#Salvage campaign
Text
"Get in the SCRAP!" Toronto Star. September 29, 1942. Page 7.
----
THIS IS WHAT YOUR JUNK WILL PRODUCE
---
This chart will give you an idea what you are contributing to the armed forces when you put out for collection your unneeded metal articles. One flatiron will yield sufficient scrap for the production of steel used in 30 hand grenades. Twelve sub-machine guns would use up the scrap from an old refrigerator, and three bayonets can be fabricated from an old wash pail. The 10 shells supplied by an old kitchen stove are four-inchers. So, dig deep, folks, bring out the junk for the next collection!
#salvage conscious#salvage campaign#salvage#scrap metal#junk#munitions workers#arms production#canada during world war 2
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
started a new dnd campaign tonight. put the players in a hole in the ground at the start and it took them 30 minutes to climb out. 😌😌 success
#it’s like if davy jones au was a dnd campaign tbh#mashed together potc and black sails and the silt verses and temeraire and that short story from uncanny mag and idk maybe liveship traders#i think everyone had fun at LEVEL 1 they fought a sahuagin priestess and her skeleton posse#two other sahuagin (while injured so blood frenzy advantage for shark bois)#then they fought five zombies and seven skeletons 🥰🥰#and this is. three PCs. how are they even alive dbdbdbd#but yeah. next week i chase after their salvaged 5th rate ship with sharks!!! and maybe giant undead hawks who have a ‘fling my own entrails#attack 😌 i’m already like 80% on the broad arc for the campaign#personal#dnd stuff
16 notes
·
View notes
Text
I probably don't have to explain why I think it's bad that they brought back mollymauk at the end of an arc (campaign!) about how stasis is horror and living in the past is a mistake and you can't resurrect the dead city and you have to be willing to let go of some people including the past versions of yourself but. i guess he's alive now
#i think it's salvageable if he is like. kind of not mollymauk. bc i think that could serve the same thematic coda as his death would've#(trying desperately to bring back the past and having to realize that you can't not really you just have to keep living)#and to be clear#i LIKE mollymauk im a molly fan he was my favorite character for the first arc of the campaign#this one really is a result of the medium i think#lena watches cr
6 notes
·
View notes
Text
a mobile HPG, a kind of mid armament for such a big 'Mech, two tons of dedicated troop transport space, and severe leg actuator problems...
the Silverback should've been an ACV, not a 'Mech, but nooo, Vicky Espinosa needed it to be a 130-ton gorilla
#battletech#probably would've saved 30 tons by putting it on treads too#honestly the directorate SHOULD have tried to make a superheavy. would've been fun salvage in a post-campaign flashpoint.
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
deep sigh.
#yes zari hours again#how she thinks she's already dead and doesn't necessarily know (or wants...? knows she wants...?) to move past that#bc she is simultaneously so desperate to be real but so scared to be alive#like she is living. right now. air goes in and comes out and blood circulates. but there's this invisible pane of glass in between her-#- and the whole world and she's maintained it so fastidiously#and only really one person pre-campaign has touched her through it even briefly#and now little cracks are starting to appear and she's so - doesn't know what to feel! what to want!#how to want in a way that doesn't feel like organ removal!#she has no real social defenses. she's a walking bundle of contradictions. she wants to learn how to be totally independent#so that she never has to learn if the Want is real or if it's just a byproduct of this sickening weakness in her#(zari you must learn we live in a Society. You Live In A Group Now)#so when she says 'i will most likely die because of xyz' that's.#a) years of conditioning from her not-father. years of being told that she's too unstable to exist without him#b) being so fucking scared of what it means if she doesn't get to die. if she has to Live.#but then there's also c) she's told herself over and over she accepts that she will die but there's that miserable kick -#- of every breathing Thing in her that thrashes against it so violently. she doesn't know enough yet. she hasn't seen enough.#she hasn't heard enough music.#she used to think she just wanted to die with a little bit of dignity salvaged from her inherent weakness. reclaim Anything from Him.#now she doesn't know. but if she doesn't die then she doesn't know what else there is.#and she Thinks that maybe if she's perfect about it she'll get to be this outside observer because she's so sure she's Forever Outside this#existence. she does not Get to be alive. but maybe she can watch other things be alive for a little while. learn about them.#something something she thinks she came Into this world (from elsewhere)#but she came out of it. she is part of it like a wave is part of an ocean. can she figure that out before this life bleeds away from her.#hi anyway :) gamers#zari#pop campaign
1 note
·
View note
Note
Can't help thinking about emperor könig cockwarming his empress in meetings. Her dress covers what he's doing to her but everyone knows the emperor is burying his cock deep inside his empress as he discusses invasion plans.
Everyone knows why you would be here. An empress only in name - you're nothing but a regent, a cute trophy for a display of power he has over his subjects. No one dares to accuse him of being inappropriate - he is the emperor. If he wants to flip his wife on her back and fuck her like a common whore, he has all the properties to do just that. If he wants to force her on her knees and make her satisfy every member of the council, she would have to go on her pretty knees and put her mouth to work.
Honestly, the emperor is being very appropriate about this. He pushes one hand to your mouth so you won't make too much noise, he only makes you cockwarm him - he doesn't even fuck you on all the maps and plans, he values his expansion campaign to other countries. Of course, you, the empress, don't like it too much - his cock is big, too big, you can't get used to it even after so much time spend with him inside of you. He is constantly whispering lewd comments in your ear, making you even more embarrassed to be here.
You'd ask for him to stop bringing you to the council meetings, but then he will have this horrible condescending smile on his lips, talking about just how preciously dumb you are, how terribly adorable you are while being too shy to even show your face to his servants...so instead, you endure his passion for you, with your legs spread open and your voice trying to conceal moans and little whimpers.
He is tearing apart your royal underwear, the tailors are forcing to suppress their smiles as you blush and ask them to make even more - you'd make your own stitches, but the state of the fabric is too destroyed to even try to salvage it. Good thing he at least isn't ruining your dresses...mostly.
1K notes
·
View notes
Text
Kodaka April Fools tweets 2024
Lying just because it's April Fools' is so dull. Honestly painful to watch. Lying in general doesn't do you any good. In my younger days, I told every lie I could, saying some genuinely insane stuff about being a supreme leader of evil and whatnot, and thanks to that, now that I'm in my thirties, I got famous for all the wrong reasons and can't find a stable job because people think I'm associated with the yakuza... Sigh, I wanna deck my cringe younger self's face. Quit lying for fun while you can.
My classmates aren't doing great either. Thinking you're hot shit during your school days always comes back to bite you... My advice to my past self: slow and steady effort is worth more than any talent. Also, the part of life you spent larping with that silly horse laugh is not going to be one you'll want to remember later. I wish I could make that clear to him. White lies aren't a thing. Talent is never enough. My class is proof of that. Wanna know what my classmates are like now that we're in our thirties?
Akamatsu became a piano teacher. Her player skills capped off in her teens, it seems. But she's not that good at teaching so she's considered kinda mid at her job. And now she's struggling with the father of a student incessantly hitting on her. Tough world to live in.
Toujou opened a housekeeping company but she was too strict with her employees so everyone quit. And now she's doing everything on her own. Sucks to be in your thirties without any successors or employees. She's a prime example of how being so much better than anyone else doesn't do you any good. Well, she's always working for celebrities, so she's doing well financially, but I heard about some major court fight about a missing item under suspicion of theft from one of her clients. That can't be nice.
Yumeno got to her thirties still saying magic is real, so she's past the point of no return. She agrees that's an unhinged way to live, but she's too old to suddenly change gimmicks. Work takes her all over the country, but her gimmick doesn't allow her to publicly drink, so she has to get plastered alone in her hotel room after shows. I wish she could fix her life with real magic.
Harukawa? ...Haven't heard that name in a long time. Now she was a living edgy fantasy. The past tense was because I hadn't heard of her in a long time. I don't know the details, but apparently, she went to some war zone outside of Japan because her first love didn't want to date her. Takes some real edgelord to react to a broken heart like that, but if she's still alive, I have no idea how her thirties are treating her. My personal guess is that she's a mother of many.
Chabashira opened her Aikido school but is having a hard time attracting students. So she had the idea of starting an anti-sexual-harassment campaign that could double as advertisement, but thanks to her cluelessness when it comes to romance, she got canceled for mistakenly tossing men in regular couples. She's still doing the "degenerate males" bit in her thirties. Girl really needs to get on with the times. Rumor goes that she still downs huge packs of tequila bottles with Yumeno every now and then. Really don't think there's any salvaging her reputation.
Shirogane is an office lady still continuing her cosplay hobby on the side. She could be doing well if she knew how to keep her mouth shut but frequently rambles about cosplay history and etiquette, so no one likes having her around. Stay emotionally dependent on a single hobby long enough and your passion starts to close you off to others. That's her problem.
Angie was the most successful in the class! She made big money both on the art and the religion fronts. However, there were some controversies about her devotees selling counterfeits of her paintings at exorbitant prices and one magazine made a huge news coverage of it, which resulted in her catching the police's attention. She's been recently untraceable, with the rumors saying that she'll never be back to Japan.
Oh, and Iruma... Up until some point, she had the best life of all of us. She made big money off of her inventions' patents. So far so good. Things only started going off-rails after she married an ex-stripper. The two started a YouTube channel together. And later, her husband ran in last year's elections and lost big time. They got an awful debt from his election campaign and she had to get into side jobs to pay it off. And her husband? Disappeared. No word from Iruma herself about what happened. Tough world to live in.
No further updates from Kodaka in the past 3 hours, so I assume he went to sleep and will come back to tweet about the 7 remaining boys in the morning.
#kokichi ouma#kaede akamatsu#kirumi toujou#himiko yumeno#maki harukawa#tenko chabashira#tsumugi shirogane#angie yonaga#miu iruma
628 notes
·
View notes
Text
Problems (objective and personal) I'm not seeing discussed a lot w this new WatcherTV thing, in no particular order:
-Alienates people internationally who literally CANNOT GET the streaming service!
-Alienates casual fans who don't watch or want to watch all of their shows. Putting down 60 bucks a year to watch just one or two shows is kind of insane, at least for me.
-The volume of content Watcher has produced historically hasn't been enough to justify a separate streamer. I understand there's no way a small team could compete with something like Netflix, obviously, but that's what you're trying to do by putting yourself in the streamer market.
-Will this streamer be secure? What steps are in place to protect your viewers info? ESPECIALLY payment info.
-Will it be easily watchable on multiple devices? I watch YouTube videos on my phone at work 90% of the time, or at home on my TV thru my switch. Is this a browser only deal?
-What are the internet requirements for this? Believe it or not most streaming services won't run on my internet personally. I don't have any for that reason. I can watch YouTube on 360p, or on my 2-bar-reception phone data. Not everywhere has stable reliable internet.
-The suddenness and totality of the move was going to be jarring no matter what, if the idea had been introduced gradually or started as a hybrid model to test audience interest there wouldn't be nearly this amount of pushback.
-I understand the people saying "pay artists!!" Bc I am one, and I get that their quality is expensive and they have a whole company's worth of people to support. I do actually think their work is worth paying for! Everyone's is! But convincing anyone to pay for something they previously got for free is going to be a hard sell. They were still getting paid before, they're now just asking us to pay instead of the advertisers. Idk about you, but that's a way bigger hit to my pocketbook than a multimillion dollar company's bank account.
-I get that YouTube can be a really shitty place to be a creator sometimes, and that being beholden to advertisers is something they don't want to be. It's why they left Buzzfeed! They already have a patreon and merch and it's clearly not been enough for their ambitions. But shooting yourself in the foot because your running shoes are wearing out isn't going to make you a better marathon runner. They had to know that there was going to be a not small portion of their audience unwilling to make this move with them (and again, lots literally aren't able to!)
-If they had a free w/ ads option, or even did a hybrid model with whole shows behind the pay wall, or even just ran a fucking crowd funding campaign to help cover costs of new seasons of shows, any of those things could have worked. They don't even have YouTube memberships turned on, which I've personally seen many many channels do even when they already have a patreon. It really doesn't seem like they've exhausted other options, at least from an outside perspective, which is all we have as viewers!
-I get that this has been in the works for a long time, and that there probably isn't a way for them to back out now. But I hope they can find a way to make this more accessible if they want it to work at all. I truly am not wishing for their downfall, but the whole situation is an awful mess.
Idk, rant over. As a lot of you are I'm feeling very disappointed and upset with this one, and I'm not paying for it either. Hope the boys can salvage this one for their and their crew's sake. Would really hate for this to be the end.
613 notes
·
View notes
Text
The plants are Eddie's idea.
Each and every one of them is rescued or adopted in some way: salvaged from a home that hadn't cared for it, up for grabs on the side of the road, forgotten in the corners of Home Depot, leftovers from wedding centerpieces that surely are going to be tossed after the reception ends. Eddie knows what it feels like to be forgotten, left out, neglected, and just because plants don't have a voice stand on lunch tables and air their frustrations with broken systems, that doesn't mean they don't feel. So yes, Eddie loves his plants, loves them with almost the same intensity that he loves their cat, Bruce.
At first, Steve just nods and shrugs and gives Eddie that fond smile that says I don't get it but you're happy so I'm happy. The same smile Steve wears when Eddie rambles on about Dungeons and Dragons, about the intricacies of being both a Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne fan, about why Mothman and Bigfoot and mermaids absolutely exist, Steve! It's endearing and warm, and Eddie loves him so goddamn much. Even more than Bruce, even more than the plants.
What Eddie doesn't expect, though, is for Steve to grow to love the plants, too. In true Steve fashion, he brushes it off when he pinches dead leaves from the Pothos, or when he smiles as he sprays the Boston fern. Eddie knows that, bare minimum, Steve cares about their plant babies and so when he ends up going on a week-long tour with Corroded Coffin, he doesn't worry too much about the little green souls that litter their apartment.
A week is a long time, and Eddie misses home so much that he doesn't announce himself as he barrels through the front door the following Saturday afternoon.
"Yeah, see? You’re doing great."
Eddie freezes in his tracks. Who the fuck is Steve talking to with that whispered voice? The one that, up until now, Eddie presumed was for him and him only. He knows he'd never cheat, but seriously, who's in their apartment?
"Atta girl, look at you! See, I told you, we'd figure this out."
He sets his bags down as quietly as he can, toes off his boots, and slowly pads along the beige carpet to peak around the corner to their living room.
Oh.
Steve's talking to their plants.
Eddie leans against the doorframe and watches as Steve smiles, wide and bright enough to replace the sun shining in through the streaky bay window, while moving from plant to plant, pot to pot, singing their praises and lavishing them with compliments and affirmation.
"You're growing so well!"
"See? I watered you and you popped right back up. You don't have to be dramatic about it."
"When your other dad gets home, we’ve gotta talk about repotting you. You're definitely outgrowing this pot."
Eddie clears his throat and Steve whirls around with a wild look in his eye that reminds him so much of the time he caught Dustin snooping in his campaign materials that he briefly wonders if Dustin and Steve actually are biologically related.
“Oh honey, I’m home!” Eddie singsongs and grins as he shoves away from the door jam, walking over to Steve who’s already rolling his eyes and groaning.
“How much did you hear?”
“Enough to feel a little jealous of the Boston fern over here.” Eddie gestures towards the large fern spilling over the sides of its planter. “You never tell me I’m growing so well.”
Steve sets down the watering bottle and pulls Eddie in closer, both arms wrapped tightly around his waist. Eddie melts, letting himself be held and loved. A week really is a long time.
“No, but I do tell you when you’re being dramatic,” he teases, pressing a soft kiss against Eddie’s lips that’s more the touch of smiles than of mouths.
Eddie pulls back just enough to catch Steve’s gaze, warm and comforting. “You do realize that I’ll never let this go, right?”
Never. Always. Forever.
Eddie was never one for absolute language, except when it comes to Steve. He’ll never let him live this down, because he’ll always be here. Forever.
Steve laughs, shaking his head. “I’d sure hope not.”
#steddie#steddie fanfic#steddie fic#steddie fanfiction#steve harrington x eddie munson#eddie munson x steve harrington#eddie munson#steve harrington#stranger things#stranger things fanfic#stranger things fanfiction#stranger things fic#myfic#myblurbs#honestly my anxiety spiked at random so i spent a lot of time today tending my plant babies#and idk but then this happened!#plant dad eddie munson#plant dad steve harrington#steve is like the dad that didn't want the cat and then is the cat's best friend
1K notes
·
View notes
Note
What is the best kind of muck to roll Gingi in? When I get the plush I need to take good care of him ofc
gingi is low maintenance. i would assume that gingi would best prefer loamy dirt, but honestly, any kind is fine. I even have a pic of Gingi submerged in Salvage's litter box!
...seriously debating on whether or not I should post it during the campaign.
156 notes
·
View notes
Text
In the last 20 years, the Left has boasted that it has gained control of most of America institutions of power and influence—the corporate boardroom, media, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, the administrative state, academia, foundations, social media, entertainment, professional sports, and Hollywood.
With such support, between 2009-17, Barack Obama was empowered to transform the Democratic Party from its middle-class roots and class concerns into the party of the bicoastal rich and subsidized poor—obsessions with big money, race, a new intolerant green religion, and dividing the country into a binary of oppressors and oppressed.
The Obamas entered the presidency spouting the usual leftwing boilerplate (“spread the wealth,” “just downright mean country,” “get in their face,” “first time I’ve been proud of my country”) as upper-middle-class, former community activists, hurt that their genius and talents had not yet been sufficiently monetized.
After getting elected through temporarily pivoting to racial ecumenicalism and pseudo-calls for unity, they reverted to form and governed by dividing the country. And then the two left the White House as soon-to-be mansion living, mega-rich elites, cashing in on the fears they had inculcated over the prior eight years.
To push through the accompanying unpopular agendas of an open border, mandatory wind and solar energy, racial essentialism, and the weaponization of the state, Obama had begun demonizing his opponents and the country in general: America was an unexceptional place. Cops were racist. “Clingers” of the Midwest were hopelessly ignorant and prejudiced. Only fundamental socialist transformation could salvage a historically oppressive, immoral, and racist nation.
The people finally rebelled at such preposterousness. Obama lost his party some 1,400 local and state offices during his tenure, along with both houses of Congress. His presidency was characterized by his own polarizing mediocrity. His one legacy was Obamacare, the veritable destruction of the entire system of a once workable health insurance, of the hallowed doctor-patient relationship, and of former easy access to competent specialists.
Yet Obama’s unfufilled ambitions set the stage for the Biden administration—staffed heavily with Obama veterans—to complete the revolutionary transformation of the Democratic Party and country.
It was ironic that while Obama was acknowledged as young and charismatic, nonetheless a cognitively challenged, past plagiarist, fabulist, and utterly corrupt Joe Biden was far more effective in ramming through a socialist woke agenda and altering the very way Americans vote and conduct their legal system.
Stranger still, Biden accomplished this subversion of traditional America while debilitated and often mentally inert—along with being mired in a bribery and influence-peddling scandal that may ultimately confirm that he easily was the most corrupt president to hold office in U.S. history.
How was all this possible?
Covid had allowed the unwell Biden to run a surrogate campaign from his basement as he outsourced his politicking to a corrupt media.
Senility proved a godsend for Biden. His cognitive disabilities masked his newfound radicalism and long-accustomed incompetence. Unlike his past failed campaigns, the lockdowns allowed Biden to be rarely seen or heard—and thus as much liked in the abstract as he had previously been disliked in the concrete.
His handlers, the Obamas, and the Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren radical Democrats, saw Biden’s half-century pretense as a gladhander—good ole Joe Biden from Scranton—as the perfect delivery system to funnel their own otherwise-unpopular leftwing agendas. In sum, via the listless Biden, they sought to change the very way America used to work.
And what a revolution Biden’s puppeteers have unleashed in less than three years.
They launched a base attack on the American legal system. Supreme Court judges are libeled, their houses swarmed, and their lives threatened with impunity. The Left promised to pack the court or to ignore any decision it resents. The media runs hit pieces on any conservative justice deemed too influential. The prior Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer whipped up a mob outside the court’s doors, and threatened two justices by name. As Schumer presciently put it, they would soon “reap the whirlwind” of what they supposedly had sowed and thus would have no idea what was about to “hit” them.
Under the pretense of Covid fears, balloting went from 70 percent participation on election day in most states to a mere 30 percent. Yet the rates of properly rejected illegal or improper ballots often dived by a magnitude of ten.
Assaults now followed on hallowed processes, laws, customs, and institutions—the Senate filibuster, the 50-state union, the Electoral College, the nine-justice Supreme Court, Election Day, and voter IDs.
Under Biden, the revolution had institutionalized first-term impeachment, the trial of an ex-president while a private citizen, and the indictment of a chief political rival and ex-president on trumped up charges by local and federal prosecutors—all to destroy a political rival and alter the 2024 election cycle.
Biden destroyed the southern border—literally. Eight million entered illegally—no background checks, no green cards, no proof of vaccinations. America will be dealing with the consequences for decades. Mexico was delighted, receiving some $60 million in annual remittances, while the cartels were empowered to ship enough fentanyl to kill 100,000 Americans a year.
“Modern monetary theory,” the Leftist absurdity that printing money ensures prosperity, followed. It has nearly bankrupted the country, unleashed wild inflation, and resulted in the highest interest rates in a quarter-century. Middle-class wages fell further behind as a doddering Biden praised his disastrous “Bidenomics.”
Biden warred on fossil fuels, cancelling federal leases and pipelines, jawboning lending agencies to defund fracking, demonizing state-of-the-art, clean-burning cars, and putting vast areas of oil- and gas-rich federals lands off-limits to drilling.
When gas prices predictably doubled under Biden and the 2022 midterms approached, he tried temporarily to lease out a few new fields, to drain the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and to beg the Saudis, and our enemies, the Iranians, the Venezuelans, and the Russians, to pump more oil and gas that Biden himself would not. All this was a pathetic ruse to temporarily lower gas prices before the mid-term elections.
Biden abandoned Afghanistan, leaving the largest trove of military equipment behind in U.S. military history, along with thousands of loyal Afghans and pro-American contractors.
Biden insulted the parents of the 13 Marines blown up in this worst U.S. military debacle since Pearl Harbor. He lied to the parents of the dead that he too lost a son in the Iraq war, and when among them later impatiently checked his watch as he seemed bored with the commemoration of the fallen—and made no effort to hide his sense that the ceremony was tedious to him.
Vladimir Putin summed up the Afghan debacle—and Biden’s nonchalant remark that he wouldn’t react strongly to a “minor” invasion of Ukraine if it were minor—as a green light to invade Ukraine.
When Biden did awaken, his first reaction was an offer to fly the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy out of the country as soon as possible. What has followed proved the greatest European killing ground since the 1944-45 Battle of the Bulge, albeit one that has now fossilized into a Verdun-like quagmire that is draining American military supply stocks and killing a half-million Ukrainians and Russians.
Suddenly, there are three genders, not two. Women’s sports have been wrecked by biological men competing as women, destroying a half-century of female athletic achievement. Young girls in locker rooms, co-eds in sororities, and women in prison must dress and shower with biological men transitioning to women by assertion.
There is no longer a commitment to free speech. The American Civil Liberties Union is a woke, intolerant group trying to ban free expression under the pretense of fighting “hate” speech and “disinformation.”
The Left has revived McCarthyite loyal oaths straight out of the 1950s, forcing professors, job applicants, and students applying for college to pledge their commitment to “diversity” as a requisite for hiring, admittance, or promotion. Diversity is our era’s version of the Jacobins’ “Cult of Reason.”
Race relations hit a 50-year nadir. Joe Biden has a long history of racist insults and putdowns. And now as apparent penance, he has reinvented himself as a reverse racial provocateur, spouting nonsense about white supremacy, exploiting shootings or hyping racial tensions to ensure that an increasingly disgusted black electorate does not leave the new Democratic Party.
The military has adopted wokeism, oblivious that it has eroded meritocracy in the ranks and slashed military recruitment. It is underfunded, wracked by internal suspicion, loss of morale and ginned up racial and gender animosity. Its supply stocks are drained. Arms productions is snail-like, and generalship is seen as a revolving door to corporate defense contractor board riches.
Big-city Democratic district attorneys subverted the criminal justice system, destroyed law enforcement deterrence, and unleashed a record crime wave. Did they wish to create anarchy as protest against the normal, or were they Jokerist nihilists who delighted in sowing ruin for ruin’s sake?
Radical racial activists, with Democrat endorsement, demand polarizing racial reparations. The louder the demands, the quieter they remain about smash-and-grab looting, carjacking, and the swarming of malls by disproportionally black teens—even as black-on-black urban murders reach record proportions.
In response, Biden tried to exploit the growing tensions by spouting lies that “white supremacy” and “white privilege” fuel such racial unrest—even as his ill-gotten gains, past record of racist demagoguery and resulting lucre and mansions appear the epitome of his own so-called white privilege.
This litany of disasters could be vastly expanded, but more interesting is the why of it all?
What we are witnessing seems to be utter nihilism. The border is not porous but nonexistent. Mass looting and carjackings are not poorly punished, but simply exempt from all and any consequences. Our downtowns are reduced to a Hobbesian “war of all against all,” where the strong dictate to the weak and the latter adjust as they must. The streets of our major cities in just a few years have become precivilizational—there are more human feces on the sidewalks of San Francisco than were in the gutters of Medieval London.
The FBI and DOJ are not simply wayward and weaponized, but corrupt and renegade. Apparently the perquisite now for an FBI director is the ability either to lie while under oath or better to mask such lying by claiming amnesia or ignorance.
Immigration is akin to the vast unchecked influxes of the late Roman Empire across the Danube and Rhine that helped to finish off a millennium-old civilization that had lost all confidence in its culture and thus had no need for borders.
In other words, the revolution is not so much political as anarchist. Nothing escapes it—not ceiling fans, not natural gas cooktops, not parents at school board meetings, not Christian bakeries, not champion female swimmers, not dutiful policemen, not hard-working oil drillers, not privates and corporals in the armed forces, not teens applying on their merits to college, not anyone, anywhere, anytime.
The operating principle is either to allow or to engineer things to become so atrocious in everyday American life—the inability to afford food and fuel, the inability to walk safely in daylight in our major cities, the inability to afford to drive as one pleases, the inability to obtain or pay back a high interest loan—that the government can absorb the private sector and begin regimenting the masses along elite dictates. The more the people tire of the leftist agenda, the more its architects furiously seek to implement it, hoping that their institutional and cultural control can do what ballots cannot.
We could variously characterize their efforts as destroying the nation to save it, or burning it down to start over, or fundamentally transforming America into something never envisioned by the Founders.
Will their upheaval succeed? All the levers of the power and money are on the side of the revolutionaries. The people are not. And they are starting to wake to the notion if they do not stop the madness in their midst they very soon won’t have a country.
A perfect metaphor for what the progressives have done to America.
356 notes
·
View notes
Photo
“Tanks from World War No. 1 are part of the big scrap pile in this Baltimore; Md.; salvage yard. The steel will go to mills where it will be reproduced for making the tougher; faster and deadlier modern tanks.”
- from the Toronto Star. September 19, 1942. Toronto Public Library, Toronto Star Photographic Division, TSPA_0019369F.
#baltimore#scrap pile#scrap iron#scrap yard#salvage operation#salvage campaign#salvage#united states history#world war II
8 notes
·
View notes
Note
do you have any advice for running and/or adapting prewritten modules?
DM Tip: Coloring outside the lines.
A piece of advice that’s vitally important for DMs, especially newer DMs to recognize is that presenting our party with a fleshed out, vibrant world is a magic trick mostly reliant on us having enough easily adaptable world-pieces laying around. It’s a matter of building the track as they go, and though modules provide a box full of pre-selected track pieces that can be useful building that backlog, the process is still reliant on YOU to fill in the blank space and account for the odd directions your party might end up in.
As such, it’s important for us to look at modules not as a recipe that must be followed to have a good time, but as a concentrated dollop of inspiration/jumping off point upon which we can create our own adventures. There’s a similar philosophy behind my own adventure prompts, as I seldom expect people to be able to use them 1:1. Even I have to adjust things and change details when turning a series of individual prompts into the material of a campaign.
The first step when you’re thinking of adapting an existing work (whether it be a module or a narrative you want to turn into an adventure) is to ask yourself and your players if this is the right fit for what they want to play. There’s no point in adapting an adventure focused around a heist if your party wants to be out exploring the wilderness, and there’s no point in adapting a wilderness exploration adventure if your party wants to do a political thriller/urban mystery. Just like with creating a homebrew campaign, you want to match the story to the expectations of your players. Trying to build a machine without knowing what it’s for is an exercise in frustration, as is trying to build a story without knowing the general direction you want it to be going.
Next is to read the work back to front, making notes as you go, specifically looking for:
Interesting ways the narrative could spin off from this, and what adventures might occur if your party make different decisions than what the story allows.
What emotional work you need to build into the party’s backstory/previous adventures/to have them make the decisions you NEED them to.
What happens if the party fail at each major step of the journey.
Ways you think you could do X thing better.
After you’re done with that, read another work with similar themes/subject matter with an eye of salvaging it for ideas to improve the first. Most modules have a direct path in mind with a few major branching points. What you want is raw material for when your party zigs when the original writers expected them to zag, as well as extraneous details that can make otherwise thin plot beats into sturdy pillars of your story. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve averted disaster or disinterest in my games by importing an npc or worldbuilding detail from something I’d recently read/watched into a narrative I’d thought was fully planned out but was just failing to fire
Finally, sit down with a notebook and try writing out the adventure step by step. Any time you get fuzzy on the details, it means you haven’t internalized the story you want to tell, and would end up running things by the book. This isn’t bad necessarily, but it’s the difference between a musician who has to go slow and follow along with the sheet music vs one who’s practiced enough to be confident in their performance. Recreating it like this might also let you see narrative potential that wasn’t necessarily evident in your first attempts.
Art
159 notes
·
View notes
Note
What is your NUMBER ONE headcannon for each person in the Gaang (Katara, Zuko, Aang, Toph, Sokka, Suki [and Appa and Momo if you feel so inclined])
Katara: After the war, she goes back to the NWT to train with Yugoda and becomes a master healer as well as a master of the NWT fighting style. From there, she goes back to the Foggy Swamp Tribe and masters their bending style, too. With the help of Sokka, Zuko, and (in some headcanons) Hama, she also rediscovers SWT waterbending and not only masters it, but teaches it to the new benders in the SWT. By the time she leaves the SWT, there has been a school established where all bending styles are available for study. She's one of the few who actually has mastered them all, though.
Sokka: He is eager to return home after the war. He throws himself into infrastructure and policy revamps, and he almost singlehandedly staves off the soft colonization attempts of the NWT. Under his efforts, the SWT rebuilds and reestablishes parts of its culture that had been lost during the war. With the discovery of oil on SWT land, he is also instrumental in establishing eco minded extraction techniques, and in trade ties with the rest of the world (although he is very much helped by his sister's deep ties with the Fire Lord). It's a surprise to no one when he's chosen to lead the SWT after Hakoda retires.
Toph: She does not become a cop. Instead, she goes back home and takes over the Earth Rumble, taking it from an underground even to a world wide phenomenon. She eventually allows benders of other elements to join, and the Earth Rumble becomes pro bending. She does also establish a metal bending school. In the end, she is wealthier than her parents, but because she couldn't really care less about money, she keeps enough to live at the standard she wants, and gives the rest away to causes that interest her...like the guy who wanted to set the record for the biggest bao bun ever, and needed funding for an oven big enough to cook it. She also establishes a halfway house for runaway teens.
Zuko: During his tenure as Fire Lord, he establishes a robust social services program that includes subsidized healthcare, education, and housing for the lowest income families. Under his reign, the Fire Nation becomes home to some of the earliest pioneers of mental health. At his wife's advice, he also makes paid maternity leave standard across the nation, and includes several programs to help single parents stay afloat. Taking inspiration from the SWT, Zuko makes some changes to how his advisory staff is selected. Instead of choosing from among the nobility, Zuko has the different provinces elect a representative to speak on their behalf. A lot of the nobles hate this, blaming his wife's influence, but the people adore their monarchs and despite their best efforts, there's little the nobles can do except start campaigning in their home provinces. It's not a perfect system, but it does open the door for the Fire Nation to end the monarchy within a couple of generations.
Suki: She continues to lead the Kyoshi Warriors for a few years after the war. She also helps train troops around the world as they pivot from active war service to more local work. She helps establish something like the coast guards for several different countries. Eventually she retires from that to help her husband run the SWT. She and Sokka make a wonderful team as he handles the domestic policies and she handles foreign affairs. She often jokes with her sister in law, Fire Lady Katara that they ended up with the same job.
Aang: I'll go with my most optimistic headcanon for him. He's an okay Avatar. Not great. Not the worst. After the war, he tries to take part in rebuilding efforts around the world, but he finds his help isn't needed much. He turns his attention back to salvaging what's left of the Air Nomad legacy, and discovers that there are actually airbenders still around. A few of them are even interested in learning to live like the Air Nomads. Many of them aren't, though, and after learning how to actually use their powers, they go off and do their own thing. To Aang's shock and dismay, eating meat has no effect on the strength of their bending, He does learn to deal with it and enjoy his time with the air benders who embrace the Air Nomad culture. He does go on to have kids, and he still favors the benders over the nonbenders. Ultimately, his legacy as Avatar boils down to taking Ozai's bending, and that's it.
#atla#headcanons#katara#sokka#toph#suki#aang#anti kataang#zutara#sukka#katara has a statue#she also has hospitals and libraries and schools named for her
141 notes
·
View notes
Text
underrated ford expressions for reasons idk
sus ford
"big nose go honk honk" ford
"drunkenly lecturing people about how vampires don't actually sparkle" ford
"unimpressed by your 11 PhDs" ford
"forced to socialize instead of science in a basement all day" ford
"remembering that time i ate a planet" ford
"daily reminder that ford is fit af for a man nearing 60" ford
"give me praise and validation to fix my daddy issues" ford
"stanley told me not to bother the kids but goddammit i'm so alone after being in sci-fi sideburn land for three decades so here's my thousand yard stare of loneliness as i tell dipper to fuck off yet inside i am yearning for another nerd to breathe free" ford
"thank god i don't have to talk to my cycloptopus about how i am odysseus years from home, finally returned from war and a life of eating chicken flavored alien tentacle strips for every meal, because now I have Dipper to talk to" ford
"remembering all the times I stole shit across the multiverse" ford
"i carry a gun on me at all times because i'm a paranoid old fuck" ford / idk some of you will probably like this shot of his flat old man butt because this is the internet and nothing surprises me any more
"i'm trying to be intimidating but actually you can tell by the rust spot on this old as shit gun that i got it at a multidimensional garage sale and i hope to fuck it still works" ford
"my emotional trauma with my brother is being slowly healed by the fact that he finally played D&D with me perhaps I can salvage our brotherhood if he agrees to join my year long campaign and not murderhobo the whole time" ford
#ford pines#stanford pines#gravity falls#idk i may make more this was just like 2-3 episodes of ford but i especially appreciate big nose go honk honk ford#also that side quirk smile he always does
162 notes
·
View notes
Text
Just the Way the World Works
Eddie Munson x Reader
Angst, fluff, friends to enemies to lovers, a little mechanic!eddie, alcohol consumption, not proofread
5.5k words
Summary: Eddie disappears from his best friend��s life after she graduates without him. After she moves back to Hawkins, she can’t seem to stop running into him, and she wonders what ever happened to them
Graduating wasn’t meant to be so bittersweet. It was supposed to be a milestone. Leaving high school was supposed to be a “thank god I’m out of there” moment, but there was nothing happy about your ceremony. It had felt wrong being up there without your best friend, without him to hug right after you had both grabbed your diploma’s, him flipping the bird to the crowd just like he had promised. He hadn’t even shown up to support you, and you had understood why he wouldn’t want to be at a celebration that just reminded him that he had failed his senior year, but it still hurt.
Eddie Munson, your best friend of 6 years at the time, had instead insisted that you come over after the celebration had died down. When you had reminded him that your parents were throwing you a graduation party, and that you weren’t gong to be able to leave the house until after your curfew anyway, he just sighed and quietly stalked off. You had hoped that he would surprise you by showing up to graduation, or even just made an appearance at the party afterwards, but he never showed.
You had held on to hope that he would stop sulking sometime during the summer. You only had a couple months until you were leaving for college, and you had hoped that most of that time would be spent with him, soaking up every last moment at your favorite diner, in his trailer watching movies, or even just sitting next to him in silence while he worked on his next campaign.
You gave him a month to get over it, but you were met with total radio silence on his part. You grew worried when you started to call, each time the line would go unanswered. You couldn’t help but feel like you had done something wrong, but all you had done was pass your classes. You had tried to help Eddie get on track to graduate with you, but Senior year had proven to be more difficult than either of you could handle, and you alone had barely made it out of there.
The day you packed up the car, 2 months since the last time you had seen your best friend, you had hoped that he would show. No matter how petty he was feeling, you had just hoped that he could put it aside for five minutes just to say goodbye. Sure, you weren’t leaving forever, there would be plenty more opportunities to bust down his trailer door and insist that he has been acting like a child, but you had hoped that there would be no need to chastise him when you came back home for your next break.
Eddie had never disappointed you in such a heart breaking way in the past. He had always been there for you, through every heart break, through every failed exam, even when you had just gotten upset over a fictional character in your favorite book not getting the happy ending you had insisted they deserved. He would never leave you hanging, so you had never even entertained the thought that he would actually not show up on your last day.
The tears you shed in the car were to be expected as you drove away from the town you had called home your entire life. You parents tried to comfort you by telling you your room at their home would always be open for you to visit, but you didn’t have the breath to tell them that that wasn’t why you were crying. You had prepared yourself to leave Hawkins behind, but Eddie was an entire different story.
Break after break spent back in Hawkins were spent with nothing but silence from Eddie. You had tried calling him to wish him a Merry Christmas, and the line had actually connected this time, but Wayne was on the other end of the line to tell you that Eddie wasn’t around but he would pass along your message.
That was when you gave up. Trying to salvage the friendship you had previously viewed as an unbreakable bond was too exhausting when the other party refused to participate, and you weren’t going to waste your time. It had felt worse than any heartbreak you had experienced to date. Usually, you would go to Eddie in a situation like this, and the realization that now you didn’t have that broke you.
By the end of your 3rd year away, Eddie was nothing but a thought in the back of your head, only surfacing to haunt you on a rare occasion. You barely even thought about the prospect of seeing him again when you had decided to move back to Hawkins and finish your last year at a college just 20 minutes out of town.
Imagine your surprise when you went to run errands with your mother on your first day back and ran into Eddie in the bread aisle of the nearest convenience store. You thought you were over it by now, but the second your eyes met from opposite ends of the aisle, everything you had felt in that car ride 3 years ago resurface. The anger, the sadness, the pure disbelief that he could just disappear from your life without so much as an explanation.
You did your best to avoid eye contact, which wasn’t too hard since he was doing the same.
The next week, you started your first shift at you new job; waitressing at the diner which you had shared so many fond memories with Eddie. The thought of the awkward encounter that would ensue if he had decided to come in during one of your shifts had occurred to you, but it was the only place hiring within walking distance, and you needed the money to save up for a new car to get to and from school when the year started.
What hadn’t occurred to you, was just how painful it would be when he sat in your favorite booth and waited for you to come take his order. That was the booth you would share every friday night, the booth that would be littered with straw wrappers and french fries that you had each thrown at the other, which you of course would always clean up on the way out. It took you a few minutes to muster up the courage to approach, but it was knocked right out of you the second you asked what you could get him and he looked up with an expression you read as a mixture of confusion and disgust.
“Where Mary?” he simply asked, in the driest tone he had ever used with you.
“She has Friday’s off now. Can I get you anything?”
“Guess I’ll just have to start coming on Saturdays,” he muttered under his breath. You weren’t meant to hear it, but it shattered the last ounce of intact heart you had.
“Well you’re welcome to just come back tomorrow,” you grunted as you turned on your heel to walk away, shoving the notepad in the apron resting on your hips, which nearly unraveled the ties and sent it to the floor.
“I’ll take a strawberry milkshake,” he groaned, which made you pause.
Chocolate had always been his favorite, he had insisted that any other flavor was a crime against humanity. Part of you wanted to laugh and make a joke, but you knew better, so you just went to the back to prepare the order.
Despite his disgruntled comment, Eddie didn’t switch to coming in on Saturdays. Every single Friday night, you would find him in the same booth, at the same time, just as everyone else was starting to clear out. The interaction of taking his order never got easier. If anything it had gotten increasingly worse, as each time he would refuse to look up as he fidgeted with the sugar packets on the table as he told you what he wanted.
Despite the animosity, he tipped well, so you tried your best to stay civil with him.
The pattern continued for a month. He would come in, order his meal or his milkshake, leave the money on the table, and ring the bell on his way out all within an hour. You couldn’t help but wonder if your presence ruined the night every time he came in. The two of you used to sit in that booth until one of the ladies in the back would practically beg you to go home so they could close up. You wondered if he had continued to stay until someone kicked him out up until you showed up, ruining his weekly ritual.
You hated that you cared.
The tables turned a couple weeks before your classes were going to start. You had finally saved up enough to buy an old clunker, hoping that it would last you the year. Things weren’t looking so good less than a week into owning it. A strange sound started coming from the engine as you drove to work one afternoon, and you knew you had to get it checked out before you were required to drive it out of town everyday.
When you pulled up to the mechanic, you barely recognized Eddie with his hair pulled back into a bun. He had always refused to let you comb his hair back into a ponytail, no matter how much you begged.
“Ponytails are NOT metal,” he would always chuckle as you pouted, but not even your puppy dog eyes would make him cave.
“But Eddie, your hair is too pretty to not want to play with,” you had told him once, and although it had caused a blush to creep across his cheeks, he had still said no.
He pretended like he didn’t know you as you told him about the weird noise coming from your engine, as if you hadn’t spent 6 years telling each other your deepest darkest secrets, as if he wasn’t the single person to know you better than you knew yourself.
“Describe weird,” he spoke calmly as he popped the hood.
This calm hurt more than the annoyed way he would always order from you. The annoyance alluded to the history you share, but this? This made it feel like you were speaking with a complete stranger.
“Uhm, it’s like rumbling and clicking I guess?”
“You guess?”
“I don’t know! I’ve had the thing for less than a week, I don’t even know if that’s how it’s supposed to sound.”
“Ok, well why don’t you go wait over there? I’ll let you know when it’s ready.”
He hadn’t even looked up as he pointed his thumb over his shoulder towards the small waiting area next to the water cooler.
You sat there for a couple hours, bouncing your leg as you tried to look anywhere but at him. The longer you waited, the harder it was to not stare and wonder what had happened to the two of you.
You were torn from your thoughts as he slammed the hood closed and walked over to you, wiping his hands on a bandana he had pulled from his back pocket. You barely listened as he explained what the issue had been, and cursed at yourself when you realized that that may have been good knowledge to have just in case it happened again.
“Thanks, uhm, how much?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“What?” you furrowed your brow at him, not exactly understanding.
“It wasn’t much work, and I had nothing better to do anyway. It’s always slow in the morning. Just bring it back if it starts making that noise again,” he dismissed you as he walked through a door and disappeared from your sight.
You had been tempted to ask if he would let anyone else get out of here without paying on a slow morning, but you became glad that he had disappeared before you had the chance, knowing that it wasn’t a good idea to open that door.
He didn’t come into he diner the following Friday, you had assumed that maybe he had finally caved and switched to coming in on Saturdays. The hole in your chest grew deeper at the thought of missing out on him yet again. And again, you hated that you cared so fucking much.
You hadn’t made any new friends that summer. All your remaining friends lived hours away, still going to the school you had abandoned. Your high school friends had all dispersed after graduation, and none of them had returned to the cursed town of Hawkins like you had. They would have thought you were crazy for coming back if they had known. You had wanted to get out of there more than any of them.
You were counting down the days until classes started, hoping that you would find even just one person to give you the opportunity to leave your bedroom for any other reason than going to work.
Your mother could sense your restlessness, and had found several various excuses weekly to get you to leave the house with her. She had even managed to drag you to the community pool with her and her book club a couple of times. each outing with her just made your more eager to get back to school and meet someone your own age.
The last Saturday before classes, you decided to go out on your own to escape the darkness of your bedroom, and your mother’s persistence to go to the movies with her and her friends.
You were freshly 21, a milestone you had always wished you could celebrate with Eddie. You had both planned on getting your first legal drinks together since his birthday was just a month before yours. He had promised that he would wait for you so you could experience it together.
The beer you ordered felt bittersweet to raise to your lips felt bittersweet, knowing that you were ruining the chance of keeping that promise with Eddie, but you figured he had already broken it.
As you were about to take your last sip, someone sat at the nearly empty bar, just a couple stool down from you.
When he ordered his drink, you recognized the voice immediately. You couldn’t help but bitterly chuckle. Guess the promise hadn’t been broken completely.
You had done your fair share of drinking in the three years you had been gone, so the one beer was barely enough to get you buzzed. A friend had joined Eddie as you asked for your third, he was still nursing the same glass he got as you had finished your first.
The third beer had pushed your over the edge of tipsy, and you began to stew. The friend he was with, that was supposed to be you. If he hadn’t gone and fucked everything up, you would have been back much sooner to see him graduate, you would have heard all about his new job, would have known he even wanted to be a mechanic, or did he even like his job?
Your thought began to race, and with each new once that passed through, you grew more upset.
Three beers became 5, and you were fighting the urge to turn and yell at him for ruining your life. That sounded so melodramatic, even to your drunken brain, but he was the best thing about your life in high school, and he had just withdrawn from you without a word.
You knew that confronting him while drunk in a public setting was the worst idea, so instead you settled your tab and stood to walk out, but you failed to realize just how drunk you had become.
You tripped over your own two feet as you tried to take a step, but luckily caught yourself on the counter. You knew the sound of you nearly face planting would have gotten his attention in the nearly empty bar, and you refused to turn and check as you walked out.
You hadn’t planned on getting too drunk to drive home. You had hoped to nurse one beer and sit there until you felt sober enough to drive home, which would have hopefully lined up with your mother going to bed so you hadn’t had to tell her what had been so important that you couldn’t go out with her. Walking home was the last thing you wanted to do, but there was no way you were getting behind the wheel, and you were even less likely to call either of your parents to pick you up in this state.
The night was cold, and if you were going to walk the couples miles back to your house, you were going to need the jacket you had left in the passenger seat. You made your way to your car and unlocked the door, but before you could climb in to grab the sweatshirt that you were beginning to realize was too thin to keep you warm in weather like this, a hand grabbed your arm.
You jumped and nearly screamed, imagining what kind of creeper could be grabbing you on the abandoned street at this time of night, but you were relieved when you turned to see that it was just Eddie. The relief quickly turned into annoyance when you remembered where you two stood.
“You can’t drive home like this,” he spoke, almost in the same cool manner he had used back when he was looking at your car, but there more discomfort this time which was barely perceived by your drunk mind.
“I’m not, just grabbing my jacket,” you spoke, a little slower than usual as you tried not to mess up your words.
“Are you walking home?” his brow furrowed in concern, which only annoyed you.
“Yup,” you replied simply. He had loosened his grip on your arm, and you took the opportunity to duck into the car to grab the item and return to lock the door before you made your way down the sidewalk.
“Y/n, you can’t just walk. Your place is like 4 miles from here.”
“Oh well.”
You kept your head forward as you continued on your way, until he caught up to you and grabbed your arm again. This time you jerked away from him and turned to give him an inquisitive look.
“C’mon, you’re drunk. Walking that far at night is dangerous enough.”
“Yeah, well I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t care if I died anyway, so here I go.”
You began to walk again, and he didn’t reach for you this time, but when he replied you could hear the hurt in his voice, which only fueled your anger.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Oh don’t act so confused, asshole.”
“You really think I wouldn’t care if you died?”
“Maybe you would care, but not in a sad way. By the way things are going, maybe you’d be relieved.” You let out a dry laugh, too drunk to feel the full pain of what you were saying.
“Y/n, stop, please.”
“Nah, I need to get home. And at this rate, it’s going to take me a few hours.”
“Let me drive you. I’m sober.”
“Like that could convince me.”
A hand came up to rub his face in frustration. You had created enough distance between the two of you, so he had to jog to catch up. He grabbed your hand and dragged you over to his van, which was no easy feat as you tried to wiggle out of his grasp.
When he opened the passenger door for you, you just stood and crossed your arms.
“Jesus Christ, get in the van.”
“No.”
“Get in the fucking van, y/n!”
“No!”
“God you are so fucking infuriating, you know that?”
That was enough to make you start to tear up. In the old days, the second a tear would roll down your cheek, Eddie would melt. He would have done anything to cheer you up, but now, he didn’t budge.
“Why don’t you just keep hating me, let me walk home and you can keep pretending like we never knew each other.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“Really?! You actions suggest the contrary.”
“Learned some big words in college, didn’t you?”
“Contrary isn’t a big word, idiot.”
“Just get in the van, y/n.”
You actually though about it for a second, thought about the warm ride home, about pretending like everything was ok just for ten minutes while you sat in the same seat you rode to school in for 3 years. But there was no way you were going to get in that car until he had given you an explanation.
“Why’d you do it?” Your words came out barely above a whisper, in an effort to not choke on them.
“Do what?”
“Leave.”
He looked at you as if you were speaking a foreign language, which only infuriated you more.
“I never left, what are you talking about?”
“Are you kidding me Eddie? We haven’t spoken since the last day of school. You didn’t show up to graduation, didn’t show up to my party, didn’t come over for my birthday that year, and you didn’t even come to say goodbye.”
“And why would I have come to say goodbye?” He asked as if he was trying to get you to finish a thought, but you didn’t understand.
“I was going to college Eddie. Why wouldn’t you come say goodbye.”
“I never fucking left, y/n. You just said it, you’re the one who left. I was here the whole time.”
“God, do you have to be so literal?”
“You really don’t get it?”
You scoffed and looked at him to urge him to continue.
“Remember that night we jumped the fence to the football field?”
“Really, you want to reminisce now?”
“Try to sober up for a second and humor me.”
You sighed and nodded your head. Of course you remembered that night. It was a Friday in the middle of your junior year. You had just gotten kicked out of the diner, but you were fighting with your parents, and you didn’t want to go home. Wayne hadn’t been working that night, so you couldn’t spend the night with Eddie like you usually would on a night like that.
Eddie had driven you to the campus, and when you had grown confused as to why he would drive you there in the middle of the night, after all of the lights in the parking lot and turned off, he asked if you trusted him.
Of course you had, so you didn’t ask questions as he led you to the fence and helped you jump down from the other side. Turned out, the middle of the football field had been the perfect spot to stargaze. No trees to block to view, and minimal light pollution.
You had seen your first shooting star that night, and when Eddie asked you what you had wished for, you refused to tell him, saying that it wouldn’t come true.
You had wished that every night could be like that.
You had no idea why he would bring up a memory that stung like that now.
“Do you remember what we talked about that night?”
“Eddie that was almost 5 years ago.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
It took you a second to jog your memory, how could you have forgotten? That was the night you had come up with your “plan” for the future. Eddie had insisted that after you both got out of high school, you should run away on a cross country trip in his van.
“College will be around forever, but we’re only kids once,” he had said.
You were going to see the west coast for the first time, and you had even convinced him to adopt a little puppy who could sit in your lap while Eddie drove. He promised he would get a bed to fill out the back, and the two of you could snuggle up in the puppy, who you had named Joey, every single night.
Every time you got into an argument with either of your parents that year, Eddie would remind you that you just had to hold on a little longer. The two of you would be out of there together in no time.
You still didn’t understand why he was bringing this up now of all times.
“Do you remember?” he asked again, and this time you nodded.
“We were supposed to leave together, y/n. It was supposed to be the two of us against the world.”
“Three of us,” you added, insisting yet again that he can’t forget little Joey.
“I’m not the one who left, you were.”
You began to process why he was bringing this up, what he was implying, and your cheeks grew hot with anger.
“Wait, so you’re saying you fucking pulled away because I decided to go to college?”
He turned his head away from you, obviously trying to reel in his anger so he didn’t shout, he knew how much you hated when he did.
“Eddie! I… What did you expect? I graduated, you didn’t. Was I just supposed to sit around for a year-“
“Two.”
“What?”
“I didn’t graduate until ’86.”
You bit your tongue to not sympathize, now was not the time to feel bad that he was stuck in that shit hole without you for two extra years.
“So you wanted me to just sit pretty for two years so you could live your little fantasy? Live moves on Eddie, I couldn’t have just waited for you!”
“Well you could’ve tried!” He finally gave into his anger as he shouted back at you, and you jumped back, which made him instantly regret it.
“You think I should’ve tried to sit around for two whole years? Should’ve just sat idly by while all of our friends got their degrees? Should’ve just done nothing while I waited for you to play catch up? That’s why you decided to fuck up my life?”
“You’re the one who fucked up mine,” he stated as if it were a fact. Like you should have known you were the villain all along, but you weren’t having it.
“Fuck this, I think I’ve sobered up enough to walk now,” he gave him a sarcastic smile and began to walk away. You almost made it around the corner before he finally called after you.
“Y/n, I’m sorry, please just get in the van.”
“Yeah? You’re sorry? For what, exactly Eddie? For missing my graduation? For completely ignoring me all the times I tried to call you? Or maybe for yelling at me and suggesting that I’m the bad guy in all of this?”
“Please,” he began, but you cut him off as you quickly stomped back to him.
“You don’t get to play the victim here Eds. You broke my fucking heart, you know that? I barely left my dorm for the first three months. I couldn’t talk to anyone without wishing I could call you and tell you what they had said. I could fucking experience anything without wishing you were there by me. I didn’t do anything wrong by doing what everyone else does when they graduate. It’s not my fucking fault that you didn’t graduate with me, and you know, I actually felt bad for you for not getting out of there. But I don’t think I feel very bad for you anymore. You were a real asshole, you know that?”
“I know.”
He totally abandoned his anger, giving in instead to the hurt he had been harboring all those years. Sure, he was at first hurt solely by your choice to leave him behind, he had felt abandoned, but he had dug himself his own grave when he pushed you away.
“You know?”
His sudden change in disposition had taken the wind out of your sails, had brought your voice down to the calm, sad tone that had matched his own.
“Yeah, I knew back then too. I knew I was fucking up, but…”
“But what, Eddie?”
How was he supposed to explain why it hurt so bad when he had heard that you had gotten into your dream school? He knew that he was being selfish when you were jumping up and down as you told him the news that broke his heart. He knew he was being selfish when he had chosen to change the topic every time you brought up anything college or graduation related. He knew that he was being selfish when he decided to just pretend like you didn’t exist rather than tell you the truth. He had thought that it was too late to fix everything he had done, too late to finally tell you the truth, but now was a better time than any.
“I loved you. I just… I couldn’t handle you leaving me behind. I knew you were off to bigger and better things. And I wasn’t going to be a part of any of that. It was easier to just fade out than be constantly reminded that I was no longer going to be part of your life.”
“I loved you too, Eddie, and of course you would have still been a part of my life. You were my best friend, and I was planning on getting an apartment with you when you moved out there with me. There was no way I was going to let us be separated for more than a year.”
“Y/n, I don’t think you understand.”
“What don’t I understand?” You sighed as you threw your head back, trying not to blow up on him in frustration again.
He closed the gap between the two of you, resting his hands on your back and holding you as close as he possibly could, just like he had been so desperately craving for the past 3 years.
“Y/n, I loved you,” he stared into your eyes, trying to force your drunken brain into understanding.
It took a second, but your eyebrows suddenly un-furrowed and shot up as you realized what he had meant. He wasn’t talking about the platonic love you had thought he had been feeling all those years. No, this was much more. Much like the feelings you were hoping to confess to him when you had finally both escaped the town together. The feelings that had been ripped from your heart the moment you realized he hadn’t even come to say goodbye.
“Eddie,” you began, pushing him away as you began to fell like you were suffocating in his grasp, “I—this is—“
“I don’t expect you to say it back,” he chuckled dejectedly, “I know I ruined everything that summer. If I ever had any hope, it went away when I didn’t say goodbye. I know that. But you deserved to know.”
He didn’t fight you as you pulled away from him, didn’t look up to meet your gaze as you stared at him wide eyed just 2 feet away. He just stood in the silence and wished that he had handled things differently.
“Loved?”
“Huh?”
“You, uhm… You said loved. So you don’t feel that way anymore?”
He took a second to think, still refusing to look up from the crack in the pavement in front of your feet. It was already hard enough to tell you in the past tense, telling you that he had continued to feel that way for 3 years after you had left was another battle.
“I’m just trying to get the full picture,” you chuckled quietly, allowing yourself to tease him just a bit, just like you would have back in high school. And it comforted him enough to continue.
“What would you say if I said I still did?”
“Probably call you and idiot.”
“What, why?” His eyes finally shot up to meet yours, and joined you in your quiet laughter.
“I mean the whole ‘If he’s mean to you it means he like you’ is so middle school, Eds. You’re a whole adult now, I’d say you should tell me like a man.”
You took a step towards him, closing the gap again, and rested your hand on his hip this time. He took the invitation and rested his hands in the same spot on your back and stared down at you.
“How about I show you instead of tell you?”
“Too much of a coward to say it?”
“Oh shut up,” he laughed on more time, before closing the last gap, crashing his lips into yours.
It didn’t even take you a second to match the passion he was pouring into you. All of the pent up frustration, longing, hatred, and love all combined into one kiss. And you would be lying if you said that it wasn’t the best you had ever had. But maybe that was just because you had been waiting 9 years for it to happen.
When he finally pulled away for breath and rested his forehead against yours, he peered down into your eyes. You half expected him to finally say it, to say that he loved you, now, in the present tense, but instead…
“You going to get in the van now?”
You pulled away and rolled your eyes as you jumped into the passenger seats, letting out the word “fine” as a long groan. As if you weren’t ecstatic to be back in his passenger seat. Right where you belonged.
@embrace-themagic @fanficparker @baconlover001 @chloe-geoghegan1 @chonisberonica @heartbeats-wildly @saturn-aka-six @harringtonsbaseballbat @ghostofdrfluke @calum-hoodwinked-me @peterplanet @mischiefmanaged49 @hrryhllnd @nicotine-sunshine820 @itsjusttor @emistrash @thenoddingbunny-blog @cosmic-mint-tea @suemesabby @sovereignparker @raajali3
This was heavily based on a true story, and inspired by The Story by Conan Gray. Thanks for reading to the end! Please let me know if you would like to be tagged in any future posts :)
#eddie munson#eddie munson x reader#mechanic!eddie#eddie munson fluff#eddie munson angst#eddie munson hurt/comfort#stranger things#eddie munson fanfic#eddie munson fanfiction#eddie munson imagine
2K notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
momozaa
Untitled
dreamingofdragonsandstars
Yet Another Blog Will I Keep It Who Knows
fhjgztjsz
Hi
dreaming-in-disney
Second Star to the Right
