#[pi graves]

[polarpanda01]

Dabi and his grave

so dabi is a dramatic little bitch as we all know, and I think he’d love the opportunity to fuck with his family. Therefore it is my personal belief that he went to his grave and left really weird things there just to fuck with them.

imagine: you’re one of his siblings, mourning the tragic death of your older brother, who was only a child when he died. You decide to go to his grave to leave flowers and pay your respects. Upon getting there, you find something that nobody in their right mind would leave at a grave. None of the other graves have been messed with, which means this grave in particular was targeted. Nobody sees anything or anyone, so the mystery goes unsolved, and the items placed there get increasingly bizarre.

some things I think he would leave:

a stack of five paper towels, weighed down with a rock

miniature figurines of various things (animals, landmarks, etc.)

a tiny guillotine with an endeavor doll decapitated next to it

printed stock photos of someone flipping off the viewer

various pieces of obsolete technology

extremely old books written in languages none of them know even a single word of

notes, written with his non dominant hand, about very personal and secret things only his family would know about

an actual severed hand/limb

none of these things (except the extremely personal things about his family) have anything to do with either Dabi or Touya, either

[ace-s-fave-tv-shows]

Twinkle Eyed Pony G4 Redesigns

Whenever I see a G4 redesign that makes one of the Mane 6 a twinkle eyed pony I'm not gonna lie, I am disappointed that they always pick Rarity by default because her whole thing is gemstones.

I, on the other hand, think that if any of the Mane 6 should be a Twinkle eyed pony it should be Pinkie Pie, and that the Pie family being Twinkle eyed ponies, should be their connection to the Apple family.

Let me explain.

Okay, so the Twinkle Eyed Pony origin story in G1, as far as I know (they could have another origin, this is just the only one I know of) is that in a comic, G1 Applejack is captured by an evil jewel wizard (or sorcerer? It's an evil magic man), and forced into slavery working in a magical gem mine with a bunch of other ponies who've been in there far longer than her.

The pony slaves who've been trapped in the caves for so long, tell Applejack to escape before she becomes like them. Who've been trapped underground, toiling away in the dark mine for so long, that their eye sight has deteriorated to the point of blindness. Or at least to the point that their eyes are too sensitive for them to go out during the daylight.

So after hearing this Applejack attacks the Jewel wizard (presumably killing him, like it says he fell to The End of the Earth), and smashes his jewel throne, freeing the enslaved ponies. She then starts to lead them out of the cave, telling them to follow her and that she'll guide them, because of their extremely poor eyesight.

It's only when they reach daylight, that Applejack and the twinkle eyed ponies learn that their eyes were healed when Applejack smashed the throne made of magic jewels. Returning sight to the enslaved ponies, but also causing their gemstone eyes to develop.

[Also, in this AU Twinkle Eyes are a genetic thing, as in they're passed down to their descendants. Which is not the case in G1 canon, multiple G1 Twinkle Eyed Ponies have babies, and none of them inherit the Twinkle Eyes.

Meaning that the Twinkle Eyes are more like magical scarring as a result of their eyes being healed by gemstone magic, rather than them being a unique pony subspecies within the canon of G1.

I know they're not supposed to be genetic in G1, but this is about a fanon G4 version of Twinkle Eyed Ponies, that I'm making up, in order to justify Pinkie having Twinkle Eyes. Okay.]

So I'd think it'd be interesting if Applejack's ancestor (like hundreds of years ago, like Granny Smith's grandmother or great-grandmother or something) was the savior of the Twinkle Eyed Ponies, who were Pinkie's ancestors.

So the Pie and Apple Families aren't related by blood in this AU, but instead an old debt of gratitude for an ancestor of theirs freeing their ancestors from slavery.

This is basically a fanfic outline from here on, there's no dialog or actual scenes, just a bunch of ideas thrown out there:

The Story of Applejam

Now you might ask why the Twinkle Eyed Pie family would become rock farmers after being enslaved and forced to mine for magic gemstones by an evil wizard.

Because mining and working with rocks was all they knew how to do, and it was what most of them were comfortable doing. Heck working with rocks or gemstones was a lot of their special talents.

I'm going to say that the vast majority of the enslaved ponies who become Twinkle Eyed Ponies, were taken as fillies & colts. Either already orphaned, or taken from their parents so young and moved so far away that there was no hope finding them again after they were freed.

While not all of them got their cutie marks while trapped in the mines, some in fact got theirs extremely late only after being freed, there were still those that did. [Which caused issues and trauma to develop around their cutie mark and special talent in general which lasted long after being freed for a lot of them.]

Anyways, the damage to their sight was caused by spending years, literally most of their lives for some of them, trapped in those under ground cave systems away from sunlight.

Applejam (Applejack's ancestor who's taking the place of G1 Applejack in this version of the story) is snatched up by the Jewel Wizard, while traveling home across Equestria from an Apple Family Reunion.

The Jewel Wizard felt like he needed more workers in his mine. And Applejam, in spite of being quiet a bit older than those he'd usually take already being nearly fully grown mare, was an ideal candidate.

She was physically strong and healthy, as evidenced by her seemingly trekking across the country on her own with no other pony to switch out hauling the wagon with. Most of his workers were rather weak and sickly, with the quality of their work degrading over time.

Applejam is taken suddenly in the night, waking up in a dimly lit cavern, surrounded by other young ponies. Only a few could be considered young adults, most were teens, and a few were even fillies or colts not even old enough to develop their cutie mark yet.

They weren't doing too good.

The hair of their manes and tails haphazardly chopped short, but hanging limp and dirty all the same. Coats similarly dull, full of dust from the crushed and shattered rocks mined away.

They were thinner than they should be. Not emaciated. Apparently the one holding them captive fed them enough to keep them capable of working, but not much more than that.

The worst thing though, in Applejam's opinion, were those poor ponies' eyes. Cloudy and clearly irritated. The older ponies seemingly unable to see much at all, considering how their eyes never focused, and mainly drifted around. The younger ponies however, had retained some sight. Their eyes able to focus on things, but even then they were all squinting.

Many of the ponies had been trapped down in the mines for so long that they'd forgotten what the sky had looked like, and the warm light of the sun was but a distant memory.

What allows the Wizard to command and keep all of these other ponies under his control, is a throne entirely made of magic gemstones. By tethering the slave's magic to the gemstone throne, and keeping that tether short, he can insure no pony can leave the cave.

This also allows for the Jewel Wizard to use the throne as a kind of magical battery, using the enslaved ponies' magic as his own.

Applejam spends a few days trapped with the gem miner ponies, coming up with a plan for escape. She's sure that she can free all these ponies, she just needs the right opportunity to come, so she can finally take out the guy who kidnapped them all.

Applejam is successful in her defeat of the Jewel Wizard, with the help of a few of the gem miners to distract him, she managed to knock him down into a deep mine shaft (killing the wizard in the process). While also destroying the magic jewel throne in the process, as it was also knocked down the mine shaft.

Applejam and the other now freed ponies travel back to the surface, and are so happy to discover that their blindness had been healed as a result of the destruction of the gemstone throne.

The shattering of the gemstone throne had broken the tether spell, and returned the portion of the enslaved ponies' magic (and life force, because canonically their magic is also part of their life force) that had been stolen. Though that their magic sat contained and bound to the gemstones for so long, is what lead to the interesting side effects of the now freed slaves.

Twinkle Eyed Ponies, as they'd come to be called, would come to be a protected population of Equestria, after gaining their freedom.

Once herself and all the other ponies were now back above ground, Applejam came to the conclusion that she couldn't help these ponies on her own no matter how much she wants to. The only pony who could help them settle into new lives of freedom after spending most of their lives imprisoned, would be the ruler of Equestria herself, Princess Celestia.

So after locating her wagon, still left abandoned at the roadside from where she'd been taken in her sleep, she guided the Twinkle Eyed Ponies to a place she'd hardly ever been. Canterlot.

Applejam had a group of ponies who'd been imprisoned for half their lives or longer, who needed things like medical attention, and schooling that had been cut short, and families who they'd been separated from. And nothing was going to stop her from getting them to where they needed to be and seeing who they needed to see to get help.

Even if that pony happened to be the ruler of the country and raiser the of sun herself.

Celestia would indeed see to the needs of the Twinkle Eyed Ponies, and would send out an investigative team to see to it that no remnants of the gemstone throne remained, to see to it that there would be no copycats. Along with searching for the origin of the Jewel Wizard, and where he'd taken so man young fillies and colts from without anyone noticing.

Applejam would be awarded with a medal of honor for her heroism in freeing the Twinkle Eyed Ponies and defeating the Jewel Wizard against all odds.

The Twinkle Eyed Ponies would eventually, after counseling and rehabilitation to ensure they'd be able to function in pony society as free ponies, found the town of Rockville.

Home of the Pie family from that point on, and eventual birthplace of Pinkie Pie herself. Who'd funnily enough move to Ponyville, a town founded by the Apple family, and become best friends with a mare named Applejack.

As for Applejam? Well, she would stop by the city of Rockville during her long trek across Equestria, on her way home from Apple Family reunions, for many years after meeting and befriending the Twinkle Eyed Ponies. They weren't blood, but they were family after all.

Only stopping her yearly visits, when she had grown too old to make the journey. Though she'd eventually insist on moving there full time in her twilight years, and being buried there. Much to her family's confusion.

Why, under Celestia's bright sky, would Applejam want to live in that tiny little town, full of odd ponyfolk, without nary an apple orchard to be found?

Well, who's to say. There's only one apple tree too be found in Rockville.

A giant behemoth of a thing by the time Pinkie is born, 40 meters tall, and a 2 meter diameter for the trunk. The center piece of the community garden of Rockville. Originally planted by Applejam nearly 300 years prior, but lovingly tended to by the citizens long after the original planter had passed.

For much like a plant, no friendship can succeed, with out a bit of hard work, and the care of someone who wants to see you flourish.

...

IDK, I've just had a lot of feelings after learning the backstory of the Twinkle Eyed Ponies of G1 and how Applejack killed an evil wizard and freed them all from slavery and blindness.

Anyways, if you like Twinkle Eyed Rarity because gemstones are her thing, okay.

I'm a Twinkle Eyed Pinkie kind of person, because the origin story of the Twinkle Eyed Ponies and it's relation to G1 Applejack, just meshes really well in my brain with Pinkie Pie's backstory of growing up on a rock farm that made her miserable, along with the possibility of the Apple and Pie families being connected.

It's just really satisfying to me that all of these pieces fit so well together.

When I see a Twinkle Eyed Rarity I don't like connecting it to the G1 idea of Twinkle Eyed Ponies, the way I do Twinkle Eyed Pinkie.

I like the idea of Rarity getting Twinkle Eyes not genetically, but as a result of unknowingly messing around with magic gemstones not long after getting her cutie mark.

Rarity likes digging and hunting for gemstones too much for me to want to have that in anyway connected to something as traumatic as slavery. Even if it's generations back in her family tree.

When I think about it too long it makes me think of that one video of the black guy explaining that really racist field trip he was taken on in elementary school, where he and his classmates were taken to a cotton farm, and made to pick cotton they didn't even get to keep. Like literally taken to a cotton farm to do unpaid child labor.

And I know it's not actually like that, but it's always where my mind goes first when it's said on the redesign that Rarity was born with Twinkle Eyes, meaning it was an inherited trait.

Also I'll definitly attempt drawing my version of Twinkle Eyed Pinkie (and maybe some of the other Pies like Maud) at some point, but I just can't get the eyes to look right to me, so that'll be later.

[renegadesstuff]

The way he looks at her 🥺😍

[the-acid-pear-ocs]

I like the idea of Pi secretly having a Frankenstein type project, or many in fact, hence why the killings. The cannibalism is just a little side to that, as a little treat 😋

I mean, after all, he's rich. And we all know rich "people"'s favorite hobby is seeing a cautionary tale and being like "I'll recreate it irl! 😁"

[immanentise]

After a long lotta soul searching and psychoanalysing, I've concluded that I currently feel best about being he/him agender afab (& am likeee 65-35 fem-masc for presentation atm) which feels like a parody of tumblr users going too far with labels. And yet.

Like I can show you my working out here, and yeah, I think therapy might be helpful for me to get a more stable sense of self, but it's what I feel works best for me at the moment.

Now how do I integrate this self-discovery into the way I speak French....

[la-perfide-albion]

mais la pire partie c'est que je me fais des idées pour rien c'est sûr

ok ptêtre qu'on va baiser une couple de fois, allerr à une demi douzaine de dates max

pis dans 2 mois chu de retour tousseul chez nous à brailler sur mon tumblr

[kohakuhibiki]

Le pont laporte sur photo : yea california.

Le pont laporte dans vie: ton char es-tu traction intégrale? Tu veux tu jouer à soeur volante? Un becyk pis tu pese po 400 lbs pour le justifier (le seul avantage systémique, si t'es gros tu peux traverser le fucking pont)

[the-acid-pear]

Devil on my shoulder tells me to make more frog serial killers . I just want to make dudes who suck ass so bad . . .

[gravitycoil]

my ocs as dragons. left to right: daybreaker, Dimitri, grave, terminal, karai, bunny, and pi

[donospl]

MUZYCZNE REKOMENDACJE: Henry Threadgill Ensemble's „The Other One” 

Pi Recordings, 2023 Najnowsza płyta Henry’ego Threadgilla zawiera rejestrację  muzycznej częścią multimedialnego dzieła wykonanego i nagranego na żywo w Roulette Intermedium na Brooklynie w Nowym Jorku w 2022 roku, podczas drugiego z dwóch zaprezentowanych wówczas wykonań. Album dostępny jest na Bandcampie Całość – obok muzyki – obejmowała projekcję wideo, obrazów i fotografie, odtwarzanie…

[emiliemaria]

.

[renegadesstuff]

Does it ever drive you crazy just how fast the night changes 🤍

[darlingpwease]

Those pictures were absolutely adorable omgomg

I'm pretty surprised you don't have mutuals!!! I thought u and Star were mutuals tbh /neu

You and ur pies are amazing tho <33

I do cook! I'm not a big baker tho. What about you??

we'll always find a place for you in our nest — or I'll finish your big, pretty box <333

Both are good both are good <333

I've got this idea I've had in my head with Yuuta, so once I work out how to describe it I'd love to share :D hopefully it'll be good lol

He is!! He seems super sweet <33

-panna cotta

I thought about it, but, look, even when I was just a reader, I felt awkward wandering into personal blogs;;;;

you know, it's one thing to subscribe to a "writing/content-creating blog", and quite another to the blog of a person whom, even if you know, you are not so close to. I was shy when writers subscribed to me, as it embarrassed my reblogs so that they wouldn't block me for something, and even when I became a writer myself, I try to keep this tone.

when you're a blog for content, you can't be awkward with what people interpret with you, but when it's kind of your personal place, someone else's gaze feels strange.

I don't want to embarrass the star and make him think I'm spying on him or something like that; this is his personal — or one of his personal — blog(s), and I don't do that without permission. this is fundamental for me. people usually do it easier and without thinking about such things, and I approve of them, but I can't do that. even if it's public, it's still yours, and I don't want to break in </333

(let's call it "politeness", but it looks more like some of my problems in social terms </3333 /j)

AWWWWWW PANETTONE <33333

in that case, thank you for raising the overall level of awesomeness with your existence, my wonderful panna cotta, because you definitely work for quite a large part of us <3333 ahhhh smooth talker,,,,,, silver tongue, huh? vvery kissable <3333

in that case, tell us about your most difficult dish!!! /pos

I bake more than I cook. I'm good with an oven, but I have difficulties with a burner and an electric stove. nothing serious! just don't like it that much, although the dishes turn out to be more diverse.

anyway, on principle, I don't approach the kitchen closer than a meter if I'm not hiding there; cooking low-key relaxes. or maybe it activates you on the contrary?

of course it will! don't worry, dear, we all started by writing our awkward ideas, considering them incoherent and strange. if it calms you down, then, believe me, you won't have it worse than me, but now I'm a former writer blog. people change.

(honey, if it's yuuta, it can't be bad, I give you a guarantee. we are blog with yuuta in a fixed post, it should be embarrassing for us that we may not match your post </333)

'people changes...'

[the-acid-pear-ocs]

Was thinking of what Pi's reaction to Nemfrog being an angel would be but I don't think he'd care at all he doesn't believe in god.

[upsidedownwithsteve]

A soulmate AU: Steve Harrington x fem!reader [3.7K]

THE TIMELINE

"There was something 'bout you that now I can't remember, It's the same damn thing that made my heart surrender. And I miss you on a train, I miss you in the morning, I never know what to think about. I think about you."

- About You By The 1975

V. HAWKINS, INDIANA: 1988

Two years had passed since the last gate had closed and despite the aftermath of the “earthquakes,” Vecna had yet to make any sort of reappearance. 

Max’s bones healed, eventually, and she regained most of her sight, relying on thick lensed glasses when she grew tired or the words in her books turned blurry. Nancy went to college, Jonathan tried it for a year, Hopper took El on a month-long camping trip to see something other than the town repairing itself and Lucas went to therapy. 

Soon, each kid followed suit, attending sessions that eventually helped them sleep a little better because even though they couldn’t tell the person on the other side of the coffee table about monsters and the world under their feet, there had been enough death and suffering to fill the hour with regardless. 

Dustin told Steve he should go too and Robin agreed. After Eddie’s funeral, the one where they all stood with Wayne, a guy from the garage Eddie worked at on weekends and the remaining Hellfire members beside a small gravestone, they had another one. 

A second ceremony near the woods behind Eddie’s trailer, close to where he died, to where Dustin had found him bleeding and proud. The kids cried and Joyce held on tight to Will while Jonathan hugged Nancy and Dustin punched a tree trunk. It felt better than the first one, easier somehow, when they didn’t have to lie and hide the guilt they had at knowing each and every one of them felt a little shame in having a hand in someone’s else’s death. 

But it was closure. 

The town healed, roads were repaired, houses rebuilt, new flowers planted in the park in memory of those who had been lost in the accident - the natural disaster that made headlines, the one that no one could have predicted. 

Steve helped Dustin clean Eddie’s grave when the spray paint covered the dead boy’s name. Robin stopped crying when she looked in the mirror each morning. Jonathan left his room. 

The kids got better. They smiled more, went to the new arcade on opening day, shared slushies and rode their bikes around town again. Joyce visited Wayne when she could, took him pies and meatloaf and eventually got him out of his armchair and into a coffee shop for a full hour. Hopper got his job back, had a ceremony that preceded the funeral he had years before and Robin managed to get her and Steve a sweet gig at the record store that replaced Family Video. 

It felt fresh. New. Clean. 

So why was Steve still dreaming about gates?

For the third night in a row, he woke up gasping. A yell stuck in his throat that tasted like metal, like blood, and he was drenched. Shirtless, his sheets stuck to his chest, the weight of them tangled around his legs in a sickly familiar way, vines tugging at his ankles. His room was dark, the house empty, too quiet. Quiet enough that his breath ripped from his lungs in harsh pants, his head pounding from the exertion of running in his dream, back in a place that he hadn’t seen in almost twenty one months. 

At first, he dreamt of death. 

Of Eddie and how they found him lifeless and in Dustin’s arms. How Max was barely conscious in the attic of the Creel House, her body broken in ways that no doctor could understand. He dreamt of how he had pulled Lucas away from her, the boy sobbing and yelling, fighting with more strength than he knew he had as Steve tried to restrain him just enough for the paramedics to get Max into the ambulance. 

Then the dreams turned empty. He dreamt of losing everyone, Robin, Dustin, Hop. El was gone, Will too, Mike nowhere to be found. Nancy’s house was empty, Joyce and Jonathan didn’t exist and Steve sat alone in a town that turned grey, crumbling to dust until the vines came back and the clouds turned red. 

He ran miles every night, searching for his friends, his family. Woke up to shaking breaths and sore legs like he’d really sprinted across a town that was no longer home and each morning when the sun rose, he sat with a coffee and his bare legs dipped in the pool in his backyard. He stared at the water until the ripples blurred and wondered how long it would take for Barb to come haunt him too, if she’d reappear in his dreams despite the years that had gone by, if she’d come crawling back out of his pool like she used to, dripping wet and with no eyes. 

But Barb never came and he stopped dreaming of the kids, stopped hearing Lucas’ screams, stopped seeing Max in a hospital bed with blood coming from her eyes and eventually, one night, he dreamt of a gate that he’d never seen before. 

It didn’t even really look like a gate. 

Not the ones Steve knew. It wasn’t framed by dead vines, it didn’t pulsate, it didn’t have a red glow coming from its innards. This one didn’t look like rotting flesh, like a wound in the earth that couldn’t be healed. This one wasn’t at the bottom of a lake, lined with wet moss and cracked rocks, it wasn’t in the Munson trailer nor in the middle of the woods. 

This one opened on a blank wall in Steve’s bedroom, replacing the shelves where his old basketball trophies sat, where he usually left his pile of clothes before falling into bed. In the dream, it started as a crack, a crumbling of plaster and blue plaid wallpaper and Steve watched it open, a yawning thing that split the room and bathed it in light. It was too bright at first, like blinking into a summer sun. And once the white-hot of it cleared from Steve’s eyes, he saw blue skies and he could smell the ocean. 

There were trees he’d never seen before in real life, something out of a movie, tall and green and narrow as they swayed in a breeze he couldn’t really feel from his spot on his bedroom carpet. The buildings were a pinky-peach colour, like clay, with orange slate tiles and there were foundations and statues carved into the walls, water trickling from the mouths of gods and vases that stone faced women held in their marble arms. 

It was like looking at a painting, a canvas between his bed and his old desk, framed with olive branches and large, red fruits that protruded from the gates mouth. 

Pomegranates. 

Steve could smell them, a sweetness that mixed with the ocean air, a kind of freshness that you couldn’t find between the fields and farms that surrounded Hawkins. In the dream, he wanted to move closer but found that he couldn’t, his eyes wide and his bare feet rooted to the spot as he stared at the scene. It felt like a memory the more he looked, the buildings becoming familiar, a baby blue door that looked like somewhere he’d once owned the keys to and the cobbled streets became a well walked way home. 

Then, as if he weren’t supposed to really see it, he spotted something move in an upstairs window. Two houses from the front of the gate, with rusted shutters and white linen curtains, he saw a girl stand between them. 

A pretty girl, with eyes he knew he’d seen before, in a white dress that he was sure he remembered the feeling of. 

The sight of her made Steve’s heart hammer, the dream making him dizzy, the realisation that he knew that girl making the line between unconsciousness and reality a little blurry. He didn’t know her name, or where he knew her from. He didn’t even know where he was looking or why the gate was there. 

But he stared and stared until the girls eyes met his and before he could lift his hand, or even try to speak, there was a crack that seemingly came from the sky - the one above Hawkins or the one inside the gate, he didn’t know - but something flashed, the gate went dark and the rip in his bedroom wall stitched itself back up. 

He woke up feeling like he’d remembered and forgotten something all at once. Like a book he’d read back in middle school, a photo he’d once misplaced, a song he hadn’t heard in years but still remebered some of the words too. 

He knew her. He knew her. 

Steve thought about the girl so much, so often, that it didn’t take him long to think of her, to refer to her, as you. You were someone he’d once known, from a memory or another dream, he wasn't sure. It was the same feeling as watching a movie and seeing a pretty actress on screen, in a different outfit with different hair but knowing her face and wondering what show he’d seen her in before. 

Except with this, there was an aching want that buried itself in his chest at the sight of you, an awful feeling that grew larger each night. And every time his wall cracked open again, it seemed like his ribs did too. A crushing feeling, a yawning expanse inside his body that made room for the way his heart seemed to grow and grow at the sight of you. 

Yearning, that’s what he thought it was. A slow, burning build of it. 

The second night, he dreamt of you in a garden. A sprawling, green lawn with a pond so green-blue it made his eyes hurt. There was an awning beside it, a pergola of sorts made of white stone and it had ivy growing between the pillars, covering the roof and reaching down to trail its flowers in the water below. You were closer than before, than you were in the window, and Steve could see the way your lashes hit your cheeks as you looked down, stitching something that you held in your lap. 

There was a wicker basket beside you, a loaf of fresh bread wrapped in a cloth and he could still smell pomegranates, sweet and tart. There was a space beside you on the blanket, enough room for two but no one else came. 

You were always alone. 

Steve tried to talk to you, to reach out and see if this gate worked like the others, if he could walk through into this other world, this other dimension, but it didn’t work. 

Not yet, anyway. 

You seemed to notice him more on the fifth night, as he watched you walk along the edge of a lake. Your hair was shorter now and your clothes had changed. They look more modern, more like his, the cabins behind you reminiscent of a summer camp, a holiday lodge or something. He could hear music, a song he swore he heard on the radio not too long ago and that night, you watched him back. 

It seemed like you were waiting for someone. And when Steve saw your face light up with a smile, his heart stumbled. You raised your arm, reaching out a hand to the edge of the gate, off to the side as if someone else was in Steve’s walls. He saw another hand reach for yours, larger, definitely male, with a freckle where the thumb joined the palm. 

The jealousy he felt was unmatched, a burning thing that scorched his chest and his throat, hot needles at the back of his mouth. Before the man came into view, the crack in his wall trembled and the gate stitched itself closed once more, leaving plaster dust and flakes of paint on his carpet. 

Apart from the small mess, no one would have ever guessed another world opened up inside of Steve Harrington’s bedroom each night. 

It took him a week and half to notice his hand had a freckle in the same spot. A small beauty mark he’d never really paid attention to before, painted in the space that joined his thumb to his hand. He tried not to read too much into it, tried not to hold onto the hope that maybe it meant something - because none of this made sense, not really. 

They were just dreams. Strange things, brain scrambling things. But it was a welcome reprieve from death and darkness and vines that held onto him too tight. He no longer woke up in a cold sweat, he no longer wished for morning to come, no matter how tired he felt when he opened his eyes. 

Steve wondered if anyone else was experiencing these kinds of dreams. If the rest of the party were getting glimpses of other worlds, other timelines. He wasn’t sure what they were, too scared to ask, too afraid to make everyone else worry. The thought that these dreams could be a trick crossed his mind more than once, a new tactic from Vecna, an infiltration of his sleep that was meant to lull him into some kind of false sense of security. 

Safety - an unknown feeling. 

But everyone else spent their days talking about school and their new bosses, the fair that was coming to town to celebrate the town hall finally being rebuilt. No one mentioned Vecna or dreams or gates or girls they knew from somewhere they couldn’t place. 

So Steve accepted the fact that whatever these dreams were - whatever they meant - they were just for him. Which meant that you were his too. 

Weeks went by with Steve viewing you from the split in his wall, sometimes hearing music, sometimes hearing your muffled voice. Never real words, never loud enough to hear and it didn’t seem like you could hear him either. But Steve watched, enraptured, following you around different parts of the world, new countries and scenes that he could never really place but, oh my god, each one felt like home with you in it. 

Then one night, he saw himself. 

He felt the surge of panic flood him even in his sleep, his body jolting against his bed as he saw the familiar face, staring back at him, nonplussed. He looked a little different, maybe older. His hair was shorter at the back, cropped closer to the nape of his neck but the biggest difference was how happy he looked. 

This Steve, the one in his dream, inside this gate - this Steve from another time, another life - he looked lighter. He didn’t have purple smudges under his eyes, no deep lines settling across his forehead from frowning so much. His clothes were different too, looser, less fitting, the colours more muted. He wore a pair of jeans that looked much more comfortable than his tight Levi’s, a soft burgundy sweater that had the sleeves rolled up. 

Steve didn’t recognise where this dream took place, but he knew it wasn’t Hawkins. America, yeah, the street signs and licence plates on the cars in the street giving that detail away, but he wasn’t too sure where. The buildings were bigger, shinier, more glass than brick but the skies were still blue and it looked peaceful, warm. 

Safe. 

Dream Steve strolled down the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets, looking back over his shoulder every now and then as if to make sure the real Steve was following him. He walked past storefronts and stopped to pet a dog, a golden retriever who was waiting for his owner outside of a bakery. When he came to a bookstore, Steve could see a large building in the distance, a huge billboard atop it that looked like it was advertising a new movie, or a show maybe. It didn’t have much details on it, no actors nor dates to tell what year this was supposed to be. 

Certainly not 1988. 

It only had lettering across it, big and bold and red against a pristine white background: “ANOTHER LIFE.”

The bell to the bookstore jingled and then Steve saw you. As pretty as you had been in every other gate, every other world, every other lifetime. Like a figurine inside a snow globe, like something from a fairytale. Steve had never seen you this close before. 

He watched your smile, the way it widened at the sight of his counterpart, this other version of him. You were so pretty that his breath got caught in his lungs, his sleeping body kicking out in shock when you lunged at the dream version of him, throwing your arms around his shoulders in greeting. 

Steve watched the two figures embrace on the street, he watched how this luckier man got to bring his hand to your cheek and hold to there to kiss, how his lips - Steve’s own lips - met your own and parted them, mouths melting together in something that was so much more than a quick hello. 

Steve didn’t have it in him to feel jealous then. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to. He watched the hand that held your jaw, the thumb that caressed your cheekbone as you grinned into him, your own hands clutching his waist now. There was a freckle, the same as the one he had on his own hand, in the matching spot on yours. This Steve took that hand and kissed that very mark, smacking kisses across your palm and up your wrist until you were laughing, head thrown back, eyes bright. 

Steve hadn’t seen anything so happy. 

He woke up before the dream finished, before the gate closed. Steve woke up with tears stinging at the corners of his eyes, his vision blurry in the navy gloom of his bedroom. It wasn’t yet morning. There was no gate on his bedroom fall, no new city between the plaid striped wallpaper. 

He thought it could’ve been Chicago, maybe New York. Perhaps Philadelphia. 

He wondered if he left and went looking for that bookstore, that street, that billboard, he’d find you too. If he was supposed to, if you were real, if this life was all he was supposed to get. 

Something told him otherwise, that open crack inside his chest that made him ache for hours after he awoke. He never forgot about you during the day, each life he’d watched you live, how you had grown your hair out and then cut it, how you seemed to change your clothing depending on where you were, from old petticoats to jeans and shirts with logos on them he’d never seen before. 

Steve felt like he’d lived a thousand lives with you. 

He wasn’t sure what he had to do to get you in this one. 

After two weeks of dreaming of this life with you, one that he was so sure would happen, he spoke to Joyce. He waited until the kids dragged Hopper out into the yard to help them with some sort of rocket they wanted to make and he found her in the kitchen. It was the closest kind of feeling he had to home - bar from the sight of you, but he wasn’t really sure if that counted when he was asleep. 

So he tried to sound casual when he leaned over the Byers kitchen counter, elbows avoiding the jelly stains that Mike had left after making a sandwich, and asked, “hey, uh, do you believe in soulmates?”

Joyce blinked at him, flour and butter between her fingers as she tried to turn the page in her recipe book back to the instructions for apple pie. The book flopped shut when she let go, her hands reaching for a rag instead. Her eyes never left Steve’s. 

“Uh, well. I guess so,” she paused, head tilted to the side as she watched the younger man, how his cheeks turned pink and his gaze fell to the floor. “I haven’t thought about it all that much. Why’d you ask?”

Steve didn’t know what to say then. So he floundered, flushed in the face and nose scrunched as he ran his fingers through his hair too harshly, hoping that no one else walked in. What was he supposed to say? That he was dreaming of gates in his bedroom walls? But it was okay? ‘Cause these ones didn’t have monsters or creatures set out to kill him, no, these gates held something that he thought he’d once had, that they held something he was so sure he was supposed ot have again?

Maybe, just not in this life.

Maybe, this time, something was broken. Wires were crossed, cut, unravelled. Maybe the upside down messed up a timeline, maybe it ripped apart whatever plan it had originally laid out for Steve Harrington. 

He didn’t know. But he knew it sounded crazy, even in his head.

So he shrugged and said, “no reason.”

And then that night, after Joyce gave him funny looks over the dinner she served him and the rest of his friends, the kitchen table full, he went home and lay on his bed, hardly bothering to pull the sheets over his bare chest.

He counted his breaths, hoped for sleep and wished for you.

Like always, his room grew darker, his lids heavier and the crack in his bedroom wall crumbled and split until the dust settled and he saw your face. You were alone this time, pretty as ever and in the same looking city he’d last seen himself in. The skies were blue behind you, the buildings still tall and shiny looking, all glass window panes and metal framework. If he concentrated enough, he could smell summer.

Hot tarmac and sunscreen, fresh fruit from one of the stores behind you, tart lemons and freshly ground coffee. 

You were looking right at him and even in his sleep, Steve smiled. Your eyes were pretty, too pretty, the colour bright and your gaze excited as you gazed at him. Like you’d been waiting. You held out a hand, coaxing, kind, soft, patient. And for the first time, when Steve reached out too, his hand slipped through the gate. 

He was right, about the season, about it being summer. The air inside this world was warm on his skin, like the sun was on him despite being sprawled out in the blue gloom of his dark bedroom. It felt like a July morning, right before the heat hit. 

He was almost touching your fingers when he woke up alone again.

[octopiys]

Some incorrect quotes and scenes for the pies

Roach: *Screams*

Ghost: *Screams louder to establish dominance*

Capt. MacTavish: Should we do something?

Capt. Price: No, I want to see who wins.

-

Alejandro: You lying, cheating, piece of shit!

Valeria: Oh yeah? You’re the idiot who thinks you can get away with everything you do. WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD

Alejandro: I’m leaving you, and I’M TAKING RODOLFO WITH ME

Rodolfo, picking up the monopoly board: I think we’re gonna stop playing now.

Price: You know, not every problem can be solved with a knife.

Ghost: That's why I carry two knives.

-

Soap: I made tea.

Ghost: I don’t want tea.

Soap: ....I did not make tea for you. This is my tea.

Ghost: Then why are you telling me?

Soap: It is a conversation starter.

Ghost: That’s a lousy conversation starter.

Soap: Oh, is it? We are conversing. Checkmate.

-

Gaz: Is letting someone win at chess sapiosexual bottoming

Price, putting his head in his hands: Does anyone in this goddamn team ever think before they speak-

-

Graves: Must be hard not being able to laugh

Alejandro: I do have a sense of humor you know

Graves: I’ve never heard you laugh before

Alejandro: I’ve never heard you say anything funny

Graves:

Graves: fuck you

Alejandro: fuck you

-

Soap, motioning to a Halloween display: All these ghosts! All these ghosts! I still can’t find a boo.

Ghost:

Ghost: is it because I said I didn't want your tea-

Soap: YES ITS BECAUSE YOU SAID YOU DIDNT WANT MY TEA

-

Ghost: Schrödinger’s cat is overrated. If you wanna see something that’s both dead and alive you can talk to me any time of the day.

Gaz, just finding out that Ghost is legally dead:

-

Gaz: Why isn’t the statue smirking at me?

Price: It isn’t smirking at anyone, they’re all just imagining it.

Soap: Three of us saw it, Cap. How do you explain that?

Price: *points at Soap* Sleep deprivation. *points at König* Paranoia. *points at Ghost* Delusional personality disorder.

Gaz:

Gaz: damn.

-

Roze: What’s something you guys are better than Horangi at?

Hutch: Mario Kart.

O'Conor: Yeah, video games.

König: Emotional vulnerability

-

Graves: *Gets down on one knee*

Alejandro: Oh my god, it’s finally happening.

Graves: *Falls over*

Alejandro: The poison is kicking in.

-

Gaz, after falling out of a heli for the third time: Do you take constructive criticism?

Nikolai: I only take cash or credit.

-

Soap: Can you keep a secret?

Ghost: Do you know anything about my life?

Soap: No I do not. Good point.

-

Gaz: Hey heads up if you try to make a candle with food coloring, the food coloring will just sink to the bottom of the glass, and when the flame eventually reaches the bottom all the food coloring will catch fire and become one giant tall flame that you cannot possibly blow out and the glass will start to crack and then you'll throw your tea on it in a panic and then the extremely hot food coloring will boil and sizzle horribly and then the glass will shatter. Please take my word on this haha-

Roach: What did you-?

Gaz: A MISTAKE WAS MADE

-

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I just wanna say thank you all sm for 300 followers! You all r loved and I'm not good with responses but I appreciate them all so muck, thank u again :DDDDD