#honey you're familiar

[februaryfic]

Honey, You're Familiar: Chapter One (AO3) (Masterpost) (5222 Words)

A Steve Harrington x meta!Reader slowburn multichapter fic.

In this chapter you find yourself in a very familiar town, bond with some Byers bros, and try not to let guilt consume you.

You wake up to a flash of red and the sound of a landline ringing. It takes a moment for you to realise that you’re in an unfamiliar room, lying in a bed that is not your own. You sit up, eyes squinted in confusion as you peer around foreign environment. The room you’re in is sparsely furnished, with just the bed you’re currently lying in, a wardrobe and a desk. 

Another ring of the phone interrupts your confusion.

In something of a stupor, you follow the sound of the ringing phone into an equally sparse living room. There’s a suitcase by the door and a kitchenette pushed in a far corner by what looks to be a second floor window. The phone is wall mounted and the faded yellow of something that was clearly once white, still launching its piercing wail. On instinct, you answer it.

“Where the hell are you?” an unfamiliar voice questions.

“Huh?” You respond.

“You were supposed to be here at half 8 for training.” You still don’t know the voice, but you could recognise the tone of a pissed off manager anywhere. Looking around at the bare apartment you seem to be in, eyes locking onto the suitcase by the door, you take a gamble.

“Sorry, moving has been hell, I must have lost track of time,” You say.

The voice on the other end of the phone pauses. “Just get here before 9, okay? It’s going to be busy today with kids trying to get their fix before school next week. Do you know your way? You’re from out of town, right?”

Your mind feels like it's buzzing trying to keep up with the situation. You’re in an apartment you don’t recognise but is apparently yours, you have a mystery job, and you’re new in town. In the time it takes you to respond, you hear the phone voice huff in impatience.

“Give me directions,” you blurt on instinct. Years of working shitty mindless jobs have you trained to respond.

The voice gives you a set of landmarks to follow that are completely unfamiliar and signs off with an order to get there quickly. As the dial tone sounds, all you can think is: What the fuck is going on?

You wander back into the bedroom, open the wardrobe and immediately spot what you’re expecting: a set of 3 garish, dark blue polo shirts with a logo stitched on the breast. The logo says ‘PALACE’ in large purple text, but doesn’t ring any bells. Still, it has to be a work uniform. You throw it on with a dark skirt, briefly marvelling at the quality. It doesn’t feel nearly as cheap as you’re used to. There’s another door leading off the bedroom, and you guess correctly that it leads to an en suite. Mirrors aren’t supposed to work in dreams or something, right? Yet the glass above the sink reflects you exactly as you expect. Huh. 

You head to the front door, seeing a handbag thrown haphazardly on the floor next to it. Keys, purse, and lip balm. No phone. Damnit. That would definitely have had answers on it. Why the hell wouldn’t you have your phone? You stick on the pair of shoes that sit by the door and walk out, locking it behind you and heading down a flight of stairs. 

You start to wander, spotting the first landmark the guy on the phone mentioned, a public park. There is already a few people about, even a few parents playing with their kids on a set of equipment that does not look up to modern safety standards. Everything looks… quaint. Wherever you are, this is not your home.

You start to formulate theories in your mind. Maybe you moved to a small town, then hit your head last night and lost all memory of it? But you don’t spot any holes in your memory and there’s no looming headaches to indicate so. Besides, you’d just moved out of your parents place, why would you move again so soon? And to a new place so far from everything familiar? You didn’t look any different or older in the mirror, so you don’t think you’ve lost time. You strike ‘memory loss’ off your mental list of theories.  

Past the playground you spot the next landmark, a row of shops along a busy road. The guy from your job mentioned ‘main street’, and this must be it. The street looks… oddly familiar? Like something you’ve seen in a dream, or a film. You don’t spot any of the usual corporate chains, supporting the ‘quaint small town’ theory slowly building in your head. You pass a florist, a furniture store, a newsagents. You walk past, but slowly come to a halt, your brain catching up with something you just saw.

The newsagents. There’s a display of newspapers out front. ‘The Hawkins Post’ emblazoned across the top. You realise precisely where you’ve seen this street before. No fucking way. 

You grab one of the newspapers, checking the date line. Thursday, September 1st, 1983. You look around you again, and again, slowly feeling your breathing speed up. Okay, new theory: dream. Screw the mirror being normal, you’re definitely in a dream. Hawkins, Indiana isn’t even a real place! You look up and down the street once, every oddity crashing down upon you now that you’ve found the context.

A knock on glass breaks you out of your breathless reverie. 

“Are you gonna buy that or what, missy?” An older man calls at you from behind the store window. You grab your purse and hastily rush in the store, checking the paper again for the price. Only $1, damn. You pay and keep walking, head on a swivel now that you know where and when  you are. 

The next landmark is more immediately familiar to you. This is downtown Hawkins. You spot Melvald’s, with a Radio Shack right next door. You wonder if Joyce Byers is in the store right now and briefly consider going in to look before stopping yourself. What would you even say? Besides, you’re already late for this job that you didn’t know you have. Your stride falters as another piece of the puzzle clicks into place. Palace. The Palace Arcade! You take a moment to thank your dream self for giving you such an appropriate job, spending the day surrounded by 80s arcade cabinets sounded awesome. 

As you keep walking, another thought occurs to you. Why do you have a job anyway? If you’re dreaming of being in your favourite TV show, why would you be dreaming of a random day in September, and needing to work a customer service job? You could have at least dreamt of something exciting, like being a hero facing down a demogorgon, or making out with Steve Harrington, or something. You giggle to yourself, slightly hysterically at that thought. This dream is so fucking bizarre. 

You don’t get much more time to think as the Palace Arcade comes into view, with its parking lot out front and Family Video just next door. You have a moment of panic, hoping you’re not too late for work, before giggling again. When people say they have a dream job, this isn’t usually what they’re referring to. You walk into the arcade, admiring the cabinets and the truly godawful patterned carpets. It even smelled like the 80s, whatever the hell that meant. Probably hairspray. 

“About time!” Says a man fast approaching you, face twisted in stress. You realise the polo=shirt he’s wearing matches your own.

“I’m so sorry-” You glance at the name badge on his shirt, “-Carl. Moving in has been so hectic,” repeating the excuse you gave on the phone. Weird that your dream is so linear, you would have expected it to be more… dreamlike.

“Whatever, let's just get started. Whoever closed last night didn’t clean up right, so there’s still popcorn in between the cabinets, can you start with that?” Carl says, handing you a broom and already walking away from you. “And don’t be late tomorrow!”

You smile again at the thought of ‘tomorrow’. Odds are, you’ll wake up long before that ever comes, but you resign yourself to experiencing the day fully while it lasts. School evidently hasn’t started back up yet, so maybe you’ll even see the party coming in to play. It’s a happy thought, as you start bemusedly sweeping sticky popcorn from the gaps between arcade machines.

—

This dream is realistic. You feel like you’ve been here for hours of real time, and the ache in your feet certainly feels real. You’ve been yelled at by an entitled mother with her kids, cleaned the bathrooms, and had to stick an ‘out of order’ sign on the Miss Pacman cabinet after some kid spilled his drink on it. The novelty of being in your favourite tv show had officially worn off, and now you were just annoyed at your sleeping mind for forcing you to live each monotonous minute of a customer service job. You just couldn’t have been fighting monsters…

You would generally say you liked ‘80s music’, but after almost 5 straight hours of listening to the radio while working, it was clear that only the good songs had gotten remembered in the modern day. Or maybe the music at your retail job always had to suck, like, as a fact of the universe. As you heard the same song by the same teen pop idol for the 4th time today, a brief glimpse of respite appeared into this horribly boring dream. 

“I’m not giving you my quarter dude! You should have asked your mom!”

You looked up to see 4 kids crowded around the Dragon’s Lair cabinet. 4 very familiar kids. Dustin was in the process of begging for change from each of his friends in turn, as they all looked very unimpressed with him.

“You swore you could get past the dragon!” Lucas said, crossing his arms.

“I can! I did it yesterday!” Dustin replied.

“Yeah, or you’re lying to scam quarters out of us” Mike smirked, nudging the others. 

“I can’t believe you’d scam your own best friends,” Lucas said with an exaggerated forlorn expression.

“Friends don’t lie, Dustin” said Will with a disappointed shake of his head.

“I can do it! I swear! I would show you but I don’t have any more quarters!” Dustin exclaimed, now getting exasperated. Before you knew it, you were walking over. 

“Here,” you said, fishing a few quarters out of your pocket. You’d already grabbed them from your purse so you could play during your break, and still had some left over. 

“Woah, for real?” Dustin said, already grabbing the quarters out of your hand.

“Are employees even allowed to do that?” Mike asked, with a cynical tilt to his head.

“I bet you guys are in here a lot, right?” You asked, receiving a nod from the group. “Exactly, got to keep our best customers happy, right? Just don’t expect it all the time.”

“Cool,” Lucas said, now with a surprised look on his face. 

The group immediately turned back to the cabinet, already hollering, apart from Will who was polite enough to give you a smile and mouth a ‘thank you’. 

You didn’t know when you were going to wake up, but at least you made some of your favourite characters happy, right?

—

The dream lasted the entirety of the shift, and all the way home. You stopped into Melvald’s on your way back (Joyce wasn’t working, to your disappointment), grabbing a frozen pizza and a notebook with some pens to doodle in. 

Now, sitting in the sparse apartment that your dream self had given you, you sat on the beaten up sofas in the living room, waiting for your dinner to cook. This had been a really fucking weird day. Why, of all things, would you dream of working a customer service job in your favourite tv show, before the plot even started? And why did it feel so damn real? 

You ate your pizza once it was ready, burning the roof of your mouth on the sauce. You were stubbornly avoiding the thought that this dream was oddly detailed, and oddly boring, and just plain odd, with every fibre of your being. 

As you crawled into bed, you decided that this was when you would wake up. You would go to sleep in this fake TV land, and wake up back in the real world, with modern technology, and a job you actually remember applying for, and an apartment you actually remember renting. You had to. Wrapping yourself in that comforting thought like a blanket, you close your eyes and focus on getting to sleep.

—

You’re still here. You’re still in this drab, barely furnished apartment in this fake TV land. Officially, what the fuck. Like actually, what the fuck.

With something close to dawning horror, you consider the fact that you might be stuck here. Maybe you’re in a coma? That would make a bit more sense. But it still feels so damn real. And if it’s real… then that means you need to get to your shitty job so you can pay rent on your shitty apartment. You learned from the staff rota yesterday that you were only timetabled for weekdays, employed to cover the arcade while most of its other staff were still in high school. Only one more day, then you would have a whole weekend to have a panic attack. A panic attack that might last the whole weekend, if you were honest. 

You get ready the same as yesterday and left, still struggling with the maelstrom of questions that were haunting you.

“Save me, mindless shitty retail job, save me.” you muttered as you rushed through downtown to the arcade. 

—

The weekend was filled with theorising and mild panic. After another night not waking up in your own bed, the horrifying reality started to settle in. 

What if you were stuck here? You had a whole life back home in the real world, with parents and friends and a different shitty job. Did they think you were missing? Were you dead? 

You saw that happen in a TV show once- a girl got hit by a car and died, but woke up in a fantasy land of dragons and princes. But there were no princes in Hawkins. Except maybe Steve, but he was still a prick at this point. 

Focus. If you accept the (ridiculous, definitely fake, no way this is happening) possibility that you have somehow been transported to live in the world of your favourite tv show, then what next? The plot hadn’t started yet, you still had 2 full months before the horrors began. True horrors, of monsters and death and abuse and violence. Maybe you should just ignore it? No, you couldn’t live with yourself. But… you’re no hero. You couldn’t kill a monster, or close a gate, or fight off government agents. 

But you did have knowledge. Knowledge that covered the next 4 years of Hawkins hell. You grabbed your notebook in a feverish hurry, and started writing down everything you remembered about the next 4 years. 

It was Saturday, September 3rd, 1983, the week before the schools started back up. This November, Will Byers was going to be attacked by something terrifying in the woods by his house and spend a week in a living hell. Barbara Holland was going to be savaged by a monster after being left by her friend. A girl with 011 tattooed on her arm was going to open a portal to another dimension and would escape from the lab she had been kept in all her life. 

And even once the first nightmare ended, more would begin. You find yourself breathless again, so decide to distract yourself by heading downtown to buy stuff for your apartment. Fresh air would always calm you down.

You duck into Melvald’s, grabbing a shopping cart by the door. You had basically nothing but the basic furniture that the apartment came with, so you started grabbing everything you needed. The toiletries aisle made you laugh, seeing products like ‘cold cream’ which were decisively out of fashion nowadays. The brands were unfamiliar too, other than a few big ones. You grab a shampoo on a guess, deciding that the cartoon model on the bottle had a similar enough hair texture to yours that it would probably be okay. 

You head to the check out catch a glimpse of Joyce Byers. It's almost uncanny, seeing her without the weight of the world on her shoulders. You become increasingly resolute in your decision to try and help. 

Still, once home you battle over and over again with yourself over the ethics of it all. If you changed too much, you couldn’t predict the outcome, and you could end up making things worse. If characters didn’t go through certain things would they turn out the same way? What if saving them now meant they weren’t strong enough to face the greater evils that came down the line?

At the same time, how could you let a person die, knowing that you could have saved them? You resolved to try and spare as many deaths as you could. The first person you could realistically save was Barb. Your foreknowledge wouldn’t do much against government agents with guns, so Benny would still be a loss. How the hell were you supposed to save her? 

—

Jonathan and Will are regulars at the arcade, even more so than the rest of the party; every Friday after school they show up. They don’t spend too much money, but spend the whole afternoon loitering and spending time together. It makes your heart clench in your chest.

You resolve to befriend them over the next two months. One time, Jonathan arrives with his camera around his neck and you strike up a conversation about photography. You talk to Will about D&D and ask him to give you updates on the campaign. One time, while serving them snacks at the snack counter, when Jonathan is a dollar short, you give him your employee discount so he can cover it. Eventually, it becomes a regular thing to hang out with the Byers brothers each friday, hearing Will chirp your name in greeting as they enter. 

“Y/n!” he smiles, approaching where you were leant against the snack counter.

“Hey kiddo,” you grin back, making him pout at the diminutive term. “What’s the plan for today?”

“I want to get past level 100 in Dig Dug,” Will beams, already leaving to head over to the machine.

Jonathan stays at the counter watching Will leave with an exasperated smile. “100? How many levels even are there on this thing?”

“256,” You respond, causing Jonathan to look at you in surprise. “What, dude? I work here, it’s like, my job to know this stuff,”

Jonathan laughs. “So what you’re saying is, we’re gonna be here for hours,”

“Buckle in, buddy,” you say, turning to get him a drink on your employee discount as usual.

“You don’t have to do that, y’know.” he says quietly.

“Jonathan, it’s a ‘friends and family’ discount, and you and Will are my friends, okay? Now shut up and drink your Pepsi,” you reply, pushing the drink into his hand. “You take any more photos recently?”

“Yeah!” he perks up, which makes you smile. Rummaging in his bag, he pulls out a handful of pictures of spots around Hawkins. The clock tower, the library windows, even the park by your apartment. 

“Jonathan, these are incredible,” you enthuse, causing him to look down in awkwardness. “You’ve got real skill, y’know that? You could be a professional photographer,”

“They’re not that good…”

“Bullshit. I’m telling you, if the arcade ever requires employee photos, i’m giving you a call,”

Jonathan’s further protestations are covered by Will joining the pair of you once more. “Y/n, can you help me? The fygar on level 74 keeps frying me,” he says, frustrated.

“Hey, how come you don’t ask me for help anymore?” Jonathan protests with faux offence.

“Well… y’know… because…”

“Jonathan, I’m way better at games than you are, and everyone knows it,” You butt in to spare Will the confession. Jonathan gives your shoulder a playful shove as you pass him to head to the cabinet with Will.

—

Once Will liked you, the others were easy. You coached Lucas on how to beat the high-score on Galaga; you let Dustin infodump about how Tempest used a ‘color-quadrascan vector display’ to his heart’s content; and you laughed when Mike made bitchy comments about the others. Admittedly, you were an older girl who was willing to talk to them, which probably helped, but you like to think you made a good impression anyway. 

“Y/n! Tell him he’s being stupid!” Lucas yelled, gesturing wildly at Mike.

“Am not!”

“Are too! A tarrasque could totally kill a balrog!”

“A tarrasque is just a dumb animal, dude! A balrog could just outsmart it somehow,”

Dustin backs Mike up, “Besides, only the physical form of a balrog can be destroyed anyway, they’re maiar. If the tarrasque hit it, it could just turn into mist!”

“Not necessarily!” Will pipes up, eager to join in. “Morgoth and Sauron both lost that ability, and they’re both maiar! A balrog could lose it too!”

“Exactly!” Lucas said, throwing his arms up. “A tarrasque is resistant to, like, every damage type ever. They’re inherently tied to the prime material plane, dummy! All you can do is put it to sleep!”

A new wave of arguments arise from this and you feel a headache start to form. You need to end this. “Could a tarrasque beat Gandalf?” you ask.

“No way, Y/n!” Mike cries, looking genuinely horrified at the implication. “Gandalf would just put it to sleep, or send it to the outer planes or something,”

“So if a tarrasque couldn’t beat Gandalf, but a balrog managed to kill Gandalf, surely that means the balrog is stronger,” you conclude. You see them all stop to consider your proposal, even Lucas admitting defeat and nodding in agreement…

“But did Durin’s Bane really kill Gandalf? I mean, he came back right?”

God damn it Dustin.

A new argument starts up over what ‘really counts’ as death and if Gandalf’s case was more of a transformation. The headache starts to reform behind your eyes. This is going to be a long shift.

—

As October drew to a close, your anxiety started to ramp up. You had been trapped in Hawkins for two months now, and it had started to feel like home. Every time you walked through downtown, you remembered what it looked like being torn apart by rifts into the upside down. Every time you passed a police car, you remembered Hopper fighting off a demogorgon in a Russian jail. Every time Joyce Byers checked out your groceries at Melvald’s, you remembered that her family was about to be torn apart. 

—

The night Will disappears is torturous. You stayed up hours into the night curled up in a ball knowing that somewhere, a young boy was being taken by forces beyond his comprehension. You’re the only one who knows, and you’re doing nothing about it. The knowledge that he will survive provides little relief. You fall asleep in the early hours of the morning, grateful that you had the forethought to book the next week off work.

You had agonised for the last two months if you were going to intervene into this or not. If you did intervene, it could cause the entire upside down to be overlooked until it was too late. No, regretfully, Will was the catalyst. If you saved him and some other poor kid went missing, you couldn’t count on their family and friends to find them in time or to uncover the truth. But you could trust that Joyce Byers would save her son. It didn’t make the decision feel any better though.

—

The first day after Will goes missing, November 7th, you know you can’t do anything. Hell, you were the only one who knew Will was missing at this point. Joyce would be going to the police station and by tonight, Will’s disappearance would be on the local news. You could get involved tomorrow, once you had plausible deniability of how you found out.

This didn’t mean you would be staying idle though, you would be preparing all day. Tomorrow, you needed to save Barbara Holland’s life. 

Your first stop was the butchers, where you bought a truly astounding quantity of raw meat. You brushed off the confused look of the clerk with an awkward joke about ‘cooking for family gatherings, am I right?’

You hauled your two ice boxes back to a bike you had bought last week, also for the plan. Balancing them as you rode back to your apartment was no small feat, and you found yourself mourning the loss of your Honda Civic back in your own world. You couldn’t call it ‘the real world’ anymore, finally accepting that you might be stuck in Hawkins, Indiana forever.

If you thought about ‘the real world’ for too long, you would start to get emotional. You missed your parents, your friends, and your phone. You used a chunk of your first paycheck to buy a Sony Walkman, so at least you could listen to music while you walked to work now, but you’d still lost so much. 

What if you were thought missing in that world? Would your parents be like the Holland’s, mortgaging their house to hire a private investigator? The weight of the ice boxes reminded you of your task. If you succeeded, the Holland’s would never lose their daughter, and they would never have to go through that. 

You missed your dad shouting at cooking shows on the tv, and your mom shouting at him to stop shouting at the tv. You missed your mom forcibly cleaning your apartment whenever she visited, pushing you onto the couch as she ignored your protests. You missed your dad insisting on buying your groceries every time he visited, scrambling to beat you to the card machine when the check out clerk offered it. You missed when 80s music was nostalgic from their childhoods, not the most recent releases. 

But instead you were here, in a TV show land that you used to love, but now feels far too real. You could die tomorrow night, taking Barb’s place in your efforts to save her. 

You knew you wouldn’t be able to fight the demogorgon, but maybe you could bait it elsewhere.

—

You were close enough to Will and Jonathan by now that you didn’t feel like a complete intruder heading over to their house the next day. You knew Joyce and Jonathan would have made a missing poster last night, and offering to hang some up with Jonathan seemed like a good way to stay close. You’d stayed up cooking last night too. Your mom always said that when people were grieving, the best gift was food, as it meant they didn’t have to worry about feeding themselves. 

After your knock, the door is opened by Jonathan who seems surprised to see you.

“Hey, I heard about Will on the news and I just wanted to check in,” you say, feeling more and more unprepared for this conversation by the second. “I made you a pie,”

“Oh, uh, thanks. Come in,” Jonathan moves like a ghost, taking the dish from you and heading to the kitchen. Joyce is sat at the table, her head in her hands over a missing poster. You try not to feel complicit. 

“You’ve made a missing poster?” you ask, pretending like you don’t already know. Joyce looks up at your voice and looks at your face like she’s trying to place you.

“Mom, this is Y/n. From the arcade.” Jonathan says

“You’ve probably seen me at Melvald’s too. I’m so sorry about Will, Mrs Byers. I’m sure he’ll be okay,” You put every ounce of sincerity into your words. You are sure he’ll be okay. Joyce seems to sense how genuine you are, giving you a teary smile and clutching your hands in thanks.

“Do you need to get these reproduced? I have a day off today, I could go round town and hang them up too” You offer, nodding to the posters.

“Jonathan was already going to make the rounds today, you could help him?” Joyce suggests.

Jonathan looks uncomfortable with the suggestion, but Joyce gives him a pleading look. You remember on the show she had said she didn’t want him to go alone.

Jonathan acquiesces with a ‘sure’, and grabs the poster, leading you out the house and to his car.

“You walked here?” he asks, seeing the absence of another car or a bike.

“I can’t afford a car yet,” you shrugged, which was the truth. Meanwhile your newly bought bike had been left in the woods by Loch Nora as part of your plan for tonight. You had gotten used to walking anyway.

As you settle into the passenger seat beside him, he gives you a look. “You really don’t have to do this,”

“Will is my friend, Jonathan, I talk to him every time he’s in the arcade. I don’t want to intrude, but damnit, I want to help,” 

He gives you a searching look, checking for any signs of doubt or deception, then nods. “The chief was just here,” He says as you start driving towards the local Xerox.

“Yeah? I heard they had a search party out last night.” you say.

“Yeah. He wants to go check out-” Jonathan falters and clams up. Not ready to talk about Lonnie, you think, before feeling viscerally uncomfortable at how many secrets you know.

“I’m sure he’s doing everything he can,” You cut in, giving him an out. You’ve already implicitly invaded everyone’s privacy through watching the show, the least you can do is let them think they still have secrets. You change the subject. “Where do you think we should put the posters up?”

“Downtown, Main Street, all the schools, maybe the arcade too?” Jonathan says, still tense after his almost slip up.

“Sounds good. What’s high school like here anyway? Hell, like everywhere else?” You say, trying to put him at ease.

Jonathan huffs a laugh, mission accomplished. “The usual. Popular assholes, annoying teachers. You’re so lucky you’ve graduated,”

“Tell me about it. Now I get to enjoy the freedom of being yelled at by customers and sweeping up popcorn for minimum wage,”

“At least you’re getting paid to deal with assholes. I have to do it for free,” He replies. Jonathan was surprisingly funny when he wanted to be. He had a dry wit, with a clever response to most things. It reminded you of the way Will seemed so sweet, but would still catch your eye to mutter a sarcastic comment about his friends’ latest mishap. 

The thought of Will sobers you once more as Jonathan pulls into a space outside the Xerox. A boy is trapped in the Upside Down. And you have to get him out.

—

[happiness-of-the-pursuit]

Six Sentence Sunday

Happy Sunday!! Here's a snippet from Honey, you're familiar (like my mirror years ago) aka daddy issues fic. The Brownstone server already saw this :)

Thanks to @wordsofhoneydew @matherines @ships-to-sail @heybuddy-drabbles @anincompletelist @hgejfmw-hgejhsf @cultofsappho @ssmtskw @sherryvalli @kiwiana-writes for the tags, I've enjoyed reading all of y'all's snippets in my emails and I shall be spreading the love on them on tumblr when I have a real minute to go through them!!!! So many fun wips out there!!!!!

Two framed posters sit stacked in the corner, the first, a Claremont for Congress 2002 sign, the second, an Austin City Limits poster from the first and only time they attended as a family, when he was eleven. There’s other small doses of Claremont elsewhere in the apartment, too — the ugly lamp Ellen bought for her first apartment in the 80s in the living room, their grandma’s chest, serving as a window seat in every version of June’s room, originally built for her by her husband before he left for Vietnam. Maybe that’s why Alex feels such a sense of contentment when he finally finishes the headboard. Both his grandfathers were craftsmen, after all. They bent over their work bench using their hands, their skills, to provide for their families; a craft not as mystical as alchemy, but an act of creation, of transformation in its own right. Though a far cry from a carpenter’s sharp tools, something simmers in Alex’s blood when he picks up the tiny plastic jack provided by IKEA.

Tagging @myheartalivewrites @affectionatelyrs @zwiazdziarka @welcometololaland @rmd-writes @indomitable-love @saintlynomenclature @littlemisskittentoes @suseagull04 and I'm definitely missing people but I'm in a rush so open tag and tag me!!!

[evenlarksandkatydids]

something about lucy giving cooper the chems he needs to keep from going feral to show him that she'll never let the wasteland turn her into someone like him and cooper immediately afterward finding a copy of the anti-communist propaganda movie he was talked into doing despite his apprehensions. cooper looking into the past at the exact moment that started the gradual wearing away of his principles and put him on the path to becoming the man he is while lucy walks off defiantly, no i will not allow this place to change me, i may have to become harder, i may have to become violent, but i will hold true to the values that have shaped me.

[lazylittledragon]

something about beginnings

[stormyoceans]

vv brainrot continuation:

and again the hangover pill is a hangover karbonak

you're deeply and passionately in love (dude, did you lose your twin puen at birth?)

august’s interview reminded me so much of puen’s interview in ep12

day and talay "i don’t think anything about him, but i’ll come to him with a guitar to sing love songs to say how important he is to me" (day doesn’t have a guitar yet, but he behaves in such a way that he’ll now start singing love by paradox)

in all universes, seat belts are a source of great tension.

puen’s methods of influencing day and talay are the same (you don’t run with me bcs you think about me differently. who were you thinking about when i directed the scenes? about a guy named tun?)

bed scene (fandee na talay)

why are you smiling mork? (talay is your smile)

can you tell me about rung (p'peng, you can tell me about the life of tun)

smells (we've discussed this many times, but why not say it again)

cover your ears (idk it just reminded me of the childhood fuss of puentalay when they were filming a video message to joob)

you're doing this bcs of the car (the theme is “falling in pretend love to return to your universe”)

we're bf now (at least they didn't have to kiss 40 times before they verbally admitted it)

wedding (leave your drinking yogurt and bring a bag of chips or it's not canon). soft pink balloons (i'm already crying) i'm beaten out like a dusty carpet. how are you doing with brainrot, monica?

PINKYBRAAAAAIIIIIIIIIINNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH MY GOD IM SO HAPPY TO HEAR FROM YOU AGAIN!!!!!!!!!! BUT WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT YOU SENT ME THE BRAINROT FOR EP 6 AND I DIDN'T GET THE MESSAGE 😭😭😭 TUMBLR MEET ME IN THE PIT IM GONNA FIGHT YOU

i may have gotten a little bit worried ;;;;;; im so glad you're okay tho!!!!!!! and i know it's really annoying to write down something all-over again but if you ever felt like rewatching ep 6 and trying to send me a new brainrot, i'd love to read it!!!!! (but no pressure, of course!!!!)

ANYWAY. BACK TO THE CURRENT BRAINROT. 'BEATEN OUT LIKE A DUSTY CARPET' IS ACTUALLY A PERFECT DESCRIPTION OF HOW I FEEL ON A PSYCHOLOGICAL EMOTIONAL SPIRITUAL MENTAL AND PHYSICAL LEVEL AFTER THIS EPISODE. ESPECIALLY WHEN I THINK ABOUT THE PUENTALAY PARALLELS LIKE CAN YOU BELIEVE WE REALLY GOT A MARRIAGE PROPOSAL ONE???????? INSANITY DERANGEMENT LUNACY MADNESS THEY'RE DOING IT ON PURPOSE AND NOT EVEN P'AOF HIMSELF COULD CHANGE MY MIND

my brainrot pretty much looks like yours tbh, however the cover your ears scene immediately made me think about puentalay pinching each other's cheeks in ep 4

I JUST LOVE OUR SILLIES SO MUCH

also!!!!! kind of a reach, but the way the almost kiss at the end of this episode was framed reminded me very strongly of the puentalay one in ep 5

and both of them were interrupted, one by a phone call and one by. Pain.............

but honestly the dynamic between mork and day in this entire episode was so puentalay coded to me like the way mork was pursuing day while day played hard to get but you could still tell he was enjoying every second of it is just. it's puentalay. like idk what else to say it's THEM

THE PARALLEL UNIVERSE THEORY HAS NEVER BEEN MORE REAL

[thcsedorks]

if i were a ZOMBIE, i'd never eat your B R A I N

rules | evelyn | psd | promo ind. pri. sel. multimuse featuring a LEFT 4 DEAD OC, evelyn. originally est. 2013, revamped 2024, formerly zombieslain & electricwcrry

[volivolition]

hello, skills lover extraordinaire here :] you can call me voli, chemi, or volta. im 24, i use he/him pronouns, im aroace and transmasc. big skills fan, contrary to the name my favorite skill is empathy actually lmao, but volition is very dear to me. welcome to skill fixation central, population me.

my art tag is #voliart, my talking tag is #chemi chats, and my ask tag is #volta transmissions (feel free to talk to me about the skills, i LOVE the skills)! i prefer asks/replies more than DMs!!

may post suggestive or nsft stuff, will tag accordingly.

more tags and things under the cut!!

signature skill userbox made by euclydya, others by me

#ency ref - things i want to keep for some reason

#inland drabbles - my writing snippets

#suggestion recommendation - something someone has suggested to me, fics or games or songs!

#concepts canvas - things i want to draw eventually

#drama scripts - disco elysium canon text because it was filling up my ref tag lmao

And my fic tags, labeled as tasks!

#task: unstoppable force - The Unstoppable Force Kisses the Immovable Object, an volistry fic about them getting together.

#task: meet the parts - Meet the Parts that Make You, a kim-gets-introduced-to-the-skills fic

#task: let's make it a home - Let's Make It (a) Home, a skills fic set during martinaise as they rebuild a home together

#task: swept up - Swept Up in the Feeling, a empathy-centric skills fic as an excuse to do character studies and better understand each of the skills

#task: sunrise momentum - The Sunrise Momentum, a volition-centric fic about the Holy Vow of waking up at 7:30

#task: message please survive - known in my documents as Message to all Bitches: Please Survive, a look into the skills perspective during the martinaise blackout.

#task: who are you if not - Who Are You, If Not..., an esprit-centric fic about what happens to the RCM skill if Harry left the RCM

Me!! :3

[feathered-serpents]

Can you imagine how unhinged it would be if "From Eden" played in the credits for one of the episodes? I'm certain it won't happen but like. Can you imagine

[goldenvboots]

rb17 looks great

[iwaasfairy]

Can you do some degenerate father kaiser hcs...fem reader if possible

🙏🏻

maybe i would (i do wanna write more bllk) but ,,, i'd appreciate it if you read my (and other writers') rules before asking, because i don't do headcanons and i always write fem readers,,,

and like i answered an ask just earlier,, i'm backed up on writing with kinktober

[pink-psychic]

Don’t know how people can listen to From Eden by Hozier and not scream and cry and sob and throw up and fall in love about it

[februaryfic]

A Steve Harrington x meta!Reader slowburn multichapter fic.

The reader in this is canonically chubby (because so is the author and we deserve rep goddamn it), a nerd, has a decent relationship with their parents, and didn't have a great time in high school. They are intended to be racially ambiguous, so if you're a reader of colour and you spot anything that takes you out of the fiction, PLEASE let me know and I would be happy to change it.

When you wake up in the world of your favourite tv show, at first it feels like a dream. But after a while it becomes more of a nightmare.

"You have to play the long game. You’re not playing checkers, you’re setting up a chessboard. How many of them will hate you once they know? That they are your pawns? You wouldn’t blame them."

Chapter One (AO3)

Chapter Two (AO3)

Chapter Three (AO3)

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

[happiness-of-the-pursuit]

WIP Wednesday

Coming in a little late this evening, here to share a snippet I actually wrote earlier this afternoon for Honey, you're familiar (like my mirrors years ago), aka Daddy Issues: the dads storyline swapalooza.

“Those of us who live in this building chose to live here because we value our privacy,” Henry states, still avoiding direct eye contact with Alex. “And—” And Alex cuts him off, not willing to be lectured a second longer. “Us fucking too, Prince Charming. Just because we didn’t grow up with live updates of our every move since birth doesn’t mean June and I aren’t aware of the shitty moves the paparazzi and reporters and whoever else try to pull.” Henry opens his mouth to respond, looking half-annoyed, half-confused. But Alex isn’t done. “We visited my dad’s memorial for his birthday, and it turned into a whole fucking news story that my mom didn’t come with us. So excuse me if I don’t have the time or energy to be lectured like I don’t know what I’m talking about, because I fucking do.” When the elevators open, Alex lets the guards exit first, then he turns to Henry, who seems to have been stunned into silence. “In case your inbreeding didn’t give you enough brain cells to follow that: June and I appreciate our privacy too. So you’re welcome to fuck right off.” With that, he pushes the dolly out after Cash, not giving Henry a second glance.

Thanks to @ships-to-sail @inexplicablymine @anincompletelist @heybuddy-drabbles @14carrotghoul @hgejfmw-hgejhsf @littlemisskittentoes @sherryvalli @leaves-of-laurelin @kiwiana-writes for Wednesday tags (your snippets are so fun, will be liking and sharing soon) and @rockyroadkylers and val for the last line tag-this also happens to be the last line I wrote)!

Sorry if I missed someone who already posted, this is my first time on tumblr all day, would love to see what y'all are up to: @cultofsappho @xthelastknownsurvivorx @welcometololaland @rmd-writes @everwitch-magiks @affectionatelyrs @read-and-write- @tintagel-or-cockleshells @daisymae-12 @indomitable-love and anyone else I'm forgetting!!! Tag me so I can see :)

[volivolition]

alright ignore this <3

#🧭 #🍱 #🏹 #🕊️ #🪶 #🔭 #📜 #🪡 #☔ #🌺 #💓 #💫 #💥 #🍂 #🌻 #🌫️ #🪟 #👥 #🩹 #🎇 #🍵 #🕯️ #💨 #🌐 #☄���

[thcsedorks]

ooc tag dump shit

🗑️ / ooc // trash can irl 🗑️ / memes // we tried the world ; good god ; it wasn't for us 🗑️ / psa // there's money to be made ; whatever's still to come 🗑️ / self promo // honey ; you're familiar ; like my mirror years ago 🗑️ / promo // it'd be great to find a place we could escape sometime 🗑️ / wishlist // i keep you at arm's length and let you go ; but only if you promise to stay 🗑️ / starter call // i've no more hunger now to see where the road will go 🗑️ / open // i know you love so hard and it's killing me slowly 🗑️ / dash commentary // but this world takes more strength than it gave me 🗑️ / writing // this war we're fighting is not just writing

[archxngxl]

@elpida