#being obsessed with something for four years and this movie comes along and just

[frozentothetouch]

I just realized how having a diff hyperfixation makes me forget everything about what I was into before…

like I’ve been in spiderverse brainrot for the past 2 months and finally thought about tpn again and I…can’t remember

[mc-i-r]

Disposable Heroes

Part one, Part two, Part three, Part four AO3 link

A/N: hi yes so sorry for how late this is, it turned into a huge monster of a fic that I’m still working on but I figured posting the first part wouldn’t hurt. This is based on this post by @liightsnow, @acowardinmordor, and @00biscuit while back and I decided to expand that concept a bit and here we are. I'll be tagging anyone that seemed interested in the concept at the end of the fic! Warnings are below but I just wanna say that Steve is struggling with his sexuality in this one so most of it comes from that. This will absolutely have a happy ending, just not right now. Enjoy the angst!

Tw: internalized homophobia, homophobic language, mentions of canon violence, dissociation, panic attacks

———

It’s a Sunday afternoon when he realizes it. Steve is sitting on his couch, eating a shitty frozen meal and watching a random movie on TV when it hits him. The kids haven’t asked him for a ride in two weeks. Two Saturdays have passed and there was not one call— either on the phone or over the walkie— from any of the kids. Not even Dustin, who has seemed to make it his life’s mission in the past couple years to annoy Steve into an early grave.

It’s not like he hasn’t seen them at all. He still practices basketball with Lucas on Thursdays, even though the season is long over. His weekly dinners with Claudia and Dustin are still going strong every Wednesday. Joyce seems to invite him over for dinners every couple weeks. From the outside, everything seems fine. And maybe it is, but Steve’s noticed things.

See, he’s not as stupid as people think he is. He may not be academically smart but he can read. However, instead of books, it’s people. He can read their micro-expressions, notice little signs in their body language that help him understand the person. He can tell when people are nervous when they avoid eye contact, can tell how anxious they are when they distract themselves by picking at their fingers. It’s how he’s so good with the kids. They’re in the stubborn stage of their teenage years, the time in which the only answer you’ll get is ‘I’m fine. Leave me alone’. But he can tell if there’s something on their minds, if there’s something eating away at them.

He can tell that Mike’s anger and pointed barbs are directed towards himself, how he’s struggling with something he can’t quite admit to himself yet. How Max is frustrated with her body, with accepting help, because she’s always had to rely on herself and putting that much trust in someone else has never been an option for her until now. How Lucas is trying to find joy in doing something he loves again, because his love for basketball has been ruined by Carver and his trusty band of assholes. How Dustin is trying to deal with almost losing Eddie, how he’s processing the feelings of almost losing a brotherly figure along with one of his friends. How Will is hiding part of himself, struggling to accept it in the same way Mike is. How El is trying so hard to find her new normal, to adjust to getting her life— her father— back.

There’s another thing he’s noticed, however. It’s that the kids are obsessed with Eddie. Steve from a couple years ago would feel jealous of Eddie, and would try to hold it against him. Now, though, Steve just feels… sad. The kids constantly talk about how cool and badass Eddie is for still being himself despite all the shit Hawkins has thrown at him. They talk about how Eddie takes them places, gets them little trinkets for their nerd game, and takes them fun places. Eddie does all these little things for the kids, lets them just be kids, and really, Steve can’t be mad at him for it. He tries to let them have fun, but his constant worrying overwhelms them. It brings them down. Eddie doesn’t do that. He joins right in with them, basking in the fun and letting himself go. Steve… can’t. Not with all the shit he’s seen. Letting his guard down is something he can’t afford to do anymore.

He sighs down at his meal, chucking it on the coffee table as he loses his appetite. His glasses land next to the disposable plastic tray, sliding across the finished wood surface from the force of his throw. He rubs harshly over his face, hands digging into his eyes until he sees stars.

Steve knows he’s not perfect. Hell, it took an interdimensional monster trying to kill him in order for him to realize that he could be a better person. That the only person truly able to change his life is himself. He used to think he had no choice in his life— whether it was his parents' high expectations of him or his friends trying to mold him into their perfect little plaything— but he knows better now. He knows that he shouldn’t have become King Steve, that he shouldn’t have hurled all his hate and anger towards other people who didn’t deserve it. He knows he shouldn’t have called people names or slurs, that he shouldn’t have spray painted lockers or ripped up books or shoved people against hard asphalt. He knows that, but knowing it was wrong doesn’t erase the fact that it happened. That Steve did those things and hurt people.

Part of him knows that his past is what made the kids turn towards Eddie. Why wouldn’t they? Steve was a bully, thought he was hot shit in school and made it everyone’s problem. Eddie was simply himself. His unabashed, unashamed self. He stood on cafeteria tables, made dramatic speeches, and shared his opinions to anyone and everyone who would listen. He’s so genuine and so, so much better for the kids. He teaches them how to be themselves, how to shove off the hate and embrace their weird side. He’s perfect for them, and Steve knows deep down that this is good for them. The kids need a good role model, one they can rely on, and Eddie has his herd of little sheep to teach and protect. It’s perfect. They’re perfect.

Steve remembers the time last week at the Byers-Hopper house when their little obsession truly became real. They were waiting for the bread to finish baking in the oven, and Steve saw that Will was seated alone in the living room. Joyce and Hopper were in the kitchen, talking and keeping a lookout so the bread wouldn’t burn. Jonathan and El were listening to music in his room, the synth and guitars echoing down the hallway. So, Steve decided to finally talk to Will. It’s not like they don’t talk ever, just… not much. Will is quiet, blends into the background, and Steve never felt like the kid would be comfortable with him trying to get in his business. However, he needed to ask the question that had been on his mind for a while.

Steve sat down on the couch next to him, keeping a fair amount of distance between them, and rested his elbows on his knees. Will was reading a comic, the cover full of bright colors and words, not paying attention. Steve sighed, pushed his glasses up, and ran a hand through his own hair.

“Hey, um… can we talk for a sec?”

Will startled a little, like he didn’t realize Steve was there, and closed his comic. He nodded, and Steve tried not to feel bad about the hesitation in his eyes.

“Is there something going on that I don’t know about? Like with the others?” Will’s eyebrows furrowed, a confused expression taking over his face.

“Um.. what do you mean?”

“Just… have I done anything to them to make them mad? I just… I don’t know, I feel like I’ve done something but I don’t know what,” Steve confessed. He must have looked as distraught as he felt, because Will seemed to soften at his explanation a bit.

“Why do you think that, Steve?” Will asked softly, and Steve had a moment of realization that Will seemed years older than he looked. Steve sighed, and explained that the kids haven’t really been hanging around him much and instead like to spend time with Eddie. He’s quick to clarify that he doesn’t mean anything bad by it, just wants to know what happened. It was Will’s turn to sigh, and he looked at Steve with something akin to sympathy.

“Steve, I don’t say this to be mean but… Eddie just relates to us more, you know? He shares more interests with us, and he seems to get us better,” Will expressed. His eyes widened and he hastily added, “it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you! Just… it’s nice to have somewhere else to go, you know?”

The rest of the evening was spent with Steve silently eating his dinner, Will’s words echoing through his head as he munched on half-burnt bread.

Steve decides then, TV dinner half-eaten and work vest still on his shoulders, that he’s going to make this better.

The next day, Eddie comes into Family Video to pick up some movies, definitely for a movie night judging by the titles— he seriously doubts a metalhead would willingly watch The Goonies, The Dark Crystal, and Ghostbusters by himself on a Saturday night. Eddie bounds up to the register, movies in hand, and does a dramatic bow as he presents them to Steve.

“I wish to borrow these, my liege,” Eddie declares, his voice deep and in a horrible mockery of an English accent. Steve scoffs and rolls his eyes, unable to hide the small grin on his face at the other man's theatrics.

Eddie looks so effortlessly pretty, his hair tied back in a ponytail and his tattoos exposed through the large arm holes in his homemade tank top. Steve shakes his head to get rid of those thoughts and takes the movies to check them out, ignoring the late fee balance on Eddie's account. A glance at the man in front of him, who is bouncing on his toes and looking around the store, gives Steve an idea.

“Hey, is Hellfire still going on?”

Eddie snaps his attention back to Steve, looking a little startled to be asked such a thing.

“Uh… yeah, it's still going on. We have to play in Gareth’s hot ass garage since school is out but we’re making it work. Why d’you ask?”

“Oh, uh… the kids complained awhile back that they didn’t have a good spot to play anymore and I was just wondering,” Steve explains. Eddie raises an eyebrow at him, and Steve can feel him staring. Can feel him looking at him closely. Too closely. He clears his throat and looks back down at the counter, pushing his gold, wire-framed glasses further up his nose. “I uh… I actually wanted to offer up my place? My parents aren’t home much”— more like never— “and I’ve got plenty of space for the gremlins and the other guys. Plus, my A/C works and I’ve got a shit ton of snacks. I’ll stay out of your hair and-“

“Actually uh…” Eddie cuts him off with a strained voice. Steve looks up to find his face contorted like he ate something sour, and he knows what his response is going to be before he opens his mouth. Eddie wipes a hand over his mouth before shoving it in his pocket. “Yeah, the other guys just… really wouldn’t want to be there.”

Steve nods— tries not to let the denial sting— and looks down at the movies in his hands. Ignoring how they shake, he sets them on the counter and slides them towards Eddie.

“That’s okay man, I get it. I need a break from the little horrors anyway,” he huffs out, the words digging their way into the pit in his stomach. He puts on his best customer service smile and looks up at Eddie, finding him looking a little wary. Eddie hesitates, as if debating with himself on whether or not to say anything, before rapping his knuckles on the counter in a little rhythm and picking up his movies. An awkward smile finds its way to his face, and Steve thinks it strange and out of place. It’s so.. un-Eddie-like. The pit grows deeper.

Walking backwards towards the entrance, Eddie throws a little salute his way before turning and swinging out the door. A belated “see ya, Harrington” drifts through the closing door in his wake.

Steve slumps over the counter when he’s gone, holding his head in his hands and feeling the childish urge to cry make its way up to his eyes. Even after everything— after walking through hell together, dragging his lifeless body out of the Upside Down as his blood dripped down his back and soaked through his clothes, standing vigil at his side until he woke up two weeks later— Eddie still seems to hate him.

But Steve… he feels the opposite. He has this overwhelming desire to be with Eddie. To hang out with him in the back of his van, drinking sodas and eating snacks as they look out over Lover’s Lake while the sun sets. To talk to him until the early hours of the morning until there’s nothing left to say. To go for drives late at night and listen to his loud music on the radio while holding hands over the center console. He has feelings for Eddie he’s never had before. Not for any past romantic conquests nor any girl. Hell, not even for Nancy. He’s never felt this intense need to be near someone before, and it scares him. It truly terrifies him.

He’s not homophobic— his platonic soulmate is a lesbian, for Christ's sake— but the fact that he feels this way is just… wrong to him. How is Steve Harrington, ladies’ man and charmer extraordinaire, into dudes? What is he, like, half gay? It just doesn’t make sense, doesn’t seem right, for him to feel like this. He sighs into his hands, digging his palms into his eyes until he sees stars. He can’t be thinking about this now, he can’t be thinking about this at all. He needs to shove it in the box in the back of his head where all the hard feelings go, waiting and festering to be dealt with later. He needs to, but he doesn’t know if he can.

Fuck, he needs to talk to Robin. Shit- can he though? What if what he’s feeling is a fluke or something? What if it’s just in his head because he’s desperate? What if Robin thinks he’s making fun of her and won’t take him seriously? It’s not fair of him to throw all his problems on her, even if he thinks she could help. It’s not her job to look after him, to take care of him. He can do that himself. He can figure this out himself.

Distantly, the words of Richard Harrington play in his ears. About how being gay is wrong, how it’s a disease. How it’s a sickness that slowly takes over until there’s nothing left. How it’s a disgrace.

He remembers sitting in the living room with his parents on a rare occasion in which they were home, watching the news channel as it talked about an epidemic spreading through young men. His father scoffed at the screen when they started talking about potential cures.

“Cures? They should just let those fags die. They brought this on themselves, you know. Typical of them to complain about the fucking consequences,” Richard had spat out at the block TV, standing to refill his bourbon. Steve had clenched his fists at his side, his already stiff posture straightening still. He felt angry at his fathers words, something pure and burning in his gut.

He didn’t know what it was at the time, but maybe he should’ve known. Maybe him being queer shouldn’t be as much of a surprise as it feels. Maybe he’s always known and just couldn’t bring himself to admit it. Maybe that anger he felt at his father’s words was partly on behalf of himself, too.

A wince shudders through him as he remembers how that night ended.

Steve had stood up from the couch, watching the dark liquid flow into the crystal glass in his father’s hand.

“What’s so wrong with being gay? I don’t understand how you could just.. hate people like that. Hate them for just existing,” Steve countered. His father had frozen at his words, slowly setting down the decanter with a solid ‘thunk’ against the metal tray where it belonged and turned to face him. His face was slowly gaining a reddish hue, a sign of the anger rising within him.

“What did you just say?” He demanded, voice scarily calm but laced with an icy rage. Steve swallowed.

“What… What's wrong with being gay, sir?” Steve hesitated, voice failing him. Richard had downed the glass of bourbon before throwing it at Steve, the crystal shattering on the mantelpiece behind him and sending shards flying.

“What’s wrong, Steven, is that you think it’s okay. No son of mine will think like that, not on my watch,” his father boomed, taking long strides towards him. Steve didn’t dare move, only watched his fist grow nearer as he punched him high on his cheek. He fell to the floor, arms trying to protect his head but it was no use. Richard had ripped his arms away, gripping the front of his shirt and making Steve hover above the ground.

“I didn’t raise a fucking fairy, Steven,” he spat. “A faggot.” Steve recoiled, physically feeling the vitriol his father aimed at his face. Richard had sneered, pulled him close and whispered, “Never forget that, Steven,” before shoving him harshly onto the ground and walking away. Black had clouded the edges of his vision, and he laid on the plush rug until it cleared up. He looked over, found his mother silently watching the TV and sipping her wine, and begged with his eyes for her to help him. To say something. Anything. She didn’t, and Steve had to haul himself off the floor, grasping the couch when his vision swam, and stumbled his way to his room.

The rest of that weekend was spent in his room, gingerly cleaning his face and the couple places where glass had cut him on his arms with a wet washcloth and soap. It was the first time he had ever gotten a concussion. He was fifteen.

He remembers replaying the fight over and over again, feeling like those barbs were directed towards him, too. In hindsight, maybe they were. Maybe his father just knew. Knew he was queer long before Steve ever did. Maybe that’s why he’s always so angry with him, so… disappointed. A groan escapes him and he runs a hand through his hair. He’s been thinking way too damn much for it to be this early in the day.

God, he really wishes Robin was here. He knows he can’t talk to her, but it would be nice just to have someone here to keep him from spiraling and drowning in his thoughts. He pushes himself off the counter and goes over to the cart where the returns sit, hoping that busying himself will occupy his thoughts. He sets a few on the shelves when what Eddie said earlier barrels into him full-force.

“Yeah, the other guys just… really wouldn’t want to be there.”

Jesus fucking Christ, he’s stupid. Of course the other Hellfire guys wouldn’t want to be at his house, they probably still see him as King Steve. Most people do, nowadays. Only the ones he went through hell with know he’s different now, that he’s changed. So really, he can’t fault them for being against the idea of Hellfire at his house. He wouldn’t believe it either if he was in their shoes.

Then again, wouldn’t Eddie or the kids try to convince them he’s different? That he’s not a dick? Shit, he’s been through four apocalypses, three concussions, and survived Russian torture— surely they would give him the benefit of the doubt, right? He’s dropped the bad influences out of his life, found better friends, better family— or can he even say that anymore?— to be with. Wouldn’t they try to stick up for him? Or... is he just not worth it?

Steve clenches his eyes shut, willing his bubbling emotions back down, and grips the movie in his hands so hard the plastic begins to creak. The little voice in his head, one that sounds suspiciously like Robin, tells him to breathe. He does. Deep inhale, hold, long exhale. Over and over and over again until he’s calm, until his head is clear.

He knows what he needs to do now: apologize. If it's one thing Steve Harrington knows, it’s how to apologize. Hell, he’s done it more times than he can count. He knows how to repair burnt bridges and how to get past the tough exterior of a person to pull at their heartstrings for sympathy. He knows the key; he just has to make himself useful. If he can provide things for the kids, for Eddie and the Hellfire crew, then they’ll want him around. That’s how it’s always been. That’s how it is with his parents, with school, with his past friends, and now his current ones. He vaguely recalls his junior year art teacher saying that, "once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, but thrice is a pattern." Which means this, this is something he has to make right.

With a plan solidified in his mind, he goes back to work refilling the shelves with movies, brainstorming ideas to get his family back.

Over the next week, Steve becomes a one man show. He offers up more rides, more movie nights, more free reign of his house and his pool and his car and his money and himself just to make the kids happy. He picks up extra shifts at work just to get extra spending money for them, knowing that they go through twenty bucks in no time.

But… it doesn’t work. Because bit by bit, ride by ride, movie marathon by family dinner by game night by post-nightmare phone call, it becomes painfully clear. Everyone puts on a mask around him. One that says they’re happy to see him, that they’re glad he’s here, but he knows it’s a lie. This, really, shouldn’t be much of a surprise. People don’t stick around him much, so why did he think this was any different?

Maybe it’s because he was finally himself around them, he finally opened up and showed a bit of his true self, and was still rejected. Still pushed away. He wasn’t cowering behind a mask this time, he was just Steve. But it wasn’t good enough. He wasn’t good enough.

To their credit, it starts off slow. Casual comments that are cut off quickly, kicks under dinner tables and pointed throat clearing. It’s one instance during game night where it all clicks.

The Monopoly board is spread out before them in the Byers-Hopper living room. Steve, of course, is losing. He’s not good with investments and savings and he keeps landing on the goddamn ‘jail’ space but he doesn’t really care, not when he’s finally having fun with the kids. He groans when the dice make him land on one of Mike’s properties, shuffling his fake cash to pull out the tax money.

“C’mon this game is totally rigged. How the hell am I losing to a bunch of teens?” He grumbles as Mike proudly snatches the money from his hand. Max snickers from her place beside him, her pale blue eyes rolling as she looks at him.

“You know, if you actually used your brain then maybe you wouldn’t be losing. Ever think of that?” She quips, and Steve huffs. Leave it to him to be called out by a fifteen year old.

“I’m surprised there’s even a brain in there to begin with,” Dustin states. He’s seated across from Steve. “I mean, why else would he have-“

His comment is cut off by Lucas smacking his arm. Dustin looks at him like he’s about to protest when Lucas raises his eyebrows, looking pointedly from Dustin to Steve and back again. Steve can’t hear from his position so far away, but he swears Dustin mutters “shit” before crossing his arms and looking down at the board. Steve looks around at the rest of the group, noticing how none of them seem to want to look at him, choosing to focus rather intently on the cardboard before them.

The rest of the game is filled with awkward silences. Steve can feel them looking at him when he’s occupied, and it makes him feel like shit inside.

It’s on the drive home when it hits him. He is the one that doesn’t fit into their group, into their family. They’re slowly but surely removing him and replacing him with Eddie. With someone who fits. With someone better. It hits him so hard, so fully, that he has to pull over on a quiet street to sob in his empty car.

The first time it's fully solidified in his mind is at a barbecue at the Byers-Hoppers house. Robin can’t come, her aunt from up north is visiting for the weekend and she has to stay home. Steve walks through the house, planning on saying hello to Joyce before joining the party outside. He finds Joyce talking low to Eddie in the kitchen and he pauses in the doorway, watches how Joyce laughs at something Eddie says. How she places her hand on his arm as her eyes crinkle with the weight of her laugh. Eddie is smiling, open and wide, with a flush high on his cheeks that stains his skin pink. His dimples are on full display and it takes pure willpower for Steve not to go and poke at them, to settle his thumb in the divot of his skin.

Joyce leans close to Eddie and says something under her breath, making him blush purely red now and shush her, causing another wave of laughter to ripple through the both of them. The kitchen is filled with warmth, the afternoon sunlight streaming in through the sheer cream-colored curtains that line the two windows as laughter fills the room. It’s light, it’s happiness, it’s love. It’s something Steve hasn’t felt in years.

Steve knocks on the doorframe, waggling his fingers in greeting. They both turn to look at him, and all that warmth from before flees the room. If he hadn’t just seen the thin rays with his own two eyes, he could have sworn even the sun went down as well. He feels a stab of pain in his heart, so sharp it makes his breath stutter. He fights to put a smile on his face, briefly clearing his throat and praying his voice doesn’t sound as faint as he feels.

“Hey, Ms. Byers. Eddie,” he greets. Steve runs a hand through his hair, just to give himself something to do. “Just wanted to say hi before I go outside.”

Eddie’s face has gone completely slack, the only thing convincing Steve he didn’t hallucinate the entire exchange earlier is the flush that had yet to leave his cheeks. In fact, Eddie looks even more red now that he’s made his presence known. Joyce, to her credit, has a small polite smile on her face.

“Thank you, Steve, that's very kind of you,” she replies. She casts a glance at Eddie out of the corner of her eye, something Steve has noticed a lot of people do to each other when he’s around. “You go on outside now, okay? I’m sure the kids are missing you.”

Steve holds back his remark of “yeah, I actually doubt that” and nods, leaving the two of them in the kitchen as he continues down the hallway. He tries hard not to let the harshness of their quick whispers dig further into his already injured heart.

Once outside, he’s greeted by no one. Dustin and Lucas are discussing something rapidly to one another, Dustin gesturing wildly with his hands as Lucas nods along and adds details. Max and El are sitting on a lawn chair together, Max seemingly teaching El how to braid her hair. Mike and Will are sitting in the grass a bit away from the group, shoulders touching and heads bowed together as they talk quietly to one another. Steve smiles softly at them, knowing.

He makes his way over to Hopper, who is manning the grill with a beer in one hand and a spatula in the other. Steve waves and gives him an awkward little smile, and Hopper nods his head, pointing towards a cooler with his beer. Steve grabs one, popping it open and taking an, admittedly, big first swig. Hopper doesn’t notice, or at least doesn’t comment, and Steve looks out over the people he still considers his family. He catches Dustin’s eyes, hoping to have someone to talk to, but the kid only looks away and continues his conversation.

So now Steve is here by himself, slowly nursing a beer, and trying to keep his emotions in check.

It’s just that… he doesn’t know what he did. Was he too overbearing or did he not care enough? Was he too pushy or too distant? Was he just annoying them? Was he just an inconvenience? Did they ever really like him or did they just put up with them out of necessity? Or because they felt bad?

He takes another sip of beer, hating the way it tastes on his tongue but it’s better than the bile slowly rising in his throat. All he wants is for someone to see him, to see who he truly is and like it. To stick around. To stay.

And it’s true, he does have Robin, but sometimes she can’t give him what he needs. Call him a romantic but Steve wants that love, that connection, that intense feeling you get with a partner. He craves it more than anything. He wants to touch, to taste, to feel someone else.

Eddie. He wants Eddie.

A voice interrupts his thoughts.

“Kid, will you go get me a plate for the burgers?” Hopper asks, his gruff voice shoving all of his mushy thoughts aside. Steve nods, sets his beer on top of the cooler, and makes his way inside. He silently dreads ever walking in that room again, dreads having to feel the chill from before. However, the scene in the kitchen is drastically different this time. Joyce is by herself, Eddie nowhere to be seen, and is mixing together slaw in a big tupperware bowl.

Steve knocks on the frame again and is met with a small smile from the older woman. It’s infinitely more warm than the one he was met with when he got there, and he thinks it’s partly due to the lack of a certain metalhead in the room. Joyce sets down her spoon, wiping her hands on a nearby towel, and holds her arms out.

“C’mere, honey,” she murmurs, and Steve tries not to let her soft tone get to him. The last thing he needs is to cry in front of everyone. He walks forwards into her hug, leaning down a little to wrap his arms around her properly, and sighs when she rubs her hands up and down his back. Steve clenches his eyes shut, taking in stuttering breaths that he knows she can hear but thanks every god out there that she doesn’t comment on it. She taps her hands twice on his back and pulls away, reaching up to push some of his hair off his forehead and Steve wills himself to not lean into the touch too much.

“Sorry for not saying a proper hello earlier, I was a bit preoccupied. Eddie- well, that’s not my thing to tell but he needed some help with something and… well, you get it,” she smiles, laughs a little, and Steve smiles back.

This. This is what he wishes he could have with his parents. This lightness, this love. He never will, he knows that, but the little moments like this with Joyce, the way she hugs him and cares for him, are ones he treasures. Ones he wishes he could have everyday. Joyce is a wonderful mother, and part of him wishes he could have her as his own. Hell, she’s been more of a mother to him in the four years he’s known her than his mother ever has. But he knows that isn’t fair. It isn’t fair of him to put his parental issues on her or anyone else. So he doesn’t, and shoves his hands in his pockets instead.

“It’s okay, Ms. Byers, I get it. Sorry to interrupt you two, though,” he apologizes. She waves her hands in a shooing motion.

“Oh don’t apologize for that, honey, it’s okay,” she smiles, then hesitates. “I do want you to promise me something, okay?” Steve nods, and Joyce places her hands on either side of his face. “Promise me you’ll be careful with people, be gentle. Not everyone can be treated the same, some people… they’re special.

“Sometimes, it’s better to listen. Promise me, Steve, that you’ll always listen, okay?” She asks, and Steve has to swallow before he responds.

“I promise, Ms. Byers,” he replies, and she pats his cheek. Her smile has grown, and her eyes have softened.

“I love you, Steve, you know that, right?” Joyce asks, and it’s like the world has stopped moving. He didn’t know that, not really. Sure, he knew she liked him but he didn’t know she…

He doesn’t realize he’s tearing up until Joyce coos at him, wiping away a few stray tears that have escaped with her thumbs.

“I-I didn’t know you- I’m sorry, I don’t-“ Steve stutters out, but Joyce shushes him.

“You don’t have to apologize, Steve, it’s alright,” she insists. Her thin arms pull him into another hug and he buries his face in her shoulder. The angle is a little awkward, but it’s a comfort Steve hasn’t had in ages so he stays. “It’s gonna be alright.”

Her small hands rub up and down his back as he holds back tears. He regulates his breathing, taking in deep breaths and letting them out slowly, until he’s sure he won’t cry. He pulls back from the hug and wipes at his eyes, sure that they're red-rimmed and a little puffy, but Joyce only smiles that warm smile and pats his cheek again. Steve smiles at her, the first genuine smile he thinks he’s had in awhile, and it feels good. To smile and know it's real.

Joyce turns to the counter behind her and picks up a plate, handing it to Steve. His brows furrow, and he hesitantly takes the offered crockery.

“How did you-“

“I had a feeling,” she interrupts him with a wink. “Now go on before Hop burns the yard down.”

Steve smiles and goes back outside, handing the plate to Hop and ignoring his grumble of “took ya long enough”, before picking his beer back up and taking a much needed swig. A few minutes later, they’re all eating. Eddie has joined Dustin and Lucas in their rambling, all three of them loudly talking over one another. Steve watches them; wishing, wanting, yearning. Joyce bumps her shoulder into his, making him swivel his head to look down at her. She smiles, almost knowingly, and Steve blushes. He clears his throat and looks away, focusing on fixing his burger rather than whatever the fuck that was.

He sits alone away from the group, catching occasional glances from Joyce, Dustin, and Hopper. Joyce is concerned, he can tell that much, and part of her almost looks sad. Dustin looks conflicted, like he can’t decide if he wants to be mad from a distance or just come right up to Steve and say it to his face. Steve wouldn’t be surprised if he did the latter. Hopper, to Steve’s complete unsurprise, looks uninterested and, frankly, fed up with this whole situation. Steve doesn’t blame him, he is too.

After the food is gone, and dessert is served, Steve heads inside to help clean up. He washes dishes quietly with Joyce, while she dries them and puts them away. As he finishes up the last plate, Will comes into the kitchen.

“Hey, Mom? The party wanted to play some board games, is that okay?” He requests, and Steve can feel Joyce soften beside him. She smiles.

“Of course, honey. Make sure you ask the girls what they want to play, too, okay?” Will rolls his eyes and smiles, a mannerism Steve notes he definitely got from Mike.

“Got it, Mom,” he replies, and runs off. Steve turns back to the sink, realizing he’s been scrubbing the plate well past the point of clean, and rinses it off.

“I um.. I think I’m going to head out, Ms. Byers,” he begins. He hands the plate to her. “I’ve got a shift tomorrow and uh… I don’t want to intrude or anything.”

He doesn’t mention that he doesn’t want to repeat the last game night, where everyone kept glancing at him like he was a bomb set to explode at any moment. He doesn’t say that he can’t handle their stares for any longer than he already has.

“Oh, are you sure? You’re welcome to stay here as long as you want to,” Joyce offers, but Steve shakes his head.

“I really should be going, sorry.”

“Alright, dear. Let me walk you out,” she insists, moving to take off her apron.

“I’ll walk him out, Joyce, don’t worry about it,” Hopper's gruff voice interrupts from the doorway. Steve swallows and nods, drying his hands off on a towel. He looks at Joyce, seeing her share a glance and a smile with Hopper before looking back at him. He smiles, finally beginning to think that maybe… maybe things will be okay.

“Thank you, Ms. Byers. For everything,” he expresses. He leans down to give her a hug, her arms quickly hugging him back.

“It’s alright, dear. You come to me if you ever want to talk, you hear?” Steve pulls away from the hug.

“I will, promise,” he hesitates. Steve looks down at his hands, shaking from where they’re clutching each other, and takes a breath. “I… I love you too.”

He looks up right as Joyce pulls him into another hug. He laughs a little, and she pats his back before pulling away with a “be safe”. Hopper clears his throat from the door and Steve takes a step back, nods to Joyce, and follows the other man outside.

They step out on the front porch together, and Steve is prepared to continue walking to his car when Hop places a hand on his shoulder. He stops, and turns to find the man looking at him seriously.

“Son, I want you to promise me something,” he grumbles, and Steve begins to feel a strange sense of deja vu. While Joyce’s tone was soft, Hopper’s is deep and leaves no room for hesitation. He vaguely has a thought that this is what his father would have been like if things were different. If he were different. Steve nods.

“Promise me you’ll fix our shit, alright? I don’t wanna get in the middle of… whatever the hell this is but promise you’ll be better, okay?” He commands, and all the thoughts Steve had earlier about thinking things would be okay fly out the window.

“Y-yes, sir,” he stutters out. Hop claps his shoulder, mumbles a “get home safe”, before pulling a pack of smokes out his pocket and lighting one up. Steve turns, shoves his shaking hands in his pockets, and walks to his car.

Getting in his car is a blur of unconscious actions. He’s driving down a barely lit backroad when he registers that his eyes are stinging, and something warm and wet is dripping down his cheeks. He pulls over on the side of the road, shifting his car into park, and he sits there. He reaches up with a shaky hand and wipes his cheek, his hand coming back wet and shining in the faint glow of the moon. The sight breaks him, and an ugly sob rips its way out his throat. He chokes on an inhale as tears fight their way out, and he hugs his arms around himself as a sad semblance of comfort. His forehead finds purchase on the steering wheel, and his tears stain the leather before dripping on his lap.

He cries because he knows he’s the problem, that he’s the one fucking up. He cries because everyone thinks so, everyone knows. The kids know. Eddie knows. Joyce knows, but she’s just too kind to say it to his face. Hell, even Hopper knows. He cries because he doesn’t know what he did wrong. He cries because he doesn’t think anyone really wants him to fix it.

It’s the second time on a drive home from the Byers-Hopper house that he has to pull over and cry.

He struggles to inhale a deep breath and sits up, harshly wiping his tears away with his hand, uncaring that it rubs his skin raw and red. Sniffling, he puts his car in drive and goes home. Toeing his shoes off at the door is the only thing he thinks to do before he stumbles his way upstairs and collapses on his bed, snuggling into the thin comforter and falling into a fitful sleep.

After a slow shift at Family Video the next day, Steve returns to the darkness of his home with a plan. He can still be useful. They may not have to know, but he can still do something to help. To try and save them before they need to be saved. He can be a preventative measure for them, can stop them from getting hurt before they even know they’re in danger.

He shrugs off his work vest, throwing it on his desk chair as he searches his closet for an old sweatshirt. He finds one, the front adorned with white block letters that read ‘Tigers Swim Team’ and tugs it on. His nail bat finds purchase in his hand as he tucks a flashlight in his back pocket. The walkie Dustin gave him is hooked in his belt loop, just in case. He leaves all the lights on in the house and shuts the door, skirting around his house to begin his walk in the woods.

After four bouts with the Upside Down, he doubts that they’re in the clear, that it’s finally over. He thought it was the first time, then the second, and by the third he was skeptical. Now, though, he doesn’t know what to think. He wouldn’t be surprised if there was a round five, or six, or seven. Hell, he wouldn’t be surprised if it never stopped. But each and every time, they were unprepared. They were surprised, and it nearly cost them every time. But if Steve could prevent that surprise, give them all a heads up before it becomes a big problem, then maybe— just maybe— it’ll come in handy. He’ll come in handy. He’ll be useful again.

So, he walks the woods of Hawkins. His feet crunch the dead leaves piled underneath trees as he trudges through the woods. The flashlight shines long shadows on the ground in front of him, lighting up the pale gray bark of trees and making the eyes of rodents and raccoons shine amber and red.

A rustle sounds a few feet away and he jumps at the noise. He pauses and stands still, listening for the shrill chittering of demodogs or the heavy, thudding footsteps of a demogorgon. He waits, and his flashlight reveals a small fox walking out from behind a tree. He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and continues walking.

His feet carry him to Lover’s Lake, the water lapping lazily at the shore with the warm summer breeze. Out here, the lights from town are distant, making the stars shine brightly and reflect in the water. Steve stands there, watches as the artificial light of his flashlight reveals the small ripples on the surface of the water, and waits.

He waits for a lumbering figure to emerge out of the murky depths, to claw its way onto the shore and stalk off into the woods. He waits for chirps muffled by water and splashing to sound in his ears as four-legged creatures swim to the beaches. He waits for the screeches of demonic bats to echo off the trees around him as they fly out of the water and take to the sky. He waits, but it never comes. The lake stays silent.

So he walks.

He follows the road leading to the lake out, letting it take him to the highway that leads out of town. His feet stop as they come across a crack in the road, the crack he took in the other world to get Eddie home safely. The crack that is closed over with black tar, leaving a dark line on the ashen gray asphalt. He remembers clawing his way out of that crack, Eddie’s lifeless body over his shoulders as he slowly bled out.

Nancy had driven her station wagon over, opening the back so he could lay Eddie down as they rode to the hospital. She had asked Steve to drive so she could patch him up, but he refused. He couldn’t leave Eddie, not when he finally got him out. Not when he was barely hanging on. So she threw the first aid kit she had stashed in her car at him and drove to the hospital. Steve had done his best to stop the bleeding, the stark white cloth immediately turning red when he pressed it to Eddie’s skin. They almost lost him. But they didn’t. He’s alive.

Eddie. Eddie.

His head swivels to the forest next to him, the one that leads straight to the trailer park, and he runs. He jumps over fallen trees, feet thudding against the dry earth and leaves as his breath picks up. Orange street lights shine through branches as he draws nearer, and he only slows his pace when he breaks out from the line of trees. His feet swiftly take him to the sight of Eddie’s old trailer, the vacant lot standing out against the fullness of the park. The wooden front steps are still there, partially broken and shifted. The grass has yet to grow in fully, bare spots of dirt showing through the green. His shoes crunch on the gravel as he takes a step closer, inspecting the ground and poking at it with his bat as if it would move. As if the gate would open up just by him being here.

It doesn’t. Steve steps back.

He turns to leave the park, eyes wandering and finding a familiar cream-colored van parked at a trailer a few rows away. Eddie and his Uncle were granted a new trailer for their trouble, really the bare minimum they deserve after all the shit they went through, but they took it in stride. Eddie and Wayne spent the first few weeks after spring break making it into their new home once Eddie was released from the hospital, and Steve had done his best to help them out. But he knew they needed time alone, time to heal, so he let them be. He hasn’t been back there since then.

He kicks a stray piece of gravel, watching as it tumbles a few feet away and disappears into the grass, as he makes his way out of Forest Hills. Houses blur by as he walks the residential streets, only stopping when his own comes into view. Steve sighs, and walks up the concrete driveway, through the large wooden doors, and into the silence of his house. He doesn’t bother taking off his shoes, reveling a little in the dirty footprints he leaves behind on his mothers’ ornate runner that covers the length of the hallway. The analog on the stove tells him it's a little past three in the morning, and he sighs. Grabbing a glass from the cabinet, he fills it up with water before shuffling out of the kitchen. He flops on the couch, sips his water, and waits.

He waits for the sun to peek over the trees in the backyard, casting long shadows on the curtains that cover the windows and glass doors. He waits for the warm rays to shine through the large window in the living room, the one that faces the road, and light up the rug that rests under the coffee table in soft hues of yellow. He sits his empty glass on the table. He waits. And he gets up.

He goes upstairs, changes his shirt, and grabs his vest. Steve slips the walkie off his belt loop and places it on his desk, the flashlight landing right beside it. He props the bat next to his chair, and Steve looks at it, looks at the bent nails sticking haphazardly out of the wood and how it splintered in places from too much force. How some of the nails are covered in dried, blackened goop and dirt. How it's sharp and dangerous, a weapon. How it’s chosen to protect.

At this moment, Steve feels like the bat. The rough wood is his exterior, the splinters through it are the cracks. The holes in his facade. The places where people got too close, where people hurt him. The nails are what makes him strong. They’re the kids, Joyce and Hop, Eddie and Robin. They’re his family. They mold him into a weapon meant to protect, to keep them safe.

But just like Steve, the bat isn’t needed until it’s necessary. Until the world is ending. But until that time comes, the bat is left out of sight. It’s hidden away, moved from place to place just in case, but never used. Never wanted.

Steve walks out the door.

His shift at Family Video passes by like every other day, slow and full of know-it-all customers that never seem to understand that he can’t magically summon movies out of his ass whenever they ask. Robin comes in around lunchtime, and they spend the rest of their joint shift making fun of the ridiculous movie covers that adorn various romcoms. He goes home alone, sheds his vest, and once again walks the town of Hawkins.

He does it again the next night. And the night after that. And the night after that. Until it’s been a week and Steve hasn’t slept for more than a couple hours a night. He doesn’t mind, just means there’s less nightmares to wake him up before sunrise.

Less nights where chittering and the thuds of heavy footsteps strike fear down to his core. Less nights where the chill of fog and night air pierce his skin, warring with his senses against the hot breath hitting the back of his neck from deadly flower-shaped mouths. Less nights where the harsh scraping of monstrous nails against rusted metal and the echoey bangs of heavy, meaty bodies against solid bus walls fill his ears. Less nights where he can feel the thick, choking air of the tunnels, can feel the wispy particles filling his lungs and coating the inside of his mouth.

Less nights filled with muffled Russian echoing in his ears, the harsh texture of rope around his wrists, arms, and chest. Less nights where the sickening crunch of fists against bone and the metallic taste of blood in his mouth linger for hours after he’s awoken, shallowly breathing and pleading to be let go. Less nights where he can feel the blood in his teeth, coating his tongue and dripping down the back of his throat, and he has to run to the bathroom to puke the phantom feeling away.

Less nights he wakes up alone, empty house hollow around him. Less nights he cries to himself in the silence of his room, wishing, hoping, yearning for something. For something to happen, to change. For something to get better. For him to get better.

On the eighth night, he finds his feet have taken him to the edge of Hawkins. The brown road sign reads ‘Leaving Hawkins! Come Again Soon!’, and it stares at him from a few feet away. He looks past the sign at the stretch of road that disappears around a curve, trees following the line of asphalt and distant street lights lighting up their leaves with an orange glow.

He thinks about what it would be like to leave Hawkins, to pack up his clothes in his car and leave town. To follow the road and go around that curve, to not worry about ever coming back. No one needs him here, not anymore, so what’s holding him back?

Maybe this will fix him.

Robin might miss him for a bit, probably curse him and his whole family when she figures it out, but she’ll move on. She’ll find someone better. Hell, she’ll probably go to Eddie too. They already have some sort of secret friendship thing going on between them anyway. Really, he wouldn’t blame her.

Eddie probably wouldn’t care. Shit, he might even throw a party celebrating the fact that he’s gone. Steve snorts at the thought, closing his eyes and taking a breath.

Would it really be so bad if he just disappeared?

But then there’s the kids, left behind with no one to protect them. Sure, Robin and Eddie and Nancy are here, but Nancy is off to Emerson in the fall, Robin surely bound to follow in similar footsteps, and Eddie has made it well-known that he’s getting the hell out of here. If everyone is gone, who will be here to protect them when it comes back?

He rakes a hand harshly through his hair, pulling a bit at the ends and hating how greasy it feels on his fingertips. He can’t think like that, he’ll just worry himself into a panic and that’s the last thing he needs right now; a panic attack on the side of the road. He turns around, walking back towards town as the sky fades into light. He gets home right when sunlight begins burning the tops of the trees and collapses on the couch, sleeping until his noon shift.

He’s exhausted when he gets home, having to close up Family Video after a ten hour shift by himself, but he knows he can’t sleep. Not now. So he does what he usually does now when he gets home and grabs his essentials for his rounds, something that’s become routine for him.

He shrugs off his work clothes, replacing it with what has become his patrol outfit; the old swim team sweatshirt and a faded, ripped pair of light blue jeans. The sweatshirt is filled with holes, the baggy sleeves having caught on briars and branches alike, that allow the white of his shirt to show through. The jeans share a similar fate, the knees scraped up and the denim fraying from the unhemmed edges.

His white Nikes are stained a gray-ish brown from the nightly treks through the woods, small bits of leaves and debris sticking to the laces and in the grooves of the tread. The flashlight finds its place in his back left pocket, an extra pair of batteries landing in his front pocket after an incident a few nights ago where his flashlight died on him out in the middle of nowhere— he was forced to stumble through the woods until the sun began to rise and he was able to find his way back home. He didn’t sleep that night.

The nail bat is crusted with dried bits of mud sticking to the slowly rusting metal, shredded bits of leaves and undergrowth tangled in a green and brown mass. Clumps of dirt litter the floor under the bat, and likely mark a line in the hallway from his room down to the front door. Steve hopes it's still there if his parents come home.

It’s dark outside, only the street light at the end of the driveway illuminates the concrete and stepping stone pathway to the front door. Steve steps out on the front stoop, taking a deep breath of cool summer night air, and starts walking.

He walks out onto the street, uncaring at this point if anyone sees him or not. What does he have to lose? Hopper would probably tell him he’s stupid— something he’s well aware of at this point— and tell him to go inside. Or maybe he would drive him home, take the bat, and leave.

A small, traitorous part of Steve wants Hop to find him. Wants him to ask what the hell he’s doing walking around at night alone in the dark. Wants him to coax him in his old beat up truck and take him back to the Byers’ house. Wants some of Joyce’s hot chocolate as he sits on the couch and explains what he’s been doing, what’s been going on. Ask, desperately, why everyone hates him. Wants them to tell him he’s wrong, that no one hates him. That it’s just a misunderstanding.

But it doesn’t happen. All of that is a lie.

It’s a lie Steve has secretly been telling himself under the cover of darkness alone in his bed, lying awake and exhausted but unable to sleep. It’s a lie he tells himself when he sees any of the kids so he can act normal, act okay. It’s a lie he tells himself when Eddie grins at him, wide and gleaming, eyes sparkling with the afternoon sun beaming in from the storefront windows.

It’s those grins, those looks Eddie gives him sometimes that almost convinces him the lie is fake. Like Eddie is sharing an inside joke with him, only Steve doesn’t know what it is. Eddie doesn’t come around often but when he does… god, it’s like he’s the only one in the room.

Eddie looks at him with his whole body, always focusing on him so wholly and touching in some way. A hand on his bicep, an arm slung around his shoulder, even his arms wrapped around his waist one time. He was friendly, they were friends, until he wasn’t. Until Steve did something stupid that he still can’t figure out and Eddie is avoiding him.

The crunch of gravel under his sole brings him back into his head a little. He looks up, finding the pale orange glow of a lamp through a trailer window, and curses. His feet have brought him to where his mind always seems to go these days: Eddie.

He stands outside of the trailer, watching the way the little bits of weeds around the base shift and sway in the wind. The sky is filled with patches of clouds, light gray ripples standing out against the black sky from the glow of the moon. Steve isn’t completely sure how he got here, only that he started walking and didn’t really… stop.

Wayne’s truck is gone, leaving only Eddie’s cream-colored van among the gravel and grass. Which means Eddie is home and, judging by the light in the window, awake. Steve has a fleeting thought that he should turn around, walk back home, and try to forget he ever came here. Try to forget that he didn’t mean to, that his head and his heart are traitorous beings that have conspired against him to bring his body to the one place— one person— where he isn’t welcome. He tries to move, to will his legs and his feet to catch up with his brain and the urge to run. But they don’t. They stay frozen to the ground, rooted in place as if they belong here. As if he belongs here.

A voice cuts his thoughts off, one that he could pick out in a crowd full of people. His eyes snap to the front door of the trailer, now open and spilling warm light onto the wooden steps that lead down to the gravel drive. A figure grows near, tall and lanky and Steve feels like he’s trapped. His thoughts get louder, yelling and screaming at him to run run ruN RUN RUN-

Hands on his shoulders. Eddie’s face in front of him.

Eddie looks panicked, his dark eyes wide and dancing around as if searching Steve's face for… something. He must not find it, because the two little lines between his brows appear and his mouth starts moving. It’s all muffled, like he’s trying to talk through glass. Steve blinks.

“-ington? Steve,” Eddie’s pleading voice finds his ears as he shakes his shoulders, the fog in his head dissipating as the strained way his name falls from his lips. Steve hums. He blinks again.

“Oh,” he breathes out, voice barely louder than a whisper. Eddie is here. He’s in front of him. He can see him. He’s here and he can see and Steve shouldn’t be here he needs to go-

“Stevie, are you okay?” The fear in Eddie’s voice cuts off his train of thought— something that seems to happen a lot nowadays— and Steve feels every sensation return to his body. The heavy hands on his shoulders, soft and warm and missing their signature rings. The distant chill of the night air on his exposed bits of skin seeping away at the small amount of space between them. The faint puff of air on his face from the man before him. The fact that all of those things are from Eddie.

Steve clears his throat, swallows. Tries to focus his eyes on Eddie’s face.

“I’m fine, Eddie. I um.. sorry,” he trails off. He tries to smile, at least give something to reassure him, to keep him from asking questions. Steve doesn’t think he could answer them.

To his surprise, Eddie lets out a breath of relief, the fear dissipating from his eyes as they clench shut and his head drops. His shoulders move with his lungs as he takes a breath before looking back up at him.

“Jesus H. Christ, you scared the shit outta me, Steve. Thought…” he trails off. His voice wavers. “Thought you were gone. Like… like her.”

Oh. Chrissy. Fuck.

“Shit- sorry, Eds, I didn’t even realize- fuck, I’m so sorry,” Steve pleads. He takes in his surroundings, realizes he’s been standing out here, alone, for who knows how long. He needs to leave. “I-I should go.”

Eddie’s brows furrow, and he tilts his head. “You don’t have to leave, Stevie, it’s fi-“ he cuts himself off.

Steve looks up at that, unsure of when he stopped looking at Eddie, and takes in his pinched expression. The one that’s trained to the ground. The one that’s trained towards-

“What the fuck is this?”

Shit.

“I-it’s not what it looks like, I swear!” He begs, voice sounding unfamiliar even to his own ears. It’s raspy and breaks after a few words. When was the last time he really spoke to anyone today?

“I don’t wanna hurt you, Eds, I really don’t- please, believe me,” he pleads. “It’s just for protection! I don’t-“

“Why are you covered in mud, Steve?” Eddie cuts him off, voice strange and cautious and his hands tighten their grip on his shoulders. Steve knows he doesn’t look the best, knows that his clothes are dirty, but he looks down at himself anyway. His eyes focus on a leaf stuck to his shoelace. He shrugs.

Eddie moves in front of him, a quick thing that Steve suspects is him shaking his head. He mumbles something he can’t hear, voice only a rumble in his throat but Steve knows enough to know that people only talk under their breath when they’re mad. When he’s done something wrong.

He pulls away. Eddie’s hands drop off his shoulders.

“I-I should go. Sorry for bothering you, an-… and keeping you awake,” Steve stutters out, clearing his throat when his voice breaks. He chances a look at him, finding concern written on Eddie’s face. It softens when they make eye contact, and Eddie shakes his head.

“I wasn’t asleep, Stevie. Don’t really, uh.. sleep much, these days. I usually just wait around for Wayne to get home to catch a couple hours. Doesn’t feel safe here by myself, you know?” Eddie confesses, mouth turned upwards in a small, sardonic smile. Steve nods. He does know, he’s never felt safe in his home. With or without people. He’s been going through it for years, long before the events of ‘83. He doesn’t say any of that though, doesn’t think he has the right to.

Eddie steps towards him, closing the bit of distance Steve made between the two, and rests his hand on the arm holding the bat.

“Come inside, Steve,” Eddie requests, voice low and soft. Eddie’s smiling at him. It’s that soft, small, Eddie smile. One that Steve has only seen a handful of times. It’s asking him to say yes, and Steve… he’s weak. So, so weak.

“Okay.”

Eddie’s smile grows.

His hand wraps further around his arm, tugging him towards the open trailer door and Steve feels betrayed that now is when his feet decide to move. He follows Eddie, watching the way he’s glancing at him the entire time. Eddie pauses at the doorway.

“Steve,” he whispers, and Steve looks at him. His hand travels down his arm, causing goosebumps in its wake despite the layer of fabric between their skin. It pauses over the hand still gripping the bat, thumb brushing along his knuckles. “Let it go.”

Steve looks at him, searches those dark brown eyes for fear or hate or anger but finds none. He only finds care. Concern. Love.

It’s terrifying.

He loosens his grip and Eddie takes it from him, the comforting weight of the bat replaced with the warmth of Eddie’s hand. He props it just inside the door to the trailer and leads him over the threshold by the grip on his hand. He’s led over to the couch where a hand on his back urges him to sit down. Steve does, and instantly sinks into the well-worn cushions.

“I’ll be right back, okay? Just gonna get you some water,” Eddie informs him, squeezing his hand briefly before releasing his grip and turning the corner to venture into the kitchen. Steve watches him go, the way the baggy and worn band shirt hangs off his frame. The way his sweatpants are bunched up at the ankle as if they’re too big for him. The way his hair is pulled into a messy bun at the back of his head that swings a little when he walks away. Even now, he’s beautiful.

Shit. He’s so gone for this man.

Eddie returns with a glass of water and flops down on the couch beside him, pressing the cool surface of the cup into his palm. He takes it with a shaky hand, his other joining it to help stabilize the glass. It doesn’t work.

He takes a small sip of water, the liquid feeling like heaven against his dry throat. They sit in silence until Steve finishes half the glass. Then, Eddie speaks.

“Why were you outside at two in the morning, Stevie?” His voice is gentle, and it makes Steve want to cry. He swallows.

“I- I don’t know,” he deflects, lies. Anything to not talk about it.

The harsh sound of a mock game show buzzer startles him, and he turns to find Eddie with his hands cupped around his mouth. Steve grins and lets his head drop, and Eddie nudges his shoulder. He takes a deep breath, focusing on the surface of the water in his hands.

“I have to keep them safe, Eddie,” he confesses. Eddie stays silent, hand gently rubbing his forearm. “It’s what I need to do. What I have to do.”

Silence stretches between them, then, “who, Steve? Who do you have to keep safe?”

‘You,’ he wants to say. ‘You almost died. It’s never been that close before, not in the four years this shit has been going on. You and Max almost died, and I wasn’t there to protect you. I wasn’t with you and Dustin to keep you both safe, to help fight off the bats and urge you through the gate. I wasn’t with Max and Lucas and Erica, wasn’t there to fight off Carver and save Max just a little bit earlier. I wasn’t there, but I should have been. Carver should have beat me to pieces, not Lucas. It should have been me the bats got to, not you. It should have been me, it should have been me, it should have been me.’

Hands fall over his as Eddie takes the glass from him. He didn’t realize his hands were shaking that bad in his revere, causing the water to spill over the sides and onto the brown carpet below them. The glass thunks on the coffee table before Eddie rests his hands over Steve’s, stills their shaking.

“Hey, talk to me, Stevie,” he practically begs. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

Steve looks at him, sees the worry in his eyes, and wets his lips with his tongue. Doesn’t miss the way Eddie’s eyes flicker down at the movement. He clenches his fists.

“Please don’t tell Robin,” he pleads. If she found out about this, if she knew, he wouldn’t be allowed outside alone ever again. She would worry about him, keep him under lock and key to make sure he wouldn’t do anything stupid. She would stay with him during the night, insert herself firmly by his side until she was sure he was okay. She would make him sleep in his own bed, trapped between his own walls. Trapped in his own house. He can’t stand that place, can’t handle the echoey walls and empty rooms. Can’t stand not being able to do anything for anyone. Can’t stand to be useless.

He’s just wasting time right now. He shouldn’t be here, talking to Eddie, when he could be checking the gates. He should be out there trying to save people, not himself. He should be trying to save his family. He could already be too late. It might have already come back while he was distracted and they could all be gone. It could have been waiting until he was occupied, waiting for an opening to strike. They could be in danger right now. They could be dead.

“Alright, I can do that. I won’t tell her but… Steve, why-“ Steve cuts him off by standing up on shaky legs, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “Steve?”

“I need to go, Eddie, I need to- they could- I need to go,” the words tumble out of his mouth, words he isn’t quite sure even make sense but he doesn’t care. He just needs to get out.

Steve walks over to the door, eyes locking on the bat propped there, before he hears Eddie stand up behind him. He turns to find Eddie holding his hands out in front of him like he’s trying to placate a wild animal and, at this moment, he kinda feels like one. His heart is beating too fast and he can feel his breathing quicken. His throat closes up as panic claws its way upwards and clouds his vision, muffling his hearing. Eddie’s mouth moves but Steve can’t hear it through the cotton in his ears. He backs towards the door, hating the fear in Eddie’s eyes as he does so.

His back hits the wall next to the door and he turns, hand finding the rough wood of the bat almost instantly, before he runs out the door. The small “sorry” he lets out is an afterthought, thrown over his shoulder right before the trailer door slams shut behind him and his feet crunch on gravel as he runs towards town.

His blind panic takes him to Dustin’s house first, finding all the lights turned off save for the faint glow of the hall night light through sheer curtains. He stays there for a minute or two, waiting for the sign of flickering lights. Nothing comes.

A couple streets over, he stops in front of Lucas’s house, finds the same thing. Dark. He stands there and waits. No flickering. He runs.

The Wheelers. Dark. He waits, no flickering. He runs.

The Byers-Hoppers. Dark. Waits. No flickering. Runs.

Max. Dark. Waits. Dark. Runs.

Robin. Dark. Waits. Dark. Runs.

His house. Light.

They’re safe. He collapses.

He sits heavily on the front stoop, bat falling to the ground and knocking against the concrete with a thud. His knees come up to his chest and his arms wrap tightly around them as he rasps for breath, the air coming in short, quick bursts. His fingers dig into the soft flesh of his calves, hard enough to leave bruises. His forehead rests heavily on his knees and his eyes sting, welling with tears as the fear slowly fades away.

He sits outside, struggling for breath until the sun begins to rise, and waits. When the sun finds its way over the trees, he makes his way inside to get ready for his opening shift.

The bat finds a new home in his trunk.

Taglist: @tea-beloved @starry-eyedlune @hyperfixationgoddess @zerokrox-blog @nicovania @invisibleflame812 @chaoticvictorianspirit @justforthedead89 @dacremontgomeryay @vhelt @adhdsummer @nerd-and-nervous @i-have-three-feelings @mimicori @remuslupinisthevoiceofgod @solliesolesito @romanticdestruction @vanillatwist @bowl-o-queerios @grimmfitzz

(If you want to be added or removed please let me know!)

[echantedtoon]

Lmao, so this one is going to be a crazy!

Reader who in fun tries to summon a demon with her friends and ends up proposing a marriage to the demon in joke. Nothing happens. But as soon as her friends left and she is left cleaning there, the demon actually appears and accepts her offer and refuses to leave. The demon is serious about the proposal and considers her his wife. She eventually gives and by time they do adjust and actually end up falling for each other??? (Btw, the demon is only visible to those he wishes to see him. So whenever reader goes to work he accompanies her.)

(you can choose any one between Kokushibo or Akaza to write for this. And I'm sorry if it's too much to ask or causes any issue-)

HERE YOU GO!!

(warning for demon summoning if that makes you uncomfortable. I just made up some stuff for this based off video games where that happened hope that's ok.)

"Let's summon a demon!"

A thunderstorm rolled across the sky that night. The sun was just setting over the horizon with the last few rays of daylight disappearing but it was hard to tell when the dark storm clouds took over the sky and claimed them as their own. Thunder shaking the lanes of the windows and lightning sounded off like an angry whip from whatever deity was angrily stomping around the clouded skies, lighting up the sky and city below for nothing but a brief second.

It would've been absolutely dark if you hadn't lit up a few candles inside the comfy room and placed them on the table to light up the room. The warm light comforting against the scary night sky that just appeared as the last few daylights were chased away. The candlelight was pretty but you might be asking yourself one question. Why are you using candles to light up the room when you can just turn on the light switch on the wall or use a flashlight like a normal person?

Well because it wasn't your idea. It was your friend's. 

If it were up to you, your bedroom light would've been on in an instant and you four wouldn't be sitting here in the dark. But as another thunder clap shook the sky outside, her face had scrunched up into a mischievous grin wide enough to let the other three ladies around her know that she had come up with a devious idea. It started when of your friends said that they were bored during the usual sleep over activities and so you suggested watching a scary movie instead! 

"How about The Death Book?"

"What's it about?"

"It's about this girl who finds this blank diary and everything she writes in it becomes true! It turns out the diary is possessed by a demon who becomes obsessed with her and grants her wishes with horrible twists!"

That's when your most devious friend gotten that look before hijacking the convo. "I have a better idea! Y/n, you have any candles?"

"Only scented candles. Why?"

"That'll work! Go get them all and we'll do something that's actually thrilling!"

You had no idea what she was talking about but decided to humor her and go get them and matches she asked for. You had a few scented candles collecting up space in your closet, most were Christmas gifts you were just planning on regifting that year anyways since you never really used them. But you were curious about what your friend was up too so you grabbed up all the bars, the different scents making your nose snort, and brought them out to everyone watching you take them out of your closet and plopping them down on your bed. Your friend then proceeded to grab a glass jar containing a 'holiday sugar cookie' scented white candle, lit it, and then got up to turn off the lights and ask you to close the curtains. 

Oh! She wanted to do the classic ghost story telling in the dark game! Nope. As soon as you turned around and you along with your other two friends looked at her, the statement left her mouth.

"Let's summon a demon!"

The three of you stared at her and her smile lit up by the scented candle, a nice scent of sugar cookies in the air. The only sounds being the thunder still rumbling outside. Eventually one of you broke the weird silence.

"You mean like...Use a ouija board? That's something everyone does at sleepovers-"

"No! I meant actually summon a demon!," she corrected excitedly clenching a fist!

"Uh..Have you lost your dam mind?"

"Oh come on! We all know that ghosts and stuff don't exist anyways!" She waved a hand dismissively. "We've tried using a ouija board since we were ten but nothing ever happened so why not try taking it up a notch!"

"Because it sounds like a waste of time." You deadpanned raising a brow. "Why go through all the effort to do something when we already KNOW that it's just stupid Hollywood stuff?"

"For the thrill of it!" You three looked at each other. Two of you having bored looks while the third looked worried. "Come on! Just this once! And if nothing happens I'll pay for two pizzas from that pizza place we all like!"

"...Throw in those chicken tenders and a couple sodas and you have a deal," your bored friend bluntly stated.

"DEAL!"

"I don't know.." Your friend that looked worried frowned. "This is how a bunch of horror stories start. What if something really happens?"

"PSH. It won't. If nothing happened when we used a ouija board then we got nothing to worry about!"

"And you just magically happen to know how to summon a demon how?"

"Not just a demon!" Her hand pointed up as she grinned. "A Yokai!"

"A yo-..What?"

"A Yokai! Or oni if you prefer to call it that instead! It's a Japanese spirit!"

"We know what that is! And you happen to know that how?"

"During my culture studies at school I was studying the local folklore and stumbled onto an old legend of the area! They say that a night monster used to roam the lands and strike down people every full moon until a shrine was put up for him. It's still there now! I visited it during a school trip!" She explained excitedly. "I did an interview with the caretaker for my extra credit report and it turns out his family's descendants of the shrine maidens that used to be there!"

"That's good and all but that still doesn't answer my question."

Your friend groaned loudly and slumped her shoulders with an eye roll. "He said the shrine maidens used to have a symbiotic relationship with the specific oni. They'd perform a ritual once a year on a new moon or full moon to summon him and leave him really good offerings. If he liked it enough he might grant you something in return!"

"And he told you how to summon this thing?"

"Yeah because he didn't believe in it. I don't either since ghosts and goblins only exist in books and movies. But what's the harm? If nothing happens I'm buying everyone food and we can have a good laugh if we do happen to summon something we might get a wish granted! Whaddya say?"

There was more silence from you three until your bored friend sighed and rolled her eyes from where she sat. "Fine I guess. Sounds like a win win situation. And I wouldn't mind getting an A on my next math exam."

You sighed. "Alright. Let's just get this over with."

"That's the spirit! But first thing's first!.. Does anyone know if it's a new or full moon tonight?"

Your nervous friend, who still looked nervous, had to pull out her phone and look it up online. The glow of the screen making her face light up in the dark as the thunder still rang out and the first few raindrops began hitting the roof of your home.

"Full moon b-b-but does it count if the storm is blocking out the sky?"

"He only told me it has to be a full of new moon, not that you had to see the moon. We're also gonna  need right white candles to represent the right moon phases, something red to draw the symbols in, and an offering from each of us that has some kind of connection to our wishes!" Her eyes lit up in excitement. "Let's try it out!"

If it got you free food and your rowdiest friend to be quiet, then you weren't going to complain. So you four got to work. A friend found an extra red lipstick when she dug out her bag and like you said before, you had a bunch of scented candles you weren't using....but that begs the question.

"Does scented candles even count?" You gazed down at two white scented candles with the scents labeled 'fresh morning snow' and 'shortbread blast'. 

"He just said that the candles had to be white, not that they couldn't be scented."

"Yeah. But there's another problem. I only have seven white candles. .." Your eyes looked around the mini candle collection. The others were different colors like the red one that smelt like cinnamon and the purplish-black one labeled 'midnight lilacs'. Eventually you found a glimmer of white in the limited darkness with only your phone to see, and pulled out a candle that was half white half brown labeled 'chocolate and vanilla delight'. "I got a brown and white one. Does that count?"

"We're gonna have to make due with it. Well just put the white half facing the center and maybe that'll help."

Well if that's all you had then you four really were going to have to make due with what you had on hand. One friend helped you cleared up space in your room at least a yard and a half clear, while your devious friend drew red lipstick marks onto your floor and the fourth began placing the candles in a circle around her lighting them up as she went until both stepped away and you four were left looking down at the circle of eight candles and three symbols in the center of them. Lightning clashed outside behind the curtains barely lighting up the room but you managed to make out three words written in Japanese kanji in red lipstick.

Upper. Moon. And One.

You didn't know what that meant but it was ominous in your eyes. The room smelt far too heavy with the pretty scents of sugar cookies, vanilla, daisies, and a few other scents. It was overwhelming and one of you snorted from it all.

"Dam. It smells like someone spilt the entire isle of Fabreath from Wallace-Market in here." She waved a hand before pinching her nose and turning to her. "So what now?"

"Now we put down an offering related to what we want to wish for? Like if you wanted to wish for a million dollars you put down like some rare collector coins or something! Just look around and see what you got!"

While the others looked through their bags, you mindlessly searched around the room for something meaningless you could just throw meaninglessly into the circle. Your eyes gazed over at your jewelry box...and you shrugged. Why not? You had a pair of thick hooped silver earrings your uncle gave you for your birthday last year. They were even real silver, just cheap copper ones painted to look silver. You never wore them anyways so they'd be perfect for this. You opened up the lid narrowing your eyes into a squint. Despite the light of your phone, it was hard to see in the dark. Your hand moved things around inside the box. Old necklaces and things jingling until you saw them. Ah! There they were! Right next to your great grandparents' wedding rings. Now THOSE were actually worth a lot. Real gold and studded with real diamonds. You inherited them box along with their old jewelry box but that didn't matter right now. You wanted the useless tacky earrings next to them. Even now most of the shiny silver paint had peeled off revealing the cheap copper hoops underneath.

"C'mon Y/n! Hurry up! I want that pizza as soon as possible!"

You looked around mindlessly just reaching in and grabbing two round things into your hand. "Coming!"

"What did you grab?" Her brow rose as you just rolled your eyes. 

"Just some old jewelry. What about you?"

She held up an ink stone. Probably got it from her school bag. "I was gonna use it for an art project but since I want an A for my exam and I have to write on the test, it was a good enough match."

"Sounds like a good start."

Your other two friends pulled out a book on rare poetry and a small bag of store bought mochi candy. ...Strange offering but you guessed it was the only thing that they could find. Your friend instructed you all placed the offerings on the strange words in Japanese and stepped back without a second thought to look at them....And you four stood there in your pajamas with nothing but the candles to light up the darkness and the rain still pounding at your rooftop.

Silence other than the storm rang out and you four looked around the room exchanging looks sometimes.

".....Is that it?"

"I told you it was a waste of time! Let's just get some food now. I'm starving!"

"Wait! I forgot about the last important step!" She held up her hands as your mutual grumpy and hungry friend turned to go flip on the light switch. "I need to chant the incantation and then we have to say what we want!"

Her arms folded. "Well get on with it! I'm hungry and this is really not fun!"

"Alright, alright! Let me try to remember what the guy told me!"

She stood there staring at the mess of lit candles and lipstick smeared kanji scrunching her brows in deep thought. You and your grumpy friend exchanged mirrored deadpanned looks before she cleared her throat and held her arms out.

"Full moon on the rise. New moon hides from eyes. Abyss of darkness conquering the skies! We summon, summon him from the ground. To our circle lit and round. Oh one who walks the path of Moon, we come once more to ask you soon! Come from slumber, to seek out what we offer! Great one of Moon bound light, we ask for you to once more walk the night!"

Her voice shouted out loud enough that you were sure you'd be getting a complaint from the neighbors tomorrow morning. As she finished her chant, a lightning bolt struck out temporarily lighting up the sky outside as the rain poured out...As you all waited looking around more.

"Would you look at that? Nothing happened again. NOW can we get food?"

"Wait! We didn't say what we wanted yet!," she protested to her, "The wish is a part of the ritual so let's complete it ok?!" Your friend groaned but she quickly excitedly exclaimed. "I wish my mom would finally give me the secrets to famous udon recipe so I can start selling it myself!"

"Um..." You nervous friend cautiously and worriedly looked around the dark room. "C-Can I m-meet my favorite author please? O-Only if that's ok! I'm fine if nothing happens really!"

"Oh what the hell. I want an A on my next exam."

...All three looked at you expectantly. "What?"

"Say something, Y/n." 

"Like what?"

"I don't know. What did you put down?"

You shrugged. "Some cheap jewelry I don't want honestly."

"OOOH. Wish for something good then! Oh! Oh! I see you always sitting by yourself! Ask him to get you a boyfriend?," you friend teased making you laugh.

"Really? We summon a Yokai just for me to ask him for a boyfriend? If he was real, he'd probably think I was crazy."

"Well it doesn't have to be a boyfriend. You can ask for a sign of who you're meant to be with." That devious smile returned again. "Y'know that caretaker guy told me a lot of maidens would pay the shrine maidens to do rituals and summon the onis as offered brides in exchange for good fortune for their villages. Why don't you ask him to put a ring on it? You'd be the first person to be get a real life monster boyfriend. All the monster lovers on the Internet would be so jealous."

"Plus you're beautiful," your grumpy friend added also with a teasing grin. "You made home coming and prom queen in highschool!"

You laughed again. "Looks aren't everything." You could barely contain the giggles. You then rolled your eyes sarcastically. "But sure." Your hands clasped together and pressed against your chest as you spoke. "Oh great Oni please hear my pleas for your heart!" Even your nervous friend giggled along now as you dramatically fell to your knees. "Bind our blood in ceremony and let me share your name." A hand outstretched to no one as you fake acted out processing your love to an invisible imaginary person. "Under the stars of the heavens, I solemly swear, that this hand will always be kind and never cruel. That my voice will only speak truth. That this life is now forever yours." The outstretched hand pretended to take the imaginary person's hand. "Now as yours is mine."

A loud snort went off as one of your friends fell back on your bed where she sat giggling out the cheesy lines you were making up on the fly.

"Bind our souls to infinity and I will promise you love and devotion through sickness and health and beyond the realms of death." You continued to speak remembering some lines from a rom com chick flick you saw last night. "I will love you in all your forms now and forever. Through several lifetimes and back." Your voice was low and smooth now speaking it like you meant it with pride. "From now to infinity. Unyielding. Untainted. Undeniable. With this voice I promise you my love and heart. With this offering, I ask you to be mine!" You then bowed your forehead to the floor as everyone continued to giggle loudly. 

You all continued to laugh and laugh and laugh as you finally broke into laughs again too and sat back up- 

And then all the candles went out at the same time.

Pitch black immediately enveloped the room and at once all laughs ceased. Nothing but silence rang out other than the rain and thunder and occasional strike of lightning. You four stayed silent as you all say there in the dark before your friend became grumpy again.

"Ok. Haha. Very funny, Y/n. Now we can't see shit!"

"That..w-wasnt me," you stuttered out staring at the floor in front of you silently and wide eyed.

"Sure it wasn't. You're literally kneeling in front of them!"

"I don't have the ability to blow out right giant candles at once! Besides some of them were out of my reached! I'd have to crawl over! It wasn't me!" 

"Well it's not me! I'm standing up!"

"It wasn't me!" "I'm sitting all the way over here on the bed."

Silence fell Once Again as you all sat there 

"....It must've just been a draft! There's no such thing as ghosts and demons! Get the light! I'm tired of this game now!"

Someone was heard stumbling and shuffling around in the dark before you heard hands patting along the wall and then a serious of clicks as someone tried turning on the lights. "It won't turn on!"

"No one panic!" Someone finally turned on the flashlight on their phone and lit up the room. "The storm just cut out the power supply. Let's just get some food and call it a night!"

"Wait! The offerings!"

The light shines towards the middle of the circle. One bag of mochi candy, an ink stone, and a book still laid there. Where was your earrings? You pushed the book aside and froze as you realized that it wasn't a cheap pair of earrings that greeted you..but one beautiful gold ring. 

"My great grandmother's ring!" You quickly snatched it up safely into your hands in horror. "I-I must've grabbed them by mistake!" Wait. You remembered feeling two hoops in your hands. "My great grandfather's ring!" Quickly you pushed aside everything else and was horrified to discover that it was gone. "IT'S MISSING!!"

"Calm down. It must've rolled away or someone accidentally kicked it in the dark. It's still around here."

"Yeah. And so is everything else. I CALLED IT! I TOLD you it wasn't gonna work! Now order the food!"

"B-But my ring!"

"It's too dark to look with the power out. Let's just wait until it's day time and then we'll look around. Ok?"

"I-...*sigh* Alright."

"GREAT! Now let's eat. And don't forget the chicken and drinks!"

Little did all of you know that the curtains were moved back on their own. Six eyes staring at your beautiful face and a glittering gold band wrapped around his ring finger.

[exhuastedpigeon]

Buddie Hiatus Fic Rec - month 9 Jan 16 - Feb 15

0-5k

might as well be drunk in love by fleetinghearts / @shitouttabuck Teen | 2.3k Getting little-spooned by his drunk best friend was not on buck's maid-of-honour checklist, but. it's happening

She Said She’d Do It Again by Pansys_goth_gf / @pansysgothgf General | 2.8k Ana Flores runs into the 118 four years after her break up with Eddie. It turns out, a lot can change in four years.

hot cocoa by evcndiaz / @evcndiaz Teen | 3.1k Buck is freaking out about proposing. He gets an assist from Athena, Bobby, and. Well. Eddie himself.

our secret moments in a crowded room by heartbeatdiaz / @loserdiaz Explicit | 3.7k In which a new probie at the station has a crush on Buck, Eddie is… a little bit done with the guy, if he’s being honest. And Buck is having the time of his life.

like a cat in the rain by oklahoma / @sunshinediaz Teen | 4.6k Sometimes, Buck forgets the lightning strike happened to Eddie, too.

things you shouldn’t say to me by coldbam / @coldbam Mature | 4.7k Eddie comes out, sleeps around, and Buck hears all about it.

5k-10k

finally found what i’ve been looking for by fleetinghearts / @shitouttabuck Explicit | 5k buck's good at basketball, eddie's trying really hard not to commit an act of public indecency about it, and maybe, just maybe, a slightly bloody beachside pick-up game can be the start of something new

i am just a fool, but i have loved you all along by oklahoma / @sunshinediaz Teen | 5.1k Buck asks Eddie on a date. Eddie spirals and makes a list about it. Everything works out in the end.

how to say what you mean by brownbananas (nickel710) Gen | 8.1k In which Eddie becomes a little obsessed with equipment maintenance and has a crisis of sexuality, and the two things are more related than he thought.

gonna make love to you for the rest of our lives by wikiangela / @wikiangela Explicit | 8.7k It's Buck and Eddie's wedding night, they're horny, in love, and obsessed with being husbands.

10k-20k

that green light, i want it by asteriasera / @asteriasera Mature | 11.1k Buck and Eddie hook up after Maddie and Chim’s wedding, then spend an inordinate amount of time not talking about what it means until the universe decides to intervene.

it's gravity after all by Iover_of_mine (I_almost_do) / @lover-of-mine Teen | 11.7k Buck and Eddie get trapped in an elevator. What else can they do besides talk to each other?

and we are homeward bound by glorious_spoon / @glorious-spoon Explicit | 18.1k Buck and Eddie get around to telling the people they love that they're together.

Winter Prayer by Daisies_and_Briars / @cal-daisies-and-briars General | 18.2k When a work conflict prevents Athena from accompanying Bobby to Minnesota for the ten year anniversary of his family dying, Buck and May offer to go instead. Over the course of the trip, they all learn more about each other, and Bobby faces his grief.

20k - 30k

let you set the pace by devirnis / @devirnis Explicit | 23.9k Eddie fucks Buck over a weekend.

30k +

A Minor Delay by rainbow_nerds / @rainbow-nerdss Mature | 43.6k Almost a year after the bridge collapse, a lot has changed. The team are scattered—Bobby and Athena on their Honeymoon, Hen on adoptive parent's leave, and Buck and Eddie... They may still work together, still have movie nights with Chris whenever they can, but things have changed. With Maddie and Chimney's wedding around the corner, Buck tries to make it perfect. And maybe, along the way, he might figure out why everything still feels... wrong.

The Cupid in Bel Air and His Thousand Kisses by Moonrose001 / @liptickyourway Explicit | 53.8k Eddie knew that when he and Christopher moved to LA, there would be a lot more deities than he was used to. What he did not expect was a Cupid that had it out for him, determined for Eddie to fall in love despite Eddie's repeated refusals, denials and threats. But Eddie needs a partner in the field and it seems like the winged weasel is the closest he is getting.

Month 1 (May 15 - June 15) Month 2 (June 16 - July 15) Month 3 (July 16 - August 15) Month 4 (August 16 - September 15) Month 5 (September 16 - October 15) Month 6 (October 16 - November 15) Month 7 (November 16 - December 15) Month 8 (December 16 - January 15)

[cbrownjc]

Hi, Fun question I had while waiting for episode 6

Do you think Lestat, Daniel, Armand and Louis would like the twilight movies? Why and to which character would they relate the most?

Have a nice day!

Hi!

Well, first I should admit to you that I don't like Twilight. I've always disliked it since I read the first book before the first movie even came out. (And that is the only book in the series I've read BTW, though I have seen all 4 films -- only the first one in theaters though). So I actually don't know how objective I can be about this question . . . but I'll try. 🤔

And oh, you know what? I think Anne Rice herself commented on what Lestat and Louis thought about Twilight in a Facebook post back in the day, even though I don't have a copy of it. Which probably has a nicer reaction to it than I would give them about it. Or, at least what their book versions think about the series.

But I'm assuming you asking about the show versions of the characters and what they think, and with that? Well --! 😈

IMO, Lestat, and Louis both would find the whole movie series mostly hilarious IMO, just like they did Nosferatu. I can also see Lestat needling Louis a little bit wrt the whole "Bella has visions of Edward" thing if Lestat knows about Louis having visions of him during his first few years in Paris, and Louis being annoyed by that and insisting it was a totally different thing when it came to him -- given that, for one he was an actual vampire at the time unlike her and "vampire bond" and all of that -- and he is nothing like Bella Swann thank you! Anyway, Lestat saves most of his snark and laughter for The Volturi however because, as far as a coven that is supposed to be the head of the vampire world, how ineffective are they!?

Louis is also the only one out of the four who's even bothered to read all of the books in the series, even the most recent ones like Midnight Sun. He thinks they are less funny than the movies, but that's more because he didn't have Lestat in his ear making comments or laughing along with him as he read them. And hey, he can admit he does relate to the "not wanting to eat humans" thing of the Cullens though, sadly, the way that works in their world doesn't in the real one. 😔 Louis also knows that if Jasper Hale was real, he would purposefully antagonize the hell out of him on sight for that Confederate Army stuff (because if you think the issue of slavery wouldn't come up at some point --!)

Armand, being the true cinephile of the group would, IMO, find the films terrible just as films. And he thinks Bill Condon fell off as a director once he did that series, which is sad because Condon's Gods and Monsters is a film he greatly likes. However, he couldn't help but wonder if Stephenie Meyer was used by some ancient vampire -- via the Mind Gift -- to write this series of stories for the mortal world that gets so much of real vampire lore so very wrong on purpose (he read the first book and that was enough); and that maybe she was used by some ancient vampires to do so to hide something from the mortal world about something that was going on in the actual vampire world at the time. He looked into that idea very much at the time and, even though he didn't find anything, he still looks into it on occasion from time to time still, years later. But look, as far as the main story itself goes, Armand gets Edward not wanting to turn Bella. He just thinks Edward went about it all wrong. And he lowkey also gets Jacob obsessing over Bella too -- but he doesn't want to look at why he does too much.

Daniel was forced to watch all 4 movies with his younger daughter -- one of the few things as a deadbeat dad he did do with her when she would spend time with him after the divorce. (Same reason he's seen all the Harry Potter movies as well.) He thinks they're okay -- not the best thing he's ever seen, but not the worst. And he weirdly understands Bella's obsession with Edward for some reason -- he even feels a kind of sympathy toward her about it, though he of course logically knows she should just get over it because it would be the healthier thing to do.

If you are a fan of the Twilight series I hope you weren't too offended by this answer to the question. Because yeah, I can't pretend to like that series, and so my answer was going to have the characters snarking and critiquing it in some way, if not just mostly indifferent about it (in the case of Daniel).

[oc-challenges]

WELCOME TO THE OC NEW YEARS CHALLENGE!

Since the winter challenges struck out, we're crawling home. Luckily, the new years oc event is here and hopefully it will be the toast of the town. So before we all have to clean the glitter off the floor after the party, we're going to hold onto the memories of 2023 and looking forward to 2024. This event comes from @aliverse (me) and @elmunson with suggestions and feedback from the OC Challenges & Potluck discord, and it spans from the 26th of December 2023 to the 1st of January 2024. With the hope that you may never become a stranger to the oc community, let's go over the rules and then get to the challenges!

Rules

DO NOT copy others edits, if you feel someone has stolen your edits, follow these guidelines!

If you are doing crossovers, PLEASE make sure that the creator of the other oc is okay with crossovers.

If you want your post to be reblogged onto this blog, it must contain the hashtag onyc23.

Feel free to ask any questions, I promise I'll stay even when your scared, and I'm lost, and you're running away.

Everything is up to the creators interpretation, although I have tried to include some examples for help!

Have fun!

Day One: What A Tangled Web We Weave

On the first day, let's take part in one of my favorite trends this year—web weaving! Weave a captivating web incorporating quotes, images, screencaps, and more for your OC. If you're not familiar with the concept of web weaving, here's an account with a lot of examples.

Day Two: I Polish Up Real Nice

Sometimes we get tired or bored of an oc or an edit, but there still things we love about them. To reignite our love for these things, we're going to revise and revamp. Choose an oc, a story, or an edit to to refine and enhance to its fullest potential.

Day Three: In My ＿ Era

On the third day, let's reflect on the defining periods that have shaped either us or our original characters. Despite the initial impression, and my well known obsession, this is inspired by The Eras Tour but doesn't have anything to do with her.. We delve into the various eras within our OCs' lives, whether categorized by tv show season, movie, age, or any other criteria you can think of. Alternatively, share insights about the current era your in as a creator, like "in my hunger games oc era" or "in my gifset era".

Day Four: Everything New

Now that the studios have stopped being bitches, we can acknowledge all the remarkable releases of 2023 (a special shoutout to the talented individuals who contributed to their excellence). On day four, craft something inspired by a creation that emerged this year, whether it's an entirely new series or just a fresh installment in an existing one.

Day Five: Don't You Forget About Me

Though 365 days sounds like a long time, it doesn't always feel that way. In the midst of our activities this year, some things may have been unintentionally overlooked. Fortunately, there's still time to make up for it. Take this opportunity to craft something for an OC that took a backseat this year, bring to life that edit you've been yearning to create all along, or share that chapter you've been gradually working on throughout the year.

Day Six: In With The New

Let's not do out with the old, but we could certainly do in with the new. For day six, introduce a brand new oc or story you hope to be your newest muse for 2024.

Day Seven: Exchange The Experience

Tidings, tinsel, and a year of beginnings. It's start of a new chapter of our lives, especially for our original characters. Be sure to celebrate this new chapter by signing up for the OC Potluck New Years exchange and spreading joy.

[x0401x]

Tsurune —Tsunagari no Issha— Official Fanbook Interview

Director Yamamura Takuya

Debuted as a director in 2018 with “Tsurune —Kazemai Koukou Kyuudou-bu—”, recapping the series with a movie four years later. What has he found through working on “Tsunagari no Issha” with his team?

Making an animation that would “tear into everyone’s hearts”

——About the sequel’s production, what kind of work did you want to make it into?

I wanted to create an animation that would tear into the hearts of the viewers. There are so many animated works out there in the world, and unfortunately, some of them end up being forgotten. However, I believe even those works leave something behind that marks our hearts, like, “I love that one scene from that one movie”. I think this is the animation “tearing into your heart”. Up until now, even while working as an episode director for series other than “Tsurune”, I’ve always thought, “I want to make animation that will leave a strong impression”. With “Tsurune”, I have taken the position of series director, and this desire grew stronger during the production of the movie and second season.

——You have used ribbons for the OP and key visuals of the second season. Where did this idea come from?

One time, when I was gathering references of Japanese archery, I felt that there was an invisible connection between the clubmates. I figured it was both a connection between comrades and a connection with the things they had been doing until then. It was then that I decided to write the story of season 2 with “connections” as the theme. When I thought about how to depict it, I figured I wanted a motif that would make people feel a “connection” through imagery, not words. From there, after thinking about how to represent the characters’ relationships through bringing out their designated colors, the result we got to was the ribbons.

Portraying the paths of three archers

——How did you want to write Minato in the second season?

We depicted Minato’s “recovering from target panic” in the first season, but in the second one, I wanted to write Minato as a positive and cheerful protagonist, as the ochi of Kazemai. I wanted to portray him as pulling everyone along, until he could feel from the bottom of his heart that he “loves the bow”. From the start of season 2, Minato has become resilient, enough to be able to face any walls he hits with nothing but positivity, while also enjoying kyudo.

——You were also able to depict the shortcomings that come with being obsessed with kyudo.

When you research kyudo, you find out that some parts of it have things in common with our daily lives and how we work. There was a time when I was too preoccupied with nothing but myself, which gave me tunnel vision, and when I looked back, I realized I had been acting selfishly, but although I repented for it, the fact that I had a negative impact on the people around me means I wasn’t able to see things objectively. I wanted to depict these kinds of shortcomings, which everyone experiences at least once in life, in this story. That’s exactly what making animation is—there’s a limit to what a person can do by themselves. I think that only with someone else’s help and support can you finally accomplish what you weren’t able to do by yourself.

——There were many cuts in season 2 where Minato’s eyes left an impression.

Just as it says “I want to keep looking at this ‘infatuation’” on the thumbnail of the first key visual (page 9 of this book), I intended to portray the act of “looking” with care. This is also something I realized when gathering material about Japanese archery—that the archers look at the target very seriously. When I saw them doing that, I felt like this is how it goes—they “observe, take notice and learn”. We have also made the highlights bigger for the designs of the characters’ irises in the second season, in order for the photography of their eyes to feel convincing. I wanted to make it so that the movements of Minato’s heart, such as being stimulated by what people say to him or relating to someone else’s feelings, would be conveyed through his eyes. The way that Minato’s eyes motivate the people around him is implied in the expression “fire-starter”, which was used in the first volume of the novel. When you see someone doing their best, you also feel like doing your best, right?

——How did you plan to write Shuu, who is also Minato’s rival?

About Shuu, we could only depict fragments of him in the first season, so I wanted to portray his private life in detail in the second one. Born as the eldest son of the Fujiwara family, Shuu was raised with the expectation of behaving as an heir from a young age, so I think he had come to be called “the young nobleman” without even himself realizing it. But he shows a gentle face in front of Sae-chan, so the truth is that he does have a normal high school boy side to him. I’m glad we were able to show this casual facet of Shuu in the second season.

——Shuu’s attitude towards archery seemed to be different from Minato’s.

This is but my own interpretation and has nothing to do with the original novel, but I think Shuu was living his life thinking he had to be strong at all times. So perhaps he felt the strength that he had been looking for since early childhood in the sport called Japanese archery, where one has to face themselves. His father built a kyudojo in their home and asked Saionji-sensei to teach him, so it feels like he couldn’t back down (laughs). Because he’d been subconsciously shouldering these expectations from his father, he was taken aback when Ryouhei told him, “I had the feeling that he’s rooting for you”. Ryouhei’s presence must have been a big deal for Shuu, since it gives him different perspectives. I really think it’s great that Shuu started getting along with Ryouhei.

I was the one in charge of the storyboards for episode 7, which delves deep into Shuu. I believe the levels of completion in that storyboard are quite high, even amongst all the storyboards I’ve drawn until now!

——The paintings from episode 7 were also impressive.

We thought about what the most effective way of expressing things through animation would be, rather than saying them through dialogue, and as a result, we came up with the paintings. The painting decorating Shuu’s room carries the meaning of, “through meeting the Boy, the Black Eagle became king”. This foreshadows the fact that through meeting Minato, who can aim for the same heights as him, Shuu wins both the team and individual competitions at the national tournament. The crown in the painting being right on top of Shuu’s head as he sat in front of it was pure coincidence. It surprised me when I was checking the animation, like, “Huh, the crown is on Shuu’s head?!” and then the staff was even more surprised, like, “Was that not on purpose!?” (laughs).

——Could you tell us about the appeal of Nikaidou Eisuke, who appears from season two?

The things Nikaidou does are so main character-like, aren’t they? In order to prove the superiority of the shamen-style shooting, he rebuilt a club on the verge of being disbanded by himself and went as far as the nationals. I think it’s charming that his purpose for shooting the bow was properly established and that he was set on quitting once it was achieved. Personally, I also really like the fact that he isn’t the kind of person who keeps doing things on a whim, but rather who is good at planning and is able to get things done.

——How did you think about writing Nikaidou in season two?

After rewatching episode 1, I noticed, during the regional tournament, that Nikaidou has an incredible way of putting up walls through his words and attitude (laughs). The plan was to make an impact on the viewers at first, like, “What’s up with this guy?” and then reveal the burdens he was shouldering as the story went on. I wrote him while hoping he would ultimately become the kind of character that people root for.

——He did show a lot of facial expressions.

Rather than being two-faced, he’s the kind of skillful character who changes the way he interacts with others depending on who they are. But although he’s skilled, he’s still a high school student, so of course, he has an awkward side to him. There are times when he shows his leadership within the club, yet he also ends up acting rebellious with Masa-san after being told this and that, even though he knows that Masa-san is right. He has many sides to him, but all of it comes from earnest actions in order to accomplish his goals.

——The flashback in episode 9 was an essential scene that shows his backbone.

Within the limited TV series slot of 20 minutes per episode, I think you always want to display maximum effect in the minimum amount of time. It was necessary to think about whether we’d be able to convey Nikaidou’s backbone through the short flashback scene of episode 9. I told Ishihara (Tatsuya)-san, who was in charge of episode 9’s storyboards, “I want you to depict the four seasons in the flashbacks so that they represent the passage of time”. I think it’s a scene that lets you feel the precious days that Nikaidou and his uncle Shigeru spent together along with the change of seasons. I personally think Nikaidou had a superb reaction when his uncle asked him, “Do you have to shoot like that?” as he was about to abandon the shamen-style shooting. The way he averts his eyes and dangles his feet under the table.

[pb-dot]

Film Friday: The Fifth Element

I've had One Of Those Weeks, and my participation in the writeblr summerfest has put me in a retro mood, so fuck it, let's talk about my childhood favorite movie. Before Luc Besson's The Fifth Element I don't think I had favorite movies. I loved 'em all, but then this absolute chaos of a space opera came along and showed me the wonders of obsession. Maybe it was the confidence of the worldbuilding, maybe it was 90's Kung Fu Waif extraordinaire Leeloo, maybe it was how unashamedly horny the whole affair was? I couldn't tell you, but the thing worked for me. So join me, why don't you?

As far as alien conspiracies with an interest in earth goes, you could do a lot worse than the Mondoshawans. These big steampunk-looking lads are working against the propechied coming of a great evil, and the perfect being, The Fifth Element, who is destined to defeat it. When something big, spooky and fiery manifests in the universe exactly as the mondoshawans predicted, future earth welcomes the mondoshawans back to deal with this entire business, were it not for alien mercenary interlopers who blows the entire thing up.

Now, this being the future and all, humans salvage enough of the assumed perfect being to reconstruct it. When the perfect being turns out to be a naked Mila Jovovich, this comes as somewhat of a surprise to humanity, but assuredly not to the audience. Leeloo, as the kickass nymph is called, flees from her re-creators and stumbles into the flying cab of one ex-millitary schlub Korben Dallas, played by Bruce Willis. A plot of shenanigans, mixups and crossing and conflicting plots ensue as Korben and Leeloo race to recover the four elemental stones needed to save the world from the vague space evil thing, at times frustrated by the machinations of arms manufacturer and full-time Bad Person Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg (Gary Oldman.)

While the plot isn't what I'd call particularly complex, it is fun. The shell game of impersonations and near misses to get Korben and Leloo to the planet Floston in particular is fun, although it does saddle us with noted eccentric radio fuckboy Ruby Rhod (Christ Tucker.) There is this re-occuring note of Korben just kind of being along for the ride while Leeloo takes on most of the main character duties. Sure, they kick roughly equivalent amounts of ass in an absolutely preposterously "90's cool" fight scene and a very of-the-era shootout, respectively, but other than having the unpleasant task of extracting the macguffin stones from a side character, Korben is largely reactive, and you can see a fair bit of the late stage die hard movies where John McLane is an action movie badass first and an everyman in the wrong place at the wrong time second if at all, in K-man's role here. Now don't get me wrong, I can watch In His Prime Bruce Willis do cool action shit all day, but the lack of pluck does undermine his character's achievements a bit. Watching 1988 John McLane coming out of a fight scene mostly in one piece by the skin of his teeth feels astounding, watching 2007 John McLane take down a helicopter by launching a car at it hardly breaking a sweat just can't compete.

As for Leloo, ah, yes, Leeloo. This role, it seems was Mila Jovovichs in to the action scene, where she found a very Kate Beckinsale-esque niche as an action gal. Now, she looks like a stiff breeze could carry her away, but kung-fu girl power being what it is at the time, where there is a will, there is a way. With Jovovich I kind of always feel like there's a will. The roles aren't often all that flattering, Leeloo has this childishness to her in her non-ptsd moments that makes the building romance with Korben perhaps feel a bit... icky? Granted, she is a perfect warrior and at least 300 years old if we include her (apparent) genetic memory, but I do find myself wishing they'd gone more for elven agelessness instead.

This has all been very critical I feel, so let me underline how goddamn fun this movie is. The Diva Dance scene alone is worth the price of admission for the sheer indulgent spectacle of it, Zorg is a fun bit of future corpo villainy although he doesn't really interact with the main plot much, and although "love is the fifth element" is about as aggressively of a 90's note to end on as is at all possible, the earnestness with which it is delivered is almost enough for me to feel anything about a Bruce Willis performance and that certainly isn't nothing.

Also looking at The Fifth Element feels like a type of Sci-Fi we don't get enough of these days. It's old school B-Sci Fi with an unusually high budget. There's world building here, but not the kind of "bursting at the seams and spinning out into a million expanded universe" world building that is seemingly mandatory in the metatext-obsessed world of today. This is one french pervert deciding that he wants to make a big dumb movie about aliens and spaceships and saving the world, and going about to do so. It has rubber masks, it has needlessly sexy flight attendants on a journey that'll be undertaken in cryosleep, it has inherently villainous shape-shifting space orcs. It's not here to explain itself for one goddamn moment so take your franchise wiki-making ass elsewhere. Granted, it didn't make much money from what I hear, so there's maybe a good reason we don't get movies like this any more, but a boy can dream can't he?

[bcofl0ve]

Invisible String (Part 8)

part 8/9

ship: austin butler x fem!reader

chapter summary: an important on set visitor is followed by a very important question

word count: 3,300

author’s note: reminder that covid does not exist in this story so the filming schedule is one of my own making!!! also- this was started months ago, the priscilla bit with the tiny lisa mention written in like- november. all my love to the presley family ❤️

summary: a summer fling when you were working on the set of the shannara chronicles turned your life upside down with a positive pregnancy test after austin returned to the united states. a pregnancy test, and a daughter that you never told him about. until the elvis biopic found him back in your orbit and forced you to face the music.

i live for comments and love talking about my writing, feel free to pop me an anon anytime!

xxx

August 25th, 2020

“You know it’s gonna be fine, right?” You said, looking to where Austin was bouncing his leg as he drove. He forced a tight lipped smile, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. 

“Do I?”

He’d been in this state since Baz informed him Priscilla had flown in to visit set for the day…in a text the night before at 10pm.

To an extent you understand why he didn’t want to psych him out too far in advance. It’s not like Austin had never spoken to the woman before, they’d talked on the phone a few times since he was cast. But there was that, and there was her watching him emulate the man live and in person.

And he had slept just about as well as Cora did most nights- that to say horribly. You weren’t on the call list for the light crew that day, something Austin linked to fate when he asked if you’d bring Cora to set for the first take he was set to do for If I Can Dream.

“I uh, I think ‘Cilla being there would psych me out less if you guys were around too,” He’d said and you’d agreed, the four year old over the moon about the spontaneous visit.

-

You went separate ways when you arrived at the lot, Austin heading to the hair and makeup while you steered Cora in the direction of the set you’d be hanging around for the take. She saw Baz walking in your direction before you did, tugging on your hand to pull you along.

“Hi Baz!” She exclaimed and his face lit up when he saw her, Cora looking at you for permission before she let go of your hand to run and meet him halfway.

“Hello Miss Cora!” He replied to her as he crouched down onto her level, giving the Stitch plushie she’d insisted on bringing along from home a little prodding. “And who’s your friend here?”

“Stitch!” She said excitedly, bouncing on her heels “And and he sings Elvis jus’ like daddy,”

The Stitch obsession had been kickstarted the week before by you and Austin showing her the movie for the first time, the look on her little face when she made the Elvis connection something you hoped you never forgot.

After a conversation with Baz that was definitely keeping him from where he needed to be- not that he minded in the slightest, the two of you carried on your way- Cora running ahead of you again the second Austin’s studio chair with Elvis stitched onto the back came into sight. You got her situated in it, and occupied with a video on your phone while you made small talk with your co-workers from the crew as you waited for Austin.

Austin, who you sucked in a breath when you eventually saw coming, white suit (and facial prosthetics) straight out of 1968. 

“Now who is that in my chair?” He asked playfully as he approached from behind, Cora giggling when he ticked the side of her neck from where he stood. Though her face shifted when she pivoted and got a better look at him. She furrowed her eyebrows, looking at him seriously.

“You look funny.”

“I know baby, the makeup people had to put special stuff on my face to make sure I look just like Elvis,” Austin said with a laugh, looking past her towards you nervously. “Have you seen Cilla around yet?”

You saw her coming over out of the corner of your eye as if on cue, Austin standing up a little straighter when he followed your gaze.

“Austin, wow,”  She said as she got closer, giving him a one over with an intrigued smile on her face. “This is uncanny.” 

A little sigh of relief escaped him at that approval, his shoulders untensing with it. 

“Yeah, I was half expecting this one to not recognize me with the prosthetics,” 

Austin reached over to ruffle Cora’s hair as she shifted to stand on her knees in the studio chair, watching Priscilla quietly. She clammed up even more when the woman gave her a wave, sucking in her bottom lip and reaching out for her daddy.

“Pretendin’ to be shy,” He cooed in her direction as he picked her up, brushing a finger over her cheek in an attempt to keep her from hiding his face in his neck. “Can you tell Miss. Priscilla your name baby?” He said gently, the four year old mumbling a quiet “Cora,” fingers grasping at the fabric of Austin’s sleeve. 

Austin reached out for you next, looping his free arm around your waist with a little squeeze. “And this here is her beautiful mom Y/N.” 

“I’m sorry- I’m a little starstruck,” You said and Priscilla only smiled. “That’s alright honey,” She replied, eyes soft. “You three make a beautiful family- I must say.”

You were mid thanking her when Austin got beckoned over by Baz to get into place, Cora pouting as he passed her back to you with a kiss on the head. 

“Remember we have to sit still and be really quiet, just like we’re at a movie theater.” You whispered as you sat back down in Austin’s chair, holding Cora in your lap. She gave you a little nod, looking down at her Stitch plush and shushing him as well. 

You’d watched Austin film before, both while working and while sitting cross legged in his chair. But this was something…otherworldly. The thrum of the music reverberated through every bone in your body, and you could see it having the same effect on Austin as he sang. 

When Baz yelled cut you waited for him to give you a little nod before you let Cora down, the four year old making a beeline for Austin as fast her little legs could carry her.

“Good singing daddy!” She squealed, earning a few ‘awhs’ from the crew as he crouched down to take her into his arms as soon as she was close enough- squeezing her tight. 

You saw Prisiclla coming back over out of the corner of your eye, her gaze in the same direction as yours watching as Austin sat on the ground with Cora in his lap, looking quite engaged in conversation with her stuffed animal Stitch.

“They’re precious together,” She said softly and you couldn’t help but smile as you replied, “Oh they’re inseparable- he’d have her here every day if Baz allowed it.” 

“Elvis was the same exact way with Lisa, wrapped around her finger from the day she was born.” 

You didn’t mean to inhale so sharply, but it happened, and you immediately felt guilty when you could practically feel her realize why a second later.

“God, I’m so sorry hon- I wasn’t thinking,” She started and you shook your head, sitting up a little straighter. 

“It’s okay,” You started, letting out a breath. “Actually pretty comforting that they’re as close as they are when he uh, only met her a few months ago. Makes me feel real guilty sometimes, and he’s told me I need to forgive myself a million times but,” You continued, looking at your lap. “Easier said than done I guess.”

“If it means anything, seeing the way he looks at you, at your little girl. I’d take his advice to heart Y/N.” 

You didn’t even see Austin coming over, Cora trailing behind him until you heard his voice- Elvis drawl in full effect.

“My ears were burning,”  He quipped and leaned in to kiss you, your hands coming up to the side of his face, eyes narrowed playfully.

“Mm, maybe an allergic reaction to the side burns?”

He laughed as he leaned in to kiss you again, and you admittedly found the current hair and makeup situation ridiculously attractive. But you were in the presence of your four year old and Prisiclla Presley. So you pulled back, Cora clamoring up into your lap.

“Do we gotta go home now?” She said with her head cocked to the side, bottom lip wobbling when you explained that the answer to that question was yes, given that there were reshoots to be done, alongside entire other scenes to film, and Austin probably wouldn’t be done until way past her bedtime.

Cora looked back to Austin, and it was endearing in a way that just seeing her mildly upset appeared to be breaking his heart a little.

“Oh Cor, no need for tears,” Austin said as he picked her up off your lap, brushing her hair back behind her ears.

He lowered his voice then and you didn’t quite catch what he was saying to her- something about plans for his day off tomorrow, but whatever his whispers entailed seemed to calm her down at least.

“Be good for your mama sweetie” He supplied as he set her back on her feet, pressing a kiss to the side of her hair. ”I love love love you Cora Jean,”

That put a smile on your face, your heart thumping in your chest as she echoed that sentiment right back at him. 

“Love love love you too daddy!”

---

August 26th, 2020

“Momma,” Cora said from the open doorway of her room as you approached it, rubbing her eyes- and you assumed she’d only been up for a few minutes. “Yeah baby?”

 “Auntie Leah’s comin’ over, but I wan’ ‘pposed to tell you.” She said tiredly, and you paused.

Both you and Austin had the day off- and not that you had anything against your best friend, but you’d been intending on spending it with him. 

Replaying the last part of her sentence in your head, the wheels started to turn as you crouched down to her level. “You weren’t? Did daddy tell you that?” You asked softly, Cora giving a little nod. 

“Mhm, cuz o’ the surprise.”

Why Austin trusted the four year old would be able to keep any sort of secret to save her life you had no idea. But how endearing it was was certainly a distraction from the knots forming in your stomach as you put the pieces together. It wasn’t that you didn’t know it was coming- or that you didn’t want it. 

It being real, and happening today though, that was different. 

Sending Cora back to bed to sleep for a little while longer, you padded out into the kitchen, finding Austin leaned over the coffee machine.

You walked over as quietly as you could and wrapped your arms around his waist from behind, nuzzling your face into the back of his neck. Austin let a breath out, bringing his hands down to rest over yours.

“Mornin’,” He whispered, tilting his head back to kiss the side of your jaw. 

His voice was low in the way it always was in the morning, southern drawl mixed with husk making your stomach flutter. You pulled your arms from around him to side step and lean against the counter next to the coffee pot, arms crossed loosely over your front.

“Little birdie told me Leah’s coming over today, for some reason.” You started, Austin’s eyebrows quirking up as the coffee machine beeped. He set his mug under the dispenser, looking back up at with a bemused expression.

“Was this little birdie named a blonde haired blue eyed four year old named Cora?” He said, just a hint of nervousness in his voice.

“She didn’t tell me anything else if that’s what you’re worried about.” You replied, reaching out a hand for his arm and squeezing lightly.

Austin nodded, glancing past you at the clock on the oven. “You uh- might wanna go get ready, she’s actually picking you up in about an hour.”

Well that was a different plan than what you’d gathered from Cora’s rehashing.

“Picking me up? You pay her to take me hostage?” You quipped and Austin let out a low laugh, bobbing his head from side to side. “Mm, kinda.”

Knowing you weren’t going to get much more out of him, you left him and his coffee to his own devices, walking back to your room to get ready for…whatever he’d been scheming with her.

-

Leah pulled up outside an hour to the letter later, fingers drumming against her steering wheel as you got into the car. She looked like she was about to burst, not that you blamed her given the circumstances.

Though you couldn’t help laughing at how wound up she looked as you clicked your seatbelt in.

“You know I know he’s proposing, right?”

Her eyes widened, though she schooled her expressions as quickly as it had changed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She replied to your remark flatly, looking behind her as she put the car into reverse and avoiding your gaze as much as was physically possible.

“Leah.” You emphasized. “Elvis wraps soon- we have to get visa shit sorted- we’ve talked about it- it’s not exactly a surprise.”

“The literal engagement isn’t a surprise no,” She started, voice taking a more serious tone. “But he wanted to make this special- so just go along with it, will you?”

She looked back at you with a raised eyebrow, lips tugged into a half smile as she waited for a response. And in spite of the fact that it all still felt a little ridiculous you didn’t doubt for a second that she was telling the truth. Maybe it was just the nerves making you a bit of a bitch.

“It’s not even 10am, what exactly are we doing all day?” You said and her smile widened, lips pressed together with trepidation. 

“That’s for me to know- and for you to find out,” She said with dramatase, and you resigned yourself to just being along for the ride.

-

By the time she was pulling back up to your flat it was almost six pm. You’d spent most the day being shuttled around the Queensland beauty scene, your nails painted, hair blown out and skin rejuvenated by a lengthy spa treatment you were fairly certain was only thrown into the itinerary to kill time.

After that jaunt she took you back to her own apartment, pulling a dress out of her closet with an addendum that Austin had brought it over two weeks ago. 

“When I asked him why it had to be kept at my place he said looking at it in his closet was making him so nervous he felt nauseous. And I told him being even a little bit nervous you’d say no was ridiculous, but it was pretty cute to see him all flustered about you.” 

And after a few more hours of stalling consisting of a Mama Mia double feature you were back in your own driveway- stomach flipping over on itself as the car came to a stop.

Leah reached a hand over the console to squeeze yours, pulling you out of your own head just a little.

“You deserve this Y/N,” She said softly. “More than anybody I’ve ever met in my life.”

You exhaled and squeezes her hand back before you stepped out of the car, smoothing over your dress as you walked to the front door.

Cora was standing in the window to the side, grinning when you gave her a little wave.

“Hi momma!” She greeted you as she stood on her tiptoes to open the door, dropping back onto her feels as you stepped inside. She was wearing a dress similar in design to your own, hair pulled into two twin braids you assumed Austin had put there. Crouching down, you brushed a hand over the back of her head, already feeling choked up. 

“Hi baby girl, you look so pretty,” You said softly, and she glanced down the hallway behind her. 

Turning back to you, she lowered her voice, swiping a tongue over her bottom lip just like Austin did when he was nervous.“Daddy hasta’ ask you something,” She said, pointing in the direction of the living room. “In there.”

Who you weren’t expecting to see as you made your way down the hallway there was Leah, standing behind your kitchen counter holding onto her camera. She motioned with her head to the patio door, and you couldn’t help but laugh a little at the picture of her dropping you off and promptly making a mad dash into the house through your backyard. 

But there was another picture that took precedence and stole your breath. Austin standing in the midst of flower petals strewn all over the ground, lifting his head as he heard your footsteps getting closer. He inhaled with a timid smile, reaching out a hand for you to take when you were near enough.

“Hi,” You said softly, and he gave you a one over, blinking rapidly before he opened his mouth.

“You look so beautiful,” He replied, voice as watery as you could see his eyes getting. 

“C’mon, can’t cry before you’ve even asked me.”

“Trust me, I’m trying,” Austin whispered a little laugh as he swiped at his eyes, grabbing both of your hands in his as he dropped to one knee.

“I love you so much.” He said on an exhale. “I thought about you constantly from the time you dropped me at the airport in 2015 and a little part of me always hoped against hope that we’d find our way back. But the past few months have been better than I ever coulda’ dreamed of.”

You could see tears pooling behind his eyes again- your own starting to sting as he kept talking, rubbing over your knuckles with his thumb.

“Getting to be a dad- and getting to watch you be a mom- I fall more in love with you everyday. And I want nothin’ more than to take you and Cor back to the states and build a life together- a life that we’re gonna share for the rest of time.” He continued, gingerly letting go of your hands so he could open the ring box he pulled out of his pocket.

“Please marry me,” left his mouth at the same second “Yes, yes-” left yours, the overlapping of declarations getting a watery laugh out of you as he slid the ring onto your finger. You grabbed his face as he started to stand up, pulling him in for a kiss as you felt a familiar weight crashing into your legs.

Austin laughed as he pulled back, looking down at where Cora was wedging herself between the two of you, bouncing on her heels. 

“You said yes!” She exclaimed and you picked her up onto your hip, kissing the side of her face as Austin’s arm fell around your waist- holding the both of you. “I sure did baby, isn’t the ring daddy picked pretty?”  

“It’s his mommy’s,” Cora supplied and you paused, trying to process what she’d just said. It was gorgeous- and looked modern enough that that thought hadn’t even crossed your mind. Feeling choked up all over again, you swallowed thickly.

“Oh, Aus,”

Austin gave a little smile, swiping his tongue over his bottom lip. “Ash gave it to me when I was back in the states- even when I was tellin’ her I wasn’t sure how’d forgiving you’d be over the whole uh- debacle there.” He said quietly, sounding like he was about to cry again himself. 

Shifting Cora on your hip, you brought a hand up to the side of his face to kiss him again, the metal of your ring cool against his cheek as he reciprocated- laughing against your mouth at the squeaky ‘yuck!’ Cora let slip when she decided he’d been kissing you for too long. 

-

“I’m sorry if I seemed cagey shipping you off with Leah like that,” Austin said when you turned in for the night, an arm around you as you rested against him, his index finger tracing over your collarbone as you leaned into his side.

Shaking your head, you brought a hand up to caress his jawline with your thumb.

“Don’t be, it was sweet.” You said and he nodded in your hand, the love in his eyes as he looked at you damn near overwhelming.

Glancing down, you sucked in a little breath before you kept talking. “Y’ know how long I told myself I didn’t deserve a happy ending with you after everything I did?”

You hadn’t exactly meant to say it so harshly, and Austin’s eyes flashed with concern- but you cut him off before he could jump in.

“I love you Aus. And I don’t think that anymore.”

xxx

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[8iunie]

Måneskin: ‘People are going to talk s**t about you. It’s part of the game’

From X Factor to Eurovision to interstellar fame, the Italian rockers have turned not being cool into a superpower (posted on 21.01.2023)

Down a video link from Rome, Gen Z’s favourite rock band, Måneskin, are making enthusiastic thumbs-up gestures. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” says guitarist Thomas Raggi, in his rich and rococo Italian accent. “We’re gonna vote for Ireland,” agrees frontman Damiano David. “Go for it.”

The Irish Times has just canvassed Måneskin’s opinion about Public Image Limited singer John Lydon’s ambition to represent Ireland at Eurovision 2023. The former Johnny Rotten wants to boldly go where no punk iconoclast has previously ventured by following in the footsteps of Dana, Johnny Logan and Dustin the Turkey.

Johnny Rotten singing for Ireland is, in theory, an absurd proposition. But so is the idea of an Italian rock band in sex-dungeon dungarees conquering Eurovision with lyrics such as “you better hold on to your balls”. Which is exactly what Måneskin achieved in Rotterdam in 2021 with the zinging Zitti e Buoni (“Shut Up and Behave”).

Indeed it is arguable Lydon might not have even considered Eurovision were it not for Måneskin. Squeezed into unforgiving leather trousers, tattoos on proud display, they gatecrashed Rotterdam with red eyes and flared nostrils. In doing so, they refashioned Europe’s pre-eminent cheesefest in their own image. Eurovision has been a lot of things in the past 20 years. It took Måneskin to make it cool.

Since then they haven’t looked back. Måneskin have won Best Rock Act at the MTV Europe Music Awards, supported The Rolling Stones in Las Vegas and covered Elvis’s I Can Dream for Baz Luhrmann’s hit Presley biopic.

Now, they are about to open the most exciting chapter of their career to date with the release on January 19th of their fantastic third album, Rush! It captures the group at their most riotous – so much so that it comes as a shock to learn it was produced by Taylor Swift/Britney Spears collaborator Max Martin. At moments they sound like Queen trapped in a Fellini movie. Elsewhere, they’re straight-ahead punk. At one point they appear to be channelling Rage Against The Machine – hardly a surprise since RATM guitarist Tom Morello guests on new single Gossip.

“We’re trying to play with our own rules. And not the rules that in the past five to 10 years have dominated the music industry,” says David (24), earrings glinting in the harsh studio light.

Måneskin don’t claim to be reinventing the wheel. Still, they are well aware of how much they stand out in a musical landscape dominated by pop.

“We go on TV shows and play rock music. Which is uncommon. We do analogue music, which is uncommon. We are a four-piece band,” says David, radiating lounge-lizard charisma. “There are a lot of things in how we create or project and how we show ourselves… I wouldn’t say it’s unique. It isn’t anything that hasn’t been done before. But it’s unique in today’s environment.”

Måneskin have come along at the perfect moment. Mainstream rock, comatose for a least a decade, is crying out for a recharge. Now the status quo has been upended by a group who make headbanging riffs and cock-a-hoop bass solos seem as fresh and daring as Harry Styles in a dress.

“A lot of people love us because we are showing them something that feels new,” says David. “For a lot of kids, rock music is new.”

It isn’t just the kids. Iggy Pop cameos on Måneskin’s 2021 single, I Wanna Be Your Slave. At Coachella last year, Jared Leto sought them out for a selfie. Chris Martin insisted David have lunch with him on that same trip. People don’t simply like Måneskin – they adore them.

“We get messages where people say, ‘my five-year-old is now obsessed with Rage Against The Machine because he listened to your song,’” says David. “Basically if you want to make it simple: we sound new for many different reasons – even though we are not new.”

Not all new fans are as welcome. After the Eurovision, French president Emmanuel Macron suggested Måneskin be disqualified because of the “fake cocaine” controversy [see below]. One of those rallying to their defence was right-wing politician Giorgia Meloni. She was subsequently appointed prime minister of Italy. The musicians weren’t aware of her intervention on their behalf before The Irish Times brings it up, and would rather Meloni keep her opinions to herself.

“I don’t want support from them,” says Raggi.

Måneskin’s music isn’t explicitly political. But they know where they stand. And it isn’t with Meloni’s populist Brothers of Italy party. Following her election, David took to Instagram to lament Italy’s drift to the right. “Today is a sad day for my country,” he wrote, linking to a story in newspaper La Repubblica.

“I would do it again. One hundred per cent,” he says, shrugging. “I don’t even know what to say. It’s hard not to say something offending [about Meloni and her supporters]. It’s clear that we’re making the same mistakes that we made in the past. Maybe we didn’t study the story well enough. Our generation is not going to make the same mistakes, hopefully. Italy has a very good taste for old-fashioned things. It doesn’t surprise me,” he continues, referring to Italy’s history of supporting right-wing politicians.

The band formed in Rome in 2016. David, Raggi and bassist Victoria De Angelis [who is under the weather and sitting out the interview] knew each other from high school. They met Ethan Torchio, from the suburb of Frosinone, after advertising for a drummer on Facebook.

De Angelis came up with their name. “Måneskin” is Danish for moonlight. The bassist suggested it, in part as tribute to her Danish mother who died when her daughter was 15. From there they had a rapid ascent. A stint busking in central Rome was followed by a tilt at X Factor Italy, where they blitzed their way to the final with molten versions of Somebody Told Me by The Killers and Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand. Then came Eurovision and the global stage.

Måneskin are great fun. But the energy rippling through their music is interwoven with a fascination with the dark side of human nature. Gossip, for instance, interrogates the American dream and finds it wanting. “Welcome to the city of lies/ Where everything’s got a price,” they sing. They also take on Christianity. The Eurovision winner Zitti e Buoni contains the marvellously baroque lyric, “I wrote above a tombstone: ‘In my house there is no God.’”

“None of us is very Catholic. We don’t have that much influence. We have the opposite influence,” says David. “We feel the weight of the church on society, on our country. We see how late we are on many, many things because of the influence of the church. We have this hateful relationship.”

He pauses, at pains not to be misinterpreted. “I would like to make it clear that [Måneskin’s problems] are with the institution of the church. Nothing against religion. It’s a beautiful thing. The institution of the church and the money-laundering and all that… I’ll shut up.”

Eurovision was a baptism for Måneskin. However, their coming-out party threatened to turn sour amid an ersatz scandal over David supposedly taking cocaine. A photograph of the singer leaning over the table in the green room was seized on as evidence of illicit drug use.

The image was beamed around the world. There were calls – from Macron and others – for the group to be stripped of their title. Which is what prompted Meloni’s unwelcome intervention. David passed a drugs test and was cleared of any inappropriate behaviour. By then, though, Måneskin were all over the front pages and the talk of the internet. Did they fear they had blown it?

“We were laughing,” says David. “But we were pissed off. We were not worried about anything. The thing that disturbed me was that we had done something meaningful and great. We were a four-piece rock band from 20 to 22 years old who were breaking the hugest TV show in Europe. This was being overshadowed by some assholes who were not good at accepting the loss. I was pissed off that they had the power to do it. And that people were letting them do it.”

They made peace with the controversy by accepting that it was merely a downside of success. Once you achieve a certain level of celebrity, people will come after you.

“We know that being famous and winning and having a good career leads to criticism,” says David. “People are going to wait for you to make some mistake and talk s**t about you. It’s part of the game. You have to be stronger than it. If you are able to make irony about it and laugh about it… It’s kind of a superpower.”

There have been other controversies. Their performance of Supermodel from the 2022 MTV VMA Awards was heavily edited to conceal De Angelis’s exposed breast (though the cameras still caught David’s bare-bummed chap trousers).

“They have weird censorship rules,” says David of MTV and American broadcasting in general. “You can show guns and people dancing on huge dicks on stage. You cannot show a female nipple. I think it was worse for them than for us. We did our performance. They showed how it doesn’t make sense – their politics.”

Rush! copperfastens Måneskin’s status as the most exciting force in mainstream rock. It confirms, too, that they are magpies, with David drawing on everyone from Freddie Mercury to Kurt Cobain. And from Bono. U2 are adored in Italy and David says that their influence has seeped into his band.

“U2 have been so big it’s impossible not to be influenced. Indirectly, you’re influenced. The idea of the big frontman and blah blah blah. I think that indirectly it has been very strong. Also, putting the political into the music… they really changed that. Made it more common.”

The comparison goes beyond music. U2 were never much bothered about being cool. They never went out of fashion because they weren’t particularly fashionable to begin with. The same is true of Måneskin. From X Factor to Eurovision to interstellar fame, they have turned not being cool into a superpower, as David acknowledges.

“It’s a bit insecure to have this mindset [of wanting to be credible]. The idea that if you go to a pop environment, you’re not rock any more. It’s insecurity. Fortunately we were confident enough of our music and our identity to not think a stage or a TV show could change us. In fact, it didn’t happen. We brought ourselves everywhere we went. It was always the right thing to do. It is the only advice we could give to anybody. Bring yourself to the table. Don’t try to conform.”

Writer: Ed Power for The Irish Times

[mcfiddlestan]

Let's Get ((REAL)) fic writer asks

🌈🎉🤍

🌈 is there a fic that you worked *really fucking hard on* that no one would ever know? maybe a scene/theme you struggled with?

I struggled the entire time trying to get through Ghosts That We Knew, the conclusion to the Picture Perfect series. I honestly hadn't planned to write a whole ass trilogy. Dark Side was the only one I had an idea for, and then halfway through, people wanted more. So I started planning the sequel, Come Back to Me. I'm not a fan of duologies. Trilogies just make more sense. So I started thinking up plots for the third entry. Where could Tony and Loki go after marrying and having two kids (one through a relationship, the other through a surrogate)? What kind of problems would they face? I had no idea, lol. I knew I wanted to insert another kid (Audrey Maria or "Audi"), but I also wanted to show that after 8 years and 3 kids, even the most in-love couples have bad times. I'd gotten about halfway through and just blanked on where to go. It didn't help I was having outside issues -- my RP partner (whom I was in love with) and I were having issues, I was stressing about school, and my dad was having health problems at the time. Oh, and I was struggling to RP too. But I was able to pull something out in the end. And everyone seemed to enjoy it. 😁

🎉how often do you celebrate completing & posting a work? how often do you give yourself the credit/validation that you seek from others when you post? (if you don’t, you should!)

Umm....I'm not sure what "celebrate" means?? I might give myself a mental high five? Say yay? LOL

🤍what’s one fic of yours you think people didn’t “get”?

It's not a fic that's completed, nor is it posted on AO3 anymore, but it's Fools Rush In. It was Frostiron set in the Matthew Perry/Salma Hayek movie. First time I was writing fem!Loki and even tho I only published like 4 or 5 chapters, I got complaints that Loki was "too feminist" and "obsessed with her dad's [Odin's] opinions about what a woman her age should be doing." To be clear, Loki was a 28yo grad student who'd been adopted by the Odinsons as a baby and at 13, chose to search for her birth parents who were teenagers when she was born. She was the youngest in the Odinson clan (Thor and Baldur being older) and the oldest in the Laufeyson family (Helblindi and Býleistr were much younger). And the only girl. So Odin certainly had a lot of opinions about her needing to be settled and married, not living with her bestie (Natasha) in an apartment in a big city.

This isn't the reason the fic is incomplete, tho! I removed it, along with four other fics, from AO3 and ff.net bc I'd reached a block on all of them and I felt bad just letting them sit there unfinished. I do hope to complete them someday. But we'll see. Here's a banner I made for it, when I still thought Olivia Wilde was a good choice for fem!Loki. I do not anymore.

And this one was made by a fan (@/tomhiddlesdarling), and as much as I loved it, I'm not big on Eva Green.

Thanks for asking!

Let’s Get ((REAL)) fic writer asks

[mysteryhackin]

After all these years*, finally, I have them all**

*only two **just this one thing

The Gravity Falls Vinyl finally came and it’s AMAZING! Review and spoilers under the cut:

First of all, Brad Breeck is a genius. Of course, we know that already, having watched the show and enjoyed the epic music, but hearing it by itself is awesome on a whole other level. His music conveys joy, sadness, nostalgia, adventure, creepiness, fun, excitement, suspense... it goes straight to your heart and makes you want to go on an adventure. And you hardly have to look at the track lists to know which part they go to. Like "Oh man, this is when Stan first turns on the portal and says "Here we go." " or "Ahhhh this is when Ford comes back ugh it's so good!" These instrumentals are instant seratonin.

The songs with lyrics are so great to hear on their own as well! A few from the show are missing (the ones that come to mind immediately are "Disco Girl" and the Manotaur Training Montage Song), and I'm not sure if it was due to licensing issues or artistic choices, but the ones that are included are so SO good. Like, how cool is it to own a physical copy of "Blanchin'", the song of the summer from another dimension? Or be able to sing along to Love Patrol Alpha's cover of "Taking Over Midnight"? There's also a song I didn't recognize called "My Heart is Full of Rainbows" that is clearly from Mabel Land, and I'm unironically obsessed with it (if it is actually in there and I just missed it, mea culpa). Anyway, FANTASTIC SONGS and I think I screamed every time a new one came on.

My only sadness is that the album isn't longer, but that's part of being a Gravity Falls fan- you get something perfect and short, but you know it was created that way for a reason. BUT Brad Breeck released the musical suites from each episode of season one on youtube (with some pretty fun animation), so if I'm ever hankering for more I know exactly where to go (here's hoping he releases season two in the future!)

As for the art- it's so SO cool. It's very psychedelic and weirder than the show's style, and that's the point. When I was a little kid, I liked to look at the record soundtracks that my parents had when they were little kids, and the art was SO different from the actual movie/show that the record was for. It was always some unique interpretation from an artist who was allowed to follow their vision, and sometimes the characters were almost unrecognizable, but that was part of the fun. I used to spend forever just looking at that album art, and I hope that if I have kids one day they'll do the same for this. The detail alone is absolutely mind blowing!

OK, enough of my dumb opinions, here are the spoilers:

There are three (technically four) backwards messages on the records. I used a recording app on my phone because my record player doesn't go backwards, and I didn't want to ruin the record or my player:

Side A: Soos says "Playing your record backwards is a great way to damage your record player!" Thanks, dude. Also on Side A is the Lamby Dance, but for some reason it's backwards? Makes it very creepy and I love it.

Side B: When I heard it backwards I thought it was McGucket, but it turns out it's Bill! "Jam your thumbs directly in your eyes for a free fireworks show!"

Side C: There are no backwards messages on this part of the record (THAT I KNOW OF OOoooOOOoooo. I mean, the other three are pretty obvious, so I don't know if one is hidden in the music, but no obvious ones on this side)

Side D: It's Stan telling you "Apparently if you play this record alongside Wizard of Oz, it matches perfectly." (For those of you who don't know, Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" album is said to be the perfect soundtrack to The Wizard of Oz)

Physical Spoilers:

The decoder records are so fun, and there are song lyrics specific to each character hidden in the record sleeves so you get to use the vinyl to find them:

Dipper: "Disco Girl, coming through, that girl is you!"

Mabel: "Who's that girl with the pig and the braces, she puts a smile on everyone's faces!"

Stan: "I'm Stan and I was wrong, I'm singing the Stan Wrong Song"

Bill: "Eeny Meeny Miney YOU!" and he's surrounded by the zodiac symbols

All in all, this is super wonderful and I’m so glad i was able to grab this. As someone who got into Gravity Falls only two years ago, it was really cool that there was still something special for me to have that captures the fun and weirdness of this show. Definitely something I’ll treasure for years to come.

Dqg wkdw Vwdq rq wkh vohhyh? Zkdw d ehdvw. 24 ndudw pdjlf lq wkh dlu... ;)

[the-rewatch-rewind]

My love for this movie is difficult to express, but here is my attempt.

Script below the break

Hello and welcome back to the Rewatch Rewind. My name is Jane, and this is the podcast where I count down my top 40 most frequently rewatched movies in a 20-year period. Today I will be talking about number three on my list: Paramount Pictures, Guber-Peters Company, PolyGram Pictures, and Debra Hill Productions’ 1985 comedy mystery Clue, directed by Jonathan Lynn, written by John Landis and Jonathan Lynn based on the board game Cluedo designed by Anthony E Pratt, and starring Eileen Brennan, Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, Michael McKean, Martin Mull, and Lesley Ann Warren.

Six strangers are invited to an ominous, secluded mansion to meet the man who has been anonymously blackmailing them. But someone wants to protect their secret badly enough to kill for it, and as the bodies begin to pile up, the butler, maid, and guests race to discover the culprit before the police arrive.

I grew up in a board game playing family, so I learned how to play Clue soon after I learned how to read. We also had a slightly more complicated version of the game called Master Detective, which had more possible suspects, weapons, and rooms and included a couple extra features, and that has pretty much always been my favorite board game. What I particularly loved about it, especially as a child who never had much hope of beating my parents at games that required any skill, was that it was fun regardless of who the winner ended up being. I just liked seeing how close I could get to the solution before someone else inevitably solved it. I remember my parents mentioning that there was a movie version of Clue that had three different endings, and that they had seen Ending B in a theater, which confused and intrigued me.

The first time I ever watched this movie was when it happened to come on TV when I was visiting my grandparents. I think I was around 10 years old, and I actually thought it was kind of scary. Watching seven murders take place in a creepy old house was a bit much for me. But even then, there was something about it that grabbed me. The characters were all kind of despicable, and yet I liked them. I wanted to see more from them. So we started renting this movie from our local Hollywood Video, over and over again, and eventually we bought it on VHS and later on DVD. Once I got over my initial fright and started appreciating it as a brilliant comedy, I could not get enough of this movie. I can’t even begin to guess how many times I watched Clue before I started tracking my views in 2003, but I know it was a lot because every moment of the movie was already committed to my memory. If I was ever bored, I could close my eyes and play the film for myself with the projector of my mind. I wrote out the entire script so I could count how many words each character spoke. I used toys to act out the entire movie, along with the only person I knew who was more obsessed with Clue than I was: my brother, who was also fascinated by these characters and their antics, although as a preschooler he certainly did not fully understand the plot. But that was fine because ultimately, this movie’s appeal is not its plot, which is basically nonsense; it’s the ensemble. And it was so great having somebody close to me who understood that the same way I did. I think the rest of our family liked this movie too, but they definitely ended up watching it way more than they would have without my brother’s and my insistence.

My need to rewatch this movie was already beginning to wear off before I started keeping track, since the whole thing already lived rent-free in my brain, but even so, I watched it six times in 2003, four times in 2004, once in 2005, three times in 2006, twice in 2007, once in 2008, once in 2009, four times in 2010, twice in 2011, once in 2012, three times in 2013, once in 2014, twice in 2015, once in 2016, once in 2017, once in 2018, and once in 2021. I think part of why I’ve been watching it less in recent years is because ever since 2016, when I’ve felt like watching something like this, I’ve tended to watch Poe Party instead of Clue. But that’s not to say that I don’t still absolutely love Clue. I’ve just seen it enough that I don’t need to actually sit down in front of a screen to experience it.

One thing that I learned relatively recently that explains a lot is that apparently, Jonathan Lynn screened the movie His Girl Friday for the cast of Clue to demonstrate the feel he wanted for this movie. Even though Clue was made in the 1980s, it takes place in the 1950s, and was intentionally mimicking the style of fast-talking screwball comedies from the 1930s and ‘40s. So while I still consider watching Singin’ in the Rain in 2002 my proper introduction to Old Hollywood, falling in love with Clue a couple years earlier really prepared me to fall in love with old movies. Characters who look glamorous and sophisticated but are actually goofballs getting involved in ridiculous situations is my jam, and Clue takes what classic screwballs did with that to a whole new level. The script brilliantly combined several different types of both old-fashioned and updated comedy, and the perfect cast brought it to life in the best possible way. I don’t know if the His Girl Friday screening had any real impact, but regardless, every member of the cast fully understood the assignment and absolutely crushed it. A big part of what makes this movie so rewatchable is that everybody is so on all of the time that it’s fun to focus on what they’re doing in the background. Martin Mull is an amazing confidently clueless Colonel Mustard. Lesley Ann Warren gives Miss Scarlet just the right amount of sass. Christopher Lloyd makes Professor Plum sleazy enough that we get the picture without it ever getting too uncomfortable. Eileen Brennan nails Mrs. Peacock’s barely-holding-it-together-but-can-still-judge-you temperament. Mr. Green is accident prone which means he brings in the physical comedy, and Michael McKean fully commits to it. Of the main characters, Mrs. White has the fewest lines, but Madeline Kahn makes her presence known, doing absolutely everything possible with what she’s given, and improvising one of the greatest, funniest speeches in movie history. Jonathan Lynn discouraged improvisation on the set in general, but Kahn going on and on about the flames on the side of her face was too hilarious not to include. This devotion to delivering the lines exactly as written meant that Tim Curry as the butler Wadsworth, who ultimately figures out what happened and explains the whole thing, had to basically memorize a dictionary, and he killed it and I love him for it. When I was younger, I used to think I had a crush on Wadsworth, but I eventually came to realize that I just wanted to be Wadsworth, with the confidence to solve a puzzle and the eloquence to explain the solution in a highly entertaining, if long-winded, way.

The supporting cast is also excellent, and I wish that we could have seen more from them. Lee Ving’s name alone made him the perfect murder victim, but I also love the way he plays Mr. Boddy as sort of a cool mobster type of guy. Colleen Camp as the voluptuous, scantily clad maid Yvette is almost a throwaway joke of a character, but Camp manages to make her seem like a real person, or as real as any of these other ridiculous characters anyway. When I took French in high school and we all had to pick a French name, I chose Yvette because of this movie, even though I never even remotely identified with this character. Bill Henderson as the cop is an excellent straight man for the shenanigans with the bodies, which is either one of the funniest or most disturbing parts of the film, depending on how you look at it. Jeffrey Kramer, Kellye Nakahara, and Jane Wiedlin barely had anything to do, but they made their brief moments as memorable as possible. Basically, as fun as the script is, this movie would not have worked without an incredible cast, and thankfully, it has that. In some ways I wish the actors had been allowed to play around a bit more because then maybe we could have gotten other moments as epic as the flames speech, but at the same time, I feel like the pressure to say everything exactly as written in long takes added to the stress the characters were meant to be feeling. And the script is full of great jokes and excellent banter; it’s just that since the mystery aspect doesn’t really track anyway, I feel like the director could have let the actors have more fun with it.

I understand that they were trying to use the multiple endings to represent how the game is different every time, and also as a bit of a publicity stunt, but it kind of backfired. Theater-going audiences found it confusing, and the movie initially flopped. Thankfully with the home video version that included all three endings, Clue eventually did gain the cult following it deserves. But the problem is, in trying to accommodate three different solutions, the mystery gets lost in the middle, and none of the endings actually track. Yvette’s death is the part that makes the least sense – we clearly see that Mrs. Peacock and Mrs. White were both elsewhere seconds beforehand, so endings B and C don’t work, and in ending A Yvette was working with the killer so what she says right before she is killed doesn’t make any sense. For all of Wadsworth’s explanations, each ending leaves many unanswered questions, and they kind of draw attention to this in two of the endings, with one character saying, “There’s still one thing I don’t understand” and somebody else interjecting, “ONE thing?” Clearly this was meant to be a comedy rather than a serious murder mystery, but I do feel like if they weren’t trying to be so gimmicky, they could have made the mystery part work too (see Poe Party). Although in some ways, I kind of love that Clue doesn’t make sense. It feels perfectly consistent to have these characters who are pretending to be serious and dignified when they’re really all very silly people get caught up in a murder mystery with three endings that don’t work. When I point out Clue’s plot holes, it’s more like gently ribbing a friend than cinematic critique. I have to analyze the flaws in the story because of who I am as an overthinker, but I don’t think the flaws make it bad; if anything, they increase my enjoyment of the movie. It’s like a game: spot all the inconsistencies, and then realize that none of them matter. Because ultimately, fans of this movie aren’t here for the story; we’re here for the cast and the vibes. I don’t really know how to describe it, but while there are certainly other fun mystery-parody-type comedies out there, none of the others I’ve seen has quite the same tone as Clue, and that’s another reason I keep rewatching it.

And from an aroace perspective, Clue is great because there really is no love story. I mean, people mention spouses and affairs, and jealousy is floated as a possible motive for murder, but none of the characters that we see fall in love with each other during the course of the movie. Professor Plum does hit on Miss Scarlet a bit, but her reaction is very, “What the hell is wrong with you? We have way more important things to worry about right now.” When the cop shows up, in order to prevent him from finding out about the murders, some of the characters pretend to be making out with the bodies as if they’re alive, which is very weird on many levels, but it’s kind of a great illustration of the ridiculousness of allonormativity. If the cop had looked twice at them he would have noticed something was off, but of course adults at a party are going to be making out, nothing to see here, moving on. I always thought this part was hilarious when I was younger, and now that I understand my identity better I can articulate my appreciation for the way this movie portrays people who are focused on romance as the weird ones. Obviously that’s specific to this situation – like, I think most alloromantic people would agree that being locked in a murder house is not the best time to pursue romance. But aromantic stories are so rare that I’ll take whatever I can find. When Clue mentions sex, it’s usually either as a punchline (“Life after death is as improbable as sex after marriage”) or part of a motive, since most of the blackmail victims are being blackmailed for something to do with sex. The sexual content is mostly in the background, adding to the vibes without pulling too much focus, kind of like some of my favorite classic films noirs. And this whole movie is so silly that I don’t feel like the sexiness is really meant to be taken seriously. Asking how an asexual person could possibly enjoy a film filled with so many blatantly allosexual characters would be just as ridiculous as asking how a person who had never killed anyone could possibly enjoy a film filled with so much murder. These characters clearly weren’t meant to be too relatable. But I still appreciate getting to see them on an evening when they’re at least mostly focused on things besides romance and sex.

I know I keep going on about how this movie is just silly fun, but one aspect that I do think was meant to be taken kind of seriously is the satirical criticism of McCarthyism. The exaggeratedly horrified gasps in response to Wadsworth's revelation that his wife had friends who were socialists is funny, but also, people’s lives were legitimately ruined because of that attitude. The only line that all three endings have in common is “Communism is just a red herring,” which is relevant to the movie because characters were trying to tie the murders into Cold War-related motives that ended up being irrelevant, but also kind of describes how trying to stop communism was used as an excuse for atrocities that didn’t always have much if anything to do with communism. It’s a little odd to stick that message in this movie, and I don’t exactly know why it’s there, but I like the way it adds to the Old Hollywood connection. Filmmakers in the 1950s had to be very careful about the messages they put in their movies, and what they said outside of their movies, for fear of being blacklisted as suspected communists, so it seems fitting that this movie set in the 1950s would be calling that out. Although there were very much still Cold War tensions in the 1980s as well, which is perhaps why this message is all but buried in silliness. And maybe I’m wrong and this aspect was meant to be silly as well, but it feels rather pointed to me, so I wanted to bring it up as one of the many fascinating aspects of this film.

I truly believe that Clue is a great movie that has something for everyone, and highly recommend it to anyone listening who hasn’t seen it, but at the same time, I am incapable of separating the movie from my own nostalgia. I can’t imagine what I would think of this movie if I watched it today for the first time because I would be a fundamentally different person if I hadn’t seen Clue a zillion times when I was young. Not only did it inform my taste in movies going forward, but it also shaped my understanding of the world, in a way. I think like most children, I once assumed adults knew what they were doing, but this movie showed me a bunch of adults who didn’t have the slightest idea, which was simultaneously terrifying and comforting. It also changed the way I talked, because I used to quote this movie constantly. I do it less now, but there was a time when instead of “I wasn’t talking to you” I would always say, “I was asking Miss Scarlet!” Or when somebody was looking for a key, I’d go, “Never mind about the key; unlock the door!” If anybody said, “Maybe…” with a long pause, I’d have to follow it with “Mr. Boddy killed the cook!” And similarly, “Oh who cares?” always had to be followed by, “That guy doesn’t matter! Let him stay locked up for another half an hour! The police will be here by then, and there are TWO DEAD BODIES IN THE STUDY!!!” And if anyone got confused about numbers, I’d helpfully chime in, “Even if you were right, that would be one plus one plus two plus one, not one plus two plus one plus one.” I could go on, but I’d end up quoting the whole movie, because I’m pretty sure I’ve managed to work every single line into a non-Clue-related conversation at least once. Often people just stare at me blankly, but it’s fun quoting it to my siblings because they usually respond with the next line, and we can go through whole scenes if nobody stops us. I have so many fun memories of reciting and analyzing this movie with them, arguing about things like whether Mr. Boddy says, “It’s only glass” or “It’s hunky glass” about the conservatory wall – it’s definitely “only” but my sister will not be convinced. Memories of my little brother adorably misunderstanding lines, thinking that Mrs. White’s husband had a “big fair” with Yvette, or that Mrs. Peacock said, “Oh I got a horse!” instead of “Oh my god of course!” or that blackmail was what those dark brown UPS trucks delivered. At one point, I wrote a script for Master Detective, which had the same basic premise as Clue – a bunch of blackmail victims congregated in a house to confront their blackmailer and his accomplices – but made even less sense. I didn’t back it up so it disappeared when that computer died, thankfully, but I still remember enough of it to cringe about. Since all the suspects had color names, I decided all the murder victims needed themed names as well, so I named them all after body parts to go with Mr. Boddy and thought I was so clever. I don’t remember most of them anymore, but I know there was a Mr. Elbow and a Mrs. Toenail. I also remember at one point I wrote in the directions something like, “It’s so quiet you could hear a pin drop. In fact, Miss Peach drops a pin” and again was delighted by my own cleverness. My brother and I used to act it out with toys, and one time, after the dead body of the butler had been thrown out the window for some reason right before somebody else was arriving, my brother was being silly and had the new person pick up the dead body and say, “I brought your butler back!” seemingly without realizing that the butler was dead, and I thought that was so hilarious that I added it into the script, and it’s still my favorite part that I remember. It was a bad script, but in my defense I was very young, and anyway my point is, Clue inspired me to be creative in a fun way, without worrying about taking my work or myself too seriously, which is the attitude I’ve tried to take into making this podcast.

I feel like there is so much more I could say about Clue, but it’s hard to find words to adequately express how deeply I love this film. It feels wrong to call this a “comfort movie” when there are so many murders in it, but somehow it does feel comforting. It’s like an old friend, whose jokes I’ve heard a hundred times but still make me laugh, whom I love in spite of, and in some ways because of, their flaws. I know not everybody is into movies the way I am, but I think everybody needs at least one story or piece of art that they feel that way about. Not that experiencing art is a substitute for real friendship, but art is a form of human expression and connection that I think we all need in addition to relationships. And yes, I consider Clue to be a work of art. It’s a frickin masterpiece.

Thank you for listening to me discuss another of my most frequently rewatched movies. I fear these episodes are becoming less coherent as I get into my top films that I can’t even with, but I hope they’re still enjoyable. Next up will be my second most rewatched movie, which I have seen 37 times in its entirety even though it is by far the longest movie in my entire top 40. As always, I will leave you with a quote from that next movie: “Shelves in the closet. Happy thought indeed.”

[echantedtoon]

Let's Summon A Yokai!

Demon Goemon Ishikawa the 13th x reader Oneshot. That's it.

(warning for demon summoning if that makes you uncomfortable. I just made up some stuff for this based off video games where that happened hope that's ok.)

"Let's summon a demon!"

A thunderstorm rolled across the sky that night. The sun was just setting over the horizon with the last few rays of daylight disappearing but it was hard to tell when the dark storm clouds took over the sky and claimed them as their own. Thunder shaking the lanes of the windows and lightning sounded off like an angry whip from whatever deity was angrily stomping around the clouded skies, lighting up the sky and city below for nothing but a brief second.

It would've been absolutely dark if you hadn't lit up a few candles inside the comfy room and placed them on the table to light up the room. The warm light comforting against the scary night sky that just appeared as the last few daylights were chased away. The candlelight was pretty but you might be asking yourself one question. Why are you using candles to light up the room when you can just turn on the light switch on the wall or use a flashlight like a normal person?

Well because it wasn't your idea. It was your friend's.

If it were up to you, your bedroom light would've been on in an instant and you four wouldn't be sitting here in the dark. But as another thunder clap shook the sky outside, her face had scrunched up into a mischievous grin wide enough to let the other three ladies around her know that she had come up with a devious idea. It started when of your friends said that they were bored during the usual sleep over activities and so you suggested watching a scary movie instead!

"How about The Death Book?"

"What's it about?"

"It's about this girl who finds this blank diary and everything she writes in it becomes true! It turns out the diary is possessed by a demon who becomes obsessed with her and grants her wishes with horrible twists!"

That's when your most devious friend gotten that look before hijacking the convo. "I have a better idea! Y/n, you have any candles?"

"Only scented candles. Why?"

"That'll work! Go get them all and we'll do something that's actually thrilling!"

You had no idea what she was talking about but decided to humor her and go get them and matches she asked for. You had a few scented candles collecting up space in your closet, most were Christmas gifts you were just planning on regifting that year anyways since you never really used them. But you were curious about what your friend was up too so you grabbed up all the bars, the different scents making your nose snort, and brought them out to everyone watching you take them out of your closet and plopping them down on your bed. Your friend then proceeded to grab a glass jar containing a 'holiday sugar cookie' scented white candle, lit it, and then got up to turn off the lights and ask you to close the curtains.

Oh! She wanted to do the classic ghost story telling in the dark game! Nope. As soon as you turned around and you along with your other two friends looked at her, the statement left her mouth.

"Let's summon a demon!"

The three of you stared at her and her smile lit up by the scented candle, a nice scent of sugar cookies in the air. The only sounds being the thunder still rumbling outside. Eventually one of you broke the weird silence.

"You mean like...Use a ouija board? That's something everyone does at sleepovers-"

"No! I meant actually summon a demon!," she corrected excitedly clenching a fist!

"Uh..Have you lost your dam mind?"

"Oh come on! We all know that ghosts and stuff don't exist anyways!" She waved a hand dismissively. "We've tried using a ouija board since we were ten but nothing ever happened so why not try taking it up a notch!"

"Because it sounds like a waste of time." You deadpanned raising a brow. "Why go through all the effort to do something when we already KNOW that it's just stupid Hollywood stuff?"

"For the thrill of it!" You three looked at each other. Two of you having bored looks while the third looked worried. "Come on! Just this once! And if nothing happens I'll pay for two pizzas from that pizza place we all like!"

"...Throw in those chicken tenders and a couple sodas and you have a deal," your bored friend bluntly stated.

"DEAL!"

"I don't know.." Your friend that looked worried frowned. "This is how a bunch of horror stories start. What if something really happens?"

"PSH. It won't. If nothing happened when we used a ouija board then we got nothing to worry about!"

"And you just magically happen to know how to summon a demon how?"

"Not just a demon!" Her hand pointed up as she grinned. "A Yokai!"

"A yo-..What?"

"A Yokai! Or oni if you prefer to call it that instead! It's a Japanese spirit!"

"We know what that is! And you happen to know that how?"

"During my culture studies at school I was studying the local folklore and stumbled onto an old legend of the area! They say that a monster used to roam the lands and strike down evil people every until a shrine was put up for him. It's still there now! I visited it during a school trip!" She explained excitedly. "I did an interview with the caretaker for my extra credit report and it turns out his family's descendants of the shrine maidens that used to be there!"

"That's good and all but that still doesn't answer my question."

Your friend groaned loudly and slumped her shoulders with an eye roll. "He said the shrine maidens used to have a symbiotic relationship with the specific oni. They'd perform a ritual once a year on a new moon or full moon to summon him and leave him really good offerings. If he liked it enough he might grant you something in return!"

"And he told you how to summon this thing?"

"Yeah because he didn't believe in it. I don't either since ghosts and goblins only exist in books and movies. But what's the harm? If nothing happens I'm buying everyone food and we can have a good laugh if we do happen to summon something we might get a wish granted! Whaddya say?"

There was more silence from you three until your bored friend sighed and rolled her eyes from where she sat. "Fine I guess. Sounds like a win win situation. And I wouldn't mind getting an A on my next math exam."

You sighed. "Alright. Let's just get this over with."

"That's the spirit! But first thing's first!.. Does anyone know if it's a new or full moon tonight?"

Your nervous friend, who still looked nervous, had to pull out her phone and look it up online. The glow of the screen making her face light up in the dark as the thunder still rang out and the first few raindrops began hitting the roof of your home.

"Full moon b-b-but does it count if the storm is blocking out the sky?"

"He only told me it has to be a full of new moon, not that you had to see the moon. We're also gonna need thirteen white candles to represent the sacred number of his, something red to draw the symbols in, and an offering from each of us that has some kind of connection to our wishes!" Her eyes lit up in excitement. "Let's try it out!"

If it got you free food and your rowdiest friend to be quiet, then you weren't going to complain. So you four got to work. A friend found an extra red lipstick when she dug out her bag and like you said before, you had a bunch of scented candles you weren't using....but that begs the question.

"Does scented candles even count?" You gazed down at two white scented candles with the scents labeled 'fresh morning snow' and 'shortbread blast'.

"He just said that the candles had to be white, not that they couldn't be scented."

"Yeah. But there's another problem. I only have twelve white candles. .." Your eyes looked around the mini candle collection. The others were different colors like the red one that smelt like cinnamon and the purplish-black one labeled 'midnight lilacs'. Eventually you found a glimmer of white in the limited darkness with only your phone to see, and pulled out a candle that was half white half brown labeled 'chocolate and vanilla delight'. "I got a brown and white one. Does that count?"

"We're gonna have to make due with it. Well just put the white half facing the center and maybe that'll help."

Well if that's all you had then you four really were going to have to make due with what you had on hand. One friend helped you cleared up space in your room at least a yard and a half clear, while your devious friend drew red lipstick marks onto your floor and the fourth began placing the candles in a circle around her lighting them up as she went until both stepped away and you four were left looking down at the circle of thirteen candles and three symbols in the center of them. Lightning clashed outside behind the curtains barely lighting up the room but you managed to make out three words written in Japanese kanji in red lipstick.

Goemon. Ishikawa. And Thirteen.

You didn't know what that meant but it was ominous in your eyes. The room smelt far too heavy with the pretty scents of sugar cookies, vanilla, daisies, and a few other scents. It was overwhelming and one of you snorted from it all.

"Dam. It smells like someone spilt the entire isle of Fabreath from Wallace-Market in here." She waved a hand before pinching her nose and turning to her. "So what now?"

"Now we put down an offering related to what we want to wish for? Like if you wanted to wish for a million dollars you put down like some rare collector coins or something! Just look around and see what you got!"

While the others looked through their bags, you mindlessly searched around the room for something meaningless you could just throw meaninglessly into the circle. Your eyes gazed over at your jewelry box...and you shrugged. Why not? You had a pair of thick hooped silver earrings your uncle gave you for your birthday last year. They were even real silver, just cheap copper ones painted to look silver. You never wore them anyways so they'd be perfect for this. You opened up the lid narrowing your eyes into a squint. Despite the light of your phone, it was hard to see in the dark. Your hand moved things around inside the box. Old necklaces and things jingling until you saw them. Ah! There they were! Right next to your great grandparents' wedding rings. Now THOSE were actually worth a lot. Real gold and studded with real diamonds. You inherited them box along with their old jewelry box but that didn't matter right now. You wanted the useless tacky earrings next to them. Even now most of the shiny silver paint had peeled off revealing the cheap copper hoops underneath.

"C'mon Y/n! Hurry up! I want that pizza as soon as possible!"

You looked around mindlessly just reaching in and grabbing two round things into your hand. "Coming!"

"What did you grab?" Her brow rose as you just rolled your eyes.

"Just some old jewelry. What about you?"

She held up an ink stone. Probably got it from her school bag. "I was gonna use it for an art project but since I want an A for my exam and I have to write on the test, it was a good enough match."

"Sounds like a good start."

Your other two friends pulled out a book on rare poetry and a small bag of store bought mochi candy. ...Strange offering but you guessed it was the only thing that they could find. Your friend instructed you all placed the offerings on the strange words in Japanese and stepped back without a second thought to look at them....And you four stood there in your pajamas with nothing but the candles to light up the darkness and the rain still pounding at your rooftop.

Silence other than the storm rang out and you four looked around the room exchanging looks sometimes.

".....Is that it?"

"I told you it was a waste of time! Let's just get some food now. I'm starving!"

"Wait! I forgot about the last important step!" She held up her hands as your mutual grumpy and hungry friend turned to go flip on the light switch. "I need to chant the incantation and then we have to say what we want!"

Her arms folded. "Well get on with it! I'm hungry and this is really not fun!"

"Alright, alright! Let me try to remember what the guy told me!"

She stood there staring at the mess of lit candles and lipstick smeared kanji scrunching her brows in deep thought. You and your grumpy friend exchanged mirrored deadpanned looks before she cleared her throat and held her arms out.

"Full moon on the rise. New moon hides from eyes. Abyss of darkness conquering the skies! We summon, summon him from the ground. To our circle lit and round. Oh one who walks the path of light, we come once more to ask you to chase away evils blight! Come from slumber, to seek out what we offer! Great one of good and lght, we ask for you to once more walk the night!"

Her voice shouted out loud enough that you were sure you'd be getting a complaint from the neighbors tomorrow morning. As she finished her chant, a lightning bolt struck out temporarily lighting up the sky outside as the rain poured out...As you all waited looking around more.

"Would you look at that? Nothing happened again. NOW can we get food?"

"Wait! We didn't say what we wanted yet!," she protested to her, "The wish is a part of the ritual so let's complete it ok?!" Your friend groaned but she quickly excitedly exclaimed. "I wish my mom would finally give me the secrets to famous udon recipe so I can start selling it myself!"

"Um..." You nervous friend cautiously and worriedly looked around the dark room. "C-Can I m-meet my favorite author please? O-Only if that's ok! I'm fine if nothing happens really!"

"Oh what the hell. I want an A on my next exam."

...All three looked at you expectantly. "What?"

"Say something, Y/n."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. What did you put down?"

You shrugged. "Some cheap jewelry I don't want honestly."

"OOOH. Wish for something good then! Oh! Oh! I see you always sitting by yourself! Ask him to get you a boyfriend?," you friend teased making you laugh.

"Really? We summon a Yokai just for me to ask him for a boyfriend? If he was real, he'd probably think I was crazy."

"Well it doesn't have to be a boyfriend. You can ask for a sign of who you're meant to be with." That devious smile returned again. "Y'know that caretaker guy told me a lot of maidens would pay the shrine maidens to do rituals and summon the onis as offered brides in exchange for good fortune for their villages. Why don't you ask him to put a ring on it? You'd be the first person to be get a real life monster boyfriend. All the monster lovers on the Internet would be so jealous."

"Plus you're beautiful," your grumpy friend added also with a teasing grin. "You made home coming and prom queen in highschool!"

You laughed again. "Looks aren't everything." You could barely contain the giggles. You then rolled your eyes sarcastically. "But sure." Your hands clasped together and pressed against your chest as you spoke. "Oh great Oni please hear my pleas for your heart!" Even your nervous friend giggled along now as you dramatically fell to your knees. "Bind our blood in ceremony and let me share your name." A hand outstretched to no one as you fake acted out processing your love to an invisible imaginary person. "Under the stars of the heavens, I solemly swear, that this hand will always be kind and never cruel. That my voice will only speak truth. That this life is now forever yours." The outstretched hand pretended to take the imaginary person's hand. "Now as yours is mine."

A loud snort went off as one of your friends fell back on your bed where she sat giggling out the cheesy lines you were making up on the fly.

"Bind our souls to infinity and I will promise you love and devotion through sickness and health and beyond the realms of death." You continued to speak remembering some lines from a rom com chick flick you saw last night. "I will love you in all your forms now and forever. Through several lifetimes and back." Your voice was low and smooth now speaking it like you meant it with pride. "From now to infinity. Unyielding. Untainted. Undeniable. With this voice I promise you my love and heart. With this offering, I ask you to be mine!" You then bowed your forehead to the floor as everyone continued to giggle loudly.

You all continued to laugh and laugh and laugh as you finally broke into laughs again too and sat back up-

And then all the candles went out at the same time.

Pitch black immediately enveloped the room and at once all laughs ceased. Nothing but silence rang out other than the rain and thunder and occasional strike of lightning. You four stayed silent as you all say there in the dark before your friend became grumpy again.

"Ok. Haha. Very funny, Y/n. Now we can't see shit!"

"That..w-wasnt me," you stuttered out staring at the floor in front of you silently and wide eyed.

"Sure it wasn't. You're literally kneeling in front of them!"

"I don't have the ability to blow out right giant candles at once! Besides some of them were out of my reached! I'd have to crawl over! It wasn't me!"

"Well it's not me! I'm standing up!"

"It wasn't me!" "I'm sitting all the way over here on the bed."

Silence fell Once Again as you all sat there

"....It must've just been a draft! There's no such thing as ghosts and demons! Get the light! I'm tired of this game now!"

Someone was heard stumbling and shuffling around in the dark before you heard hands patting along the wall and then a serious of clicks as someone tried turning on the lights. "It won't turn on!"

"No one panic!" Someone finally turned on the flashlight on their phone and lit up the room. "The storm just cut out the power supply. Let's just get some food and call it a night!"

"Wait! The offerings!"

The light shines towards the middle of the circle. One bag of mochi candy, an ink stone, and a book still laid there. Where was your earrings? You pushed the book aside and froze as you realized that it wasn't a cheap pair of earrings that greeted you..but one beautiful gold ring.

"My great grandmother's ring!" You quickly snatched it up safely into your hands in horror. "I-I must've grabbed them by mistake!" Wait. You remembered feeling two hoops in your hands. "My great grandfather's ring!" Quickly you pushed aside everything else and was horrified to discover that it was gone. "IT'S MISSING!!"

"Calm down. It must've rolled away or someone accidentally kicked it in the dark. It's still around here."

"Yeah. And so is everything else. I CALLED IT! I TOLD you it wasn't gonna work! Now order the food!"

"B-But my ring!"

"It's too dark to look with the power out. Let's just wait until it's day time and then we'll look around. Ok?"

"I-...*sigh* Alright."

"GREAT! Now let's eat. And don't forget the chicken and drinks!"

You went to go stand up-

Creak!

A shriek left your friends and yourself as the floor boards beneath your feet began to shake and quake under your feet. The boards shuttered to life joining the storm's tags as they rattled around everything in your room including all of you. Books and knickknacks fell off shelves and your desk hitting the floors scattering about like it was a full earthquake of in your room. Windows shook and the bedroom door rattled around as one of your friends fell over onto their side hitting the continued moving boards hard. Until all at once it stopped.

And then all the candles lit back up at once.

You blinked at the sudden light. But froze as your eyes were met with feet and sandals. Ever so slowly your terrified eyes looked up. Pupils shrinking as eyes widening at the sight of grey hakama pants and a sharp silver sword glimmering in the light. A red haori coat hung loosely around a thin but muscular frame. And finally  your eyes met a face. A thin lipped line of a mouth met you and black slitted eyes looked down upon you. Shoulder length black hair.hung from his head and two horns protruded from his forehead. The silence carried on as you both still stared as your friends looked on horrified, and then a clawed hand held up a shiny golden band.

"I accept."

"W-Who are you?!"

"I go by many names. My enemies know me as Death. Your people as a god. My family as Goemon Ishikawa the Thirteenth." Those beautiful eyes widened even more, especially when a hand reached out to tilt her chin back up to him, the feeling of his claws making her shiver under his careful grasp. "You as Husband. I have decided that I accept this coupling."

Your hyperventilating lungs breathed- GASPED for air. Lips. Trembled. Body shook. Tears welding up. "I-I.. Can't accept."

"I'm afraid you have no choice but to honor those vows because now-..Not even death will do us part." 

[jgroffdaily]

A long interview with Jonathan at Newsweek by H Alan Scott:

When you're an actor in an M. Night Shyamalan movie, it's easy to start obsessing over the eventual twists that are surely to come. But as Jonathan Groff experienced in Shyamalan's new film Knock at the Cabin (February 3), it's easy to get "lost" in the story. "We're really submitting to his vision and trying to help him achieve exactly what he wants." Groff plays Andrew [incorrect], a father held hostage along with his partner and young daughter by criminals who force them to make an impossible decision to avert the end of the apocalypse. Groff says he understood Andrew "in a primal way" and that this was "the first time I've ever done a horror movie. So it was a real education." For an actor so known for his voice, both in the Frozen franchise (as Kristoff), but also in Broadway musicals like Spring Awakening and Hamilton, the difference between stage and screen is huge. "I've really appreciated my time doing film and television, because it really keeps me on my toes" and that "there is something really freeing about the intimacy of film and TV that I really love."

What about Knock at the Cabin excited you?

Well, Night is one of those filmmakers, there's a handful of them, where I went to go see their films in the theater throughout my life. I distinctly remember the experiences where you really feel the director's eye throughout it and to me, his films, they feel special and they feel specific to him. So he's one of those people that even before reading the script or anything, I always wanted to work with because he's got that very specific point of view. So Night was the first draw. And then when I read the script I was pretty freaked out. It grabbed me in a very primal, visceral way. The choice that's posed in the trailer. The idea of sacrifice and family and home invasion and all of it felt really primal. I had a very visceral reaction to it. My heart was racing. And I had a feeling about the character of Eric, I understood him in a primal way. Then I read the book, Cabin at the End of the World, and that destroyed me. It's such a beautifully written novel. And then Night and I had a Zoom meeting, I made an audition tape, we did a meeting and we had an immediate connection. He lives just outside of Philly, and I'm from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I've got this dream of converting my dad's horse farm into an artist's retreat. He's trained and raised horses his whole life for a living and I have this dream of taking over the farm. When I was Zooming with Night, he was in a converted horse stable in Pennsylvania four minutes from where my family lives and where I live as well in Pennsylvania. That was totally crazy and surreal and it felt like kismet.

You’ll be like Marina Abramović, with the artist's retreat in the countryside

It's funny, we made this documentary about Spring Awakening, which is a show I did on Broadway 15 years ago, and part of the documentary is the whole cast coming to my family's farm in Pennsylvania. It started in that moment. I grew up playing pretend on the farm and dress-up, I was Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. A very creative energy there on the farm as a kid. And then bringing my friends there during Spring Awakening, they got really inspired and excited being there. There's a lot of Amish farms and they don't use electricity, there's something creative and something in the air in that area. I want to make it into an artists' retreat because I think it's just an inspiring place to be.

When you're working on an M. Night movie, do you know the twist? If you do, how do you get that out of your head while you're acting?

He's got the whole movie storyboarded, almost like a comic strip. From when we walked in, even from our very first rehearsals, he's got it all planned out. He knows exactly the shots that he's going to do and exactly how he wants to tell the story. So it's kind of easy to get lost inside of his process. Because as the actors, we're really submitting to his vision and trying to help him achieve exactly what he wants because he knows exactly what he wants, and he's incredibly specific. But, for the most part, it's one location, and we shot it pretty much completely in order, which also made it easy mentally to go through. Working with Night, he really seduces you into his world and into his methods, so playing the ending or not playing the ending, I didn't even think about that. I was just trying to play each specific moment. And one of the fun things about this movie in particular, there's seven of us through most of the movie, all together, and he really created an environment in rehearsal, which is also great. We had a couple of weeks of rehearsal before we did it and then on set where we were, all seven of us, passing the ball back and forth and in the movie. You really feel that when you watch it, everybody was fully committed and really playing with each other. So it was really easy to get lost in the story.

With the premise of this film, it feels like every scene would be very intense. How do you maintain that intensity without going crazy?

It's the first time I've ever done a horror movie. So it was a real education. You're at a certain fever pitch the entire time from an acting standpoint. All seven of the actors were there to show up and really commit, no one was phoning it in. No one was thinking of this as like an easy job or something. Everybody was really committed the whole time. And it was really intense and extreme emotions. We would do some of the scenes and just come off set and be like, "Wow, that was really something." We had a real camaraderie between the seven of us and we would laugh a lot on the breaks and just kind of chill and release from the intensity of the experience, and that really helped. We did fun stuff in Philadelphia—like Night's wife, she teaches an exercise like Zumba [but not]. One Saturday, Sunday morning, we all went and did that. So we had a lot of fun that offset the intensity of the scenes. But it was intense.

When you're in a film like this, how do you keep the twist a secret? I'd totally give it away in casual conversation.

In casual conversation I've totally given everything. I'm not great at hiding that stuff but—out of respect for the movie and out of respect for Night and how he really is such a passionate filmmaker and he takes what he does so seriously and it means so much to him—so out of respect of the movie, in interviews, I can be an adult and put on my filter. But in life I'm a little more loose-lipped.

I'm the same way. Don't tell me secrets.

I’m good at keeping secrets when it's important. There's some study I remember reading at some point that even if something is spoiled, if it's well made, it doesn't matter. I believe in this movie enough to think that even if you knew what was going to happen, it would still be an enjoyable experience.

If you could be in any M. Night film, which one would you be in?

Such a good question. I mean, Old and just be on the beach the whole time seems like it would have been really fun. Especially because I know they shot that during COVID. But that's more...

A vacation.

Yeah, yes. I'm glad. Let me think, who I would have wanted to be in one of his movies? I really have no idea.

I would want you to be Bryce Dallas Howard in The Village. I think that would be really fun.

Oh my god, I'm stealing that answer. Yes, I'll take it.

What's harder, Broadway or TV/film?

I’m a creature of habit, and I like to do things over and over again. So for me, artistically, I feel more comfortable and I feel more at ease on the acting meditation of theater, because it's making the same thing every day, fresh and finding something new in the repeated pattern. But the meditation of acting in film and TV, that is more challenging for me and it's less in line with who I am as a person. Every day it's something different. So I've really appreciated my time doing film and television, because it really keeps me on my toes and it really keeps my knife sharp. Because I am more out of my comfort zone doing something different every day and not getting to settle into that repeated thing. Some actors find it way more difficult to do the same thing every day and find it easier to do a different scene every day, but it's the reverse for me. It's sort of like long distance running as opposed to sprinting, I would say theater is like a long distance and film/TV is more like a sprint with scene work. Getting that opportunity to do that scene in one day and then you never get to do it again is daunting, it's exciting, but also daunting because you've got one shot. So it's that kind of adrenaline and that unique opportunity that keeps me coming back to film and TV. I love the intimacy of how if the camera sees it, you feel it, you don't have to project to the last row of the balcony. There is something really freeing about the intimacy of film and TV that I really love as well.

I find theater people often don't like to watch themselves on film. Do you?

I watch everything I do once. Maybe there's a couple things that I've watched more than once, but it doesn't bother me when I watch myself. I do have moments of regret when I watch myself. But I do think theater is more the actor's medium because we tell the story every night over the course of however long the play or musical is. But what I like about watching film and TV back the one time is to know what the story ended up being. Because we don't know when we're in it, the same as with Knock at the Cabin. I mean, most of it is the same but what are the editing choices? What did they cut out? What did they amplify? What is the score? All those elements are such huge parts of the storytelling and it's always really fascinating for me to see what the product is in the end. I really enjoy that part of it. That's unrelated to watching myself, which is always complicated, but ultimately fine. I can get over the mistakes I've made.

When are we going to get another Mindhunter? I need it very badly.

I have no idea. It's all up to David [Fincher]. If he wants to do it, I'm sure all of us would run in and go back and do it immediately. David is such a consummate artist and he packs so much into his work, so it makes sense that it would be something that would be played again and again. I'm excited for his next movie.

[wowbright]

((In all seriousness, I just thought I'd contribute to the Goncharov mystique by making up a Soviet remake. BTW, Sergei Bodrov is an actual Russian director, and he did make at least one crime film (Katala) to my knowledge.))

Are you sure you made up the Soviet remake? I started high school in 1989, and one of the few American school districts that taught a full four years of Russian. I didn't take it myself, but my friends who did were obsessed with a Russian gangster movie that had recently come out that they said was based on "the Scorsese classic." Not having been born in 1973 and also living in a house that didn't own a VCR until 1992, I thought they were talking about The Godfather (because I also kept confusing Scorcese with Coppola).

It wasn't until late in my junior year, or maybe my senior year?, that they finally got a hold of a copy that we could watch--European DVDs and videotapes weren't compatible with American players, so it required somebody going on an exchange trip to Russia (a feat in itself), getting the DVD, bringing it back to the US, finding somebody who had a DVD player that could read European DVDs (IDK may be Russian DVDs were different from even European ones), and having that person transfer the Russian version to videotape.

Anyway, I remember going over to my friend Jason's house to watch it. I didn't speak Russian beyond "hello," "very," and "glasnost" (later I would also learn how to say "it [is a] factory"), but I had watched The Godfather movies every Thanksgiving for several years so I figured I'd be able to follow along fine. Also, I had taught myself this Cyrillic alphabet, which wouldn't be relevant if it weren't for the moment that the title screen came up.

"Goncharov?" I asked. "Does that mean 'godfather'?"

Everybody looked at me like I was crazy. "You're joking, right?" my friend Beth (okay actually we weren't friends at all but we were in the same friend group so you know) said.

I didn't know what there was to joke about.

"Wait. You've seriously never heard of Goncharov? The greatest mafia movie ever made?" Jason asked. He was a real cinema snob.

"I thought that was The Godfather," I said.

So many pairs of eyes rolled.

Anyway, we watched the movie. There were no subtitles. Robin, who I knew from church but didn't really hang out with otherwise, took pity on me. She sat next to me and translated the dialogue. Sometimes this annoyed the other viewers, sometimes they jumped in and offered their own translations.

Of course, I didn't need any translation to see the chemistry between Katya and Sofia. Of course, it still remained subtext mostly, and even when they kissed it was open to interpretation about whether it was a kiss of friendship or something more. We were 20 years on from the initial filming of Goncharov, but same sex romances still weren't being portrayed on the silver screen in the U.S. except in the context of Serious Art Films that You Had to Really Hunt Down at the Video Store, and I would imagine it was even more restrictive in Russia.

Still, as a young closeted queer, the story meant everything to me.

I later got my hands on the actual Scorcese Goncharov and would watch it alone in the basement, rewinding and rewatching the scenes between Katya and Sofia so many times that the tape wore out.

Later, in college, we ended up doing our freshman class play (it was a women's college, we had a lot of weird traditions) as a parody of Goncharov. Only in our version, Katya and Sofia's kisses were unmistakably romantic, and at the end of the play they left for Hawaii and got married (it wasn't legal there, but the Hawaiian Supreme Court had ruled that not letting same-sex couples get married or register in civil partnerships was discriminatory, so we were full of hope); Goncharov and Andrey fled Italy for Denmark, where they registered as domestic partners (it was the first country in Europe to recognize relationships between same-sex couples) and transferred their business skills to start a successful floral and produce enterprise.

I realize I have now gotten way way off the topic. But wow, your question just brought back a flood of memories and I'm loving it.

Anyway, I suppose it's possible that my high school friends were misleading me about this Russian gangster movie. I mean, I *thought* the women were called Katya and Sofia, but not speaking russian, I could have been mishearing the whole thing. Maybe my wholesome church friend Robin was making up her translations just to screw with me, and that's why the others joined in so adamantly at times.

And Goncharov's a pretty common Russian name, right? So it's totally possible that there's a Russian movie with that name that has only an accidental relationship to the American one.

Honestly, at this point, I don't care if my snooty high school friends in the Russian Honor Society were fucking with me or not. They introduced me to a wonderfully homoerotic Russian movie, and also to the original Goncharov (1973). And those things warmed my closeted queer heart, and kept me going until I found real queer representation in books and made-up college plays and later in films and TV.

But I sort of hope the Russian version is real. Now that we have the internet, it shouldn't be so hard to find it. If only I still remembered how to read Cyrillic ...