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lovebugism · 2 years ago

Note

I need the next part to the costumer’s always right like yesterday. The roller coaster this story is sending me through is insane. :’)))))

THE CUSTOMER'S ALWAYS RIGHT | family vacation

summary: the gang takes a brief break from the chaos of hawkins and spends a weekend at lake lemon. you and eddie find that it's difficult to be in love and babysit at the same time. (10k)

pairing: virgin!eddie munson / f!reader

tags: experienced!reader, idiots in love (road trip edition), newly established relationship, r's nickname is peach, eddie wants to kiss you but the kids think it's gross :(, the fluffiest chapter yet i dare say, steve in his babysitter era, the gangs all here! TW probable typos, very brief mentions of abusive relationships, briefer mentions of b*lly h*rgrove, talks of sexual/romantic insecurities

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˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱ ˎˊ˗

It’s t-minus seven minutes until spring break, and you’re spending it with Steve The Hair Harrington.

The parking lot of Hawkins High is relatively empty, filled only with vacant cars and whipping wind that carries the scent of mowed grass and blue skies — the promise of a soon summer. Without your friends and other strangers to fill the quiet with their resounding laughter and booming voices, the strip of concrete is sleepy and silent.

You and Steve turn it all to velvet.

On the hood of his Beamer, you sit with your chins tilted to the sky. Puffy white clouds glide eastward against a blanket of sapphire, and the two of you try to make shapes out of them. Giving meaning to globs of disfigured marshmallows in the sky is a lost art, if you had anything to say about it.

“Aw, that one looks like a heart!” you awe, feeling like a child again as you point to the pretty cloud for Steve to see.

He doesn’t find as much joy in the mundane as you seem to. He only agreed to do it because you asked so nicely — “Wanna watch the clouds with me, Stevie?” you’d said, followed by a drawn-out “Please?” when he initially denied you.

Besides, it was a pretty alright way to pass the time. Steve always said he lacked the organ that produced patience in other people; seven minutes tend to go by like seven hours for him. Especially when there’s nothing to do but make things out of a bunch of clouds that don’t look like anything to begin with. It’s like a test with no wrong answers that he’s failing somehow anyway.

The boy follows your finger and squints at the sky. “I don’t know. Looks sorta like a penis to me.”

“Steve!” you scold, shoving him with a halfhearted hand. Your brows pinch in horror like he’s just tainted your innocent fun.

His face twists in confusion. “What?”

“That’s obviously a heart.”

“No,” Steve insists like a bickering older sibling. Despite his initial lack of enthusiasm, he presses his shoulder into yours and points his own finger toward the vaguely shaped penis-heart cloud. “That’s the tip right there, see? And those are the balls,” he explains, somewhat crass, as he traces the rounded top of the heart you’d identified.

He scoffs like he can’t believe you can’t see it. “I mean, seriously, Peach. You should see it more clearly than I do.”

“Why?” you challenge with a squint.

Steve only rolls his eyes in response. He knows where this is going. You’ll never pass up the chance to take the piss out of him.

“Because I’m a slut?” you continue, obviously joking, but with a perfected look of offense twisting your features. “Is that it, Steve Harrington? You think I’m a disgusting wh—”

“Alright! That’s enough.”

A giggle spills from your mouth at his scolding. As funny as it is to mock him, it always feels a little rewarding to know he doesn’t find it as amusing as you do — or the rest of Hawkins, for that matter.

He huffs, impatient and irritable. “God, you’re so annoying…”

“I know,” you lilt with a too sweet smile as you tilt your head to your shoulder.

The fleeting thought that you can’t wait to annoy him on your weekend getaway passes the plane of your mind, and you remember to ask— “Wait, you packed your shit, right? ‘Cause we definitely aren’t going to make it to Lake Lemon before dark if we have to spend three hours helping you pack your hair products, Stevie.”

“Yes, I packed my shit. Mom.”

Your brows raise, not believing him. He’s rarely ever so responsible on the first go around. Not without a little push from someone — you mainly, Robin on occasion, and his parents whenever they care enough to check on him.

“So you have enough socks and underwear to last until Monday?”

“Yes.”

“And you brought the booze?”

“Yep,” he nods, popping the p. “The alcohol was the first thing I packed, actually.”

“And you have your toothbrush and deodorant and shower stuff?”

He opens his rosy mouth to answer in the affirmative but shuts it again, quickly like a fish. His brows furrow and his lips jut softly out as he thinks to himself. “…Shit,” he answers without really answering.

“At least that’s sorta stuff you can buy on the way there,” you tell him, giggling. “Won’t have to drive three hours back from Lake Lemon for your Farah Fawcett hairspray— ‘cause I absolutely know you would, so there’s no use in arguing with me.”

He doesn’t

Instead, he fiddles with the silver Zippo in his right hand and changes the subject. “Speaking of Lake Lemon,” he singsongs, his sheepish gaze flitting between the lighter and you. “It’s not, like, super weird that I invited Nancy, is it?”

Your brows furrow. An awkward giggle tumbles from your mouth. “No?”

“It’s just— you invited Max and her friends, and I figured Eddie was coming too because, you know, you’re…” His face screws up as he tries to think of the right word. You lean in closer to him, an anticipatory smile on your lips. “Canoodling or whatever. And I just didn’t want Nancy to be left out of the loop. That’s all.”

“And why would that be weird?”

“Well, because— I don’t know, okay? I just wasn’t sure if you guys have spoken since… everything.”

He says it like it was an armageddon or something similarly catastrophic that changed the course of the history of the world. Maybe not the world — just yours. His, too, in a way.

For a while, it ruined you. The thought of never being truly loved ate you alive and left hardly more than bones and strips of flesh in its wake. You found Billy after it spat you out, and god, you thought you were finally becoming whole again. Really, though, you were just holding onto the absence in your heart as though it were another life.

Then everything from before just kept on ruining you.

But now you’ve got Eddie.

And Eddie kisses you even though you taste like heartache. Eddie makes you feel like your lips shouldn’t be anywhere except his mouth. Eddie is the golden sunlight that streams in through an open window, and you stand amid the flaxen streams — safe and warm and whole again.

Now, you exist in two places — where you stand now and wherever Eddie may be. You don’t belong to the past anymore. Tragedy isn’t your religion anymore. Instead, you pick your teeth with the shards of bone agony left behind and find new faith in the crooks of Eddie’s body.

The everything from before stops feeling so heavy. It’s still cold at times, but in the spring sort of way. Now you love so hard you could weep.

“That was a long time ago, Steve,” you assure him, smiling. He’s almost surprised by its sincerity. “We’ve all moved on since then. It’s not weird, okay? I promise.”

“Okay…” the boy wavers, nodding with a grin that doesn’t meet his eyes.

You wonder if he just doesn’t believe you. Or if he hasn’t entirely moved on.

The bell rings. It’s harsh and shrill, even from where the two of you sit across the parking lot. The muddled voices of a sea of teenagers come muffled at first before breaking into an all-out swell of a thousand incoherent conversations. Kids flood through the front doors in packs.

Steve’s kids, namely.

Dustin is the first of them. His voice is distinct as he migrates through the masses to where your car is parked next to Steve’s on the other side of the lot.

“This is gonna be the best spring break ever!” he shouts, smiling with a mouthful of braces.

It makes you smile, too. How could you not? This curly-headed boy is practically sunshine incarnate.

Steve, who’s gotten too used to the yelling to find it as cute as you do, only rolls his eyes in return. His sneaker-clad feet scuff against the concrete when he descends from the hood of his car.

“Alright. Take it down a few notches, okay?” the boy grouses, waving his hands in front of him. “I’m not driving three hours to Lake Lemon with your hyper ass in the back the whole way.”

Dustin’s grin fades into an unimpressed deadpan when two of Steve’s fingers tap the blue brim of his Thinking Cap.

“Well, I’m riding with Eddie, so...” the younger boy trails off, flashing his middle finger and a sugary sweet smile.

Steve’s brows pinch, almost in offense. “Wait— then, who’s all going with who?”

“Me, Lucas, and Max are going with Eddie and Peach. And Mike and El are riding with you and Robin.”

“Oh, great. I get the lovebirds,” Steve monotones, hands rising and falling at his sides in exasperation.

A deep, feminine, and familiar voice pierces the jumbled sounds of the forming crowd. “It’s better than suffering two hours in Eddie’s van,” Robin quips with a rouge-tinted smirk as she appears from the horde alongside the boy himself. The two walk side-by-side with duffle bags slung over their shoulders.

Eddie Munson fakes a pout and nudges the girl with a leather-clad shoulder. “Rude.”

A beam breaks out on your face at the sight of the boy, like sunshine to rain clouds. You hop down from Steve’s hood and rush to him without thinking. He nearly topples over at the force you launch yourself at him with. His arms wrap around you to keep you pressed against him.

His laugh fans against your cheek. “Well, hello to you, too, sweetheart.”

Your nose nestles into his umber curls as you embrace him. He smells like cigarette smoke and floral hair detangler — familiar like a house you’ve lived in all your life.

“How’d it go?” you ask once you’ve pulled back from him. Not enough to let him go, of course, just enough to see the smile he looks at you with.

His grin widens and his chocolate eyes swim with a boyish excitement that makes your chest swell. “C plus, baby,” he singsongs lowly. “Ms. O’Donnell thinks if I can pass the final, I might actually graduate.”

“That’s amazing, Eds!” you beam, laughing in pure mirth as your hands reach for his glowing cheeks. “I’m so proud of you!”

You smack the most innocent of pecks upon his rosy mouth.

Robin groans from where she’s planted herself at Steve’s side. “God, I am so glad you graduated already. I could not suffer this for eight hours every day.”

You roll your eyes at her dramatics, then look back to Eddie with a quieter smile. “I’m so proud of you,” you repeat, just for him to hear.

He tilts his head to his shoulder, somehow both shy and smug at the same time. “Thanks, babe.”

The rest of the kids file out shortly after. Max comes first — the redheaded raincloud she always is — and Lucas follows later with Mike at his side. The former boy sports a bright green letterman jacket, while the latter wears an obviously unwashed Hellfire Club tee.

The seven of you crowd around Steve’s Beamer, anxious to leave the parking lot and the rest of Hawkins behind — even if it’s only for a few days.

“Alright,” the oldest boy announces as he claps his hands together. “Everybody ready to go?”

“I have to drop by my place to get my bag,” you tell him.

He squints his honey eyes at you. “You were just bitching about me not packing, and you don’t even have your bag?”

“I have to drop my car off anyway, dork.”

“Hey,” Eddie interjects with furrowed brows. The arm around your shoulder tightens. “Turn down the dirty talk, okay? There are kids present.”

With pale arms crossed over her chest — always on the defensive, just in case — Max tucks a rogue piece of auburn hair behind her ear and turns to you. “My mom packed some of my stuff this morning,” she tells you and doesn’t explain anything further.

It’s not like she has to, anyway.

Her sneakers sit by your door every night, and her jacket gets hung up with yours. Her spare clothes now sit in a folded-up pile by the couch, and you wash her laundry along with yours and Eddie’s. Your tiny apartment, which certainly wasn’t built for three bodies and a cat, has become more of a home to her than the one on Cherry Lane ever was.

No one else needs to know that, though.

“I’ll swing by and get it on the way,” you promise.

She nods with a tightlipped, barely there smile. You take it as a silent thank you.

When no one else comments about a missing bag or any other hiccup that might give Steve an aneurysm, Dustin grins. “Alright, gang,” he beams, clapping and rubbing his hands together. “Divide and conquer.”

“Wait, wait, wait—” Steve protests when everyone starts to split up.

Dustin, Max, and Lucas are already headed toward Eddie’s van. The former’s hand stills on the handle at his words. Robin, who’s already rounded the maroon Beamer for the passenger side, hears him but ducks into the seat anyway.

“Wheeler. Where’s your sister.”

“Uh, the newspaper… I think,” he answers with the practiced ambiguity of a teenage boy. He shrugs. “There’s some stuff she has to care of. She said she’d drive up when she got done.”

Steve huffs, feigning exasperation to cover his bleeding heart. “Why am I the only one ever ready for these things?”

“You’re not,” you tease with a laugh. “You forgot to pack, like, the most important shit a person is supposed to pack.”

“Yeah, well, no one asked you, Peach,” Steve squints in the place of any actual response.

“Wow. Great comeback, Harrington.”

“Bite me—”

“Jesus Christ,” Eddie grumbles at the bickering. It’s harmless banter more than anything — a couple of venomous-sounding words coming from sincere smiles. The boy tightens his grip on you and leads you toward his van. “Stop flirting.”

˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱ ˎˊ˗

It feels strange, being back on Cherry Lane.

You haven’t been here since the last code black a while ago. You never had a reason to be. You weren’t exactly looking for one, either. But now, here you are, standing on the doorstep of the guy who broke your heart and ringing his goddamn doorbell.

A sickeningly familiar feeling knots the pit of your stomach. It’s like you’re walking back into the war he put you through, even though you’re still cleaning the bloodshed off your hands — just like you did every time you took him back, over and over and over again.

You’re grateful that it’s Max’s mom opening the door and not her brother. More so that she’s already got the duffle bag in hand, so you don’t have to come inside.

The white of the canvas tote has gone brown with time. The pink strap of it is faded and missing a couple of sequins. The girl’s name is written on the front in hand-drawn block letters, doodled all over with the finesse of someone much younger than she is now.

“Hi,” you smile, just to be polite. It shakes at the edges.

Susan smiles back, tightlipped and pink-mouthed. “Hey,” she mutters kindly back as she steps onto the porch with you. The screen door clangs shut behind her. She tucks an amber strand of hair behind her ear with her free hand when a spring breeze rolls through.

She looks a lot like Max. Freckled face, strong jaw, pouted mouth. She’s pretty in the way her daughter is pretty, too — effortlessly so, without even trying to be.

Even in baggy jeans and frizzy hair, something about Susan is still so beautiful. It’s not even the simple kind of beauty, either. It’s the kind that forces you to stand in wonder of it, unworthy but unable to look away. It’s the kind of beauty that seems almost sad — like a bright flame snuffed down to only embers.

You don’t need to question whose boot crushed her spirit.

“I think everything’s in here,” the mother explains as she hands the bag over. “I packed her a few extra clothes just in case— oh, and tell her that her Stuffy’s in there, too.”

“Stuffy?” you echo with furrowed brows and a curious smile.

“It’s a stuffed rabbit her dad got her when she was born. She’ll probably hate me for putting it in there, but I know she still sleeps with it sometimes, so…”

You realize, then, that so much of what you learn about Max hardly comes from the girl herself. She’s too closed off most of the time. If you really want to know her, you have to care enough to look. But even then, it takes a sort of X-ray vision.

You know when she’s fighting with Billy again, not because she ever tells you, but because she’s got a Kate Bush tape in her walkman. If it’s a particularly bad fight — the red and orange kind — you know it because Running Up That Hill is playing at full volume.

You can tell when she’s lying when she can’t look you in the eye. You can tell she’s happy when stars twinkle in the ocean blue of them.

When she can’t stand physical affection, it’s because she’s had a particularly shitty day — but when she’s touching you, it means she’s excited about something or another.

You know her dad bought her the skateboard she rides like a baby blue Cadillac because she patches it up with duct tape instead of buying a new one. Their identical initials — M.M + M.M — are carved into the bottom, too, though faded with time.

And you always assumed she slept with a stuffed animal because she sleeps with her arms crossed like she’s used to holding something in them. You’ll often find her on your couch in the smallest hours of the morning, using Bowie as a replacement for a piece of her childhood.

God, you love learning new things about Max Mayfield.

Especially the things she’d rather die than tell you.

“Okay,” you nod with a terribly fought-back grin. “I’ll let her know.”

“And you’ll be back on Monday, right?”

“Yeah. Probably sometime early. I’ll call you.”

Susan nods despite still looking a little apprehensive about the whole. She crosses her arms over her chest. Her manicured nails fidget against the oversized flannel she wears.

“Can you ask her to come over when she gets back?” the mother wonders with a grimace like it’s much to ask. Her brows pinch and her anxiety-bitten mouth forms a tight line. “I know she probably won’t want to — and I don’t blame her, but…” she huffs and runs a hand through her hair, pushing back her bushy auburn bangs. “If you could maybe give her a little push, that’d be great.”

“I’ll, uh… I’ll try,” you promise with a wavering grin.

Both of you know that Max is too stubborn for any sort of push — the big or the small variety. You also know she’s too terrified of Cherry Lane to come back to it just yet.

“And just, you know, look out for her while she’s gone, okay?”

“Of course.”

Susan scoffs, shaking her head at herself like she’s just stuck her foot in her mouth. “That was— That was stupid of me. You’ve been watching over her this whole time. I shouldn’t have… I’m sorry.”

You smile, more sincerely this time. A look of sympathy melts your features. You find the woman’s supposed blunder more beguiling than offensive.

“It’s fine. I get it.”

“I know you probably think I’m a terrible mom—”

“Not at all,” you argue, meeting her sheepish grin with a look stern in its kindness. “I think you’re a person in a situation that’s hard to get out of. I know... I know what that’s like.”

The both of you share smiles of understanding that only two people who’ve weathered similar circumstances can muster. The snuffed-out embers, deep black rainclouds, and the like.

“Remind her to call me when she gets there,” Susan pleas, tilting her head to her shoulder. “I know she’ll forget otherwise.”

“I’ll tell her,” you promise.

Because you do know that. Max often needs to be reminded of most things — not because she refuses to do them, but because her mind has a way of distracting her. Her consciousness seems to float every which way, making it much more difficult to focus. Sometimes you think she lives in her head more than in her own house.

You wonder if that’s how her mom is surviving Cherry Lane and the Hargroves.

God knows that’s how you did it.

˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱ ˎˊ˗

Eddie’s van is already parked in your apartment complex, right by the stairs that lead to your door.

It’s more strange for it not to be there these days. You expect it, in fact — in the same way you expect your house to feel like your house. It’s comforting because it’s familiar. When Eddie’s not there, it’s like something is out of place. Missing. And even though you can’t quite tell what, you can feel it.

When Eddie’s not there, it’s not home.

He and the small group of kids he chauffeured fill your tiny apartment with their bustling bodies and animated conversation. It’s hardly more than muddled cross-talk, though. They all make comments over one another, each louder than the one that came before it, in attempts to be heard.

It’s all muffled until you open the door.

It practically slaps you in the face right after.

Max is cradling Bowie on the sofa. Just behind her, you can see Lucas and Dustin in the kitchen. They laugh over themselves at a joke you hadn’t heard. Eddie must’ve been the one to tell it because he’s got this proud grin on his face as he turns on his heel to meet you at the door.

“Make yourselves at home, I guess,” you singsong to him — like your full apartment doesn’t make your heart feel a thousand times fuller.

When you spend enough time shutting yourself out from the rest of the world, you forget what it’s like to be in it. Eddie’s reminding you all over again. Max, too. And all of their strange little friends you’re starting to learn more about.

“Sorry,” he apologizes not-so-sincerely. His umber curls bunch at his shoulder as he tilts his head and scrunches his nose. “Had to take a whiz.”

“I was just teasing,” you giggle.

You smack a kiss to his cheek and head to your bedroom for your bag, dropping Max’s at her feet along the way. “Dustin wants to know if he can have some snacks,” the redhead tells you as you walk by her.

“Shut up, Max!” the curly-haired boy calls from the kitchen.

“Of course,” you answer. “Take everything. I don’t care.”

Eddie laughs as he follows you down the hallway. “Do not say that, sweetheart. Because he will take everything.”

Two bags wait for you on the edge of your mattress — a rucksack complete with clothes and bathing suits and spare shoes at the bottom, and a tote full of toiletries. Neither is completely full, but you’ve checked them a million times to know they weren’t lacking anything, either.

If there was anything you were, it was an efficient packer.

Well, maybe slut first. Then human being second. And then maybe Eddie Spaghetti enthusiast third. But efficient packer was a close fourth.

You strap one bag over your shoulder and curl the other in the crook of your elbow. “Well, I don’t want him to be hungry. This drive is gonna be hell enough as it is. That’s exactly why I made us sandwiches, so make fun of me all you want—” Your absentminded rambles are halted when you spin on your heel and find Eddie’s mouth on yours.

His fingers grip the sides of your shoulders as he ducks down to kiss you. His rosy mouth engulfs your own and you freeze, shocked by the sudden affection. You melt into him a moment later with a sigh against his cupid’s bow. Eddie’s smile curls against your lips accordingly.

It’s certainly not a peck, but it’s not obscene enough to be described as anything more. It’s innocent and passionate, as most of his kisses tend to be. He uses them to say words he can’t voice out loud. — sort of like his ringed fingers do when they strum his guitar. Eddie kisses you like music.

Your eyes flutter slowly open when he pulls away from you. “What was that for?”

“Because I know I’m not gonna be able to kiss you for a while,” the boy grieves with a sad, crooked grin. His wide palms rub the sides of your arm up and down. “And I’m a little afraid I might die.”

“Well, we better make the last one count then, huh?” you tease, grinning as you curl your free arm around his waist.

The boy beams.

He kisses you breathless a second later.

After one last look through your apartment and several goodbye kisses to your begrudging cat, you lock up and head downstairs again. Steve pulls in, then, with one more passenger than he had before.

El Hopper sits in his backseat. You’re almost sure she’s never been outside of Hawkins before, but you know for certain she’s never been without her dad.

Jim was less than willing to let her go. Cabin in the woods, no parental supervision, all alone with her boyfriend? It’s quite literally a recipe for disaster. But he trusted you to look after her just like you trusted him to check in on Bowie (though, according to him, the comparison wasn’t at all the same).

You told him not to worry. That he should be more concerned about booking a flight to California and stopping Joyce from moving across the country. You told him he needs to convince her to stay before she’s in too deep to listen.

“…How the hell am I supposed to do that?” he’d groused across the table at Enzo’s.

“I don’t know,” you shrugged. “You did it for me before. You could do it again.”

His iceberg resolve nearly melts. “Alright, don’t get cute. I already said El could go. You don’t have to keep trying to win me over.”

Steve gathers the now nine of you in the parking lot. You form a measly half-circle around him, neither of you particularly caring about his assured rant but allowing him to get it out of his system anyway.

“Okay, every pay attention, alright? This is serious. I’m responsible for you little shits — if something happens to you, that’s on me. So, listen up—”

Eddie lingers just behind you, warm and reassuring. The leather-clad arms he’s crossed over his chest brush against your back when he leans closer to you. His breath fans against your jaw as he whispers in your ear. “All he needs is a fanny pack and some sandals. Then he’d be in real dad mode.”

“Eddie,” Steve scolds, unsmiling. “I’m talking to you.”

You swallow down your laughter.

“Dustin, Lucas, and Max — you’re riding with Eddie and Peach. Mike and El, you’re with me and Robin. And no canoodling in the backseat, understand? That’s an order.”

The raven-haired boy chuckles as the girl tucks her smile behind his arm. She embraces the lanky limb most ardently. “Canoodling?” Mike echoes in a scoff.

Steve, unimpressed and totally serious, only glares. “I swear to god, I’ll tell Hopper, alright? If you wanna make out, wait until we get there.” He points a stern finger in the boy’s direction, then turns his attention to the rest of the group.

“We’re taking 870 to avoid city traffic which means it’s gonna take us a little longer to get there. There’s a rest stop at one of the exits, so we can fuel up and use the bathroom and get something to eat. So don’t ask when we’re stopping, ‘cause we’re not, Henderson.”

Dustin raises his middle finger in response.

“See?” you lilt quietly to Eddie. “This is why I brought sandwiches…”

The boy huffs. “Yeah. I probably should’ve listened to you when you said he’d be all… like this.”

“You know I’m never wrong,” you tease.

A sly smile tugs at your lips. It takes everything in him not to kiss it.

“—And Eddie, drive the speed limit, okay? It’s not the Indy 300.”

“Indy 500, dingus,” Robin corrects. She leans coolly against his car, sneaker propped up against the backseat door as she picks at her chipping maroon-colored nails.

Steve rolls his eyes, but doesn’t divert his tirade.

“If you get pulled over, it’ll just make the drive take longer, and we’ll miss the check-in time, alright? Peach paid half, so if she isn’t there on time, we don’t get the keys, and we’re living like bums in the woods for three days.”

“Yes, sir,” Eddie singsongs, obviously insincere, as his arms wrap around your shoulders. He embraces you loosely at the neck and presses his cheek into your temple. “Get Peach there in one piece,” he reiterates. “I think I can do that.”

Steve huffs. His unsmiling honey eyes flit to you. He points to Eddie and talks to you like he isn’t standing behind you. “Keep him on a leash, alright? No way I’m going the whole weekend like this.”

“Ooh. A leash?” the wild-haired boy lilts with a mischievous grin. His lips brush your ear as he murmurs something only you can hear. “I like that sound of that.”

“I’m sure you do, perv,” you joke in response. Your elbow digs into his ribcage, jabbing him softly to part from him. He rubs at his side as you head towards his van. You call to the rest of the group on the way: “We should head out now before Steve loses his mind.”

Eddie’s shoes scuff the pavement as he follows behind you. “I, for one, would love to see that.”

“Good thing we have all weekend, then, huh?” Max deadpans with a playful glint in the blue of her eye.

“I heard that!”

˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱ ˎˊ˗

The first half-hour of the drive goes by like nothing.

You’re a bit embarrassed to know you spent its entirety gazing so longingly at the boy in the driver’s seat.

It was only supposed to be a glance — a small peek at his profile and his ringed fingers thrumming against the worn pleather of his steering wheel before turning away again and grinning to yourself like a schoolgirl at how cute he was. Now you’re nearly halfway-halfway into the drive, and you spent it all ogling.

You’re not sure what was so beguiling about Eddie nodding his head to The Cure or what was so attractive about his pale hands drumming to the beat and the way his metal rings glimmered beneath the setting sun. You only knew that you couldn’t look away from any of it.

“This is stranger than I thought…” he sings to himself, not exactly trying to sound great but not sounding bad either. You can only hear him if you watch his pink mouth croon each word. You do a terrible job of pretending not to be staring at him. “Six different ways inside my heart…”

Dustin pokes his head between the front seats so suddenly it makes you jolt.

His round face conceals your view of Eddie as he sets his elbows beside the headrests.“Can I have one of those sandwiches you were talking about earlier?” he asks.

“We’ve only been driving for forty minutes!” Eddie laughs.

“I’m hungry,” the boy argues with his brows pinched together. “Sue me.”

“Of course, you can,” you lilt quietly as you reach for the clear Tupperware at your feet.

You don’t miss the taunting look Dustin gives the boy next to him in return or the hand Eddie pushes against the younger boy’s cheek to force him backward.

You sit the container of napkin-wrapped sandwiches on your lap. You only packed two of each kind. All are labeled in scribbled sharpie. “Okay, I made PB&J, turkey and cheese, and cucumber and lemon—”

“Cucumber and lemon?” Eddie echoes, features flooded with horror. His wide-eyed gaze flits between you and the near-empty interstate ahead of him. “What the hell kinda monstrosity is that?”

“It’s cucumber, cream cheese, and lemon juice, and it’s actually very good, Eddie Munson.”

Dustin requests the peanut butter and jelly, Lucas takes the turkey, and Max wants the cucumber and lemon — the said monstrosity you made because you knew she liked them. You hand them their sandwiches, and they settle again in the back of the van — amid the plethora of blankets and pillows Eddie had tucked away.

You turn to the pretty boy in the driver’s seat. “Which one do you want, Eds?”

“Whatever you’re having,” he shrugs. “‘M not picky.”

He grimaces when you hand him your half of the cucumber and lemon — because, of course, you remembered to cut them into triangles.

You watch the boy take a rather begrudging bite of the sandwich. His cheek juts out as he chews through it, and you don’t know why it makes you smile, only that you’re beaming directly at him. His face is emotionless in that his features are filled with so much of it you can’t tell what he’s trying to express.

There’s a slight furrow to his brows, a scrunch to his nose, and a glint to his eye. He manages to look disgusted, inquisitive, and pleased all at once.

Your smile widens when he takes another bite.

You fight the urge to tell him, ‘I told you so,’ and instead lean over the center console to smack a kiss to his cheek.

Lucas and Dustin gag through their mouthfuls simultaneously.

They share a look after — a boyish glance of excitement, as though to say, ‘I can’t believe how in sync we are.’ It quickly turns into a game of who can make the most realistic retching noise, quieted by a single look from Max. It’s not a glare on her freckled face but a scrunched scowl of disgust as she slips the headphones of her walkman back on.

The two boys�� laughter fades all at once.

The van goes quiet again.

You shut your eyes and focus on the faint sound of Eddie’s humming. His hand is wide and warm when it settles on your knee. His thumb drums softly to the beat on the outside of your thigh.

We’re on the road to nowhere, come on inside—

The cerulean sky turns into varying shades of lilac and orange-gold. The highway to Lake Lemon is long and merciless. Two hours feel like two days when you’ve got nothing to do but sit.

Eddie, with his hands and mind sufficiently occupied, seems to be less of a victim of the unrelenting pavement. He’s slumped against the ragged pleather seat, still humming to the low radio.

Lucas and Dustin spent several minutes arguing about who was taking which blanket and whose legs got to go where. Now, however, they snooze with their backs against the van and their shoulders pressing into each other’s — heads back, mouths open, eyes fluttered shut.

Max is a lot of the same. She sits across from the boys, tucked into the corner of the wall and the driver’s seat. There’s a pillow behind her back and a blanket thrown over her lap. Her eyes are shut, but you can tell she isn’t sleeping. Her head sways in time with the song spilling from her headphones.

And you, with your feet kicked up on the dash and your gaze pointed in the direction of the setting sun, are bored out of your mind.

Eddie squeezes your thigh. “I think we’re about fifteen miles away from the stop.”

“Fucking finally,” you huff. You rest your head against the seat to look over at the boy beside you. “My ass is killing me.”

“Well, I would be happy togive you a massage at the rest stop, babe.”

Your eyes widen as you shift to glance at the back of the van. You’re relieved to see none of the kids paying attention. You swat at Eddie while he winces at himself. It’s been quiet for so long; he forgot they were still back there.

“Sorry,” he whispers, to you and to the sleeping kids who hadn’t heard a word.

“I have a feeling I’m gonna have my hands full with you on this trip, Munson.”

“I could very easily turn that into a sex joke—”

“Eddie.”

“—But I won’t,” the boy concludes. His head tilts to look at you. “See? You didn’t let me finish.”

“I don’t think they would’ve heard, anyway. They’re totally knocked out.”

“That after-school nap is no joke, sweetheart. I mean, seriously, I don’t know what I’m gonna do when I graduate.”

“You can still nap, Eds,” you counter, giggling.

“Yeah, but it’s not the same.”

You concede with the shake of your head. “Sure.”

“Do you think I’ll miss high school when I’m gone? You know, as the graduated one?”

Your brows furrow. “You’re asking me if I think the freak of Hawkins High is gonna miss getting bullied five days out of the week?”

“But I won’t have Hellfire. And I’ll probably lose clients, too — ‘cause, you know, I won’t be able to deal at school like I usually do,” Eddie explains, growing suddenly somber about the whole thing. “I’ve been in school since I was five, you know? I’ve been going to Hawkins High for six years. And change is… gross.”

The whimsical existentialism of high school seniors makes you sigh in reminiscence.

“You’ll be okay, Eddie Spaghetti,” you assure him, squeezing his hand on your thigh. “It isn’t so bad. I promise.”

“Do you miss high school at all?”

“Hell no,” you answer without thinking.

A laugh sputters from his mouth at the swiftness of your reply. “Not even a little bit?”

“A negative amount, actually.”

“I thought you liked school!” he argues.

“No one likes school.”

“You were good at it!”

“I was okay. And that’s only because I had this weird complex about getting good grades.”

High school for you, at its core, was all about approval. You weren’t sporty, so you had to be smart. You had to be noticed in some way so you weren’t suffocated by being invisible. Maybe if you had gotten therapy for all that before you turned fourteen, you wouldn’t be the way you are now.

“Do you think we would’ve dated? You know, if we knew each other back then?” Eddie asks you out of the blue. The faintest hint of a smile tugs at his pink lips. “Like… Would you have liked me?”

You grin softly to yourself as you think sincerely about his inquiry.

You don’t think you would’ve felt too differently than you do now — head over heels with no hope in sight. But your heart was different back then, tender and unbroken. God, Eddie Munson would’ve been the best thing for you back then.

“Teenage me would’ve loved you. And you would’ve hated me.”

That makes him scoff. “No way.”

“You shouldn’t sound so sure, babe. I was a mess back then.”

“I would’ve liked you for the same reason I like you now.”

You shoot him an arched brow to egg him on, but he doesn’t move to explain any further. It leaves you wondering — why he would’ve liked you back then, why he likes you now. You don’t have an answer for either.

You figure it doesn’t matter, anyway. Eddie Munson likes you, and you’re grateful beyond comprehension that you can say it with so much certainty. Never with anyone else have you been more sure of where you stand.

“I think you would’ve been good for me,” you confess, focusing on the pine trees that whip by instead of the boy beside you. Your fingers absentmindedly begin to fidget with his own, entwining and weaving with his without you ever noticing. “‘Cause you do this thing where you, like, understand me better than anyone ever has before.”

Eddie chuckles, then shrugs to humor you. “Yeah, we’re just soulmates. No big deal.”

“And I think I would’ve saved myself a world of heartbreak if I’d found you first instead of—”

You cut yourself off.

Eddie turns to you, expecting to see you saddened by the sudden change of conversation. He’s surprised to find you smiling.

“Whoa,” you marvel with wide eyes. “I don’t know how we got there. Sorry, that got… way too deep.”

Eddie twists his wrists so he can hold your hand back. His metal rings press into the sides of your fingers as they intertwine with yours. He smiles briefly at you. The road takes too much of his attention to gaze at you the way he’d like to.

“It’s okay. Let’s not think about any of that now, yeah? Let’s just have fun.”

You nod.

“I’d love to, but suffering through these conversations is making it real hard,” Max monotones from the backseat, eyes still shut.

“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” you joke.

“I’d love to, but being surrounded by lovebirds is, like, the least cozy thing ever.”

Lucas and Dustin snore a loud, synchronized snore in response. Lovebirds, indeed.

˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱ ˎˊ˗

There’s only one working sink at the gas station. It sputters cold water before hesitantly dripping the warmer kind. Robin jams the soap machine like an absolute maniac — and when she gets more strawberry-scented liquid than she bargained for, she smears some onto your palm. The two of you stand side-by-side, fingers occasionally bumping into the other’s as you wash your hands.

“How’s driving with Steve?” you ask her with a knowing grin.

“The worst,” she answers with a groan, just as dramatically as you imagined she might. “He’s acting like a total dad, obviously. But he’s letting me man that radio, so that’s a plus.”

“Ah, so it’s less Bruce Springsteen and more The Runaways this time?”

Robin’s ocean eyes go wide at the reminder. The last trip where Steve was in charge of the radio, it took two weeks to get “Born in the U.S.A.” out of her head. She shivers at the memory.

“Yes. Thank god,” she huffs and turns off the faucet. You pump the lever at the paper towel dispenser and hand a napkin over to her. “How’s driving with Eddie?”

The teasingly lilted name doesn’t go unnoticed by you.

“Why’d you say his name like that?” you giggle.

She squints. “You know exactly why.”

You do.

“It’s fine, I guess,” you shrug instead of telling her you’ve spent the entire drive staring at him. You still haven’t yet decided which is prettier — the pink and purple sunset or the way Eddie looks beneath it. “He’s not driving like a total maniac with the kids in the car, so… It’s not too bad.”

You open the door with your shoulder.

“You haven’t heard from Billy, have you?” Robin asks as she walks out ahead of you.

Your eyes widen at the sound of the boy’s name. The realization that you’re not the only one who shudders at the mention of him is equally daunting. You look over your shoulder and towards Max’s stall, where she’d walked in a few minutes after the both of you. You shut the door behind you and wonder if she heard.

“No. I haven’t,” you answer, then plead. “And can we please not talk about him? Especially not in front of Max?”

“Well, tell that to Stevie because he won’t stop asking me?”

Your brows pinch. “Why?”

Robin makes a vague ‘I don’t know’ sound as she shrugs. She roams the snack aisle and eyes the vibrantly colored chip bags. “He probably doesn’t want to bother you about it. And also, he probably thinks you wouldn’t tell him if you did hear from him.”

“I wouldn’t,” you scoff.

“See,” Robin drawls with her head tilted to her shoulder. “That’s the problem!”

“Well, considering the last time I told Steve about Billy, he almost died, I think I’m doing him a favor.”

“…Touché.”

“I haven’t heard from him, okay? And I’m not going to because we’re gonna be three hours away from Hawkins all weekend.”

“Unless he’s stalking you,” Robin argues mindlessly. When her own words dawn on her, she gasps and looks at you with her features gaping in horror. “Oh, my god. What if he goes all Jason Voorhees and starts slaughtering us one by one—”

“Robin!” you shout, unsure of whether or not you should laugh.

“I’m just saying! That guy is crazy, okay? We should not put that maniac shit past him,” the girl agonizes. She walks a few short steps over to you and holds onto your arms with a grip most desperate. Her eyes are wide and pleading as she stares at you. You feel a bit like she’s looking into your soul. “Just please promise me you and Eddie won’t have sex while we’re on vacation.”

Instead of telling her that most certainly won’t be a problem, you’re left surprised at her out-of-the-blue words. “What?”

“The couple having sex is always the first to die in the movies!”

“Robin. I love you,” you remind her with your hands over her jacket-clad arms. “But you’re insane.”

She sighs with exasperation when you turn away from her. You hear her mutter under her breath behind you: “Looks like I’m gonna be the girl that gets killed ‘cause no one listened to her about the crazy serial killer dude…”

You get Eddie food at the connected McDonald’s, even though he told you he wasn’t hungry.

“Those sandwiches are too good to waste, Peach,” he’d said right before pressing a kiss to your cheek. You think he just didn’t want you spending money on him when he was too busy getting gas to catch you. You do it anyway. ‘Cause you love him and everything.

“We talked about this!” Eddie grouses when you meet him at the pump. He taps the nozzle against the van a few times, getting every last drop he can before sticking it back into the stand. “I was really lookin’ forward to that PB&J, sweetheart.”

You smile before popping a fry into your mouth. “Want me to drive?”

“No. I’m good. Probably gonna sleep like a baby when we get there, though,” he tells you, half-joking as he stretches out his tired back. The bottom of his thrifted Stars Wars tee rises to reveal a sliver of his stomach. He catches you looking and grins. “And when I do, I expect to be held like one in compensation.”

You know he’s joking, but you nod anyway. The sack of burgers gets squished between your bodies when he takes you in his arms, palms wide along your waist.

“Happily,” you grin, already leaning in for a kiss. The tip of his nose smushes against the side of yours when your lips meet. It’s longer than a peck. Softer than one too. He tastes sweet, like lemons.

You hear the kids coming back before you see them. Their chattering melds with the scuffs of their shoes. You and Eddie part from one another, thinking you might’ve gotten away with your fleeting touches before any of them could see. A chorus of groans tells you otherwise.

“See?” Eddie protests with his brows raised, hidden behind his curly bangs. “This is what I was talking about!”

You shake your head with a sympathetic smile. “We’ll be there soon, Eddie Spaghetti,” you promise. The “I’m gonna kiss you silly when we get there” goes unsaid.

He hears it, though.

˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱ ˎˊ˗

Soon, as it turns out, was actually another hour. It’s full of huffy teenagers, and ‘are we there yet?’s, and Eddie trying not to lose his sanity between it all. You do your best to keep his mind off of the never-ending highway, but hand-holding and mindless conversations only go so far. By hour three-and-a-half of the relentless drive, the trek was beginning to show on you too.

Lake Lemon was worth it, though.

The view of sparkling water beneath a velvet purple sky made you forget about your aching back and the extra twenty minutes Eddie spent trying to find the place (and getting lost in the process). The cabin was a quaint two-story thing, wedged between lake and forest. It was old, which meant it was cheap, but it wasn’t any less beautiful. And, for a couple of kids who rarely get the chance to get out of Hawkins, it might as well be Heaven on Earth.

“This place is massive!” Dustin marvels.

It’s not that big, really. It’s certainly not bigger than the Harrington home — which you know he frequents from time to time. You think it may be just because of the wide-open kitchen connecting to the living room and the spiral staircase leading to the second floor.

“Alright,” Steve huffs from behind the group of you as he drops Max’s duffle with a low thud. No one volunteered him to get the bags, but he didn’t object to doing it either. “I think that’s all of ‘em. If you little shits make a mess when you unpack, you better clean up after yourselves. I’m not your maid.”

“Sorry, Stevie. I can’t hear you over this view,” Robin lilts from the other side of the house. She stands at the sliding glass door in the kitchen. Just outside of it is the lake. The water looks black in the night, shining beneath a set of twinkling stars.

“Can me and El take the bedroom upstairs?” Mike asks you, far nicer than he’d ever ask Steve. El hangs on his arm. You’ve got a feeling she’ll stay there all weekend.

He told you recently that he was trying to grow his hair out to look more like Eddie. Now you can’t look at him without smiling. He’s not nearly as intimidating as his structured features make him seem.

“Well, I don’t want Hopper to kill me, so there’s no way I’m giving you guys the master bedroom,” you laugh, tilting your head down to your shoulder. You meet the teenager’s identical pout with a shrug. “But if you wanna share one of the bunks, knock yourselves out. What I don’t know, I can’t tell Hop, so…”

“But shouldn’t the couples get the bigger bedrooms?” Mike argues.

Steve materializes behind your shoulder. “You kids are taking the bunks, alright? That’s final.”

Mike scowls. “You guys are no fun, you know that?”

“You’ll survive,” the older boy deadpans with the roll of his eyes. “Peach and Robin can take one room, Nance can take the other when she gets here. I’ll take the couch and…” Steve trails off and looks over at Eddie. He winces. “I think there might be a spare tent outside for you, Munson.”

Eddie scoffs out a laugh. “Dick…”

“Everyone say ‘thank you, Steve’s dad,” Robin singsongs as she walks back to the living room for her rucksack. Despite her obviously joking tone, everyone else choruses ‘thanks, Steve’s dad!’ in return as they scramble for their bags.

Steve huffs behind you. Sure, his dad put the downpayment on the place, but he didn’t need to be reminded of that. Besides, he paid for everything else.

You turn on your heel to face him, arms crossed over your chest as you smile up at him. “Thank you, Steve,” you lilt in the same too sweet tone as everyone else.

“You don’t have to think me,” the boy scoffs. “You paid for half.”

“Not nearly half.”

“Well, you made up for it by booking the cabin. You did all the work I was too lazy to do, so—”

“So call it even and stop flirting,” Eddie monotones as he slings your bags and his bag over his arm and shoulder.

You roll your eyes with a smile, canting your head to look over at the darker-haired boy. “Wanna go unpack?” you ask.

“If it’ll stop you and Harrington from making out, yeah.”

“Those jokes stopped being funny the first time you told them, Munson,” Steve grouses.

You walk to Eddie and take the hand dangling at his side. You trail behind him as he leads you up the wooden, unusually coiled staircase.

“Is this what rich people do when they build houses?” he comments. “’Cause this feels really dumb and unnecessary.”

“I assume you know a lot about those things,” you joke drily.

“Rude.”

At the top of the stairs, and for the first time alone, you smack a kiss to his mouth.

There are four doors to choose from on the second story — one is the bathroom, the other a storage closet.

Of the two bedrooms, you and Eddie pick the door at the very end of the carpeted hall on the right. It’s got a better view of the lake and is on the furthest side of the house — in that, it’s not just above the kids’ room. In that, maybe it’ll be quiet enough for the two of you to pretend that you’re just here by yourselves for a moment or two.

The walls are made of slatted wood, and the slanted ceiling is painted a deep green. There’s a stone fireplace and a dresser with a small television on one side of the room, and a balcony overlooking the lake to the other. It’s not huge but isn’t small either — the perfect size for a girl who loves being close to her boy and a boy who loves to let her.

Neither of you bothers unpacking. You make a silent agreement to live out of your bags for the next couple of days to save the pain of having to pack all over again when it’s time to go. Rather than spend the next half hour hunching your aching packs to organize clothes into drawers, you spend it flopping into bed beside one another.

Like muscle memory, you take the right side and Eddie takes the left. “It’s the side closest to the door, anyway,” he tells you. “And men always take that side. For some reason.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s to defend their wives in case someone breaks in,” you say, giggling.

“Well, that’s dumb. What if they come in from the window?”

“…I don’t know how you haven’t graduated yet, Eds. You’re a genius.”

Now, Eddie lies on his stomach with his face smushed into the pillow. Fatigue radiates from him like steam. You smooth a mindless hand up and down his back. Between dealing, going to school, and driving three hours across the state, you know he’s drained.

“What time is it?” he mumbles into the cushion.

You look over at the clock on the nightstand and then back at him. “Almost ten.”

“I’m so exhausted I think I could peel my skin off…”

You exhale sharply through your nose. “I don’t think that’s exhaustion, Eddie Spaghetti.”

His head perks up. His button eyes go wide and hopeful as he looks at you, almost shy. “Wanna hold me?” he murmurs, still half into the pillow in case you reject him and he has to hide again.

“I’m offended you’re even asking me that,” you scoff. “That answer’s always gonna be yes, Eddie Munson.”

You roll onto your back. Eddie squirms against the mattress until he’s close enough to lay his head on your chest. His curls tickle your neck and jaw. Your arms wrap around each other, holding one another like you haven’t spent several hours squished into a van together.

The moments you should be tired of each other, your love just seems to get bigger.

You don’t know if you’ve ever experienced that before, or if it’s the first time it’s ever happened in the history of the whole world. The butterflies in your stomach make both feel equally true.

“Did you have a good day?” Eddie mumbles into the t-shirt you’d just changed into. He’s obviously tired, but he doesn’t want to quit talking to you.

“The best,” you sigh, content and finally still. One hand curls into his hair. You scratch softly at his scalp. “And it’s gonna be even better tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Eddie nods. He doesn’t know if that’s totally true, but he’s found that’s a lot like what your relationship is like — perfect and getting better all the time. So he figures you must be right.

Silence settles within the four walls of the small bedroom. It feels soft like cotton candy, a blanket that’s been tossed over the both of you. You think you could stay like this all night — holding each other and never saying a word.

Eddie, however, has never met a quiet he doesn’t want to break.

“…Wanna fool around?” he jokes out of the blue.

“With kids downstairs and Robin right next door?” you laugh. “I think I’m good.”

“I’d be quiet,” he promises, leaning his chin on the swell of your breast to look at you.

“You don’t know how to be quiet, Munson. Besides, we shouldn’t fool around while we’re here anyway…”

The boy’s brows furrow at the teasing lilt in your tone. A smile curls at his lips. “…Why?”

“‘Cause Robin said those are the first people to die in scary movies.”

“She’s not wrong,” Eddie offers with a laugh. “I mean, she’s crazy, but she’s right.”

You sigh, smiling. “That’s Robin Buckley for you… She’s a total dork.”

“Guess that’s why you guys get along so well, then, huh?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie singsongs, too cute for his own good. “I just think everyone made a mistake calling you the slut of Hawkins, you know? Like calling me the freak is spot on, but you? You’re totally the dork.”

You snort. “Right…”

“Peach, The Cute,” Eddie lilts like he’s testing it on for size.

“Yeah? Is that what my name would be in your game?”

“Peach, The Adorable,” he continues. “Peach, The Precious, even.”

“Munson, The Annoying,” you croon in the same tone he’d used, though obviously joking and obviously not doing the best job as him. “Eddie, The Guy That’s About To Sleep Outside Tonight.”

Eddie beams. “See? You just proved my point. You’re too adorable for your own good, sweetheart.”

“Yeah?” you hum as he moves off your chest and onto the pillow you’re lying on.

He props his head on his arm and nods. “So cute it makes my chest hurt a little bit.”

“I’m sorry,” you apologize with a soft grin that says otherwise.

“’S okay,” he assures with a softer smile and a twinkle in the chocolate of his eye. His hand rises and toys with the fraying hem of your shirt. “Do you remember what we were talking about in the van earlier? About, like�� knowing each other in high school?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, I’m really glad we weren’t friends back then.”

Your heart wants to break, but you don’t let it. You don’t know what this boy is going to tell you next, but you’ve got a feeling it’s going to kill you and bring you back to life again. “Why?”

“‘Cause I don’t think you would’ve let me get to know you. Like, know you, know you.”

Not the way everyone else knows you, he wants to say.

“That’s not true,” you reject just because you feel like you should. Both of you know he’s right.

To put it simply, you would’ve loved to fuck Eddie Munson back in high school. Back then, he was just the weirdo who sold the cheapest weed — not the sweetheart you’ve gotten to know him as now. And the two of you would’ve had sex, and it would’ve been fine, but it wouldn’t have meant anything to either of you.

Sex is just sex until you decide to give it meaning.

And for you — and for a really, really long time — it didn’t mean shit. It was just a dumb way to pass the time when you ran out of words to say. A cheap way to get the validation you’d really been looking for the whole time. Intimacy stopped meaning something because no one touched you the way Eddie touched you.

He makes you feel held. Wanted. Loved.

You didn’t know either of those things existed when you were seventeen.

But you’ve found them now, in your old dealer who used to give you free weed for helping him study. You’re glad you meant him when you did — after heartache chewed you up and spat you out, left you soaking wet and shivering.

Eddie came to you like a warm blanket and a home-cooked meal. You wouldn’t have been able to appreciate him before now.

“Well, thanks for letting me know you anyway, sweetheart,” Eddie says with a lopsided smile.

Something about it is so strangely tender. More intimate than a thousand I love you’s.

You smile. “Thanks for letting me know you, too, Eddie Spaghetti.”

#published by bug #eddie munson x reader #stranger things x reader #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x you #eddie munson smut #eddie munson fic #eddie munson #stranger things #stranger things fanfic #stranger things smut #stranger things imagine #virgin!eddie munson x reader #virgin!eddie munson #st oneshots #eddie spaghetti oneshot

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visceral-reject · 1 year ago

Text

SILENT NIGHTS

A/N: hello ghoulies resident mom over this blog, aka Mod888, and I’d like to thoroughly apologize for our lack of posting. My health hasn’t been the best as of late and with schooling piling up on both of us, we thought we should take a break in order to push out content we’re both happy with! Please enjoy and forgive me as this is it’s been a while. ~ Mod888

CW: HABIT an Evan are dicks ngl, sub!afab!reader, reader isn’t ,human (ngl this might be a second part to Forelsket), choking, spanking, slight bondage, spit kink, slight size kink

his hand was cold as it crept up your throat, the calloused fingers mopping out your jugular with light touches, a stark contrast to the hand buried in your hair, scratching at your scalp with blunt nails. It would almost be comforting if not for your current…position. Your knees would surely be aching and bruised in the morning, but you couldn’t, more akin to wouldn’t complain, not like you could with Evan’s cold hand now clamped over your lips.

“ you know, I think I like you better when you’re quiet bun. It’s so much better when you’re not running that bratty fucking mouth. “ Evan, or what was masquerading around New Jersey as him, gave a loose grin as he worked his fingers into your scalp. Some might wonder why you stayed, and the answer was simple really. Evan dicked you down better than anyone else.

you fought against biting his finger, you really did. it was honestly a sad sight, you beneath Evan with one hand wrapped around your throat almost daring you to move without his word to. The image the mirror reflected had you rubbing your thighs together, aching for the least bit of friction. Evan laughed, a sharp, mocking sound from his chest. He knew you liked this, you liked him taking your breath away, like the way his hands looked wrapped around your pretty throat that’d been marked seven ways to Sunday with hickies and bite marks. You liked everything he gave to you. The hand around your throat retreated, not without protest from you, though you found your pouting cut short as Evan worked you upon the bed by your head; gentler tugs as stalked around your body. There was a brief moment after your body hit the plush blanket below, and an even briefer moment before your hazy min could register Evan’s body atop of your’s. His chapped lips pressed against your neck as his calloused hands found their home grazing your legs.

“ I know baby, I know how bad you wan’ it right? “ Evan purred into your neck, his breath tickled. He was right about you wanting it, wanting him. You nodded as best as you could, shifting and squirming beneath him. Against you sopping core, you could feel the bulge of his cock. Evan’s shallow thrusts against you made it so much harder to stay quiet, your whines and moans making your lover laugh against your throat. “ Oh baby you’re being so good, tired of being a goddamn brat now that you fucking want something huh? “ you keened as Evan’s hand made it’s way towards your cunt. Evan chuckled as he continued his assault on you delicate neck, before rising to click his tongue. “ Oh no baby, if you want something you have to ask you know that! “ he bellowed. You, deprived of what you ached so badly for whined. Well, cried actually, fat tears welled in your eyes as you blabbered, yet your begging fell upon deaf ears as Evan continued to drag his fingers against your slit, reminding you he’d never willingly give anyone anything, and that included you.

A/N: This is lazy and rushed. I’m sleepy and dealing with family right now so please excuse this horrid thing.

#1800cr33py #reqs open #emh x reader #habit everymanhybrid #emh smut #evan myers #evan jennings #evan everymanhybrid #emh evan #emh habit #habit x reader #habit emh #habit smut #x reader smut #afab reader

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kuzann · 1 year ago

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First Meeting

So excited to finally be able to post this! It's my first time taking part in a big DP fandom event! 💜 I had an absolute blast working with @braisedhoney for @ecto-implosion 2023, and it even spawned an entire AU as well!

Go look at the art that inspired this fic! It's so good!!

You can also read this on Ao3 if you'd prefer.

Summary

The first meeting between Jazz and Dan following the timestream’s restoration doesn’t go as planned. Dan reflects on old memories and new vulnerabilities as he digs through the rubble.

Warnings

Brief gore, blood, explosion aftermath, grief, body horror, trauma flashback

The Fic

It was cold. Water dripped from the cavity’s ceiling, ran down the back of his neck and left chilling trails in its wake. He still wasn’t used to being able to feel such sensations to this degree. To being... Attached to a human body again.

The low rumble of debris continuing to settle shuddered through the cavity they’d found themselves in. A distinctly fungal smell hung in the air, of long-undisturbed earth recently awoken by the struggle of briefer creatures. It coated the inside of his mouth, now partially open to bear fangs as he stared down at the ghost who had given him so much trouble. An enemy who had at last realized the price of picking a fight with him.

Phantom, Dark Danny, the last remaining echo of a miserable future now unmade... He still wasn’t sure what to call himself. The old man had taken to calling him Dan. The name was brief, immediate, and wasted no unnecessary time. It was good enough, though he’d never let Vlad know that.

There was a choice to be made. He and his enemy weren’t the only ones down here. He could finish this wretch off for good, make sure he never dared to bother him again, or track down the other who had fallen in the collapse. With the clone body already deteriorating, already straining under his full form he could only choose one.

Humiliation had its claws in him. He’d nearly lost the fight, he was supposed to be stronger than this. The thought of putting the feeling to rest permanently was a tempting one...

“Get lost,” Dan snarled, his red eyes wide and focused and threatening even greater violence should his enemy turn down this opportunity. His breath streamed out before him like dragon smoke, its heat stolen by the chill of the hungry earth. That, too, was something he still wasn’t used to.

Vortex briefly considered his options. He was on his last leg and in the process of collapsing into an amorphous state, but the battlelust of their previous conflicts still rang through his being with an intensity that was hard to ignore. For a moment he appeared to be gathering for another strike, his body crackling with anticipation, only to suddenly surge up through the ceiling and out of the collapse.

Dan straightened and watched the point on the ceiling where Vortex had disappeared. When seconds stretched by and no ambush came he let out a long sigh and took a step back, broad shoulders drooping. He was still getting used to the power adjustments. To the new bodies. The new... Everything. And it cost him in this fight.

He scowled and turned to the span of collapse behind him.

Now to find her.

Dan knew where she’d been when they fell; Vortex had knocked her away before Dan broke through the power restraints and stepped between them. All he had to do was keep digging until he found her. Slower than using intangibility, but any ghost power would only accelerate his host’s deterioration at this point.

He pulled the first slab of concrete aside.

It had been an embarrassing fight. Frustration burned white-hot as Dan reviewed his performance and found it sorely lacking, and it wasn’t just this time. He’d utterly destroyed Vortex back in the other timeline, yet in this one he’d been clashing with the ghost for weeks as the two sought to prove who was stronger. Ridiculous. He should’ve been able to blast Vortex into nothingness long before this.

Dan grit his teeth and shifted more debris, freezing when the mass above him groaned ominously. The jumble held, dust shafting down around him as it quieted. He kept going.

This was Vlad’s fault. Always going on about how Dan had to be more careful with the new ‘power restrictions’, how the way he treated his host bodies was ‘wasteful’. If he could just get the power adjustments right this wouldn’t be a problem. Vlad just wasn’t trying hard enough.

A carelessly-shifted chunk of concrete fell back on his forearm. He growled and hurled it into the cavity behind him, ectoplasm dripping onto the dirt and debris at his feet. Dan paused to look down at the wound. The concrete must’ve had exposed rebar poking out of it to make a gash this deep and jagged.

Not good. If his body was this vulnerable already—

Dan cut the thought short and continued on.

Memories rose with the shifting dust, of the time before the explosion. Of the aftermath of the worst fights when he had to limp his way home...

—when he had only a vast empty house to return to, the silence broken by nothing save for the sound of his own movements and the creaking of a structure settling after dark.

Dan shook his head. Not the dual memories again...

It never used to be this much of an issue, back in the other timeline. But then he’d stamped out all true adversity years ago back there. Less struggle, less opportunity for such memories to slip in. A simpler way of being that wasn’t constantly flinging existential questions at his face and expecting answers he couldn’t provide.

The next span was too unstable to shift. Dan searched for a place he might be able to crawl through—difficult with his large frame—and found only a small hole. He would have to briefly use intangibility to get through this.

Did she even make it—

It’s fine, he told himself. It would be her own fault for getting involved where she shouldn’t have. She wasn’t even his Jazz...

A chill settled over him as he shifted to a different phase to the physical matter around him. Dan dove through the wall and found that it was as thin as he’d hoped it would be. He released his power and staggered a few steps as he touched down.

The clone body held. For now.

Why did she have to step in? He didn’t need her help.

But then, that was what she’d always done, wasn’t it? When his parents weren’t there for him, Jazz was.

His Jazz. The one who’d been gone for over a decade now...

—collapsed in front of their graves. A loss so complete it was a wonder he hadn’t died on the spot.

Dan clutched at his head and willed the memory back down into the abyss of subconscious. He didn’t need this right now. It didn’t make sense anyway. She wasn’t the same Jazz.

The twisting in his gut exposed the lie for what it was. Emotions he’d stifled and strangled long ago were even now resurrecting themselves as he searched beneath the cold earth.

Like a grave, the thought crept in, with coarse concrete slabs for tombstones. A grave he’d sent countless other humans to without a second thought…

It’s fine. He’d been willing to throw her away again for the sake of power. He didn’t care.

A lie, and an ill-constructed one at that. Willing to throw her away yet still so grief-stricken over losing her to begin with. Was he capable of making sense? Was it his nature to be contradictory?

He forced down another grieving memory before it could properly materialize. This had to be because of the stupid clone body dragging him back down into those pesky human emotions. Its glitchy biological programming was throwing his trauma at him again after he’d already dealt with it years ago.

If he could just keep it together—!

It was silent beneath the earth, save for his own efforts. He hadn’t once heard a cry for help from the person he was looking for.

Dread crept in and sank its teeth into the back of his neck.

She had that armor on. It could withstand a collapse like this, right? Fenton gadgets were ridiculously robust, and the Peeler’s armor was meant for high defense. She was fine.

Right?

Dan continued on and pulled another piece of concrete aside, then he sensed it.

There was something warm up ahead. The realization gave him a burst of speed.

It’s fine. She wasn’t in danger anyway. The Peeler’s armor kept her safe. He didn’t need to worry like this!

At last he broke into the cavity she’d landed in. A few dozen feet and he’d be able to put these wretched emotions to rest.

Dan forged ahead, and trod on a loose slab of concrete that shifted the ceiling above.

Debris thundered down on him and threatened to bury the cavity entirely. He brought his arms up to catch the worst of it, and the slabs fell between himself and Jazz

No, no! He was strong, the ultimate foe! It would be fine! He would make it so!

Dan gave a wordless roar as he shoved the topmost slabs off of him.

He was running out of time. Again. If he could just go faster!

Memories washed over him. He’d realized something was wrong just before the explosion, turned to fly toward the Nasty Burger, to do something, anything, to protect them. The memory played back at an agonizing pace, as if he were moving through tar as he struggled to get there in time. It was already too late.

He lost his grip on a slab. It fell back on him and cut his right thigh open.

It’s fine. He would make it this time, push to the absolute limits of this wretched artificial body if he had to. He was stronger now. She wouldn’t be stolen from him again!

Dan remembered just in time that mindless thrashing was the last thing he wanted to do in this situation. He forced those stupid worthless emotions back down and steadied his hands as he pushed debris off of himself.

It’s fine.

At last it came down to the final concrete slab. Dan hefted it with both arms and tossed it aside.

It’s—

He froze. She lay with her back against a slab of concrete, eyes closed behind the cracked visor despite the tumult that had just taken place before her. There was blood on the armor.

Hers—?!

A swarm of unbidden memories rose around him, of running toward the smoldering remains of the explosion—

—the bodies—

—charred but still—

—blood—

—pieces—

—unrecognizable—

A sudden, agonizing shudder shook the memories loose. The clone body was starting to give. Blood-tinged ectoplasm dripped from his hands.

Dan struggled to catch his breath and made himself look at her again.

The same. Ectoplasm shifting into blood. She’d been standing behind him when Vortex landed a severe blow earlier.

The release in tension was almost enough to drive him to his knees.

It wasn’t hers.

Dan walked to her, forcing himself to take slow deliberate steps. He stopped at her feet and leaned down.

There was a light mist clouding the inside of the armor’s visor.

She was breathing.

Jazz stirred. “Who’s there?” she asked, her voice quiet and strained. She was in pain.

“It’s me,” Dan said. Before, it would’ve been enough. His voice alone was the only introduction he’d needed in the other timeline. Now he struggled for something more to pin on to the end of the phrase. Nothing felt right.

Jazz opened her eyes and squinted up at him. She smiled. “I knew you’d come back.”

“Know-it-all,” Dan grumbled before he could stop himself. Now to muster the strength to phase them out of here—

His body gave. His form started to run, to lose its shape. Every cell screamed in agony as flesh lost its grip on bone. Dan fell to his knees. The halo appeared at his waist, returning him to the clone’s form.

He’d been forced to wear Danny’s face to survive, but he refused to wear the same clothes. The battle had been hard enough that the black leather jacket, jeans, and t-shirt would have to be replaced, even without the blood and ectoplasm leaking onto them. His boots might be salvageable if he didn’t get too much ectoplasm on them. If he was able to make it out of this, anyway. The chances of that were growing increasingly slim. He looked up to find Jazz watching him with a mix of shock and horror on her face.

“You’re—”

“The clone bodies don’t do so well when I go full form,” Dan said, looking away. He dragged himself over to her, his body screaming with pain every inch of the way, and let himself rest on the slab.

“I can’t get to my phone,” Jazz said, sounding guilty. “The armor won’t come off, it’s dented in the back.”

What does she have to be sorry for? It was his fault Vortex showed up… Some first meeting this turned out to be...

“I’ll call the old man,” Dan said, silently chiding himself for not thinking of that earlier. And for not letting Jazz call Danny in when Vortex first showed up. He hadn’t wanted his other self to get involved…

Dan took the cell phone from an inner pocket of his jacket, his hand shaky enough to risk dropping it at any moment. He willed what steadiness he could into the limb and hit the only number he had on speed dial, then switched it to the speaker setting. In his defense he wasn’t used to having a phone again just yet. He simply hadn’t remembered during all the commotion.

“Old man?” Jazz asked as they waited.

Vlad picked up on the second ring. “So you finally decided to check in,” he said, tone clipped and impatient. “And where have you been? You disappeared hours ago—”

“Amity Park,” Dan said, cutting off the rest of Vlad’s rant. They didn’t have time for this.

“What are you doing in Amity Park!?”

“Melting under a collapsed building. Jazz is here too.”

The audio became muffled by a hand to the receiver, but Dan was very sure he could make out Vlad shouting an actual swear word into the empty lab in Wisconsin. It cleared again, and Vlad was all business when he spoke next: “I need you to turn on your phone’s tracker. Is Jasmine hurt? How badly?”

Dan looked at her.

“I don’t think anything’s broken,” Jazz said. She winced when she took a deeper breath. “But the Fenton Peeler’s damaged and pressing on my back. It hurts too much to move.”

“Alright. I’ll have to go through the Ghost Zone to get there in time,” Vlad said. There was the distant sound of equipment being moved in the background as he made ready. “If I have to blow my cover because of you—”

“Just get your ass in gear, old man,” Dan growled. Vlad would figure it out. Somehow he always did. “Lecture me after this is over.”

“Stop calling me that! I’m not even fifty yet!” Vlad snapped, then he hung up without saying goodbye.

“Are you sure he’ll be here—” Jazz began before the silence could properly close in.

“He will, I just had to make him get off the phone and focus. He hasn’t let me melt yet.” Dan brought up his other hand, squinting in the near darkness as he turned the phone’s tracker on.

“And the melting happens… Often?”

“Yeah, because he still can’t get the bodies right,” Dan grumbled. If Vlad could at least make an adult clone then maybe they’d get somewhere. He hated being stuck in a frail teen body again. “If I don’t hold back they break.”

Jazz inhaled as if to say something about that, then let the breath go instead.

Silence descended on them, filled only by the hiss of falling dust and the grumble of settling earth.

It was cold. Dan could feel it even through his jacket. Even through the pain of his body’s deterioration. In all his years of fighting he’d never run afoul of a pain like this, of having his body slowly picked apart molecule by molecule, torn by gravity as much as by the bindings within his cells coming undone. Even the Fenton Peeler’s effects couldn’t match it. Perhaps the cold was somehow sharpened by his dying nervous system, or by the breakdown in circulation. It wasn’t a subject he was familiar with. All he knew was that he was in pain, and that the cold sapped even more comfort from his predicament.

He didn’t want to think about what would happen if Vlad didn’t make it here in time. The pain would stop, but so would he.

Forever.

Jazz shifted, armor scraping against the slab at their backs, and put her near hand on his arm. She tugged at his sleeve, inviting him closer.

Dan hesitated. He still didn’t understand her attachment to him. Why she kept giving him chances he didn’t deserve. He wasn’t her Danny anymore...

Still, it was cold. Perhaps being closer would offer a little warmth. A little comfort while he waited to find out if this would be the day he met his end.

He pulled himself to her and laid himself across the arm she’d beckoned him over with. Jazz draped her forearm over him, holding him in a half-hug as they lay there. There was no warmth. The armor kept them separate and pressed into his upper back in uncomfortable ways, but he didn’t care. This was enough.

His eyes started to drift shut, his vision blurring slightly. He was running out of power. Jazz was in too much pain to move, even talking was difficult for her. They were in a sorry state.

He shouldn’t have come here on a whim without even warning her beforehand. Not when Vortex had it out for him, anyway. But he couldn’t stop thinking about what she said during that climactic battle, how she insisted that he was still part of her family even as he threatened to tear it apart in front of her eyes. Even after he’d leveled half the city.

It was something he still didn’t understand, even though he wanted to.

A pained shudder jolted through his body, bringing him back to the present.

There would be no asking why she still treated him like family for now. He had to conserve energy and hope that help would arrive in time.

Dan closed his eyes and waited.

Jazz wasn’t sure how much time had passed. In a place without sunlight or moonlight and without access to her phone she could only guess. Pain stretched everything longer than it should have been, but at least being able to hold one of her brothers brought some comfort.

She wanted to talk to him. Ask what his life was like now, if he was happy. How he arrived at where he was in the other timeline. But present circumstances made that impossible; just breathing hurt thanks to the way the armor crumpled into her upper back, and Dan was clearly so low on energy that any conversation was out of the question. It was horrifying, watching him slowly melt into ectoplasm. She could only hope that Vlad got here before it was too late.

Her eyes were closed when she suddenly became aware of another person’s presence in the cavity.

“Well, you’re in a sorry state now, aren’t you?”

Jazz looked up to find Vlad Plasmius, arms folded over his chest and one foot tapping in the dust as he glared down at Dan like a disapproving parent. The cut on his right eyebrow had become a scar, but he was looking much better than he had when she’d last seen him. There was a large metal coffin at his side, for what purpose she could only guess.

“About time you got here, old man,” Dan growled, though there was little venom left in his words.

“You’d think that a ghost with your level of experience would be capable of managing a vessel better,” Vlad grumbled as he pressed a button on the coffin’s lid. It opened with a hiss and the whir of multiple servos on its hinges, revealing a dimly-lit chamber within.

“If you’d just make the vessels better—!”

“I am not bothering Daniel because of your carelessness!” Vlad snapped. He met no resistance as he scooped Dan up and carried him over to the coffin. “Now I suggest you sit tight and think about what you’ve done, young man.”

“I’m twenty-four!” Dan howled as he glared up at Vlad.

“Then act like it!” Vlad snapped back. Despite his ire he placed Dan in the coffin with care and pressed the button to close it rather than slamming it shut himself. The two glared at each other until the lid closed, then Vlad sighed and let his head fall back. “I don’t know why he can’t just adapt to the restrictions. It’s not like they exist for no reason.” He leaned over the coffin and tapped away at a combination of buttons. A soft hum came from within, and the color of the lights on its exterior changed from red to green.

“Sorry for the wait, Jasmine,” Vlad said as he turned to her, his tone more sincere than she’d ever heard from him before. “He needed to be put into stabilization immediately.” He knelt before her and tried to get a better look. “Are you able to sit up? You mentioned the damage was on your back.”

Jazz turned herself onto her side, then pushed herself up and clutched at his arm for balance with her free hand. The crumpled armor dug a bit deeper into her ribs and shoulder blade, but she wanted out and if Vlad could get the job done then she’d take a little more pain. “Back here,” Jazz said, gesturing over her left shoulder.

Vlad shifted position, allowing Jazz to use one of his knees as a prop so she wouldn’t have to expend energy sitting upright. He leaned around and took a few moments to examine the damage. “I’ll have to cut the piece away, I don’t want to risk prying you out.”

“Okay.” Jazz tried to be patient, keep her breathing slow, but the pain was becoming unbearable.

There was a gentle heat at her back, not directly over the crumpled armor but in a rough oval around it. Knowing the solution was in the works eased the pain a little.

Jazz looked at the coffin again while Vlad meticulously worked his way through the armor. A stabilization chamber... Vlad certainly had a flare for drama to build it in the shape he did.

But he’d made it in time. Dan would live to see another day. That was what she figured at least, given that things weren’t so serious as to keep the two from arguing the way they did.

“Got it.” At last Vlad lifted the damaged section of armor away.

The relief was immediate. Jazz took her first deep breath since falling into the collapse. “Thank you,” she said, a tad breathless from sheer relief.

“You’ll need to get that looked at just to be sure,” Vlad said as she deactivated the Fenton Peeler’s armor. “Should I drop you off at the hospital?” He offered her a hand and carefully pulled her to her feet.

“It might look suspicious if I just showed up at the hospital all of a sudden,” Jazz replied after taking a moment to consider the option. “I’ll get mom and dad to take me.”

“Very well, I’ll drop you off on my way out.” Vlad took the coffin by one of its handles and hefted it with ease. He slung it over one shoulder and turned to her, offering a hand again.

Jazz let him scoop her up with one arm, and soon they were out in the open air again. Vortex was nowhere to be seen once they were above the roofline of Amity Park, he was probably either skulking somewhere or had been captured by Danny already. Hopefully the latter. He was a frustrating ghost to deal with even on a good day.

“So Dan’s gonna be okay, right?” Jazz asked, just to be sure. The Ops Center came into view over the rooftops; soon she would be home.

“Despite doing his best to make sure he wouldn’t be, yes,” Vlad replied.

“I heard that, old man!” said Dan’s muffled voice from within the stabilization chamber. It rattled briefly, as if he were banging on it from the inside.

Vlad’s frown deepened but he didn’t reply.

“Thanks for the save, Vlad,” Jazz said, still a little surprised that Vlad had done anything worth thanking him for. “Are things going...” she paused to glance at the coffin, “Okay back home...?”

“Mmm...” Vlad’s mouth drew into a thin line as he thought about it. “We’re making progress... I think. It’s still better than being alone, at least.”

Not the most encouraging reply, but not the worst either.

“I think Dan’s been picking so many fights lately because he’s trying to avoid thinking about things,” Vlad added, having given a bit more thought to the question. He went invisible as they neared Fenton Works and dove toward the alley next to it.

“Well he’s free to talk to me any time,” Jazz said as they landed and Vlad carefully let her down. “Just as long as we make sure there aren’t any hostile ghosts after him.”

“That part is up to him,” Vlad said, with a glance at the coffin as they returned to full visibility. It was strangely silent. “I certainly won’t stop him from coming to see you, just as long as there isn’t a repeat of what happened today.”

They both paused with the expectation that Dan might have something to add.

“Sorry our first meeting turned out this way,” Dan said quietly. “It won’t be the same next time.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Jazz said with a knowing smile. “And to make sure I know when you’re coming to visit...” She took a small notebook and pen from her pocket and wrote down her phone number, then tore the page off and passed it to Vlad. “Just give me a call and we can set things up properly.”

Vlad knocked on the coffin with one knuckle. “You have her number now. And what do you say?”

“Stop acting like you’re my dad!” Dan snarled, and the coffin rattled again. There was a pause, and a sigh echoed within its confines. “Thanks, Jazz. We’ll talk again soon.”

“Looking forward to it.”

“We’d best be on our way, we have a long flight ahead of us,” Vlad said.

“Wait, why aren’t we going through the Ghost Zone?”

“Because the Fentons were just going down into their lab when I arrived and I’m not risking a fight with them or Daniel for a shortcut,” Vlad replied. “Besides, you have your little visits to plan. A few hours in the dark and quiet is the perfect opportunity to do so.”

“Ugh, you’re the worst! Coward!”

Vlad turned invisible and took off, the dust of the alley dancing in the wind he stirred up.

Jazz chuckled, and immediately regretted it as her bruised ribs shifted. She hurried to the sidewalk and up the front steps of Fenton Works. The relationship between Dan and Vlad wasn’t exactly friendly from what she’d seen, but it was progress for both of them. Vlad showed up despite Dan needling him, and Dan trusted him enough to know that Vlad would be there to help despite the insults.

They would probably be arguing the whole way home, now that she thought about it.

The confines of the stabilization chamber were comfortable enough. Dimly lit, perfect temperature, far more spacious than the Fenton thermos ever was. Vlad had even worked out a sort of localized gravity that kept Dan from being jostled as the chamber was moved. Something about using certain properties of ectoplasm in a similar way to the Ghost Zone; Dan had tuned out just after the first thirty seconds of Vlad’s explanation, so that was as much as he knew. It offered a good place to slow down and think, not that he was doing so because Vlad had suggested it.

Jazz still saw him as family. Part of him had wondered if, now that things had calmed, she might have changed her mind. Or if her words hadn’t been genuine to begin with. But what she said to him during the battle hadn’t been some desperate bid to get him to back down. She meant it.

Dan smiled. He was looking forward to seeing her again, once he was back on his feet.

In the meantime, though...

“Hey, old man,” Dan began, his smile becoming a smirk. “Are we there yet?”

“We have been flying for five. Minutes!” Vlad snapped back. “And I know you’re only asking that to annoy me!”

Dan chuckled. If Vlad didn’t regret taking the long way yet, Dan would make sure he did before they got home.

#Danny Phantom #ectoimplosion2023 #DP Events #Dan Phantom #Dark Danny #Jazz Fenton #Vlad Plasmius #Vlad Masters #Post-AGIT #Kuzannfic #Danny Phantom Going Through It AU

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warningsine · 4 months ago

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Fifty years on, the wounds left in Chilean society by the coup of 11 September 1973 are still very much open. Justice is a long way from being served, secrets remain untold, and the bodies of many of the victims are yet to be found.

Last Wednesday, the government announced a new national initiative to find the remains of 1,162 Chileans who vanished under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and remain unaccounted for. In most cases, the best their families can hope for are fragments or traces of DNA.

After ousting a democratically elected socialist, Salvador Allende, Pinochet rounded up opponents, social activists and students in Santiago’s national stadium and other makeshift detention centres, where nearly 30,000 were tortured and more than 2,200 were executed.

Allende’s body was pulled out of the bombed wreckage of the presidential palace, La Moneda. He is generally thought to have killed himself rather than be captured by soldiers loyal to Pinochet, the armed forces commander he had appointed a few weeks earlier.

Almost 1,500 others simply disappeared, and since the end of the junta in 1990, only 307 have been identified and their remains returned to their families. Anticipating the reckoning to come, Pinochet had ordered the bodies of the executed to be dug up and dumped at sea, or into the crater of a volcano. Investigators now hope that modern technology might help pinpoint massacre and temporary burial sites that might still yield vestiges of the dead.

Ariel Dorfman had been working as a cultural and press adviser in La Moneda, and was lucky to survive. Most of Allende’s staff were executed in the first days after the coup.

“This was a tragedy for Chile, for Latin America and for the world, because we were trying to open a way to a more just, radical society without violence,” Dorfman, a novelist, playwright and academic, told the Observer.

Trials are under way in a last-gasp effort at accountability before the perpetrators die of old age. On Monday, seven former soldiers aged between 73 and 85 were finally jailed after the criminal chamber of the Chilean supreme court upheld their convictions for the murder of Victor Jara, a celebrated folk singer and Allende supporter who was tortured and then shot 44 times.

Many of the details of the 1973 coup and the ensuing dictatorship remain unknown. Pinochet and the junta were efficient when it came to destroying evidence and the US has been grudging in declassifying its own records, which have emerged in a dribble over the years. Under pressure from Chile’s current president, Gabriel Boric – a 37-year-old former student activist – and from progressive Washington Democrats such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the US has declassified two new documents: presidential intelligence briefings given to Richard Nixon on the day of the coup and three days earlier.

It was hard to understand why they had been withheld for so long. They confirmed what had already been generally established: that the CIA had not directly stage-managed the 11 September coup. The presidential daily brief for 8 September contains reports of a plot by naval officers, but adds: “There is no evidence of a tri-service coup plan.”

“Should hotheads in the navy act in the belief they will automatically receive support from the other services, they could find themselves isolated,” the intelligence briefer told Nixon.

Even on the day of the coup itself, Nixon was told that, although some army units appeared to have joined the effort, “they may still lack an effectively coordinated plan that would capitalise on the widespread civilian opposition”.

Jack Devine, who was serving as a CIA clandestine officer in Chile in 1973, was eating lunch in an Italian restaurant in Santiago on 9 September when he got a message to call home. It was his wife, who told him a coup was coming.

One of Devine’s sources, a businessman and former naval officer, was leaving the country and had been unable to find the CIA man, so had gone to his house and told Mrs Devine to pass on his tipoff: “The military has decided to move. It is going to happen on September 11.”

Devine told the Observer: “That is the first clear sign that a coup was coming, just a couple of days ahead of time. We were caught by surprise. That’s the first evidence that something was coming. And many of the people still didn’t believe it in Washington and the CIA.”

There is no question, however, that the US had helped set the stage for the military takeover. From the time of Allende’s election on 4 September 1970 at the head of the Popular Unity alliance, the White House, led by Nixon’s national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, began plotting to get rid of him.

The CIA planned a putsch the following month, before Allende could even hold his inauguration. US spies found willing officers and supplied them with guns, cash and guarantees of US support for a military government. The plot led to the murder of the commander-in-chief, René Schneider, who had stood by the incoming president, but it fell short of toppling Allende when plotters in the military pulled out.

In a telephone conversation on 23 October, Kissinger told Nixon that there had been “a turn for the worse”.

“The next move should have been a government takeover, but that hasn’t happened,” he said, describing the Chilean military as “a pretty incompetent bunch”.

“They’re out of practice,” Nixon replied.

After the failure of the 1970 coup, Devine said, “Nixon sent out specific instructions to the CIA that there be no more coup plotting.” The US administration focused instead on undermining the Allende government, which had been elected by a slender margin and was facing substantial internal opposition. Washington coordinated with its allies in Latin America to block Chile’s access to international finance, persuaded US companies to leave Chile, manipulated the global price of copper, Chile’s principal export, and helped foment strikes within the country.

The Nixon administration was also quick to throw its support behind the junta. When shocked US diplomats sent reports of the slaughter that had followed the coup, Kissinger told his aides: “I think we should understand our policy – that however unpleasant they act, this government is better for us than Allende was.”

Pinochet found another powerful friend on the world stage when Margaret Thatcher was elected in Britain in 1979. She restored Chile’s export credits and dropped an arms embargo on the regime, selling it jet fighters and training its troops.

A succession of Tory ministers visited Chile, admiring the high economic growth rate and the wholehearted adoption of the absolutist monetary policy extolled by Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago. A group of Chilean economists who had studied there, known as the Chicago Boys, took top positions in Pinochet’s government, and the country became a test case for the policies of privatisation, deregulation and tight control of the money supply. Complicating social factors, such as trade unions and popular resistance, had been taken out of the picture.

“The Chilean coup was a triumph of the anti-communist movement in the United States and Latin America. You can’t get around the fact that it led to the defeat of democratic and progressive governments all over the region,” said John Dinges, who lived through the violent early years of the Pinochet era as one of the few US journalists to remain in the country after the coup.

“There was a youth-oriented revolutionary movement, which was sometimes quite extreme, advocating armed struggle, and that was also physically eliminated. So the violence was successful,” Dinges, the author of two books on the Pinochet regime, said. “More than 80% of the population of Latin America was under rightwing military dictatorships by the end of 1976.”

The Pinochet regime coordinated with fellow military-run governments in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil to eliminate leftwingers and social activists in Operation Condor, a concerted slaughter across the region. It had US support, in the form of technical support, training and military aid, through the Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations, all in the name of fighting communism.

The coup’s lasting legacy around the world has been defined mostly by the international backlash to its shocking cruelty. It galvanised the human rights movement in Europe and the US. In Washington, the US’s involvement shocked politicians such as Senator Frank Church, who oversaw the first congressional hearings on the CIA’s covert activities which ultimately led to constraints on its future operations.

The martyrdom of Allende and his experiment in democratic socialism inspired a generation of leftwing political activists around the world.

The record of the Allende government is complicated. The Popular Unity alliance never commanded a parliamentary majority and was deeply split. Rapid nationalisation and blanket pay rises for workers brought with them mismanagement of state enterprises and hyperinflation. But because it was violently cut short, many different myths grew up around what might have been.

“It became like a Chilean mirror. People read into Chile what they wanted to see,” said Tanya Harmer, associate professor in Latin American international history at the London School of Economics.

“Across the world, the diverse groups on the left learned the lessons they wanted to learn from the coup. Social democrats viewed it as constitutional democracy overthrown, so it was about the rule of law. The more radical left read it as evidence that you could never have a revolution without an armed struggle.”

Dorfman argues the Allende government and its destruction changed the course of progressive politics. “There were lessons to be learned and they have endured: the need for vast coalitions to effect that structural change, and the way in which Chile’s suffering created a consciousness about human rights violations,” said Dorfman, who has written an assessment of the Allende legacy in the New York Review of Books, and a novel about Allende’s death, The Suicide Museum.

Inside Chile, the coup’s legacy is still being fought over. A recent Mori poll found only 42% of Chileans thought it had destroyed democracy, compared with 36% who said it had saved the country from Marxism.

Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst at the National Security Archive in Washington, who has led the pressure on the US government to declassify its documents on the coup, warned that denialism about the atrocities of the Pinochet era was strengthening, along with the rise of the far right.

“It is a Rosetta Stone for the discussion over the threat of authoritarianism versus the sanctity of democracy,” said Kornbluh, who is the author of a book based on the documents declassified so far, The Pinochet File. “And Chile is having that debate about its past because it’s dealing with this threat right now – and a number of other countries including the US, and countries in Europe, are facing the same issue.

“The coup in Chile was really the repression of a lot of hopes and dreams around the world, and I think that dynamic still resonates and is still relevant today.”

#chile

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faelune-home · 3 months ago

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FFXIVWrite 2024 #20: Duel

(A/n: Oh hey, I finally did another role questline that wasn't the magic one aha. Just a brief one of Estinien having to deal with Landenel the doof.

And I do mean brief, I'm glad I didn't end up close to 2k on one of these again, cos I keep thinking these should be beefier to account for the rewrites and new perspectives, but also...a lot of writing. I'll need to get used to just embracing these briefer interactions, they're still valid for adding dynamics here.

This technically also skips ahead part of the melee quest where they initially try to negociate with the Sahagins being turned, but part of me wanted to get to interacting with the CoH for Estinien enrichment lol. I can always backtrack to the Sahagin moment later.

Word count: 695)

They had their ragtag group of retired mercs ready to begin their respective duties into dealing with the threats of the blasphemy and the Leviathan summoning. Estinien himself had been placed with the blasphemy hunters due to his own skill set, as well as an aside from Fhara and Wheiskaet that the group could do with an extra eye to mind them.

Fhara herself was prepared to join the reconnaissance team until a call from elsewhere meant she had to leave them to it.

As it was then for the main combat force, they were all left waiting for orders. And for Landenel and Brayflox, that meant training.

Brayflox was already an interesting one, having made it clear she was better suited with her explosives, but even she had a stubby little short sword in hand to practise moves and take swipes at a rusted bucket for her practice. Not much Estinien could offer for assistance.

Landenel had already made himself known as a showboater eager to sink his teeth into the action, but for all his boasting of bloodthirst and desiring battle, his jabs against the training dummy betrayed his deterioration. His stance was that of a classically trained Gridanian lancer, but he was slow and sluggish, clearly far too used to manning a station that never saw any real danger.

As though sensing Estinien’s eyes upon him and the mental critique going through his mind, Landenel stood up straight and leaned upon his lance, casting a sharp look at him.

“Something you wish to say, ser? You look like you have much on your mind,” he asked, tone notably barbed.

“Just minding your training, seeing if there’s anything I could offer. If you’re willing to take it,” Estinien said carefully, not wanting to provoke a fight when they were supposed to be allies. Getting injured before they were needed wouldn’t help either.

“Well, if you’re offering, why not a duel?” Landenel smirked, “After all, as you can no doubt tell, I’m rather rusty here. And you’re clearly a veteran that’s stayed on top of his skills.”

“I’d rather not, not yet at least,” Estinien responded, folding his arms, “Better to get you back up to speed before we try anything like that. If you get injured, you won’t be much use to the cause.”

That remark only caused the other's smirk to deepen into a scowl.

“You’re incapable of holding back? Or do you think me so out of practice that I couldn’t hold my own?”

“It's better for you to build up your strength against a peer of similar skill level. Such as Lady Brayflox here,” Estinien countered, gesturing with a nod to the goblin, who had stepped away from her bucket to watch their conversation. She did a little dance upon acknowledgement.

“Pshhhhh… Shkohhh… Yes! Brayflox help Landenel with stamina! Use bang boom sticks to help go zip zap to avoid danger!”

Landenel’s grimace was a picture.

“Absolutely not. I’d be better off hiking all the way back to Gridania and putting in a training request with the Wood Wailers.”

“But you can’t do that because then you betray that you’ve let yourself slip while you were meant to be on guard duty,” Estinien said, already noticing the pinched expression on the other man as he called his character exactly.

“In mine own defence, Camp Tranquil is rather appropriately named,” Landenel grumbled beneath his breath. Estinien ignored his statement and marched up, lighting kicking the supporting lance from under him. It wasn’t enough to send Landenel sprawling to the ground, but it made him stumble, having to catch himself on Estinien’s armour, though he quickly righted himself again, shooting a glare back.

“I wouldn’t duel with you, but I can give you some tips. It’s still up to you to keep up with your training. We need to be ready for the first call to battle, and it could happen a sennight from now or it could happen within the next bell.”

Landenel scowled once more, glare darkening further. Then he nodded stiffly, expression morphing into that cocky smirk once more.

“Then let’s get started. Wouldn't want to be caught unawares.”

#ffxivwrite #ffxivwrite2024 #estinien wyrmblood #landenel #brayflox alltalks #role quests #endwalker #fufu's writing #landenel peaumasquier #apparently he does have a last name but idk who checks his tag #adding it to be safe at least

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starlit-seadragon · 4 months ago

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Day 8 - EC

Tried something a little different with a mostly dialogue-focused piece!

Following the Dragonsong War, Yume and Aymeric decide that, while courtship is an unreasonable course of action at present, writing letters to each other is completely acceptable; they are, after all, still friends.

The moogles of the post system find their correspondence to be quite diverting.

kupo.

My FFXIV Write Masterpost here.

The wooden hatch of Gridania's post-moogle hut slammed open. Startled, the moogles in the room stopped their work and turned towards the disturbance. Through the opening, a breathless moogle sped, skidding across a tabletop and crashing into a pile of mail.

The moogles looked on in apprehension.

From the center of the pile of mail, a furry paw emerged, a single letter clutched within. The wayward moogle's head followed. He brandished the letter like a banner.

"We got another one, kupo!" he cried.

The room erupted into cheers.

A storm swept through, various moogles flying this way and that, shouting over one another to be heard.

"Who has the knife?"

"Over here, kupo!"

"Be careful with that!"

"Grab the kupo nuts!"

"KUPO NUTS!"

All at once, the activity ceased. The moogles had arranged themselves into a loose circle, some floating, others resting atop tables or on piles of mail. The kupo nuts had been passed around, and they ate in contented anticipation as the moogle with the letter opener verrrrrry gently removed the wax seal.

Without damaging the envelope.

As was only proper, they handed it back to the moogle who had brought the letter. Whoever brought in the next part of the story held the grand honor and responsibility of its telling.

The postmoogle cleared his throat excessively.

"Friends, moogles, countrymen. I bring to you now the next installment in the story of two young lovers. What sweet nothings will pass between them this time? Will they ever tell each other how they truly feel? And what--"

"Oh for the love of -- get on with it!"

A kupo nut landed squarely on the reader's head and bounced off. A moogle below caught it and flew to a safe distance to enjoy their spoil.

"Kupopo! Settle down now! The next moogle to interrupt is getting their kupo nuts confiscated, you hear?" The moogle with the knife brandished it to demonstrate their point.

The reader fluffed out his fur in indignation.

"Well I never," he sniffed.

"Please, do continue," encouraged the letter-opener. Murmurs of assent echoed throughout the circle.

The reader cleared his throat again.

And again.

The letter-opener placed a paw on the reader's shoulder.

"Right," the reader muttered. In a clear voice, he read:

"My dear Aymeric,"

"Ohhh that one never fails to warm my pom," a moogle swooned.

"Hush, we're barely into it!"

"Your kupo nuts!"

Loudly, they shushed each other. The letter-opener pointed at the crowd with intent.

"I am writing to you from the sunlit fields of the peaks of Gyr Abania. There are butterflies here larger than I am, in all the colors of dawn. I hear tell, however, that they are quite toxic, so observing from a distance may prove the wisest course of action. The land is rugged but beautiful, with wide, open fields and sloping paths. Imagine riding a chocobo through it, wind in your hair, the smell of earth all around -- perhaps we could have a race. Have you a favored bird you think could best Tsubasa? I should like to see you try."

A chorus of "ooooooh"s echoed through the moogles.

"Let's see... she's talking about politics... blah blah..." The reader shuffled through the pages, searching. "Oh, here we go. I know that time is brief and that our correspondence is briefer--"

A moogle near the back scoffed. "Brief? Her letter is three pages long!"

"--but I pray you'll allow me a moment to address the moogles... presently reading... this letter..."

An uneasy silence descended.

"...yes, I know you've been reading these letters; the kupo nut crumbs were the least of the clues. While I am used to all of the star prying into my personal affairs, I suspect Aymeric has largely been spared this invasion, at least to the extent that I've had to endure it. As such, I'd consider it a personal favor if you ceased pawing through our correspondence, to say nothing of the sanctity of the post -- which I'm sure I don't need to explain to you."

A whimper sounded. Several paws brushed self-consciously at crumb-laden fur.

"Upon delivery of this letter, you will confess to your prying and formally apologize to Aymeric. Additionally, you will make amends by polishing armor and oiling weapons at the Congregation of Our Knights Most Heavenly. Do not attempt to shirk this duty, for I will know. If you're still tempted, pray ask your cousins in the Churning Mists what happens to those who do not heed me."

"Sh-she's bluffing!" one moogle cried.

"She's not," answered another glumly.

Several moogles shivered violently.

"Shirayume is scary when she's angry, kupo!"

"Why is it always White Mages...?"

Like a heavy raincloud, they sulked, teary and sullen.

"Guess we better get started then," one mumbled. A kupo nut was thrown in their direction.

Grumbling, the moogles resealed the letter, taking great care to brush any errant kupo nut crumbs away.

Hours later, the Congregation floors were covered in crumbs, but their weapons and armor gleamed.

#kupo #I love yumeric's epistolary romance #despite the distance they still need to communicate #but they're “just friends” okay??#shirayume fugetsu #au ra wol #ffxiv write #ffxivwrite2024 #ffxiv writing challenge #wolmeric #yumeric #oc tag: starlit seadragon #moogle mischief #day 8 #ffxivwrite #ship tag: a bird and a fish

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worthyheir · 4 months ago

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@lvscinvs / vaguely plotted starter

It had been several weeks, and while ravens had flown, their returning answers had been brief, and unhelpful. The council was irritated, but that was nothing compared to the annoyance of the King, who was not usually apt to snap at the slightest provocation. Other than this new war in the Stepstones, there was peace throughout the Kingdoms, and council meetings were brief, seeing to the troubles of the smallfolk even briefer. Whatever the fighting had this time that it hadn't before, his uncle was not forthcoming. Granted, Daemon had been in the Stepstones for many years, with two dragons, and while they had a sizeable army, and an obviously sizeable dragon, it was clearly not going in their favor if the tone of the short missives was any indication. He had been convinced by Aemond and the council that one dragon would be enough, that he was the King and should not risk himself in a war they had already won once before. Is it really a victory if they return, stronger than before, more resolute? It had been his suggestion to send his Hand there, despite the fact that that was not his duty, going to war. And it, especially, wasn't the purpose of the King.

Was it not, though? He was not some old, out of sorts man who could not fight. It is that thought that has him immediately storm out of the small council chamber, the room vacant, his arrival before they were set to meet. He would not be at that meeting, already out of the room, unaware if he was even passing the council at the time of his departure. It was reckless, certainly, but he needed more concrete answers than something along the lines of it being handled. They were at risk of losing several thousand men, not to mention their largest and oldest fighting dragon, and the Hand. If he was willing to risk that many, he ought to be willing to risk himself.

It's a long venture, and Vermax has taken many a trip over great distances. But he is still a normal man, King as he is, and is tired by the time they land and he dismounts the dragon's back. The men, of course, bend their knees - he does not wear the crown (who would fly so many miles wearing it?) but he is well known by the soldiers, by the generals, and certainly by the man he sent to lead this charge: his Hand, who is furiously glaring at him as he approaches the makeshift table set up, the camp clearly organized, as he expected. "Issi ao jāre naejot ivestragon nyke aōha kȳvanon kesīr iā issi īlon jāre naejot jikagon naejot aōha tent se argue nūmāzma ñuha presence kesīr?" ('Are you going to tell me about your strategy, or are we going to go to your tent argue about my presence here?'). The question is fair, but he rises it in regards to the men around them, none of whom can understand the language that he and his Uncle share with their forbearers. "Sȳrī?" ('Well?')

#lvscinvs #VERSE / First of his name #ARC / Three #[ sorry this one came to me in a burst of inspo ]#[ the other one is queued you get this one immediately ]#[ sometimes we just wanna piss of aemond ]#[ it's in the blood ig ]#[ xoxo ]

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chloristoflora · 1 year ago

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He rose, the blanket that had draped his shoulders falling to the earth. He pulled the glove from his hand and let it fall. He walked uncertainly, like a puppet with his strings pulled by an apprentice puppeteer. He reached my father. So tenderly, he set his hand into my father's. Then he leaned down until he lay upon the wolf, his face turned to my father's face. He put his arm across my father's bony back. He drew him close and then set his silver fingers to the wolf.

For a moment, all was still. Then I saw Beloved's fingers stir the soft fur of the wolf's back. The firelit bodies of my father and Beloved softened and merged. I felt something I could not describe. Like the whoosh of air when a door opens, and then closes again, but it was in the Skill-current, and so strong that I saw Nettle flinch at it, too. Briefer than an instant, I saw light striate out from them. A nexus, a node on the path of fate. Then it was finished. Something finally complete, as it should have been.

Their colours dimmed and the wolf's eyes gleamed. It was slow and it was sudden, that they were gone and only the wolf remained. The snarl faded. The wolf's ears pricked and swivelled. His broad head turned slowly. He lifted his muzzle and snuffed the night air. Such eyes he had! They were a darkness full of the brilliance of life. For one brief instant, light caught in them and glowed green. We were all as motionless as if a huge predator faced us. Then, like a wet dog, the wolf shook himself and tiny fragments of stone flew in all directions, as if he had rolled in them.

Assassin's Fate, by Robin Hobb (Fitz and the Fool Trilogy #3)

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limelocked · 1 year ago

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i still think that the israeli reps statement in the security council was absolutly wilding so im gonna try to sum up the wild parts, i recommend watching the first 42 minutes of statements, i cant recommend watching the next however many minutes where the israeli rep is speaking for Fun but watching it for education is of value

this is mr israel. i will be calling him mr israel because i legitimatly dont know any of these representatives names. also; the israeli holocaust memorial has said that the yellow star of david was a bad call when they made a show of putting it on last meeting okay thats the context

"while hamas must be held fully accountable, there is another body, sadly, that is complicit: the UN"

it is at this time where the wack shit starts, at around 50 minutes in and after 10 minutes of already absolute bullshit, its almost amazing

mr israel says that for years hes warned the council of the briefings they receive, such as from the director general of WHO who opened this meeting, the commissioner general of UNRWA, the under-secretary-general of OCHA, and the UN secretary general, calling them libellous organizations

mr israel claims that these people and/or organizations are lying

"the WHO is the organization that supplies the UN with these so called facts, excuse me, WHO is it that supplies them with these so called facts?"

mr israel claims that the UN doesnt receive information from unbiast third party sources and that all information concerning this situation is coming from hamas and not "international UN employees" on the ground in gaza

the camera cuts to the director general of the world health organization who does not seem particularly happy. this note was included because i think the camera person is the funniest person on earth

mr israel reiterates that all facets of gaza is controlled by hamas*, saying; "every number from the so called ministry of health" is hamas

mr israel continues "many UNRWA workers are themselves members of hamas" and that; "the time has come to bust the myth of UN supplied facts" while putting quotation marks on "facts"

"many ambulance drivers are hamas members, local contributors to international media are hamas members." he then implies that the new york times and reuters photojournalists who reported on the initial october 7th attack were in fact a part of the attack and on hamas' side, something both publications have denied

mr israel puts doubt upon the two briefers of the meeting (the director general of WHO and the director general of the palestinian red crescent), arguing that Dr Tedros of the WHO should have spoken about hamas using hospitals and bases and saying that it is bias that there is no israeli representative from the israeli red cross

"mr jilani why dont you tell the council about the ambulances that hamas abuses for transporting terrorists and weapons, or is this an inconvenient truth that you choose to stay silent about?" note: the camera cuts to the screen mr jilani the director general of the palestinian red crescent is on, he is shaking his head

his statement continues for 10 more minutes but this is the most interesting part and frankly i cant stand listening to the rest of it a second time

* hamas is the government in gaza, this is true, however the health ministry has never contributed false numbers according to several third party enquiries as confirmed when us president joe biden put doubt on the health ministry last month

#palestine #un security council

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quillheel · 1 year ago

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❁ ( towards any of your zelda muses − hylia and the three godesses, mainly, but also botw & totk link / zelda / ganondorf if you feel compelled...!! )

Send me a ❁ for the type of flower my muse would give to yours // Accepting!

Hylia's answer comes, sharp and slow like a blade pulled uncutting against thought, a cool not-metal against the inner heat of mind. ━ the same as sky, not in the way of wind but in the way of open space, of nothing at all, of atmosphere pressing in from out against your throat. Almost frozen, almost frigid, but without the effort in coldness, in willful ignoring, of brushing one off : cold as in cold is the absence of heat. No, Iroha receives an answer. Stale pollen and bright, blinding knowledge. ━━━ she was not made to create the way the Goddesses were, and yet, the flowers bloom at their feet regardless : perhaps they should consider themselves special.

━ bachelor button, hydrangea, bittersweet, lavender heather, white poppy, blue violet, mixed yellow & red zinnia, white hyacinth, rose leaf, & buried beneath the rest; spider flower. ( 'You are not of my domain, I am indifferent to you. However, I respect your devotion. I sympathize, perhaps, with your situation. One day, perhaps, there will something other for you. One day, perhaps, you will make one.' )

the Goddesses' response is a ancient one. months hung above the stratosphere, dangling, dangling, waiting to be lowered. Months upon months upon months, the flower of the seasons dripping into the horizon in a haze of days and nights and days again: They were intricate, and slow, and often unknowable at all. how patient, you are, for Them. How kind, to wait, for Them. They reward Iroha with answer in time, in the humid shivering haze of early morning, a wave of such love of all Iroha does, of the endless sorrow They beheld upon their duty, arriving like quartz lining their throat ━ blooms growing from 'pon their fingertips, 'cross their knuckles. a gift, a gift, how merry to be known & seen, how terrifying by They to listen & answer in turn ━ how horrible, horrible to think you had been forgotten...

━ bachelor button, maidenhair fern, red carnation, dead leaf, purple hyacinth, dark crimson rose, pine, acorn, fern, fir, white heather, iris, lily of the valley, tea rose, palm leaf. ( 'We love you, We are sorry, your faith is not unseen by Us, for This to be your undertaking, borne as chains & key. Such is Our terrible, terrible doing. Such is Our apology. We hope, perhaps, one day the selves can exist without the other or in one without smothering, smothering light. We hope, perhaps, one day you are allowed to live; a role unshackled, unlocking Thy own binds. Chains & key. Chains & key. Freedom unmade for you, and yet, still hoping to grasp it.' )

Link & Zelda come as though offering memorial, bundles of blooms and sprigs tucked in their arms as they hurry past stream and grove ( "watch your feet, 'stream made the ground soft" "ah, thank you, I believe I'll be alright-!" ) to find the place where the Blupees haunched on hind legs and watched them with startling, ruby eyes. The one Link had gone before, a familiar forest in the heavy overhang of branches & leaves. a bowl is filled with fruit steadily throughout the day beneath a great cherry tree, pink petals like silk beneath the sun. a final act of care comes as sunset threatens to burn the sky alive when, on a brief journey back to a stable for a briefer meal, they're caught in a fleeting conversation of flora & the hearts beneath their stalks ( "Oh, you're going all the way up to Satori mountain? Hey, if you're going through all the effort, I've heard people bring flowers up there sometimes, you know, offerings and the like. Some people bring flowers, symbolizing what the 'Lord of the Mountain' protector means to them. Maybe it'd be worth your time?" ) ( "That sound's like a nice idea, I think!" "I think so, yes, but what would I even bring...?" ) ━━━ they in bundles, at last, arrive. Hurried up, past the stream, to find the tree again. Zelda hesitates, an offering of silent princess clasped between delicate fingers ━ "Would it be considered disrespectful to place it at the dish...? Maybe I shouldn't..." ━ before Link, calloused hands delicate, maneuver their hands to set it down along the rest, petals bright; bright in the clear sky.

━ bittersweet, bluebell, pink camellia, iris, cattleya orchid, magnolia, evening primrose, flax, rose leaf, forsythia, fern, lavender rose, bells of ireland, azalea, sweet pea, mixed zinnea. ( 'I think you're kind, and charming, and though I rarely see you, I hope you are well. I hope to change that fleetingness, if you'll let me? I think you might like Zelda, you might have more in common than you think.' / 'I've heard of you, but never seen you, all good things. I hope one day to meet, you seem good. Perhaps lonely. I might like you, if you gave me the chance, but I'd understand if you don't like me. I hope your future is a kind one, whatever kind of future it is. I don't know you well enough, even in stories, to tell.' )

Somewhere, there is a valley tucked neatly behind the ridges of hills, in the lowered groove 'twixt them where the land sinks ginger under the long grass and the wild flower of the knolls; as though gently swept down, as though the soft lowering of a stomach, ribs high against the soft tension of smooth skin in earth, as though the rounded edges of hands where the knuckles stood war-like as the gentle palm sinks; ball of the hand softer than the upper of the palm, the upper of the palm softer than the fingers, the fingers softer than the nails, the nails softer than the bones inside them all.

Somewhere, there is a valley of tender, shivering silver. plush moss lining the ground like bolster turned cloudy like rain, muted but beautiful in variation, white paint blending with greys in the fiber that wasn't fiber, the tissue that was. A place no one knew. a place one did. flowers split, forbearing as though shifting only between the folds, and reeds rose in the bed. A place that never died, flowers like chanting; the same message, 'hundred times over, 'thousand more. ━ Somewhere, you know this place. Somewhere, no one else knows at all. Somewhere, it tells you something. Somewhere, somewhere, somewhere...

━ lotus, cherry blossom, chrysanthemum. ( 'how much would it take to stop grieving yourself, and choose to live? how long?' )

#hi. so. i couldn't choose BHKGTRBGKHTRBKH #i just did all of them and WHOUGH BOY i hope u like it <333 #i kinda assumed a General vague preexisting dynamic for some of them. most ?? being Link but since it Is a thing ingame i figured like??#it Works and like!!! it feels more genuine like this ig!!#also there's a lot of meaning imo of the individual flowers' symbolism and how they tie together and interconnect to form the 'sentence'#and it says a lot bc its kinda like looking at the words someone uses And the general thing they're trying to communicate #so its in the source if u'd like to look at it more thoroughly!!#fun details abt my interps of hylia n the Three btw: Hylia has an. INTERESTING. relationship with being able to Feel emotions bc of her #connection to her domain (light and truth) which often results in her feeling apathetic or indifferent which isn't Entirely wrong.#she functions a lot off of 'duty' and domain which is part of why she concerns herself with mortals bc like. part of her duty is protecting #the goddesses also speak as one entity Kinda they're kinda inseperable from eachother though they as individuals do have diff attitudes #and diff views and shit but their sentences bleed into eachother so effortlessly that they often speak as though constantly picking up on #the same mind and thoughts. they r consumed by love by their creations (including iroha!) and chained to it as a result where love becomes #a prison for them. they love them so much it consumed. they love them so much it rebirths. they create ppl with terrible fates because they #must but always are they the grieving mother wardening their children to a lonely existence. they love so deeply it is consuming; and yet #obligation warrants it. it must be; lest they lose them all. damned if they do; damned if they didn't; damned regardless; deserving of it #IM RAMBLIMG IM SO SORRY THIS IS SO LONG AS IT IS BKHGNTRBK #i hope you like it!!!!!!!! <33 #━ ♔ cardinals with snow-brushed wings : asks.#lunaright #MUSE / Hero of the Wild #MUSE / Zelda #MUSE / Ganondorf #MUSE / Din & Nayru & Faroe #MUSE / Hylia #━ ♔ you sing but only the pavement listens : ic.#should i tag this as study..?? it kinda feels like one.......#......#STUDY / Hylia #STUDY / Din & Nayru & Faroe

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wirewitchviolet · 2 years ago

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The Entire Plot of Final Fantasy 14, with all the expansions, and some serious analysis of how good it actually is. (Part 9 - Endwalker)

Last time, we had a lot of fun in a raid chain where our adopted daughter had some nice dates with her forgetful new girlfriend and helped us fight her sleaker, sometimes hornier reimaginings of old boss fights. Oh and we also spent a ton of time setting things up for this expansion, just clearing the traditional problems of political infighting, racism, and a seemingly endless cycle of responding to violence with religious zealotry and kidnappings. And this annoying turbo-dweeb Fandaniel doing poorly explained overpowered derivative crap.

Now before I get started, I feel I should just lay it out there a super strong theme of this whole expansion is suicidal thoughts, and I’m not planning to really dwell on it, but personally I found there’s a lot of stuff in here where just quickly and sort of lightly bringing up a particular flavor thereof got me into some real bad memories, so be ready for even briefer mentions I guess. The other two major thematic elements we have going on here are worshipful love letters from the whole staff to takeout food, and what has to be an intentional pattern of setting up exciting tension and then just completely defusing it. Plus the pacing’s kinda shot from trying to squeeze two expansions worth of plot into one. If only there were an in-game vista that summed this up...

Let’s see if I can get all this into a halfway reasonable word count. First order of business, we’re headed to Nerd Town, AKA Old Sharlayan, in hopes of working out why a bunch of eggheads aren’t willing to help the guy publicly announcing his plan to kill everyone in the world, or barring that, at least get access to their pretty impressive library. Nerd Town kinda sucks. Super bureaucratic. First thing when you show up you have to get processed and get your green card. Plan is everyone’s an assistant working for Krile who’s still very much a member of a respected research group, they aren’t terribly amused by the ridiculous things you can state when they ask for your name and occupation. Also while things look very Mediterranean it is firmly and repeatedly established that this place has just the worst, blandest food in the world. Oh and on the boat ride over you get a vision of a human-shaped Hydaelyn showing up to confirm that yeah, she and Zodiark are just summoned god like all the others, nothing special, and also she’s been weakening as more and more shard-worlds get reabsorbed via apocalypses and strengthening Zodiark... which doesn’t especially make sense since the whole reason she exists was to punch him hard enough to break things up in the first place. Maybe she got the drop or something.

Anyway, you get stonewalled by stubborn nerds like immediately, and have two leads to follow up on, so you split up and get a choice which to do first. Thancred Urianger and Estinein are going to test an experimental teleporter that doesn’t require you to personally unlock the destination crystal first to get to Thavnair, with its capital Radz-at-Han, which is just India, straight up. Everyone else is going to stick around here and try to sneak into Labrynthos, a whole underground archive/nature preserve/site for top secret experiments by researchers who aren’t beholden to the normal high council of nerds. This mostly involves helping a bunny boy carry crates and a brief foray with Y’shtola testing out the toad spell on you and the twins. You don’t really make a ton of progress. Krile gets kinda spacey, ends up briefly possessed by Hydaelyn to tell you this one mood ring flower they have growing down there is gonna be the key to everything and you should keep one on you, and then you’re all arrested by the science police for snooping around a high security research black site and put on trial. Mostly your party uses the trial to call these dumb jerk nerds out for being dumb jerk nerds, point out you totally are just legitimately working on your own research project, and G’raha points out some historical records marking when they shifted from just being a bunch of nerds learning cool stuff to improve society to a bunch of nerds totally restructuring their society to be isolationist weirdos archiving all the world’s knowledge in their creepy underground bunker.

It’s pretty clear that an archaeological team some years back found something. Like say a god who brainwashed everyone into fanatics or something, and they end up admitting to having this all-important “great work” where everyone has to submit to partial memory wiping and magical compulsion not to speak about it to preserve the important secret, and we are just absolutely setting things up where the nerd high council and who or whatever they’re serving as the real villains of this expansion. But like I said we are all about setting up big things and completely deflating them. Eventually it’ll turn out the thing they’re working on is actually totally benign, nobody’s evil, and they’re just a bunch of arbitrarily obstructionist bureaucrats who suck but are on your side. One member of their high council is enough of a reasonable person to have your back though so you don’t get expelled or anything. You’re still not allowed in the top secret lab though so it’s all kind of a wash.

So, experimental teleport to India because I guess they got sick of having so many expansion locations you reach by hopping a boat from Limsa or just taking an airship or something. Everyone’s super dizzy and nautious from the trip and staggering around, and has the terrible realization that Estinein is wandering around on his own in a big outdoor market desperate for tourist money. You’ve gotta get everyone a nice lassi to settle their stomach and stop that idiot before he blows all his money on kitschy knickknacks! Before you catch up he does manage to blow a couple thousand on a hair band to give himself a nice ponytail. I still don’t like how he looks without his helmet though.

The local population is all au ra and big elephant people.The elephant people have big Tribe Quest vibes, and you do eventually help some out in this sort of ridiculous setup where a bunch of delinquent elephant people using hippo-pulled chariots to drag race get into hot water for being a public menace, and turn over a new leaf opening a delivery service. Mostly it’s delivering takeout, but there’s also quests where you go around throwing Gulal at people, one where you are clearly conducting a drug deal (the second time this comes up at that, Heavensward has you helping cool bug pals harvest marijuana and sell joints to the other locals), and there’s one really unfortunate one where you’re asked to put on a ridiculous mascot elephant head and shout at some random person that you’re his god because people are sick of him praying constantly. All of this is actually post-Endwalker though, because we just arbitrarily gate all the tribe quests back there this expansion. What we’re actually here for now is helping some other elephant people who are actually doing very serious government-approved reseach on these big evil towers. Presumably since the first “tribe” unlocked are full citizens of a friendly nation, when these first went live they quietly went through the whole UI replacing “Beast Tribe” with just “Tribe.” Interesting that this didn’t happen earlier with the dwarves getting drunk and building tanks or something.

Anyway, their leader Nidhana, who’s just a real nice friendly nerd hanging out any time you’re in the area, has been working on these special “warding scales” that should in theory make anyone carrying one immune to godly mind alteration, not only letting random NPC military forces approach these towers safely, but also let the other Scions or any other noteworthy friends canonically tag along for future boss fights and so on. And they do in fact work perfectly. But oh no! There’s this weird creepy little kid showing up to deliver a fresh load of the secret ingredient they need. A huge pile of scales clearly ripped away from the belly of a dragon! Estinein, who’s come a long way on this sort of thing, is way sympathetic to dragons now (probably helps that he straight up turned into one for a bit) and confronts him, but again, we aren’t paying tension off. The Satrap who rules the country and his entire family line before them have just always had this big cool dragon friend Vrtra and he’s happy to help with stuff like this. Anyway, Nidhana decides to test one of these scales personally and heads off to the local tower, which people are locally calling the Tower of Zot, and while it does work, the second the door opens she gets hauled inside with huge chains, her scale gets lost, and she’s stuck in one of those torture walls.

We also get some attempt to retroactively make Fandaniel a character by establishing that before he was made into, let’s be honest, a fake Ascian, he was Amon, yeah like the optional FF3 boss who’s also in this, who we’re retconning into a clone of this guy, a horribly evil Allagan mad scientist who’s personally responsible for any sort of humanoid monsters walking around. Minotaurs, snake gals, nerdy bird people, all him just messing around. Also big into cloning. Hence everyone in the Crystal Tower raid. I don’t care, he’s still just the absolute worst and shallowest character.

You head off to give the Satrap a good news bad news report, and not long into the conversation Estinein gets annoyed and demands we pull back the big Wizard of Oz curtain and just directly talk to the secret ruler of the nation. Oh no! The Satrap and his whole family line are just political puppets and this country has actually been run by Vrtra the huge dragon and heretofore unmentioned additional child of Midgardsormr all along! Which... is fine actually. With the notable exception of Nidhogg every named dragon, especially the elder wyrm siblings here, has just been the absolute chillest nicest most understanding person, and Vrtra is no exception.Super nice even! And the creepy kid is just one of Vrtra’s eyes stuck into a totally indistinguishable from a normal au ra child android the local alchemists whipped up. Seems like the fact they can do that should be more of a big deal but it just never comes up elsewhere. Anyway you still need to keep this a secret from the general populace, because if they found out this cool friendly dragon who’s been known to be a trusted ally to the whole nation since it was first founded is actually the ruler, uh... everyone would be totally fine with that actually. I’m getting a little out of order but the next time you’re in the area the fake Satrap dies and Vrtra has to personally step up and for real not one single person has a problem with this, and really why should they? There’s a similar bit incidentally late in the last expansion where G’raha finally goes public with how the fabled Warrior of Darkness restoring the night sky is actually the protagonist, and this confused crowd of onlookers is just like, “yeah, obviously? This mysterious old friend of yours from where you’re originally from shows up, you’re ecstatic, and every time they take a trip somewhere we hear about the local Lightwarden being killed and the sky being fixed. This isn’t hard to piece together.”

So OK, big Tower of Zot rescue time. We just need to make a quick hop back to Nerd Town to merge these split progression options and catch everyone up. We’ve had too much lavish fan service for 5 and 6 so far, so now it’s really FF4′s turn to get some love. Inside the Tower of Zot we fight the three Magus Sisters, as the local gods being summoned by torturing elephant people in the walls. Who’d you expect them to worship in India, Shiva? Rama? No no no those were a historical white lady and a big beardo worshipped by plant-faeries. Clearly in India they worship that boss trio with the delta attack. Keep it straight. We even have Dr. Lugae and Barnabus for a sub-boss on the way! Oh and there’s a bit teased at the end about a severed hand in the core of the tower that feels like we’re setting up some sort of Golbez thing, but no.

What it actually is is that they kinda used the emperor’s corpse as a summoning base for the whole get people to worship Garlemald itself (have I actually ever mentioned that’s the official name of the Empire? I feel like I just keep saying “the Empire” since it’s just easier). It also makes for a convenient weakpoint for Estinien to jump up and stab, causing the whole tower to poof. Fortunately G’raha’s around and he knows float. Also fortunately Alisae’s around and she whips her hog out to start deprogramming tortured nerds, starting with Nidhana who notices the mood ring flower and talks about this obscure scientific study where not literally everything in the world is just aether related technobabble. There’s a secondary natural force/subatomic thing she calls Akasha and everyone else calls Dynamis later (and I think came up in the Sri Lakshmi fight as orbs of “vril” you need to grab before the big dance number). It’s basically impossible to measure so it’s an obscure thing, but yeah, mood ring flower. Anyway everyone heads back to Nerd Town as those scale talismans get distributed to your allies, which again at this point basically means like... 80% of the world give or take. And then you get woken up in the middle of the night because your friends are all sick of terrible Sharlayan food and decided to surprise you with takeout. Look at this cutscene. Watch G’raha make sweet passionate love to this enormous cheeseburger.

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The next order of business involves taking an airship and heading into the heart of the empire. Not because we’re back to the invasion though. At this point the empire is just straight up dead. All it really took was you proving they weren’t invincible in Stormblood and the extra unrest of the emperor himself being killed by his back from the dead deeply messed up son, and they just completely self-destructed on their own. This might actually be my favorite plot point in the entirety of FF14. They have this empire very clearly modeled after the nazis, and basically as soon as they lose their morale and momentum in a big way, they immediately collapse into infighting and tear themselves to pieces. As always happens in the real world. I’m less keen on how this, like so many other things, has nazi scientists actually making ridiculous cool stuff though. In reality nazi scientists have never actually existed, just a bunch of absolute suckers so hopped up on their stupid BS that they ask other people to do wacky comic book science for them and convince themselves the results are amazing. Here though, yeah, we get a ruined imperial capital crawling with death robots, demons called forth from hell, and freaky mutant monsters just crawling through the streets while a few desperate stragglers are huddled around space heaters starving to death by the time you show up, on what is explicitly a pure good will mission to help struggling refugees of their terrible civil war.

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It’s really visually striking, but kind of weird that the Imperial capital is (or really was) just straight up a major 20th century city with all the implied infrastructure. It’s not as shocking as the whole Evangelion thing from the dumbest side quest, but again, people use maps that are half cloud-cover and build stone fortresses guarded by archers all around here. There’s a bit of fighting against what’s left of their military forces when you show up, but you come in with a big huge international coalition that includes Sadu and I guess other people but for real Sadu has the rocks fall everyone dies spell so on the rare occasion you’re teamed up with her for a big plot fight she’s a win button you just stall to help. Resistance crushed, you head out with the twins to try and find some survivors to give supplies and good will to. After a while you find one group, they’re super paranoid and terrified, threaten you, and when your back is turned one of them just grabs her sick little sister and books it into a snowfield, because she’s so hopped up on imperial propaganda about you being dangerous savages they’d rather take their chances running into a snow storm with no supplies, and they absolutely freeze to death before you find them again.

The other major pocket of survivors you find are under the watch of what’s left of one of two surviving military units, holed up in a subway tunnel. You really try your best to just give them the supplies they need to live, but they insist on taking you hostage, putting shock collars on the twins, and forcing you to run around the ruined city to scrape up what little fantasy gasoline (ceruleum) you can syphon out of dead robots and the heater in a no longer functioning muck filled park fountain, and then their commander still kinda just decides the best plan is to attack your refugee aid party and seize everything, since reinforcements are totally coming from the only other surviving legion as soon as they get their radios working, honest. Speaking of, rather than embracing traditional linkpearl technology, the empire has straight up AM radios, and in what really is one of the sloppiest handwaves I’ve seen, turns out the reason there’s any survivors at all is that they were all clustered around their radios listening to news reports and the crackly vocal version of the Imperial theme currently playing on a loop. Anyway you’re about to go “OK screw humoring these idiots” and deal with that when you suddenly black out and we get one of these scenes where I really have to show before I tell so you know I’m not just writing weird slash fiction here.

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We hereby have to wave the right to make any future “at least buy a girl dinner first” jokes regarding Zenos’ whole kill-bang-die confusion. But yeah, this is the point in the plot of FF14 where the wormy little terrible new villain sucks your soul out of your body and sticks it in the body of some random imperial goon, so that you can have a nice dinner date with Zenos, and then he puts on your body, complete with whatever ridiculous gear you have on to go cause trouble and lure you into another date-fight. When I actually did this, tallest most musclebound possible orc gal in this outfit here, which made the whole thing extra kinky on his end.

Of course first you have to get to him in what’s actually kind of one of the most interesting set pieces gameplay wise. You’re still in this borrowed body, which is pretty low level, a fixed class, and has no natural regeneration of any kind, not access to your inventory, and you are just plopped kind of dead center in the middle of these horrible ruins and half to stealth/fight/scrounge your way out with no clear goal markers and a time limit. It’s actually fairly challenging and by the end you’re caught in an explosion so you’re literally crawling home to warn your friends that hey, that’s not you, it’s an undead murderous kinkster stealing your body for his elavorate sex fantasy, but you recover enough to tackle him at the last moment and then also the timer on all this and you’re restored.

So, I am just really conflicted. I maintain that bringing Zenos back from the dead was an absolutely terrible idea. He worked really well as a villain whose motivations take a bit to come into focus and eventually kinda make your skin crawl, the whole thing caps off with a truly excellent death scene that robs you of a nice celebratory vibe for your big victory, the resurrection is some really sloppy writing, especially given how the whole point is he was officially done with life, and they pretty clearly don’t know what to do with him while he’s back. He is literally just sitting there in the background bored out of his mind and actively ignoring the annoying main villain we actually have and his efforts to get him in on the evil scheming. AND YET, every interaction you have with him in this expansion is just such an entertaining scene and gives another fun glimpse into his really... unique frame of mind.

Anyway, that big attack fails, and the leader behind it finally gets word on the radio from his buddy’s unit that... they’ve actually surrendered and his like dozen surviving soldiers are kind of all that’s left of the big evil empire. Hearing this, he decides to go ahead and become the one good nazi we have in this whole thing. Yes that is a euphemism. Yes it does involve him putting down the mic on his radio, picking up a gun, and leaving a nice stain on the imperial flag he has in his little subway car makeshift office. I’m not going to post a screenshot, but seriously, 10/10, no notes. The whole Garlemald chapter of this expansion is great. Love seeing nazis literally being too stupid and racist to live. What little population is left then finally accepts defeat and lets you provide them with the free food, water, heat, and emergency shelter they need to survive. It’s finally time to head into that big menacing Imperial monster palace, AKA the Towel of Babel, find the bit of it that qualifies as a god, and kill it. Specifically what’s left of the old Emperor in the form of a rare FF10 tribute.

Then Fandaniel just kinda grabs Zenos gives a pathetic little speech and uses a big teleporter to flee to the moon. Which is... a bit abrupt but you follow. And uh... the moon sucks, actually? Like we have all this buildup and foreshadowing like it’s going to be this big enemy base and we’re going to do the whole Lunar Subterrane thing but no. Grey dust, annoying to navigate map, clear signs of cut content. You meet a palette swap of Emet-Selch’s recreated pre-fall Ascian ghosts who is... not some sort of phantom but a minion of Hydaelyn’s here to act as prison warden for what’s left of Zodiark, trapped inside the moon like it’s a giant prison (much like the other moon was for Bahamut). There’s this whole business with a ring of gargantuan swords scattered around to act as seals, one of which Fandaniel just destroyed because the whole bit with the towers was powering up a big death star laser to smash these, and you have to go around and pacify the ghosts of sacrifices made to summon Zodiark back in the day to power up the rest, with this helpful golden furred elegant moon dog ferrying you around as needed. Parthway through this though the whole thing gets cut short via Fandaniel’s BS sloppy writing powers, all the remaining towers get smashed, Zodiark is revived, do not pass go, go directly to big epic boss battle against basically Satan, and Fandaniel himself, believing everyone is now going to die, jumps into the big sort of chasm down to the center of the moon unleashing horrible magic energies to kill himself.That’s the end of that. Thank goodness villains always stay dead in this, right?

Anyway you kill Zodiark. Not even all that hard of a boss. But uh... oh right, you kind of weren’t supposed to do that, were you. He was kinda load-bearing. Summoned to avert an apocalypse and all. Which turns out was an ongoing thing not a one-time deal. As your friends catch up, you’re getting informed that The Final Days are now resuming, big ominous meteor showers, death of everyone in the world shortly. And as later exposition confirms, not just this version of this world. All those splintered off versions like the one we JUST saved from an apocalypse last expansion are doomed too. All because you, the main character here, have this legitimate self control issue where you just can’t not kill any god you see on the spot. But the chill moon dog, Argos, then leads you to a giant door to this massive high tech underground city with uh...

They’re called lopporits. They’re based on Namingway from FF4. The look like the sort of little figurines your great grandmother might collect, and they are here because the entire moon doubles as an emergency escape system to load the whole population of the world onto in the event that some idiot comes along, kills Zodiark, and dooms everyone. They’re also so distractingly adorable your whole party just kinda goes slack-jawed, forgets everything they were doing, and the plot just stops dead in its tracks while you spend kind of a weirdly long time just humoring them and trying to give positive feedback to all the amenities they start showing off. They’ve got all your food needs covered with, and this is the official quest item name, obscenely long carrots, described in detail as being particularly girthy. They’ve build everything to perfect human scale... based on an assumption that the average person is still like 30 feet tall like they were back in Ascian times, similarly all just assuming your whole party is a bunch of unsupervised children sent up in the first wave of evacuations. They have to improvise on clothing when it turns out universal dumb black robes are out of fashion, and have some really interesting ideas.

Once again we tease the idea that they actually have super sinister motives and are trying to trap you here with constant distractions, but then no, turns out they’re just really horrified because they’re pretty good at reading people and can clearly see that none of you are actually impressed with any of their stuff. Except Urianger. Urianger loves cute little weirdos and dressing eccentrically. This leads to a big speech to cheer them up, talking about how their self-chosen names all convey their strength of character. Like Mappingway, wanting to chart out all the unexplored secrets of the world, and Livingway just wanting to keep life going for everyone. And then turns out one is named Puddingway, but, you know, everyone likes pudding? And I guess I have to link the comic don’t I.

Anyway, checking back in on things on things down on the planet, which only NOW are we formally establishing is called Aetherys, ending years of confusion where people thought the whole world was either called Hydaelyn or Eorzea. Side note a checked and “Eorzea” is officially the term for the westernmost continent, Aldenard, if and only if you are also counting in the nearby islands. But yeah things are going bad. Especially over in Thavnair, AKA India, where the sky is stock on apocalyptic red with constant meteor showers, and seemingly at random people are turning into rad palette swaps of the freakiest looking monsters we already had models lying around for, which we’re arbitrarily calling blasphemies. There’s reports of this happening in other places too, and a lot of people seem to turn into these things just from the pure terror of seeing them. Y’shtola’s weird vision deal also reveals that rather than similar stuff where someone’s soul/aether gets tainted with some element or other, here it’s just literally rotting and crumbling away to nothing so when these monsters die and leave a sickly black splash on the floor, that’s it, do not go to afterlife, do not pass go, you are done. Sucks for them. Especially since unlike the whole becoming a sin eater deal we are so painfully cribbing from with this, it seems totally arbitrary who it happens to and why.

Anyway they kinda dance around this and kind of offer up extreme fear or hate as alternate causes but by the end of the expansion it’s abundantly clear that you turn into a monster from suicidal ideation... which makes a lot of the panicking crowds popping in the ensuing panic scenes feel really clumsy, writing wise. Also there’s this whole bit where a guy’s worried about his wife and new born baby in the chaos, gets chased by a monster and injured, turns into one himself, tries to kill his wife, she panics and jumps off a high ledge with her baby and dies on impact with the water, forcing you to dive in after to rescue this now orphan baby and hand them off to someone. Here’s the thing though, this doesn’t happen in some instanced thing. This is just your standard, on the overworld, here’s someone giving you your current active quest, here’s where you go to do the next step chain. So you could totally like, wander off with this baby at the bottom of the well, go do sidequests, maybe some that mention “days later” in them, before rescuing this baby. Or do the rescue, but not the hand-off, and just have this inventory baby for a good long while It’s paced excitingly enough this only stuck me after, but it amuses me that it’s technically possible.

This is where the fake Satrap dies, and eventually where we set up our fresh set of Role quests. Each of the five basic combat class types has a lead about a big blasphemy in a different part of the world to look into... and none of these really go anywhere interesting. Healer is probably the most interesting, since it involves checking in on Fordola who is having a very hard time keeping it together and not turning into one of these. The rest are just kinda whatever. Gosetsu shows up again briefly to call out a charlatan medium in the ranged attacker one. Offensive magic has the one that hurts my suspension of disbelief because you deal with the ONE blasphemy in Ishgard and like... it’s Ishgard. The whole place should be a crater right away. As is though yeah there’s like... five people suicidal enough in the rest of the world combined to become blasphemies, and then like half the population of Thavnair. Hell a little later you go back to Garlemald and have to deal with a bunch more of this, but it’s because Thavnairian refugees are coming through on the way to somewhere less terrifying as the red sky spreads to the area and a bunch of them lose it at the thought of nowhere being safe. These people are just kind of this game’s punching bag. My best guess between that and the way there’s no real connection on the map, which is also a bit less filled with interesting details than most, is a lot more was planned for the region but there were cuts and/or delays and the focus of all this ended up there just to flesh things out, but still.

Oh yeah and while dealing with the attack in the Imperial ruins, Zenos shows up randomly to take a big blasphemy down with his cool new scythe... and complain about how bored he is and ask if you can pretty please fight him to the death again soon as soon as you stop getting distracted by this whole thing. He was also pretty polite about this on the moon, but Alisaie wasn’t there to call him out. Another really fun scene here.

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I love how he gets called out for being a weird hedonistic kinkster here, and I love how he responds to Jullus the one Imperial soldier who grew a clue before successfully getting himself killed, barely, with this ��wait would you seriously be OK with me destroying the whole country here if I was doing it for some kind of good reason? That is seriously messed up dude, get help.” And then that eye roll at the end.

So turns out the big secret of the Nerd Council is they found the actual embodied true form of Hydaelyn in a cave and she broke down all the details on Zodiark being a load-bearing boss someone would probably eventually kill, and they should really coordinate with these moon rabbits on a plan to evacuate the whole world just in case. And like, OK, but A- they’re really terrible at this. Didn’t even communicate the physical needs of people or population estimates. B- this is really the sort of thing where being less coy and explaining things to the protagonist in particular would maybe help avoid the whole problem because who else do you even have to worry about accidentally killing a god in the heat of the moment? Maybe Estinien? Tell him too. Oh and C- the nihilistic weirdo wanting to end all life and largely doing so by covering the world in mind-control towers kinda seems like a barrier to getting everyone out safely. Same with the deadly biochemical weapons from earlier. Point is the twins’ dad really sucks. Their mom is cool though. She helps Alphinaud switch classes to Sage, the healer that gets a set of flying laser cannons. Also it eventually turns out she’s quietly been THE source of funding for the Scions forever through anonymous donations. Who’s gonna tell these kids their parents are probably getting a divorce?

Getting things back on track, your only real lead is the cryptic hint about the flower. It doesn’t go much of anywhere, except a name for it that dates back to Ascian times. So with all the rest very dead, you go check in with Elidibus who’s not technically dead, just, you know, soul trapped in the crystal tower. Which is also essentially a giant database of Allagan science notes. Turns out while he’s been in there he’s mellowed out a lot and is willing to rework things and send your soul back in time to get info from before anything of note on the whole millennia long timeline happened. Specifically to a research facility called Elpis where people used to send the dangerous monster designs they came up with because they’re bored weirdos with world shaping powers to test and make sure they’re viable and would fit in an ecologic niche somewhere. Problem is you come through all ghostly and also I wasn’t kidding about the 30 foot giants. Fortunately someone eventually notices the weird tiny ghost and convinces his boyfriend to shove some aether into you so you’re solid and properly sized.

If it isn’t our old friend from a few thousand years from now Emet-Selch and his boyfriend we’re at least on good terms with some kinda recreated imaginary semi-ghost version of Hythlodaeus. They looked real dorky back forever ago. Anyway they assume from the matching color of your soul that you’re the familiar of their friend Azem, which, sure, technically distant future reincarnation of slightly more than 50% of said but close enough. So they let you hang out on this business trip. They’re here to offer the position of Fandaniel to this guy here whose real name is Hermes since the previous one just retired, and he’s all mopey about it because when people retire they kill themselves so they can get reincarnated. Except for the previous Azem, she just figured she’d keep hanging out. It’s totally a voluntary thing, not an enforced Logan’s Run sort of thing but there’s still a weird social stigma if you don’t do it so like, hey, Emet-Selch, I feel like you were overselling this place. Everyone’s a workaholic nerd who off themselves when they’re out of ideas for new research grants, and things are looking decidedly more ancient Greece and less extra art deco New York than previously suggested.

Turns out this Hermes kid is really depressed and fixated on death in general. Which is kinda weird when everyone is officially immortal. He’s particularly bummed about how it’s literally his job to snap his fingers and reduce terrible terrible monsters that would like end all life if allowed to exist in the world to their component elements, and fair enough. Maybe work on getting people to stop making horrible ravenous death beasts in the first place though? Anyway he’s proud of himself for making this weird little psychic bird girl who much like these mood ring flowers is also super empathic and gets all sad and mopey with him whenever he gets sad and mopey, which is a lot. In fact, he made a whole bunch. They’re psychically networked, and all called Meteion. Like meteor. Because he’s sending them all out to explore space and try to find some kind of meaning of life thing out. Also they’re based on this Dynamis stuff. Apparently 60% of the mass of the universe is made up of Dynamis. It’s just kinda weaker than Aether so nobody cares, but he’s pretty sure he’ll be able to untap its potential and activate it all like, as he says, a river breaking free of a dam. You can totally see where all of this is going here, right? It’s exactly as blunt as I’m making it sound.

Anyway you hang out a while dealing with this depressed kid and his weird bird girl, and eventually she gets an update that hey, the rest of her sisters have finished that task Hermes sent them out on forever ago after making them apparently some time ago and never formally submitting the design or the plan he had for him to any of his superiors. Specifically the plan was to take his super empathic socially needy bird girls, have them all fly through the supernaturally soul crushing void of space, find whatever aliens might exist and ask them what to him is the ultimate question, apparently some variation on “if everybody just dies in the end what’s even the point of going on living!?” and like... hey, I get it. Someone explained heat death to me when I was like 12. I had a similar breakdown about it. But as Emet-Selch starts tearing into him about as the report comes in, it is really just a terrible idea for all sorts of reasons to try and establish first contact with alien races by having a bunch of depressed bird girls show up and start trauma dumping on them out of the blue.

The results are pretty grim too. They just start going through planet by planet with these little stories about finding formerly inhabited planets where literally everyone is dead, and researching all the various ways this happened. These people had a apocalyptic war. These people got all spiritually enlightened, ended all suffering, and got too bored to keep going. These people had a godlike ruler who got in a bad mood and killed everyone, and hey, talking to us made him suicidal and he killed himself on the spot. This also happened when we contacted this planet where two factions were in this tense cold war setup... Everyone including Meteion really wants to cut the feed on this depressing stuff but Hermes insists on hearing the whole thing and goes off with her to do so.

In the middle of all this though, that aforementioned retired Azem shows up. Her name’s Venat. She’s more on to your weird deal than these others, mostly because she notices you have magic wards on you that seem to have been put there by her, plus she’s visibly that human form of Hydaelyn you got a quick vision of, so, yeah. Pre-deity Hydaelyn here. And she’s nice enough. Eventually the others kinda work out that you two have some weird secret thing going and you end up explaining the deal to the others and Emet-Selch basically responds with, “hey, screw you? Assuming you’re not just making all this up, you’re telling me I just become an absolute melodramatic flouncing asshole in the future, and I refuse to believe that. Like especially the part about me recreating the whole city and everyone in it to mope in? There is no way I would ever become such an over the top drama queen” and like, he keeps going for a WHILE with this. It’s great.

So you all go to confront him about the whole thing, and he arranges the showdown to be at this uh... big computer clock thing on hand that can do time warp things and also erase people’s memories and give them new ones. Seems like a bad thing to have around! Very easily abused! He totally supports his depressed bird daughters in the conclusion they draw that all life in the universe should be eliminated so there’s nobody left to be sad and die, so he’s going to wipe everyone’s memories and just play dumb about the pending bird-girl driven psychic suicidal apocalypse. Your past pals play some head games and Emet-Selch in particular pulls a big switcheroo so you and Venat get teleported out at the last minute. She goes on to become Hydaelin eventually and avoids technically having a villain turn by way of doing the whole Shiva style transformation, there’s precedent, but let’s be real she still kinda sucks and turned the worst Scion into a hand puppet for a bit in there. Anyway, now you know why the world’s ending. A depressed bird girl out in space somewhere. Oh and it’s not like the Fandaniel you know and hate has the memories of this Hermes loser, just his soul, the memories of the main reason Allagan was awful, and the body of the genocidal viceroy’s somehow even worse villain. Just a turducken of guys who really suck.

Back in the present you go find Hydaelyn in the magical god flesh to compare notes on your big stable time loop here, and she’s polite enough to challenge you to a fight to make sure you’re prepared to face some horribly depressed bird girl. And really goes all out so you “tragically” have to kill her. And definitely don’t feel super smug and relieved that in the end you really did get to go and kill literally every god anyone ever summoned. That you know of anyway.

You talk all the nerds in Nerd Town into letting you borrow their secret evacuation spaceship if you can find nerds able to increase the engines’ efficiency because as is, even the moon evacuation plan would take too long. That bits easy because you know a ton of nerds and a ton of people willing to drag over chunks of Dalamud, the whole Bahamut prison moon which are all over the place and make good scrap for this. Then the only problem is loading in enough Aether as fuel to get to the far edge of the universe. If only there was a really good way to condense a whole massive pile of crystals into something nice and compact. Say the size of a boss fight. Oh right summoning gods! The lopporits, who totally ended up coming down with Urianger to get firsthand knowledge of day to day planet life to build better stuff for people and also just dig it, just so happen to know an alternate summon ritual that bypasses all the greedy syphoning of all the world’s aether and mind controlling everyone in the area. That’s... absurdly convenient. So you get a bunch of reformed priests to resummon every god up through Stormblood with the safety on, and just... load them into the fuel tank of this spaceship you kinda low key stole from some terrible nerds. Actually at the very last minute Cid shows up to “help” and honestly the work is all done literally all the guy does is add a coat of paint with his logo on it, and insist on naming the thing. Kind of a dick move, Cid. So he kinda steals it from them and you steal it from him.

So... I feel like I’m due to break text up with something and the end of the universe, AKA Ultima Thule, or as I like to call it, Space Hell, is super visually interesting but it photographs terribly so have this but honestly this dorky power ballad is NOT playing when you show up here. Nor are silly mounts until you’re done with the plot, like every area basically.

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Space hell is built out of the random chunks of various dead worlds Meteion found just kinda brought together into a depressing collage. Technically some of these still have inhabitants, kind of. One is the dragon homeworld, and as we know dragons don’t really die properly, so, they’re all dead, but still hanging out being super depressed about the intense pollution not letting them have kids who aren’t monster freaks. We’ve got people who became beings of pure thought and then got depressed about heat death, and then realized they need to have bodies again to kill themselves, we’ve got the race of horrible death robots who destroyed dragon planet, and honestly a hell of a lot of other planets. Backstory is they were really wimpy and paranoid about being killed by space horrors, so they built death robots and also went full cyborg and transfered their minds into death robot bodies and upgraded those further and built Omega and kinda got real carried away on the proactive defense and realized they kind of had killed like half the life in the universe and could totally take the other half in a fight even all at once. So then they had a big existential crisis because what were they doing before going to war again?

So again, this is after the credits roll and you come back here in the patches, but after you finish this whole existential threat to the universe thing you come back here with a now retired lopporit and they’re still all what do we even do now, so you just toss it out there that one of the other worldlets was this like coffee shop from a planet where the bird girls couldn’t even work out how everyone died it looks like they just got raptured or whatever, so why don’t the death robots just like, move in and open a nice little cafe. Make coffee and soup and stuff for all the other last survivors of civilizations. And they go for it and it’s probably my favorite of all the tribe quests.

But we’re not here to help death robots research soup recipes YET. We’re here to recreate the original first season Sailor Moon finale. Marching across a horrible field of total desolation where all of our friends make big heroic sacrifices one by one so we can continue. And honestly the framing is weird because basically it’s a chain of finding a nihilistic alien representative, hear why they think life’s not worth living, someone steps up with a counter argument, they sort of explode and form a bridge to the next area. It’s all about the emotional arguments because this is all made of Dynamis, so everything operates on pure vibes. These are vibe-ranium bridges if you will. Anyway what I initially thought was going on here is you land in like pure depression land and people keep vanishing because they talk themselves into better head spaces and are ejected. I feel like that’d make way more sense, but no, all your friends are in fact explaining reasons to go on living then promptly dying.

Eventually you run out of friends as you hit the cafe here, and can only advance by talking to the depressed bird girl herself about all your personal trauma and stuff and how you get past it, which creates a very long stairwell to the surface of the dead sun she’s keeping everyone’s souls in so they can’t reincarnate, and THAT’S when the power ballad in that earlier clip kicks in, as you walk up to have a boss fight. And you know, it’s a pretty good JRPG final boss fight. Big weird woman, lots of wings jutting out all over, really over the top throwing planets at you attacks. The classic stuff. And then halfway through the fight freaking Zenos just literally comes crashing through the 4th wall and goes “hey, this who you’re fighting? She doesn’t actually seem tough, you want to hurry it up? I stopped by the bar you scions hang out at and someone said you were here, so I turned myself into a dragon again so we can finally have that proper rematch as soon as you’re done here. Do you need help or anything to finish up faster?”

Tumblr’s not letting me add any more movies but NO REALLY THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENS it’s hilarious. And here’s the comic version.

I have a line I really want to go out on here, so, again, here’s my Patreon. I hope I’ve entertained and educated you with all this over the course of the month. And here’s what I have to say on what post-game currently exists for this. Also here is the actual proper 10th part of this whole project I later wrote after the Endwalker patch cycle finally finished.

The ghost of Emet-Selch and his boyfriend show up for a last minute sappy pep talk, and to remind you that while it might seem like we’ve literally wrapped up every single loose end, there’s some islands you’ve never been to. A whole southern continent to explore. The rest of those dimensional shards. You never got around to fighting The Twelve. So yeah title cards and NPCs and E-S narrating this expansion have been saying the whole time this is the end of the story, but we’re not DONE done. So you beat this bird girl down, the dead sun hatches and blue sun yolk drips out restoring life to the universe, your friends all get to come back, you activate their emergency teleporters and chuck yours so you can go in for the finishing blow, and then well, here you are. Just alone at the edge of the universe in a big empty space behind a random diner. Zenos just finally got the message and came and did something good to help you out, and he’s really giving you those puppy dog eyes. So after a set of dialog choices for exactly how you want to begrudgingly admit you honestly do also enjoy a really over the top boss fight, you begrudgingly agree to have a big duel with him, you know, just this once, fully aware he gets off on these, and it honestly goes on for a really long time, including a bit where he flat out kills you and teaches you the boss encounter trick to just pulling out a second health bar through sheer force of will, and the whole thing ends with you just tossing your weapon aside and running up to give him a big ol’ punch right between those weird never quite focused eyes of his while he has this blissed out grin.

So the conclusion, for now, of the whole long epic story of Final Fantasy 14 which I have explained to you this month is, I swear before this whole mountain of dead gods, that you make sure none of your friends are looking and give Zenos a pity handjob in the back lot behind a diner in the middle of nowhere.

#mic drop #final fantasy 14 #ff14 #final fantasy xiv #ffxiv #there's flying and humanoid sharks in elpis and hythlodaeus says they're big now and I know I know plenty of furry artists don't tell me...

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