#thank you joyce!!

[bylergetonefree]

imma gonna say it. mike wheeler is allowed to be a bitch to will one (1) time in s5. and i need it to be in front of joyce, who has only ever known mike as the boy who slept on will’s floor, followed him and nearly died at the lab, cared for him, and loved him so gently his entire life. i need joyce to take will aside, ask him what happened. what changed. i need will to give a noncommittal answer. i need joyce to then corner mike and ask him, in the kindest but most direct way possible, why he stopped loving her son. i need mike to misunderstand, to think she knows. i need him to tell her everything. i need him to break down and for her to hold him and tell him it’s going to be okay. i need joyce byers to give mike wheeler the courage to to love her son freely

[kidovna]

🤝🏻 part 1 (next)

[emblazons]

ONE YEAR OF STRANGER THINGS SANS VISAGES

Celebrating (Faceless) Stranger Things Aesthetics @emblazons Series Start: August 1 2023 (all episodes)

[bylertruther]

will shoveling four grains of sand + being the only one other than an injured el to not help flip the car until the very end + barely helping to set up cerebro + barely stirring the pizza dough freezer bath + wanting to commit fraud so that he never has to work ..... literally the character of all time everyone else go home

[chloepleasestopdying]

I know that ‘we got drunk and got married’ is popular trope but I don’t like it for most ships because I feel like it takes a certain kind of character to do that believably.

Pricefield tho…. I can totally see them getting married after like five drinks in pretty much any universe.

Personally I think it would be hilarious if Max never returned to Arcadia Bay but got the courage to at least message Chloe to apologize about how everything went down and they slowly make up over phone calls and text. Maybe Chloe’s on the road with Steph so it takes for forever to meet in person. They meet up on Max’s 21st birthday, get absolutely hammered and wake up married. 

I just like this version a lot because I’m imagining a conversation between Max and her parents where she confess that she got married accidentally and her dad is demanding to know what man he has to beat the shit out of and Chloe walks into frame like 🧍‍♀️ ‘Hi Mr.Caulfield’. Or Chloe accidentally tells her mom and when Joyce throws a fit Chloe defends herself by saying that she should be happy that Max is in law instead of some biker dude and then David has an aneurysm because Joyce does a complete 180 when hearing that it was Max that she married. 

[lifeisstrange-incorrectquotes]

David: Nothing in life is free.

Joyce: Love is free!

Rachel: Adventure is free.

Max: Knowledge is free.

Chloe: Everything is free if you take it without paying.

[stropharian-world]

Been trying out new colouring techniques (and line art, and styles, and mind sets….). I’m quite happy with how this one turned out!

[edit: this is a lovely pose reference by mellon soup on Patreon!]

[lucascsinclairs]

Stranger Things 4 Color Palette Meme: requested by @fromamelodytoasong​​​

Jopper + Hand-Picked

[hellinhawkins]

what do you think every st character's favorite movie would be? (including movies up to today)

oh i really like this ask! most of these are 80’s movies, though, because that is a good majority of what i watch lol.

will: i think that will would like Alien, but i can’t really be sure if that’s one that would be his all time favorite- just one i think he’d like. that’s really all i got, unfortunately

el- i think el would like Dirty Dancing, Ten Things I Hate About You, Firestarter, Barbie, etc. i can’t explain why i believe these things they just come to me 😭

mike- i feel like mike would like Zombieland (once again, as a favorite movie, i’m not sure) and definitely The Outsiders. ( Star Wars too, but that’s an obvious one)

max- i cannot explain this but i sense that max would like Scream- probably one of her favorites.

dustin- Back to the Future & Gremlins. no further words

lucas- i don’t know why but i feel pretty confident that lucas would like the Brekfast Club… do with that what you wish. (i also sort of believe he’d like Baby Driver. cant explain it)

robin- i feel like she’d like A Nightmare On Elm Street (and But I’m a Cheerleader, although i can’t say either of those with any real belief in it)

steve - steve would like the Spiderverse movies, he’s a Marvel fan. and probably Heathers- Indiana Jones?

nancy- Top Gun (i say with confidence)

jonathan- jonathan would probably like IT (MAYBE A Quiet Place, I haven’t decided on that one yet)

[owensgrumpyoranges]

One year since I posted my first EinJoyce fic.

Thank you all so much for being here. It's meant the World to me <3

[doll-elvis]

I don’t care about her living off of Elvis but I kinda wish Priscilla didn’t erase his other girlfriends from his story like Anita Wood, Ann Margret, and Linda Thompson

this is an interesting topic for sure. I’ve wondered if anyone else has noticed that there is kind of a hierarchy in the elvis world regarding girlfriends and friends of elvis. and it can especially be seen by what elvis presley enterprises chooses to promote

like for example, Dixie Locke and Priscilla became good friends later on in life. And I think that has influenced Dixie Locke’s book being sold on the Graceland website and maybe even why she was shown in the Elvis movie. You would definitely never see something like Ann Margret’s book or Joyce Bova’s being promoted. I have noticed that elvis presley enterprises doesn’t want to put any attention on girlfriends whose time with Elvis overlapped with Priscilla’s, like Joyce Bova, Ann Margret and Anita Wood for example.

even at Graceland where Elvis’ tcb ring is displayed I heard that the tour guide doesn’t mention that the diamond on it isn’t the original, and that the original diamond is with Ginger Alden as it was used to make her engagement ring which she still has to this day. regardless of what you think of Ginger, to completely ignore her engagement with Elvis is crazy to me

As for Linda I was honestly really surprised that she had no mention in the Elvis movie at all. I understand the movie was more about Elvis and the colonel’s relationship but to ignore almost 5 years of Elvis’ life with Linda is crazy. But I think it was to show some narrative like Elvis was never able to move on from Priscilla, which I don’t think is true and is unfair to women like Linda, Sheila and Ginger who had significant relationships with him. Idk how much control Priscilla actually has, especially now, and from my understanding she wasn’t involved in the movie but I sometimes think maybe Baz did certain things to appease Priscilla but I can’t say for sure👀

I think all Elvis history is worth knowing, and it’s definitely not fair to just pick and choose

what do y’all think?

[artiststarme]

What If Steve Were To Leave Hawkins? Part 19

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18

Well guys, this is the last story part! Just the epilogue left now and I have ideas lol. I plan on posting it sometime tomorrow if my shift gets slow. Thank you to everyone that has stuck around for all of these parts. Let me know what you guys think in the comments!

Part 20

~*~*~*~

The Party was having a great time regaling each other with their own stories. Steve spoke of Chicago and serving the caffeine-addled fiends of the coffee shop. Eddie captivated their attention with tales of concerts of up-and-coming metal bands and towering buildings. Meanwhile, the kids entertained the older boys with stories of pool outings and ideas for DnD. Nancy and Johnathan were in their own world, chatting about college or whatever they talked about. Through it all, Hopper and Joyce watched all of the kids talking and having fun with each other. 

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end and even though they were having a fabulous time at the impromptu gathering at the Byers’, the older teens had to get back to the trailer to go to bed. They had to hit the road back to Chicago early the next morning. Steve had already taken a couple of days off from work and he was expected to be back at the coffee shop for a midday shift the next day. 

Steve made a move to stand and awkwardly clapped his hands together. “Hey everyone, we have to head out. We have to be on the road early tomorrow.”

The joyful expressions on everyone’s faces vanished in an instant. They had just gotten Steve back, they didn’t want to lose him again. Their own self-pity and morose feelings were ignored however in the face of making Steve feel happy and secure in his decision to move. Every member of the Party stamped a mournful smile on their face and reminded themselves that this was the best option for Steve as they said their goodbyes.

Hopper started off the first of their farewells with a warm hug and a threat, “if you don’t call me as soon as you get back to Chicago, I will personally hunt you down and kick your ass, kid. Don’t go AWOL again.”

He turned to Eddie and glared as harshly as he could, “if I hear about you hurting Steve even a little bit, I’ll finish what the Upside Down started. Do not test me, Munson. I have nothing to lose.” 

Eddie paled slightly and his mouth dropped open. He was both impressed at the Chief’s threat and also offended at the notion that there could be some world in which he’d hurt Steve. “Um, excuse you…”

“Hey, let the boys be happy!” Joyce defended him and slugged Hopper in the arm. She enveloped both Eddie and Steve in a hug and whispered into their ears, “Ignore him. You’re both always welcome here. You boys better stay in touch, you hear me?”

They both nodded at her and returned her hug, Steve pressing a small kiss to the top of the short woman’s head. She was a better mother to him in the past three years than his own mother had been his entire life and he would miss being able to see her at the drop of a hat. Next, the kids enveloped him and Eddie in a suffocating group hug, all muttering over one another about how they’d miss them and would be visiting them soon in the city, how if they didn’t stay in touch they’d hunt them down and make them regret it.  

Dustin, in particular, was upset at their move to Chicago. He held onto them the longest and they could feel tears soaking into their shirts. Steve hugged him especially close and said softly, “Hey man, we’re not going far. We gave you our number and you can call whenever you want. And if you ever need us, we’re just a couple hours drive away.”

“What if you guys forget about me?” Dustin whispered brokenly. 

Eddie grasped the back of his neck and looked him directly in the eye, “Henderson, you’re our little brother. We’re never going to forget you or any of the other kids. We went through something… um, really fucking traumatic together so you’re stuck with us for life.”

Dustin nodded and with another hug to him and Steve and a brief fist-bump to Robin, Dustin joined the other kids back at the table. He still had tears dripping down his face and a permanent pout to boot but he knew there was nothing else he could do to keep them here. He was losing his older friends in the same way that lost his dad but hopefully they would keep their promise to call. He just had to trust them when they said that he was the little brother they would never forget. 

~*~*~*~

When they arrived back at the trailer, Robin claimed the couch for the night while Wayne was on his night shift at the plant. Steve and Eddie tiredly made their way to Eddie’s bedroom for some much needed sleep. They hardly had the energy to undress before they both crawled underneath the covers. 

“Big day tomorrow, Stevie,” Eddie muttered, yawning between his words. “You excited?”

Steve thought for a moment. He was finally doing something with his life and he was doing it for himself. Him, his boyfriend that he loved, and his best friend were moving to the city together and were moving on with their lives in a way he never thought he would. And he was putting himself first for once and was making a move that would make him happy, even while the kids might not feel the same. 

“Yeah Eds, I’m really excited. I can’t wait to go around and show Robin the city. We can take her to the Lincoln Park Zoo and take her to that bookstore that has the gay books! Do you think she’ll like it?” He asked Eddie excitedly. 

“I think she’ll love it, babe,” Eddie yawned again and pecked him softly on the lips. “Goodnight Stevie, I love you.”

“Love you too, babe. Goodnight,” Steve told him. Then, they both fell asleep, eager for the next day to arrive. 

~*~*~*~

The next morning, Steve, Eddie, and Robin rushed around the trailer at the asscrack of dawn flinging random objects into their bags and getting ready for the day. Steve took a shower with Eddie ‘to save water’ while Robin got dressed in Eddie’s room and Wayne made them a small breakfast with coffee. 

Saying goodbye to Uncle Wayne was obviously the hardest part of leaving for Eddie. The man had taken him in when he needed him without so much as a blink of hesitation. But he knew after so long of a time taking care of Eddie and relinquishing space in his own home for him, Wayne would be pleased to have his peace back. Eddie gave him a long hug and almost came to tears when Wayne gruffly mentioned visiting him in Chicago and always wanting to see Wrigley field for himself. But, he managed to choke back the tears and vowed to have him to their new apartment as soon as he could. 

After a small squabble of who got to ride with Steve and who had to drive the van (it was a short argument since Robin was still a new driver and was anxious when it came to driving on the freeway), the trio said their last goodbyes and made their way to the Beemer and Eddie’s van. Then, they were off.

When Steve drove past the Leaving Hawkins sign months ago, he thought no one would care enough to notice his absence. But now, as he passed the sign with Robin in the passenger seat and Eddie tailgating him in his van, he could feel how loved he truly was. They were starting a new chapter, away from the other members of their family, but they were moving on together. And that’s all Steve had ever truly wanted. They may come back to visit their family here but their home has changed. It wasn’t the town of Hawkins with its bad memories and even worse people. Their home was with each other, wherever they ended up.

Updated Taglist: @nickavalens @conversesweetheart @themostunoriginalpersonever @swimmingbirdrunningrock @eddiethegreatteddybear @harrumphingtons @call-me-big-eyes @moonshadows-13 @glittergluekintsugi @cpidcupk @doubleb11 @mentalcyborg @amoris-no-smut-allowed @purple-lemonade @labels-are-for-the-weak @thebrazilianatheist @rajumat @livelaughlexa @5ammi90 @colorful565 @marvelousforlife @chaoticcoffeequeen @gregre369 @suddenlyinlove @thegreatmistake @stillfullofshit @nburkhardt @batxsignalsx @newunknowns @thosemessyvibes @tailsfromthecrypt @luciana-rowan @bird-with-pencils @adaed5 @lolawon @flustratedcas @iwillfindmyneverland @messrs-weasley @skoomy-doompy

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[collectivecloseness]

I have this angsty mess of ideas that I don't know how to put together but I'm gonna try to explain it. So like Steve has been in love with you since like forever and you become friends in season one blah blah blah you're inseparable etc, you have the tendency saving Steve's ass everytime but then you die while saving him and steve never got the chance to confess (not really that important but I guess it adds emotional damage idk) he obviously blames himself for it and everytime his phone rings he answers with the hope that for some fucked up reasons it's you and you're actually still alive but stuck in the upside down. Everyone is concerned about him bc it feels like he's slowly going crazy and is very much delusional.

Idk if that's like very long or makes no sense at all so sorry in advance, your eyes must be bleeding after reading this. :/

Robin being the one to always check on Steve after he loses you. She knew what you meant to Steve, most shifts mentioned you, and your recent interactions with Steve, most nights were him- were the both of them, talking on the phone about you. She loved the whole will they won’t they, and the puppy love gossip with Steve. Now she wished she’d pushed more, at least Steve would feel better if you’d known.

Robin’s learnt to be more open and vulnerable, since she’s been the one to look after Steve, being emotional and like a true friend, rather than snarky and quippy and teasing with him. She’s always coming in to check on him with her key to his house, pressing her hand on his shoulders each time she says hi, unless she’s rushing to comfort him again.

Robin tells him a few times “You know I said I can move in, or we could both move to our own place! I’m lonely! Besides, I love spending time with my best friend.” Robin’s been encouraging it. Her and Steve had breiefly passed the ideas before, before you, but she got the feeling back then they both badly would have liked it, living together, but neither wanted to be the first to come on too strong and vulnerable. It was different now. And Robin really didn’t want Steve to be lonely either. Besides, Robin came over to Steve’s literally every day she could anyway.

But to Steve, Robin wasn’t you. He still loves Robin, as her own person and his friend, he doesn’t compare you two at all. But Steve worried the constant company might make him go crazier than he already feels. It also wouldn’t allow for any of his unhealthier coping mechanisms. Steve would argue in his head, even crying or screaming himself to sleep, he wouldn’t be able to do anymore, but he’d done that in front of some of his friends anyways.

Robin, Nancy, Eddie, Dustin, all of his friends all worried about him. Max, Lucas and El had come over yesterday. Joyce makes sure to drop by a couple of times a week at least. Robin came every day, while the others did sometimes, varying in frequency. They knew Steve wasn’t healthy.

Sometimes, Steve whipped his head to the side, out of nowhere, or maybe with a small sound one of them picked up, from years of fear of monsters from other dimensions. But they knew it wasn’t Steve being scared of bumps in the night. It was because he thought he may have heard you. It was a glimmer of hope, just for a second, and they hated seeing it shatter each time.

Steve did worry about bumps in the night too. Steve worried about the next time he’d have to fight, no matter what it might be. Because this time, no one would come to save him.

You were always the first to come for him. You specifically sought Steve out first, checked on him first, he was always your first choice, the one you always checked on, the one you’d always save. You were with Steve for all his fuck ups. You’d seen him grow, and he knows you’d never judged him for his past once he actually got better. Not once. No one else had done that. But you also made Steve better. And he was still scared he won’t be as much now, without you.

But on the other hand, Steve wasn’t sure he really wanted anyone to save him next time. If the next time he dies saving the others, then whatever. He couldn’t save you. At least he could be with you then.

No one would be designated to check Steve first, to save him first, and that’s what he got. Steve always put himself in front of danger first, and now he’d lost you, there would be no one to save him. It was his price.

Steve wanted to go back straight after. He wanted to go back for you the next day, and the day after. To the place he’d left you. At the end of the week, he told Robin his plans, with his rucksack already on his back. And not only did she physically hold Steve to the floor, but she locked all the doors as she walkied Eddie and Nancy - not the kids, she knew when Steve was better, even now, he wouldn’t want the kids to see him like this - and Eddie had to bear hug Steve so he wouldn’t try to leave, while all of them gently tried to talk their friend down. They said it was a suicide mission! And that’s when Steve screamed “I DON’T CARE!” Trapped in his friends arms. Screaming those words not enough overemotionally, but too genuinely, that it really got them worried. Steve was still fighting to leave. He had collapsed into tears after that. He wanted to go and he meant it.

Nancy wanted to sedate him by that point, because she was too worried Steve would leave. But Robin put her foot down at that thought. It would create a super bad spiral, and Steve wouldn’t trust them, she knew they had to do something else! Luckily Robin thought of something. Mixed in with Steve’s yells at Eddie, Eddie trying to talk to Steve, and Nancy on edge and trying to not look as upset as she probably was while getting Robin to think of something else before she snapped.

Robin called the number she knew to, and soon afterwards, Joyce was entering Steve’s home with her own spare key. Joyce let Steve cry into her lap, and she stroked his back, talking when Steve wanted to, only lulling her own assurances when he didn’t, and just soothing Steve, until he fell asleep like that, in his room with her. Robin knew Steve wouldn’t fight Joyce to leave, or yell too much at her or anything. Steve had fallen asleep early in the afternoon, and Nancy didn’t even need to sedate him because he stayed asleep, luckily for the entire night. Joyce wouldn’t leave. She wanted to stay until morning, she didn’t want to leave Steve overnight, or at all right now.

Joyce even made breakfast the morning after, making sure to stay by Steve’s side because he’d always eat her cooking if she was there. And it was a sickly sweet feeling for everyone watching whenever that happened, because Steve would take a few bites and then finish his plate clean. But they knew he’d probably only had a few bites the day before, with how much he gorged on Joyce’s dishes when she was around to eat with him.

Robin stayed in bed with Steve most nights for sleepovers. That night Joyce had, which she’d done quite a few times. Nancy or Eddie had done it several times more, too. Sometimes Steve would say look, he really just wanted tonight alone. And if they trusted the way he said it, he got that. They understood sometimes he did need that. But Robin also hates leaving Steve alone, because she knows nights are worse for him (and in general as well). She didn’t want to be overbearing though, something friends when she was younger would stop being her friends for, but a trait she’d stopped shielding when she needed to be Steve’s open support. But to be honest, even if Steve couldn’t mourn as well if he wasn’t alone at night, those mostly seemed like mourning in the destructive ways.

Steve knew he was safe with Robin, or Nance, or Eddie, or Joyce there, from monsters, and from himself. Not that he was thinking of that last part, he was trying to convince them, but he wasn’t very good at stopping his brain from eating himself alive, because he didn’t feel like he wanted to stop. He wanted punishment.

At one point, after you’d died, Eddie had tried to give Steve something of yours, an item he got from your house when he went to visit your family. When he’d explored your now, forevermore, empty room. But Steve had a moment, and was mad that Eddie had ruined your shirt, forever tainting it with his smell, and his touch, and not leaving it the way you had the day you’d gone to meet Steve and the others. Steve had later apologised for freaking out on Eddie about it. Something Eddie casually waved his hand over, promising Steve never could be freaky, and saying it was okay, he was sorry too. Steve didn’t really want to think about anymore. That top still felt slightly tainted, no matter how ridiculous Steve knew it was. He just didn’t have much left of you, that was still untouched. That was yours, and had still last been touched, moved, adored, by you. So Robin didn’t bring Steve things from your house. She’d just tell him if she found something, if he wanted to look at it, or go over later. To which Steve would generally just nod at her.

Steve had had a few moments, but luckily, he’d had friends there every single time. No matter how different the moments were. If it was him spiralling, down dangerous paths for himself. Him accidentally spooking someone, maybe by lashing out, or just not having the energy to look after someone else, even if they were upset because of his crumbling. Including the ones, where Steve would adamantly deny the facts in front of him. It was like the first two days, Steve knew you were dead. And he always did, of course. The fact never left his soul. But after that things changed, and became slightly more of a purgatory, Steve always seemed even just a fraction hazy.

One time Robin had come back to Nancy crying, and Steve sobbing loud like a broken child on the floor. Steve had sworn it was you who had called. But he’d missed the call, running and slipping since he’d been in the shower when it rang. Nancy and Robin guessed he’d been thinking about you. And with a hand to his forehead between his wails on the floor, Robin knew he’d made the water too hot, again. Steve had tried to call back, but it wouldn’t work. And he yelled at Nancy for not picking up the phone, but that was only after she’d tried to gently remind him that it couldn’t be you. And then Steve had done everything to try and call back, almost breaking his phone till Nancy had wrestled it away from him. And when he realised he couldn’t, either call back, or call you, Robin hadn’t quite gotten through to him about it, Steve had collapsed into pained sobs, so distraught, and so unable to be taken out of his pain, that Nancy was sobbing too.

El had left inconsolable once, because Steve had asked multiples times if she could somehow contact you in the upside down. No one had realised, Steve had gotten El to agree one time, until she called Joyce crying because she couldn’t find you, and now she couldn’t get Steve to talk, he just had his head in his hands. But the next day, when El came to visit, with chocolates she always liked to give Steve since she heard they were good for making people happy, he’d apologised and she was herself quite easily again. Something Robin was very relieved with, knowing it would have wrecked Steve if he thought he’d hurt one of the kids.

Dustin had been turned away by Eddie before, on days Steve said he didn’t want to see anyone, which if he said that exactly, made people come over to check if he was okay. And on a day Steve wasn’t doing very well, and had Nancy and Robin bandaging his hands up because he’d punched a mirror, swearing he saw you in the reflection in a blink of his eye, and thinking for that split second maybe it was a gateway to the upside down. Although they were pretty relieved he realised that wasn’t the case straight away, no one wanted Dustin to see Steve like that, least of all Steve. But even Dustin’s visits, as the encouraging little brother, didn’t always bring a smile to Steve’s face, even a fake one he couldn’t muster. Some days, there was just little that could help.

Robin thought maybe Steve only sometimes thought this, even if there was a 0.5% chance always in the back of his head, that maybe, somehow, you were still alive somewhere. It wouldn’t matter where, because then Steve would find you. Robin wished more than anything they had your body, mostly for you, but also for Steve, and for all your friends and family. But she wasn’t going to risk anyone, to go on a suicide mission. And she didn���t want anyone else to leave Steve either. Steve wouldn’t always bring it up. But occasionally there’d be flare ups, where Steve would go on about how you could be out there. Robin was the one who’d decided she’d never flat out disagree with Steve if he got like that. He always needed one person he felt like he could always trust. So even though she never encouraged it, even if for the first week, and now she still had that 0.4% chance in the back of her mind, she’d more try to go through why Steve thought that, and be by his side as the others tried to explain.

But Robin felt at least slightly successful with every little breakthrough she and Steve had together. She was normally there for his, even if she wasn’t the one helping him get to that point anyways. But the biggest breakthrough came a night, where the day leading up to it had been pretty normal.

Keith had actually been very generous with bereavement leave for Steve, even indulging Robin every time Steve called the store in tears, panicking, and needing Robin back immediately. Today had been okay. None of them were good. But she’d come over about 9am, Eddie calling right before he knew she’d leave, to say he was dropping off McDonald’s breakfast for them both just before ten, because he had to go help his uncle with some errands today.

Robin had helped set out a fresh set of clothes for Steve, ones Nancy had left in a pile in his room yesterday afternoon when she’d been with him. Robin smiled at her little post it notes Nancy left around, for Steve, and for his friends around the house. But Robin setting out Steve’s clothes always helped kick him up just a notch enough to get out of bed and go shower. Eddie had stayed for fifteen minutes, and Steve had even watched this time as he and Robin threw hash browns off each other’s faces. Steve sometimes found it hard to watch, when other people were smiling. Robin had been really proud of him today.

Then Steve even picked out what they should have for lunch, and although Robin wasn’t sure Steve could exactly be craving a salad, she was still really happy he’d suggested something, and got to work on Nancy’s refrigerated Tupperware boxes and groceries. Nancy liked to cut things up when she had the time. Robin was pretty slow no matter what she had to cook, because otherwise she was clumsy, and no one liked to focus on something and leave Steve alone. Nancy probably chopped things up yesterday when Joyce came to visit Steve as well.

The one time Robin cut her finger when cooking for Steve with Eddie, Steve had had a full blown panic attack, but he also either thought it was your blood he was seeing, or remembered yours. Steve threw the knife to the side, grabbing Robin’s wrists and panicking, until she soothed him into remembering where he was, and who he was with, and that she was unharmed, and when Steve was back, Eddie could take him away for a second while Robin found the newly restocked first aid kit. The other times she’d hurt herself since, she’d hidden them from Steve’s sight very quickly.

Steve had picked between a variety of activities Robin suggested after lunch, and two person board and card games it had been. Everyone had been buying or donating games to the Harrington household, even the kids had been giving theirs over. So Steve never was bored of any of the games, and he could play them.

Hopper and Karen had actually both taught Steve how to play solitaire, when Mike and El had dropped off some more game to donate. A joke even Steve gave a breathy chuckle at when Eddie said there two people to explain the most famous one player game. But Robin was glad Steve might have something to do to take his mind off things when alone. She knew focusing could be hard sometimes right now for him, so she got that they both tried to explain the game. Also, Karen and Hopper did talk over each other quite a bit in explanation.

But after that, Robin had whipped something quick together for dinner, and Steve had stayed to talk with her in the kitchen the entire time. He even got out glasses and some soda. Even though Robin did most of the talking, Steve took part, which was good. But also, Steve liked talking with Robin. Because she’d talk so much, and be so passionate about what she was saying, he didn’t even need to say much to be part of the conversation, and it was something about his best friend he really appreciated at the moment, even though he used to joke about never getting a word in edgeways. Eddie was a bit the same.

Steve held the remote as they channel surfed, sitting on the couch together with their meals on their laps, since neither of them really liked the silence while eating, and Robin was pretty talked out after finishing her story in the kitchen.

But when Steve had flicked through two news channels, he froze as he immediately recognised the scene in front of him. It was from a romance film you loved, about two thirds of the way through. Steve recognised it from the first frame, from the first note of its score, as he turned over the channel.

Robin recognised it too, although she hadn’t watched it fully, and she hadn’t watched it nearly as many times as Steve had with you. She tried to keep her face blank as she looked to Steve, only a light questioning, curious expression, to see how he was feeling, before she let any of her own thoughts and feelings make him spiral. But Steve simply said “Gotta put something on, the food.” and picked up his fork, turning the volume up enough to cover any chewing sounds, like he’d done for Robin since the first time they watched tv and ate together. That had been long before he lost you.

Steve had finished quickly, but that was just a few scenes before the most important part of the romance film. The confession scene. And Steve was crying before it had even started.

Tears streamed down his face, the two leads finally starting to open up, and explain how they were really feeling. His eyes not even brown, but looking black, so big and red ridden, his cheeks drowned. Robin felt her heart hammering watching Steve crushed again, but she tried to be the best friend she possibly could, as she was always learning to now. Robin reached just a little for the remote on the coffee table, eyes questioning on Steve. But he turned to her and shook his head, so she leaned back and kept the movie on. Steve watched the film, as Robin watched both it and him. Scooting even closer, so their sides were pressed together, as Steve continued to cry. And then, even Robin was tearing up. Especially as the scene continued. And Robin wrapped her arm around Steve’s waist, her other holding his closest hip, and they both quietly sobbed watching the love confession scene, of your favourite romantic movie you’d watched a thousand times.

Just a scene you never got to live out in your young life. A scene Steve never gave you.

Steve turned to Robin as the couple shared their first kiss, the happy score coming on as the confession was over, it all goes well, and with the way Steve’s shoulders are shaking and his chest is heaving, Robin knows he needs her. She immediately opens her arms, pulling Steve in who sobs heartily into her shoulder, all her shirts used to having snot and tears and spit on them now. And she cries too, quieter than Steve, but still all the same, as she rocks him, holding him close through his heart break, through his loss, through his pain, as Steve cries loud into his best friend.

Steve mumbles everything he’s said a thousand times over. How he’s lost you. How he needs you. How you can’t be gone. That Steve wants you. That you’re dead. And that word hits hard. That word took him a while to say, after the second day of screaming it.

And when Steve pulls back, and Robin holds him still, Steve looks deep into his best friends eyes, and he shakes as he tells her the one thing he still hasn’t said yet. “I loved them.”

And Robin rubs her hands up and down Steve’s arms, as she smiled so sadly, and wept so dearly. “I know.”

Steve hiccuped, and a small groan left him. Robin still smiling sadly, still stroking him. Steve looks down, but not a lot, and Robin can always tell Steve’s thoughts, even if it’s gotten harder now. Steve just wants to think.

“How did you?” He asks, sniffling, and swallowing.

Did you know too? Maybe if Robin knew... maybe you did too. Steve just wanted you to know. He should have given you that. But maybe if you knew... even if you didn’t feel the same way, maybe you knew somebody loved you, maybe you knew he saw you just like you did him, before you were stolen.

“Well first of all, you were very romantic, lover boy, always talking about them, always filling the world with your golden thoughts about them.”

Steve liked the way Robin spoke. He thought maybe she’d picked some stuff up from Eddie too. Even knowing his loving thoughts about you had been spoken into the world you’d been living in... even if it wasn’t the one your body was in now, it gave him just a flicker of hope. A bite less of guilt.

“And...” Robin faltered now. He hands falling to Steve’s wrists, and he looked up more inquisitive now.

“And they talked about their crush on you. It’d only been a couple of days before... into the whole upside down thing. Otherwise I’d have manoeuvred you two into each other as soon as I knew, even if I had to trick you and lock you dinguses in a room or something. But that’s all y/n talked about those days.

Steve sucked in air. People didn’t say your name much anymore. Probably scared of his reaction, but Steve missed it. He needed people to bring you up, to remember you, to say your name.

“All they talked about was how they’d been in love with you for years, but recently it was too much to bear, and they just had to tell you. I told them to go for it, that I thought you might realllly like them back! But, y/n wanted to wait to tell you after we saved the world.”

Robin looked up at Steve. He was still crying, and she was joining him again. Her hands squeezed his wrists, and Steve’s knees turned to face Robin those few centimetres more, leaning warmly against her own. “And I agreed. And I wanted to wait until you brought it up again. Until you said again, that you loved them, like you used to tell me every day.”

Robin had hoped it would be less painful that way. While Steve wished it had been you he’d been telling it to every day instead.

“And... was it the right thing to do?” Robin gasps for air with her sob, shaking under Steve now.

And his breaths were gasping, his best friends starting to mirror, as his head shook up and down. “Yeah... it was.”

Robin threw her arms around Steve again, and he moaned as he held her back, so so tightly. Gripping onto Robin’s shoulders like he’d never have to let go again, as Robin nearly scrambled on top of his legs. Both of them crying open mouthed into each others shoulders. Teeth and spit and tears latched on. Neither of the best friends caring about being any semblance of perfect, and not wrecked, not when they were with each other. And they held each other so tight, so hard, as if the grief in their hearts was a magnet, pushing them even closer, but Steve and Robin never wanted to let go of each other, to help the burden of that grief.

Steve and Robin missed you, so much.

[lifeisstrange-incorrectquotes]

Joyce: Hey, where are you going?

Chloe: To take a long, hard look at my life.

[tending-the-hearth]

so steve DOESN'T die in season 5, but he and robin get separated.

idk, maybe steve, jonathan, and nancy go off fighting a group of demogorgons in a parallel to s1, and robin's with erica and max at the hospital, fighting off demodogs, and when the mindflayer dies, there's a horrible, horrible moment where robin sees the place that steve ran off to explode, and she feels like she wants to throw up

but then the party converges back to the hospital, and mike, lucas, and dustin are the first to get back, and lucas throws himself at his sister and girlfriend, and the three of them are crying, and dustin hurtles into robin's arms, because he saw the explosion to, and mike pretends to be nonchalant, but he's clinging to dustin's sleeve.

murray, joyce, and hopper are next, supporting an exhausted eleven and will, and it's then that mike's calm facade breaks, and he sags with relief. at this point, eleven and mike are broken up, maybe will has told mike how he feels, maybe not, but mike just hugs both of them, and they hold onto him, and hopper checks in on the rest of the kids while joyce stands with robin and dustin after surveying the room and realizing who's missing.

and they wait too long. they wait for longer than they should if the trio is still alive. but robin doesn't move from her spot, doesn't sit, doesn't listen to anyone trying to coax her away from the window.

it isn't until the sun is beginning to peak over the horizon that she spots three figures approaching the hospital, in various states of injured and limping, and robin lets out a shriek as she flies out of the room, mike and joyce following at her heels, but robin's the first one out of the hospital.

she doesn't slow down, doesn't pause, she collides with steve in a way that makes them both wince, but his arms are wrapping around her waist just as tightly as her arms are around his neck, and she buries her face in his shoulder as he presses his nose against her hair, and she can feel the sticky blood on his arm, and he can feel the bruises on her side, but none of that matters.

vaguely, they can hear mike and nancy crying as they reunite, nancy cradling her brother in her arms like he's a child again, joyce has jonathan tucked into her side, but all steve and robin care about is that their Platonic with a Capital P soulmate is alive and safe.

in a few minutes, robin will pull away and punch steve's uninjured arm, and ask him through her relieved tears what the fuck took him so long, and he'll explain that he, nancy, and jonathan wanted to make absolutely sure everything was closed, and jonathan will roll his eyes and say that steve got the worst of the injuries protecting him and nancy, and mike will, for the first time, separate from his sister and hug steve tightly.

and later that night, the Party will descend upon steve's house, and pile blankets and pillows into the living room, and robin and steve will fall asleep in each other's arms, dustin starfished over steve, erica pressed against robin's side, the rest of the kids curled up with each other like a giant puppy pile.

but for now, steve and robin cling to each other, tears falling down their cheeks, shoulders shaking with sobs, relieved, heavy sobs. in the back of their mind, they'll both have the same thought, because they're the same person, the same soul. they'll thank whatever deity is listening that they were paired up at scoops, because neither of them ever, ever again wants to possibly imagine a future where they don't have each other at their side.

[shroud-of-empire]

Review: So Speaks the Heart by Joyce Carlow

I had low expectations going in, and yet this was still somehow worse than I anticipated!

So Speaks the Heart—published in 1997, and currently available for free through the Internet Archive—was brought to my attention by @suburbanbeatnik last week, and the cover looked so absurd that I immediately knew I had to read it. And I tried. I really tried. But I ultimately ended up DNF'ing it around the halfway mark when the lead characters abruptly died, then reincarnated centuries later as different people in sixteenth-century France.

It technically makes more sense in context, but, like, barely.

The premise

So: The plot of this book revolves around "immortals"—vaguely supernatural beings who reincarnate every few centuries to steer historically important figures towards their destinies. Aside from possessing the ability to reincarnate, immortals are also beautiful, intelligent, infallible, and psychic, frequently receiving premonitions from the future, as well as insights into other people's minds. In some ways, they're like an unholy hybrid of stereotypical romance vampires and high-fantasy elves—their powers are as unclear as they are expansive, and their inherent beauty and goodness means that they can do no wrong. Our protagonists, a physician named Leandra and a charioteer named Alexander, are a pair of Immortals who were born in the sixth-century Byzantine Empire to steer Justinian and Theodora towards their fates as Emperor and Empress of Rome.

I'll admit at this point that I disliked this premise from the start. It's very Great Man History™, except the "great men" are random nobodies with vague, unattainable powers, pushing people around like chess pieces for reasons that are unclear to everyone involved. The magically-perfect, always-right nature of the Immortals also makes them dull characters to read, and blaming every historical event on Immortal meddling only serves to reduce the agency of the few humans in the story—the end result is a book where everyone is underdeveloped and boring. The Immortals don't need character development, because they were born perfect, and the humans don't get character development, because the Immortals do everything for them. I do think the concept of star-crossed lovers dying over and over again only to find each other in new lifetimes could have been done well, but it was wasted here, shackled to all of this weird baggage.

The characters

Leandra and Alexander obviously compose the "main" couple, but Justinian and Theodora also soak up a lot of page time, serving as the secondary, human protagonists to their perfect, Immortal friends. Leandra is the Immortal "assigned" to Theodora, like the most irritating kind of guardian angel, and Alexander is similarly "assigned" to Justinian, so all four of them come as a set. Every single one of these characters is terrible.

Leandra gets the most focus out of anyone, and consequentially, she is the absolute worst. She's the type of protagonist who can be generously described as an "escapist character"—again, because of her Immortal status, she's automatically right about everything, she receives special insights that nobody else understands, and she's beautiful beyond words (and way prettier than Theodora, obviously). She's also a virgin, which makes her even more special; while every other woman in the Hippodrome sells her body for fun, Leandra never gives into the temptation. (For what it's worth, the author doesn't harp on this as much as I expected, but it does come up more than once, and it's used as yet another metric by which to compare Leandra and Theodora—Leandra being superior, naturally.) Leandra also has medical training, by which I mean that she magically understands complex microbiological concepts that were not discovered until the Scientific Revolution. Not only does she believe in germ theory, she also understands what bacteria are, and how antibiotics work. How does she know these things? Because she's special. It's beyond aggravating—especially because the author has an incomplete understanding of what penicillin does, and as a result, Leandra does, too. Leandra spends half of the story spouting total nonsense, but the narrative treats it as correct, and any character who questions her is depicted as an idiot.

Outside of her interest in medicine, Leandra really has no personality. Her only goal in life is to get Theodora where she needs to be, so she spends most of the story just kind of orbiting Theodora like a satellite. This isn't even a conscious goal, though—Leandra has no idea what she's actually steering Theodora towards. Most of the time, her suggestions to Theodora are based on vague feelings and indecipherable prophecy dreams. It's the blind leading the blind—Leandra gives Theodora advice based on nothing, and Theodora follows that advice based on nothing, and they're both headed towards an end goal that neither of them understand. Everything they do is guided by feelings and instincts that they have zero control over. It's boring to read, and Leandra's sheer perfection, combined with her lack of agency, made me want to tear my hair out.

The male lead, Alexander, is not much better—his main character traits are “liking Leandra” and “being handsome,” and that’s about it. He actually begins the story as a nervous virgin, but then he buys a night with Theodora and, apparently, a personality transplant, and he’s a completely different person by the time he and Leandra actually get together. (Specifically, he transforms into a generic, stereotypical, pushy “bodice ripper” love interest, but the “bodice ripper” elements feel halfhearted, probably because he was nothing like that for the entire first half of the book). Theoretically, Alexander is meant to guide Justinian the way Leandra guides Theodora, but he doesn't seem to share Leandra's medical knowledge or psychic dreams, so it's unclear what Justinian is actually getting out of their friendship. Actually, it's unclear why any of these characters like each other at all, because, again, their friendships and romances are entirely determined by "fate." Why does Justinian hang out with Alexander? Fate. Why do Alexander and Leandra fall in love? You guessed it: because it's meant to be. Everything is insta-love or insta-friendship, with no relationship-building at all.

Aside from the two leads, Justinian and Theodora are the only other characters of note, and they're both... well, kind of stupid. Again, because their decisions are largely driven by Immortal meddling, they don’t get to make many choices of their own, and whatever choices they do make independently of the Immortals are shown to be incorrect. (For example, Theodora leaves with Hecebolus despite Leandra’s protests, which results in both Theodora and Leandra nearly dying.) Theodora at least gets a couple of cool scenes—she wins the Blues’ favor by somehow taming a snake (?!), and she does get (a truncated version of) her Nika speech. Justinian, though, barely does anything. Their romance, which serves as the B-plot to Leandra’s A-plot, is hardly even a romance—like every other relationship in this book, it’s underdeveloped insta-love driven by “fate.”

Oh, and finally, something else I felt the need to mention: Justinian and Theodora seem to have no friends or advisors outside of Alexander and Leandra. Belisarius, Antonina, Narses, Theodora’s Monophysite allies, Justinian’s sister and cousins and nephews, etc, are all totally absent from the story. Theodora’s sisters do appear once, but they vanish after their introductory chapter and are never seen again. I understand sidelining less important characters for the sake of keeping things concise, but it struck me as strange that so many people were casually cut from the narrative. I guess the author figured Justinian and Theodora would never talk to Alexander or Leandra if they had literally any other options.

The sex scenes

There are a lot of sex scenes in this book, which isn't necessarily problematic—I'm not a puritan. Unfortunately, the sex scenes are weird as hell. They're all cloaked in bizarre, convoluted metaphors, which is to be expected, but they're also odd in other ways:

The phrase "moist depths" is used more than once.

There's a lot of "moistness" and "dampness" at pretty much every turn, actually, and it gives off real un-sexy bog energy.

The word "pleasure" appears 8 times in rapid succession in the same sex scene. Other words that appear too often: "undulating," "pulsating," "throbbing," and "nipples." (Do I understand why these are used in sex scenes? Yes. Is it a lot of repetition that could have been worded differently? Also yes.)

Justinian and Theodora love each other so much that a "miracle" occurs when they have sex: Theodora is "incarnated anew," becoming "like a virgin again."

Leandra's guardian is a fellow Immortal who once had sex with Zenobia, and he fantasizes about having sex with her again as he lays dying, which makes for some weird tonal dissonance.

An evil Immortal named Cyril is depicted as an agent of the Empress Euphemia, and they are obviously having an affair with each other, and you can tell it's an evil affair because they do weird shit in bed.

Alexander calls Leandra "my little virgin" as a nickname.

Alexander verbally calls Leandra's breasts "pink-tipped mounds." Like, it's not a metaphor that the narrator uses; he says this out loud to her. It's not even part of a longer sentence. He's trying to seduce her, and the only thing that comes out of his mouth is fucking "pink tipped mounds" and that's it.

"He sucked strongly, like a hungry child" <- NOT A METAPHOR YOU SHOULD USE DURING A SEX SCENE.

"She excreted warm, wet moisteners to ease his passage" <- ALSO BAD, FOR DIFFERENT REASONS. "EXCRETED" IS THE WRONG WORD TO USE HERE.

The plague

About 90% of the plot of this story revolves around the plague, and plague is my specialty, so I'm about to go off here. (Feel free to skip this if you do not care about plague.)

So, Leandra is a physician. She receives medical training at some Byzantine school early on in the story—women, obviously, did not get to become physicians very often in the Byzantine Empire, but again, Leandra is special—and she is then appointed as Justinian and Theodora's Official Royal Court Doctor. Because Leandra is Immortal and Not Like The Other Scientists, she immediately figures out germ theory, basic immunology, antibiotics, and a host of other extremely complicated concepts. How does she figure this stuff out? Not from experimentation using the scientific method, or anything else that follows any kind of logic. Instead, she just gets flashes of insight, which she assumes are true, and then everybody operates as if her unproven theories are obviously correct. Why does she believe that disease is caused by microorganisms invading human tissue? Because She Just Does. Why does she know that inflammation is an immune response to injury or infection? Because She Just Does. Nobody questions her beliefs at all, even though they completely contradict the theories of seminal figures like Hippocrates and Galen, and they're based on such little evidence that nobody has any reason to trust her. She's not seeing microorganisms under microscopes—she doesn't know what a microscope is. She's just saying random shit that happens to be true for reasons nobody in the setting understands.

It's difficult to put into words why I find this so irritating, but I think a huge part of it is that it plays into an idea I really hate—namely, that the people of the past were stupid and unobservant, and that science is easy enough that they could've solved all of their problems with a few basic thought experiments. Leandra criticizes the people around her for having dumb, incorrect theories about medicine—but these people have no reason to think that their theories are wrong. Miasmic theory is a perfectly rational thing to believe in if you don't have microscopes, and you've never heard of a bacterium, but you have noticed that people who live in smelly, unsanitary conditions seem to get sick and die more often. Blaming "bad air" isn't stupid if that's all you have to go on! Germ theory isn't obvious if you can't see the germs! But Leandra knows better, because She Just Does, so everyone who disagrees with her is evil or stupid, and all of the good guys think she's the best doctor on Earth. It's infuriating, partially because it plays into the popular image of early medieval people being dumb and zealous (Leandra claims that Roman medicine was superior to Christian medicine, as if Roman medicine gels with modern germ theory at all?), partially because it makes Leandra all the more obnoxious, and partially because it misrepresents the history of microbiology and epidemiology in a way that I do not like.

Because Leandra discovering germ theory hundreds of years too early isn't special enough, she also goes on to discover penicillin (not named as such, but obviously penicillin), and I also hated this subplot. It plays out exactly like Alexander Fleming's 1928 experiments—Leandra leaves a bunch of cultures out on a lab bench, and finds them contaminated by mold when she returns, then she notices that the mold has seemingly prevented the growth of the infectious bacteria. She then puts this mold to use, and everyone acts like she invented a miracle cure. There are about eleven billion problems with this, but this review is long enough, so I'll just list a couple of them:

The most obvious issue here is that penicillin is fucking hard to isolate and use as a medication. Fleming did his first experiments with penicillium molds in the late 1920s, but pencillin wasn't deployed as a drug until the 1940s because it was so difficult to extract. Seriously, read the Wikipedia page on the isolation of penicillin. It took over a decade and cost a shitload of money, and that was with the technology of the early 20th century. You cannot take raw penicillium mold and cram it into people's wounds and expect it to cure them of plague. That is not how this works. (In fact, various ancient cultures were aware that certain fungi could prevent infections from worsening, but they couldn't identify or isolate the actual antibiotic compounds, which limited their use.)

Leandra somehow understands that she shouldn't feed her patients liquid penicillin, because their stomach acid might degrade the drug and prevent it from working, so she decides she needs to introduce penicillin into their bloodstreams. How does she accomplish this? By cutting people's buboes open and cramming them full of mold! And this is portrayed as the correct course of action, and a reliable way of getting medications into the blood.

Leandra's mold-shoved-into-buboes treatment has a 100% cure rate, and all of her patients survive. For reference, plague has a 13% fatality rate today if treated with IV antibiotics. It is an extremely dangerous disease. So either the author dramatically underestimated how lethal plague actually is, or we are meant to believe that Leandra's cure is more effective than modern medicine.

The author completely ignores pneumatic and septicemic plague—everyone who gets sick gets bubonic plague, period. I get that buboes and fleas are the first things that come to mind for most people when they think of plague, but if you're going to build your entire plot around your protagonist's inexplicable knowledge of Yersinia pestis, maybe consider its other presentations?

Relatedly, the author also ignores that plague can be spread from person-to-person, as well as through other means. Leandra seems to believe that flea bites are the only route of plague transmission, and this is presented as right. Leandra spends a lot of time handling infected tissues in her laboratory, getting up close and personal with infected patients, and having sex with her infected husband, and she never worries about getting sick herself, because plague is transmitted by fleas. She does die young, but only because an evil rival doctor stabs her out of envy—not because she's spent the past six months breathing nothing but aerosolized plague.

Other inaccuracies

Obviously, a lot of the science is wrong, but so is the history. The timeline is all muddled—plague hits Europe and becomes endemic before Justinian even rises to power, and then it spirals into a pandemic at some point before the Nika riots. Theodora is infected with plague (although she's cured by the mold), while Justinian remains healthy. The Hagia Sophia in its current form exists before the Nika riots even happen. Justinain doesn't start work on his law code until after Theodora gets the plague. You get the picture. Everything happens out of order, on a condensed timeline, so that Leandra and Alexander can experience the best Byzantium has to offer before they die young and reincarnate in sixteenth-century France. (I know less about France than I do about Byzantium, but for what it's worth, I suspect the French setting is also filled with research errors.)

The ending

I gave up on this book at some point after Leandra's first death, but I did skim the French part until I got to the ending, and I discovered that the scene on the cover—the picture of Leandra and Alexander riding a pegasus to the sky—does literally happen in the final paragraph. Nostradamus actually witnesses them flying into outer space as he's charting the movement of the stars.

For what it's worth, I think both Leandra and Alexander are anthropomorphic constellations at this point, if that makes it any better.

Final verdict

This book is insane. I've read a fair amount of wacky Byzantine romances, but this one is on another level. The premise alone is bonkers, the characters are all horrible, the sex scenes are absurd, and the science and the history are both so wrong that I don't even understand how we got to this point. I majored in microbiology, and I minored in medical humanities, so I know a fair amount about the history of infectious disease research, and this book feels like it was designed specifically to torment me. When I got to the penicillin subplot, I said "noooooo" to myself, out loud, like some kind of madwoman. This book has driven me to the brink of insanity. There weren't even any fucking birds in it.

10/10, would write a scathing review of again.