#only two more parts to go!

[stevesbipanic]

Boy For All Seasons

Part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Ao3

By the time the first snow began to fall upon Hawkins Eddie knew he was falling in love with one Steve Harrington. Most nights the boys shared a bed feigning exhaustion or cold weather as an excuse to be close to each other. Eddie was weak to Steve's wishes and selfishly wanted to keep the younger boy in his orbit for as long as possible.

Christmas break had just started and Eddie was helping Steve hang up lights on the roof of Family Video.

"Ya know Stevie, usually when I help you with work it's to steal corporate America's heating system not freeze my balls off."

"I told you to wear I sweater when we left this morning."

Eddie's cheeks flushed and it wasn't from the cold, he mumbled a response.

"What was that?" Steve asked as he climbed back down and they headed inside.

"I said you're wearing my only sweater." Eddie was at least feeling warm now under Steve's gaze.

"Eds why didn't you say something, I could've survived!"

"I didn't want you to get cold, besides you look cute in my clothes."

Steve smiled softly, "Oh yeah? Trying to get me all dressed up a metalhead Munson?"

Eddie leaned in, a smirk dancing over his face, "Well you would look pretty h-."

"Oi! Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee! A little help would be nice!" Robin called, startling the boys apart.

"Sorry Robs."

"We helped with the lights little Birdie!"

"Mhm, Steve did the lights, you enjoyed the show, Munson," Robin muttered under her breath. It hadn't been long ago that the two had done the questioning gaze at each other revealing they had more in common than they thought. It made Eddie happy that it was unlikely Steve would punch him if he found out but even with all the flirting Eddie wasn't willing to risk it.

"What time are we supposed to be there on Tuesday, Steve-o?"

"Five, 'cause you know the kids are gonna want presents before dinner. Is Nance still picking you up?"

"Yeah she said she's got room, Joyce says she's gonna borrow Ms. Sinclair's car while they're here so she's got the rest of the kids handled."

Steve smiled and continued stacking the shelves.

"You guys having a little Christmas Eve party with the sheepies?" Eddie asked trying not to feel a little hurt that he'd been excluded.

"Hm? Oh shit! Eddie yeah everyone's coming over that day, you should bring Wayne too if he's not working."

"Dingus, did you forget to invite him?"

"Maybe," Steve said sheepishly, "In my defense, I assumed we'd be hanging out that day anyway."

Something warm bloomed in Eddie's chest at the assumption, at the inference that Steve would want to be around Eddie all the time.

"Wayne's working sadly, but you're right, we should probs sleep at yours Tuesday then so you have time to get everything set up." If Eddie hadn't been hiding his own blush behind his hair, he may have caught the light dusting across Steve's cheek at the word "we".

It wasn't long before Christmas Eve had rolled around. The Harrington house looked warmer when it was bathed in soft yellow Christmas lights. Steve had spent all day moving around the kitchen getting the feast ready, Eddie a dutiful taster and switcher of vinyls.

Before long the doorbell rang and a stampede of noise and laughter filled the home. Steve had been correct, the kids wanted to do presents first, and a mess of wrapping paper and cheers flowed through the living room. Eddie in typical Eddie fashion had dressed up as Santa Claus and helped pass around the gifts.

"This is for you, Eds," Steve said shyly passing a small gift to Eddie.

"Thanks, sweetheart." Eddie unwrapped the gift to find a chain with a black and red guitar pick attached.

"You've got so many rings, thought you needed something a little different, plus it matches your guitar."

"It's awesome, thank you, Stevie." Before Eddie could stop his own actions he'd leaned into Steve's space and pecked his cheek.

Steve immediately flushed, his hand reaching up to softly touch his cheek before standing quickly and telling the group that it was time for dinner. Briefly, Eddie thought he'd ruined everything but at the table, Steve still smiled and sat beside him.

Later, when everyone else had been taken home leaving Eddie and Steve warm and safe in Steve's bed Eddie thought about mentioning it. He thought about mentioning everything, all the flirting, the jokes, the costumes, the smiles, the stares, the fact that they slept together almost every night. But he didn't, instead, he whispered softly as they both softly drifted to sleep.

"Merry Christmas, Stevie."

"Merry Christmas, Eds."

Tags: @zerokrox-blog @smallfrogpleasedtomeetyou @eboyawstenn @sharingisntkaren @goodolefashionedloverboi @the-redthread @steddie-there @questionablequeeries @liorereshkigal @mightbeasleep @carlyv @my2amgaythoughts @gregre369 @space-invading-pigeon @bisexualdisastersworld @epiclazershark @sherrylyn628 @raisedbylibrarians @swaghettoni

[coddda]

I wish we could have met in some other way.

Lawlight Week Day 2: Soulmates

If you saw me repost and re-edit this several times uh No you didn't </3

Still frames/Individual gifs:

If you know what every frame is from you get a free cookie. by the way

[egophiliac]

don't think I'm not still deep in the episode 7 brainrot. because OH BOY AM I

(also one more extremely, obnoxiously self-referential thing, I'm -- I'm so sorry)

[professorcalculusstanaccount]

The penultimate part of my story, The House of Glass. Tintin's investigation hits a wall. Follows directly from this!

If you're enjoying this comic, please consider donating to Eyad, he is a father of four trying to evacuate his family from the Gaza strip. His wife Amal, and their kids, Sami (11), Mohammad (9), Sarah (7) and Saad (5) are currently in a displacement school in the Zaytoun area. Eyad has been separated from his family, and is currently living in a tent in the Dier al-Balah area.

His blog is @abosamisblog

[umblrspectrum]

part 4 of a lot funnier in my head than on paper

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Shout out to all artists who had to work without any strong direction or instruction.

I wish you a merry “the client likes it anyways”

[pocketgalaxies]

C1E60 || C3E88

[diurnalvl]

seven years ago, they used to be friends. almost.

1 / 2 / ?

[aroaceleovaldez]

i think the thing i'm most disappointed about with riordanverse fandom now versus like 2014 is not only has the fandom not gotten any less racist or queerphobic or ableist (in fact in some regards its gotten worse!) but now it's just boring too. like there's no fandom infrastructure anymore - the community these days is almost entirely source material-driven - and you deviate from canon even slightly people get weird about it. whatever happened to the post-HoO fanon boom. the fandom needs to get weirder again. and self-sufficient. and less offensive.

[always-a-joyful-note]

Enstars sure is an experience. Did I miss anything?

[onsecondthoughtno]

Pictures from the Outer Wilds

Timber Hearth || The Hourglass Twins || Brittle Hollow

White Hole Station || Dark Bramble || Giant's Deep

The Interloper || The Stranger || The Quantum Moon

[lunarharp]

What led to this (orufrey comic, cw an uncomfortable/creepy scene)

[thelilylav]

We only see each other at funerals

(On Jason, Thalia, Nico, Bianca, and their parallels/connections)

The Titan's Curse (Rick Riordan), @/anxiousmaya_, Right Now (Gracie Abrams), The Battle of the Labyrinth (Rick Riordan), Joan of Arc (Mary Gordon), The Lost Hero (Rick Riordan), Episodes Toward and Elegy for Halley's Comet (Lindsey Drager), Jason Grace (Riordan Wiki), The Gods Show Up (Michael Kinnucan), The House of Hades (Rick Riordan), What the Living Do (Marie Howe), The House of Hades (Rick Riordan), Planet of Love (Richard Siken), The Blood of Olympus (Rick Riordan), Tangerine (Nolune), The Blood of Olympus (Rick Riordan), The Blood of Olympus (Rick Riordan), I Bet On Losing Dogs (Mitski), The Burning Maze (Rick Riordan), @/abhorarchive (Twitter), The Burning Maze (Rick Riordan), Seventeen (MARINA), The Burning Maze (Rick Riordan), @/rollercoasterwords, The Tyrant's Tomb (Rick Riordan), @/the-overanalyst, Where Things Come Back (John Corey Whaley), Grit (Silas Denver Martin), Softcore (The Neighbourhood), The Tower of Nero (Rick Riordan), Frost (Mitski), @/moonbends, I'm Your Man (Mitski), Sun Bleached Flies (Ethel Cain), The Tower of Nero (Rick Riordan), Three (Sleeping At Last), My Art

[al-luviec]

juvie buddies

[skrunksthatwunk]

actually i'm still thinking about the moral orel finale.

he has a cross on his wall. do you know how much i think about that bc it's a lot.

a lot of stories ((auto)biographical or fictional) centering escape from abusive/fundamentalist christianity result in the lead characters leaving behind christianity entirely. and that makes complete sense! people often grow disillusioned with the associated systems and beliefs, and when it was something used to hurt them or something so inseparable from their abuse that they can't engage with it without hurting, it makes total sense that they would disengage entirely. and sometimes they just figure out that they don't really believe in god/a christian god/etc. a healthy deconstruction process can sometimes look like becoming an atheist or converting to another religion. it's all case by case. (note: i'm sure this happens with other religions as well, i'm just most familiar with christian versions of this phenomenon).

but in orel's case, his faith was one of the few things that actually brought him comfort and joy. he loved god, y'know? genuinely. and he felt loved by god and supported by him when he had no one else. and the abuses he faced were in how the people in his life twisted religion to control others, to run away from themselves, to shield them from others, etc. and often, orel's conflicts with how they acted out christianity come as a direct result of his purer understanding of god/jesus/whatever ("aren't we supposed to be like this/do that?" met with an adult's excuse for their own behavior or the fastest way they could think of to get orel to leave them alone (i.e. orel saying i thought we weren't supposed to lie? and clay saying uhhh it doesn't count if you're lying to yourself)). the little guy played catch with god instead of his dad, like.. his faith was real, and his love was real. and i think it's a good choice to have orel maintain something that was so important to him and such a grounding, comforting force in the midst of. All That Stuff Moralton Was Up To/Put Him Through. being all about jesus was not the problem, in orel's case.

and i know i'm mostly assuming that orel ended up in a healthier, less rigid version of christianity, but i feel like that's something that was hinted at a lot through the series, that that's the direction he'd go. when he meditates during the prayer bee and accepts stephanie's different way to communicate, incorporating elements of buddhism into his faith; when he has his I AM A CHURCH breakdown (removing himself from the institution and realizing he can be like,, the center of his own faith? taking a more individualistic approach? but Truly Going Through It at the same time), his acceptance (...sometimes) of those who are different from him and condemned by the adults of moralton (stephanie (lesbian icon stephanie my beloved), christina (who's like. just a slightly different form of fundie protestant from him), dr chosenberg (the jewish doctor from otherton in holy visage)). his track record on this isn't perfect, but it gets better as orel starts maturing and picking up on what an absolute shitfest moralton is. it's all ways of questioning the things he's been taught, and it makes sense that it would lead to a bigger questioning as he puts those pieces together more. anyway i think part of his growth is weeding out all the lost commandments of his upbringing and focusing on what faith means to him, and what he thinks it should mean. how he wants to see the world and how he wants to treat people and what he thinks is okay and right, and looking to religion for guidance in that, not as like. a way to justify hurting those he's afraid or resentful of, as his role models did.

he's coming to his own conclusions rather than obediently, unquestioningly taking in what others say. but he's still listening to pick out the parts that make sense to him. (edit/note: and it's his compassion and his faith that are the primary motivations for this questioning and revisal process, both of individual cases and, eventually, the final boss that is christianity.) it makes perfect sense as the conclusion to his character arc and it fits the overall approach of the show far better. it's good is what i'm saying.

and i think it's important to show that kind of ending, because that's a pretty common and equally valid result of deconstruction. and i think it cements the show's treatment of christianity as something that's often (and maybe even easily) exploited, but not something inherently bad. something that can be very positive, even. guys he even has a dog he's not afraid of loving anymore. he's not afraid of loving anyone more than jesus and i don't think it's because he loves this dog less than bartholomew (though he was probably far more desperate for healthy affection and companionship when he was younger). i think it's because he figures god would want him to love that dog. he's choosing to believe that god would want him to love and to be happy and to be kind. he's not afraid of loving in the wrong way do you know how cool that is he's taking back control he's taking back something he loves from his abusers im so normal

[littletealights]

What makes you think that Arthur is a person of color? :0 just curious.

gladly.

so, at first, i thought it was me projecting but i think the first clue i got was eddie. yall might think i’m being dramatic but eddie was…suspicious from the get-go. in a normal situation like this, there’s actually 0% chance that it turns out the way it did for arthur.

but that’s beside the point. eddie knocks on the door and receives an unhurried response. he walks away to do.. whatever it is he was doing. arthur comes to the door, opens it, looks around and picks up some trash, muttering to himself. suddenly eddie has urgent business inside the office with a. flimsy excuse at best. strike one.

we, as the audience, know that arthur is being shifty because he’s just killed a man. eddie has been told, quite convincingly, that arthur was moving… boxes or something (im looking at the transcript, arthur just says ‘not furniture’ so…). and that arthur is working with sensitive documents. not sure if you know this but private detectives have to work with proper authorities to be allowed to operate legally. that means they work with the police and the courts. when a PI says a document is sensitive, they mean legally. they mean eyes only. they mean ‘come back later or i could lose my fucking license because you got the wrong look at classified documents.’ a building manager, especially their building manager, should know that. strike two.

he also asks for arthur’s partner, peter yang (who is, i can only assume, an east asian man). i should hope that i dont have to remind you that this is massachusetts in the 30’s we’re talking about, and what that means logically. but i will. america hated asian people the most they ever did until COVID in the 30s through the 60s. the only people they hated more were black and brown people. no matter how shifty and suspicious arthur was acting, eddie would’ve been… let’s just say ‘incredibly unlikely’ to ask for peter instead of the white man. strike three

there’s some little bits about subvocals and tone that i could say, but it’d be a lot and i don’t fully understand it enough to explain well why eddie set off alarms for me. because i dont have to. it takes 5 minutes (from 11:48-16:09 on spotify, so nearly exactly) for eddie to go from inconvenient, to annoying, to suspicious, to violent. and he ends the conversation with a very real threat of violence that essentially boils down to ‘don’t come back to the building again.’ eddie is a maintenance man. he did not have the power to evict anyone. unless, of course, they were a poc. so why was arthur worried about eddie when sneaking back into the building?

but, like i said, i thought i was projecting. projection and being-on-the-lam can easily explain arthur’s hesitance when delivering the baby and asking for a ride. or the gunshop in part 6. but the lighthouse? no, what really solidified it for me was the end of part 8.

here’s what officer collin knows so far: a visibly disabled man has stumbled, confused and upset, away from a lighthouse and a body that CANNOT have been killed by a human; and it is dark outside. that’s it. using this knowledge, he then proceeds to beat said man. brutally. repeatedly.

in part 9 they learn he is blind and when that timid little fucker (mitchell) expresses doubt, collin says this

this is something we like to call coerced confession. arthur did not kill that man (the lighthouse keeper). officer collin knows that arthur didn’t kill that man. (dont play, he knows.) but because it is convenient to say that he did, they’ll threaten and torture him until he says that he did.

now, friends, i’m not going to lie to your face and say that white folk are safe from the cops, youre not, i know. but what im also not going to do is pretend like there os any world in which this happens and arthur is visibly white. not in the thirties, not in america. despite being forgotten or unmentioned they are in the midst of the great depression, the exact last thing these small-town cops need is the arrest of a blind white man on their hands. regardless, i have never ever heard of a cop speaking this way to a white person unprovoked. i, on the other hand, have been spoken to this way myself.

this is already quite long and it doesn’t even cover the sheer magnitude of people who feel comfortable calling arthur (at his grown ass age of visibly-an-adult) ‘boy.’ or the wicked and downright racist way that larson says it, (genuinely. it sounds like he’s a middle school boy who discovered the word ‘fagg*t’ for the first time the way he says it. i couldn’t tell you how many times that word (boy) drove an ice pick through my fucking skull this season.) but i hope you can at least get the picture.

original post is here