the game,” she wrings her hands, already regretting her decision, “Things don’t… they don’t have to change.”

“Yeah,” you pause before you leave, leaning over to press a cautious kiss to her cheek, “Bye, bye.”

“Bye,” she waves.

Why did she do that?

It felt wrong. Not the same kind of wrong in how it would if you had been high or drunk, but also not entirely different. It was like something was moving for you. She’s known you for a long time. She’s seen you - studied your movements and mannerisms and she knows how you behave.

She’s not being paranoid, there is something wrong and she’s convinced that the “nightmare” wasn’t a nightmare at all.

So why isn’t she stopping you from visiting Andy?

You wouldn’t hurt Andy. You’re a sweetheart, you wouldn’t. Bizarre happenings or not.

Robin doesn’t know what to do, so she calls Steve. Stupidly.

“What would you do if I told you someone was off?”

A few streets away, you’ve already got Andy on his knees at an abandoned construction site. You’re trying to think of things he’s said before. Things he’s done. Anything to justify this.

“Your girlfriend? Yeah, the whole group knows she’s been off her rocker lately.”

He’s pressing strangely kind kisses up your thigh as you wind a hand in his hair. It makes you salivate in sick and hunger all at once.

“She’s not my- ! Whatever, I’m just saying. I’m worried. I know we agreed that the Upside Down isn’t open but… I dunno. What if they were wrong?”

You kneel down to Andy’s level. You cup his cheeks in your hands - gentle and tender and loving. You bat your lashes and his lips quirk upwards.

“I guess. Maybe it took a new host?”

Your hands wretch his head. Sharp and quick. Prey shouldn’t suffer - it’s inhumane.

“Maybe. We shouldn’t mention this, huh?”

You feel disgusted. Just until your stomach growls and the hunger grows. No longer can you sustain yourself on watermelon kisses and sun-bleached hair and pretty freckles.

“Probably not. That sounds like a one-way ticket and I don’t think we’re ready to use it yet.”

There’s nothing you can think of. Not that you’re thinking while you eat. If you think while you eat then you have to present, and if you’re present while you eat - you think you might go completely mad.

“Right. I gotta go get ready for the game. I’ll talk to you later, Hair.”

Before he can get out a “don’t call me that!” Robin hangs up. There’s a dagger in her gut and she can only rub at the ache building behind her eyes - it’s overwhelming. It crashes over her - unlike the ocean as it fails to build. More like a firework, sudden and unforgiving. Bright. Loud.

It hurts.

Robin wanders to her room and tries to fight off the urge to check if her bat is there. She hasn’t looked out of fear. If it’s still missing…

She doesn’t even want to think about it, so she doesn’t. She thrives in blissful, selected ignorance. But a glance outside her bedroom window, still unclean of blood and split open, shows your car left on the curb. Abandoned. Not even the cherry charm you keep hanging on your rearview mirror is swinging. Completely untouched.

Robin, foolishly, saves her concerns until homecoming that night.

“Hey! Someone’s lookin’ better!”

You turn at the coo and smile sunshine bright at your favorite drug pusher, “Hey, Eds!” you wave him over with a pom-pom, “Thought games weren’t your thing?”

“They aren’t, but post-game athletes in need of recreational fun,” Eddie holds up his black lunchbox and jingles it in front of your face, “they are.”

Humming, you look over his shoulder to where the Hawkins band is lining up in front of the bleachers. Lips pressing and head tilting.

There should be enough time, and it’s not like you’ll have any fun with anybody else. Besides, if you go to prom with Eddie and Robin brings Steve - it’ll be a friendly reunion. A nice reunion. There should be enough time between feeds.

Your face falls.

Jason’s running around the gym. He asks basketball players, cheerleaders, teachers, band members, and stray students alike. Where’s Andy? Where’s Andy? Where’s Andy?

“Hey,” Eddie settles a hand on your shoulder, face gentle but prodding, “you good, bubble-brain?”

“Yeah,” you laugh, airy and tired, eyes fluttery, “Sorry. Just, uhm, worried. I guess. Nobody can find Andy.”

Eddie shrugs and purses his lips, as if he has no idea why that might be alarming, “Probably fucking off somewhere. ‘s gonna work out. He’ll be here.”

Robin bursts through the doors with Steve hot on her tail, she searches for something. Someone. You.

She grins despite the saran wrap bundled relationship you’re sharing and rushes to you. A keyring is looped around her finger, fitted with three keys - each one with a different fruit painted onto it - and a fluffy pink and white ball charm. Robin presses the keys into your chest, hand lingering just long enough for you to cage her hand there with yours.

Your heart thunders and you wonder if Robin can feel it. You wonder if she knows why.

“You left these at my house,” Robin mutters, eyes staying on your glossed lips just a little too long for a friend - for a girl, “along with your car,” her voice is a little raspier than usual, you like it, “You should really keep better track of your things.”

“Right, sorry,” you release her hand and hand the keys to Eddie, “I’ll pick it up tomorrow morning. I’m kinda… tired.”

“Of course,” Robin nods shortly, then takes you by the arm and drags you away from the boys, “Look, bunny, something is definitely up. And- and don’t. Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely…” she laughs, hollow, “I’m into you, that way. I like you, like, a lot. I think I’m crazy for you, actually. Just- I wanna get this all figured out before we start anything.”

Nothing will ever be figured out. Not really, anyway.

But you nod slowly because you don’t know how much longer you have to be with her like this.

“I get it, Rob,” you reach out and clench her hand, squeezing with a saccharine smile, “‘m still gonna flirt with you.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” she grins, bottom lip tugging between her teeth.

You’re not dumb - lots of people think you are, but you aren’t. You know that the demon sleeping inside you was satiated by Robin’s touch and you now choose to keep that in your back pocket.

You’ve never gotten full off of mere touch, so the fact it happened with Robin will be a last-ditch effort. A just in case. For the worst scenario. You don’t want her in this more than she has to be. If she has to be at all.

You leave her side, prancing off to the line of cheerleaders in front of the bleachers.

Robin watches, face screwed in wonder. She’s not dumb, either. She can hear Jason asking where Andy is. She knows you were more than likely the last person to see him alive. She knows something’s wrong.

Upside Down host or not, you’re you now. That’s unmistakable.

She watches from the band section as you cheer with the others. It’s you. She can feel it. There are times where she can’t. Where she senses something else. Something off. Like a store-brand coffee or a cheap copy of a dress.

Sometimes it’s you. Sometimes it’s a mix. Sometimes, rarely, it’s that dread from before. When you were keeping her down, she felt it. Darker. Twisted. A thick rainstorm, a deathly hurricane that smothers the sunshine.

But now, as you cheer on the Tigers and subtly wave to her with your sparkly green-and-yellow pom-pom - she knows you’re you. Undeniably and absolutely revocably you.

...

“Thanks again, Eds,” you’re in Eddie’s passenger seat by the end of the night. Your feet kick up onto the dashboard and twirl the ring Robin gave you around your finger, “So, how much did you make tonight?”

“You know, you’re lucky you’re cute,” Eddie pops you in the thigh with the back of his hand, “And I made a shitload. Haven’t counted it all yet, but - it was a lot. Not that you’re seeing any.”

“Aww,” you lean over the center console, pouting dramatically, “you’re so mean.”

“Go tell your girlfriend about it,” he smiles at you. Big and fake and dumb.

“Oh, you know what- “ you fold your arms, lashes narrowing at the metalhead. Then, your eyes go lax and hands fall into your lap, fingers now picking at a peeling edge of cotton candy tinted nails, “Do you really think she likes me?”

“You two are so oblivious.”

“Well, I mean, I know she does, it’s just…” you look out your window, watching trees skim past the skyline, “I dunno. Maybe it’s the childhood friends effect.”

“I’m gonna lose my mind,” Eddie shakes his head, eyes lingering on your side profile for just a second longer, “I feel like I’m listening to a bad rom-com,” when you stay silent, he sighs. Over-the-top and thoroughly done, “Even if it is the childhood friends effect, it’s still there, right? You two are still into each other.”

“Yeah.”

But for how long?

How long can you hold yourself together?

“Wanna go to prom?” your voice is a little too distant, a little too caught up in your own thoughts, “I mean, I’ll be with Robin, but we need someone to bring us and I figure you’re going anyway.”

You gesture to the backseat of the van where Eddie’s black, metal lunchbox has been tossed - originally onto the seat but it tumbled to the floor as soon as Eddie started driving. He should really get his driving under control.

“Wow, just call me a chariot next time,” Eddie mumbles, hands knocking on the steering wheel to the rhythm of the radio, “Sure, I’ll take you.”

“Great!” you punch the ceiling of his van, quickly earning yourself a glare that could kill, “Thanks a lot, Eds.”

“Mhm,” he slams to a stop in front of your house and holds up a fist, “Don’t get killed by whatever thing is hunting hot teenagers, alright?”

“Yeah, yeah,” you hope your voice doesn’t shake too much, hope your giggle isn’t too nervous, “You either, ‘kay?”

When you bump your knuckles with his, Eddie then moves to twirl his hair - voice drawling up comically higher to supposedly mimic you, “‘kay!”

“Oh, get a hobby,” you roll your eyes and hop out of the van, “Drive safe!”

“Never!” he shouts through the window, honking twice and speeding away.

You jump at the sound and flip Eddie off as he drives, fully knowing he may not even see it.

A few streets away, Robin is laid back in her bed. Eyes on the ceiling. She feels like she could call. Surely, you’re home. But the idea makes her sick - so she shuts her eyes and lets the thought die.

Her room is so cold.

Grossly so.

Robin doesn’t know how much time passes, but eventually, she falls into a fitful rest on top of her comforters. Cold and restless. Cold and unwelcome.

…

You’ve always been a firm believer that hell is just the day of prom. Over and over again. Even before recent developments that left you exhausted and drier than a bag of prunes without a good feed.

It’s a day chock full of last-minute promposals and athlete douchebags trying to somehow act too cool whilst begging you and your fellow cheerleaders to go with them. The begging is in subtext, but it happens nonetheless.

“You should probably skip that meeting with Ms. Moora,” Robin leans into you, watching as your gentle hands rub your temples, “Don’t look so good, bunny.”

“Yeah, I know,” you’re quiet, eyes scrunched at the volume of the cafeteria, “I feel like hell.”

Robin purses her lips, nodding while taking one of your hands and squeezing it, “Are you gonna be okay to drive?”

You sigh. Shrug.

“Yeah…”

You don’t have much of a choice.

Robin visibly cringes, “I dunno, you can barely keep your eyes open.”

“I’ll be fine, Rob,” you huff, ripping away your hand to cover your eyes, “Sorry. I just. I don’t feel good.”

“I figure,” she laughs dryly, the glee dropping from her face just as quickly as it’d arrived, “Sorry, I’m only worried. You’ve been acting really weird lately, and with the… you know, everything going on. I have a bad feeling.”

“I’m fine, Robin,” you groan and lean back, head tilting towards the ceiling, “Really.”

“But how do we know?”

“The only victims have been boys, right? That’s gotta mean something.”

“Well, yeah, but still. Don’t you care?”

“About a couple douchebag athlete dickheads getting ripped open? No, not really.”

Robin pulls back, eyes wide, “What?”

You pry your hands down from your face, giving the confused Robin a once over, “What?”

“Dude,” Robin shakes her head, “how could you say that?”

Robin wasn’t ever a fan of the Hawkins’ meatheads, but there’s something about the venom with which you said such a thing. The way you’re so apathetic. It’s not you.

“It’s just…” you toss your hands up, “boys! Stupid, asshole boys. What does it even matter? There are a thousand other jocks just like them.”

“Okay,” Robin guffaws in disbelief, “but this isn’t like you. They’re still people. You just… I don’t- “

“People change, Robin,” you rub your cheek and groan at how dry it feels, your stomach stinging with emptiness, “It’s totally not a big deal.”

“Are you sure?” Robin furrows her brows at you, “I don’t like this change.”

“Well,” you stop yourself.

You cover your mouth as your brain finally catches up to what you just said. What the fuck did you just say?

“I don’t…” you blink, slow and tired, dazed and confused, “I’m sorry- I don’t know why I said that…” Robin leans down to lock eyes with you, taking your hands in hers, “Any of it. I don’t know why I said any of it.”

Robin cups your cheek, gently rubbing a thumb over your cheekbone, “I think you should have your parents call you out of school.”

Your cheeks are sullen and eyes sunken. You look dead.

Something in the back of Robin’s head whispers. Aunt Shauna.

“They’re both at work,” you run a hand over your face, frowning as you pull the hand away, “I could probably just leave now.”

“Will you be okay to drive?” you stand, pressing Robin down by the shoulders when she tries following.

“I can ask Eds, he doesn’t plan on coming back after his stupid lunch deals,” you nudge your head towards the Hellfire table - noticeably lacking in a boisterous leader.

“Alright,” Robin chews her bottom lip, reaching under the collar of her Jem and the Holograms T-shirt, “Hey.”

She holds up her half of a strawberry heart BFF necklace.

You smile, earnest but exasperated, and pull out your own half of the necklace - bending down to click it in place with hers.

“We’ll be okay, right?” Robin wants to go back.

Before your stupid band and before Sully Vacks got killed.

But you lie.

“Yeah, we’ll be okay,” you kiss her cheek, leaving it faintly red in your lipstick’s stain, “See ya.”

“See you later,” she can’t help but feel like there’s something missing.

Torn out and shredded.

You find Eddie at his infamous picnic table in the woods, finishing up a deal with Stacey Bennett. Excitedly, he waves you over.

“The queen of Hawkins High! How can I help you?”

“Can you give me a ride home on your way out?” you sit next to Eddie and plop your head on his shoulder, “I feel like slush.”

“Aw,” he pouts, packing up his lunchbox of drugs, “muck, even?”

“Mucus, actually,” you giggle when he gasps, apparently horrified.

“Alright, get her started for me,” Eddie hands over his keys, and you grin, jangling them as you skip off to his prized van.

Robin can’t shake the feeling that something isn’t right.

It persists even as she gets a ride home from Steve. Even as she gets in her pantsuit for prom. Even as she applies her makeup. It burns, eating at the fraying edges of her brain. Or what’s left of it, at least.

A few streets away, you slam your window shut and shake your head at how long you must’ve left it open. No wonder your room is practically freezing cold. That’s it.

You turn back towards your open closet and pull down the dress you’d picked out with Robin mere days ago. It’s a salmon pink affair to go with her baby pink pantsuit. Eddie will be in his usual attire with the addition of a blazer and aggressively neon pink tie. You hear Steve bought a hideously Barbie pink suit because he lost a bet to Robin.

It’s a beautiful dress. Dips and hugs where you want it to - lacing on the skirt (which falls to your ankles perfectly).

You catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror. Absent eyes. Irritated skin. Lips chapped. You look ill. So unlike yourself that it’s hard to believe this face was ever yours. You can’t stop staring, though.

It’s odd.

It’s you.

You’re hungry.

Just to punctuate the damn thing, your stomach rumbles - your head feels light and for a split second, you can’t see. You stumble, one hand flying out to catch yourself on the vanity and the other clutching your dress.

You wish you never went to The Hideout.

You need to feed quickly. You don’t want to think about the people you’d be hurting. Your friends. Robin. Last time was too close a call, you can’t possibly risk it again.

A sharpness hits your gut like you’ve been pierced, you whine and fall to your knees. Your mouth runs dry and you can feel your muscles twitch.

You need to feed quickly.

Eddie had a crush on you last year - you know that. You feel bad because you like Eddie as a friend and want him happy, but that can never be you. Something inside you, though, can’t stop thinking about it.

The way he looked at you. How he’d bend over backwards for you. How he still lets you put your heel-clad feet on the dashboard of his van.

“Hey, pull up here,” you’ve got half of a BFF necklace pulled up to your chin, pressing the cold metal against your skin.

Eddie concedes, looking over at you, “Alright, bubble-brain, what’s going on up here?”

He pokes your temple twice before you catch his hand - he laughs when you glare.

“Wanna check out the abandoned pool house?” you nudge your head in the direction of the aforementioned pool house. Moss bitten and vine slathered. It’s cracking the higher you look and kids like to dare each other to go inside on Halloween.

“Mmm, I dunno,” Eddie rests his elbow on the center console, chin digging into the meat of his palm, “We sort of have somewhere to be.”

“So?” you lean forward, nose at his cheek, grinning when he flushes, “C’mon, there’s fun to be had before prom.”

He backs away, arms folding. He’s trying to smile like this is lighthearted, like he isn’t half considering it and half afraid of you laughing in his face.

“What about Robin?” his brows furrow. Tongue pressed to cheek.

“What about Robin?” you run the half-heart charm over your lip.

“No,” Eddie laughs again, but he’s breathless, “You- no. No way.”

“Eds,” you puff out your bottom lip, “Eds.”

“No,” he’s firmer this time, “Alright, we can check out the pool house, but nothing is happening, do you understand? I don’t know what the fuck your problem is right now, but you’re being weird.”

“Nothing’s my problem,” you roll your eyes and hop out of his van, speaking before shutting the door, “Now, let’s go before we’re late.”

Eddie watches you cross the yard, you stop before the door and turn back to him. Calling and waving your hand impatiently. He reaches into his glove box and pulls out a walkie-talkie Dustin forced him to start carrying (not that he knows why, but when it comes to Henderson, it’s easier to simply go with it). He keys into the proper signal before calling out.

“Harrington? Come in, Harrington. I know you like dressing yourself up, but this is gonna be important.”

…

Robin looks at the walkie, then where Steve is still in his bathroom - eyes narrowed at his reflection and fingers burying in his hair every two seconds.

“Hello,” the ‘o’ is stretched out, “pretty boy, I’ve got serious shit going on.”

It’s Eddie. Robin might not be allowed to get into Steve’s shit, but this seems like a fine exception. So she grabs the walkie off Steve’s desk and tunes in.

“Eddie? It’s Robin, what’s going on?”

“Your girl is actin’ fucking weird. We’re stopped at the pool house. I think you two should hurry here before she decides to leave.”

Robin drops the walkie and darts out of Steve’s room. If she was thinking a little more clearly, a little less pressed for time, a little smarter - she would’ve dragged Steve to his car.

But she’s got that bad feeling and Eddie might be in trouble and you might be the cause.

She fucking knew she wasn’t paranoid. She knew something was wrong.

You were the last person to talk to Andy, and she knew that and she kept quiet because she didn’t want to be wrong. No, she wouldn’t have been wrong - she knows that now and she knew that then. She just didn’t want you getting caught.

There has to be something else. There’s no other option.

Her feet ache in the platformed dress shoes she stuffed herself into - but she doesn’t stop running. Her lungs are fucking burning and her legs are screaming at her to stop.

Something told her it was wrong. She saw you at the end of the hall - she saw you grab Sully’s sleeve and she could feel it when you trapped her against the couch. You looked like she’d never seen you - like you were twisted. Inverted and crushed and ground up and spat back out. No life. No warmth.

She should’ve listened to the whispers.

Aunt Shauna.

You’re not you. You’re not human.

…

“I’m telling you right now, bubble-brain, if you don’t let go - I might think you’re gonna try something.”

“Hm? And if I do?”

“I already told you, nothing’s happening.”

Your hands have found a place on Eddie’s sides, he can feel your nails through his layers of clothes. Your face pressed to his back.

“No fun,” you pout. Your stomach growls - stronger, louder, more vicious. You pry yourself away to clutch at your tummy, “God- fuck-!”

Eddie turns, eyes wide, “Are you…” his hands hover just above your shoulders, “What’s wrong?”

“Hungry…” you collapse into his chest, forehead pressing into his neck, “So hungry, Eds. ‘m so weak. Can barely fight.”

“The hell’re you fighting?” he tries laughing, really tries, “I doubt it’s that serious, bubble-brain.”

“Can you help me?” your jaw feels loose. Hanging by a string of muscle, the bones detached. Tongue dry and numb and gut clenching, “You’re a good friend, right? You care about me? We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“Of course, we are,” he pulls you back by the shoulders and if you were just a little stronger then maybe you could’ve broken away like you did with Robin, “We can go eat right now. Where do you wanna go? I’ll use that game money to buy you anything you want.”

“Eddie…” you groan miserably, another growl and it rocks through you - a whole-body spasm. You snap forward at the hips as you yelp in pain. It’s like having that stupid bowie knife locked and twisted and dragged through your stomach again and again and again.

Your hands come back up to his sides, beneath the overcoat. Fingertips skimming up his shirt.

“I’m sorry,” you bury your face into the crook of his neck, nails digging sharply into his ribs and keep sinking even when he grabs at you and tries pulling away. Even when he screams - even when he rushes you into the wall. You take it and you don’t know how much longer you can, “I’m so sorry.”

It’s desperation and agony and you don’t think you can live like this anymore.

You can’t justify this life - you want to stop but you’re too scared to die.

Or rather, too scared to find out what happens if you stop trying to drown out whatever thing inside you feeds on flesh. At least this way you control the meal. Somewhat.

But now you’re picking Eddie.

Eddie is your friend.

You scream as he does and you hope someone finds you two. You hope they shoot you through the back and pierce your blackened heart.

He bleeds.

“Bunny!”

You dart away from Eddie at the sound of her voice.

Not her. Anybody, sure. But not her. Not Robin. The only one who loves you instead of the cheerleading prom queen, the only one you love. She can’t see you like this.

Her sweet, rasped voice carries outside and you hide in a dark corner; Eddie collapses back into the wall with hisses of pain and Robin smashes through a cracked, spotted window.

Robin crashes in with glass scraping her knees, slicing through the legs of her clothes. Her eyes find you though - just like they do at every party and the cafeteria and friend get-together. She finds you. Under the grime and darkness, she sees you.

“Bunny,” one hand scrambles in hidden view while the other reaches out for you, “you can come out, sweetheart, come on out.”

You try. You move an inch before Eddie gurgles in pain and your stomach wretches.

It’s too much. Why did she ask before shooting?

It should’ve been Nancy that found you.

“Robin!” you wrench back, hands covering your ears and eyes clenched. Your back hits the wall and you slide down to your ass, “Robin, Robin, Robin- !”

Robin runs to you, her shaky hands try and steady on your shoulders, “It’s okay,” she laughs, hollow and dry, eyes heavy, “it’s okay, I’m here. I’m here, bunny.”

“I don’t like this,” you whimper, legs pulling up as close to your chest as possible, “I hate this- “ you gasp and sputter, a scream is building beneath the surface, “I’m not me.”

“You’re you,” she presses a kiss to your forehead and her arms come around your neck, “You’re you right now, right?”

You nod weakly, hands coming down and winding into her overcoat, “I’m me.”

“You’re okay, bunny,” she kisses your temple and gently pries you away from the wall. Your back is exposed, “Everything will be okay…”

You sniffle and bury your face into the crook of her neck, “Robin- I- I don’t know what to do…”

She nods. Silent. Because she knows that if she opens her mouth now, everything will come spilling out.

“Robin, what do I do?”

Robin’s face scrunches and she kisses your cheek, “I’ll take care of it, bunny. Just let me take care of it, ‘kay?”

You go lax in her arms, a smile - finally, a real smile - spreads over your lips and you hug yourself impossibly closer. Her voice, raspy and scratchy and comforting, lulls you in like a siren’s song. And you hurdle towards her song like a lovestruck pirate - you hurdle right towards the whirlpool.

And you drown.

Robin cringes when you screech, but she digs the glass deeper into your back.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry- !”

Your hands scramble to her shoulders and you push and push and push until you can finally squirm out of her arms. You fly back into the wall, nudging the glass deeper. Your head rocks back and thuds into the dirt-caked surface as you scream.

You yank the glass shard from your back and watch the blood glint in the moonlight that leaks through cracked windows. Your eyes hesitantly flutter to Robin and you hate what you’re met with.

Wide eyes and heaving chest. She’s terrified. Terrified of you.

Then you look at Eddie. Bleeding and writhing in pain. His eyes can barely stay open long enough to properly watch you.

What have you done?

What have you done?

You drop the glass shard and it shatters across the concrete floor.

You like Eddie. He’s a good friend and a sweet person - an angel right to his core. If there was no way to justify hunting Andy and Jason - how in God’s name could you do it now?

Your knees ache when they hit the floor - a pain that rings up your thighs and nestles into your pelvic bone. Your forehead rests on the cold stone, dangerously close to the glass and you feel your stomach tighten. It growls and you wrap your arms around yourself.

“I’m hungry,” you whisper, head moving so your chin is on the floor and you’re staring right at Robin, “So, so hungry…”

“Why didn’t you come to me?” Robin clatters forward, on her hands and knees, face lowering to yours, “You were full with me, right? Why didn’t you just come to me?”

Your lip wobbles and you can feel the budding fears rise to the surface.

Months pretending. Months wasted trying not to think about it. It’s not real. The missing posters, the blood you scrub away, the voice in the back of your head - none of it is real. The suffering, the hunger, the violence, all because some shitty metal band mistook you for their ethereal virgin. All because they wanted fame more than they valued their fellow man.

“Don’t wanna hurt you, Rob…” your eyes burn and there are tears that drag down your face, “Didn’t wanna risk hurting you…”

“You wouldn’t,” she cups your face, brows furrowing, “We- “

Eddie comes to a stand, still leaning against the wall, still cupping his hands over his bleeding sides.

“We can go.”

You and Eddie both look at Robin, but her eyes are trained on you.

She can’t go through with it. Not you, she can’t lose you.

You’re sunshine and bubblegum and a BFF necklace in the shape of a strawberry heart hidden beneath a shirt collar. You’re her one. Her person. The burger to her fries. The Juliet to her Romeo.

“We can go, bunny,” her hands fret over your face and she lifts you onto your knees, “No more Hawkins.”

“What about the others?”

She shakes her head.

“What about Steve?”

Robin has said it herself. Her and Steve are Platonic soulmates with a capital ‘p’. She isn’t very sappy, but sometimes when it’s his birthday or is feeling especially emotional, she spills it all. To you, to Steve. To anybody who’ll listen.

If you’re her person, Steve is her schmuck. If you were to drop dead, Steve would be your eventual replacement. The mere step-bestie.

They’ve gone to war together, been interrogated and tortured together, almost died together. Steve is more than a brother, he’s the entire family.

Robin steels herself and tries to shrug off the weight she’s slinging over her shoulders as she says, “What about Steve? There’s a million people like him, but… but there’s only one you, bunny.”

You don’t believe her, and you can tell that she doesn’t even believe herself.

“I should’ve never gone to that fucking bar…” you heave, throat tight and stomach aching, “Those fuckers - Robbie - tried sacrificing me as a virgin and now I’m- “ you reach for Robin’s leg, thumb brushing over the exposed red lines of where she cut her knees on the glass, “I don’t know what I am, but it isn’t human.”

“Just stay with me,” Robin picks up your jaw, cradling your head tenderly and forcing you to lock eyes with her, “If I can help, I will. You feel full with me, so just be with me, bunny.”

“What if I hurt you?” you sniffle, eyes wet and body limp, “I can’t- “

“You won’t,” Robin kisses your cheek, “And if you do, we’ll deal with it together. You’re strong, bunny, you’re smart - I know you can handle this.”

Your turn towards Eddie, “He knows.”

Robin’s hands go to your shoulders, pulling you tight to herself, tucking your head into the crook of her neck. She stares at Eddie. Pleading and weak and uneasy.

“Munson, I know you haven’t been around for a lot of Hawkins’ shit like we have, and we’ll explain later - but just- “ her breathing is shaky, she shakes her head, “Please, this wasn’t her. I swear, this wasn’t her.”

Eddie is silent. It’s bizarre. He looks between the two of you.

He doesn’t know where to go. What to say. He wants the old you back, whenever you changed he doesn’t know but he wants you back. He doesn’t even know if that’s entirely possible. He doesn’t know what to say.

How does he laugh this off? How does he wave this away? This isn’t you mistakenly hitting a fence when he was trying to teach you how to drive. It’s more than you passing out on his bed after a late night. Bigger than accidentally missing Corroded Coffin’s gig at The Hideout.

Robin hugs you closer, “I know we’re not best friends, but you have to know - it’s Hawkins. She’s sick with whatever fucked up curse is here.”

Eddie stands up from the wall, he pulls his hands away from his side to inspect the blood there. He’ll live, most assuredly, but he doesn’t know how long it’ll take him to forgive this.

Should he forgive this?

His hand shakes as he points at you - past Robin and right at where you’re trying to hide, “I want an explanation… and- and answers for whatever Hawkins’ curse you’re talking about.”

“Will you keep quiet?” Robin’s trying so hard to sound like she has the power, but it’s all bravado she never mastered. She’s pleading. Begging.

You look at him now. Shaking and horrified. You don’t look like the girl he knows.

“Yeah,” so he submits, hands raising in surrender, “I’ll keep quiet.”

He slides back onto the ground and Robin turns your head to her, she smiles and you try to return it. You really, really do try. But you’re tired and you’re hungry and you want to disappear from his pool house. From the world where you’ve done what you have.

“You’re starving, huh, bunny?” Robin brushes a thumb over your bottom lip before kissing you, “We should take care of you.”

“Do you hate me?” you clutch at her despite the question, desperate to keep her close even if she does, “For the… for what I did…”

“No,” Robin kisses you again, hungrier, harder, “Not at all, bunny.”

Dare she say it, she loves you.

And one day, you’ll tell her you love her back.

“Come on,” she stands and you take her hand. She squeezes - your skin is warm. You’re you, “Let’s get you taken care of, bunny.”

You’re warm.

[gaybitchfx]

Character(s): Mikey

Type of reader: M!Reader

Category: Angst

Warning(s):

Edited: ❌

Idea from: @reallyromealone

Parts: P2

Note: Just in a shitty mood don’t mind me 🙂

“Why the hell are you leaving Toman, Mikey?!” You asked the male with surprised eyes.

“I don’t have to give you a reason, Y/n. I just want to.” Mikey said as he folded his arms and didn’t bother looking you in the eyes.

“Oh yes you do! You created Toman for fucks sake. Why would you just go ahead and abandon it just to create something that will never have the same meaning?!” You shouted at him and slammed your foot down on the concrete ground.

“I thought you cherished it more than anything..” Mikey exhaled through his nose before turning his head to look at you and unfolded his arms.

“I think we should break up as well while I’m here.” Mikey said making your body freeze in place.

“���what..?” You said. “You’re joking right?” You were beyond shock. Mikey wanted to leave a gang he created and also leave you? How absurd.

“I’m serious, Y/n. It’s best if we end things here and you forget about me. I have to leave anyways. Goodbye.” Mikey did as he said and left. But you didn’t move from the spot you were at until rain started pouring down hard.

Slowly, you walked and walked, not knowing where you’d end up till you arrived at a familiar door. It was Takemitchi’s house door. You rang the bell and waited a couple seconds till the door opened.

“Who- Y/n?! What are you doing out in the rain?! It’s pouring out here you’ll catch a cold!” Takemitchy screeched, his eyes widened from being worried and surprised. He pulled you inside and quickly got you a towel to put over yourself.

“Are you okay?” He asked. Just from those three simple words, your eyes had started filling up with tears and your burst out into sobs. “What’s wrong? Are you in pain?” Takemitchy asked and rubbed your back not caring if it’s wet.

“H-…He broke up…with me..!” You sobbed out making your cries louder than before. Takemitchy knew just by you saying ‘he’ it was Mikey. Takemitchy carefully led you to a chair in which you sat down on.

“Everything’s alright Y/n…breath.” Takemitchy hushed you as he tried his best to calm you down, but it didn’t really work.

Having someone you’ve known since elementary and dating in middle school all the way to high school only for them to end things there felt like thousands of needles stabbing into your heart. It was unbearable.

Takemitchy had given you some tea in which you took a couple sips of after your sobbing session died down a little bit and all you did was small sniffles and whimpers. Later on once you completely calmed down you looked numb. 

“Yeah..I tried giving him something to eat but he wouldn’t even look at it. He would just stare at the wall.” Takemitchy told Chifuyu over the phone.

“I seriously can’t believe Mikey would just abandon him like that. He knows how much Y/n cherishes him.” Chifuyu sighed. “I’m going home..” You suddenly said as you got up from the couch.

“Wait! You’re not even mentally ok right now Y/n. Please just stay here for a little bit longer..” Takemitchy said as he quickly went over to you and stopped you from going to the front door.

“Just move, Takemitchy.” You pushed him aside and he didn’t bother to interfere as he watched you leave and walked to the direction of your home.

Once you arrived back to your house, you kicked your shoes off and walked to your room.

You had changed out of your previous wet clothes and laid down on your bed curled into a fetus position before turning on your phone and went straight to the messages which consisted of a couple Toman members, your family and friends, and…Mikey.

You hesitantly pressed on his name and tried typing something only for a message that said you’re blocked to pop up in bold red letters and that’s when your phone turned off due to not being charged.

You moved your face to your pillow muffling a choked sob as all the good memories and bad memories flooded back in.

No matter how bad those times were with Mikey you loved them and kept them close.

[ribcageeater]

The M lore. Hand it over 🗡️🗡️🗡️

:3 you want Emmy lore? It got pretty long so M lore under the cut

M was born in 2000, they're name at the time was Dorothy Martin. He was the second child, his brother Micha Martin. M and Micha lived with their parents, Adam and Evelyn in the middle of rural Vermont, the closest place to their little house was a diner that was 3 miles away.

Here's a doodle I made a while ago

Micha worked at a "nearby" farm, the farm was like 5 miles away but Micha had a truck to drive so it wasn't a big deal.

Micha and M were left alone by their parents when M was 12, and Micha also left to work for the foundation a little after Thea, M's little sister (trans) was born.

M was left alone at 13 to care for a toddler and also finish middle school since middle school is mandatory in Vermont but high-school isn't. He got a job at that diner I mentioned making 8 dollars an hour washing dishes plus a portion of whatever tips the waiters made.

As you can guess M was extremely poor and exhausted all the time, if the chefs in the diner weren't giving M food he probably wouldn't have eaten anything but shitty school food, and even then he was in a shit ton of lunch debt.

It got worse when Adam and Evelyn came home to drop off baby Carrie, so now M has to feed a two year old and an infant somehow, but Adam and Evelyn are now sending him a bit of money every month, it's not enough but it's something.

M started making wine from the wild black berries near his house and selling it to the other kids at school in secret when he was 14, since it was easy to do and most of the other kids at school didn't know how easy it is to make.

Micha came home when Carrie turned 1, M was understandably pissed off that Micha kinda just left but he couldn't stay angry because Micha is his older brother, the person who cooked for him and read bedtime stories because their parents didn't care.

And M is no longer selling wine because Micha is bringing money in from the foundation job M doesn't know about. M is living comfortably for the first time in a while and he's finally feeling all the fear he was repressing when he was the only one taking care of Thea and Carrie.

At 16 M was introduced to the foundation by Evelyn who suddenly showed back up in his life and M was expected to go to a foundation run School, he only agreed because Thea and Carrie were in a foundation elementary school and daycare respectively and they were allowed to do things all the other kids were allowed to because they are no longer one paycheck away from being homeless during Vermont winters.

Thea was found out as anomalous in 3rd grade when she went to check on her friend that skinned their knee and she healed the injury on accident, she was contained and told that she would be using her "super powers" for good if she helped the foundation heal people.

M had just started college at this point and was finally making friends since he wasn't working all the time. He got in with "the wrong crowd" and ended up hanging out with shitty people. He had a Shitty College Boyfriend™️ named Anthony who I will get into in another post.

Fresh out of college due to nepotism, M got a job at the foundation and also changed his name to Daniel instead of Dorothy unaware that his name is going to be scrubbed clean from everything pretty soon.

Wow that was a lot, congrats for making it so far, sorry if this is all over the place lol

[floralegia]

thinking about steddie childhood friends AU

So I love the enemies-to-lovers nature of Steddie, like, deeply in my soul, but also I love to invert things so my brain kept turning this concept over in my head and now here we are.

So, I'm seeing like... Steve somehow ends up out of his parents' supervision as a, like, let's say nine-year-old, or something like that. I kind of see Steve in general as the kind of kid who probably didn't have a lot of friends until middle/high school? I can't explain this vibe, but to me the whole latchkey kid thing kind of lends itself to not really having many friends in elementary school, you know, until such a time as being a rich jock is something the other kids really start to take notice of. I don't know, I'm spitballing.

So that Steve -- a Steve who is basically, like, horrifically lonely, but is too young to even really fully grasp his own loneliness -- ends up wandering around a park in Hawkins on his lonesome on a too-hot, too-sticky summer day, when most of the other kids are too smart to be outside in the late-afternoon sun, when it's so hot you could fry an egg on the sidewalk.

Except. There is one other kid there. He's kind of just lurking on a piece of playground equipment, sulking, limbs dangling -- he looks like he must have had a hell of a recent growth spurt, all tall and spindly. He has a frankly ugly buzzcut, patchy and scraggly, and he has this look on his face like he'd probably punch anyone who tried to talk to him.

So, obviously, Steve goes over to try and talk to him.

(What Steve dose not know: this is an Eddie Munson who is waiting at this stupid park because his uncle is in the law office up the block, trying to make sure he's gonna be okay to keep custody since Eddie's dad is in prison and his mom is long gone, and Eddie had gotten too twitchy and mutinous and started pulling leaves off the plants in the waiting room, and so Wayne had asked-but-really told him that maybe he'd have a better time waiting at the park, and Wayne'd come get him just as soon as he was done with the suits.)

Hawkins is small enough that Steve's able to pretty confidently say, "I don't know you," meaning it as a sort of "oh, you must be new in town, what's your name?" Except Eddie, obviously bristles, and says, "What, are you the king of this shitty place?"

That kind of impresses Steve, because frankly not a lot of kids he knows would swear like that, and it's enough to inspire him to plunk himself down on the merry-go-round mere inches from this stranger.

"Of course not," he says, and doesn't miss but doesn't quite understand the look Eddie gives him, the way he takes in Steve's neatly pressed little rich-kid outfit, so different from Eddie's worn-out, too-big hand-me-down shirt and jeans with holes in the knees so big they're really more hole than pant at this point and his shoes that are held together with duct tape on the sole. "I'm Steve."

He stares at Eddie so long and so expectantly that eventually, begrudgingly, he gets a mumbled "Eddie" in return.

"Eddie," Steve repeats, nodding like it's somehow meaningful, then tilts his head at him. "You are new, though, right?" When Eddie just narrows his eyes, he presses, "Did you just move to Hawkins?"

That's too close to the quick, and Eddie just scowls at him. "What does it matter to you?"

Steve shifts a little, taken aback, but he's relatively undeterred. "Nothing, I guess. I'm just curious, 'cause I'm pretty sure I'd remember if I'd seen you before."

And Eddie wants to bristle and spit at that too, wants to take it as a sneering insult without stopping to think, but -- there's something a little to wide-eyed and earnest about Steve's expression, about the way he's smiling just a little, almost tentative. About the way he's still sitting so close, hasn't shifted away at all, even though Eddie's still glaring at him like he might start throwing punches any second now.

So, eventually, he relents.

"'m new," he grudgingly assents, shifting a little in place. The bare skin of his leg brushes the blazing-hot metal of the merry-go-round through one of the holes in his jeans, and he winces, automatically dragging his knee up to his chest defensively.

Steve winces in sympathy, then drags his foot against the ground, digging a trail in the dirt with the toe of his shoe. "That's cool," he says. He hesitates for a long moment, in which Eddie shoots him a mildly suspicious look, before he says, with a commendable degree of faux-casual smoothness for a nine-year-old kid, "So, I guess you don't really know many people in town, then?"

Eddie, bright for his age and already way too used to parsing the things people say to figure out what it is they want from him, narrows his eyes. "No," he says, very slowly. "I mean, I don't know anyone."

It's the right thing to say, apparently, because Steve perks up immediately. The smile that transforms his face in the next heartbeat is so bright it puts the sun to shame.

"That's not true," he says, and reaches across the no-man's-land between them to gently sock Eddie on the arm. "Now you know me."

And Eddie -- even with every dark thought swirling in the back of his mind, all the shit with his dad and his uncertainty about moving in with his uncle and the knowledge that he's alone here in Hawkins, that he's going to be the odd one out and there's nothing he can do about it -- finds he isn't capable of resisting that smile. He tries, he really does, but after a few seconds of fierce internal struggle, he ends up smiling right back. It's tentative, a little shaky, and it shows off his chipped front tooth, but it's a smile all the same.

"I guess so," he says, and he won't understand for a long time yet why it makes butterflies dance in his stomach.

[kiraridertime03]

Finding my Visibility: A Ramble-y Writing

I hope you don’t mind this post here, it’s a bit personal, but I’ve needed to crystallize some thoughts, especially given what today is. I hope you don’t mind.

I created this little blog to act as a way to express myself properly. My realization of, well, being trans in some way, has only come very recently, within the past few months, really. It has been a long, awkward process. About 3 years worth of on and off questioning has led me to this conclusion, with some especially interesting breakthroughs getting me here. However, I am not really in a position where I can easily just come out to those around me. Making little bits online like this, even if I’m not especially social about it, has been especially affirming for me.

You know, it’s funny. Like many others I’ve seen, I did do little affirming things before “figuring it out.” Back when I first got to High School, I decided to start growing out my hair. In part, it was a pre existing bit of rebellion, what little I could do. I was taken to Catholic schooling all my life, and in my combined elementary and middle school, part of the dress code was hair length. Girls had to have long hair and boys had to have short hair, excluding certain cultural things that would probably get them sued. This did lead to a funny childhood slip where I determined gender primarily on hair length, leading to me being really confused by girls with short hair. However, my High School, while still being Catholic, let up on long hair. Therefore, on a whim, I decided to grow my hair out, spurred on further by seeing one senior with extremely long hair. I rationalized it by saying I didn’t like haircuts, mainly the prickly feeling I would have for the rest of the day around my collar. Now I see that it was more so that I found more negatives than positives in going to get my hair cut short at SportsClips. 

I say this because, towards the start of my questioning, there was this one interaction that has really stuck with me. I was in this honors physics class I took in my senior year of high school. It was a small class, there were only, like, 10 of us, made up mostly of my friends and their friends. Also, this one short soccer playing guy, but he doesn’t really matter. One of these people was this one trans girl. She was really the first trans person I ever encountered, and one of the first times I had ever encountered the concept of transness, outside of shitty conservative joke (singular) that I had inherently encountered growing up in a very conservative setting. Initially, she intimidated me, a lot. I didn’t know how to interact with her. For someone who made their entire personality “BEING GOOD AT ACADEMICS,” as I eschewed the entire concept of emotional fulfillment in any way, it didn’t compute. After Covid, I became more chill, but still felt that intimidation (all of which came internally, by the way, she was very nice). In this physics class, we had even begun interacting a little. This brings us to one random interaction in the end of one class. Us, as a class, are messing around, having a fun conversation. Then, for some reason, she says something like, “I grew out my hair because of my gender, you just kind of did it.” It was in a joking context, and I know the conversation led naturally there, but I don’t remember much of it, because my mind was preoccupied by the emotional panic of having my recently started questioning being clocked. It was a brief, yet intense panic, as I was still heavily denying myself, even still. After a bit, I eventually responded with my usual response when something came about for my appearance, “Oh yeah, It’s just because I’m lazy. I don’t really care how I look.” Usually, that was a good response, as it was often true.

Not with my hair length, though.

Cut to now, where I continue to let my hair be long, despite the hardships, a good 6 years on from my decision to let it grow out. I have a hard time of imagining my existence with short hair. I’m not  100% content with it, I wish I knew how to care for it better, something I am trying to learn better. However, I still do it because it, overall, gives me a sense of pure, positive emotion that I had lost for a long time. That’s been a lot of what has led me down figuring out my gender. I have tried to follow what has given me that emotional fulfillment, that sense of true feeling that I lost in youth. I mean, it’s not something that being in a religious family necessary perpetuates. I’ve found Catholicism, at least how it has been expressed around me, celebrates fear and repression. It especially doesn’t go well in a family with specific, traumatic losses, which become rationalized as “God’s Plan for Us.” Seeing that, seeing my grief and sadness as “God’s Plan,” I think, ultimately led me to repress all positive emotion, only allowing for sadness, panic, or the pure apathy I felt with masculinity. 

However, finding my gender, or at least, the parts of it I have found, has given me an indescribable sense of emotion that I can only rationalize as “Joy,” I guess. I think it goes deeper than that, but I don’t think any language would have the proper words for what I feel. Yes, there has been sadness for what I’ve lost and fear for what hurdles may come my way, but the Joy is also there, a joy that I only associated with guilt before, thanks to all of that Catholic guilt. I found that joy thanks to other trans people being visible. 

I think that is why today is so important. Being able to see other trans people be happy, be who they are, regardless, is what led me to detangle my guilt from who I truly was. I think it can do this for so many others, too. I have found that, even while having to be closeted in life, even the little bits where I can both see people like me and express myself gives me so much joy, that I can keep going on in my day, my week, my year, and I thank all those who were there, unintentionally, to help me figure out who I am. I am posting this in part to act as that expression, to find that joy through that apathy and pain, and also, hopefully, to help people like me. 

So, as I sit here, typing this out in my funnily trans colored JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind T Shirt, that yes, I’m trans. I may have some shakiness in the exact specifics, but I know that I identify as more femme than I do as my assigned masculinity. I am Allison Marie, you can call me KiraRider, though. I hope you all can find yourself as I’ve found myself.

Now, I need to go back to getting deeply into Pirate media for some reason.

[gaykarstaagforever]

This is a list of scripted ABC shows from the last season. I haven't heard of most of them because I'm not 63 so I'm going to guess what they are about from the titles and then check and see how right I was. Or if my idea is better.

1. The Conners was that reboot / sequel of Roseanne. But then Roseanne was insane and racist in real life so they kicked her off of it. I assume it was retooled to now be about the family becoming private eyes and traveling from town to town in a gadget-loaded super RV, solving mysteries.

You should all note before I go on that most of what I know about network television comes from the 70s and 80s. Back when it was also cheap and lame, but at least fun.

2. Abbott Elementary. Probably just Community / The Office, but in an elementary school filled with a diverse cast of quirky characters who only seem to date each-other. I bet they do a lot of jokes about helicopter parents and people getting offended by seemingly innocuous things. There is probably a sassy brown person whose culture is played for light-hearted comic relief.

3. Station 19. Firefighter show, where all the firefighters look like soap opera actors. Most of the show is people having arguments and making out, then like 3 times a season stunt people in face-hiding fire gear fight a big fire inspired by some thing that happened in the news around the time they were filming the show. I bet the tag line is "And you thought the hottest action would be the fires!" Occasionally old actors from 80s movies will cameo as someone's parents. I am falling asleep just typing about it.

4. Grey's Anatomy. Oh my god. In real life these people would have retired from being bad doctors by now. Or be in jail.

5. The Rookie. I looked this one up due to the last post. Nathan Fillion plays a 50 year old rookie LAPD officer. Because they wanted to do a cop show with him but he's too old for that, without the premise. He probably has to learn about diversity and drugs or something. No one ever gets shot and they don't show LAPD white supremacist cop-gangs doing dog fights or anything. Wasted potential.

6. The Goldbergs. I've heard of this. It was some writer's Everybody Hates Chris about his 80s secular Jewish family. Obnoxious old people watched it to be reminded about how they just don't make good rock music like that anymore, man, because they are too old and lazy to go find new music they might like via streaming platforms. It has been cancelled. Good, if only to spare me that recurring conversation with people I don't like.

7. Home Economics. A rich white homemaker lady gets divorced and has to get a job as a home ec teacher at a public junior high to make ends meet? And she slowly learns to laugh and love again, while also coming to realize that poorer people are good for more than just mowing your lawn. There are hijinks about her wearing $600 shoes that get covered in cake batter. She has to rent part of her house out to an Indian immigrant family. Starring Delta Burke from 1995.

8. The Good Doctor. Ha ha ha. That show about an autistic doctor, except Hollywood doesn't know what autism actually is so he's just a deranged lunatic who gets away with shitty behavior because he's good at hearts.

But not in the fun, House MD, way.

9. The Rookie: Feds. This got cancelled so that means it was bad, even by low network TV cop show standards. I don't even know how to do that. Uh...some 50 year old TV actress I probably wouldn't recognize quits being a crime professor to become an FBI agent, after her son FBI agent goes missing under mysterious circumstances? And it ended in a cliffhanger when she got attacked by a polar bear in the middle of the jungle.

10. Not Dead Yet. My Name is Earl, but if Earl was a nice zombie. He has a best friend guardian angel played by Jaleel White.

...This actually just sounds like Highway to Heaven, if Michael Landon had been a zombie. And instead of brains he eats Jell-O, and he can take his limbs off and send them into air ducts and up drain pipes to help people, like trained rats.

...I'd watch a couple episodes of that, I guess.

11. Will Trent. Oh give me a break.

Okay. There is guy named Will Trent, who is on the run from the...CIA, because he was with them but then someone framed him for killing the Speaker of the House with a poisoned lapel pin. He now travels from town to town, helping average people and their sexy sisters out of jams, while also trying to figure out who framed him and what their master plan is, to clear his name.

The last season ended with it looking like the real villain is the First Lady, who belongs to some ill-defined anti-America cult.

It's probably based on a book series from the early 2000s that only the loudest uncles read.

12. Big Sky. Some cowboy thing, probably. Where all the cowboys are hunky stoic white men who are millionaire ranch owners. But you are still supposed to sympathize with all their "we gotta keep a-hold of this land at any cost" violent toxic male shit, because you are a postmenopausal my mother and want to have sex with these men.

It's one of those shows that just "accidentally" has zero POC cast members, who aren't one-shot drug-runners or coyotes or thugs hired by rival ranch owners.

One-shot because that is how all of their characters are killed.

It probably got cancelled when some writer got smart and tried to do a thinly-veiled anti-Trump allegory and all the Evangelicals turned on it. Tucker Carlson probably got mad about it for 3 minutes, before he interviewed some Russian politician about how the Ukrainians hate Jesus.

13. The Company You Keep. Black women try starting and running a bakery. It quickly devolved into a romantic melodrama. Black audiences never cared and white audiences wanted more sexy rich cowboys.

I don't know. It's ABC. Every seasonal lineup has at least a couple token shows starring POCs that get immediately cancelled after one season, because they aren't serious attempts at anything outside of the politics and so never connect with an audience.

Also all of them are still written by white men, so what chance could any of them have, really?

14. Alaska Daily. Northern Exposure, but the protagonist edits a news blog when not busy solving quirky small-town mysteries. The Janitor from Scrubs might be in it.

...Well. WAS in it.

This Twin Peaks thing is hard to pull off in a compelling way unless you are willing to go kookoo-bananas with it.

15. A Million Little Things. This one "ended," which means the cast wanted too much money after so many seasons, so "the producers had always planned from the beginning to wrap things up after 5 seasons."

It was probably one of those shows that just follows a "typical American family," which happens to have soap opera problems every week based on things the writers heard CNN say people in the Midwest are mad enough over to vote for Trump again.

It probably had a regular cast of like 16 people, and was on the giant TV in the showroom of every US car dealership at least once. Until someone changed it to that show which is just Kitchen Nightmares, but Gordon Ramsey has been replaced by a balding round man who lacks his charm and good heart and is just an asshole to struggling restaurateurs.

You know the one.

Or, at least, your parents do.

Update: The Conclusion

[nevermeyers]

Hi! (ofc i have to ask you something because you're cool): 19, 20, 43, 51, 86 and 87. Have a great night and take care of yourself!

I went to sleep 😭 Am I cool? oh you're making me blush <3 have a great day ❤️

19. In general, is there any historical event you desperately want to witness?

Oh yes, there are some I would love to witness. Not only because it would be interesting, but also because people deserve peace.

The reunification of Korea. They have been apart for so many years that now the accent and culture are different, and I have read that it would also be complicated by the currency (North Korean currency is worth very little compared to South Korean). Many families were separated, but now I'm sure it's not something important anymore because many people of that generation are dead and they are gradually being forgotten. It would also be difficult because in North Korea there are many peasants and people without studies who would not be able to access the competitive and internationalized job market that reunification would entail. Still, with all these difficulties, it would be wonderful to see a reunification

The death of several leaders like Putin. That man has been in power since before I was born lmao, I don't know what will happen after his death or how the country will be. Russian people are very peculiar.

The recovery of Eastern European countries. This is simpler and more passive than the rest of the points. I would like to see how countries like Albania, which until very recently was closed to the outside world, are progressing economically.

Advances in human rights in Middle Eastern countries. Dreaming is free, right?

There are also things that I would like to witness, but they aren't very specific. I would like to know if Cuba and Venezuela will ever change, how certain criminal organizations will operate in the future, or which ones will cause more uproar than others...

What a time to be alive lmao

20. Do you think about your past or future more?

I have a bad habit of thinking too much about the past. In the bad things, especially :') I would like to change and think about the future but I can't know for sure what will happen

43. How do you express affection? How do you like to receive affection?

I'm not an affectionate person and I also don't know in what ways I express affection. I think I like to spend quality time and that's one of my love languages, or something like that.

I also don't know how I like to receive affection lmao I know I don't like pet names or hugs. I only like to talk with the people I love about things they/we love, about whatever, about the day to day, about what they think, I like having conversations.

51. What can make you dislike someone very quickly?

Anything 😭🤌🏻 I'm not an open person with anyone. I would rather choose to meet someone (for example, on the Internet) than to be introduced to someone. If I'm introduced to someone there's a 99% chance I'll dislike them. 100% of the time it's because of my own instinct, and also because I don't like having too many people in my life.

Also, I tend to get tired of people very quickly. No matter how long I know someone or how we get along, in the end I'll always choose to stay with my three old friends. During my time in high school, I only stayed with one person whom I met in elementary school because the rest were pitiful. Worst of all, people (my mother) don't get it.

People don't understand that high school friendships aren't chosen, they just happen almost out of obligation. I didn't like that shitty people. When I met them to do work, I always thought we didn't share any taste, that they were uneducated and that they didn't contribute anything to me. I'm not going to stay next to who isn't useful and who I don't even like.

I'll give an example.

I knew a girl in second grade who desperately clung to me because she had no friends. We ended up being the inseparable duo, we did work together, we met for a drink in cafeterias or to do our homework. In fourth grade she didn't get in my class and I think it was my best year lmao. We did the same bachiller so we ended up together again.

After high school I stopped talking to her and everyone else I met in high school (except the girl I met in elementary school who I mentioned earlier, who also went to class with me in high school). Why? Simple, she gave me absolutely nothing.

[Also, this person literally took over my birthdays to be the 'main character', left me alone in lunchtime to hang out with guys, and made fun of me on a couple occasions. She was a typical pick me girl]

For me cutting ties is very easy. In high school, moreover, I didn't talk about my tastes with anyone, even though they talked all the time. I didn't share hobbies with anyone. They were idiots, to tell the truth. I need mental stimulation to be with someone and have a friendly relationship.

That doesn't apply to my internet friends. After all, we have gotten closer precisely because we are similar and we share tastes and hobbies. I still have friendships with people I met through internet when I was 13

I'll attach a screenshot of a tiktok which I think expresses this quite well ✨

I'd also like to add here that I hate it when you're getting to know someone and they suddenly blurt out something out of place. Something sexist, something like that. It happened to me with the homophobic guy I talked about in other posts.

I'll put here a message he sent while we were talking about drug-addicted people: I seriously think that this happens because people don't have an interesting life and they get bored

What the actual fuck was that.

I told him it had to do with personal issues and a lot of factors like things like self harm and he said something like "that's their problem"

The lack of empathy here??????? Damn.

So this kind of things make me dislike someone at ultra sonic speed.

86. What could you talk about for hours?

I could talk for hours on almost any subject. Of books, manga, psychology, politics, history. I could talk for hours about how Attack on Titan's narrative style is unique, how Tokyo Revengers is a sociological study of crime and people, I could talk for hours about the Holocaust, young adult books and a whole bunch of other things I like :')

87. What do you wish people would stop asking you?

Several things here.

What are your plans for the future? Karen, I don't even know what the fuck I'm eating today.

Why are you so quiet? Or, why are you so serious? It's my resting bitch face and I don't like you, shut up.

People stress me out

[slickshoesareyoucrazy]

A Not Literally Real But Essentially Real Part (With a Short Reason For Why I'm Sharing It Today)

Yesterday, J and The Boy and G the Psychotic Clown Dog and I took a walk in a county park. There are two parks closer to our home, but we went to the one with the long trail yesterday, sort of as a 'treat.' You know...for G mostly, but for all of us since it's the one we don't go to as much and it's obviously a longer walk outside and a longer time together. We all expected it to be a nice time. As we turned one trail corner, another couple was walking a cute little corgi (we love corgis). All of us focused on the adorable dog, but as they got closer to us, the man half of the couple was someone who emotionally abused and kind of terrorized me seven years ago, back when I considered him a friend. I won't get into the specifics of what he did here, but I guess if you want those details, I probably should talk about it more to deal with it, since even with not seeing him at all for seven years, and never thinking about him at all for most of those seven years, seeing him for maybe 10 seconds yesterday still triggered me. I've written recently about how being lonely in my life has led me to connect to some pretty shitty people. I've never had an easy go of things making and especially keeping friends. So I've fallen for users and narcissists more than my fair share of time in the friendship department across my life. J is the most important and easiest connection I've ever made in my life, and yeah...I've had bad luck with human connection, particularly making lasting friends, but J isn't my only good connection, and I do have some good friends. I really do. So today I'm sharing a piece of my novel, Community, which is the sequel to the first novel I wrote and let other people read, so it's the same characters.

I didn't literally meet my friends A and D this way in middle school, but I DID meet them both in middle school, and they were the first two people to be genuinely kind to me at a new school where I didn't know anyone. I wasn't bullied in elementary school like Jess was, but I did feel separated in a permanent way when I left my old district, and I was really separated for partial days from the other kids while I was there, into a group of me and just boys. Josh Shepard is heavily inspired by my real life bestie, A, and Kurtis Richardson is heavily inspired by my real life dear friend, D, who truly was literally the first person to be nice to me when I moved to my middle/high school school district. I am so grateful for these men. They're real. They befriended me despite how weird and quiet I am, and have always appreciated the quirky shit about me, and have never lied to me, and have never used me. So anyway...this isn't literally real, but it's how I emotionally feel about meeting A and D, and how I feel about their continued friendship and positive, kind, supportive presence in my life. They are my old friends.

Excerpt from Community:

Josh Shepard drew a snake-like, fire-breathing dragon on the slick top of his seventh grade pre-algebra desk in number two pencil. It was incredibly ornate and lifelike, but when Mr. Ramos entered the class with a new student practically hiding behind him, Josh licked his thumb and erased his work, staining his skin, so he looked like he’d just had a thumbprint taken.

“Why don’t you draw that stuff on paper, man? So you can save it? That’s good stuff,” Kurtis Richardson said from the seat to his right. They were the first two students in the first row. Mr. Ramos was known for making his classroom hyper-competitive, which Kurtis thrived on and Josh hated. They were the highest two averages, thus the seating positions. Sometimes Kurtis and Josh switched chairs at the beginning of a week, but they always occupied the first two seats. Three other students sat to Kurtis’s right, but there was an empty seat at the end of the row, because there were only five A’s in the honors class. The rest of Ramos’ tough math section were B’s and C’s.

“Wastes paper. Besides, it’s all up here,” Josh said, tapping his temple with his pencil eraser. “I can recreate that dragon whenever I want. Worst case? I improve on it next time I draw it.”

“You got a real unique view of the universe, Sheep.”

Kurtis and Josh met in preschool, and were virtually inseparable despite their rather significant personality differences. Kurtis was outgoing and popular. Josh kept to himself, mostly. Kurtis was an athlete. Josh was an artist. They were both quite bright, though, and because of their congruent academic talent, they made fast and lasting friends.

“Who’s the new kid?” Josh asked, still unable to see anything around Mr. Ramos but a pair of skinny, denim-clad legs and blue Chuck Taylor sneakers.

“Dunno.”

Jessica Fielding stood staring at the floor, feeling all the eyes in room trying to see through Mr. Ramos to get a good look at her. She usually didn’t register anyone looking at her, but couldn’t be immune to it in an enclosed space where everyone was. She stayed behind her new math teacher and tried to slow her breathing. She felt anxious, and knew she had to calm herself before anyone asked her to speak, or she was sure she wouldn’t make any friends. She’d go too fast. She’d stutter. She’d end up in the same boat she was at her old school. Jessie liked herself, awkward dorkiness and all, but she expected it to be difficult starting over finding other people that she felt comfortable around; that would be comfortable around her. She knew she was an acquired taste. Her own mother had told her so repeatedly. And the kids at her old school, especially the girls, ostracized her for it.

Jess had been part of a select gifted program there; herself and four other students, all boys. She was already inclined to like ‘boyish’ things, and those interests naturally developed and blossomed spending most of her time with only boys. She didn’t like wearing dresses or playing with dolls as a little girl; she liked wearing sneakers and overalls and watching sports and learning how machines worked. She didn’t draw pictures of horses and rainbows and princesses; she drew knights and dragons (but still rainbows). In the first grade, she’d had her hair cut short like Mary Lou Retton. This, added to being part of that program where she was removed from ‘regular’ class for a large section of the school day to be the only girl in a group of boys, triggered the girls in her class to start callingher a boy. Instead of Jess, they called her ‘Jeff.’ That name stuck even after she’d grown her hair back out long. ‘Jeff’ lasted all the way into early seventh grade when she’d left. She didn’t miss her old school at all, but being in a new place made her nervous in equal measure to relieved. She couldn’t help fretting that this new place could be worse.

“Shepard? Richardson? First row? Move on down a seat,” Mr. Ramos said. Kurtis and Josh looked at each other and stacked up their books to move over, already impressed that whoever the new kid was had unseated them in spots one and two.

“Smart new kid,” Kurtis whispered. They took their new desks as a tiny, red-haired girl sat in the far left front row seat. They both smiled at her. She smiled back, but it was an obviously uneasy smile.

“S-sorry.” She apologized for uprooting them on her behalf, and pretty much existing in her current form. She put her head down on the desk, fevered that she’d stammered even just that one word already.

“Not ‘sorry,’” Josh insisted. “You earned the top seat. I shouldn’t have drawn on it like it was mine before you came in,” he said, apologetic himself, still two minutes to the bell.

“You made the dragon?! That’s amazing,” she said clearly, smiling wider now.

“You...can still see that dragon? I thought I...” Josh stared hard at the spot on the desk where he’d drawn, unable to see any residual lines, then at his dark gray thumb.

“Yeah. I’m um...good at that. S-sorry,” she said again.

“Don’t be sorry for what you’re good at. Be proud of it,” Kurtis said. “Whatcher name?”

“Like you’re ever gonna call her by her name...” Josh laughed. This sentence made Jessica panic, wondering what it meant, but she answered him anyway.

“J-Jessica.”

“Ok, J-Jessica. Imma just call you ‘J.’ I’m K. Ramos is gonna say ‘Kurtis Richardson’ on the roll inna second, but I’m K. Yeah?” He nodded at her, his already friendly smile becoming friendlier. She already reminded him of Josh. He’d reacted the same backward, halting way when they’d met as four-year-olds.

“Okay. K. And then you’re…?” she bashfully addressed Josh.

“That’s Sheepherder,” K answered over Josh.

“What?” Jessie said, totally confused.

Josh and Kurtis both chuckled that she seemed to not understand it was a nickname. “I’m Josh. Shepard. Shepard. Y’know? Shepherd’s a sheepherder?”

“Oh. R-right.” Her face turned red, feeling silly and stupid that she took Kurtis so literally.

The bell rang, and Josh leaned over to inform Jessica, “Y’know, K is likely to change up your nickname once he knows you better. Just a warning. I’ll be surprised if just ‘J’ sticks long term.”

“Oh. Well, that’s okay. I mean, y-you guys um...you can call me w-whatever. I don’t care. Long as it’s not mean. Y’know? Like...not mean stuff.”

“K would never ever give somebody a mean nickname. Unless the person was actually mean.”

“That’s enough, Mr. Shepard. Class is up here now,” Mr. Ramos said, knocking the chalkboard with his elbow. “Ok, radicals and exponents...”

“Seriously, Jess...Jess ok?” Josh asked, not much caring if Mr. Ramos called him out again. He wanted to put her at ease; which is the other reason Kurtis called him ‘Sheepherder.’ ‘You’re a real ‘go get the lost lambs’ kinda guy, Sheep.’ Jess nodded, her eyes darting from Josh to Mr. Ramos frantically, fearful he’d get in trouble for her. “We’re gonna be friends. No mean stuff. I promise.” Josh smiled at her, and she felt more comfortable than she’d ever felt at her old school. Josh didn’t make fun of the anxious stutter or her red hair or her perfect math score. And he liked to draw things, just like her. And Kurtis had already given her a nickname. Not Jeff. A nice one. That’s what friends did. She visibly relaxed, and paid attention to the lesson in front of her, even though she’d already gone over radicals and exponents weeks ago in her previous pre-algebra class.

***

“So...tell me ‘bout yerself,” K kindly demanded as he set his tray of square cheese pizza, carrots, corn, and chocolate milk next to Jessica’s. He planted his feet firmly on the floor, turned toward her, engaging in direct eye contact with a goofy grin on his face, and rested his chin in his hand, giving her comical but clearly undivided attention.

“Can you maybe turn the volume down?” Josh said. Kurtis was the stand-out in this new group of three they’d formed, and Josh wanted to keep it a group of three. He loved K, but sometimes, he wanted the opinion of someone more like him; another obvious introvert. He didn’t want K’s ostentatious manner to frighten her away. But he shouldn’t have been so concerned. Jessica was giggling.

“No, don’t,” she laughed. “I like you loud.” Kurtis looked across the table at Josh, his expression saying, ‘How ‘bout that then?’ Josh thought for a moment K might actually stick out his tongue. “Um...I don’t know what to say,” Jess offered.

“Why’d you move here mid-year?” K asked.

“Moved to a bigger house ‘cause...um...baby brother on the way,” she said.

“Yeah? How many brothers and sisters do you have? I have a brother and a sister,” Kurtis informed her. “Big brother, little sister. George and Aisha.”

“Just the baby brother on the way.” She shrugged.

“You’re almost an only child. Were one for a long time. No wonder you’re just like Sheep.”

“No siblings?” she asked her counterpart as he drank his milk directly from the carton without a straw.

“Nope. Just me and my mom.” Josh quickly turned the subject back to Kurtis’s family, because he didn’t want to discuss his own. “George is in high school this year. Aisha’s a fifth grader.”

“Cool,” Jessica said, nodding at Kurtis.

“New baby’s pretty cool,” Kurtis said. “You’ll be able to really teach him stuff and not fight with him. You miss your old friends?”

“What old friends?” she said, shrugging again. Kurtis and Josh looked at each other and made a wordless pact that she’d never say that sentence again. They’d become her old friends.

[1d1195]

Friends genuinely can be the worst, I literally lost all my close friendships last year in span of weeks and I'm officially friendless so cheers to that 🥂 I never understood when adults used to say that it gets harder to make friends as you grow up cause I used to be the kind of person to make friends anywhere I go, so I was like "how hard could it be"... IT'S HARD...Harder to even maintain them as time goes on ...I am 19 and I don't think I have ever had a best friend that was truly my best friend, yk what I mean, that I genuinely was really open with....so for now I have kind of left it...Maybe college could be a place but I have lost all hope 🥲

Maybe it's just because its the second month, but I agree the last 4 years went by too fast but they were also SO FREAKING EVENTFUL...it makes you think did all that happen in the same year....I really really hope, I genuinely get to experience everyday of this year, good or bad

Dude me too, when I read protection I was like aweee bodyguard love story...but yk i love angst like gimme all of it (with a happy ending ofc) i love scenes where if one of the MCs get hurt and the other is like panicking but simultaneously telling them how much they really mean....the brink of death scenarios add a little depth just sayin' ....but she was a fiesty one for sure...like she practices running and can out run them all...she is kind and has flowers all over her apartment but will send you glitter christmas cards...I love it

At this point, if im not watching you tube during my study breaks, I just pick new stories of yours to read, because physical books are so much of a commitment now although i miss them soo much! I might even peak at your "OLD STORIES"

🤭🤭🤭🤭

-🧸

P.S. my sunday was shitty too lol this week was not mine

I met my best friend in college. Felt the same way as you. I had a best friend in elementary/middle school. Definitely was alone throughout high school. All this to say, don't count it out yet. It's easy to lose hope, believe me. But you'll be glad you didn't. Easier said than done, I know. But she was worth the wait.

I am exhausted by time, so I hope it slows down, for SURE. I don't feel old but then I feel like I'm running out of time (very Hamilton of me). I don't know. It makes me sad sometimes. I like your philosophy, I hope I experience all the year has to offer.

I loved writing Protection so I'm glad you enjoyed it so much! 💕 That's so sweet 😭 Physical books ARE a commitment. I have to admit, I think I am too old for all the YouTube hype. I just missed the boat I think. The good news is I waste my time scrolling through TikTok for hours on end when I'm not writing or reading. I should do more math though is what I should do--keep my skills sharp 😅

So sorry to hear about your weekend. Glad you get a fresh start on a new week!

xoxo

[musicrunsthroughmysoul]

I was in the middle of writing a pity party post when I realized why the pity party wasn't and isn't deserved. Damn. That must be my favorite thing about writing introspectively - being able to write down my thoughts and then examine them as I'm writing until I come to the conclusion, "Oh wait, this is my fault. lol I do deserve these shitty feelings, actually."

Basically, me @ me: I can't be upset about being ignored when I've ignored everyone else! That's just hypocrisy, dear.

But then I have to ask myself: if I care about not being ignored...do I care about these people (people I went to high school and shit with, who I'm FB friends with but who I haven't been FRIENDS with for years) enough not to ignore them [anymore]?

It takes effort to maintain those relationships (I know for a fact), and I have to ask myself if I want to make the effort. And will it be worth it?

Only, that just brings up painful memories of high school again...like being abandoned by my entire friend group sophomore/junior year when we'd all been friends since middle school, and some of us had even been friends since elementary school. Junior year I did Running Start (took classes at my local community college) and dropped out of all but two high school classes (that I needed for my college applications and because I was wayyyyy too bad at math or science to take them at the college level) because I was sick to death of my high school population and I was sick of not fitting in. Yeah, I was "the weird girl" (I was called that by a couple of the most popular guys in my grade), and I held contentious opinions that OH WAIT I STILL HOLD TO THIS DAY (and thankfully now I actually have the language and the knowledge and the understanding to explain it all, unlike in high school) no one wanted to understand, and I was like 'Why am I floundering in loneliness in a peer group that I don't get along with at a school where I don't belong...' so I cut myself off from the school and the people at my school the best I could - I made it my choice as much as I perceived that it was theirs. So yeah, most people I went to high school with I don't talk to anymore, and haven't since I graduated high school, because it hasn't felt worthwhile to be friends or talk with them in far longer than a decade. None of those people were anything like a 'true friend,' so why should I make the effort to be one when they couldn't be bothered?

I guess the main difference is that I don't know any of those people anymore. We're all different people now even as I feel like I haven't changed hardly at all - hence 'I still hold opinions that I had in high school that were not popular then and heyyyyy they still aren't popular now!' lol. So maybe I should make the effort to get to know them again, or more like, anew?

And yet I have to circle back to a thought that I heard and thought of A LOT while I was in high school...something my mom used to say to me a lot, even before I started high school, I think. And that is: "Wherever you go, there you are."

I was lonely in high school...and I'm still lonely as an adult. It doesn't matter that I live in a more populous or progressive area of the state, and it doesn't matter that I went to and graduated from college...what I am still dealing with, I think, is that I am still lonely in the same way. No one knows me, because I won't let anyone know me. Because I don't believe that I'm worth knowing. And that is what makes me reluctant to reach out to anyone; in a way, it's why I'm okay with being ignored. If I can justify why people ignore me, then I can justify ignoring people.

Oof! That sounds like grounds for some motherfucking therapy!

[sacerdotalisticsuccubus]

To whom it may concern

Tw: suicide, rape, guns, abuse.

You probably don't know me and on account of many things are probably finding this note beside my corpse or on tumblr, i apologize if it is the first one.

Putting it simply, this world is too dangerous for me to live in. After all, how can one love when everyone they know is trying to kill them? How can one be themselves when we live in a society dominated by the freakish demand that existing peacefully amongst yourself in a unique manner is cause for riots and calls for extermination? Yet in your eyes, whom are reading this, likely find the blind eye or face the same wrath; Perhaps you have a strength in you I do not possess.

See for a long time i thought i had that will to keep going, but it became more appearent with the crime of being me that there was no possible way for me to recover from anything but reliance on those who fit the societal demands and norms. Essentially in laymonds terms, I had to rely on my girlfriend to do all the heavy lifting, and when that understandably became too much for her she too passed a blind eye to my suffering. It was not without good reason, and should you know them please do not bother them about it - i know she made mistakes, she herself knows too.

In the event blood family reads this, i have a message to help guide you in the right direction, should you be confused about this whole thing.

Fuck you.

You heard me. I don't care about your sob story, neither does the .45 entering my skull. Try to gaslight me that didn't happen with my brains all over the floor, and with this texting to every one of the extended family you have no fucking hope of covering your shitty excuse of being a person any longer.

Thank you, by the way, extended family for believing in the good within people, but perhaps reading further along i will be disowned from that title, i dont care as long as my family gets dragged down with that too.

Lets start from the beginning. Hi, my name is Wisp. Its lovely to meet you, I go by it/its and i'm very sociable and excitable, though you will never know this aside from taking my word for it or reading the comments from people who are two faced and pretend they cared about me for their pity pointed popularity contest. If anyone other than u/ Ghoul4Gals comments that they knew me in real life, they are a suck up and are not to be trusted.

Other facts about me, I'm a wraith who needs anger to feel happy. That probably doesnt make sense so let me break it down: Everyone makes energy, i don't. I need a way to get energy, pulling from peoples irritation and anger fills that up. Imagine a cup of water, but you have a hose spigot and i dont, so i have to ask for other peoples water.

And like that ive been disowned by half the family.

What? You don't think you're human? But what about the lord and his book?

For the record Chelsey and James, that book is the primary reason i am dead. Gopd job ruining the housing market.

Next, i grew up in a place called Hartfolks elementary school. Mr.Alamanotaur raped me in the library staff room and recorded it, blackmailing me for years. Oops did you think you could keep that covered up too, mom? Guess what, my pain is not some excuse to keep secret cus you are fucking angry im ruining your social status with the family!!!

Fuck! Fuck... i ... don't want to fucking do this man

I just wanna go home, but there is no home for me. I just want to hug, kiss and love but i am pushed away by my closest friends and called a freak. How am i supposed to live with that pain? How am i supposed to wake up and pretend i wasn't stabbed in middle school because of my bullies? How do i explain that despite being censored for years by the same people who are supposed to give me love and care, the reason i went to the hospital is because some asshole named Reyomi decided my life was worth less than the inconvenience of working on a project with me?

Don't... even get me fucking started on high school. I cant even remember most of it, but my body does when it shakes at night in fear of everything that came and went. I also got the honor of having to lie over and over to my extended family about how i changed my mind about being trans.

You might notice ive done nothing but focus on the bad with my childhood, and thats because it amounted to nothing. Thats right those 18 years of schooling? Nothing was used. Nothing except reading, because thats all i need to know when i say "Welcome to Land Burger" and "have a nice day". So i can say this hundreds of times and open another credit card to not be able to pay the bills.

I only met Ghouls last year. They felt inhuman too. I was so happy i wasnt alone

I just.. miss them. They went offline, i think they lost their password or something.

I think the worst part of this is i could tell you everything i love but i know it will make no difference, you still will not know who i am and i will be forgotten minutes after this letter gets closed. I like biking and hiking and vlogging, i like butterflies and raising them from infancy and potato bugs, but why does that really matter in the end when i am just a speck of a grain of a morning breakfast reading in someones day?

Fuck i havent even talked aboit what my mom has even done. Though the abuse should have been obvious when i came to meetups and christmas parties with black eyes or my pretend smiles, i once blinked help at my in laws and they didn't seem to get it.

It just is all some sick game of pretend. I should pretend im not me, i should pretend im normal, i should pretend i know what fractions are or that i can keep a healthy work life schedule. I should pretend my apartment that is evicting me is my home. But that was lost long, long ago and my landlord who charges me $2000 a month for a single bedroom can have fun trying to clean brain out of the drywall.

You know how expensive that is? I work two jobs and it doesn't come close to rent. Everything else is just so expensive anc distractions only take me so far.

I just... want ghoul back. I want my only friend, i want them to be something more, o was gonna ask them out and everything. But somehow that gets ruined and this manifesto of living incorrectly paves the way of irreversable consequences. I.. i leave all my stuff to her. I don'r want any of it going to my parents or family. I don't want extended family either. Just... do me one favor, please.

Find ghoul, tell her im sorry. Tell her i love her.

..peace.

[disaster-bunnys]

Ghosts have been on my mind recently and honestly it would be a problem if I wasn't so absolutely ridiculous.

My dumb little brain keeps reminiscing about the past. I feel like I'm being haunted by the ghost of me as a child. I miss the friends I made in elementary school. I'm sad I lost touch with them. [But it's not like it's entirely my fault. They stopped talking to me long before I stopped trying to call them.]

I can feel middle school me saying I told you so in my ear. She knew I would end up alone and miserable because people have always sucked. She doesn't even care I made it to college. She just knows she was right and all the anger she had was valid.

High school me is so faint. I was just her. But I know she is proud of me. I got here. Sure she's sad for me feeling the way I do but she's still proud anyway. I have friends again and that's all she wanted for herself.

They're all me and yet they're not. They won't leave me alone. I don't want their opinions. I want to be me now. I'm glad I was them. I miss them. But I'm me now and I will never be them again. Too much has changed. Too much has stayed the same.

They had it easier. They didn't have softer memories to yearn for. All I have in my future is the pain of growing up. Middle school me was correct. Growing up was (and is) shitty. I wish I hadn't grown up at all. I'd love to have stayed on the playground in kindergarten and never left. Nothing I can do now was as fun as everything was back then.

[dolugecat]

On some Japanese social issues I had learned about at uni and abroad):

(Rb ok!)

Legit had an epiphany about the true hidden meaning of the last arc of Mob Psycho 100. It’s hella projection but for real there is nothing neurotypical about Mob or Mob Psycho. I do not wish to enforce my interpretation on others (ironic bc I do that all the time but this is a serious social theory). There are some interesting and very sad social issues in Japan that the west really doesn’t understand but would I think help people understand a lot of context behind not only Mob Psycho, but also a lot of other anime. I learned this at my shitty university (prestigious but horrific) and while studying abroad in Japan and talking with Japanese peers. Get ready here we go (and tw for bullying and darker things):

Unfortunately in East Asian education systems, bullying can be extremely intense. Growing up I assumed it was over exaggerated extremely in anime for drama but it really can be so horrific. From what I’ve heard, there is often a single kid or so who is just shit on by everyone else, even the teacher. Mogami land *is* the reality of some Japanese kids. I’ve read that in Korea, this social punching bag sometimes is just the darkest skinned person (yayyy colorism /angry) and or someone who does not fit in. I mean, we have that in America too, but maybe not as common for the bullying to be as focused on one misfit rather than several. These kids just can’t escape the stigma too, kids from other schools find out they were a major victim at their old school and it starts anew. Thus there is so much stigma and incentive to join in on bullying so you aren’t the one. Sadly, this also ofc leads to higher suicide rates. That’s where the “shoe on building roof” anime trope comes in, bc somehow taking off shoes is relayed to death (I forgot why sorry)

There is a difference in how intense in general high school vs college is too. In the West, commonly college is the more intense curriculum and is harder than high school, but in Japan it’s usually the opposite. Grind suuuupppeeerrrr hard for entrance exams (huge standardized tests that determines what college you can qualify to) bc unlike the ACT or SAT here, that test is by far the most important factor for college admission. Then chill and relax a bit in college. Can’t relate. Name and prestige is very critical for job application, more important than here. That’s why planning out your future is sooo much more intense for Japanese high schoolers than in America, and why there is sooo much more pressure to excel in high school than here. Japanese school years and holidays are done different than ours, I’d suggest looking it up.

Social prestige of going to an American high school or college is nuts. Like whyyy do you value our shitty education, Japan’s is much higher quality (it’s bc we neo colonized them). Being able to speak English is very, very highly valued and any association with Americans make you cooler. From my experience, some Japanese students got very excited to practice speaking English with us, and their biggest issues with learning it is pronunciation, lmao. Wasai english is unique slang that is indeed English words but it’s kinda different and it’s kinda jarring to remember lol. So, Teru having parents that are working overseas isn’t too uncommon, idk about leaving him absolutely alone, but I did have a ex-friend who just came from Japan in middle school who’s situation probably wasn’t too far off from that. Empty wealth with no love, it’s no wonder those kind of people can end up being huge bullies (minori?)

I did a presentation on 引きこもり(hikikomori) for which means “shut in”, (like Serizawa) and it’s fucked up. It’s a social phenomena where according to some Japanese researchers a mix of undisciplined parenting, guilt/not living up to expectations, and hopelessness makes an alarming amount of youth/ young adults literally never go out side their house/room. Often a parent is “enabling” the behavior by supporting them, but idk the articles seemed a bit victim-blaming to me when I read it, but I don’t think I should make a judgement too hard, not my place. I will say I do suspect and believe I read something to support that ASD might play a role in hikikomoris (there is pitiful resources for autistic people in Asia, much much less support than even here, to the point I don’t think most know it exists). Like come on, with the other points I laid out my personal opinion as an Asian American with autism is that it really seems it’s unknowing ableism against autistic classmates, but I didn’t grow up in Asia so I don’t want to say.

Mental health in general is tragically quite abysmal in Japan, and with it being so hyper competitive and brutal work culture, it’s no surprise birth rate in Japan is so low; some Japanese young adults say it seems unethical to bring a life to such hostile world. Suicide rate is of the highest in the world. It’s fucked, I’ve interacted with some of the locals in Tokyo and they were so nice, but the business men just looked dead inside, it’s so sad.

Relationships between child and parent is also strained bc of this intense work and school culture. Quality time is too scarce when you gotta work so much. And the pressure from parents to do well in education or else you might end up socially stigmatized is rough. Bc your job is who you are, it’s hyper capitalism (thanks us for making them do this)

With autism being so unknown, support for parents in raising autistic kids is almost nonexistent. What happens if the “darker” side of ASD shows up in kids? I used to be a menace when I had meltdowns, I felt so bad but really just became so indiscriminately violent. See where this is going? Legit, I think ESP is a sort of metaphor for neurodivergance to ONE. There is so much stigma around it, and even less way for kids to understand why they are different than the others. My Korean family can’t admit we all got ASD, too much fear and internalized shame.

I got finally diagnosed with ASD as an adult and I’ll tell ya, I relate too much to Mob hurting Ritsu. I felt so bad, but also not in control, I knew what I was doing but not how to stop. Luckily, is was blessed in that my hyperfixations involved science and logic, so I did well at school. Sadly, our boy Mob just don’t got the passion or ability to do well at school. His kanji is very bad, even to point of not being confident he wrote a kanji (世) they learn when they are 9, in elementary school (thanks @katyatalks). Him being a bit berated by his parents for having bad grades and bending spoons seems harsh to Westerners I think, but IMO it’s pretty tame from what I’ve seen of some Asian parents (I get to say that lmao). Ofc, however the shaming is very real and Mob just agreeing with them about how weird and stupid he thinks he is so sad. There is even more pressure for the eldest to be better than here, I feel from some interactions. Nonetheless, it’s implied Mob is quite emotionally detached from his parents, even though he loves them, which also adds to his emotional complex. Combined with originally fragile self esteem and feelings of worthlessness, we got one emotionally stunted boy. However, contrary to common belief people with ASD are sometimes hyper empathic and experience emotions very intensely. We are prone to having “meltdowns” which if not assisted with can be quite violent if very intense. For me, my worse meltdowns as a kid came from when I didn’t understand why I wasn’t getting what I wanted, it seemed selfish and cruel of me but I couldn’t control it. I wanted to be a good kid, so why did hit my moms leg at target when she refused to buy me Pokémon toys? I couldn’t come up with a good reason for why my mind just commanded my body to do bad things, just a single thought was controlling me, I want I want I want I want I want ____. Which I argue could be what ???% represents… bc well…. Yeah….. hmm….. not in control of self (mob unconscious), selfish (not actually, I’ve forgave myself but my “normal” kid self was so ashamed), destructive, hurt family, wanting to stop but can’t, that’s kind of…. Too relatable.

But legit, since realizing my new HC, I’ve started to think of the last chapter of mp100 when I “explode” and it helps me feel better and I do gain “control” a bit easier. I don’t feel so bad anymore either, Mob!