#SEVERAL THINGS HERE THAT ARE SO COOL TO ME

[zacolyn]

-Steeples fingers- So personal thing and all that, but I am heavily into the story of my WoL and boy howdy did things happen concerning Garlemald.

So my boy Albert is Ala Mhigan, the same age as Lyse and the beginning of his story is starving with his father in Stonesthrow. He grows up to loathe and despise Garleans to the point he’s exactly the kind of Eorzean the Garlean propaganda talks about. He’s practically the poster boy of ‘they think we’re lesser and will oppress us if we don’t oppress them first’. He wants them extinct as a race (oh except for Lucia and Cid, they’re ‘good’ Garleans, you see. Later this will come to include Gaius with severe side eye and only because of Werlyt).

Anyway, with this rampant hatred of most Garleans, the Scions see a bit of a….troubling side of him during Stormblood, in which he is not the sweet, understanding and overall caring WoL they thought he was. Instead they witness an openly bloodthirsty man who delights in the suffering of any Garlean in his sights and he has no kindness for Fordola either. She is a traitor and in his eyes deserves to be tortured for it (yes, even after the Echo shows him her memories).

Shadowbringers was sure something with Emet-Selch, the cause of all his suffering. He eventually sort of forgave him but in a ‘cool motive still murder, and I’ll remember you and your people, but you will not be honored for causing the death of mine’ kind of way.

Anyway, now we get into Endwalker and here I had to actually had to have him possessed by Ardbert for literally up until sometime after we leave Garlemald for a while because if the Scions had thought he was out for blood in Stormblood, at least those were trained soldiers. As much as it had frustrated me when those girls died because the propaganda machine had convinced them Eorzeans were evil, they’d never have had the chance to run from my WoL. Albert would have somehow ensured the twins were away, and he would have killed every single one of those people.

So instead the Garleans get Ardbert. There’s a good plot reason this happens that I won’t get into, but Ardbert can feel and is aware of Albert’s blind and irrational level hatred and he does his best to soothe it. (Albert’s wife also tries to help because she grew up with Albert and knows how bad he is about this, but mostly it’s Ardbert because they’re brain buddies).

All of this to say; it actually made me kind of sick to my stomach to know what my muse would do to these people. It’s in character for him, but he is utterly blind to his hypocrisy and it made that part of Endwalker look interesting to me as well as the evolution of his character thanks to Ardbert.

WRT the Garlemald portion of EW: I'm sure that for a lot of FFXIV's history players have been wondering what it would be like to reach Garlemald proper in-game, and daydreaming of epic battles, maybe a sense of "conquering the conquerers"

And it is so, so genius of EW to not give you that.

You don't get any glory or revenge in defeating the evil empire, they already self-destructed on their own. You can't really revel in it. If you're feeling particularly vindictive you might look at the rubble and silently think "Serves you right!" or "Good riddance to bad rubbish." but no matter how much you may have hated the Empire in the past it's hard not to pity what's left.

See, the thing about Garlemald is that in their prejudice and conquest they treated everyone who isn't them as subhuman. But in the end you are all human beings, and so are they. The Empire isn't a nameless, faceless evil, it's a war machine created by the beliefs of humans who saw other humans as inhuman. By helping the survivors you are not only doing the right thing, the human thing to do, you are also disproving their prejudice in the process by reminding them that you're all human. (I'm using the word "human" in abstract sense here, not to refer just to the Hyuran race of FFXIV, but all the races of sentient beings, all deserving of rights, respect, etc.)

I'm trying to shine a light on the significance of this part of the story because it seems like some people have conflicted feelings about helping citizens of a facist former empire, but it would be sheer Reading Comprehension Stat: None to assume that that means FFXIV is condoning their ideology. In fact, it would be antithetical to FFXIV's optimistic, pro-humanity, love-and-peace, a-better-world-is-possible -type philosophy if we instead left the survivors to starve.

[rcmclachlan]

several sentences sun monday

I was tagged yesterday by the lovely @setmeatopthepyre, but I got in late last night and couldn't muster the energy to post.

Here's another flashback snippet from my yet-unnamed fic. This little scene takes place sometime between 7x10 and 8x01.

+

"Chris and I used to go to the Griffith's All Space Considered thing once a month, and one of the coolest things they taught me is that debris disks are found around stars with older planet systems." He pulled up the photo of Fomalhaut that he liked to look at sometimes. The disk was shaped like a giant, red eye, with the star acting as a pin-prick pupil in its center. "I mean, they can form if, like, asteroids crash into each other, too. This one is only 25 light-years away, but it's not in our part of the sky right now. We could look at Vega, though! Vega's got one, too."

It was second nature to open the Star Walk app, but tonight it felt almost superfluous, considering he could easily make out most of the constellations LA's light pollution normally hid. He held up his phone, slowly moving it until he landed in the Lyra constellation, a faded image of a harp superimposed over that patch of sky. He tilted his head so Tommy could see the screen.

"Very cool. Remind me to make you watch Contact at some point," Tommy murmured, reaching up to adjust the phone for a better look.

As Tommy studied it, his index finger started tapping almost thoughtfully against Buck's second knuckle, and then, haltingly, he covered Buck's hand on the phone case with his own and guided the phone leftward to a different point in the sky. Their fingers slid together. Buck wanted to throw his head back and howl at the sheer intimacy of it. He settled for gasping out a breath and chubbing up in his jeans.

Finally, the phone came to a stop, and on the screen the star map rearranged itself to accommodate the new position, and the image of the harp became a dog. Canis minor, it read.

Buck looked away from the screen and used their arms as a sightline to try and find the actual constellation in the sky.

"Is that your favorite? It's a good one. I love dogs."

Tommy's breath washed over his ear, dredging up goosebumps in its wake. "There's... there's a star in it."

"More than one, usually." Buck was loathe to break the hush of the night, but he couldn't help himself, so he split the difference to tease Tommy as quietly as he could, although it was probably drowned out by the pounding of his heart.

Where it held the phone up, Buck's hand began to shake, although he wasn't entirely sure why. He'd held up 50lb kettlebells for way longer. On the screen, the big, bright star in the dog's flank gained a name.

"I-Is it that one? Procyon?"

"No," Tommy said, just as quietly. "Not that one."

+

No pressure tags: @dadvans, @firehose118, @screamlet, @liminalmemories21, @beanarie, @geddyqueer, @leashybebes, @dharmaavocado

[1nkwe4ver]

So here’s the theory. I think I’ve got it

I still think what Lumon is doing is bigger than giving rich people the chance to sever off their bad experiences. And I think Helena is actually a big hint to understanding whats going on with Gemma.

They act like Cold Harbor is going to be a religious revelation to the world, and I don’t think it’s just “eliminate all your troubles with Severance!” Like okay so if you’re not immediately existentially horrified by it, that might sound kinda cool, but what’s the big miraculous reveal they keep referencing with Cold Harbor? That will change the world? Make everyone join the cult of Kier? Why all the goddamned secrecy and hiding Gemma underground? Obviously people already know about severance and about using it for your inconveniences, people are already doing it. People are severing off worker bees for their 9-5. Rich people are using it to give birth.

So I have a theory of how this is bigger than that

First of all, some of the questions they asked Gemma. I felt like they were checking on her mental functions and memory as herself, as an Outie. “Where did you go?” And “Would you be more afraid of drowning or suffocating?”before she even starts her rooms for the day.

The next key I think is in things like MDR. They are finding the scary numbers and refining them into the boxes labeled with tempers(if that’s not what they’re labeled with it’s something like that). Mark’s first file matched the name of Gemma’s Christmas Thank You Note room, I think. Implying his finishing that file had something to do with the formation of that room. The room resembles the way one of their actual Christmases was set up, so I feel it’s implied they were drawing from his memories. Possibly one where they were feeling crappy because of all their failing to get Gemma pregnant.

Okay. So even if you accept that Lumon categorizes all bad feelings into the “tempers”, why does Lumon need this to make a room for Gemma’s Innie to experience this temper? Why bother personalizing it to Outie Gemma’s experiences in such a weirdly intimate way? After all, Innies aren’t supposed to have that kinda connection to their Outies.

And even beyond Mark, what is the rest of MDR doing? Why have them craft these weirdly personalized rooms to isolate tempers so intensely? If all they wanted was to let Innies do the dirty work for the Outies, surely they could come up with rooms doing the basic premises for themselves- eternal dentist offices and chores.

Also, why fucking plane crashes and Thank You Notes? Yes, Gemma hates thank you notes, but that Innie didnt hate thank you notes until she was subjected to that room over and over. You can’t tell me they’re going to sever so many innies into the average brain that someone is going to have one set aside to turn on just in case a plane crashes. Irl, a persons going to want to call their family if they have the service. They’re going to want to experience their last moments in case they die. They can’t trust the Innie to actually behave like a person on a real life plane rather than a simulated one. I also highly doubt someone will really get another brain surgery just to do a petty thing like Thank you notes. Will they delegate it? Sure. But even if I’m buying into the system of brain slaves thing, I’m not going to schedule the time and take the risks to have another severance done. If im that rich and petty I’m sure I have a personal assistant doing that shit anyway.

So how does Helena Eagan shed some light on this?

Remember after Irving nearly killed her, she speaks with Drummond. They say something along the lines of, doctors say her tempers will rebalance promptly. But if she’s still feeling poorly they can treat her. She insists immediately and firmly that she is fine.

I know it’s implied Helena wasn’t severed until she got her job on the severed floor. So what if that’s the point of severance?

Stay with me here. Kier has to be the core of whatever’s going to be revealed with Cold Harbor and Gemma. The beginning. They’re crediting everything to him. Praise Kier. His work will finally be realized and everyone will rejoice. But Helena has confirmed that Jame is the one to come up with the severance procedure.

So what did Kier do? He identified the tempers, for one. What does Lumon actually do with the tempers? All we’ve heard mentioned is people getting them in balance, or out of balance.

Helena’s situation implies two things-

One- followers of Kier approach larger medical issues, physical and mental, with doctors who rebalance their tempers as opposed to other remedies.

Two- Even Helena fucking Eagan isn’t really willing to undergo whatever the fuck you have to do to get your tempers back in balance under a doctor’s supervision.

So my theory is- Kier’s original method of balancing the tempers, the basis of Lumon’s ideology, is some variation of what they’re doing to Gemma, traditionally without severance. Obviously, because severance didn’t exist till a few years ago.

My theory is that they believe every illness/lack of wellness is an imbalance of the tempers. More often than not, a lower amount of one.

To raise this temper, they dig into you psychologically, maybe with normal therapy or something, take something that stimulates a certain “temper” and make you experience it over and over, to the point of torture. In their view, this ultimately realigns the temper and once youre done, you recompartmentalize the Dieter in you that’s experiencing that shit, and you’re well again.

The issue was, well- patients either left their cult or lost their minds. Kier died and I’m sure his personality, which had probably drawn and kept many in, lost many followers with it.

So the Eagans and their remaining followers have to accept that things aren’t going right. They have to change their approach. Make things a business to keep their power and influence, and back off from the things that make them look like wackjobs in the public eye.

I mean, obviously, Kier could never have been wrong, he was right. The problem is the world. The masses cannot handle his wisdom for some reason. We have to approach this differently.

So they need to do two things to make Kier’s word acceptable to the mainstream, really. They need to prove, as they believe, that balancing the tempers can heal pretty much any fucking thing under the sun. And secondly- they need to make a way to make the process usable on the masses. Something an average person could make it through without losing their mind.

In comes Jame Eagan.

He has the best idea. Kier always compartmentalized his time “balancing his tempers.” He put it all on Dieter(if Dieter was a real brother, excuse me, but I’m going with the ‘he was a metaphor’ interpretation for this. If you disagree, just take my references to Dieter to be personified portions of yourself you’ve compartmentalized to deal with traumatic situations). But Kier was pure. He was superior. The average person may need help to do that! Let’s section off a portion of their memories, so they don’t have to remember going through treatment! We create these people’s Dieter’s for them, because as long as the tempers in their body are balanced, they will experience the healing effects of Kier’s treatments. So what if those versions of them are in continuous loops of torture? Nobody cares about the states of those minds. Those are Dieters. Those aren’t real people. And then the real people get to be whole again!

Okay, but how do we convince the masses that this isn’t crazy bullshit? We need a real, solid example of how surreally magical and intense Kier’s treatment can be.

Well, the doctor says- with such strong mental barriers as this procedure will give us, I believe we could rebalance the tempers in anyone. Could do anything.

You know what it could do? We could raise the dead.

So- I think Gemma did die. Physically. I think they took her corpse, which Mark identified early on, and quickly swapped it out for them to bury a different one.

Then they used crazy technology to resuscitate her. I think she was on the edge of death and miserable and a shell of herself. Probably hardly functioning. Hardly reacting to the questions they asked. Who knows what her mind and body were like when she was recovered. She was her, but if she’d been allowed in a normal hospital, she would have long been pronounced dead, and if they somehow resuscitated her as Lumon originally did, so late, no one would have let her live how they resuscitated her to be. Gemma being brought back to herself as we’ve seen her would be a miracle.

That’s why they need MDR to unconsciously choose what they will use for the formation of the rooms. They are making sure the rooms will spike the sharpest reactions of her tempers possible. It is necessary to have a raw, unconscious human response dictate this. It is helpful to draw from Mark’s memories because they’re not trying to test Gemma’s Innies ability to withstand dealing with the rooms, they’re trying to restore Gemma’s tempers to the levels they were at before her death. Other people’s experiences can work for some general things, like anxiety at the dentist office, but it makes sense that Mark is so essential here in that context. He is the refiner that can’t be fired because to really get Gemma back to Gemma, we need situations that will stimulate her from the life they shared. They have a general idea of where her old tempers were, I think because they measure it in the blood. And they had a lot of access to Gemma medically before her accident. She went to Lumon blood drives. She went to the Lumon fertility treatment, where that doctor who worked on this hell floor was seen in the background. I’m guessing they believe they have an idea of her “tempers” pre-death because of that.

This also lends itself to a late stage Uno reverse from Cobel or Helena, trying to get Mark on their side. Hell, it might late stage be the only reason Mark finishes the goddamned Cold Harbor file.

Because we’ve seen how tortured Gemma is right now, so in our heads, right now, it seems like nothing could make us sympathize with these crazy evil folks. Makes us hate Lumon drones we’d come to like, like Milchik and Cobel and Helena afresh. But what if Gemma really was dead before all this? What if she really was a barely breathing corpse when they started this work on her? It wasn’t their right to take her body, but now she is back and she is her

If you hear, Milchik, Cobel, and them really are so devoted to this company because they’re working on bringing people to perfect health with a health framework that is so superior it can bring people back from death, you want to say that they’re deranged and wrong, but ignoring whatever got them into the company in the first place, what about what they’ve potentially seen with Gemma? Maybe it’s still wrong to be so cruel, but if you’ve really seen this company bring someone back from death to essentially herself, wouldn’t that inspire your devotion? Wouldn’t you think you should probably toughen up as opposed to getting out? Wouldn’t you be a little reverent? Wouldn’t you have committed to breaking society’s rules already? And if you wouldn’t be, can’t you imagine someone else being so? Like that is wild. Cobel has been in this company since she was a child and now she’s literally a part of them doing one of the most miraculous things anyone ever said she was crazy to believe they could do.

This also puts Cobel’s obsession with Mark and his family into perspective, because it’s not just screening things for a sign he might get away, keeping control of the situation, a weird sense that she’s entitled to be close to him- it was also originally probably a recommended route to getting more info on Gemma. How many times did Selvig bring cookies for Mark and gently coax him until he told her stories about Gemma? How many pictures did she pull up and ask questions about? How many little pieces of furniture, like the candle, did she steal, to help personalize Gemma’s experiences further? How much info did she get from getting to know Ricken and Devon?

Also, another thing about Helena, which is just occurring to me as I write this- I’m thinking back to early season 1. When we still don’t know her full identity, but we see her side of her first day at Lumon.

I originally attributed this to them being unsure what they were going to do so early on, but I’ll say, Helena seems genuinely happy and pleased when we see her side on the outside of her first day severed.

Nowadays, when we see her in the outside, she’s cold and reserved, in large part I think because the experience has gone so wrong. And I think people have just written off that early episode as just them keeping her behavior vague- she’s being polite, going through the motions. Based on her behavior now, we might think she never wanted to be severed in the first place, was always forced.

But I think of like, when they show her smiling and talking about it, almost nerding out while they’re doing the procedure. Nervous, but genuinely a bit excited. And what is there to be excited about? You’re not gonna remember what goes on. I don’t take anything she said for the videos at that party in the finale as real.

But this theory, about the Kier cult and balancing tempers for health purposes? I think that really makes it make sense.

Helena was raised in all this, and she seems to scoff at some parts of it. I’d say it’s implied on some level, she knows it’s bullshit. She is stressed and firmly denies she needs to go to the tempers balancing doctor after Irving tries to drown her. She starts giggling at the dramatic story about Kier masturbating. It very much seems like she doesn’t drink her own Kool Aid.

So, if shes really just a business mind in all this, not a real spiritual believer, I think she’s excited to be severed because she’s stuck in this system. Every time something in her life happens to her- she gets hurt, she gets attacked, she undergoes a traumatic experience- she gets sent into the waking nightmare of the doctors who dig into your psyche and rebalance your tempers. What they’re doing to Gemma, without Severance. Torture. She’s an Eagan, it’s not supposed to bother her, she of all people is supposed to be superior, but she fucking hates it with all of her being.

So she is excited to be severed because it represents finally not having to fucking deal with that.

She is ready and willing because before Helly, she saw severance as her way out of hell. Her way to finally create a Dieter she didn’t have to deal with. To not experience them carefully crafting experiences to torture her in the name of “rebalancing her tempers.” Severance was finally going to let her compartmentalize all the shit she couldn’t stand about being an Eagan and focus on being herself. Everything she’d been taught about it said she didn’t need to worry about Innies, they weren’t people.

But then she takes the severed job- and Helly keeps trying to run out the floor. She threatens to cut off Helena’s fingers. Helena is supposed to walk in the elevator and come out never knowing more than an echo of Helly’s pain- and one day she walks in the elevator, and the next moment she’s being hanged.

So her hopeful little smiles before going in are just gone. She still feels trapped. She never wants Helly triggered again, I highly doubt she wants to create a system of others. But of course, she’s still an Eagan, and she has to still finish the realization of Kier’s wishes, and they still have a woman nearly brought back to life in their sub-basement. And they still want Helena Eagan’s severance as a publicity stunt.

So yeah. I think we’re going to find that Gemma DID die in that car accident, and was brought back to life using an extreme combination of Kiers principles and balancing of the tempers, a process which she can only handle mentally because the parts of her dealing with the individual bits of the torture are severed off.

Mark’s contributions in unconsciously creating the rooms are essential because they need to make sure her tempers are balanced back to the way Gemma originally had them. I’m not sure exactly what the Cold Harbor file is, but once the room is done and used, Gemma will be “completely” brought back. And Lumon intends to use this as proof to the world that the Rebalancing of the Tempers is the cure for everything, as Kier always said.

[hellfirenacht]

Anomaly Chapter 6

Fic Summary: You can talk to anyone in school with no problem. At least, anyone who’s not named Eddie Munson.

Chapter Summary: You start off your criminal career and you and Eddie talk about alignments

Tags: Eddie Munson x Reader, one-sided enemies to lovers, one-sided pining, miscommunication trope, anxious-ish!Reader, fem!Reader, Reader is not described, no use of y/n

Word Count: 3.9k words

Master List

This was not a good idea. Well, Stacy thought it was a good idea. You were unsure, even though it was your stupid idea. 

“It’s a store. You’ve been in a store before.” Stacy sighed as you stared at the small game shop that the two of you were parked in front of. 

“Yeah, but not this store.” you pointed out. “This is so stupid. Let’s just go do something else.” 

“Oh no, you begged me to bring you here and so you’re going to do this. It’s a store. They sell things. You want to buy things.” She opened up her door and stepped out of the car and marched to the front of the building and waited there for you. 

You had begged her, and that was the most embarrassing thing. In your euphoria of having Eddie talk to you about Dungeons and Dragons you had asked Stacy to take you to the game store in town to pick up your own copy of the game manual to learn. It seemed so simple in the heat of the moment; get the manual, learn the rules, impress Eddie by playing his game and then he falls in love with you. 

And Stacy, being the good friend that she is, agreed to the plan after laughing her ass off. 

You got out of the car, seeing no other choice but to commit to this plan. She held the door open for you as you both entered the store. It was small, and there was a slight musky scent to the room. There were a few guys hanging around the back, huddled over some sort of card game and you were met with some odd looks. That didn’t really surprise you though, you didn’t think that many girls came in here, especially not ones that looked like Stacy with her perfect perm and lipgloss smile. 

The shopkeep looked unimpressed as you made your way to the counter. 

“Makeup shop is down the street.” he said, looking back down at the comic he was reading on the counter. He had messy dishwater blond hair, and his crooked name tag read CHRIS.

Any nerves you had suddenly vanished, as now you were just pissed. What the fuck was that comment about?

“Actually, I’m here to pick up a copy of the Dungeons and Dragons manual.” you said, stepping up to the counter. The cashier didn’t move his head, but his eyes flicked up at you. 

“Original or advanced?” he asked. 

“Advanced.” You said confidently, not knowing the difference or that there was more than one version but advanced had to be more impressive, right? 

The cashier rolled his eyes and pointed vaguely in the direction of a rack on the far wall, and you saw that Stacy was already looking at the different items. You made your way over and scanned the shelves until you found the manual for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. There was a lot more in the section than you had thought. There were several books filled with what looked like stories about the game, but you didn’t have much to go off of what you remembered Eddie talking about. You held the manual as you scanned the other books, your eyes landing on something called The Tomb of Horrors. You picked it up and flipped through it for a moment, figuring out that it was some sort of companion to the game. Were all players supposed to have these? 

“The art’s cool at least.” Stacy said, looking over your shoulder. “Lot of numbers though.”

“You literally tutor me in math, I don’t wanna hear it.” You countered.

“You won’t find any princess fairytale in that.” A voice said, and you turned to see the cashier, as well as the rest of the store staring at the two of you. 

“Excuse me?” you asked.

“I’m just saying it’s a fantasy game but it’s serious business,” he said. “I’m sure if you go to another store there are games that are more your speed.” 

“Excuse me?” you repeated yourself, your cheeks now burning. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Look, it’s cute that you come in here all dolled up but this is a serious store so if you’re just here to look at pictures you’re gonna have to leave.” 

You really didn’t like the way he was looking at Stacy, and it made your blood boil. “Dude, what the hell is your problem? I’m here to buy something, do you want my money or not?!”

One arm or not, you were fighting the urge to deck this guy in the face. 

“Okay, I see we aren’t wanted here.” Stacy said quickly, pushing you towards the door. You stared at her, as she flipped her hair and gave the cashier a look that baffled you. “I’m, like, so sorry to bother you all. I was just so curious about the game my cousin was so obsessed with.”

The cashier faltered for a second, and if you weren’t so pissed you’d find it funny how quickly his brain seemed to have turned to mush. 

“Well uh- if you really wanted to know about the game I’d be more than happy to teach you. Maybe set up a little one on one-”

Oh, gross. You quickly turned heel and walked out of the shop to Stacy’s car feeling all sorts of bogus feelings. 

Stacy was right behind you thirty seconds later. “Car. Now.” she said, and you wasted no time getting in as she sped off before you could even put on your seatbelt. 

“You owe me.” she said firmly. “What a creep! Ugh, you’re lucky you’re my best friend.” 

“This was such a stupid idea.” you said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that the store would be... that.” 

“Whatever, buy me a milkshake and we’ll call it even. You better have that book memorized next time you see Eddie.”

What book-

“Oh fuck, I didn’t pay for these!” you stared at the two books in your hand. 

“Duh, as if I’d let you spend money in there.” Stacy said. 

“Stacy!” you gasped. 

“Yes?” 

“The only reason my parents let me hang out with you is because they think you’re a good influence.” 

“Their problem. Anyway, I actually really like the makeup store in that plaza and now I’ll have to avoid it for at least a few weeks so make it three milkshakes.” 

Your little grand theft nerd book probably saved you about fifteen bucks, so yeah, you owed Stacy big time for this. 

“And fries.” you agreed. 

“That goes without saying.”

The weekend passed by with no further petty crime, unless you counted the backstory that you created for a thief character. You still weren’t very certain that you did all the math correctly, but you tried. 

The manual was the most helpful, and you recognized terms that Eddie had used that had flown right over your head when he had talked so passionately about the game. The Tomb of Horrors was more interesting but you had a feeling that you weren’t supposed to be reading this. It was a module, something that only the Dungeon Master would use to guide the players through the game. Reading it felt like cheating, even if you weren’t in Hellfire. 

It didn’t stop you from reading it all in one sitting, though. 

Monday rolled around, and you had spent so much time learning a game that you had forgotten to study for your English test.  

No. You didn’t forget. It was painfully in the back of your mind the whole time you were messing with paper and dice. But the louder that knowledge was, the more you focused on reading the books instead. 

You did the best that you could on Ms. Benson’s test and, not wanting to be the first one to turn it in, you spent the rest of the time staring at the back of Eddie’s head like some lovelorn teenager. Which you were. 

Eddie spent more time on his test than you, and you watched as he would write something, then erase, and write again. Occasionally he’d tap his pencil and stare up at the clock. You wondered if DIO was any good. Maybe if you were any kind of artist you’d been sketching the lines of his shoulders and the way he’d run his fingers through his wavy hair. You thought that his jacket and the denim vest made his form look older, more filled out maybe. It could also be that Eddie was a year older than you, and thus 2 years older than most of the seniors. 

After half the class turned in their tests, you walked up to turn yours in as well. You considered ‘accidentally’ brushing against his arm as you passed him but that felt too desperate. 

God, you had it bad. This felt pathetic. You didn’t give a shit about how anyone else here felt about you, but your IQ dropped into the single digits at any sight of Eddie.

You spent the rest of class re-reading the handbook under your desk, and stealing glances at Eddie who finally turned his test in about ten minutes before the bell rang. 

At least he tried. The thought was just as much praise for him as a jab at yourself. 

The bell rang and you got up and shoved the book in the new backpack that you had gotten permission to use to carry your books while you were still in a cast. Your wrist was twinging today, but you could ignore it for the most part. 

Eddie didn’t even look at you as he left the classroom. Why would he? A small conversation last week didn’t exactly make you friends but you wanted to try. 

In the time between arriving at school, and taking Benson’s test, Eddie had managed to study for a solid twenty minutes, which was about twenty minutes more than he had with most tests. It was better than nothing, and at least he could tell Wayne that he had tried. 

He doodled on the margins of the paper, hoping that Benson would be amused enough to maybe pass him a few bonus points. It had worked only once last year in science, but that didn’t stop him from doodling on every test since. 

The rest of the day passed by without much to report, it was only when Eddie was sitting in his van, getting ready to get the hell off Hawkin’s High property that he remembered that he had to report back to his parole officer (Benson) with his fellow inmate (you) to break some rocks (call random businesses in town). 

You were already in the classroom, staring at the binder with the notes you all had taken last week. 

“I’m grading tests today. Use the lounge again to make calls.” Ms. Benson said, grabbing a stack of papers from her desk. 

And those were all the marching orders the two of you received before making your way back to the teachers lounge. Eddie didn’t get why you two were still doing this. Last week the two of you had called pretty much everyone in the rolodex and had handed in all of the quotes given. 

“Is there anyone who we didn’t call last week?” Eddie asked, grabbing two chairs and dragging them over to the phone. You were already holding the binder and rolodex one handed. He could at least pretend to be a gentleman for now. 

“Some didn’t bother answering so maybe we call them again?” you suggested, plopping yourself down in the chair. 

Of the seven numbers left, you got 4 to answer and only one of them left any sort of helpful information. 

“Did Ms. Benson ever say how long we were supposed to be helping with this?” You asked, messing with the phone chord. The two of you were done, but neither of you had made a move to go back to the classroom. 

“Few weeks. Sounded like she was going to have us single handedly take care of Spring Day.” Eddie sighed. 

You stared at him blankly. Then to your cast. Then back to him. And then back to your cast. 

“That’s not what I meant!” Eddie said. “Not my fault you took a nosedive off the bleachers.”

“I did not!” you protested. “I threw myself down valiantly to distract our peers from the fact that Miles shit himself.”

“You should have let him fend for himself.” Eddie said, trying to hide the bitterness in his voice.

You paused and looked at him for a moment with that same intense expression. Maybe you really were trying to study him like a bog. 

“I... was going to talk to you that day.” You said, and Eddie didn’t miss a slight waver in your voice as if you were nervous. “It had nothing to do with Miles.” 

Eddie couldn’t mask the shock on his face. “Me?” Why the hell were you trying to talk to him that day?

“Yeah I-” your nerves were throwing him off. He had always expected you to pick a fight with him every time the two of you made eye contact. “I made that stupid joke and you heard and I wanted to come over and apologize. Then, Miles elbowed me and I tripped and.... Yeah.” 

“Really?” Eddie was usually a master of words and bullshit, but this was rendering him speechless.

“Yeah. It was a really stupid joke and you looked pissed and flipped me off and I felt bad.” You, the person who always gave him dirty looks, felt bad? And you had been trying to come to him to-

“Shit. So it’s my fault you broke your arm.” He realized. If it had been anyone else, then he probably just would have rolled his eyes that day and ignored you but he’d made a show of making sure you knew he heard you. 

“Wrist. And... what the fuck are you talking about?” There was the pissed look he was used to!

“If I hadn’t flipped you off, you wouldn’t have hurt yourself.” 

“If I hadn’t made a stupid comment I wouldn’t have needed to apologize!” 

Seeing you so worked up about this amused Eddie greatly. He felt bad that you had broken a bone on his behalf but knowing that you had done that plus saved his ass from expulsion gave you some points in his book. 

“You’re probably the one one in this hell hole to ever apologize.” He said honestly. “I doubt anyone else would have apologized and then cleared my name.”

You just stared at him for a long time, an expression on your face he found frustratingly unreadable. Your furrowed brows said that you were pissed, but your eyes... well Eddie always knew when someone was looking at him with contempt. This wasn’t it. Confusion maybe? Frustration? Maybe you were pissed that you felt bad and broke your wrist? He wasn’t going to push it, especially when you were still looking at him. 

“So... should we go see Benson since we’re done with this?” he asked after you had stared at him like this for about ten seconds longer than he was comfortable with.  

It’s not like there was anything else the two of you could do so you just nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

Eddie grabbed the binder and rolodex and kicked his chair back to its rightful place. When the two of you left the lounge, you made a move to turn left, but he turned right, in the opposite direction. 

“Where are you going?” you asked. 

“Takin’ the scenic route.” Eddie didn’t even bother turning around as he kept walking. 

You stood there like an idiot for a moment before jogging to catch up to him. “There’s a scenic route?”

“Yup.” Eddie said. You’d either join him and he could try and figure you out, or you’d ditch and go running to Benson. By the look on your face when she mentioned grading tests, he didn’t think you’d be in a rush back to the Warden. 

Eddie led you to the end of the hallway and opened up a door that led you both outside. It was chilly out, and you wished you had grabbed your jacket from your bag but it was such a pain to put on with the cast. 

You were now playing hooky with Eddie Munson. Well, shirking your semi-detention duties which was close enough. 

Okay. You were alone with the guy you’d been pining for, and he was hanging out with you in a seemingly willing way. Just talk to him. Ask him a question. 

“Would you rather fight a horse sized duck or a duck sized horse?” you asked. If it was a good enough ice breaker for Stacy, it’s good enough for Eddie. Hopefully. 

“Duck sized horse.” Eddie said instantly, looking at you. “Every time.” 

If he thought the question was stupid, he hid it well. 

“Explain yourself.” you said. 

“A horse sized duck would be too powerful.” Eddie explained, leading you past the football field and into the woods. “Ducks are made of evil and hatred, and I’d rather punt a small horse than deal with that.” 

Okay, so that was an answer you were not expecting. “Ducks are evil...?” you asked. 

“Oh, very evil.” Eddie said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. 

“....Chaotic, lawful, or neutral?” 

Eddie stopped walking to stare at you with wide eyes, and you felt your face heat up painfully even in the cool air. 

“Neutral.” Eddie finally said. “I’m sure there’s some duck code that I haven’t cracked, but as far as I’m concerned they’re all the same base evil across the board.” 

“I think geese would be chaotic evil.” you offered as the two of you started walking again into the woods. “I had one that would randomly attack me in my old neighborhood every time I walked down the street.”

“Most waterfowl are some flavor of evil.”

“Maybe swans are lawful?” 

The two of you sat on an old abandoned picnic table, and Eddie lit up a cigarette. 

“So, you were paying attention to my little lecture last week.” he blew the smoke away from you as he exhaled. “I figured that you would have forgotten anything I said by now.”

How could you? You’ve been replaying that moment in your mind over and over all weekend. Not that you could tell him that. 

“It was interesting.” That was putting it mildly. “It sounds like a lot of fun, honestly.”

Take the hint take the hint take the hint take the hint-

“I love it. We’re close to wrapping up this campaign, too. If they don’t royally fuck over my plans then everything should be wrapped up in a nice little bow by the end of the school year. It’s getting serious, and none of them are allowed to skip out on Hellfire unless they are actively dying.” 

The hint flew right past him, running off into the woods while carrying your hopes and dreams. Of course, trying to join this late in the year with only a few weeks left of school would be impossible. It would be like trying to join the basketball team right before the championship game. 

“You really take it seriously.” you looked over at him, taking in his profile as he took another drag of his cigarette. 

“As serious as the plague.” He exhaled. “It’s the only thing that keeps me coming back to school most days. Well, that and I promised my uncle I’d graduate.” 

“Your uncle...?”

“Yeah, I live with him.” 

You wanted to ask more, but this was the first time the two of you had really had a conversation. Would it be weird to ask more?

“Where do you guys live?” Nope, that was too weird and personal to ask but you did anyway. 

“Forest Hills.”

He didn’t say it was the trailer park, but he didn’t need to. The answers were short, and you could take the hint he didn’t want to talk about his personal life. You’d take any scrap he’d throw at you.

“Have you always been the Dungeon Master?”

And off he went again, his eyes lighting up as he regaled you with the rise of Hellfire. How his best friend Ronnie had dragged him to this weird club at someone’s house and he had been hooked ever since. When the original DM left, Eddie took over. His first campaign had been clunky, but the more he dove into this world he created the better it got. 

The more Eddie talked about the game, the worse your attraction to him got, and the more you mourned any opportunity to be part of his world. Your feelings for him aside, it really did sound like a lot of fun. 

The bell rang far too soon and you and Eddie booked it back to Ms. Benson’s class. You handed over the notes and information you gathered and she dismissed you both with a waive of her hand. 

“I guess I’ll see you Wednesday.” you said as the two of you made your way to the front of the school. 

“Tomorrow.” he corrected. “Unless you plan on Benson’s class tomorrow.”

“It’s tempting.” You wonder how quickly that failed test would get back to you. 

The two of you passed a group of cheerleaders who were giving Eddie dirty looks before they really noticed you next to him. Two of them- Chrissy and Emma- smiled and waved at you. You gave a smile and waved back, hoping that they took it as a sign that Eddie was more than welcome to be walking next to you. 

“You’re friends with everyone, huh?” Eddie asked when they were out of earshot. 

“Not really?” His question was confusing. Other than Stacy, he was the only other person who you had any consistent alone time with, and that was because he was being forced to. “I talk with some of them sometimes but we’ve never hung out. I think I just don’t offend them.”

“I didn’t think you were the cheer type.” Eddie waved his hands as if waving imaginary pompoms and you couldn’t help but laugh. 

“Nah, I’ve never been in with any cheer squad, unless you count the Field Day in elementary school. I twisted my ankle and was given some fake pompoms to wave while all the other kids played.” 

“Oh, so hurting yourself during sport themed activities is a hobby of yours?” Eddie asked. “There are easier and less painful ways to skip gym.”

“Oh, now you tell me!” you feigned shock. “I wish you had told me earlier.”

“Happy to be of service.” he bowed dramatically. 

Outside, you spotted Stacy standing by her car and chatting with a boy. Fresh meat. You thought to yourself. 

“It’s probably because you’re friends with her.” Eddie said, looking over at Stacy. 

“Huh?”

“I mean, she was on the team before. If one of those girls likes you, then the rest will at least tolerate you.” 

“...Stacy was a cheerleader?” you snapped your head at him. That would explain so much, but why didn’t you know this? 

“You didn’t know?” 

“I guess not.” 

“HEY! YOU NEED A RIDE OR WHAT?!” Stacy yelled from across the parking lot. The guy she was chatting with was gone and she was waving her arms. You mentally added pompoms to her hands and suppressed a laugh. 

“I guess that’s my cue.” you said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“If I don’t skip.” he winked at you and headed towards his van, so casually, as if he didn’t just make your little heart explode and your knees weak. 

For the first time ever, you were actually looking forward to school the next day.

Author Notes: Sometimes I worry that Reader and Stacy have more chemistry. Oh well. Also I had to re-write half of this fic because my dumb ass went from Eddie POV to Reader's.

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[thranduel]

this post has been in my drafts for a while and i started writing it before finn said this at a recent convention, but i'm posting it now because he mentioned E.T. again and has confirmed several times now that there's no love at first sight and that mike was basically fascinated by el because she has powers + is the only girl that’s given him attention. even lucas says this in the show:

anyways, in the stranger things worlds turned upside down book from YEARS ago (here is a photo of the page), finn says this about mike and el: “at first, he finds this girl and treats it like ‘oh i discovered something really cool’. then he kind of realised halfway through the second episode [that] this is an actual girl. it’s not E.T. it’s a person. he’s never even really talked to a girl, and now he’s teaching a girl to talk. i think he’s just drawn to her because one, she’s the first girl that’s ever had interest in him, and two, he has crazy interest in her and what’s going on in her brain”.

also, even without finn saying it himself more than once, we already knew there wasn't any love at first sight in the woods because...

sometimes i see people defend the 1x02 scene and say “mike only said this in front of lucas and dustin to sound cool because he was embarrassed about bringing a girl home, but didn’t mean it”, but he literally directly tells el this exact plan to her face IN THE SAME EPISODE 😭 he did mean it. this is a stranger to him and his best friend was missing, which was his priority. the next day when it’s just mike and el in the basement, he literally tells her to go to the front door and ring the doorbell and reassures her his mother will know what to do. this is the same plan he shared with lucas and dustin.

also, these screenshots show that he did get angry at her many times because he was so worried about will and he even says “lucas was right about you all along”, and again, lucas and dustin weren’t in the room here, so he wasn’t just saying that to impress them - he meant it. he was truly upset, angry and scared and his emotions were even more intense because of how worried he was about will.

and let me make this very clear - i’m not sharing this stuff to imply that mike doesn’t love el. i am very aware he does love and care for her as a person and they eventually do grow close. i’m just pointing out hypocrisy, lies and contradictions in the writing and making it very clear that mike’s monologue was not completely honest. parts of it didn’t even make sense and he only exaggerated and said those things in the moment because he was stressed and didn’t know what else to say, and it’s just frustrating seeing people act like it was the most “beautiful and romantic love confession” when it wasn’t, for SO MANY REASONS.

[themostsanebug]

who up loneing they ly?????? im running out of captions for my wips if you cant tell.

[hootyhoowoo]

A little 15 min doodle but first post of the year has to be Bingqiu!

[claitea]

i know i shouldnt dwell on stupid opinions like this but a while ago i saw someone complain that Applin was a boring concept bc its just a worm in an apple and i was FLOORED. this iirc was in response to smth about gen 1 designs being boring as well

its not just a worm its a Wyrm its a pun. that is a concept. maybe you don't like it personally but to say its objectively bad is certainly Something. not every pokemon has to be based on a myth or something else fantastical to be a good concept. you Need "boring" pokemon for the dex to feel complete, if Everything is Cool then nothing is actually cool

"gamefreak is running out of ideas" yeah there's a billion fish pokemon but they're all actually very different to each other, lanturn is an anglerfish and lumineon is a butterfly fish. say what you will abt gamefreak rn its probably warranted but imo the one thing they still do right 100% of the time is unique concepts for each pokemon. the execution can be debated but the fundamentals are always there

[gammija]

i don't like this tweet I've seen going around because it's precisely the other way around

sound is waves in the air, an analog signal, and vinyl records have a groove of varying widths engraved in them, another wave - you went from a wave to a wave, this makes sense

digital though? how did you take an entire songs worth of sounds and lyrics and instruments and express them only in the binary language ones and zeros - and -back again- with essentially a lot of really tiny wiring and resistors and capacitors and whatnot. and out comes music

the only reason the vinyl seems more mysterious than the digital is because you're so used to computers that their wondrous magic feels ordinary

[colonelpancakes]

Chronic pain is so funny I'll be sitting there wondering why I feel like my bones are dissolving in acid and then I'll hear thunder and go ah. That makes sense.

[hanzajesthanza]

should i change my headcanons based upon “i saw it in a dream”

[icewindandboringhorror]

I occasionally wish to reach out to old friends/acquaintances I haven't spoken to since high school/some other even earlier time in my life, but I have SOOO little social energy even for required tasks (like making dr phone calls or etc), I never have any leftover for extra ones, and it would be very odd to message someone I haven't spoken to in like 5 years out of the blue but then take 4 entire months to respond back lol.. My natural curiosity with nostalgia/collecting details of the past/etc. (literally if I were born a little earlier I would definitely do scrapbooking or something lol) is very strong, but, alas, not strong enough to beat out the Social Issues Demons apparently

[saucerfulofsins]

Mental illness is dumb

[bitegore]

ok this isnt meant to be a dig or anything but it's always really funny to me when people like just cracking 30 are like "omg you're in your early twenties, you're a babyyyyyy"

babe you're like barely 30, you're a baby too. You're a blink and a half older than me. I spend too much time around people over 50, the difference between 23 and 33 is a few years at a job and a little more distance from living in your parents' house but it's like, nothing. the gap closes every time you breathe and every time i move. the difference between you and me is like one-fifteenth the difference between you and my dad's friend Joe or whatever. don't worry you'll get to live more life too, but don't kid yourself.

and this is doubled when it's coming from a 25-year-old currently experiencing a crisis of age because they're soooo old, they're 25, the horror! You are twenty-five. We have an age difference of three years. Your concern over this is embarrassing for you and highly entertaining for me. But like don't kid yourself here. You are 25. You are a like a fucking baby to me.

[weaponizedmoth]

Been meaning to do another one of these for a second, but didn't have any cool outfit pics--until I remembered these blurry pics I had from 2021 that I could never do much with. Libbyframe is the inspo for these as usual,✨️

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

anyone else ever get struck with a sudden feeling of distaste or being tired of someone who you usually really like/are friends with for literally no reason whatsoever? or is that just me