#and the stranger the better

[actually-mentally-ill]

[corviiids]

my top bit of advice going into the new year: compliment people. especially strangers. literally everyone you interact with if you can. when you buy coffee in the morning compliment the barista's tattoos. when you're chatting with a coworker tell them that by the way you like their outfit. always find something they've chosen to do on purpose. nail polish, jewellery, tattoos, hair colour/style, statement accessory, outfit, etc are all good bets. things people hope will be noticed. things that aren't too personal so it doesn't make them uncomfortable (eg probably not their physical features). i've gotten into the habit of scanning everyone i talk to for something about them that i think is cool so i can tell them. it's a great habit because it makes me notice people and realise just how many neat little details there are in people's presentation of themselves that might pass me by if i wasn't paying attention. and it brings out so much joy. you'd be surprised how much it disarms people to receive an unexpected compliment from someone they don't know. it is the most sincere smile you will see all day long. it feels nice to make people happy but it also means you win the social interaction. establish dominance by complimenting a stranger's earrings and disappearing into the fog

[morganbritton132]

I don’t think anybody has ever explained the Upside Down to Steve so he came up with his own explanations for what happens and then spreads that misinformation around to the new members of The Party.

Like, turns out Eddie didn’t die and Steve’s just like, “Yeah, that happens. Will died and came back. Hopper…Dustin’s cat. Only seems to work with guys though. The girls never come back.”

Robin, who knows this too, “The Upside Down is sexist.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

[thegardengrows-infrozenrain]

[donttellunclesam]

new holiday pfp!!

[violentbirds]

Just a fun illustration for a Star Wars discord im on. This is younger Beru and little Luke. I love Beru. I want to know more about her and her time with Luke. And I want all the AU’s where she survives and Luke makes her proud.

[dysfunctionalupsidedown]

"Mike didn't love El at first sight. He treated her terribly."

"Well, he had just met her/didn't know her yet/was upset about Will!"

The analysis I'm working on is really opening my eyes...

[ryan-waddell11]

bro was contemplating every time he skipped gym once he saw he had to climb a rope

[love-byers]

mike lying vs mike telling the truth

"You think I'm a monster too."

*high pitched, animated facial expression* "What?!"

vs

"What about us?"

*firm, but quiet. solid eye contact* "What?"

"Yesterday. The way you looked at me. . .you were scared of me."

*head shaking, rapid blinking* "No, no- *scoffs* that's not- that's- that's not true."

vs

"What, you're mad that I didn't talk to you? Seems like you've made it super clear you're not interested in anything I have to say."

*firm, solid eye contact, no stuttering* "That's just not true."

i still can't believe people called finn a bad actor because of this

FINN WOLFHARD??? BAD ACTOR???? PUH LEEZ

MIKE is a bad actor, not finn

[flightless-stranger]

(Click for higher quality/too see details!)

Early morning at the Kitty Cafe!

I had a lot of fun playing with this one.  Hermits and kitties, what else do you need in life?

Close ups under cut!

[bookshelf-dust]

you’ll find it in a dresser drawer

billy hargrove x fem!reader

gif by @suledins

word count: 2,550

warnings: mainly fluff and romantic stuff, a little bit of suggestiveness at the start, playful banter/swearing/name-calling (it’s all out of love)

synopsis: on a journey to declutter your little home, you and billy find lots of memories on the past and sit down to reminisce.

a/n: my bestie girl @clovermunson put this idea into my head actual ages ago, and i finally managed to get it done!! besides, we could all use a little love and care right about now <33

————

“BILLY!”

The shower cuts off, leaving only the sound of water dripping from your loofah, down the ends of your hair. 

“Huh!” Billy shouts, already making his way towards the bathroom. He doesn’t need a verbal cue—the tone of your voice is enough. Each lilt you take on tells him what he’s walking into.

You’ve hastily wrapped a towel around your midsection, and he walks in on you waving your leg around in his direction. “I shaved my legs.”

Billy laughs heartily. He leans down, cupping the back of your calf with one hand so he can kiss the skin of your shin. “That’s what you were doin’ in here all this time? Thought maybe you were rubbin’ one out or something.” He winks, dragging his hand up your now very smooth leg. 

You wrap your arms around his shoulders and let him lift you over the rim of the tub, setting you down securely on the bath mat. “You know I’m too loyal to the fancy shower head for all that manual labor.” You smack a sweet, slightly damp kiss on Billy’s lips. “But seriously, aren’t you impressed? I don’t remember the last time I shaved them.”

He drags his hand up your knee. “I’m so impressed. Even more that you managed to go without a nick.”

Your eyes crinkle up with the biggest smile, reserved just for him. “I know, right?” You lean your head back, allowing Billy to kiss at your shoulder where he’s been nosing at you this entire time. 

“Smell good,” he mumbles. 

“I used the same things as always, pretty.”

Billy’s thumb presses gently under your chin, molding you so he can kiss right where your collar bones meet. “Always smell good. Could eat you right up.”

“Maybe later?” you quip, sneaking out from his hold. He drags his gaze up your legs as you go. Six years in and he still looks at every part of you like it’s the first time. 

“No doubt, pretty girl. When you’re dressed you wanna help me with this box?”

“‘Course! I’ll just be a minute.”

The both of you have made it your mission to sort through every room in your little house. It’s not much, but there’s plenty of room and you take good care of it. Billy’s had more fun painting than he’d ever admit, and he helped you set up flower boxes so you had something to take care of. 

The lone hallway closet, the bane of your existence, was your last task. The one you’d been avoiding. A small, dark hell of clutter. Tubs full of trinkets and memories from you or Billy or both. Extra blankets, board games. Anything that didn’t have a home, or that you’d just rather not deal with on any given day. 

You slip on an oversized sweatshirt you’re sure you’ve had since college and a pair of Billy’s boxer shorts. He never wears this pair anyhow, and who are you to leave them gathering dust in the back of a dresser drawer.

Billy hears your bare feet pad against the hardwoods. You reach for a pillow, meaning to prop yourself up on it. 

Billy grunts. You look up, where he’s motioning towards his lap with his free hand. The one not flipping through what looks like a smaller box full of pictures. You comply, walking over to him. He reaches upward, big hands holding onto your hips as he coaxes you down between his legs, your back resting against his chest. 

“Hair smells good,” he mumbles, kissing the nape of your neck. He always tells you how good you smell. You never tell him that you always use the same things and, therefore, always smell the same. 

“Thank you,” you say. He pushes the thick cotton of your sweatshirt aside, the pilling fabric catching on his calloused fingertips. He presses a kiss to your shoulder and sets the material back where it was. 

Your teeth close around the inside of your cheek, hiding the giddy smile that threatens to appear. You lean forward just a bit, your gaze catching on a pile of photographs that look like they got developed and then set away, their finishes as pristine as if you’d just pulled them out of the paper envelope. 

You suck in a breath. Billy’s hand drags up and down your freshly shaved and moisturized knee fondly. 

“Are these the ones from the disposables?”

Billy grabs a handful of the glossy paper. “Think so. Remember you asked me to get them developed when we moved? So we didn’t take shit we didn’t need.”

“Yeah. I meant to buy an album for ‘em. Thought it seemed very grown up of us to have a photo book.” 

“Even more grown up to leave it disassembled.”

You gaze over your shoulder and lock eyes with Billy. He’s got his bottom lip between his teeth, the first signs of a laugh at the corners of his eyes. You snort.

You grab the photos from his hand, along with the rest, and shift so you can spread them out on the floor between you. The first thought that comes to mind is how your living room floor desperately needs a rug. But then you catch a glimpse of someone’s tummy against a bright, summer sky. 

Your index finger and thumb press against the corner of the paper, lifting it closer. It’s a picture of Billy and you at the beach, the date scrawled messily in his chicken scratch writing along the back: 07/26/91

In the photo, Billy stands under a tilted umbrella, one hand shielding his eyes from the sun, the other pointing at the camera. You remember now that he’d been trying to get you to look at Robin, because she was trying to take your picture. There’s a cocky smirk on his face and a smear of sunscreen on his neck. 

You’re wearing a pair of overalls, but one of the straps is falling down since they’re two sizes too big, your one piece swimsuit showing from underneath. The bottle in your hand and cream on your fingers all act as evidence towards your attempt to protect your boyfriend from the sun.

“I don’t remember Robin taking this,” you laugh, grinning up at Billy, more than pleased to know you have this moment captured forever. 

“I do,” Billy says, flipping the image over to look at the date he saw you glance at seconds before. “She took about a thousand pictures that day. I’m surprised there aren’t more. And I remember writing this when it got printed.”

He turns it toward you once again, pointing out a small line of script at the bottom you’d failed to see before. My pretty girl, it reads. 

You lean forward and kiss him, squeezing his cheeks between your hands because you know he hates it when you do but he looks too damn cute to resist.

There’s a couple of photos mixed in that are older—some from high school, a few baby pictures. You snag one of Billy from prom.

“This Billy would never have been such a sap.” 

He glances at the picture. He’d rented a tux. Worn a red button up underneath it. No tie, no corsage or anything. He wasn’t going to go, but he got in his car about half an hour after it started and drove himself there because you’d mentioned you were going with a couple of friends. 

“That’s because he also kinda had a stick up his ass,” Billy mumbles, rubbing the back of his hand across his mouth. 

“Even a cute ass like that couldn’t repel that big ‘ol stick.” You wink, looking at the other prom pictures. Billy pinches your thigh but it only makes you chuckle.

There’s a strip of you and Robin from the photo booth, her hair all frizzy, your forehead glistening with sweat. One awkward picture of you and Billy in front of the pitiful backdrop the student council had put together. Both of your smiles are soft, but it’s obvious neither of you were really comfortable with one another yet. What with the way his hand sits on your rib cage, one of yours on his hip and the other hidden in the tulle of your dress. 

“You know I bought my first push-up bra for that night?”

Billy’s trademark cocky grin appears. “What?”

“I had Robin help me pick out a push-up bra because I was hoping to impress you. I thought maybe if my boobs looked good you’d think I was hot and we could be more than classroom friends. The bra ended up leaving my ribs sore for days after, but my boobs did look good.”

Billy looks pointedly at your boobs in the photo. “They really did. But I already thought you were hot. Why else would I have come in the first place?”

You blink at him. “I dunno, to do like, anything else?” He laughs at your remark. “I figured you wanted to party afterwards or that maybe there was a girl you wanted to see afterwards.”

Billy holds up a photo of you at your college graduation. He cried that day, watching you walk. He thinks you don’t know, but you could tell. 

“I did. She’s right in front of me.”

He passes you a picture from Halloween two years ago. You were Tiffany Valentine and he was Charles Lee Ray. It was much easier to convince Billy to wear a trench coat and go without shaving for a few days than to even attempt putting him in a Chucky costume. 

“Quit fuckin’ with me, baby. You did not want me when we were in high school. Don’t you remember how awkward I was every time we worked on something together?”

Billy leans forward, his lips hovering inches from yours. “You weren’t awkward. I just saw a girl I would’ve sold my soul for because she was so perfect.” He laughs when you try to pull away from his kiss, a result of that cheesy line. You kiss him back all the same.

“You realize we’re not sorting through this box at all?” You say, that matter of fact tone in your voice. “We’re reminiscing. Let’s set the photos aside and finish, yeah? Then we can put them into albums.”

Billy gives you a two finger salute. “Yes ma’am.”

The both of you spend the next few minutes sorting. There’s receipts from years past, piles of number two pencils left from college, stray earring backs, a couple scraps of fabric from when you’d tried to take up sewing. You even find a couple of textbooks—some possibly stolen from the library of Hawkins High School—Billy’s birth certificate, a spare key to his car. 

Just when you reach the bottom, you spot a little wooden box. You’re not sure what it is, but based on the size you’d guess it might be for trinkets or it could have had Billy’s college ring in it. 

You glance over your shoulder at him where he’s sorting through a stack of papers, every once in a while scratching the tip of a pen against a spare piece to see if it’s got ink in it. You don’t think he’s paying you any mind. 

You place your thumb nail under the ledge of the box where it has the smallest groove in it where it’s meant to be opened. You open it haphazardly, with a sharp snap as the hinge widens. 

Your breath catches when your thumb grazes velvet and you realize there’s something inside. You’re too curious, too focused, to notice that Billy has moved closer to you, that he’s now watching your face for any emotion you might show, his own heart smacking against his ribcage. 

He thought this was a clever way to do it. The least stressful one he could think of, anyhow. He knows you don’t like much spectacle and figured keeping it intimate like this would be best for both of you, really.

The box opens with a small click and your eyes start to go all teary, despite the fact that you haven’t registered what’s happening or even looked at Billy or even looked at the damn thing you’re holding. 

The ring is simple: it’s thin silver, with a small, diamond shaped emerald front and center, the prongs and basket twisting gently so that it almost looks like they’re hugging the stone. It’s not too much, but it’s gorgeous. It’s you. Unmistakably. 

You turn to look at Billy. He smiles at you, his eyes all gentle.

“You fucking dickhead,” you say, your voice thick with emotion. He laughs. 

His hand comes to rest on your cheek, thumb caressing away any stray tears. He’s doing his best not to cry himself. “What do you think, huh?” 

You look down at the ring and back at him. Down and back at him. “It’s so pretty.”

“Fitting for such a pretty girl,” Billy says. You’d smack him if you weren’t so busy crying. He gently removes it from your hand, holding it out to you. 

“So, babydoll, how’d you feel about marrying me?”

Your eyes flick back and forth between his. You let out a giggle. “You’re not on one knee, Billy.”

He shifts awkwardly into the “proper” position and you both stare at each other, the beginnings of a hysterical laughing fit on either of your faces. You’d think someone had just made a “your mom” joke—not that you were being proposed to. 

A tear chooses that moment to escape your lash line. 

“I bought this for you about a week ago,” Billy starts. “I couldn’t have it too long because I knew I’d have a panic attack. I went to four different jewelry stores until I saw this one. I remembered, when Robin proposed to her girlfriend, that you said you’d always loved emeralds. Thought diamonds were overrated. And you always gravitate towards that color stuff in the store, y’know?”

“Like that dress you bought on sale for your birthday or the blanket for the couch. I’m hoping you’ll like this one.” He looks down at the ring and back up at you. “I love you, you know that? I know you know that. And I think lately I’ve just realized that I shouldn’t wait for good shit to go down. I don’t need to, especially when I can make it happen.”

“I want you for the rest of forever. Me and you. So really, what do you think? You wanna marry me?”

You blink at him. “Dunno. Jury’s out. Could take a while to reach a verdict.” 

He laughs into your hair, one arm wrapping around the small of your back, the other cradling your head. This feeling right here, of being held, is something you’ll never get over. The way his body feels wrapped around yours. A lifetime of this safety? Duh. 

You slide your hand under his shirt and gently scratch his back. His skin is always so warm. 

“Of course I do, you fucking dumbass,” you mutter, watery eyes overtaking your every sense. Then you kiss him on the cheek and whisper into his ear, “Honestly kinda felt like we were married already anyhow. Now I just have a pretty token of your affection, too.”

————

note: none of the gifs or images i use are mine! i get most of my images from pinterest or here, and gifs from about the same. please let me know if i ever don’t credit someone properly!

rb banner by @steph-speaks

[cr4zytogetherr]

what i don't like about st being popular and not this little underground show is that now i gotta explain to everyone that yes i like it but in a much more profound, intellectual way than everyone else

[wooneygoblin]

oh this guys a yearner for sure

[kassy-djomunson]

joseph quinn as eddie munson bts, you’ll always be famous

[ahhrenata]

Steve tries to stay quiet while he gets ready for work, but Eddie hears him. He keeps his eyes closed and just listens- to Steve grumbling to himself when his hair doesn’t sit quite right, who starts to hum and whisper some catchy song. Eddie turns his sleepy gaze onto Steve as he shuffles around their room- watching quietly as he slips on his clothes, his shoes, a simple chain with Eddie’s ring around his neck. A warm, affectionate smile breaks across his face. Before he leaves, Steve glances at what he expects to be a sleeping Eddie, but instead, he’s met with a rasped, ‘Hey.’ Eddie sits himself up, stretches his arm across Steve’s side of the bed, and reaches, fingers wiggling. Steve crosses the room to cradle his face.

Their foreheads press, noses bump, and Steve brushes his fingers across scars and dimples.

He breathes a quiet,

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.’

Eddie huffs a tired laugh,

‘You know I never mind.’

Because, yeah.

Every morning Steve tries to stay quiet while he gets ready for work, but Eddie always hears him.

( another one from the poll | WIP )

[spacebabesuki]

the sluttiest thing a man can do is whatever this was