#So it would be very atypical for him to be draw with one

[bunni-v1]

Hnnghh christmas Lighter smut where reader is dressed in nothing but a long ribbon and bow bc he’s been a good boy this year

🍓Did u read my mind? Get outta there… jkjk, but seriously this is EXACLTY what I was thinking about. I really can’t dedicate the time to a full fic, which breaks my little gay heart, but imagine with me if you would… (this is a full fic btw i fucking lied to you and myself)

Tw: Nsfw; kinda rough (not too rough); UNEDITED ITS HORRENDOUS

Mdni

Christmas with the Sons of Calydon is pretty atypical. They have their own traditions that most New Eirduians would scoff at, but they’re rather important to those who live in these parts. Drinking, singing together (usually drunkenly and offkey), taking bike rides out to start a fire and literally burn away past regrets of the year, and of course fights — plenty of fights.

You weren’t exactly a fan of the fighting part, usually meant more work for you to do, but Lighter always seemed to have fun. Obviously he did, he never lost — he hardly broke a sweat for the most part. And he loved showing off, especially if you were there to watch him. Everything else was mostly normal, though… a little odd but custom made to your little ragtag group, and you loved it.

It felt warm, cozy, like family. They passed out gifts, most of them hand made or incredibly thoughtful since money was scarce for most of you. Lighter had gotten you a (rather expensive) bracelet with your and his initials engraved on it. It was sweet, and unexpected from the guy who pretended like the holiday was nothing for the months leading up to it.

It made you melt on the inside and feel nice and warm. However… his nonchalance about the holiday cause you one… teeny tiny, itty bitty problem. You had no clue what to get him, and you hadn’t gotten him anything — time had run out and no one would give you any good hints.

His insistence that you didn’t need to get him anything in return made your stomach ache. It was hard to focus on his fight when your head was rushing with ways to rectify the horrific mistake you’d made quickly. The red ribbon of the jewelry box wrapped around your fingers tightly, then unwound as you mulled over your options.

You could get him something for his bike, but you’d have to drive to the city and it’s unlikely he’d let you go without him — that’s if the stores were even open this late on a holiday. Maybe you could craft up something quick and easy, if you could get back to your place there surely would be something, but… that felt cheap. Especially compared to the bracelet.

“That ribbon’s pretty,” Caesar says next to you, drawing you from your thoughts, “Must’ve been one real fancy place he went to for ya.”

You sigh, leaning back against the wall a little, looking at the ribbon as you twisted it around, “I’m sure it was. He’s so hopeless sometimes.”

“Only because you’re so sweet on him,” She teases, nudging your shoulder lightly.

A laugh huffs out of your chest, then an idea strikes you. The ribbon is pretty. You actually had some like it back at your place, stored away from last years festivities. You twist the ribbon one last time, and then you grin, wide and wild. Lighter catches your eye as he socks his opponent in the jaw, smirking at you like he’d won a prize.

“Hey, Caesar,” You hum, turning to your friend who seemed a little uneasy at your expression, “How long do you think you can keep him distracted for me.”

She hums, watching him thoughtfully, “I’ll buy ya fifteen minutes — wait, why?”

“You’ll hear later~” You hum with a wink, and practically skip back to your place, leaving Caesar alone to deal with your very adrenaline filled boyfriend on her own.

It takes you half the time Caesar said she could get you to find the damn ribbon, and the other half is spent fighting for your life to get the thing on and look at least a little sexy. You tried to recall old articles you’d read on bondage and shibari, but it was hard to do without a guide. You’d managed to get all the good bits wrapped up and hidden, with a few extra crosses to make it look pretty.

You don’t get a chance to check because you hear Lighters heavy footsteps outside the door nearly as soon as you’ve tied the bow comfortably around your neck. Your able to sort’ve arrange yourself seductively on the bed for him just as the front door open and he calls out to you. You could tell he was annoyed from his voice alone. He never liked it when you left his shows early.

“Caesar told me you headed back here,” He called, boots thumping as he threw them off, “We’re you not enjoying the show?”

It’s a tease, you know it is, but there was an underlying annoyance in his voice that sent a tingle up your spine. He pushes the bedroom door open incredibly slowly, to the point you think he’s trying to surprise you with something. You have the gall to feel stupid for a moment right before his eyes land on you, and he stops at he takes in the sight.

There is an audible shudder as his eyebrows raise nearly to his hairline. He takes his sunglasses off, revealing those pretty green eyes that rake in every inch of you with hunger. Then, he smirks, shoving the bedroom door closed with his shoulder already working his gloves and jacket off to the floor. Forgotten without a second thought. The rest of his clothes follow quickly after.

“Merry Christmas!” You cheer, though you’re more nervous than happy. He clearly likes it, according to the quickly growing tent in his pants and how fast he is to strip himself, but he’s a little too quiet for your liking.

He sinks onto the mattress in front of you, hands ghosting around the bright red ribbon. Like if he touches it, it’ll all fall apart in his grasp. He traces each inch of it with careful practiced restraint, following the fabrics flow across your body until he remembers that you are under the fabric and he lands on your face.

His eyes soften when you smile nervously up at him, fingers tracing the apple of your cheek with such admiration it nearly makes you cry. “You like it?” You ask softly, unsure of yourself.

He scoffs like you’re stupid for wondering, “This might be the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

It draws a genuine laugh out of you, which he follows with his own as he comes down to nuzzle your cheek with his nose. Then a soft kiss that trails down to your lips, easing you into a slow careful dance of love and passion.

He readjusts your position so carefully, you almost don’t notice he’s doing it until he’s between your legs. Pressing them open then pressing his dick to the ribbons wrapping up your folds from him. You’re already dripping, the adrenaline from earlier enough to get you going, but the added friction just makes it worse. You’d never be able to reuse this stuff, that’s for sure.

His hands glide over your stomach, following the ribbon with lazy easy until he’s found the one covering you from him. His thumbs slide under the pieces, rubbing over the flesh of your abdomen gently. It’s then that he pulls away, a string of saliva keeping you connected as he presses his forehead to yours.

“You’re so perfect, you know that?” He murmurs quietly, “You could’ve given me a smile and I would’ve been happy.”

You shy away, “Well… I almost didn’t have anything to get you, but your gift, mmm, inspired me.”

He chuckles at you, reaching down to run his dick against your still covered folds. The silky fabric oddly making everything feel more intense. “I can see that. Very cute, by the way.”

“I know, thank you,” You hum, wrapping your arms around his shoulders as he presses the two of you back into a laying position, “Now are you gonna unwrap your present, or are you gonna keep teasing yourself.”

A roll of the eyes and another smirk, “Y’know, I’ve never been a fan of ruining the wrapping paper. Shits expensive… so how about we go nice and slow.”

As he says that, he slides his dick between the ribbon, right up against your throbbing clit. You let out a surprised sound, quickly melting into sighs of pleasure and he fucks into the ribbon. Each push and pull stimulates your aching pussy into gushing out more for him, clenching on nothing as he fucks himself against you at a leisurely pace.

You take the chance to look down, moaning out as he head of him touches your thigh. The sight is something you’d see in a porno. Lighter follows your eyes, smiling to himself when he catches you practically going cross eyed at the sight.

“We look good together, don’t we, sugar?” He purrs. A rare nickname, sweet and extra praiseworthy — just like he thinks you are.

You nod along with him, fluttering your eyes back to his with a dumb little smile. Each drag of his dick makes your toes curl and nails dig into his broad shoulders. He sighs at the sensation, pressing kisses into your skin to quiet himself up. He’d rather listen to you, after all, and this was a gift for him.

His fingers begin to crawl up your body, dancing along the ribbon excitedly. They make sure to stop and tweak your nipples through the fabric, humming when he feels they’re sufficiently hard and sensitive under his touch. Then, finally, they reach the neatly tied bow around your neck.

The tug at it, gently unwrapping it from your neck and pulling it away with ease. Replacing the red of it with his tongue, licking and sucking new marks into the flesh. Your hips stutter against his, and he lets out a groan, squeezing your tit as warning. You whine, but don’t fight him anymore. His hands returning to unraveling the ribbon, pressing into the skin revealed until he is the only thing keeping the ribbon and his dick pressed against you.

You pout a little when he pulls away, pussy aching for friction once his dick is gone. You feel it clench as it looks for him, and god it makes you feel like a whore. He takes your hands from his shoulder and leans over you to tie them to the bed board above your head. You can feel how wet your were at the wrists, especially when he kisses them reassuringly.

“I love you tied up,” He hums, “You’re so pretty when you can’t do anything.”

You pout up at him, but he doesn’t stay to admire the look long, leaning over to the bedside table to grab the condoms. It occurs to you, in a state of lust driven stupor, that he shouldn’t have to fuck his christmas gift with a condom on.

“Ah, wait—“ He raises an eyebrow at you, hand just inches away from the condoms, “Would you wanna do it raw?”

He blinks at you, again surprised in the same way he was when he first saw you. “Are you serious?”

“We don’t have to—“ You quickly try to rectify the situation, but he cuts you off.

“No, no, we definitely have to,” He shakes his head, closing the drawer with one swift motion, “You’re trying to kill me out here, aren’t you?”

You shake your head, but he’s not listening as he pulls you up into the position he likes most. Legs over his shoulders, body bent in half so he can fuck you hard and fast. He gives you a few seconds to adjust to the position, then he’s pressing his dick into you at a painfully slow pace.

It’s because he’s just so big, he always has to go slow, but you wish he’d just fuck you through the pain right now. The stretch is perfect as always, and you suck him in like it’s nothing with how wet you already were.

He cusses when he finally bottoms out, pressing his face into the side of your neck. You can feel his hot breath fan against your skin, tingling deliciously. “Fuck you’re always so tight. I’m never gonna get used to it, sugar.”

You hum, though you’re in no better shape. Shivering and shuddering every inch, and still quaking as he sits still inside you. You play with his hair to distract from how hot you are, and how you wish he’d make you hotter.

He gives himself a moment to calm down, then he presses a kiss you your cheek, readjusts you just a little so your muscles don’t tense up, and then he moves. The first three thrusts are slow and easy, then he starts to slam into you hard.

“Oh fuck—“ You cry out as the deafening smack of his hips into your ass rings out across the room.

The pace he sets is brutal and unrelenting, you were hoping for it all night. The unspent adrenaline from his earlier fights coming right back to fuck you so good you know you won’t be walking tomorrow. Each slap of his balls against your quickly reddening ass is accompanied by a stifled moan.

He watches you with an intensity you weren’t aware he was capable of, eyes drinking in every single inch of your expression. He looked crazed, but that’s what made it so hot. He was obsessed with every little look, every little sound that left you.

“Don’t be quiet, sugar,” He hums, pushing two of his fingers along your bottom row of teeth to force the sounds out.

“They’ll hear—“

“Let ‘em,” He dismisses, “They know you’re mine anyway, who cares.”

You really couldn’t argue with that, especially not when he shifts ever so slight to hit your g-spot head on. A salacious moan rips out of your throat, and your sure Caesar has figured out what you were up to earlier from that alone. He doesn’t stop ripping sounds out of you, though, continuing his brutal pace and hitting that spot so well you think you’re seeing stars.

The build up to your orgasm is so quick you hardly have time to realize it’s happening. One second you’re fine the next your throwing your head back and moaning like a whore.

“Lighter- Baby, I’m— fuck me- god I’m gonna cum, Lighter.” You admit, way too loud for your liking.

He hums, seeming to switch gears and fuck you faster somehow, “Go ahead, I’ve got you. Lemme feel you cum for me.”

You nod, chest rising and falling rapidly as start litter your vision. You think you nearly pass out, but Lighters hard thrusts fuck you through your orgasm. You squeeze him so tight, like you’re trying to milk his own out of him. You want him to fill you up, want to feel his warm cum deep in your belly. Want to see it drip down your thighs and pool onto the bed when he pulls out.

“Cum inside, please.” You beg.

“Fuuuck… ‘re you—“

You nod, “I need it, please cum in me. ‘S part of your present.”

He groans, fisting the sheets next to your head, “Suagr, you’re fuckin’ killin’ me.”

Always one to please, Lighter does exactly as you ask. Filling you to the brim with his thick hot cum. You revel in his moans, and only slightly wish you could curl your nails into his shoulders to leave another christmas gift for the morning.

He eases you into a more comfortable position before collapsing on top of you. His weight is welcome against your spent body, as are the wet kisses he presses into your sore skin. He unties your hand with one of his, and you quickly wrap them up into his hair.

“I love you,” He mumbles into your shoulder, “So much. You’re the best gift a guy can ask for.”

You giggle at the praise, “I love you too, Lighter.”

[lovebugism]

i am so sorry but reader talking about robin right before making out with eddie is like absolutely the best thing i’ve ever read i’m obsessed i genuinely can’t wait for anything else in that universe that you do

THE CUSTOMER'S ALWAYS RIGHT | god help the girl

summary: in which you come to terms with the fact that you're hopelessly in love with eddie munson. pairing: virgin!eddie munson x reader word count: 13k warning: phone sex, more discussions of shitty boyfriends, j*son c*rver name drop, talks of unhealthy eating practices, smut 18+ mdni! a/n: this ask has been sitting in my inbox for ages now, but i wanted to save it until robin made an appearance in the series! thank you, anon, for being so sweet! and for the few of you who've been waiting on me to finally post <3 hope you enjoy! xoxo

( PREVIOUSLY ) | ( SERIES MASTERLIST ) | ( NEXT )

They only met once, but it changed their lives forever. 

That’s what the movie cover reads at least, but the words have long blurred into a jumbled mess at your tunnel vision. John Bender stares you in the face, but all you see is Eddie — boyish and brazen and scowling because he thinks it makes him look intimidating, but nowhere near as cruel as he seems. 

He’s certainly got the hair for it, much longer and curls far wilder than Judd Nelson’s measly set of brushed-back locks. He’s got the terribly animated personality down pat, too; the one that either makes you laugh uncontrollably or squirm in discomfort when it’s pointed your way. And the style’s a pretty fine match also, though you’d argue that no one sports a leather jacket quite like Eddie Munson does.

Wallowing in your boredom at the empty Family Video store on Main Street — where your best friends slave over mundane work with aching backs and a lingering sense of gratefulness that no customer has been in in well over an hour — you find yourself analyzing each character pictured on the front cover of The Breakfast Club.

Robin would surely be Allison, you conclude rather quickly, because their deadpanned glowers are eerily identical. They’ve also got this sort of atypical aura to them, too, like a dark storm cloud or the promise of a long night. But strangely it sparkles — strikes of lightning or a sky full of stars. It draws everyone’s attention to them; even when they’re desperately trying to hide in the very back of a room.

And Steve would be Andrew, not particularly because of his affections for this Allison-Reynolds-Robin-Buckley hybrid you’ve concocted, but because "popular guy with daddy issues" is a trope that fits him far too well. He’s way more likely to get detention for trying to look cool in front of his assholes friends than for anything actually malicious of heart. But that would’ve been years ago now. He’s not that kind of guy anymore. 

He’s soft and sweet — a Brian Johnson sort of soft and sweet, if you will. If Brian wasn’t the brains, but the sweetest dumbass anyone’s ever met.

You realize then, that Jim Hopper would make a mean Richard Vernon. He’s impatient to a fault, almost too stern at times, but never enough to make you genuinely fearful of him. You’ve found that it’s virtually impossible for you to take him seriously when he’s so cartoonishly angry. It’s a match made in heaven, you find, though Jim might take offense to the comparison.

And if Eddie is Bender, then that’d make you the Claire Standish of the bunch.

She’s dreadfully stylish, a bit stuck-up at times, and perhaps a little bit more spoiled than the average person; but it’s not like she ever claimed to be perfect. And you wouldn’t either.

You’ll take more pride in your wardrobe filled with pretty pleated skirts and flouncy dresses than your somewhat glacial disposition. And you might not be drowning in daddy’s money, but you’re certainly spoiled in other ways — if only in the employee discount at Enzo’s that got you wine for cheap and your connections at Family Video that meant free movie nights whenever you wanted.

The bad boy and the princess was a tale as old as time itself. It’s a fairytale you wouldn’t mind living in if it ended how it did in the movies — with a kiss on the cheek and an exchanged diamond earring in the calloused palm of another. A soft pink smile and a celebratory fist in the air.

But you’ve met your fair share of John Bender’s and none of them had been particularly kind to you, let alone had fallen in love with you. 

Maybe that’s because you were no Claire Standish. Never pretty enough, never mousy enough, never pure enough.  You try and dissect why you’ve never been successfully loved, and all the signs point to you, you, you.

You hope Eddie’s different. You need Eddie to be different.

“Something’s wrong with me,” you blurt out of nowhere.

Well, it’s not totally out of the blue for you. You’d been stewing over that thought since you got there — since you left the woods with damp underwear and the scent of you on Eddie’s fingers.

But to Steve and Robin, who’d stayed relatively silent and locked eyes only once after they noticed how abnormally hushed you’d gone, it catches them quite off guard.

Steve lifts his heavy head from where he mans the counter. His tired eyes leave the computerized catalog for the first time in forty minutes, and he has to rub at them with the bottom of his palms to see you properly. Meanwhile, Robin crouches at your side, taking returned tapes from the bin sitting next to her and placing them back upon the shelf you lean against. 

She blinks up at you, deep ocean eyes swimming with apprehension, like she can sense the spiral you’ve just about twisted yourself into.

“What do you mean?” she wonders, ever the supportive best friend, as she plucks Heather’s, Pretty in Pink, and Weird Science from the bin and sets them onto their assigned rows in the Teen Drama section.

“Eddie won’t fuck me.”

Neither of them is particularly stunned by the unabashed nature of your admission.

Not only have they both fucked you at one point or another, but they’re your best friends — no one’s ever going to know you quite the way they do. It leaves little left unsaid between the three of you, with secrets you’ve all sworn to take to your graves. Steve once stuck a finger in his ass to see if he liked it (he did) and Robin sometimes gets off on her childhood teddy bear (rather ironically named Mr. Snuggles). 

So this? This was nothing. Especially in comparison to all the other shit you’ve confessed to them because god knows the whore of Hawkins has a plethora of stories to tell.

Steve is more shocked by the name that leaves your mouth than anything else. “Eddie Munson?” he repeats with furrowed brows, like he had to have heard you wrong.

You bring your chin to your right shoulder to look at him, then nod.

“Eddie… The Freak… Munson?”

You nod again, slower for him this time.

“You wanna fuck… Eddie Munson?” Steve reiterates once more, as though the idea was too appalling to be true. “Eddie Munson — The Freak?”

“Yes, Steve,” you huff in irritation.

His face contorts into a puppy-like confusion. A frown settles between his bushy brows and he cocks his head to the side, nose scrunching and his lip quirking slightly. He couldn’t look more disgusted if he tried.

“…Why?”

You groan and tilt your head back dramatically. “That’s not what’s important here, Steve. The better question is why won’t he fuck me?”

The boy’s lack of any actual assistance doesn’t surprise Robin in the slightest — his dumbfounded gaze and innate confusion are actually pretty on brand. It just puts all the burden on her, to help you wriggle out of the mess you’d tangled yourself into. 

It’s not like she isn’t used to it, though, nor does she mind doing it for you. She walks you through your emotions like a professional, squashing out all the burning orange embers for you before they have the chance to burst into flames.

“Well, what do you mean he won’t fuck you? Like… did he actually say that or does he just wanna, you know, take things slow?”

The latter would’ve been way too easy. Eddie’s always been nice enough to you. It’d make sense for him to want to stay unhurried and gentle with you, but those words weren’t exactly in your vocabulary. 

The first time you were alone with him, you were getting yourself off on his thigh after making him come in his jeans. The next time you saw him, after four days of him clinging to your consciousness, there wasn’t as much small talk so much as there were two of his fingers stuffed knuckle-deep inside of you.

You don’t know Eddie’s birthday, but you know how he likes to be touched — squeezed and not rubbed. You don’t know his middle name or how he likes his eggs in the morning or what his relationship with his mother is like, but he’s already made you come. Twice.

You are completely, utterly, and totally incapable of taking things slow. So it wasn’t that. It couldn’t be. So it had to be the other thing. The very scary, terrifying, boogeyman of a thing.

“I mean, I offered to give him a blowjob and he completely turned me down,” you lament in reply.

Robin and Steve wince. Like, physically wince. Their faces scrunch and their heads flinch from something invisible. Audible ooh’s fall from their mouths without them even realizing it, because you don’t get rejected. Ever. Especially not after offering to pleasure someone without much of anything in return.

They don’t mean to react the way they do. The visible shock that coats their features is involuntary more than it is anything, and it only adds to your fears.

“Exactly!” you exclaim.

“I hate to say it, but I think hell might be freezing over as we speak,” Steve half-jokes.

“Well, he was working, right?” Robin asks with raised brows. “Maybe he was just busy.”

“Sorry, Rob, but no guy’s too busy for a blowjob.”

“Real charming, Stevie.”

“Maybe he just has a small dick,” the boy concludes with a shrug.

“I felt his dick,” you shake your head almost immediately. The feeling of Eddie’s hard cock through his denim jeans, all rough and warm against your palm, hasn’t yet left you. “It’s not small.”

“Well, maybe he can’t get it up—”

“Yeah, that’s not a problem either.”

Eddie was rock hard when you left him, throbbing and aching and obviously needing some kind of relief. That’s partly why you’d been so ardent to return the favor, though the other half of it was purely selfish — you haven’t seen a more beautiful sight than Eddie Munson getting off. To deprive yourself of that masterpiece made you feel like you were starving.

You have a hard time imagining the raging hard-on just… dissipating after you’d left him. That means he probably jerked off in the back of his van and you missed it. And if he came, right after he promised everything was okay, that means he just didn’t want you to do it… right?

Steve seems to be caught in the same inner turmoil you’re currently stuck in; and for good reason. In all the years he’s known you, he can count on one hand how many times he’s had to turn you down. And every time, it was because he’d gotten back together with Nancy. It was never because of you. Not once. And sometimes he felt like it hurt him as much as it did you. 

As far as Steve’s concerned, you’re so out of Eddie Munson’s league that you’re not even in his fucking orbit — so the freak show, turning you down, doesn’t make whole lot of sense to him.

“Huh…”

“It’s me. It’s definitely me,” you conclude with the shake of your head. A bitter, almost hysterical laugh spills from your lips. “He thinks I’m fucking ugly or disgusting or something. It’s totally fucking me—”  

Robin completely abandons her basket of tapes then. She rises to stand in front of you, looking timid as she does so. Her raised brows form wrinkles on her freckled forehead and her blue eyes widen to reveal more of the whites of them. She looks like she’s approaching a wild animal. A bomb that’s about to explode.

“Okay… You’re starting to spiral, alright? So let’s just try and take a few deep breaths—”

You don’t listen to her. 

Actually, you do quite the opposite, as you begin to blurt every fleeting thought that crosses your mind.

“I’ve made out with nearly everyone in this stupid town— I’m pretty sure I’ve fucked almost half— and you’d think Eddie would wanna take advantage of that, the way everyone makes him out to be some sort of freak, right? But he hasn’t and at this rate, he won’t, and I just don’t understand why,” you ramble without taking in a single breath. “Usually being a slut is a huge turn-on for guys, you know? But what if Eddie thinks it’s gross? I mean, it is gross— I’m gross—”

You only stop for air when Robin takes your shoulders in both hands. She looks less apprehensive and more stern, as she forces you to look at her.

“Look. I love you, but you need to get a hold of yourself, alright? I know you’re not used to being told no, and I know how much it sucks, but shit happens. I’m willing to bet all the money I’ve ever seen that whatever is going on with Eddie has nothing to do with you, okay? And if it’s making you this upset, maybe you should just talk to him.”

“But I don’t wanna seem like I’m too eager, that’s gross—”

“Then find someone else to fuck,” she offers with her signature Robin Buckley half-smile. “I’m sure it would take you less than five minutes to find a willing participant.”

“Yeah, right here,” Steve jokes from the counter with the pathetic wave of his hand and a dumb grin on his lips. 

You don’t hear him over the voices in your head — half calling you crazy for letting a boy drive you this mad over nothing, and the other half bitterly affirming each of your deep-rooted insecurities.

Your face screws up, like the thought of being with anyone other than Eddie upsets you — it does upset you.

“I don’t want anyone else.”

“Then what do you want?” Robin yells in your face, shaking you by your shoulders.

“I want Eddie!” you shout back without thinking. The words seem to spill out of nowhere. It takes you of all people by surprise. No one in this rat trap town would ever expect the whore of Hawkins to want to settle down, least of all the harlot herself. It’s strange; it’s riveting; it’s really fucking scary. “…Fuck.”

The brunette smirks, proud of herself. “Well. There’s your answer.”

“I hate when you’re right,” you mumble to yourself, pouting as she crouches back down again.

“I know.”

It was a terrifying thought, to know that you were head over heels for someone else. You try to come to terms with what that means. 

Sometimes you think you fall in love with a new person every day. A cute guy holds the door open for you, a pretty girl compliments your outfit — they never think about you again, but they’re on your mind for days. It was so easy to develop such meaningless infatuations, especially when you were bored.

But Eddie was different.

He was a nice guy. A nice guy that was sweet to you just for the sake of being sweet to you; not because he secretly wanted something in return. That made you fall for him at first, but then you just… kept on falling. Eddie Munson was an infinite void you couldn’t crawl your way out of even if you wanted to, even if you tried.

And that’s what frightened you the most.

Because if you really thought about it, you’ve only truly been in love a handful of times. And, sure, it didn’t work out — that was normal — but some of them fucking ruined you. 

You’re still trying to figure out who you are without all of the people that have broken your heart. You’re still fighting like hell every day to recognize the person you see in the mirror, while Billy Hargrove fucks off with a new girl every other week like he didn’t totally destroy you.

But, even still, Eddie was completely different. No one’s ever made you feel the way he makes you feel. And it’s more than the stupid heavy petting — it’s more than anything. It’s never been like this before; not even with the blonde mulleted asshole who ripped your heart to shreds. 

And you’re scared that if you get hurt again, you’ll never be able to come back from it.

“Steve, do you have another copy of Fast Times in the back?” you suddenly ask the boy, tossing him a look over your shoulder.

It’s your last ditch effort to rid yourself of the ponderous, gray doom and gloom surrounding you like some storm cloud. Your comfort movie solves all of your problems — or, at the very least, Phoebe Cates does — but it seems everyone else in town has developed a similar fondness for minute fifty-three of the film and got all the tapes off the shelf before you could get your hands on one.

“You know I keep on in stock for you,” he answers quietly.

He reaches below the counter to pull out a spare copy for you, and your heart swells with the rays of a thousand rising suns and the songs of every morning bird.

Steve told you some time ago that he could change. And back then, all it did was piss you off, because he didn’t want to change for the town slut — for the girl he put through the goddamn ringer. He wanted to change for Nancy. The princess bruised his brittle ego a little, and then he realized what an asshole he’d been to everyone, to you.

But as angry as it made you, you never believed him. “Once the King of Hawkins High, always the King of Hawkins High,” you remarked bitterly.

You wouldn’t say it to his face, for the sake of keeping his ego from inflating all over again, but you could tell he was really changing.

He was kinder, he was softer. He stopped caring about what everyone thought about him, about what not caring would do to his reputation, and started giving a fuck about the people worth giving a fuck about. 

Apparently, you were one of them.

“…Really?”

He nods with a subtle shrug. Like it was no big deal. Like it wasn’t one of the sweetest things he’d ever done for you — keeping your favorite movie on hand so you’ll always have a spare, knowing that it’s the only thing that gets you out of a deep, dark funk sometimes.

“Stevie… You’re gonna make me blush,” you lilt with a grin as you saunter over to him, hands innocently laced behind your back. “You need to be careful, Harrington. I’m gonna start to think you actually like me.”

He scoffs. “I do like you.”

“Yeah, when it’s convenient.”

It’s obvious your joke hits him where it hurts. It serves as a bitter reminder of the asshole he used to be, the douchebag he’s trying like hell to grow out of. He looks up at you with a sheepish, honey-tinted gaze before ducking away again.

A year or more ago it would’ve made you feel good, to know that you hurt him just a fraction of the way he hurt you. But you know that that isn’t the same man standing in front of you now, that he’d rather die than make hurt your feelings, and it makes you feel like shit for saying it in the first place. 

“Sorry,” you apologize with a scrunched nose. The palms of your hands dig into the edges of the counter as you lean against it. Your shrug. “It just kinda came out…”

The barcode scanner in his hand beeps as he passes the thing over the back of the tape — never charging you, just getting the movie out of the database.

“So, uh…” he starts before clearing his throat. He focuses his gaze on the computer and types on the bulky keyboard with the tip of his pointer finger. “You really like this Eddie guy, huh?”

“Maybe. I think so.”

“And he’s not, like… a total freak or anything?”

You can’t tell if he’s trying to look out for you or if he just wants intel on what it’s like trying (and failing) to bang the local weirdo. Either way, it makes a smile tug slow at your lips as you joke: “Not in the way everyone thinks.”

“Jesus,” he winces at the obscenity of your words.

“Sorry,” you apologize again, though the laugh that bubbles from your lips after cancels out any hint of actual sincerity. “You don’t need to give me the talk or anything, Steve. I can take care of myself.”

“…Can you?” he half-jokes.

It makes you falter. “Well… With you and Robin and Hopper constantly on my ass, then yeah.”

“Just don’t want you to get hurt,” Steve finally admits, soft and suddenly shy as he hands the VHS over to you.

“That’s rich coming from you—”

He jerks back the tape before you can take it from him, leaving your hand reaching for thin air. His cinnamon eyes glimmer with a foreign seriousness, not completely unkind, but lacking their usual blithe. “That’s why I’m saying it. I just… I want you to be okay.”

Steve is one of the rare ones, you conclude right then in there — in the liminal emptiness of Family Video, beneath fluorescent lights that cast sharp shadows upon his already chiseled features. He was a mythical creature of a man, one who breaks your heart and does everything in his power to mend it again.

He hasn’t forgotten about what he did to you, not like Billy did, and he won’t. Not ever. He saw what he did to you and he never moved on from it, just matured enough to make sure it never happened again. And he won’t let another unworthy douchebag hurt you like he did. Not if he can help it, at least.

And he did try to warn you about Hargrove, to be fair. You were just the dumbass that didn’t listen.

“Well, me and my Phoebe Cates wet dream are golden, Pony Boy,” you promise. He hands you the tape again and lets you snatch it from his grip this time. “Don’t worry your pretty little head, Stevie.”

Steve Harrington was right. 

The fleeting thought flashes across your mind for half a second, and you quickly realize that those words have never been uttered in the same sentence before now. But he wasn’t wrong in what he’d said about you, just before you left — you were completely, totally, absolutely, and implicitly unable to take care of yourself.

You nearly passed out in the bathroom after taking the hottest shower of your life, feeling too woozy to slap on anything other than moisturizer because you failed to remember to actually eat something that day. It wasn’t totally your fault, though; if anything, it was because of Eddie and all the butterflies he’d given you that made food the very last thing on your mind.

You half-heartedly dry yourself off, keeping your hair in a towel, while you slip on a cotton set of underwear you’ve had for way longer than what's likely acceptable. Damp and half-naked, you prance into the kitchen to fix Bowie her bowl of dinner before you feed yourself.

You fork a can of wet food onto a flower-shaped plate and let her eat on the counter — because you’re an adult now, and you can do that sort of thing.

The calico purrs while she feasts, but your stomach thunders with negligence. You peek into your mostly bare refrigerator and make a mental note to go grocery shopping when you get paid next week. 

With a lack of food and an even lesser will to cook something, you settle for the half-eaten chocolate bar you keep stashed in the very back of the fridge; kept only for the most special of occasions — when you’re reveling in your loneliness and trying to convince yourself that you can make it on your own.

It was practically the size of your forearm when you first bought the thing at some too expensive candy store in the city. Now it’s no bigger than your hand.

You eat the thing in bed, even though you know you’ll get crumbs everywhere and that it’ll make sleep agonizing for you — if you get any, that is. You’re bound to feel like a total zombie by the time the sun rises and the late-night sweet will likely make its appearance on your skin by then, in a red and raging blemish of a consequence.

You’ll feel empty and starved and surly, a snapping grouch instead of an actual person, until you get some actual food in your system.

And you’re more than aware of all of these things, but you don’t do a single damn thing about them.

You’re nothing but a sulking lump upon an unmade bed, lying in a pitch-black darkness that’s evaded only by the static-y television across your room, trying your best to pretend like you aren’t waiting for Eddie’s phone call. It’s hard to remember to forget him, though, when the movie you’re watching is practically a feature film of him and all the ways he makes you feel.

Spicoli and his terribly inebriated friends slur as they chorus “No shoes, no shirt, no diiiice” and you swear you can feel Eddie’s shoulder bump softly against yours as he laughs, hear every sound of his melodic chuckle in your ear that made you giggle right along with him. The low bass of Moving in Stereo plays in the otherwise empty silence of your bedroom, and every beat feels like the rhythm of your thrusts against his thigh.

Eddie Munson is all-consuming.

Even the thought of him feels physical.

Phoebe Cates all but undresses herself in front of you, but you’re stuck thinking about some guy who lives in a trailer park across town, deals drugs for a living, and can’t graduate high school. You’re a total fucking goner.

Your eyes flutter shut, and instead of the backs of your eyelids, you see Eddie’s trailer. Your lips start to tingle as they kiss his for the first time — hungry, yearning, needing. His thigh is pressed snugly into your cunt, denim jeans rough against your soft cotton panties, and you have to bite back a moan when he tenses every time you squeeze his hard, covered cock.

You can feel it, all of him, like he were here with you now. 

You wish that he were.

His fingers would feel far better, leave far more sparks of electricity in your belly, than the ones as you sneak through the hem of your underwear.

You try and take things slow with yourself, to be as gentle as he had been with you earlier in the woods, but it feels strange to treat yourself with so much tenderness. To touch your pussy like it’s the first time it’s ever been touched. Like it’s a beautiful thing you need to be sweet to.

Maybe you find it so foreign to be careful with yourself because no one has ever been careful with you.

No one, except for Eddie.

Your touch doesn’t rival his. It doesn’t even come close.

No matter how tightly you squeeze your eyes shut or how hard you try to pretend that they’re his fingers inside of you, you can’t make yourself feel as good as he did.

Your fingers aren’t as rough as his guitar-string-scarred ones and they don’t caress your clit with the same methodical care. They don’t fill you quite the same either, nowhere near as satisfying as his much thicker ones.

And you’re no stranger to masturbation, not by any means. Sometimes it’s the only way you can guarantee an orgasm for yourself when you’ve got a partner who cares so little about your own pleasure. But Eddie was different. Eddie cared — so much so, that he’s gotten more orgasms out of you than you’ve gotten from him, which is something you’ve never said about anyone else you’ve been with.

It’s rare and unfamiliar, a bouquet of all things refreshing and terrifying and strange, tied together with a pretty little ribbon.

You know that you can make yourself come. It’ll just take way too long to actually be worthwhile and won’t be nearly as mind-blowing as you need it to be. You won’t be left with trembling thighs and nearly numb legs — just a pitiful excuse for an orgasm that you could get from any one of your exes with half as much work.

What you need is Eddie. 

And you hate that. You hate how much you need him and you’re terrified of what that means.

As far as precedent goes, right when you start needing someone is usually when they start to leave. It’s like fucking clockwork most of the time — like everyone knows that you’re a ticking time bomb and eventually it gets too risky to stand too close to you. 

You’ll just have to keep Eddie at arm's distance. So he won’t see the grenade that you are.

You pull your fingers out of your wanting cunt, still slick and throbbing with a need that you can’t give it, when the phone rings.

The high-pitched shrill in the quiet makes you tense like it’s the first time you’ve ever heard the damn thing. Your breath catches in your throat, first out of fright and then at the inclination of who waits for you on the other line.

Suddenly, you’re scrambling to collect yourself. As though there was any possibility that Eddie might be able to see you through the phone line.

You wipe your wet fingers haphazardly on the cotton of your underwear and sit up straighter from your ungracefully lazed position. Then you count to five — one mississippi… two mississippi… three — so Eddie won’t think you’re some kind of crazy person who doesn’t have anything better to do than wait for his call. 

So he won’t know that’s exactly what you are.

You lift the ruby red rotary from its hook at your bedside table and stretch the corkscrew cord to press it to your ear. “…Hello?”

“Yeah, hi. I’d like to order a pizza. Half pepperoni, half hawaiian.”

You roll your eyes at his dumb joke, even though the familiarity of his voice makes you smile. It warms you like a home-cooked meal, like you were high-pitched and starving before and now you’re on the soothing comedown of finally being satiated.

“Yeah, sorry, we’re closed.”

“Then why’d you pick up the phone, huh?” he teases back. You swear you can hear the grin in his voice. You didn’t know a smile could be so audible. It makes you wonder if he can hear yours — if you’re doing a real shit job at pretending. You anxiously twirl the cord with the pointer finger of your free hand.

“Because I’ve been waiting for you to call me all night, dummy.” 

Your answer is more honest than either of you were expecting. 

Eddie’s sigh crackles through the shoddy reception. “Yeah. Sorry ‘bout that, sweetheart. I’ve been working all night. I only got home, like, five minutes ago.”

You can hear the heavy exhaustion in his voice. “Rough day?”

“Kinda,” he answers with a shrug. You can hear the grating squeak of his mattress as he plops down onto his bed. “I dealt to one of Jason’s goons today… They always give me a hard time.”

“I’m sorry,” is all you can think to answer. 

Eddie’s been the brunt of every joke since seventh grade — people made fun of too big clothes, his too wild hair, his too loud music. But he took it all in stride, laughing with everyone else before volleying a harsher joke back in response. You almost started to think that he liked it. That, somewhere deep down, he was fond of all the attention he got from people who supposedly couldn’t stand him.

But it hurts to know that it hurts him.

“Don’t apologize. It’s not like you did anything,” he assures with a soft laugh. He makes the bold decision to be honest then, too. “You, uh… You made my day a whole lot better, actually.”

You don’t know if he’s talking about the brief fling in the woods or the phone call you’re sharing now or if you particularly care either way. Your heart flutters like it’s been kissed by the wings of a butterfly.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean… I don’t know— I couldn’t stop thinking about you, you know. And, knowing that I was gonna get to talk to you again kinda got me through the day, I guess… And, yes, I am fully aware of how lame that sounds, but—”

You don’t get to hear the rest of his excuse, of why what he just told you totally isn’t lame, because you’re covering the receiver with your palm and turning to squeal into your pillow. A far more pathetic sight, in your humble opinion.

There hasn’t been a more fulfilling feeling than this one, to know that he’s been feeling the same way you’ve been feeling about him this whole time. It’s better than all the orgasms he could give you combined, to be loved so wholly.

“…You okay?” you hear his muffled voice ask after you’ve gone suddenly AWOL.

You press the phone back to your ear and nod like he can see you. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good. The phone… fell— you said you just got home?”

“Uh, yeah. I met with Hellfire for a bit at school. We’re almost at the end of the Cult of Vecna, so they’re kinda on my ass about it. The little shits are obsessed.”

“Well, they should be. It’s a really good campaign, Eds.”

“Thanks to you,” he mutters. You can almost picture the glimmer in his button eyes and the shaky half-smirk he always looks at you with when he gets all shy.

“That was all you, Eddie Spaghetti,” you retort. “I still have no idea how you did it.”

“Did what?” he wonders, chuckling a bit at the nickname.

“Make something so beautiful out of thin air.”

Lying in the depths of his bedroom, blanketed by the darkness and bathing in streams of moonlight, Eddie feels his breath catch in his throat. 

For the first time in his life, he doesn’t have a joke to spew out on the spot. He’s speechless, just for a moment, a quick blink of a second, with nothing to say. Because, if he really thinks about it, that’s sort of what happened with you.

You were just his customer and he was just your dealer.

You were a loyal client and then a girl way out of his league that he developed a too big a crush on. Then you made him come in his underwear and washed the sticky stains out of the denim for him. Now you’re on the phone with him. You let him tell you all about his shitty day and apologize like you weren’t the only good thing about it — like you aren’t the only good thing, period.

It’s not the most cliche love story, nor is it the most beautiful, but it has his cynical little heart beating like the wings of a hummingbird.

Then, when all the mushy mess fades like fog, he finally thinks of something to say.

“It’s the witchcraft, sweetheart,” he shrugs to himself. “Didn’t you hear? I’m a devil-worshipping freak.”

“You know that’s not it, Eds,” you retort with the roll of your eyes.

You know that it’s hard, to be a metalhead from the wrong side of the tracks in the eighties — at the height of the Satanic Panic and all the delusional craze. That shit’s followed him since freshman year. Even still, it nips at his ankles like rabid dogs.

Maybe you were never naive or bored enough to believe all the rumors, but Eddie Munson was always more than that to you.

“No?”

“You can blame it on being a freak show all you want, but I know it’s because you’re one of the funniest, smartest, most creative guys I’ve ever met—”

“You must not know a ton of guys then, sweetheart,” he interjects playfully, like he couldn’t stand to hear you compliment him any longer. You’d give anything to see his blushing cheeks just now.

“…You’re kidding right?” you giggle in response.

“Sorry— that’s— I didn’t mean it like— It was— I was joking,” he stammers, frightened that he might’ve offended you in some way. 

It only makes you laugh harder. Both of you know you lost count of all the guys you ‘know’ a long, long time ago. You do imagine it’s somewhere near ‘a ton’, though.

“I know, Eds,” you assure with a contented sigh. “I was just teasing.”

“Oh.”

“The slut and the freak… Who would’ve thought?” you wonder all dreamily, like it’s a fairytale as old as time itself. That’s what it feels like, sometimes.

Eddie isn’t sure what you mean — who would’ve thought you’d be friends? Two people caught in that in-between stage of platonic and romance that’s complete agony and total, total bliss? A couple of kids falling in love—

“It’s sort of kismet, huh?” he answers.

“I think so.”

“So, uh… What are you up to?” Eddie wonders then, equal parts curious and eager to keep the discussion going. He’s frightened any lapse in conversation is going to lead to saying goodbye. 

He wants to stay on for hours, until both of you are fighting to stay awake, and then listen to the sound of your heavy breathing when you inevitably lose — like that isn’t the creepiest thing anyone’s ever wanted. He’ll fight Wayne about the bill if it comes to that, he doesn’t care, he just never wants to stop being this close to you.

“Do you want the real answer or the fake one?”

“Uh… Both?”

“Well, I’d say I was doing something super productive with my night, you know, catching up on all the boring adult shit, but then I’d be lying. And I don’t wanna lie to you, Eds,” you tell him with a teasing lilt playing at the edge of your voice.

Eddie swallows thickly, fearing he’d somehow been caught in his own lie — or rather, his half-truth. He moves on quickly, though not exactly full of grace. “Right. Yeah. Totally.”

“Honest answer is, that the only productive thing I’ve done tonight is shower, and now I’m in bed watching Fast Times and eating all the chocolate in my house, because I can’t cook for shit and I have nothing else better to do with my night,” you admit to him, picking at the thread of your comforter.

“Oh, don’t tell me I missed the ‘Moving in Stereo’ bit,” he agonizes.

“Just.”

“Well, correct me if I’m wrong, sweetheart, but it sounds like you’re having loads of fun tonight.”

“I’m having a lot more fun now,” you assure him.

“Glad I can be around to make you laugh,” he retorts like he’s not all too happy to do it.

“You’re a total comedian, Eddie Spaghetti.”

“If I’m the jester, you’re the queen, sweetheart,” he promises, a grin evident in his voice.

Your breath catches in your throat something fierce; you’re almost worried that he’s heard it. His words pierce your heart, a stroke of lightning or a blade of steel. He’s joking, but it’s so strangely profound, the kindest thing anyone’s ever said to you and it’s dripping in sarcasm. 

It’s sort of Eddie’s love language, you’ve come to understand, to say something so sweet but coated in venom to make it sour again. It makes you feel special, loved, almost.

A fire builds behind your rib cage, sharp and distant and all-consuming.

“Are you alone, Eds?” you ask him suddenly.

The sudden curve ball in the conversation takes him by surprise. “Uh, yeah, Wayne’s at work right now… Why?”

“Because I want you to talk to me…”

“Oh?” is all he can say because isn’t that what he’s been doing this whole time?

“And I want you to say things that… maybe other people shouldn’t hear,” you explain slowly to him.

“…Oh.”

He’s heard about this only once before, the whole phone sex thing. 

It was from Andy in the back of Ms. O’Donnell’s class a year or more ago, though Eddie never called him by that name. Andy, in all actuality, was Jason Carver’s right-hand man, and he meant that in every sense of the phrase. Eddie was more than convinced that the guy was so obsessed with the blonde haired, blue eyed douchebag that he was giving him handjobs on the regular.

But it seemed the dick brigade couldn’t function properly without their leader and Eddie had the misfortune of hearing all the mindless bullshit they were spewing behind him — basketball, parties, girls; in true white bread fashion.

His friends gathered around him like he was telling some sort of secret, though it was loud enough for anyone in a three foot radius to hear. Eddie, caught directly in the line of fire, heard all about Chrissy’s older sister, Wendy, who was two years older and off at college. 

He’d gotten her number from some party he’d crashed. At least that’s how he told it, right before telling everyone that she swore like a sailor when she came and that she told him all the dirty things she wanted to do to him while she did.

“It was like her hand was on my dick, dude, I’m serious. That shit was crazy, bro,” he’d laughed after retelling the whole conversation in excruciating detail.

Eddie rolled his eyes to himself then, inwardly jealous that he’d never get to meet Wendy — or any other girl that would be willing to have phone sex with him, for that matter. His phone only ever rang for telemarketers or a rogue Dustin Henderson calling to annoy him.

But, here you are now, the most wanted girl in Hawkins, offering it to him on a silver platter. He wonders if you’ve done this before, surely you have — oh god, he thinks to himself, what if you’ve done this with Andy?

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” you assure him after his unusually long silence. “I know you’re probably busy and tired and everything—”

“No! No, yeah, I— I want to. I totally want to.”

“Okay,” you nod. Petals of a flower begin to bloom in your chest as you lie back in bed, settling further into the mattress. The movie, already long forgotten, serves only as light and background noise. “So… What are you wearing, Eds?”

“I feel like I should be asking you that,” he laughs. 

On the other side of Hawkins, in a trailer in the middle of nowhere, Eddie rises from where he’d originally flopped back onto his bed with the notion that it was going to be a semi-normal night. He props himself against his headboard. His fingers twitch at his thigh.

“Beat ya to it, Munson.”

“Well, I’ll have you know that it is very sexy, sweetheart. I’m wearing the same Hellfire shirt you saw me in, I don’t know, five hours ago — except now it’s got a rip in it because I totally ate ass on the way back to the van.”

He tells you this to make you laugh — it works — but he prays you don’t ask any questions. Because he got it while hurrying back to his van mere minutes after you’d left him, so hard he thought he was going to burst, with no more than seven minutes until his next client arrived.

 Thankfully, he only needed three.

“I love that shirt,” you respond in place of saying what you really want to — ‘I love how that shirt looks on you’ — how it clings to his lean torso and reveals his midriff whenever he stretches his arms over his head.

“She’s a lit-tle worse for wear now, sweetheart,” he lilts.

“I’ll stitch it up for you.”

“And I’ve got on a pair of boxers that are so old they’re practically see through because I’m pretty sure they used to be Wayne’s back in… I don’t know… the eighteen-hundreds.”

Eddie was right. It was sexy, though, for the exact reason they weren’t supposed to be. 

There was something so domestic about it all. You can picture him lying in his bed, in the most comfortable clothes he owns, in the one place he can feel at peace. Like a renaissance painting, something familiar and comforting and beautiful — fuck, you’d give anything to be next to him.

“…I think that means it’s your turn now, sweetheart,” he teases.

“Is it?” you mock in return.

“C’mon. Don’t leave me hangin’ over here.”

“It’s nothing, special,” you assure. Your eye flits down to peer at your own body — nothing special, indeed, you think to yourself. The lilac cotton set came from the grocery store downtown on the clearance rack you so often frequent. “I just have my underwear on. It’s very boring, I’m afraid.”

It’s not boring. Not to Eddie — the boy who prides himself on his insanely active imagination. He might not be able to pass english with his brain, but he can certainly create worlds with it, and it’s too easy for him to picture you. He imagines you, freshly showered, and smelling of the warm lavender-vanilla scent you always smell like, mostly bare and lazing upon a fluffy comforter.

He swallows thickly. “Oh, that’s— that’s really, uh— that’s really sexy.”

His thankful that you don’t seem to mind his poor excuse for dirty talk.

“It’s only because I was too lazy to get into actual pajamas.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

“Yeah?” you press, smiling to yourself and caging your bottom lip between your teeth.

“Yeah.”

“Can I tell you a secret, Eds?” you wonder, made brave enough by his own admission.

“‘Course you can.”

“Before you called…”

“…Uh-huh?” he eggs on, intrigued at the way you trailed off, sounding suddenly shy.

“I was…” The thought of telling him what you were doing mere seconds before he called makes you nervous. It wasn’t like you were ashamed of touching yourself or anything, nor is the art of dirty talking lost on you, but something about Eddie makes you timid.

“You were… what, sweetheart?” he wonders gently, with a too audible grin.

“I was touching myself.”

That’s all you tell him. The words linger and hang in the air of your separate bedrooms and you cling to the silence — almost mortified and anticipating his reply. Eddie, meanwhile, feels like his tongue has swelled in his mouth and all the air has been punched out of his lungs.

“Oh...” he tries to respond without the breath to accurately do so. “…Yeah?”

“You know what Phoebe Cates does to me,” you try to joke.

His laughter crackles through the receiver. “Yeah. I kinda have her to thank for the other night, don’t I?”

“Give yourself some credit, Eds. The hottest guy in Hawkins was sitting right next to me, what was I supposed to do?”

“No way you think I’m the hottest guy in town,” he scoffs. “Everyone knows you’ve got a thing for pretty boys.”

“Pretty boys?” you echo with a giggle.

“Uh-huh. The Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington type, you know?”

“Well, I think you’re a hundred times prettier than he is.”

“Really?” he scoffs cynically, obviously not believing you.

“He wasn’t the one I was thinking about with my hand shoved down my panties,” you admit, immediately quelling his self-doubt. “That’s gotta count for something, right?”

Eddie clears his throat and then stammers, “I— I guess so— yeah.”

“Are you hard, Eds?” you ask in a breathy whisper.

And he just nods to himself at first, too stupid to answer audibly. He can feel himself stiffening in his boxers, only halfway hard now, but getting firmer by the second. Soon, he’ll be aching. 

“Yeah…”

“Can you touch yourself for me?”

Eddie would rather take a bullet to the chest than say no to you — at least, he figures that’d probably hurt less — so he slips his fidgeting fingers through the band of his boxers and takes his warm, stiffening cock in his hand. He squeezes himself just enough to make his stomach tighten.

“Want you to touch yourself, too,” he admits, neither asking or demanding it, just telling you.

“Yeah?” you tease.

“Well, I think it’s only fair, sweetheart.”

You can’t help but notice how breathy he’s gotten — how it shakes on the inhale and hitches on the out. He’s got his hand shoved down his underwear and you’re jealous of the fingers that get to wrap themselves around his cock. You wish they were yours. Both of you will have to settle, it seems.

“Whatever you want, Eds,” you answer playfully. 

You obediently slide your hand back into the warmth of your panties. Your fingers slot between your lips and collect the slick that had gathered there since before you’d even answered the phone. You bring it up to your clit, circling the pads of your fingers there until you twitch, then dragging them down to press into your opening. They slip in with ease. 

Both of you have turned into lovesick idiots, separated by so many miles, and missing the other most ardently. Lying in the depths of your bedrooms, basking in a velvet loneliness, building with a mutual pleasure with nothing but yearning hands and longing sighs.

Eddie’s eyes flutter shut at the sounds of your low moans and fragile whimpers that crackle through the static — beautiful still, but certainly no match to the ones you were breathing in his ear just hours ago. 

His lashes dance across his cheeks as he tries to remember how you’d felt against his fingers, soft like velvet and delicate like silk, weeping and pulsating with need. 

He drags his hand from his boxers and lets the band snap against his pelvis. He spits into his palm and wets his cock with it, sighing as he tugs at himself without much friction.

“Are you wet, sweetheart?” he asks, though the words threaten to get stuck in his throat.

“Yeah,” you whisper back like it’s some kind of secret. 

You work yourself open with your middle finger and slip your pointer in next to it without much trouble. Your walls flutter around them while you fight to find the spot the makes you keen. You’re only able to tease it, fingers not quite long enough to caress it completely. Your thumb keeps working at your clit, though, to make up for the lost pleasure. 

“I’ve been wet since I left you,” you admit through labored breaths. “Haven’t been able to… to stop thinking about you, Eds.”

“Glad I’m not the only one whipped over here, sweetheart,” he manages a laugh.

“No one’s ever made me come that hard before. Not just with their fingers,” you tell him mindlessly, dumb on pleasure, as you feel yourself climbing that peak.

“Really?”

“Never,” you promise, then whine. “Doesn’t even feel as good now… Can’t get as deep as you can—”

Eddie hangs on your every word as he works his palm up and down his stiff cock, squeezing at the base and swiping his thumb over the head with an expert hand. His face scrunches as his stomach starts to tighten, he’s close to coming — too close for his liking. He doesn’t want this to be over so quickly.

“You’ve ruined every other guy for me, Eddie Munson,” you confess, more than pleased to hear how it makes him whine. It sounds like it comes from the depths of his chest, the way it crackles low and needy through the receiver.

“Good,” he grumbles through his pants after he’s gathered himself all over again. “Don’t want anyone else to have you, sweetheart.”

This time you’re the one letting out the most pathetic of whines. It makes a smile flicker at the corners of his lips.

“You like that?”

It sounds so dirty, but you can tell by the sincerity of his tone that it’s genuine. So you answer with a longing truthfulness, a delicate “yes”entwined with a yearning moan.

“You just wanna belong to me, don’t ya?” 

Now, this is dirty talk. The teasing lilt of his tone — it’s almost degrading —  and makes you clench around your fingers. “Yes, please,” you whine, all but pleading for him now.

Eddie’s close, so dreadfully close, with a pleasure so tangible he could taste it. Your words make his cock twitch in his hold as the fire builds in his belly. 

Through your whole-hearted promises and wanting moans, he can hear the sound of your slick through the receiver. The static reception doesn’t do it justice, but the wet click of your fingers working you open was unmistakable.

A moan grumbles in his throat as he digs the crown of his head back into his pillow. “Holy fuck— I can hear you, baby.”

“I’m so wet for you, Eds,” you tell him through fragile slurs, like it wasn’t inherently obvious. 

You were wrong before, about wanting to hide from him. You couldn’t conceal your need for Eddie if you tried. The honey you drip, all sweet and just for him, wouldn’t let you keep it a secret.

“I know, baby, I know,” he nearly coos. “Are you— fuck, please tell me you’re close?”

“Yes,” you promise in a whine. Your thumb presses harder into your clit. It makes your thighs tense until they’re shaking.

“You rubbing your clit for me, sweetheart?” he asks like he knows. “I know that’s what you like.”

You whimper, working at the spongy spot within you as your hips buck off the bed. “Yeah.”

“Keep rubbing yourself like that for me, okay? Want you to keep going until you come for me.”

If he keeps talking to you like that, it’ll come a lot quicker than he’s prepared for. 

It’s too soft to be much of a demand, but you listen obediently anyway, rubbing at yourself though your sensitivity keeps building. It grows like a morning tide, rising and flowing like white waves on an ocean, stirring something fierce in the depths of your stomach.

“Eddie,” you sigh out his name, broken through staggered pants.

You hear his stuttering breaths, too. “Y—Yeah?”

“I’m about to come,” you promise through a whine when the familiar crescendo sends a shock through your body.

“O… Okay,” he responds, pathetically, then whines, even more so.

“Want you to come with me… Please…”

“Fuck— okay. Shit, sweetheart, I’m almost there.”

“What are you thinking about?” you ask him.

“Your pussy,” he answers without thinking — he’s not doing a whole lot of that anymore. “Wish I’d gotten to taste you earlier. Wanna feel you… fuck… Wanna feel you come on my tongue.”

“Holy shit, Eds,” you moan at his words, at the vivid picture they paint in your head.

“And you get so… God, you get so fucking wet. Just want you to drench me, baby.”

It feels good, to be complimented for something boys used to make fun of you for, to realize for the first time that’s it’s sexy — that you’re sexy — and that Eddie is more than happy to drown in you. The feeling almost rivals the impending orgasm that’s bound to hit you like a tidal wave.

“I’m thinking about how I coulda took you on that bench… Just, fucking, get on my knees for you. Shove my head between your legs. Hold your— shit, baby— hold your thighs open, keep you exactly where I want you,” he rambles but then cuts himself off to moan at his own words. “Goddamn, sweetheart. Wanna taste you so fucking bad.”

The moan you let out is pitiful. It leaves your mouth in the most delicate cry. 

No picture has ever been clearer than the one of Eddie between your thighs, your hands knotted in his hair to move him to exactly where you need him most and forcing him there. You can feel his fingers digging into your hips, his rings pressed against your burning skin, and the way your legs tremble on either side of his head.

“Yeah. Keep— Keep doing that. Keep moaning for me,” Eddie tells you. “I’m about to… holy fuck, I’m about to come.”

“Wanna feel your tongue in me so bad, Eds,” you whimper, egged on by the moan he lets out. “Want your cock even more.”

That’s what does him in, the assurance — the promise — that you want him just as bad as he wants you. 

He tightens his fist around his cock, achingly hard and raging a crimson at the tip, trying to imitate the way you’d feel around him. It’s not all that close, not nearly as wet as the honey you’d be dripping for him, but his imagination does the rest of the work for him. 

All at once, you’re on top of him, riding him for all he’s worth, your pussy threatening to swallow him whole. You’ve drenched him, just like he’d begged for, and that wet schlick noise still echoing from the receiver is the evidence of each of your assured thrusts over top of him. 

You’re still pleading for him anyway — for more, for his tongue, for his cock — and he wants so desperately to give everything to you.

“Oh god, baby—” he sputters. He grips the phone in a white-knuckled, fist trembling. “Oh, fuck, I’m coming, baby.”

“Please, Eddie. Please come for me,” you plead over the low sounds of the forgotten film playing across the room and all the dirty wet sounds your pussy makes against your fingers. You sound like you need it, like you want his orgasm more than your own.

“Want you to come with me… Can you— Can you do that for me, sweetheart? Please?” It’s not dirty talk anymore. He’s actually fucking begging you and doesn’t feel the least bit ashamed to do so. 

He wants to hear all the pretty noises you make when you come — that initial cry that stems from the depths of your soul, the high-pitched whimpers that come when the sensitivity builds, and the whines that leave you when it ebbs.

He wants to hear it over and over and over again, like a worn cassette, and play it until the tape spins out.

“Yes…” you promise through a set of stuttering breaths.

There’s no talking when either of you come. Eddie’s long forgotten to talk you through it, but you would barely hear him if he had. The phone slips out of your hand when your grip slackens and it falls to the pillow beside your head.

You chase your orgasm full throttle, working through the crescendo and the strikes of lightning, focusing only on his muffled moaning and the pretty sounds he makes as he comes. 

The breath of your name whimpered through a tight throat is what does it for you. Your body has hardly any time to warn you before you’re gushing all over your fingers, twitching every time the pad of your thumb rubs over clit.

That cry, the one you always let out as you come — all wet and full of need — makes Eddie orgasm right alongside you. 

He swipes his thumb over his head again, collecting the pearls of precum gathering there and sliding them down the base to squeeze himself there like he’d been doing this whole time. He clutches harder this time, imagines it's your cunt locking him in a vice-like grip, and whines in his throat when he comes.

Several loads of it spill onto his cotton boxers, most of it gathering along the side of his hand and dripping down his knuckles. His breath staggers as he works himself through his high, praising you through the phone like you’re the one who brought him to it. 

“Fuck, baby… You’re so good… So fucking good.”

You’ve long settled from your own orgasm, still tingly and numb in some places, but not as gone as you had been just moments before. You still float on a cloud, getting lost as you stare through your window at the half-hidden stars sprinkling the night sky and feeling as though you could reach out and touch them.

You can feel the satin moonlight bathing you, and the jittery static of the neon of the television screen. You can feel everything and somehow nothing at all. 

“I don’t know how you do it, Eds,” you confess, hardly thinking about the words spilling from your mouth when you lazily bring the phone to your ear again.

“Do what, sweetheart?”

“I don’t know… You always make me feel good. Even when you’re not here… Even when we’re not getting each other off.”

“I feel the same way,” he promises you, all mushy, even though he feels like a slob for wiping his hand off on his discarded jeans on his bed. “Just… wish you were here.”

“I wish I was there, too… Wish I could clean you up.”

Eddie’s eyes shut tight as his head tilts back to his pillow at the thought. “Fuck… You’re gonna make me hard again, sweetheart.”

You perk up suddenly as an idea sprouts like a flower in your head. A smile blooms on your lips, and you rise up onto your elbows, glowing with an unanticipated excitement. “How long would it take you to get ready?”

“…Get ready?” he echoes.

“Yeah,” is all you say.

“I mean, I— I don’t know. I figure if I put on some new underwear and a fresh pair of pants, I’ll be good as new... Why?”

“You wanna do something?” 

“Yeah. Sure. Anything,” he answers clumsily in place of saying, ‘Anything to not have to be without you.’

“I wanna go to Skull Rock.”

“Skull Rock?” he repeats. 

Legend has it, you and Steve made that place a local landmark. People have always said that Hopper caught the both of you one too many times up at Lover’s Lake and the Quarry, that you needed a more hidden place to fuck. So you’d stumbled around in the middle of the woods until you found a place the chief wouldn’t think to look for you.

You’d certainly found it. Then every other horny high schooler did too.

It’s the place you go to fuck, the most private place in all of Hawkins — hell, maybe even Indiana entirely for teenagers who can’t get the house to themselves. And as appealing as it sounds, to take you beneath a sky of twinkling stars, Eddie doesn’t want his first time with you to be on dirt or in the middle of the woods. That’s how all the horror movies start, don’t they?

So, needless to say, your answer takes him by surprise.

“Yeah! You can see all the stars really good from there. It’s too hard to see them so close to town.”

Eddie’s heart swells all at once at how sweet you are, like sugar poured directly onto his tongue. You’re not eager to be without him either, it seems, and that thought is as gratifying as it is thrilling. 

You’re an adventure he’s about to go on, without a map or a way out, a journey he’s happy to go into blind as long as you’re holding his hand the entire way through it.

It breaks his heart to hang up the phone. He practically begs you to do it for him, and it makes you laugh — a kind giggle entwined with a tease ‘you’re such a baby.’ It rings in his ears long after the receiver clicks.

Most of all, he hates all the stoplights that separate your place from his. He hadn’t known where you lived before now, not until you uttered it over the phone. He makes a mental note to figure out a quicker way, somewhere through the winding back roads that his old van can speed through to make the distance less daunting.

He pulls into your apartment complex, a quaint two-story thing on the quieter side of town, where the woods are plentiful and the street lamps far fewer. He turns his radio down out of respect for all your neighbors that he’s sure he’ll never meet and spies you through the neon orange porch lights. You shut and lock your door in quick succession, then scurry across the way to meet him.

Eddie leans over to unlock the passenger side door for you, already beaming, and finds you’re smiling too when you climb in next to him. The grin you shoot his way outshines the night sky and makes a bright yellow sun of the girl sitting in his passenger seat.

“Hi,” you’d greeted him, all shy like you didn’t just make him come all over his hand thirty minutes ago.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he volleys back like he always does, with that big ol’ smirk and teasing lilt as he cock his head to the side — using his playfulness to cover up the bashful mess you so easily reduce him too.

Neither of you had gotten particularly dressed up to see each other. All he did was put on fresh under and pajama pants. You succumbed to a smilier laziness it seems, haphazardly brushing through your half-damp hair, throwing on a too big t-shirt, and calling it a day. 

The cotton hangs low at your chest, stretched out and obviously well-loved. It falls well past your thigh, though you spend much of the drive anxiously tugging it down. 

It makes him wonder what you’re wearing beneath it. If you’ve tugged on a pair of shorts or if you’re in the bra and (undoubtedly wet) underwear you’d told him you were wearing over the phone. 

Eddie winds himself up all over again while you sift through the flimsy case of endless cassettes he keeps tucked in the glove compartment that never quite shuts all the way.

“How do you now have any ABBA tapes?” you wonder like it’s baffling, with an Iron Maiden tape in one hand and Cinderella in the other. Metallica plays lowly, nearly inaudibly, from the stereo.

Eddie laughs and darts his eyes from the darkened back roads to look at you, all smiley and bathed in moonlight, before turning back to the road again. “Uh, because I’m not a thirty-year-old woman. That’s the shit moms listen to.”

“Moms and hot girls,” you retort jokingly.

“Right, moms and hot girls listen to ABBA — of which, I am neither, sweetheart. Sorry to be the one to break it to you… Besides, it’s not like you walk around listening to, fucking, I don’t know— Van Halen or whatever.”

“Hey. I listen to Van Halen,” you shoot back.

He scoffs. “Yeah, right.”

“It’s got what it takes!” you sing suddenly, not quite catching the rhythm of the song, but smiling anyway as you reach for his forearm resting on the center console. “So tell me why can’t this be love!”

“Oh, my god— that’s literally their worst song,” Eddie chuckles through the widest grin you’ve ever seen from him. 

It makes you smile big too, looking like an idiot who’s totally head over heels for the boy next to her. And of that, you’re happily guilty of.

“Not true,” you shake your head defiantly. “I love that song.”

“So that means it has to be good, right?” he retorts playfully, shooting you a teasing look, though his beam is more than sincere.

“Obviously,” you answer with a scoff that makes Eddie roll his eyes.

He knows he’s going to start to love it, though, if only because it’s the only Van Halen song you halfway know.

He’s going to hear that song on the radio and he’s going to want to turn it, but he’s going to remember this moment now — the one with you reaching for him while you sing the lyrics to a song he can’t stand, sitting pretty in his passenger seat, while the moonlight blanches your smile and the bare skin of your thighs.

Eddie Munson is going to love that goddamn song for the rest of his life.

He parks as close as he can to Skull Rock, knowing his van can’t work its way that far into the woods. The two of you are forced to walk the rest of the way, not exactly minding it, though Eddie’s incessantly worried you’re going to get cold. 

He’s already forced his jacket upon you, which you took with little fight. It warmed you almost immediately — with his cozy heat and musky cologne.

You make mindless conversation the entire way there, about music and then about his band and then what animal you’d want to be in your band if that were the least bit possible. Eddie chooses a sheep without any hesitation, though you’re confident that a penguin would be far cooler. 

You keep a careful distance between you, at first, like both of you are too scared to initiate the first move. That is, until you trip over a raised branch and nearly eat ass on the forest floor. Then Eddie’s holding your hand the entire way, keeping you close.

“If you wanted me to hold your hand, you coulda just said so, you know?” he jokes. “Didn’t have to go through all the dramatics, sweetheart.”

You try and yank your hand out of his grip in protest then, but he doesn’t let you. In fact, he pulls you closer and twirls you into a bear hug that you happily relax into.

He feels your sigh fan against his collarbone as you rest your head at the nape of his neck, his arms wrap around your shoulders as yours settle at his waist. He rocks you back in forth, in a moment that’s too almost sweet to make fun of.

Eddie finds a way, of course, “See?” he singsongs. “I’ll hug you like this all the time, if you want. You don’t have to almost kill yourself to get my attention, babe.”

“All I did was trip,” you laugh at his theatrics.

“Death by tree root… What a gnarly way to go.”

He holds your hand the entire way to Skull Rock. 

He doesn’t let you go once, not until you’re ascending the large boulders to plant yourselves at the very peak of them. He’s grabbing you again once you settle, though, and the two of you just sit there, for several long moments, just gaping at the stars that dance with life above you. They sprinkle an infinite void with enough light that manages to touch you, trillions of miles away.

There’s a subtle beauty in that Eddie never would’ve appreciated before now.

“Shit, babe,” he breathes through a whimsical existential dread. “You were right. The stars are really fucking pretty out here.” 

You love how much he loves this, to come to Skull Rock with you and count the stars. Any other guy would’ve had their tongue down your throat by now, stuffing your hand down their unbuttoned jeans.

But not Eddie.

He just holds your hand because he likes the feeling of his fingers entwined with yours, grasping tightly onto you while he gazes at an infinite universe — like you might float off right along with it.

His neck is stretched to gape at the night sky. You catch his adam’s apple bobbing every time he swallows. You want so desperately to kiss his milky white skin and sprinkle blotchy red bruises there.

His curly locks fall over his shoulders. He shakes his head to get his bangs out of his eyes while the chocolate buttons of them dart around the endless void.

He’s more beautiful than every star in the sky combined. You can’t be sure of how many that is, of course, but it’s a whole bunch if you had to guess. It makes sense, though, for the prettiest boy in the whole damn galaxy.

“Told ya,” you answer with a smile, leaning over to nudge his shoulder with yours. “You come out here often?”

You’re asking if he takes girls here and he knows it, but it’s not like you’re being inconspicuous about the whole thing. Eddie gauges it almost immediately, the subtle jealousy hinting at your tone — something no one else would’ve caught — and he squeezes your hand in reassurance.

He shakes his head. “No… Never.”

“Never?” you press with raised brows, like his answer shocks you.

“Ever. It’s not really my scene, I guess… But what about you, sweetheart? Never seen you around these parts before.”

You knock his shoulder again, harder this time.  “Shut up. You already know the answer to that.”

“Yeah…” he nods to himself, eyes darting back and forth as he reminisces on something. “You and Harrington, you and Hargrove. Hell, I think I heard about you and Jason one time—”

“That was a long time ago,” you argue. “Before I even knew you, okay?”

“I’m just saying,” he shrugs in defense. “You totally have a thing for pretty boys, sweetheart.”

“I never said I didn’t, Eds. Just that you were pretty, too.”

“Whatever,” he scoffs and rolls his eyes like he isn’t glowing red beneath the moonlight.

“You’re better than all three of them, Eds,” you confess with a sudden softness that catches his attention almost immediately. He turns his attention from the sky to look at you properly again. His breath catches at you sad you look — all beautiful and coated in shades of blue.

“…Yeah?”

You nod and drag his hand into your lap to fidget with his fingers. You trace the skeleton heart on his middle finger, subverting all your attention there because it’s easier than having to look at him now. “Better than all of them combined— not even just them, you know? Out of everyone. No one’s ever been this nice to be before.”

“Me neither, sweetheart,” he confesses with a morose grin. “The freak of Hawkins High attracts a lot of assholes, believe it or not.”

“Is it bad?” you wonder cautiously, like you’re scared to hear the answer. In some ways, you are. 

You hadn’t known him in high school, not really. For obvious reasons, you ran in very different circles. You never even had classes together. There was never any excuse to be close to each other before now, never a reason to become friends. So you didn’t.

You grew to know him as a freak, and he knew you as the town slut. Then somewhere down the line, he became your dealer and now… here you were. 

But you’ve graduated now and he’s still army crawling towards a diploma. You couldn’t save him from the hell of Hawkins High even if you wanted to.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” he shrugs. “Jason and the dick brigade just wanna make my life hell, that’s all.”

“I hope they aren’t,” you respond shyly.

Eddie scoffs then shoots you a smile. “Oh, of course not. Look at me. I’m at Skull Rock with the most wanted girl in Hawkins. I’m living the dream, sweetheart.”

“So you don’t care?” you wonder, peering at him through your lashes, as you twist the silver cross around his finger.

“Care about what?” 

“That I’m a slut,” you laugh like it’s obvious.

Eddie doesn’t think it’s all that funny. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s not like it isn’t true, Eds,” you retort with a trembling smile. “I mean, that’s literally what people call me — most people don’t even care to call me by my real name anymore.”

“I don’t care,” Eddie shakes his head. “I don’t care about that. I don’t give a shit about what people say about you. If everyone cared about what everyone said about everyone, neither of us would be here right now… Because you’d think I was some devil-worshipping freak and I’d think you were too busy getting it on with Chief Hopper.”

You screw your face up immediately at the thought. The mere idea was repulsive. The asshole was practically your father these days. Jim Hopper was in that small bunch of available people you would never fuck, and happily so. 

“I’d never stoop that low,” you joke.

“I like you, how you are, right now,” Eddie promises. “Don’t want you to change a damn thing.” 

His brown eyes twinkle with a sincerity that rivals the stars above you. All of a sudden, you don’t care about a bunch of heavenly bodies light years away from you — you care about this man, the one sitting beside you now, holding your hand even though your palms have gone all sweaty.

It’s too good to be true — the way you looks at you, the way he talks to you, the way he treats you. You’re scared that it’s a dream, that you’ll wake up and find that none of this was ever real. Or worse, that he was, and that he just didn’t care about you the way you cared about him.

It’s almost irrational. Almost. 

But it’s happened before. 

And it’s left you a scarred and mangled mess.

You shake your head to yourself and scrunch your face as you turn to look him. “Have you ever done this before, Eddie?”

“Don’t what?” he wonders with furrowed brows.

“I don’t know…” you shrug. “Any of this? With anyone else?”

He’s grateful he doesn’t have to lie. Or tell some clumsy half-truth for the sake of saving his own skin. He realizes tonight is perhaps the most honest he’s ever been with you, baring his pale soul beneath a silver moonlight. 

“Never,” he answers, unwavering, with a firm shake of his head.

“Really?”

“Really,” he nods, then swallows thickly at a gut-wrenching realization. “I’ve never felt his way about anyone else before.’

“Me neither,” you promise. 

It’s a tad more meaningful coming from you than from a boy who’s never had someone to love and to love him back.

You’re experienced, you’ve found what you like and what you don’t like. You’ve been with guys who have given you the world and guys that have ended yours altogether. And out of all of them — all of the assholes in Hawkins you could’ve picked — you’ve chosen the freak. 

You want him. 

You want Eddie.

The revelation makes him grin. “Promise?”

“Cross my heart, Eddie Spaghetti.”

[flowersforchoso]

Breaking up with bi-han

although he would never outrightly admit, bi han hated every second of the separation because when you left, it felt like a part of him left with you.

he initially acted unaffected, as if it was all beneath him when you ended things but the façade gradually slipped—the pretense couldn't be sustained for much longer.

he became angrier; more irritable, with the lin kuei members on the receiving end of his outbursts.

he couldn't understand why the breakup was maddening. you were only a woman, nothing special, so why was it difficult to move on from this?

the truth is, he became attached and once that happened, it was difficult to let go.

he missed you and reminisced on the moments you both shared. from the very first day his eyes met yours, to getting acquainted, and finally becoming lovers. your expressions painting his vision; the pout of your lips when you acted coy, to the contorted face of pleasure when he drilled into you in his dimly lit chambers, your wanton cries only fueling his desire.

the memories of you distract him greatly to the point it became a burden that weighed heavily on his mind

and it was unbearable. everytime he sees you, and notices the way your eyes tactically avoid his. the tension evident to both kuai liang and tomas.

so he corners you one day, with the intention of seeking closure. sick of the ache afflicting his heart

you stopped by the lin kuei temple to return an item belonging to kuai liang. it was supposed to be for a brief moment, not wanting to draw the attention of the grandmaster

but you failed. when a hand emerged from the shadows and grabbed you from behind, pulling you to a secluded area to cage you in its frame, violating your personal space. you looked up to see your aggressor, and to no surprise, it was bi han.

he breathes hotly, uncontrolled anger bubbling to the surface "was it all a lie, your feelings for me?"

"if so, then i applaud the act" his tone accusatory.

"why does it matter? its all in the past" you spat back. keeping composure and not allowing yourself to be intimidated by his short fuses

your response irks him, he didn't like the defiance. this was not what he expected

"well i demand to know" he states matter-of-factly

"of what use is knowing, bi han? its over between us, so leave me be" you say, breaking free from his entrapment and walking away, only for his coarse hand to latch onto your arm once more—pulling you back to him and keeping you in place, his grip possessive.

he then pledges. voice sincere and imbued with longing, atypical of the man that you knew

"give me a chance to make amends and i swear to you, you wouldn't regret it"

[kerubimcrepin]

Wakfu Manga - Tome 1, Part 1

Finally, finally, finally we have arrived to one of my most favorite Wakfu media — the manga that happens between Season 2 and the OVAs, which are controversial among many, and beloved only by me and only for, like, 2-3 scenes.

The reason for my excitement is simple: this is the Krosmoz media that is the most abundant in adult Joris content at this moment.

The princesses got cursed again..., I don't even know what to say, man. They never learn.

[imagines Joris at 3-4yo trying to bite the nearest animal that isn't Pupuce the second Kerubim takes his eyes off him] [smiles]

I'm insane.

He is late. A likely thing for Joris Jurgen to be.

He came here. He saw a baby. He was like "aww. cute baby."

His nails.... This panel is the singular reason why I draw him with painted nails a lot, just so you know. Anyway.

Nobody expected him to come. And it makes no sense that he came, because he kind of barely knows these people. He is so fond of Yugo it's crazy.

He looks a bit taken aback by the fact he was seen being cute with a baby + that someone noticed that he is there (atypical) and happy that he came.

I think Joris has a very parasocial friendship with Yugo where he says nothing and just fucking stands there silently and menacingly, but is insanely fond of Yugo internally (I think he Projects onto Yugo. Yugo is just like him fr).

The casual way he just stands as Grougal sets him on fire. The way Yugo stares in horror. The way Joris just stands there, on fire, afterwards. I am going to cry from laughing.

Also, Amalia cares about him... I'm insane.

Adamai saying this combination of words to, out of all the people in the world that he could have said this to, Joris Crepin-Jurgen. Because he's scared that Grougal could have offended him...

Once again, this entire scene is so funny I'm actually going to fucking die.

He's so sweet... He really is like an awkward uncle who has no idea how to interact with kids when he visits them once in a while, but is happy to see them nevertheless.

Also, once again, his asocial nature and avoidance of close social bonds is called out. He's insane about Yugo and Adamai. They're just like him fr, y'know? (I bet he seldom visited Amalia's birthdays, and never came to Eva's... I'm insane about this man.)

Also, a small note: pay attention to the bag he is looking through. Here's why:

The fact that he kept an entire fishing pole in that bag makes me believe that Joris owns a haven bag.

Yes, literally nobody except for me cares about details like this, but let me have this.,

Also, I wish we could see his face as he gives this to Yugo. He's probably feeling shy about this. This is probably taking physical effort.

I blame this manga for making me care about the friendship between Khan and Joris even a little. fgsgsdfgsdfgsdfg

Clown-to-clown communication, clown-to-clown conversation.

As cute as it could have been, I really doubt Joris contributed to this gift.

It seems that nobody who was involved in the planning of the party was sure he would come, and when he did, he gave a singular gift to Yugo seperately from other people.

Joris went together with Alibert to get people to safety. Cute. Also the amount of hope and trust he has in Jiva is also cute.

Bontarian war criminal solidarity?

Awooga hummina hummina hummina weewoooweeewooo.

He's so cute.... Also, "Joris runs up towers" counter is up at 3. Yes, I count this as a tower.

[you can see my commentary actively degenerating due to my insanity] He is so handsome and so cute...

IM INSANE. IM CRAZEEEH. INSANE. ASYLUM.

Here are two panels that have the prettiest man in the world in them. The cute little fist clench...

[fluffytheocelot]

Hello it’s extremely late oops. Did not realize how long this thing would take (28 and a half hours apparently according to procreate lmao) but finally, here it is!

Carmen Week Day 8: La Femme Rouge

Holy crap that was a lot of characters! For day 8 I wanted to draw all the ways I've drawn/imagined Carmen over the last 5 years! There are many I didn't do for one reason or another, but it mainly boiled down to space lol. These 10 (11 including canon Carmen) are (most) of my favorites of my AUs :)

this turned out so cool im putting it in a frame when i get a chance lol

Info and solo drawings for each under the cut! it is. so long lol

as usual, i'll gladly answer asks about em :) i have plans to write a few for sure, but it's gonna be A While for them lol

Cat:

Both a Warriors AU and also just my "_____ as a cat" style!

This ones a lot less fleshed out so just bear with me lol. (ATM there might only be 2 clans, ACME and VILE, idk yet lol. idk what to name em either cos stickin "clan" on the end don't feel right XD)

In the Warriors AU, Sheeppaw grows up learning 2 contradictory versions of the Warrior Code: The true one from Shadowstalk, and the VILE version from older warriors. She gets made an apprentice a couple moons early, but is relegated only to camp duties until shes 6 moons old.

She trains alongside Cracklepaw, Tigerpaw, Molepaw, Goatpaw, and Silentpaw. At her first gathering she meets another apprentice, maybe a few moons older, from the other clan: Jewelpaw. The two hit it off and become good friends (and develop little mutual crushes). Sheeppaw also sneaks out and meets a kittypet: Player, who she also becomes very good friends with.

When her mentor, the deputy, Shadowstalk fails her on her final warrior assessment she pretty much has most of the same reaction as the show, just in the WC style.

After witnessing a murder, she hightails it out of there and encounters the newly named Crackletail. Panicked, she hastily and vaguely tells him she saw something and needs to Leave.

She makes it to Players yard and lays low for a while, and he introduces her to the neighbor cats, a sibling pair named Zack and Ivy. The four brainstorm and Sheeppaw is renamed Carmen. They know they cant let VILE keep doing what they're doing. So rogue Carmen and her kittypet friends start figuring things out from behind the scenes.

Pirate Cat:

Exactly as it says, bipedal cat world. Black Sheep was dropped off at a random orphanage in England, with a small stuffed black sheep (where she got her name). Since everybody are cats, Black Sheep isn't that atypical of a name. Sorta a mix of normal people names and cat names.

She grows up there alongside her self-appointed older brother Graham. When she's about 10-11ish she meets the princess: Julia Argent. Childhood friends to lovers letsgoo (its a recurring theme in these lol. its cute i like it).

The two eventually get together (in secret, yay homophobia and also societal status) It doesn't help that Black Sheep had a habit of getting in trouble so she could see the princess her princess.

The two get caught one night, and Black Sheep is nearly executed for "corrupting royalty", but Julia manages to talk her father down from that. Instead, she is exiled. If she ever sets foot in the kingdom after dawn, she WILL be killed this time.

Julia visits one last time, and Black Sheep promises to return someday when she finds somewhere where they can be together freely. She gives Julia her stuffed sheep to look after while she's gone, and asks her to take care of Fuega while she's gone (on one of their sneak-outs, they found a baby dragon that Julia managed to convince her dad to let her keep). Julia gives her the triangle choker. yay tearful goodbyes ;-;

Black Sheep and Graham (because no way is he letting his little sister go into exile without him) go from place to place, stealing when they need to and end up accidentally stowing away on a VILE pirate ship.

VILE pirate training to avoid death, they escape. Graham appoints the newly named Carmen Sandiego captain of their little ship, and they also pick up Zack, Ivy, and Player along the way. Carmen becomes very well known around the globe: civilians/lower class people see her as a Robin Hood hero (correct), while most royals and nobles see her as nothing but a filthy pirate (incorrect).

A few years go by when suddenly the crew gets word that the King of England is trying to marry off his daughter, who has recently come of age. Cue panicked race home + childhood lover reunion.

Daughter of Poseidon (Carmen Sandiego and the Olympians):

Percy Jackson AU! Replace Percy with Carmen, Grover with Player, Annabeth with Julia, and switch/move around some plot points and that's about it lol. I keep telling myself I'll do some scene rewrites of this one so we'll see. Includes PJO and HOO acting as prequels for Carmen Sandiego. Def wanna do dome rewrites for the canon show for this AU too lol

Dino Squad:

I'm out here combining one obscure kids show with another lol. If you haven't seen it, Dino Squad is this early 2000s animated show about these 5 teenagers that get mutated and can turn into dinosaurs, and go around stopping the bad guy from turning everything into dinosaurs. (I think the entire series may be on youtube lol. its goofy but man i loved it as a kid. i wanted dino powers so bad)

This is basically a high school au but most of Team Red has dinosaur powers. :P

In this, Dr. Bellum is experimenting with bringing dinosaurs back, but instead of just cloning them, she figures out how to mutate already-existing organisms into others.

(in the OG dino squad, the bad guy IS a dinosaur that evolved into a human--long story--and believes everything should still be dinosaurs. hes technically right, tbf, if the meteor hadn't hit they prolly still WOULD be dinosaurs. why does bellum want dinosaurs? because she's Bellum and she Can lol)

Carmen Wolfe and her twin brother Graham (they're fraternal twins. why? bc i thought it would be funny. yes he still has his accent. its my world i do what i want) are raised by Carlotta and Dexter Wolfe in Kittery Point, Maine. Carlotta is a paleontologist/biologist and Dexter is a history and geography teacher at the high school. They do know of VILE and what Bellum was working on and have been monitoring it in secret from the kids.

Carmen and Julia are those friends that met bc they were both hiding under the slide in like. Preschool and just stayed friends lol. They're the kind of best friends that will just. Show Up. usually Julia at Carmen's house because "You have better snacks" also Julia's parents just Don't Like Carmen. (Why? idk bc i said so. idk they think she's a bad influence. she's really not lol) Literally Julia has like a spot on the couch and a table setting. She's basically the third twin these three have known each other essentially their entire lives.

Zack and Ivy joined the group in middle school, when Ivy had the same class as Carmen, Julia, and Gray. Zack joined via association. (Zack and Ivy, on the other hand are not twins. again. bc its funny. each sibling pair thought the other was like them. zack and ivy thought Carmen and Gray were just normal siblings, and Carmen and Gray thought Zack and Ivy were twins. Julia had to explain to all of them it was not the case lol)

Player is Carmen's online friend that the whole group includes. they all game together and he gets ALL the public school tea. hes about the same age as Zack, so about a year-ish younger than Carmen, Gray, Ivy, and Julia.

At the end of their freshman year, Carmen and Julia start dating. Their friends and Carmen's parents know, they keep it secret from everyone else. At the end of the summer everybody (aside from Player) go to the beach for one last day of freedom before school starts. They swim through the mutant goo, and over the next few days discover their powers.

Carlotta IDs each dino: Carmen is a (large/person sized) pyroraptor, Gray is a T. rex, Julia is a troodon, and I still cant decide on Zack and Ivy's dino forms lol. Carlotta and Dexter explain the whole VILE thing and the group just kinda simultaneously goes "welp guess we're superheroes now. cool"

so yea dealing w highschool and also mutant dinosaurs and superpowers. this ones fun bc they can just be stupid kids lol

The Last Wolf:

My werewolf AU. The one that started all this mess and my love for making AUs of this show. It was my first fanfic i ever wrote, and it is very near to my heart. it's also gotten out of hand and become a franchise at this point it's ridiculous. (Seriously i've got a prequel of her parents planned and also a series of shorts set in the universe) It's gonna be a long ride, boys. Hope people still like CS by the time it's done lol

A Thief's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse:

Zombie apocalypse AU! Talked about this one a bit for AU day, and also as of this post I have ~1k words written of the first chapter! I also have a bunch of the major plot points outlined too ;) I wouldn't expect anything soon tho lol.

She wears a wetsuit under the coat bc it's really hard to bite through, especially with rotten jaws. She's got some boots she probably scavenged or traded for, and of course: the Walkman she probably found looting some abandoned building. She collects cassettes to listen to. Gotta keep sane in the end of the world.

How is this one a literal apocalypse and its still more lighthearted than the one based on FNAF lol

Redd Wolf (Five Nights at Redd's):

FNAF AU. I've truly lost it lol. I have this one completely outlined, nothing written but a lot of things are VERY clear in my mind. This ones uh. a lot more intense than even Thief's Guide. It's FNAF. its immense violence and child death. Seriously, Carmen, Player, Gray, Ivy, Zack, and Julia all end up possessing animatronics at some point. It ends happily, but it is based off a horror thing so if that's not your thing b careful <3

its supposed to be more of a mystery that gets unraveled, but if anyone wants specifics of it u can drop an ask :) i only have animatronic designs for Carmen, Julia, and Gray so far tho. I have ideas for the others too.

This is one I wanna share with y'all at some point. its probably the shortest of the AUs I have outlined so far, so yk. maybe in this lifetime lol.

Carmen and the Age of Wonderbeasts:

Mega Jaguar Carmen. This ones more of a ~vibe~ than an actual plot but i like drawing mega jag carm :)

Plushie Dragon:

This one's not an AU, but actually based on doodles of these 2 plush dragons! Matching red/gold and blue/silver dragons named after carmen and julia lol. I'll get around to posting more drawings of em cause they're cute

the plushies <3 (they have spikes u just cant see em:

ik they look goofy i lov them anyways

Wings of Fire:

Wings of Fire AU! Carmen is a rainwing/skywing hybrid (rainwing dad, skywing mom) She can camoflauge, fly decently fast, and has a prehensile tail. She can't breathe fire or use typical venom, BUT she figures out her venom, while not face-melting by itself, IS in fact flammable. again, more of a ~vibe~ than a story and plot, but I like drawing dragons.

Canon Carmen:

She's front and center, the one that started all this.

Way back in 2019, the autism and ADHD departments in my brain came to an agreement: This show is the greatest show of all time.

It was the first fandom I actively contributed to/interacted with. (I still read fics from other fandoms before, but had never been active in a fandom) Like I mentioned with Last Wolf, I had never actually written fanfiction before, and definitely never posted it. I love writing and telling stories (and boy howdy do I have A Lot of stories rolling around my brain). between all of the AUs ive come up with, I've gotten to practice so much worldbuilding and characterization. English classes usually focused on expository stuff, with like. a brief fiction writing thing. So I've definitely gotten to stretch my creative writing muscles with this show, and hopefully I can put em to use on original projects someday <3

I fell in love with the first season, and got ridiculously excited for every new season and the interactive. (heck, i played every possible option for the interactive the day it came out, and binged every subsequent season the day they aired.)

This show has been a big part of my life the last five years, and the original show will always be special to me. It's the reason I started learning to draw people lol, I have a drawing of Carmen from 2020 that I'm still really proud of. It's hung on my bedroom wall to this day.

So thank you, Carmen Sandiego. For everything.

[sincerely-sofie]

What are some ideas you've wanted to draw/write but haven't?

Oh man. I've got so many. A handful of ideas include:

A semi-animated series titled "My Pal the Paladin" about a kidnapped princess and the final boss who join forces to track down the legendary hero who's failed to slay even a single mook months after the plot kicking off and yell at him for taking so long. It's based on my oldest original characters and has a lot of sentimental worth to me as a result. Idris, Pal, and Katherine are my babies. I've considered making it similar in production to Dingo Doodle's Fool's Gold series, but I haven't actually made it because I'm really nervous about it turning out poorly ^^; I'd love to post a pitch bible for it someday!

A gothic picture book tentatively titled "Cover the Mirrors" about a woman killing a monster that has haunted her since girlhood, and inheriting the curse that turned the monster from a normal man into his current twisted looks. It would end with the monster's appearance going from being seen as a Boogeyman figure that stalks kids who play outside after sundown while the original monster was around, to a vengeful beast that hunts people who prey on children once the woman inherits the curse. It would play with the idea of trauma giving you unique abilities to help those who have gone through similar terrors, while also warping you into something you can't recognize and find inherently repulsive. I haven't made it because I don't know how to render the painterly style I envision for it.

A mixed media visual novel titled "Cradlehead" about a woman who finds herself serving as the unwilling vessel for an eldritch entity that will destroy her mind when it finishes germinating within and exits her body. She has to escape the pocket dimension it trapped her in to develop within the optimal conditions in order to save herself. The visuals would incorporate clay, digital art, traditional art, 3D models, pixel art, and photography. The game would center around the woman's desperation as she tries to escape while her ability to perceive the new world around her decays more and more over time. I haven't made it because I doubt my artistic abilities to make something like I have in my head come to life.

An untitled magical girl webcomic about an unwilling magical girl with a giant bee familiar named Queenie and issues controlling her powers because of her insecurities. She feels bad about being a not very girly individual while surrounded by hyper-feminine young women who have a handle on their powers she could never dream of. It revolves around her character arc where she eventually stops worrying about meeting the arbitrary standards she imposes on herself to be "girly enough" and decides to just be herself, whoever that is, unlocking her true powers and entering her ultimate form during a climactic battle— taking on a design less like a queen holding a scepter like she'd been dreading, and more like a princely knight holding a stinger-like spear. Her rejection of others' expectations as well as her own helps the world-ending threat, a shapeshifting eldritch being that absorbs people into itself so it can become someone other than itself but is never satisfied with the new faces it obtains, to accept itself and stop trying to steal people's souls in order to find one that would make it love itself. I haven't made it because I worry if it would come across weirdly to the average viewer, as it deals with gender dysphoria as a subject in a very atypical manner.

[gatoraid]

Random, but can I ask why do you love Yut Lung? What made him special? Is there a certain moment in Banana Fish where you know, this will be my favorite character?

P.s I can't believe the mangaka end Yut Lung just like that in the later manga. Are you surprised, too?

This is the perfect ask, YES you can ask me why I love my fave character. <3 This has been sitting in my drafts for a while but since the jp fandom is currently drawing a lot of Yut Lung fanart for the Mid-Autumn Festival, I feel like it's a good time to try answer this.

Yut Lung as a character is just endlessly fascinating to me. He’s the bitchy antagonist, the foil and twisted mirror image of Ash and to a lesser extent Eiji too. He has such delicious relationships with so many of the characters in the story, he's THE fandom bicycle to me.

I love how Yut Lung is full of contradictions. He’s an evil mastermind and seductress pulling at the strings, but he’s also a traumatized 16-year-old kid who misses his mother. He uses his femininity and beauty as a weapon and never fails to bring a fashion moment when going out, yet at home he only ever wears ugly grandpa sweaters.

One of the reasons why I enjoy reading about him so much is that he’s not really a good person. He’s petty and jealous. He’s been having a bad time his whole life and he wants to make it your problem too. Yet at the same time, you see how torn he feels about Shorter's death, how he just wants acceptance and for someone to take care of him. Idk, something about him showing his ugly sides and still being someone who clearly would deserve love and healing just feels so cathartic to me.

And let's not even get started on the gender stuff. I tend to latch on to characters with atypical gender expressions, and Yut Lung is explicitly referred to and viewed as feminine by other characters in the story. Is he someone who's learned to use his perceived femininity to his advantage (the ppl who have compared him to the main character of M Butterfly are so smart), or is this how he actually wants to present? Maybe both? In any case, this aspect of his character has also made him very dear to me.

Also, I actually do know the exact moment I realized Yut Lung would become my fave:

Soo yeah, despite being a fan of the manga for years, it was the anime adaptation that made his character really pop for me. Maybe it was just the right timing for me to vibe with his particular story, or maybe the fact that the anime staff clearly loved him made him stand out even more? His updated character design is just so good! Obviously I love his manga and anime versions equally now, the anime was just the catalyst.

You also asked about Yut Lung's story arc in Yasha. I'm putting the rest after a cut bc of spoilers.

I haven't read Yasha myself, but I've read enough fic and other reports to know the basics of how Yut Lung's life ends in that story. I'm very sad since I just wanted him to keep on living, taking reponsibility for the shitty things he has done. But idk if I can say I'm surprised. Unlike the anime staff, I think it's pretty clear that Akimi Yoshida did not love Yut Lung at all. I feel like she disliked him quite a bit actually, so writing an ending like that for him makes sense in a way sobbbb.

[fatalism-and-villainy]

Expanding more on this -

I can’t say for sure, but I do wonder how much of the idea that Alana was out of character in season 2 - specifically in her distrusting Will and defending Hannibal - stems from the idea of season 1 Alana as the voice of reason, the Only Sane Woman, etc. And so when she starts making errors in judgment that are very obviously wrong from the viewer’s perspective, it’s a massive swerve from her behaviour in season 1?

But I think that idea of her is oversimplified at best, because season 1 actually features Alana being wrong about some significant stuff. She recognizes that Abigail is hiding something, but is skeptical of the possibility of Abigail being involved in her father’s murders and outright refuses the possibility that she killed Nick Boyle - and the latter, of course, is wrapped up in Alana’s misplaced trust in Hannibal. But on top of that, she’s also wrong about Will. She recognizes that her desire to save him would be unwelcome, but fails to recognize the extent to which Will doesn’t need saving.

Because the season finale features Alana shouting at Jack and then melting down in her car as the culmination of a season’s worth of frustration, I think that contributes to the idea that she was the voice of truth who was being suppressed, and now we’re seeing the consequences. Except her perception of what’s happened at that point isn’t actually the correct one. She’s angry at Jack because she thinks he’s pushed Will too far and he’s gone off the deep end and started murdering people. Which is of course not what happened - Hannibal planted evidence to frame Will - but it also underestimates Will’s resilience. He not only doesn’t kill anyone, he’s able to claw his way back to sanity and gain clarity about who, exactly, was manipulating him.

Will trying to have Hannibal killed in season 2 is a demonstration of how drastically wrong Alana was about Will, but not for the reasons she assumes. She has her convictions about Will’s innocence shattered, and she was ignorant of the extent of his violent potential. But she’s mistaken in her assumptions about his maliciousness at that point. What Will lashing out against Hannibal actually demonstrates re: Alana is that she underestimated Will’s agency and capacity for self-preservation. She admits before this that she’s still motivated by saving him, but Will doesn’t need saving. He will stubbornly try to find a way to save himself (as he himself declares he will do).

And the reasons she’s wrong stem from her self-avowed personal flaws, particularly her saviour complex. But that’s are also wrapped up in her clash with the broader philosophy of the show. Alana is established as someone who’s inclined to see the best in people, as demonstrated in her response to Abigail and to Will’s arrest, and which Will accuses her of doing with Hannibal. Even when confronted with demonstrably and unrepentantly violent people, she’s inclined to find an understanding or explanation behind their behaviour - when Gideon is loose and a direct threat to her, her response is still to point out that that he can’t be held fully accountable for his actions because of what Chilton did to him.

(Which is interesting, because the concept of reduced capacity doesn’t come up much in the show - the only killer we see who truly doesn’t know what they’re doing and can’t be held accountable is Georgia Madchen, and she’s pretty atypical in a lot of ways. The other killers operate based on sensibility or aesthetic ideology, in one way or another.)

And this isn’t really a narrative setting in which Alana’s initial worldview is borne out. It’s a narrative setting and framework that constantly bends towards exploring and drawing out the darker side of humanity, the inherent capacity for violence that lies in all of us (as per Will Graham’s first episode narration, “we’ve all thought about killing someone”), and the beauty in embracing that. It’s not a narrative invested in redemption, or the kind of rehabilitation that Alana wants for Abigail. It’s telling that her conventional brand of psychiatry is juxtaposed with Hannibal’s murder-seduction therapy and investment in making people the worst versions of themselves. (Note that she scrupulously keeps her distance from Will because she fears that her urge to study him would clash with her personal relationship with him - something Hannibal certainly doesn’t care about.) The show may bandy about psychiatric terminology from time to time, but it’s not at all interested in diagnosis - it’s a show concerned with the aesthetic drives behind human violence, and with constructing amorality as a sign of sophistication of taste.

And I’d argue that Alana’s role in season 1 and parts of season 2 is to provide a narrative counterpoint to those themes - and thus a sense of pathos, because how can she not be wrong, in this setting? One thing that’s compelling about Alana’s character to me is the way she eludes a lot of the character archetypes that she could have been slotted into. She doesn’t have the bearing or personality of your traditional naive optimist - she’s too serious and mature and driven and professionally minded. And she has an emotional guardedness and neuroticism that goes against what you’d expect from a character’s who the designated emotional heart of a story. Nonetheless, Bryan Fuller called her the “heart of the show” in one of the episode commentaries, and I honestly agree - she has a well of compassion in those early seasons, and a genuine belief in rehabilitation, that’s at odds not only with the evil that Hannibal represents, but also with Jack’s ruthless benevolence or Will’s grim cynicism.

For those reasons, Alana’s arc is actually pretty tragic to me. It’s a corruption arc, like Will’s. But Will’s arc involves leaning into latent but repressed impulses, and being guided through cultivating an aesthetic framework through which to understand those impulses. Will’s experiences with Hannibal are profoundly destabilizing to him, in a lot of ways, but not exactly in the sense that he has his entire worldview and understanding of other people shattered. But Alana does. She develops into a darker version of herself through being confronted with a kind of evil that can’t be understood in the way she’s used to, and can’t be saved. This is exemplified in the scene in Digestivo when she confronts Hannibal and asks if she could ever have understood him, and he simply says “no.” And she knows the answer already at this point, but still can’t stop herself from asking. Just to know for sure.

(I see people sometimes claim that her characterization is too drastically different from what came before in season 3, but what we see of her there feels very consistent to me with the Alana we know - it’s just a version of Alana who’s undergone a significant trauma and had her trust in someone close to her broken - and broken in a way that destabilizes everything about how she’s used to thinking and relating to people. It’s no wonder to me that she’s much more emotionally closed off, more ruthless, and more cynically willing to exploit amoral characters like Mason Verger for her own gain - and even then, she’s not without reservations about that.)

Anyway, my point is that season 2 marks an important turning point in Alana’s development and the shift in the (relatively) idealistic worldview she begins with. The seeds of the disruption of that worldview are planted with her initial response to Will’s attempt on Hannibal’s life and its upending of her view of him, and then they fully take root in her steady realization of how much Hannibal has deceived her. What’s done with her character in that season feels to me like a natural progression of where she started in season 1 and a natural precursor to where she ends up in season 3.

[historyartthings]

Absolutely loving, adoring, Le*nda de L*sle’s review of MacCulloch’s work...

My thoughts, feelings, opinions I’ve put below. It gets very long because I cannae haud me wheesht

I don’t know why she’s obsessed with the idea that he mustn’t have loved his wife. ‘the supposedly grieving widower’? I don’t think the arrangement of a marriage for a king - which Henry obviously agreed to - is a sufficient way to judge what Thomas’s relationship with his wife was like. The (foreign and domestic) political, religious and dynastic factors at play there can’t be ignored in favour of extrapolating that he didn’t understand marrying for love. The “happy marriage” in quotation marks😭 have got to laugh. her condescending cynicism is based on nothing tangible, as far as I can work out. She shades MacCulloch as well through the, ‘he believes that although the evidence is sparse, Cromwell was indeed a grieving widower'…. Ngl I would argue it’s not a particularly strained logical leap to assume he might’ve been upset.

We know barely anything about their relationship. Mostly what can be concretely said is he, unusually, never remarried - we’ll obviously never know the reason(s) for that, but still. There was seemingly one notable relationship outside of it, which we only know of because it resulted in an illegitimate daughter, a wee while after his wife passed away. But even that isn’t for 100% certain. He also atypically didn’t have a mistress. There’s also exactly one (1) extant letter from him to his wife, which is pleasant enough, but not much revealing - he asks her for news of home and sends her a deer. she didnt live long enough so as to have any external remarks on their marriage once he entered court spheres. Essentially it’s impossible to draw anything more than speculative conclusions, but based on what can be tentatively extrapolated from his actions, it seems more likely he grieved for his wife than didn’t imo. And also just considering natural, human emotion??

(Even if you want to suggest they didn’t marry for love in the beginning - and/or weren’t in love by the end - they were married for what? Roughly a decade and a half? With no signs of estrangement, and friendly correspondence in letters to Cromwell asking him to pass on their regards to his wife. So even if it was simply an amicable relationship, on a basic level being with someone in such close proximity, for that long, and losing them is probably going to be upsetting?)

On a tangential note, as MacCulloch does point out, the valentine to Mary mentioned here wasn’t at all romantic - it’s misleading to present that, as she does, as an attempt for he himself to marry into royalty. Or more charitably, I think she misremembered the context for it from the book

I’d also question de Lisle’s point about the executions. Personally I don’t think it suggests a greater misogyny than any of his contemporaries? Imo it’s indicative of the broader pattern of a brutal, violent ruthlessness towards those he saw as any enemy, in his way, and/or as going against the crown/policy etc. As opposed to any particular or especial hatred towards women. This isn't meant as an excuse for those actions in any way, because they're - quite obviously - horrific. I just question the rationale behind such a judgement of even-worse-than-usual-for-the-time-misogyny based upon it. Such brutality wasn't isolated to women, men were treated just as abominably. She talks of their humiliation to evidence her point, but again, men were faced with the same. (Ask Richard Whiting who got dragged up Glastonbury Tor at nearly 80, whose case involved, 'to be tryed [presumably for treason] at Glaston and also executyd there' from cromwell's remembrances; or John Forrest, who was strung up in chains, which is a humiliating - to use her term - prolonged death in itself, but was also supposedly burnt using kindling made from a statue of a saint - oh how clever of you!). We don’t (afaik) have letters or remarks which reflect cromwell’s views on women in the same way as for Norfolk, for example. it's just a bizarre extrapolation to me. again, imo it's an incredibly dark, ruthless streak through his personality. it seems to have been his standard handling of any major execution. Also, to be clear, I’m not suggesting he wasn’t sexist/misogynistic, because ofc he was. All men back then were, as a symptom of living and socilisation in such a patriarchal society.

(also interesting for her to pair this suggestion w/ her thoughts about his marriage come to think of it. she seems to be linking the two in a broader picture, I assume wherein this should be added to the ‘evidence’ he didn’t/couldnt have loved his wife)

also the contrast of his physical looks in the Holbein, against his 'becoming' a 'convivial figure' in MacCulloch's work, is disappointing. not reading personalities from portraits, nor ascribing negative character traits to appearances and/or weight (implicitly or otherwise) shouldn't be a big ask, but apparently is. It'd be a wee bit different if she’d pointed to his expression - I still think that’s an unsound way to go about things fwiw - which at least isn’t intrinsically linked to his features, but alas no.

Lastly, re: MacCulloch’s arguments, i would say he’s more impartial than she implies. He might be Anglican, but I wouldn’t say he’s ‘on the Protestant side’ particularly. I struggle to see how his presentation of Catholics - from what i remember, altho it’s been a while since i've read it - is less than fair? He directly praises more and fisher iirc. but someone with a better knowledge of the book could correct me on this point.

also, positioning that he's on the 'protestant side', alongside the next line being about his argument that cromwell was grieving, is an interesting choice. is the suggestion that if you agree with the latter your sympathies must lie with "protestantism"? that it's only through a biased lens you could reach that conclusion? sksjksjk diabolical suggestion that that's the only reason anyone might consider he mourned his wife. like am i going insane or is it genuinely what she's saying??… i cant see why she'd juxtapose those specific points otherwise. Like critiquing mantel's comments about catholics and their presentation in wolf hall is fair enough, but connecting that with the fact she wrote cromwell as 'heartbroken' and that he loved his wife, comes across to me as though she's suggesting the former should invalidate mantel's interpretation of the latter. which again i dont think is fair based on the evidence we do have..

I would also question (because it is confusing to me) despite the fact that MacCulloch and Mantel were friends, why the “”””””happy marriage”””””” across both works is the way in here??? like why are you so bothered as to both lead and finish the article with that?

(And, frankly, MacCulloch paints a picture of a happier marriage - he writes that the simplest explanation is, ‘he couldn’t bear to marry anyone else’ - than Mantel does. Who presents their relationship as literally (as in, textually), ‘loves’ but not ‘in love’. and has him actively wanting to remarry. she had a line in TMATL that goes he was ‘mostly faithful’ which? I’m not sure if she meant to imply infidelity but… altho she did present a picture of him missing her i guess)

[floralcrematorium]

please tell us your fruk wedding ideas 👁️👁️

oh i have so many thoughts… too many thoughts…

i actually made a template similar to those “my OTP in a nutshell” kinda things but it was specific to weddings. i haven’t released it bc i wanted to draw wedding fruk first

but anyway… fruk wedding

i suppose i’ll just go with a FACE background and whether or not you interpret this as humanverse or nationverse is up to you

i like to think they’d have an outdoor wedding - it’s a spring garden kind of setting. their wedding is rather small and intimate, basically it’s just family and close friends. so honestly, if someone’s home has a beautiful garden out back or lives near the woods, it’d be perfect

lots of florals… i think floriography is important to fruk, but i can’t help but think irises, lavender, and roses are in abundance. i can’t decide what arthur’s favorite flower is, but it’s probably something you could find on an adventure through the woods - something small and unassuming, but once you keep seeing them around on the trail they become a welcome company

the outfits…

arthur’s simple -> he’s going for a suit. arthur isn’t one to dress flashy, so he’s probably not wearing any atypical suit colors, but i imagine he would have a new suit tailored specifically for the wedding. i think he’s a very nostalgic and sentimental person, so it makes sense to me that he’d want to have such a special outfit rather than picking old reliable from the closet

meanwhile… i CANNOT choose what i want francis to wear, there’s so many options. GNC francis is very near and dear to my heart. fran would either pick a white suit with a lavender colored tie, maybe some sort of pantsuit, or an actual dress. the dress i have in mind (and in my pinterest board for fruk wedding) is off the shoulder and form fitting with a decent train. i think the shape i’m imagining is called “trumpet” — it’s a looser fit than a mermaid shaped dress around the legs. i love the idea of francis in lace. regardless of what francis is wearing, i need fran to have a veil… i just think he loves the drama of it. veils are beautiful and the lacework on the hem is usually a work of art on its own. francis would have different outfits between the ceremony and the reception… maybe the dress for the ceremony and a suit for the reception? at the one (1) wedding i’ve ever been to, it seemed like a nightmare to wear such a big dress for the whole evening. eating in white clothing also seems like a nightmare

i’d like to look into english and french wedding traditions when it comes to the reception and other things they’d do, but i think it’d be endearing for matthew and alfred to be involved — they’re their sons!!!!!! i don’t CARE if they’re adults, matt and al are happy to see their fathers (finally) tie the knot. matt would be the ring bearer and al would be the flower person, serving as much sass as he can without stealing the show

i’m not sure how traditional their wedding would be. i’m not a big fan of the concept of “giving the bride away” and what it stands for, but i will admit it’s cute to imagine one of Fran’s friends or Lucille walking him down because he’s sentimental, too, and also likes the attention that comes with walking down the aisle

oh god the food… francis is such a snob when it comes to food and i know they would’ve spent ages coming to an agreement on what they’re serving and who is catering (if catering is even the right word for such a small gathering). arthur and fran have such different tastes in food. i honestly think picking their cake would’ve been easier. speaking of, their cake is probably a simple sponge cake with berries and minimal frosting

rings,,, i feel like they have simple wedding bands, probably engraved or something. i can never decide how the proposal went, who proposed, where, what the ring is like, etc. i want them both to have engagement rings!!!

if i have any more thoughts ill tack on, but thats it for now

but overall fruk’s wedding feels very… homely. not rustic, but everyone invited is a very cherished friend, the food is fantastic, and people are happy to see them FINALLY get married. i do wonder if in the years/decades leading up to fruk official wedding, if they’d just refer to one another as their husband anyway. it’s sweet

[gingergofastboatsmojito]

The Pacino Variant

Since I found out that JAW got inspiration from Al Pacino to play some of Carmy's layers I immediately started thinking about Frankie and Johnny's dynamic and how it was all so messy in their relationship before it got to the good part. Granted, JAW was not inspired by Johnny, but by a different role Al Pacino played, but still. It got me thinking about how this very Austenian love story, of course, very realistic and bittersweet had certain points in common with Sydcarmy and once I started I just couldn't stop drawing parallels between the sydcarmy dynamic and the frankjohnny one because F&J was a very atypical comedy, just like The Bear and that's why many viewers now don't even understand how The Bear is a comedy, which it is, of course: A noir one. Back then, something similar kinda happened with Frankie & Johnny, it flopped as a rom-com but it became a cult movie and was critically acclaimed.

Here's a clip:

Context: they met while working together at a diner.

The main characters were described as: "lonely little people struggling to find love."

Rolling Stone's review back then read the following:

"Somehow Mr. Marshall, Mr. McNally, and their superb leading actors are able to retain the intimacy of their material. They also retain the story's fundamental wariness about romance, even when everything about Ms. Pfeiffer and Mr. Pacino has the audience wondering why they don't simply fall into each other's arms."

See? Sounds very Sydcarmy to me, building intimacy while NOT dating, Frankie (Michelle Pfeiffer) is all business-no love, a tough cookie, she's been burnt before so she doesn't let any new guy into her life

and Johnny has to do the hard work to convince her (which Carm is not doing bc he rather denies his own feelings and deflects onto Claire as both this amazing meta by @Chefkids and my own humble opinion point out). In Johnny's case, there's no Claire but there is a rather complicated past that also conditions his choices and Frankie doesn't make it any easier on him, etc.

So my point is that the whole Sydcarmy back and forth before it actually happens, which I already mentioned here I think is gonna be more of a cliffhanger kinda thing bc before we get to that part they need to be at each other's throats, Carmy's relationship with C has to crash and burn, The Bear needs to win a bunch of awards and hopefully get out of debt, which will be S3's main focus, along with Nat's baby that's gonna be a total game changer in terms of the Berzatto family's dynamic, etc... when all of those boxes are checked ✅✅✅ then we will venture into Sydcarmy territory on Storer's terms. And I can't help but wonder if that transition from friends to lovers is gonna be kinda like F&J's, I think it might, because it sounds Storer-friendly. I'm not talking about the endgame per se, just the transition.

Would love to know what you all think about this theory.

If you haven't seen the movie and now feel curious about it, here's a playlist, and those short clips pretty much sum it all up.

❤️‍🔥

[not-poignant]

If that's how much Gary loses it with just efnisien's sub-larentins, how does Augus handle being with omegas in full heat all the time? Or is Augus just more accustomed to it and is just like Gary this so embarrassing for you 🤭 one whiff of larentin and you can't make sentences 🤭

OR is it with an omega in heat and a peak alpha that's its just. Full animal going at it from both of them?

It's definitely not just the sub-larentins! Efnisien wasn't even in heat, and we've seen Gary react to Efnisien in (a partial) heat and he wasn't out of control, but he did grow increasingly uh, invested, or maybe aroused by Efnisien the more time he spent with him, and the more he came to interact with him sensually/sexually.

Gary's not attracted to omegas, and he can suppress his reaction to omegas when they're in heat. We also know that he can have this intense reaction to alphas, which is why James only agreed to having penetrative sex with him less than a handful of times a year. So it's definitely not just a 'sub-larentin' thing, though I think that played into why things lasted so long, Gary could always go into that feral headspace because he literally warns Efnisien over and over again what he's like, because of his experience with alphas. Which is important to remember! Gary hasn't been that intense before, but that doesn't mean he isn't intense, because that's what he's been trying to prepare Efnisien for mentally for some time, from the size training, to other things, to kind of give him a 'hey, don't fuck around with peak alphas, I mean it' heads up.

But Gary didn't know that he could fuck for three days straight, and that's where I think the sub-larentins had a partial (but definitely not full) influence.

how does Augus handle being with omegas in full heat all the time?

Most peak alphas (including Gary) don't react to omegas in heat the way most alphas do. Most peak alphas aren't attracted to omegas at all (in fact many aren't attracted to anyone, they're attracted to power), so Augus doesn't have the same issues that some alphas do if an omega goes into heat (he has other issues, but that's a whole other thing).

Tbh in this world it'd be more like 'that's embarrassing for Augus' re: how he's able to be so in control all the time. He's considered on the weaker end of the peak alpha perspective. (If Temsen and Gary are at a 90/100, Augus is at a 20/100 for power, lmao, kind of like of the alphas, Janusz is on the lower end and Caleb is on the higher for power).

Augus is very good at sublimating his instincts into BDSM, but he's really quite atypical and is the only peak alpha companion in the world because of it. A meaner peak alpha would probably call that a skill issue, lmao.

But we also haven't seen Augus with an omega during their heat. We don't know how he's affected. We can't draw any conclusions about it, especially since alphas are meant to fuck omegas for days without stopping during a heat, because that's like...part of the responsibility of taking care of an omega. So if he can do that and is invested in doing that, he's just being normal.

But yeah no, Efnisien wasn't in heat! He wasn't making more sub-larentins than normal. So whole 'one whiff of larentin' isn't why Gary couldn't make sentences. That had nothing to do with it. Gary was like this before with alphas who don't make sub-larentins. It was the length/intensity on top of everything he doesn't expect, but he memory loss, the lack of ability to form sentences etc. that's all normal for him. That's peak alphas being in the haze of utterly destroying/dominating someone, and that is something they very much enjoy (if they're attracted to anyone at all) with alphas.

OR is it with an omega in heat and a peak alpha that's its just.

Efnisien was never in heat for this! Efnisien wasn't in heat, didn't "need" sex, wasn't producing more hormones for sex. He was just, in that moment, a regular alpha who was curious about having penetrative sex for the first time.

We can see Gary's reaction at least to a partial heat earlier in the story, and it's very different, so we know he doesn't lose control of himself / and can still make full sentences when Efnisien's in that state.

[dollypopup]

unpopular polin opinions (again)

-Colin honest to God didn't do anything even REMOTELY as bad as this fandom insists he did? framing him as the big bad in a friends to lovers story is deeply unsatisfying and pits him and Pen against each other when the whole POINT is that they're a team.

-Polin is meant to be ride or die. it's meant to be people who see one another for who they are beyond the front. it is NOT meant to be two people who hold grudges against one another with a scorecard of who hurt the other more huffing about how the other is frustrating. their whole dynamic is 'i like you' 'i like you, too'

-BOTH OF THEM have hurt the other without apology. NEITHER of them are actually in love with the other (yet). Both of them are closed off and secretive and neither of them should actually have to beg and cry and scream for forgiveness. they're supposed to be friends

-jealous Colin as we're pushing for it is a shit tier trope. Colin swooping in w/ feelings for Pen only after other people have expressed interest in her would always make her wonder if he wanted her for her or if he wanted her because someone else did first and that's not the dynamic at all. Colin falls for her organically, albeit slowly. He falls for her when she opens up, when she shows him who she is, and only after he shows her that he's a safe place to do so. Likewise, SHE falls for HIM for real when she sees who HE is, too. When she sees that he's imperfect and that his charming artifice is a mask he wears. They're both scared that who they truly are on the inside is unlovable or unworthy of serious consideration, and when they crack open and the other sees, they fall for who they actually are. It's a love made stronger because it's born out of trust and understanding, not out of an ultimatum of 'I could lose her!'

-Penelope ghosting Colin with no explanation after S2 would be her being a really bad friend and deeply hurtful

-Penelope would hate being the unofficial diamond everyone is seemingly rooting for and it makes 0 sense for her to suddenly have a bunch of suitors. it's just lazy storytelling.

-most of the Polin dynamics this fandom has actively rooted for in S3 is just Kanthony or Saphne 2.0. That's very much NOT the point of Polin's romance. and I do not understand why people want the exact same season playing out the THIRD TIME IN A ROW

-Pen's actual character would despise how some of y'all write about Colin. like. . .she's supposed to love him? he's supposed to love her? If someone called him an idiot or undeserving or uninteresting or that he should beg and grovel she would fight

-Polin's characterizations as individual characters as well as a couple have been so completely twisted and deformed in this fandom for the sake of drama and painfully cishet toxic tropes that it makes me legitimately sad. Polin is a great ship. So much of it is beautiful and healing. Two people who care for one another deeply, if with a good deal of confusion, discovering who they are individually and then realizing they're happiest with each other is lovely. Colin being an atypical male love interest in the sense that his primary draw is kindness and compassion and primary struggles being lost and jealous of his LI for her success is INTERESTING. There are a million and one brooding rakes out there breaking hearts and beating their chests howling 'she's mine!' in the middle of a room full of other men gawking. Ship Pen with one of them if you want that dynamic, but that's not Colin and I don't WANT it to be Colin. Colin is great without that

-Penelope is not an innocent lil bab who did everything she did out of good intentions. she is more complex and relatable as someone who fucks up. It is COMPELLING that she did deeply hurtful things not out of saintly altruism but out of jealousy or scorn or desperation mixed with a genuine desire to do well by those she cares for. It is a better story to acknowledge she isn't even remotely perfect and that in wanting to help, she just tangled things up even worse than before. Penelope has plenty of faults alongside her goodness: she's closed off, distrusting, traumatized, jealous. All whilst being funny, sharp, cunning, loving. She wants to be loved and to love those around her and doesn't know how. She hurts the people she cares about and she hurts herself in the process. THAT'S REAL. The idea that Penelope is a perfect bab who should be fawned over and all her ills can be excused away is flat and infantalizing. I understand: there have been a lot of criticisms of Penelope from people who genuinely dislike her character. But the pendulum has swung to the other side to the point where people who DO like her and DO ship Polin point out unsavory parts of her character, it's met with the same rabid defense as if we were haters. Guess what? I like Penelope MORE because she's made those fuck ups. I like discussing how she's hurt others because who of us haven't? Penelope is overlooked and unpopular and awkward and unsure and I LIKE HER FOR IT. I'm exhausted of the glittering, perfect Penelope who everyone else has to apologize to because she's the 'victim'. That makes her so much more unlikable

-speaking of unlikable, most of y'all who say you ship Polin straight up do not like Colin as a character. And it's obvious. Turning him into a character he isn't, wanting him on hands and knees begging for a second chance, considering him only as an extension of Penelope when he has so much richness as a character in his own right. Assuming the worst in his actions and striking out all the good about him in favor of a narrative that deforms Polin into a ship where he is always wrong and she is always right. And it turns a lot of people off to the ship. People who ship Polin already get turned off by how much this fandom hates Colin, let alone peeps just getting into it or outside of it. There are people who despise Polin that discuss Colin more favorably than we do in our own ship and it makes no sense because he is a genuinely fantastic character. He refuses to abide by toxic masculinity, he's gentle and sweet and caring, he's silly and unsure and self-sacrificing, he's putting on an act and he's self-critical and he's got such a big heart. He's the kindest person in Pen's life. He supports her unyieldingly. He's never done anything to purposefully hurt her and he cherishes her as a friend. Why do we so rarely talk about him favorably?

-Polin is NOT Colin vs. Penelope. That dynamic can create some interesting conflict, sure, but it needs to move beyond that because at the core? At the core, it's Polin vs. The Problem. and it's so much more fulfilling that way

[paradox-n-bedrock]

Hey! I saw throughout some of your tags that you got to see both Macbeth and The Enfield Haunting! (to which I'm insanely jealous, please hand over your memories to me at your earliest convenience!) What did you think of them??

Oh hi!!

The Enfield Haunting was enjoyable. Reviews for it have been overly harsh, for the most part, and I think part of that might be the genre bias horror often faces. The dialogue is clunky, particularly in the beginning, but I can say it's a fun show if you're a Conjuring, Enfield Poltergeist, or general haunted history fan. It presents the supernatural influence vs troubled children aspect in a balanced way, as is necessary for this plot. It also builds tension rather effectively once it gets going, while letting Catherine punctuate it with moments of lightness and her usual impeccable timing. There are some really good parts where a theme seemed to come together of this overwhelmed woman dealing with a rotating cycle of overbearing men (invasive investigators, infatuated neighbor, disrespectful ex-husband, and the poltergeist, of course) making nuisances of themselves in her home while she's just trying to push through each day without losing herself or her children to their collective unhappiness. If the theme had carried through more cohesively, it would have been a strong play. Unfortunately, I was left yearning for a bit more of that story, as it gets messy and lost maybe two thirds of the way though when the focus shifts to the investigator. But mainly, Catherine is so, so talented. She carries the whole thing on her back, with some help from the young actress who plays a very creepy Janet. It's hard to take your eyes off of her as Peggy, even when she's harried and anxious or reacting in furious silence to the action happening on the other side of the stage. She just... draws your gaze. And when she steels her spine to stand up for her family and her space, she's positively luminous. Plus there's an unexpected delight in a couple of scenes where Catherine sings Only Wanna Be With You--very sweetly, just a bar or two--and my heart felt like it was going to fucking burst. Hello, her voice... I need her to do another musical, preferably one we get a soundtrack to.

And she's so kind at the stage door. It was a two show day and she had a con the next morning but she still took the time to speak to every single person that was waiting there.

__

Macbeth, I wasn't carrying even the slightest hope of seeing but then I was able to get a standing ticket in my cart while on the flight there (though I had to let it go) and realized my years of stalking concert presales were about to come in handy. Ironically, my partner was the one who did snag the tickets two days later. I... actually ended up with a first row seat, though she was in the standing section. But that's just me rambling about the process because I still can't believe it worked out the way it did.

I'm not even sure what to say about the show itself. The whole cast is phenomenal. The production is conceptually very cool. The audio tricks they play with the witches--via a headset for each audience member and the eerie sense of movement and foreboding conveyed by bilateral audio--plus the starkness of the empty white stage and simple dark costuming just work. The contrast of the blood when David is centerstage, distressed and panting as he washes it away, feels poignant rather than pretentious. He's captivating the whole way through, but especially then, when he temporarily strips away the ambition along with his stained clothes to reveal the broken and guilty thing underneath. There's nothing like how DT delivers Shakespeare--the meaning flows out of him as naturally as the words themselves and it's incredibly approachable without losing any of its gravitas. The dynamic between the leads is atypical in a really lovely way. David's Macbeth and Cush's Lady Macbeth come across more like codependent partners and ruthless accomplices than a greedy but hesitant royal and his calculating wife egging him on. He looks to her for support rather than a push to kill Duncan, and the adoration between them is palpable, even as they each deteriorate in their own ways. I walked out of this show feeling so deeply affected, it was like a religious experience.

(Macbeth also feels very gender, which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who's a fan of DT's Benedict, though this is obviously in a very different way. As does Malcolm, played by Ros Watt--who's non-binary--and Ross, played by Moyo Akandé. I adore the whole cast, honestly.)

[freckliedan]

Hi!!! I just wanted to talk about how Dan and Phil as a brand is so relatable to neurodivergents in the way that they've been treated recently. So DnP built their careers off of being "weird" and "quirky" and socially awkward. That was Their Thing. Dan spoke for years about being violently bullied (quotes such as "being punched in the head by dickheads" stand out as a pre-BIG example of just how violent it got at times), Phil had the Why I Was a Weird Kid series, they both were frequently talked about as being "weird" and "awkward" by other YouTubers - they WERE the "weird" ones of the vlog group. The ones that awkward teens could relate to. Unfortunately, this got the attention of the #imsoquirky crowd who talks like they're experiencing all of these things while also being the same people who would mock me for my autism.

And that's the crowd now saying Dan is too old to be posting catboy photos or saying that the two of them "give the ick now, idk why." And I just can't help but notice how much I relate to that as an autistic and ADHD person. So many times over the years, I've made "friends" who were slightly into my interests, but then got weirded out by how hard I went into them. I think what we're seeing is the same thing happening to Dan and Phil. Drawing cat whiskers on your face to answer questions? Well that's "so cute and quirky"!! (/s). But actually playing as Catboys in JRPGs, dressing up in cat ears, making animal noises (which the two of them always did but ig this group overlooked), etc? Well that's "too far" and "so weird."

I think Dan especially got hit with this because he has more subscribers. When he talks about being bullied, most people can relate to that. But then when he goes and honks a horn in a game repeatedly (which tbh I've done before myself, very ADHD coded of him) or talks about hiding behind vending machines to avoid talking to people, that is suddenly "too annoying/weird" for some of the audience that got into him for his "relatably weird" content.

Sorry this is such a long ramble, but basically Dan and Phil have accidentally become the perfect examples of how kids with autism/ADHD/social pragmatic disorder/nvld/dyspraxia *insert other neurodivergencies that can cause atypical socialization* are treated. People might find your initial "quirkiness" relatable because everyone feels awkward or socially anxious at times, but it's when they see that you are Actually Just Like That and it's not to be #relatable that they turn on you and start saying that you're "too much" and "too weird."

Dan and Phil were the "weird" ones of the British vlog scene, and those of us who tuned into the younows or watched their older videos knew this, but someone who only subbed after watching a meme review or the two of them playing undertale might have assumed that they were the "right" kind of quirky/weird.

This is probably incoherent, but I hope you get what I mean.

this isn't incoherent! just such a well thought out ask i don't have anything to add. there's really specific ways i'm comfortable talking abour dnp + neurodivergence & neurodivergence in general so it's not something i've ever done super in depth posts abt!

i've actually gotten a few really lengthy asks like this over the last few weeks, so this is to you and to my other askers: i really appreciate that folks want to share their ideas with me but sometimes i genuinely don't have enough to contribute in response to add on to what's being said! and that makes it pretty impossible to answer asks like this.

so this is to everyone: feel free to @ me in the replies on your posts! (doing that leaves things cleaner than @ ing in the body of a post, which in my experience means folks are more likely to engage, if that's what you're looking for). especially loop me in about dnp + neurodivergene or dnp + gender!

this isn't a promise i'll rb or even see things, this website's functionality is shit, but like. it's actually way easier for me to see and support than if yall are sending me essay length anons, and this way i + others can find more people who share the same opinions as us! make ur own posts & ppl will follow u i prommy

[review-anon]

Thoughts on Sayaka Maizono?

Sayaka really is a character who the fandom goes one or two ways. One section of the fandom calls her a snake and the other section literally decorates their entire fucking house in Sayaka drawings.

The funniest thing is some of @creepercraftguy's sprite edits found their way into said house and as such one can tease him over the fact he actually contributed to that...well would you call it a masterpiece? It's art but...I dunno.

Design wise, Sayaka is extremely plain looking but I am gonna give her some slack as she was literally the first female Danganronpa character ever designed and you aren't gonna have a banger on the first go. But I will say that Sayaka could benefit from a redesign as currently she looks like atypical Japanese high schooler which might have worked when we were in the Distrust era but in this zany Danganronpa universe, not so much. It's just her design isn't very "idol"

Of course everyone and their mother knows Sayaka is the first big gotcha in Danganronpa and tells you right away what this franchise is gonna be about. As in a normal setting, Sayaka would be the assistant character for Makoto and the fact they knew each other before the game was definitely setting up for that.

And so Danganronpa has her be victim number one, which okay that's one thing. The second thing is that Sayaka was planning a murder but 11037 turned the tables and killed her. Now I will say that those saying that Leon should have walked away once Sayaka was disarmed, firstly the Class Trial system wasn't announced until after this murder took place, and secondly Sayaka could have spun the whole thing to make Leon look guilty and the others would have believed her.

Alternatively the manga adaptation of Danganronpa paints this more tragically as Sayaka still had the knife on her when she fled into the bathroom and Leon opens the door, to try and calm her down. As for why he didn't do so outside, I'm gonna assume the door is soundproof, but Sayaka didn't believe him, another attempt was made and Sayaka got accidently stabbed.

Its very easy to call Sayaka a snake in this regard but aside from the fact by the logic of snake, both Aoi and Kyoko could be called that due to their actions, but Sayaka was less a criminal mastermind and more of a desperate young girl who feared her career was over. Given how brutal the idol industry is, Sayaka probably had to do some unsavory stuff to get on top.

What I find funny is whenever Sayaka shows up in askblogs she's a total badarse. Ask the Despair Kids? Sayaka runs the Remnants of Hope, was able to hold her own against Kyoji who had basically genetically modified himself to be like a typical Bioshock player, AND she has a pet kaiju. A Student Out of Time? Sayaka is the long awaited 4th good time traveller and has been pulling a lot of weight and has her own faction consisting of mostly future people from her class. Survivors? Sayaka is a major member of the Future Foundation and recently has become one of Makoto's girlfriends. The only one she hasn't done something epic in is Despair to Future Arcs but that's because we haven't focused on her past yet. And when Sayaka gets her moment in my sketches you bet she will have an epic moment.

But in terms of her in canon, Sayaka just dies in the first chapter because Spike Chunsoft hate using her as a reference model, and she sets the tone of the franchise but that's that. Nothing impressive in canon and her best moments are from her potential and what fans can do with her then what she does in canon.