#i saw a picture of one of the old overhead projectors and had a visceral flashback to my school years | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

formosusiniquis · 1 year

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In a turn of events surprising exactly no one among the group, it's Dustin's who starts the whole thing. He calls a formal party meeting, and an hour after the message goes out over the walkie Steve has a living room full of anxious freshman and Eddie Munson -- and him and Robin who are mostly there because the meeting had to be held at Steve's house for some reason.

Dustin's sense of dramatics have come to rival Eddie's, and he waits until they're all seated before he even bothers coming out from where he hid himself with a manilla folder under one arm and the only white sheet in Steve's house, that had definitely come from off of his parent's bed, under the other. He doesn't say a word as he throws the sheet over the entertainment center and comes back again wheeling in an overhead projector. Steve can still faintly make out O'Donnell written on the side. "I'm sure you're wondering why I've gathered you all here today," Dustin punctuated his sentence with the heavy click of the projector being switched on.

The fan doesn't drown out the screaming from the crowd.

"You made it sound like an emergency."

"How did you get that here?"

"How did you get it at all?"

"Please," Dustin interrupts, "save all questions for the end." From his manilla folder he slaps a pre-written laminate down on the light table. Projecting, enlarged for everyone to see, 'Why Lucien is secretly the big bad of the whole campaign: a presentation by Dustin Henderson."

"This is the lamest reason for petty theft ever." Eddie gripes. Clearly more upset than Henderson had actually figured the plot twist out, Steve remembers how proud of himself he'd been when he talked himself through it weeks ago.

"Did you help him do this?" Steve asks, afraid of the answer.

"Obviously not, why would I spoil my own-"

"The projector, Eddie."

"I mean barely, I was more of a getaway driver. Really, if she wanted to keep her projector she shouldn't have moved it out into the hallway so they could wax the floors. I didn't know he was going to use it for evil."

Henderson clears his throat, a disgusting phlegmy hem-hem, "If you're going to talk through the presentation, you'll be asked to leave."

The attitude on the kid, really.

It becomes a thing after that. Steve already has the projector, it's not like he can bring it back to the highschool. What would he even say, 'Sorry about the confusion, my overhead projector looks just like this one.' When there's nothing good at Family Video to rent or it's raining too hard to use the pool, they'll all go to different corners of the house with a stack of ten laminate sheets, a wet erase marker, and a vague theme. Then they come back and share what they've come up with.

The group is incapable of not instigating some kind of competition, at the end of the night they'd fight and argue over whose presentation was best. Steve participated half the time, but more often than not let himself be talked into playing referee to make sure no one's feelings got too hurt. On those nights he'd add onto Robin's. His favorite: why star trek is better than star wars (with footnotes from Steve)

It's at least twice as gay, kirk and spock are basically alien married and uhura definitely had a thing for spock's wife. All star wars has is the robots and they're barely main characters.

Steve note: Spock's half-vulcan status can be looked at the same as being bi or genderqueer, not feeling like you belong right in either half of your identity cause you aren't enough of one or the other -- Luke is just a twink with a nice wardrobe.

The Party could argue about anything, but Steve wasn't exactly surprised when the young adults got in on the fun too. The projector didn't usually come out until they were all drunk or stoned enough to admit that they had been waiting all night to make their presentations. Unlike the kids who mostly treat the games like debate team: who's the most powerful fictional character, what's the best PC class, what character from star wars would survive the Upside Down (he thought Erica's presentation: why the my little ponies could take down tiamat but wouldn't because they're too civilized, was especially inspired). The older teens treated it more like an amped up game of truth or dare, making up things that someone else in the group should have to do and encouraging the rest of the group to join in too.

They started the night off with Argyle's "Why Steve should give me his secret brownie recipe" which turned out to be mostly about how good they would taste as weed brownies and Eddie and Jon were quick to join his side.

They go around like that advocating for bad decisions like consequences don't exist, like they could be kids again. Robin thinks they should get tattoos, Steve is easily swayed. Jon proposes a road trip back to California. Nancy says they should all move to Boston with her. Eddie thinks the core four should start a band. Steve waits for his turn.

Steve has had his pages written and waiting for days. He knows exactly how long it takes his friends every time they meet to get wasted enough to give in to the temptation to wheel out his contraband projector. Once Robin is finished shouting at Eddie about how they're the only ones with any musical gifts he takes his turn.

"Why Eddie Munson should go out with me: a presentation by Steve Harrington."

#steddie #at the end but it was the foundation on which the rest of this was built #stranger things #stranger things fic #my fic #i saw a picture of one of the old overhead projectors and had a visceral flashback to my school years #they were being phased out but my 8th grade math teacher insisted on keeping his til he retired #honestly superior to the smart board #core memory drawing on the one in my moms classroom as a kid #hands stained by wet erase expo markers #anyway if theres a will theres a way and the party would eat up those ppt presentation nights

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