#hi i don't know!

[fairysteve]

so i cannot turn off my brain and i'm gonna ride this thought out—

Marilyn Harrington is 14 years old and a freshman. She knows Tommy and Carol from middle school; the three of them are a tight-knit group.

Tommy turns 15 the week after Halloween. He invites as many people as possible; his parents let him have the house to himself, and he has a cousin willing to buy them liquor. It's the biggest party Marilyn has been to; she opted out of going to the Halloween party a sophomore had invited her to so that she could go trick-or-treating. Tommy and Carol had made fun of her for it, and they think she has to make up for it now.

Marilyn doesn't know what she has to drink or how much, but she's with Tommy and Carol, and they're dancing, and it's fun. But then they lose Carol in the crowd and Tommy is bringing her to his bedroom.

She's had too much to fully understand what's going on, but Tommy is on top of her, telling her that he likes her more than Carol. It hurts. Marilyn is crying, would scream if he wasn't keeping a hand over her mouth, would fight him off if she was stronger.

Marilyn stumbles out of Tommy's bedroom ten minutes later; it had been quick, but her clothes aren't on her properly, and everything's spinning, and she feels sick.

A sophomore ends up guiding her to the kitchen and getting her water. It takes Marilyn a moment to recognise Eddie Munson; she doubts he was invited, based on what Tommy has to say about him. Or maybe he was invited to sell. Or by someone else. She doesn't recognise most people at the party.

Eddie's kind; waits for consent before helping her correct her clothes, and holds her hair back when she throws up in the sink. Serves Tommy right to have to clean that up.

In the end, Eddie gives her a ride home.

Marilyn shows up at school that Monday, unable to look at Tommy. She flinches away when he tries to wrap an arm around her shoulders. She doesn't know if she should tell Carol what had happened at the party; Carol's in love with Tommy, and even if they're friends, she has a tendency to be mean. She decides not to, for now. Instead, she tries to find Eddie to thank him, and to have a reason to avoid Tommy. But she's not brave enough to do more than give Eddie a nod and a smile when she finds him; he's with friends, and she doesn't want to interrupt. It doesn't help that it feels like everyone are staring at her, as if they know what happened.

Marilyn tries to move on. To forget. She had a lot to drink, maybe her memories are unreliable. But when two months pass without her period, she does tell Carol. (Marilyn has been regular since she got her period at 12½ years old. Something has to be wrong for her to miss it.)

Carol doesn't want to believe that Tommy would have done something like that, but she does believe her, and comes with as emotional support when Marilyn tells her mum.

Shirley Harrington believes her immediately, and is horrified. (Shirley was not many years older when she got pregnant; she doesn't want Marilyn to have to go through that.)

Abortion comes up, but Marilyn doesn't want that. She's always wanted to grow up and have a family; she's not going to get rid of her child just because she's too young. So instead, her mum pulls her out of school. They agree to not tell her dad the true reason she's going to get homeschooled; he should be away on business for most of the pregnancy.

Marilyn is five months pregnant on her 15th birthday. She celebrate with her mum and Carol; hasn't seen Tommy since she stopped going to school. Hasn't told him about having a kid. She gives birth to a boy mid-July; he's born too early, and oh so small.

Shirley stays home with Edmund so that she can go back to school. Marilyn can admit that when she tried to think of a good name for a boy, only the name of the one that helped her that night came to mind. She decided against Edward to not be too obvious, although calling her son Eddie still makes Carol raise an eyebrow at her.

Marilyn Harrington is 15 years old and a sophomore. She has a baby named Edmund and her only friend is Carol.

There are two freshman girls that they end up befriending; Nancy and Barb. But neither Marilyn or Carol ever mention Eddie around them. Well, not Eddie Harrington. They do talk about Eddie Munson; Marilyn can admit that she has a crush. But nothing will come of it; she needs to focus on her studies.

But by so often studying with Nancy and Barb, Marilyn feels herself falling for Nancy. And by the time she starts junior year, she feels bad about being so close to the girls but keeping her son from them.

John Harrington had thrown a fit when he found out about his grandson, but since Marilyn's pregnancy had been kept under wraps, everyone assumes it was Shirley that had been pregnant. With no scandal, he can simply pretend that he has a son. But it doesn't make him any more interested in staying home. He does get a few days at home in every month, or a week every other month, but he does need to be travelling a lot. And usually its okay for his wife to stay behind; especially with her having a new child as an excuse. Only thing is, Shirley hasn't been seen with him in almost two years now, so he convinces his wife to come with him on his next business trip.

Edmund is 15 months old, so they hire a nanny for the days, and Marilyn can take care of him in the evenings. She's the one who chose to risk bringing shame on the Harringtons by having a child so she can take care of him, according to John.

Marilyn doesn't want to be home alone as a 16 year old single mum, especially not with Will Byers just having gone missing, and she wants Nancy and Barb to meet Edmund. Especially since she and Nancy have been getting close.

The small party is awkward; Marilyn has been keeping a secret their whole friendship. But they cook dinner together, and sit outside by the pool since it's a nice night. Edmund has been put to bed a bit ago, but he wakes up crying. Barb drops her glass at the sudden sound, and cuts her hand when she goes to pick up the pieces. Marilyn gives directions to the bathroom as she goes inside to her son, Nancy following her since she has experience with Holly. Carol takes over getting rid of the glass.

Marilyn and Nancy end up staying in her bedroom once Edmund has gone back to sleep; first talking, then kissing. Then a bit more than kissing but Marilyn puts a stop to it; it didn't feel right for her, not with her son right there.

They go back down to find that Carol has gone to bed in Shirley's room, but Barb isn't there. They're both worried, but maybe she just went home.

November 9. Barb doesn't show up to school but Marilyn can't help looking since she has a son to get home to. Carol hasn't dropped Tommy and so is hanging with him. She's the one who destroys Jonathan's camera; he got a picture of Marilyn holding Edmund, and one of Marilyn and Nancy kissing. She can't have anyone see that, especially not Tommy.

Except Tommy saves the torn up picture of Marilyn and Nancy. He's still angry that Marilyn started avoiding him.

November 10. Marilyn is also worried about Barb, so she encourages Nancy to go to the police. Her dad is unhappy that she let more people know the truth, but that's all.

November 11. Marilyn has gotten Carol to agree to babysit, so she goes to Nancy's just to check up on her, suggests they go see a movie to take their mind off Barb. Accepts that's not what Nancy needs right now and leaves.

Shirley comes back home that evening, so Marilyn is gonna treat Carol to milkshakes as thanks for looking after Edmund, but they stop by Nancy's first since Marilyn wants to check in on her. She does draw conclusions when she sees Jonathan, but maybe Nancy isn't actually into girls. It's fine.

It's not fine; Carol mentions Jonathan to Tommy the next day and he paints the marquee. Marilyn isn't there; Tommy gets into a fight but by calling Nancy a queer, having the picture as evidence. Jonathan is the one to hit Tommy. Carol calls Marilyn later, and Marilyn tells Carol to choose between her and Tommy. Carol choses Tommy, Marilyn decides to make things right so she still drives into town to clean the marquee and then goes looking for Jonathan and Nancy to apologise for her former friends.

Which is how Marilyn faces down a demogorgon and in the life and death situation realises that she's not a she, and never has been, and what felt wrong with Nancy was that they were both girls.

He uses the government hush money to look into transitioning; obviously he needs to talk about this with someone first. But it's always been there, it's just that he became a parent very young and didn't have time to think about his life until he was close to death.

Steve Harrington is 17 years old and a senior. He has a two year old son, and a shaky relationship with Nancy Wheeler. And all he wants is to get back to normal so that he can graduate and find a job; it's a wonder that his dad hasn't thrown him out considering. Steve has his mum to thank for that; Shirley Harrington has been his biggest support throughout everything. And Edmund, but his Eddie is too young to really know what's going on.

[pouletpourri]

"You just have to look closely."

[batcavescolony]

Katniss is such an unreliable narrator. She says "Then something unexpected happens. At least, I don't expect it because I don't think of District 12 as a place that cares about me" girl you deliver strawberries to the Mayor, you hunt and trade for the district, when you fell at Prim being chosen someone caught you, when you went to Prim people parted for you, when you volunteered EVERYONE stopped. Idk how to tell you but I think you're a pillar of the community.

[heph]

The tech guy in movies

[adobe-outdesign]

recently I discovered that Kawayoo, one of my all-time favorite Pokemon TCG artists, has some art of Loudred floating around and it's the best thing I've ever seen

[nooling]

LOOK I JUST REALLY ENJOY THEIR FRIENDSHIP OK?? You can't tell me they wouldn't hang after their respective personal quests (spawn ending ofc)/emotional breakdowns over their own mortality

EDIT: I forgot to watermark these so now more than ever PLEASE don't repost

[reaping-the-benefits]

Imagine you're the medic assigned to the task force. You're not some dainty little thing. You're snappy and will drag them by the ears if you have to. You're constantly getting into arguments with Price because he won't listen to you when all you're trying to do is help him.

Anyway, the rest of the team has bets on how long its going to take before you two finally fuck. Gaz gives y'all another month. Soap says two weeks. Ghost thinks that you've already done it.

Now, imagine how mad Gaz and Soap are, both giving Ghost 50 quid each when Price casually drops that not only do you have sex on the regular, but you've been married for the last five years.

[krysmcscience]

I have some questions about karaoke night, Alex Hirsch. Very Important Questions. Which I will happily scream at a poor hapless baby triangle who can have no answers for me, and possibly also does not have object permanence yet.

Follow-up that is I guess suggestive, but let's be real here, Bill's a fucking triangle:

Dude slipped right into his birthday suit, lmao

this is so stupid :D

Anyway, I don't care what anyone says, this brilliant individual knows what's up - Bill is absolutely way more of a monsterfucker than Ford could or ever will be, full stop.

[artkaninchenbau]

A h-heartfelt reunion..?

Bonus

[kooldewd123]

the pokemon teraleak is big news and even though i've only begun to scratch the surface i can tell there's an absolute ton of fun stuff to uncover in here (which I will gladly do). however. we also need to acknowledge the fact that this is a very bad thing. this isn't just some internal whistleblower throwing us a bone like we're used to. this was a malicious hack. we're only getting all this information because a game freak employee got phished. satoshi tajiri himself has come out and stated that the personal information of more than 2600 game freak employees was compromised in the attack. what happened here should not have happened and we should hope that it doesn't again, for the personal safety of those involved.

[tossawary]

This is petty fandom salt, BUT... I've been chewing on this phenomenon that I've been calling "Fandom's Darling". It is related to things like "Author's Darling" and "Mary Sue / Gary Stu" and "Protagonist Halo" and all that jazz, where one character gains a peculiar narrative weight in a story.

"Author's Darling" is when a writer has a favorite character, and the world and all other characters sort of get... warped to put the Darling in the spotlight. It's most noticeable in TV shows with multiple writers, when a character you personally like suddenly has their previous characterization destroyed to make another character look good somehow. Every other character might become weirdly incompetent. The Darling's feelings are treated as The Most Important Feelings in any given situation. The logic of the fictional world seems broken past suspension of disbelief in order to validate this one character's beliefs or skillset or some other fantasy. And so on.

"Fandom's Darling" is what I've been calling the pattern where a fandom essentially crowns a New Protagonist for their fanfiction stories (it's often a side character rather than the original protagonist, but it can also happen to protagonists). This character becomes the self-insert for all sorts of indulgent fantasies, gaining special powers or backstories, and/or becoming the focus of extreme whump, and/or hooking up with all the various hotties, starring in all sorts of tropey AUs, and so on. They're not always an obvious Mary Sue version of themselves, but the character's original personality and interpersonal relationships tend to get warped or dropped completely, and other characters tend to become a little flat around them. I call it "Fandom's Darling" because it's not just one self-indulgent fantasy fic (you do you! Have fun!) with characterization choices that I don't vibe with (I have neither the time nor the desire nor the authority to police anything, I am just venting), but rather a prolific mini-fandom of sorts revolving around this empty doll / fanon version of the chosen vessel character, so it becomes a little unavoidable.

I am salty about this (mildly frustrated) (imagine a soft sigh of disappointment before I just go do something else) because you are FUCKED if you actually liked the canonical version of this character and their interpersonal relationships. It's almost worse than liking an obscure character that no one cares about. There's about a thousand fics starring your fave, but maybe only about a dozen of them are actually rooted in any kind of recognisable canon.

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

Mel's protection should have saved Viktor too, and she's trying to figure out why it didn't

(Editing to add: see this post for details on the Mel's armor/shield theory)

S2 ep1 shows a circle of protected stone where Mel and Jayce were during the explosion. My theory is that Mel's magic armor activated and saved them both. It seems like it casts a sphere of protection around wherever Mel is.

The center of this circle is not Mel's seat - it's Jayce's. She ran to Jayce to save him.

No other Councilors were in range of Mel's protection, so they all got hurt or killed.

But Viktor was, in Jayce's words, "right next to" him. He was easily within Mel's circle of protection.

1) Viktor tried to run and mistakenly left the circle of protection. But are we meant to believe that Viktor, close to dying already and using a crutch, would have outrun Mel?

2) Viktor's augmented body clashes with Mel's

Why does Mel try to touch Viktor in episode 1? It seems like a throwaway moment, but not even Jayce touches him in this scene. So why Mel?

She's curious. And possibly, feeling responsible. She's wondering why her protection didn't work.

Is this Hexcore brand of the Arcane trying to reach out to Mel? Or trying to defend itself from her?

Mel was trying to protect both Jayce and Viktor, which is reflected in how she holds Jayce as well as Viktor's cane when she promises to protect Hextech:

But if, for example, Mel's magic is Solari in origin, and Viktor's is from the Void - or the Arcane equivalent of similar opposing forces - then it's possible that their magic rejects or hurts one another. So Mel's circle of protection either rejected Viktor, or was what hurt Viktor, and not the explosion.

[fairsweetlonging]

you think shen yuan ever pats down his robes and has a whole heart attack cus he can't find his phone in his pockets and he starts looking around in a panic and making everyone around him also panic because he lost something!!! before then suddenly realizing—oh, right.

[mischievous-thunder]

Logie bear's full of adamantium and alcohol, Wade. What else do you expect?

[egophiliac]

can't believe that skeleman has turned on us, and Halloween Prom is tomorrow.

(what a top-tier UM...we are about to be just totally obliterated in the absolute silliest way. what possible use could this power have outside of bringing us to the brink of utter holiday disaster.)

[artist-rat]

some epilogue vibes (an excuse to draw some hugs. and my durge so many times)